They lost a good chunk of their fleet stationed in that system, but they didn’t have the entire fleet there.
I mean the official, in cannon, answer is that the majority of the Republic fleet was in the capital system, as a guard against the first order, and that the systems were not in agreement on taking them on. Hence the Resistance being funded as a sort of black ops paramilitary group.
But the movies never tell you that.
Well they kind of show the ships, or some ships, so you know there are ships there. and where else would they be? They didn’t take the first order seriously so it’s not like they’re massing for a war somewhere else.
I think you are extrapolating from the few facts we were given in the films.
Ep 7: The New Republic capital planet and the other planets in that system were blown up by the Starkiller Base’s only salvo. There were some spaceships that were there and blew up too, they looked kind of important.
Unknown: How many systems were members of the NR, what percentage of the NR fleet was destroyed, the names of any actual planets in the NR. How many systems were under the control of the FO, how much of the FO’s war-making capacity was tied up in the Starkiller base, the names of any actual planets controlled by the FO. Were they evenly matched? Dunno.
An aside: How many Knights of Ren were there? Dunno. Not much there to impress or capture the imagination.
Leia’s characterization of the NR’s position was that they did not consider the FO an actual threat, which motivated her to attack them herself with a ragtag collection of similarly inclined folks. How many folks? Dunno. Looked like they could all hang out at one base, though.
Ep 8: The FO has a couple of big-ass ships and some star destroyers. The dreadnought got blown up at a very high cost to the Resistance. They are down to 3 ships, but Leia forgot to buy space-gasoline so they are screwed. Fuel never mattered before, but now it does.
They run to a hideout, losing their 3 ships but damaging the FO’s other big-ass ship, Snoke’s personal starship. Guess what’s left is Kylo’s now. The Resistance asked for help, but got no answers. The entire Resistance can now hang out in the Millennium Falcon.
Unknown: Everything that was unknown in the last movie. But they do have cool secret rings.
I think it is more logical to assume the Republic is in shatters and their fleet is mostly gone at the end of TFA UNLESS they showed us in the sequel reasons not to believe that. They didn’t do that, but they could have. My assumption was well shit, the Republic is in trouble but at least they have some upcoming heroes and some old ones on their side. And to be clear, my assumptions were not based on nothing. There are lots of clues in the movie that there is a problem.
I had no reason to believe that losing all those planets and the presumed fleets there was going to be anything but disastrous. For some reason you took the other route and assumed the best I guess…
Nah, I got nothing. I think they were trying to create some impressions, but fell short of anything approaching data. Kind of the opposite level of detail from the prequel trilogy, where it was all fiddly details.
Even though I took the clues for literally what they were, I was open to oh look here is this planet or this distant fleet because they were not crystal clear as they could have been. I don’t know if that was on purpose or not. I still think the assumption that blowing up an entire Republic system was going to cripple them was a pretty safe bet, so they didn’t have to sell me on the idea with 2.
So if you were looking to for that selling, i can see where it fell short.
Like I said, I think your theory is correct, but I found the destruction of the NR capital system was a surprisingly non-impactful event in the films. Nobody we knew was there, so it didn’t feel like much of a loss. For example, what was the name of the planet? Heck if I know and I saw the movie at least 6 times. Shrug, I guess it was pretty bad.
But both of the sequel trilogy films have been ADD too-fast-to-explain affairs.
I agree. I whole-heartedly agree. I loved TFA, but I despise the way the did the whole star killer planet thing and then kind of just shrugged and moved on. That would be so mind blowing awful, but they did the same thing in the original with like blowing up a planet and not really… well it wasn’t good either. We spent more time mourning Luke’s family.
A retweet and another statement from Mark Hamill.
Ah Hamill, once a farmhand turned Jedi knight, always a farmhand turned Jedi knight.
I think if you look at what Hamill has done since Star Wars, most of his roles have been about standing outside society and sneering at them with a laugh, like the Joker or the Trickster on Flash. In Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back he lampoons Star Wars directly. I’m not saying he couldn’t play it straight, just that he’s made a career out of skewering tradition. I think Johnson is really smart to have seen that.
Saw this movie a few days ago, and then went through this thread as I composed my thoughts (btw, a thread like this is great airport reading).
While I’m somewhat disappointed in the film because of what they could have done with it, and absolutely baffled at some of the choices they did make (for many of the reasons listed upthread), on a whole I’m probably satisfied with it. It’s not my favorite star wars, nor my least, and generally succeeds because the parts that work for me outweigh the parts that dont.
I have a few different points of view in particular that are different from anything i read above, so I’ll go through them - and maybe people can argue whether they are right/wrong or have any merit.
Snoke: I might just be the only one on the planet, but i liked just about everything they did with snoke. I was trying to think of a real-world analogy for the dissolution of the empire, and the best I could come up with was the fall of alexander’s empire on his death. This was always my view of how the empire would have come apart on palpatine’s death; there would still be a core empire that would have continued under a key (and valid) political/social/military leader, there would have been systems that joined the new republic, there would have been systems that returned to their own historical cultural/eco-social governments, and there would have been splinter governments that formed up in systems around powerful leaders that otherwise didn’t have that validity to vie for control of the ‘core empire’. I always felt the first order was this kind of government, and perhaps one defined by the cult of the empire. For me an indicator of this is the title Snoke assumed: he’s not an emperor, nor a senator, princess, nor a military rank (grand marshal, admiral, etc) - he’s a ‘supreme leader’. To me, that’s also a subtle way to say what he’s not - because if he could claim a legitimate title based on his credentials, he would.
