Star Wars: The Force Awakens (2015)

Column_sl

shitlord
9,833
7
Droids animated series Episode 8

8 "The Revenge of Kybo Ren" Ken Stephenson & Raymond Jafelice Peter Sauder October 26, 1985
Kybo Ren escapes and kidnaps Gerin, the daughter of Lord Toda, Mon Julpa's political rival. The Droids, Jann and Jessica follow Kybo Ren to the planet Bogden to rescue her before Mon Julpa is handed over in exchange. However the tables are turned when Mon Julpa reveals Lord Toda and a squad of Tammuz-an soldiers smuggled aboard the pirate's own ship. Kybo Ren is sent back to prison and an alliance is forged between Mon Julpa and Lord Toda. Jessica, however, decides its time to return to her freighter business on Tyne's Horkny, saying a sad good-bye to her friends.
 

Jive Turkey

Karen
6,650
8,869
OGM you guys, Luke was Frodo, Obi Wan was Gandalf, Vader was Saruman, Palpatine was Sauron, R2 and 3PO were Pippen and Merry , Han was Aragorn....
How do you guys not see it?
 

khorum

Murder Apologist
24,338
81,363
You don't need to fabricate new bad guys if Kylo decides to turn to the light side, there's already seven of the Knights of Ren that we know about. We'll prolly see more of the ones they've already shown in the movie. Some of them are obvious mini-boss types, but the dude with the giant paddle in the back and the monk with a staff are end-boss material:
star-wars-the-force-awakens-kylo-ren-knights-ren.jpg


Plus Kylo's already killed one of them so there's some pre-established butthurt between the Knights and their master.

Except for establishing that scene at the burning ruins of a Jedi Temple---and Luke's interaction with R2 in the ruins of the temple happening AFTER Kylo saving Rey----that scene was mostly intact in the novelization's version of Rey's vision. The end of her vision most certainly was not. In the novelization Rey is abandoned in a forest by her mom or dad:

c9TkeYg.png


This was shortly before her mom was killed by Voldemort.
 

Royal

Connoisseur of Exotic Pictures
15,077
10,641
In the novelization Rey is abandoned in a forest by her mom or dad:
I'm not so sure we can assume she was abandoned in a forest from that, just that she was left behind by her parent(s) someplace. Not all of the dialog in the flashback fit in with a specific visual element that played out within it. Yoda's voice for example.
 

Urlithani

Vyemm Raider
1,978
3,148
I'm going to nerd out a bit here. The starkiller base actually makes more sense for the First Order than the Death Stars did for the Empire. An imperial star destroyer has 60 turbolaser turrets, and each one hits with (This is a conservative estimate)the force of about 60 kilotons (for comparison the bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki were 23 and 45 kilotons, respectively). So a single star destroyer could glass a planet without an energy shield. Instead of building 2 death stars, the Empire probably could have built over 300 star destroyers for the same materials. The empire was at the height of its power and in control of the government and military. A single star destroyer coming into a system was enough to make any planetary government shit its pants, energy shield or not; super weapons were a little excessive.

The First Order was a fringe group of Imperial loyalists out in the Unknown Regions. They need a super weapon because small industrial nations do not beat large industrial nations in war. If they hid and built 1000 star destroyers, it wouldn't be enough. They don't have the industry, planets, and resources to replace their losses, while the Republic would just go, "K, we have 250 more ships coming off the line and 250,000 graduates from the Naval Academy coming in 3 months." A super weapon that could decapitate the Republic government and destroy most of the fleet would not only even the field some, but it might also galvanize the remnants of the empire into joining them to take over the galaxy once more.

TFA is like ANH, but I don't think the stage is set for Ep. 8 to be like ESB. The parallel of Luke training Rey will line up with Snoke training Ren more than it will with Yoda training Luke (They might even do training on the go, looking for the Jedi Temple together). The Empire was on the fence, but will seize the opportunity and join the First Order to declare war with the Republic now that their government and fleet is in ruins. Leia and Ackbar will scramble to set up an emergency government and defense fleet. Poe and Finn will lead a covert group and end up Chinese finger trapping Captain Phasma. The biggest unavoidable parallel with ESB is that there will be serious setbacks for the good guys, as the Republic and the Skywalker will take serious blows before rebounding for Ep. 9.

I want more space battles and I hope 8 will deliver on that.
 

khorum

Murder Apologist
24,338
81,363
Well you won't get more space battles. You'll get feels and vulnerability and human interest shit with a lightsaber-wielding Jewlan.
 

