the holdo maneuver and star wars
Saved from a discussion elsewhere, about the Holdo Maneuver (the kamikazi jump in The Last Jedi), where one person was saying that it "broke Star Wars" but couldn't explain why, and others had commented on how it didn't fit within the rules of Star Wars combat, and others had said that was nonsense, that Star Wars space comment doesn't make any sense anyway.
(My position on The Last Jedi was that while certainly flawed, it was very good. I respect it quite a lot, particularly that it both tried to do new things in the universe and dared put you in a position of surviving a Star Wars film more than enjoying it, ala Battlestar Galactica.)
Star Wars space combat makes literally no sense at all, except emotionally, where it kinda does. But that gets right to the flaw with the Holdo Maneuver in this context.
Don't get me wrong. In isolation and in its specific context, it's one of the most amazing scenes in Star Wars collectively. It's visually and cinematically just stunning. I was in awe.
But...
...compared to everything else mechanically in Star Wars space combat, it actually does make sense. And it's utterly devastating. It's about the most effective single-strike action we've seen (except the Death Star, yes). And if you automated it - and there's no clear reason why you couldn't - you wouldn't even lose the single pilot. It all becomes robots against robots.
And that has the extremely unfortunate effect of making you go, "...then why are we bothering with all this other nonsense? What's the point?" Not at that moment, because it's spectacular. But when you think about it a little later.
And by doing so, by prompting you to think all this less unreal space combat vs. the more unreal regular Star Wars space combat, it robs that regular Star Wars combat of the sense it makes emotionally, because...
"Why do we do anything else? What's the point?"
It moves that regular Star Wars space combat from heroic to wasteful and foolish. Which, I'll say freely, does echo the bombing run at the beginning of the film! And it might have been the point. But if that is your point, there's nothing new here to say "this changes the game, so all that other stuff wasn't pointlessly wasteful," and...
...that does kinda break Star Wars. Or at least that part of it. And given how much Shooty Shooty there is in Star Wars, that's kind of a lot.
And that's brave and maybe all that needs to be broken! But if you're gonna do that, you'd better have the followup that builds something new out of the wreckage.
And thanks to Abrams, they most certainly didn't. :(
Also posted to ソ-ラ-バ-ド-のおん;
comments at Dreamwidth. Please comment there.
(My position on The Last Jedi was that while certainly flawed, it was very good. I respect it quite a lot, particularly that it both tried to do new things in the universe and dared put you in a position of surviving a Star Wars film more than enjoying it, ala Battlestar Galactica.)
Star Wars space combat makes literally no sense at all, except emotionally, where it kinda does. But that gets right to the flaw with the Holdo Maneuver in this context.
Don't get me wrong. In isolation and in its specific context, it's one of the most amazing scenes in Star Wars collectively. It's visually and cinematically just stunning. I was in awe.
But...
...compared to everything else mechanically in Star Wars space combat, it actually does make sense. And it's utterly devastating. It's about the most effective single-strike action we've seen (except the Death Star, yes). And if you automated it - and there's no clear reason why you couldn't - you wouldn't even lose the single pilot. It all becomes robots against robots.
And that has the extremely unfortunate effect of making you go, "...then why are we bothering with all this other nonsense? What's the point?" Not at that moment, because it's spectacular. But when you think about it a little later.
And by doing so, by prompting you to think all this less unreal space combat vs. the more unreal regular Star Wars space combat, it robs that regular Star Wars combat of the sense it makes emotionally, because...
"Why do we do anything else? What's the point?"
It moves that regular Star Wars space combat from heroic to wasteful and foolish. Which, I'll say freely, does echo the bombing run at the beginning of the film! And it might have been the point. But if that is your point, there's nothing new here to say "this changes the game, so all that other stuff wasn't pointlessly wasteful," and...
...that does kinda break Star Wars. Or at least that part of it. And given how much Shooty Shooty there is in Star Wars, that's kind of a lot.
And that's brave and maybe all that needs to be broken! But if you're gonna do that, you'd better have the followup that builds something new out of the wreckage.
And thanks to Abrams, they most certainly didn't. :(
Also posted to ソ-ラ-バ-ド-のおん;
comments at Dreamwidth. Please comment there.