I’m pretty sure that someone here on the forum, that is those that aren’t from the US, will see TFA a day or two earlier than that countdown timer shows.
I definitively will, and I’m going into an internet “blackout” starting the 15th since that’s TFA’s earliest release date, and I don’t want any spoilers.
Packaging for a new Rey action figure that seems to confirm that Finn carrying the Skywalker saber is misdirection:
I don’t think this rules out Finn being Force-sensitve or becoming a Jedi; I’d guess he’d probably need to have some aptitude to be able to make any use at all of a lightsaber. On the flip side of that, though, I’ve seen a lot of people elsewhere on the internet (who presumably haven’t been following this as closely as us) despairing about Finn wielding the saber because they’re convinced it means Rey won’t be a Jedi. It sounds like a ridiculous idea because everything that’s been revealed points to her being the main focus of the film, but it’s a thing people actually seem to be worried about.
Well it is possible that Finn dies at the end of TFA, as many have theorized.
Alternatively it could turn out that it’s Rey who’s Force sensitive, but that it’s Finn who ends up in possesion of the lightsaber. It could be that he got it from the Star Destroyer when he tries to save Poe. For all we know she might save his life during his fight with Kylo.
Also, Rey’s jacket on that figure looks a lot like the jacket she’s wearing in this shot;
People seem to think that this is at the very end of the movie, so it might be that, for whatever reason, she’s in possesion of it at this point. In Ep. VIII it’s probably Rey who’s goig to use Anakin’s saber. The bi question then is, what’s happened to Finn and what will he do in Ep. VIII if he’ll be in it at all?
New TV spot;
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KWZVYl_19rk
And some new images;
Another Disney featurette;
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6tF8PvCWMX4
Some new shots here, including one of Leia, as well as a very, very short one of Maz Kanata (which we’ve seen screenshots of before).
(I’m kind of wondering what shot(s) goes in between these two. It seems unlikely that these reaction shots are right next to each other.)
To end the, for the lack of a better word, “controversy” over Snoke’s height in the recent weeks, Neal Scanlan have now revealed that Snoke is 7-feet tall, and also “very, very thin.”
http://www.starwarsnewsnet.com/2015/12/supreme-leader-snokes-height-in-the-force-awakens-revealed.html
Also, the alien that people are speculating might be performed by Simon Pegg, have been revealed to be Unkar Plutt, whom we first heard about a few months ago (in a lego set, I think?).
Some are even theorizing that he might be more than just a one-scene character since he’s clearly seen in both the Kanata’s castle set, while Pegg have also been seen on location in Abu Dhabi. Some think he might be the person in charge of the Millenium Falcon before Finn & Rey “steal” it while escaping the First Order on Jakku.
http://www.starwarsnewsnet.com/2015/12/new-toy-confirms-old-character-rumor.html
I didn’t noticed this the first time I saw the video, but here’s Poe being lead into the hangar of Kylo/Hux’s Star Destroyer.
This was also really funny;
It’s kind of fun to see how this film really is being made by SW fans, both behind and in front of the cameras.
I guess Lucas wrote Obi-wan especially for Mifune: Obi-wan is a Japanese-sounding name, after all.
So he turned down the offering because of the way samurai were depicted? That’s very interesting, especially coming from a leading actor in countlessjedijidaigeki movies.
Well, like Mika Mifune said, sci-fi films didn’t have to great of a reputation back in the 70’s and he probably felt like it would end up being somewhat of a parody of real jidaigeki movies. It’s easy for use to talk about it now forty years later, but back then it would have been really hard to imahine what the heck Lucas was going for. I mean a Jidaigeki in space sounds really goofy, and Mifune probably feared that he wouldn’t take the source material serious enough.
Ben had important information to relate and Mifune’s inability to speak english would likely mean he’d be dubbed.
