^And how much of the New Republic government died when Starkiller Base destroyed Hosnian Prime?
Star Wars: The Force Awakens Discussion (HERE THERE BE SPOILERS)
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Just saw it tonight! I appreciated all of the visual homages to the preceding films, even Kylo carrying an unconscious Reya into his ship a la Anakin and Padme.
I saw Solo's big scene coming, though. You don't give away your gear and live to see the next movie.
I don't quite get the background: a "Resistance" implies an underground movement against a triumphant and dominating regime, but the First Order (which sounds like a military division, not a civ) seems to be fighting an equal opponent, not triumphing over one..
I absolutely guffawed when C-3P0 appears for the first time just to interupt Leia and Han's big reunion.
I saw Solo's big scene coming, though. You don't give away your gear and live to see the next movie.
I don't quite get the background: a "Resistance" implies an underground movement against a triumphant and dominating regime, but the First Order (which sounds like a military division, not a civ) seems to be fighting an equal opponent, not triumphing over one..
I absolutely guffawed when C-3P0 appears for the first time just to interupt Leia and Han's big reunion.
It doesn't need to aim - you already saw it's blasts splt up and turn by magic...
Probably a similar percentage as that of the First Order senior staff that died when Starkiler base blew up - a lot. It's intimated that both sides lost substantial parts of their fleets too.
I'm interreting it as there's a sizeable Imperial remnant following the death of Palpatine, maybe a third of the galaxy, and the Republic is waging a proxy war against the First Order by supporting / setting up rebel groups.
... Not exactly? There's a ton of technobabble. Admittedly, I haven't seen the movie, so I'm going to assume that Abrams cut a most of it out and let the visuals do the talking.
Between quotation marks are actual quotes from the novelization:
At the core of the Starkiller Base is a "tremendously compact volume of a type of dark energy known as quintessence", held in place by the planet's natural magnetic field plus the artificial containment field.
How do the beams hit anywhere almost instantaneously? The beams punch a "small Big Rip in hyperspace", and travel through "'sub'-hyperspace"! (I'm not joking, either. I swear Alan Dean Foster is trolling both Warsies and Trekkies alike with that one.
)How do they aim? They take into account "the rotation and inclination of the planet". The beams travel in a straight line in sub-hyperspace, although who knows how that translates to real space... (Basically, they shoot at what they can hit, though in fairness, that's still pretty terrifying.) Also, there's apparently two emitters on opposite sides of the planet, since the weapon runs through the planetary core.
How do they fire? "A breach was induced into the containment field." The released quintessence is transformed into "phantom energy". When the beam strikes Hosnian Prime, the phantom energy "dissipated within the planetary core", and "it blocked the free flow of elysium...", and so on and so forth. A "pocket nova" ensues. (Seriously, over a page worth of technobabble, just when the thing fires.)
The novel doesn't mention that the base can move. Apparently, it doesn't consume the star, but rather uses it to power the dark energy collectors.
Well, the galaxy map seen here contains a reference "Starkiller Base Origin Point", so that sounds like it can be moved, maybe. I guess they figure they can get away with it because Death Star?
That's about what Mockingjay Part 2 made in its 5-week run ($254M).
Half a billion in a weekend ($517M International). I wonder where this will settle at.
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What's amazing is that it's not altogether unreasonable to believe that the film will be in the top 15 of all-time domestic grossing films by the end of its second weekend (and, if the film isn't too front-loaded, potentially top ten).
Is there any technobabble in the novelization that explains how characters on Maz Kanata's planet could see the fire beam hitting Hosnian Prime? According to that New Canon map, it's a third of the galaxy's diameter away!
That new map doesn't make sense. They have Tattooine pretty far away from Naboo. But in TPM, they were forced to land on Tattooine because their hyperdrive wasn't working.
That new map doesn't make sense. They have Tattooine pretty far away from Naboo. But in TPM, they were forced to land on Tattooine because their hyperdrive wasn't working.
Second viewing was better. I think I was so worried the first time that I wouldn't like it that some part of my brain never fully clicked in to just sitting back and enjoying the ride. It still doesn't hit me on the same emotional level as the OT, but the characters are just getting started on their story so that is to be expected.
