So liek, this movie increased the power level of both sides of the Force by idk, 2 or more compared to the original trilogy; effortless telekinesis and split second lightning bolts, a relatively untrained force user lifting up a few tonnes of rock at the end of the movie like it ain't no thang compared to Luke managing his ship with a lot of effort, remote projection, that kinda thing. Will they just go over 9000 with this?
I've been prepared for seeing this new trilogy give us >9000 Level Force Powers, ever since Kylo Ren froze a Blaster Bolt in mid-air with the Force in the opening few minutes of The Force Awakens. That alone put him above the capabilities of any of the Prequel-era Jedi, and is still the moment that my jaw hit the floor and I felt like a kid watching Star Wars for the first time ever.
I totally cannot wait to see what they're capable of by Episode IX.
ALSO – Huge shout out to Shademp for proofreading the first two sections of my tl;dr write-up so far and sending me all the corrections, so that I can edit it fgj. You're seriously the best, man.
I now finished reading X's summary and dissection of TLJ. Even if you have a very sharp mind, chances are this article will give you something new to look out for in additional viewings of the film.
I don't know when I'll be watching TLJ again, and if I'll do so in one sitting or looking only at selected clips, but there are certain details I'll be on the lookout for.
The slave kid using the Force to pull the broom to him. I completely missed this when I watched the movie in the cinema.
I've been prepared for seeing this new trilogy give us >9000 Level Force Powers, ever since Kylo Ren froze a Blaster Bolt in mid-air with the Force in the opening few minutes of The Force Awakens. That alone put him above the capabilities of any of the Prequel-era Jedi, and is still the moment that my jaw hit the floor and I felt like a kid watching Star Wars for the first time ever.
I totally cannot wait to see what they're capable of by Episode IX.
I still doubt we will ever get see super crazy force feats, the movies were always tame compared to some of the craziness from the EU (like Yoda lifting an entire army in Genndy's Clone Wars, Starkiller bringing down a Star Destroyer in The Force Unleash or stripping life from all life forms in a planet).
I now finished reading X's summary and dissection of TLJ. Even if you have a very sharp mind, chances are this article will give you something new to look out for in additional viewings of the film.
I don't know when I'll be watching TLJ again, and if I'll do so in one sitting or looking only at selected clips, but there are certain details I'll be on the lookout for.
The slave kid using the Force to pull the broom to him. I completely missed this when I watched the movie in the cinema.
The article is all updated with all of the proofreading things corrected. Seriously. A million thanks for going over all of that for me, Shademp. Also really glad that I gave you some other details to be on the look for when checking it out again. There's one tiny thing that I added as a result of a conversation with a friend today, and that's
that Hux's constant humiliation and hatred of Ben is almost certainly going to come to a breaking point during IX, and it'll be VERY interesting to see how that pans out. Personally, I think that Hux would have no problem turning the entire army against Ben.
If he does, it would be really interesting to see him and his knights come to Rey and her little rebellion, and reach out to join forces as he'd have all the insider information they need. It fits with Ben wanting to destroy goddamn everything and start over, and Rey wanting to do good for the galaxy. It'd also make for a neat juxtaposition since typically it'd be the good guys asking defectors for help, whereas in that scenario it'd be Ben and his Skywalker-trained Knights of Ren calling the shots – which is really what he wants.
The R4 unit that Luke was going to buy self-destructed because it felt the force, making Luke have a bitchfit and buy R2-D2 instead. Plus your statement raises questions about how Darth Grievous was able to be such an effective Jedi hunter since he apparently lacked midichlorians and was also more droid than human.
I think that in, "From a Certain Point of View" R4 self-destructed because of feeling compelled by R2's mission rather than the Force per se. Additionally, when I was chatting with a friend earlier today, we actually talked about Grevious, and (while he was a cyborg, and not bound by droid rules), he apparently fought trying to hit quickly and focus on instilling fear, since the Jedi can't draw on that emotion for power with the Force — though I've yet to dig into that for details.
I did see that, I like how they like managed to slip that in there real subtle-like, .
As for the end of the movie as well as a reflection on shit:
So liek, most of the Rebellion is dead; we know Carrie Fisher is gone so fuck knows what they're going to do with the leader of it in the next movie. There was Talk of some cells in the Outer Rims, but I've no clue what the scale of those are.
I'm also not sure how big the First Order is, but let's just assume they own most of the galaxy; the force going after the remains of the Rebellion felt pretty small in this movie. (also couldn't they just warp in some faster ships? I've no sense of time and distance in Star Wars)
Anyway er. I wasn't really going anywhere with that. What I wanted to bring up is the fite between good and evil and shit. Sure, the last jedi (plus the books, so effectively the whole religion) has finally died - although tbf it had been effectively dead for 30 years, with Luke being the last one and having been in full recluse mode (spending his days fierljeppen and chugging milk).
