All Things Star Wars

Sith or Jedi?

  • Sith

    Votes: 32 37.2%
  • Jedi

    Votes: 51 59.3%
  • Chuck Norris

    Votes: 3 3.5%

  • Total voters
    86
I have always really appreciated how Star Wars treats droids as a fully fledged race, rather than only as plot devices, unique characters or background noise. I'm trying to think of parallel examples but am coming up blank.

BB-8 was a good droid character in the new trilogy. I like him a lot. He's also been the subject of some really cool toys.

 
Spoiler :
Given how the fleet just suddenly materialises, it's almost as if they'd had the power to crush the First Order all along. It's almost as if they'd run out of ideas and wanted to ‘homage’ the ending of ANH where Han comes in at the right moment.

Spoiler :
See, that's the thing. They made a point of saying that this fleet was just made up of average Joes and Janes. No military of the New Republic. Just regular people answering the call. So this just absolutely doesn't make sense; this fleet is ginormous, enough to take out the massive "Final Order" (roll eyes here) fleet, which has been established as dwarfing the First Order's forces. So what's the deal here? How has the First Order wrought such devastation, even with Starkiller in TFA?

ALSO, the path to Exegol. It's through the Unknown Regions. It's hidden in the Unknown Regions. It has a very specific flight path that must be followed with a Sith artifact. Meaning, you deviate, you die. Right? So, what the hell? How does the giant fleet all materialize at the exact same time in a massive swarm when previously the TIE Fighter and the X-Wing had difficulties getting through by themselves?
 
@hobbsyoyo - Fortunately our theater has $5 Tuesdays - any seat including IMAX, luxury, VIP, etc. are only $5. We also have friends that are studio reps that allow us access for free to many early movie screenings, though 95% of the time those are just "regular" seats.

With big event movies like SW, however, our theater suspends early ticketing for the first release Tuesday until the day before so it can be difficult to get one of the few luxury seats available. So for SW movies we've generally paid full price, which can be anywhere from $15 to $18 dollars a ticket for the IMAX or VIP luxury seats.

For TROS we ended up paying a little under $75 for the four of us. We smuggled in (like usual) our snacks and stuff - there's no way we're going to pay those extreme concession prices. I agree though that more and more it's becoming easier to just wait and stream movies on our big screen a few months after their premieres in the comfort of our family room. Especially now that 4K streaming is so readily available.
Come to think of it, the prequel movies had a cleaner/smoother design aesthetic for the spaceships than either the original or new trilogies. The ships and vehicles had curves and rounded edges and less greebling compared to the ships and vehilces of the other trilogies.
This was a design aesthetic that GL wanted. From Doug Chiang who did alot of the desing work on the PT:
If you look at Episodes IV, V and VI as the peak of the industrial revolution design in terms of manufacturing – where everything was stamped out for mass quantity – we were now going back to the craftsman era where everything was hand crafted. Every vehicle and design was a piece of art. That was the approach that I took for the Naboo Starfighter and also the Queen’s ship.
So the Prequel era ships show a more elegant, artistic design that would only come about during an era of relative peace. While during the OT the Empire's ships were mass-produced with the intention of instilling fear and intimidation. Most other civilian ships during the OT would have fallen into disrepair because of shifting priorities. Personally, I love the look of the PT ship designs.
Spoiler End of TRoS :
The big reveal of the galaxy's fleet was a nice novelty but stupid when you think about it. I think this would go against Hobbs' feelings about the ship designs being busy; if anything, they avoided detail in that scene. Probably to reduce costs.
That was probably one of my biggest gripes with TROS.
Spoiler :
Starting with the time it took to get them all to Exegol from all over the Core in less than 16 hours. There was no detail visible. It honestly looked like they took whatever Alliance/Resistance ship models they already had, stuck a bunch of them together, and then copy+pasted it over and over to where it looked like a complete and utter mess. I don't even understand how they all made it through the nebula surrounding Exegol, which seemed to disappear once the battle started.

