ST Starkiller Base Discussion Thread

Well, in TFA, SKB is really a McGuffin.... It's a device that establishes the urgency of finding Luke, and it also facilitates the political "reset" of the Galaxy by destroying the the Republic's political heart. So it accomplishes a lot, plot wise. But it is not the central focus of the film. So, yeah, it's perhaps a bit too familiar, but it facilitates a great deal.

 

Luke himself is surely the McGuffin? SKB to me acts as a distraction to that story which I think would have been much better served establishing more why Rey would want to find Luke and learn about the force.

The whole idea of an instant "reset" to the political situation just seems simplistic and clumsy to me, not inline with the more realistic political situation of the OT. Then again the FO as a whole also seemed that way to me.

 

You can have more than one, if you want to think of Luke as the McGuffin (which is reasonable). By political "reset," I am referring to being able to establish the First Order as a large and immediate threat. If the Republic is still a cohesive and effective government, then much of the plot focus would have to be on how the Republic responds to the First Order attacks. By taking out their central political structure, the "good guys" can be effectively and convincingly concentrated in Leia and few others. We'll have to see how they do that in EP VIII. But imagine if Washington DC were nuked. Eliminating the entire US government in one fell swoop could drastically alter world politics.

The First Order are very much an analogue of a the rise of the Nazi party in Germany in 30's. Remember that WWII started only 20 years after the end of the Great War, which saw Germany defeated and devastated. Who would have thought Third Reich (First Order) would rise less than 20 years later even more powerful than the German Empire (Galactic Empire)? In reading Bloodline, the analogue is even more clear.

 

i think skb is the final evolution of an idea/dream they just couldn't let go of... so it works.

 

You can but I don't think its needed and as I said seems to help more to distract the plot rather than push it forward. My view it more that SKB was included much more for its own sake than it was to help the plot along.

I understand what purpose Abrams looked to give SKB and not to be rude the basic history of the 20th century, my point is I find this plot advancement and the FO generally to be clumsy and more than a little cartoonish. The Empire for me has vastly more credibility/gravitas than the first order because the politics around it felt more realistic and organic rather than being the product of a single action. Ontop of that the Empire itself didn't look to fall back to the stock cartoon Nazi role preffering to draw a wide variety of influences that could be applicable to many locations and time periods as well as showing more of the banality of evil.

 

I think the SKB is more about symbology of the scale of the threat. That's why they showed both Death Stars next to the Starkiller Base. The closer we get to the end of the story, the threats seem to get larger yet can be defeated with much less.

The entire Resistance had a total of 12 cobbled together X-Wings. With that and Han and Chewie doing what they do best were able to destroy it with help from nature.

The motif of technology is unreliable next to nature is taken full circle where the SKB is a metaphor for nature and technology out of balance. Rather than needing the X-Wings to simply blow it up as the 100% metallic structures that were the Death Stars, with the SKB all it needed was for 'the good guys' to tip the balance of nature back to the light side by destroying the tech and the planet took care of the rest by transforming into a star replacing the one the battle station stole from the other.

It's a metaphor for balance.

 

SKB didn't kill the movie for me. In fact, I still think it is the third, somedays it is fourth, best in the series. The acting and dialogue, vfx, everything was great….SKB was just too much of the same ol thing. That's all.

 

It's worth pointing out though that any kind of fleshed-out politics around the Empire comes entirely from the EU. In the movies they are entirely Space Nazis, all jackboots and stormtroopers. Actually, one of the great strengths of the OT for me is that it doesn't, in fact, do much 'realistic, organic' development of the political side of things - there are really obvious baddies who are thoroughly bad and stay thoroughly bad the whole way through. Cartoonish? Sure, but then so is a space wizard, a farm boy and a desperado rescuing a princess from a Dark Knight, from a certain point of view.

The decision to make the PT full of murky, shifting allegiances and subtle political power-plays gave the saga an interesting new dimension (previously the only movie character whose motives were less than obvious was Lando, and then only for about five minutes) but it also kind of meant that you lost the mythic good-vs-evil tone whenever there wasn't a Sith on screen.

 

I understand that.

 

Making the Empire realistic does not automatically mean spending large amounts of time showing its inner workings though. Its possible to only show us a relatively small amount of detail as the OT does whilst also creating the impression of the Empire as having evolved more organically and realistically. You look at ANH for example and I think we clearly get the impression that the move towards disbanding the senate is a process long in the making and that Leia has been a political opponent of Tarkin and Vader for a significant amount of time, the Death star is part of the Empires plans but it is not an instant rise to power nore is the disbandment of the senate.

As far as the nature of the Empire obviously there is some Nazi influence but it no way is this the entirety and perhaps more importantly it doesn't entirely fall back to the kind of cartoon Nazi that Hux represents. The imperial officers we see are very often brow beaten careerists not tach twirling monsters. Generally I think the Empire is meant to represent any oppressive establishment much more inline with the politics of the new wave and in that respect I think it also works well with Luke's story as its not just an enemy to fight against but represents the conformist life he's rejecting.

 

I think its cool of course, but it completely cheapened the concept of the Death Star, or superweapons in general. The Death Star was impossible to destroy without the combined arrogance of the Empire and the Force delivering Luke Skywalker to the scene. Starkiller base was a weapon built in to a planet. It should have been entirely impossible to destroy. But a hot-shot pilot and squadron of starfighters takes it down without absolutely no explanation as to how/why? That doesn't make any sense at all.

