Warning - spoilers ahead!
If you haven’t watched The Last Jedi, go no further ???
Seriously? Ok then…
(Holy crap it’s been so long! I’ve missed you guys! I’m finally realising my 2017 New Year’s resolution to post more stuff and being this place back to life - on 30th Dec!)
My first thought was that TLJ is sort of a homage to BSG (old & new)…? Oui/Non?
Check this out:
*Kylo Ren’s Cylon helmet => check
*Stubborn space-jockey hotshot pilot who defies Command and then later mutinies => check
*Evil villain who somehow shows up every time the heroes -FTL- I mean, hyper-space jump because there’s a tracker hidden somewhere => check
*Gets sidetrack mission on a casino planet => check
*Rebel alliance’s headcount keeps shrinking as their leader tells them to -do their jobs and find Erf- I mean, move forward till they run out of gas and escape to Hoth. => check
*Heroes kamikaze their capital ship into the bad guys’ ship => check
*Holden reminds me of Adama and Roslin embodied into one person.
Some more scattered thoughts :
I’ve always felt that TLJ, as the second act of the trilogy, is supposed to be the “adagio” movement. So expect lots of people to die.
The one major difference in Star Wars from the BSG universe was that sentient robots had citizenship in the old Republic and that’s where the similarities end. (Ok, remember that the rebel Cylons did get sworn in as Colonial citizens just before the good guys attacked Cavill’s Colony <PS I still think it looks like a croissant>)
I loved the “ohhh!” moments of exposition in TLJ.
Like, “Oh, remember Leia is Luke’s sister and she has force powers too!” Which is handy when she’s floating in space.
Rose Tico shared a bunch of insights (because being a knuckle-dragger, I mean, grunt worker gives you lots to think about on your downtime) - like the military industrial complex that enabled the First Order, and continues to enable whomever takes over, is the true core of the rot at the Galactic Empire; that you win by saving the thing you love; that hope lies with the next generation;
And that moment when Benicio del Toro told Finn that “it’s just a machine”;
Or that realisation that killing Snope just replaced an old dark lord with a new one in true Sith fashion. (LotR comes to mind, but not in a good way.)
My understanding at close to the end was that the trip to Hoth using escape pods was Leia’s idea (probably a pre-planned fail safe), that Holden was executing. Leia kinda realised early on that they’re being tracked. I love how she seems old hat at strategy at a Command level! And Command is not obliged to share details with you if your rank is not high enough. (That a Motherly figure to Poe gave him a slap, that moment should have carried more gravitas. Also that he caused the deaths of their whole bomber fleet!)
Of course, if you’re trapped in a spaceship and hunted down for years on end (sounds like BSG again!), it gets claustrophobic, not unlike being in a submarine. And people don’t fool around when it comes to surviving in a space environment.
Ok, that’s all I’ve got at the moment and it’s 3:28am right now.
So say we all!
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