Star Wars VII - The Force Awakens, on BluRay and Dvd April 5th, 2016

[Dio]

I'm of the opposite opinion, the music in TFA to me seemed to invoke the appropriate moods much more than the other films. The OT music was thematic, but repetitive across the trilogy, and the PT music I do not even remember outside of the main theme and Duel of the Fates (which saturated every fanfilm after Ep I for quite some time). TFA was the first movie since ANH where I felt a sense of what the score was trying to convey.

[jenius]

If the majority of people approve of something...it doesn't make that something good or right...just popular

The majority of people are saying its good. That doesn't mean its popular. Box office sales make it popular. Some people have rightly called it "derivative"... I'd say anyone claiming the prequels are BETTER though need to seriously reevaluate their tastes in movies. There's so few redeeming qualities to the prequels other than the title saying STAR WARS that I am totally stumped by any love for them. Seriously, name ONE good thing about the prequels other than "I hadn't seen that before." Because, for the record, "I haven't seen that before" is damning with faint praise. I hadn't seen two girls one cup until I did.

[jvmacross]

I'd say anyone claiming the prequels are BETTER though need to seriously reevaluate their tastes in movies.

Wow....can't argue with that reasoning!

Anyway....TFA is about as lazy and unimaginative a movie can get....Disney knows the target demographic wouldn't notice the blatant rehashing from the OT...and let's face it....that demographic is the same demographic that made SW what it is today in the late 70's/early 80's.....mainly elementary school age kids....not old fanboys....most in this movie's targeted group may find the OT boring compared to todays faster action requirements for movies....and shorter attention spans....it works for so many older viewers most likely due to pure nostalgia and the return of core characters....if you take off the blinders, this movie is mediocre at best...all hype, little substance....

[jenius]

You say "Lazy and unimaginative." Are you saying that because it takes too much from the OT? Are you also saying that if you're not someone well versed in the OT that it may then SEEM like a fantastic movie but that's just because you don't remember previous fantastic movies that preceded it well enough? I think it may be important to remember that Star Wars was never about being original.. it rips itself off in the span of 3 'original' movies. Death Star? AGAIN? And, it's just samurai movies in space. So I don't think anyone should be adopting a "Great films should be art that stretches the mind" when talking about Star Wars.

I dunno, I think some of this criticism stems from people that are just pissed George Lucas didn't have a part in making this film. If he did I think we'd be reading a whole lot about how he "Totally recaptured the magic lost when he attempted the prequels" or "Has broken free from his efforts to make all actors act like blocks of wood and speak absolutely stilted dialogue and is actually making likable characters again."

[azrael]

Everything else in TFA is just a giant f'ing commercial to sell action figures and other junk for Disney...

Which is why I'm sure Disney is moving back the Ep 8 release date. Gotta sell all those Christmas presents. It worked for this movie during Christmas.

I dunno, I think some of this criticism stems from people that are just pissed George Lucas didn't have a part in making this film.

If Lucas made this exact same movie, I'd have the exact same commentary.

I recall a videos posted after screenings of Ep 1 where people said the exact same thing they said now. "Star Wars is back!" "I'm gonna watch it again and again!".

[jvmacross]

What exactly is the point of the ST...other than to reboot the franchise and cash in on OT fanboys and grab a bigger piece of the Disney core demographic pie?

The PT chronicles Anakin's downfall. The OT depicts his redemption. This was done in 6 movies.....the ST will now do the same in 3?

I'm just glad they are doing the SW stories...although so far it seems the stories are centering around events and characters we are familiar with, but don't know the "whole" story....so kinda following the PT formula....we know how it ends....but not how it played out....should be more interesting....at this point maybe Rebels is the most original SW storyline going....although I have not had a chance to see it...

[Scyla]

The majority of people are saying its good. That doesn't mean its popular. Box office sales make it popular. Some people have rightly called it "derivative"... I'd say anyone claiming the prequels are BETTER though need to seriously reevaluate their tastes in movies. There's so few redeeming qualities to the prequels other than the title saying STAR WARS that I am totally stumped by any love for them. Seriously, name ONE good thing about the prequels other than "I hadn't seen that before." Because, for the record, "I haven't seen that before" is damning with faint praise. I hadn't seen two girls one cup until I did.

Trade negotiations!

