All Things Star Wars Thread (Spoilers)

[wizards8507]

So let's follow this to conclusion:
1. Hyperdrive has been around for THOUSANDS AND THOUSANDS of years.
2. Ramming ships has existed since the beginning of nautical warfare and piloted aircraft with humans. It doesn't take high cunning or brilliance, you just run your thing into another thing at full speed.
3. Given all of that, none of the BILLIONS of people in the Star Wars galaxy NEVER tried to ram something at hyperspeed before Holdo. This is also despite the fact that new technology is *always* tested for military application, and sending an object really really fast through something is as basic as military gets.

Yeah, that's totally plausible and great writing. Not a plot hole at all. Nope.

What the hell does the history of nautical warfare on Earth have to do with the history of space combat in a fictional universe?

Bilbo Baggins found the One Ring 3,000 years after Isildur had it, and the army of the Last Alliance of Men and Elves was wearing armor akin to what was seen in Europe during the late middle ages. Frodo should have had flying cars and space ships and teleporters and shit. At the very least, indoor toilets and iPhones. How is it possible that technology didn't advance in Middle Earth exactly as it did on actual Earth?

See how stupid that sounds? FFS.

 

[wizards8507]

The Eagles in LotR are a giant plot hole, essentially.

No they're not.

"No! With that power I should have power too great and terrible. And over me the Ring would gain a power still greater and more deadly. Do not tempt me! For I do not wish to become like the Dark Lord himself. Yet the way of the Ring to my heart is by pity, pity for weakness and the desire of strength to do good. Do not tempt me! I dare not take it, not even to keep it safe, unused. The wish to wield it would be too great for my strength. I shall have such need of it. Great perils lie before me."
-Gandalf

The ring bearer had to be weak, because the ring corrupts. The eagles could not bear the ring for the same reason Gandalf could not bear the ring. The only reason the fellowship was able to destroy the ring is because Sam was able to overcome Frodo once he had been corrupted. If Gandalf or Gwaihir had borne the ring, the realms of men and elves would have been fucked.

You guys are shitty nerds.

 

[zelezo vlk]

Is JRR Tolkien a shitty storyteller?

The Eagles in LotR are a giant plot hole, essentially... Tolkien wanted to show some badass giant creatures that commune like humans but act like the majestic and regal beasts that they are. There were enough of them, and they were proficient enough, that the fellowship probably could've just flown straight to Mordor at some point had Gandalf asked. Tolkien tried to fill the plot hole with a throwaway "they owe me a favor" line from Gandalf, as if he can only ask their help one time.

In reality, logic would dictate that the Eagles would see the need for risking a flight and battle above Mordor, and yet it didn't happen early in the plot, because reasons... aka, Tolkien needed to write an interesting story, and the Eagles were just a cool and convenient "out" to use as a one-off. BUT THEN, they show up again for the final battle anyway, and it turns out that they held their own even though the Nazgul were on wingback and knew the Eagles were coming.

They totally could've taken a secret, nighttime flight to Mordor and dropped the Fellowship onto the Gorgoroth plains before Sauron was fully aware of why he felt the Ring so strongly and so suddenly.

Was Tolkien a shitty storyteller because he didn't think all of those things through? No. He saw a need for something cool, and risked a plot hole to include it. Sometimes that happens in fiction.

I view the Holdo Kamikaze in the same vein... you get one shot at doing something cool, because otherwise it breaks the plot. And that's okay!

Perhaps there are unspoken reasons as to why something can only happen once, or why it's taboo and totally unpredictable, which I think Wiz and Gattaca have been kind of saying, but I don't think it's worth getting worked up over either way. The viewers are never hip to all of the canon, as Domina says below.

Bruh, "wut about the eaglez durrr" is a tired, lazy, and annoying 'WUTABOUT" of the ignorant. Dispel it at once and begone: https://sarahcradit.wordpress.com/2013/01/11/dispelling-the-myth-why-the-eagles-of-middle-earth-are-not-gandalfs-personal-taxi/

 

[IrishLion]

No they're not.

"No! With that power I should have power too great and terrible. And over me the Ring would gain a power still greater and more deadly. Do not tempt me! For I do not wish to become like the Dark Lord himself. Yet the way of the Ring to my heart is by pity, pity for weakness and the desire of strength to do good. Do not tempt me! I dare not take it, not even to keep it safe, unused. The wish to wield it would be too great for my strength. I shall have such need of it. Great perils lie before me."
-Gandalf

The ring bearer had to be weak, because the ring corrupts. The eagles could not bear the ring for the same reason Gandalf could not bear the ring. The only reason the fellowship was able to destroy the ring is because Sam was able to overcome Frodo once he had been corrupted. If Gandalf or Gwaihir had borne the ring, the realms of men and elves would have been fucked.

