The Spoilerrific Super Duper Episode Seven Megathread!
Shame the author wastes so much of his time on foul-mouthed belligerence, and the same sort of empty derisive snark that he's trying to deride the Huffington post article for...
Edited by MaxKilljoyShame the author wastes so much of his time on foul-mouthed belligerence, and the same sort of empty derisive snark that he's trying to deride the Huffington post article for...
Heh heh. To me it is a regular conversation. I use foul language in a majority conversations I have. Seems to me the article was more about the ignorance of the Huffingpost article writer than the (this) article's foul language but to each their own take.
I'd say the Huffington Post got exactly the response it deserved. I also have the nagging feeling that many of the people griping about said "plot holes" haven't actually seen the movie. When you miss pretty obvious stuff, you start giving off the impression that you're, well, to put it bluntly: Lying.
I haven't seen the original plot hole article - and yes, E7 does have some gaps in logic - but that list of 40 is pretty stretching for it. Almost like they didn't bother to watch the movie.
Yes I hate the nitpicking that people do to tear things apart. Either you enjoyed it or you didn't. If you didn't STFU and go pay attention to something you do like. I don't have time for these sequal haters just like I don't have time for the idiotic prequal haters.
Yes I hate the nitpicking that people do to tear things apart. Either you enjoyed it or you didn't. If you didn't STFU and go pay attention to something you do like. I don't have time for these sequal haters just like I don't have time for the idiotic prequal haters.
Ahh yes, the age old, "If you don't agree with me, shut up!" defense...the go-to tactic of totally-not-insecure supporters of people/causes/objects/movements/opinions everywhere.
Everything that is wrong with TFA
Yeah, pretty much nails it. Especially this bit:
And Leia, by dint of her status as leader of the Resistance, also participates in the film’s other biggest shortfall: the whole Starkiller Base storyline. At this point in the film, I’m invested enough in Rey, Finn and Kylo that their arcs paying off feels like enough of a culmination to the film, and it’s okay that Starkiller Base is kind of a forgettable contrivance.
But Starkiller Base absolutely does not carry any weight in the film. When it destroys the New Republic, this is pretty much the first we’ve heard of the New Republic in the movie, and I kept wondering if Jeet Heer had just been atomized or something. General Hux’s speech, coming with no context or setup, is the most unconvincing, random thing in the film, and I look forward to the “remix” videos where he’s shouting about unfair parking tickets and that one Shake Shack where they messed up his onion-ring order because goddamnit, he’s a General and onion rings are a prerogative of his rank.
I don’t care about Starkiller Base. At no point do I believe it’s going to destroy the bunker where Leia and her friends are hunkering down—and apparently neither do they, since they don’t try and evacuate or anything. The mission to destroy Starkiller Base is way too straightforward, and its weakness is glaringly easy. Ken Leung from Lost points out one vulnerable component that the base must have, Finn knows exactly what he means and where it is, and it’s the size of a city to boot.
And the mission goes off more or less without a hitch—both Death Star attacks in the Original Trilogy were disasters, only saved by a last-minute miracle. They even have Admiral Ackbar there in the room, so they oughta remember how it’s supposed to be a trap. [Edited to add: Okay, people in comments are pointing out that the mission does fail at first. But not in a way that feels like “all is lost.” And we cut away from Poe and the X-wings for a long stretch of time, during which we’re apparently not supposed to think they’ve all been destroyed.]
When Starkiller Base gets blown up, I feel basically nothing. (By contrast, Nero’s weapon in J.J. Abrams’ first Star Trek does actually feel menacing, because we actually see it destroy Vulcan, a place we have a connection to, which we’ve spent some time on in this film.)
Personally, I think "it's a WMD so it must be a big deal" is the biggest fallacy in the entire criticism of TFA. Nothing in the actual dialogue outside of Imperial propaganda points to it being more than a routine engagement. TFA is both a summary of the OT and a farewell to its specific storytelling. If Starkiller base were still a viable option and portrayed as the final boss, it would undermine the nail in the coffin of overblown superweapons. It's a backdrop and an emphasis that this is the last planetkiller we will see. The inter-character conflict and clash of personalities is the main focus of the movie, not the scenic backdrop of exploding planets.
Yes I hate the nitpicking that people do to tear things apart. Either you enjoyed it or you didn't. If you didn't STFU and go pay attention to something you do like. I don't have time for these sequal haters just like I don't have time for the idiotic prequal haters.
