I feel your pain. My mechanical keyboard broke and until the replacement arrives I've gotta use my mom's shitty ergo keyboard.



It's the capital of the New Republic apparently, just one more crucial detail left out of the movie.

This one I'm barely willing to give them a pass on, because of the mention of "hyper light" or something of the sort a while after it first fired (I think during the tactical meeting scene?). Star Trek techno-babble, sure, but at least he mimed the effort.

And this is why I think he needs a refresher course on sci-fi.

Yeah, it was far too action-movie for the start of a new trilogy/quintet/whatever the movie-count is going to be for this set.

Agreed. Judging from Snoke's reactions afterwards, I think almost getting his face chopped off got him further on the career front.

It was clumsy, but I think passingly justified. Ideally they should have had someone react to it more openly, but it isn't as if some trained Jedi was on-screen, and everyone was sort of rushed at the time. They should have done that better, but it's passable. Just an example of the rushed feeling of the movie, I figure.

No, no, those are Clone Troopers, which surely have been entirely retired, or "retired". No, Storm Troopers are Imperial Guard.

According to an interview JJ did, the trailers were made before editing was finished. The character that did the hand-off didn't have a sensible reason to go to the Resistance base, so the scene got cut. Besides, then they would have needed to do a cheesy passing-of-the-baton scene, and corny nostalgia was NOT going to help, so they probably made the right choice there (unless the character's lines were good enough in that bit to overwhelm the cornyness).

And yet he never needed to emote his pain onto his MySpace page to take advantage to it.

They broke the Expand Universe. It is now called Legends. Anything that hasn't appeared on TV is no longer cannon. This is a good thing as Chewie is dead in the expanded universe.

As for Kylo Ren, even his master could sense his light side presence. It was still in him. You can't be fully strong in the dark side with some light side feelings still. Kylo was like a whiny kid. He might have been among the older students when he killed luke's new jedi order.

This is also something that breaks the EU/Legends. Luke doesn't start the new jedi order for 15 years after the Battle of Yavin. In this new continuity he starts it much sooner.

Fin, was abducted as a child, brainwashed. The first order doesn't care about child labor laws. As such to keep the kids close they assign them menial jobs as they age, progressively giving them the skills and forced loyalty need to be storm troopers.

Rey is a pilot because she is a scavenger and needs to be able to pilot things. Luke was given an x-wing with zero formal training too. Rey can repair things due to her scavenger skills. Also if you watch her lightsaber skills they are laughable. she does little more than swipe at trees.she does so very aggressively though. The biggest challenge for an expert is a creative novice who doesn't know the limits. Also she is on the verge of losing only winning because the ground broke apart between them.

Overall yes the plot is similar to A New Hope (4). however it has good acting, isn't campy like the prequels, about my only complaint is that it is fairly fast paced.

As for the cannon. even the EU/legends had several hyperspace cannons. what confused me is if they drain a star for power what did they use for power the first time they fired it? Did they move the planet?

Though it's not clearly stated in the movie, apparently the Starkiller could move in a similar manner to the Death Star. The aforementioned official map identifies the "origin point" of Starkiller Base, implying that it could move. And, of course, the need for a sun to power it requires it to be able to move.

And Han is dead in the canon universe. Not a good trade IMO.



Doesn't really follow, as a scavenger she needs to be able to strip things that COULD fly, if they CAN fly then they probably aren't going to be left behind to be stripped.



Luke knew how to fly the T-16, which, IIRC, was made by the same people that made the X-Wing and has very similar controls.



I would guess that not even JJ knows.

Yeah, he didn't seem too displeased with Ren's tribulations. Quite the opposite, I thought.


I think I'd be more inclined to accept that explanation if it weren't for the fact that it seemed a good number of the main characters ended up watching the event happen. I definitely agree that it was clumsily handled and could have been done better. Hopefully, the next episode will deal with the fallout.


Yeah, that's probably the answer to a number of the issues pointed out in this thread.

Remember that he made his career out of a show where they made shit up as they went along.

So! Just got back from watching it. Initial thoughts:

Where are the starships?

The villains are pathetic. Just flat out pitiful. Darth cry-for-his-mommy was just... ugh. Aaaaand he crushed Luke's new Jedi order. Ok.

What happened to the space fleets?

