Han brags about outrunning Imperial Starships. That would imply they are fairly fast. The Tantive IV also cannot speed away from Vader's Destroyer despite it's speed. I'm not a SW tech expert, but I have also clung to the idea that capital ships are faster in a straight line direction, just not as maneuverable... in the same way that a battleship could overtake a fishing boat if they're on the same path as they are here. If that's not the case, why wouldn't Han just fly away from the Empire when fleeing Hoth?
On the Hoth part, Han's outrunning the Imperial fighters, he's doing a lot of things (including finishing up his repairs), and essentially he does outrun the destroyers who are trying to pinch off between three, and they appear to be moving straight but incredibly slower compared to the Falcon, like not even close... So I've always just assumed Han's just trying to by time, get his coordinates and repairs in place, and "go". The destroyer's in those scenes, you can at least tell they're incredibly slow compared to Han and the Falcon.
On the "outrunning" line from ANH, he says he's outrun a very generic "Imperial Starships", not destroyers, and he cites bulk cruisers and things then... There are a lot of different classifications of capital ships though it seems, and that's not to different again from "real world" stuff... Both from the old EU, new canon, and everything in between, there are tons of capital ships of various designs and speeds... There have been some smaller, more "Falcon-ish" type Imperial ships introduced of late that give the Empire something sizable but speedy too, so maybe he's talking about fast, but larger craft we don't see? I never really took Han's lines to imply he was gloating about outrunning destroyers (or other very large ships) which, to me, always seemed tremendously slow on screen.
The Corvette not outrunning the Destroyer in ANH always could have some easy explanations too, especially if it's somehow tracked through hyperspace and they're surprised over Tatooine. Maybe the shots it took make its ability to outrun the Avenger impossible even? Or maybe a Destroyer and a Corvette aren't that terribly off in speed? I dunno. I just never saw anything on-screen to imply to me any of the larger ships were comparable in any way at all to the Falcon, and the "slow chase" of TLJ looked about right to me, if not (at all) exciting or interesting.
In prior films, I don't think they've tracked ships through hyperspace. They've analyzed the direction the departing ships have taken, then with some time and calculations determined likely destinations based on possible hyperspace routes. That's more logical to me anyway, and I would guess given the rebels surprise in this movie that it's new tech.
Leia says they're tracking the Falcon in ANH, and then Tarkin/Vader's subsequent discussion... It seems at least possible to be done if you place something on board a ship, but yeah I do tend to lean towards the tracking in TLJ being "new tech" to some degree. Then again cloaking was impossible supposedly in ANH, but in The Clone Wars it's possible and so there's precedent for what perceived tech is to be wrong. I can't say I'm a fan of Hyperspace being offed as an escape narrative though, and that's something I didn't care for in TLJ.
Leia having force abilities that strong when she displays virtually no abilities prior is what I have an issue with. When something is radically different than history has shown its a continuity bump, which is why I provided it as an example.
There's been virtually no history shown, of Leia, till this point... There's the 30 years or whatever from ROTJ to now that she could've filled her time learning something. Luke said in time she would, and she was old at this point so I assume she learned something... But I really felt like she was pulling herself to the ship, rather than "lifting" stuff or whatever. I don't look at it as quite as radical as everyone is making it out to be. I don't view her as "flying" or having some super power we've never seen, so much as she's just pulling herself towards the hull breach and back inside the ship to save her own life. Just how I viewed it though that maybe made it less fanciful to myself? But I mean, it's The Force so who knows what the hell she can or can't do, and it's been a long time she could've learned a lot.
Yoda and the lightning on the tree is a massive change in continuity. Have we seen a force ghost impact the real world beyond their voice, ever? Heck, I haven't see a live Jedi create a lightning streak, let alone dead a dead one. Even the Sith have to shoot lightning from their hands. If Yoda can impact the real world in that way, he could strike down Snoke on his own.
