Star Wars Episode IX, The Rise of Skywalker, available on home video

[Chronocidal]

1 hour ago, Dynaman said:

I'd say to remind me NEVER to join a military that you are in charge of - but I wouldn't need any reminder.  

I mean.. that's not unique.  Militaries do that.  They don't take kindly to officers breaking their oaths of service.  That's what being "sworn in" means.  You are swearing to give your life in the defense of your country.

2 hours ago, Seto Kaiba said:

Who's going to know?  Unless she tells someone herself, literally the only way anyone would find out would be if they were a force user and read her mind, and those are pretty thin on the ground and not part of her normal social circle since her branch of service is normally represented by General Hux.

Any access records related to her disabling Starkiller Base's shields went up in smoke with the base itself.

Yeah, I need to remember not to actually assume any form of competence for the First Order or Resistance... a more capable security system would have used authorization codes that were keyed to IDs or some kind of security token, so they could have immediately ID'd who had access and who deactivated them, but that's giving them far too much credit. 

More baffling is the fact that the instant the shields went down, someone didn't get a warning that told them "Hey, someone turned off the shields," followed by a gentle reminder that those are important, and should be turned back on.

[Seto Kaiba]

8 minutes ago, Chronocidal said:

I mean.. that's not unique.  Militaries do that.  They don't take kindly to officers breaking their oaths of service.  That's what being "sworn in" means.  You are swearing to give your life in the defense of your country.

Granted, but most militaries do accept extentuating circumstances if you're taken prisoner or so on... they don't exactly encourage you to do anything to save your skin, but they also don't actively encourage you to do anything in your power to get your *ss shot while being held prisoner.

 

8 minutes ago, Chronocidal said:

Yeah, I need to remember not to actually assume any form of competence for the First Order or Resistance... a more capable security system would have used authorization codes that were keyed to IDs or some kind of security token, so they could have immediately ID'd who had access and who deactivated them, but that's giving them far too much credit. 

Odds are they do have something like that... which ties into my response to your second point.

 

8 minutes ago, Chronocidal said:

More baffling is the fact that the instant the shields went down, someone didn't get a warning that told them "Hey, someone turned off the shields," followed by a gentle reminder that those are important, and should be turned back on.

There probably was something similar to the monitoring station we saw on Snoke's ship that noticed even the momentary flicker in the ship's shields.  The First Order, like the Empire before it, ingrains strict (blind) obedience to the military hierarchy into its troops in all divisions of the service.  Shield Monitoring Mook A likely saw the shields going down, had a brief "WTF" moment, then saw it was a shield deactivation requested/ordered by Captain Phasma and assumed that if one of the First Order's most senior officers on base was requesting shield deactivation it must be some real sh*t well above their paygrade and questioned it no further.

After all, it's not like the Empire or First Order ever encouraged subordinates to ask questions.  Drawing attention from one of the most senior officers can be a distinctly unhealthy thing when the chain of command includes unstable psychopaths and magical space monks who can strangle you to death with their mind or chop you into bits with their laser sword with impunity.  (I mean, a pair of First Order stormtroopers investigating a disturbance on the detention level at Starkiller Base not only don't investigate an open cell formerly holding a priority prisoner, they practically run away when they notice Darth Tantrum is in there engaging in his vigorous laser sword anger management routine.

[Chronocidal]

I feel like the only thing the First Order is missing is exploding consoles here.  

[pengbuzz]

8 hours ago, Chronocidal said:

I feel like the only thing the First Order is missing is exploding consoles here.  

Guess JJ forgot to order the Explodium...

[JB0]

9 hours ago, Chronocidal said:

Yeah, I need to remember not to actually assume any form of competence for the First Order or Resistance... a more capable security system would have used authorization codes that were keyed to IDs or some kind of security token, so they could have immediately ID'd who had access and who deactivated them, but that's giving them far too much credit. 

 

Given it is Star Wars, I don't know why they made Phasma turn them off instead of just shooting the controls.

[Dynaman]

12 hours ago, Chronocidal said:

I mean.. that's not unique.  Militaries do that.  They don't take kindly to officers breaking their oaths of service.  That's what being "sworn in" means.  You are swearing to give your life in the defense of your country.

 

To the extent that you think they do - only those run by despots.  Which I grant you the First Order, if it had any competence, would be run by despots.

Edited November 30, 2019 by Dynaman

[sh9000]

 

[Seto Kaiba]

4 hours ago, sh9000 said:

 

Well, that certainly... exists.

The Rise of Skywalker doesn't feel like it's making much of an impact with these TV ad spots and trailers.  This left the very distinct impression that this is going to be a bad movie, as the trailers are all action sequences with nothing to tease the story beyond the fact that this is the end.

