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What didn't you like about TFA? SPOILERS — Page 44

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Bumping to get what’s his face off the front page

Not enough people read the EU.

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Actually, his threads were all deleted I think.

Not enough people read the EU.

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I don’t really get how the entire republic fleet was destroyed along with the Hosnian system. Shouldn’t there have been republic ships spread out throughout the galaxy? Apparently not since the Resistance only has a few X-wings.

I wanted to see what the new republic ships looked like, guess that’ll never happen now.

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There are probably some surviving ships. But will they ally with the Resistance, or blame them for what’s happened?

Forum Moderator

Where were you in '77?

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Wookiepedia says only some of he fleet was destroyed but Hux’s speech suggests the entire fleet was there so I don’t know.

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Hux didn’t take account of the aircraft carriers.

“That Darth Vader, man. Sure does love eating Jedi.”

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I tried to rationalize the blasphemy of being able to see the five distinct lasers from Maz’s planet (even though the five targets shown were all within the space between Earth and it’s moon) as the shot hitting a few key planets/bases where the remainder of the republic fleet was. Meaning that the Hosnian system and its moons(?) were blown up by only one of the beams as seen from Maz’s planet.

At least that sounds better in my head.

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I know that part, but his attempt at rationalizing it is the part that confuses me. I read it at least 5 times and still had no idea what his rarionalization was.

.

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Why are we trying to find logic in anything surrounding SKB?

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Oh. Hm. I think maybe he’s saying that he’ll pretend for his own sanity that one beam destroyed the whole Hosnian system and the other four were errant/to other systems entirely.

I’d rather just accept that it’s a movie and that if Star Wars subscribed to physics it would be boring.

TV’s Frink said:

I would put this in my sig if I weren’t so lazy.

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John Doom said:

They would be foolish to blame them: the Resistence wasn’t in any way responsible for the attack 😄

People twist the truth often for their own ends. Someone trying to grab power in the vacuum created could easily say the First Order would never have attacked if the Republic had not been covertly funding the Resistance. With most, if not all the Republic leadership presumably dead, who will set the record straight?

Forum Moderator

Where were you in '77?

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CHEWBAKAspelledwrong said:

Oh. Hm. I think maybe he’s saying that he’ll pretend for his own sanity that one beam destroyed the whole Hosnian system and the other four were errant/to other systems entirely.

I’d rather just accept that it’s a movie and that if Star Wars subscribed to physics it would be boring.

Lol, pretty much. Obviously Star Wars is pure fantasy, but that scene was a bit much even for Star Wars, IMO.

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Smoking Lizard said:

Considering the subject of this thread, I am going to assume I can post what I do not like about TFA without being accused of being a “troll.” I just caved and saw the movie yesterday. Here’s what I did not like:

  • Von Sydow’s character required someone to travel IN PERSON to Jakku to receive the map, rather than just transmit it encrypted to Leia.

  • Instead of covertly sending an intelligence officer under deep cover to retrieve the map, Leia sends a pilot. In uniform. In an X-Wing.

  • On Jakku, Kylo Ren and the rest of the First Order round up the villagers. Instead of saying to Poe, “Tell us where the map is or we’ll kill these villagers,” Ren orders Poe onto his ship and then orders the villagers murdered for the sport of it.

  • The blaster bolt suspended midflight and hanging in the air until Ren “coolly” released it.

  • Kylo Ren and the First Order round up the innocent villagers and are setting the village on fire. When Kylo comes to question Poe, Poe deems it appropriate to crack jokes at Ren. No, Poe, don’t, you know, maybe BEG for mercy for the villagers and insist that they’re innocent. Nah. Crack jokes instead.

  • So Kylo Ren is Anakin Skywalker/Darth Vader’s grandson? Kylo Ren, in private, “prays” to his grandfather to “show him the way” to resist the pull of the light side of the Force. Um, hello? Anakin Skywalker is probably the WORST person to ask for advice on how to resist the light side?

  • Anakin Skywalker is Kylo Ren’s grandfather, yes? So Anakin, a redeemed Jedi, couldn’t appear as a Force ghost to Ren years earlier as Ren was turning to the dark side and, you know, maybe try to talk him out of it? You know, appear to Ren as a ghost the way Obi Wan did multiple times to Luke?

  • If you’re saying right now, “Well, maybe he did and Ren resisted him!” Why, then, is Ren asking Vader for advice on how to resist the light?

