Star Wars Episode VII (allowing for spoilers)

[Sparky Prime]

- Rey is a bit of a Mary Sue as well, she is automatically good at: repairing things, speaking astromech droid language, surviving in a harsh environment, piloting, interstellar travel, hyperdrive engineering, hand to hand fighting, pistol use, connecting to the Force, using the Force without one iota of training, and lightsaber combat; she's basically Lil Annie x3.

Automatically? Having grown up forced to make a living off of salvaging components from downed space ships, I'd think she spent the majority of her life developing the knowledge of what was worthy to save and fixing up parts to be able to sell them. Not to mention, she's probably been in several fights living on a planet with such scarce resources. Being a good pilot, we know seems to be somewhat of an innate ability Force-sensitives have, as both Anakin and Luke natural pilots before having formal training, but considering she told Finn she was a pilot already, that'd suggest she'd gotten some experience at some point.

Really, the only thing she appeared to be automatically good at was figuring out how to use a couple Force abilities and lightsaber combat.

- There's no weight given to the destruction of an entire system, a system that appears to be Coruscant and the New Republic's capitol and senate.

While it was the New Republic capital, I don't think it was Coruscant. At least, everything I've seen says it wasn't. But yeah, it did feel like they could have put more weight on that. They've effectively lost most of their fleet and government at that point.

- Finn seems to have little compunction about killing so soon after being horrified by abject killing, these fellow troopers were the only people he knew and they were conscripts like him, he kills dozens of them in the first moments of his turn from the First Order.

To be fair, as I recall, he only started fighting once he saw Rey was in trouble.

Han's detour to Maz's castle just happens to be where Luke's lightsaber calls to Rey,

This was a big problem I had with the film. We all know Luke lost that saber when Vader cut off his hand on Cloud City. So how did Maz even end up with it?

Kylo Ren's decision not to keep hunting for BB-8 calling off the First Order strike,

To be fair, he knew Rey had seen the map and expected to be able to get it from her. He had no reason to believe someone untrained in the Force would be able to resist him.

Finn knowing how to take down the shields of Starkiller base,

He didn't. Something he even told Han once they got to the Starkiller planet. He just wanted to get there to save Rey. That's why they captured Captain Phasma, they forced her to lower the shield for them.

- The Resistence fleet is pretty meager.

Supposedly the bulk of the Resistance Fleet was on the planets the Starkiller destroyed.

- Kylo Ben calling out Finn as a traitor felt far-fetched, Finn was a conscript and a lowly stormtrooper, why would the First Order think twice about this guy at all, much less focus heavily on him when he's just another nameless number?

Well they did have that conversation about him not showing signs of non-conformity before. Having spent a lifetime being raised to act and think like any other Stormtrooper, only for him suddenly turn traitor on them, they'd probably want to know why in the event they'd need to check the conditioning of other Stormtroopers.

I make an argument citing evidence in the form of THE SCRIPT ITSELF and you chalk it up as "presumption". As Threepio would say, "typical!"

So where is the exact number then, hrm? Again, sure Han says something about it taking more than 1000 ships with more firepower than he's ever seen to destroy a planet, but Han's not talking about the actual size of the fleet there, nor do we know if he'd know exactly how many ships the Empire has. Han was just guessing at what it might take because he's never seen an entire planet blown away before. So yeah, that's a presumption on your part, not actual evidence from the script as none of the films actually tells us the exact size of the Imperial Fleet.

Ignoring specific passages in the script that don't fit your argument doesn't change them, despite your presumptions.

I'm not ignoring anything. Your trying to force it to fit your argument because, again, its got nothing to do with describing how big the Imperial Navy itself is. All you've cited is actually talking about how scary and powerful the Death Star is, not the size of the fleet. Nothing in any of the films gives us a clear indication of exactly how many ships the Empire has. The only thing that gives us an actual number is the EU.

Abrams' problem with warp drive and the turbolifts wasn't just that they went from A to B in a wink, but the whole pacing of the stories around them matched. So even if they had cut away to a different event (and I think they do once or twice), it still doesn't feel like much time is passing between taking off and arriving. That's more a symptom of Abrams not liking Star Trek and having to jazz it up for the summer popcorn lowest common denominator crowd though; he doesn't really need to hypercharge Star Wars as it's already fast-paced.

I know... I'm saying I wished they hadn't done it the way they did in Star Trek because it shouldn't have taken them mere minutes to get to Vulcan or Kronos, it should have taken them days.

Luke also tiptoed into the Dark Side without fully succumbing to it. Hell, the prequels suggest without saying that Obi-Wan does as well, he gets angry, gets attached, uses the Force for attack, and he's our bastion of the Light. So it felt pretty grounded to have Kylo Ben feel that pull, and even is horrified by the choices he made in killing his father.

I wouldn't say Luke "tiptoed" into the Dark Side... Certainly he was tested and came very close by giving into his emotions to lash out at Vader, but when confronted with turning to the Dark Side, that moment where the Emperor tells him to kill Vader, Luke rejected it. And when does the prequels ever suggest Obi Wan was tempted by the Dark Side?

[Dominic]

Moving our discussion about the toys from last months "hauls" thread to here.

It's not a question of what kids can't do, it's a question of what they can.

Are you really suggesting that kids cannot play with toys? A kid who really is incapable of handling more than a few points of articulation will just not use the "difficult" moving parts. (I have never seen a modern SW figure with loose joints.)

They're $12 (I think maybe went up to $13 already) and not every store is getting the second wave - the TFA wave. It's so clusterfucked, Hasbro really has done a disservice to the line.

The only figures worth buying are store exclusives. And, they are being poorly distibuted even by that standard.

The 5 point figures are shit. A 5 point figure is effectively a PVC. It generally only looks and stands well in one position. I like good PVC figures. Current "Star Wars" figures are not good PVC figures (as the jointing is too visually intrusive for them to look good).

The 6 inch figures defeat some of the virtues of "Star Wars" as a toy line.

Traditionally, it was possible to get just about any/everything in a consistent scale. For every unmade background character or vehicle you can name, you can name 2 or 3 others that were made *well*. That is simply not possible in a 6 inch scale line.

The one vehicle in sthat scale that I have seen for Episode 7 is a TIE fighter that costs nearly $200. (That is about the cost of a full set of Marvel Legends.) Does that TIE Fighter seat 1 or 2?

It is not possible to make every character in a 6 inch line. Troop-building is more difficult, even ignoring the costs of the larger figures. Stores are less likely to order as many of the larger figures, meaning there will be fewer stormtroopers (or whatever) available.

Maz having Force powers would have been too much, had the prequels not happened I would have been ok with this, but now it's too late to just add random Force-adept non-Jedi who aren't with the Dark Side.

Why would a non-Jedi force sensitive have to be on the Dark Side? I always figured there would be a number of force sensitives who were untrained, and just going about their business. They might know. They might not. But, they are living quietely (maybe to avoid being conscripted by one side or the other).

The movie takes place 30 years after ROTJ, the timeline for the First Order has Finn being taken from his parents 24 years prior, which means that only 6 years after ROTJ the galaxy was already worse off, and it doesn't sound like Finn was only one. We are told the First Order isn't the Empire, so these aren't the same exact resources being extended. The undertaking of the Starkiller weapon alone is on a scale unimaginable by even Star Wars' standards, so it and the First Order forces seem to have been doing their thing efficiently since essentially Lando and Wedge were dancing with Ewoks.

Not sure how this is problematic.

The First Order saw an opportunity, and exploited it. Regimes rise because they serve some interest. Somebody benefitted from the Empire. Similarly, somebody benefited from the First Order.

How is the Starkiller out of whack for "Star Wars"? It is a planet scale gun.

- The political structure of the New Republic, Rebel Alliance, Resistance, the Senate, Empire, Old Republic, and First Order is muddled and confusing, and the scene cut from the film explaining more of it is very Prequel-esque.

Not really. Between the crawl and dialogue, it is spelled out pretty clearly.

Never mind that "prequel" is not an automatic insult.

This doesn't justify why she's so good at repairs, piloting, survival, speaking astromech droid language, or hyperdrive engineering; but it would explain why she can tap into the Force without seemingly any training and use it so well. Kylo Ben might not recognize her because he himself was a kid (albeit an older one) and not that connected to her during the training.

Given how aggressively Abrams cribbed from old drafts and sketchbooks, it is possible that Rey is Ren's brother (similar to the early draft of Episode 6 that had Luke going bad and being put down by Leia).

It is safe to assume that questions about Rey will be answered in the next two movies. (It is possible that Rey was left on Jakku by a hostile party. Maybe they were trying to make her go crazy? I dunno.)

- BB-8 is a Mary Sue.