In the end, there were no sweeping views of the capital ships, no sense of scale, no grand tactics, no story to the battle. Just a let's throw everything we can on the screen and create a spectacle because...why not. The Xyston class Star Destroyers could have been cool (like World Devastator cool), but they essentially went out like wimps - taken out by a bunch of Starfighters with hardly a fight. I don't even recall any capital ship engagements so what was the purpose of having the Resistance fleet anyway.

How many of those Xystons were taken out anyway? According to General Pryde the Sith Eternal/Final Order fleet would increase the First Order ship strength 10,000 fold. Even if you just count the FO's Steadfast, that would mean there was at least 10,000 Xystons and they were all taken out whithin minutes.

Anyway...
I still think the ship design and choreography of Episode 3 and Rogue One are the gold standard for live action thus far. The design in Episode 1 was really good too.
This ↑↑↑
Is this the new TIE Fighter?
Yes, Outland Tie Fighter. Basically the same as a regular OT Tie/LN, but with collapsible wings for landing.
When is the Mandalorian set?
Five years after ROTJ
 
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And he uses a lightsaber once. And that's it. Well, he's black too and the Star Wars universe needed more black people.:dunno:
Finn used a lightsaber twice in TFA. At two pretty important scenes FTM.

The main 3 characters in the ST were developed well enough... easily just as well as the big 3 in the OT.

I'm finding that for the most part, people's complaints to the contrary are usually just retconned excuses for disliking a film they've already decided they dislike. It may not be this in your specific case, but the fact that you missed such a key detail like Finn having TWO epic lightsaber battles in TFA rather than one is a perfect example of you just not caring about/ paying close enough attention to the character enough to be in a position to say his character was "under-developed". How would you know? You clearly weren't paying much attention to him.:p

The second clue to make me conclude this is how you seem so ambivalent... to the point of essentially mocking (with a shrug smiley) the fact that Finn is black. It makes me question whether, perhaps even subconsciously... that's the reason you (the royal you) don't care about/ pay attention to/ personally connect to the Finn character... which would explain why you're missing important details about the character and in turn, feel the character is "underdeveloped".

About the shrugging at Star Wars needing black characters. Its nothing to shrug at when you're a black fan of Star Wars who grew up with the all white cast, finally, after 30 years getting to see your kids watch a Star Wars with a main character who looks like them. Finn was very meaningful to me and my family.

I think that's part of why so many white dudes my age were so worked up about Luke in TLJ. Luke looks like them and so he was their guy, who they personally connected to. So his portrayal was personal to them.
 
Sommerswerd, the struggles of black USians are not always so readily empathised with by notAmericans.
Spoiler :
See, that's the thing. They made a point of saying that this fleet was just made up of average Joes and Janes. No military of the New Republic. Just regular people answering the call. So this just absolutely doesn't make sense; this fleet is ginormous, enough to take out the massive "Final Order" (roll eyes here) fleet, which has been established as dwarfing the First Order's forces. So what's the deal here? How has the First Order wrought such devastation, even with Starkiller in TFA?

ALSO, the path to Exegol. It's through the Unknown Regions. It's hidden in the Unknown Regions. It has a very specific flight path that must be followed with a Sith artifact. Meaning, you deviate, you die. Right? So, what the hell? How does the giant fleet all materialize at the exact same time in a massive swarm when previously the TIE Fighter and the X-Wing had difficulties getting through by themselves?

That was probably one of my biggest gripes with TROS.
Spoiler :
Starting with the time it took to get them all to Exegol from all over the Core in less than 16 hours. There was no detail visible. It honestly looked like they took whatever Alliance/Resistance ship models they already had, stuck a bunch of them together, and then copy+pasted it over and over to where it looked like a complete and utter mess. I don't even understand how they all made it through the nebula surrounding Exegol, which seemed to disappear once the battle started.

In the end, there were no sweeping views of the capital ships, no sense of scale, no grand tactics, no story to the battle. Just a let's throw everything we can on the screen and create a spectacle because...why not. The Xyston class Star Destroyers could have been cool (like World Devastator cool), but they essentially went out like wimps - taken out by a bunch of Starfighters with hardly a fight. I don't even recall any capital ship engagements so what was the purpose of having the Resistance fleet anyway.

