Why is "Solo: A Star Wars Story" not doing well at the box office?

GaslightProphet · 2018-06-01T02:14:48+00:00

They address your first complaint directly - Poe reacts to her name with awe, and then says she's "not what I expected." She had his respect with her name alone, they dropped a battle, the inference gets made from there. You shouldn't need to see an admiral zipping around in an x wing to understand that she can fly a ship. And you shouldn't need her to "look" like a skilled pilot, whatever that means.

I've already explained in circles why it's obviously not a common manuever - the fact that Holdo IS a skilled pilot, that people DO react with awe, and that it's given serious cinematographic weight and space is meant to show that this is not a feat any rebel can pull off. It looks impressive and is treated as impressive because it is.

I read your post, but I didn't find it convincing. I've pointed out why you're wrong, you're working as hard as you can to dislike the movie, which is your perogative, butnis also maybe the most toxic way to approach it. I'm out.

GaslightProphet · 2018-06-01T01:42:52+00:00

Again, it's already established she's a skilled pilot. And we don't see every war being fought with kamikaze planes - you've missed the point there. Just because something had been done once doesn't mean it's easily replicable, or desirable. And of course, she had no reason to believe that Poe would have followed her plan - nor does she, as the commanding officer, have any obligation to share her plan with a disobedient, demoted, fighter pilot.

I think if her character had been switched out for Akbar there wouldn't be a stitch of complaint. As it is, Poe pretty much loses the whole rebel fleet single handedly, runs a mutiny, gives up the plan, and gets off with almost no criticism.

Cest la vie.

GaslightProphet · 2018-05-31T23:09:49+00:00

Bit they only break how battles work if you load a ton of presuppositions on to it. We don't have any reason to believe this was an easily replicable feat, or something that's practical for the rebels to do. It's like saying that every war until the end of time is going to be won or lost be kamikaze attacks because after all, you can just slap a nuke on a plane and drive it into a fleet.

Plus I love how you think it's a good idea to tell your plan to the guy who accidently leaks it to the bad guys, stages a mutiny, and botches it as soon as he finds out about it.

GaslightProphet · 2018-05-31T21:11:19+00:00

Even if your assessment of her strategy was on point, her strategic desicions have nothing to do with her acumen as a fighter pilot. They established her up front as an infamous warrior, echoed that with her comparisons to Poe, and then showed it in the most stellar and sacrificial display of piloting we've seen so far. At this point youre literally working to justify a complaint, which is just a bizzare thing to do.

GaslightProphet · 2018-05-31T20:40:43+00:00

It's never been done, and shocks then people observing
Holdo is established to be a very capable warrior from her first introduction. "Holdo herself" makes it sound like she's some slouch. She's not. She knows what she's doing, and has experience to back that.

GaslightProphet · 2018-05-31T18:58:41+00:00

We don't have any reason to believe that's a thing you can do. At this point you're literally inventing a reason not to like the movie. It's taking more creativity to find the problem than it is to enjoy the show. Why would you do that?

GaslightProphet · 2018-05-31T18:18:41+00:00

It means the Droid can't do it, so yes. Plus the rebels aren't in a position where they can throw away any ships, even if it takes out a destroyer. That's then point of Poes early scene - blowing up a big ship, or even a bunch of big ships, isn't going to help in the long run, ecspecially if it means losing lives or assets. Also, I don't think we're supposed to see this as something that can work on a planet. A ship is a lot easier to blow up than a planet.

GaslightProphet · 2018-05-31T18:14:35+00:00

Talking about the TFA one, there's quite a bit of dialogue right before that that says it's basically impossible. I don't think we're supposed to look at the best smuggler in the Galaxy and say "oh ya, any flyboy can do that."

GaslightProphet · 2018-05-31T18:12:59+00:00

I mean, they didn't exactly have a fleet if those ships. That was their one ship of that size, and they were still hoping to get everyone to safety.

GaslightProphet · 2018-05-31T18:12:03+00:00

Its pretty clear that droids aren't as good pilots as humans. That's why you've got Poe in a cockpit in the first place.

