Scyla Posted January 22, 2016 Posted January 22, 2016 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. I have no problem with accepting that it is fantasy but at least they should keep their fantasy consistent. If the Falcon needs to travel through hyper space to get to the next star system so would anything else with mass need to travel through hyperspace if they don't want to be slow. Thus the beams from the Starkiller Base would take years to get to a different system if they where not in close proximity. This is just lazy writing. It wasn't that jarring while watching the movie but thinking about it now leaves me baffled. It is still an enjoyable movie though. Quote
Dynaman Posted January 22, 2016 Posted January 22, 2016 This. Starkiller Base was built into a planet and it does move. One star = one shot. That's official canon. And funnily enough the planet still has an atmoshpere and snow on it when it is getting ready for the second shot. Like I said, best not to overthink it or it goes poof. Quote
kajnrig Posted January 22, 2016 Posted January 22, 2016 I could've sworn the movie said something about the beams traveling through hyperspace or even beyond hyperspace, as an explanation of why it can be seen across the galaxy(/universe?) at the same time. Quote
Bri Posted January 22, 2016 Posted January 22, 2016 I have no problem with accepting that it is fantasy but at least they should keep their fantasy consistent. If the Falcon needs to travel through hyper space to get to the next star system so would anything else with mass need to travel through hyperspace if they don't want to be slow. Thus the beams from the Starkiller Base would take years to get to a different system if they where not in close proximity. This is just lazy writing. It wasn't that jarring while watching the movie but thinking about it now leaves me baffled. It is still an enjoyable movie though. The tech guy at the Resistance meeting called it a hyper lightspeed weapon so the beams do appear to travel through hyper space. That said, the whole super weapon subplot is a bit lame and detracts from the movie. I feel an inverted Hoth scenario with the First Order defending would have fit the scale of the movie better. Quote
Thom Posted January 22, 2016 Posted January 22, 2016 (edited) Yes, Starkiller Base is not only a massive energy weapon, but it is also a hyperspace generator. That's how it's beam crossed so much distance so quickly, and it's even said to that effect in the Resistance command center. And no, they are not in the same system, which is why the whole scene of everyone seeing Hosnian Prime being destroyed ends up as just a bad redo of the shot of Vulcan being consumed while standing on a planet nowhere near it. In that scene it actually would have been better to use the scene from ANH, where Obiwan feels the destruction of Alderaan. Although in this instance, it probably would have been Maz who felt it. (Not that I'll let that ruin my fun!) And it was my impression that the star does not go out. It merely dims as Starkiller Base sloughs off the top layers, which is then replenished over time. I don't recall any dialogue of the sun being snuffed out. What I really wish, was that the movie was just ten or fifteen minutes longer. It doesn't take much dialogue or screen time in a movie to get the subplots better fleshed out. Edited January 22, 2016 by Thom Quote
Scyla Posted January 22, 2016 Posted January 22, 2016 The tech guy at the Resistance meeting called it a hyper lightspeed weapon so the beams do appear to travel through hyper space. That said, the whole super weapon subplot is a bit lame and detracts from the movie. I feel an inverted Hoth scenario with the First Order defending would have fit the scale of the movie better. Check, I missed this part in the movie. While I'm still not 100% convinced of the way it was displayed in the movie. I mean if it travels at above light speed it shouldn't look like a beam of plasma depicted in the scene. Quote
Duke Togo Posted January 22, 2016 Posted January 22, 2016 Check, I missed this part in the movie. While I'm still not 100% convinced of the way it was displayed in the movie. I mean if it travels at above light speed it shouldn't look like a beam of plasma depicted in the scene. It's Star Wars. If you're looking for something other than fantasy, I suggest you try one of the Star Trek threads. Quote
kajnrig Posted January 22, 2016 Posted January 22, 2016 It's Star Wars. If you're looking for something other than fantasy, I suggest you try one of the Star Trek threads. If Into Darkness is anything to go by, you might have to start looking elsewhere... Quote
Scyla Posted January 22, 2016 Posted January 22, 2016 It's Star Wars. If you're looking for something other than fantasy, I suggest you try one of the Star Trek threads. All I'm asking is consistency. We see how spaceships leave hyperspace in Episode 6 thus a beam of matter has to act the same way and not draw beautiful colors on the screen. Oh well, I take everything back what I said so far and argue the opposite. Quote
