No Goals Too High Where Falcons Fly: Fill & Download for Free

(Caution: Long Post Ahead).It marked the transitional step of the Falcon 9 from prototype, to fully operational.A lot of people think that up until now, the Falcon 9 has been fully operational for several years. That is far from the truth. Legacy models such as the Block I to IV are all, one way or another, frameworks for the final evolution which is the Block V.To understand the differences, we have to go through the Block system implemented by SpaceX first. And since Block V is essentially the culmination of all of the best of the four previous blocks, you’ll get an insight into it as well in the process.‘Block’ is the denominator that SpaceX uses to identify the hardware with which a booster was built, or equipped with. Of course, the higher the Block number, the more advanced the booster would be.Each Block, before Block V all signifies major milestone in the history of the Falcon 9’s family:Block I was built to test and accomplish vertical landing, the task which B1019 - the first stage core that was used in ORBCOMM-2 mission in 21st of December, 2015 successfully completed.Block II was developed with the task of proving the prospect of re-using an orbital-grade launch vehicle. And this was completed by B1021 - launched and landed first on April 8th, 2016. And launched once more, as well as landed on the same date being March 30th, 2017.Block II also incorporated a few minor tweaks taken from Block I, which was a fix for the post-landing fire beneath the engines that’d leave the engines a bit too warm for the company’s taste. This still happens from time to time.Block III was a performance upgrade with stronger engines, which would mean higher efficiency. Once upgraded to Block III’s standard, a single core can output an additional 7,607 kN of thrust in comparison to older variants. The thing is that the Falcon 9 at the time was not entirely as powerful as the company had projected it could be. But they have to take it slow at the time, and the Block III was the first step toward that final thrust goal.Block IIIs are the most popular boosters for now. They’ve launched far more missions than any other series, and is the series that SpaceX re-use extensively.But this same eagerness for rapid re-use got them into troubles.SpaceX tried to speed up the time that fuels were loaded into the booster. The rapid loading forced the Liquid Oxygen (Which is used as an oxidiser) to solidify into solid-state Oxygen between the carbon-fibre outer layer and the Aluminium liners of the COPV (Composite Overwrapped Pressure Vessel).The layers are ‘glued’ or bonded together with a layer of epoxy.Long story short, the solid-state Oxygen caused the COPV to rupture, and due to its proximity with the main tank, also broke it. This causes LOX to flow uncontrolled to meet with the RP-1 below, and sparked an ignition inside of the vehicle.SpaceX modified their fuel loading procedure, and NASA also demanded that they redesigned the COPV immediately if they wished to have the Falcon 9 rated for human flight.Block IV came. And since the problems with the COPV was attributed to the fuel loading procedure, in the mean time that the COPV was redesigned, Block IV went ahead to take the Falcon 9’s thrust one notch further than Block III. Other than that, this version did not see much changes. Rather, it was meant to be the middle-man between Block III and the final Block V.Here come the Block V.Take all of the goods that every single thing I’ve mentioned above, and crammed it into one thing. You’ll have the Block V. Which was why I wrote that the Block V is an evolution of the Falcon 9.The most noticeable change is surely in the aesthetic department.Instead of an all-white coating, the Falcon 9 Block V’s inter-stage and landing legs are black.In opposition to User-10240581476198209742’s answer (Sorry, mate), his point on the previous white coating to make it looked ‘Sexier’ made me uncomfortable enough I have to write an answer about it.Previous Falcon 9’s were painted white not because they would look sexier. That white paint is a thermal coating.The white ‘paint’ is ablative cork, once met with high temperature, it will peel off.The landing legs not only are among the first components to suffer aerodynamic heating as the first stage plunges through the atmosphere to return to land, but they’re also the closest to the burning engines. Even though carbon fibre is capable of withstanding a lot of heat, they can only stand so much without support.As you can see, the bottom was singed and the outer layer that used to be pristine white was covered in soot.The same coating was also applied to the Aluminium grid fins, which, after flight, all peeled off from the heat.Furthermore, black paint will absorb much more heat that can easily turn uncontrollable.This is a historical lesson: In the past, a miniaturised version of the Saturn V which was used to test the vehicle’s prototype was found to overheat at spots where it was painted black. So more white paint was applied to the body, but black marks still remain to help ground control calculate the roll of the vehicle once it lifted off.That’s also the reason why most rockets are painted white.No, they wouldn’t make the interstage and the landing legs black without justification.And NO! Looking sexier is far from justifiable.The justification is that the black coating is a type of heat-resistant carbon fibre that’s most likely based on Creslan 61 (Polyacrylonitrile).The material was developed to replace the heavy and expensive white