# Star Wars: The Last Jedi - seen it thread **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [December 13, 2017, 9:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/star-wars-the-last-jedi-seen-it-thread/804441 "2017-12-13T21:50:49Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 38
**Author:** ![MaxTheVool](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/9fc29f/32.png) [@MaxTheVool](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MaxTheVool)\ **Post date:** [January 1, 2018, 8:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/star-wars-the-last-jedi-seen-it-thread/804441/741 "2018-01-01T20:36:15Z")
> [@Dale\_Sams](#): > > Somebody asked about OT plot holes: > > Ben and Yodas plan makes no sense. Together they almost stopped the Empire in its infancy, Not in the OT they didn’t. Plot holes in the prequels + OT together are FAR more frequent > [@](#): > > so now they’re just gonna give up and sit in exile?? And Ben is just going to let Luke grow up way past the age he should have been trained? And did Ben use the Force to stop Lukes stepdad from letting him leave and join the Academy? Talk about the most thankless, eat shit roles in the Star Wars universe. > > "Raise this kid thats not yours, I’m gonna influence your minds, and then you get burned alive. Sucks to be you!!’ I honestly don’t know what you’re saying. Is it canon that Uncle Owen was stubborn about not letting Luke leave because he was mind tricked into it? Bear in mind, btw, that Yoda and Obi-Wan’s plan did, in the end, work. But, honestly, it’s not clear to me what your specific complaints are. ---
**Author:** ![Dale\_Sams](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/779978/32.png) [@Dale\_Sams](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dale_Sams)\ **Post date:** [January 1, 2018, 10:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/star-wars-the-last-jedi-seen-it-thread/804441/742 "2018-01-01T22:11:51Z")
> [@MaxTheVool](#): > > Not in the OT they didn’t. Plot holes in the prequels + OT together are FAR more frequent > > I honestly don’t know what you’re saying. Is it canon that Uncle Owen was stubborn about not letting Luke leave because he was mind tricked into it? > > Bear in mind, btw, that Yoda and Obi-Wan’s plan did, in the end, work. > But, honestly, it’s not clear to me what your specific complaints are. No its not canon. Without it, their plan makes less sense. It was just blind luck that Luke didn’t join the Academy. "Bear in mind, btw, that Yoda and Obi-Wan’s plan did, in the end, work. " And what was the plan? Yoda eats grubs while Quigon teaches Obiwan how to Force Ghost? Here’s something i just thought of and its not a hole cause im going to make a valid snark. Obiwans race must age quickly. Does Ewan look like Alec Guiness right now? If that isn’t clear enough: enough time hasn’t quite passed since ROTS for Luke to grow up, but Ewan McGregor isn’t going to be an old man for quite awhile. Here’s an interesting bit of trivia i just found out. Mark Hamill is three years older now then Guiness was during Star Wars. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/the_other_waldo_pepper/32/12370_2.png) [@The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Other_Waldo_Pepper)\ **Post date:** [January 1, 2018, 10:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/star-wars-the-last-jedi-seen-it-thread/804441/743 "2018-01-01T22:24:52Z")
> [@Dale\_Sams](#): > > Here’s something i just thought of and its not a hole cause im going to make a valid snark. Obiwans race must age quickly. Does Ewan look like Alec Guiness right now? > > If that isn’t clear enough: enough time hasn’t quite passed since ROTS for Luke to grow up, but Ewan McGregor isn’t going to be an old man for quite awhile. In fairness, McGregor hasn’t been living out in the desert for the last 15-20 years. (And if he _had,_ it wouldn’t have been an under-two-suns desert.) ---
**Author:** ![Unpronounceable](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/9de0a6/32.png) [@Unpronounceable](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Unpronounceable)\ **Post date:** [January 1, 2018, 10:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/star-wars-the-last-jedi-seen-it-thread/804441/744 "2018-01-01T22:41:00Z")
> [@Sir\_T-Cups](#): > > Not necessarily. You can just program an empty ship to jump to lightspeed remotely. > > For a bit of a thinkpiece on the subject [I invite you to read this article](https://www.theringer.com/2017/12/20/16800970/vice-admiral-holdo-maneuver-the-last-jedi) that speculates on how the move fits (or doesn’t) in Star Wars. > > I like his final assessment: It’s never used because it’s actually a war crime ??? As opposed to planetary-scale genocide? ---
