I've been thinking about new kinds of gameplay for MMORPGs, because I'm not happy with any of the current styles.
I love the feel of the "personal epic" games like Star Wars Galaxies, Star Trek Online, even things like WoW. There's a lot of joy to be had in running around a world in real time. But the combat in these games is always either so clunky it's painful or so action-oriented that you have to be a twelve year old with broadband.
Thinking about alternate combat styles, one with appeal is escalated bidding.
This kind of bidding (found in poker and many tabletop games) basically allows players to judge a situation and decide whether to escalate or end the round. It's easy to balance, compelling, and naturally cinematic.
However, it's turn-based.
It's easy to come up with styles of play that allow for this kind of combat, but the turn-based nature is hard to avoid. And turn-based doesn't mesh well with the epic personal feel I'd like in my imaginary MMORPG.
I was having a hard time coming up with escalated bidding that didn't involve turns, but I think I figured it out: it's just a simple rework of existing mechanics.
For example, you're playing Star Trek. You're wandering into combat with your space ship. What's the "escalated bidding" for this?
Well, it's the same as Star Trek Online currently is... just a few small tweaks.
One critical element is range. Tiered bidding is a great way to escalate. In Poker, that would be the ante, the initial bidding, and the final bidding - but in Star Trek, it might be shields, system, hull. Rather than having distinct rounds, it's based on range.
You start off at long range, taking shield damage. You get closer, your weapons tick over into optimal range... but, at the same time, you now take systems damage from incoming shots. You get even closer, your weapons are guaranteed to deal terrific damage... but now any damage that leaks through your shields will blast away at your hull... and some damage is always going to leak through.
Conversely, if you can stay at long range, your ship is not at risk even if your shields go down. Incoming fire will scratch your hull and temporarily glitch out your systems, but that's damage that can be rapidly and completely repaired.
To be clear: as your weapons enter optimal range, you take a lot more damage. The better you can shoot, the more you get shot.
This range element adds a ton of complexity to conflicts, because your systems-damage range may not be the same as your enemy's systems-damage range. A long-range torpedo boat may be taking hull damage from a small merchant vessel while the small merchant vessel is still taking shield damage! This means the small merchant vessel's shots will squirrel through the torpedo boat's shields, while the torpedo volleys will largely splash off the merchant's shields.
Matching ranges will be a major element of what ships you use, when. Party loadout becomes a really interesting challenge.
In most bidding systems, how much you bid is also critical. But in this case, the "bid" is how close you get, for how long. Starships have position and relative speed: committing to a deep run can net bigger rewards if you come out on top... but huge problems if a lucky hit knocks your torpedoes offline. Ship headings are another, interlocked kind of bid, if each shield quadrant fails independently of the others.
Additional bidding can be done using various one-off powers. This is a classic "cooldown" setup: if you overclock your reactor for ten seconds, you won't be able to do it again for another two minutes, better make use of those ten seconds well.
Unlike current combat systems which look similar to our bidding system, the cooldown skills in our bidding system would exist to gamble on the next few seconds.
You're claiming the next few seconds will be critical, either offensively or defensively. With the range-based tiering system and quadrant-based shields, it makes a lot of sense to focus our skills on being useful shortly before or after changing range tiers - either your own or the enemy's. Fire your torpedoes when the enemy enters into their systems damage range, regardless of your current range. Pump your shields just before you change to systems damage range, since the damage you take in ten seconds will be far worse than the damage you take now.
Offensive firepower should be tiered as well, basically turning it into a set of cooldown skills. A full barrage hits hard, but takes a long time to recharge. Smaller shots recharge faster - fast enough to do more damage overall, but obviously the enemy's shield recharge and maneuvering cancel much of that advantage out. Will you do some small shots as you close, followed by a full barrage when the enemy becomes vulnerable?
This timing-based "bidding" feels more natural than any kind of shared pot or other abstraction. This also plays up the differences between different kinds of enemies with different ranges, and makes engaging multiple enemies or being part of a team a very interesting tactical opportunity. Obviously, various shortcuts also have value: a stealthed warbird decloaking right on top of you doesn't need a magic "decloak and fire" special power. Their special power is that they're right on top of you: you're at hull damage range, and at least some of that firepower is going to leak through the shields.
