ST Starkiller Base Discussion Thread

Starkiller Base - Good Idea or Bad Idea?

It seemed that even a lot of people that absolutely loved TFA still criticized the Starkiller Base (or Death Star 3.0) idea. What say you?

 

Loved the movie - hated StarKiller Base.

Not only was it just "another Death Star"... they didn't even do anything interesting like making it an ancient relic or something

 

Ya I think even people that loved just about everything about the movie have problems with Starkiller Base.

There were so many other directions they could have gone with a "threat to the galaxy" that didn't involve a giant death star looking, planet destroying super weapon.

If it were up to me I'd have the First Order developing some kind of biological or chemical weapon that ends up wiping out the population of a couple of planets. But there are plenty of other ideas that could have been used as well.

 

I didn't HATE it, but I'm closer to hating than I am to liking it. I thought it was exceedingly lazy. Any notion of nostalgia they aimed to ignite was lost on the fact that I was left thinking "Are you ****ing kidding me?" And I liked the film.

 

The scene of them planning to destroy the Starkiller Base... I was very uncomfortable watching that. I was embarrassed for Star Wars at that moment.

 

The return of the Milli Falcon was one of many reasons why I liked TFA, but unfortunately, Starkiller Base was not one of them... Sure, the attack on the Base made for good eye candy, as with the shocking murder of Han Solo by Kylo Ren, but overall, the use of SKB was rather underwhelming and reminded me of a Death Star III!

 

Idea-person: "You know what would be great in this story....? Some large...gigantic...sorta space station type of thing... And it has an extremely powerful...I want to say..."laser" type of thing built into it. The laser is so powerful that it can destroy entire planets... Now that would be a great idea!"
Other Idea-person: "You mean something like a Death Star."
Idea-person: "Whoa, whoa, whoa now! Let's not blatantly copy an idea from the other movies! I'm going for something original here!"

(This article sums up perfectly how I feel about Starkiller base: Ultimate Super Starkiller MurderBase IV)

 

Didn't hate it, but really didn't dig the idea of another Death Star. They could have come up with something a lot more unique.

 

I will say I was very thankful that SKB was a subplot (like in ROTJ/TPM) and not the main plot (like in ANH). I think that's why even though I thought it was stupid it didn't bother me that much.

Really in the end it was just a plot device to push the main narrative (Han/Kylo confrontation, Rey/Finn vs Kylo) forward... but they really could have come up with a better plot device

 

I'm in the middle. I didn't mind it at all, but I would preferred something different. I'm not sure what else it could have been, though. They needed a huge threat. And I suspect that the direction of VIII and IX will make clear that the story required the destruction of the New Republic government. So, what to do?

 

I think they violated an unwritten law in scifi storytelling: If you know it couldn't work in real, add exotic elements that could make it appear to work (e.g. Death stars I and II).

The energy required to suck stellar fragments from a star over the distance of an astronomical unit requires the energy of a black hole while the materials you get from a star just don't yield comparable energy. It's like you send steam driven boats over the ocean to mine coal in a distant country but don't notice that the coal you are burning up to get there is a higher coal consumption than what you're actually bringing back.

Alan Dean Foster's novelization is spot on by suggesting that SKB uses "exotic" dark energy as the superweapon's ammunition. Unless we know what "dark energy" is that concept looks at least palatable and somewhat believable.

I'm inclined to say it was a very bad idea - its absence would have spared us both the nonsense that the destruction of Hosnian Prime was instantly visible elsewhere in the galaxy and that the citizens of Hosnian Prime were able to see the destruction coming at them. If the destroyer beam travels with FTL speeds, the citizens of Hosnian Prime would have never learned what actually hit them.

 

I get why they went with the Starkiller Base idea. It gave us an excuse to have another X-Wing vs Tie Fighters battle while trying to re-capture the drama of the end of ANH.

But if it were a biological or chemical weapon you can say that the First Order is harvesting some ingredient for the weapon on a particular planet and the resistance has to stop them. Then your major battle would be a space AND ground battle happening simultaneously to gain control of said resource / ingredient. In space yes there would be X-Wings and Tie Fighters but perhaps some of the Republic fleet shows up and you have a "Battleship" type battle with large ships firing on each other. On the ground you have AT-ATs vs some Republic equivalent. I think that would have been kewler than another Death Star.