  • So Finn helps Poe escape. Finn, by the way, is a janitor (yes…JANITOR!) stormtrooper who was abducted as an infant by the First Order and raised to be a stormtrooper. Because raising soldiers for your evil cause from infancy is easier than just using recruits. I mean, yeah, recruits worked for the Nazis, the Khmer Rouge, imperial Japan, Al Qaeda, Stalin, and ISIS but they would NEVER work for the First Order. Abducting babies is much easier.

  • OK, so we escape. Suddenly the new and improved First Order TIE fighters are two seaters.

  • The TIE fighter gets shot and then crash lands on Jakku. CONVENIENTLY close to Rey’s settlement.

  • The TIE fighter CONVENIENTLY gets eaten up by the desert. Because, yeah, the desert eats stuff all the time.

  • But there’s other crashed junk all over the place that hasn’t been swallowed up by the desert.

  • Finn runs to the settlement, where he conveniently bumps into Rey who conveniently has found BB-8.

  • So BB-8 tells Rey that that random dude is wearing my master’s jacket – or, well, a jacket that looks just like my master’s jacket. So Rey runs over and smashes him in the face with a blunt weapon.

  • Hey! Now we’re friends!

  • Oh no! The First Order is on to us! They’re chasing us!

  • Let’s run for that “Quad Jumper”! But we need a pilot? Don’t worry! I can PILOT ANYTHING! Including the Millenium Falcon!

  • How did you learn to fly the Millenium Falcon? I found a flight simulator! And the flight simulator taught me how to fly that type of craft!

  • Oh, no! The Quad Jumper was blown up by the First Order! Don’t worry! The Millenium Falcon is right over there! Yes, in this entire wide galaxy, how entirely fortunate that Kylo Ren’s father’s ship just happens to be right here!

  • And the door is open! Gee, I wonder why the pawn broker had enough sense to throw a tarp over the MF but not bother to close the door?

  • Ah, well! Let’s run inside! Won’t the First Order blow this ship up, too? Nah.

  • OK, I just started up the Millenium Falcon! Wait! Doesn’t it have some kind of security on the starter? After all, even my 1977 Ford Pinto required a KEY TO START! Nah! I just started it up!

  • Damn! Look at me! I can fly the MF at least as well as Han Solo…even though I never had before. IT’S THE FORCE! Yes, every other Jedi alive – including Anakin – had to be TRAINED to use the Force, but NOT REY! SHE’S SPECIAL!

  • OK, we’re in space now! We ditched the First Order somehow…but oh no! We’re captured…by Han Solo!

  • Who just so happened to be in the neighborhood, actively looking for the Millenium Falcon…at the age of 70 something years old. Sure he was a general once who led the Rebellion to maybe the greatest victory in the history of the galaxy, but now, at the age of 70, he’s back to being a smuggler.

  • OK, now Han is going to take Rey to his Force-sensitive mentor. But Han! Back in the 1977 movie, you insisted you didn’t believe in the Force! Um, oh yeah. Forgot about that.

  • Gotta love the trite, “I can see who you are by looking into your eyes,” bullsh*t. I mean, because that’s SOOOOOOO original.

  • Also gotta love that crawling across the table and switching the lenses in the goggles to amp up the magnification or whatever. Yeah, that wasn’t contrived.

  • Oh, hey! By the way, I’m Maz and I somehow have Luke Skywalker’s lighsaber in a wooden box downstairs in my dungeon! How did I get it, you ask? Oh, that’s a story for another time (TRANSLATION: The writers don’t know yet, either).

  • Somehow Rey just stumbles on the box with the lightsaber. I know, I know – the Force. Uh huh.

  • So now Finn has the lightsaber and Rey is randomly running around the woods because she’s upset or something.

  • Oh, hey! Look at that! We can see the blast rays from the Starkiller base, which is light years away!

  • The Starkiller base is able to blow up planets many light years away because, wait for it, its blasts travel through hyperspace to arrive at their targets! Not making this up.

  • Oh no! The First Order found us here on Maz’s planet! Oh no! Rey is captured and Ren doesn’t give a rat’s butt about BB-8 and the ACTUAL MAP anymore because he can torture the map out of Rey’s brain. Because, yeah, her cursory look at the map somehow enabled it to be perfectly imprinted on her brain.

  • Oh, yeah! What about Poe Dameron? Why did he just leave Jakku without finding BB-8 first? It was a critical mission AND HE JUST LEFT?! When he got back to the Resistance planet did Leia come up and say, “Well?” and he said, “Well, what?” and she said, “Did you get the message I sent you to retrieve?” and he said, “Oh, snap!”?!

  • So Rey is captured. She hasn’t figured out that she can already use the Force yet. Give it about 10 minutes and she’ll have it figured out.

  • So Ren’s secret darkest fear is that he will never be as powerful as Darth Vader? Puh-lease.

