Didn't the dreadnaught have multiple guns/cannons, that were unfortunately the first things Poe shot out? I thought that was the opening scene?
Didn't the dreadnaught have multiple guns/cannons, that were unfortunately the first things Poe shot out? I thought that was the opening scene?
Jerry said:Didn't the dreadnaught have multiple guns/cannons, that were unfortunately the first things Poe shot out? I thought that was the opening scene?
Yeah. It had anti-aircraft(?) turrets that Poe wiped out to create a blind spot in their point defense so that they could send in the bomber fleet with fighter support, in the hopes that would improve their survivability (in theory). Also, I was under the impression that the massive cannons that were mounted to the dreadnought were for pounding other capital ships from Poe's statement of "Those are a fleet-killer" and that Hux just used them for orbital bombardment in the hopes of catching their evacuation before it was complete.
My question is, why did the Rebellion use those slow, piece of junk bombers, when we saw in Rogue One that the much faster Y-wing fighter/bombers could disable a star destroyer with torpedoes with better survivability?
Edit: A little bit of research tells me that those junk bombers were called a MG-100 StarFortress SF17. Also "The modular bombing magazine, called the "clip" by the bomber's crew, would drop the bombs through sequenced electromagnetic plates in the clip, which propelled the bombs to "drop" in microgravity environments. The bombs would then be drawn magnetically to their targets. The assembly could be programed to drop specific sections of the payload in sequence, but the most common configuration was "deploy all." To drop the ship's payload, the bombardier on the flight deck monitored a concentrated sensor feed. The system calculated the optimum time for release, and at a given prompt, or at the discretion of the bombardier, the control button on a wireless remote triggered the release of the payload. A magnetic seal retained the atmosphere when the bomb bay doors were open" So that explains how bombs were "dropped" in zero-gravity
I missed it too.
In reply to NickD :
Because...B-17s in space. 
In reply to Appleseed :
Well they are called a StarFortress SF17, which seems like a B17 Flying Fortress reference if I ever heard one,
In reply to Jerry :
Yeah, it had like 6 turrets - that 1 guy in 1 fighter disabled easily.
Well... the kid reached out to grab the broom, the broom said "yessir coming sir", and I got the distinct impression that the kid *didn't notice*. Which I thought was a nice touch.
So, I recently learned that Yoda's species and homeworld has never actually been stated in any media. I always assumed there was some comic or book that addressed it, but, nope. In fact, canonically, Yoda has been asked about those details and refused to answer it. And his backstory has had some details, but nowhere near what you would expect from a little green guy who is 900 years old. So Yoda is really the trolliest motherberkeleyer around. I can only imagine that having him as a master had to have been absolutely infuriating, as he seems like he would have been cryptic as E36 M3 245/7
Duke said:So, with superlight travel, incredible technology, ubiquitous robotics, etc...
* Nobody's invented autopilot / cruise control yet?
* It has to be one of your highest ranking officers who stays behind? TWICE?
* You can't drop bombs by tapping a touchscreen from the pilot's chair? SERIOUSLY, somebody has to physically go into the open bomb bay and push an industrial garage door opener to drop the payload?
* You build titanic dreadnoughts that have titanic firepower, but no light / fast / close range weapons at all? What are the other 27,000 people aboard doing?
* You have a giant armoured space cannon that can blow open the gates of Mordor, err, I mean, the secret rebel base in one shot, but somebody can fly a lawnmower / mechanical bull straight down the beam path for like 90 seconds, and just be mildly uncomfortable, not vaporized into slag?
* You're a bad guy chasing the enemy fleet past a small nearby planet with a dreadnought of almost the same size, but you don't think to summarily blow the planet out of hand just on the off-chance that the good guys might be able to use it?
And those are just a few I thought of off the top of my buzzed head.
I gave it a resounding meh. It was good enough to see with the family. After 5 $1 Applebees Long Island Ice Teas, I guess it was entertaining. But the Star Wars movies, for all their epicness, always stumble all over the simple "Why didn't Gandalf just have the eagles drop the ring into Mount Doom in the first place?" questions. To the point where it seriously interferes with my ability to care about the story.
Stuff like the fact that the First Order comes second, after the original bad guys, just adds to the poor understandability.
You probably shouldn't watch anymore Sci-fi or fantasy movies. You literally ruin them all for yourself by being too literal. It's the fun in fantasy in the movie not the "how unrealistic!" that draws us to it. If you want a logical factual movie with military contingency logic then go watch a documentary.