Ahh yes, the age old, "If you don't agree with me, shut up!" defense...the go-to tactic of totally-not-insecure supporters of people/causes/objects/movements/opinions everywhere.
This is more "shut up til you've actually seen the movie". Most of the largest TFA slammers evidently haven't. There are multiple valid critiques to be made (Starkiller base being one of them; I'm aware my interpretation isn't exactly a common one), depending on what you care about in a movie, but a lot of the loudest trumpeting one hears, wether it be the insipid "Rey is a Mary Sue!" over "Kylo Ren is a SITH LORD. Why does he suck so much?!?" to "The prequel lightsaber fights were better! Lightsabers have no weight!" generally reveals more about how clueless and braindead the people toting these opinions are than anything else. If you want to criticise movie fights, know something about fighting and weapons first. If you want to criticise character development, don't conveniently omit any evidence to the contrary that might turn your claim into absurdity. It's perfectly fine to dislike a character for no reason at all. In fact, it's better to admit one's dislike is due to taste/the actress/the portrayal rather than assigning an incorrect label in an exercise of hyperbole and an attempt to sound smart.
Starkiller or any other "galactic WMD" should have been left out of any new Star Wars movie, period. There was no need for any sort of "nail in the coffin". It was already "been there done that" after ANH, and RotJ was already the nail in the coffin of "galactic WMD" for the franchise in 1983 .
Any EU material featuring Yet Another Galactic WMD was just derivative tripe, trying to repeat the formula.
Yeah, you pretty much nailed the obvious counterargument, there. The point of my reasoning is more that in no way is Starkiller Base truly hyped up in the movie or presented as a threat. People complain they don't care about something that, going by dialogue and direction, they're not even supposed to care about. The movie accomplished exactly what it set out to do there. In my eyes, that is a good thing.
On the flipside, you have the ever-present argument of deriative vs. original that will inevitably crop up. To that I personally would point out that once technology exists, it's fairly difficult to put back in the bag. No more superweapons that can blow up a planet, at all, after Death Star II would personally strike me as ludicrous. That is one thing the old EU did right: Once you have that stuff, it's there. If you just write it off by omission, you're turning your setting nonsensical to the extreme. It would be like suddenly erasing the existence of nuclear missiles after 1945. That just doesn't work. In essence, you're calling a weapon concept appearing in a movie 'deriative tripe'. You may as well be referring to blasters, there, or stormtroopers. It holds no real weight if you examine it under those eyes.
What TFA gives us, on the other hand, is an actual reason not to use them anymore. The weapon's effectiveness, but also its colossal vulnerability and ultimate failure, is now something the entire galaxy saw. It's not something that happened in secret in some backwater world, it's something we can now infer everybody saw for themselves. This is the logical continuation of technology and setting to a point where what would be "deriatrive tripe", namely hyping up a superweapon to be Mr. Big Deal, is purposefully circumvented and we now have a shown explination of why such weapons will no longer show up or if they do, they're literally just another gun, nothing more. That's less than deriative, that's actually something cinema hasn't done before.
This is where my line of reasoning ends and I'm personally content. Counter to that, I can also see why many people would not be. For one, it undersells a concept our entire upbringing has hyped up to be a big deal. Then you have the portrayal of the actual shot and the 'witness me!' moment for the entire galaxy handled in what is an ART shot. I personally thought it looked pretty cool, but I can see how it can puzzle a great many people used to a cinema which painstakingly spells everything out and where every bloody thing is meant to be taken literally.
Edited by DeathByGrotzThere is plenty of perfect in-setting justification to stop building these giant planet-busters and star-shooters -- they're hideously expensive, take enough crew to man maybe even scores of normal ships, and they keep getting blown up by "inferior" opposition .
I'm not entirely sure what the purpose of your argument is. It's fairly obvious the Empire has never given a rat's ass about 'cost' or 'manpower'. Their only concern is "does it kill what we want it to", and it did. The questions of cost etc. were all raised in the now defunct EU and supposedly an Imperial concern where everything we see about Palpatine's military pomp and gloria points towards a man who can afford it. Seriously, how is something the size of a moon, or repurposing a planet, somehow more expensive than maintaining an entire galaxy? The idea that something so small as the Death Star or even Starkiller Base would make a dent in the finances of a military machine that can call upon the taxation of hundreds of thousands of civilised worlds is ludicrous.
