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Author Topic: SPOILERS - Star Wars The Force Awakens Discussion and Overanalysis  (Read 42236 times)

Edguy

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(Lando has submissive recessive genes)
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I dunno..

UniqueNewYork

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If that's not Andy Serkis I don't know what I've been doing with my life
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Data:
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LeeC

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Guess what these 2 Star Wars character's have in common:


(click to show/hide)
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LeeC

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Rogue One Celebration Reel.   :-D

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You see, there are still faint glimmers of civilization left in this barbaric slaughterhouse that was once known as humanity. Indeed that's what we provide in our own modest, humble, insignificant... oh, fuck it. - M. Gustave

BenRG

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Wild fan theory (not mine): Jyn Erso, the heroine of Rogue One, is Rey's mother (and Luke's future wife during the inter-trilogy gap).

Retcon? Of sorts, I suppose but, as the director of Rogue One says, there is enough flexibility and blank spaces in the Original Trilogy movie canon that you can do a lot without even arguably betraying the classic stories.
« Last Edit: 16 Jul 2016, 06:08 by BenRG »
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What would that retcon?
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BenRG

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What would that retcon?

That Luke may have had a semi-romantic relationship at some point during the Original Trilogy. FWIW, I don't buy that it is a retcon at all but I'm sure that some fans would scream 'heresy!' if someone tried to add something to the main characters' OT-era canon.
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Neko_Ali

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Why would that be the case? There was kind of a long stretch in between episodes 6 and 7. Given Rey's age, she would have been born in that time frame. So if Luke is her father, then any kind of relationship happened after episode 6. No retcon, no conflict.
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Akima

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So, I finally got around to watching Star Wars: The Force Awakens over the weekend. It's not a bad movie, but it is such an awfully safe movie. Everything was very competently done, with none of the grating blunders of the prequel trilogy, but nothing was new. It was essentially just a pastiche of things we've seen before, and if you played a drinking game where you took a shot every time the film repeated elements from earlier Star Wars movies, you'd be unconscious well before the film was half over. I've had low expectations since seeing the teaser trailer, so I wasn't disappointed, and I did enjoy the film, but it was a bit "Meh...", which epic space-opera shouldn't be.

And judging by the trailer for Rogue One, they're featuring yet another giant spherical super-weapon. Seriously? That's two episodes of the original trilogy,  cameo appearances in two episodes of the prequel trilogy, on steroids in The Force Awakens, and now yet again? Could we move on, please?
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Neko_Ali

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There is kind of a reason for it. That is the original Death Star under construction. From Episode 4. Rogue One is chronologically shortly before A New Hope. Those plans that Leia was carrying? This movie is about how the Rebels got their hands on them. But  yeah, I rolled my eyes so hard at Starkiller Base. I could just see the First Order planning session.

"So guys... We lost two moon sized super weapons to the Rebels. The last one the blew up killed the Emperor and Darth Vader and fractured the Empire. What should we do now to establish ourselves as a galactic power?"

"Ummm... Let's build a PLANET sized super weapon!"

"...... Brilliant! Make that man a Moff!"
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hedgie

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And judging by the trailer for Rogue One, they're featuring yet another giant spherical super-weapon.

You'd at least think that they'd try using a Platonic Solid or something for variety's sake.
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Akima

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Speaking of over-analysis... Did anyone else think the scene where the space-Nazis fire the giant mega-gun of doom looked really peculiar? How could the beam be visible in the sky of the rebel base planet at the same time as it's blowing up the un-named disposable planets at which it was aimed? I know that the script said it was a "super luminal" weapon, presumably implying that it could be fired at interstellar distances, but the "backwash" is super-luminal too? And travels at close to infinite speed so that it can be seen at roughly the same time everywhere regardless of distance?

I know I shouldn't even try to think rationally about "science" in space-opera, but from a film-making point of view, it kicked me out of the story, making me think: "Wait... What? Is all the action taking place in a single solar system like Firefly, or something?" It made the Star Wars galaxy feel small, when surely that's the opposite of what should happen.

