2 minutes ago, Alexhurlbut said:

So how do you feel about having your nephew and his buddies slaughtering everybody in your school that you ran? How would you feel when your son went on a massacre against good people?

Like it is something I have to take responsibility for and set right instead of running and hiding and abandoning my wife and family to go back to a life as a cheat and a hustler. A life that in abandoning gained me that family. I'm not going to go from General back to smuggler. And after I go back to smuggler I'm going to let some thief steal my ship -- MY HOME -- and leave to to rot in a desert?

The whole thing is a lazy cynical premise that strains credulity.

52 minutes ago, Alexhurlbut said:

So how do you feel about having your nephew and his buddies slaughtering everybody in your school that you ran? How would you feel when your son went on a massacre against good people?

Not only the above, but this massacre only happened because they wrote it that way. It wasn't a requirement.

Just now, Helias de Nappo said:

Not only the above, but this massacre only happened because they wrote it that way. It wasn't a requirement.

I'm not sure I understand the point here

53 minutes ago, Frimmel said:

Like it is something I have to take responsibility for and set right instead of running and hiding and abandoning my wife and family to go back to a life as a cheat and a hustler. A life that in abandoning gained me that family. I'm not going to go from General back to smuggler. And after I go back to smuggler I'm going to let some thief steal my ship -- MY HOME -- and leave to to rot in a desert?

The whole thing is a lazy cynical premise that strains credulity.

Pretty sure the falcon got left there before he went back to being a smuggler. My impression is that it's been there a long time.

10 minutes ago, SabineKey said:

I'm not sure I understand the point here

I'm just saying that Emo going off the rails and slaughtering some kid Jedi isn't a good excuse for ruining the character of Han Solo, since the writers needn't have had Emo do those things, or even exist for that matter. There are lots of ways that the story could have gone after RotJ, but the writers chose one that negated Han's redemption (and turned him into a gullible sucker too).

3 minutes ago, Helias de Nappo said:

I'm just saying that Emo going off the rails and slaughtering some kid Jedi isn't a good excuse for ruining the character of Han Solo, since the writers needn't have had Emo do those things, or even exist for that matter. There are lots of ways that the story could have gone after RotJ, but the writers chose one that negated Han's redemption (and turned him into a gullible sucker too).

I don't think it ruined his character, nor undid his redemption. It proved he was human, fallible and makes mistakes. When a child goes that far off the rails, how does a parent not feel responsible in someway? So, he tried to run away from it and a universe that was already gearing up for the same war he had fought all those years ago. And then, to try to make things right with his wife and himself, he went to Starkiller base to do three things: 1) shut down the shield so the Resistance could attack, 2) save Rey, and 3) try to save his son. That sounds like someone who recognizes he can't run anymore and has to face what he fears. And he does it with the usual amount of Solo snark. He wasn't a gullible sucker. He was a man trying to make up for his mistakes and get back the people that mattered to him. That sounds way more interesting than him being less effected by Ben's betrayal. It makes him relatiable.

21 minutes ago, VanderLegion said:

Pretty sure the falcon got left there before he went back to being a smuggler. My impression is that it's been there a long time.

If it got there before Han got all depressed and maudlin over his wayward son, it is even worse that the Falcon has been rotting in the sand.

2 minutes ago, Frimmel said:

If it got there before Han got all depressed and maudlin over his wayward son, it is even worse that the Falcon has been rotting in the sand.

How?

Just now, SabineKey said:

How?

Really? It is one thing if you've been taken advantage of while beaten down and not quite being "right." You're married to a princess, a leader of the new government, and were a general yourself and are likely still of some import and with contacts and friends. Some low life scum steals what has to be one of the most famous starships in the galaxy and you can't find it? You're not going to track that idiot down with your wookiee pal and your brother-in-law with the lightsaber and remind the scumbag moron that you're Han effing Solo who took down the shield generator helping free the galaxy from the tyranny of The Empire?

This is the guy when he sees Darth Vader coming to dinner his first instinct is to draw down and start shooting. That is a guy that gets ripped off and goes all emo? No.

I see guys bagging on the special editions because Han shot first Odin **** it! But you're going to tolerate the way he got pussified in TFA and sent to his death like a chump?

28 minutes ago, Frimmel said:

Really? It is one thing if you've been taken advantage of while beaten down and not quite being "right." You're married to a princess, a leader of the new government, and were a general yourself and are likely still of some import and with contacts and friends. Some low life scum steals what has to be one of the most famous starships in the galaxy and you can't find it? You're not going to track that idiot down with your wookiee pal and your brother-in-law with the lightsaber and remind the scumbag moron that you're Han effing Solo who took down the shield generator helping free the galaxy from the tyranny of The Empire?

This is the guy when he sees Darth Vader coming to dinner his first instinct is to draw down and start shooting. That is a guy that gets ripped off and goes all emo? No.

I see guys bagging on the special editions because Han shot first Odin **** it! But you're going to tolerate the way he got pussified in TFA and sent to his death like a chump?