In reply to yupididit :
I’m actually a big science fiction / fantasy fan. I read and watch a ton of it. I willingly suspend disbelief. Note that I don’t complain at all about how ships drop in and out if hyperspace at will, with almost no momentum issues, etc. i don’t care that a single seat fighter can somehow carry enough fuel to go anywhere it wants any time. Its not “realism”, per se, that’s the problem.
What I don’t suspend is stupidity.
In reply to Duke :
Have you read the Xeelee saga from Stephen Baxter?
I'll grant that they sometimes read like textbooks, but I've never read more gripping, in depth science fiction before or since. I think what really sets them apart from other works is just how real they could be. Baxter has a background in theoretical physics,and it is reflected very well in his novels.
It's hard for me to describe without giving away too much of the plot, but there are three main species in the saga, humans, the xeelee who are a race that makes humans look like single celled organisms in comparison, and the neutrino birds, who are a dark matter species that reproduce asexually and feed on baryonic matter. The series spans from the beginning of time to the end of the universe, but things aren't rushed, and I think most importantly, all of the books can be taken on their own as individual works, but they also all tie together. There isn't a set order or anything to read them in, while there are some that are obviously sequels of others they can still be enjoyed and understood independently.
Duke said:In reply to Jerry :
Yeah, it had like 6 turrets - that 1 guy in 1 fighter disabled easily.
SO.... just like a B-17. They had 13 .50 cal's manned by 6 people and lost hundreds of them to fighters and flack.
In reply to RevRico :
I haven’t, but I’ll be sure to look them up. Thanks!
Bobcougarzillameister said:Duke said:In reply to Jerry :
Yeah, it had like 6 turrets - that 1 guy in 1 fighter disabled easily.
SO.... just like a B-17. They had 13 .50 cal's manned by 6 people and lost hundreds of them to fighters and flack.
A B-17 had a crew of 10, not 10,000, and it wasn’t 10 times the size of a battleship.
Just saw it. It was pretty good. Not great.
Ultimately, they killed it for me right from the opening scene. They open with a berkeleying prank phone call. Seriously. Prank call.
From there, they keep up that feel. It's very silly and goofy, but not actually comedic. It's like it's trying to be a Marvel movie, but doesn't really get it. They start to get some good stuff with Rey and Luke, but then have to interrupt when things start to get serious with gags with the porgs or keepers. It kills the mood.
Just watched it. I thought it was good. I mean, obviously part 2 of, dunno, twelve? Until people stop buying Jedi dolls and light sabers at wally world? But it had plot. I like movies with plot, not just 2 hours of explosions. And the jokes didn't bother me. I kinda liked a bit of humor in there.
In reply to Jerry :
Dude, that's awesome!
In reply to Jerry :
Here's where I'll take a bit of issue. It's that characters like Snoke and the diversity-cast leadership got thrown in to tick boxes, and the movie then never has them actually *do* anything.
The Emperor didn't have a back story in RotJ, but that's fine. What mattered is that he DID THINGS. He advanced the plot and created critical tension for the main characters we connected with. He had a long scene where he actively tempts Luke with the dark side, pits Luke against Vader, and forces Vader to make a choice that redeems him as Anakin (but could have doomed him as Vader). We sit and watch Vader as he is conflicted trying to decide who to side with and which path to go down. And then he suddenly makes his choice and faces the consequences.
Snoke *tells* us how much he's manipulated Kilo and Rey, but we don't actually see him manipulate them. We only see him use force powers and gloat. He heavy-handedly tells us how he's felt the conflict in Kilo, but we don't actually see the conflict in that scene. It's been shown better elsewhere. He adds no tension or complication to Rey other than her being captured. He sort of sets up a choice for Kilo, but it's a false choice. He's already made the choice. We don't watch him take time to struggle and make up his mind. We see he already has made up his mind and then take a bunch of time drawing out him acting on it. That's not where the tension lies.
Same thing with Admiral Purple Hair. She's not like Lando. We get comments like, "That's admiral [starwarsname] of battle [starwarsplace]?" Like we're supposed to be impressed she's a woman. I get it. She's a woman. So was Mon Mothma and Leia. Great. Now give her a personality and make her DO stuff. We don't see her make hard decisions for the people she is trying to protect or keeping up morale when all hope seems lost. We see an admiral getting petty and snarking at Poe about how another character demoted him. He's been demoted? Who cares? You still outrank him and you have a job to do. Act like it. Be a leader and set your loose cannon to a task to keep him busy instead of allowing him to run around and sow dissent. Act like you've got a plan. I don't care that the person in command is a woman, or black, or a fish-person. I care that they actually command. She doesn't do that until the very end, and even then waits until half the rebels are destroyed before she acts. She's not wise either. Her words of wisdom are borrowed from Leia.