In his movements, i don’t see an old man, but actually a middle-aged one. His frame and movement, particularly in some of the throne room scenes, is one of purpose and power. If this movie is set 25 years after the fall of the emperor, I’d put him at about 40 years of age now. This is important for me, because this puts him at about 15 years when the emperor falls - he was a child, growing up with stories of vader (and why he idolizes him) and the emperor, but no first hand experience. He does have immense force powers, but they’re untrained and they are taking a toll on him already. We don’t see him do sophisticated things (apart from the kylo/rei mindmeld thing, but i’m gonna just leave that alone cause i cant make it fit), but more we see him do brute force things: he drags an admiral across the floor, he catches and overwhelms the force being controlled by someone else. It was through this immense power that he propelled himself to supremacy sometime in the recent past.
But he feels vulnerable. He seeks to copy the stylings of the emperor to bolster his authenticity and he is still using/displaying force as a means of controlling his highest ranking advisors because he’s still insecure. Perhaps he even took to training kylo because he felt a proper ruler should have a disciple (just like the emperor did), but he lacks the experience and wisdom of a teacher. In the end he doesn’t detect the subtle manipulations of the light saber because they are so far beneath his ability and experience. This man wields hammers to brutal effect but cant see a needle, nor can he understand that it’s a threat.
Bombs in space: I had more issue with the air/breathing thing than the bombs. The fact that they have electronics on them to me meant that they could also have some sort of magnetic guidance. The launch rails could be propelling them down (cause they wouldnt just fall on their own). Also, i just watched ESB and watched the tie bomber sequence in particular - there’s no way those ‘bombs’ are falling unpropelled, they’re just too fast. Besides, the whole point of this scene was to show that the force is spreading to normals now.
hyperspace suicide bombing: What a beautifully put together scene, particularly the audio. I absolutely loved it…and then hated everything it implies. I dunno, the only thing i can go to that makes me even a little comfortable with it is that maybe she was only in hypers for the briefest second and exited hyperspace just as she was about to contact the other ship. Ya, i know the visuals dont really support that, but that’s the best i got
Luke the hobo: I can’t (and won’t) defend everything they did with luke and some of it i find pretty indefensible. However, there’s parts here that make sense to me. Who were luke’s jedi role-models? Ben? What did he do? Ran off and hid in isolation. Yoda? Ran off and hid in isolation.Hit with a massive failure, what might Luke do? Well, he might run off and hide in isolation. Frankly, if you’re practically alone with this massive gift, there’s probably two paths before you: ruling society or escaping it and I could see luke having a breakdown like this. I’m disappointed that they didn’t make a better story of his redemption, because that was far more fertile ground than casino planet.
I saw this today.
I’ll admit, I’m just baffled and somewhat jealous at so many people who are Star Wars fans. I’ve never really gotten why it has such a devoted following. I saw it again at Qt3, when the Force Awaken came out, and I thought just like the other Star Wars movies, it was entertaining, and yet, nothing too special. And yet, it inspired page after page after page after page of discussion. Again there was that passion. Granted, most of it was negative, but come on: when a Star Trek movie or a Matrix movie has a negative reaction, it doesn’t invoke near this kind of passion, and I happen to think those franchises are both worthy of more passion than this one.
But tonight I went to see The Last Jedi, and I finally get it. For the first time in watching a Star Wars movie, I felt that passion. I finally see why this movie franchise can have the kind of devotion I’ve not seen for any other fiction.
I just loved the complexity of emotions. Poe is being ordered back by Leah! But wait, he’s disobeying orders! That’s not right. But he’s succeeding. That’s only going to encourage him to disobey orders again. Now he’s got Flynn and the new girl in on his next crazy plan! But I really want the heroes to win. Boy, Luke really wants out. Maybe we’ll find out why the Jedi order is better off dead? Kylo Ren and Rey telecommunicating! This can’t be good. Gambling planet’s not going according to plan, but surely they’ll arrive in time to save the day right? Oh man, I love Del Toro’s character! Oh shit, it’s all coming down to one final showdown aboard the ship. The heroes are all going to fail and die? It can’t be, but Poe has to learn that lesson not to disobey orders and go off on his own right? Oh shit! Kylos Ren turns! No wait, he doesn’t! Our heroes are still doomed. No wait, purple hair has a better plan! She’s evacuating to a nearby rebel base.
Wow, just wow. That was quite a rollercoaster ride. One thing that always bothered me about Star Wars is how loose the actual science part is. Space travel is always as fast or as slow as the script demands. It’s as reliable or unreliable as the script demands. Physics is made up on the fly as well. And of course, all of that was still true in this one. The Last Jedi was no different in that regard. But for the first time, that didn’t bother me. Because for the first time, I was really emotionally engaged from beginning to end with these characters, and I actually cared about what happened to them. I was very intrigued by what was going on with Luke, and what happened with Kylo and Luke, and if Rey was being secuded to the dark side, and if this was going to end up being another suicide mission like Rogue One where the whole cast of characters was going to die for a greater cause. I was in it man. I was in it for the first time, and it felt good.
X-wing handbrake turn… riiiight. Also just realized he’s the guy from a most violent year. holds your gaze
I’m delighted they threw out the old physics from the original trilogy. Tear it all down, and come up with NEW PHYSICS!
Am I the only one who got pulled out of the movie when BDT showed up? He’s been good in some things I’ve seen him in, but now it’s more like, “Oh look, it’s Benicio Del Toro playing a kind of mumbling criminal-type character!” Or maybe it’s just me.
Nope. BDT playing BDT didn’t fit. A low point for sure.
It actually reminded me a lot of Samuel L. Jackson in the prequels.
It’s space opera. Laser swords and space wizards. This is like complaining that Lord of the Rings isn’t scientifically sound.