Star Wars: The Force Awakens Discussion (HERE THERE BE SPOILERS)
- Thread starter sttngfan1701d
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Well either way I am glad they dropped the idea.
The hand and light saber could've fallen out the same tube Luke did, on the bottom of Cloud City, and become lodged on the Millenium Falcon. Then it came loose from the Falcon over Jakku.
I like this explanation. It may well have landed on the Falcon while they were flying under the city to catch Luke
I always assumed the debris that dropped past Luke was just something from his belt, like his binoculars or something. It's always been hard to make out exactly what it was. If it's important to the story what it is exactly, then it really should have been/be easier to make out. There would be no debate about whether it was his hand or his saber or his hand and his saber if it were easy to make out. As it plays in the film, it's presented as simply random debris to underscore that Luke is in real danger at that particular moment.
I assume that his lightsaber fell into a vent somewhere in the bowels of Cloud City and was later retrieved by a maintenance worker or droid who recognized it as a weapon and of possible interest to somebody. At some point after the lightsaber was retrieved it ended up on Takodana inside Maz Kanata's castle. That's a 31-year (give or take) journey and who knows just how many other adventures the weapon had before Maz got her hands on it.
For all we know, nobody realized it was a famous Jedi lightsaber from the Clone Wars or that it belonged to a high-ranking Rebel leader until it reached Maz Kanata, who recognized it as the weapon that both Anakin and Luke used before it disappeared at Bespin.
For all we know, nobody realized it was a famous Jedi lightsaber from the Clone Wars or that it belonged to a high-ranking Rebel leader until it reached Maz Kanata, who recognized it as the weapon that both Anakin and Luke used before it disappeared at Bespin.
An amusing idea, but I instantly see several problems with it.
Even if it somehow lodged so it doesn't fall off, there's no way a piece of dead meat sits on top the Falcon undiscovered for the years between Bespin and Jakku. Doubly so with Chewie's sense of smell. Which leads right into the next problem, which is that from the description the hand was still intact. The only way that happens is if it spent most of the last 30 years in a vacuum, or a stasis pod or something.
I'm not 100% sure, but I think the script described it as a piece that broke off the weather vane/antenna he's clinging to. Whether that's the intent behind what they actually shot is another question. It's entirely possible that they just threw in the same bluescreen element of the hand from before in the theory that nobody will notice.
Mind you, from a plot standpoint it'd make sense if that was his comlink, explaining why he has to call out through the force.
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Well, I still don't think we know enough about how the Flacon ended up on Jakku to say how weird it being there was.
Han going to Maz was a bit of a coincidence, but we see that kind of stuff in these stories all the time.
My problem really wasn't really that it was going to be on Jakku, but was the fact that it ended up on Jakku, but then didn't come into play until Rey got it on Takodana. I wouldn't have a problem if Rey found it herself on Jakku in that version.
We know the Falcon was stolen by some person called Ducain (who Han seemed to suspect) at some point after Endor and more than six years prior to the events of TFA. I say at least six years since that's when the new 'Bloodline' novel takes place and by that point, it's been stolen long enough for Han to have gone through several other ships in a vain attempt to replace it.
After that the Irving Boys nicked it from Ducain who then had it stolen from them by Unkar Plutt, after which it sat on Jakku for years while Plutt modified it.
None of that has anything directly to do with Luke's disappearance, Lor San Tekka or Poe's mission to meet him. So yes, it's an enormous coincidence that the person who by chance ran across a droid carrying a map to Luke Skywalker, would also by chance escape the planet in the Millennium Falcon.
Having the map, the Falcon AND Anakin's sabre all separately converging on Jakku would have been ridiculous. For the people still convinced Rey is a Skywalker; the coincidences of that scenario would simply lack *all* credibility.
The "will of the force" excuse only gets you so far before you start to erode your character's agency.
Also"but we see that kind of stuff in these stories all the time" is just a poor excuse for lazy writing.
So as it stands, they're at the limit of what's credible, putting the sabre there too would have been over the limit. No wonder they ditched the idea.
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I didn't realize that they had established that much history for the Falcon. It is one hell of a coincidence then that it did end up on Jakku. If Rey was a Skywalker then I was thinking maybe the Falcon being on Jakku was going to be connected to her, but it sounds like the Flacon's history has been covered well enough for us to know that's not the case.
I didn't mean to use "we see that kind of stuff in these stories all the time" as an excuse for bad writing, I just meant it as an explanation for why it doesn't bother me.
I didn't mean to use "we see that kind of stuff in these stories all the time" as an excuse for bad writing, I just meant it as an explanation for why it doesn't bother me.
A few incidentals were also elaborated on in the cross-section book. For example, Han renovated the living quarters to include a galley as a wedding present for Leia. Ducain refurbished the gunwell. The Irving brothers installed the extra bunk in the forward hold (the one Chewie was in while Finn tried to patch him up.) And of course, Plutt installed that compressor thingy-wotsit.
It also mentions that the new rectenna is a civilian model and not as good as the old military grade one Lando trashed.
Getting back the the hand/sabre thing for a second. From what I've heard about how the movie was initially developed, they didn't start out with a clear story idea, but instead started with the imagery by brainstorming via concept art and built out from there. I suspect the scene with the hand came from this process as on the face of it, purely from a visual standpoint it's a very evocative image, akin to Vader's melted helmet. It just so happened it didn't end up making sense in the context of the movie they were trying to make.
I think there was also a piece of concept art done of a half-Anakin, half-Vader force ghost communing with Kylo. Again, a very cool and powerful image but it ultimately didn't fit...and rather directly flew in the face of the established mythos.
It also mentions that the new rectenna is a civilian model and not as good as the old military grade one Lando trashed.
Getting back the the hand/sabre thing for a second. From what I've heard about how the movie was initially developed, they didn't start out with a clear story idea, but instead started with the imagery by brainstorming via concept art and built out from there. I suspect the scene with the hand came from this process as on the face of it, purely from a visual standpoint it's a very evocative image, akin to Vader's melted helmet. It just so happened it didn't end up making sense in the context of the movie they were trying to make.
I think there was also a piece of concept art done of a half-Anakin, half-Vader force ghost communing with Kylo. Again, a very cool and powerful image but it ultimately didn't fit...and rather directly flew in the face of the established mythos.
Cool. The movie made a big deal about the compressor and the primer, but I didn't realize that the bunk was an addition from after the original movies.
Oh, I've only seen all of the movie with the sound once when it was in theaters, so I totally forgot about that conversation bit of dialogue. The Wal-Mart I work at did have it playing for a few days, so I caught a few bits of scenes, most of them without sound. That wasn't one of them.
Yeah, if you look at the original movies, that area is just a blank wall with random pipes & blinkes. There is actually a bunk already in that set, up and behind the couch. Since it'd obviously be very awkward to shoot a scene in that one (for one thing I doubt Peter would fit in it) I imagine they opted for adding in a second bunk is a more practical location.
I suppose they could have also recreated the rear bunk room from tESB (which I think was just a simple one-walled set) but it makes sense to keep the action focused on that forward hold.
Minor trivia: according to the cross-section, it seems the reason that old bunk is so out of place is because that whole structure is actually hiding the access hatch to the forward loading bay. The back wall of the bunk is actually false and behind it is a whole cargo bay that's been blocked off to serve as a smuggling compartment. A neat idea that rather handily accounts for why the couch sticks out so far into the doorway: it's not supposed to be there.
Note how he conveniently omits that he stole it from Lando.