I'm not really feeling that the First Order are like evil and shit, there's not been a lot of exposure in the movies beyond maybe the opening scenes of ep VII that they're dicks when they're looking for rebels. But again let's assume they are I guess.
er. Oh yeah, what my point was: it was pointed out multiple times in the movie(s) that there must be balance in the force and shit. I for one am fairly sure that that kinda happens automagically, because else the universe would implode. and shit. It would also be a mechanic to use in relative "power levels" as discussed earlier - like, if there's an imbalance in the force, some people become stronger to compensate. Not directly but still.
So like in this case: Snoke and Kylo are teh strong, so to compensate Rey becomes force sensitive and stronger than Luke was in the previous trilogy. Snoke dies, balance returns a bit. Luke dies, moar balance. I think you kinda see the most balance the less force users are around, so, best balance would be having no force users. You can also kinda see this in the prequels, where there seems to be a lot more conflict - also thanks to there being a lot more jedi and sith and shith.
But anyway all that is just speculation, and I'm fairly sure it's only a smol slice of the SW universe that we get to see in each installment.
Also I'm not confident about the build quality of a lot of droids in the Star Wars universe, they look wonky as fuck
X pointed out that Rey took the sacred Jedi texts on board the Millennium Falcon, so apparently they weren't destroyed. I don't remember this part but I trust X on being correct.
Having watched it twice (SO GREAT) I can also confirm that Rey has the texts. Yoda also hints at this when he says that the tree contains "nothing the girls Rey does not already possess", so that's pretty cool.
I saw them page turner books when Finn was attending to Rose. Can confirm the Jedi legacies can live on but the Sith are sure as hell fucked once Lord Vader literally body slammed Darth Sidious to oblivion
As for the end of the movie as well as a reflection on shit:
So liek, most of the Rebellion is dead; we know Carrie Fisher is gone so fuck knows what they're going to do with the leader of it in the next movie. There was Talk of some cells in the Outer Rims, but I've no clue what the scale of those are.
I'm also not sure how big the First Order is, but let's just assume they own most of the galaxy; the force going after the remains of the Rebellion felt pretty small in this movie. (also couldn't they just warp in some faster ships? I've no sense of time and distance in Star Wars)
Anyway er. I wasn't really going anywhere with that. What I wanted to bring up is the fite between good and evil and shit. Sure, the last jedi (plus the books, so effectively the whole religion) has finally died - although tbf it had been effectively dead for 30 years, with Luke being the last one and having been in full recluse mode (spending his days fierljeppen and chugging milk).
I'm not really feeling that the First Order are like evil and shit, there's not been a lot of exposure in the movies beyond maybe the opening scenes of ep VII that they're dicks when they're looking for rebels. But again let's assume they are I guess.
er. Oh yeah, what my point was: it was pointed out multiple times in the movie(s) that there must be balance in the force and shit. I for one am fairly sure that that kinda happens automagically, because else the universe would implode. and shit. It would also be a mechanic to use in relative "power levels" as discussed earlier - like, if there's an imbalance in the force, some people become stronger to compensate. Not directly but still.
So like in this case: Snoke and Kylo are teh strong, so to compensate Rey becomes force sensitive and stronger than Luke was in the previous trilogy. Snoke dies, balance returns a bit. Luke dies, moar balance. I think you kinda see the most balance the less force users are around, so, best balance would be having no force users. You can also kinda see this in the prequels, where there seems to be a lot more conflict - also thanks to there being a lot more jedi and sith and shith.
But anyway all that is just speculation, and I'm fairly sure it's only a smol slice of the SW universe that we get to see in each installment.
Also I'm not confident about the build quality of a lot of droids in the Star Wars universe, they look wonky as fuck
I think that they're mostly gonna have to start a grassroots-type recruitment focused by helping out the folks who're oppressed an' shit like the Force Kid, so that they'll be able to make it harder for the First Order to keep hold of places. One of the as-of-yet unaddressed issues from the Prequel trilogy is that the Empire came about as a result of the Republic being utterly shit at being unable to respond to injustices taking place in the galaxy, and the New Republic is clearly not that great at it either before it's blasted into oblivion. If the First Order does actually bring ORDER, people are going to be less concerned about the fact that it's incredibly totalitarian and oppressive.
The balance thing does come into play with the Force, and it's sort of why Luke wants to end the Jedi, since he feels that they're inherently polarizing, whereas Rey sees them as a universally recognized symbol of hope, rather than the dogmatic failures that they actually had been. (This is actually low-key called out in the recent Mace Windu comic, too). It'll be interesting to see where things grow from there.
