Star Wars: Episode 7, 8... and BEYOND!

[Clement Rage]

Spoiler

Luke survives in a dogfight, but most of those other rebel pilots you mention failed during the trench run, which he wasn't in the first two times. He also had plenty of support, got into serious trouble and needed help to deal with one TIE fighter. He also has R2 repairing the damage he takes. He makes the shot, but needed a huge amount of help and support to make it to that point, including, Han, Wedge, R2-D2, Obi-Wan's Force Ghost, and the first two trench runs to highlight the dangers (Having watched it, that first trench run guy is really selfless, using his last seconds to communicate vital info to the rest of the team.)

Rey manages to survive in a long melee engagement using a weapon she has never used before against someone that uses it as their primary weapon, when he can also use the Force to boost his abilities. I'll admit that she can fight, but if you look up lightsabres, it won't be long before you find a sentence like 'very difficult to use', 'requires skill and training' in most of the sources that talk about it. They're not treated like something you can just pick up and use effectively on instinct.

Spoiler

All of the other Rebel pilots had "plenty of support" too – but still got killed and failed to make their shots. By the time Luke makes his run, the majority of the other fighters from the assault had been taken out, so I don't know what you mean by he had "plenty of support" in comparison to what everyone else had. ALL of the other pilots had Astromech units and other fighters assisting them, too. The only thing Luke had that they didn't was the Force.

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The other trench run pilots were killed by Darth Vader, and Luke would have been too if not for the last minute Han Solo rescue. The first two runs flag the dangers for him, he knows going in there are three specific fighters going to gun for him.

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Again - Rey's survival isn't a big factor here, because he's not attempting to kill her, he's attempting to get her to join him, and bring her to Snoke like he was commanded to. Her besting him is an accomplishment, but again – despite the incredible level of power and experience that Kylo Ren has, he's still suffering a grievous injury that's thrown back and one-hit-killed literally everyone else it's ever hit. The hit to the midsection is limiting his mobility in addition to being painful. His injury is an equivalent handicap to her not having used a lightsaber but being exceptional with a similar melee weapon. That's why when she uses the Force, she beats the odds.

Both Luke AND Rey are impressive, but neither one really any more so than the other against the odds that the film presents them against. The difference here is that the stakes and scale of what a powerful Force User is is vastly different from IV to VII, but their accomplishments are equivalent.

Spoiler

Vader wasn't trying to kill Luke in Empire, but he still finished up missing a hand. I just didn't get that from their fight. Like I was saying, simple solution would be: she gets disarmed (as in loses the sabre), Force pushes him away, chasm splits. If he really is that badly hurt, he does not have time to mess around. I disagree on equivalence.

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Luke doesn't fight them off alone (not to mention they're under orders to let them escape), and flying a spacecraft is a fair bit more complicated than firing a gun. Especially an unfamiliar, very old craft in tight quarters that isn't designed to be flown by one person. She keeps flying for a long time pursued by two TIEs, where Luke needed help to get rid of one.

Spoiler

First: Luke needed help because the TIE on him wasn't flying through a cover-filled environment that their target was familiar with while at a low-altitude tracking disadvantage. The TIEs were in Rey's backyard, whereas Luke was in the Empire's backyard with no cover.

Second: Her flight with the two TIEs isn't very long. It's absolutely nothing when compared to length of the Death Star assault (or Anakin's Podracing).

Third: All of Rey's feats are against opponents already at a disadvantage. Just saying.

Spoiler

Not reversing the mind trick. And she has other disadvantages (almost total unfamiliarity with Falcon and lightsabre)

Spoiler

Do we know they couldn't do it? Tactically, a lightsabre block is probably a better option unless you're deliberately showing off. In Force Unleashed Starkiller rips a Star destroyer out of the sky. In the EU, Palpatine could wreck entire fleets.

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I lost some of this post when it timed out, but there was a huge backlash against Anakin, by the way, to the point that Jake Lloyd retired from acting. Yeah. That really happened. Second stupidest thing I've seen a fandom ever do.

 

[X-SOLDIER]

Spoiler

The other trench run pilots were killed by Darth Vader, and Luke would have been too if not for the last minute Han Solo rescue. The first two runs flag the dangers for him, he knows going in there are three specific fighters going to gun for him.

Spoiler

He's got a little more knowledge going in, which gives him an edge, but he doesn't have more support, since the forces are all focusing in on him. Han Solo's surprise appearance catches Vader off guard and taking him out was is important (and why Han deserves the medal he gets) but I wouldn't say that Luke had more support than the others – like Garvin Dreis who also got a clean shot off, but missed and was only shot down by Vader afterwards.