Or he would have memorized his lines phonetically. *shrug*
I think that would have greatly impeded his ability to act properly, as well as making the dialogue seem somewhat stiff. I don’t think he would have managed to have a proper chemistry with the other actors if he didn’t understand what they, or even himself, was saying at any time. This propblem could of course have been solved with a lot of time and hard work, but considering how much hard work Lucas had finishing the film even with English speaking actors, I think he may have dodged a bullet with Mifune’s rejection of the role.
It would have made more sense to dub him I think. At least it would have saved them time.
In a recent interview with Mika Mifune (Toshiro Mifune’s daughter) she claimed that Lucas had approached her father to play Obi-Wan Kenobi.
“I heard from my father that he was offered the role of Obi-Wan Kenobi, but he was concerned about how the film would look and that it would cheapen the image of samurai, on which George Lucas had based a lot of the character and fighting style,” said Mika.
“At the time, sci-fi movies still looked quite cheap as the effects were not advanced and he had a lot of samurai pride,” Mika said. “So then, there was talk about him taking the Darth Vader role as his face would be covered, but in the end he turned that down too.”
I guess this sort of makes sense since Mifune starred in The Hidden Fortress which inspired Lucas to make SW, as well as playing the character that eventually evolved into Obi-Wan.
However, in addition to no one having talked about this before, I find it kind of strange since Mifune didn’t really speak English, and Obi-Wan was after all a character with quite a lot of dialogue. Vader also seems kind of pointless to me, since he wears a mask and his voice would’ve been dubbed anyway.
Any thoughts on this?
Could be budgetary reasons. Panavision rentals are really expensive, but then again this is Star Wars so I doubt they needed to save money.
Do you know how long it took to shoot ROTJ? If the shoot was longer than ANH and ESB they might have reasoned that it was cheaper in the long run to buy some Arriflex cameras rather than rent Panavision equipment for the duration of the shoot.
Or it might have to do with the director, maybe Marquand preferred Arriflex? He did a lot of television before SW, most of which was probably shoot with Arriflex cameras. So maybe he was more used to their equipment. Then again, I saw on IMDb that his previous film before ROTJ, Eye of the Needle, was shot with Panavision cameras, so I really don’t know.
EDIT:
I don’t think it would really matter if they filmed much of it in England. ANH and ESB were also mostly shot in London. But then again, they may have just seen an opportunity to save some money. Whatever the reason was, it probably made sense to the producers back then.
I think it traces back to the early WEG days. WEG provided the very backbone, the foundation, for everything we know about the Star Wars universe outside of the films.
They did a lot of awesome work expanding the universe BUT there was one aspect of it that was eventually abandoned but the echoes of which could still be felt going forward. That aspect being that the original contention was that most of the galaxy was still unexplored and it was new founded Empire that was leading this charge to explore what was out there and to conquer, exploit and enslave anything and everyone they came across.
For the longest time, it was a fact that Mon Cala/Dac was a newly discovered planet within the OT timeframe.
So with that context in mind, the Unknown Regions being laid out as they were made some sense. But it should have been readdressed loooooooong ago. That they’ve not done so at this opportune moment in time with the new canon is a massive failure on their part.
Well, hasn’t the EU more or less always implied this? Even in the early Marvel comics they talk about how each different species/culture have different starmaps. Han Solo talk about buying starmaps from aliens in order to find unknown/unexplored planets to hide his cargo on. It’s implied that these planets are hiding in-between the well-populated sectors (Hutt space, Corporate sector, etc.)
I also seem to recall from the WEG Sourcebook for Tatooine that they referenced how the planet had been discovered and it’s location added to the Republic’s starmap database, but since it was just an empty desert world of little use it remained unsettled for several thousand years. By the time of Luke’s birth there had only been humans there for a few centuries (roughly, I can’t remember the exact numbers).
So it seems that the EU has always, although to various degrees, been not to far away from what been suggested on this thread so far. That the Core world have always been aware of what’s around them and where they can go, but for economic reasons, not to mention safety, they’ve only explored so many places.