Creslin

Trakanon Raider
2,378
1,079
I'm going to nerd out a bit here. The starkiller base actually makes more sense for the First Order than the Death Stars did for the Empire. An imperial star destroyer has 60 turbolaser turrets, and each one hits with (This is a conservative estimate)the force of about 60 kilotons (for comparison the bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki were 23 and 45 kilotons, respectively). So a single star destroyer could glass a planet without an energy shield. Instead of building 2 death stars, the Empire probably could have built over 300 star destroyers for the same materials. The empire was at the height of its power and in control of the government and military. A single star destroyer coming into a system was enough to make any planetary government shit its pants, energy shield or not; super weapons were a little excessive.

The First Order was a fringe group of Imperial loyalists out in the Unknown Regions. They need a super weapon because small industrial nations do not beat large industrial nations in war. If they hid and built 1000 star destroyers, it wouldn't be enough. They don't have the industry, planets, and resources to replace their losses, while the Republic would just go, "K, we have 250 more ships coming off the line and 250,000 graduates from the Naval Academy coming in 3 months." A super weapon that could decapitate the Republic government and destroy most of the fleet would not only even the field some, but it might also galvanize the remnants of the empire into joining them to take over the galaxy once more.

TFA is like ANH, but I don't think the stage is set for Ep. 8 to be like ESB. The parallel of Luke training Rey will line up with Snoke training Ren more than it will with Yoda training Luke (They might even do training on the go, looking for the Jedi Temple together). The Empire was on the fence, but will seize the opportunity and join the First Order to declare war with the Republic now that their government and fleet is in ruins. Leia and Ackbar will scramble to set up an emergency government and defense fleet. Poe and Finn will lead a covert group and end up Chinese finger trapping Captain Phasma. The biggest unavoidable parallel with ESB is that there will be serious setbacks for the good guys, as the Republic and the Skywalker will take serious blows before rebounding for Ep. 9.

I want more space battles and I hope 8 will deliver on that.
I will reply to your nerd out, where is that turbo laser strength estimate from, cause in ANH don't they literally say it would take an entire imperial fleet to do what the death star did to the planet? At no point in the movies are turbo lasers ever shown to be anywhere near that level of power.

The logical point of the death star was that without the senate the core worlds who had planetary defenses and could conceivably resist a siege for a long period of time, were more likely to revolt so if a true civil war broke out rather than a more minor rebellion then a super weapon that could just show up and win instantly was really really useful. It was like having a super powerful cannon in a 13th century environment, it meant your central govt could show up at your castle at any time and win the battle before your friends showed up.

Your first order argument for why they would want a super weapon does make more sense, though TFA never shows the republic as having anything close to that kind of military industrial advantage over them. The part that doesn't make sense is the super weapon they built is not some small marvel of innovation and technology that would make sense for them to pursue if they didn't have the industrial advantage, instead its a huge planet converted into a laser and siphoning off the sun.

Maybe it's just me and the republic really was supposed to be portrayed as the clear military and industrial leader with a huge advantage over the first order, but I never saw it, even before the worlds are destroyed you don't see the republic flexing much muscle.
 

Ukerric

Bearded Ape
<Silver Donator>
7,981
9,703
All you guys complaining about how similar the character roles in TFA are to the OT need to realize that every single main character in the OT was an archetype of every character ever written about in every hero journey ever.
And yet, funnily enough, when you watch other movies, you don't get the same characters having the same scenes, etc.

There's a difference between using archetypes and redoing the same movie with the same characters with just different faces.
 

Urlithani

Vyemm Raider
1,978
3,148
I will reply to your nerd out, where is that turbo laser strength estimate from, cause in ANH don't they literally say it would take an entire imperial fleet to do what the death star did to the planet? At no point in the movies are turbo lasers ever shown to be anywhere near that level of power.

The logical point of the death star was that without the senate the core worlds who had planetary defenses and could conceivably resist a siege for a long period of time, were more likely to revolt so if a true civil war broke out rather than a more minor rebellion then a super weapon that could just show up and win instantly was really really useful. It was like having a super powerful cannon in a 13th century environment, it meant your central govt could show up at your castle at any time and win the battle before your friends showed up.
That's a good point. A long bloody war wouldn't cement the Emperor's power. As for turbolaser power:Turbolaser Firepower(I went conservative and said 60kt, even though blasting asteroids would take more). Not that science makes sense in the Star Wars universe.
biggrin.png


Your first order argument for why they would want a super weapon does make more sense, though TFA never shows the republic as having anything close to that kind of military industrial advantage over them. The part that doesn't make sense is the super weapon they built is not some small marvel of innovation and technology that would make sense for them to pursue if they didn't have the industrial advantage, instead its a huge planet converted into a laser and siphoning off the sun.