Didn't they nominate Tatooine because they thought they were less likely to be followed to a Hutt-controlled planet?
On an unrelated note, this article made me uncomfortable.
http://www.hitfix.com/harpy/rey-is-...ooking-for-and-now-were-complaining-about-her
Besides being fairly misleading (the 'we' in the title is the article writer themselves), there's a lot of mistakes or even lies supporting the argument.
For eg. Rey does have flaws. She's deep in denial and clings to the past with a death grip, and is also outright afraid of her destiny - to the point where she tries to run the hell away from it (making her the perfect foil for the ambitious Kylo). She also doesn't master the lightsaber, and only wins because Kylo was bleeding out and because The Force (or Luke/Anakin/Obi-wan/vision sender etc) literally starts whispering instructions in her ear. She gets the stuffing beat out of her, and spends most of the fight on the defence.
Admittedly, to me the phrase "purely a reactionary character" sounds suspiciously like "they're only doing it because of agenda/tokenism etc!". Unfairly or not, that made my hackles automatically rise. Throw in that the author compares her 'perfectness' to the flaws Luke (who I'd argue was on about the same 'peferectness' level) and Anakin (the villain-in-the-making. No shit he has more flaws!) and there just seems to be some...unfortunate implications in the article.
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^ That's all correct ... but without a functioning hyperdrive, it wouldn't make sense to travel to a faraway planet (else, why not just travel at slow speed to Coruscant).
In any case, I try not to get too caught up in the distances between planets in SW. They're far away when they need to be, and close by when they need to be.
In any case, I try not to get too caught up in the distances between planets in SW. They're far away when they need to be, and close by when they need to be.
In any case, I try not to get too caught up in the distances between planets in SW. They're far away when they need to be, and close by when they need to be.
Also known as "the speed of plot".
Yup.
... I'm going to go with the "Praxis" explanation: there was enough energy that some of it was sent into subspace... I mean, sub-hyperspace.
In any case, I try not to get too caught up in the distances between planets in SW. They're far away when they need to be, and close by when they need to be.
Also known as "the speed of plot".
A time honoured tradition in just about any movie that involves covering distances measured in anything longer than metres. Stopped worrying about such things decades ago (better for the blood pressure, really).
Worst clickbait headline I've seen in a long time. The presumptive "we" always makes me facepalm.
I do get the kind of boring, one-dimensional "strong female character" being talked about there. And it's conversation in general that's worth having.
But I'm with you about the article. Really, in the context of a schlock science-fantasy franchise whose primary job is wish-fulfillment I think the more a propos response here is who cares if Rey is a Mary Sue? Adventure fiction like this is about heroes who are there to be cool and capable (or sometimes just epically lucky) and do heroic shit. If we're not worrying about whether Han or Poe or Finn are too cool and improbably capable, we shouldn't be agonizing over Rey. She's improbably cool wish-fulfillment? Good. Let her be. Girls get a charge out of characters like that just as much as boys do. (And the unexamined life is not worth living, but too much processing and you get Velveeta.
)
It's a fair point, although at the same time just because he was the "new hope" and the Jedi who helped overthrow Vader and the Empire doesn't mean he was suddenly without flaws or moments of doubt. And many years later, I can easily see how he might have been so gut-punched by the killings of his Jedi students, and his complete failure to help Han and Leia's son, that it made him question everything he was doing and want to disappear for a while and seek answers.
And being away for so long he may not have been aware of just how bad things were getting or that the First Order now had their own giant superweapon to terrorize people with.
And of course, let's not forget that even the all-wise and all-powerful Yoda went into hiding and did nothing (apparently not even helping the Rebellion in any way!) while the Empire was growing stronger and stronger and wiping out entire planets with its Death Star.
He must have had an inkling after Hosnian Prime. "It's as if a million voices cried out in terror and were suddenly silenced."
Exactly. Luke is exactly where The Force told him that his destiny lay.
So, in the final fight, Kylo has an injury and is bleeding... and he keeps slamming his fist into his stomach right where he's shot over and over... what was that? Was he making more pain to give him more anger and thus more dark side power? Or was it some weird self-flagellation mental conditioning he was given by Snoke? Was he punishing himself for not doing better?