You guys are shitty nerds.

Bruh, "wut about the eaglez durrr" is a tired, lazy, and annoying 'WUTABOUT" of the ignorant. Dispel it at once and begone: https://sarahcradit.wordpress.com/2013/01/11/dispelling-the-myth-why-the-eagles-of-middle-earth-are-not-gandalfs-personal-taxi/

I know the lore, I'm about as diehard LotR as it gets.

I wasn't saying Gandalf or Gwahir should bear the ring... I'm saying the could've flown Frodo into fucking Mordor based on everything we knew and learned.

BUT, no one really wanted that to happen. And Tolkien wrote in the reasons as to why it shouldn't happen.

And I'm not mad about it! I think the plot is just fine as it is. Use the Eagles once or twice to get out of a sticky situation and be done with them. I'm all about that.

My point is that you can nitpick and find plotholes among even the greatest and most well-constructed worlds.

No one would accuse Tolkien of being a shitty storyteller, even though his 'Rules For Using The Eagles' guide is a bit loose and willy nilly.

 

[wizards8507]

I wasn't saying Gandalf or Gwahir should bear the ring... I'm saying the could've flown Frodo into fucking Mordor based on everything we knew and learned.

I don't think so. It's ring bearer, not ring holder-onto. I think if the Eagles carried Frodo, who carried the ring, that makes them the de facto ring bearers.

Also, the Eye would have seen them coming.

"Not with 10,000 men could you do this. It is folly."

Sending the eagles would be the same as sending 10,000 men. There's a reason that the Fellowship had to get whittled down along the journey until it was just Frodo and Sam left. They had to be small, insignificant, beneath the contempt or notice of Sauron.

 

[IrishLion]

I don't think so. It's ring bearer, not ring holder-onto. I think if the Eagles carried Frodo, who carried the ring, that makes them the de facto ring bearers.

Also, the Eye would have seen them coming.

"Not with 10,000 men could you do this. It is folly."

Sending the eagles would be the same as sending 10,000 men. There's a reason that the Fellowship had to get whittled down along the journey until it was just Frodo and Sam left. They had to be small, insignificant, beneath the contempt or notice of Sauron.

I really don't want to argue, because I have no problem with how the story unfolded.

BUT I'm here for this because I love this shit.

Sam couldn't carry the Ring, but he could carry Frodo. The same could've applied to the Eagles based on established rules from the film universe (we're talking film plotholes here). I'm not sure if that line came directly from the books or not.

The Eagles could've flown under the cover of night to avoid Orcs, and before the Wraiths were fully capable with Fellbeasts.

Sauron probably sees them once they reach the Shadow Mountains, but by the time he's got the Orcs scrambled with crossbows pointed to the sky, the Eagles are already swooping low and dropping off Fellowship members on the Gorgoroth plains.

It's absolutely still going to be difficult, but who says they couldn't have sent a separate force knocking at the Black Gate to empty out Mordor?

Oh. They did that for real, in the actual plot. Why couldn't they have done it earlier and to help the Eagles?

I'm sure Elrond could've said "Hey Galadriel, send Haldir and his homies to the Black Gate. I've got some Stealth Bombers about to lay down a WMD, but they need a clear path. Why should you help? Because Aragorn is here, and everyone loves him, which is how he gets everything done in the first place."

 

[greyhammer90]

1. The hyperspace thing was fun the moment but falls apart after some consideration. Even if it wouldn't be used in normal circumstances it would essentially make larger cruisers a gigantic liability.

2. If you honestly bemoan tLJ as the thing that destroyed or damaged the Star Wars mythology I would kindly welcome you to get a grip. There hasn't been a *great* Star Wars movie since May 21, 1980. The larger Universe makes no sense within the boundaries of the movies, the nature of the central conflict is insanely convoluted to the point where no one who isn't a novel reader understands what's going on ("How is Leia both the government and the resistance?" Says the average fan), and plot contrivances have always ruled the day.

Star Wars has had two great movies, two decent movies, a bunch of mediocre movies, and a few great novels/video games. Haughtily discussing tLJ as though it doesn't live up to the great Star Wars legacy is a joke at this point.

Star Wars is not the Godfather trilogy and tLJ isn't Part III. This is sci-fi Marvel fun space movie times brought to you by Disney. (And I don't even mean that as a diss at Disney. Dumb sci-fi Marvel fun space movie times is a lot better than "He said… you killed younglings!.")