How many of those Xystons were taken out anyway? According to General Pryde the Sith Eternal/Final Order fleet would increase the First Order ship strength 10,000 fold. Even if you just count the FO's Steadfast, that would mean there was at least 10,000 Xystons and they were all taken out whithin minutes.
Spoiler :
So, summing up: A lot of average citizens who just happen to have military-grade weaponry pop up from a galaxy that is supposed to be defenceless. Also the Falcon has time to go to the galactic core systems, broadcast, wait for everybody else to arrive, then go all the way back to the edge of the galaxy in, what? one afternoon? Then a camel sarlacc with elephantiasis is poked through the needle's eye that even amoebæ had trouble crossing. And all that time the super super super star destroyers on Krikkit Exegol have been held back by a cavalry squadron.

And then the SSSSDs are revealed to be more or less pointless if you stop to think about it because one Sith Lord can just send Force lightning to outer space (ignore physics or your brain melts) and deactivate an entire enemy fleet with Ian McDiarmid's finest ham in the galaxy.

And the SSSSDs are also so poorly designed that their super guns -which, presumably, might destroy a capital ship in one shot as the Death Star II does in ROTJ- are on the underbelly and thus not able to be fired.
<edit> There needn't be 10,000 new capital ships to increase Sith power 10,000-fold, but it is still good to ask whence came all the supplies and raw materials required to keep that up (maybe there was a Star Forge in a deleted scene).</edit>

tl;dr writers have no sense of scale, as TVTropes says and also it's an ass-pull move. The pace is fast enough that you cannot stop to think and spot the plot holes so, as JohannaK says, it just barely works.
When I try to write my crappy fantasy stories I spend a lot of time just wondering whether it's believable. *sigh*

I cannot wait for Family Guy to do a lights-out special on this one.
 
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Nah, Seth Green's there and he never picks his projects right.
 
Ever since I found out about the origin of Leia Poppins I haven't put any meddling past the Disneyheads.

*starts reading*

Whoooa.

Edit:
  • Disney demanded they shoot some scenes that would have things in it for merchandise. “They fly now” is one of them. It’s also JJ’s least favorite scene. At a November screening of a 2:37 cut, he cringed, groaned and laughed when the scene was on.
  • My source says that JJ was most likely not joking when he said “you’re right” in the interview where they asked him about TROS criticism.
Really. The red troopers were just too obvious.
Second edit, for @Sommerswerd:
Spoiler :
The source asked about FinnPoe after seeing Oscar Isaac's comment about how Disney didn't want it to be a thing. This is true. JJ fought to make this happen. This is why Oscar is blaming Disney. It's not just a random throwaway comment. He knows for a fact that it was Disney because these discussions happened. The main cast is insanely close with JJ and are just as pissed, though seemingly more outspoken about it than JJ. During TFA, Disney was hesitant to hire John Boyega because a woman was front and center so they deemed that risky enough so bringing in a male lead who's black made them nervous. JJ fought to make that happen for about nine months before getting approval. The same issue came up when JJ fought to have Finn&Poe in TROS but he lost that battle as he lost many creative battles for this film. Many people, JJ included, came to the realization during this production that the story really is told by shareholders/investors instead of the creatives or anyone at Disney specifically. He tried to make a lot of things happen and was shut down because of this. They had him on a leash and many blame TLJ for the stricter creative approach.
 
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Ever since I found out about the origin of Leia Poppins I haven't put any meddling past the Disneyheads.

*starts reading*

Whoooa.

I think this is safe to be spoiled: If true, it is really disappointing that Disney specifically vetoed a black main character alongside a female lead and had to be convinced of Finn's worth. And it grows evermore disappointing that they then vetoed a gay relationship but railroaded in Reylo.

It's kind of embarrassing for Disney. They should have given creative and oversight control over to someone like Filoni, or at least someone within the Star Wars realm, like they did with Marvel. The meddling killed what could have been a great revival.