What I like about the prequels is the world building. I think it was neat how they tried to get to a point in 3 where you could believe that the SW galaxy will look in the OT 20 years later. Of course they didn't succeed all the way but they tried. It was good to see the Jedi in battle. From the OT you could never believe that Jedi or Sith would be a menacing force the way Obi Wan and Darth Vader fought in 4. It got better in the next two movies though. I also liked the pod racing sure it was superfluous but still fun and visual stunning at the time, at least for me.

And don't forget the best part: Mace Windus purple Lightsaber.

[kajnrig]

And don't forget the best part: Mace Windus purple Lightsaber.

One of the stupidest things to ever come out of Star Wars is the association of lightsaber color with the Force. When only the three films existed, the contrast of lightsabers made for nice symbolism. Then for whatever reason they decided that the Sith ONLY had red lightsabers and went on to try and rationalize that in-universe through crystals and colors being reflective of the character of the Jedi and other arbitrary nonsense.

most in this movie's targeted group may find the OT boring compared to todays faster action requirements for movies....and shorter attention spans....

That's generalizing to the point of rendering your argument invalid. It's not that today's audiences have shorter attention spans and/or require faster action to be stimulated; it's that studios THINK today's audiences have shorter attention spans and/or require faster action to be stimulated.

I showed A New Hope to my niece and nephews (10, 8, and 7) and they loved it, especially my niece, which came as a nice surprise. Then we watched The Princess Bride and they watched that all the way through, too.

[renegadeleader1]

Show them Willow next, just skip the parts where the dogs run down the nurse maid and the Eborsisk.

[Mechapilot77]

i think its funny when people say TFA lacks original ideas. One of the whole points of the movie was to invoke nostalgia and bring the fans back with something familiar. han solo practically breaks the 4th wall joking about the reuse of plots and themes in the war/planning room. its totally intentional. i do think in 8....we will see what the writers really want to do with this 3rd trilogy much more so than episode 7. that said its the most fun i've had in the theater in years. i got chills watching this movie!

[peter]

One of the stupidest things to ever come out of Star Wars is the association of lightsaber color with the Force. When only the three films existed, the contrast of lightsabers made for nice symbolism. Then for whatever reason they decided that the Sith ONLY had red lightsabers and went on to try and rationalize that in-universe through crystals and colors being reflective of the character of the Jedi and other arbitrary nonsense.

I never got the rationalization bit....so does that mean if Darth Maul picked up Obi Wan's light saber instead of kicking it down the shaft, Obi Wan's saber would have turned red because Darth Maul was using it?

[kajnrig]

I never got the rationalization bit....so does that mean if Darth Maul picked up Obi Wan's light saber instead of kicking it down the shaft, Obi Wan's saber would have turned red because Darth Maul was using it?

Supposedly it all has to do with what type of crystal is used to power the lightsaber. So a blue lightsaber remains blue regardless of who's using it.

But then they start talking about how orange lightsabers mean you're a calm fighter, green means you're wise, etc., and red means you're the evil. So does that mean that if a Jedi picks up a Sith lightsaber, they become instantly a Sith themselves? And if so, why not just send a shipment of red lightsabers to the academy for the little bastards in training and you can convert people en masse instead of training one lousy student at a time who's more likely to try and kill you in thanks than not? Grumble grumble grumble...

[Scyla]

The reason why Sith Lightsabers are usually red is that they use artificially created crystals because they result in a stronger blade those crystals are red. Jedi use natural found crystals that came in a great variety of colors. According to Wookipedia the idea was that the evil characters use red blades ad the good ones blue. In RotJ they changed the color of Lukes saber from blue to green so that the viewers can make it out more easily against the blue sky of Tatooine.

KotoR used the Lightsaber color as a way to distinguish between the classes of the game so Jedi Guardians use blue Lightsabers, Jedi Consulars use green ones and the blades of Jedi Sentinels are yellow. The purple color of Mace Windus Lightsaber is that color due to the fact that Samuel L. Jackson requested a special colored blade to stand out next to the other Jedis on screen and purple is his favorite color.

[jvmacross]

That's generalizing to the point of rendering your argument invalid. It's not that today's audiences have shorter attention spans and/or require faster action to be stimulated; it's that studios THINK today's audiences have shorter attention spans and/or require faster action to be stimulated.