This combat is extremely similar to the existing Star Trek Online combat engine. The tweaks are very minor: simplified range indicators, slightly different damage model, slightly rebalanced skills. But the actual play is so similar that people probably wouldn't have to think about it very hard: they'd just suddenly be having amazing, epic fights.
This model could also be used for ground combat in the Star Trek universe, since ranged ground combat is the norm. You could just have literally all the same things.
A Klingon with a blade can rush through blaster fire: their max range is quite low, which means their range tiers are tiny. The blaster fire would just burn their armor a bit. Of course, when the Klingon reaches you, they are well within your nastiest damage range, and are guaranteed to put you down in short order.
The same basic mechanic would work for any personal combat system to some degree. A Star Wars combat system could be similar, with the light sabering Jedi naturally being similar to a Klingon. A Force-user could also take medium-range powers like Force Throw or Force Lightning. These would extend their attack range... and also extend their damage tier ranges. Someone specializing in sabers would be able to bull through Force Lightning because it's outside their damage tier range!
Even in tight combat, you could still see variations. A long light saber seems like a great choice... and it is, against anyone with a gun. But against someone with light daggers, your melee range is actually outside their most critical damage tier, meaning they can hold you off without too much danger... but you're not so lucky against them. You'd have to use combat abilities to close the range or disarm them unless you have a lot of time on your hands!
The downside of this is the bidding, since at melee ranges you don't really commit to be at a specific range or a specific angle for particularly long. To counteract that, I'd recommend using "charge" skills which push you into melee combat with a large bonus for a specific amount of time, but then leave you with a big penalty until it recycles. In this way, melee attackers would choose how much to "bid" by choosing a light, moderate, or heavy charge attack. They can also do this while already in melee combat, of course.
A tiny change to a fairly ordinary combat system: your optimal attack range is also the range you take worse damage. From there, a rebalance to existing combat approaches should result in a really interesting, cinematic challenge.
At least, that's the theory!
Showing posts with label star wars. Show all posts
Showing posts with label star wars. Show all posts
Thursday, August 02, 2018
Monday, July 25, 2016
Star Wars 7
Now that a few months have passed and I've rewatched the new Star Wars movie, it's time for a critique! I know this will have a widespread, profound effect on its sales and box office performance, so I had to think about it for a while.
My hatred of JJ Abrams is pretty well-known, and in the end that's going to be a huge shadow across this review. I have no respect for him as anything other than a very limited action director, even when backed up by seriously skilled heavy hitters. But let's talk about the movie.
First off, the movie is pretty decent. Better than the prequels by a long shot. Probably my third favorite Star Wars movie, and that's not bad at all.
It has very charming characters, most of whom are excellent actors. I love the newfound diversity, it makes the universe feel even bigger. I love the artful blend of CG and practical effects. Several of the sets are extremely nice, the props are all top-notch. The music and sound effects, of course, couldn't be much better. And the comedy bits are often in service of the characters, which is rare and very welcome.
Now, let's talk about the crappy parts!
I went with a group of 9 people to see it in theaters, ages 7 - 65. Several of them had seen it before. And we all came out of it confused and dissatisfied by the same elements. Some of us liked it, some of us hated it, but we all went "what the heck was up with that?" about the same things.
A big example was the tie fighter crash - you know, with Poe's coat. All of us were annoyed by that whole sequence.
But upon watching it again on DVD, I found the explanation was clearly written into the script, probably even shot correctly. It was just slapped up for a mere half-second and attention drawn away from it. Upon watching it knowing what to look for, it's clear that Poe takes off his coat, hangs it on his seat. It's clear Finn is ejected, so Poe obviously could have been, too. It's clear Finn finds the coat on the front canopy, not near the rear of the ship where Poe was seated, so it must have shaken free from the seat before it ejected.
The explosion still makes no sense, but let's just let that action schlock slide.
All of those elements are just fine on the written page. You can see the writers saying "THIS is how we'll give Finn that coat". Unfortunately, those elements weren't given to the audience on the screen. Even the parts that were on the screen, such as Poe taking off his coat, were not lingered on or highlighted. Instead, they were background elements in clips where the focus was clearly elsewhere, and even those clips were really tightly clipped.