I find this reassuring, in any case, of my view that the beginning revival material was good and suddenly got much, much worse. The shift seemingly happened when these claims of executive meddling began.
 
It was all focus group, focus group, focus group; instead of just going for a coherent story they just decided that it was first a vehicle for action figures and posters.
 
Spoiler :
Laurana already said this, but there were a lot of other points and I want to emphasise that it took everyone less than 8 hours to go from Desert Planet #3 to Kijimi, scan 3PO, then Endor, fix the Falcon, get back to the Resistance, for Rey to arrive in Ahch-To and burn the TIE. Then a loose Death Star Destroyer blows up Kijimi (when did Zorii and Babu Frik escape if the captain medallion was their way out and they gave it away just a few hours ago?) and Rey goes to Exegol and the Resistance goes to Exegol while Lando flies to the Core... and assembles a fleet in minutes then everybody flies to Exegol in minutes?

I remember when TLJ came out people complained of the ticking clock they'd set up with the fuel, but this is just ridiculous.
 
Just came across this: https://www.reddit.com/r/saltiertha.../heres_what_ive_been_told_from_a_source_that/

Consider it very spoiler heavy regarding TRoS. Stuff about JJ Abrams and Disney meddling where it shouldn't.
I was hinting at this in a previous post concerning who should get the blame for the ST. Depending on how much of this is accurate (we'll probably never know for sure), I really think that this was all an over-reaction to TLJ & Ranger Solo. I think Disney execs, after giving considerable leeway to RJ for the TLJ, probably felt that after fan reaction to that movie & Ranger Solo losing money, they needed to intervene and ended up over-correcting to please the fan base.
It was all focus group, focus group, focus group; instead of just going for a coherent story they just decided that it was first a vehicle for action figures and posters.
Well, in all honesty, SW has always been a vehicle for selling merchandise. That was the genius of GL and how he negotiated to retain merchandising rights with FOX. The PT & OT had incredible unique designs ripe for merchandise, and other than during the heyday of TPM, never felt like an overt cash grab. With the ST the designs have largely been lazy, repetitive, & uninspired. (I do like the look of the Sith Troopers including the Fleet Technicians, the Knights of Ren, & Zorii Bliss. Too bad their parts are small and largely inconsequential.)
Spoiler :
There needn't be 10,000 new capital ships to increase Sith power 10,000-fold, but it is still good to ask whence came all the supplies and raw materials required to keep that up
Spoiler :
You're right. General Pryde does say, "Legions of Star Destroyers," and, "The Sith Fleet will increase our resources 10,000 fold." That doesn't necessarily translate to 10,000 capital ships, but in my mind the implication is there. I guess it depends on Pryde's definition of Legions in regards to ships & resources. I still don't understand why at least some of them didn't try to fire their axial superlasers into the oncoming Resistance fleet.

@JohannaK - The SW movies have always played a bit fast and loose with time and space travel, but completely agree that TROS takes it to a whole new level of ridiculousness. I lol'd when Poe told the Resistance that the Final Order would begin attacks in 16 hours. I mean why not say a week? At least that would've been more believable plot-wise for all the different events to occur. The old EU, particularly the novels, did a much better job of conceptualizing time, distance, & speed.
 
neither ı will let them any "creativity" , because there are those scifi magazines Asimov or Analog or whatever and ı half read it in one of them . Some African country , might even be Zimbabwe , is in space in a very huge way , so the guy is husband of the guy first , husband of the woman second . It's kinda hard reading on the computer - the mouse taking its time , you have to be in a single place because the laptop is connected to electric socket , stuff , stuff so ı don't have much idea what else happens .

this Finn guy , so fitting for the claimed preferences and reputation of a company that stands for anyone who's not a White Male . Finn is a Luke with nothing of the Luke's failings . Luke would not leave Tatooine if Aunt Beru had not been killed by the Stormtroopers ; didn't we all see Luke grumbling to get his blue milk ? Finn is instead a Stromtrooper who gives up years of indoctrination ! Faces a Dark Lord of Sith who doesn't call himself a Sith bravely and resolutely ! Lightsaber in hand ! Even has the germs of "Will he go to the Dark Side?" with throwing hated Capt. Phasma in the garbage chute ! Haters to hate , we would be like Obama applied pressure to get some Black Jedi !

