Spoiler alert. Yes, spoilers ahead.

Saw the movie last night and I'm hoping we can shed the light on these big burning questions:

1. Did the New Republic and First Order split the galaxy in half, ala post-WWII Berlin or Brady Bunch Season 5, Episode 8 “My Brothers Keepers”?
2. If so, does that mean the Resistance is a terrorist group attacking the legitimate government that is the First Order?
3. Why would one of the most recognized and decorated leaders of the New Republic work in a terrorist cell?
4. Is nuking Hosnian Prime, the capital of the New Republic, an appropriate response and future deterrent for supporting what the First Order considers a terrorist group?
5. If Luke is the last Jedi, are Kanan, Ahsoka Tano and Ezra dead?
6. Why do these militaristic, totalitarian dictatorships keep building super weapons with big ol’ Achilles heel of a design flaw?
7. If they can create a super weapon that can destroy something on the otherside of the galaxy, what’s the point of anything?
8. Is Supreme Leader Snoke going to turn out to be Darth Maul?
9. Or is Supreme Leader Snoke going to turn out to be Boba Fett?
10. Is Rey the secret love child of twin incest between Luke and Leia? (think Lannisters)
11. Or is Rey going to turn out to be a Kaminoan manufactured clone of Leia?
12. Or is Rey the child of Chancellor Palpatine and Niobi?
13. If the Falcon can jump to hyperspace inside a hangar, why didn’t they do that when escaping the Empire on Tatooine and Hoth?
14. Was it really a coincidence that Lor San Tekka, Rey and the Millennium Falcon were all on the same backwater planet?
15. Did Han Solo let Ben Solo pull an Obi Wan on him? Because Han knows he needs to become a Force Ghost to save his son?
16. If Han becomes a Force Ghost will he and Leia have a sexy scene around a pottery wheel, ala Patrick Swayze and Demi Moore?
17. What is the point of anything in the Shattered Empire comic book series leading to the Force Awakens? Was there a magical tree somewhere in the movie? Was it to show the powerful love-making between Poe’s parents in the Ewok village – that this was the conception of the child that becomes the super ace that saves everyone?
18. Was the role that was played by actor Clem So supposed to be Commander Sato?
19. Why are vertically-challenged aliens so wise? Yoda and Maz Kanata . . .
20. Do the events of episode 7 completely negate the prophecy of the Chosen One, because Anakin did not bring balance to the Force.

I will start with the last one first:

The prophecy was crap. We don't even know where it came from. Yoda even said it was probably misinterpreted anyway. Probably more stuff Palpatine planted in his extremely complicated scheme to control the Galaxy.

1. probably not, at least not half. At least some portion of the First Order coincides with Republic space (see finalizer), but the bulk of the important part is in 'Unknown Regions'

2. Leia founded the resistance because the Republic was unwilling to oppose the FO. So yes terrorists by some stretch, but 'terrorists' imply civilian causalities now.

3. ^

4. I believe the purpose was to both destroy the central government AND destroy the republic fleet, both of which could oppose the FO's plans for galaxy conquest.

5. -

6. Starkiller base wasn't a traveling space station. It was designed to shoot once and it succeeded. Though technically bigger, I imagine the resource investment was less than the first death star because it was a weapon built into a planet. That's probably why Snoke didn't care that it was destroyed.

7. That's what makes it terrifying. How many more starkillers are there in the Unknown Regions? granted each one can only be used once, its far more effective than a traveling death star. It has a cost though, an entire star. Resources aren't unlimited otherwise there would be no fighting.

8. maybe more like the emperor, but I have a feeling Kylo kills him later.

9. maybe more like the emperor, but I have a feeling Kylo kills him later.

10. this is disney so probably not. It leaves room for an additional action figure for Luke's wife

11. -

12. -

13. its probably absurdly dangerous. Finn questions it too

14. there are no coincidences with the force

15. doubt it. Only jedi masters become ghosts

16. ^

17. just that

18. Don't think so. He's already pretty old in Rebels. Likely there to fill the minority quota.

19. -

20. He kind of did. Before, the balance was heavily slanted on the jedi side. Afterwards, there was just a handful on both sides.

1- Probably Not, I think its sort of an imperial remnant situation with the empire being a strong but small part in one of the corners

2- Yup yup, Questionable Morality is a go!

