The Force Awakens - Spoilerific Discussion.

[eldargal]

Awesome lol.

[Morgrim]

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I don't know if it was from the novel since I haven't had a chance to read it yet (I tend to enjoy the novels more than the films, they get into characters' heads more) but apparently Plasma's reasons for shutting down the shield generator was supreme confidence in her troops. As soon as the shield was deactivated a warning was going to go off elsewhere and she expected a bunch of stormtroopers would rush to her location and easily subdue the invaders.

I hope they play that up later.

[grimmas]

Finally watched this one, in 3D IMAX no less, with the wife after she insisted on watching the six preceding films in short order to refresh her memory (back off she's my wife you lot will have to get our own &#128521 Very enjoyable romp. I rather enjoyed he fact that Rey and Finn were both played people people who could actually act and that they weren't whiny pains, like the Skywalkers (all of them).

I did have a nagging feeling that something was a bit wrong though

Did it strike anyone else that basically the rebellion didn't really change anything other than the names of the people In charge. It seems like the battle of Endor changed nothing. 25 or so years later Han is still running from people he owes money to. Leia is still leading the Rebellion (sorry resistance) based on a Leafy forest world. The Empire (come on it's still the Bl**dy Empire) is still building curiously vulnerable mega weapons (that they only use once) and Stromtroopers can only hit extras (can't they let them just hit one named character?). Despite common opinion I'm beginning to think it's the Rebels who are the incompetent ones. The paraphrase Wilde to "To get taken once once by Space facists is unfortunate. To get taken over twice smacks of carelessness"

It was all very well done, acted and casted (a nice improvement on the prequels) but as part of the Star Wars saga it seemed more like a remake or reboot with a nod to the original rather than a continuation of the story as as whole. Of course we have more films to go so I'm hopeful it's all part of the story telling.

I realise I'm playing with fire raising this opinion but that's never stopped me before has it? 😳

Oh I'd also point out I only watch the live action films so if the whole thing is explained elsewhere I won't have got that.

[Kirsten]

you aren't the only one, I thought it would be more of a role reversal, with the the Republic well established and a imperial remnants trying to fight back. Perhaps they feel that ground has been covered in the prequels and are attempting to have more of a balance to the two sides, as they mention the Republic in the film.

[Alaric]

Finally watched this one, in 3D IMAX no less, with the wife after she insisted on watching the six preceding films in short order to refresh her memory (back off she's my wife you lot will have to get our own &#128521 Very enjoyable romp. I rather enjoyed he fact that Rey and Finn were both played people people who could actually act and that they weren't whiny pains, like the Skywalkers (all of them).

I did have a nagging feeling that something was a bit wrong though

Did it strike anyone else that basically the rebellion didn't really change anything other than the names of the people In charge. It seems like the battle of Endor changed nothing. 25 or so years later Han is still running from people he owes money to. Leia is still leading the Rebellion (sorry resistance) based on a Leafy forest world. The Empire (come on it's still the Bl**dy Empire) is still building curiously vulnerable mega weapons (that they only use once) and Stromtroopers can only hit extras (can't they let them just hit one named character?). Despite common opinion I'm beginning to think it's the Rebels who are the incompetent ones. The paraphrase Wilde to "To get taken once once by Space facists is unfortunate. To get taken over twice smacks of carelessness"

It was all very well done, acted and casted (a nice improvement on the prequels) but as part of the Star Wars saga it seemed more like a remake or reboot with a nod to the original rather than a continuation of the story as as whole. Of course we have more films to go so I'm hopeful it's all part of the story telling.

I realise I'm playing with fire raising this opinion but that's never stopped me before has it? 😳

Oh I'd also point out I only watch the live action films so if the whole thing is explained elsewhere I won't have got that.

It also struck me as wierd that they have a super weapon to end all super weapons right. Why in the hell wpuld they not Park 20 star destroyers around it? OK lets say its some sort of sciency reason and big ships cant stay close. Alright. Then why the hell is the planet sized station not housing a contingent of tie fighters? 100s could fit on a station that size.
Luckily there were a dozen or so xwings available to save the day.
The movie made the universe seem the size of my backyard as well to me. Cant explain that one well but the universe felt small...

