ST Plot holes and lost exposition - real issues or not?

Yeah I got that, and my question is probably more about the filmmakers decision of splitting the Republic and the Resistance.

 

Well, not that you should have to read them to understand, but the backstory of the Republic from the novels indicates that they are largely pacifist. Mon Mothma disarmed soon after the war cooled down. Leia disagrees and wants to fight the FO. There was a deleted scene apparently where Leia's representative to the Senate was pleading for more assistance.

 

It's not the movies fault if you don't pay attention to the dialogue included in the actual film. Hux paints the picture VERY clearly in his discussion with Snoke. The New Republic is the peaceful senate that exists and was founded after the fall of the empire. They don't have their own military to pursue the First order since technically, the First Order is in a standstill. They aren't actively messing things up like the empire. There's tension, because it's clear that the first order has cruel intentions, but the first order hasn't made their move yet. Since they haven't, the Republic has no legit reason to go to war with them.

Leia broke off from the republic because she didn't care for this peaceful way of behaving, opting to strike before something bad happens. She creates the resistance. The resistance is secretly (or not so secretly) funded by the republic as their counter measure. They're able to fight the first orders growing power when they don't have the legal grounds to declare war.

When Hux fired upon the republic, destroying the senate, he destroys the allies that have been protecting and building up the resistance. He removes the diplomatic powers the resistance had with the senate in one move, meaning the first order becomes the dominant power in the galaxy. They essentially manage to recover the ground that the empire lost in the last thirty years, except the resistance makes their move, and mange to cripple them. The Galaxy is going to be VERY interesting in 8 and 9. The first order doesn't have its dominance, but the leadership of the republic is gone, with no one to replace them. Things are about to get a lot harder out in the GFFA. So why should you care about the republic? Because they're the only reason our plucky heroes have any ability to fight, and have the stuff they do. The republic was the resistances only protection from the first order.

 

JJ did listen to Kasdan too much. Honestly ESB is the most overrated SW movie. It didn't need elaborate explanations because ANH set the groundwork for it. There are some things we did need some explanations about and never got. btw I'm cool with not being told about Rey and the mystery behind how she suddenly became a badass; It will be revealed. I'm kind of relieved JJ and Kasdan aren't involved in VIII. This is a solid film but the more I think about it the more problems become apparent.

Also I'm a George Lucas lover and a Prequel Defender. Hate me all you want. :\

 

I don't see why we needed R2's part of the map at all, since the portion that BB-8 carried seems to be perfectly ample to track down Luke. It has the damn end point, which is really the only necessary bit of information. We don't need the line indicating all the worlds he stopped at BEFORE settling at the endpoint. What am I missing here?

 

I paid attention to all of the dialogue. Almost every detail you mentioned here isn't in the movie. Hux DOES say the New Republic secretly supports the Resistance. That's why I included the question about them being part of the New Republic. At first watch, I thought they were a secret sect of the government. After that, I figured they just 'supported' as in let the Resistance use their planets as bases and let them pass through unimpeded. Hux also mentions that the Resistance would lose the protection without the New Republic. Why that is also isn't explained. It makes sense if the New Republic is a sect of the government, but it's apparently not. It's an independent force that the public doesn't even support (at least, Hux makes it sound like the public isn't in support.)

The New Republic funding the Resistance - not in the movie. So, all that stuff about the New Republic giving the Resistance their stuff goes unexplained. Having no political authority to go after The First Order - not in the movie. So, it's still not clear why the New Republic isn't involved. And if there's no military for the New Republic, why does Hux talk about destroying the New Republic's fleet? C3PO mentions something about that, that they needed the Republic fleet to back them up. What is that? Leia breaking off from the New Republic because of this different thinking - not in the movie. And how would the Resistance have diplomatic powers if they're not part of the New Republic and - officially - they're not even supposed to be connected?

Again, the movie - without the help of any supplementary material - does not answer these questions, and that IS the movie's fault.