This is how a magician does things - distract the audience with one hand while doing something with another. Unfortunately, if you do that in a movie, you end up with an audience that never knows you did the second thing and presumes you just have a basket full of continuity errors.
There are several elegantly written arcs in the movie, that one included. But half of the things on the screen are choppy and slapdash, badly paced and unpolished, like someone was in a hurry to slap more action on the screen.
For example, the double-defection of Finn and Rey, where they both have the exact same "I'm scared and gonna run away" arcs separately, within the same minute. This is a very badly paced element, and I can only presume that's not how it was originally written. Perhaps there was more time between them, or perhaps it was written so that Rey felt lost and betrayed by Finn and that was given time to grow on the screen to seed her own fear. Perhaps there were two scripts written, each with one of the characters panicking, and then for some reason both arcs were filmed and smashed together.
Another example: the murder of Han Solo. This is an amazing scene to most RPG players, because that's how a really good dark side arc in a game would go. It's completely legit, very powerful, especially the "thank you". It makes sense narratively and within the rules of the universe, as well as fitting in with every character.
Unfortunately, what we actually got on the screen wasn't so good.
"They're on your father's ship. You know, Han Solo, your dad?" "Yes, my father, Han Solo." "He's your dad." "Oh gosh, Evil McEvil noticed I still have good in me, gramps!" "Our son is up there, Leia!" "Our son, Kylo?" "Our son Kylo, Leia." "Grandpappy, help me, you're my grandpap." "He has good in him!" "Who, our son, Kylo?" "Kylo, yes, our son." "My dad landed on the planet." "Your dad Han?" "Han, my dad." "Oh, that dad." "Gramps, give me strength!" "Hello, Kylo my son. You still have good in you!"
I have a feeling that the writers knew half their scenes wouldn't get to the screen, so they just wrote twice as many and crossed their fingers.
I get that feeling a lot, actually. Because this movie has two plots, and they are both pretty sad.
In one plot, a bigger, badder Death Star sits on its butt in the middle of nowhere waiting to be found. In the other plot, a bigger, badder Luke sits on his butt in the middle of nowhere waiting to be found. Both are full of plot holes and neither is even vaguely compelling or personal.
It's clear the "bigger Death Star" plot exists because Disney wanted to prove they were oldschool Star Wars fans who were going to make oldschool Star Wars movies. But it's also clear that they thought that plot was pretty threadbare, so they stole a plot from a different draft and shoved it alongside.
I think either of these plots could have been made hundreds of times better without much trouble by simply choosing one. If either had more screentime, the glaring holes could have been explained away. Instead, they're pushed past with action sequences in a desperate attempt to gloss over everything.
The third plot - big baddie that runs everything - is established as a next-movie thing, but it also looks extremely uninteresting. I've already covered all the ways they could have made that interesting in an earlier essay. For example, it could be a holocron. That'd be amazing: all the Sith are gone, it's just one dumb kid with delusions and a holocron, but the dark side still manages to be a threat.
Any way you cut it, the movie could have been a lot tighter with different priorities. The inclusion of clips like "whoo, damn that pilot is good!" and the exclusion of clips like explaining why they had the last 2/3 of the map on a galaxy view but still needed the first 1/3 means that the whole thing feels very schlocky, as if the only thing that really matters are the action setpieces and a few pieces of comedy for pacing.
I have to wonder. The editing seems pretty tight, so why are there so many clips and sequences that don't seem like they fit right? Why is there such a laser focus on stuff that would have been great either way, while letting stuff that could have been great lay as unpolished stumbling blocks? Is this because of the director? It sounds like it might be the fault of the editors.
The editors Mary Jo Markey and Maryann Brandon, JJ Abrams' primary editors for almost all his films.
I hate JJ Abrams.
My hatred of JJ Abrams is pretty well-known, and in the end that's going to be a huge shadow across this review. I have no respect for him as anything other than a very limited action director, even when backed up by seriously skilled heavy hitters. But let's talk about the movie.
First off, the movie is pretty decent. Better than the prequels by a long shot. Probably my third favorite Star Wars movie, and that's not bad at all.