The female hero picks up a lightsaber and MLG no-scopes the Dragon of the movie in their first fight, who has been personally trained by Luke Skywalker and a Sith lord (if anyone says she was victorious because said dragon was already wounded be quiet you know nothing of the Sith).

This galaxy features an industrial capacity that is the stuff an of engineer's wet dreams, where are the star fleets?

The dragon had trouble dealing with a "plumber" class ex-trooper.

What happened to the space fleets?

Who's Ginormo-McVoldermort on the big toilet and why is it I consider him to be a nonthreat whenever I see him?

Where are the starships?

You shouldn't humor him like that.

Pretty sure there are precisely 0 Sith in this one. We're dealing with "honorable mentions" and "also ran"s here, not actual gold (or silver, or bronze, or copper, or tin, or lead...) medalists.

All things considered, I can only assume the starships are busy unclogging the plumbing.

Regarding the Starkiller thingy...

Am I the only one who wonders how the Republic didn't notice it being built?

Did they run out of Bothans sometime in the past 30 years?

Few quibbles. It's highly unlikely that Luke, in the absence of Sith at the time, placed a heavy emphasis on lightsaber combat, he wasn't that great of a fighter himself (only winning when he gave in to the dark side at the same time Vader was having his doubts). So Kylo probably isn't that great of a fighter either.



Remember that Death Star II's existence was LEAKED, it was a trap. For Death Star part 1 it's not really explained how it was discovered, but it was likely because the Senate still existed, by RotJ there's no more Senate and likely by TFA there's even tighter controls on information in the Imperial Remnant.

Please read some of the books from the expanded universe. Especially the "Young Jedi Knights" series, which delves into the training of young Jedi. A heavy emphasis upon lightsaber training is integral for all Jedi, as the Sith were not the only threat that existed in the Star Wars Universe. Not by a long shot.






Exactly. Yet he slaughters the entirety of Luke's new Jedi Order.


It was just a bad movie, in my opinion. It shat on all the lore. There was a massive amount of Star Wars expanded universe lore they could have drawn upon to make an amazing movie. As it is, it's just an excuse to rehash an old series for a new line of toys and games to peddle to kids.

Well, remember that the EU was entirely(as far as I know anyway) decanonized. There's no reason to assume that the training of the new Jedi in the new continuity was at all like the training of the new Jedi in the EU.

The new Jedi Order's training must have been practically non-existent to have made such an incompetent, irresponsible, and reckless decision. Excluding combat lessons from training regimes in the SW universe is downright suicidal. There are pirates, slavers, evil empires, and extremely dangerous and hostile alien life forms everywhere in Star Wars. We see them in the movie.

And look what happens when they do exclude combat training. The New Jedi Order is quickly obliterated by the first whiny emo brat of an antagonist that happens to glance their way. Who then promptly get's his ass handed to him by a plumber and a little girl with no prior training in their first duel. A little girl who literally picked up her first light saber during her first duel.

How are these compelling or interesting characters in any respect?

It's just the new owners of the franchise waving away the established universe so they can sell their own product. A vastly inferior product that has inferior villains, unlikable Mary Sue heroes, and Deus ex machina all over the place.

This assumption, although probably canonical, ignores the existence of Obi-Wan and Yoda. They did sit on the sidelines for a decade or two but that doesn't mean that they did nothing all this time. With the tech the Star Wars universe has it should be easy for them to archive somewhere the knowledge necessary to properly train new Jedi for those who would come after them (like Luke).

If the KOTOR lore is still semi canon (and the prequels suggest it is to an extent) this ain't the first time that the Jedi order has fallen to the Sith and masters like Yoda or Obi-Wan should know of that history.

Love me some Holocrons.

http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Holocron

<wince> Ah, right. </wince>


Spiked into the dirt on various planets, obviously. Because you can't have epic chase scenes on a planet without starships to race through. It makes complete sense when you don't think about it.


They still exist; they just used to be called "fighter squadrons." The rename was necessary since all the actual fleets became planet-side obstacle courses.


Despite JJ's insistence otherwise, galaxies are still really friggin' huge. Plenty of places to hide a planet-sized construction project. Also, I'm pretty sure all the Bothans are dead.


The EU is completely decanonized and has been rebranded as "Legends." Disney can of course draw from it, but it's pretty much just a giant AU now. The current canon consists only of the main movies; the Clone Wars show and movie; and Rebels. I expect we'll see elements of the EU in the mainline, though; there's just too much there to completely ignore.

