Star Wars SPOILERS ALLOWED

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Grayhome
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Re: Star Wars SPOILERS ALLOWED

Post by Grayhome »

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).
Love me some Holocrons.

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

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Mr Bojangles
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Re: Star Wars SPOILERS ALLOWED

Post by Mr Bojangles »

fredgiblet wrote:
Mr Bojangles wrote: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.
<wince> Ah, right. </wince>
Grayhome wrote: Where are the starships?
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.
Grayhome wrote: What happened to the space fleets?
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.
dragoongfa wrote: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?
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.
Siber wrote: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 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.

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Re: Star Wars SPOILERS ALLOWED

Post by fredgiblet »

Grayhome wrote: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.
None of those are canon anymore.
Exactly. Yet he slaughters the entirety of Luke's new Jedi Order.
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.
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.
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.
dragoongfa wrote: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.
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.
Mr Bojangles wrote:I expect we'll see elements of the EU in the mainline, though; there's just too much there to completely ignore.
I suspect we'll see wholesale theft of stories from the EU as the movies march on.

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Re: Star Wars SPOILERS ALLOWED

Post by Absalom »

Mr Bojangles wrote:
Grayhome wrote: Where are the starships?
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.
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.
Mr Bojangles wrote:
dragoongfa wrote: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?
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.
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."
Mr Bojangles wrote:
Siber wrote: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 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.
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).
Mr Bojangles wrote: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.
I think that a few of the recent books are supposed to be canon too. Might be worth looking into.
fredgiblet wrote:
Mr Bojangles wrote:I expect we'll see elements of the EU in the mainline, though; there's just too much there to completely ignore.
I suspect we'll see wholesale theft of stories from the EU as the movies march on.
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.

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Re: Star Wars SPOILERS ALLOWED

Post by icekatze »

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? :P

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.

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Re: Star Wars SPOILERS ALLOWED

Post by fredgiblet »

icekatze wrote: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? :P
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.

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Re: Star Wars SPOILERS ALLOWED

Post by Arioch »

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.

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Re: Star Wars SPOILERS ALLOWED

Post by Sweforce »

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.

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Re: Star Wars SPOILERS ALLOWED

Post by cacambo43 »

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

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Re: Star Wars SPOILERS ALLOWED

Post by Arioch »

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.
cacambo43 wrote: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.
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.

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Re: Star Wars SPOILERS ALLOWED

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As a curiosity I'd like to know who pushed for the expanded universe to get disregarded. Some of the disney marketing thinkers, JJ Abrams, or something Lucas did that pissed others off during closed door meetings.

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Re: Star Wars SPOILERS ALLOWED

Post by icekatze »

hi hi

It is a remarkably popular theme, in the USA at least, to have a society that would be all kinds of awesome and superior to their opponents, if only their incompetent leaders would stop messing things up. Often the brilliant rogue protagonists real battle is with their leaders rather than their opponents, who they outclass repeatedly. Being amazing pilots, warriors, or strategists themselves.

I think making Luke's character a good one will play a critical part in the next movie. I could imagine a few reasons why fighting back might have only made the situation worse for Luke, but it is anyone's guess if the writers will come up with something that passes muster.

Nothing about the Republic and the First Order made any sense to me when I watched the movie. The only hypothesis that so far made any sense to me was that after the Empire fell, the Republic eventually called a truce with the Imperial remnants, which became the First Order, and the two powers had up until that point maintained the illusion of peace, while each tried to undermine the other from behind the scenes. But with as much information as they gave in the movie, it is anyone's guess what is really going on.

It is really not uncommon for movies and TV shows to ignore what happens in spinoff novels. Writers can't be bothered to read massive volumes, and in some cases, producers don't want to deal with any future claims by the authors, no matter how shaky their grounds might be.

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Re: Star Wars SPOILERS ALLOWED

Post by fredgiblet »

elorran wrote:As a curiosity I'd like to know who pushed for the expanded universe to get disregarded. Some of the disney marketing thinkers, JJ Abrams, or something Lucas did that pissed others off during closed door meetings.
It was a pretty obvious move. The EU is VERY densely populated, so threading new stories in between would have been difficult. The other option would be to just turn existing EU content into movies, but that severely restricts their options. Yet ANOTHER option would be to move the setting to the end of the established EU, but that leaves them with a fuckton of lore that MOST people haven't touched.

Dropping the EU was the best choice.

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Re: Star Wars SPOILERS ALLOWED

Post by fredgiblet »

icekatze wrote:Nothing about the Republic and the First Order made any sense to me when I watched the movie. The only hypothesis that so far made any sense to me was that after the Empire fell, the Republic eventually called a truce with the Imperial remnants, which became the First Order, and the two powers had up until that point maintained the illusion of peace, while each tried to undermine the other from behind the scenes. But with as much information as they gave in the movie, it is anyone's guess what is really going on.
That is what I've heard, but it was second-hand at best.
It is really not uncommon for movies and TV shows to ignore what happens in spinoff novels. Writers can't be bothered to read massive volumes, and in some cases, producers don't want to deal with any future claims by the authors, no matter how shaky their grounds might be.
And in the case of Star Wars you're talking probably a hundred books, dozens of comics and dozens of games.