ablative. From what I’ve heard, it’s Pyron - a type of oxidised polyacrylonitrile fiber (OPF).Light, inherently flame-retardant, and heat-resistant that can withstand heat up to above 1,000 Centigrade without being damaged. This is a perfect response to the problem of the ablative cork peeling off from the fuselage while re-entering the atmosphere, as it increases cost of re-applying them if you wish to re-use the rocket.Then I heard you ask: “Okay … so why the interstage, too?”Look here.See the scorch marks?Also, throwback to the old picture of the old, Aluminium grid fin which was visibly damaged after it landed:See the scorch marks on the interstage?What happened was that the Falcon 9 was having its grid fins extended during re-entry - the hottest part of the journey.The grid fins create lift by manipulating the air flows weaving through its lattices, by rotating or raising, lowering the fins, you can control the direction the vehicle on which the fins are attached to.But this would also mean that, at supersonic speed regime, the grid fins would also create shock waves that would wash up, hit, and slide along the section of the interstage above it.This would create a lot of heat, almost equivalent to the heat rubbing off on the landing legs. So it also has to be applied the same Thermal Protection System (TPS) as the Octaweb and the legs. Thus, the odd painting scheme.The legs can also be retracted manually now instead of having to be removed and reset after each flights. This aligns well with the improved TPS applied onto the landing legs, and you can consider that the legs have now been ‘fully-reusable’.The new coating allows SpaceX to stop having to fret so much on repainting it, but also reduce labour necessary to fit the legs back into position.Another significant change available to the Block V is to the Octaweb - the structure supporting the nine Merlin engines which also acts as a heatshield to protect the entire booster while it’s on its way back to Earth.It used to be welded, but now it’s bolted.The old, welded Octaweb made it really difficult for technicians to swap it out since welding literally made the Octaweb part of the entire fuselage, and is more difficult to maintain due to the brittleness of the joints. After every flights, they have to re-check the welded joints for micro-cracks, and then re-apply the joint.Now that it’s bolted, it’s supremely easier to repair and maintain the Octaweb. Furthermore, integration with the Falcon Heavy is improved due to the swap-ability. In the FH’s design, the base is where mating clamps are at to connect the three cores together, along with one more pair at the top.The Octaweb for the Falcon Heavy cores are also strengthened to withstand the additional stress the thrust, along with the weight of the extra cores put on it. So making the Octaweb flexible to change is a great step toward fluent integration.For previous Falcon 9 iterations, the Octaweb bottom is protected against re-entry heat during the flight with a composite TPS constructed from a mixture of cork and PICA-X (The material that formed the heat shield of the Dragon capsule). But the presence of cork in general makes it difficult to maintain and repair, still.You can see the scorch marks and peeling done to the Octaweb here.So they swapped it out with Inconel - a nickel-chromium alloy that can maintain integrity within a range of temperature far more diverse than the old shield. This reduce minimum maintenance and cost further.In term of flight control, even though the Titanium grid fins have been experimented for months now on a few Falcon 9 flights, and the Falcon Heavy side-boosters were equipped with them. They weren’t in official service until now on the Block V.Instead of being coated in white cork like the Aluminium grid fins, which has a far lower temperature tolerance than Titanium. The Titanium fins were left unpainted due to the metal’s excellent heat resisting capability. And Titanium is also strong enough that Elon has said that they require no maintenance at all throughout their entire lifespan.These grid fins also have different architecture than the Aluminium ones, by which they are locally swept. Signified by the ‘Teeth’ that the Titanium grid fins have.The teeth allow them to have better lift-to-drag ratio and zero-lift total drag. Making the fins far more superior than the old ones and provide better control overall.Adhering to the thrust-improvement plans, the new Merlin 1-D installed on the Block V has 10% more thrust than the previous Block. The turbopump within the assembly is also strengthened to combat micro-fractures, which was a concern in the past for NASA.In addition, the engine is rated for human flight. Which is also part of the reason why I wrote beforehand that the Block V is the point where the entire Falcon 9 family matures.It has always been aimed at lifting humans into space, and with the Block V, that critical mission goal can finally be satisfied at last.Beside these major overhauls, the Block V also contains the redesigned COPV (Dubbed as ‘COPV 2.0’).You also can’t forget the new, recoverable Fairings (Fairing 2.0).The new fairings are lighter, slightly more spacious than 1.0 version, streamlined so it’s quicker to build, and finally, optimised for reuse. Armed with a parasail, computer, and a lighter weight, the Fairing 2.0 can land accurately into the waiting arms of catching boats to be dragged back to shore.Coupling with a few subtle changes such as hardened valves and internal modifications so that it can be reused several times without maintenance, you have the new, upcoming Block V in all of its overhauled glory!Once again, Block V is the series with the most significant changes to date, gathering all of the lessons and experiences learned from previous models, and implemented here into a complete, near-perfect version.Expected to fly several times per booster in comparison to older models (Rated only for 2–3 flights), and probably would be the one to take the first men to space on a SpaceX-built vehicle. I’m super hyped for the upcoming launch, and surely, I’d try to watch it live if I could.Its meaning may not be as large as the first landing on ground, at sea, the first re-use of a landed booster, or the Falcon Heavy. But it’s a great leap forward toward landing the first man on Mars for its eventual occupation.General Consensus: Hardware Mode.