One could also argue that planets like Hoth and Endor were undiscovered until the Rebels and Empire found them. And they’re a fair distance from the Unknown Regions. And according to the WEG EU, there were planets in Hutt Space (e.g well explored regions) that were ignored for thousand of years due to economics.
PS. In which WEG book was it established that the Mon Calamari were recently discovered in the OT? Was it a Sourcebook, or the book called “Death in the Undercity”? (I have a copy that book, but I haven’t looked through it yet.)
Wow, TFA hasn’t even been released yet and the new EU is already shaping up to be just as bat-shit crazy and retconning as the old one;
http://www.starwarsnewsnet.com/2015/12/swnn-review-tales-from-a-galaxy-far-far-away-aliens-pt-2.html
http://www.starwarsnewsnet.com/2015/12/swnn-review-tales-from-a-galaxy-far-far-away-aliens-pt-1.html
I’m especially amused by how every new alien is retconned to belong to some PT or Clone Wars alien that they sort of resemble. The guy in read clothes and a mask in Maz Kanata’s castle is apparently a Kaleesh (the same species as general Grevious), Zuvio is a Kyuzo (despite sharing no trait other than the hat), and Bobbajo is somewhat amusingly reffered to as a “Nu-Cosian” because he only vaguely resemble the Cosians from the Clone Wars.
Not that I really had it to begin with, but I’m losing any hope that the new EU would manage to add anything clever to Star Wars.
Of course I highly doubt that Abrams or Kasdan have put any effort into anything lore-related, other than the OT films of course, so I’m just going to ignore all this retcnonning and enjoy all the new alien designs as they appear in the new films.
Whoever was in charge of filling the Unknown Regions with content for the EU really wanted it it be an inhospitable place;
http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Unknown_Regions
Having skimmed through the article, it seems like everything there wants to kill you.
However, even the article seems to take a stab at the idea of it being so close to the Core.
"The depiction of the Unknown Regions varies from source to source. Some fans would like to limit the term to areas outside the plane of the galactic disk. It is supported by movie canon, which describes a Galactic Empire, and in which the entire galaxy can be surveyed for any lost planet, fugitive, or Rebel base."
Even the people who’s added to the EU seems to have been confused by it’s placement, even going so far as to make up some excuse about a mass of dark matter in the region that creates “gravitational anomalies that hindered navigation.” The article also talks about "hyperspatial gravitic ripples" and the "intentional construction of a barrier, possibly by the Celestials to hedge the expanding Infinite Empire (That would be the Rakatans) or to contain Mnggal-Mnggal" (the weird creature that darklordoftech mentioned earlier).
Translation; nobody knows why the heck the guy who drew the map drew it the way he did.
(Some of these explanations sound like something straight out of Star Trek.)
timdiggerm said:
Bad news: Still opens with a lightaber floating in spaaaaaaaceUgh… that’s such a stupid concept. Surely it can’t be true. Opening with something that throws reality so far out the window doesn’t set a good tone…
Can either of you or somebody explain what exactly is wrong with having a lightsaber/hand in space? In a sci-fi/fantasy universe, where there is the Force, sound in space, and multiple other laws of physics being defied (according to our world)… to me, a hand floating in space doesn’t throw reality out the window any more so. I’m guessing some think it’d surely evaporate when entering the atmosphere, or something? How do we know for certain it would or wouldn’t? It could also very well be a mechanical hand (where any remaining synthetic flesh may melt away) or maybe it’s encapsulated in something - we don’t know any details. So I do not understand how there’s a predetermined disgust in this concept when we haven’t seen how it plays out… if it’s even true. I’m open to it and will let the story tell me what’s going on.