It has very charming characters, most of whom are excellent actors. I love the newfound diversity, it makes the universe feel even bigger. I love the artful blend of CG and practical effects. Several of the sets are extremely nice, the props are all top-notch. The music and sound effects, of course, couldn't be much better. And the comedy bits are often in service of the characters, which is rare and very welcome.
Now, let's talk about the crappy parts!
I went with a group of 9 people to see it in theaters, ages 7 - 65. Several of them had seen it before. And we all came out of it confused and dissatisfied by the same elements. Some of us liked it, some of us hated it, but we all went "what the heck was up with that?" about the same things.
A big example was the tie fighter crash - you know, with Poe's coat. All of us were annoyed by that whole sequence.
But upon watching it again on DVD, I found the explanation was clearly written into the script, probably even shot correctly. It was just slapped up for a mere half-second and attention drawn away from it. Upon watching it knowing what to look for, it's clear that Poe takes off his coat, hangs it on his seat. It's clear Finn is ejected, so Poe obviously could have been, too. It's clear Finn finds the coat on the front canopy, not near the rear of the ship where Poe was seated, so it must have shaken free from the seat before it ejected.
The explosion still makes no sense, but let's just let that action schlock slide.
All of those elements are just fine on the written page. You can see the writers saying "THIS is how we'll give Finn that coat". Unfortunately, those elements weren't given to the audience on the screen. Even the parts that were on the screen, such as Poe taking off his coat, were not lingered on or highlighted. Instead, they were background elements in clips where the focus was clearly elsewhere, and even those clips were really tightly clipped.
This is how a magician does things - distract the audience with one hand while doing something with another. Unfortunately, if you do that in a movie, you end up with an audience that never knows you did the second thing and presumes you just have a basket full of continuity errors.
There are several elegantly written arcs in the movie, that one included. But half of the things on the screen are choppy and slapdash, badly paced and unpolished, like someone was in a hurry to slap more action on the screen.
For example, the double-defection of Finn and Rey, where they both have the exact same "I'm scared and gonna run away" arcs separately, within the same minute. This is a very badly paced element, and I can only presume that's not how it was originally written. Perhaps there was more time between them, or perhaps it was written so that Rey felt lost and betrayed by Finn and that was given time to grow on the screen to seed her own fear. Perhaps there were two scripts written, each with one of the characters panicking, and then for some reason both arcs were filmed and smashed together.
Another example: the murder of Han Solo. This is an amazing scene to most RPG players, because that's how a really good dark side arc in a game would go. It's completely legit, very powerful, especially the "thank you". It makes sense narratively and within the rules of the universe, as well as fitting in with every character.
Unfortunately, what we actually got on the screen wasn't so good.
"They're on your father's ship. You know, Han Solo, your dad?" "Yes, my father, Han Solo." "He's your dad." "Oh gosh, Evil McEvil noticed I still have good in me, gramps!" "Our son is up there, Leia!" "Our son, Kylo?" "Our son Kylo, Leia." "Grandpappy, help me, you're my grandpap." "He has good in him!" "Who, our son, Kylo?" "Kylo, yes, our son." "My dad landed on the planet." "Your dad Han?" "Han, my dad." "Oh, that dad." "Gramps, give me strength!" "Hello, Kylo my son. You still have good in you!"
I have a feeling that the writers knew half their scenes wouldn't get to the screen, so they just wrote twice as many and crossed their fingers.
I get that feeling a lot, actually. Because this movie has two plots, and they are both pretty sad.
In one plot, a bigger, badder Death Star sits on its butt in the middle of nowhere waiting to be found. In the other plot, a bigger, badder Luke sits on his butt in the middle of nowhere waiting to be found. Both are full of plot holes and neither is even vaguely compelling or personal.
It's clear the "bigger Death Star" plot exists because Disney wanted to prove they were oldschool Star Wars fans who were going to make oldschool Star Wars movies. But it's also clear that they thought that plot was pretty threadbare, so they stole a plot from a different draft and shoved it alongside.
I think either of these plots could have been made hundreds of times better without much trouble by simply choosing one. If either had more screentime, the glaring holes could have been explained away. Instead, they're pushed past with action sequences in a desperate attempt to gloss over everything.