- BB-8 doesn't get humanized very well because his/her voice isn't properly defined by Rey acting as C-3PO, and there aren't many noble or brave actions on 8's part.

?

And, why does BB8 have to be heroic? He is a droid, arguably a piece of equipment more than a character.

There are IT guys who can understand beep codes and such. Rey, being a Scavenger could have picked up a few things.

- The end battle focus is drawn away from where it should be, no story beat really feels important except Kylo Ren's, including Poe Dameron's X-wing battle which should be a big deal, they may as well not have destroyed the Starkiller at all, just crippled it.

There have been plenty of air battles and trenchruns.

Poe's main purpose was to be a more heroic counter-point to Finn. As Finn became more heroic, there was less reason to focus on Poe.

(Initially, Finn is trying to get away. He is not a bad guy, but he wants nothing to do with the First Order. In face, he only saved Poe because he needed somebody to drive the getaway car.)

- There's no weight given to the destruction of an entire system, a system that appears to be Coruscant and the New Republic's capitol and senate.
- The Rebel base is totally exposed at the end, the villains are still well-armed and nearby.

The system's destruction was shown, but out of scale. I appreciate the fact that Abrams showed reactions on the planets. The problem is that the movie lacks scale. The Order destroys 3 planets (that are all right near each other), close enough to the planet that Finn and the others happen to be on.....

How close are the bad guys? Who knows? The lack of scale makes this, and questions about how much of the Order's staff was stationed on the Star Killer, unclear.

- Major coincidences: Max von Sydow's throwaway character is in the exact same relative area as Rey, BB-8 has the entire planet from which to choose and finds Rey, Finn and Poe have the entire planet from which to crash and finds one closest to Rey and BB-8, the heroes are all in the same vicinity as the long-lost Millennium Falcon, Han finally tracks down the Falcon just as the heroes use it, Han's detour to Maz's castle just happens to be where Luke's lightsaber calls to Rey, Kylo Ren's decision not to keep hunting for BB-8 calling off the First Order strike, Finn knowing how to take down the shields of Starkiller base, Kylo Ren being in the same place as Han and company, Poe's X-wing success flying through the crack where nobody else could.

This is either a question of scale (a smaller area makes it easier for everybody to be in the same place) or contrivance.

But, Han bringing Rey to Maz was likely intentional, possibly because Han knew the lightsaber was in Maz's building. (I am expecting more on this in the next movie or two.)

- Finn seems to have little compunction about killing so soon after being horrified by abject killing, these fellow troopers were the only people he knew and they were conscripts like him, he kills dozens of them in the first moments of his turn from the First Order.

Different types of killing. Killing in combat, especially killing armed adversaries, is different from a mass execution of non-combatants.

- Kylo Ben really doesn't feel weighted correctly, either he's fairly inept because he's angsty and in training, or he's a massive and powerful threat who sits near the top of the chain of command of the First Order, being both feels like a character conflict.

Ren is supposed to be an angsty twerp who was lucky enough to be in a good job.

- The name "BB-8" is said by everybody, no shorthand like "Eight" or "you", only a constant stream of "buy products of this character" name-repetition a la Poochie.

"BB-8" does not abbreviate well. I doubt it was a Poochie-push.

- Han Solo's ranthtar adventure feels out of place and looks ridiculous, why didn't they eat Finn the way they did everyone else?

The re-introduction of Han, Chewie and the Falcon was terrible all around.

I should have been all about that scene. (It theoretically hit most of my idiosyncratice buttons.) But, I found myself wondering if Abrams was adapting a game of "Star Munchkin" as a scene in the movie. (Those aliens are examples of "awful green things" from the game.)

- Movie proves it's a reboot by calling this Episode 7, should really be called "Episode 8" as there are plenty of interrim story elements that would have been in its past between ROTJ and TFA which are crucial enough to justify story weight.

But, there was nothing critical. I have not read any tie-in novels or comics. I came in "cold" with Episode 7, and did not need to go looking for anything.

- The Starkiller Base never is seen moving, yet it appears to drain stars and fire a hyperspace-based weapon from system to system, it's kind of nonsensical even for Star Wars.

The Death Star had no visible means of propulsion. Your point? Clearly, the Starkiller could move.

- Doesn't feel like it's taking from anything other than Star Wars, nothing else really informs film.

No doubt.

- Using the Force to stop a blaster bolt in mid air seems way outside the previous abilities of the Force, or any abilities outside of The Matrix.

Disney seems to be playing the Force as being more powerful than Lucas did. Ren's holding the shot off was similar to things Vader has been doing in the comics. (In "Vader Down", Vader brings down a Y-Wing down by throwing his saber at it.)

- The Resistence fleet is pretty meager.

I get the feeling that the fleet consisted of surplus hardware and/or equipment from willing members of the Republic Senate.

First off, using Earth politics to define Star Wars is a bit silly, it's a fairy tale universe, says so from the first "A Long Time Ago in a Galaxy Far, Far Away..."

Fairy tales have to come from someplace, and they will be influenced by the real world. (Most fairy tales were meant to illustrate or instruct.)

Which doesn't change the framing of its suggestions, that the entire Imperial Navy couldn't do that kind of damage, and that they don't have anything close to 1,000 ships. It doesn't have to be technically precise to still be framed within accuracy.

The point is that Han was making a comment about how difficult it would be to destroy a planet. He clearly did not expect the Empire to have the capacity to do so.

But seriously, there could have been a different way to create drama and threats without tearing down our heroes' achievements.

Luke and the others succeeded in stopping the Empire. They killed the Emperor, destroyed the second Death Star and killed many Imperials. Assuming that new enemies appear does not undo that.

This was a big problem I had with the film. We all know Luke lost that saber when Vader cut off his hand on Cloud City. So how did Maz even end up with it?

There was a cut scene.

I am assuming there will be an answer in the next movie.

[JediTricks]

- Rey is a bit of a Mary Sue as well, she is automatically good at: repairing things, speaking astromech droid language, surviving in a harsh environment, piloting, interstellar travel, hyperdrive engineering, hand to hand fighting, pistol use, connecting to the Force, using the Force without one iota of training, and lightsaber combat; she's basically Lil Annie x3.

Automatically? Having grown up forced to make a living off of salvaging components from downed space ships, I'd think she spent the majority of her life developing the knowledge of what was worthy to save and fixing up parts to be able to sell them. Not to mention, she's probably been in several fights living on a planet with such scarce resources. Being a good pilot, we know seems to be somewhat of an innate ability Force-sensitives have, as both Anakin and Luke natural pilots before having formal training, but considering she told Finn she was a pilot already, that'd suggest she'd gotten some experience at some point.

Oh, I must have missed that part of the movie where it showed her building anything for any reason. All we saw her do was scavenge and clean junk, from what I can remember there wasn't anything fixed anywhere before the Falcon. Just because you're willing to write yourself a little story about why she is good at these things doesn't mean she's not a bit of a Mary Sue in the script, that script didn't do the heavy lifting to even justify those things in suggestion.

While it was the New Republic capital, I don't think it was Coruscant. At least, everything I've seen says it wasn't. But yeah, it did feel like they could have put more weight on that. They've effectively lost most of their fleet and government at that point.

The script said it has a name for the system, Hosnian Prime, the visual effects showed a planet which looked both from space and from ground like Coruscant, and was stated in the script to be the Republic capital rather than the "New Republic capital". It may not be Coruscant, but they didn't do enough to separate it in that brief little blip of a scene.

- Finn seems to have little compunction about killing so soon after being horrified by abject killing, these fellow troopers were the only people he knew and they were conscripts like him, he kills dozens of them in the first moments of his turn from the First Order.

To be fair, as I recall, he only started fighting once he saw Rey was in trouble.

I was actually referring to the very first scene in the TIE Fighter still in the hangar, he's blasting away at ground troops. If he had at least hesitated, showed consternation about having to be a killer after all but for a cause (just a brief inward gaze with a furrowed brow), I could have at least understood, but he seems perfectly content to shoot to kill as soon as he can.

This was a big problem I had with the film. We all know Luke lost that saber when Vader cut off his hand on Cloud City. So how did Maz even end up with it?

The movie originally was going to open with the same saber floating in space towards a planet (possibly still with Luke's hand), it's really dumb. "Someone found it and sold it" is my guess.

Kylo Ren's decision not to keep hunting for BB-8 calling off the First Order strike,

To be fair, he knew Rey had seen the map and expected to be able to get it from her. He had no reason to believe someone untrained in the Force would be able to resist him.

Fair to whom? It's a map of space, even if she had seen it, how could he know how accurate her memory would be to recreate said map all the way down to the very island Luke is exiled upon? They had the droid nearly in their clutches, there was no sense that they didn't have the resources to deal with this, beyond his ego's entirely incredulous reason for leaving, there was no justification for not grabbing the droid as well.