3- Because it was in the script

4- hmmm unsure, I hope this split is seen in the next movie

5- yes

6- Because as always they love showcasing power but forget to cover their bases... though in fairness this one was pretty lock and key, they took an extremely dangerous hyperspace jump to pull that off

7- It takes a lot of power (an entire sun's worth) to use so I doubt its considered efficient

8- no

9- also no

10- again no

11- .... no

12- nope

13- Extremely stupid and dangerous to do with no guarantee of working

14- yes, but most people would chalk it up to force ****, but it was coincidences. Like all of star wars

15- Han can't force

16- only in my fan fiction that I'm writing right now

17- Nope

18- Maybe? Doubt it

19- Long lives

20- yes, and that's a good thing

Spoiler alert. Yes, spoilers ahead.

Saw the movie last night and I'm hoping we can shed the light on these big burning questions:

1. Did the New Republic and First Order split the galaxy in half, ala post-WWII Berlin or Brady Bunch Season 5, Episode 8 “My Brothers Keepers”?
2. If so, does that mean the Resistance is a terrorist group attacking the legitimate government that is the First Order?
3. Why would one of the most recognized and decorated leaders of the New Republic work in a terrorist cell?
4. Is nuking Hosnian Prime, the capital of the New Republic, an appropriate response and future deterrent for supporting what the First Order considers a terrorist group?
5. If Luke is the last Jedi, are Kanan, Ahsoka Tano and Ezra dead?
6. Why do these militaristic, totalitarian dictatorships keep building super weapons with big ol’ Achilles heel of a design flaw?
7. If they can create a super weapon that can destroy something on the otherside of the galaxy, what’s the point of anything?
8. Is Supreme Leader Snoke going to turn out to be Darth Maul?
9. Or is Supreme Leader Snoke going to turn out to be Boba Fett?
10. Is Rey the secret love child of twin incest between Luke and Leia? (think Lannisters)
11. Or is Rey going to turn out to be a Kaminoan manufactured clone of Leia?
12. Or is Rey the child of Chancellor Palpatine and Niobi?
13. If the Falcon can jump to hyperspace inside a hangar, why didn’t they do that when escaping the Empire on Tatooine and Hoth?
14. Was it really a coincidence that Lor San Tekka, Rey and the Millennium Falcon were all on the same backwater planet?
15. Did Han Solo let Ben Solo pull an Obi Wan on him? Because Han knows he needs to become a Force Ghost to save his son?
16. If Han becomes a Force Ghost will he and Leia have a sexy scene around a pottery wheel, ala Patrick Swayze and Demi Moore?
17. What is the point of anything in the Shattered Empire comic book series leading to the Force Awakens? Was there a magical tree somewhere in the movie? Was it to show the powerful love-making between Poe’s parents in the Ewok village – that this was the conception of the child that becomes the super ace that saves everyone?
18. Was the role that was played by actor Clem So supposed to be Commander Sato?
19. Why are vertically-challenged aliens so wise? Yoda and Maz Kanata . . .
20. Do the events of episode 7 completely negate the prophecy of the Chosen One, because Anakin did not bring balance to the Force.

1. IDK didn't read books.

2. Seems like The Republic is the reigning power in the galaxy and the First Order is just the Imperial Remnant.

3. You talking about Leia? Well, we don't really know her place in the New Republic in this do we?

4. idk my bff jill

5. dead, one with the force or no longer practicing Jedi. Also, they could just be in hiding because apparently no one can sense Luke with the force. Not Kylo, not Rey, not even Leia who can sense pretty much anything from any planet on occasion.

6. You would think that they just learn to use their one strength, their superior numbers but nooooooo. Remember Luke's line in Return of the Jedi? "Your overconfidence is your weakness." Also, it could very well be these guys are just trying to follow in the footsteps of the old Empire, similar to Kylo trying to be all Sithy and stuff.

7. Maybe it took 30 years and the majority of the First Order was there, so it will take them at least 3 years before they build a bigger one (looking at you, Episode IX).

8. Plageous maybe. There's speculation on that on Reddit and such.

9. Nah cuz, he knows the force and boba don't.

10. ok these questions are getting dumb I'm out.

20. Keep in mind that Vader more or less single-handedly wiped out both the Jedi and the Sith. So maybe you need to think of the "balance" as more of a "reset".

- H8

PS: Single-handedly. Tee hee.

I will start with the last one first:

The prophecy was crap. We don't even know where it came from. Yoda even said it was probably misinterpreted anyway. Probably more stuff Palpatine planted in his extremely complicated scheme to control the Galaxy.