Yes I hate the nitpicking that people do to tear things apart. Either you enjoyed it or you didn't. If you didn't STFU and go pay attention to something you do like. I don't have time for these sequal haters just like I don't have time for the idiotic prequal haters.
Ahh yes, the age old, "If you don't agree with me, shut up!" defense...the go-to tactic of totally-not-insecure supporters of people/causes/objects/movements/opinions everywhere.
LOL, I am talking about the the immature "George Lucas Raped my Childhood" people or the ones that need to convince other that the movie was bad. If you you don't like just move on. Life is too short to focus on things you don't like.
I say this as someone who enjoyed the movie. It would have been nice if the WMD had been a biological agent of some kind. Instead of destroying planets, it would render them potentially uninhabitable. Similar threat level, but at least something different.
Edited by verdantsf
Yes I hate the nitpicking that people do to tear things apart. Either you enjoyed it or you didn't. If you didn't STFU and go pay attention to something you do like. I don't have time for these sequal haters just like I don't have time for the idiotic prequal haters.
Ahh yes, the age old, "If you don't agree with me, shut up!" defense...the go-to tactic of totally-not-insecure supporters of people/causes/objects/movements/opinions everywhere.
LOL, I am talking about the the immature "George Lucas Raped my Childhood" people or the ones that need to convince other that the movie was bad. If you you don't like just move on. Life is too short to focus on things you don't like.
Oh, so not really responding to anyone actually in this thread...
I'm not entirely sure what the purpose of your argument is. It's fairly obvious the Empire has never given a rat's ass about 'cost' or 'manpower'. Their only concern is "does it kill what we want it to", and it did. The questions of cost etc. were all raised in the now defunct EU and supposedly an Imperial concern where everything we see about Palpatine's military pomp and gloria points towards a man who can afford it. Seriously, how is something the size of a moon, or repurposing a planet, somehow more expensive than maintaining an entire galaxy? The idea that something so small as the Death Star or even Starkiller Base would make a dent in the finances of a military machine that can call upon the taxation of hundreds of thousands of civilised worlds is ludicrous.
It does when you get to fire it a couple times and then the people whom it is supposed to cow into submission blow it up, and you've wasted enough resources to launch scores of far-more-practical and useful ships.
Furthermore, the destruction of Alderaan just turned more people to the cause of the Rebellion... it was a net loss in the end.
Edited by MaxKilljoyYes I hate the nitpicking that people do to tear things apart. Either you enjoyed it or you didn't. If you didn't STFU and go pay attention to something you do like. I don't have time for these sequal haters just like I don't have time for the idiotic prequal haters.
Ahh yes, the age old, "If you don't agree with me, shut up!" defense...the go-to tactic of totally-not-insecure supporters of people/causes/objects/movements/opinions everywhere.
LOL, I am talking about the the immature "George Lucas Raped my Childhood" people or the ones that need to convince other that the movie was bad. If you you don't like just move on. Life is too short to focus on things you don't like.
Everyone here love Star Wars to some extent, or else we wouldn't be here. This thread wouldn't be 23 pages long if we didn't care. You can like or care for something and still be disappointed by elements of it.
Like it or not, the success of TFA means the continuation of more films which benefits all fans. I'm looking forward to the upcoming one-shots and trilogy.
I'm not entirely sure what the purpose of your argument is. It's fairly obvious the Empire has never given a rat's ass about 'cost' or 'manpower'. Their only concern is "does it kill what we want it to", and it did. The questions of cost etc. were all raised in the now defunct EU and supposedly an Imperial concern where everything we see about Palpatine's military pomp and gloria points towards a man who can afford it. Seriously, how is something the size of a moon, or repurposing a planet, somehow more expensive than maintaining an entire galaxy? The idea that something so small as the Death Star or even Starkiller Base would make a dent in the finances of a military machine that can call upon the taxation of hundreds of thousands of civilised worlds is ludicrous.
It does when you get to fire it a couple times and then the people whom it is supposed to cow into submission blow it up, and you've wasted enough resources to launch scores of far-more-practical and useful ships.
Furthermore, the destruction of Alderaan just turned more people to the cause of the Rebellion... it was a net loss in the end.
And Starkiller base remotely destroyed the political and military centerpoint of the New Republic, which is going to cause unimaginable chaos, while pinning the blame on the Imperial Remnant (let's keep in mind the NEW REPUBLIC doesn't know squat about the First Order).