Finn knowing how to take down the shields of Starkiller base,

He didn't. Something he even told Han once they got to the Starkiller planet. He just wanted to get there to save Rey. That's why they captured Captain Phasma, they forced her to lower the shield for them.

He did know how to take down the shields insomuch as he knew to get Phasma to do it. I'm still incredulous on Phasma having that level of control over the entire planet's shields, yet Finn knew she'd have that ability.

- The Resistence fleet is pretty meager.

Supposedly the bulk of the Resistance Fleet was on the planets the Starkiller destroyed.

The Resistance isn't the Republic, they shouldn't be the same thing. Starkiller destroyed Hosnian Prime and its 4 or 5 moons, the seat of the Republic. The Resistance has what appears to be a handful of X-wings dealing with the Starkiller Base raid - even the Death Star 1 run was 30 ships.

- Kylo Ben calling out Finn as a traitor felt far-fetched, Finn was a conscript and a lowly stormtrooper, why would the First Order think twice about this guy at all, much less focus heavily on him when he's just another nameless number?

Well they did have that conversation about him not showing signs of non-conformity before. Having spent a lifetime being raised to act and think like any other Stormtrooper, only for him suddenly turn traitor on them, they'd probably want to know why in the event they'd need to check the conditioning of other Stormtroopers.

Perhaps, but I don't automatically go there in my mind because they have a procedure for this in effect, Phasma is matter-of-fact about the evaluation and reconditioning order she gave. Plus, they're kinda busy using this Starkiller weapon for the first time and trying to track down Luke Skywalker. I'm not saying you're wrong, just that it doesn't feel like a natural fit to me to focus at all on Finn at this point, he's more a curiosity at this point. In the next film it would be a solid fit once Finn made a name for himself with the Resistance with his actions at Starkiller base, but here it felt too soon to me.

So where is the exact number then, hrm? Again, sure Han says something about it taking more than 1000 ships with more firepower than he's ever seen to destroy a planet, but Han's not talking about the actual size of the fleet there, nor do we know if he'd know exactly how many ships the Empire has. Han was just guessing at what it might take because he's never seen an entire planet blown away before. So yeah, that's a presumption on your part, not actual evidence from the script as none of the films actually tells us the exact size of the Imperial Fleet.

HAN: The entire starfleet couldn't destroy the whole planet. It'd take a thousand ships with more fire power than I've...

The script is the authority in the matter, until you can find a source in the canon showing a better argument, this is the most definitive statement. The line is evidence, your supposition is not, and nothing you've countered with exists anywhere in canon or anywhere beyond your presumptions.

I wouldn't say Luke "tiptoed" into the Dark Side... Certainly he was tested and came very close by giving into his emotions to lash out at Vader, but when confronted with turning to the Dark Side, that moment where the Emperor tells him to kill Vader, Luke rejected it. And when does the prequels ever suggest Obi Wan was tempted by the Dark Side?

Luke uses the Force to strangle a pair of Gamorrean guards who have merely blocked his way. Luke threatens Jabba's life. Luke draws a blaster to his hand to shoot Jabba. Luke gives in to his fear when confronted with a threat against Leia and lashes out in fear and anger against Vader, savagely attacking until he disarmed the foe. Those are tiptoeing into the Dark Side.

Obi-Wan in the prequels gets angry when Qui-Gon is killed and uses that anger during his attack on Darth Maul. Obi-Wan gets emotionally attached to Qui-Gon and Anakin which leads to anger and fear. Obi-Wan is angry at Anakin towards the end of the Mustafar lightsaber battle. The movies don't intentionally say Obi-Wan is dipping his feet in the waters of the Dark Side, but they say that anger, fear, hate are direct paths to the Dark Side for a Jedi, and shows Obi-Wan with those traits.

Moving our discussion about the toys from last months "hauls" thread to here.

This is not an appropriate venue for that conversation. I will split your post into a new topic.

Maz having Force powers would have been too much, had the prequels not happened I would have been ok with this, but now it's too late to just add random Force-adept non-Jedi who aren't with the Dark Side.

Why would a non-Jedi force sensitive have to be on the Dark Side? I always figured there would be a number of force sensitives who were untrained, and just going about their business. They might know. They might not. But, they are living quietely (maybe to avoid being conscripted by one side or the other).

Like I said, had it only been 3 movies before this it would have been fine, but in the canon, every single non-Jedi and non-Sith who uses the Force is cast as a villain, making it a strong precedent:
Asajj Ventress
Darth Maul perhaps (the theory being that Sidious' actual apprentice was Count Dooku and Maul was merely a trained assassin a la Ventress and didn't know he was always meant to be expendable, I dunno if I buy this but the timing of Darth Tyranus being the apprentice within the 10 years between TPM and AOTC)
The Nightsisters
The Inquisitors
Savage Opress

That's just how the movies and tv shows have written it, every non-trained Force user has been a baddie, it's tough to undo all that canon.

Not sure how this is problematic.

The First Order saw an opportunity, and exploited it. Regimes rise because they serve some interest. Somebody benefitted from the Empire. Similarly, somebody benefited from the First Order.

How is the Starkiller out of whack for "Star Wars"? It is a planet scale gun.

If the First Order can amass huge, ridiculously grand-scaled resources within a few years of the Empire's collapse and the destruction of the Death Star 1 and 2, the Inquisitor, and control over the organizations that created them, then it takes away the gravitas and threat of both the Empire and the First Order. If they can do it in 6 years, why doesn't everybody do it all the time? It's a massive undertaking, the clone army took a decade of creation and a lifetime of massing the plans to do so, the Death Star took 18 years, wresting control of the Republic took significant machinations. Yet the First Order just swoops in and does it again seemingly overnight? That's my problem.

The Death Star was a small moon-sized station. The Death Star II was a larger but still moon-sized station, and an incomplete one at that. If it took the considerable efforts of the Empire to make those, and they had to travel to their targets to destroy them, how does the First Order in a matter of years convert an entire planet to a gun that shoots through hyperspace and siphons entire stars with less resources and time? It's asking a lot, it's several scales of magnitude larger than the Death Star II and it does 2 things far more advanced than anything previously seen in Star Wars. How is that NOT out of whack to you?

- The political structure of the New Republic, Rebel Alliance, Resistance, the Senate, Empire, Old Republic, and First Order is muddled and confusing, and the scene cut from the film explaining more of it is very Prequel-esque.

Not really. Between the crawl and dialogue, it is spelled out pretty clearly.

It's not pretty clear, it's vague.

Given how aggressively Abrams cribbed from old drafts and sketchbooks, it is possible that Rey is Ren's brother (similar to the early draft of Episode 6 that had Luke going bad and being put down by Leia).

It is safe to assume that questions about Rey will be answered in the next two movies. (It is possible that Rey was left on Jakku by a hostile party. Maybe they were trying to make her go crazy? I dunno.)

Anything's possible, but in the here and now she's a bit of a Mary Sue.

- BB-8 is a Mary Sue.

- BB-8 doesn't get humanized very well because his/her voice isn't properly defined by Rey acting as C-3PO, and there aren't many noble or brave actions on 8's part.

?

And, why does BB8 have to be heroic? He is a droid, arguably a piece of equipment more than a character.

There are IT guys who can understand beep codes and such. Rey, being a Scavenger could have picked up a few things.

Without heroism, who is BB-8? What is he defined by? Not bloody much. Droids are meant to be people in Star Wars, they were written specifically as a commentary on the slave underclass, ANH picks this fight clearly.

Who can understand a databurst? Show me one person IRL who can understand a hundred tones a second. She's not getting the gist of the feeling of BB-8's intentions, she's directly translating... and the only character to do so. She is his voice as much as 3PO is R2's voice in the OT and PT.

There have been plenty of air battles and trenchruns.

Poe's main purpose was to be a more heroic counter-point to Finn. As Finn became more heroic, there was less reason to focus on Poe.

(Initially, Finn is trying to get away. He is not a bad guy, but he wants nothing to do with the First Order. In face, he only saved Poe because he needed somebody to drive the getaway car.)

Then what's the point of having them defeat the Starkiller Base in this movie at all if it's all about Rey, Finn, Han, and Kylo Ren? Because they needed an ANH ending to hang their actual ESB-style ending off of (Han is dead, Finn is in a coma, the First Order is still powerful and knows where the Resistance base is, it's not a particularly happy ending when all is said and done). There's no weight to the Starkiller base battle to the point that there's no reason for it at all in this film, and they should have found another victory to hang Rey and Finn's story upon.