Spoiler

Vader wasn't trying to kill Luke in Empire, but he still finished up missing a hand. I just didn't get that from their fight. Like I was saying, simple solution would be: she gets disarmed (as in loses the sabre), Force pushes him away, chasm splits. If he really is that badly hurt, he does not have time to mess around. I disagree on equivalence.

Spoiler

He's reveling in the moment with Finn, but while he is, Rey's still unconscious in the snow. As soon as he cuts Finn down, and goes to take his grandfather's lightsaber, he was planning on being done. Her taking Anakin's saber out of the snow and fighting him wasn't a part of his plan. She'd been efficiently dealt with already. Once she was up and armed, he has to change his tactic to bring her to a standstill.

The second he pushed her back to the cliff's edge and told her that she needs a teacher and that she could show her the ways of the Force – that was supposed to be it. That was meant to be the end of that conflict AGAIN. The fact that he's talking to her there, rather than just freezing her with the Force, Force push knocking her into something, or mentally knocking her unconscious again points to the fact that he's having a hard time, as does the fact that Rey pulls the lightsaber out of the snow and not him.

Kylo Ren isn't inappropriately dealing with the situation given his injuries, it's just that it ends up not going in his favor.

Also, quick question: Why is your suggestion to have her use Force Push if one of your issues with her is her learning Force Powers so quickly without training?

Spoiler

Not reversing the mind trick. And she has other disadvantages (almost total unfamiliarity with Falcon and lightsabre)

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Yes in reversing the Mind Trick - Kylo Ren has no idea she has the capability to resist him, and that she's just learning from what he's doing with the Force. He even says just after she escapes, "She's just beginning to test her powers. The longer she's free, the more dangerous she becomes." So yes, despite the fact that she really just learned about her Force affinity, he's still at a disadvantage for not knowing about it at all, and assuming that her interrogation would be like Poe's.

Also, I don't think that I can overstate that she's intimately familiar with the Falcon's configurations, its existing modifications and how they affect the ship (at least as much as Han is if not more when he gets it back because it's been sitting at Niima Outpost for years). Despite the fact that she's never flown it, that's absolutely NOT, "almost total unfamiliarity" nor is her fighting with a lightsaber – despite its unique properties – because of her melee combat proficiency as I've stated before.

Spoiler

Do we know they couldn't do it? Tactically, a lightsabre block is probably a better option unless you're deliberately showing off. In Force Unleashed Starkiller rips a Star destroyer out of the sky. In the EU, Palpatine could wreck entire fleets.

Spoiler

Well, none of that is canon anymore though, so... it's basically irrelevant when talking about what the Force Users have shown to've been capable of now.

Also just FYI, here's how you set up quote/spoiler tags so that they don't turn into a disorganized jumble when you're making an itemized reply to someone. Just copy the first Quote identifier, and put it in break things up accordingly, and strip else everything you don't need out.

[ QUOTE=X;1938 ][ spoiler ]Stuff I said[ /spoiler ][ /quote ]

[ spoiler ]Stuff you're saying in reply[ /spoiler ]

[ QUOTE=X;1938 ][ spoiler ]More stuff I said[ /spoiler ][ /quote ]

[ spoiler ]More stuff you're saying in reply[ /spoiler ]





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[Clement Rage]

I originally wrote a big reply, but it just boils down to how valuable you think the experience Rey has is. We differ on whether her background justifies her abilities, and I don't think we're going to get much closer to consensus on that.

Spoiler

Also, quick question: Why is your suggestion to have her use Force Push if one of your issues with her is her learning Force Powers so quickly without training?

Spoiler

Because then it's more clearly about surprise and raw power than being more capable than someone with much more training and experience in every skill he's supposed to be good at. There are better options, that was just the first one that came to mind.

The deleted scenes and DVD commentaries will be interesting when they come out. Maybe we'll see some of those flight sims etc.

Thanks for putting up with me this long.

 

[X-SOLDIER]

Spoiler

Because then it's more clearly about surprise and raw power than being more capable than someone with much more training and experience in every skill he's supposed to be good at. There are better options, that was just the first one that came to mind.

The deleted scenes and DVD commentaries will be interesting when they come out. Maybe we'll see some of those flight sims etc.

Thanks for putting up with me this long.

I can dig it. I am gonna take a whole day to just pour over all the extra everything as soon as this movie comes out. I hope that they just have a bucketload of content.

