The Last Jedi - spoileriffic thread

[Graham Kennedy]

Is light speed ship ramming now the ultimate power in the universe?

So if you took the Falcon and stripped off everything except the power plant, some fuel, and the hyperdrive, and then rearranged it all so that it was in a vaguely missile-shaped package... that would be a pretty small object, right?

I mean, even a Star Destroyer could carry lots of those... right?

[Monroe]

Yeah, opening up the universe to mass drivers is a terrible idea.

[Nutso]

Is light speed ship ramming now the ultimate power in the universe?

So if you took the Falcon and stripped off everything except the power plant, some fuel, and the hyperdrive, and then rearranged it all so that it was in a vaguely missile-shaped package... that would be a pretty small object, right?

I mean, even a Star Destroyer could carry lots of those... right?

I was thinking of attaching a light speed drive to an asteroid but, your idea is much simpler and uses less resources.

[Nutso]

Yeah, opening up the universe to mass drivers is a terrible idea.

Like when ST:Into Darkness cured death with Khan-blood.

[Captain Picard's Hair]

Saw it twice (the second time with my parents, who hadn't seen it). Most importantly, it was quite entertaining, with no holes or bugs serious enough to impede the joy of watching it.

On the geeky nit picking:

Leia's force trick was rather incredulous. I'd assumed it was an instinctive response of sorts since she looked to be unconscious. This was as close as the movie came to a show-stopping bug though it's saved from total craziness by the relatively brief exposure and the fact she almost died anyway.

The casino planet / code breaker subplot in reflection adds a fair bit of time to a long movie for something honestly unnecessary. It might have accentuated the bit of a growth arc Poe's character displayed but that could have been done without the added bulk.

Ramming something at light speed to the effect of immense distruction is actually a bit that makes a lot of sense to real-world physics; with the movie straining credibility mainly through the stated fact the resistance cruiser was running on fumes. Lots of sci fi kind of poo-poohs the ungodly power requirements of FTL, of course. It was a fantastic effect though, with the silence and eventual BOOM used to great effect.

Generally though, the silly moments were well within the plot (there was a fair bit of audible laughter in the audience particularly for Poe's toying with Gen. Hux -however that's spelled - in the opening scene). The movie executed a fair number of major twists quite well in my opinion.

[Captain Picard's Hair]

Ramming something at light speed to the effect of immense distruction is actually a bit that makes a lot of sense to real-world physics

* or relativistic speeds at least, with respect to my good old uncle Albert.

[Graham Kennedy]

Ramming something at light speed to the effect of immense distruction is actually a bit that makes a lot of sense to real-world physics;

That really depends on how your drive works.

Most super advanced drives depend on some kind of shortcut around relativity, since relativity says you have to have infinite energy to reach the speed of light. This is obviously impossible even in a sci fi universe. So Trek warp drive "jumps" the lightspeed barrier so fast that the universe doesn't notice so that it's never actually AT lightspeed, and then does some space warping thing to travel at FTL without requiring some absurd amount of energy.

Most drives do something along those lines because the alternative is to say that your warp/hyper/whatever drive really does require colossal amounts of energy - like, rivalling the sun. Which is a problem if your universe is one in which buying an FTL spaceship is akin to buying like a yacht or private jet today, or even a truck or car.

Because how do you police a universe in which one can stoll down to the local dealership and buy an item that can blow up a very large chunk of a planet if misused? All those swarms of traffic we see near advanced planets... does nobody ever just decide to ram their ship into the planet for fun? Nobody, ever, not once? If one in a thousand people in the world today had a personal nuke, nukes would be going off daily!

Generally though, the silly moments were well within the plot (there was a fair bit of audible laughter in the audience particularly for Poe's toying with Gen. Hux -however that's spelled - in the opening scene). The movie executed a fair number of major twists quite well in my opinion.

I thought the humour worked very well for the most part, and the action was a bit silly if you think about it, but it looked cool and felt energetic and entertaining. The ramming was indeed a very cool scene. I don't feel a burning desire to go back to the cinema to see it again, but all in all it was well worth a watch.

