ST How did Kylo Ren know about the map?

Nah, it's happening everywhere on the forums/facebook pages I'm on. So often that i had to check if I was the one in the wrong on this issue

 

I actually found that TFA leaned in the opposite direction, where characters knew very little about the world they inhabited. So many blockbuster films these days give the impression that the characters themselves have already read the full script, and TFA seemed to decidedly avoid that. This was part of why it felt, in the words of one critic, to be a thoroughly "old-fashioned" film. We actually see most events through the eyes of the characters we're following. This shrinks the aperture, and narrows the scope and scale of what we see, but is a more realistic approach in terms of character.

 

Actually the answer to this can be some what found in the Before the awaken book in Poe's section. In it Leia has Poe and two of his partners steal a ship from a Senator that is a traitor to the FO. at the end of the story C3P-O tells the princess she needs to see something with the navicomputer, which is why they stole the ship. If this traitor did anything he probably informed the FO of the fact that there's a missing map piece, and he was probably sent back to find out information on that. My guess is that's how Ben knew about the map, through this guy.

 

Current audiences want every single little detail explained to them. Gone are the times were some minor stuff was left to the imagination of the viewer.

If JJ did what people are asking in these forums, TFA would be a 4 hour documentary.

Kylo knew that Lor San Tekka was there and had the map, but how, it is open to your imagination.

The FO probably tracked Poe Dameron X-Wing.

 

So far there are several excellent hypotheses for how Kylo and the First Order knew about the map. I really did not think about it for the first few viewings. The bigger questions dominated, and the overwhelming majority of those questions were left open on purpose. The background for this is relatively easy to assume (though as seen, no one assumption is universal).

Some other story advances that seemed a bit abrupt or not explained in detail, appear to be the result of trying to keep the screen time to a certain sweet spot that general audiences are comfortable with. Then there is the influence of Kasdan, who seems to prefer less exposition and letting the audience fill in the blanks.

What some Star Wars fans demand as we do micro surgery on each facet of each film, is not how movies are made. They are made for the fans when there is a popular franchise, sure, but they are made for the general public also, and to be profitable. Trying to explain each and every set up and plot advance in minutia makes for an overly long boring slog.

The four hour movie length estimate by Ricardo Funes to squeeze in all the missing details is probably about right. I would rather enjoy theorizing about the questions left from TFA here than suffer that.

 

You wouldn't watch Star Wars for the science, that's for sure, but there's only so far I can suspend disbelief (I can just about make myself accept that I'm listening to the sounds of ships as heard INSIDE the ships, rather than in the noiseless vacuum of space) before my puzzlement takes me out of the movie.

Kylo Ren's arrival was magnificent, so I'm quite happy to push nitpicking questions to one side while watching. But realistically, if someone spotted the x-wing landing and called it in, the Finalizer had to make it across space to Jakku in about five minutes, including manouevering and loading the troops. So perhaps the Finalizer was already in orbit, waiting? But why? On a sparsely populated planet with few villages, they couldn't work out where Lor San Tekka lived? If they were tracking the x-wing, you'd think they might be more interested in the pilot than they were - they ignored him till he shot at Ren.

I can come up with loads of ways in which the FO could have got onto the map/Jakku/LST. I just can't come up with any timing- short of time travel - that makes the magnificent first five minutes of the movie more than a shaky plot device.

Unless, of course, Poe is a traitor, and the Finalizer was five minutes behind the x-wing from the moment it left the Illenium system...

 

Well you've already touched on the likeliest scenario, which needn't be overly complicated. The FO have recently got wind of the fact that LST has the map, (spies etc.) and they have recently arrived in orbit around Jakku. Kyo has history with LST, and to some extent knows Jakku itself most likely. So the FO are aware they will face resistance, but are calculating just how much resistance they might face, and what LST might have in store for them. But then Poes X wing turns up, and they quickly finalise preparations and get a squad together. Alternatively, Poes X wing arrives just before the Finalizer turns up, but the scenario is pretty much the same: they have to quickly prepare an invasion force to send down to intercept Poe/grab the map.

Edit: Kylos dialogue, "we know you have it", tells us that the FO are already aware of the map being with LST, and they haven't just lucked out by tracking Poes X wing minutes earlier. The discovery of Poe and his X wing just expedites the mission.