Always glad to engage in good conversation.



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[Tennyo]

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[X-SOLDIER]

Looks like we get to enjoy all the BluRay goodness on April 5th: http://movieweb.com/star-wars-force-awakens-blu-ray-release-date-april-2016/




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[Kermitu Kleric Katie]

And actually seeing it. I must've forgot to finish typing the sentence.

 

[X-SOLDIER]

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I keep being surprised at how well done that casting is.

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[Ite]

Really? I don't think he looks like either of them.

 

[Ghost X]

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That photo makes Adam Driver look like he's got microencephalitis.

 

[Geostigma]

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I keep being surprised at how well done that casting is.

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Spoiler

 

[trash panda]

Spoiler: Lots of Spoilers

So, guys, I keep seeing theories on the intrawebs describing this:

As Luke's hand on R2-D2....but I just watched ESB not long ago and Luke's robotic hand (thanks to progressed technology, I guess) looks like a human hand:

The last person in the films I remember to have a durasteel robotic right hand was Anakin:

Notice that the tips of Anakin's robotic fingers are gold.Might just be a reflection I'm seeing, but the tip of the thumb in Rey's force vision looks gold too.

ALSO, the background in the first image looks fiery, or at the very least it's taking place near a flame? Mustafar?

Also ALSO, on the left side of the first image, there is a transparent person in a cloak. Maybe this is Anakin using R2-D2 to receive a message from Sidious on Mustafar?

EDIT:
Okay, so derpderpderp...Luke has a mechanical hand in TFA:

BUT I STAND BY MY PRESUMPTION that its Anakin's gold-fingered hand even though I just realized the clothes don't match.

 

[Octo]

Just saw this. Very enjoyable. Even though I really needed to piss twice. Made me forget aaaaaaaal about eps 1-3

Is that girl cloned from Keira Knightly or wot?

 

[trash panda]

Made me forget aaaaaaaal about eps 1-3

But Qui Gon!!!!

Make you a bet he's actually

Spoiler

Anakin's secret father.

.

 

[Shademp]

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Still looking for a video sauce of this wonderful (new?) SNL sketch

 

[Ite]

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[X-SOLDIER]

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I actually think that this is mostly because we haven't seen any of Leia's training with the Force at all. She's been involved in Rebel and military activity since she was pretty young so she does have a different perspective to everything.

When Luke's parents get killed and then the one person left to follow (Obi-Wan) got killed by Vader, he lost pretty much all the support from anyone he had known more than a few days (aside from Wedge). While Leia suffered greater loss with the destruction of Alderaan, she still had a lot of structure around her, and buried herself in it — much the same way she does when becoming the general of the Resistance after the events leading to (and during) TFA.

I do kinda hope that the new novel Bloodline manages to touch a little but more on how she deals with those difficulties. Thus far, the best thing we've seen of Leia's Force sensitivity is when she's on Naboo, but I just think it's more a matter of it being a trial we've never seen her face than something she's avoided/immune to. All of her own losses have been distant — she's never watched any of those people die in front of her, but has only suffered their loss from afar. After all

Spoiler

she didn't trust herself enough to keep Ben from falling to the Dark Side, which is why she put him in Luke's care, because of Luke's experience holding off the Dark Side from himself, so I figure there's got to have been a reason for that. Not to mention, I don't think we've really seen the full extent of how it's all affected her yet.

tl;dr - I don't think she'd succumb to the Dark Side, but I'd be amazed if after RotJ if she'd never felt a moment of temptation towards the Dark Side, similar to how Luke did during his training as a matter of course.

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[trash panda]

Is anyone else a member over here:
Star Wars Forum Maybe?
I'm asking because I just signed up (hoping to get my SW fix there) but I'm wary of new forums.



Byyyy the way,
I'm also wary of movie novelizations. I've read Revenge of the Sith by Matthew Stover and loved every little bit of it. I tried reading Attack of the Clones by R.A. Salvatore and...

And I've read lots of book reviews for the other movie novelizations and I'm not impressed. That being said, I can't get into the swing of movies-made-into-books, and cba to read The Force Awakens. I have read however that

Spoiler

in Rey's Force vision, she sees a little boy? I'm assuming (if this is true) that it was cut from the movie because the boy might be a dead giveaway. I.e. a little boy with black hair might obviously be Ben Solo, etc.

Thoughts?

