Battle in the Throne Room

If you ask this question, then you need to ask why no one is actually using the force during a lightsaber battle. Furthermore is pretty difficult to concentrate on using the force while someone is trying to kill you from every possible direction.

 

I think you're just trying to justify the director's decision by any means. Now you're blaming it on "being difficult to concentrate". How can you know it? Maul threw a box or something like that during Naboo duel. Obi Wan was pushing back droids and reflecting bolts at the same time. Count Dooku managed to force-grab Obi Wan during their duel etc. Besides - at the beginning - when he killed Snoke and guards were still far away - Kylo had a lot of time to send them all flying.

Face it - director for some reason decided to show that fight as a pure fencing one, without any use of the Force. His decicion of course, but it doesn't make much sense in the SW Universe.

 

Why didn't Maul keep pushing Qui-Gon and Obi-Wan off the ledge? Why didn't Obi-Wan and Anakin just try to push each other into lava instead of fighting? Why didn't Vader just choke Luke? I think we just have to accept stuff like this and simply assume:

 

Not really, because I think Rian made actually alot of mistakes for this movie.

It's a difference if you use the force on objects or machines. Furthermore all these people were higly trained in the force, while Kylo and Rey aren't.

Do you think Kylo is some kind of force god or Starkiller? This would have been boring.

Look at @srg's post. It makes sense in the SW Universe.

 

I think it's fair to be disappointed that there was no Force usage in this fight (it didn't bother me personally), but to say it doesn't make sense in the Star Wars universe undermines literally every other lightsaber duel.

In my head canon I always justified it with lack of concentration (simplest solution, especially in this case, where they faced multiple enemies at once) or the fact that Force users can sense each other's intentions and somehow disturb the opponent's Force move. Who knows, there are many possible interpretations, but it's probably better for it to remain a mystery. Yoda and Sidious used a lot of Force in their fight. Maybe you need this kind of mastery to use it freely in combat?

 

Nope. It's not because "that's not how the Force works" but it's because these are just a staged movie duels and not real fights. We may also assume that one force-sensitive can defend himself against other force-sensitive's pushing (just like Obi-Wan and Anakin did during their duel on Mustafar). And I'm fine with that explanation. The problem is that Snoke's guards were not force-sensitive and against Kylo they should be as defenseless as those droids on Trade Federation ship, or on Naboo.

Any proof it's really a difference?

That's why I'm not blaming Rey, but Kylo had training. And is a damn Skywalker.

Nope, he's just a powerful Force user. We all saw he can do tricks like we hever seen before. So his decision to NOT use Force at all during his fight with 8 "elite" guards was stupid. It's like stupid guys in other movies - dropping loaded gun just to fight someone with their bare hands.

As I pointed out - no, it does not. I think you think it makes sense just because you want to think that way, to justify the director's decision regarding that duel.

Well, this whole situation looks like the Eagle theory from Lord of the Rings. Why didn't Gandalf just rally all eagles and fly on one of them to Mordor to drop the ring from the above, destroy Sauron and avoid that huge war? Because it would destroy the whole narrative. There would be no heroic actons of the main characters, no sacrifice etc. So actually Gandalf's and Elrond's decision to go on foot to Mordor was a stupid one and can't be defended.

 

I think you've just given yourself the best answer.

 

@Aquila, you're just answered your own complaints: It's a movie.

Any proof against it? See, I can play this game too.

Being a Skywalker doesn't make you powerful. The force isn't inheritable.

We should stop arguing and rather agree to disagree. This discussion will get us nowhere.

 

(It kind of is, though. )



You definitely inherit the Force potential, but it isn't the only way to become powerful.

 

Nope. That "it's just a movie" cannot be an excuse for showing things that are either silly or not lore-wise. If we have a SW movie with Force users having a fight - then making them abstain from using their powers when they have clearly problems with winning easily is a bad writing. We still may have a spectacular fight (just as we had in TLJ), but it's not a "proper" SW fight.
I know it's just a movie - but when you make it like that - then it becomes a badly written movie.

Another LotR analogy - imagine this - Legolas is awesome with his bow. He can hit guys from hundreds of meters without any problem. BUT in one particular scene director decided that he wants to show Legolas' melee skills. So instead of making him shoot enemies from afar - he makes him drop his bow and wait until they come close. That way we'll have a badass scene with elf cutting and sllashing orcs, but it would be a dumb scene nonetheless.

Now I can say - "that's not how it works" If you come with a theory - the burden of proof is on you. You can't just invent new theories and force others to disprove them for you.

But of course it makes you powerful. Training is necessary orf course (which Kylo had), but being a Skywalker means being a powerful Force user too (Leia is powerful, but never trained so she is kind of an exception)

It will get us nowhere, because you clearly don't want to admit that this duel makes almost no sense in SW movie. I'm perfectly fine when someone says he likes it - because I also liked how visually it was performed. But decision of making Kylo use his sword only and NOT his Force skills can't be defended - it's just a result of strange director's decision, nothing more and thus cannot be defended or justified lore-wise.