I showed A New Hope to my niece and nephews (10, 8, and 7) and they loved it, especially my niece, which came as a nice surprise. Then we watched The Princess Bride and they watched that all the way through, too.

Not really. Hollywood spends tons of cash to do market research to know what will work for today's moviegoers.....and it is noticibly different (for example a movie's pacing) from what was acceptable years ago...

Congrats...your nephews buck the trends....they are the outliers.....but sadly, you show most kids in that age group a classic animated Disney film from the 40's vs Toy Story or Frozen...and they will be bored with the classic style animation/storytelling........it is what it is....

[Scyla]

Is this legit? Looks fake to me.

[Mog]

^^That figure has WAY MORE articulation than anything Hasbro's released in YEARS.

[jvmacross]

LOL...I was thinking the same thing.....guess even when it comes to the action figures...TFA is ripping off the OT

[Thom]

i got chills watching this movie!

And that's what it is all about!

So what if it is not totally original? And in what sense? Good fighting evil? Plucky heroes battling against sinister foes? A journey across a vast distance to reach safety and or the prize? And a climactic battle to cap it all off?

That sounds like almost every movie ever made, and almost every story ever written.

What matters is how they get from point A to point B, and I think they did damn good! It was exciting and nostalgic, and I was rooting for the good guys and pitying the bad guy. That's one of the things I liked a lot about it to, in that we've seen Jedi tempted by the Dark Side. Now we have a bad guy who had been temped by the Light.

It was the crux of Han and Kylo's meeting on the bridge. They were both talking about two different outcomes, but in a way that Han thought they were talking about the same decision.

...you show most kids in that age group a classic animated Disney film from the 40's vs Toy Story or Frozen...and they will be bored with the classic style animation/storytelling........it is what it is....

It has to do with every generation always choosing the newer product, because very few of what was made thirty or forty - or seventies - years ago does not age well. The ones that do are very rare.

Take myself for example. When the new Space Battleship Yamato 2199 came out, I compared it to the original. The only interest I had in it was the story line. I didn't like any of the voice acting or the clunky visuals, or the animation that was terribly showing it's wear. Which is another point. We can do shows now with far more definition and detail than ever before, so it's no mystery as to why the old shows are just that. Old.

I bet that any child who saw Snow White or Cinderella when they were new in the theaters, would choose them over black and white Tom and Jerry or Betty Boop.

It's not just this generation that abandons the entertainments of the old. It's every generation.

Edited January 22, 2016 by Thom

[sketchley]

Congrats...your nephews buck the trends....they are the outliers.....but sadly, you show most kids in that age group a classic animated Disney film from the 40's vs Toy Story or Frozen...and they will be bored with the classic style animation/storytelling........it is what it is....

I humbly disagree. I've had kids at my school (Japanese) get sucked into the classic Disney animated films - despite the language barrier (only English) - whereas the same kids (and my own!) are not as interested in the more recent Disney films/Japanese anime. Though everyone, myself included when I was their age, disliked having to sit through the opening credits.

But I do agree that it all depends on the content of the story and the viewer (referring tangentially to the first episode of Macross Delta here).

[azrael]

I can invoke nostalgia by popping in a DVD or Blu-ray of the original movie that gave me that feeling the first time. Why do I need something new to give me that familiar feeling when the stuff on my shelf does it for me at anytime? Bless home video and Netflix.

[Warmaker]

Well, I'm not a regular on these boards and came back only very recently. Haven't checked the whole thread but a few posts here and there. I'll just dish out my take on TFA. Wall of Text follows.

First thing's first. I saw the movie twice with my family in December. I enjoyed the movie overall and felt it was money well spent. It's almost been a month since I saw it so I can think back on some of the things about it without all the release hype. Seriously Disney, lay off the very heavy handed promos next time. Anyways, I'll let off the annoying things first.

Recycling the Death Star. Everything about this just kept on nagging me. On my first viewing of the movie, I still remember cringing when they showed not only a new Death Star, but an even BIGGER VERSION that dwarfs even the Original Trilogy versions. WHY??? Also, I loved how the weapon operated. But I also felt that this superweapon that the First Order obviously poured tremendous resources into, was poorly defended. There was no First Order Starfleet escorting her. For something so big, so valuable, so important, not only were there no warships on patrol, there weren't even starfighters on patrol. There were no patrols of any sort to detect the Millenium Falcon's entry. No patrols to detect the Resistance Starfighter attack. No patrols to alert the base and begin their intercept. Instead, nothing at all happens to the MF and the First Order's fighters do not emerge until the installation was already receiving hits. It was also annoying that they did a Trench Run v2.0. Looked great and all but come on! Again on the patrols, not only were there no patrols in the air or in space, there were no Stormtrooper patrols, sentries, or observation points on the outside. The only patrols running were inside the base where it was nice and warm. That completely defeats the point of having infantry! When the Resistance attacked, the First Order literally had zero defenses running in space, the air, or on ground. NONE.