[Mr Mystery]

See that planet? And the handful of Star Destroyers?

That's the First Order, that is. All of it. Every last man Jack of them.

They didn't build the Super Weapon, despite Hux's claim. Archtecture is Imperial. It was a top secret super-weapon. A backup in case the Deathstar wasn't enough. Perhaps one that could be used to annihilate threats from without.

Snoke? Whoever he is, he knew it was there. Convincing lie that The First Order have always been, and that they built it? Easy enough when your troops are brainwashed from get go, and constantly monitored.

The Republic doesn't have a standing army as such. Else they'd just be The Empire in all but name. The fleet is there to support local systems - a Police force, rather than an Army. That's made clear to be Mon Mothma's intent in the hit-and-miss-but-worth-a-read-on-balance Aftermath.

[grimmas]

you aren't the only one, I thought it would be more of a role reversal, with the the Republic well established and a imperial remnants trying to fight back. Perhaps they feel that ground has been covered in the prequels and are attempting to have more of a balance to the two sides, as they mention the Republic in the film.

Fair one. Might have been interesting to see how they'd have spun that to stop the hunted Empire fragments seeming like the ones being put upon. It might have ended up a bit Anerican sniper

[url]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xV7Ha3VDbzE[/url]

[Mr Mystery]

Further thoughts....

The Republic.

It's barely 30 years since The Empire was dealt a heavy blow over Endor. But that wasn't the end of their military might.

So how long has it been since The Empire was finally, properly defeated? Their weapons of war and terror dismantled? That we don't currently know.

Does The Republic have much appetite for yet more conflict? Why is Leia Organa a General with a Resistance, and not helping to lead The Republic?

Simple answers seem suitable, given the current lack of clear information...

1. The Republic is The Republic. Being a galaxy spanning democracy, and one born out of civil war against a horrifically repressive regime, they couldn't decide what to do. They were locked in endless debate - much the same state The Old a Republic was in when Palpatine came to power. Snoke could have attempted the very same thing, but failed. Leia and Han know about Snoke, that much is clear.

2. Starkiller Base wasn't considered a credible enough threat for The Republic to decide a course of aggressive action. For whatever reason (misdirection, democratic paralysis etc) there wasn't a belief it could ever be fired. Until of course it destroyed the Hoasnian System....

3. General Leia did what she could. Took a group of her followers and attempted to keep The First Order in check.

4. Hosnia Prime was targeted because of The Fleet, not because it was the seat of a The Republic. The Republic Fleet we can assume was large enough to properly threaten The First Order - outnumbered, outgunned. Doesn't matter. As soon as Starkiller Base was proven viable, The First Order knew The Fleet would strike. So they took it out.

But the above is just conjecture. I'm reading the spin off stories, but so far there's nowt in what I've read to confirm or deny. Barring Mon Mothma's insistence that The Republic should have a limited military presence.

[Alaric]

The imperials had bastion worlds though so I cant imagine why there were not more ships and just manpower in general. Agree that its weird Leia wasn't running the new republic but that is moot as they conveniently blew up Coruscant (which I found weird they did not actually name, coulda missed it tho) and other planets in the name of marketing..i mean in the name of the First Order. Star Wars: The Marketing Awakens.

You would think just having the name "starkiller base" would have warranted action much sooner. I mean they killed the second deathstar mid construction to nip it in the butt asap, so why leave it alone for a decade?

Fun times, trying to make sense of fantasy lol

[Erik Setzer]

The Republic *did* take over, and the Rebellion's done. But then they thought it'd be fine to scrap most of the military, so it didn't become an Empire again. And hey, what do you know, that leaves no official resistance to the First Order popping up, so Leia gets together with some folks to make a "Resistance," which officially has nothing to do with the Republic, though everyone pretty much knows it does.

The First Order is relatively new. It doesn't have the massive fleet of the Empire, but if you have a fair number of those Resurgent class Star Destroyers, they should be able to bully people well. As it is, though, it's doubtful most of the galaxy paid them much attention, much in the way Hitler was ignored until he actually started invading other countries.