 

I find it to be the exact opposite to be honest. TFA makes the galaxy seem so small, every character has the answer and they can literally stumble through/over every obstacle with the most minimal of effort. What TFA is great at, IMO, is the artifice of it all. Star Wars reduced to the thinnest veneer possible. I do respect the powers that be for managing to pull that off, but ultimately it has a detrimental effect on the film in my opinion.

 

Vader said it himself that the Empire intercepted several messages going 2 Leia's ship.

 

Well yes, but I mean it's never explicitly explained. Dis the Empire have the ability to intercept any space transmission, or did they suspect the princess and spy on her? I take the radio drama has the canon explanation of this. Point being, there is an imaginary line where on one side there's a tacit acknowledgment of things that can be assumed, and on the other, things that need some explanation... I think that Vader knowing about the stolen plans and Kylo knowing about the map are on the same side of that line.

 

So the three separate events of civilians spying for the FO around the galaxy wasn't enough of a hint? BB-8 keeping watch over the skies and the horizon at the edge of the village wasn't enough to show that Poe was half-expecting the enemy to arrive any time, and so somehow they knew that their information wasn't exclusive to the Resistance?

 

The crawl easily could have said something like "Obsessed with finding Skywalker, Kylo Ren's agents intercept a transmission from Leia's agent on the remote planet of Jakku."

 

Or even: 'Leia has sent her most daring pilot to sneak past the First Order and obtain the map'?

 

explaining every little detail is stupid. it requires no thought from the audience.

 

Luke left, before Kylo went mad?

 

TFA was pared to the bone, leaving the audience to fill in many, many blanks for themselves and to speculate. Some of those blanks were intentional, so that we would be puzzled and speculate feverishly. Some were just mistakes (the mysterious disappearance of Finn's blaster at Maz's castle). Some were offhand 'oh-there's-some-way-to-explain-it' that you so often get in these Hollywood action movies. As viewers, we have to gauge the weight and importance of each blank for ourselves.

But when it's the first scene in the movie, and you're immediately trying to work out whether you're being told that one of the speaking characters is a traitor of some sort, you're left not very sure what the 'rules' of this movie actually are.

I suppose, cynically, it encourages you to go back and see the film again.

 

There's a big difference between explaining every little detail and simply having a plot that makes sense.

 

it makes sense.

 

This episode was never made to be a stand alone (unlike ANH - Star Wars - which told a story that either could be self contained or the beginning of a longer saga). It needed to not only appeal to fandom but to general audiences and hook the next generation. From a practical angle, it also needed to entice all to engage in the future episodes. The movie plot is part of the entire story arch over this film and the next two. It left us with holes in our knowledge about how the chase for the map came about or even the origins of the map, Rey's ancestry and beginnings, the timing of prior events that significantly influenced the action in TFA, Han and Leia's backstory, what motivated Kylo following Snoke and following the Dark Side, Snoke himself, etc. Some of that can be left to assumption and imagination without detracting from the story, but there are two episodes left to flesh all this out. What happened in TFA is a story within a larger story, and from that perspective the plot made sense to me.

 

You are all behaving like 1980 audiences after TESB.

Calm down, there are 2 more films, and this trilogy IS going to throw cliffhangers and unanswered questions for the first 2 episodes.

Just enjoy the ride. We will have TONS of theories and speculation in this forum for the next 4 years. And we love to do that.

 

So are you agreeing or disagreeing?

 

Not comparable at all. Kylo knowing to go to Jakku for the map in the opening scene of TFA was like if Tarkin and Vader knew to go to Yavin without placing a tracking device on the Falcon. All the things that ESB didn't resolve were things that it makes sense to follow up on.

 

Cool story, now tell me how Vader found that specific Corellian Corvette had the plans to the Death Star, please.

 

A more comparable situation would be if the crawl established that the First Order is headed to Jakku

 

Isn't it obvious that the FO was headed to Jakku? I remember seeing them in Jakku in the first scene of the movie. I don't need the craw to say that.

Actually it is best that the craw didn't say that, as it created the first surprise as soon as the film started. Nobody knew that we would be seeing the new villain so early in the story.

Can't we suppose that the FO could be half-competent and tracked the map as well as Lor San Tekka? Or that they had a traitor to give them the information?