Yeah, but what Luke didn't do is fuck things up for other people. Luke sacrificed his hand, but he still won. He gained the knowledge that Darth Vader was his father, and that on some level Vader wanted to ally with Luke against the Emperor, which ultimately led to his victory. Luke may not have done the smart thing, but he still did the right thing. Remember that another message of the original trilogy is that ultimately, Yoda was fucking wrong about a ton of shit. Such as 'your father can't be redeemed, you gots to kill him'. Good call there, midget.
Roughly half the point of the movie is "your heroes are flawed and sometimes make mistakes and fuck things up." That's just as true for the old heroes as it is for the new ones. If Poe and Finn hadn't fucked something up in this movie you'd probably be accusing the writers of shitting on the old heroes to make the new ones look better. I like this approach and I think it works much better, although Finn's particular screwup didn't have to take as much time as it did.
That comparision is not even remotely valid. The old heroes didn't make unforced errors, nor did they get a nontrivial chunk of the Rebel fleet blown up in the process.
If your name is not Charles Xavier then you can't read my mind, and you shouldn't pretend that you can. And you can't insulate the movie from real criticisms by making up an alternate timeline full of criticisms about a movie that was never actually made.
I'd be more receptive of it if they had done pretty much anything to redeem themselves.
I feel that they did, so that's neither here nor there.
Same difference. Also, Tarkin mentions something to the effect that hyperdrives are all WMDs in the right circumstances, so that's been a feature of the Expanded Universe for a while. Presumably there are other features such as cost or size or whatever that make it unfeasible in most situations. Like I said, it doesn't matter either way because it's a fucking awesome sequence and nobody is going to rain on that parade if I have anything to say about it.
In order:
As far as they knew it was their only chance and the logical thing to do. And it did almost work. So you may fault the movie for that if at all, but not really the character.
I will say this though. You earlier complained that the movie explored the concept that the Jedi the OT gloryfied had flaws/that their legend might not have been entirely deserved. But then you go on to post an entire paragraph about how Yoda and Ben gave bad advice/foolish orders.
So you're saying that my judgement is less reliable because I am demonstrably capable of acknowledging the flaws even in something I greatly like? That makes absolutely no sense. If I can point out where even the characters I like were mistaken, then clearly I am being more objective than average.
First you complain that the Jedi where not held up to be the shiny beacons of perfection they were supposed to be, then you post an entire paragraph about how Kenoby and Yoda were giving "legitimately stupid" orders. What is it? Is Luke right to doubt that the Jedi were as perfect as the legend makes them out to be or not?
People change as they grow older. Resolve weakens, ideals may waver.
I share some of the problems about the republic. I would have prefered it if the first order had grown slower, and the resistance had fought them on a more even footing for longer (would have made their eventual defeat sting all the more), and I seriously want to know where the first order is getting their funding.
No, I didn't. I complained that Luke Skywalker became something completely opposite from what he was, something hideously out of character, for no apparent reason other than 'It was in the script'. That's not demanding perfection, that's only demanding basic sanity.
Its 'neither of the above'. I don't need to think the Jedi were perfect in order to think that TLJ was a lousy movie. You're trying to win the argument by pretending that there's only a choice between the two extremes when the actual truth is somewhere more towards the middle. Its called the fallacy of the false dichotomy, and its not gonna work.
And Captain America can become a Nazi... oh wait, we thought that was horseshit too.
I literally quoted you saying that you didn't like how the movie made the jedi out to be ineffectual. Also, Luke used the dark side in anger and hate in his final battle against Vader. Rewatching that it looked to me that if he hadn't snapped out of it after seeing how Vader had a robotic arm just like him he would have murdered the shit out of him. That shows that even the rightous Luke Skywalker can have a moment of weakness. But ok fine, if you think they shouldn't have had luke waver in his convictions that is your right. As you said, you don't have to like the movie.
Yes, and? If you think 'ineffectual' means the same thing as 'not totally perfect' then you don't know the meaning of the word. Plus, even at his most mistaken still Yoda gets a lasting achievement that isn't taken away later; he successfully trains Luke to use the Force, and its that training that helps Luke pull out the win. Yoda can at least say that while he wasn't perfect, he wasn't nothing.
Luke's motivation in going ripshit on Vader was 'I won't let him hurt my sister!' Luke's motivation in about to shiv Kylo was 'If somebody might be going to the Dark Side, then they gots to die!'
*looks up*
I will give this a partial agreement. One of the things that doesn't make sense to me, as a reader who used to be a big follower of Legends canon, is where exactly did the First Order get all their resources from? It made perfect sense for the Empire to be able to build a Death Star or two because they ruled most of the galaxy and could plunder it for resources with impunity, but the First Order reads more like a tiny terrorist group which is just making their big debut on the galactic stage and yet they have a bigger and better Death Star somehow? And their military is so much bigger than the New Republic's that they can conquer most of the galaxy during TLJ, which is, like, a month at most after TFA? What?
Lacking for more information about the new lore, I would suspect that the New Republic disbanded the military once the Empire ceased to be percieved as a threat. The Grand Army of the Republic only ever existed because Palps needed it to make his empire, so I could see people like Leia and Mon Mothma being eager to get rid of it as soon as they didn't need it anymore. That would explain why the Resistance seems to be the only military force the Republic has, they were apparently created specifically to oppose the First Order. And the Order seems to have gotten their resources by starting in the Imperial Remnant and then expanding backwards into the Unknown Regions, where their supply lines can't be easily tracked.
Honestly does not make much sense to keep the peace if there are no forces that would stop possible pirates, slave traders and the like.
My understanding was that that was up to planetary militias and other local forces. Cor-Sec being a good example, for instance.
Yes, because that's a great way to keep a republic together, encourage isolationism by having next to no benefits for actually being a member of it.