 

[Cthulhu]

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Just because someone's had a lot of shit happen doesn't mean they have to turn into a dick,

 

[Ite]

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http://m.imgur.com/gallery/cJ6pDMq

 

[trash panda]

Spoiler

Have we already discussed the potential for Hayden's return as Anakin? I know it's just a naughty rumor at this point in time, but considering that there was some unused concept art of his ghost, maybe this could come to fruition?

I might be part of the out-crowd here, but really loved him as Anakin (and I'm under the impression that Lucas's involvement with the acting/directing in the prequels lead to, well stale acting).

Speculation:
Because his force ghost concept was scrapped, maybe he'll play another roll in episodes VIII & IX. We do have the potential for cloning, and he's misplaced a lot of limbs throughout the years that anyone could have gotten their hands on.

 

[X-SOLDIER]

Spoiler

Have we already discussed the potential for Hayden's return as Anakin? I know it's just a naughty rumor at this point in time, but considering that there was some unused concept art of his ghost, maybe this could come to fruition?

I might be part of the out-crowd here, but really loved him as Anakin (and I'm under the impression that Lucas's involvement with the acting/directing in the prequels lead to, well stale acting).

Speculation:
Because his force ghost concept was scrapped, maybe he'll play another roll in episodes VIII & IX. We do have the potential for cloning, and he's misplaced a lot of limbs throughout the years that anyone could have gotten their hands on.

Spoiler

I, too, am rather fond of him as Anakin and don't at all mind the presence of his Force Ghost in RotJ – especially on how well it works with Machete Order. Also, given that Ewan McGregor is rumored to return as a Force Ghost in VIII, I'd like to see the both of them return as mentors for Rey & Ren respectively (especially because I want to see what they're capable of outside of Lucas' wooden directing and they're very much at the heart of the prequels, not to mention the Clone Wars).

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[trash panda]

Spoiler

I'm so confused as to what's considered "Force Ghost Canon".

+ Old Ben's force ghost appears as he did when he died (as an old man)
+ Yoda's force ghost appears as he did when he died (as an old...grumpkin)
+ Anakin's force ghost appears as he did when he died (older), but without burn scars
+ Anakin's force ghost also appears in the special edition ROTJ as a young man
+ Concept designs for Anakin's force ghost (which were scrapped from episode VII) appear as what looks like a young man, covered in burn scars
So....much...confusion.

What makes even less sense is that Ewan's and Alec Guinness' voices appeared in TFA. If Obi-Wan is speaking to Rey via the force, why do we hear both a younger and older version of him? Is he a young force ghost, or is he an old force ghost, and why can't this be easier to decipher??? ;___;

 

[X-SOLDIER]

Spoiler

I'm so confused as to what's considered "Force Ghost Canon".

+ Old Ben's force ghost appears as he did when he died (as an old man)
+ Yoda's force ghost appears as he did when he died (as an old...grumpkin)
+ Anakin's force ghost appears as he did when he died (older), but without burn scars
+ Anakin's force ghost also appears in the special edition ROTJ as a young man
+ Concept designs for Anakin's force ghost (which were scrapped from episode VII) appear as what looks like a young man, covered in burn scars
So....much...confusion.

What makes even less sense is that Ewan's and Alec Guinness' voices appeared in TFA. If Obi-Wan is speaking to Rey via the force, why do we hear both a younger and older version of him? Is he a young force ghost, or is he an old force ghost, and why can't this be easier to decipher??? ;___;

Spoiler

The BluRay special editions are the canon versions of the Force Ghosts:
• Young Anakin
• Old Yoda
• Old Obi-Wan

Given that Sir Alec Guinness is no longer alive, it makes sense that Ewan McGregor could fill in for old Obi-Wan's Force Ghost in future films. Whether or not his appearance varies isn't ever really an issue, though we'll have to see what they go with.

There's nothing that would really require a Force Ghost to look how they did when they died (Anakin already being proof of that), so Obi-Wan could appear old to Luke, since Luke saw him when he died and recognized him as such. By the same token, despite unmasking him, Luke never really saw Anakin before he was burned to a crisp and missing limbs – not an ideal form for a Force Ghost, so it makes sense that he'd choose a form when he was still whole.

If Anakin can change his appearance, it stands to reason that if meeting Rey, Obi-Wan could choose to appear however he damn well pleased. Same for Yoda. Honestly, if they do it, it'll make sense that Force Ghosts are mutable in their appearance to however they looked in life and not JUST restricted to how they looked when they died.

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[Obsidian Fire]

@Howl: Force ghosts can appear however they want?

And this is mostly done for screwing with the heads of the next-generation of Jedi...