My problems with it are A.) the six previous movies have opened with a spaceship sailing past, and breaking that pattern by showing literally anything else is going to leave a bad taste in my mouth, and B.) we see stuff burning up when entering the atmosphere in ROTS, so even if Star Wars does ignore some real-world physical laws, it’s established that it doesn’t ignore that particular one.
You know, although that’s true in a certain sense, really ANH opens with a planet.
Based on what we’ve seen/read so far about the plot it seems very likely that the film will open with Poe landing his X-wing on Jakku.
(Also didn’t we get a confirmation somewhere recently that Anakin’s lightsaber had been recovered from the lower-levels of Cloud City by some maintenance people or something similar? So why would it be floating through space? Also how the heck could it get half the way across the galaxy from Bespin to Jakku?)
I can’t help but find this picture amusing.
He’s just sitting there in his comfy chair chatting with Vader’s charred mask.
Also I’m not quite sure what going on in this picture, but Rey is lot looking impressed with Han’s blaster.
http://assets.rollingstone.com/assets/2015/media/218477/_original/1449002969/1035x690-EP7_IA_121544_R.jpg
It would make more sense if the film opened with Poe’s X-wing flying towards Jakku. It fits with what we’ve learned so far, and it’s a lot more traditional as well as not likely to piss of any fans.
so again, why bother to go into the great unknown, when the other half of the galaxy is a large web of trade-routes and filled with allies.
Why did we bother to start eating meat when vegetables were sufficient? Why did we ever bother venturing out of the caves and build cities? Why did already wealthy European empires with well established trade routes between themselves bother going to America? Why does a millionaire want another million?
All I’m saying is that space is pretty big and scary, and when there’s so much nice stuff going on in one direction, the other might not be that desirable, especially not considering the civilizations they’ve encountered in that direction so far. I may have started out with an earth-example/analogy, but like I’ve said since, we’re dealing with a considerably larger scale here. And some pretty mean Rakatans, I might add. This is an EU map after all.
However, like I’ve more or less said before, if I had been given the task to draw a galaxy map for SW, I sure as hell wouldn’t have drawn it as they have. I’m simply saying that there is a logic to be found in the current design, especially when you start to look into the history they’ve added to it (I’ve posted links to the “history” of the galaxy’s exploration below).
Also if you skim through the wiki-article it seems like they’ve decided to put emphasis on the Rakatans, even having made it canon that they owned most of the galaxy at some point long before the Republic came around. So it seems that joefavs explanation was the right one; the Rakatans simply don’t want visitors in that direction.
The Rakatan empire (30000 - 25000 BBY); http://vignette2.wikia.nocookie.net/starwars/images/8/81/Rakatan_Empire_Atlas.jpg/revision/latest?cb=20090906172018
Post Rakata galaxy;
http://vignette2.wikia.nocookie.net/starwars/images/1/11/Atlas_pre-republic.jpg/revision/latest?cb=20101121120917
Galactic exploration (27,500 - 25 BBY);
http://vignette1.wikia.nocookie.net/starwars/images/a/a6/GalacticExplorations.jpg/revision/latest?cb=20090903055148
Alsakan conflict & Contispex’s Crusades (ca. 17000 - ca. 12000 BBY);
http://vignette1.wikia.nocookie.net/starwars/images/6/66/Alsakan_Conflicts_map.jpg/revision/latest?cb=20150825163745
http://vignette1.wikia.nocookie.net/starwars/images/9/99/Pius_Dea_Crusades.jpg/revision/latest?cb=20150816191635
The New Sith Wars (ca. 1000 BBY);
http://vignette4.wikia.nocookie.net/starwars/images/8/8f/New_Sith_Wars_map.jpg/revision/latest?cb=20151008122308
Early years of the Galactic Empire - Conquest of the Rim (19 - 17 BBY);
http://vignette1.wikia.nocookie.net/starwars/images/9/93/Reconquest_of_the_Rim.jpg/revision/latest?cb=20151029161051
The reasons for why half the galaxy remains unexplored may be convoluted, but it’s not illogical.
