AT does has the advantage of taking place a thousand years in the future, so I can buy stuff like AMO's weapon as extremely advanced tech we're just incapable of understanding. Wile E. Coyote is working with TNT and slingshots so it's a lot easier to call bullshit.

this show uses the words kill and die pretty often actually. It seemed intentional not to use it here because Moe didn't think he was dying, just that his already heavily modified body was finally giving out. He transferred his consciousness/memories so he felt that he'd live on in some way.

In defense of the Talia one, at the very least Batman knew R'as Al Ghul from the first film, and so her saying her name might actually mean something to him, as opposed to your other examples where yeah those names only mean something to the audience.

The excuse for both shows is that it's not about the mystery but about the characters, and it's true in both cases, but the difference is that it's actually readily apparent in the leftovers. You understand from the beginning that this isn't a show about how or why 2% of the world's population vanished, but how the…

Wait, this was the mid season finale??

I don't think Hanks ever says "but I'm just a school teacher!" in Saving Private Ryan.

The fence climbing didn't bother me as much as the woman opposite him on the train. That was a bridge of spies too far

Before he drank the water he said he hoped the bird would escape. I think him killing the bird was meant to suggest to us that he'd truly forgotten his who he was

I just watched the Leftovers for the first time now and happened upon your explanation of science fiction here while skimming through the comments. I must say, your concept of what science fiction is is so profoundly wrongheaded that I felt compelled to tell you so, even though it is a year after the fact. So there…

Yeah Finn had these little moments of perceptiveness and heroism that I really liked. His moment with The Moon that you mentioned, also sensing that marceline wasn't sure herself if she killed those animals, and refusing to let Marceline execute the Vampire King - these were all nice beats for him.

Yeah, since we're all indulging in "what if" thinking here, I like to imagine a RotJ that fully embraces the fact that this is a movie about Luke and Vader with Han, Leia and co given much less screen time. Skip all the Endor nonsense and show us Luke back on Degobah training with a new level of determination…

Their second to last and last exchanges more or less:
Luke: I have to face vader
Yoda: No you need more training
to
Luke: I need more training
Yoda: No you need to face vader

did they drop it though? His mom does mention there being no father (though she might have said that as a joke? it's impossible to tell), and the emperor does tell Anakin the story of the dark lord who could use midichlorians to create life.

If I could re-cast Anakin (not that a recasting is the only thing needed to fix the prequels) I think Michael Fassbender would have been kind of amazing. Watch him in X-men First Class with Anakin Skywalker in mind - his Magneto is exactly the kind of man I imagined Vader was before the prequels gave us Christiansen.

where did you see the ending?

Gimme figs! It's not the season for figs. it can't give you figs, obviously. ok die then.

I agree that the problems aren't as extreme as the prequels (it's a stepping stone toward that destination) but that's why I said "not much better than" as opposed to "just as bad".
I probably think the rescue plan making zero sense is a bigger deal than you do, so there's that. The Ewok stuff of course, mostly…

Yeah but then Vader provides objective evidence for his "religion" by magically choking him.
He does mention "faith" and the imperial's disturbing lack of it (which is a great line), but I always took that line as sort of sarcastic given how his faith is now completely irrelevant following Vader's demonstration.

When is the last time you watched Return of the Jedi? It's not much better than the prequels to be honest, it has a lot of the same problems.

I agree 100% with everything you said except I don't think the force was ever about religious faith, because who needs faith when you can objectively witness magical stuff like crushing a man's windpipe just by thinking about it.