- Major coincidences: Max von Sydow's throwaway character is in the exact same relative area as Rey, BB-8 has the entire planet from which to choose and finds Rey, Finn and Poe have the entire planet from which to crash and finds one closest to Rey and BB-8, the heroes are all in the same vicinity as the long-lost Millennium Falcon, Han finally tracks down the Falcon just as the heroes use it, Han's detour to Maz's castle just happens to be where Luke's lightsaber calls to Rey, Kylo Ren's decision not to keep hunting for BB-8 calling off the First Order strike, Finn knowing how to take down the shields of Starkiller base, Kylo Ren being in the same place as Han and company, Poe's X-wing success flying through the crack where nobody else could.

This is either a question of scale (a smaller area makes it easier for everybody to be in the same place) or contrivance.

But, Han bringing Rey to Maz was likely intentional, possibly because Han knew the lightsaber was in Maz's building. (I am expecting more on this in the next movie or two.)

BB-8 travels for a long time to get to where Rey is, so it's not something you can chalk up to scale, it IS a contrivance.

You can't ascribe motives to Han bringing Rey to Maz based on a story you haven't seen yet, there simply aren't enough suggestions in THIS movie to justify that leap of faith. And that's what you're doing, making a leap of faith. It doesn't change the fact that in this film it's a story issue.

It's in the final shooting script that Han is taking them to Maz because Maz can get BB-8 to the Resistance, a previous draft (actually, the shooting script but before the scenes were cut and reshot) had Maz taking them to the Resistance and giving Leia the lightsaber. Once there was no reason to have Maz in the story afterwards, that was reshot to have Rey find the saber by the Force.

Different types of killing. Killing in combat, especially killing armed adversaries, is different from a mass execution of non-combatants.

At this point, they don't know he's a traitor and haven't fired at him or looked askew at him. His issue is the brutality of the First Order, he is a lowly conscript, yet what happens? He brutally fires upon lowly conscripts. Yes, there's a difference; but the story doesn't present that difference well enough at this stage for this character given his motivations.

Ren is supposed to be an angsty twerp who was lucky enough to be in a good job.

Yet he's shown as very competent to the point of excelling with the Force in early scenes.

"BB-8" does not abbreviate well. I doubt it was a Poochie-push.

Nobody has a 3-syllable nickname for shorthand, "8" would have been fine. Han calls him "ball" once. It's not a great name, maybe not the worst name either, but man did I get sick of hearing it. And if it's not a Poochie push, it sure is a damned coincidence that this do-little character is the speartip of the TFA merchandising campaign.

But, there was nothing critical. I have not read any tie-in novels or comics. I came in "cold" with Episode 7, and did not need to go looking for anything.

Says there's nothing critical from previous tales, cites potential previous tales as motivation in same post.

Luke's Jedi academy being brought to its knees by Ben Solo, Rey's past, Leia's creation of the Resistance, the rise of Snoke and the First order, these are all elements. I have no problem with them being untold at this point, but it's bullshit to claim this is the very next story that had to be told after ROTJ; this is ANH mk 2.

The Death Star had no visible means of propulsion. Your point? Clearly, the Starkiller could move.

The Death Star is seen moving from place to place, it's a fucking story element. The Starkiller base is not clearly shown moving, it drains some of a star and fires through hyperspace, then it drains a star to death and is about to fire on another system, but are those stars the same star? Movie doesn't feel like telling you. Moving an entire planet is a big fucking question mark compared to moving a moon, doubly so when the planet wasn't constructed around a weapon and a hyperdrive the way the Death Star was. And let's not ignore that people are on the SURFACE of the planet when it might be moving at lightspeed. Shit, now I'm so unsure I have to read the script... ok, so it doesn't state in the script whether it moves or not, it leaves it unsaid, just that it drains stars plural. Lucasfilm canon-keeper Pablo Hidalgo confirms via his twitter that it's mobile, and the novel confirms that, but the movie itself doesn't convey it well if at all.

The point is that Han was making a comment about how difficult it would be to destroy a planet. He clearly did not expect the Empire to have the capacity to do so.

The point is that Han's comment uses the metric of "the [Empire's] entire starfleet" as that measure of impossibility and then uses a second metric for comparison against that being "a thousand starships with more firepower". Our discussion has nothing to do with the Empire's capacity to do so using other methods, only the size of their navy, and Han's line comments on it.

Luke and the others succeeded in stopping the Empire. They killed the Emperor, destroyed the second Death Star and killed many Imperials. Assuming that new enemies appear does not undo that.

Only now they didn't stop the Empire, now apparently the left the door open for the First Order to rise from the ashes of the Empire. That's not a victory, that's snatching defeat from the jaws of victory.

There was a cut scene.

I am assuming there will be an answer in the next movie.

The cut scene didn't say either, just showed the saber falling to a planet.

[JediTricks]

io9 has put together this article answering questions via canon sources, mainly the Visual Dictionary, to some of TFA's biggest question marks:
http://io9.gizmodo.com/all-the-backstor ... 1751196966

A cult of Jedi-worshippers is a weirdy, it fits I suppose but not here as cleanly, more like the dark times just after ROTS. That said, someone exclaimed "the sun of sons!" at the end of ROTJ SE, so they might have been in that religion.

Max von Sydow's character being a traveling mapmaker makes more sense, too bad that wasn't in the film.

The novels and books apparently tear down the idea that the Resistance and Republic are in any significant way related, despite the opening crawl's suggestion.

Ugh, droid support.

Ah yes, the defeated admirals and moffs somehow also had so much resources that they could pull off the Starkiller and their massive resources.

If Maz used the Force to find Luke's saber on Bespin, why was it floating in space in the original cut of the film? Because fuck you, audience? Right.

So Hosnian Prime is definitely not Coruscant, and audiences should know this by their visual simil... no, their name in the mov... no, their role in the stor... no.

Audiences shouldn't have to rely on these E-nU sources to fill holes.

[Sparky Prime]

Oh, I must have missed that part of the movie where it showed her building anything for any reason. All we saw her do was scavenge and clean junk, from what I can remember there wasn't anything fixed anywhere before the Falcon. Just because you're willing to write yourself a little story about why she is good at these things doesn't mean she's not a bit of a Mary Sue in the script, that script didn't do the heavy lifting to even justify those things in suggestion.

You're ignoring her only goal here was to survive while she waited for her family to come back for her. So what reason would she have to build something? Any parts of value she'd get she'd turn in, in order to get food. And it's within reason that someone who makes a living salvaging components from space ships would learn how they work in order to fix them up to sell them, or get a better deal for it. Keep in mind, she'd been on that planet for YEARS, having grown up there. These wouldn't be skills she's "automatically" good at as you claimed, it's something she'd had YEARS to learn and develop just to survive. The script shouldn't have to spell that out when it's very much implied by everything established about the character's background.

The script said it has a name for the system, Hosnian Prime, the visual effects showed a planet which looked both from space and from ground like Coruscant, and was stated in the script to be the Republic capital rather than the "New Republic capital". It may not be Coruscant, but they didn't do enough to separate it in that brief little blip of a scene.

Well any planet that's become one giant city is going to look like Coruscant. And Coruscant is supposed to be in the Corusca system.

I was actually referring to the very first scene in the TIE Fighter still in the hangar, he's blasting away at ground troops. If he had at least hesitated, showed consternation about having to be a killer after all but for a cause (just a brief inward gaze with a furrowed brow), I could have at least understood, but he seems perfectly content to shoot to kill as soon as he can.

Ah, well in that case, there is a pretty big difference between shooting unarmed civilians and shooting guys who are shooting at you to stop you from escaping with a prisoner...

The movie originally was going to open with the same saber floating in space towards a planet (possibly still with Luke's hand), it's really dumb. "Someone found it and sold it" is my guess.

...Seriously? I'm glad they didn't include that scene, because that makes no sense. At the very least I can believe someone found the lightsaber on Cloud City and Maz eventually acquired it somehow. Still though, the way the story handled it was terrible.

Fair to whom? It's a map of space, even if she had seen it, how could he know how accurate her memory would be to recreate said map all the way down to the very island Luke is exiled upon? They had the droid nearly in their clutches, there was no sense that they didn't have the resources to deal with this, beyond his ego's entirely incredulous reason for leaving, there was no justification for not grabbing the droid as well.

Fair to the movie. You seem to be going out of your way to criticize it, despite several of your issues being addressed in the film or are at least within reason. Why wouldn't Kylo Ren be able to get an accurate image of the map from Rey's head using the Force? Star Wars has always been a bit more on the fantasy side of sci-fi, and there's no reason to believe he couldn't get an accurate image. And if they could get an image of the map from her, why keep fighting to get the droid as well? Kylo certainly underestimated Rey, but it's got nothing to do with his ego.

