I watched the film once. Do we actually see the drained star die? Could the star be drained but not destroyed? Did someone actually state the star was destroyed in the movie or did we all imply that was the case?

Looks like the canon response (Hidalgo) is the planet moves though. Very small planet? Massive hyperdrive that overcomes the gravity well imposed by the planet itself? New discovery that if the hyperdrive is protected by powerful shields and sunk into the core of the planet it can avoid the negation of the planet's gravity well?

Looks like the canon response (Hidalgo) is the planet moves though. Very small planet? Massive hyperdrive that overcomes the gravity well imposed by the planet itself? New discovery that if the hyperdrive is protected by powerful shields and sunk into the core of the planet it can avoid the negation of the planet's gravity well?

Put enough thrust behind it, and you can make a brick fly.

I don’t see why that same approach can’t be used with hyperdrives. It’s just astronomically difficult and expensive to build hyperdrives big and powerful enough to move entire planets. But not like that would stop the Empire from doing it anyway….

In the novelization the Starkiller weapon doesn't get it's power from stars but from "Dark Energy", like dark matter, that is basically unlimited but widely diffused. The darkening of the sky, as seen from the base, is because of the amount of dark energy gathered was blocking the starlight. I'm guessing JJ thought that was too sciencey and went for the cheap shot of draining stars rather than explain how it worked.

Or the script was written and filmed and the novelist added other details that weren't in the script at all.

Alan Dean Foster worked from an earlier version of the script. It definitely wasn't the shooting script that Abrams used.

The dark energy created by draining a star then?

From what I remembered yes. It didn't destroy the star, but it took a long time to recharge between shots.

My thought was...another super weapon that blows up planets??? again.... do evil guys do anything else in the star wars galaxy?

Ditto. One of the biggest let downs in movie history. As far as our game goes and the star wars universe...the force awakens was just a bad dream.

It was a very good movie, both script and characterwise. I liked and cared about the characters, so I got invested in what happened to them. The fact that the "empire" now was a few loyalists in the unknown region was cool and reminded me of the Thrawn trilogy. The Starkiller base was just kind of a backdrop and a plot device(and maybe a very obvious throwback and homage?). I didn`t care much, because the character focus, humour, banther and lots of unknown, weird aliens were back; this was finaly Star Wars again. I liked that feeling...

I do understand that some people didn`t like the "history repeats itself" take on it, but I also understand why they chose to do that with the first movie in the triology to follow after the prequels.

There were a number of things that happened in the movie where I didn’t necessarily disagree with the concept, including “history repeats itself”.

However, for some of those things, I did have major problems with the way they were executed. Like Starkiller Base firing through Hyperspace and everyone throughout the Galaxy seeing that blast go across the sky in real-time.

As for the rest, I’m hoping that “Blu-Ray Extras” will help fill in a lot of gaps. Maybe they were cut for story pacing reasons, but IMO there’s a number of things where story pacing should have taken a back seat to the actual story itself.

We’ll just have to wait and see.

I thought only the people in the same system could see it.

Most Star Wars viewers and casual fans don`t really know what hyperspace is..

My thought was...another super weapon that blows up planets??? again.... do evil guys do anything else in the star wars galaxy?

Like real world military powers and atomic bombs that can blow up entire cities, the real world equivalent of a Star Wars planet. How about some originality, right?...

Put enough thrust behind it, and you can make a brick fly.

Case in point, the F4 Phantom II. It was always referred to as the flying brick.

Looks like the canon response (Hidalgo) is the planet moves though. Very small planet? Massive hyperdrive that overcomes the gravity well imposed by the planet itself? New discovery that if the hyperdrive is protected by powerful shields and sunk into the core of the planet it can avoid the negation of the planet's gravity well?

Is there a source within the movies that actually causes hyperdrives to not work within gravity wells though? I understand that a history of novels and information has built hyperdrives to not work within a gravity well, but with the new cannon being the movies, clone wars, rebels, and books after the cut being the only actual cannon, what says that a gravity well would stop a hyperdrive? Han jumped straight into the atmosphere of the planet regardless of it's gravity well. This could very well be one of those "you must unlearn what you have learned" moments. I'm trying to remember something within the new cannon that would stop something like a planet being mobile.

Put enough thrust behind it, and you can make a brick fly.

Case in point, the F4 Phantom II. It was always referred to as the flying brick.

Looks like the canon response (Hidalgo) is the planet moves though. Very small planet? Massive hyperdrive that overcomes the gravity well imposed by the planet itself? New discovery that if the hyperdrive is protected by powerful shields and sunk into the core of the planet it can avoid the negation of the planet's gravity well?

Is there a source within the movies that actually causes hyperdrives to not work within gravity wells though? I understand that a history of novels and information has built hyperdrives to not work within a gravity well, but with the new cannon being the movies, clone wars, rebels, and books after the cut being the only actual cannon, what says that a gravity well would stop a hyperdrive? Han jumped straight into the atmosphere of the planet regardless of it's gravity well. This could very well be one of those "you must unlearn what you have learned" moments. I'm trying to remember something within the new cannon that would stop something like a planet being mobile.

Could they somehow have "turned off" the gravity well of the base? I know it is a planet, but maybe it has lost some of its planet qualities with all the new technology and kyber crystals/force-stuff(?) and turning it into a base and all.

Would it have to be in orbit of the star/sun of the system it is in? This is space opera after all, anything is possible... They didn`t turn the planet into a base, they turned it into a ship, an actual STAR DESTROYER!