Maybe it's just me and the republic really was supposed to be portrayed as the clear military and industrial leader with a huge advantage over the first order, but I never saw it, even before the worlds are destroyed you don't see the republic flexing much muscle.
They didn't show the Republic much, but most of the infrastructure is in the inner rim/core worlds area, which the Republic controls. Even if all the old shipyards are derelict or used to make vacation cruise ships, they could quickly be turned back to make warships faster than the First Order could possibly hope to build shipyards of their own. (The Mon Calamari even turned some of their luxury liners into warships).
 

Royal

Connoisseur of Exotic Pictures
15,077
10,641
Maybe it's just me and the republic really was supposed to be portrayed as the clear military and industrial leader with a huge advantage over the first order, but I never saw it, even before the worlds are destroyed you don't see the republic flexing much muscle.
Most movies don't address every fine point because, and I know this isn't going to be a popular answer, they don't have to. For the average viewer setting up the First Order as the bad guys and successors to The Empire and the Resistance as the good guys with fairly simplistic ques is enough. To hit every point would result in a 4 hour long movie with those boring political discussion sequences everyone complained about from the prequels.

The New Republic is disinterested in starting a broader war with the First Order. We know this from Leia's statements. Hux mentions the Republic's "precious fleet" in his Hitler speech. We only ever see a single large ship on the FO side (which was apparently significant enough to house Ren's grandad collection) yet we see multiple large ships taken out with Hosnian Prime. That's really enough to infer that the New Republic had an advantage in that regard.
 

Drakain

Trakanon Raider
1,585
688
The death star was fear. Yes it had a planet destroying super laser, but it was a 'technological terror' that could travel from system to system. The idea that it was impervious to an attack only added to the fear.

The DSII gets a little more fuzzy. The idea to build a second one is goofy, but it was the Emperor's gambit to get the entire rebel fleet to commit to one final attack, which would have worked if not for the help of teddy bears to destroy the shield.

Now we get to Starkiller. The idea is sound... convert a planet into a superweapon. You can't blow up a planet like you can a Death Star without a Death Star itself. The resistance only wanted to disable the weapon, the planet collapsing was a bonus. If the First Order had not charged the weapon, the oscillator would have just been destroyed and the Resistance would have bought some time. (Almost wish this would have been the outcome.)

We don't know the status of the First Order Fleet. In ANH we only saw one Star Destroyer and the Death Star. I'm guessing there will be a massive fleet guarding whatever planet Snoke is on.
 

moontayle

Golden Squire
4,302
165
If you consider the three act arc of the overall trilogy, then 8 will definitely be when the shit really hits the fan for our heroes. It's unavoidable. That's kind of how most storytelling works. So yeah, it'll recall ESB in that aspect but my hope is now that the groundwork has been relaid that we'll be taken off in a new direction.
 

Jive Turkey

Karen
6,650
8,869
Most movies don't address every fine point because, and I know this isn't going to be a popular answer, they don't have to. For the average viewer setting up the First Order as the bad guys and successors to The Empire and the Resistance as the good guys with fairly simplistic ques is enough. To hit every point would result in a 4 hour long movie with those boring political discussion sequences everyone complained about from the prequels.

The New Republic is disinterested in starting a broader war with the First Order. We know this from Leia's statements. Hux mentions the Republic's "precious fleet" in his Hitler speech. We only ever see a single large ship on the FO side (which was apparently significant enough to house Ren's grandad collection) yet we see multiple large ships taken out with Hosnian Prime. That's really enough to infer that the New Republic had an advantage in that regard.
I just wish they were a bit more heavy handed in pointing out the significance of destroying the Hosnian system. It didn't feel as dire as it should have
 

khorum

Murder Apologist
24,338
81,363
They apparently filmed all of Korr Sella's scenes and even credits the actress who played her role even though they cut her entire presence down to the 2 seconds she was onscreen watching the star killer attack from a balcony on Hosnian Prime.

Korr Sella is the primary conduit for the whole republic vs. first order historical exposition. She's Leia's personal assistant and even when Leia sends her off they explain why Leia won't go to the senate because she'd get 'disappeared' by her enemies.
 

Drakain

Trakanon Raider
1,585
688
I just wish they were a bit more heavy handed in pointing out the significance of destroying the Hosnian system. It didn't feel as dire as it should have
That's because Carrie Fisher's wooden face can't show emotion, and we didn't have Obi-Wan to become weakened by the force tremor of millions of voices crying out in terror. All they needed was Maz, force sensitive or not, to fall to her hands and knees and say, "Five worlds. 40 billion lives. Gone in an istant. Boy, (to Finn) you were right. The First Order is too powerful... but they must be stopped."