He did know how to take down the shields insomuch as he knew to get Phasma to do it. I'm still incredulous on Phasma having that level of control over the entire planet's shields, yet Finn knew she'd have that ability.

Knowing someone else could lower the shields isn't the same thing as knowing how to lower the shields yourself... And why wouldn't Finn know that the Stormtrooper Captain would have that kind of access? She was essentially the head of security for the entire First Order as the head Stormtrooper.

The Resistance isn't the Republic, they shouldn't be the same thing. Starkiller destroyed Hosnian Prime and its 4 or 5 moons, the seat of the Republic. The Resistance has what appears to be a handful of X-wings dealing with the Starkiller Base raid - even the Death Star 1 run was 30 ships.

I never said they were the same thing, but Resistance protects the Republic from the First Order... In which case, it makes sense they'd have a majority of their fleet nearby the capital.

Perhaps, but I don't automatically go there in my mind because they have a procedure for this in effect, Phasma is matter-of-fact about the evaluation and reconditioning order she gave. Plus, they're kinda busy using this Starkiller weapon for the first time and trying to track down Luke Skywalker. I'm not saying you're wrong, just that it doesn't feel like a natural fit to me to focus at all on Finn at this point, he's more a curiosity at this point. In the next film it would be a solid fit once Finn made a name for himself with the Resistance with his actions at Starkiller base, but here it felt too soon to me.

Well keep in mind, by the time anyone from the First Order confronts Finn to call him a traitor, they knew he was with the droid they were looking for, and that he had taken off it with on the Falcon. At that point, Finn became more than just a curiosity.

The script is the authority in the matter, until you can find a source in the canon showing a better argument, this is the most definitive statement. The line is evidence, your supposition is not, and nothing you've countered with exists anywhere in canon or anywhere beyond your presumptions.

Once again, this line isn't evidence of the size of the Imperial Fleet. Han's talking about what it'd take to OBLITERATE a planet like they see has happened to Alderaan. Saying that it'd take 1000 ships (with more firepower than even 1000 Star Destroyers would have) doesn't mean that Empire doesn't have 1000 ships. All that means is that it'd take more firepower than anything Han's ever seen before which he doesn't think the Empire is capable of. You're making your own presumption to make that line mean something that Han is not saying, it's not a definitive statement.

And there most certainly is something beyond my presumption about the size of Imperial Fleet. As I've already pointed out the EU does describe the Imperial Fleet as having 25,000 Star Destroyers. And sure, that's not canon (anymore), but then there isn't anything definitive in the movies (as much as you want it to) to say how big the fleet is either.

Luke uses the Force to strangle a pair of Gamorrean guards who have merely blocked his way. Luke threatens Jabba's life. Luke draws a blaster to his hand to shoot Jabba. Luke gives in to his fear when confronted with a threat against Leia and lashes out in fear and anger against Vader, savagely attacking until he disarmed the foe. Those are tiptoeing into the Dark Side.

The only thing there I'd say was Luke coming close to the Dark Side was giving into his emotions to lash out at Vader. But he was completely calm and collected when he entered Jabba's palace. He certainly wasn't acting in a very Jedi-way as we know it there, but that doesn't mean he was "tiptoeing" into the Dark Side either.

Obi-Wan in the prequels gets angry when Qui-Gon is killed and uses that anger during his attack on Darth Maul. Obi-Wan gets emotionally attached to Qui-Gon and Anakin which leads to anger and fear. Obi-Wan is angry at Anakin towards the end of the Mustafar lightsaber battle. The movies don't intentionally say Obi-Wan is dipping his feet in the waters of the Dark Side, but they say that anger, fear, hate are direct paths to the Dark Side for a Jedi, and shows Obi-Wan with those traits.

I think you're reading too much into it... I mean sure, Obi Wan is clearly upset by the death of Qui-Gon, but that doesn't mean he used that anger during his fight with Darth Maul. And while he was close to both Qui-Gon and Anakin, he was able to put his feelings aside to do what he was supposed to in those situations, rather than give into them.

[JediTricks]

Oh, I must have missed that part of the movie where it showed her building anything for any reason. All we saw her do was scavenge and clean junk, from what I can remember there wasn't anything fixed anywhere before the Falcon. Just because you're willing to write yourself a little story about why she is good at these things doesn't mean she's not a bit of a Mary Sue in the script, that script didn't do the heavy lifting to even justify those things in suggestion.

You're ignoring her only goal here was to survive while she waited for her family to come back for her. So what reason would she have to build something? Any parts of value she'd get she'd turn in, in order to get food. And it's within reason that someone who makes a living salvaging components from space ships would learn how they work in order to fix them up to sell them, or get a better deal for it. Keep in mind, she'd been on that planet for YEARS, having grown up there. These wouldn't be skills she's "automatically" good at as you claimed, it's something she'd had YEARS to learn and develop just to survive. The script shouldn't have to spell that out when it's very much implied by everything established about the character's background.

That is not an argument of fact, that is speculation based outside the evidence shown in the film. Scavenging is not the same as building, they may be related but just as much they may not. Little children in 3rd world countries scavenge technology every day, it doesn't mean they can build anything, much less a complicated machine like a hyperdrive. The movie did not do enough with the character to infer this.

Well any planet that's become one giant city is going to look like Coruscant. And Coruscant is supposed to be in the Corusca system.

It had the same circular main feature as Coruscant. And in the now-defunct EU, it was in the Coursca sector but the system was named Coruscant, all of which is "legends" now.

The movie originally was going to open with the same saber floating in space towards a planet (possibly still with Luke's hand), it's really dumb. "Someone found it and sold it" is my guess.

...Seriously? I'm glad they didn't include that scene, because that makes no sense. At the very least I can believe someone found the lightsaber on Cloud City and Maz eventually acquired it somehow. Still though, the way the story handled it was terrible.

Yup, actual thing, utterly terrible. It comes from an earlier draft of the script where the hand and saber actually crash land on Jakku and Rey finds them.

Fair to the movie. You seem to be going out of your way to criticize it, despite several of your issues being addressed in the film or are at least within reason. Why wouldn't Kylo Ren be able to get an accurate image of the map from Rey's head using the Force? Star Wars has always been a bit more on the fantasy side of sci-fi, and there's no reason to believe he couldn't get an accurate image. And if they could get an image of the map from her, why keep fighting to get the droid as well? Kylo certainly underestimated Rey, but it's got nothing to do with his ego.

The movie appreciates you sucking its dick. And I'm not going out of my way, these weren't things I stretched for, they're right there. But I'm sure the movie appreciates you kissing its ass all the same.

WHY WOULD HE BE ABLE TO? She saw the map for a few moments, it's a complex interstellar map, it's not the pirate treasure map on the back of the kids menu at Long John Silver's. It's fucking stupid, even his own troops know it is. Why NOT keep fighting to get the droid? It's nearly in their clutches, it has a precise piece of intel on it and maybe more, there's a handful of resistance fighters getting close at this point. Are you afraid to hurt the movie's feelings?

Knowing someone else could lower the shields isn't the same thing as knowing how to lower the shields yourself... And why wouldn't Finn know that the Stormtrooper Captain would have that kind of access? She was essentially the head of security for the entire First Order as the head Stormtrooper.

And yet it worked as if they were one in the same.

Why would a Stormtrooper captain have that kind of access? Why would she tell her troops if she did? Why would anybody other than a technician have that access to avoid this very thing happening? It's not like we see Gen. Hux turn the shield on and off, he just gives the order. And how do you know she's head of security for the First Order?

I never said they were the same thing, but Resistance protects the Republic from the First Order... In which case, it makes sense they'd have a majority of their fleet nearby the capital.

They what now? Oh yes, the "I made this up on my own" argument. The script disagrees, the books disagree as well.

The script is the authority in the matter, until you can find a source in the canon showing a better argument, this is the most definitive statement. The line is evidence, your supposition is not, and nothing you've countered with exists anywhere in canon or anywhere beyond your presumptions.

Once again, this line isn't evidence of the size of the Imperial Fleet. Han's talking about what it'd take to OBLITERATE a planet like they see has happened to Alderaan. Saying that it'd take 1000 ships (with more firepower than even 1000 Star Destroyers would have) doesn't mean that Empire doesn't have 1000 ships. All that means is that it'd take more firepower than anything Han's ever seen before which he doesn't think the Empire is capable of. You're making your own presumption to make that line mean something that Han is not saying, it's not a definitive statement.

Han says the EMPIRE'S ENTIRE STARFLEET couldn't do this, and that it would take more than 1000 ships to achieve it. This comes from the script, it is the authority in the matter whether or not you like it. You cannot point to anything in the canon contradicting it, this the most significant line defining it.

