Xeogred wrote:What happened to the expansive scope and war? What happened to the scale of sci-fi and Star Wars here?
- This entire movie was a two hour plus awkward standstill with two ships in space and the resistance ran out of gas. The scale of this movie is minuscule compared to all the others. We got Luke in New Zealand and some casino planet from Casino Royale. This is the scope of Rian's imagination and world building.
So the remnants of the rebels flee from a planet under siege, there's a big chase in space, and some time spent on a nice looking but ultimately hostile area while the force sensitive character undergoes training on a backwater.
Did I describe 8 or 5?
What did Rey learn in Episode 8?
- Nothing from what I saw. In a day or two of ruining some alien huts, just magically beats down an old Jedi Master in a series with tons of old badass men, then force lifts boulders at the end like nothing. Luke and even Anakin's arcs were far more convincing and believable. Luke still couldn't even get his ship out of the swamp training with Yoda for weeks, then at Yoda's disapproval he leaves to confront Vader only to lose... even a hand, a physical loss. On top of seeing the burned corpses of his aunt and uncle, then Obi-wan's sacrifice. So many things to fight for. Meanwhile Rey looks a little flustered seeing a shirtless Kylo when he just killed you know who days ago in TFA right in front of her.
It's almost like Rey is on a completely different journey than Luke was on. Rey's journey is about going from nothing to something, coming into herself. She's a frighteningly powerful force user who is starting to grasp what that means and what her life path might be.
What did Finn and Rose's arc accomplish?
- Nothing. They just kept losing. If Poe was told the plan from the start they never would have had to go out and do all that. Save the animals but leave the child slaves. This takes up like half the movie. Also didn't Rey and Finn have good chemistry? But nah here's Rose jumping in the middle. I also laugh everytime Poe gets super excited to see anyone, when they barely have any on screen time together whatsoever for some real development we actually get to see... why should I care.
Poe was told the plan; he's the one who helped them execute it with some of the other rebels under the nose of the Admiral. If Poe was told how the entire thing would throw down? Then yeah, he wouldn't have bothered, but there's a long list of movie plots that would have been avoided if the characters knew what sorts of obstacles they'd encounter. The point of their arc was twofold:
1. To fail. It was tied in with Poe's arc of coming to grasp with the idea that you can't win them all, that you have to cut your losses sometimes.
2. To grow Finn's character more. At the start of TFA Finn shits himself and boogies out to save his own neck. Over the course of the movie he learns the value of friendship and gets his ass kicked trying to save Rey. But it isn't until this arc that Finn is willing to take up something bigger than himself and his own little bubble. Look at the start; he's about to desert in order to help Rey, which is consistent with TFA. It's only through the events of the movie that he goes from someone just trying to survive with his friends into a true resistance member; someone willing to lay down his life for a cause and for people he doesn't know.
Blizzard Entertainment Software Developer - All comments and views are my own and not representative of the company.