 

ANH was pretty clear with Vader. First thing we learn is he's a bad guy and one of the Empires sinister Agents looking for the stolen Death Star plans as talked about in the crawl. He dresses in black (villain costume) and strangles to death a guy one handed in mid-air. That demonstration to the audience also shows he's powerful.
Leia remarks that only he would be so bold. This implies he has done similar things before and is a bit of a maverick.

Our next exposition is from Obi-wan. We learn he was once his pupil and he was seduced by the Dark Side. We also learn he helped the Emperor hunt down the Jedi the guardians of peace and justice (means they were good guys) and he betrayed and murdered Luke's father. This establishes a personal connection to our main character. While helping a guy become Emperor and also using the term seduced, it implies he got something for it.

Then the next info dump is at the Imperial Command meeting. We find he is different from the other Imperials. Highlighted by the fact he alone stands while the others sit. There we see he's not that impressed by the Death Star and he sees the power of the Force as the true power. We also learn the other Imperials don't like him very much and one makes fun of him till he starts choking him.

The next Info dump is when Tarkin says to Vader that he's all that's left of the Jedi religion and that they are extinct.

The next info dump is when he meets Obi-wan again and they had met in combat before but as Vader admits he was but the learner but now he is the Master. This says that he and Obi-wan fought before and Obi-wan won and this is Vaders chance for revenge. So yeah there's a lot of info about Vader.

 

Exactly, in fact we only learn one other thing about Vader in the next two, that he's actually lukes father. Nothing else is learned, except maybe that he does have good in him. ANH you basically learn everything about him.

 

To be fair... when I see her closing her eyes mid battle and then opens them again with that focused look.. I half expect one of two things to happen...

1) She says 'I know Force-fu'.
2) She says 'Wow.. counting to 5 really does work like it did in LOST'.

 

It doesn't even say luke is hiding anyway, Han said he was searching for the first Jedi temple and that he vanished in the crawl. Not hiding.

 

That's even worse. So it's "My Nephew has gone on the rampage and is murdering all my students.. Oh well I'm gonna go look for a Jedi temple instead" !!!!!

 

I get the feeling they'll get to showing us the larger galaxy in the next one. Too much exposition is the bane of most modern movies in my opinion, so while yes, i would have liked to know more about the Republic, i get sometimes you have to pick between the personal story and the macro and the personal was more important at this time.

 

There are too many excuses around here, explain me this:

Kylo Ren is portrayed as a very powerful badass from the start of the movie, he exhibits a various range of powers and we're being led to believe he is almost as strong as Vader. He stops a blaster beam mid-air, he throws people around using Telekinesis, he can freeze people very easily, read their minds, sense the Force and even put Rey to sleep only with a wave of his hand.

In the beginning of the fight, he throws Rey against a tree using Telekinesis, why didn't he used Telekinesis on Finn, why waste his energy in a lightsaber duel when he was already injured ? Why not just take the lightsaber which he said was rightfully his from Finn by using the Force ? It was so hard in throwing Finn around using a Force-push when he easily done it seconds before with Rey ?

Also when he gets injured by Chewie's bolt, right after he killed Han, he knew that the good guys were watching so he should have expected retaliation. He heard Chewie's scream and saw him go berserk against those Stormtroopers, he could have stopped the bolt like he did with the blaster beam which was way faster. He seemed at the start of the movie capable of anticipating shots fired at him.

People say he didn't complete his training ? He was trained by Luke and Snoke and he was past the lightsaber training, which is the basic training you receive, he was mastering the Force because it isn't easy to have the powers he possessed throughout the movie. Didn't see any character in the saga stopping a beam midair. Snoke said he needs just to complete his training, basically implied there was only a small-bit to be learned. But hey, in fans eyes, it was perfectly normal for him to lose the duel against Rey because he didn't complete his training, well newsflash: Rey didn't even began her training and was able to defeat him ? Give me a break, weak writing all over it. Also he struggled against Finn FFS in the duel, who was a toilet cleaning stormtrooper, who didn't wield or had any sense of lightsaber training in his life, while facing the star of the Dark Force who had all his life devoted in following Vader's steps. Talk about clutching at straws.