It’s just another over-the-top EU explanation of things, as evidenced by the fact that there was never any kind of map until about fifteen years ago. There wasn’t even that much of a demand for it until then. From what I’ve gathered from the wiki, most of this has to do with the lore of The Knights of the Old Republic games.
New Finn’s Adventure featurette from Disney, as well as a new TV spot;
http://www.starwarsnewsnet.com/2015/11/new-star-wars-the-force-awakens-featurette-finns-adventure.html
Disney Featurette (direct link)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dAWUBXlS8Z0
You may want to mark this as a spoiler thread.
Spoilers?
I think everyone is taking my Viking analogy far to serious. My point was simply that if you already know what’s in one direction, why waste time and money on the unknown in the other direction. Going beyond my earth-analogy, space is considerably larger, so the stakes are much more higher than they have ever been to any of us in real life, so again, why bother to go into the great unknown, when the other half of the galaxy is a large web of trade-routes and filled with allies.
Exploring the Unknown Regions would simply be a pointless and unnecessarily risky endeavor when you got all you need elsewhere. Even looking at the map you can sort-of see how the expansion took place from it’s starting point at the core. It builds outwards to meet up with smaller pockets of inhabited planets, and the further out you get to less explored areas there are in between the clusters.
Also, if as joefavs suggested, the Rakatans aren’t exactly friendly, then the Republics ability to expand in that direction is greatly hampered. Like I mentioned earlier, I really doubt that the Republic just flew off into empty space and happened to bump into Kashyyyk, or Nar Shadda, they probably learned of them from someone. It probably started with the nearest planets; Anaxes, Brentaal, Tython, etc. and from whoever lived there they might have learned of other nearby planet. And after thousands of years of this kind of hopping from planet to another based on each planets knowledge of their nearby neighbours, the eventually reached Hutt Space on the far “eastern” side of the galaxy, and so forth.
However, if there never was any planets on the “western” side to start this kind of chain reaction, then that part of the galaxy would remain unexplored. And from what I’ve gathered from the Rakatans wookieepedia article, they’re not to friendly, so they definitively wouldn’t be of any help.
Also keep in mind that this chain reaction of exploring the “eastern” half of the galaxy took over 25 000 years, which kind of makes sense if you consider the scales we’re dealing with here.
However, I will admit that my assumption about them not knowing what to look for is somewhat wrong. But even if they can find the coordinates of several planets in the Unknown Regions I still question the wisdom of just going there for no other reason than exploration. And of course someone clearly have tried their luck and explored, hence there a planets on the map like; Ilum, Csilla, Rakata Prime, Lwhekk, etc. But as evidenced by Rakata Prime, the Republic may have simply deemed it to dangerous to expand in that direction.
Reposted from the TFA thread.
EDIT:
POTENTIAL SPOILERS since this whole thing started with the galaxy map for the new Disney canon.
And here’s something really interesting. Empire Magazine gives us our first canonical map of the galaxy:
UGH, they kept the Unknown Regions as a giant blot that reaches right next to the Galactic Core. So DUMB.
I’ve always maintained that the Unknown Regions should have been one of the spiral arms of the galaxy. At least that would have made some sense.
Hasn’t it always been like that in SW canon though?
It’s still stupid.
It takes Yoda – what? – a couple hours to take a trip from Coruscant to Moraband, but no one from Coruscant’s ever sent explorers into the Unknown Regions, which is significantly closer to Coruscant than Moraband is?
Personally, I feel that when the powers-that-be decided to reintroduce the Unknown Regions, either the Unknown and Known Regions of the galaxy should have swapped places (making the Republic/Empire/etc. a smaller corner of a larger, unexplored galaxy) or the Unknown Regions should have been made to completely surround the Known Regions, like a ring.