I saw them page turner books when Finn was attending to Rose. Can confirm the Jedi legacies can live on but the Sith are sure as hell fucked once Lord Vader literally body slammed Darth Sidious to oblivion
Yup. Both are also technically a line of succession, which means that if Ben went and found Sith texts, he'd be a NuSith or something, because when Vader & Palpatine died, the Sith ended. Same would've happened if Luke hadn't passed on the title to Rey.
Count me in for #notmystarwars. For me it's not so much about plot/ character arches/ events, but more about story telling technicalites. Some decisions they made with this film are just insanely dumb. Plus overall it just left me feeling extremely frustrated.
I guess parts of it's like the critique about the datalog in FF13. I don't want to read a fucking datalog to know what's going on. I want the story to show me.
Anyway I'm getting angry again so I'll leave it for now. Or never, that suits my blood pressure better
maybe it's more of a projection of how Kylo remembers him? Of course it had to be like a group projection, else the other dudes would be like "shoot at what guy?"
My point is the Episodic Films' whole purpose HAS to be about the Skywalker Legacy in some capacity. That's just a hard rule. That's why the Episodic Films are called the Skywalker Saga. Each Episodic Trilogy closes out a part of that story and moves focus elsewhere, which is why we're always talking about IX closing out the Skywalker Saga. If in the future, they make "Star Wars Episode X, XI, & XII" they're going to be a part of the Skywalker Saga, because that's the rule. That's why they're finding other formats and naming conventions for the other films, but these ones are moving beyond the legacy of the last Skywalker generation. (Also, Korra has the benefit of being an animated series that can jump around without taking actors and their aging into account, and also not being limited to three 2-hour films).
I think that people are misunderstanding the underlying reason for moving beyond the Skywalkers' legacy. It's shaking it up, so that ANYONE can be a powerful Force user without any need to be a part of a genetic lineage, and that opens it up more for everyone, and for broader storytelling because of how Luke was left at the end of RotJ and Anakin's Legacy making him into such a conceptually unassailable figure.
That's what makes Rey's power being from the Cosmic Force balancing out Ben's powers, but her family as nobodies so important. The Skywalkers still shape the nature of the Force in a powerful way, but it's not all singularly limited to them & only them. They don't need to be eliminated at all either. If anything, their bloodline ensures that there will always be powerful Force users elsewhere, and maintaining the Balance properly is a part of that, and what's so exciting about where this film brought things.
Also, that would've been hilarious, but
I think would've made it so that the other comedic moments of them invading and nesting all over the Falcon would've been out,
and I enjoyed those ones.
About that genetic lineage thing... it's specifically not a thing.
Skywalkers aside, no Force Sensitive happens because of their specific genetic lineage. Yoda, Kenobi, Mace Windu, etc, are all powerful Force users without any focus on their lineage. Palpatine is a Senator from Naboo, with no notable bloodline we know about. Schmi by all accounts is a random slave.
In fact, given that Jedi do not usually have children, 9,999 of the the 10,000 Jedi likely do not come from some specific bloodline. Jedi are not bred, there are no dynasties, the Order has to go find all its new candidates as they arise. There is a genetic component, but it's far from decisive. There never was a limit based on genetic lineage, the prior focus was training and experience.
So we have the Skywalker bloodline. A large part of the prequels is given to stressing that Bloodline is not enough. Anakin loses, hard, to Dooku, who doesn't seem to have some super special bloodline, because he doesn't have the training. His bloodline gives him no free pass.
He loses, hard to Kenobi, who does not appear to have any special Bloodline, due to inferior discipline.
Luke loses hard, to Vader, and the reason given is incomplete training, not blood purity. The solution was to complete his training, not breed with Leia to create a super force bloodline.
The films spent a fair amount of time emphasising that the Skywalker bloodline did not help against better trained or disciplined Force Users. It was never a free pass or the only important thing. Anakin never became as powerful as the Emperor or Yoda. There were thousands of other Jedi that had no genetic lineage, so presenting this as some kind of new departure is misrepresenting the previous films.
My point is the Episodic Films' whole purpose HAS to be about the Skywalker Legacy in some capacity. That's just a hard rule.
Why? Why is that rule so sacred? What would have been the issue if TFA had opened with Leia in politics in the Senate, Luke still training Jedi (but not child soldiers, and therefore not interested in interfering in the war)
Korra is a perfect example of a sequel handing the lead roles over to a new generation without resetting everything. There were new problems, and not everything the original characters worked for had to disappear (the Airbenders were not wiped out again, Republic City wasn't destroyed, there were new problems beyond the Fire Nation attacking again with all the same gear, uniforms, and weapon designs). I don't see how this is so impossible.
While there are complaints that are just 'not what I wanted' I still do feel there are significant issues with this film, logically, thematically, and continuity wise, and there's more to it than just 'this isn't what I liked.'
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