Kelsain Posted January 22, 2016 Posted January 22, 2016 (edited) The presentation of Starkiller Base was one of the biggest problems I had with the movie. Overall, I really enjoy it, but my disbelief dropped to the sticky theater floor here. When I first heard it named, then saw the poster, I thought - OK it's bigger than the Death Stars, but it must also be bigger. So, being called Starkiller, and supposedly able to wipe out systems from across the galaxy, I presumed that it would actually destroy the targeted star. Unfortunately, despite knowing I shouldn't, my mind put together a scenario of how this would work. I was quite wrong: I figured that the energy convertors and transmitters would be located within the planet. It would really be more of an advanced off-site hyperdrive than anything. The weapon would pull the energy out of one star (either a lone star or another system you don't like) and shunt it through hyperspace into the core of the targeted star, causing it to violently supernova. Thereby actually KILLING the STAR. This made sense within established tech, was a legit advancement of the Death Star concept, and would've generated dramatic shots of the star swallowing planets. Plus, the star that the planet orbits is not touched, and the base might be difficult to track. Naturally, this is not what we got. Honestly, I question whether JJ understands that "Space is big. Really big. You just won't believe how vastly, hugely, mind-bogglingly big it is. I mean, you may think it's a long way down the road to the chemist, but that's just peanuts to space." (Adams, HHGTG) First, old Spock watching Vulcan collapse, beaming to a warping Enterprise, beaming from Earth to Kronos, and now everyone watching the Republic Capital blow up in the sky. Sigh. Edited January 22, 2016 by Kelsain Quote
jvmacross Posted January 22, 2016 Posted January 22, 2016 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. 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. Welcome to Disney's Star Wars.....where the (correct) assumption is that enough rabid fans are going to "buy" into the whole mutli-media story-telling model to get the complete picture....as long as these idiots are out there and willing to post all the movie plot holes online....the rest of us can just deal with it....lame, but what can you do.... Once I read about all of the mising details, I actually enjoyed the second viewing.....even though there is still so much wrong with it....and, more importantly, forwared the story by lazily/blatantly stealing from the OT to fill in about 75% of the entire movie.....in short, when all is said and done and the ST is completed....folks will be talking about condensing TFA to just include the final 30 minutes or so..... Quote
jvmacross Posted January 22, 2016 Posted January 22, 2016 (edited) So the only differences between the Starkiller Cannon and the Grand Cannon are that it gains it's power from a star instead of the planet's core and it can destroy objects light-years away instead of within it's orbit? Heck....they are both also located in an arctic environment! Edited January 22, 2016 by jvmacross Quote
jenius Posted January 22, 2016 Posted January 22, 2016 Welcome to Disney's Star Wars.....where the (correct) assumption is that enough rabid fans are going to "buy" into the whole mutli-media story-telling model to get the complete picture....as long as these idiots are out there and willing to post all the movie plot holes online....the rest of us can just deal with it....lame, but what can you do.... Once I read about all of the mising details, I actually enjoyed the second viewing.....even though there is still so much wrong with it....and, more importantly, forwared the story by lazily/blatantly stealing from the OT to fill in about 75% of the entire movie.....in short, when all is said and done and the ST is completed....folks will be talking about condensing TFA to just include the final 30 minutes or so..... You must hate Macross. Quote
jvmacross Posted January 22, 2016 Posted January 22, 2016 You must hate Macross. LOL.... Anyway.....there is a difference between the application of certain "pillars" that make up a franchise which we expect to be portrayed with each new story.......but blatant copying of the exact same plot devices is just plain lazy storytelling...... Starkiller Base alone is enough proof that they were too lazy to come up with something more original......but Disney just played it safe as they knew the majority of fans would just eat it up.....so why try harder? Let's just hope they can come up with something interesting for the remainder of this trilogy, because they have already ripped off most the best ideas from the OT within the first installment of the ST! As of now, the ridiculous concept of the "Church of the Force" leaves me feeling skeptical..... Quote
Scyla Posted January 22, 2016 Posted January 22, 2016 I think Macross is a good comparison because Delta looks like Frontier (and Episode 7 looks like the OT) but they have different themes. Where Deltas theme is teamwork or group effort Ep 7 theme is ripoff nostalgia. Quote
jvmacross Posted January 22, 2016 Posted January 22, 2016 I think Macross is a good comparison because Delta looks like Frontier (and Episode 7 looks like the OT) but they have different themes. Where Deltas theme is teamwork or group effort Ep 7 theme is ripoff nostalgia. Maybe because Delta only takes place a few years after Frontier......TFA takes place 30 some years later......yet we are back where we left off..... Quote