**Author:** ![Mijin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mijin/32/9369_2.png) [@Mijin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mijin)\ **Post date:** [January 1, 2018, 11:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/star-wars-the-last-jedi-seen-it-thread/804441/745 "2018-01-01T23:44:25Z")
> [@Unpronounceable](#): > > As opposed to planetary-scale genocide? ## In [the link](https://www.theringer.com/2017/12/20/16800970/vice-admiral-holdo-maneuver-the-last-jedi), the “war-crimes” theory is not presented as a reasonable hypothesis, but a last-ditch, desperate attempt to think of some way it can all fit. Thanks for posting that link, **Sir T-Cups** , it does confirm that I’m not the first to realize that the “Holdo maneuver” does present a significant problem / inconsistency. ---
**Author:** ![Sir\_T-Cups](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ed655f/32.png) [@Sir\_T-Cups](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sir_T-Cups)\ **Post date:** [January 2, 2018, 12:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/star-wars-the-last-jedi-seen-it-thread/804441/746 "2018-01-02T00:45:17Z")
> [@Alessan](#): > > Watch RotJ again. The A-wing crashed into the bridge \*after \*the rebels took out the bridge shield generators. But then I wonder how the ships got close enough to do damage in the first place? Not necessarily on the SSD, but even the original Death Star didn’t have any kind of shield to it, would terrestrial ships just bounce off of nothing eventually when they got close enough? ---
**Author:** ![SuperNelson](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/7feea3/32.png) [@SuperNelson](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SuperNelson)\ **Post date:** [January 2, 2018, 1:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/star-wars-the-last-jedi-seen-it-thread/804441/747 "2018-01-02T01:18:06Z")
> [@MaxTheVool](#): > > [(4) Finding the codebreaker. So codebreakers good enough to penetrate Imperial shields are so rare that Mazz knows of only one in the galaxy, and sends Rose and Finn there. But they fail. But, fortunately, they end up as cellmates of… a codebreaker good enough to penetrate Imperial shields. This is ludicrous, and bugs me a lot. Sufficiently-contrived-coincidences definitely count as plot holes, imho. (Are there any similar coincidences in the original trilogy? Arguably that Luke’s long-lost sister ends up being the only female character in the series, but that’s much more easily blamed on “The Force”, and is at least the kind of conservation-of-main-characters thing that we’re used to in many works of fiction.) > > (4a) And then the Imperials capture this codebreaker, and then let him go with a huge reward and a ship, just because he gives them some useful info. This also bugs me a lot. Discussed up thread. I can’t think of anything particularly comparable in the original trilogy, but I suppose we didn’t actually see what the First Order said or did during their negotiations with him. If he shows up in future movies and continues to screw the First Order for money, it will retroactively make this a much bigger plot hole, with “plot hole” in this case meaning “people acting in ways that just don’t make sense given what we know of human nature and their already-presented personalities”. > > (4b) Also, people hanging around in jail with the tools in their pocket to break out of the jail isn’t a thing. Either they should already have broken out of jail or they should have been searched when they were thrown into jail. Minor plot hole, but hard to justify based on human nature. I thought the reason Mazz recommended that particular codebreaker was not that he was the only one; he was the best one they could trust. DJ had the skills, but got caught, then sold Finn and Rose out. That’s why they found him in low security lock-up, rather than making a killing on the casino floor. ---
**Author:** ![sachertorte](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sachertorte/32/3727_2.png) [@sachertorte](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sachertorte)\ **Post date:** [January 2, 2018, 1:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/star-wars-the-last-jedi-seen-it-thread/804441/748 "2018-01-02T01:42:36Z")
> [@Derleth](#): > > That isn’t a Plot Hole, it’s an Important Lesson. > > She was a bad leader. She wasn’t a traitor, or an outright incompetent, but she wasn’t as good as she should have been, and her imperfection had consequences. No. Holdo was right to keep the information secret from Poe. Once Poe knew the truth he, sent the super secret plans to the enemy ship. That’s _incompetence_. She was right to keep Poe in the dark. Her only mistake was telling him anything. 😃 ---