Zero explanation on the movie's setting. This is not Star Wars from the late 70's where it started building its setting right then and there. This is a sequel to the Original Trilogy's ROTJ. Last we saw from the closing of ROTJ, it felt like the Empire was finished; The Rebellion winning. TFA takes up years after ROTJ and we do not see anything of the Rebellion nor Empire. Instead we are introduced to what seemed like "kind of, sort of" replacements. The Resistance and the First Order. There is zero mention of why the Galactic Empire is not there but it has the First Order in its place. Not in name but in spirit. The Resistance is supposed to be the Rebellion but we are also told of a new "Republic" because General Hux makes mention that the FO will strike at the Republic and its supporters. We do not know the dynamics, the relationship between the First Order, new "Republic," and the Resistance nor how they came to be.

And I don't want anyone telling me of some external source. This is a movie. It should have been self contained. This is the first Star Wars movie in 10 years and they said nothing about the current state of the galaxy. Even The Phantom Boredom did a better job introducing the audience to the new setting the movies were then taking place in, since it was a completely different era than the Original Trilogy's. TFA does none of that, doesn't even give us a "Cliff's Notes" version of what happened since ROTJ.

Some other points:

Stormtroopers. Before the movie was out, I wasn't sold on their new look. After seeing the movie, I approve of their look as an evolution of the OT's Stormtroopers. The more I saw of them, the cooler I felt they were. I still prefer the OT Stormtroopers above all but I'm on board with the FO Stormies. Side note, Capt Phasma was a disappointment. Looked absolutely awesome, but WTH, JJ?

Pays its respects to some of its OT roots. Early on, we see evidence of the OT's war. The Star Destroyer, X-Wing, TIE Fighter, AT-AT wreckage on Jakku. Bits of uniform items left behind. I still remember everyone cheering when that "garbage" ship was shown. I still remember smiling when Han & Chewie "are home again." Han & Chewie get good screentime, especially Han Solo. His death was a huge shock for me (no I didn't see any spoilers before) at first I didn't like it but the more I thought about it, the more I feel it was a good way for him to go out. Before he met Leia again, he felt Ben was truly lost. Leia conveyed the feeling that he could still be redeemed and Han gave it one more try. I actually liked the exchange between Han & Kylo Ren, how it felt it could have gone either way. Han didn't die in some big blaze of glory. Han died trying to persuade his son to come back home. Speaking of...

Kylo Ren. I actually like him as a villain. He showed new Force capabilities in the movies. The freezing of a blaster bolt in the air (THAT was cool) and forcing his opponent into "freezing" in place. I also enjoyed the feeling that though he screamed "Dark Side of the Force" when around his subordinates, we also see he's not quite sure of himself. A villain with flaws, imagine that! In the movies, we get to points where certain characters have to make a defining choice. Anakin, Luke Skywalker made theirs. Kylo Ren knew there was a line he had to cross to make his transition complete but he was conflicted in that. When he spoke with Han, he was conflicted. He almost gave up his Lightsaber. When Han struggled to get the weapon out of his son's hands, that was bad news. And even after he killed him, there was still that disbelief that he actually did that. IMO, his fall was better done than Anakin Skywalker's in the Prequels. Not only was his fall done better, but it was done right in one movie while Anakin's fall was poorly done and less believable, IMO, in the 3 Prequel movies.

Also, if Anakin Skywalker's lightsaber could tell its story, wow... Another nod to the OT was when this same lightsaber was stuck in the snow during Kylo Ren and Rey's fight. I immediately thought of Luke's experience in the wampa cave in ESB.

