Do we need more backstory?
- Thread starter RoJoHen
- Start date
That is the second time that has happened to me lately on a straight-forward Reply. I'll be glad when we get migrated over to the new software. I fixed it on my post.
Do people get hung up about Amidala being an elected queen? Why? Elective monarchies were a thing in real history, that seems very odd to get hung up on.
I know I'm a little late to the party. Loved the movie, so it feels weird to nitpick, but I have to agree that the movie could have done with a *little* more in the way of exposition.
For one thing, it wasn't clear in the movie exactly what the dynamic was between the Republic, the First Order and the Resistance and I think just a single line in there somewhere could have fixed it.
I know this is all in the tie-in media, but you really shouldn't need to resort to that just to have the *barest* of context for what's going on.
I don't mind the stuff about Ben and the failure of Luke's being revealed in tiny pieces. That's fine, it's part of the narrative and you get the context as you go along.
But those people who blew up? No clue. Just going by the movie I thought they just blew up Coruscant, because why would anyone who's seen the other movies think otherwise? But apparently not, it seems the Republic elects not just people to represent them in the Senate, but also planets to be host the senate and act as a capital for a limited term.
Granted, we never got any substantial information on Alderaan before it was blown up, but we were invested in Leia and we had her reactions to what was going on. No such thing here.
Small aside but am I crazy, or did the galaxy seem *very* small? Hyperspace trips seemed to last mere seconds, Solo appears about 5 seconds after the Falcon gets into orbit and how the hell did they see planets being blown up across the galaxy in the *daytime* sky? It felt as if that planet they were on, the Republic capital as well as Starkiller Base were all in the same damn solar system.
Between this and the thing with Vulcan in Trek '09 it seems JJ doesn't know how to astrophysics very well.
I know this is all in the tie-in media, but you really shouldn't need to resort to that just to have the *barest* of context for what's going on.
I don't mind the stuff about Ben and the failure of Luke's being revealed in tiny pieces. That's fine, it's part of the narrative and you get the context as you go along.
But those people who blew up? No clue. Just going by the movie I thought they just blew up Coruscant, because why would anyone who's seen the other movies think otherwise? But apparently not, it seems the Republic elects not just people to represent them in the Senate, but also planets to be host the senate and act as a capital for a limited term.
Granted, we never got any substantial information on Alderaan before it was blown up, but we were invested in Leia and we had her reactions to what was going on. No such thing here.
Small aside but am I crazy, or did the galaxy seem *very* small? Hyperspace trips seemed to last mere seconds, Solo appears about 5 seconds after the Falcon gets into orbit and how the hell did they see planets being blown up across the galaxy in the *daytime* sky? It felt as if that planet they were on, the Republic capital as well as Starkiller Base were all in the same damn solar system.
Between this and the thing with Vulcan in Trek '09 it seems JJ doesn't know how to astrophysics very well.
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Hux's speech st Starkiller Base touches on the galactic geopolitical dynamic. The Republic isn't supposed to interfere with the First Order, but it is clandestinely backing the Resistance.
At first I also thought Coruscant blew up, but Poe specifically refers to the Hosnian System as the one that was destroyed.
At first I also thought Coruscant blew up, but Poe specifically refers to the Hosnian System as the one that was destroyed.
Kor
Honestly, we didn't really need to care about the people on Hosnian Prime, they really weren't all that important, what was important was that the New Republic was possibly going to help The Resistance, but now that wasn't going to happen.
I think the way they've done things with TFA works pretty well. We're given pretty much everything we needed to follow TFA's story in the movie itself, so people who aren't that into it can watch the movie and be happy, while those of us who want to know more details about the universe can go to the books and comics for that. So far the narrative books and comics have stayed pretty close to RotJ and the rest of the OT, but I have a feeling now that TFA is out we'll start seeing stuff farther out from the OT.
Maybe, but there's absolutely no indication of a passage of time. In the original movie, Kenobi has the time to give Luke at least a quick lesson on the trip from Alderaan and it's long enough that Solo felt comfortable wandering away from the cockpit for a few mins. In TFA, everyone seems to be in exactly the same spot when the exit hyperspace as they went in. Indeed, the last jump before the epilogue scene seems to take place in real time.
It's indicative of a larger (minor) problem the film has with it's pacing. There's so much happening so fast and there's few real lull moments to take a breath. As a result you don't get a good sense of the geography (astography?) of their journey.
Amen, brother.
It's a drama-first universe, details-first people should learn to love it or leave it. Healthier that way.
Indeed.
I'm all for drama. I just think drama works better if there's adequate context to place it in.
If that was the intended implication of that scene, it did a piss poor job of it, because it really seems to me that the member worlds of the New Republic would just hold emergency elections and reconvene the Senate on one of the other host worlds - a new Senate that would now be freaking FURIOUS with the First Order and ready to back Leia in full with whatever they have available to muster.
Depends on if they can get enough people to side with the Republic, or if they turn chicken and fall in line with either the First Order or the other remains of the Empire (or just declare neutrality and wait this out).
It does depend on just how centralized the writer has the Republic and its Fleet. With the senators dead there maybe some procedure thing that will take months if not years to sort out, depending on the culture involved (Sloth World will put in their vote the next day, and finish by next year).
It does depend on just how centralized the writer has the Republic and its Fleet. With the senators dead there maybe some procedure thing that will take months if not years to sort out, depending on the culture involved (Sloth World will put in their vote the next day, and finish by next year).
I would probably say no, but if they were to do it in an interesting fashion, perhaps a la Godfather, Part II, intermingling the story of the fall of Ben Solo and the rise of Kylo Ren. I think that could be very cool. It gives an opportunity for Ford to return if there's any truth to those rumors, give fans the chance to see that scene between Han, Luke and Leia and continues to drive the story, particularly if there are good parallels between stories.
That being said, I doubt that would ever happen. Might be the way that I'd do Episode VIII though.
That being said, I doubt that would ever happen. Might be the way that I'd do Episode VIII though.
For me, if I have to buy tens of dollars of books for information on relevant questions to a film, as in the case of the example from IO9, then the people who direct and write this film are failing in creating the setting.
I found the IO9 stuff to be interesting background material, but mostly unnecessary exposition of the type usually used to fill out more pages in a novelization, and I didn't need any of it to understand what was happening in the movie.
The opening crawl set up the context nicely, and anything that was needed in order to understand what was going on was either said in dialog or shown visually.
Kor
The opening crawl set up the context nicely, and anything that was needed in order to understand what was going on was either said in dialog or shown visually.
Kor