**Author:** ![Jonathan\_Chance](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jonathan_chance/32/701_2.png) [@Jonathan\_Chance](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jonathan_Chance)\ **Post date:** [January 2, 2018, 2:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/star-wars-the-last-jedi-seen-it-thread/804441/749 "2018-01-02T02:17:06Z")
> [@Sir\_T-Cups](#): > > But then I wonder how the ships got close enough to do damage in the first place? Not necessarily on the SSD, but even the original Death Star didn’t have any kind of shield to it, would terrestrial ships just bounce off of nothing eventually when they got close enough? The Death Star does have shields. Just not the sort that can stop small single-man fighters. It’s mentioned in the movie that they get shaken up going through them. There’s also clearly different types of shields. The exhaust port is ‘ray shielded’ so proton torpedoes are required. I’d assume the shields of the Death Star are sufficient to deal with any capital ships and blasters from a distance but, since the empire doesn’t consider small ships a real threat, they’re no prepared to deal with them without dogfights. ---
**Author:** ![RTFirefly](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/c77e96/32.png) [@RTFirefly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RTFirefly)\ **Post date:** [January 2, 2018, 2:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/star-wars-the-last-jedi-seen-it-thread/804441/750 "2018-01-02T02:18:54Z")
> [@Jonathan\_Chance](#): > > You know my take on this, RT? > > Most planets don’t give a damn who’s in charge. They go on with their lives and routines because it doesn’t really matter who’s in charge. Some black clad asshole comes down and says, ‘Fuck you, I’M in charge now!’ and they say, “OK, fine, whatever. Get it out of your system.” and go back to earning a living. > > Or, to draw a comparison from a Chinese proverb, “Strong emperor, weak emperor. What difference does it make to us?” > > Or, to get more metaphysical, “Before enlightenment, chop wood, draw water. After enlightenment, chop wood, draw water.” > > I’d be willing to bet - not that the filmmakers have thought this through, I’d bet - that to most of the galaxy this whole ‘Star Wars’ conflict is irrelevant. We’re invested because we’re seeing it. But to some middle class salaryman on Naboo doesn’t give a damn about who’s in charge. He’s worried about paying his mortgage and making sure his pain in the ass teen stops skipping school. That POV totally undermines the notion that we should _care_ who wins or loses this conflict. If the good guys aren’t all that good, and the bad guys aren’t all that bad, and the difference between them isn’t going to make life better or worse for more than a handful of people, then there’s no ‘there’ there. ---
**Author:** ![RTFirefly](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/c77e96/32.png) [@RTFirefly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RTFirefly)\ **Post date:** [January 2, 2018, 2:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/star-wars-the-last-jedi-seen-it-thread/804441/751 "2018-01-02T02:21:08Z")
> [@Alessan](#): > > The rebellion was in the same state as the Dothraki at the end of book/season 1 of GoT. |Traduisez, s’il vous plait. (At least if this was a response to me. If not, don’t worry.) ---
**Author:** ![RikWriter](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/49beb7/32.png) [@RikWriter](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RikWriter)\ **Post date:** [January 2, 2018, 2:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/star-wars-the-last-jedi-seen-it-thread/804441/752 "2018-01-02T02:48:27Z")
> [@sachertorte](#): > > No. Holdo was right to keep the information secret from Poe. > Once Poe knew the truth he, sent the super secret plans to the enemy ship. That’s _incompetence_. She was right to keep Poe in the dark. Her only mistake was telling him anything. 😃 No, that’s not accurate. She didn’t tell him anything, he saw the transports being fueled and even THEN she wouldn’t say why. It was her stubborn stupidity that caused the deaths of hundreds of people…actually, twice, since she could have done the lightspeed ram before the First Order ship blew up half the transports. ---
**Author:** ![SlackerInc](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/slackerinc/32/275_2.png) [@SlackerInc](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SlackerInc)\ **Post date:** [January 2, 2018, 5:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/star-wars-the-last-jedi-seen-it-thread/804441/753 "2018-01-02T05:42:37Z")
> [@Jonathan\_Chance](#): > > You know my take on this, RT? > > Most planets don’t give a damn who’s in charge. They go on with their lives and routines because it doesn’t really matter who’s in charge. Some black clad asshole comes down and says, ‘Fuck you, I’M in charge now!’ and they say, “OK, fine, whatever. Get it out of your system.” and go back to earning a living. > > Or, to draw a comparison from a Chinese proverb, “Strong emperor, weak emperor. What difference does it make to us?” > > Or, to get more metaphysical, “Before enlightenment, chop wood, draw water. After enlightenment, chop wood, draw water.” > > I’d be willing to bet - not that the filmmakers have thought this through, I’d bet - that to most of the galaxy this whole ‘Star Wars’ conflict is irrelevant. We’re invested because we’re seeing it. But to some middle class salaryman on Naboo doesn’t give a damn about who’s in charge. He’s worried