I see others have essentially answered this with what I would've... Ben's "I'll become more powerful than you can possibly imagine", and so on and so forth... The ghosts on Dagobah interacted physically with their surrounding (Ben moving stuff aside as he walked into view in ROTJ)... Is it powerful? Absolutely, but we really never see Yoda as a force ghost but a brief glimpse at the end of ROTJ. Likewise it seems like force ghosts can learn stuff, ala QGJ simply learning how to communicate. I mean, it just doesn't seem like a big issue that Yoda can do something to burn that tree down. Would it be more interesting if he used matches nearby? I guess I just didn't care about this much, and it was more about the point he's making to Luke in their exchange and stuff.
Maybe I didn't explain my issue with Luke's death very well. I think it's absolutely okay that he dies from the strain of his force projection. I would have been fine if the camera rolled back to him as he returned to his body and the cloak vanished. But as I recall, he looks worn out, then recomposes himself and sits on the rock watching the twin suns, very much looking better than he did initially. Then he vapes. That's just poor execution.
I liked it I guess and just saw it as the opposite. Maybe that he was making the conscious choice that he knew would kill him but would restore hope to the Resistance by giving them a chance to escape, and he accomplished that, and was dying, and poof. I mean, Luke getting back to Yoda just in time for him to die is probably equally poor execution for Yoda's end then too when you think about it. Is he able to hold on just till he sees Luke, then go to sleep forever? I thought Luke's was kind of nice really, like Yoda's in a way, that he knew his time was up and he watched the suns set as he faded away.
Cross off the ship where an investor has money in both rebel and imperial tech. It's not that big of an issue for me - just another example of changing what we had previously known. There are back stories on the designers for these ships and where they come from, but I forgot that's all Legends material now that Disney took over.
Actually I think it's back in canon after Rebels, but I already had my opinion on that with the manufacturers or whatever... I didn't read a ton into it ruining established EU stuff I guess, and the Incom/Sienar background has always been something I enjoyed too, for what it was.
The point with BB8 was that it was just over the top. If droids are so good at piloting ships, then why not man the rebel bombers with droids or have a fleet of droid-flown X-wings? They were supposedly not on par with human skills or improvisation, which was a major plot point of an earlier movie. Making this droid so much more adept than a platoon of armed, trained troopers just flies in the face of that.
Can't really disagree with this opinion. I just looked at it as a hero droid doing hero droid things. Like R2 does heroic things... But it was kind of crazy. It wasn't crazy enough for me to care I guess maybe. I don't think AT-ST's are absurdly complex things really but at the same time, can BB8 just hop in one and drive it? He can precision open up a billion little hands to plug bad resistors, so I don't know if driving an AT-ST is beyond him, but maybe it should be. I was more meh that 3PO and R2-D2 do nothing and I can't see Star Wars rolling on with just shelving these two characters completely. That just bugs me more maybe.
I can totally see the sum of all these things, if they annoy you, influencing opinion on the overall film... I never really thought about any of these things as bad, myself, obviously.
My gripes, and I found them minor...
-The humor... While I appreciate DIsney trying to bring humor to a more modern age and audience in Star Wars, I found some of it a little too much.
-Canto Bight... Again, this was a long film (152 minutes I think?) and CB was such BS for the most part. It was reinforcing a broader point and all that, and unless there's some expansion upon that in Episode 9 in some way, I don't see the entire thing on Canto Bight as mostly pointless.
-DJ... I'd have rather seen Rose used as the character that somehow gets them on the Destroyer with Finn's help and again, truncate the CB stuff. Save the $ you paid Benicio Del Toro to basically have a cameo to stutter and make a point about war profiteering them fly off to nothingness.
-CB should've had Lando... If you're gonna give a Lando cameo he would've been nice to see on, or related to Canto Bight in some way. Maybe they contact him for the outside help, whatever. I would've liked to see Lando appear in some way.
I have my complaints but they're minor I guess, and the things I see fairly often as complaints by others I feel like those are things that aren't a big deal. I don't really feel like The Force has established parameters though, and that seems like a major sticking point for many people with TLJ. I feel like, since Clone Wars, Lucas and LFL were setting it up that The Force has more to it than we've seen, and we're now here. I dunno though. I'm going back to see it Saturday with the kids and gf, so I'm kinda curious how it is upon a 2nd viewing since it seems a lot of people have to see it twice to form more solid opinions on it. I'm kinda curious if my thoughts are going to change much after a 2nd round of TLJ.