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Re: Star Wars SPOILERS ALLOWED

Post by peragrin »

the EU was dropped due to size. You are talking about 25,000 years before yavin to 200 years after yavin.

Every year after the battle of yavin was filled with stories or backgrounds for stories. They had to wipe it all clear.

in the next few years in between major star wars movies will be anthology movies. Rogue one(bonthan's stealing the death star plans) Han Solo, and Bobba Fett origin stories. Those histories were done several times in the EU.

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Re: Star Wars SPOILERS ALLOWED

Post by Arioch »

Lucas submitted his ideas for the new trilogy (presumably based on the EU), and they were rejected, no doubt because they were crap. Abrams and Kasdan came up with story they wanted to tell for the new trilogy, which would obviously contradict the EU, so it was kind of a no-brainer that EU couldn't be treated as canon if they wanted to take the franchise in a new direction. The writing in Ep.VII may be weak, but it's worlds better than the dross that makes up the vast majority of the EU.
peragrin wrote: Rogue one(bonthan's stealing the death star plans)
People keep saying Rogue One is about the Bothans. The Bothan Spies were mentioned in Return of the Jedi as having provided the intel about the Emperor visiting the second Death Star, but I don't see that this means they had anything to do with the theft of the original Death Star plans prior to A New Hope. Maybe there's some EU nonsense that links the two, but folks needs to get their heads around the fact that EU isn't canon for the new movies.

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Re: Star Wars SPOILERS ALLOWED

Post by cacambo43 »

With some time gone by since I saw the new film, I've had a little more time to digest it, and I think the biggest thing for me is this: I can live with a lot of the plot recycling involving the characters - to me (and "your mileage may vary") that can be chalked up to some obscure way The Force works it's will or whatever. But it really would not have taken THAT MUCH of a pseudo-creative step to do away with the giant planet killing orb trope and have something more prosaic - maybe a larger or better equipped fleet than the Republic was aware of appearing over Hosnian Prime (or whatever planet) and glassing the surface. Something, anything, other than ANOTHER planet killing orb with one weakness and a last second destruction as the next shot is about to fire. That might be an overused plot device in and of itself in sci-fi/fantasy, but it's worlds better than the recycled thing we got.

I still overall liked the movie, but certain things are sitting less well with me as time passes.

CJSF

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Re: Star Wars SPOILERS ALLOWED

Post by peragrin »

cacambo43 wrote:With some time gone by since I saw the new film, I've had a little more time to digest it, and I think the biggest thing for me is this: I can live with a lot of the plot recycling involving the characters - to me (and "your mileage may vary") that can be chalked up to some obscure way The Force works it's will or whatever. But it really would not have taken THAT MUCH of a pseudo-creative step to do away with the giant planet killing orb trope and have something more prosaic - maybe a larger or better equipped fleet than the Republic was aware of appearing over Hosnian Prime (or whatever planet) and glassing the surface. Something, anything, other than ANOTHER planet killing orb with one weakness and a last second destruction as the next shot is about to fire. That might be an overused plot device in and of itself in sci-fi/fantasy, but it's worlds better than the recycled thing we got.

I still overall liked the movie, but certain things are sitting less well with me as time passes.

CJSF
Here is my problem. If you have a giant fleet of ships that is attacking the planet, the only defense is another giant fleet of ships. There is no last minute save the day from a small group of rebels, or resistance fighters.

Picture taking out a full carrier battle group, vs taking over a city. Even with troops defending it a city is a lot easier to infiltrate and attack from multiple angles. where as the only way to go up against a carrier battle group is with a bunch of subs, and a macross missile barrage. (At least one hundred you need 7-10 per ship).

So having one big target makes it easy enough for the resistance to accomplish. granted if the first order wasn't stupid like the empire they should have built 3 massive fleets of ships, instead of one doomsday weapon.

Edit: the reason for 7-10 per ship is to counter the CIWS and rolling anti missile missiles, And that is if you can get such missiles within 100 miles of the ships to start with.

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Re: Star Wars SPOILERS ALLOWED

Post by cacambo43 »

I am saying there should have been NO "last minute save." They would have destroyed the surface and moved on. Heck, you could still give them super weapons, just not one the size of a planet that sends superluminal energy beams light years away. Sure, it would have necessitated a different type of story line, but that might be a GOOD thing, right?

CJSF

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Re: Star Wars SPOILERS ALLOWED

Post by Arioch »

I think the superweapon was largely unnecessary to the plot; the map to Skywalker was what was mostly driving things anyway. Rey being captured was sufficient to compel the heroes to assault the enemy base, and you could have had an ESB style ending where the victory is that the heroes escape to fight another day. You could remove the Starkiller entirely from the movie and have it play out almost exactly the same way.

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