about paying his mortgage and making sure his pain in the ass teen stops skipping school. This fanwank has going for it that it is sophisticated and highly realistic to our real world. Going against it is that it utterly contradicts the in-universe world we are shown. You might as well say all the struggles in all the movies are pointless, and the sparks of rebellion we see at the end of TLJ are futile. I don’t think that’s what Lucasfilm (a Disney company) has in mind. > [@Dale\_Sams](#): > > Somebody asked about OT plot holes: > > Ben and Yodas plan makes no sense. Together they almost stopped the Empire in its infancy, so now they’re just gonna give up and sit in exile?? And Ben is just going to let Luke grow up way past the age he should have been trained? And did Ben use the Force to stop Lukes stepdad from letting him leave and join the Academy? Talk about the most thankless, eat shit roles in the Star Wars universe. > > "Raise this kid thats not yours, I’m gonna influence your minds, and then you get burned alive. Sucks to be you!!’ But was any of that actually stated in the original 1977 film? Not fair to hold it to account for later retcons. ---
**Author:** ![sweepkick](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/87869e/32.png) [@sweepkick](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sweepkick)\ **Post date:** [January 2, 2018, 5:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/star-wars-the-last-jedi-seen-it-thread/804441/754 "2018-01-02T05:48:13Z")
> [@Mijin](#): > > What happened was that he said to ignore the ship because it was just trying to draw their fire from the escape pods. Right. > Then, when they see it turning around to face them he barked something about “Destroy it!!” before it smashed through them at the speed of light. > > Now, the question I’m asking is why this tactic has not been used before and/or why it was effective this time. > If the answer is simply that they were focused on something else then this should be an effective tactic all the time. Plenty of times we see grand empire ships focused on bombarding a planet or whatever, while ships are trying to escape at LS. Never before has the idea that ships present a ramming risk to a large empire vessel been a thing. Well I suppose when you’re down to a rebellion who’s numbers can fit into a Corellian YT-1300f light freighter, an MC85 Command Cruiser becomes rather ostentatious, perhaps even decadent. 😃 ---
**Author:** ![icon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/c6cbf5/32.png) [@icon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/icon)\ **Post date:** [January 2, 2018, 7:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/star-wars-the-last-jedi-seen-it-thread/804441/755 "2018-01-02T07:40:24Z")
> [@Half\_Man\_Half\_Wit](#): > > O > What annoys me more, however, is the many places in which the movie is just plain careless, as if to say, well, this is gonna make a billion bucks either way, so let’s just call it alright and be done with it. An example here is the sudden availability of cloaking tech to the rebels, which is just as suddenly negated. I’m fine, basically, with there being new tech since the original trilogy, where Han had to camouflage the Falcon among the trash ejected from a Star Destroyer, but the whole thing is clearly just a throwaway line to ‘explain’ why the First Order doesn’t open fire on the transports immediately, which comes at the cost of a further handwave to the effect that they could apparently neutralize this cloak on the bush of a button, it’s just nobody thought of doing so earlier, because surely nobody is going to try and surreptitiously get away from the doomed rebel fleet. Just a small nitpick about cloaking technology. Just after they lose the Falcon in TESB they say: “They can’t have disappeared. No ship that small has a cloaking device.” Which means, although we have not seen it used before, at least as far back as the OT cloaking technology has been part of the Star Wars universe. There was no need to discover new tech for the scene in the TLJ to work. Sure, we don’t know that the transports used are big enough to have cloaking devices, but there is not reason to believe they can’t possibly have it and that it was just added for this film. //i\ ---
**Author:** ![jz78817](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jz78817/32/1028_2.png) [@jz78817](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jz78817)\ **Post date:** [January 2, 2018, 11:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/star-wars-the-last-jedi-seen-it-thread/804441/756 "2018-01-02T11:33:26Z")
> [@RTFirefly](#): > > That POV totally undermines the notion that we should _care_ who wins or loses this conflict. > > If the good guys aren’t all that good, and the bad guys aren’t all that bad, and the difference between them isn’t going to make life better or worse for more than a handful of people, then there’s no ‘there’ there. So we shouldn’t have cared who won WWII so long as the residents of East Buttpipe, Kansas could just keep going about their day? ---