 

[zelezo vlk]

Sam actually could carry the Ring, he just thought himself unworthy, which is why he was quick to give it back to Frodo. He already took the Ring when Frodo was kidnapped and taken to Cirith Ungol

 

[greyhammer90]

I don't think so. It's ring bearer, not ring holder-onto. I think if the Eagles carried Frodo, who carried the ring, that makes them the de facto ring bearers.

Is this why Bill the Pony became corrupted?

 

[Domina Nostra]

I got the clear sense that this would not have worked in the books too. A lot of the quest for Galdalf and Aragorn after the Fellowship split up was about getting the attention of Sauron and distracting his gaze (and the gaze of his minions) off of their own borders (there was no giant eye in the book, that was a story-telling device for the movie).

If an eagle had just made straight for the mountain from Rivendell, I think you are supposed to get the idea that Sauron and/or the Nazgul were just sitting and waiting to pounce, they would have seen it coming (watchtowers, palentir, Sauron's magic, the King of the Ring Wraith's magic, etc.), and would have captured the ring. The idea was that they expected an assault as some point and were on the look out. The Nazgul literally had flying "fell-beasts" who patrolled the air above a tower in the mountains that they would have had to cross.

In the movie, the eye would have seen it and stopped it somehow, maybe with magic.

 

[wizards8507]

I really don't want to argue, because I have no problem with how the story unfolded.

BUT I'm here for this because I love this shit.

Sam couldn't carry the Ring, but he could carry Frodo. The same could've applied to the Eagles based on established rules from the film universe (we're talking film plotholes here). I'm not sure if that line came directly from the books or not.

The Eagles could've flown under the cover of night to avoid Orcs, and before the Wraiths were fully capable with Fellbeasts.

Sauron probably sees them once they reach the Shadow Mountains, but by the time he's got the Orcs scrambled with crossbows pointed to the sky, the Eagles are already swooping low and dropping off Fellowship members on the Gorgoroth plains.

It's absolutely still going to be difficult, but who says they couldn't have sent a separate force knocking at the Black Gate to empty out Mordor?

Oh. They did that for real, in the actual plot. Why couldn't they have done it earlier and to help the Eagles?

Your mom is a fellbeast.

I'm sure Elrond could've said "Hey Galadriel, send Haldir and his homies to the Black Gate. I've got some Stealth Bombers about to lay down a WMD, but they need a clear path. Why should you help? Because Aragorn is here, and everyone loves him, which is how he gets everything done in the first place."

Gondor has no king. Gondor needs no king.

You ever notice that Sean Bean looks EXACTLY like Triple H?

 

[IrishLion]

Sam actually could carry the Ring, he just thought himself unworthy, which is why he was quick to give it back to Frodo. He already took the Ring when Frodo was kidnapped and taken to Cirith Ungol

Sam was the only Ring bearer to avoid corruption by the Ring, as far as we know. That's another of my favorite plot points that no one really discusses. The only other characters we saw with such strong wills were Aragorn and Frodo, and even Frodo succumbed to the will of the Ring pretty early on.

How strong must Sam have been to avoid not just temptation, but to be able to bear it AND use it, without being corrupted as the others had? My man is a savage and a boss... such a boss, that he was invited to the Undying Lands like the other Ring bearers.

Is this why Bill the Pony became corrupted?

Bill is King of Ponies.

 

[wizards8507]

Sam was the only Ring bearer to avoid corruption by the Ring, as far as we know. That's another of my favorite plot points that no one really discusses. The only other characters we saw with such strong wills were Aragorn and Frodo, and even Frodo succumbed to the will of the Ring pretty early on.

How strong must Sam have been to avoid not just temptation, but to be able to bear it AND use it, without being corrupted as the others had? My man is a savage and a boss... such a boss, that he was invited to the Undying Lands like the other Ring bearers.



Bill is King of Ponies.

Do we know for sure that Sam wasn't corrupted at all? I figured he just didn't have it long enough for the effects to become apparent.

 

[Domina Nostra]

Do we know for sure that Sam wasn't corrupted at all? I figured he just didn't have it long enough for the effects to become apparent.

I agree. It got in him too. He had the moment where he imagined making Mordor into a garden.

The idea is that his humility and loyalty, the short ownership, and the use only in dire need ultimately kept the temptation from overwhelming him.

Sam was the only Ring bearer to avoid corruption by the Ring, as far as we know. That's another of my favorite plot points that no one really discusses. The only other characters we saw with such strong wills were Aragorn and Frodo, and even Frodo succumbed to the will of the Ring pretty early on.