And there most certainly is something beyond my presumption about the size of Imperial Fleet. As I've already pointed out the EU does describe the Imperial Fleet as having 25,000 Star Destroyers. And sure, that's not canon (anymore), but then there isn't anything definitive in the movies (as much as you want it to) to say how big the fleet is either.

The EU is not real canon, that's why they had to create a hierarchy of canons to appease EU fans, because at no point was it ever canon.

[Dominic]

Just because you're willing to write yourself a little story about why she is good at these things doesn't mean she's not a bit of a Mary Sue in the script, that script didn't do the heavy lifting to even justify those things in suggestion.

"Mary Sue" is one of the more mis-used terms. A Mary Sue is a character that is effectively a proxy for the writer's idealized self. I doubt that Rey is Abrams' self-perfection.

If you assume she is force sensitive, then her talents make sense, especially given the apparent tone and direction of the post-Lucas SW movies. Rey likely would have learned a few things from scavenging. She had seen aircraft (and being force sensitive would help with flying).

It may not be Coruscant, but they didn't do enough to separate it in that brief little blip of a scene.

I wonder if it was meant to be Coruscant, but the idea was changed later.

(I ruled out the possiblity of it being Corsuscant by virtue of being so close to those other planets that were never before shown. But, given Abrams' issue with scale, I was arguably jumping to conclusions.)

I was actually referring to the very first scene in the TIE Fighter still in the hangar, he's blasting away at ground troops. If he had at least hesitated, showed consternation about having to be a killer after all but for a cause (just a brief inward gaze with a furrowed brow), I could have at least understood, but he seems perfectly content to shoot to kill as soon as he can.

Finn's goal is to get the hell away from the First Order. Those troopers were exactly the people he was trying to disassociate from. If anything, he might be more aggressive about getting away from them.

He did know how to take down the shields insomuch as he knew to get Phasma to do it. I'm still incredulous on Phasma having that level of control over the entire planet's shields, yet Finn knew she'd have that ability.

"Bad guy has a centralized structure" is a standard cliche in "Star Wars" (never mind the genre). Phasma (or any one person) having the ability to shut down a critical system is a problem, but it is expected for SW. (Did she even enter a passcode or use some kind of identifier? Could shoulder surfing let a janitor open the doors for illicit pizza and hooker deliveries.) It makes sense that Finn would know about how the Order was organized though.

The script is the authority in the matter, until you can find a source in the canon showing a better argument, this is the most definitive statement. The line is evidence, your supposition is not, and nothing you've countered with exists anywhere in canon or anywhere beyond your presumptions.

It is a question of how much you assume Han knows and/or is acting as "specific explication guy". I always put it down to Han (a smuggler) having a vague idea of what it would take to destroy a planet, but not having any specific knowledge.

Luke threatens Jabba's life. Luke draws a blaster to his hand to shoot Jabba.

Luke actually threatens everybody in the room, including Jabba's slaves. During the escape, Luke and the others kill *everybody* on the skiffs and barge. There is no sign that Luke and the others have determined that all of Jabba's employees are evil (rather than slaves, or even just trying to survive).

Asajj Ventress
Darth Maul perhaps (the theory being that Sidious' actual apprentice was Count Dooku and Maul was merely a trained assassin a la Ventress and didn't know he was always meant to be expendable, I dunno if I buy this but the timing of Darth Tyranus being the apprentice within the 10 years between TPM and AOTC)
The Nightsisters
The Inquisitors
Savage Opress

Maul uses a "darth" prefix, making him a Sith. As for the others, how many of them (and how much of the content they appeared in) still counts? The Nightsisters are *old*.

I always assumed that there would be a certain number of force sensitives (who may or may not know they are force sensitive) living out and about in the galaxy. Some might know, and use it for little conveniences. And, even a criminal could use it for crime without going full on Sith.

Going from the prequels, I had the impression that there was a gradient of going bad. A force user could be on the wrong path, but not be a Sith.

Assuming that Maul was "hired" long after Sidious killed Plageous (which I like to think involved a pillow-smothing), he would have been the second Sith for Episode 1. But, it is unlikely that Dooku simply woke up evil the day after Maul died. Odds are, he was in a bad place mentally to begin with. Anakin is wobbly in Episode 2, when Tyrannus is the second Sith. But, he does not get "knighted" as a Sith until a week or so after decapitating Tyrannus.

That's just how the movies and tv shows have written it, every non-trained Force user has been a baddie, it's tough to undo all that canon.

Why are you giving higher priority to TV than print?

If they can do it in 6 years, why doesn't everybody do it all the time? It's a massive undertaking, the clone army took a decade of creation and a lifetime of massing the plans to do so, the Death Star took 18 years, wresting control of the Republic took significant machinations. Yet the First Order just swoops in and does it again seemingly overnight

Going by the movie, the First Order looks to be taking part of the galaxy and expanding. The Empire took over the full galaxy.

The movie does not say how long it took to build the new planet killer.

Without heroism, who is BB-8? What is he defined by? Not bloody much. Droids are meant to be people in Star Wars, they were written specifically as a commentary on the slave underclass, ANH picks this fight clearly.

This means that Luke and his uncle were buying slaves. Was that really what Lucas was going for?

BB8 might be a mandated character. "The old movies had a round and lovable droid. The new movies need one, but more round."

I just do not see why the droid needs to be heroic. It is a droid that is carrying something useful. That is what the droid is.

Then what's the point of having them defeat the Starkiller Base in this movie at all if it's all about Rey, Finn, Han, and Kylo Ren?

The point is that Dameron was a contrast with the less heroic Finn. (Dameron is doing his best to deliver on his responsiblities and stop the Order. Finn just wants to run away.)

"Destroying the bad guy McGuffin" is a plot point. It was the larger battle that served as a back drop for the stuff with Han and Ren et al.

You can't ascribe motives to Han bringing Rey to Maz based on a story you haven't seen yet, there simply aren't enough suggestions in THIS movie to justify that leap of faith. And that's what you're doing, making a leap of faith. It doesn't change the fact that in this film it's a story issue.

I am assuming that Abrams is planning to sort that out in the next two movies. "Star Wars" is a series of movies. Abrams is not going to show and expound on everything in the first movie when he has two more movies. It is only a problem is Abrams has no plan/intention to address the question of Han's motives. Complaining because Abrams has not done so yet (even if he likely has a plan) is being impatient (and delivering on some of the stereotypes about fans).

Lucasfilm canon-keeper Pablo Hidalgo confirms via his twitter that it's mobile, and the novel confirms that, but the movie itself doesn't convey it well if at all.

A reasonable assumption is that the big damned gun that needs to drain a star is going to be mobile. That really does not need to be spelled out.

The novels and books apparently tear down the idea that the Resistance and Republic are in any significant way related, despite the opening crawl's suggestion.

Wasn't the point of Disney trashing the old stuff to allow them to keep the new novels and comics consistent with the movies?

Audiences shouldn't have to rely on these E-nU sources to fill holes.

E-nU?

Either way, as I said above, I went in cold, and had no trouble following the movie. "Over the last 3 decades or so, some stuff happened. Imperial Remnants reformed as a the First Order and have been menacing the Republic while generally being jerks. A localized resistance is standing against this new and growing threat that divides the galaxy...."

I am sure that if I wanted to, I could find back story for that blue bird looking robot, the folks at the backwoods bar and the fauna of the Starkiller base. But, I do not need to.

[Sparky Prime]

That is not an argument of fact, that is speculation based outside the evidence shown in the film. Scavenging is not the same as building, they may be related but just as much they may not. Little children in 3rd world countries scavenge technology every day, it doesn't mean they can build anything, much less a complicated machine like a hyperdrive. The movie did not do enough with the character to infer this.

It's not based on evidence outside the film, it's based on what we can see her do in the film and the reasonable conclusion that she must have learned *something* by salvaging advanced SPACE SHIP parts practically her whole life. Add to that she's Force-sensitive which we've seen in the films carries certain natural abilities that comes even with out training.

It had the same circular main feature as Coruscant. And in the now-defunct EU, it was in the Coursca sector but the system was named Coruscant, all of which is "legends" now.

Coruscant had several circular features across the planet, while Hosnian Prime only had one circular feature shown. Coruscant is a subsector of the Corusca sector and actually Corusca is still considered part of the canon from what I've seen listed online.

The movie appreciates you sucking its dick. And I'm not going out of my way, these weren't things I stretched for, they're right there. But I'm sure the movie appreciates you kissing its ass all the same.

