Ramblings about TLJ

Spoilers under the cut, obviously. A lot of this is not positive.

Good
things first: There were some pretty cool scenes which I liked. The general atmosphere, planets, ships, costumes and so on, still felt like Star Wars.  

I
loved that Leia used the Force in a way that was literally
space-sky-walking and can’t be denied as „oh she isn’t
force-sensitive“, and that they showed the connection between her and Luke (like when she woke up from her coma, or their reunion). I liked
Hux being ridiculous

or the looks the First
Order officers exchange about Kylo – I think that is a good way to treat space fascists without making them seem less horrible than they are (ofc they couldn’t do that with Kylo).

The
stampede and destruction of the rich war profiteer places on Rose’s home planet was very satisfying to see (at least they freed the animals if
not the children).

I liked Vice-Admiral Holdo, and BB8, and Finn, and a lot of other characters. Plus, I think most of the actors did great jobs.

Now the less good things:

I feel
so upset about Luke Skywalker. I liked Mark Hamill’s acting, but
everything about the backstory, or his interaction with Rey and
Chewie… I mean, how can anyone think that when Luke noticed some
darkness in his nephew, his first instinct was to kill him in his
sleep? Even with Vader, he first tried talking to his father and only
fought when forced to – why would that be different when it comes
to his nephew, someone he was much closer to. Especially since his
attempt to help  his father worked, so by the time he was teaching
Ben he should have been even more convinced of that approach.

And
this has been said a lot already, but Luke should not have been running away for so long or being that unkind to Rey. I understand that he thought he had
failed and blamed himself, but I am sure that at some point he would
have decided to help the Resistance anyway.

The
way he acted during the so-called „training“ with Rey was unpleasant to watch for me and not at all like the Luke Skywalker we know.

Yoda
looked weird. Also, I disliked the whole scene – Luke not even
being self-aware enough to decide whether he really wants to burn the
Jedi stuff down or not before making the attempt is ridiculous. Why
didn’t Yoda come visit Luke earlier, anyway? A lot earlier?

Phasma was, once again, not as cool as promised. Though that does not compare to that way Snoke, set up as being sooo dangerous, just died.

Something
about the whole „only the Resistance cares enough/is brave enough
to fight the First Order“ thing bothers me, too. Their supposed
allies do not try to help them, and apparently the entire Republic
military was stationed at Hosnian Prime and destroyed in TFA, which
does not make sense – there should at least have been small bases
across the galaxy, and obviously they would have had to fight the
First Order too.

The
lack of some typical Star Wars species like Twileks or Togruta was
strange, too.

I
really wanted to like Rose, and for most of the film I did. But I
just don’t understand why she saved Finn at the end, and her reason
was weird too – fighting the war by saving what you love instead of
destroying what you hate does not make sense, considering that Finn
was trying to save the Resistance remnant. At the beginning, she
believed in loyalty to the Resistance and called Finn selfish for
wanting to save Rey (even though he was not an official Resistance
member and therefore not a deserter, so she did not have legal
grounds to arrest him). Though I am very happy Finn survived, it was
an action completely at odds with the way Rose acted at first. She
had no idea that Luke would distract Kylo, or that the others would
find another way out, which… might even be enough to make that
action treasonous. The kiss pretty
much came out of nowhere as well, they literally knew each other for a day or two at
most.

I can
only assume this was supposed to be character development. But it’s
the same thing as with Luke, it is based on an illogical premise so it
makes no sense and does not feel like actual character development.

I
probably would not have minded if Poe had been the one to impulsively
save Finn, it seems more like the kind of thing he would do.
Admittedly, he was almost too roguish and disobedient in this film –
for someone who appears to respect Leia so much, he was refusing to
follow her orders or trust that she knew what to do all the time. And
the implication that he can be somewhat ruthless (does not seem to
care very much about the death toll as long as their goal is
achieved) could have been addressed better. I still loved him most of the time. (And I do understand why he thought Holdo was wrong at first, since he did not know what she was doing.)

And there were so many weird things about Finn’s and Rose’s mission: first they attract too much attention and don’t even reach the person they wanted, except that guy might have refused to help them anyway because why should he, then they find a code-breaker who is just as good by chance – I know the Force can work like that but it still feels off somehow.

And of
course, I dislike the amount of Reylo. I don’t hate that ship as much
as I used to, but I still would prefer if it was not hinted at so
much. Why does Rey want to help Kylo so much anyway? She goes very
quickly from believing that he is a monster to being willing to risk
everything to save him, and I don’t see why she would be so quick to
change her mind, especially since Kylo is not even a family member.
Traveling to the First Order was such a bad, stupid decision too. I
don’t know why Chewbacca and R2 did not have more to say (or do)
about that, but then they were generally sidelined in this film.