The third plot - big baddie that runs everything - is established as a next-movie thing, but it also looks extremely uninteresting. I've already covered all the ways they could have made that interesting in an earlier essay. For example, it could be a holocron. That'd be amazing: all the Sith are gone, it's just one dumb kid with delusions and a holocron, but the dark side still manages to be a threat.
Any way you cut it, the movie could have been a lot tighter with different priorities. The inclusion of clips like "whoo, damn that pilot is good!" and the exclusion of clips like explaining why they had the last 2/3 of the map on a galaxy view but still needed the first 1/3 means that the whole thing feels very schlocky, as if the only thing that really matters are the action setpieces and a few pieces of comedy for pacing.
I have to wonder. The editing seems pretty tight, so why are there so many clips and sequences that don't seem like they fit right? Why is there such a laser focus on stuff that would have been great either way, while letting stuff that could have been great lay as unpolished stumbling blocks? Is this because of the director? It sounds like it might be the fault of the editors.
The editors Mary Jo Markey and Maryann Brandon, JJ Abrams' primary editors for almost all his films.
I hate JJ Abrams.
Wednesday, December 30, 2015
Star Wars Review
Finally saw Star Wars. This will be me talking about it, because I'm sure everyone wants to hear my opinions!
Well, they might be a bit unusual.
First, though: spoilers ahead!
All the spoilers.
...
Force Awakens is by far the best film JJ Abram's ever put out. The movie is... not bad. The DP is great, the effects are mostly great, the actors are mostly pretty good, the sets are great, the music was fitting, and the directing has been carefully cut into pieces and arranged to be as unbad as could reasonably be managed. The writing is awful, but in an inoffensive way.
It is radically better than I expected, which is nice. It is... not bad.
Now, let's talk about some thematic stuff, because this is where the movie interests me most. Obviously, any thematic stuff is in here on accident or because JJ Abrams saw the cover for a book or something, but there's still some meat here.
First, the villain. I like him.
Now, let's be clear. The guy is a doofus. He's a pale shadow of Darth Vader. But that's the point! That's great! There's no way for a new dragon to step into Vader's shoes, and this is an open, in-world admission of that. I like the fact that the mask makes him look vaguely intimidating, but he's a snot-faced kid inside. I think that's fantastic. It fits in-universe as a scared boy stepping into radically outsized shoes, and it fits in the metafilm as an admission that nobody's gonna match Vader, and it fits in the mythology of the Force: villainy isn't born from strength.
I like the overall arc of him killing his father, and his father basically letting him do it. I think the progression was bad, the dialog was incredibly overweight, and the moment-to-moment writing/directing was pretty abominable, but the overall arc is fantastic. The idea that a scared kid needs to kill his father to prove himself, and his father just lets him? That's powerful. That's good.
Unfortunately, it's extremely hard to build a villain up from "scared little kid". It takes a lot of screen time to grow up, and they aren't going to give this kid that amount of screen time. So he's never likely to feel like a real threat. It's easier to work backwards: show a badass, reveal he was a scared little kid. Because of that, I don't think this villain will ever really work. This is especially true since they gave the heroes a massive power boost and brought them up to his level already, meaning that he has to grow substantially faster than the heroes, but with a fraction of the screentime.
...
The overall concept of the movie was good. JJ Abrams is no good, and everyone knows it. Forcing him to recreate the original Star Wars movie is a great way to keep him pinned and reasonable, and then you can rely on editors to save the film. A tried and true Star Wars approach.
Unfortunately, it doesn't make much sense. It undoes the original trilogy, and nobody in-world has any explanations or concerns about how it happened.
I understand that Disney needed to use their existing actors before they die of age, and that Disney needed to make a "return to Star Wars classic" movie. But I just can't accept this nonsense setting. You have to reaaaaally stretch to explain it, and even if you do, it ends with "and that means the original trilogy basically accomplished nothing."
The big bad is awful, just the least interesting villain I've ever seen. Clearly they just wanted the Emperor again, but it's really dull. It's made worse because it makes no sense. Where did this ultimate big bad come from? Everyone talks about him as if he's always been around, but that again degrades the original trilogy.
It's a very "Dragonball Z" plotline.