Wasn't more realistic if Rey was losing her battle against Kylo, and she gets lucky because the ground breaks, thus saving her from him, instead of the other way around ? Or him winning the fight but showing restraint in killing her, and she escapes because he just wants to take her captive or something like that.

Also, another question comes to my mind, i know that General Hux, Captain Phasma (who was portrayed also as a badass from the trailers and marketing, but ended up doing absolutely nothing in the movie) and Kylo Ren would return in the sequel. So, how will they manage to escape ? How Phasma, who we are being led to believe, was thrown in a garbage disposal, will manage to escape ? General Hux also, in order to save Kylo, must know his exact position while also having a starship ready for them to escape, we know that Kylo was saved by the ground falling apart, so the destruction of the planet has already began at that moment.

 

There is something else with villain issue you touch on. Even if Phasma does get a bigger role can you really take someone seriously who caved in and was literally thrown in the Trash ?

Hux as a general was pretty useless and why didn't he shoot the Resistance planet with his Death Star 3 first than the Redshirt planets since he was at war with them. All he's done was just make a bigger enemy since the Republic fleet is now at war with him too !!!

As for Rey, she had never even used a Lightsaber before that point and thought the Force was myth and just stories, yet she beat Kylo anyway. How the hell is he going to have a chance against her after she has had training ? That's assuming she even needs it of course since she was pretty über with out it. Kylo is screwed.

Seriously JJ left the villains in a real mess for the next guys.

Compare that to Vader in ANH who found out where the Rebels were based and would have killed Luke (and won the war) if Han had not come back at the last minute. There was no such problems using him again for ESB.

 

There also many other plot holes i can't really remember right now, R2D2 going into standby because Luke left or because of some traumatic event, it's really laughable. When Anakin (he was his master) killed all those children, destroyed the Jedi temple, turned to the Dark Side, those were reasons far greater than whatever might have happened to Luke for R2D2 to go into power-off mode (Anakin was the Chosen One, alot of Jedi's hopes relied on him and so on), but he didn't. Also he suddenly wakes up just at the right moment, really poor from JJ. Leia completely ignoring Chewie, after all they went through, while going for a hug with Rey is another one i think.

 

What? Whaaaaaaaaaat? This is the perfect example of mystery box storytelling. They could have don anything with Lukes character, he could have been in the first scene excavating a jedi temple and talking to R2 about it. They wanted a Mystery. The whole film they were saying where's Luke? But I'm not in the galaxy so I don't care about where. He's obviously on an isolated moon or something. The question for me as a viewer is why? Everyone in this thread keeps saying character matters more than politics. I agree. So what about Lukes character? When he found his foster parents dead did he say:

a)"I blame myself I'm going to live on an island and mope about it"
b) "Take me with you to Alderon so I can learn the ways of the force and become a Jedi like my father before me"

Leia is looking for him. It's obvious that there is a new light sabre weilding bad guy around and Luke should be dealing with it. Why isn't he? What is importance of this temple place he's looking for. That is the mystery of the film. That is what I expected to be answered, and at the very moment when I thought the answer was coming they cut to the end credits with JJ Abrams name.

If someone says to me "what is mystery box storytelling?" from now on I will say "have you seen Star Wars seven?"

 

However while Kylo Ren is portrayed as very powerful, he is also shown to have no self control. It essentially mirrors the duel between Vader and Luke in ESB, this is why Vader is able to defeat him so easily. While we have not seen any training that Rey has received we see throughout the film that what she does have is control of herself. If you have ever taken any fencing or kendo (or any martial art) one of the first things you are taught is that controlling a blade begins with controlling oneself, and if you cannot control yourself all the technique and training will not help you in a real fight. Luke's heroic fault, is that he himself often displays a lack of self control. Anakin's defeat by Obi-wan in RotS was also ultimately due to his losing his self control. So when Snoke orders Kylo Ren be brought to him to complete his training it is not to learn new tricks or technique but to learn how to control himself and his power.