no Sir , he is there merely as a body part . To get the White Girl . Oh why not , let him ... No sir , not that either . He likes guys . Oh-kay , wrong choice , will not let it propagandized as a natural , but making it too much a "taboo" creates conditions for predators to thrive and small mistakes adding to each other and makes the wrong choices cancerous for the overall society , in addition to individual hurt . So , oh why not , let him have the guy ... No , not that either . Finn is Black and we all "know" history and Blacks are , you know , just simply , lust in capital letters and nothing else . He can't stop , he has to put his you know what in all comers , nobody can escape him . Rose Tico , a mismatch if you will in movie terms and we Luke people will actually be insulted as sexist racists , because the actress is not a "babe" by 21st Century standarts . So much that Rose thinks it's love . So , oh why not , let him have Rose ... No , Finn tries to die an heroic death and oh my , a car crash ! What does Finn do , throughout the movie , brings people and story together ..?

final movie , and oh my , don't we see an actual ape bringing things together on the First Order side , fixing Kylo Ren's broken helmet !? Won't hurt Disney's sales at all . Because they will say Final Order is a gorilla compared the chimp/champ the Rebels are and it shows in the size of Babu Frik ! And didn't they had a 4 arm or 6 arm monkey in Solo as well ?

the glorious face , that's Rey , is becoming a thing in the final movie and ruining Finn's life ! 'Cause even Marvel has wasted a babe of an A-Wing pilot as Poe's mother and the guy who was to lay waste to Luke's destructon of Death Star with one curve and hitting 9 different targets at once on Takodana (or whatever the hell is the spelling of that planet) before blowing up a whole planet . Dictionary stuff says it's just a small planet and how does it support seasons and trees and life if it's like under 7 times 120 kilometers across ? Khyber cristals make the core , dense so it has standart gravity kind of ... Because Luke people have quite thick wallets , they buy things and they are bloody stupid to memorize things and go on the web to tell them movie makers what's possible and what in bloody hell isn't ! Poe talked his way to victory over Dakar , too , but has been coasting down all the way , desperately trying to impress Finn ... Even his entire fame of being the top X-Wing pilot is immediately shot down in flames as people are like RED FIVE! RED FIVE! Rey is to be told to go away !!! And more !!! , as in exclamation marks ! Because Finn meets some female stormtrooper fugitive and guess what , she wants in ! Actually he does stuff with her and her pals like spacehorse charging but ı wasn't watching . So , victory ... And what an heartbreak at the hug ... Because Finn might not have heard the whole story but we moviegoers do know . Rey has risen as a Skywalker and Skywalkers are sore losers , especially in affairs of the heart . Finn can not know but can imagine things to happen if he tells Rey ...


Spoiler :


bzzzt , double red saber ...



...



...



...



disney , while busy destroying the Family and attacking the White Man , would stick to its rep as a Family institution and would never show the thing being chopped off ...
 
ı have averaged 500 posts a year in the decade , tis true , but those were the days when my posts were much shorter and like am honourbound to say "oh , ı am still alive" at every 400 posts like a year and let's seperate this as well . And no antagonism at anyone , because ı am the greatest Lucas apologist evah and this squarely aims at maintaining that Star Wars is a story worth hearing or whatever , apart from making a further avenue for rant . So the triologies are


... OT , PT , ST SW AGT .

meaning Star Wars: A Gay Tragedy

so , we have Finn who loses a pal , possibly a partner right off the bat . Then Phasma and she doesn't have it that , because she is a woman and possibly she's oppressing Finn for not being manly . Then he meets handsome , they escape together , he is abandoned by handsome , he meets White Trash / curious virgin , he is saved by handsome , they roll into some great adventure (like blowing up a planet) , he is hurt by the Establishment / father murdering scum -after throwing Phasma into garbage with her shining uniform , she might not have been born with a "silver" spoon , but she sure has one by now , pure Naboo ship skin , too .

