I watched TFA for the first time in a while this afternoon, and I think I may have come around on the whole Starkiller thing. It occurred to me that what sets it apart from the other two Death Stars is the fact that the First Order isn’t the dominant power in the galaxy, but rather a lunatic fringe group. It’s like if Bin Laden had a nuke, which is something very different from what we saw with the Empire’s superweapons. I think they certainly could have explored that angle a lot more than they did, and I hope they will in subsequent stories, but for now I’ve decided that that’s enough of a twist for me to get past any lingering misgivings about Starkiller Base.