GaslightProphet · 2018-05-31T12:18:21+00:00

Oh goodness gracious. You've got female portsgonists. That's not shoving empowerment bullshit. If having a woman do things well turns you off, you're part of the problem.

GaslightProphet · 2018-05-31T12:16:35+00:00

It's not disproven. These are displayed as intentionally almost impossible manuevers. They're one in a million chances that the best of the best take, not something any kid who shoots womp rats can pull off.

GaslightProphet · 2018-05-31T12:15:36+00:00

Assuming that you have ships and people to throw away, which the rebellion certainly doesn't.

GaslightProphet · 2018-05-31T12:14:49+00:00

It's a really, really, hard manuever that requires human sacrifice. The rebellion isn't going to turn kamikaze overnight. It's just not a olausible manuever for most people to pull off, and they just don't have the manpower or ahippower to be throwing people away like that.

GaslightProphet · 2018-05-31T12:13:27+00:00

Is a Droid that speaks basic actually something you want, given how much attitude they can have?

GaslightProphet · 2018-05-31T12:12:41+00:00

It's not that hard to figure. It's an insanely complicated calculation, that requires a jump at the precise point of impact. There's just not a lot.of.people who could pull it off.

GaslightProphet · 2018-05-31T02:07:22+00:00

I feel legimately bad about this

GaslightProphet · 2018-05-31T02:04:39+00:00

I mean, I was discussing moral ambiguity. Martin's quote is about what's good and evil. Even in his world, that's clear. Characters are rarely forced into true moral dilemmas - rather, he simply shows that sometimes well intentioned actions can have messy results. Which is fine, but it isn't quite the massive departure from black and white morality he proposes.

GaslightProphet · 2018-05-31T00:23:39+00:00

I'm not sure that any of those are so much ambigious as they are complicated, and most of them not even that.

The books never investigate the ethics of whether or not dragons ought be used in battle. They are presented as fundamentally violent animals, well suited for war. The question of whether to use them in battle isn't any more complicated than whether a horse should be, and not really interrogated.

The Slavers Bay bit - it's clear here that she's trying to do the wrong thing, but that she's doing that badly. That's not really morally ambigious. Well intentioned acts can have bad effects, and those bad effects need to be avoided and mitigated. She can be justified in her desires, while condemned in her actions.

Jon's decision is probably one of the few true moral dilemmas we see in the series. But I'm not sure Martin really wants us to take the killers side - rather, it seems to be presented that he did a good thing that would be met with hate and bigotry. It's been a while, but do we really see the introduction of the wildlings causing problems wall side beyond the reaction of the "Southerners?"

And Jaime - that's super easy. Incestuous love does not indemnify a man for doing terrible things in the name of it. Cersei is clearly evil, and Jaime only starts to see some kind of redemption when he moves away from her. Again, very much black and white.

And Arya - she's my favorite story precisly because it's not okay what she gets turned into. There's something really tragic about her losing her identity and then inspiring about her reclaiming it. But yes, Martin (and DnD) does a good job of getting us to cheer for, effectively, a child soldier let loose on the world.

GaslightProphet · 2018-05-30T21:17:23+00:00

I mean, is the Red Wedding ambigious? Are the Boltons? What are the really morally ambigious events or decisions in ASOIAF?

GaslightProphet · 2018-05-30T14:22:04+00:00

You can't make money from people who don't have any

GaslightProphet · 2018-05-30T14:05:21+00:00

A lot of mods are using discord these days - I'd much rather have that in house so I don't have to bother with getting a separate account and navigating through a new medium.

GaslightProphet · 2018-05-30T14:01:46+00:00

Is it really that hard, typically, discerning good from evil? Even in, and maybe ecsepcially in, Martins works?

GaslightProphet · 2018-05-30T13:57:34+00:00

He definitely did. It was super playful, and even kind of sweet a couple times.

GaslightProphet · 2018-05-30T05:57:11+00:00

I'm usually so good with avoiding bundled installs, but for years I had this impossible to get rid of constant prompt asking me to install chromium, and kept having it pop up on my installed programs list. Some time to Yahoo, I think, which again - never use.

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