NO SPOILERS - Star Wars: The Force Awakens - NO SPOILERS

Involving people with force powers is a given in any Star Wars movie (at least the 'main' ones). You won't have Star Wars without Jedi and Sith for the most part, although I am happy they're exploring other parts of the universe as well. However, the newest movie had a few too many happy coincidences for my taste, the original movies and the actions of the characters were generally logical and character driven, some stuff in the new one seems to just be 'oh because the force makes it happen this way so it does'. Yes, there are explanations but they're pretty thin in some cases, which I won't go into as spoilers.

 

No ground battle on Yavin IV, but on Hoth. And iirc Rebels started evacuation as soon as they came aware of Imperial presence. The rearguard engaged in fighting withdrawal to cover the evacuation.

Star Wars is a naive and fantastic story. And most interesting stories are stories about those incredibly rare things, events and people.

Above all Star Wars are fairy tales. Whether you want fairy tales is another matter entirely.

 

There was a battle on Yavin, shortly after the DS I blew up, the remaining Imp's were out for blood, and used the last known data from their now dead C&C center to zero in on the rebel base. As for the Hoth fight, it was a planned retreat from the start, but it wasn't the first major battle between the forces on the ground, nor was Yavin.

As for fairy tales, I like them. I like the thought provoking opportunities they represent. I do not like people telling me the equivalent of resistance fighters will always overcome and defeat a highly motivated/trained/equipped force every. single. time. Hoth is the only display otherwise in now 7 movies. Again, forgive me for finding it hard to believe that the Imps are anything other then volunteer aid workers given a gun and not told which end makes the noises at this point.

 

Case: Band of Brothers.

It makes it look like paras suffered next to no casualties and some of the Germans fall dead before they're even being shot at.

There's also a reason they picked that unit and not British 1st Para. I think they wanted to tell a story about people who beat the odds.

But 1st Para for instance would have been a lot more typical description of what war was for most - being told to hold fast, regardless of casualties and eventually someone at HQ decides it's no longer worth it and the survivors are allowed to retreat, or what's left of them anyway.

Band of Brothers sort of makes you wonder what was so hard about it all, for 95% of other front line units it was a lot more awful. In fact they cherry picked a unit that did exceptionally well time after time and wasn't at any point simply left with the short straw.

 

Also most of the imperial army is supposed to still be clones. I think a few years before episode 4 is when the start recruiting no clones into the army because they age fast.

 

Bit of an obscure but insightful source that most don't know about as far as that unit goes.
http://www.101airborneww2.com/bandofbrothers3.html


I did a Military Leadership School project on them and their impact on the war overall, it was a 15 minute presentation where I had to give a 45 minute pre-brief to the instructor to ensure I didn't BS my way through it. A few of the depicted events were either overdramatized, or wrongly attributed. Both in the positive and negative towards Easy-Company. Just in case you wanted to further review the subject.

Either way, you cant read a history about WW2 without knowing and seeing results from those other 95%. Star Wars doesn't even acknowledge their existence, and stamps out any hope of ever running into something slightly realistic. Even rag-tag rebel types can give professionals a run for their money a time or two when they manage to fudge up an op. Which is what they are supposed to do, hit and run. Not storm their every bastion and walk over their corpses.

 

Nice link! Thanks!

I just slightly disagree with the rag-tag nature of Rebel Alliance. Many regular armies have a rag-tag look to them without having any issues with any of the fighting qualities. Just because a given unit isn't goose stepping in perfect unison like some pseudo-fascist Jackson's LotR elves it doesn't mean there's anything wrong with fighting discipline, equipment or skills.

I don't always like it either but it seems near inevitable that if you follow a group of people who don't suffer huge casualties in a military action that their enemies end up looking like push-overs. And how could they not if there's always the impression that the followed group are heroes who reach ~20:1 or so kill to death ratio.

Personally I think one of the best movies was A Bridge Too Far. I suppose they got it a little bit too right - so much so that it is almost like a statement for pacifism as opposed to your average jingoist
"fuck yea, war is cool and for tough guys so they can go about killing bad guys".

 

The whole darth Jar Jar thing made the prequels much more palatable for me.

 

Also there are real people who have high morals.

It is also nice watching some movies about people who try to do good.

Not every character needs to have a drinking problem and not every character needs to be a cheater.

But I agree with the Jedi Order as they were before Clone Wars - they give no room for personal emotions. In a way they try to be like clones or droids themselves because they think that emotions are the cause for all that is evil and thus they view that emotion and attachment are evil. As such they are blind to things like "hey, those guys don't want to be a part of our federation so we created what is essentially a sentient species of cannon fodder to die and suffer over a million battlefields so we can stick it to anyone who doesn't want to have a part in these things that we're doing - such as using these clone troops".

 

Going along with the darth jar jar theory, after Lucas saw the severe backlash from fans about binks, he chickened out, hastily wrote in a replacement bad guy (Dooky) and gave what should've been jar jars role in the second film to Count Dookstain. I always had a problem with Dookus and the Jar Jar theory explains to me perfectly why.

 

Eh, I can enjoy space fantasy as easily as any one. I would just prefer to have *Some* realism in there when they build this opponent up to be this huge threat. Then they fall over like the little pigs straw house to the first breeze. I get it, hero's are hero's. Not every one on the good team is a hero, not every one on the bad team is a fucking #twatwafflewhodeservestodieahorribledeathbecausetheyareutterevil.

 

That's the whole reason stormtroopers wear helmets. They didn't want the audience to be able to identify with any of them.

 

lost stars was awesome, loved it. aftermath is very oddly written, I think the author thinks he's a better writer than he is... decent story though. I'd read aftermath first, get it out of the way, haha