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!

I'm not trying to argue or disagree, but I'm honestly asking if there is anything in the new cannon that stops hypderives from working within gravity wells. As far as I know that piece of tech trivia died with the cannon reset. Perhaps now you can just slap a big enough hyperdrive on a planet and go toddling around the galaxy or jump straight into the atmosphere with a light freighter. I think we've seen interdictors in rebels, but for all we know they put out a hyperdrive interference signal that causes hyperdrives do an emergency stop.

Consider this quote from Han, bolded emphasis is mine:"Traveling through hyperspace ain't like dusting crops, boy! Without precise calculations we could fly right through a star , or bounce too close to a supernova and that'd end your trip real quick, wouldn't it."

This implies that without the right coordinates you could go right through a star. That, to me, implies a lot of what we have taken for granted about hyperdrives and gravity wells doesn't actually exist outside WEG and possibly some older books.

The Base runs on kyber Crystal so... the Force did it!

I would use the explanation that is in the novelization over what JJ Abrams did in the shooting script.

My gaming group sat down last week and watched Ep 3... where we proceed to say things like 'he (Obi-Wan) could have used the force there' or 'they're not very good Jedi masters (where Yoda, Mace and others are sitting in Palpatine's office and not one 'feels a disturbance in the force' as they sit in the same room as a Sith Lord....anyway,

I kinda like Ep7... but there are some MOSSIVE (mossive is several ranks greater then mAssive) plot holes... R2 just 'wakes up' being another JJ goes for action and it seems non-stop in Ep7,

Ah, the good ol' Galaxy Death Star Gun. Like the Death Star? Like the Galaxy Gun? Hank's Discount Superweapon Emporium has just what you're looking for...

In regards to the hyperspace thing... I've always looked at it like this. The hard part about moving something the size of the Death Star or Starkiller base would be generating subluminal speeds. Every time a ship goes into hyperspace, it does so with a running start. I don't know if it's required, but you always see it. Even a snub fighter has a small gravity well, so I don't think gravity itself stops a hyperdrive. I think the reason we see gravity well issues is that the hyperdrive has to be exquisitely balanced to account for gravitational forces. I believe that is a big part of Astrogation as well... accounting for gravity wells along your path. So, with the right programming, you can slap a drive on anything you want.

Sorry if that seems disjointed. I have not reached minimum safe levels of caffeine for a Monday morning yet.

Is it actually established that Star Killer Base is built into a planet? Couldn't it just as well be that it is a giant space station that was terraformed?

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’m sorry, that scene and that explanation totally and completely exceeds my ability to willingly suspend disbelief. It totally takes me out of the story and the movie.

I just book it under Space Magic TM( seriously don´t think about it or it ruins the fun).

Yup. My fun is definitely ruined in that regard.

My gaming group sat down last week and watched Ep 3... where we proceed to say things like 'he (Obi-Wan) could have used the force there' or 'they're not very good Jedi masters (where Yoda, Mace and others are sitting in Palpatine's office and not one 'feels a disturbance in the force' as they sit in the same room as a Sith Lord....anyway,

I kinda like Ep7... but there are some MOSSIVE (mossive is several ranks greater then mAssive) plot holes... R2 just 'wakes up' being another JJ goes for action and it seems non-stop in Ep7,

Palpatine was powerful too... And I`m pretty sure that R2 waking up will be explained in the next one, this is a trilogy!...

I don`t really have a big problem with how Starkiller base would have moved(if it did), it`s technology and magic and a big secret to all the good guys. Yes magic, the Force and hyperspace are both Star Wars magic. Yes it is.. Yes it is!

However, it is fun to speculate...

Maybe draining a sun and killing off a huge hyperspace shadow can propell the Base somehow.. Maybe the Base actually drains stars by crashing through their shadow in Hyperspace.. Maybe it can hyperjump, but it takes a very long time, from many months to a couple of years to the nearest system... Maybe the rules of hyperspace and realspace are different in the Unknown Regions, a hole in reality.. I don`t know and I would be fine with them keeping it a secret(at least for now).

