In #TheLastJedi, why didn't Leia get to play the active role given to #Holdo, a new character, who we never had a chance to get to know, or care about? Holdo could have been introduced as a foil for Leia, arguing with her about Po's actions, and eventually sacrificing herself to save the day. These two and #Ackbar could have been the grizzled veterans, having tense arguments about how their crews were going to survive.

If they'd filmed 8 this way, then the death of #CarrieFisher - while still a tragic loss - could have been worked around. The ending could have been redone so Leia sacrificed herself instead of Holdo, and Luke survived. Then 9, written about Leia kicking arse as the only remaining veteran force user, could have been rewritten slightly for Luke to play that role. What do they do now?

Why do people defend this movie as some kind of win for progressive identity politics, when it reduces the most empowered female character from the original trilogy to a bit part?!? I'd wager most fans would have loved to see Leia leading from the front, blaster or light sabre in hand, what a powerful representation for older women! But no. We got #SleepingBeauty Leia.

As for the treatment of #LukeSkywalker, let me put it like this. The grouchy old hermit was a great character, and #MarkHamill played him well. The scene with #Yoda was genuinely touching. But that hermit character was not the Luke we knew and loved in the original trilogy.

The #LukeSkywalker in #ReturnOfTheJedi surrendered to the #EmperorPalpatine and #DarthVader, two of the most believably corrupted characters in film, because he believed Vader was redeemable. There's no way he would have given up hope and refused to fight with Leia, no matter how cut up he was over Kylo Ren's betrayal. If he was off-the-grid, he would have been looking for something, to give them the edge against the FirstOrder, not hiding out drinking seal cum.

The Luke from the original trilogy would never have thought about killing #BenSolo, not even for a second, no matter how badass #Snoke is. I mean, how badass can Snoke be anyway, we never get to find out anything about him, before his half-trained student killed him easily (remember Kylo was taken to Snoke to "finish his training" at the end of #TFA, and almost no time has passed when #TLJ starts). The real Luke would have faced Snoke, and it would have been awesome.

@maiyannah @sullybiker that sucks. I hope you manage to get it figured out :)

Imagine a scene where Leia and Luke are reunited, Leia still smarting from seeing Han die at their son's hands. She's given up on him. She wants Luke to avenge Han. Luke refuses, "there's still good in him". Luke and Rey go off together to try to redeem Kylo. Luke matches force powers with Snoke, while Rey and Kylo fight together, and have that awesome moment where the light sabre breaks in half (for me, one of the few emotionally real moments in #TLJ).

Maybe while all this is happening, Snoke has overcome Luke, and almost kills him, but that's when Kylo takes advantage of his master being distracted to kill him, saving Luke in the process. Luke is too weakened to talk, queue Rey and Kylo's dialogue about which way Kylo should jump now. Kylo is about to kill Luke, but Leia's force intuition saw this coming, queue the #Raddis ramming the #Supemacy.

See, it's not that #TLJ didn't have the raw materials of an amazing Star Wars movie. It just didn't seem to know how to put them together, without breaking the universe, and our suspension of disbelief. https://mastodon.nzoss.nz/media/hXZh55Ij0Gi_9yN5co0

I also want to mention the way #TLJ lets the #Resistance down, by completely failing to understand how a #RebelAlliance works. It's not a regular army. There's no such thing as "deserters", because everyone involved is a volunteer, and they can leave whenever they lose faith in the integrity or competence of the leaders. The leaders are militia commanders, not military officers, and there is only #ChainOfCommand during battles, with seniority decided right before.

Leia has no military title in Ep 4-6, which is why she's constantly referred to as "#PrincessLeia". Nobody tries to court martial Han for desertion for leaving before the battle of Yavin, or on Hoth. He's free to go. Nobody demotes Luke for wandering off with an X-Wing, he saved their asses at Yavin, winning their respect, and a role in the leadership, despite being a total newcomer. #TFA manages to capture the fragile, cooperative nature of the rebel enterprise.

The loose, cooperative nature of the rebels in 4-6, the respect for dissent and initiative, is what makes them fundamentally different from the Empire. This matters a lot, because in #TLJ, the hierarchical, bureaucratic nature of the Resistance and Holdo make them much harder to empathize with or root for as the good guys. The difference between the #Resistance and the #FirstOrder is only in the degrees of impersonal officiousness, not a clear contrast.

@sullybiker ae, that was one of a *very* long list of things that sucked about #RogueOne. Contrast the rebellion of #R1 and #TLJ with 4-7 (I discussed this in more detail in the rest of the rant)

@strypey
What does that say about the society that created TLJ vs the originals. It's almost like we modern folk can't even conceive something that is not structured by militaristic authority, even in our fiction.