Leia Poppins debate

I've mentioned a ton of things I disliked about TLJ, but I loved this scene. Who cares if it evoked Superman or Mary Poppins? The tone was much different even if connotations to other cultural objects are bound to rise. This isn't technically flying no matter how much people want to imagine it is. Leia moves herself through space using the Force. Cool. It makes perfect sense. Even surviving in space makes sense for a Force user: they can protect themselves using the Force.

So yeah, there are a lot of things to critique in this film, but I think some people (not all) just have ageist issues with an older character like Leia doing something super cool.

 

I loved this scene. Cheered in the theater actually. I was blissfully unaware it was controversial until after the film. We've seen something similar to this in Rebel. The daughter of Anakin Skywalker doing something like this seemed completely reasonable to me.

 

I didn't like it. Leia was never interested in the force and suddenly she can use it to save her life? I don't buy it. I mean using it a little in an emergency situation would have been perfectly fine, but what she did was something you would expect from a force prodigy.

 

it just looked silly, completely took me out of the film, their was laughter in both screenings ive been too.

 

If Rey could use a Jedi mind trick with no training, Leia should have been able to save herself with the Force.

 

I thought it was very unique and interesting.

 

When I come to think of it, this was the most Spielberg-esque moment in the entire saga. This moment was meant for children, not for mentally undiagnosed 40 year olds who live in their mom's basement and run organizations like "The Galactic Alliance to Restore the Old Expended Universe".

 

I’m sort of with you, I thought it looked silly and didn’t really care for it but it didn’t have any weight for me on the overall film. That was really the only part I didn’t care for in the film, but as some others mentioned, my kids liked it.

 

I'd have been equally insulted had Luke done something similar, and he's a trained master. Unless you're wearing a space suit, you're not surviving in space outside a space ship after experience explosive decompression. She'd be concussed, unconscious for far more than mere seconds, and unable to think let alone focus on using the force.

I live in Canada, northern Ontario and experience -20 Celsius weather more than half the days of winter, and -30 to -40s for a week or two every year. Space is way beyond that level of cold. The cold alone, in seconds would incapacitate her, especially unconscious, that's not even mentioning her being in vacuum and just having been exploded into space.

I also think pretty much every fan wanted to see Leia use the Force. That's pretty much the best way to honor ROTJ. She should have used some force powers in TFA imho. Unfortunately this was about the most ridiculous way to have her use the force they could have possibly conceived. It cheapens the character and especially the moment.

Like the movie if you want, even like the scene, but don't try convincing anyone it's in any way near plausible, even for a fully trained Jedi unless their species has somehow evolved to endure space for short duration, and even in that case it would be stretching the limits of plausibility. But this is a human, force sensitive unconscious commander in a skirt. There's just no way.

I guess we'll just have to agree to disagree, but I just don't get how that doesn't pull you out of the movie.

 

It was just badly executed, but I was fine with it in terms of character/plot.

 

I was so worried about the main things that I thought were wrongly done in this movie (Luke/Snoke/Rey) that I didn't have time to be bothered by this scene.

 

Scientific accuracy has never been a thing with Star Wars. Besides, you actually can survive in space for a very limited amount of time. It's been done in "hard" scifi films and in loads of scifi novels, and nobody ever complained. Of course the scene didn't seem realistic in TLJ, but again: Why demand realism in a franchise that's basically wizards in space? The whole sequence had a very magical feel to it, and I'm sure that's a deliberate thing. Leia did use magic.

 

This actually isn't true, since space is a vacuum there is nothing to convect the heat away from the body, it actually acts as an insulator in the same way windows or a cup with a vacuum layer reduce heat loss. The instant freezing we see in movies is something created by Hollywood.

You can theoretically survive in the vacuum of space for several minutes if conditions are right, the damage would come from bubbles forming in your bodily fluids and lack of oxygen. The most improbable thing about this scene is Leia would lose consciousness within 10-15 seconds from lack of oxygen (you can't hold your breath in space).

Her regaining consciousness would have to be a product of the force. But assuming the g forces of being sucked out or radiation didn't kill her there isn't really anything impossible about her surviving for a minute or so with only damage that would require some sort of treatment like what we see in the movie.

I can totally see how some people may not like how the scene was shot and the overall look of it, but for a science fiction/fantasy movie this was actually decently accurate. Especially compared to Han and Leia walking around the asteroid cave in ESB.

 

Leia using the force could have been a great and very powerful moment in the movie. Instead we got what at this moment I consider to be one of the dumbest scenes ever in any Star Wars film.

I have two young girls, they laughed out loud at how silly she looked flying thru space. I just cringed.

 

RJ bring in Leia EU
People: Wooray!
Me: Why?

RJ destroy OT Luke
People: Wooray!
Me: What? Why? The heck?

That's not how the Force work...

At least let her DIE using the Force saving Rey from Ren, then get saber barbecue by Ren.

It will work much better. This is straight up comedy.

The whole movie is nothing but a Starwars parody.

 

Exactly. The fact this scene is continually criticized is just one example of the double standard at work here. We were kids when we fell in love with Star Wars and we didn't question anything we saw back then. If we can't get our innocence back, fine. But Star Wars still speaks to that exact sentiment - to kids and the kid in all of us. Maybe it didn't change that much. Maybe we did.​

 

it was dumb... the people making this movie don't really understand the saga... they used the force in the stupidest ways like the whole Luke thing at the end and Leah flying... epic fail!

 

I thought it was jarring. It’s the only thing in the entire movie I’m indifferent about.

 

I think that's the main underlying issue for those who tend to hate on the newer Star Wars films. The newer movies didn't really follow us, or "grow" with those of us who were children in the 1970's. Selfish? Perhaps. Sorry, not sorry.

 

I raised an eyebrow thinking that I was certain she was using the Force but enough people have challenged it its believability that I wish there had been evidence of to make it clear. The visual of her flying needed more to it. The simplicity of her flight and the static look to her clothes made me think of many Disney witches beyond just Mary Poppins.