I always wondered about the stupidity of their interpretation of the prophecy. He was supposed to bring balance to the Force, meaning it is currently unbalanced. Look around you, all you see are good guys. The imbalance is in favour of the good, why in the name of all that is good and bacon would you want to change that?

I will start with the last one first:

The prophecy was crap. We don't even know where it came from. Yoda even said it was probably misinterpreted anyway. Probably more stuff Palpatine planted in his extremely complicated scheme to control the Galaxy.

I always wondered about the stupidity of their interpretation of the prophecy. He was supposed to bring balance to the Force, meaning it is currently unbalanced. Look around you, all you see are good guys. The imbalance is in favour of the good, why in the name of all that is good and bacon would you want to change that?

Of course I would also suggest that Palpatine was the source of this imbalance, with his hidden agendas sowing seeds for decades before he ever put his true plan into action. The sith waited for 1000 years to topple the Jedi, and they needed to do it as subtly as possible. Creating an imbalance in the force and feeding the Jedi a crap prophecy would serve Palpatine and the Sith in their ultimate goal.

*edit: bacon, yum

1: I think so, they couldn't control everything right away so focused on what they could handle. 1st order is in a different part. so yes kinda.

2: yes. exactly.

3: To stop the enemy from building another death star... oh wait! ha ha!

4: yeah that will only fuel the fire. But also crippled the fleet.

5: Maybe. or maybe they don't consider themselves true Jedi. Or maybe they are hiding?

6: There was no achilles heel. There was a full blown shield. There was also a incredible hard cover over the oscillator - And even if you got the shield down, and managed to blow a hole in the oscillator (from within no doubt), it would still ONLY work if the weapon was fully charged, so the window of opportunity to do it was incredibly small. The rebels just got crazy lucky they had Han with them.

7: Fair enough. though I don't think they were THAT far away. Probably only a few star systems. not sure though.

8: Wow - hadn't thought of that. I thought Snoke was Plagueis, but Maul is possible I suppose.... but I doubt it.

9: no.

10: no.

11: no.

12: no.

13: ok all your questions are silly now.

The Resistance is less a 'terrorist' organization and more of a guerrilla group waging a proxy war on behalf of the Republic. It's easier to understand if you think of the two major powers being in a state of cold war, vying for political power on a galactic scale without being able to directly attack one another. Instead of forming their own guerrilla group (since it appears that their sphere of influence is way too small to be able to afford/produce one), the First Order retaliates with a weapon of mass destruction. The next question is, what happens in a galaxy where there's no such thing as mutually assured destruction?

The next question is, what happens in a galaxy where there's no such thing as mutually assured destruction?

Poe Dameron, apparently. BOOM!

The Jedi were not as strong in the force as they once were, right at the beginning of TPM and probably before that. The dark side continually clouded their vision and they were powerless to resist the changes in the Republic that led to corruption and weakness. This suggests an imbalance.

Of course I would also suggest that Palpatine was the source of this imbalance, with his hidden agendas sowing seeds for decades before he ever put his true plan into action. The sith waited for 1000 years to topple the Jedi, and they needed to do it as subtly as possible. Creating an imbalance in the force and feeding the Jedi a crap prophecy would serve Palpatine and the Sith in their ultimate goal.

*edit: bacon, yum

I don't think Sidious made up that prophecy, after all it screwed him over in the end as well. Really anything Anakin / Vader did or had happened to them would bring balance to the force.

1. Is Rey the secret love child of twin incest between Luke and Leia? (think Lannisters)

More than likely she is the Daughter of Star Killer Clone 11XX and Juno.

Look familiar?

21. How come Rey can use the force so well without training?

22. How come Kylo ren can offscreen teleport like that?

23. If starkiller base consumed the sun to power its main gun, does that mean it would have been out of ammo?

24 did phasma die locked inside a trachcompactor on an imploding planet?

25. Why does a guy named Bala-tik have a bloody scottish accent?

26 Why didn't they have Max von Sydow play lord Snoke? (He was Ming the Merciless for flash's sake!)

21. How come Rey can use the force so well without training?

22. How come Kylo ren can offscreen teleport like that?

23. If starkiller base consumed the sun to power its main gun, does that mean it would have been out of ammo?

24 did phasma die locked inside a trachcompactor on an imploding planet?