Dobber Posted January 22, 2016 Posted January 22, 2016 Welcome to Disney's Star Wars.....where the (correct) assumption is that enough rabid fans are going to "buy" into the whole mutli-media story-telling model to get the complete picture....as long as these idiots are out there and willing to post all the movie plot holes online....the rest of us can just deal with it....lame, but what can you do.... Once I read about all of the mising details, I actually enjoyed the second viewing.....even though there is still so much wrong with it....and, more importantly, forwared the story by lazily/blatantly stealing from the OT to fill in about 75% of the entire movie.....in short, when all is said and done and the ST is completed....folks will be talking about condensing TFA to just include the final 30 minutes or so..... Not sure why you feel the need to insult those of us that like the movie and want to learn more about it. If you don't like it that's totally fine. But if you are so pissed about it that you have to call people idiots because we don't mind learning more....just like we did for the OT, then maybe you should move on. Quote
Sildani Posted January 22, 2016 Posted January 22, 2016 Agreed. After all, to learn all there is to know about Macross, just HOW many obscure texts/out of print magazines/Japanese-only books do you have to source? How many of those contradict each other? Quote
jvmacross Posted January 23, 2016 Posted January 23, 2016 Not sure why you feel the need to insult those of us that like the movie and want to learn more about it. If you don't like it that's totally fine. But if you are so pissed about it that you have to call people idiots because we don't mind learning more....just like we did for the OT, then maybe you should move on. As stated, I researched the web also find out more too because the movie left so much out...not by accident, but by design......thus how I was able to better enjoy the second viewing. So I am not saying anything is wrong with wanting to learn more, but if you are one of those rabid SW fans completely buying into Disney's BS multi-media merchandising model in order to get the "complete" picture of the movie's plot...then you'd be an idiot.....and most likely part of the secondary demographic that Disney was after.... Agreed. After all, to learn all there is to know about Macross, just HOW many obscure texts/out of print magazines/Japanese-only books do you have to source? How many of those contradict each other? The big difference is you do not need to read ANY of the secondary information available to Macross fans in order to understand what's going on in any one Macross series......not so for TFA.... The wealth of data available to complement the Macross "universe", sometimes canon, sometimes not......is just for folks wanting (needing?) to know things like how many rounds are in a GU-11 gunpod or how fast is a VF-1......none of which is required to understand what you are watching on screen, in terms of plot....... Quote
Dobber Posted January 23, 2016 Posted January 23, 2016 (edited) And once again you are calling people idiots, personally insulting people is against forum rules. Also, I had no problem following what was going on in the movie and at the time had not read any extra supplemental material. Would a little more explanation about the Resistance and the Republic have helped...sure, but it is not needed and that is the only thing that comes close to being a gray area. Plus, scenes doing just that where filmed and then edited out for pacing. Not because of some nefarious plot, but because of pacing decisions by the director. People bitched and moaned about the political stuff in the Prequels and also in the random episodes that cropped up in The Clone Wars series. Now people are complaining about there not being any in this movie. I guess you're damned if you do, damned if you don't. Everything else is just extra that isn't required, like how StarKiller base works... ie how the "beam" seems to travel across the Galaxy so fast ect.. If people could accept the DeathStar's laser beam shooting out and stopping at a fixed point and then combining without a "focus" or a light saber only extending out a few feet, ect... then I don't see why there is suddenly such a problem with anything of this. If you want to know why it worked the way it worked, then it's out there in Canon material. I will agree, though, that if Disney where to require multimedia to get a whole picture for the movie that would stink. I just don't think that is happening here, but that's just me. Chris Edited January 23, 2016 by Dobber Quote
jenius Posted January 23, 2016 Posted January 23, 2016 Totally agree. To act like the story doesn't make sense because we didn't get to see the republic senate vote on a funding bill of the resistance is kind of silly... someone has a little too much infatuation with the prequels. All of the things that could have been explained more aren't 100% necessary to the plot which was a very refreshing change after the prequels. I would also say that Macross is very guilty of this same perceived slight often. Most of what's going on with Galaxy in Frontier needs to be inferred. Why did UN Spacy become NUNS? Do you have to play the video games to know? Not everything is laid out in the animation and that's okay... just like it's okay for Star Wars not to show us The First Order building the Starkiller base or explaining how they funded it. Was the weapon derivative and silly? Sure. Was it 100% in line with the other stuff we've accepted in SW? Yeah, at least the Ewoks didn't have to come back to help Han out. If Lucas had done this, I guarantee Han would have had whatever named Ewoks were in ROTJ be on his ship and they would have played a key role in saving Han's life from Darth Traitorson. Quote