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Neko_Ali

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Everything about that scene is wrong and ridiculous. And you are not the first to point out the logic and physics errors of firing an energy beam that can somehow break the speed of light and curve to hit five systems. All of which could be clearly seen from some other point in space. Even if the five planets had all been in the same system, there is no point that they could be seen with the naked eye so large. And that's not even counting that somehow, some way the Starkiller weapon is fueled by siphoning plasma through space from the nearest star. Somehow. Without incinerating at the very least everything on the surface around it. Somehow. And what they planned to do when the star was drained of power. Move the planet to another system?
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Gladstone

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The simplest answer is, J. J. Abrams has no sense of scale.  At all.  From Kirk watching Vulcan explode from the surface of another planet and people somehow beaming across light-years willy-nilly to this laser-visible-across-the-galaxy bullshit, Abrams clearly has no idea how big space really is.  It bothered me too.

As for the rest, I didn't mind the similarities.  It was a nice return to Proper Star Wars.  That said, I hope Episode VIII tries to be original instead of a flashier clone of Empire.

I know I shouldn't even try to think rationally about "science" in space-opera, but from a film-making point of view, it kicked me out of the story, making me think: "Wait... What? Is all the action taking place in a single solar system like Firefly, or something?" It made the Star Wars galaxy feel small, when surely that's the opposite of what should happen.

Nah, it can't be like Firefly.  There were Asian people in it.
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Abrams clearly has no idea how big space really is.
Quote from: Douglas Adams
Space is big. Really big. You just won't believe how vastly, hugely, mind-bogglingly big it is. I mean, you may think it's a long way down the road to the chemist, but that's just peanuts to space.
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BenRG

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If anyone is interested in a good official explanation for Starkiller, read Alan Dean Foster's novelisation.

It turns out to be that the weapon fires through hyperspace and some of the energy from the attack is continually leaking back out into real space as the attack moves at FTL speeds towards its target. The smugglers' planet just happened to be along the blast trajectory so the waste energy 'afterglow' was visible from its surface.

Foster also gives an interesting official explanation for what Starkiller does that actually sounds a lot more plausible (on a Star Trek - Voyager technobabble scale) than the canon explanation in the film.
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Edguy

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That sounds very much like an explanation that was made up after the complaints were made.

Oh no, but you see it works like this!
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BenRG

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Yeah but actually probably was with the editors before the final theatrical cut of the movie was complete to allow the right release schedule. In fact, the novel was probably based on a late draft of the script including explanatory exposition that was cut out for runtime reasons.
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Gladstone

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Abrams clearly has no idea how big space really is.
Quote from: Douglas Adams
Space is big. Really big. You just won't believe how vastly, hugely, mind-bogglingly big it is. I mean, you may think it's a long way down the road to the chemist, but that's just peanuts to space.

Quote from: J. J. Abrams
Hey, watch this planet explode from the surface of another planet, ain't it great.
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It kinda is great, yeah.
That sounds very much like an explanation that was made up after the complaints were made.

Oh no, but you see it works like this!
To be fair, they've been doing that since the beginning with the bullshit "parsecs" excuse, which I still don't accept.
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They call me Mr. Madness.

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MR ARCHIVE-FU MADNESS
Does anybody really know what time it is?
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Neko_Ali

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Star Wars has always been science fantasy. Actual scientific facts have never been important, it's all been about the narrative. Sometimes though, you can push to far against science and people just run into the wall of disbelief so that they can no longer ignore it. For me at least, it was.. Pretty much everything involving Starkiller Base.
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Edguy

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Even in fantasy, it's still very important to keep the internal logic straight, and to make things as realistic as possible while still being able to have the fantasticalelements you wish to include.
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Tova

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That sounds very much like an explanation that was made up after the complaints were made.

Oh no, but you see it works like this!

I thought that was the main reason fan fiction existed in the first place.  :mrgreen:

Even in fantasy, it's still very important to keep the internal logic straight, and to make things as realistic as possible while still being able to have the fantasticalelements you wish to include.

So, what is the internal contradiction that you found too hard to swallow?
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Edguy

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I was talking about fantasy fiction in general..
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Tova

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I was talking about fantasy fiction in general..

I see. It had appeared to me that your post was written in direct counterpoint to the one preceding it. Still does, actually.
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LeeC

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