Yeah admiral whats-her-face-and-hair, that was kinda weak. I mean, she stays back for a suicide mission, then waits until over half the survivors are wiped out before deciding to turn around and Kamikaze the bad guys. Couldn't she have done that a tad bit earlier and saved the other half? And captain whats-his-face, oh, hey, let's mutiny. That always works out well. Didn't reallty like that either. Still, I thought it was a good movie.
In reply to Beer Baron :
Not only are we supposed to be impressed by Admiral Holdo because she's a woman, she's also an old friend of Leia's from Alderaan (not that you'd know, because nothing was made of it) and she's the first LBGT Star Wars film character. Wait, you mean that you didn't know she was pansexual (whatever that is)? Oh that's right, there's literally nothing there to indicate that she was, it was just randomly confirmed offscreen in an interview, kinda like they did with Valkyrie from Thor: Ragnarok.
That's a beef I have with Disney. They make characters LBGT to make them more relevant to society, which, hey, whatever, cool, it's a progressive move. But then they never do anything with it, or make it obvious. Instead they make some reference to it in an interview and that's the only way you would ever know. If you're going to run with it Disney, run with it.
Meh.
too much “hey we need a laugh track here”
luke with the breastmilk? Da fuq?
thankful porg didn’t become jarjar and ruin it
in the end i’m just confused and kinda blah at the whole thing. After TFA and rogue one i was like damn those were good movies. After this one i’m like ok that was a movie. I don’t know if it was bad but it sure didn’t strike me as good.
In reply to NickD :
If anything, I think characters like her set cultural issues back. She is more stereotype than character, and completely ineffective. She does not show that women can be strong, effective leaders despite complexity and flaws. She was a E36 M3ty leader.
And it's unnecessary in the Star Wars universe. Give us back Leia and/or Mon Mothma. Mon Mothma has like 2 scenes and is still more commanding, inspiring, and awesome. Mon Mothma would not have put up with Poe's E36 M3. Leia would not put up with Poe's E36 M3. Hell. Leia gets her injured ass out of bed, shuts Poe's E36 M3 down, changes the plans, and makes Poe feel bad about undermining his superiors' (kinda E36 M3ty) plan.
Patrick said:in the end i’m just confused and kinda blah at the whole thing. After TFA and rogue one i was like damn those were good movies. After this one i’m like ok that was a movie. I don’t know if it was bad but it sure didn’t strike me as good.
It was "Good Enough". They hit "Good Enough" that lots of people would come see it and give them lots of money. It was "Good Enough" that people would not be turned off from wanting to see the next one. Despite all the money, passion, and talent they had access to, they did not put in the extra effort necessary to make it Really Good or even Great, despite working with material that had the potential to be.
Saw it last night. I actually enjoyed some of the humor that was in there (Porgs, the weird beach whale things) but there were a lot of one liners that felt very forced. I think I would have liked it more if I'd watched TFA right before this new one. Seems like they did all of the characterization of the main cast in that movie and then did very little to expand on it in this one, so having that movie to go off of would have probably made the characters more relatable.
Overall, I don't understand why this wasn't split into two movies. That way, they could have actually let the audience breathe every once in awhile, and they could have spent more time developing the story. It had the right points I think, but wasn't fleshed out well, and the constant rush through every scene took away from the suspense.
I guess ultimately it seemed like too much of the movie jumped past critical points too quickly. Suddenly, Rey can clearly see the force. Suddenly she knows how to use a lightsaber. Snoke is apparently toying with people, but we don't see how, and he goes from mysterious character to trivial (and dead) one. Suddenly Jedi can cast their bodies and interact with the physical world. In the course of like half a day, Finn and that girl crash land, get thrown in jail, find a hacker, and escape. And so on and so forth.
The story wasn't bad, but to call a movie great, I really need the characterization to be good. Probably didn't help that I just finished watching Stranger Things, which by way of having 18 hours of episodes or something can really get into the detail of a story. So I will echo the 'good enough' comment and hope that the next one goes back to 'great', like I thought Rogue One and The Force Awakens were.
You'll need to log in to post.