**Author:** ![Grim\_Render](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/a87d85/32.png) [@Grim\_Render](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Grim_Render)\ **Post date:** [January 2, 2018, 11:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/star-wars-the-last-jedi-seen-it-thread/804441/757 "2018-01-02T11:58:21Z")
> [@RikWriter](#): > > No, that’s not accurate. She didn’t tell him anything, he saw the transports being fueled and even THEN she wouldn’t say why. It was her stubborn stupidity that caused the deaths of hundreds of people…actually, twice, since she could have done the lightspeed ram before the First Order ship blew up half the transports. So… she refused to tell the secret plan to the guy who ended up beaming said plan directly to the enemy… and that’s her fault for not just telling him in the first place? Man, the military is sure different in the Star Wars universe! ---
**Author:** ![Grim\_Render](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/a87d85/32.png) [@Grim\_Render](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Grim_Render)\ **Post date:** [January 2, 2018, 12:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/star-wars-the-last-jedi-seen-it-thread/804441/758 "2018-01-02T12:09:14Z")
> [@Robot\_Arm](#): > > I can’t figure out why Vice Admiral Laura Dern kept her escape plan a secret from Poe, leading to his mutiny. I suppose she doesn’t want the First Order to know what she’s planning, but Poe wasn’t going to tell them. And then the plan does get revealed by someone who couldn’t possibly have known it. And all they had to do to defeat it was click on the “include cloaked ships” checkbox in the controls for the tracking system on the star destroyers. Poe _did_ tell them. He beamed the plans over to his crew on the FO fleet without the least thought to information security. Which pretty much justifies her reluctance to tell him. As for the rest…when they didn’t know about the hyperspace tracking device, the most likely explanation for the tracking is a spy. And their plan did indeed rest on the FO being complacent and overconfident. (It _was_ being commanded by Hux, and taking advantage of the enemy commanders flaws is a long military tradition). So the best possible thing for the plan was the spy reporting “they have no plan, they are without hope” to Hux. Also, Poe had not exactly made an impression as a fellow to trust with sensitive information at that point. I sort of got the impression that Holdo came from a traditional military background, and expected her crew to respect that the officers will keep information security during a crisis. And know that loose lips sink (detonates) ships. Whereas most of the resistance was actually zealots and individualists. Anyway, what she failed to realize on was Poes mind-numbing incompetence. But her instincts were good. ---
**Author:** ![RikWriter](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/49beb7/32.png) [@RikWriter](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RikWriter)\ **Post date:** [January 2, 2018, 1:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/star-wars-the-last-jedi-seen-it-thread/804441/759 "2018-01-02T13:07:27Z")
> [@Grim\_Render](#): > > So… she refused to tell the secret plan to the guy who ended up beaming said plan directly to the enemy… and that’s her fault for not just telling him in the first place? > > Man, the military is sure different in the Star Wars universe! Actually, that’s inaccurate as well. He didn’t beam anything to the enemy, Rose and Finn were stupid enough to let some criminal they’d just met hear the transmission and then he predictably betrayed them. The two of them were just as stupid as Holdo, but with more reason since they’re both low-level nobodies and she’s an admiral. ---
**Author:** ![wonky](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wonky/32/393_2.png) [@wonky](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wonky)\ **Post date:** [January 2, 2018, 1:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/star-wars-the-last-jedi-seen-it-thread/804441/760 "2018-01-02T13:19:10Z")
> [@RTFirefly](#): > > That POV totally undermines the notion that we should _care_ who wins or loses this conflict. > > If the good guys aren’t all that good, and the bad guys aren’t all that bad, and the difference between them isn’t going to make life better or worse for more than a handful of people, then there’s no ‘there’ there. I watch things all the time where I care about the outcome because I care about the characters who are on one side and don’t care about the characters on another side. So while I agree that the stakes would be lower, I don’t think that has to mean that the story isn’t worth telling. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/star-wars-the-last-jedi-seen-it-thread/804441.md?page=37) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/star-wars-the-last-jedi-seen-it-thread/804441.md?page=39)