It is a bit odd, but then again we had Vikings in real life travelling as far as to the Midlle East (possibly even China), yet hardly anyone ever thought about travelling across the Atlantic ocean. Once you’ve established trade-routes in one direction, you usually have very few reasons to travel in the other direction. It’s just a waste of time and money.
Also is there any canon-for how long these journeys really take? For all we know a trip from Coruscant to Moraband might take days, if not weeks. And even if it doesn’t take that long, it does help to have light-speed when you know exactly what planet you’re aiming for. Space is mostly just emptiness, and exploring the Unknown Regions regardless of how close the borders are would still just be a very slow sub-light-speed scan of mostly empty space. When the other half of the galaxy is explored, why waste your time and money on the other?
Having said that, however, I would have preferred it to be a little bit further away from the core. But it also does kind of make sense, so I’m not going to waste any effort getting annoyed at it.
I would however be very interested to hear why they specifically decided to design the SW-galaxy like that. I still find it an oddly specific thing to add to the canon.The thing is that unknown regions as they were/are on the map were probably intended to be a state from the old republic era (KOTOR), i.e. 4000 years before OT. Your example about Vikings would make sense for that period. But to assume they remained unexplored for 4000 years is just stupid.
I’m not saying it’s brilliant, I’m just saying that the galaxy is pretty friggin’ big and exploring a big chunk of mostly empty space might not be a big priority once you’ve already mapped most of the other half of the galaxy. I’m guessing that the mapping of the “eastern” part of the galaxy was achieved through the races that the people from the core-world met along the way. F.ex. you find one planet that’s inhabited, and you learn about 10 more planets from them. Exploring those 10 you discover 5 more, and from one of their civilizations you discover 10 more, etc, etc. And before you know it you established trade routes, political ties, and explored a large part of the galaxy. The “western” half on the other hand may never have had that first meeting which eventually lead to what is an almost exponential growth in knowledge/expansion. Without that first meeting you are essentially just faced with what is 99,99% empty space and no real starting point for exploration. So even with lightspeed technology it’s far from impossible to spend the next 4000 years not knowing what lies in the “western”-half of the galaxy even if it is right next to you.
(And as for the whole Viking-analogy goes. During a roughly 3-4000 year period of seafaring capabilities there was only one known expedition over the Atlantic ocean. They eventually figured it wasn’t worth their time since everything they needed as far as trade went was east of them anyway, so they simply decided to leave America alone, and for another 1000-ish years it was assumed to have just been some small-ish, uninteresting island somewhere west of Greenland.
Also space is a hell-of-a-lot larger than any areas we’ve ever had to explore on our own planet. At least we can make a full journey around the planet if we get lost. If you explore space however, you could be travelling through nothingness for an eternity.)
Sorry but your analogy is not very convincing. It is completely out of scale. Vikings might have ventured briefly to America but that doesn’t mean they explored/settled any significant portion of it, let alone half of the world (which is required to meet our Star Wars example). They effectively explored and used a very small portion of the world. On the other hand, our Star Wars example dictates that half of the galaxy was completely explored (and used) while the other half was unknown. If you have the capability to discover/colonise half of the world then the other half will naturally follow very soon, as in the case of 16th-17th century European discoveries and colonisation.
“our Star Wars example dictates that half of the galaxy was completely explored”
When was that established? I’m pretty sure there are still unexplored planets, and solar systems even within the “explored” half of the galaxy. There’s even some pretty large empty spots on the map even within the “eastern” half.Also my Viking-analogy wasn’t meant to perfectly fit with the SW universe-lore, I was just pointing out that even on our small planet something as gigantic as the American continent wen’t undiscovered for a very, very long time. And since space exploration, even with lightspeed, would still be an extremely time-consuming and arduous task, taking thousands of years just to discover a fraction of it. And in SW lore the Republic is about 25 000 years old, meaning that all that is on the map (the old one) has been mapped out in roughly that same period of time. And I doubt that they simply flew around in empty space and happened to come across all the planets that are on the map. Keep in mind that lightspeed only works if you know exactly where you are going. This means that in order to find a planet you need to travel in sub-light speed, and of course that can take an infinite amount of time unless you’re really lucky. Also like I suggested in my previous post, they probably discovered most planets through other civilizations over the course of those 25 000 years. Each civilization having explored their own sector at sub-light speed, sharing their star-maps with others that they come across, and quickly you’ll have a decent amount of planets to travel to. However, even then you’ll need thousands of years to map an area as large as the one on the map above.