The dumbness of the scene and the concept I can handle. My problem is how casual everybody reacted to several planets being destroyed. It felt like they (being Abrams and the writers) were trying to top the destruction of Alderaan, and even though we got a up close and personal view of the destruction, it somehow felt emotionally empty. We've had planetary devastation and destruction several times before in Star Wars, but this seemed almost pointlessly dark and gritty.

The dumbness of the scene and the concept I can handle. My problem is how casual everybody reacted to several planets being destroyed. It felt like they (being Abrams and the writers) were trying to top the destruction of Alderaan, and even though we got a up close and personal view of the destruction, it somehow felt emotionally empty. We've had planetary devastation and destruction several times before in Star Wars, but this seemed almost pointlessly dark and gritty.

I get what you are saying, but that happens in the real world too, with terror attacks, war and bombing. Only a select few get attention and is covered my the media and mentioned in social media, while we turn a blind eye to most of it.

It is natural, a coping mechanism... However, I agree that we should have seen a few background characters who might have been attached to the planet have some sort of breakdown for the sake of the audience.. But maybe they wanted to be as cool as Leia and just shrug off the destruction of a planet...

Abrams just wanted it to be literal star wars.

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.

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.

That's because Abrams is the directing equivalent of a weasel or magpie -- "OOOOO, SHINEY!"

As soon as I see his name associated with something, I know it's going to be nothing but moronic spectacle that's made by slaughtering plot, character, and even the most basic common sense, and stringing their innards up with strobe lights and fog generates festooned thereon.

Abrams keeps the focus where it should be, on the characters. The characters and character development is the story! Don`t make him out to be another Michael Bay!

Abrams keeps the focus where it should be, on the characters. The characters and character development is the story! Don`t make him out to be another Michael Bay!

Why not? He is.

And his "character development" is all Hollywood schlock and overdone cliched tropes.

Never mind that story also needs plot, it's not just characters and "development" -- unless you're dealing in navel-gazing, nothing-happens, nose-up "lit fic" -- and never mind that the setting of any speculative fiction story is in its own right a character that needs to be portrayed with coherence and internal consistency.

Abrams keeps the focus where it should be, on the characters. The characters and character development is the story! Don`t make him out to be another Michael Bay!

Why not? He is.

...

Wow that Maxkilljoy really lives up to his name...

Anyway I take two important things away from your nerdrage fueled post.

1. You never gave the movie a fair chance.

2. You are not only making out Abrams to be a hack you are doing the same thing to Lawrence Kasdan.

Easy there, fellas, easy!

I thoroughly agree that a total lack of information on Starkiller Base was very annoying, as well as pulling me out of the movie. I kept wondering where they had gotten the credits to fund the thing. Really, the only good part of having Starkiller Base for me, was having them say "It's a Death Star!"

"Nuh-uh, the Death Star was only about a quarter of its size."

Annnywaaay, I think the character building was the best in any Star Wars movie thus far, especially as there were ACTORS in this one. None of the relationships felt forced or implausible to me, and that was definately worth all of it.

Easy there, fellas, easy!

I thoroughly agree that a total lack of information on Starkiller Base was very annoying, as well as pulling me out of the movie. I kept wondering where they had gotten the credits to fund the thing. Really, the only good part of having Starkiller Base for me, was having them say "It's a Death Star!"

"Nuh-uh, the Death Star was only about a quarter of its size."

Annnywaaay, I think the character building was the best in any Star Wars movie thus far, especially as there were ACTORS in this one. None of the relationships felt forced or implausible to me, and that was definately worth all of it.

Would these be the characters who randomly ran into each other on Jakuul and immediately teamed up, motivated by the magically convenient timing of a First Order attack?

I`m watching an episode of the clone wars now. There is a half planet with an open crust, lava all over the place.. I`m also thinking of Kessel, the potato shaped planet and Circumtore, the ring planetoid. There are a lot of crazy phenomenas in the Star Wars Galaxy, this is Space Opera and Science Fantasy and magic in other words, so it isn`t that far of a stretch to at least speculate that the Starkiller Base planet is something special, out of the ordinary and an anomoly that can, with space opera technology and kyber crystal force magic, can somehow move or hyperjump.