Did any thought even go into this at all? JJ just said, "Oh we're going to have an even bigger more impressive Death Star, and we're going to have X-Wings destroy it."

 

You know what would have impressed me? If the Resistance fighters tried to attack it and were blown apart because it had adequate defenses. The rebellion sent starfighters after the Death Star because: #1 the weakness could only be exploited by a starfighter making a close range shot, and #2 there was no time to call in reinforcements. They didn't send just starfighters after the Death Star II because they time to plan the assault and gather the fleet.

What was the urgency to destroy Starkiller base? If the Resistance base was now being targeted, they should have evacuated, and contacted the outlying commanders of the Republic fleet. Surely the Republic has capital ships and fleets all over the galaxy that would not have been wiped out in the Hosnian system. If they were even going to attempt an attack, it should have been planned out, and backed up by a larger fleet. Once again, this wasn't even thought out. JJ's movie-madness concluded the logical end would have to be blowing up SKB.

 

I thought it was a bad idea. Star Wars didn't need another Death Star. Now 3 out of 7 Star Wars main sage film's end in a death star of sorts exploding.

 

What if it's a major story element for a reason that is revealed in the final chapter?

What if Leia has her own for example? What would she do with the same power used to destroy her family's home planet?

I don't think the repetitions are bad writing, I think it's building to something.

 

For me, personally, and I can only speak for myself, I think there were infinite other options other than having a third deathstar as the big set piece for the third act of the film. A lot of fans were upset when the second deathstar happened, complaining it was unoriginal. A third only goes more in that direction, for me anyhoo.

I hope Leia doesn't get her own death star as a major plot point in the final chapter, as that would be a fourth death star and a bit of a bizarre plot twist. But again, that's just my view. It certainly would be intriguing if they made Leia a big focus though in the third film, I would appreciate that and would totally be willing to see where that goes. Knowing that Luke tells her all about her force powers in the movie right before TFA(ROTJ), I'd like to see that followed up on and see her grow with the force like the sixth film alluded to her doing. Either way though, it'd be neat if Leia had more of a significant role, I also hope Luke has a major role going forward.

 

Collin Tongue

My gut is telling me that since the first 'spinoff' or whatever they are calling it this month film centers around the original Death Star and they had a bigger and meaner one in TFA, that the true significance of these super weapons may very well be revealed to be something more important than we were lead to believe.

 

That would be very interesting if true, we shall see! I am excited for Rogue One and interested to see Vader again, even if but for a moment. I hope he uses his lightsaber...just once... it would be so sweet. What do you think might be the added significance of the death star?

 

One of the major themes of the saga is obtaining power. Sometimes to do good things, other times it leads to bad things.

Possessing a weapon that could not only lead to the end of the world, it can lead to the end of any world. The S2 finale of Rebels suggest that there could be more ancient super weapons buried in planets.

If Star Wars was conceived as a visual symphony, musical symphonies tend to get larger the closer to the end you get.

We have only one week to find out! I'm psyched!

 

was it the best idea? perhaps not. was it a bad idea? I don't think so.

how do you get more destructive than a Death Star? it was the ultimate weapon. they made a second Death Star due to the Empire making glaring errors on the first construction that they later learned from. More important, they didn't anticipate their blueprints being leaked out. why not give a second go at building the ultimate weapon? the Empire is mad with power and spreading galactic fascism, building another Death Star is a testament to their fanaticism and it fits. I'm sure if they thought up another fantastic way to destroy planets they would have switched gears.

Star Killer base isn't even a constructed base, it's an actual planet that at its core is full of the crystals needed to power the ray. The First Order just bore through the planet and constructed the mechanism inside to operate the ray. they made an entire planet one of their bases, and had the good fortune of that planet to be full of crystals that can power an even more destructive death ray, so why not build Starkiller Base and re-attempt what the Empire had some success with. The Death Star wasn't a total failure, and neither was Starkiller Base, it took out a solar system which is a victory for the First Order. Fascism cannot exist if the power holders cannot destroy their political enemies. It's an important device to show the level of power and retribution the First Order can wield. On a galactic scale, these types of super weapons just work.

 

I figured it was the other way round - newcanon Complete Locations says that it was the Empire that first used the Starkiller Base planetoid for testing kyber crystal-based superweaponry - the First Order discovered this by digging into Imperial records - and that's what convinced them to turn the whole planetoid into a superweapon.

 

I agree with you 100%. It reminds me of that big dinosaur in Jurassic World, it's more badass and dinosaur-y cuz' it has been genetically enhanced so it's like a mega super T Rex!!!!! Bigger is better in some executives minds I guess...

 

Nothing new I can really say as the starkiller base was one of my least favorite aspects of TFA. Its just a Death Star 3.0 and with its own trench run to boot.

 

Is it possible that it was not something new on purpose?

In order to show that the galaxy was 'right back in the mess' as Maz said? That something was perhaps left undone?

It's like Time Bandits, if you don't sweep up every little bit of evil, whatever is left behind can grow into something terrible.

 

I can see what you mean and I respect your view point. I just felt they could had done something different to shake things up. Agree to disagree.