None of those are canon anymore.



IIRC it's not made explicitly clear that HE actually killed them. It's entirely possible that he simply betrayed them, resulting in death by stormtrooper for instance.



As far as lore there is none anymore. The movies and TV shows are all that is officially canon now. That said I don't disagree entirely with the sentiment.



Problem is that this wasn't SHOWN in either case, and it would be a pretty big deal. They may retcon that, but if not then Luke's essentially a barely trained Knight masquerading as a Master. That specific setup was used repeatedly in the EU to set up conflict.



I suspect we'll see wholesale theft of stories from the EU as the movies march on.

Supposedly Star Wars Battlefront touches on that in an expansion pack: Jakku is covered in wrecks because the last big Rebellion vs Empire fight happened there, and most of the Imperial fleet was destroyed.

If they weren't dead before Starkiller went active...

"Many Bothans died to retrieve this information. Also some people on other planets, but no-one cares about them."

Really always was that way (I remember one of the books I read in the 90s explicitly mentioned it in a foreword or something). Until Episode 1 came out, the actual rule was that the truely canon stuff was the movies, and the novelizations of the movies (the Episode 4 Jabba scene was in the books years, and maybe a decade, before it made it into the remasters: they even filmed it during the original production, just with a human as Jabba instead of a puppet).

I think that a few of the recent books are supposed to be canon too. Might be worth looking into.

I hope we see Thrawn and Palleon, reuniting the fractured Empire to protect the galaxy from the threat of megalomaniacal regimes like the First Order. Having grown up reading it, some of the stuff in the EU was just junk, but it would be nice to see the useful stuff worked into canon somehow.

hi hi

I just got a chance to see the movie today, and so here is my initial first impression:

Pros:
* Good opening which sets up dramatic tension well and got me invested in what was going on.
* Mostly enjoyable characters, with feelings and character stuff, with insights on both sides of the conflict.
* Broke some new ground rather than relying entirely on nostalgia.
* Good music.
* Relatively small number of plot holes and internal inconsistencies.
* Created, for me, some small sense of wonder in places.
* Good use of visual storytelling in a few noteworthy places.

Cons:
* Very noticeable JJ Abrams stuff repeated throughout. (More on this in a moment)
* Although it started strong, things got messy, muddled, and too busy near the climax of the movie.
* Number of callbacks got excessive at points.
* Managed to make the destruction of an entire planet feel emotionally hollow, like a side note, by not establishing a broader context or relation that made intuitive sense.
* Vaguely Asian coded group of people in a galaxy far far away? (This one is really more confusing than anything.)
* Almost Star Trek levels of technobabble to explain the death star weapon planet thing that is totally not a death star. (Of course it has an oscillator, why, that's just common sense.)

Abramsisms:
* Suggesting that something is impossible or very improbable, then immediately doing the impossible thing. "Transwarp beaming is impossible, oh wait.. I mean, tracking another ship during warp is... no wait, going to lightspeed inside the hangar, that's the one. Or is it going out of lightspeed inside the atmosphere? That's probably pretty hard, or at least they said it was two seconds before they did it."
* Having characters waste lines of dialogue describing what everyone just saw in very basic terms. "Wow, that's a great pilot!" Yes, I know. I just saw the same thing you did, thanks for holding up the cue card for me to know how I'm supposed to feel. "You brought this droid to us and that is really good." Oh, I must have missed that part, thanks for letting me know.
* People going into a fight that could mean life or death for billions of people are super stoked and also double excited, rather than maybe a few of them being somewhat concerned or possibly filled with dread. Leaving this member of the audience underwhelmed when things don't go according to plan. "We need a plan. Oh, I've got the first idea that comes to mind. I second the first idea that comes to mind, and also add some inexplicable knowledge about a secret facility that will make it work. Awesome, lets execute the plan right away, as it is now fully fleshed out." Then later: "We've lost half our fleet." Well no duh, with a half-cocked plan like that, of course you're going to have a bad time.
* Constant, sudden character mood swings.

Other musings:
The lightsaber hilt remains a silly idea, but when compared to a lot of the other silliness going on, really wasn't distracting at all. Silly things like sucking a star inside a planet. (Maybe it was better when they didn't feel the need to explain how the doomsday device worked.)