Now, I think it would be really interesting if the villain turns out to be making Kylo suck on purpose. The idea of training a Sith lord wrong in order to bring his fear and anger to a peak, then fixing the mistakes... is an interesting one. I don't think that's what's in store, but it could have been an interesting idea. Still, the villain is nonsense.
"But where are they supposed to find a villain if-"
Uh? Exar Kun? The backstory could have been "Kylo Ren was in training, stumbled across a Sith holocron, and OH SHIIIIIIIII"
I think that could have been equally compelling. And there's a lot of cool reveals built into that. For example: Kylo Ren keeps asking for guidance from a hologram. Then it's revealed it's just the holocron, and he's just searching it. There is no super villain Emperor equivalent: everyone just thinks there is, because Kylo keeps bringing them in to see this really intimidating holocron. And it's really good at administration: they ask it what to do, and the computer spits out an optimal answer. Everyone thinks it's a real person - maybe even Kylo.
This would be an amazing way to instantly level him up, a real Bates Motel moment. We go from thinking "how is this Sith Lord so bad at everything" to "HOLY SHIT HE'S HELD THE WHOLE EMPIRE TOGETHER WITH THE POWER OF HIS DELUSION!"
Look, if we're gonna talk about movies that Could Have Been, let's talk about the nonsense map. Of the many things in this movie that didn't hold up, this was a biggie. So, here's a simple alternative:
Luke's teachings failed, and Kylo was seduced by the dark side of the Force. Everyone was killed. So Luke goes in search of the original temple to try and find clues as to how to teach better. Fine, great. The original temple is in the galactic core. Nobody can get in safely without a map. Luke left R2-D2 behind as an anchor, to help keep him oriented and to "catch" his messages. R2 has spit out a number of map fragments over the past decade or so, but rather than saying "we can't pick out these stars", they say "we know which stars they are, but we can only get this far. We need the map for the black holes deeper in to get any further."
And BB8 holds the first piece. The one that just gets you started. The rest is already complete.
This offers a lot of cool ideas. Diving through stellar debris. The Empire - oops, 'Order' - trying to brute-force find a path by sacrificing ships. Our Jedi-to-be having to feel her way through an area that's drifted since Luke went through, using the same techniques he used. This is a good, concrete-but-not-blatant "following in his footsteps" analog.
Look, the movie could have been a lot of things. Thousands of people have given their suggestions on what the movie should have been or how it could have been made better. Adding mine to the stack is no big thing, but I did want to say one more thing:
This is the first sci fi movie in a while that made me want to write my own stuff. Not fanfic, but things with some of the same themes, or pieces inspired by the holes in this movie.
That makes this at least a successful sci fi film. I know the director is worthless and any new ideas were included on accident, but at least I was inspired.
Well, they might be a bit unusual.
First, though: spoilers ahead!
All the spoilers.
...
Force Awakens is by far the best film JJ Abram's ever put out. The movie is... not bad. The DP is great, the effects are mostly great, the actors are mostly pretty good, the sets are great, the music was fitting, and the directing has been carefully cut into pieces and arranged to be as unbad as could reasonably be managed. The writing is awful, but in an inoffensive way.
It is radically better than I expected, which is nice. It is... not bad.
Now, let's talk about some thematic stuff, because this is where the movie interests me most. Obviously, any thematic stuff is in here on accident or because JJ Abrams saw the cover for a book or something, but there's still some meat here.
First, the villain. I like him.
Now, let's be clear. The guy is a doofus. He's a pale shadow of Darth Vader. But that's the point! That's great! There's no way for a new dragon to step into Vader's shoes, and this is an open, in-world admission of that. I like the fact that the mask makes him look vaguely intimidating, but he's a snot-faced kid inside. I think that's fantastic. It fits in-universe as a scared boy stepping into radically outsized shoes, and it fits in the metafilm as an admission that nobody's gonna match Vader, and it fits in the mythology of the Force: villainy isn't born from strength.
I like the overall arc of him killing his father, and his father basically letting him do it. I think the progression was bad, the dialog was incredibly overweight, and the moment-to-moment writing/directing was pretty abominable, but the overall arc is fantastic. The idea that a scared kid needs to kill his father to prove himself, and his father just lets him? That's powerful. That's good.
