I am a scientifically minded person. I never subscribed to the idea that Star Wars should be above criticism for its scientific implausibility just because it’s space fantasy, not hard SF. I firmbly believe that even fantasy stories should comply with the internal logic of their universe, even if the rules in that universe are vastly different than ours. Which means that I would criticize Star Wars if they had a scene where spaceships DIDN’T have noise.

For instance, one of the internal rules of the Star Wars universe is that there is no instantaneous travel between distant points of the galaxy. They need hyperspace to do that. Hyperspace in Star Wars is not inconsequential. It’s a big deal. It’s one of the most iconic special effects in cinema history! That is why Starkiller Base destroying a star system half way across the galaxy has bugged me the first time I saw the movie.

A Resistance technician clearly states that Starkiller Base is a “hyperlightspeed weapon”. The Visual Dictionary says the base is the result of the Empire’s research into “hyperspace tunneling”. If the utilization of hyperspace was implied with a shot that I described, that would, for me, make Starkiller’s technology fit into the internal logic of the Star Wars universe.

The size of Starkiller Base is less of an issue but it’s still bugging me. We know the Death Star was 120 km in diameter. That makes the Starkiller about 1200 km in diamater, which is only 1/3 of Earth’s moon. A planet that size could not possibly retain an atmosphere. I wouldn’t care about it if Return of the Jedi didn’t get it right with the Death Star being relatively in scale compared with Endor.