The Resistance isn't the Republic's military. There's one point where they talk about how they'll now be in trouble without the Republic's fleet to protect them. I agree that it doesn't make a huge amount of sense, but I'm not sure how this is particularly different from the original movies.

Imperial Naval officers are British; storm troopers are American. That's just how it works.

His dealings with the space gangsters were pretty solidly Han, I thought.

Maybe Han was distracted with other business during the earlier thefts, and didn't get around to looking for it until after it was already disused.

OBVIOUSLY? I do not think that word means what you think it means.

Yeah, fuck you James Joyce/William Faulkner!

I don't really get these kinds of complaints that could just as easily be made about the original movies. Did we know anyone on Alderaan?

Adam Driver is 32; Daisy Ridley is 23. I imagine Rei is supposed to be a few years younger than Ridley, but I don't see any particular reason to think Ren is supposed to be 19. Why would you cast a thirty-something actor to play a nineteen year old?

There are 3 female talking characters in A New Hope? Leia, Beru, and … ?

A New Hope gives a good explanation of the state of the galaxy?

I mean, I cared about him way more than any character in the prequels.

Wasn't that more or less all you had in the original trilogy?

A) seriously, a Behind the Music parody in 2015?

But I think the differences Much Loved Character points out are actually crucial. There are superficial similarities, but Anakin is neither the hero nor the protagonist of Phantom Menace, so it doesn't actually *feel* anything like Star Wars 77 (I refuse to call it "A New Hope").

It's a very fun movie, although obviously not a "great" movie in some serious aesthetic sense. I also rather enjoy The Mummy Returns. I refused to see the third one, because they recast Rachel Weisz's character.

This is all very reasonable! Although I do think the classic series is not quite as clearcut as you do. Yes, the Fourth Doctor and Leela clearly had no real chemistry, and neither did he with Romana I. But I think he had loads of chemistry with both Sarah and Romana II - you'll never convince me the Fourth Doctor and…

Surely Heaven Sent, at least, was very good to excellent? The other wholly Moffat episodes this season were…uneven. I still basically like them all, but they had kind of jarring tonal shifts and seemed like they could have used an editor. But I feel like they all had some great stuff in them as well.

Yup, that too.

That feels about right to me, although I'll need some time before I can distinguish between "season 9 was consistently good on an episode by episode basis to an extent the show has never really managed before" and "season 9 had a coherent narrative through line that makes it the best in the new series as a whole."

So, basically, throughout the Pertwee era and through to Genesis of the Daleks, the Time Lords are superior assholes who basically make the Doctor do things for them because they're dicks.