25. Why does a guy named Bala-tik have a bloody scottish accent?

26 Why didn't they have Max von Sydow play lord Snoke? (He was Ming the Merciless for flash's sake!)

21. Luke, Kyle in the old EU, Leia and Anakin all could use the force with extremely minimal to no training. Rey is a Skywalker. I'm sure of it.

22. Force Speed, a very seldom used power in the films. Seen in Phantom Menace.

23. Also wouldn't that star like implode and stuff, causing a black hole?

24. Not as bad as screaming into a Sarlacc Pit.

25. Why not.

26. Because Gollum is the master now.

25. Why does a guy named Tarkin NOT have a Scottish accent?!

26. Max was tired of playing bad guys? He would have been much more awesomer as Snoke though.

23. We don't know the distance limit for Starkiller's energy sucking power or how many stars were in that system. It looked like the mechanism that drained the star turned it into a black dwarf-type, similar to what eventually happens to white dwarfs. It really seemed like StarKiller used the dark side itself to do what it does, like the Starforge.

24. She got out, we will see her again. If not, well who cares. More screen time for Poe!

Well, at least we know what happened to Azog the Defiler in the Hobbit:

ummm... vader did bring balance to the force. before him the jedi were more powerfull and way outnumbered the sith, now there equal.

Didn't George Lucas say that the Dark Side is actually an imbalance? I was under the impression that he had said the Dark Side was preventing the Force from being balanced as long as there was any real power behind it. If so, Vader balanced it by killing the Emperor and then dying, thus removing the last two powerful Dark Side users in the galaxy.

I know the EU was loaded with Sith and Dark Jedi that were alive around that time. Don't care, isn't canon. The EU was also ignored entirely during the writing of the prequels, for better or for worse.

It's also possible that they just decided to ignore all that prophecy nonsense. I'm pretty open to the prequels but I thought the idea of an ancient prophecy was a little weird and that the prophecy itself was unusually specific given how almost everyone was limited to having good/bad feelings about something and the only major "I have foreseen it" moments were painfully obvious or turned out to be wrong (Palpatine predicting that 1-Luke would confront Vader and 2-Luke would turn to the Dark Side).

I was actually impressed with the Star Killer bases defenses.

1) The first Death Star was destroyed by a hit to a thermal exhaust port.

Solution: Put a giant armored plug on it, able to shrug off any proton torpedo. Dozens were shot at it and the armor shrugged it off. Not the designers fault someone snuck in with explosives and blew up a high energy conduit opening a hole in the armor.

2) Easily accessible shields on a nearby moon.

Solution: Put the shield generators inside the shields. Totally inaccessible by normal means. Unless you cheat, take off all the safety interlocks and pull out of hyperspace inside the shield. Which no sane, insane, or even bat crap crazy would try. Then there's Han.

But what of the mass shadow you ask? Nav systems use the mass shadow to warn of a possible impending impact with a solid object, so they use the mass shadow to pop out of hyper short of impact. take off that warning system....

But why don't people hyper out of the hangers on hoth, tattoine, or where ever? I can make-up of several reasons. All having to do with the gravity/hyper interactions, Sensor sensitivity, Drive fluctuations etc etc. All boils down to a bad idea.

As for hypering out of a space borne hanger. No real reason why you can't from a gravitics point of view. Of course, we don't know what the effect was on the ship left behind. The jump to hyper may have taken a good chunk of the ship with it (a-la the tentacle monster)

Han Solo is the craziest pilot ever in the Galaxy. He has modified he Falcon beyond all reason and bypassed all sorts of safety features. Going to Lightspeed inside another ship or dropping out of hyperspace between a planet and global shields are things no one else would even attempt. Same with hitching a ride on the back of an ISD or taking off when your wookiee first mate just left half your ship on the Echo Base hanger floor. Going into an asteroid field as well as landing inside an asteroid count too. No one even dreams of doing the totally insane stunts that he did on a daily basis. The force must have been with him, bacause there's no other way he wasn't smeared across the Galaxy on 90% of his hyperspace jumps.

BTW, what's a mood and how do you milk it?

And how many nerfs can a nerf herder herd if a nerf herder does herd nerfs?

And how big are the ears on a gundark?

Would be fun if a Gundark was a small harmless critter with detachable ears, and Han was just secretly mocking Luke.

Would be fun if a Gundark was a small harmless critter with detachable ears, and Han was just secretly mocking Luke.

TCW took the approach of them being scary monsters native to the planet Vanqor - drawing from Legends.

The gundark