 

See, now we can go back to nitpicking fights in all films for moments in which a Force trick would do all the work. You can either pick your preferred reason for why it is the way it is (lore-wise) or be fair and criticise all the duels across the board.

As I've said, it's OK to feel disappointed because there was no Force in this particular fight, but it's too much to say it doesn't make sense in this universe or that it's bad filmmaking.

 

honestly, in TFA a riot trooper throws down his blaster to duke it out with Finn and you're wondering why Ren chooses to actually fight instead of knocking out his opponents with the Force? (as he could have easily done in TFA with Rey, and probably would gain him some advantage in the throne room).

the conceit with this character is that he's going to fight. whether that's a matter of pride or honor or stupidity, it's clearly his modus. the reasons he froze Poe (and his blaster bolt) were distance, expedience, and contempt. he even fought Finn, though there was no reason whatsoever for him to do so.

i get that you think it's just bad film-making, but the majority of the audience either doesn't care or is invested enough to imagine rationales (which i think is our job as an audience in terms of participating with the text), or they dismiss it without much critical thought. i don't have a problem with silliness in Star Wars.

art can be beautiful and moving and also very dumb. any one thing does not preclude any other.

 

But... it doesn't I think that putting dumb things in the movies just because "it looks cool" is a bad thing. I know there are hundreds of tropes (like bad guys who can't hit heroes when shooting at them, bunch of bad guys politely attacking hero one by one etc) which exist... I don't know, probably because some people like them or didn't care - but the more such things we have in a movie - the worse it becomes. Infecting the alien mothership with computer virus (!!!) so it can be destroyed by cool Will Smith on the exactly 4th July? That movie was one of the dumbest ones ever made, yet it still was a major blockbuster at its time. When I was a kid I even loved it. But then the age of reason came, and... I don't watch such silly movies anymore.

Ah, the riot trooper. Probably the dumbest and most annoying scene in TFA.

And maybe that's the problem. When audience doesn't have high standards and is ready to blindly accept even mediocre of silly products - then why producers should care about the quality? They can write a silly script, add flashing visuals and still everyone (well, almost) will be happy. That's how all Marvel films are made and sold after all

 

And how many times did you sign the petition for the Snyder cut?

 

I have no idea what that is.

 

It did make much sense in the old SW Universe. Though KOTOR is currently completely non-canon, I wouldn't be surprised if Force Amor has become canon through its use in TLJ again. It wouldn't be the first time ideas have ended up back in canon.

Copied from Wookieepedia:

The Knights of the Old Republic games on the other hand preserve consistency with the typical Jedi apparel in that, even though Force-sensitive party members (including the player) may wear battle armor, doing so blocks the use of many Force powers

 

That means hardly any Star Wars fight should make sense to you!

Yeah, but you have to admit that Kylo Ren not using the Force in a fight that he has to win anyway is not that level of dumb and silly.

 

i totally agree. it's ridiculous.

i guess i have a different perspective on this. because again, i don't denigrate silliness as an attribute of art. really good quality silliness is priceless and i consider Star Wars to be the top of that shelf. it's fun, it engages the imagination, it asks you to question things, it's a world full of cool ships and gadgets and weapons and technology that makes no sense. there's absolutely nothing wrong with that.

the standard it should be held to is itself, not Citizen Kane or Andrei Rublev or Black Panther or Transformers, etc.
it's Star Wars. it's in a league of its own--but that means you have to honor its conceits. and again, one of the conceits is that if people have light sabers, they're going to fight with them like fencers ~ for which i'm grateful, frankly, because i'm not interested in watching overpowered bouncing fleas throwing Force magic at each other.

just my own personal preference, but i like a good duel and would rather watch the finale of Scaramouche any day over any movie involving any kind of "magic". and speaking of Scaramouche, perhaps there's an apt comparison ~ it's exactly the kind of swashbuckling secret identity lost bloodlines adventure story that Lucas modeled this saga on. : D

 

Right.
Some of the greatest films ever are comedies and coated in silliness.
Blazing Saddles is an incredibly important film in the context of when it was made and what subjects it covers. It's ridiculous and silly.
But that doesn't take away the artistic merit of what Brooks was saying about racism and acceptance.
Same with The Producers.

 

even stories that aren't intentionally comedic can be full of silliness. Les Miserables, which i'm pretty sure no one would call a comedy, has the amazingly silly Marius and Cosette cooing their infatuation to one another like the lovestruck teenagers that they are--to the point of being a grotesquerie. and that's the point: they're ridiculous.

Johnson deliberately made the throne room battle thrilling in the spirit of swashbuckling rather than mapping it out to be 100% logical given the weapons, the arena, the Force powers, etc. i get that some people think he should have done both. i think he chose to honor and prioritize the spirit of fun and adventure and not get hung up on math. and i think it's a legitimate choice.