This is really easy.

It shoots across the galaxy and drains a star to repower. Then, when it needs a new star, it moves to that star and starts the process over again. It shoots far and can move. Don't apply physics. Star Wars also have laser swords with a finite length.

This is really easy.

It shoots across the galaxy and drains a star to repower. Then, when it needs a new star, it moves to that star and starts the process over again. It shoots far and can move. Don't apply physics. Star Wars also have laser swords with a finite length.

Like this :

So if there is tech that makes flooring have a gravitational field as strong as an entire planet then i can only imagine the same tech can be reverse engineered

Star killer Base is my big bugbear with the film, nothing about it makes sense. Even it's very existence bothers me. From what I can gather the first order is a few remnants of the empire. Yet somehow they have the resources to build something that makes the death star look like a water pistol in comparison!

No one is going to mention that all the planets are close to one another that everyone can see the shot an the planets blow up?

No one is going to mention that all the planets are close to one another that everyone can see the shot an the planets blow up?

Eh, it got mentioned. I liked most of Ep. 7, but I'm in the "Starkiller Base was stupid" camp. The only thing I liked was, "So it's another Death Star?"

"No, not at all! It's all blah blah blah!"

"Yeah, it's another Death Star. Let's blow it up."

Now, I know it's Star Wars. I know it ain't supposed to be realistic. But everything about Starkiller Base just seemed dumb. Hell, we didn't even know about it until halfway through the movie. How can Ultimate Super Death Star Mark III be an afterthought? And once it was lazily tossed into the mix, everything about it seemed pretty lazy. Oh, all the important bad guys hang out on the super cannon, just because? And also keep their prisoners there? And the badass stormtrooper captain that they couldn't bother to give a good fight scene ("TRAITOR!") not only knows how to operate the planetary defense systems, but has security clearance to do so, and gives it all up without a struggle? Come on, JJ, you had me at "So how's this work? Do I talk first? Do you talk first?"

Why couldn't it have been some kind of Computer Systems attack, or a Biological attack? Rakghouls anyone?

Why couldn't it have been some kind of Computer Systems attack, or a Biological attack? Rakghouls anyone?

I'm always tempted to reject even the idea of the "Superweapon of the Week," but let's face it. We're Star Wars GMs here. We all have a superweapon in our back pocket just waiting to be unleashed. Of course, when the very first movie leads off with blowing up entire planets, it's hard to go more epic from there.

Actually, I think I need to start a new thread.

Nobody seemed to put much thought into what it would do after it had drained its system's sun. The planet wasn't (couldn't have been) equipped with a Hyperdrive.

A bigger design flaw than the Death Star, I'd say.

Depends what the goal of the Starkiller was. Wiping out the republic fleet (mostly) as well as the senate in a single blow was a worthwhile cost. The senate was setup in such a way that they move from world to world every few years i think. So after a whole system being destroyed, how many worlds would volunteer their planet to host the next senate? The leadership, and fleet, was wiped out without losing a single ship.

Even with the weapon being destroyed, it DID its job.

Now, above is info I found out sfter seing the movie. When i saw the movie, I still figured that the first order showed it had the power to destroy a system from a hidden location anywhere in the galaxy and used this weapon to wipe out the senate, which was keeping the republic unified. One shot fractured the republic. Was this conjecture? Sure. But a logical reasoning for my mind.

No one is going to mention that all the planets are close to one another that everyone can see the shot an the planets blow up?

Eh, it got mentioned. I liked most of Ep. 7, but I'm in the "Starkiller Base was stupid" camp. The only thing I liked was, "So it's another Death Star?"

"No, not at all! It's all blah blah blah!"

"Yeah, it's another Death Star. Let's blow it up."

Now, I know it's Star Wars. I know it ain't supposed to be realistic. But everything about Starkiller Base just seemed dumb. Hell, we didn't even know about it until halfway through the movie. How can Ultimate Super Death Star Mark III be an afterthought? And once it was lazily tossed into the mix, everything about it seemed pretty lazy. Oh, all the important bad guys hang out on the super cannon, just because? And also keep their prisoners there? And the badass stormtrooper captain that they couldn't bother to give a good fight scene ("TRAITOR!") not only knows how to operate the planetary defense systems, but has security clearance to do so, and gives it all up without a struggle? Come on, JJ, you had me at "So how's this work? Do I talk first? Do you talk first?"

I loved the characters. Truly. But things like Finn's invisible rifle and the Jakku Star Destroyer make me think Abrams was more interested in a cool scene rather than a consistent one.

I will say, after the first time JJ put a scene in a move where a character watches a planet blow up from another section on the galaxy in real time, you would think he would hear the how it wasn't a very good idea and not do it a second time.

I thought only the people in the same system could see it.

Most Star Wars viewers and casual fans don`t really know what hyperspace is..

You could see it from Maz Tanaka's and that was nowhere near the Hosnian system.

Abrams has a habit of massively fudging distances. That is my biggest gripes of the new Star Trek movies. Trips that used to take days and weeks under the old cannon now take hours and minutes under the new. And Spock can see Vulcan get destroyed from the ice planet he's on yet Kirk get's dumped there after traveling at warp away from Vulcan for at least several minutes.

Actually they have some explenations on wookiepedia. Apperantly the shot caused some space-time stuff that made the shot and explosions instantly visible everywhere. I just book it under Space Magic TM( seriously don´t think about it or it ruins the fun). And Starkiller base has indeed a hyperspace engine.