ST Starkiller Base Discussion Thread

I agree the stuff that happened on the planet was great, the sky battle above was not up to par on a story or visual level, which is shocking to me bc I thought the Tie fighter escape scene was magnificent as well as the falcons first flight on Jakku, after that both sky battles at maz castle and SKB were really meh and boringly shot except for the one tracking shot of poe's x wing

 

I think that the destruction of the Hosnian system is the only thing which gives SB any sense storywise. It's an important plot point because it's setting up VIII for sure. Granted, it came across as over-the-top and heavy-handed. It would probably be better if First Order just attacked the Senate during some kind of important gathering and wiped out the leadership Godfather style (not sure how you can destroy the fleet convincingly in that scenario, though). The problem is they tried to stay away from politics as much as possible, so a big 'BOOM' was convenient.

 

I've articulated this before (and might have in this thread), but SKB just seemed so unnecessary, IMO. I think everything they wanted to accomplish could have occurred with a massive surprise assault on Hosnian Prime; it would have made for a better story by the republic dismissing the threat, and Leia being proven right when this massive fleet comes out of hyperspace and essentially destroys the planet with bombardment. Have a few senators survive. The Han/Kylo/Rey arc could have played out on the Finalizer, along with an escape from it. I think it would have upped the stakes for 8.

 

Or on Hosnian Prime partly demolished and taken by First Order, right? That would be cool. You would feel the stakes if the events were set in the heart of chaos. Just one condition - you would have to make it a snow planet, so the magnificent duel could stay untouched.

 

Fair enough; and it's not even really a big gripe for me. The movie seems to almost acknowledge it with an eye roll during the planning meeting.

 

What are the advantages Snoke has by using SKB vs preparing a massive atacck on Hosnian Prime? On my point of view, quite a few:

1) He can build SKB while at the same time hosting troops on it during the construction process, saving costs;
2) It does not need to be close to the target, allowing for less time wasted and a high surprise factor when compared to the old DS;
3) It can destroy the target planet in 1 second, compared to having to battle for hours or days if using conventional attacks;
4) Success rate is 100%, there is no defense against it;
5) No direct combat means that not a single casualty for the FO;
6) The FO does not need to have a huge army as they are not engaged in combat. The FO army can be used only for defense and small scale attacks;
7) SKB needs to work only 1 time to do massive impact on the Republic. Being able to reuse it is nice but not vital to Snoke overall strategy.

The disadvantages are clear as well:

1) If SKB is destroyed, the FO will have a huge financial and military loss;
2) It has been proven in the past the mega weapons are 1 shot use at most - they always have vulnerabilities that can be exploited;
3) If SKB was found during construction, it would be very easy to be destroyed and the impacts of this loss would be huge;
4) It takes a long time to recharge and it has to be close to a large enough sun to drain.

I think that SKB makes sense if its primary objective was to destroy the Republic army and Senate.

 

I like the idea that it sucks up a star, but they should have left it at that. SKB shows up, makes your sun go away and leaves your planet for dead... creepy. Also, stop desroying the super-weapons in the inital film they appear in. Now they have to come up with something else for VIII and IX.

 

I don't have a problem with SKB. I do have a problem with how it was used. It was a pointless Death Star rip-off that ended up adding nothing to the film. Like has been said, the evil weapon could have easily been part of the finalizer. It being SKB added nothing the way it was used. If they were going to go with another spherical death weapon it should have at least lasted. Now it's just another in a long line of pointless impractical one off film weapons in Star Wars.

 

I do agree it should have been anything besides deathstar 3 where I will disagree is that it offers nothing; after all of all the deathstars it actually succeeded by far the most out of the 3 super weapons, Im guessing if your looking at the two govts at the start of the force awakens, I would say the republic is far superior in force to the first order, but by the end thanks to skb the first order now has the statistical advantage not to mention the repbulics leadership is now destroyed. So it does give Rian Johnson and the writers some leeway into talking about the politics if he so chooses to. Maybe Leia finally assumes leadership of the govt. bc she was running for office in the book bloodlines; so it matches her interest in the new canon. All this of course just speculation.

ps. I will say if you are interested in the politics of the galaxy post jedi, the topic is really explored in the novels bloodlines which I hear Rian johnson contributed on with the author and the new book aftermath life debt which is a 100 times better than the first aftermath book.

 

I was a fan of the idea that the First Order are Neo-Nazis.
That is, they are really just a shadow of the original big nasty bad guy. Empire fanboys, just as Kylo is a Vader fanboy.

And so, Starkiller Base seemed too large of an endevour for them. They should have been a local threat, with their lone Star Destroyer, maybe trying to scavenge together some Kyber Crystals to hack up a second rate Death Star scale weapon, assembled on the nose of a cruiser.

 

I think your idea would have also been smarter overall as far as story telling goes bc it would also back up all the new canon and extended universe. in the books it is shown that after jedi the empire is in shambles and there are splinter groups forming out of the ruins of the empire, some empire leaders even go as far as to say it is a lie that the emperor is dead and that he is still in control. So the idea of the first order being formed out of that ash and just being a small neo nazi rebellion group would be interesting and it would also explain why the republic dont take them seriously. Instead what I think we got in the force awakens is the USA (the republic) vs North Korea (first order) except the first order can actually get their weapons to fire unlike north korea.

 

Yes. This is one of the primary mismatches in the film for me. The new generation/ wannabe/ shadows of their predecessors quality of the villains (which I enjoy both as a concept, and in execution), combined with a weapon that's far more powerful than that of their ancestors. Just didn't jive. Would have fit better if they were essentially a heavily-resourced terrorist organization that was hunting Luke, and come close to killing him.