Unfortunately, it's extremely hard to build a villain up from "scared little kid". It takes a lot of screen time to grow up, and they aren't going to give this kid that amount of screen time. So he's never likely to feel like a real threat. It's easier to work backwards: show a badass, reveal he was a scared little kid. Because of that, I don't think this villain will ever really work. This is especially true since they gave the heroes a massive power boost and brought them up to his level already, meaning that he has to grow substantially faster than the heroes, but with a fraction of the screentime.
...
The overall concept of the movie was good. JJ Abrams is no good, and everyone knows it. Forcing him to recreate the original Star Wars movie is a great way to keep him pinned and reasonable, and then you can rely on editors to save the film. A tried and true Star Wars approach.
Unfortunately, it doesn't make much sense. It undoes the original trilogy, and nobody in-world has any explanations or concerns about how it happened.
I understand that Disney needed to use their existing actors before they die of age, and that Disney needed to make a "return to Star Wars classic" movie. But I just can't accept this nonsense setting. You have to reaaaaally stretch to explain it, and even if you do, it ends with "and that means the original trilogy basically accomplished nothing."
The big bad is awful, just the least interesting villain I've ever seen. Clearly they just wanted the Emperor again, but it's really dull. It's made worse because it makes no sense. Where did this ultimate big bad come from? Everyone talks about him as if he's always been around, but that again degrades the original trilogy.
It's a very "Dragonball Z" plotline.
Now, I think it would be really interesting if the villain turns out to be making Kylo suck on purpose. The idea of training a Sith lord wrong in order to bring his fear and anger to a peak, then fixing the mistakes... is an interesting one. I don't think that's what's in store, but it could have been an interesting idea. Still, the villain is nonsense.
"But where are they supposed to find a villain if-"
Uh? Exar Kun? The backstory could have been "Kylo Ren was in training, stumbled across a Sith holocron, and OH SHIIIIIIIII"
I think that could have been equally compelling. And there's a lot of cool reveals built into that. For example: Kylo Ren keeps asking for guidance from a hologram. Then it's revealed it's just the holocron, and he's just searching it. There is no super villain Emperor equivalent: everyone just thinks there is, because Kylo keeps bringing them in to see this really intimidating holocron. And it's really good at administration: they ask it what to do, and the computer spits out an optimal answer. Everyone thinks it's a real person - maybe even Kylo.
This would be an amazing way to instantly level him up, a real Bates Motel moment. We go from thinking "how is this Sith Lord so bad at everything" to "HOLY SHIT HE'S HELD THE WHOLE EMPIRE TOGETHER WITH THE POWER OF HIS DELUSION!"
Look, if we're gonna talk about movies that Could Have Been, let's talk about the nonsense map. Of the many things in this movie that didn't hold up, this was a biggie. So, here's a simple alternative:
Luke's teachings failed, and Kylo was seduced by the dark side of the Force. Everyone was killed. So Luke goes in search of the original temple to try and find clues as to how to teach better. Fine, great. The original temple is in the galactic core. Nobody can get in safely without a map. Luke left R2-D2 behind as an anchor, to help keep him oriented and to "catch" his messages. R2 has spit out a number of map fragments over the past decade or so, but rather than saying "we can't pick out these stars", they say "we know which stars they are, but we can only get this far. We need the map for the black holes deeper in to get any further."
And BB8 holds the first piece. The one that just gets you started. The rest is already complete.
This offers a lot of cool ideas. Diving through stellar debris. The Empire - oops, 'Order' - trying to brute-force find a path by sacrificing ships. Our Jedi-to-be having to feel her way through an area that's drifted since Luke went through, using the same techniques he used. This is a good, concrete-but-not-blatant "following in his footsteps" analog.
Look, the movie could have been a lot of things. Thousands of people have given their suggestions on what the movie should have been or how it could have been made better. Adding mine to the stack is no big thing, but I did want to say one more thing:
This is the first sci fi movie in a while that made me want to write my own stuff. Not fanfic, but things with some of the same themes, or pieces inspired by the holes in this movie.
That makes this at least a successful sci fi film. I know the director is worthless and any new ideas were included on accident, but at least I was inspired.
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