Or the
revelation of Rey’s parentage – I might have held out hope that
Kylo had been lying, but they literally tore apart the Skywalker
legacy lightsaber right after (and after it was set up so much in TFA
that feels like being tricked) so it will probably be the truth.
Normally, I have zero issues with heroes not needing any special
ancestry to be heroes, but in this case I really want Star Wars to
have a Skywalker hero or heroine. It’s not as if there weren’t enough
other heroes.

Oh,
and I suppose now we know that whatever brainwashing Snoke may have
subjected Ben to still let him stab Snoke without much difficulty
or Snoke even noticing because he was busy monologuing. Compared to
Vader finally deciding to save Luke from the Emperor, that moment
really falls flat.

Technology:
I’m not sure if tracking ships in hyperspace really is impossible. I
mean, you can at least calculate where the ship might have jumped
from its vector, or there can be a spy or a tracker on the tracked ship that
could be disabled. Also, I don’t know how a collision with a ship
traveling through hyperspace did not destroy the whole First Order
ship. Or why Holdo did not do the hyperspace jump sooner, since she
was already planning to die. And can just one person really pilot
such a big ship alone? Of course, technology in Star Wars is not
required to be „realistic“ anyway.

It’s so weird to think about how the Elves (especially Noldor) probably have calendars that show the anniversaries of the days when the moon and the sun first rose.

Assuming they are right about the Edain being created at the first sunrise, they actually know when the “birthday” of Mankind is. Now that I think about it, I like the idea of some Elves deciding to honor their allies by celebrating that day, and the Edain just being really confused at first. Then they feel like they are finally getting an appreciation of how old the Elves really are that old, just as some of the Elves begin to sing the precursor of the tra-la-lally songs of Rivendell.

worldflower:

verymaedhros:

feanoriel:

gaysilmarils:

thranduilland:

The thing that gets me about the elves supposedly being vegetarian/vegan is that they have leather armour, or they have leather as part of their armour. (Thranduil’s people have leather armour)

That leather had to come from somewhere, and I doubt it was a human, or a dwarf, or an orc, or a hobbit, or another elf. So, where did that leather come from? 

And if the elves don’t eat meat, but they use the leather from the animals, then that means they’re taking the animal hides and leaving everything else untouched. Which I think would be a dishonour as far as the elves were concerned. They’re killing these animals just to take their hides, they’re not even killing them for food. 

If the elves won’t even eat meat because they don’t stand by the killing of animals, then they wouldn’t wear leather either, for the same reason. But they wear leather, so it stands to reason they’d eat meat as well. I’ve always just thought it was a normal thing for them to eat meat. And that as far as killing animals goes, they’ll have some sort of tradition where they give thanks to the animal for giving its life, and they treat the carcass with as much respect as can be given. 

But also, before anyone argues. Canon says no. 

“

There was a fire in their midst and there were torches fastened to some of the trees round about; but the most splendid sight of all: they were eating and drinking and laughing merrily. The smell of the roast meats was so enchanting that, without waiting to consult one another, every one of them got up and scrambled forwards into the ring with the one idea of begging some food.
“

Taken from the Hobbit, chapter Flies and Spiders. 

Guys. The Elves aren’t vegetarian/Vegan. They eat meat. Guys. They eat meat. 

Honestly my family and I think the vegetarian elf thing came from someone confusing them with Vulcans a while back! Is there anything to actually support that?

I guessed that I’ve reblogged some things about the question long time before, @gaysilmarils and @thranduilland, but the point is that, basically, the whole ‘elves are vegeterians’ is an huge invention of the movies, and it’s pretty inaccurate/ ignoring an huge part of the legendarium, because

1) Tolkien specified that Beren didn’t eat any meat or animal in Silm. Chapter XIX, Of Beren and Luthien. He is usually very accurate with this kind of informations, if elves were vegetarians, he could have told us so;

2) it’s also specified that elves like Celegorm and his brothers Amrod and Amras are hunters,  and Celegorm himself was *THE* hunter. So … if elves eat only vegetables, what the hell is supposed to chase? *look at Peter Jackson* maybe, boh, the mushrooms in the woods? XD Also, other Noldor seemed to chase as hobby, exactly as the noblemen in the Middle-Ages: in the chapter XVII of the Silmarillion, Finrod, Maedhros and Maglor are hunting in the woods near the river Sirion, when Finrod parted and finished for finding the First Men. It was also said that usually Curufin and Aredhel followed with Celegorm the following of the Vala Orome. Orome and his following seemed also inspired by the European myth of the Wild Hunt, so …

3) it’s also said that Thranduil and his court ate roast meat when the Dwarves saw his banquet into the woods.

So, no, the idea ‘the elves are vegetarians’ is totally an idea of Peter Jackson or of his crew at least, with no in Tolkien’s books, meanwhile in the texts there’re a lot of references that proved that this idea is absolutely wrong XD

Back up, BEREN is vegetarian?

Yeah! He became friends with all the animals when he was an outlaw and decided maybe eating his friends was a bad idea.

Afaik He and Beorn are the only vegetarians in the whole Legendarium