How strong must Sam have been to avoid not just temptation, but to be able to bear it AND use it, without being corrupted as the others had? My man is a savage and a boss... such a boss, that he was invited to the Undying Lands like the other Ring bearers.

Aragorn, Gandalf, and Galadriel (and maybe Elrond) were uncorrupted, because they had real opportunities to take it legitimately, knew not to, and didn't. You could probably throw Tom Bombadil in there as well, but it didn't tempt him because he was detached from the outer world to the point that he was not interested in what it was selling.

Again, Sam's strength was his humility--his smallness. He knew who he was, and so the Ring couldn't tempt him as easily.

 

[irishnd31]

Hey nerds, take your dragon pumpin discussion elsewhere. This is Star Wars God Damnit.

 

[wizards8507]

Hey nerds, take your dragon pumpin discussion elsewhere. This is Star Wars God Damnit.

Gandalf v. Sidious

Go.

 

[IrishLion]

Gandalf v. Sidious

Go.

Gandalf used a lightning-charged Glamdring to defeat the Balrog, so Sidious' favorite move is negated or turned against him if he tries it.

It comes down to whether he's still spry enough to get inside of Gandalf's reach with his lightsaber.

IDK.

 

[irishnd31]

Gandalf v. Sidious

Go.

Good God, Sidious of course. Only because he's got hyper speed.

 

[Domina Nostra]

Sidious = Sauraman,

So Sidious over Gandalf the Grey, but not Galdalf the White.

 

[wizards8507]

Sidious = Sauraman,

So Sidious over Gandalf the Grey, but not Galdalf the White.

Racist.

 

[IrishLion]

I like this game:

Merry and Pippin VS Jar Jar

 

[irishnd31]

I like this game:

Merry and Pippin VS Jar Jar

Merry and Pippin.

Hell, Id pull for Mary Poppins to put her umbrella up that prick's ass hole and open it.

 

[GATTACA!]

This is exactly the point and why it was a plot hole. Sitting there and letting your ships meekly get shot to bits until final moment of desperation on your very last ship is a plot hole.

And you have to choose... is it impossible? Or is it something one would know would work because it's established in the universe you can do it? Because there's a 0% chance no one had tried it before, and if they had tried it before and there was a countermeasure that was created to stop it then the idea they just weren't using it because #YOLO is a bad writing and a plot hole. "Incomprehensible stupidity" is not a "good explanation."

These posts are expanding faster than the star wars universe so I’m just going to reply to everything here.

She was not sitting there and waiting to be destroyed. I don’t know why you keep framing it that way. She was trying to buy time for their escape pods. She was hoping they would be able to get away while she continued to draw the first order’s fire. Once they turned their attention to the escape pods and Holdo realized the plan had failed she made the desperation hyperspeed move.

1. The Resistance knows from the very beginning that they were followed immediately.
2. Given this fact, if "taking a long time" for them to turn on or off was a thing they'd IMMEDIATELY know that it was down and that is completely independent of knowing anything at all about the tracking technology. That only requires knowing something about interdiction, which they all would as trained military commanders.

They do not know that those two things are related. They have no way of knowing that them being immediately tracked means that their interdiction fields must to be down.

Again, you have to pick one. Either this is a thing that can totally happen and accordingly they've had interdiction fields up as SOP to prevent against it OR it's not a thing that can happen.

Like every piece of technology in human existence, the first thing that happens when it's invented is that people test the military applications of it. So it's unrealistic that in the thousands upon thousands of years they've had hyperdrive that people didn't try to do this before. Assuming that they did, and then interdiction was invented as a countermeasure, then every military commander would know how they work and their importance.

Yes the hyperdrive kamikaze is possible, we saw it happen. Interdiction fields were developed as a countermeasure. I’ve never said that no one tried it. I’m sure it was used before they developed a way to stop it. What I was saying is that I don’t think many people would think to try it at this point in time because interdiction fields are now a ubiquitous piece of tech.

Huh? Did you read what I said?

1. I was saying *the flagship* was much bigger than the Executor.
2. I was saying you don't need a large object to do damage to a large object. It's proven that an object 0.001% the volume of earth hitting it moving relatively slowly would have enough energy to basically kill all life on the planet. So you could destroy planets with any moderately size hunk of steel moving really fast.

I understand your point. I’m saying in relation to a planet you’re going to need something proportionally much larger because a planet is so much more massive than the executor. Making the strategy that much more impractical.

 

[greyhammer90]

Merry and Pippin.

