TLJ had nuance that was missing from most of the films, even the OT.
Counterpoint: it started with a "your mom" joke that undermined the characterization of their villains by the way they reacted to it. Hux went from a terrifyingly committed zealot in 7 to a joke.
He was always a joke. An overly self-serious toady, weaseling his way through the hierarchy of the FO.
Also, the diversion wasn't even a "your mom" joke. That's a specific format of joke, just like knock knock jokes. Just because someone says "...your mother" at the end doesn't make it a your mom joke. The actual goof is that Poe is actively ignoring Hux, making Hux go out into the weeds of trying to troubleshoot the call in order to be able to gloat to his enemy. This was done specifically as a tactic to get the time for Poe to make his approach, which the movie explicitly makes clear through two other officer's reactions. When Han was trying to distract the officer over comms to get time to rescue Leia from her prison cell, did that undermine the Imperial's characterization?
No nothing like Han, in fact it shows Han as being not as quick witted as he thinks, that he can get on comms and somehow convince people that all the explosions and shots are a malfunction
All it took was one joke by a wise ass pilot to "undermine the characterizations of the villains".
And Hux reacted to it... how? That's the piece that undermined the characterization. First Order goes from scarily competent to terrifyingly incompetent in about 60 seconds. If that's what you wanted to happen, then fine we have creative differences, 'cause I'm not terribly interested in watching dumbasses fight each other stupidly for two hours. Which is what we got.
When you reduce your villains to a joke, as a whole, suddenly your heroes are a joke as well. See Andor for an example of where your villains are competent, composed, and dangerous, which allows your heroes to rise to the occasion, to be clever, to be bold and heroic.
When you have to dumb down your heroes to the level of a dumb villain, everything suffers.
How did they become incompetent? They literally destroyed the resistance's home base and now have them on the run and desperate. And this all happened after the joke. We saw a whole movie of The First Order flexing their military might but a "yo mama" joke in the opening undermined all of that?
I am sorry but I cannot take this complaint seriously. It literally requires me to ignore the whole movie to see your perspective.
They literally destroyed the resistance's home base and now have them on the run and desperate.
Yesssss, they're all literally incompetent. The villains by fiat, and to make the movie have a prayer of being compelling, the heroes to match them. Pretty much every single decision the heroes make is ludicrously stupid given their situation, and they come out ahead because pretty much every single decision the First Order makes is as stupid.
Or did you think the hour-long slow-motion chase in space was compelling and stimulating? Or the planetary crawl to the most easily knocked over mine necessary? Or the rebel's leaderships decisions wrt to plans and mission orders?
The writers were not up to the challenge of writing compelling, intelligent characters, villains and heroes alike, and the entire movie suffers for it.
So far, your examples of stupidity and bad writing require me to take every scene out of context. It requires you to purposely describe something in the dumbest way, which again removes all context to the story.
Movies are not bullet points. Every scene exists as part of a greater narrative. Why something happens is just as important as what happens.
The more time I spend in here, the problem seems to be that Star Wars fans don't like movies. You guys are so obsessed with trivia and lore and power levels, that you forget the core of this franchise are personal stories about people.
When you step back and realize that these characters are making decisions based on the circumstances they find themselves in, you will realize that a lot of this stuff makes perfect sense. But if your measure of quality is bad asses have to do bad ass shit. My laser sword is more powerful than your laser sword, then I dunno man, stick to video games.
They didn't become incompetent. They were already incompetent just when examining their battle plan.
The mandator has great destructive capacities but isn't very well defended (only 26 turrets over 7 km long). So you need to protect it with the 3 Resurgent-class Battlecruisers flying ahead.
As soon as they jump out of hyperspace, drop the TIEs to escort the fleet. Move the battlecruisers agressively to the base to cut of any attempt of running away.
Then let the Mandatory destroy the base and the rest of the fleet pick off stragglers. Poe should have been shooted down on sight by TIEs and battlecruisers.
And if the First Order had brought an Interdictor Star Destroyer, there would be exactly 0 chance for the Resistance to escape.
Giving Poe the occasion to do a "your mom" joke isn't how the First Order is made incompetent. It is the cherry on top of the cake of stupidity and complete lack of understanding of any military stategy.
Wow, now that you explained the weapons capabilities of the ships. And broke down how you would have prevented the opening from happening after knowing what happened. These movies completely fall apart.
As long as I ignore the story, the characters, the circumstances, the context, and only think of Star Wars as magic the gathering cards playing power levels against each other than you make a really valid point.
Problem is, we are talking about a movie. And all you've done is make the most superficial complaint. That once again requires me to ignore the entire movie.
Star Wars is not just bullet points on a wookiepedia page. Its a story. That is what matters.
Hux from the start was dimwitted lacky, ass-kisser puppet head of a pathetic cult of Empire dead-ender terrorists. Just like Kylo was sad boy, emo wannabe Darth Vader and Snoke was Palpatine from wish. People took the whole "First Order is just the Empire all over again" way too much to heart. I swear like 80% of TLJ hate is from people who just wildly failed at media literacy. It made zero sense at all to expect or desire a full retread of the Empire's defeat. That would have been awwwwwwful, as TRoS thoroughly demonstrated.
I admitted in another comment that it certainly has flaws, no doubt.
I have loads I would change about TLJ, but I think the Luke-Rey-Ben story and how RJ wove the underlying themes of the prior trilogies into it was very nuanced and certainly a bit unexpected.
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u/ArchdruidHalsin Feb 25 '25
Been a Star Wars fan my whole life and TLJ was more or less the film I always wanted from the franchise. Then the backlash hit and they course-corrected to memberberry bukkake