In addition: TR-8R > Finn

Lastly, T-65 X-Wing > T-70 X-Wing

Edited January 22, 2016 by Warmaker

[jenius]

From what I remember of the Clone Wars episodes about making light sabers, the Jedis go to some planet and do some trial where a crystal chooses them. So basically they go in a cave and the crystal that is meant for them will stand out to them while hundreds of other crystals that might be closer will essentially be invisible to them. This is how you get the notion that the color of the blade is matched to an aura. If you were super calm or whatever then a particular type of crystal would call out to you that would make your blade a certain type of color. After the crystal is in your saber then anyone who picks it up will have a blade of that color (like Grievous with his using dead Jedi sabers). I'm not advocating whether or not this is good, just indicating why the different colors and associations with the original owner's inner self are supposed to work. As it was said, the Sith are like "F trials, we'll do it ourselves" so they just use fake crystals which make red blades. Jedis of course could pick up a Sith sword but since making your light saber is part of your trial, which means being chosen by a crystal, they obviously don't need to resort to fake crystals.

Echoing the sentiment above, the Starkiller base was a real groaner, especially the "Big, Bigger, BIGGEST!" hologram scene. Ugh. Star Killer did seem to have a fleet in defense, we saw Kylo Ren on one of those ships right? But as was also stated, we have no idea what means are at The First Order's disposals since the movie completely glosses over what any particular group is capable of. Also, isn't Starkiller base about to be useless anyway? It draws its power from a sun that it was about to destroy. Once the sun is gone the base is useless any way. The rebels just need to destroy it before it gets off those last couple shots. Maybe that's why there's not much of an obvious defense. After those shots the base might theoretically be getting abandoned anyway. I imagine killing that star is going to have very negative repercussions for hanging out in that location.

Going back randomly to The Clone Wars and maybe just Star Wars in general. In good story-telling, the bad guys typically believe they're in the right. The Phantom Menace clumsily tried to do this with Anakin switching to the Dark Side in part because he thought a totalitarian system could be benevolent and less inefficient than the republic. Now, while the Emperor was always pretty dag nasty evil, wouldn't Maul, Dooku (Tyranus), and all other Sith have been more interesting if they thought they were right? And you can say "They did!" but then I'd point out their names are things like Maul, Tyranus, Sidious, and Plagueis. Those don't sound like the names of people who are just misunderstood. Also, in the last Clone Wars episode I watched the Kaminoans were like "We need to talk to Lord Tyranus about this..." and seem to not understand he's evil. His name is Tyranus. They try to make it clear that the Kaminoans think Jedi are crazy religious freaks but I dunno... it feels like Lucas got a little carried away with the Sith making them into silly charicatures.

Finally, to Azrael's point earlier, it's definitely true that after The Phantom Menace not everyone understood how bad it was immediately after the fact (though it's ratings were MUCH worse than TFA). Most people didn't really get the extent of how bad it was until after the full trilogy was out and, in combination, all of them were God awful. I think Phantom Menace originally did get the benefit of the doubt. "Okay, Lucas introduced us to some new characters. Sure, everything involving Anakin was wretched, as was JarJar, as was the ham-fisted insertion of R2D2 and C3PO, but Obi-Wan and Qui-Gon fighting Darth Maul was pretty cool and who knows where he'll go next?" As that was true then, I could definitely see this movie losing some of its luster if in the next films Finn and or Rey become absolutely douchey or some loose plot threads from this film are taken up in comically bad directions the next time around. If we learn that Luke ran off to an island because of a really stupid reason then we're obviously going to be a little more let down that in the first movie everyone wasn't like "Luke? F that selfish prick. Look at what we're dealing with because of him!"

[Scyla]

From the movie I got the impression that the Starkiller Base moves itself next to the sun, sucks it into its core (that's the reason it got dark outside while Han was on the base) and than transforms the sun into a beam that can magically spread into different sub beams that destroy planets. So you can recharge the base whenever you want. There are some ludicrous consequences to that like how does the planes of the system behave once their center of gravity is gone (oh well maybe the flat-earthers are right and there is no gravity!) or how does the base get near enough to the sun without disintegrating itself. I get that there are shields but have you made it into an ice planet? Couldn't it be a volcanic world?

[jenius]

From the movie I got the impression that the Starkiller Base moves itself next to the sun, sucks it into its core (that's the reason it got dark outside while Han was on the base) and than transforms the sun into a beam that can magically spread into different sub beams that destroy planets. So you can recharge the base whenever you want. There are some ludicrous consequences to that like how does the planes of the system behave once their center of gravity is gone (oh well maybe the flat-earthers are right and there is no gravity!) or how does the base get near enough to the sun without disintegrating itself. I get that there are shields but have you made it into an ice planet? Couldn't it be a volcanic world?