 

My pre-TFA headcanon was that Hux detected this abandoned Star Destroyer orbiting his home, shuttled up to it and discovered a Complete Imperial Army Kit. Weapons, TIEs, AT-ATs, Stormtrooper armor. A nice package of everything you need to be a little dictator.

Headcanons....

 

that's why i think it would have been cool if the FO used outdated imperial tech, their left over TIEs and star destroyers.

 

SKB's destruction of Hosnian Prime is clearly an important plot point that will assumedly have major repercussions for the trilogy going forward, but lack of investment in both SKB and Hosnian Prime diminishes that scene significantly. Yes, the reactions of the politicians and denizens of Hosnian Prime has some brief resonance, but if the planet essentially looks like "discount Coruscant," part of me wonders why the filmmakers didn't just make it destroy Coruscant instead. Naturally, making that story choice could be perceived as a thinly veiled middle finger to the prequels, but at least the majority of audiences are familiar with the planet and its significance in the galaxy.

 

A belligerent power compounding the same strategic errors from the past, like superweapons and superdefenses that are worthless once their weakness is identified and exploited, is a valid theme. I guess it's not what everyone wanted, and you can't argue with that desire.

As it was. The allusion to the two death stars didn't really sink in until it became an against the clock race to blow it up. Partly because it was just an icy planet until the moment that Snoke decided not to waste any more time and ensure that the Resistance received no more help from the Senate in finding Skywalker. And then it became another Death Star ("I only wished it were").

The good guys destroying an entire planet (albeit one turned in to a weapon) could be setting a dangerous precedent for the Resistance/Republic. Perhaps.

Watching Poe and co in action was still a blast and doesn't weary in any repeated viewings. And the presonal conflict it frames is not diminished by it, for me.

 

ewoksimon: I've been thinking along the same lines. It's possible, though, that our heroes are meant to return to Coruscant for some significant reason (something to do with the Jedi Temple, perhaps).
In that case, inventing Hosnian Prime for TFA was basically a cheap way to have the cake and eat it.

Not that I mind it - as long as I get to revisit the galaxy's crown jewel

 

Personally, I think it's a bad idea.

Firstly, Superweapons had already been introduced in the original trilogy. (2 SuperWeapons)
Second, It's always destroyed at the last second, exploiting it's weakness. It's the same since Yavin to assault on Starkiller.

I prefer a weapon like the Malevolence. Ion cannons - For the Sequels, you could go for something like Shield Penetrating Nuke or something. But not a single shot and instakill.

If they were going to destroy Hosnian Prime, I would want to see like, a massive armada of Star Destroyers doing battle and orbital bombardment. Or have the Knights of Ren go plant some kind of bomb in the core. A single shot from a superweapon is lame, cuz it was in the Original Trilogy already and having another makes me feels like the plot is just repeating itself.

Snoke, once he won, probably wanted to sit on his throne in Coruscant like Palps, lol. That's why he doesn't want to destroy Coruscant.

 

I'm a huge Coruscant fan myself, but as much as I'd love to see it again, I doubt that we'll see it or any of the other prequel planets in the sequel trilogy. I'm guessing that Abrams and Kasdan wanted to be respectful towards Lucas, and therefore created Hosnian Prime as the New Republic's home as opposed to Coruscant. I suppose they could have asked for his blessing on destroying Coruscant, but even mentioning it to him could have been perceived as disrespectful.

 

Coruscant would be the centre of the new Republic, if we assume that system was acquired by the Alliance in settlement of the GCW. But I'm not sure that's a foregone conclusion.

As it is, it appears that the settlment of that conflict did not include Coruscant being taken over as the "capital" of the New Republic and that one had to be established eslewhere. And it's important to consider that the Empire was the Old Republic turned into a dictatorship. It aint necessarily so that the Empire just turned into the New Republic with the alliance taking over the regime and restoring or trying to restore democracy as the reward for the victory at Endor.

 

My first negative note before the film released, was spying that Death Star-style object on the film poster, and decrying the lack of imagination.

In the film itself, I liked the mountainous actual planet rather than another battle station.

I do feel like I have roleplayed against J J Abrams before though; same sort of player that regardless of what defenses you set out, the ****** just turns up inside your base.

The Death Star's shields were designed to deter large vessels, so small fighters were able to fly through.

Death Star II, impenetrable, so team had to go elsewhere to knock out the shield generator.

The First Order in my mind, had a reasonable expectation of that shield protecting them, but noooo; they reckoned without the writers crossing the movie over with an episode of Law & Order, so they could wake up a judge and get her to suspend the Laws of Physics.
What they going to protect the next DS with, now that people can just fly through shields?


What was the question again?

 

That would have been the best Legends callback ever made.

 

Oh no, you better be quiet before fans of this movie come to your post and start telling you that you're "thinking too hard" and that "your expectations were simply too high".

 

I would have wanted to reserve the name for a person, I think it was a bit short-sighted of the new makers of the movies. There's a often a tendency to view certain things from another era as outdated or 'passé'. However, when you are dealing with the source material. it makes sense to be honest about what makes it work. I like all those old names for characters like 'Skywalker', 'Darklighter' and 'Starkiller', they are certainly better than the likes of 'Erso', 'Ren' and 'Dameron'.

For what it's worth, British SF always had a better knack for naming things and people than American SF as the latter tend to try too hard or not hard enough. America SF tends to come up with real names that few people have ever heard of or, alternatively, 'nonsense' words that they think sound odd or alien. British SF tend to come up with real words that people might know or have in their subconscious but don't usually associate them with names. The words are appropriated or altered to become names. It sounds less forced and I think those old Star Wars names, though extreme examples, are closer to the British approach.

 

Having thought about it, I'm willing to concede that it is probably not so much as a British versus American distinction as an old versus modern one. However, I still think the British have a better strike rate for SF names that don't sound forced.