First, the galaxy is bigger than the movies really explain. In the Clone Wars cartoon, there is talk of a few hundred Systems who are trying to stay neutral in the war. The Rebels manage to keep hidden from the Empire despite near constant searching, and Luke managed to stay off the grid despite fining him being the First Order's primary goal. To say that Han should have found the Falcon (one ship amount millions) when it changed hands 2 or 3 more times is rather preposterous. And he was looking, as disclosed by dialogue in the movie. That's why he found it in the movie, because he was still keeping an "eye" out for it. And when he did find it, he did exactly what you said, went in gun at the ready with his Wookiee pal.

Yes, the Falcon is a famous ship, but it is also a fairly common ship type and was most likely held for personal pride of owning it than actual use (at least, that seems to have been what Plutt did).

And like I've said above, I don't see his death scene as going out like a chump. He was trying to get his son back. He probably heard that Vader turned to the Light Side in the end, and was hoping to do the same thing.

To quote another saga, if you think there's a happy ending, you haven't been paying attention.

1 hour ago, VanderLegion said:

Pretty sure the falcon got left there before he went back to being a smuggler. My impression is that it's been there a long time.

I thought Han said it was stolen. Rey says something about Unkar either buying it or stealing it from someone who stole it from someone else (I can't remember the names) but it seemed like Han got his ship jacked gta style a while ago and it changed hands at least three times before he found it with Rey and Finn flying it.

2 minutes ago, GrimmyV said:

To quote another saga, if you think there's a happy ending, you haven't been paying attention.

I don't disagree but you don't take it all away in hints and whispers and off screen not letting us see our heroes fight to keep what they'd earned. Leaving us only to catch up with them when they're cowering in a cave and broken and beaten shells resorting to cons and hustles.

They hid Luke in a cave and turned him into the macguffin.

1 hour ago, Frimmel said:

I don't disagree but you don't take it all away in hints and whispers and off screen not letting us see our heroes fight to keep what they'd earned. Leaving us only to catch up with them when they're cowering in a cave and broken and beaten shells resorting to cons and hustles.

They hid Luke in a cave and turned him into the macguffin.

It's not their story any more. And I'm sure we will see some flashbacks to what went down to make our heroes less heroic.

Well I think that brings us back to the OP's point. Luke hid in the cave like a macguffin like yoda hid in a swamp. Han died at the hands of his son just as Obi Wan at the hands of his apprentice. TFA mirrors ANH so exactly in many ways I am surprised if you liked the original trilogy but didn't like the same plot device in TFA. Unless of course you object to the repetition.

On the basis of repetition, I quite like the trope of history repeating itself but they needed to be more subtle about it. The point where TFA jumped the shark, for me, was the death star planet. You can just imagine the brainstorming session: "what if, instead of a death star, there was a planet sized version! And it could blow up, like, multiple planets at once!" Yeah. Jar Jar bothered me less than that. Not only is it desperately unoriginal (death star #3? That can also be blown up by a single starfighter thanks to a vulnerable spot?) but just scaling it up is lazy and cheapens the originals. Now the original death star seems puny in comparison. And yeah, that's very much a problem with sequels in general, but still.

It felt like, desperate not to make the mistakes of the prequels, J. J. played it super safe. If TLJ turns out to be ROTJ remake that will be disappointing.

Star Killer Base is a weak point in TFA for sure. It didn't ruin the movie for me though.

What might have been better was a ship deployed planet killer. A miniaturized version of the Death Star, rather than an "embiggened" version would have beeen more terrifying.

FWIW, Starkiller base wasn't destroyed by a single starfighter. Instead of a massive design flaw (now intentional, no idea on DS2) it had a critical system that was well protected enough to sustain multiple bombing runs from a squadron of starfighters and not fail even after an infiltration team planted significant explosives within. A single starfighter finishes the job by flying inside and accurately shooting a number of critical systems while making a pretty impossible maneuver, but that's really not the same thing. In terms of single points of failure, Starkiller doesn't even approach the design failures of most signficant threats in the series (Death Stars, Droid Armies, Executor to name a few).

Or Galaxy Gun, shooting ship sized projectiles that can travel in hyperspace and be blowing up planets from within core (bonus point if the projectile did not slow down the moment it exits from hyperspace). I mean that kind of thing is unstoppable too like how the Death Star Super laser itself is. You have to go after the weapon itself to stop it.

2 minutes ago, LunarSol said:

FWIW, Starkiller base wasn't destroyed by a single starfighter. Instead of a massive design flaw (now intentional, no idea on DS2) it had a critical system that was well protected enough to sustain multiple bombing runs from a squadron of starfighters and not fail even after an infiltration team planted significant explosives within. A single starfighter finishes the job by flying inside and accurately shooting a number of critical systems while making a pretty impossible maneuver, but that's really not the same thing. In terms of single points of failure, Starkiller doesn't even approach the design failures of most signficant threats in the series (Death Stars, Droid Armies, Executor to name a few).