Hmm, I just thought it was a base built into an existing planet with no real means of locomotion.

[Scyla]

I thought that at first but during my second viewing I noticed that it was bright day when the Millenium Falcon arrived on the base. When they ready the weapon a beam goes from the sun to the base and Han says something like: "When it gets dark the weapon is ready to fire". During their infiltration of the base it gets gradually darker and as soon as the rebel base announces that the weapon is ready to fire in a short period of time you can see that the surge of the sun into the base is fading away.

[kajnrig]

My question is whether The Force Unleashed is no longer canon now. It was a bit odd seeing Starkiller refer to a Neo-Death Star and not the Gary Stu that was that short-lived franchise's main character. (I'm so cool I hold my lightsaber behind me! And I use TWO of them no less! I'm sooo cool!)

Speaking of Sith naming, the whole "Darth Mean-Wordius" shtick was the absolute dumbest. Like I think the "Darth" title started becoming a thing through the extended universe, and then bled into the prequels, which was fine I guess, if a bit lame. Darth Vader didn't become menacing because his name was menacing. His name became menacing because HE was menacing. Making others adopt his name only serves to strip them of their unique identity as well as dilute his legacy. But it's fine, it's nothing big.

But then you get stuff like "Darth Maul," "Darth Plagus," "Darth Sidious," like you mention above, and you've gotta shake your head at Lucas (not for the first time, mind) because could he make them any more generic? They may as well do a little song and dance whenever they appear and say, "Hey guys we're EEEEVIL!!!" (And to be fair, they did do pretty much that.)

At least Kylo Ren is just Kylo Ren. But I swear to god, if he ha a new Darth name next movie... well, I don't plan on seeing it anyway, but this way I'll feel even further justified.

[jenius]

Hmm, I can't quote for some reason but Scyla, I just thought that the sun had like 7 or 8 shots worth of energy. So they had drained the sun with the first shots but hadn't put it out. Now the last couple shots were going to end the sun. There's two reasons I'm inclined to lean this way (although I'm sure there's some definitive answer somewhere). First, the thing appears to be an actual planet just with a trench carved into it. Second, there's no scene or discussion about the base moving.

[electric indigo]

Going back randomly to The Clone Wars and maybe just Star Wars in general. In good story-telling, the bad guys typically believe they're in the right. The Phantom Menace clumsily tried to do this with Anakin switching to the Dark Side in part because he thought a totalitarian system could be benevolent and less inefficient than the republic. Now, while the Emperor was always pretty dag nasty evil, wouldn't Maul, Dooku (Tyranus), and all other Sith have been more interesting if they thought they were right? And you can say "They did!" but then I'd point out their names are things like Maul, Tyranus, Sidious, and Plagueis. Those don't sound like the names of people who are just misunderstood. Also, in the last Clone Wars episode I watched the Kaminoans were like "We need to talk to Lord Tyranus about this..." and seem to not understand he's evil. His name is Tyranus. They try to make it clear that the Kaminoans think Jedi are crazy religious freaks but I dunno... it feels like Lucas got a little carried away with the Sith making them into silly charicatures.

I highly recommend the novelization of ROTS; Dooku, for example, has a longer internal monologue about his view on the Clone War that adds a gravitas to his character that is completely lost in the movie. I also thought that his speech to the captured Obi Wan could have been a brilliant turning point, what if we wasn't the traitor to the Jedi, but actually the starting point of the rebellion? Instead, he turned to a cardboard bad guy seconds later.

There were promising stories in the PT, but the execution was miserable.

[Scyla]

Hmm, I can't quote for some reason but Scyla, I just thought that the sun had like 7 or 8 shots worth of energy. So they had drained the sun with the first shots but hadn't put it out. Now the last couple shots were going to end the sun. There's two reasons I'm inclined to lean this way (although I'm sure there's some definitive answer somewhere). First, the thing appears to be an actual planet just with a trench carved into it. Second, there's no scene or discussion about the base moving.

Ah I now I understand what you hinting at. I misread your first reply. Of course, if the Base was build into an actual planet with no meanings of movement through space, it could only absorb the sun of the system where the planet is located. Once the sun is depleted no more shots can be fired.