But yeah, let's equate it to the Tarkin Doctrine, which didn't even apply to DS2, and call it a failure, sure.
At this point, I'm fairly certain you just never liked the Death Stars in any movie, and your kneejerk reaction is putting you in full false equivalency mode, same as the people who somehow think Kylo Ren should be Darth Vader. Take off your goggles and watch the movie, not what your preconceptions think the movie should be .
Edited by DeathByGrotz
I'm not entirely sure what the purpose of your argument is. It's fairly obvious the Empire has never given a rat's ass about 'cost' or 'manpower'. Their only concern is "does it kill what we want it to", and it did. The questions of cost etc. were all raised in the now defunct EU and supposedly an Imperial concern where everything we see about Palpatine's military pomp and gloria points towards a man who can afford it. Seriously, how is something the size of a moon, or repurposing a planet, somehow more expensive than maintaining an entire galaxy? The idea that something so small as the Death Star or even Starkiller Base would make a dent in the finances of a military machine that can call upon the taxation of hundreds of thousands of civilised worlds is ludicrous.
It does when you get to fire it a couple times and then the people whom it is supposed to cow into submission blow it up, and you've wasted enough resources to launch scores of far-more-practical and useful ships.
Furthermore, the destruction of Alderaan just turned more people to the cause of the Rebellion... it was a net loss in the end.
And Starkiller base remotely destroyed the political and military centerpoint of the New Republic, which is going to cause unimaginable chaos, while pinning the blame on the Imperial Remnant (let's keep in mind the NEW REPUBLIC doesn't know squat about the First Order).
Wait - I thought the First Order was the Imperial Remnant? There are THREE factions?
Edited by knasserIIThere are four.
The New Republic and the political body of the Galactic Empire are essentially scenery pieces in TFA. They're the two parties in a cold war state and in stasis.
The First Order is the Imperial Navy faction that went MIA into the unknown regions after the Empire signed a peace treaty. How exactly or even IF they're still connected to the Empire sitting around the core worlds in anything but name is unknown.
The Resistence is a commando group funded largely by Leia with some tacit support from some senators in the New Republic to deal with the threat that is the First Order, which most of the New Republic doesn't want to see, because a couple decades of peace look good for the voters.
This setup is essentially a mirror of the early 2000s, where two megastates used to Cold War and traditional military (and a long time of peace), get shaken out of complacency by a third party acting as intergalactic terrorists. This third party is unknown enough that it is conceivable that the New Republic will go the American way and send their shattered fleet against the core worlds, rather than into the unknown regions, in an attempt to pacify people and fight a war they can actually win, rather than hunting Moby **** and producing zero results for their electorate. Snoke's move is brilliant, because it pits everyone else at each other's throats. Note his complete lack of concern that Starkiller Base was going to be destroyed. This was almost best case scenario for him. The evidence leading back to him still exists, but only as hearsay in the hands of a smalltime war monger named Leia.
Edit: This censor makes Captain Ahab cry
Like it or not, the success of TFA means the continuation of more films which benefits all fans. I'm looking forward to the upcoming one-shots and trilogy.
Loose definition of 'benefit' if it applies to all fans.
Unfortunately, I think that the wild success of TFA will likely convince Disney that they don't really have to do anything original and everyone will still eat it up, so I'm fully expecting episodes 8 and 9 to be slightly altered re-hashes of ESB and RotJ.
While I tried as much as I could to avoid spoilers and see TFA reasonably soon after release, for 8, I'll likely seek out spoiler-laden synopses, and if it's even vaguely similar to ESB, skip both 8 and 9 in their theater runs.
I already make sure I have a good idea of what a film will be like before going in myself. I have zero issues with spoilers. I studied this stuff in college and as a result, am seldom surprised anymore. Sometimes, education ruins a form of entertainment for you. Anyway, I doubt Disney will go down the ESB/RotJ route. They've done that once already with TFA. Doing it again will cause long-term damage to the franchise and invalidate the fresh and new concepts they snuck into TFA. Aside from Luke being a mentor figure, I don't really see much of a setup for a rehash. Quite the contrary, really. They're setting up a massive war for their EU, while the movies can use that as a backdrop to focus on character stories instead. That doesn't mean you shouldn't peek before paying. You absolutely should protect yourself from poor purchases as a consumer.