The movie isn't as bad as you've made it out to be. It's far from perfect I'd agree, but it doesn't have all of the flaws you claim it does either. Some of the things you've mentioned are completely going out of your way, especially when you list things the movie explained which you seem to be willfully ignoring, or things even the original trilogy did that you don't seem to have an issue with. And throwing insults at me just because I'm willing to point that out isn't helping your case.

WHY WOULD HE BE ABLE TO? She saw the map for a few moments, it's a complex interstellar map, it's not the pirate treasure map on the back of the kids menu at Long John Silver's. It's fucking stupid, even his own troops know it is. Why NOT keep fighting to get the droid? It's nearly in their clutches, it has a precise piece of intel on it and maybe more, there's a handful of resistance fighters getting close at this point. Are you afraid to hurt the movie's feelings?

Why would he be able to? The Force. That was kind of a big moment in the film as Rey starts to realize she can use the Force as well.
And the map was on the screen for a lot longer than a few moments. They had an entire conversation with Han while it was being displayed. Rey had more than enough time to see the map, including an enlarged view that filled the entire room to show all of the complex little details. Why keep fighting? You gave the reason! The X-Wings were on their way. If you have the map and got more enemies on the way, you don't stick around to get a second copy just in case. And you think Kylo's troops would have cared if he had been able to get the map from Rey? No, it only became a problem because he underestimated her and it was only then that he was criticized for not capturing the droid as well. Honestly, you are reaching to find faults with this film.

And yet it worked as if they were one in the same.

Why would a Stormtrooper captain have that kind of access? Why would she tell her troops if she did? Why would anybody other than a technician have that access to avoid this very thing happening? It's not like we see Gen. Hux turn the shield on and off, he just gives the order. And how do you know she's head of security for the First Order?

Needing to capture someone ELSE to do something for you vs being able to do it yourself... Yeah, that's not anywhere close to being one in the same.

Why wouldn't the Stromtrooper Captain have that kind of access? From what the movie showed, she was pretty high up on the chain of command. That's kinda something all of her troops would know, giving they'd know the chain of command. But she's not a General. She's not just giving orders, she carries them out as well. How do I know she's head of security? She's the Stormtrooper Captain. Her job is literally to lead and command the First Order Stormtroopers. To carry out her job, it only makes sense she'd know how to lower the shields.

They what now? Oh yes, the "I made this up on my own" argument. The script disagrees, the books disagree as well.

You might want to double check your facts then because I haven't made up anything. As you might recall (or ignored), I said a couple posts back that's what I'd read online. And I'd point out it was an article that said it got its information from either the script or the book. Here is one such article for you. The very first point they list is that, in the novelization, it does in fact mention there was a large battle ready fleet in the Hosnian system to protect the New Republic. But it was destroyed along with the politicians when the Starkiller attacked.

Han says the EMPIRE'S ENTIRE STARFLEET couldn't do this, and that it would take more than 1000 ships to achieve it. This comes from the script, it is the authority in the matter whether or not you like it. You cannot point to anything in the canon contradicting it, this the most significant line defining it.

You're leaving out the part where Han says those 1000 ships would need more fire power than anything he's ever seen as well. Meaning he doesn't think even 1000 Star Destroyers could do it. How powerful are the Star Destroyer's weapons anyway? I mean, it's not like they've ever shown to be as powerful as something like a nuke, right? So how would they OBLITERATE a planet? 1000 ships would probably be enough to destroy the surface of a world, maybe make it uninhabitable, but as Han suggests here, probably not destroy the whole planet completely. And again, that's all that he's saying there. He's NOT TALKING ABOUT THE SIZE OF THE FLEET, just that they COULDN'T OBLITERATE A PLANET. I'm not arguing the authority of the script here, but you keep pointing to this line to defend your argument about the fleet size when it has nothing to do with the size of the fleet. There is nothing defining the size of the Imperial Fleet in the canon, whether or not you like it.

The EU is not real canon, that's why they had to create a hierarchy of canons to appease EU fans, because at no point was it ever canon.

George Lucas disagrees with you. He'd once said he considered the EU to be just as much part of the canon as the films.

[JediTricks]

"Mary Sue" is one of the more mis-used terms. A Mary Sue is a character that is effectively a proxy for the writer's idealized self. I doubt that Rey is Abrams' self-perfection.

In this case she's a proxy for the idealized audience's self, and it applies fine.

If you assume she is force sensitive, then her talents make sense, especially given the apparent tone and direction of the post-Lucas SW movies. Rey likely would have learned a few things from scavenging. She had seen aircraft (and being force sensitive would help with flying).

BULL FUCKING SHIT. Don't use the prequels to justify this, the Force didn't convey skills, only heighten little Ani's existing skills. Learning a few things is not the same as knowing the ins and outs of fixing a hyperdrive. She learned how to disassemble wiring and door latches, not how to successfully navigate FTL piloting and engineering.

I wonder if it was meant to be Coruscant, but the idea was changed later.

(I ruled out the possiblity of it being Corsuscant by virtue of being so close to those other planets that were never before shown. But, given Abrams' issue with scale, I was arguably jumping to conclusions.)

Destroying Coruscant would surely be an intent that would go a long way towards proving these aren't the prequels, a very meta knock.

I thought they said they were moons, but now I'm seeing conflicting reports that they were moons and other planets in the system. Coruscant had 3 moons in TPM, apparently, and another planet in the system, making 5 celestial bodies just like the movie showed.

I was actually referring to the very first scene in the TIE Fighter still in the hangar, he's blasting away at ground troops. If he had at least hesitated, showed consternation about having to be a killer after all but for a cause (just a brief inward gaze with a furrowed brow), I could have at least understood, but he seems perfectly content to shoot to kill as soon as he can.

Finn's goal is to get the hell away from the First Order. Those troopers were exactly the people he was trying to disassociate from. If anything, he might be more aggressive about getting away from them.

I get this and wouldn't fault the character for it, I fault the movie for setting it up so that his motivation is seeing people killed, and almost immediately after he's killing, it comes off shallow. I wasn't alone in this opinion.

It is a question of how much you assume Han knows and/or is acting as "specific explication guy". I always put it down to Han (a smuggler) having a vague idea of what it would take to destroy a planet, but not having any specific knowledge.

Han is an galaxy-wary smuggler who shows significant understanding of Imperial procedures, his word in the film is a justified authority who is not contradicted by anything in canon.

Maul uses a "darth" prefix, making him a Sith. As for the others, how many of them (and how much of the content they appeared in) still counts? The Nightsisters are *old*.

He uses it, while Count Dooku is never called "Darth" in the film, only "Count Dooku" and "Lord Tyrannus". The Nightsisters made several appearances on The Clone Wars, cementing their place in canon.

I always assumed that there would be a certain number of force sensitives (who may or may not know they are force sensitive) living out and about in the galaxy. Some might know, and use it for little conveniences. And, even a criminal could use it for crime without going full on Sith.

Not "Sith", I said "Dark Side", it's a big difference.

Why are you giving higher priority to TV than print?

2 reasons. First, Canon. Canon is about intents, what is intended to be taken as literal truth and what is not. Novels and comics before 2014's A New Dawn are not canon.

Second, my points are about the movie, no movie should be slave to any written material, no audience should have required reading, they are different media with different disciplines. Moreover, as a 40-year veteran of Star Trek and a 39-year veteran of Star Wars, I have seen that no matter how good the intents, farming out the written work to multiple authors always creates contradictions.

The movie does not say how long it took to build the new planet killer.

Movie states that the First Order rose from the Empire's ashes, limiting the time the Starkiller could have been constructed to at most 30 years. 30 years for multiple all-new technologies that devastate on a galactic scale beyond anything that had come before.

This means that Luke and his uncle were buying slaves. Was that really what Lucas was going for?

Directly what he was going for. This shows Luke's nobility as he is the only one to treat the slave class as people in all of ANH. Han is dismissive, the Cantina forbids their kind, nobody else cares when they are in danger, 3PO voices that their lot in life is to suffer, and yet Luke is kind to them, empathetic to them, patient and considerate to them. The script alone should tell you they're slave people, but Lucas further qualifies this in books, interviews, and the DVD commentary track.

BB8 might be a mandated character. "The old movies had a round and lovable droid. The new movies need one, but more round."

I just do not see why the droid needs to be heroic. It is a droid that is carrying something useful. That is what the droid is.

Of course BB-8 is a mandated character. My point is WHAT THE FUCK GOOD IS HE IF HE'S NOT EVEN HEROIC?! All he is to this film is cute and carrying something useful, this is a problem that Lucas had to tackle going from first to second to third draft on the original film, what's the point of keeping them in the story otherwise. 3PO doesn't need to be brave, he needs to be a counterpart to someone who is, he is the greek chorus. But BB-8 is our only protagonist droid and we're forced to suffer him, yet he doesn't really do much to suggest heroism or pluck or bravery, there aren't many defining personal traits.

