I was very young when I first saw the trailer for Star Wars, with the TIE fighters attacking the Falcon. It’s fair to say I was hooked. Obviously the appeal to a 4-5 year old is a different than I have for some of the later films but I still connect with that early joy and I often rate a film by how much of an urge I have to jump off a sofa and re-enact some part of the story. But re-watching The Last Jedi it occurred to me that over the years there have been some irritating niggles that I hope future film makers can take note of.
- Stormtroopers can’t hit a barn door. There are plenty of times we see or hear about how precise and well trained the Stormtroopers are. But when it comes to shooting our heroes they can’t hit the side of barn door. Yes I know that’s true of lots of these shows; cowboys, A-Team, James Bond, etc. etc but it still annoys me
- R2D2 Rocket ship. You can’t assign great features or attributes to a character in the story timeline only for them not to exist later on. Dumb, stupid, dumb
- Slick CGI overly perfect ships. I suspect this will be an on-going theme, just like (2) you need to at least have a nod towards the timeline. Okay, so I can just about believe that in a time of peace the vehicles might all be in pristine condition but it just doesn’t work
- Abide by the story don’t spoil the mystery. Midi-Chlorians. No. You create a mystical aspect, leave it alone. We don’t need every last thing explained, allow us something to think about. Thankfully the recent set of films have conveniently ignored that tripe
- Vehicles with a purpose. This is a minor issue to me but a bit like (1) it just annoys me, always has. AT-ATs. What is the point of them? You’ve got vehicles that are happy in space but apparently it’s ‘too cold’ to defy gravity on Hoth? Riiiggghhht. Anyway, they are fun so I let this one go 😊
- Bombing run against the dreadnought. In space…bombs fall under gravity. Okay. I can just about swallow this for the drama, but only just
- Is it bird? It is a plane? No, it’s super Leia. See (4). Dreadful bit of The Last Jedi, awful, ruins it for me. Utter nonsense that serves no purpose to the narrative apart from saying, “Yes, I don’t care about the story universe. I’m gonna bust some holes”. Yeah, well done. Oh I forgot to ask how she gets back through the sealed door with a gaping hole into space. Yes, better not to ask. Just erase that whole section from memory
- The slow car chase in space – more story nonsense. Why wouldn’t the Imperial, sorry First Order, fleet just jump and surround them. Silly, but okay, drama – I get it
- The hard-disk library in Rogue One – where technology and story line clash. Okay, again for the drama, but come on, this was supposed to be a more adult film. It’s equivalent to all these rubbish shows were people just view contacts on a closed phone or desktop without ever needing a password. Yes it’s not real, but my suspension of disbelief can only be stretched so far
- Han & Chewie meet. Now, we know Chewie is strong, at least we hear a lot about. But the human body (I’m assuming Corellian equals Human) is pretty fragile. They’d be a puddle of skin and bones after that scene
- Flying reflexes. I love the speeder bikes on Endor. Dodging asteroids in Solo was fun but come on. You can just about forgive this in the context of mystical Jedi types, but those reflexes are ridiculous
- Hyper space jump attack. Oh dear, if this works then it would be a constant tactic (a problem that BSG also suffers from). Nope, no, nope, nah.
- Alliance ship-by-letter. Ok we get X-Wing, it makes sense. But then it all goes wrong. What is happening in the ship-building yards? Shall we build a new fighter based on a need? Nah, that’s too complicated, lets just just with a letter from an alphabet we don’t even use and create ships that loosely share the same shape as a letter. A, B, U, V, X, Y. Yes, that’s plausible 😉
There, that’s got that off my chest. By all means suspend my disbelief but keep the level consistent. Oh and if someone does a directors cut of The Last Jedi where Leia gets injured in the attack rather than coming from Krypton then please let me know.
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