The Dark Side (permanent post)

[annathecrow]

Welcome to the Dark Side. This post’s comment section is dedicated to all the angry, inflammatory, defamatory and otherwise outright negative things you might want to express. Not that saying negative things isn’t allowed in the weekly chat corners, but… you know how you sometimes just Have Thoughts about something, and you don’t feel like you can talk about it because everyone around you seems to love it? Those go here.

 

Some rules:

• No personal attacks.
• If you don’t want people replying to you, mention it in the comment.
• Follow the general comm rules.
• …that’s it, I think.

 

Comments

[yourlibrarian]

Yes, I was fine with the idea that since Luke didn't really do it, Leia did it, which is another of those nice twists. Although unfortunately given what happened with Carrie, I suspect there was a lot less of that interaction than there would have been.

Thanks for that link! A good essay with great points. I thought it particularly interesting that the lack of a uniform is singled out:

Note that Leia wears a uniform in ESB/RotJ when she’s acting in a command capacity.

True, although she's in one in RotJ because all that footage is from ESB. But it's something I surprisingly failed to notice about TLJ and ties into his points very well. But while Leia's TLJ outfit is also not a uniform I think that it's handwaved that she's not leading the fleet. She is a General after all and is clearly in command of that particular ship. I suspect that the decision was made to more greatly obscure Carrie's figure while playing up Dern's which was -- not great.

Honestly it's been long enough that I watched it that I don't remember the weaponry issues discussed but OMG yes, THIS: "Who actually supports – and bankrolls – the First Order? Who built all these ships? Where did they build all these ships? How the hell did they hide that?"

Clone Wars and Rebels made clear there were actually more than two Sith at a time, just that they always tended to lead in pairs rather than, say, councils such as the Jedi had. So I can handwave that Snoke and the Knights developed in the intervening years and that the bad guys are in more than one place. But the funding is ABSOLUTELY key. And yes, that massive sort of distance projection, WTF. I disagree about the lightning, just because we didn't see any Jedi using it doesn't mean it couldn't have been used by anyone else and I seem to remember some story where a particular species employs it as a primary defense because they're well suited to it.

But yes, I'm glad that he brings up the whole disconnect about this section of the Republic fleet and suddenly it being some last stand for the entire galaxy?

The discussion of dialogue is, to me, the most fascinating part. "why would Yoda even have a phrase for ‘page turner’?" Such a good point!

I too love roughly 50% of the original series, exactly five seasons of TNG, DS9 and four or five Voyager episodes, like everyone else.

Haha, excellent snark! And I appreciated his comment at the end about how the recent Trek films kept the branding but little else.

Although I didn't go into it in my comment I do appreciate how he fleshed out my own observation that "When you put Star Wars in front of a movie, you are selling a certain kind of story"

[annathecrow]

the uniforms -- he's a Classics professor specializing in ancient warfare, so I suppose that's why he notices these details.

"more than two Sith" -- wait, really? I didn't catch that... I thought it was Sidious + Maul, then Sidious + Dooku, then Sidious + Anakin, and all Dooku's own apprentices were not Real Sith (TM). But of course my knowledge of canon is far from 100%.

[yourlibrarian]

Well yes, but then there were also further apprentices such as Ventress during Clone Wars and the Inquisitors in Rebels.

[extrapenguin]

Canonically, Ventress is "just" an assassin, i.e. not a Real Sith (TM), and Sidious makes Dooku (try to) kill her when he thinks she's too much of an apprentice to Dooku. I imagine the Inquisitors are, too. Though it's all basically rules lawyering to get around the Rule of Two and include more lightsaber battles.

[yourlibrarian]

Heh, pretty much.