The point is that Dameron was a contrast with the less heroic Finn. (Dameron is doing his best to deliver on his responsiblities and stop the Order. Finn just wants to run away.)

"Destroying the bad guy McGuffin" is a plot point. It was the larger battle that served as a back drop for the stuff with Han and Ren et al.

Poe was written in nearly the final draft to die in the TIE crash at the beginning, with the rest of the script pretty much reading as-is. And it feels that way, Poe's later scenes don't carry much weight or meaning, which sucks because he's a compelling character played well. Finn without Poe still learns to look beyond his fears of the First Order and stands up for right, and the X-wing bits have nothing to do with that.

Eh, they could have found a different MacGuffin and still had this threat looming. You act as if it's a foregone conclusion, and yes it makes for a happier ending that the big bad weapon gets blowed up, but it could have been crippled with the same result, there could have been a smaller victory, etc..

I am assuming that Abrams is planning to sort that out in the next two movies. "Star Wars" is a series of movies. Abrams is not going to show and expound on everything in the first movie when he has two more movies. It is only a problem is Abrams has no plan/intention to address the question of Han's motives. Complaining because Abrams has not done so yet (even if he likely has a plan) is being impatient (and delivering on some of the stereotypes about fans).

Abrams is not even writing the next movies, he's only a producer. Your argument comes down to blind faith based on suspect information, and that's fine for you to believe in, but it isn't usable as an argument.

A reasonable assumption is that the big damned gun that needs to drain a star is going to be mobile. That really does not need to be spelled out.

Stars = very big, lots of energy. It could drain a star for a long time, we don't know. "Reasonable assumption", yeesh.

Wasn't the point of Disney trashing the old stuff to allow them to keep the new novels and comics consistent with the movies?

The best laid plans of mice and men, and all that.

E-nU?

Ha! My more Star Wars compatriots got it, I guess I was being too clever by half using it in a more mainstream setting. EU + new = E-nU. New EU.

It's not based on evidence outside the film, it's based on what we can see her do in the film and the reasonable conclusion that she must have learned *something* by salvaging advanced SPACE SHIP parts practically her whole life. Add to that she's Force-sensitive which we've seen in the films carries certain natural abilities that comes even with out training.

"She knows how to do it, so she MUST have learned how to do it in the past, problem solved" - that's a circular argument. There isn't enough evidence on-screen to suggest it, you can't use her ability as justification for learning that ability when it doesn't fit within the scope of what we know of her, at least not without some stupid exposition to cover it up.

Coruscant had several circular features across the planet, while Hosnian Prime only had one circular feature shown. Coruscant is a subsector of the Corusca sector and actually Corusca is still considered part of the canon from what I've seen listed online.

You're correct that it's canon, it was in a new Marvel comic and the book Aftermath.

The movie isn't as bad as you've made it out to be. It's far from perfect I'd agree, but it doesn't have all of the flaws you claim it does either. Some of the things you've mentioned are completely going out of your way, especially when you list things the movie explained which you seem to be willfully ignoring, or things even the original trilogy did that you don't seem to have an issue with. And throwing insults at me just because I'm willing to point that out isn't helping your case.

In no way did I make it out to be bad, but I guess since we're on the internet it only makes sense that SOMEONE here would have to take any criticism as a complete and total condemnation.

Why keep fighting? You gave the reason! The X-Wings were on their way. If you have the map and got more enemies on the way, you don't stick around to get a second copy just in case. And you think Kylo's troops would have cared if he had been able to get the map from Rey? No, it only became a problem because he underestimated her and it was only then that he was criticized for not capturing the droid as well. Honestly, you are reaching to find faults with this film.

The Resistance has a handful of fighters, Kylo Ren has a Star Destroyer and squads of TIE Fighters at his disposal. You are reaching to kiss this movie's ass.

You might want to double check your facts then because I haven't made up anything. As you might recall (or ignored), I said a couple posts back that's what I'd read online. And I'd point out it was an article that said it got its information from either the script or the book. Here is one such article for you. The very first point they list is that, in the novelization, it does in fact mention there was a large battle ready fleet in the Hosnian system to protect the New Republic. But it was destroyed along with the politicians when the Starkiller attacked.

That would be the NEW REPUBLIC fleet, not the RESISTANCE, as per the source both of us independently linked to at slashfilm:

the Republic has a substantial fleet that is wiped out when the First Order detonate the Starkiller and wipe out the Hosnian system.

At no point does anything here say that the RESISTANCE has a fleet that is protecting the NEW REPUBLIC, something you made up or misconstrued.

You're leaving out the part where Han says those 1000 ships would need more fire power than anything he's ever seen as well. Meaning he doesn't think even 1000 Star Destroyers could do it. How powerful are the Star Destroyer's weapons anyway? I mean, it's not like they've ever shown to be as powerful as something like a nuke, right? So how would they OBLITERATE a planet? 1000 ships would probably be enough to destroy the surface of a world, maybe make it uninhabitable, but as Han suggests here, probably not destroy the whole planet completely. And again, that's all that he's saying there. He's NOT TALKING ABOUT THE SIZE OF THE FLEET, just that they COULDN'T OBLITERATE A PLANET. I'm not arguing the authority of the script here, but you keep pointing to this line to defend your argument about the fleet size when it has nothing to do with the size of the fleet. There is nothing defining the size of the Imperial Fleet in the canon, whether or not you like it.

I'm not leaving it out, I am the one who cited it. Your argument is nonsense, you cite the same thing I cite and then try to argue it doesn't say that. It says the entire Imperial Starfleet wouldn't be able to do it, and then says it'd take over a thousand ships with more firepower, that defines it.

Star Destroyers have heavy weaponry in the EU and powerful turbolasers in the film.

George Lucas disagrees with you. He'd once said he considered the EU to be just as much part of the canon as the films.

Your memory is incorrect, you misread something, or you read something apocryphal.

I don't read that stuff. I haven't read any of the novels. I don't know anything about that world. That's a different world than my world. But I do try to keep it consistent. The way I do it now is they have a Star Wars Encyclopedia. So if I come up with a name or something else, I look it up and see if it has already been used. When I said they could make their own Star Wars stories, we decided that, like Star Trek, we would have two universes: My universe and then this other one. They try to make their universe as consistent with mine as possible, but obviously they get enthusiastic and want to go off in other directions.

George Lucas, 2005

[Dominic]

George Lucas disagrees with you. He'd once said he considered the EU to be just as much part of the canon as the films.

Lucas has changed his tune on this, back and forth, many times over the years. What day of the week did you read that on?

In this case she's a proxy for the idealized audience's self, and it applies fine.

Not sure you are right about this. If nothing else, you are insulting the audience with that as much as you say Abrams and directors like him do.

BULL FUCKING SHIT. Don't use the prequels to justify this, the Force didn't convey skills, only heighten little Ani's existing skills. Learning a few things is not the same as knowing the ins and outs of fixing a hyperdrive. She learned how to disassemble wiring and door latches, not how to successfully navigate FTL piloting and engineering.

Disney might be playing the force differently. If the Marvel comics (which are ultimately a Disney product) are anything to go by, the force is much more powerful under Disney. (In one issue, Vader is shown taking out a Y-Wing by throwing a force-guided light saber at it.) Ren's ability to hold off a blaster shot is a greater degree of force ability than what was shown in the old movies. Disney likely changed the rules.

I get this and wouldn't fault the character for it, I fault the movie for setting it up so that his motivation is seeing people killed, and almost immediately after he's killing, it comes off shallow.

It is a legitimate moral distinction to treat by-standers and combantants differently.

But BB-8 is our only protagonist droid and we're forced to suffer him, yet he doesn't really do much to suggest heroism or pluck or bravery, there aren't many defining personal traits.

Does BB8 not shining really that big of a deal?

Poe was written in nearly the final draft to die in the TIE crash at the beginning, with the rest of the script pretty much reading as-is.

That might have worked better, as Poe had already served his purpose at that point.

Eh, they could have found a different MacGuffin and still had this threat looming. You act as if it's a foregone conclusion, and yes it makes for a happier ending that the big bad weapon gets blowed up, but it could have been crippled with the same result, there could have been a smaller victory, etc..

And, then people would complain that the good guys did not get enough of a victory after Han's death.

Abrams is not even writing the next movies, he's only a producer. Your argument comes down to blind faith based on suspect information, and that's fine for you to believe in, but it isn't usable as an argument.

Maybe. Maybe not. Wait for the next movie.

Stars = very big, lots of energy. It could drain a star for a long time, we don't know. "Reasonable assumption", yeesh.

The Starkiller drained a star after two shots. It would have to move. That is just a given.