[Mog]

You really want JJ to sell people on this movie with his story-telling abilities?

That's like marketing a mini-van by boasting about its top speed.

[azrael]

Yeah...Rey still sucks. A bunch of programmers can render a better lightsaber fight than Rey and Kylo. Oh wait...they did. *cough*KOTOR*/cough*

[ScrambledValkyrie]

9 hours ago, Seto Kaiba said:

This left the very distinct impression that this is going to be a bad movie, as the trailers are all action sequences with nothing to tease the story beyond the fact that this is the end.

Almost like Disney is tired enough with the whole thing that they themselves just want the entire “saga” to be over with, so they don’t have to worry about continuing to mishandle it. I wonder if after this movie they will breathe a collective sigh of relief.

[kalvasflam]

Who knows, the expectations have been set so low now that even a mediocre film might clear it.  In the near term this will be judged against the last movie.  In that regards, unless they turn this into an Ewok/Jar Jar infested abortion, it would do well.  Or JJ could decide to level one final insult of some type against the fandom.   We will see.

But, clearly the passing of the torch has been muffed.

Edited December 1, 2019 by kalvasflam

[Seto Kaiba]

9 hours ago, ScrambledValkyrie said:

Almost like Disney is tired enough with the whole thing that they themselves just want the entire “saga” to be over with, so they don’t have to worry about continuing to mishandle it. I wonder if after this movie they will breathe a collective sigh of relief.

Not quite what I was getting at, but yeah... there is that aspect to it too.

The last trailer and TV ad spots we've been seeing lately for The Rise of Skywalker feel like they belong to a movie where the producers know they have a turd on their hands, and used every good bit of the film in the promotional material in the hopes of getting as many butts in seats as possible during opening week before word can get around that it sucks and the box office revenue drops to practically nothing. 

That's not really something that you expect from a franchise like Star Wars, which until Solo: a Star Wars Story was considered essentially failure-proof.

 

 

4 hours ago, kalvasflam said:

Who knows, the expectations have been set so low now that even a mediocre film might clear it.  In the near term this will be judged against the last movie.  In that regards, unless they turn this into an Ewok/Jar Jar infested abortion, it would do well.  Or JJ could decide to level one final insult of some type against the fandom.   We will see.

But, clearly the passing of the torch has been muffed.

Really, I suspect the opposite... that the audience is going into The Rise of Skywalker so firmly convinced that it's going to suck that nothing will change their minds.

After The Last Jedi went over like a neutron star matter balloon and Solo: a Star Wars Story landed in a broken heap with an almost audible splat, most Star Wars fans (and especially the YouTube gutter snipes) seem to be pretty convinced that Star Wars is Ruined Forever and are just bracing themselves for whatever knee-jerk idiocy J.J. Abrams pulls out of his hat to try to fix Kathleen Kennedy and Rian Johnson's compounding of his own mistakes.  They're divided as to whether Abrams will fold or double down, but either way they're sure it's going to suck.

I'm rather glad this movie comes out so late in December, because several of my coworkers are Star Wars fans and I won't have to hear the wailing and gnashing of teeth until after the new year so they'll have had a chance to get some of it out of their systems.

[Bolt]

22 minutes ago, Seto Kaiba said:

I'm rather glad this movie comes out so late in December, because several of my coworkers are Star Wars fans and I won't have to hear the wailing and gnashing of teeth until after the new year so they'll have had a chance to get some of it out of their systems.

Lol. Sorry friend, you're gonna have to hear about it from us

[Chronocidal]

1 hour ago, Bolt said:

Lol. Sorry friend, you're gonna have to hear about it from us

It's a whole lot easier to ignore the internet than people in real life though, so there is that.  

[sh9000]

 

[azrael]

12 minutes ago, sh9000 said:

 

Why does Rey need a staff if she has a blaster AND a lightsaber? Freakin' hanging onto that thing like a security blanket.

*insert obligatory face palm meme here*

[jvmacross]

Wonder if they ripped off Hotel Transylvania's Van Helsing character for Darth Sidious?  With any luck, TROS will also end with a DJ Battle!!!

[kalvasflam]

8 hours ago, azrael said:

Why does Rey need a staff if she has a blaster AND a lightsaber? Freakin' hanging onto that thing like a security blanket.

*insert obligatory face palm meme here*

Because a staff is longer and more... potent than a lightsaber. 

and yeah, it probably is sort of a security blanket, remember she had the staff far longer than she has had the lightsaber, so probably more experienced with it.