finn wakes up , ı have no idea what those medical stuff do , but we would never doubt how that hangs on Finn or whatever , ı guess . Handsome is still away . Father murdering scum won't forget Finn , and the Galaxy is much smaller these days , now that the Unknown Regions are teeming with the First Order anyhow , so Finn joins the Resistance ! Teamed with a genious , Rose Tico . She is so successful at her job , because she is a cow . If she was beautiful , she would get laid . Instead of developing Stealth techniques . But all the women are the same and once she finds a suitable target , she dares to bare her claws to claim her stake , she dares to claim Finn . But before that happens we see stuff and r16 posts are like ever famous for pointless references like Rocky Balboa , the Itallian Stallion and the whole scene where Finn saves spacehorses , because stallion , because cooped up in oppressive pens and the genious cow thinks it's for her . Enter pinkhair , Holdo by the name and ı would have to check the relevant Venereal Disease visual dictionary , man , marketing really should find a proper shorthand form . V.D. is like so , ı don't know , gross ? Yeah , ı would have to search for Holdo's affiliation but ı remember imagining things like in 2017 or whatever and she sacrifices herself , because the "straights" do not know the cooped-upness , nor recognize the heroism and instead talk of the high heels on the starship bridge ! Admiral Party Dress ı used to call her back then , remaining in the same outfit for 18 hours , now that ı noticed my old writings on the subject while looking for something else , but she survives male hate , hurting enemies badly . Finn will do the same , because there's no escape from the father murdering scum who hates even straight love and , oh right there , the cow ruining an entire battle , because women are possessive ! Who gave her any right to do that ! Like Finn would be hard pressed to get undressed in the limited timeframe ! Now that we saw the men are also worthless , the slicer who betrayed them and Phasma didn't still have that , nor her shiny suit was any protection against deserved vengeance .

a year into war and Chewbacca are driving them hard , from action to action , instead of knowing his place as a pet : Finn and handsome are risking their , you know , backsides while the White Trash has become the Establishment , exercising to keep fat content down , reading pointless books while people are dying , now that all it takes her 10 or 15 seconds to learn a Force thing . It's right at her fingertips ! Yeah , she should go to war , while Finn and handsome are like off to bed . The White Trash is no longer curious , has contempt against the father murdering scum -ı wonder why- ... (and a brief diversion here , as we would all know what would George Lucas do and like ı think it would be okay in view of the all three Abrahamic Religions) and them White Trash and father murdering scum fight their little petty fights as people die around them , because this is what the straights do , instead of knowing love . They should get a room , you know , with all the interstellar touches and hugs . Meanwhile Finn will end up with fugitive stormtroopers , who like actually have evaded duty , because the duty as defined is immoral . She would but Finn would not , because they (the fugitive squad) no doubt would shame Finn , because this is what the straights always do , even when one turns straight . But times have gone past and old core fans are like "what" and movie director person still follows the original idea and the White Trash travels to the Death Star in the sea on a "ship" , because like hell if Millenium Falcon gets underwater , despite whatever the owner's manual says and stuff . Instead , the publicity machine will give us learned articles on how the venomous reactions by the fans (even including losers who like the Prequels) have stolen the chance for a new generation to embrace Star Wars and things are 180 degrees off and then 180 degrees off and this makes a mess of story telling , yeah , it's our fault , us fans . AGAIN . And of course , the White Trash turns out to be the goddamn thing , THE Establishment ! Who then simply injects herself into the situation ... No doubt because her peer lasted only a kiss , without involving it and that even .

you will see Disney triology is coherent , from VII to VIII , and certainly from VIII to IX . Not the way ı would like Star Wars to be , but it possibly could be done , without insulting people here and there and with a lot more pizzaz or whatever the word ... so that lens flares would be even cherished as the mark of a masterpiece ... Oh yeah , Rey turning out to be Establishment ... that taught us royally !