This is something that never came to mind because I always had the image in my head that this is a movable object because otherwise it doesn't make much sense.

Maybe the First Order had found a way to convert any given planet into a Star Killer base quickly (since they had to build only the gun part) and thus it doesn't really matter if the sun is depleted because you can "easily" build another one in a new system. Of course this idea is also deeply flawed because the whole system would collapse once you remove a not insignificant part of a suns mass. I.e. after the it destroyed the Senat the system would have been unstable and the planet wouldn't be anywhere near enough to the sun to draw its mass) but I could see that working.

[edit:]I didn't catch what you meant at first because during my first viewing I though that the Starkiller Base was built around a sun using parts of a planet. So in order to recharge they had to move to another sun and but it inside the base. Only in my second viewing I saw that the base is drawing energy from the sun before firing. No matter how the movie people thought it should work the whole idea is deeply flawed so I guess any explanation is as good as the next.

Edited January 22, 2016 by Scyla

[mechaninac]

Were the Starkiller Base planet, the Senatorial Capital planet, and the Resistance Base planet all in the same solar system? Because, if they weren't, that whole sequence made absolutely no sense whatsoever... what with Resistance people being able to visually witness (JJ pulled the same sort of nonsensical visual stunt on his Star Trek movie with old Spock watching Vulcan implode...) the Plasma shot(s) (kind of like a focused and concentrated CME on steroids; therefore, slower than light speed) streak across space and annihilate that planet and its moons. And if they were on the same system, just the act of draining the sun would have effectively "killed" all the planets orbiting it. There is suspension of disbelief, and than there is checking your brain at the door before entering the theater... I can't do the latter.

[Dynaman]

Everyone is overthinking again. This is Star Wars, you over-analyze it and it goes poof in a cloud of logic. StarKiller Base being a prime example.

[Scyla]

Were the Starkiller Base planet, the Senatorial Capital planet, and the Resistance Base planet all in the same solar system? Because, if they weren't, that whole sequence made absolutely no sense whatsoever... what with Resistance people being able to visually witness (JJ pulled the same sort of nonsensical visual stunt on his Star Trek movie with old Spock watching Vulcan implode...) the Plasma shot(s) (kind of like a focused and concentrated CME on steroids; therefore, slower than light speed) streak across space and annihilate that planet and its moons. And if they were on the same system, just the act of draining the sun would have effectively "killed" all the planets orbiting it. There is suspension of disbelief, and than there is checking your brain at the door before entering the theater... I can't do the latter.

I think the Starkiller Base was in a different system cause the X-Wing squadrons jumped through hyperspace to get to it. The fact that the rebels could see the beams that destroyed the Senatorial planets from their planet led me to believe that they are all in the same system otherwise they shouldn't be able to see the beams.

The whole timeline is still totally nonsensical since I assume the plasma from the sun can travel at topmost with lightspeed. So it would took it at least several years to get to the planets if the Starkiller Base was still in the same system when X-Wing attacked. The reason why I believe this are twofold. First the X-Wing squadrons jumped through hyperspace thus it needs to be at least a few light years away. Second on the rebel base is still sunlight after the Starkiller Base exploded so I don't think they used the sun in that system.

It just doesn't make any sense even no matter how you look at it.Not only seems this weapon far inferior to a Deathstar design it is also impractical as hell.

0/10 worst movie ever!

[Duke Togo]

Everyone is overthinking again. This is Star Wars, you over-analyze it and it goes poof in a cloud of logic. StarKiller Base being a prime example.

This.

Starkiller Base was built into a planet and it does move. One star = one shot. That's official canon.

[Scyla]

Can it move through hyperspace? If so was the official version: Starkiller Base sucks up sun, jumps to system where the Senate is, burps out some plasma and than leaves the system?

It still seems like a clunky plot device to me.

[Duke Togo]

Can it move through hyperspace? If so was the official version: Starkiller Base sucks up sun, jumps to system where the Senate is, burps out some plasma and than leaves the system?

It still seems like a clunky plot device to me.

Kinda like the Falcon traveling across the galaxy in a small period of time? Or AT-ATs as effective machines of war? Or any one of a thousand things Star Wars has always hand-waved away? It's Star Wars; it's fantasy.