It seems some people here took issue with Ren being bested by Rey. I personally thought the lightsaber fight at the end was one of the more enjoyable parts of the film. It was choreographed to help tell the characters' stories, rather than just being a bunch of flashy windmills. (They established prior to that fight that Storm Troopers were given melee combat training, so it made some sense for Fin to at least be competent.) While the interplay between Ren and Ray fit into the overall theme between the dark and the light, highlighting Ren's fear of being weak coming true as a result of his own actions; and Ray who was learning how to use the force by mirroring what was being used against her, was focused rather than being torn in two from the inside. (Like the planet itself, as a metaphor.)

Also, at the beginning of the movie, and during the climax, two people take the same shot at Ren. Poe shoots after Ren kills some people, and Ren instantly turns and catches the blast. Chewie shoots after Ren kills someone important to him, and he doesn't even see it coming. Perhaps that is a commentary on his faltering mental state.

((Echoing sentiments raised by someone here already. I played in a game of West End's d6 Star Wars with a force user character, once upon a time, and that fight meshed surprisingly with my own experience after picking up a lightsaber for the first time and having to fight the group's nemesis with only a +1 pip in the skill. If it weren't for a bit of luck and an opportune distraction, I might not have won.))

Where were the fleets? I was very confused about what was going on in the galaxy. Who was the republic? I never really figured that out.

As someone who can do things like enjoy the Lord of the Rings books, and the Lord of the Rings movies in high regard, in spite of them being very different, I have no issues with them ignoring the expanded universe. To my knowledge, those books still exist for people to read and enjoy regardless.

The only thing that really made me scratch my head, in terms of stuff retconned from the original trilogy, was the lightsaber. Didn't the lightsaber that Luke got from his father fall into oblivion when his hand was cut off? How did they find that thing?

Overall: I didn't feel like I'd wasted my time and money to go and watch the movie. Felt like the beginning was stronger than the climax, but I thought the denouement left things in an interesting place. If they can cut down on the amount of callbacks and try to stand on their own like they did at the start, maybe the next movie will get an extra star or two from me over what this one is getting.

Presumably it got sucked into a vent same as Luke, then deposited into some place it could be collected. That being said I have little doubt it'll be some mystery that we're left to chew on for a while before an underwhelming reveal.

I saw it again earlier today with my father, and things bothered me less on the second viewing. I still think it's poorly written, making some really obvious mistakes that are easy to avoid.

Finally saw it. Som observations:

The First Order is obviusly an imperialism remnant. There could be several of these.

The starkiller weapon is an economical impossibility, unless it's an old weapon the the First Order somehow managed to make operational. A recent technological breakthrough perhaps?

Rey could be Luke's top student hit with forced induced amnesia. The Millennium Falcon parked nearby for her to use when the time was right. Luke could be a force using puppet master, even influencing Han to show up. If things look to much of a chance it probably isn't.

For Kylo to destroy the new Jedi order, it could have been a simple sabotage taking out the lot of them in a huge explosion. No need for light sabre battles. Maybe it was revenge for expelling a reckless student?

The "half fleet gone" was obviously about the x-wings stationed at that rebel base. Or half of that rebel cells compliment of Republic provided x-wings.

The destruction of the Star killer weapon prevented a local rebel hunt brushfire ware withing First Order territory from escalating into a new galactic conflict. For now.

The destruction of the New Republic's central government infrastructure (and probably a fair number of it's leaders) is going to create a HUGE power vacuum and chaos throughout the galaxy. The imperial remnant, such as it is, is still intact and may provide a reasonable looking alternative, especially if this "far away galaxy's" humans are anything as short-sighted as the humans in this one.

CJSF

The implication I get is that Kylo Ren perverted a number of his fellow students (the "Knights of Ren" seen standing around him in Rey's vision), and that together they slaughtered the rest. Hopefully there is a more interesting story of Luke's subsequent actions other than "he got sad and ran away," but we'll see. In the last scene, Luke looks like someone with some mettle; I hope he lives up to that impression.


Given the apparent unfettered rise of the First Order, it doesn't appear that the New Republic was exerting very much authority to begin with.

One of the shortcomings of the prequels is that they paint the Republic, Senate and Jedi Order as completely impotent (if not incompetent), so it's little wonder that the Empire was able to take over. The new trilogy unfortunately seems to be going down a similar path.