people will kindly note that there's no intention of insulting the actors , it's just the personas depicted on the screen . Poster is almost white , especially during the winters , curses the Stuntwoman for the things she has imposed on his enjoyment of the SW but is essentially an idiot who's mostly taken as a joke , but he takes Star Wars seriously , uses his daily rant on not the US-Iran war that will not happen , because Trump is just a clown in Star Wars terms and the lizard god/POTUS has told Iranians that their response should be proportionate and they just maybe just go and kill some American Army sergeant . Rant instead is reserved for SW , because this post must be read like wholly as serious and Star Wars would have been much better , instead of "Will do/Not a total loss" if the maker-people had been a "man" about it , each of them , and told that story out of the closet . Not that ı would like it , but .
 
These Reddit revelations make me think that that's why Rian Johnson said he had to rewrite Finn and Poe's adventure 'because they got along too well.'

They also make sense of the editing, which JJ's is always tight but here just... shows.
 
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spent some time today to find a blog ı had discovered through this site , serving US Army guy investigating how the US would totally defeat the Galactic Empire because they don't anything about soldiering , must be around August 2018 . ı also found myself defending damn Anakin (https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/star-wars-i-vi.425867/page-5) . Whose woodenness had to be defended , but one would assume out of closet thing would find more supporters instead of creating what the hell situations for the fans and also Abrams does it faster at 16 hours compared to 18 of Johnson !
 
Started writing much of the following before reading all the follow-up posts, so pre-emptive apologies for X-posts/ repetition...
So the old X-Wings have S-Foils that open up to an attack position because that makes the more maneuverable.
I always figured it was to increase the rate and spread of fire compared to the Z-95 'Headhunter' (2 wing-mounted cannons), which (in original canon) the XW design (4 wing-mounted cannons) was commissioned to replace.

(Mind you, if I'd been working for Incom, I would have given the XW shorter wings which opened wider, so the attack-position looked more like a multiplication-symbol than an upper-case 'X'...) ;)
Spoiler Bitter experience in-game... :
A TIE fighter's total occupied volume is mostly empty space, though, so with its wide spread of laser-fire, an average XW pilot — i.e. me! — will still have difficulty hitting the TIE's superstructure from directly astern — to increase the hit-probability on the pilot-bubble, the XW crosshairs have to be aimed at the wing — but when a TIE is flying at >45° to an XW flightpath, they're so fast that the deflection needed for a successful hit is huge.

Or one must use the Force...
Spoiler For Takh's spoilers :
Given how the fleet just suddenly materialises, it's almost as if they'd had the power to crush the First Order all along. It's almost as if they'd run out of ideas and wanted to ‘homage’ the ending of ANH where Han comes in at the right moment.
That wasn't an organised navy per se, it was essentially a mass protest which overwhelmed the FO fleet with sheer numbers: a zerg-rush if you like.

...but that was kind of the message of the whole movie, wasn't it? That tyrants only prosper when their victims are too scared to act co-operatively against them — but that evil can be defeated, provided that the oppressed (=we) are willing to risk their (=our) own safety for the greater good.
A lot of average citizens who just happen to have military-grade weaponry pop up from a galaxy that is supposed to be defenceless.
AFAIK, in the SW Universe, most ships of any substantial size are generally all at least lightly armed for defence against space-pirates, etc.

The Falcon is 'only' a freighter, after all — as was/is the Ghost in Rebels — but both designs are fitted with laser-turrets as standard, AFAIK.
Spoiler For Syn's spoiler :
How does the giant fleet all materialize at the exact same time in a massive swarm when previously the TIE Fighter and the X-Wing had difficulties getting through by themselves?
Same way Poe et al. got there: Rey broadcast the safe route to the rest of the Resistance, who presumably passed it on to Lando, who brought everyone else.

What bugs me, though, is how Lando managed to assemble that enormous fleet from all over Core worlds in such a short time: the Falcon may be the fastest ship in the Galaxy, but it's still not Santa Claus' time-travelling sleigh!
 
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