 

I am more than willing to accept the unbelievable skills and accomplishments of a Campbellian hero to whatever you want to call it (in SW "the force"). What bothered me a bit was the obvious Prequel phobia manifesting in the the film lacking any political explanation as to the state of the galaxy. Was The (New?) Republic the dominant power or was the First Order stronger? The viewer has no idea. If our heroes are the underdogs we need to know that, and ten seconds of screen time would cover it.

Another issue I have is that if we are starting a Star Wars film in a desert with a droid trying to deliver a message and that droid gets captured by scavengers then we're trying to destroy a super weapon ... somewhere we need someone hanging a lantern on the fact that history is repeating itself. If reoccurring events is part of the plot structure that sounds great and interesting, but it can not go ignored in the story. Early in VIII Luke had better start talking like "it is all happening again".

 

Thing is that there are actually lots politics in the OT. It's just that it was very simple and open because we knew exactly who the good guys were and who the bad guys were and we were not given any hidden meanings or wider context outside of the particular focus of Empire vs Rebel Alliance.
Was a lack of exposition on some elements, an issue for you in TFA?

Well it depends what you mean by expostion. Do you mean straight dialogue exposition of which we probably got more or less the same amount as ever.

Some of it was rather clunky in that Leia and Han were telling each other what they already knew but we the audience didn't. Usually you would have characters who know something tell the ones who don't. ie Rey and BB-8.

Kylo Ren's backstory was probably the major exposition piece with Leia and Han and Snoke all telling us about it as well as Ren himself,

Things in Star Wars especially can get explained through dialogue driven character scenes and visual storytelling character scenes.

I was surprised at the cutting of the Maz handing Leia the Lightsaber scene and her telling Leia that Finn should keep it for now. Knowing that Rey would get it in the end. I guess they wanted to make it a surprise that Finn still had it to face Kylo?

Well with a movie that had more than plenty of the prequels in it in both image and story I think if there was any phobia it was about a certain strand of politics that some people for some reason think were in the movies that largely weren't (in the way they think of them anyway).

As you say another scene or two and line here or there for context would have been very easy to add to clarify things. From the behind the scenes books out it seems that the extra material was in the movie edit at one point and cut out but then so were similar scenes with Padme from ROTS.

Various other interesting character things were also cut out probably including Kylo Ren on the Falcon moment with him in the pilot's chair.

 

If the plot was a "search for Luke" it would have been advisable for someone to actually do some searching. You know ... Find clues in unlikely places ... Piece together a mystery ... Learn stuff. Maybe they could have actually worked out a story using that scenario.

 

I expect we'll learn more abou the state of the galaxy in the next movies. I liked that TFA focuses on the story it is trying to tell, rather than irrelevant crap like who the current chancellor is. It isn't important to the story, so quite rightly isn't included.

There is clearly something very special about Rey - we even have the flashback sequence that confirms there is more to her than meets the eye. Therefore, her impressive prowess with the force is intentional, not a plot hole.

 

Just this. I for one enjoyed the whole 'thrown in, so many questions unanswered' aspect. I was actually dreading the idea that everything would be spoon fed, and am pleased that we were not.

So much room for imagination and questions!

 

I think that some people misunderstand what the term "plot hole" actually means. Most of these seem more like "unanswered questions," which is a. not the same thing, and b. not surprising since this is part 1 of a 3-part story.

 

I'm pretty sure there was a line of dialogue in there somewhere about not having enough info in that piece of the map to figure out where it fit in the galaxy. R2 had the context that that piece fit into. Which makes it pretty clear to me, that it was an intentional setup by Luke so that no one would be able to find him until certain events transpired.

Still lots of unexplained backstory on how all this got started. Which is fine with me. Disney is going to have fun filling that 30+ year gap with spin-offs, novels, games, etc. Welcome to the new EU.

 

I've only seen the movie, and obviously I managed to get all those details. The film doesn't spoon feed you everything. You can infer information based on the dialogue and details provided by the film, and what you know of the characters. That is far more interesting story telling than having a ten minute scene of exposition on floating platforms.