ST Are there too many implausible coincidences in TFA?

If that's horrible storytelling to you, there aren't many stories that will meet your standards. Including most of the SW saga.

 

I keep hearing about all these coincidences in the OT.

Please list them all.

The fact many noticed the coincidences were required to drive the story says much of the TFA.

Please go ahead show how the TFA is no different to the OT

 

Ok, I'll bite: two I cannot get over in ANH and ESB:

1. The droids happen to land near enough the Lars farm and both get picked up by the same Jawas after being separated, and just happen to end up for sale right in front of the Lars farm who just happens to need two droids exactly like them (points for buying the defective R4 first to soften the coincidence). The Lars farm that C3PO was created at. Really convenient that Owen needed two droids at that moment and his credit card wasn't maxed out.

2. Luke lands within a few hundred meters of Yoda, on an entire planet, with nothing to go on but "go to the Dagobah system"

3. Bonus: Luke and Leia are twins! What a small Galaxy.

 

See to me those kind of coincidences, much like most of the Jakuu coincidences, are not that kind that bother me. Without them you literally do not have a story, so they are easily ignored. With those while they are unlikely events there is still some small amount of logic behind them. R2 knows where Obi-Wan is so he knows where he needs to send the escape pod to, it makes sense they would be in that area. Luke knows he needs to go to Dagobah, he didn't just randomly stumble across Dagobah. It is the coincidences like R2 waking up just at the perfect time for no apparent reason at all that bother me.

 

Where on Dagobah? (And I agree, most of these I can let go as part of the story convenience but they do bug me. just answering the question).

 

We are talking about a guy that closed his eyes and shot his laser bullets through a 10 foot hole on the death star from hundreds of feet away. Him landing on the right spot on Dagobah is just "the will of the force."

Any coincidence is just "the will of the force." As soon as you buy into that, the movies will be much more enjoyable.

 

I don't see how it's a plot hole. Yes, there are amazing coincidences in this 7 movie (and counting) space fantasy saga. You can call them "contrivances" if you'd like, but it's hardly something the viewer can claim is completely unexpected in a space fantasy saga.

 

All it would take is 5 minutes, if that, of expositional dialogue from someone. I clearly doubt it will prevent the story from advancing.

Heck, the way they've set things up, us learning more backstory of all of these characters IS progressing the story.

 

I mentioned the coincidence of the jawas hand delivering R2 and 3PO to the Lars Moisture Farm as a helluva coincidence, but them being in that general region is easily explained. R2 was trying to reach Obi-Wan. Obi-Wan lives near the Lars Moisture Farm for obvious reasons. So the fact that those 2 droids land the escape pod in that general area of the planet makes sense.

I think we are meant to understand that Yoda pretty much arranged that. As Luke approaches Dagobah, he loses control of his ship.

Not seeing how this is a coincidence. One is incredibly strong in the Force, so it makes sense he will make an impact on the galactic scale. The other is adopted into a prominent family, not to mention being strong in the Force, so it makes sense she makes an impact on the galactic scale as well.

 

Ding!

 

The universe is a big place, in TFA though it's very small.

 

It's pretty small throughout the whole saga. Trillions of beings and thousands of species yet this one human family seems to mess up/fix everything.

 

original subtitle of the series was "the adventures of luke starkiller".

star wars plays out like a very dumbed down Dune.

 

There are way too many coincidences in TFA. They should have made the film boring. That's the ticket.

 

The GFFA never was that large since Star Wars centers on characters, and the saga revolves around one family and those they interact with. Even Star Trek, a story meant to explore the reaches of the universe from day one in Gene Roddenberry's vision, still centers around one group of people (though the television spin offs are different groups, each spin off had a select group around which all the stories revolved).

It is the manner in which the story is told and what the story is telling. In many science fiction / fantasy novels and movies, the hero(es) seem to be able to save or fix entire galaxies, pulling them back from the brink of crises or defeating the evil that is consuming civilization. It is a matter of using coincidence so a handleable number of characters can be used to do an immense job, but also telling the story in a manner that coincidence is not a glaring problem, or by using explanations that are reasonably palatable ... and moving on.

 

1. Has been adressed repeatedly, Kenobi and the Lars are neighbors (unless you insist that Artoo used his PT rockets all night long...). The only coincidence I see on Tatooine is the red R2 unit's motivator conveniently blowing up, so that Artoo is left as the only astro droid choice.

2. Kenob has guided Luke during the Death Star trench run, instructed him where to go but then doesn't lead him to the right spot on Dagobah?

3. It's the Kenobi-Organa connection. Organa (foster father of Leia) is calling for General Kenobi's help who happens to watch over Luke.

 

1. Hardly, read my entire post, not just the location issue. Why did the roving droid sale just happen to end up there and why did Owen just happen to need two droids? And within a few hours of it needing to to get Luke to the DS in time to rescue Leia.

2. Not on film, something that folks fault TFA for as well. If you can fill in the blanks for yourself here, why not there?

3. Not what I was talking about.

 

Alright. Artoo landed the escape pod in the vicinity of Kenobi's location provided by Princess Leia. Artoo headed north, Threepio headed south. The Jawa's sandcrawler was heading north and first picked up Threepio, next Artoo (who had gotten pretty close to Ben's location, it's the same Tunisian canyon where Luke later encounters Ben). The sandcrawler headed further north, first stop was Lars Homestead (it wouldn't make a lot of sense for Kenobi to watch over Luke but to live on the opposite side of Tatooine). They were getting close to harvest season and Owen needed extra hands (= droids), that's what the January 1976 screenplay draft said, but we could have easily guessed that. And since the Lars were short on money Owen realized that he could probably get (stolen) droids for a bargain, rather than purchase these for a regular price in Anchorhead.

 

So, a very convenient coincidence.

 

That Owen Lars is seizing the occasion to get extra farm workers for a cheap price? I'm learning something new here every day.

 

Ok, well if you don't see that as remarkably convenient, then I guess you don't. You assume the event as necessary to the story and work backwards, which is apparantely not applicable to TFA?

 

There are three coincidences. The first being the Jawas find both C3PO and R2D2, the second is that the Jawa's first stop was at the Lars homestead, they most visit fairly often, the third is the red astro mech's motivator blowing up. All of which are relatively minor coincidences. None of them are important to the plot, and are really just there to add some tension, or not get bogged down in the minutia of real life (visiting 20 homesteads before getting to Lars's).

 

Ok folks. I'm clearly in the minority here. Be aware that my point was to answer a specific question and I did. I'm not going out of my way to complain about the OT.

 

No,

coincidences, so called "Ex Machina's" happen in every film in existence. If you get annoyed by such things you might as well just stop watching films, and look outside your living room window and watch the world go by...where those sort of things don't happen.

Also "The Force did it"

it's a fantasy fairy tale set in space...this explanation is perfectly reasonable.

 

The only coincidence I scratch my head about is Han Solo discovering the Millennium Falcon so soon after it took off from Jakku.