Correction: Demo charges planted by an infiltration team blew open a hole in the housing for a single X-Wing to barely slip in and blow it up from inside. That's something you couldn't consider a flaw unless you didn't garrison enough troop to prevent said infiltration team slipping inside the housing; that's the only flaw of it (plot armor protecting the team from the garrison troop!).

Yeah... they added a few bits and pieces to make it a little less cut-and-dry but starkiller base was still blown up by an X-wing. The garrison, the shields, the concept of a central weakness that couldn't be accounted for, that's all plot window dressing around an x-wing sized self destruct button.

The prequels sucked because the mid-level plot sucked. The overall story arc wasn't bad in principle if you break it down into a short concept: Anakin is found and nurtured as a jedi due to his master's aspirations for him against the wishes of the council, Anakin becomes a great jedi but falls in love, Anakin is drawn to the dark side while trying to avoid the self-fulfilling prophecy that would ultimately destroy everything and everyone he loved. Nothing wrong with that. When you fill in the details (or not, see Padme's death) things got rather more problematic. There were still great things in there, Qui Gon was just the quintessential Jedi for me, calm and dangerous and weary and sad, great fight scenes, etc. With TFA, you had a really great fun ride ... but the repetition at the character level and at the overall arc leaves it hollow in comparison with the original trilogy.

2 hours ago, The Inquisitor said:

Jar Jar bothered me less than that.

JJBMLTT needs to be a thing. I completely disagree with you in what you think he's better than in this case, but as a succinct statement, JJBMLTT is great.

1 hour ago, The Inquisitor said:

Qui Gon was just the quintessential Jedi for me

Qui Gon cheated at dice, used battle meditation to kill anakin's opponents during the pod race, invented midi-chlorians and the midi-chlorian breathalyzer test, completely disregarded the Jedi Council's instructions, lost a 2v1 battle against a mute (the hellen keller of the sith as far as the movie depicted him - walks into frame randomly during a holo-conference call, waves his sword willy-nilly during battles, stares blankly forward and snarls), and kept the force ghost stuff secret until he needed it himself... what if the jedi army all knew how to do that; order 66 would have freed the jedi to be everywhere at once. An army of force ghosts would have turned the tide.The only Jedi worse at being a Jedi than Qui Gon is Mace Windu, and that's because Mace Windu is Snoke! It's frankly a miracle that Obi Wan was able to shake off that influence and become so amazing in his later years.

6 hours ago, SabineKey said:

I don't think it ruined his character.... It proved he was human, fallible and makes mistakes... It makes him relatiable.

I take it that you're not much of a romantic. In my view, this is pretty much exactly how one ruins a hero in a fairy tale romance.

22 minutes ago, ViscerothSWG said:

used battle meditation to kill anakin's opponents during the pod race,

Dude, is there a source for this? Because that's hilarious.

1 hour ago, Helias de Nappo said:

I take it that you're not much of a romantic. In my view, this is pretty much exactly how one ruins a hero in a fairy tale romance.

eh, depends on my mood. There are times were the pessimism takes over.

I personally don't view Star Wars as a fairy tale. It's an adventure, a classic for the term "space opera", but not a fairy tale. But even in fairy tales, I think the best ones are the ones who can connect with the audience by showing a whole character, flaws and all. I think it makes a hero all the more heroic when you see them over come their fears, petty doubts, and flaws. Everyone has flaws, therefore it is all the more inspiring to see heros that push past flaws the audience might have as well.

Would Luke's victory at the end of RoTJ be as gratifying if he hadn't nearly fallen to the dark? He overcame his anger and chose not to kill his father, recognizing that he had similar flaws to his father, and learning from those mistakes.

3 hours ago, ViscerothSWG said:

JJBMLTT needs to be a thing. I completely disagree with you in what you think he's better than in this case, but as a succinct statement, JJBMLTT is great.

Qui Gon cheated at dice, used battle meditation to kill anakin's opponents during the pod race, invented midi-chlorians and the midi-chlorian breathalyzer test, completely disregarded the Jedi Council's instructions, lost a 2v1 battle against a mute (the hellen keller of the sith as far as the movie depicted him - walks into frame randomly during a holo-conference call, waves his sword willy-nilly during battles, stares blankly forward and snarls), and kept the force ghost stuff secret until he needed it himself... what if the jedi army all knew how to do that; order 66 would have freed the jedi to be everywhere at once. An army of force ghosts would have turned the tide.The only Jedi worse at being a Jedi than Qui Gon is Mace Windu, and that's because Mace Windu is Snoke! It's frankly a miracle that Obi Wan was able to shake off that influence and become so amazing in his later years.

This is just awesome. I think it's safe to saw Jinn was a secret sith who found immortality thru force ghost-ism and was aiding Sheev's plans the whole time. I think Maul stood there and got cut in half because Qui gon promised him force ghost-ism but lied to him, so instead of being more powerful he had 30-some more years of being a weird, very talkative side character in SW animation. Way to go Maul.