Sounds in space, Han Solo ignoring the vacuum of space with a little breather mask. There are lots of exceptions to established facts in this universe. I am all for following the established facts of the fictional universe though, that is what story realism is. It has nothing to do with real live physics and laws of our real universe. So if they break the established laws of hyperspace without any explanation of an exception in the deleted scenes, extended version or the two other movies, I guess I will be kind of disappointed, but not enough not to enjoy the best character development and inter-character relationships, banther and personalities Star Wars has ever had(maybe except Han and Leia in the OT).

Easy there, fellas, easy!

I thoroughly agree that a total lack of information on Starkiller Base was very annoying, as well as pulling me out of the movie. I kept wondering where they had gotten the credits to fund the thing. Really, the only good part of having Starkiller Base for me, was having them say "It's a Death Star!"

"Nuh-uh, the Death Star was only about a quarter of its size."

Annnywaaay, I think the character building was the best in any Star Wars movie thus far, especially as there were ACTORS in this one. None of the relationships felt forced or implausible to me, and that was definately worth all of it.

Would these be the characters who randomly ran into each other on Jakuul and immediately teamed up, motivated by the magically convenient timing of a First Order attack?

Yes... And the reasons they teamed up was far from random, their motivations and relationships had already been established. Or am I forgetting someone?

Easy there, fellas, easy!

I thoroughly agree that a total lack of information on Starkiller Base was very annoying, as well as pulling me out of the movie. I kept wondering where they had gotten the credits to fund the thing. Really, the only good part of having Starkiller Base for me, was having them say "It's a Death Star!"

"Nuh-uh, the Death Star was only about a quarter of its size."

Annnywaaay, I think the character building was the best in any Star Wars movie thus far, especially as there were ACTORS in this one. None of the relationships felt forced or implausible to me, and that was definately worth all of it.

Would these be the characters who randomly ran into each other on Jakuul and immediately teamed up, motivated by the magically convenient timing of a First Order attack?

Yes... And the reasons they teamed up was far from random, their motivations and relationships had already been established. Or am I forgetting someone?

Rey and Finn.

(Never mind that Poe's droid and Finn both circumstantially meet the same random stranger on Jakuul.)

There's another thread around here called "And then..." wherein there is discussion of this tendency in pop-fiction for the entire story to rely on a series of unlikely circumstances and coincidences ends up in a probability trainwreck that we're all told we should just accept. Questioning it results in certain usual suspects accusing the questioner of "wanting to be spoon fed", ironically, for not blankly accepting the story as-is, or not being willing to do their own head-canon crap to fill in the blanks.

My gaming group sat down last week and watched Ep 3... where we proceed to say things like 'he (Obi-Wan) could have used the force there' or 'they're not very good Jedi masters (where Yoda, Mace and others are sitting in Palpatine's office and not one 'feels a disturbance in the force' as they sit in the same room as a Sith Lord....anyway,

Well, that one's actually explained in the movies. Palpatine is so overwhelmingly strong in the dark side that he was able to collectively cloud the abilities of the most powerful Jedi in the galaxy. The Council actually talk about it on-screen: they know it's happening but can't find the source (namely because the ability to find the source is the thing that's being clouded).

Abrams keeps the focus where it should be, on the characters. The characters and character development is the story! Don`t make him out to be another Michael Bay!

Why not? He is.

Oh come on, that's really unfair. Bay's done a couple of decent films.

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

That's Abrams motto. He always goes for cool scenes instead of worrying about details, consistency or believability.

It's why death was cured and starships are obsolete in Star Trek now.

Rey and Finn.

(Never mind that Poe's droid and Finn both circumstantially meet the same random stranger on Jakuul.)

Randomly? Finn and Poe were looking for the droid...

EDIT: Deleted... I really can't be bothered anymore...... *THINKS: Can I delete my profile?*