The article referenced at the top of the question includes five proposed manned missions to Mars. There are some other contenders I'll also mention. There's also significant cross-over between these missions, for the main reason that most of them are speculative and aren't actually developing technology.Inspiration MarsDennis Tito's mission to perform a Mars fly by on a 1.4 year mission exploits an alignment that occurs twice every 15 years, and next in 2015 and 2017. The idea is to put a married couple on a Dragon/Bigelow hybrid spacecraft and fire them at Mars. Married presumably so they already know how to fight. Technologically it's the least ambitious, except for the shorter time frame. From a mission perspective it's a bit sad that their Mars flyby will necessarily be on the night side of Mars, so they won't see much. Unfortunately NASA politely declined to front the other $700m of the $1b estimated price tag. It's kinda a stunt, not really NASA's game. Possibly Russia or someone else will front some money, but I wouldn't bet on it. There is a strong feeling in the commercial space sector that manned missions should really not explode, so they're taking it slowly. One key indicator of mission likelihood is graphics on the mission website. Tito has clearly invested in some slick artists, but by his own admission hasn't hired a single engineer. Hoping to use other people's technology. While a crewed Dragon 2 will probably fly by 2016, there's a big difference between LEO and a Mars flyby mission.Mars OneI've written a few other answers about Mars One on quora. It's a cool idea, but it cannot possibly work. I think it even borders on disingenuous, since the reality TV aspect of the training missions seems likely to occur, but they will never, ever even think about launching people to space, let alone Mars. The main reason for this is that even if syndication works perfectly, they won't have enough money. Another reason is that, IMO, there is a big difference between candidates who make for compelling TV and candidates who would be good astronauts. Hyper competence and control doesn't make for good TV, at least not in the ten year training stage...Musk's Mars MissionSpaceX is somewhat vague about the specifics of their proposed Mars missions for the reason that their precise nature hasn't yet been determined. Merlin 2 engine development was announced and then cancelled as a result of some of the technical discoveries they made - similarly Falcon 9.0 flew only 5 times before it was upgraded. That said, SpaceX is taking a serious look at the technologies necessary to make Mars missions possible for thousands rather than a few, and re-usable rockets is a huge goal that rightly consumes a lot of their time. It would be awesome if they sent an empty but operational re-used dragon on the 1.4 year Mars flyby in 2015 and/or 2017, just as a trial run. SpaceX doesn't have a specific timeline - in depends heavily on how well they can monetize space launch and invest in R&D. But before Mars missions can occur they need a new rocket, a new engine, a new spacecraft, and a few billion in cash. It's possible that at the right moment Musk might sell Tesla to finance this, but probably incremental growth is preferable. Of the five proposals, SpaceX is the closest to having something work.Mars DirectMars Direct is an interesting idea, and revolutionary in terms of its mission design. All manned missions will be derived from Mars Direct rather than von Braun's 1000 tonne mission design. In situ resource utilization is a no-brainer. However, as originally proposed the Mars Direct mission has serious issues that mean it could never work. In particular, foldable heat shields are problematic, and without them the ballistic coefficient is too high. In my opinion, a likely Mars mission plan would involve a single spacecraft that can return to Earth, and a spare launched beforehand. This is possible as rocket and in particular computer technology has progressed substantially since Mars Direct was developed. I should also note there are dozens of Mars Direct derived mission plans such as Mars semi-direct, Mars for less, and so on, some of which do not require development of a new heavy-lift launch vehicle, but have in-space assembly of components. It just depends who's paying as to which geometry is selected. If the skylon ever works, a completely different Mars mission plan may also become viable.NASANASA has had the SEI, the constellation program, and more recently the Orion capsule and SLS system development. NASA is probably the best organised bureaucracy on earth, and their achievements are considerable. They are not without fault, however, and NASA's primary mission is to spend money on Earth, in as many congressional districts as