Edited December 2, 2019 by kalvasflam

[pengbuzz]

On 12/1/2019 at 12:42 PM, kalvasflam said:

Who knows, the expectations have been set so low now that even a mediocre film might clear it.  In the near term this will be judged against the last movie.  In that regards, unless they turn this into an Ewok/Jar Jar infested abortion, it would do well.  Or JJ could decide to level one final insult of some type against the fandom.   We will see.

But, clearly the passing of the torch has been muffed.

"Muffed"? More like they jammed the torch right up their backsides...

Edited December 3, 2019 by pengbuzz

[Bolt]

It's interesting. If you go by the numbers, this film may beat out Avatar or anything Marvel studios has done. On pre sales alone. So chances are good Disney will make their money. But chances are ,also , that the fandom will rank this trilogy quite low. Disney seems to be redeeming itself with the series format. It will be interesting to see how Obi-wan ranks.

[Chronocidal]

Numbers-wise, the movie will probably do fine, just for the level of spectacle it is, and the fact that even as terrible as it might be, people will go see it for one reason or another.  I'm not looking forward to the movie so much as I'm looking forward to the time spent with family watching and discussing it.

The movie itself is going to be a flash in the pan compared with the reaction once it comes out, and that, I expect, will be far more entertaining than the movie has any hope of being.

[sh9000]

 

[kalvasflam]

You know, somewhere someone is cutting up all the scenes from these trailers and assembling something of a coherent movie... as much coherence as this one can provide.

 

so, wait, Poe is going from being in an X-wing to riding a horse?  They just need to have Finn and Poe kiss passionately on screen and that will silence all the critics, because if anyone still did say something bad about the film at that point, they’d have all sorts of nasty labels thrown at them.

[JB0]

3 hours ago, kalvasflam said:

They just need to have Finn and Poe kiss passionately on screen and that will silence all the critics, because if anyone still did say something bad about the film at that point, they’d have all sorts of nasty labels thrown at them.

Naw, they could say the FinnxPoe romance was the only good part of the otherwise-disastrous film and get away scot-free.

[Seto Kaiba]

8 hours ago, kalvasflam said:

so, wait, Poe is going from being in an X-wing to riding a horse?  They just need to have Finn and Poe kiss passionately on screen and that will silence all the critics, because if anyone still did say something bad about the film at that point, they’d have all sorts of nasty labels thrown at them.

Brokeback Star Destroyer?

 

5 hours ago, JB0 said:

Naw, they could say the FinnxPoe romance was the only good part of the otherwise-disastrous film and get away scot-free.

I'm still inclined to suspect that Disney backed down from a ReyxFinn romance subplot for fear of a racist backlash, leading to the introduction of Rose as a replacement so they could pair Rey and Poe or Rey and Kylo.

That said, Finn and Poe do seem to have quite the bromance going on there though.

[peter]

1 hour ago, Seto Kaiba said:

Brokeback Star Destroyer?

If this, I'm out.

[Seto Kaiba]

3 minutes ago, peter said:

If this, I'm out.

Almost certainly not, it was just a terrible joke on my part.

[Bolt]

Remember this is Disney. They're not in the business of taking those kind of chances..

[azrael]

6 hours ago, Seto Kaiba said:

That said, Finn and Poe do seem to have quite the bromance going on there though.

That bromance has been going on since they met. 

[Seto Kaiba]

1 hour ago, azrael said:

That bromance has been going on since they met. 

I know, right?  Finn spent a good chunk of the first movie wandering around in Poe's clothes.  

[Thom]

I can't wait until the movie is out so we finally get to see what everyone is complaining about.

[kalvasflam]

2 hours ago, Seto Kaiba said:

I know, right?  Finn spent a good chunk of the first movie wandering around in Poe's clothes.  

Honest, they killed that chemistry with TLJ, let Rose get in the way of Poe x Finn. The third one should get that back on track with the tragic death of Rose when Jar Jar’s corpse falls on her.

we need to have Poe doing his best Maverick impression while Finn is busy wooooooooing and complementing that piloting skill.

[Seto Kaiba]

3 hours ago, kalvasflam said:

Honest, they killed that chemistry with TLJ, let Rose get in the way of Poe x Finn. The third one should get that back on track with the tragic death of Rose when Jar Jar’s corpse falls on her.

we need to have Poe doing his best Maverick impression while Finn is busy wooooooooing and complementing that piloting skill.

So instead of the Ewok jamboree, this movie's going to have beach volleyball?

[Chronocidal]

7 minutes ago, Seto Kaiba said:

So instead of the Ewok jamboree, this movie's going to have beach volleyball?

I knew they added BB-8 for a reason!