Chewie Posted January 23, 2016 Posted January 23, 2016 Guess I'm an idiot. Been spending all the dollars you gave me on the books and other merch too. Sorry about that. Wait, oh damn. It's money I earned with my time and hard work that I've been spending on something I enjoy. Never mind. Carry on. Quote
Einherjar Posted January 23, 2016 Posted January 23, 2016 (edited) So I am not saying anything is wrong with wanting to learn more, but if you are one of those rabid SW fans completely buying into Disney's BS multi-media merchandising model in order to get the "complete" picture of the movie's plot...then you'd be an idiot.....and most likely part of the secondary demographic that Disney was after.... Other companies and their franchises have done much worse or don't even put an effort in any of it. Just saying. Edited January 23, 2016 by Einherjar Quote
Scyla Posted January 23, 2016 Posted January 23, 2016 I agree that other companies are far worth in that regard. For example in Transformers Dark of the Moon you had to read the comic to know who Shockwave is becasue the movie clearly didn't tell you anything about him and why he is the villain of the movie. Why is Megatron a truck and in Africa, etc. etc. So while it is not as bad as this the movie has some problems explaining a coherent story and deliberately mislabels stuff up to make it more like Ep 4. At least that is my experience. Again it is not a bad movie, it is actually pretty enjoyable but it is in no means perfect and I feel that it is ok to talk about it. And to think that Episode 7 is not a carefully crafted experience create by Disney to press as much money out of us as possible is a bit delusional naive. This is not bad but there are some problems that stems from this and it is a thin line to walk on. Starting in medias res is a valid approach for telling a story but you had to adapt your storytelling to make it work. The movie feels a bit clunky that is all I'm trying to say! Quote
kajnrig Posted January 23, 2016 Posted January 23, 2016 A stray thought reading through this: I'm disappointed they didn't dare to shake things up. Nothing of controversy was attempted (which admittedly is Disney's bread and butter), and given the prequels going bonkers in that regard, discretion was certainly warranted. But still, I would have liked to see them mess with the whole Light Side/Dark Side dichotomy, which I've always found to be simplistic and boring. George Lucas lamented VII's refusal to do anything unsafe. In that regard, I can safely say I agree with him. That said, casting female AND racial minorities in the two/three lead roles was plenty controversial, in its own way. So good on them for that. Quote
electric indigo Posted January 23, 2016 Posted January 23, 2016 Erm, didn't they actually KILL HAN SOLO? Quote
Kelsain Posted January 23, 2016 Posted January 23, 2016 Finally had a chance to see the whole movie a second time. While a few things still bug me, I enjoyed it more this time around. Being more familiar with the plot, I was able to concentrate on the backgrounds, details & more subtle characterization. Even the rathdar scene seemed better. Quote
kajnrig Posted January 23, 2016 Posted January 23, 2016 (edited) Erm, didn't they actually KILL HAN SOLO? And was anyone especially shocked? Did anyone take particular umbrage to it? At the very least, I didn't. It felt like a natural turn of events that satisfied multiple needs both within the story and without. Harrison Ford has wanted to move on from Star Wars from the get-go; Disney want to simplify things logistically, and not having to worry about him injuring himself on-set certainly helps; the story wants to move on from the older generation and onto the new; and so on. So having the character go out the way he did frees Ford and Han Solo from Star Wars, Disney, and the fans on good terms. Now imagine if, when confronting Kylo Ren, he had shot first. Whether he lives or dies in that scenario, it would have certainly made for a conversation. Edited January 23, 2016 by kajnrig Quote
Sildani Posted January 23, 2016 Posted January 23, 2016 Guess I'm an idiot. Been spending all the dollars you gave me on the books and other merch too. Sorry about that. Wait, oh damn. It's money I earned with my time and hard work that I've been spending on something I enjoy. Never mind. Carry on. This is a very healthy and positive attitude. You sure you belong on the Internet, sir? Quote
Chewie Posted January 23, 2016 Posted January 23, 2016 This is a very healthy and positive attitude. You sure you belong on the Internet, sir? I often wonder.... Quote
jvmacross Posted January 25, 2016 Posted January 25, 2016 Disney's Marvel/Star Wars cross-over is inevitable.....and it too will be blindly adored by all! Rotten Tomato rating of at least 96%...... Quote
Duke Togo Posted January 25, 2016 Posted January 25, 2016 Disney's Marvel/Star Wars cross-over is inevitable.....and it too will be blindly adored by all! Rotten Tomato rating of at least 96%...... Deadpool is controlled by Fox. Quote
jvmacross Posted January 25, 2016 Posted January 25, 2016 Deadpool is controlled by Fox. So? I said Disney's "Marvel".....not Disney's "Deadpool"..... Quote
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