 

Good idea for the movie? Or good idea for the First Order?

 

Movie, story elements.

 

Well, I gotta go with "hated it" then. I didn't actually hate it, but I didn't like it either. I'm good with the weapon itself, but making it in a planet was lame.

 

Then let's hope for more sightings of the awesome Finalizer and her fellow Star Destroyers in Episode 8... Those are really massive spacecraft carrying a huge number of troops and vehicles, and best of all, they can move!

By the way, there's a 100% "I hated Starkiller Base" vote here...

 

MidKnighT - That's exactly what I was recalling. The DS comparison. Oh. Wow.

And yeah the more I think about it the more it annoys me. It has to be a DS or equivelant to justify an Xwing vs tie fight? Are those things built specifically to destroy or defend giant super weapons? Plz. Surely it wouldnt have taken much for the talented people who made this film to come up with another reason for these spaceships to laser fight each other. The resource ideas actually pretty good. And fitting for our real world. Even just a simple, the FO plans to attack the republics main peoples, so the resistance decides to be proactige and attack the FO at their home base. No need for the superweapon. Just have it be revealed 85% of the way into the fight, that the resistance is winning, that the FO had way more numbers than they thought, and a large amount of them got to that republic system and is in the process of wrecking shiz.

Something. Anything!

 

With these kind of poll results, did Disney test screen the film before it was released? I'd think a lot of test screeners would have problems with the Starkiller Base. That said it would likely be too late to change it at that point.

Somebody should have told Abrams, Umm... No.

 

I liked it.

Like the Galactic Empire, the First Order are willing to show their power. They need something that can strike fear into the heart of the Republic.

It's a great idea, but I doubt they'll remake it.

 

Thing is, it was entirely intentional. Either they thought people would react positively to the nostalgia feels. Or they simply didn't care and copy pasted from the previous works of the shiz they just bought.

 

Aesthetically, it's a terrible design. It looks dumb. Within the context of the movie's own logic and even the squishy space logic of Star Wars in general, it's hard to make sense out of the weapon. And that's ignoring how derivative it is, and actually a bit unnecessary to the plot of TFA.

 

The thing is that he did no write it alone, but together with Arndt and Kasdan. Then there was the entire Lucasfilm Story Group that should have been in the know about it: Kennedy, Hidalgo and several more.

 

The idea of more superweapons in Star Wars, "Death Star 3.0," visuals of the base = GOOD

How the Resistance attack on the base was handled = MEDIOCRE

Exploding planets visible from Maz's = JUST EMBARASSING

 

Not really a fair assessment, though, given the limitations of this poll. An "indifferent" option probably should have been included.

 

My point of view is that it should be mobile, explain why it destroys the system after all what if recharging it is what causes the destruction?
They holovise the destruction to emphasise their delusional belief in their superiority, they head to Maz's system to pick up Kylo giving Finn & co the chance to infiltrate the base as Leia now possibly the only surviving member of the New Republic Government is now top of the list of targets the First Order want to go after first!

So we have the time it takes for that Base to locate where Leia has headed to for reinforcements but due to Poe tracking the homing beacon on the Falcon leads two squadrons on an attack after Han cons Captain Phasma's into letting him have access to the SHIELD control room.

When he takes that down, the beacon is picked up and Poe's unit jumps in as Finn & co desperately keep ahead of their pursuers making it more dangerous and more exciting with Han assumed killed holding off the First Order so we all assume Poe was successful in damaging the oscillator but as both flee offworld the damage doesn't blow up the base meaning they can go back to it in say episode 8 & 9 revealing information on the First Order ultimately revealing the Base is repairing itself setting it up as the site of the final battle say Kylo jumps away with the fully operational base although we learn it was sabotaged sending it into the distant past revealing Kylo as the founder of the first darksider order perhaps even the Rakati and also the earliest Skywalker...

Anyway...