Hell, Id pull for Mary Poppins to put her umbrella up that prick's ass hole and open it.

Thats supercalifucked up.

 

[ACamp1900]

If someone doesn’t care about SW and then doesn’t care about any of this then coolness... For me: There have been bad SW movies, but none that completely destroyed the original triology and shat all over it’s characters. That’s not needing to ‘get a grip’ ... it’s being sad and upset over how this abortion of a film treated something really cool that was worth treating better. My two cents

 

[greyhammer90]

If someone doesn’t care about SW and then doesn’t care about any of this then coolness... For me: There have been bad SW movies, but none that completely destroyed the original triology and shat all over it’s characters. That’s not needing to ‘get a grip’ ... it’s being sad and upset over how this abortion of a film treated something really cool that was worth treating better. My two cents

Original trilogy characters/ideas off the top of my head:

Prequels:

Darth Sidious became a meme, Anakin/Darth Vader became a joke, the Clone Wars were somehow made boring, the Force became bacteria, Yoda became a CGI character who does rad lightsaber flips, the Jedi became bureaucrats.

tFA:

Han is a terrible parent and has regressed as a character since Jedi, Leia is a terrible parent, a terrible politician, and has lost all ability to emote, Luke is also arguably ruined since this is the movie where he was shown to have run away from the plot, the New Republic is apparently useless, and the "Anakin brings balance to the force" thing is ignored/retconned into oblivion.

 

[Domina Nostra]

If someone doesn’t care about SW and then doesn’t care about any of this then coolness... For me: There have been bad SW movies, but none that completely destroyed the original triology and shat all over it’s characters. That’s not needing to ‘get a grip’ ... it’s being sad and upset over how this abortion of a film treated something really cool that was worth treating better. My two cents

Original trilogy characters/ideas off the top of my head:

Prequels:

Darth Sidious became a meme, Anakin/Darth Vader became a joke, the Clone Wars were somehow made boring, the Force became bacteria, Yoda became a CGI character who does rad lightsaber flips, the Jedi became bureaucrats.

tFA:

Han is a terrible parent and has regressed as a character since Jedi, Leia is a terrible parent, a terrible politician, and has lost all ability to emote, Luke is also arguably ruined since this is the movie where he was shown to have run away from the plot, the New Republic is apparently useless, and the "Anakin brings balance to the force" thing is ignored/retconned into oblivion.

Original trilogy characters/ideas off the top of my head:

Prequels:

Darth Sidious became a meme, Anakin/Darth Vader became a joke, the Clone Wars were somehow made boring, the Force became bacteria, Yoda became a CGI character who does rad lightsaber flips, the Jedi became bureaucrats.

tFA:

Han is a terrible parent and has regressed as a character since Jedi, Leia is a terrible parent, a terrible politician, and has lost all ability to emote, Luke is also arguably ruined since this is the movie where he was shown to have run away from the plot, the New Republic is apparently useless, and the "Anakin brings balance to the force" thing is ignored/retconned into oblivion.

The midichlorians debacle was the moment I realized that Lucas was not a "genius" and had benefited from a lot of talented people around him.

That was as close as the prequels came to accidentally crapping on the legacy of the first trilogy...

BUT, it really just revealed what Lucas was going for. Nothing at all indicated GL had any ironic, political, or snobbish reasons to undermine the SW story.

Long story short, there were some cringe-worthy moments, and some issues, but, as ACamp said, "none that completely destroyed the original triology and shat all over it’s characters."

And I totally agree with this too: "That’s not needing to ‘get a grip’ ... it’s being sad and upset over how this abortion of a film treated something really cool that was worth treating better."

 

[irishog77]

Every poster in this thread

 

[IrishLax]

What the hell does the history of nautical warfare on Earth have to do with the history of space combat in a fictional universe?

Because it's basic common sense that anyone piloting anything has thought about using it to run into something. Ships, planes, bumper cars... literally anything a human has ever piloted has at some point been used to ram something at full speed.

Star Wars is populated by humans and other species that fly things. I'm trying to illustrate how obtuse and stupid it is to assume there is a scenario where someone else wouldn't have tried this before, but you're in full DERP mode.

 

[IrishLax]

These posts are expanding faster than the star wars universe so I’m just going to reply to everything here.

She was not sitting there and waiting to be destroyed. I don’t know why you keep framing it that way. She was trying to buy time for their escape pods...

I stopped reading here because I was clearly referring to all the other ships that meekly died while not trying anything. If you can't even be bothered to read what I wrote, I'm not going to keep wasting my time.