  • Han and Leia repeatedly refer to Ren stiltedly as “our son” and not simply his name.

  • Leia’s stilted dialog: “It was Snoke who seduced our son to the Dark Side of the Force.” Ugh.

  • Oh, yeah…and Snoke is a laughably bad CGI character. One that looks a hell of a lot like the trite old “big head alien” from alien abduction movies.

  • Yeah. Snoke is a bad CGI character. And he’s, like, one of the two main villains. Read that again. A main villain is a CGI character. Jar Jar, anyone?

  • And the command center of the First Order doesn’t look very military. Looked more like a Comcast customer care call center. In TESB, Lucas hired very experienced British stage actors to play the roles of the key imperials – Ozzel, Piett, Needa, and Veers – and they delivered a very “professional military” performance. These guys? Not so scary.

  • Temper tantrums make someone a bad guy! Get bad news? Tear sht up with your stupid lightsaber! A key prisoner escaped? Tear sht up with your stupid lightsaber!

  • Why the hell is Ren wearing a mask, anyway? Because it’s cool? Does he sleep with it, too?

  • So the galaxy has gone to hell in a hand basket…and Luke has gone into hiding? Never mind, you know, maybe helping the Resistance, you know, RESIST?

  • So in 30 years Luke trained ZERO new Jedis? Ren somehow killed them ALL?!

  • But failed to kill Luke?

  • Hey, we have to blow up the Starkiller base! No problem. We’ll just land on the planet and blow up the shields! But how will we get through the shields to begin with? We’ll just come out of hyperspace inside the shields? Why hadn’t we ever done that before? Um…because!

  • How many times is the MF going to scrape along the ground, scrape across rocks, and fly through trees without, you know, blowing up?

  • Oh, hey, now we’re going to crash. No, not really. We’ll just skid along the snowy surface. And…wait for it…wait for it! Yep! Here comes a cliff! And wait for it…wait for it…errrt! We stopped just at the edge of the cliff! Never saw that before!

  • We have X-Wing pilots who don’t look like military pilots. The female pilot especially…not because she’s female, but because she carries herself as a college student enjoying a theme park ride.

  • Rey kills Han. Thank God. Not because it was a good story element, but because at least it spares us from having to see an 80 year old Han Solo in the future.

  • We have C3PO literally calling play-by-play during the battle!

  • Hurray! We blew up the Starkiller base! How? Who cares?! An oscillator or something. Who cares?! It’s blown up! Yay!

  • And even better! Somehow all the main characters somehow manage to escape the planet blowing up! Sure is a good thing the First Order was somehow able to pick up Ren from the surface and get him off the planet before the planet blew up! How wonderfully convenient!

  • Oh, by the way, Ren got his butt kicked by Rey…who just suddenly, out of nowhere, learned how to use the Force and a lightsaber. How convenient!

  • Oh! And why didn’t Rey just kill him?! Because a rift in the planet formed just at the right second! Phew! That was CLOSE! We almost lost our super “cool” villain!

  • Hey look at that! R2-D2 just woke up somehow. Maybe Luke woke him up or something. Because “Now is the right time. The time was not right before now…” Since when did Luke become so melodramatic?

  • We land on a planet…

  • …and bring Luke his lightsaber.

  • Roll credits. Thank God.

This X 1,000

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I remember refuting most of the things in that rancid turd of a post. Good times.

OK, so we escape. Suddenly the new and improved First Order TIE fighters are two seaters.

^ this being the funniest criticism of them all.

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I will again point out that this Scott guy thinks AOTC is a really good film, so I wouldn’t worry about his opinion on TFA.

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The opening crawl should have explained why the Republic lacked a standing army capable of defeating the First Order and had to covertly fund the Resistance.

Poe Dameron should have died in the crash landing on Jakku.

I dislike the idea of Han Solo losing the Millenium Falcon for so many years and then appearing out of nowhere as a Deus Ex Machina.

Han Solo never thought he should put a tracking device on the Millenium Falcon in case it was lost or stolen?

The script would have improved if Rey had stolen The Millenium Falcon from Han Solo during her escape from Jakku and Han Solo had tracked her down to retrieve his ship. . . .

There should be no superweapon. The goal of the story is to find Luke Skywalker. Inserting a third Death Star is irrelevant to the story.

Finn should not have been a janitor.

Rey should not have been able to perform a Jedi mind trick. The other characters should have had to rescue her.

Kylo Ren should not have taken off his mask in front of Rey.

Captain Phasma should not have disabled the shields without a fight. . . .

Snoke should have a more menacing name.