The main reason it never takes any of the SW characters any time to travel across the galaxy is because they already know the coordinates. Warping into the unknown region would be dangerous and pointless as there’s a tiny fraction of a chance that they would hit anything at all. And for that sake they could actually literally “hit” something. Without anyone to guide their way over the course of thousands of years it’s essentially just pointless, mostly-empty space until someone makes contact or some crazy, lucky explorer comes across something (and on the maps there’s at least 5 or so planets that they seem to have found that way).
I’m not saying it’s brilliant, I’m just saying that the galaxy is pretty friggin’ big and exploring a big chunk of mostly empty space might not be a big priority once you’ve already mapped most of the other half of the galaxy. I’m guessing that the mapping of the “eastern” part of the galaxy was achieved through the races that the people from the core-world met along the way. F.ex. you find one planet that’s inhabited, and you learn about 10 more planets from them. Exploring those 10 you discover 5 more, and from one of their civilizations you discover 10 more, etc, etc. And before you know it you established trade routes, political ties, and explored a large part of the galaxy. The “western” half on the other hand may never have had that first meeting which eventually lead to what is an almost exponential growth in knowledge/expansion. Without that first meeting you are essentially just faced with what is 99,99% empty space and no real starting point for exploration. So even with lightspeed technology it’s far from impossible to spend the next 4000 years not knowing what lies in the “western”-half of the galaxy even if it is right next to you.
(And as for the whole Viking-analogy goes. During a roughly 3-4000 year period of seafaring capabilities there was only one known expedition over the Atlantic ocean. They eventually figured it wasn’t worth their time since everything they needed as far as trade went was east of them anyway, so they simply decided to leave America alone, and for another 1000-ish years it was assumed to have just been some small-ish, uninteresting island somewhere west of Greenland.
Also space is a hell-of-a-lot larger than any areas we’ve ever had to explore on our own planet. At least we can make a full journey around the planet if we get lost. If you explore space however, you could be travelling through nothingness for an eternity.)Sorry but your analogy is not very convincing. It is completely out of scale. Vikings might have ventured briefly to America but that doesn’t mean they explored/settled any significant portion of it, let alone half of the world (which is required to meet our Star Wars example). They effectively explored and used a very small portion of the world. On the other hand, our Star Wars example dictates that half of the galaxy was completely explored (and used) while the other half was unknown. If you have the capability to discover/colonise half of the world then the other half will naturally follow very soon, as in the case of 16th-17th century European discoveries and colonisation.
“our Star Wars example dictates that half of the galaxy was completely explored”
When was that established? I’m pretty sure there are still unexplored planets, and solar systems even within the “explored” half of the galaxy. There’s even some pretty large empty spots on the map even within the “eastern” half.
Also my Viking-analogy wasn’t meant to perfectly fit with the SW universe-lore, I was just pointing out that even on our small planet something as gigantic as the American continent wen’t undiscovered for a very, very long time. And since space exploration, even with lightspeed, would still be an extremely time-consuming and arduous task, taking thousands of years just to discover a fraction of it. And in SW lore the Republic is about 25 000 years old, meaning that all that is on the map (the old one) has been mapped out in roughly that same period of time. And I doubt that they simply flew around in empty space and happened to come across all the planets that are on the map. Keep in mind that lightspeed only works if you know exactly where you are going. This means that in order to find a planet you need to travel in sub-light speed, and of course that can take an infinite amount of time unless you’re really lucky. Also like I suggested in my previous post, they probably discovered most planets through other civilizations over the course of those 25 000 years. Each civilization having explored their own sector at sub-light speed, sharing their star-maps with others that they come across, and quickly you’ll have a decent amount of planets to travel to. However, even then you’ll need thousands of years to map an area as large as the one on the map above.