possible. Combined with other structural issues, no NASA space mission is possible without serious cost inflation. In particular, the SEI was a good example of how to make a mission where everyone's technology was mission critical. Spending lots of money, can develop plenty of technology, but ultimately it strangled itself. Similarly, the constellation program faltered because of its insistence on developing a mission non-specific hardware, and a few unproven technologies. Specifically, rockets to take people to the moon and Mars are fundamentally different beasts for fundamentally different missions. Designing in flexibility is good if you anticipate congress might change your mission on you half way through, but bad in every other sense. Noone designs a house with hotel conversion in mind. Noone designs a jet airliner to also land on water, just in case. And rockets are an order of magnitude more difficult. The latest SLS program is shuttle derived hardware to ensure all the shuttle parts manufacturers remain in business, regardless of the fact that innovation has not really occurred. As such, it's an engineering compromise. SpaceX can start with a clean sheet and make a rocket that's 10% the price and 120% the performance, but they do not have to employ people in every state to beg for funding. The Orion capsule is essentially an upgraded Apollo CM. It's designed to be able to re-enter the atmosphere from a variety of missions, to have life support, etc etc, but because there is no clear mandate, designing it to be both efficient and versatile is nearly impossible. Still, it will probably be used eventually, though I doubt as part of a Mars mission. With a clear mandate, however, NASA could develop a manned Mars mission, likely at the cost of a lot of their unmanned science research, within a similar timeframe to SpaceX. The difference there is NASA would put a few dozen at most on Mars temporarily, whereas SpaceX wants orders of magnitude more people.Other national space agenciesChina has publicly stated a manned Mars mission for the 2040s-2060s. Russia has a 2035 goal. These are so far away, however, that they can't be taken seriously. Both countries, as well as Japan, Europe, and India have the capability to develop Mars capable transport in a decade, but will need a clear reason to do so. For the time being there is a detente, since if noone goes, noone needs to go. As soon as the equilibrium is upset by SpaceX or another contender, and viability/surviveability is practically demonstrated, a new space race will kick off to ensure that each of these countries has a stake in the new game.

Here’s why people hate Star Wars: The Last Jedi:The film's central flaw is that it almost never sets up scenes by having them flow organically: rather, the director wants a scene to start with things a particular way, and so it does. The arbitrary rules that need to be set in place to make the scene happen are simply how things are. For example, the explanation of why the First Order are suddenly so powerful? That'd be one sentence in the title crawl, which flatly declares they are now powerful.The worst example of this is when the script clunks out the following: They are faster and lighter, sir. They can't lose us, but they can keep at a range where our cannons are not effective against their shields. (...) They won't last long burning fuel like this. Not only is this flatly wrong, since the Resistance ships never actually pull away from the First Order ones despite supposedly being faster, it does not fit with anything that has ever been depicted in Star Wars before and feels completely artificial. Meanwhile, the Millennium Falcon can still jump all over the place without worrying about space fuel at all.This sloppy approach to causality and continuity also results in frequent cases of what can only be described as teleportation, with characters simply appearing where the plot has decided they ought to be. Major examples include Phasma suddenly being at the opposite end of a hangar bay after the Hyperspace ramming, BB-8 appearing inside an AT-ST, Rey getting from Snoke's throne room to his escape craft to the Falcon off-screen in a manner that is never made clear, Rose, BB-8 and Finn all teleporting to a First Order shuttle which then somehow appears at the door of the Rebel base right as it is closing even though none of these characters should know where the base actually is, and Rose's rattletrap ship suddenly being right next to Finn's even though an overhead shot clearly showed Finn's was the only ship even going in that direction.The film has basically no payoff for any of the plot points that were set up in the previous film. Snoke is nobody, Rey's parents are nobody, Kylo Ren's training isn't important, the Knights of Ren don't seem to even exist anymore, etc. This is supposed to be subversive, but subverting expectations is supposed to be satisfying. Simply saying "All that stuff we set up? Yeah, that was nothing." just makes the audience go "oh...well, ok...I guess?" and then not bother to invest themselves further since you have just told them doing so is completely pointless.Indeed, it often feels like much of the previous film didn't even happen: no explanation is given as to why Luke would go to the effort of going to a Jedi temple on some backwater planet if he just wanted to die, the loss of Starkiller Base if anything seems to have made the First Order stronger, Snoke, despite repeatedly seeing Kylo Ren in his mask, suddenly doesn't like it, Finn's spinal injury is simply cured the first time we see