Why did C-3PO have a red arm? This is never explained. . . .

Kylo Ren should have defeated Rey, who should have barely survived. . . .

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TV’s Frink said:

I will again point out that this Scott guy thinks AOTC is a really good film, so I wouldn’t worry about his opinion on TFA.

Recently he said it was “decent” which is still indicative of someone with wildly unconventional opinions.

Scott109 said:

The opening crawl should have explained why the Republic lacked a standing army capable of defeating the First Order and had to covertly fund the Resistance.

They didn’t. They just didn’t want an all out war due to the treaty that was made post Battle of Endor. That should have been mentioned in the film though and not just in Aftermath.

Poe Dameron should have died in the crash landing on Jakku.

Why? Though underdeveloped he was a pretty good character and I would like to see him fleshed out in VIII and IX.

I dislike the idea of Han Solo losing the Millenium Falcon for so many years and then appearing out of nowhere as a Deus Ex Machina.

I do too but it’s a Star Wars film; plot conveniences are a trope in them.

Han Solo never thought he should put a tracking device on the Millenium Falcon in case it was lost or stolen?

Do you think it was luck that Chewie
and I found the Falcon? If we can
find it on our scanners, the First
Order’s not far behind. Want to get
BB-8 to the Resistance? Maz Kanata
is our best bet. - Han Solo

The script would have improved if Rey had stolen The Millenium Falcon from Han Solo during her escape from Jakku and Han Solo had tracked her down to retrieve his ship. . . .

Interesting, but why exactly would he be on Jakku?

There should be no superweapon. The goal of the story is to find Luke Skywalker. Inserting a third Death Star is irrelevant to the story.

Finn should not have been a janitor.

What else should he have been? Maybe someone who works on the First Order technology.

Rey should not have been able to perform a Jedi mind trick.

Luke shouldn’t have been able to deflect those bolts from the training droid with his view obstructed and he shouldn’t have been able to blow up the Death Star but they happen anyway because it establishes our protagonists are special.

The other characters should have had to rescue her

Well technically they kind of did seeing as how she would have had no way to escape had they not come for her.

Kylo Ren should not have taken off his mask in front of Rey

Would have made the moment when he takes off his mask stronger but if he knows her from the past then I’m alright with it.

Captain Phasma should not have disabled the shields without a fight. . . .

And what exactly could she have done when surrounded by 3 captors one of them being a Wookie? It’s not like she’s Force Sensitive or something.

Snoke should have a more menacing name

Yep

Why did C-3PO have a red arm? This is never explained. . . .

It didn’t need to be…

Kylo Ren should have defeated Rey, who should have barely survived. . . .

I agree though how they wrote Kylo Ren’s character (not fully trained, reckless and pompous) and the circumstances surrounding the confrontation I’m okay with how it went down.

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Lord Haseo said:

The script would have improved if Rey had stolen The Millenium Falcon from Han Solo during her escape from Jakku and Han Solo had tracked her down to retrieve his ship. . . .

Interesting, but why exactly would he be on Jakku?

What if Han himself were looking for the droid?
He might be informed by Leia of its position on Jakku and, since he already is in a near system, he decides to rescue it. If you add one day between the beginning of the movie and Finn meeting Rey, Han should have enough time to arrive by hyperspace and starting looking for the droid. Than you can have, for example, Han finally finding the droid, and Finn and Rey following him on the Falcon when the fighters arrive.

The Original Trilogy’s Timeline Reconstruction: http://originaltrilogy.com/forum/topic.cfm/Implied-starting-date-of-the-Empire-from-OT-dialogue/post/786201/#TopicPost786201

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John Doom said:

Lord Haseo said:

The script would have improved if Rey had stolen The Millenium Falcon from Han Solo during her escape from Jakku and Han Solo had tracked her down to retrieve his ship. . . .

Interesting, but why exactly would he be on Jakku?

What if Han himself were looking for the droid?
He might be informed by Leia of its position on Jakku and, since he already is in a near system, he decides to rescue it. If you add one day between the beginning of the movie and Finn meeting Rey, Han should have enough time to arrive by hyperspace and starting looking for the droid. Than you can have, for example, Han finally finding the droid, and Finn and Rey following him on the Falcon when the fighters arrive.

This would work if they’re still together.

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I suppose but if I were trying to get away from it all after my marriage failed and my son became evil I would ensure that there would be no way for anyone in Leia’s circle to contact me. I think this would work better if they were still married. This way you wouldn’t have to ask about “What if” this or “What about” that. And I don’t hate the idea of them still being together after Kylo Ren turned to the Dark Side though it would be a good reason for them to split.