Why not have a mass of ships around Starkiller? Well, couple things here:

1. There was a fleet out there in space around SKB. But it was out in space.
2. The X-Wings came out of hyperspace close in to the planet. They didn't have to go through outer defenses. I'm guessing Han taught them that trick. It works better with smaller ships anyway.

So now you're left with just the defenses on the "base." You could imagine a couple of TIE squadrons being ready at all times for an emergency, which is what we saw. Beyond that, and they're going to have to take time to get armaments ready, fuel up, get the pilots suited and into their ships, etc. That takes time. You can't just leave hundreds of ships sitting around with ordnance and fuel in them. That's a disaster waiting to happen. Similarly, you have to do the pre-flight warmup and get the ship ready to go. Can't leave them running all the time, because aside from being dangerous, that's insanely expensive.

By the time they had the ships ready to go, things were already going bad, and it was evacuation time. They still didn't have all of the ships ready to go. Even as the place was blowing up, they couldn't evac all the fighters, because they didn't have time to prep them for launch.

Bonus, it seems like Hux had a pretty good idea the place wasn't really the soundest idea, and was ready to bolt at a moment's notice. Only lower officers stuck around. If they hadn't started evacuating before the place actually started coming apart, they wouldn't have gotten out. That says that no one in the upper ranks expected SKB to actually work long-term. Heck, Snoke didn't even seem particularly fazed by it.

Then again, if what I've read about the Resurgents is accurate, they don't need SKB. They have a fleet capable of pounding people into submission, and learned some serious lessons from the ISDs and the Executor's demise.*

Hopefully it all pans out in Episode VIII. I want to see some serious space battles!




*Okay, so on a side note, this is something that is kind of weird. The RSDs have a secondary bridge built into them in order to prevent what happened to the Executor (ditto for making the conning tower very short). In the novel X-Wing: Iron Fist, when Zsinj's folks are stealing Razor's Kiss, the bridge gets taken out, but a Kuat Drive Yards employee is able to take control of the ship from a secondary location, at least enough to slave it to Iron Fist so the crew on Iron Fist could guide it away from Kuat. That made sense to me, a giant ship having redundant systems. But it seems that, canonically, the SSDs *didn't* have redundant systems. Makes no sense to me.

One of many issues with the old SDs that the Resurgents looked to correct. (Also: actually using all that surface area for weapon emplacements. Yikes.)

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The imperials had bastion worlds though so I cant imagine why there were not more ships and just manpower in general. Agree that its weird Leia wasn't running the new republic but that is moot as they conveniently blew up Coruscant (which I found weird they did not actually name, coulda missed it tho) and other planets in the name of marketing..i mean in the name of the First Order. Star Wars: The Marketing Awakens.

See, you're still rolling with the old canon.

There's not really established "bastion worlds" in the official canon. You can imagine there might be, but not necessarily.

Jakku was a manufacturing world in the new canon, and the "Rebellion" got together enough of a fleet to blast a bunch of SDs there. At some point, the New Republic would gain access to SDs as systems and officers joined them and left the ghost of the Empire behind. Eventually, the New Republic's fleet gets large enough that trying to fight it becomes a moot point. And then they win.

Coruscant wasn't named because it wasn't destroyed. Hosnian Prime was destroyed. The New Republic decided to move their "capital" around based on votes of the Senate so no one planet was considered more important than the rest. The capital at the time of TFA is Hosnian Prime. Coruscant's still kicking, as far as we know. (Though it wouldn't surprise me if, somewhere along the line, it had gotten wasted in the fighting.)

Leia isn't in charge of the New Republic because this isn't the EU. Throughout the original trilogy, she's almost always on the front lines, leading soldiers rather than politicians. Mon Mothma was the one leading the political side of things. It makes sense that Leia would continue to do what she does well, inspiring people on the front lines and commanding soldiers, leaving the politics to people who deal well in that arena.

And I doubt many people knew of Starkiller Base. Heck, it sounds like the Resistance had no real clue until Finn defected and started talking about it, but that was after it'd already taken out the Hosnian system. Then they started running scouts by it to gather info, and got intel from Finn. You might think it's hard to hide something like that, but hey, people lost the location of the first Jedi temple, too. The EU also had its own share of stories of systems and worlds that got dropped off maps and/or forgotten.