him, etc.The film doesn't work as a middle section of a trilogy. A middle piece in a trilogy has a lot of work to do and the film failed to do any of it. It didn’t expand the story or cast really, it didn’t progress the overarching plot, it severed the plot threads for subversion sake. But the biggest sin is that I don’t see any reason why people would be interested in the conclusion to this trilogy from the ending of this movie. In ten years when a friend says he is going to watch this trilogy, you could say all that happens in the middle movie is Snoke and Luke die and the First Order is in charge now and they could skip it.Constant clunky attempts at humor that are badly placed (usually disrupting tense action scenes) and fall completely flat. For example, the first scene is an extended setup to a bad prank call, delivered to a character who is supposed to be powerful and threatening.Scenes with poorly-written dialogue, such as when Poe says "We are the spark that will light the fire that will burn the First Order down." Yes, I know that it's supposed to be metaphorical, but it's still looks like it's written by a 2-year old.A central theme of the movie is "letting the past die" by allowing both Jedi and Sith to go extinct, but at the end the movie it claims that "the Jedi will live on".The film shares its predecessor's problem of lacking a sense of scale: somehow, the paramilitary funded by a galactic Republic has only one base, with perhaps a dozen large ships. The setup of the midsection of the film also only works if every ship in the First Order is chasing every ship in the Resistance, since otherwise one or both sides could summon more ships to assist them. As before, the only real attempt to compensate is to make individual things bigger, so the First Order has ridiculously giant Star Destroyers, massive AT-ATs, etc.The film also has internal contradictions: for example, Rey is from a desert planet and so has never seen rain before, but later she somehow knows how to swim. Even the characters themselves seem to be struggling to keep up with the disjointed plot: Snoke seems to have been genuinely unaware that his own flagship had a hyperspace tracking device on board, while Finn goes from thinking hyperspace tracking is impossible to deciding he mopped the breaker room for the tracker on the Supremacy (despite being stationed on Starkiller Base) in the space of one scene.Finn now knows how to fly spaceships, despite it being a major plot point that he did not know how to do so in the previous film and no time having elapsed for him to learn.Rian seems to honestly not understand what space is: repeatedly we see doors open into space without sucking people out, damaged vessels sink as if they're naval ships, free-falling bombs are used by space bombers, the Supremacy is armed with space howitzers firing shots that visibly arc, and the chase that forms the main part of the movie is pre-texted on both ships and weapons behaving as though they are subject to air resistance.Rian also has trouble consistently remembering that ships in Star Wars have shields. In particular, the Dreadnought in the initial battle seemingly does not.In the previous film, the Resistance is shown using Y-wings. So why the fucking hell can’t they use Y-wings for the stupid Dreadnought mission?It is clear from Rian Johnson's director's commentary that the sequence he most cared about getting in the film was Canto Bight, a sequence even the film's staunchest defenders seldom have anything good to say about. In fact, the Canto Bight sequence is completely pointless, as it's just filler and does not advance the plot and characters, and didn't even look or feel like something from the Star Wars universe.Speaking of Canto Bight, it is supposed to be an urgent mission to save their friends from being blown out of the sky but Finn still takes the time to run around the casino wide eyed and wanting to have some fun gambling and Rose spends multiple scenes more worried about capitalism and animal cruelty than the mission at hand.Much as the battle scenes are well-shot, they appear to take place in some strange chess-based alternate reality where only one thing on one side can do something at a time, leading, as mentioned above, to sequences where huge First Order forces simply sit around doing nothing for no apparent reason (nothing assisting the Dreadnought either offensively or defensively, nothing attacking the Resistance flagship for a prolonged period or even while it is turning around despite that only the Supremacy is firing on the Resistance transports, the giant AT-ATs just sitting there while Finn flees across about a mile of open ground carrying an unconscious Rose, etc).Rey continues to be a dull, overpowered protagonist who is handed everything on a silver platter, experiences little growth as a person, and has no real desires or goals which are not imposed on her by someone else. It is hard to root for a runner who has no idea where the finish line is. Luke and Kylo both call her out on this, but pointing out your own bad writing is not good writing.She also continues to be shilled for by the narrative (Luke claims her power frightens him, despite that he has been in the presence of the Emperor, and even Yoda talks about how awesome she is) and continues to pull abilities and powers from nowhere as the plot requires, like suddenly knowing the Force after roughly half of one lesson from Luke. She even gets to defeat Luke Skywalker and lecture him for being a coward.Rey doesn't seem to care about Finn for most of the movie. She leaves