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Millennials Strike Back: An Esoteric Reading of the Last Jedi

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Re: Millennials Strike Back: An Esoteric Reading of the Last Jedi

#42
I do agree with the author that there's a lot of generational shift in the deeper tangles of meaning buried in the new Star Wars movies. I disagree with some of his interpretations, however. Here's my view:

https://florin.myip.org/blog/edit-blog-entry-divisive-drama-...

TLDR: The story is basically re-told for the current young generation. There's less "magic", there's more "realism" (mind the quotes). Old mythologies are ignored. There are vast, sweeping cultural shifts such as the rise of feminism. And, yes, there's this youthful drive to declare that the past is dead, long live the future.

Re: Millennials Strike Back: An Esoteric Reading of the Last Jedi

#43
What makes it effective satire is it takes legitimate interpretations "The good guys in this story tend to shoot themselves in the feet and normal people get killed in the process," and stretches it to ridiculousness to highlight that point, like "Luke hallucinates Yoda's approval."

Re: Millennials Strike Back: An Esoteric Reading of the Last Jedi

#44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can see it now. Two hours of Luke, Leia and Han just hanging out talking about how awesome things are without the empire, maybe make fun of C3PO a bit have a few drinks then just cruise around checking out how chill all the planets are now.

I'm sure they could still manage to get into some side adventures.

Don't misunderstand. That would be a way better movie than the last two even without side adventures. They're two of the very few movies in my life I've fallen asleep in the middle of. I don't do that often.

Re: Millennials Strike Back: An Esoteric Reading of the Last Jedi

#45
post #41

My biggest problem with the movie was using the hyperdrive as a weapon. Why couldn't that have been used on the first, second or third deathstar?

I had a hypothesis: the damage done by a ship in hyperdrive doesn't scale linearly with mass. Anything under a given threshhold is basically a mosquito bite, and large capital ships such as the one used in The Last Jedi are too expensive and valuable to be used in such ways.

Re: Millennials Strike Back: An Esoteric Reading of the Last Jedi

#46
post #41

My biggest problem with the movie was using the hyperdrive as a weapon. Why couldn't that have been used on the first, second or third deathstar?

I had a hypothesis: the damage done by a ship in hyperdrive doesn't scale linearly with mass. Anything under a given threshhold is basically a mosquito bite, and large capital ships such as the one used in The Last Jedi are too expensive and valuable to be used in such ways.

Counterpoint: Why not slap some hyperdrives on an asteroid? Or otherwise accelerate a lot of (cheap and already widely available) mass.

Regardless, I really enjoyed this scene because it falls well within the jurisdiction of the Rule of Cool (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/RuleOfCool)

Re: Millennials Strike Back: An Esoteric Reading of the Last Jedi

#47
post #41

My biggest problem with the movie was using the hyperdrive as a weapon. Why couldn't that have been used on the first, second or third deathstar?

I had a hypothesis: the damage done by a ship in hyperdrive doesn't scale linearly with mass. Anything under a given threshhold is basically a mosquito bite, and large capital ships such as the one used in The Last Jedi are too expensive and valuable to be used in such ways.

[deleted]

Re: Millennials Strike Back: An Esoteric Reading of the Last Jedi

#48
Seems like something that should be in r/theempiredidnothingwrong.

I went into this movie full on ignoring the metaphorical connections to the real world and let it exist in my mind as just an entertaining movie and story and to my surprise, it blew me away (although obviously far from perfect).

Its interesting to see people pick this movie apart, as if the originals had perfect acting, no flaws, and were the epitome of originality (were you expecting your life to change after watching this?)

Personally, I think Luke's change in demeanor was perfect, which not so ironically, he is pretty far from. Luke is human, which he conveys very well and is probably what upsets people the most because he doesn't reach this state of perfection upon which he has mastered the force, his feelings (he's not Leonard Nimoy), and has total control of self (again, not a Leonard Nimoy).

Could it be possibly that people are still holding onto the idea fed to those of us born in the 80's and onward that every one of us is "special", that our dreams will come true if we just believe in ourselves and never give up? These may be the people that do not care for the more realistic approach to Luke Skywalker, as opposed to the "one who will bring balance to the force."

Re: Millennials Strike Back: An Esoteric Reading of the Last Jedi

#49
post #41

My biggest problem with the movie was using the hyperdrive as a weapon. Why couldn't that have been used on the first, second or third deathstar?

I'll steal a comment from elsewhere [1] that gives a perfectly reasonable justification for this.

> A few hypothetical reasons why light speed attacks are not common despite being so effective:

> - A capital ship's particle shields can usually tank smaller objects, like fighters, traveling at relativistic speeds. Only very large objects can attain enough kinetic energy to punch through the shields. However...

> - ...the size and complexity of the engines required to accelerate an object to light speed increase geometrically with mass. Outfitting a dense asteroid with a hyperdrive system would make for a hideously expensive one-shot missile; it's almost always more practical to invest your year's worth of Mon Cala's GDP in a ship, which has broader sustained applications.

> - The calculations for hyperspace jumps to or from gravity wells are incredibly fraught. Because of latency issues and certain limitations of droid cognition, an extremely skilled pilot must be physically onboard to perform the jump; no one wants to waste a pilot like that on a suicide run unless there's no other option.

> - Even a skilled pilot is going to find targeting an individual ship very difficult because extreme velocity and distances turns small errors into big misses. The timing is also crucial; in the Star Wars universe, ships enter a hyperspatial dimension shortly after hitting light speed. If Holdo had accelerated too quickly, she would have passed "through" the Supremacy without hitting it; too slowly, and she wouldn't have accumulated enough energy to overwhelm its shields.

> Holdo only succeeded because a bunch of factors aligned: she was a good pilot, her target was very close and very wide, she had no nearby allies in the blast radius, she and her ship were expendable, and the math broke her way.

[1]: https://fanfare.metafilter.com/10441/Star-Wars-The-Last-Jedi...

Re: Millennials Strike Back: An Esoteric Reading of the Last Jedi

#50
post #13

Disney didn't pay a few billion for the Star Wars property to just end the war. The resistance/rebels will be fighting forever.

Nobody is going to buy tickets to "Star Peace".

I would pay to see a movie during the peaceful years of the Jedi showing the struggles of a child being taken into the Jedi order trained up through to Jedi Knight. Emotional trauma of losing family, the rigorous training, confusing philosophy classes about magic, tension of building the first lightsaber that could explode in their face, first mission under a master as a padawan, and so on.

There are stories to tell that don't involve how Anakin screwed over the galaxy for multiple generations.

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