The main reason it never takes any of the SW characters any time to travel across the galaxy is because they already know the coordinates. Warping into the unknown region would be dangerous and pointless as there’s a tiny fraction of a chance that they would hit anything at all. And for that sake they could actually literally “hit” something. Without anyone to guide their way over the course of thousands of years it’s essentially just pointless, mostly-empty space until someone makes contact or some crazy, lucky explorer comes across something (and on the maps there’s at least 5 or so planets that they seem to have found that way).
Anyway, we’re getting off-topic. Maybe we should add this conversation to a new thread and continue the discussion there?
**EDIT: I reposted the conversation on this new thread; http://originaltrilogy.com/topic/Why-is-the-Unknown-Region-so-close-to-the-Deep-Core-Continued-discussion/id/46322 **
Kind of interesting new image of Billie Lourd’s character as well as a droid called PZ-4CO.
The droid was reffered to as “a constant fixture in Resistance base control rooms, offering tactical data and communications support during important operations.”
So it seems that Lourd is just playing some random Resistance communication officer, or something similar.
New Disney featurette on Rey with some new clips from the movie and behind the scenes;
http://www.starwarsnewsnet.com/2015/11/new-star-wars-the-force-awakens-featurette-reys-adventure.html
Also, someone pointed out that we may have gotten our first glimpse of Simon Pegg’s character;
(The background does however not seem to match to me, in the D23 B-roll we saw Pegg being on location in the desert and the shot below looks like it’s in Kanata’s castle with all the other alien pirates. It’s hard to tell though, we could get a cantina-type scene on Jakku as well.)
And here’s something really interesting. Empire Magazine gives us our first canonical map of the galaxy:
UGH, they kept the Unknown Regions as a giant blot that reaches right next to the Galactic Core. So DUMB.
I’ve always maintained that the Unknown Regions should have been one of the spiral arms of the galaxy. At least that would have made some sense.
Hasn’t it always been like that in SW canon though?
It’s still stupid.
It takes Yoda – what? – a couple hours to take a trip from Coruscant to Moraband, but no one from Coruscant’s ever sent explorers into the Unknown Regions, which is significantly closer to Coruscant than Moraband is?
Personally, I feel that when the powers-that-be decided to reintroduce the Unknown Regions, either the Unknown and Known Regions of the galaxy should have swapped places (making the Republic/Empire/etc. a smaller corner of a larger, unexplored galaxy) or the Unknown Regions should have been made to completely surround the Known Regions, like a ring.
It is a bit odd, but then again we had Vikings in real life travelling as far as to the Midlle East (possibly even China), yet hardly anyone ever thought about travelling across the Atlantic ocean. Once you’ve established trade-routes in one direction, you usually have very few reasons to travel in the other direction. It’s just a waste of time and money.
Also is there any canon-for how long these journeys really take? For all we know a trip from Coruscant to Moraband might take days, if not weeks. And even if it doesn’t take that long, it does help to have light-speed when you know exactly what planet you’re aiming for. Space is mostly just emptiness, and exploring the Unknown Regions regardless of how close the borders are would still just be a very slow sub-light-speed scan of mostly empty space. When the other half of the galaxy is explored, why waste your time and money on the other?
Having said that, however, I would have preferred it to be a little bit further away from the core. But it also does kind of make sense, so I’m not going to waste any effort getting annoyed at it.
I would however be very interested to hear why they specifically decided to design the SW-galaxy like that. I still find it an oddly specific thing to add to the canon.