him in a coma and heads to Luke at the end of the previous film. He’s in that coma because Kylo attempted to remove his spine with a lightsaber. She only brings up Kylo murdering Han Solo. She never brings up Finn, she is not angry that Kylo put her friend in a coma and possibly killed him. I don’t think it’s even mentioned. Rey changes her mind about Ren and wants to save him despite that. It’s not even until the end of the movie does she even know his fate.Poe gets demoted for making what in retrospect was the only correct decision, is constantly talked down to and treated like a child, and learns a Very Important Lesson™ about the value of mindlessly obeying orders and ignoring his own instincts. Seriously, that's his plot arc. Given it took the bombers about a minute to fly half the length of the Dreadnought, it is also not at all clear how they would have been able to join up with the Resistance fleet to jump out before the Dreadnought had a chance to fire a second shot, even if Poe had done exactly as he was ordered to.On realizing the Millennium Falcon is on his island but Han is nowhere to be seen, Luke asks the obvious question. The scene ends immediately after he says this, robbing the audience of Luke's reaction to the death of his friend. Even worse, the scene of his reaction was actually filmed, but was cut.Not only this, the reason Luke realized the Falcon was there was because Chewie burst into the room demanding to know why Luke wasn't going with them. What happened after this? Did Luke just tell Chewie to f**k off, and Chewie was like "okay"?Speaking of Snoke, he was killed off all of a sudden, which is unacceptable because he didn't explain his backstory or his motives. One of the only reasons why Palpatine's death in Return of the Jedi works is because his backstory was explained in the prequel trilogy.The "Leia Poppins" scene quickly became infamous, both for how totally out-of-the-blue it is that Leia is suddenly a powerful Force user, and how awkward it feels in light of the tragic real-life death of Carrie Fisher, as well as the fact that it looked really ridiculous.The film continues The Force Awakens' tendency to sabotage classic characters in order to give their stuff to new ones: the Falcon is now Rey's ship (you'd think it would at least be Chewie's, but apparently not), and Luke gets turned into a depressed, suicidal, useless grump so that Rey can show up and be better than him at everything. Perhaps the worst example is pointlessly killing off fan favorite meme-generator Admiral Ackbar after he's spent a few seconds on-screen, just so they can replace him with a new Admiral character they came up with.Speaking of Chewie, he is barely used, save for joke interactions with Porgs and acting as Rey's chauffeur. He is not even shown to be grieving for the loss of his lifelong friend.And on the subject of Vice Admiral Amilyn Holdo, she is a terrible character, supposedly designed to be a strong female character but failing in every possible way, sporting inexplicable purple hair and a startlingly ugly outfit resembling a ballgown instead of a military uniform (it made sense for Leia to wear robes because she's a PRINCESS). She spends the movie refusing to disclose basic information about her plan despite a clear crisis of morale on her ship (she does not even do so after the mutiny when Poe knows the transports are being fueled and it would make no difference to tell him what's going on), goes out of her way to antagonize Poe Dameron, and is prone to delivering nonsensical speeches about hope. She also sits around doing nothing on her cruiser's bridge while the First Order destroys most of the remainder of the Resistance.In addition to this, her plan hinges on the fact that the First Order won't use life-detecting technology, won't use their de-cloaking scans, and won't question why the Resistance is slowly listing towards the only planet in view.There is a very strange and off-putting sequence where Luke scuttles down to a beach to milk an obese, vile, sweaty cow-seal creature while it moans disturbingly, and then gulps down its freshly squeezed green fluids with obvious distaste. The shot of Luke drinking and then looking disgusted became a reaction meme, largely directed at the film itself.Speaking of Luke, it's "nice" to see that Rian Johnson imagines that Luke Skywalker, a man who once threw down his lightsaber because he alone saw good in Darth Vader, would be willing to get most of the way to enacting the cold-blooded murder of his sleeping nephew on the basis of a vague premonition (NO, it's not a split-second reaction), get defeated by him, and then spend the next few decades being depressed on an island with cow-seals and Porgs and frog-nuns. It's little wonder that Hamill stated in interviews that he fundamentally disagreed with the way his character was written in this film. Here's an entire rant explaining why Luke is out of character.At one point Luke calls a lightsaber a "laser sword". Why would he do that? This is one of many instances where the film has a meta-awareness of itself and why it sucks so much. Everything is a joke. It's essentially Luke speaking to the audience. This is a lightsaber? No, it's just a dumb neon magic stick that can cut through anything.At one point Luke calls a lightsaber a "laser sword". Why would he do that? This is one of many instances where the film has a meta-awareness of itself and why it sucks so much. Everything is a joke. It's essentially Luke speaking to the audience. This is a lightsaber? No, it's just a dumb neon magic stick that