Bingowings said:
Ben sacrificing himself to set Luke on a collision course with his father isn’t the same as Han sacrificing himself to try to help his spiritually conflicted murderous son.
Those were completely different scenes with completely different character motivations. If you want to boil it down to “Baddie kills old man at the end of the film” sure…but the scene is a lot more than that. Also Han doesn’t sacrifice himself; he only wanted to bring his son home. He didn’t go out there knowing with absolute certainty he would be killed.
There are however other plots they could have used that would have introduced those characters in a more engaging way and I could have handled more Death Stars.
The issue wasn’t that there was a planet smashing weapon but it’s used in exactly the same way at the same point of the plot in the film I’ve already seen hundreds of times.
The initial set up of the film tells us that the Galaxy has divided into the New Republic and the First Order and there is a kind of Cold War situation where the First Order has built up it’s military and the Republic is lending deniable support to insurgents in First Order territory.
A way to use Death Star tech in this situation would have been to mirror the proliferation of Nukes in our cold war. The Republic has had to build it’s own superweapons to balance those of the First Order. This creates an moral and ethical conflict with the old guard who fought to keep the galaxy safe from such things and maybe lost their whole home planet to one. The Republic would have lost the higher moral ground and the line between the good guys and the bad guys would be blurred. Possibly why Ben becomes Ren.
That would have been a lot better, but this story would be better for the sequel. They can introduce it early and will have sufficient runtime to develop it.
But as it pertains to the Starkiller Base there’s nothing anyone can say in it’s defense really. It’s a beefed up Death Star and in my opinion it’s lazy from a movie writing perspective. But from just a story perspective it makes sense because the Death Star was the ultimate symbol of power in the Universe. Someone was going to try to build another one…just didn’t have to be in TFA. It’s kind of being a teraformed planet was a cool idea though.
Instead we have essentially the same movie with different characters which is half way to being a classic movie but not a classic movie. It’s another cynical corporate marketing exercise, not a story.
I appreciate the film will continue to make loads of cash and will have fans.
Just not me.
Still yperbole but if that’s how you feel then that’s how you feel. At least you’re not acting like it’s a shot for shot remake. I’ve seen the film 3 times and every time I see it the ride feels fresh. When Poe gives BB-8 the map and when The Starkiller Base are introduced the only times in which I say that that’s directly ripped from ANH. Of course there are repackaged stuff but stuff like that doesn’t bother me unless it feels new
Same with the prequels.
The difference is that most people liked TFA. Even core fans…OT indoctrination be damned.