[Captain Picard's Hair]

Sure. It's not really stated in anything canon how the SW version of FTL is meant to work, though it is indeed quite common it seems. Any real world theoretical model requires stupendous amounts of power to bend space in such a way (though that's still a lot less than infinite!). Pretty much all SF FTL drives face this problem and the stories tend to gloss over it to a greater or lesser extent (fairly enough since it's literature as opposed to a theoretical physics paper). It could just be stipulated that the universe in question has different physics which pose a much smaller barrier to bending spacetime than the real one (Trek's physics are certainly rather weird) as I think you were saying in different words. Then the physics can be whatever the writer wants them to be, which isn't far from "anything goes" in the hands of a poorly disciplined author. Of course the issue of some series habit of tweaking the physics of the day to whatever the plot needs is another issue.

Whatever the fictional science of the details of how it works, that ramming sequence seemed to give all the potential the cruiser had left in one shot (100% efficiency in other words). Besides the fact it would be the last thing the cruiser would ever do regardless of how efficiently it was annihilated that is. Also it's just as clearly a suicide mission for whatever crew was left (in this case, just one). Besides the fact it's not unduly hard to wrangle up a suicide bomber in real life, there appears to be no reason these ships couldn't be automated such that the number of crew sent on a suicide mission is zero.

That is a tough issue to get around indeed.

[Graham Kennedy]

[Varthikes]

Also it's just as clearly a suicide mission for whatever crew was left (in this case, just one). Besides the fact it's not unduly hard to wrangle up a suicide bomber in real life, there appears to be no reason these ships couldn't be automated such that the number of crew sent on a suicide mission is zero.

It would be a waste of a perfectly good starship, unless the ship is due to be decommissioned anyway.

[Captain Picard's Hair]

Also it's just as clearly a suicide mission for whatever crew was left (in this case, just one). Besides the fact it's not unduly hard to wrangle up a suicide bomber in real life, there appears to be no reason these ships couldn't be automated such that the number of crew sent on a suicide mission is zero.

It would be a waste of a perfectly good starship, unless the ship is due to be decommissioned anyway.

It's not specified it has to be a big ship as in the resistance cruiser used in the film. We're speculating that any hyperspace capable vessel could do such a thing (perhaps not with as much destructive potential as a larger ship but who knows since it's fictional physics) - and the SW universe is awash with mid-range and small vessels.

[Graham Kennedy]

Also it's just as clearly a suicide mission for whatever crew was left (in this case, just one). Besides the fact it's not unduly hard to wrangle up a suicide bomber in real life, there appears to be no reason these ships couldn't be automated such that the number of crew sent on a suicide mission is zero.

It would be a waste of a perfectly good starship, unless the ship is due to be decommissioned anyway.

Maybe not such a waste, given the massively disproportionate amount of damage the move can apparently inflict.

[Mikey]

In general - not germane specifically to the use of "divine wind" hyperspace tactics, but definitely so to the seemingly overly large amount of vitriol directed at the film - I firmly believe that many people are forgetting the cornerstone of the series, a cornerstone that TLJ seems to successfully embody more than any non-Lucas film; i.e., these movies aren't SF dramas so much as melodramas. Melodramas in the best Hellenic tradition. Yes, shit is over the top in these movies; yes Rian Johnson actually took flak for the use of science-accurate ambient silence during Laura Dern's sacrifice scene*; yes, some stuff doesn't add up for the sake of sacrificing logic to romanticism. But that's the tradition set from the very first with ANH. I may very well be an old fool from the old school, but I loved this film, flaws and all, because it reminded me more than any other non-OT film of the swashbuckling, hero-worshipping, question-inducing, interpersonal rather than interstellar cinematic entertainment that was the goal since the beginning.

* In fact, a number of theaters had to post signage to the effect that there was nothing wrong with the audio during that scene, and the silence was very much artistically intended.

[Bryan Moore]

Is light speed ship ramming now the ultimate power in the universe?

And if so, why the hell did they not do something like this do the Death Star? Interdictor capability perhaps, with artificial gravity wells? Also, why didn't Laura Dern and the crew not do this way earlier in the film? Or why not set a few droids up to do this for them? This was a huge flaw for me.

[Graham Kennedy]

Is light speed ship ramming now the ultimate power in the universe?

And if so, why the hell did they not do something like this do the Death Star? Interdictor capability perhaps, with artificial gravity wells? Also, why didn't Laura Dern and the crew not do this way earlier in the film? Or why not set a few droids up to do this for them? This was a huge flaw for me.

It was a very cool moment in the movie, though!