can cut through anything.At one point Finn and Rose get arrested for a parking violation. This is an actual plot point in a Star Wars movie. In addition to this, it rips off a similar plot point in Spaceballs.The scene where Rose shows this kid a secret Rebel symbol ring is pathetic and makes no sense. These kids have presumably been slaves all their life, meaning the Republic has been in charge their entire life and done nothing to help them, so why would they care about the Resistance? Next, why the actual fuck does Rose have a secret ring of the Rebellion at all? Remember that up until about a day ago, the Republic was in charge, so why would you need to hide the symbol of the Republic? Like wouldn’t this new Republic government use the symbol that the rebels used, so it’s no longer a Rebel symbol? And if Rey didn’t even know the Jedi were real, why would child slaves know about the Resistance?Force Ghosts can now apparently call down lightning to blow things up in the real world. So, um, why didn't Yoda or Obi-Wan ever do that before?Bringing Yoda back him back to lecture Luke again undoes that whole character development from where he is from mid-ESB to mid-RotJ. When Yoda dies, he says that Luke doesn't need any further training, and already has what he needs. So Yoda dies, content that he's passed on his knowledge and has a worthy successor.There is an evil version of BB-8. It is treated like it's some kind of serious antagonist and everything. Here is a clip of an interview with Mark Hamill where he describes it became another meme associated with the film.About two-thirds of the way through the movie, the script has several curious scenes where it forgets the Resistance are not called the Rebels.At one point, Kylo calls for the end of the Sith, when it's been made abundantly clear outside of the films that Kylo and Snoke are not Sith.Captain Phasma, who somehow survived being thrown in a trash compactor on a planet that promptly exploded, is back. She somehow has not been shot or even demoted for disabling Starkiller Base's shields, and is just as irrelevant to the proceedings as before, turning up to fail to execute Finn and Rose and then lose a fight with Finn and die again. She has been derided as a character who "only exists to be in the trailers."In addition to this, Disney and Lucasfilm kept hyping Phasma up as being "the first female Star Wars villain", when in reality there were other female Star Wars villains before Phasma (e.g. Zam Wessell in Attack of the Clones), and end up giving her almost no screen time.The entire middle of the movie turns out to be a pointless digression caused by Admiral Holdo refusing to tell one of her subordinates enough information to perform his job of reassuring his subordinates. This results in a plan to go to a planet (which they can do, despite the chase) to find a codebreaker to get onto the Supremacy in order to get into a breaker room to switch off a breaker to disable a tracker so that the Resistance fleet can jump to Hyperspace. Not only is this the definition of "convoluted," it is also all useless since as it turns out the Resistance never needed the tracker to be off anyway.With the pod Finn and Rose used, and with the timetable given in the movie, the Resistance could have easily evacuated every member of the fleet even five at a time, as the First Order apparently does not care about the comings and goings of vessels other than the main cruiser.It is revealed that rather than Kylo Ren contacting Rey via Force-Skype, it was actually Snoke connecting the two of them. Kylo knew that Rey was with Luke, but despite being able to connect their minds across the vastness of space, Snoke somehow could not use this power to figure out where Rey was and therefore where Luke was.Speaking of Force Skype, water can apparently travel through these conversations. I'm no Jedi, but I don't think that's how the Force works...The fight scene in Snoke's throne room becomes very unconvincing if attention is paid to what the guards are actually doing: they can be seen repeatedly dancing away from Rey and Kylo, waiting for their cues, and sometimes seemingly even looking for their marks which they have trouble seeing due to their silly helmets. There is also a very odd edit during the sequence where a guard with a knife in one shot suddenly no longer has it in another before having it again in the same shot, as well as the fact that one of the guards starts choking Kylo and he has to be saved by Rey rather than just using the Force on his attacker.The reveal that "Rey's parents are nobody" is lame and underwhelming compared to the "I am your father" scene in The Empire Strikes Back and doesn't work as a plot twist. Being an attempt to subvert your expectations doesn't make it good because it isn't replaced with something interesting, instead it is replaced with something boring and mundane, something we already knew. “I am your father” had good build-up and actually changed the stakes of the story, forcing characters to make decisions, it is also significantly more shocking to reveal something, rather than nothing at all. Rey's parents being nobodies didn't raise the stakes at all.Some scenes in the movie rip off other scenes in the original trilogy. For example, Kylo's offer to Rey is a shameless ripoff of Vader's "join me" speech from The Empire Strikes Back.Not only that, the ending of the film rips off Escape from LA. Yes, I know Rian hasn't seen the film, but it's still illegal to plagiarize other movies, intentional or unintentional.Another example of plagiarism in the film is the fact that the crystal foxes were plagiarized from pictures by Polish artist Marta Klonowska without even crediting her. What's even worse is that they admitted it in the official art book for the film. Don't believe me? Here's proof.And finally, the last example of plagiarism that the film committed is that it ripped off other fanfictions, most notably "Signs and Smoke Signals" by streetsolo. For example, Rey's parents are nobody and Poe is demoted in both the film and the fanfiction.Luke's death at the end was extremely underwhelming, as he basically wasted his life force by projecting himself thousands of light-years just so he can distract Kylo Ren.Kylo randomly swings from wanting to create something different from both the Resistance and the First Order to just deciding to be in charge of the First Order. It is not at all clear what prompts this change of heart.Admiral Holdo's Deus Ex Machina hyperdrive suicide-ramming creates innumerable plot holes since even tiny ships in Star Wars can be equipped with Hyperdrives and we know droid pilots exist, yet nobody has ever tried to use this unbelievably powerful weapon before now. To make matters worse, Rian claimed nobody in the Disney writer group thought it contradicted anything in the other films, when the two words "Death Star" would be sufficient to explain why this can't possibly be a workable thing in the Star Wars universe: if it was, the Death Star would be untenable defensively and pointless offensively, since it would be far easier to build a hyperdrive planet-buster instead. There were also two cases in The Force Awakens where the Millennium Falcon would have been destroyed if Hyperdrive worked like this (jumping through a partially-closed door and jumping through Starkiller Base's shields).Through some miracle of makeup and costume design, the utterly adorable Kelly Marie Tran has somehow been transformed into Rose Tico, a creature many dubbed "Shrek."The scene where Rose somehow teleports her ship next to Finn's to prevent him from sacrificing himself to save the Resistance is infamous, as is the ludicrous and unoriginal line that follows about how they'll win "not by fighting what we hate... but saving what we love" just as the First Order's giant cannon destroys the door protecting what they love in the background. This makes her more idiotic, as she stopped Finn from destroying the cannon and allowed it to destroy the door protecting the Resistance, dooming them in the process.The kiss that Rose gives to Finn was a pretty rubbish kiss, too. If you're going to do it at all, do it properly.Porgs, which basically do nothing to advance the plot but act as comic reliefs and spend time with Chewie. Yes, I know, they exist to replace puffins on the island that Ahch-To was filmed on, but if that's the case, then WHY are they in the Millennium Falcon, where they're wouldn't be any puffins to replace?Ever notice how anytime the movie needs to suddenly go somewhere else, a character is stunned unconscious? Poe, Finn, Kylo, Rey, Leia, Rose, and Finn yet again, are all zapped so the scene can move to another location across the galaxy. It's almost like Rian Johnson doesn't know how to end a scene, so he just electrocutes the character to take a nap.Maz Kanata goes from fighting the "only battle" to a skirmish calling a "union dispute". She knows how to do the hack but does not suggest them to come pick her up. She seems to know Poe, but she didn't in TFA. She goes from caring about Rey in TFA to not asking about her or if Luke has been found since they left her in TFA. She never asks about Han's well-being or of her favorite wookiee. These could be explained by her being briefed off-screen but she is shown as being in a hurry so there wasn't any time and omitting these scenes makes her look as an insensitive smug.Another central theme of the film, apparently failure, doesn't apply when the failure of the characters stems from their own stupidity. Failure only works as a theme when the failure comes from the characters' inability to break from their moral code, or their unwillingness to confront something about themselves.The entire battle on Crait is meaningless. The Resistance is fighting to protect a door when all they're trying to protect is their own lives. They also have no way to actually damage the enemy crafts and literally fire one single shot in the entire battle. Next, we know that there are tunnels leading out into the trenches, so the door's purpose is null. Lastly, even if they were to succeed in keeping the First Order back, they're only there to wait for reinforcements which should take more than twenty or so minutes they have left to live just to mobilize their forces, let alone arrive to help.There are some continuity errors in the film. For example, Rey and Poe meet each other before she sets off for Ahch-To in the The Force Awakens novelization, yet they also are introduced to each other for the first time in The Last Jedi. Not only that, Kylo's scar is changed and Snoke suddenly has a golden bathrobe and he looks entirely different than in the previous film.The movie ends with the bewildering cheeriness of everyone in the Falcon as they speed away (before we see that kid with the broom). The Resistance has been crushed, multiple planets where friends and family lived have been destroyed very recently, and the hero of the galaxy, Luke Skywalker, is dead. But instead, everyone is hugging and smiling. Really? Compare that to Avengers: Infinity War, a movie which ends with the villain killing half of all life in the universe!