ST How did Kylo Ren know about the map?

Obviously disagreeing that this part has to be explicitly explained, when the rest of the movie fills that gap in by implication. It doesn't materially affect the story to find out exactly who spied for whom and when.

 

It's not a surprise. It's a disconnect between the crawl and the film. Wouldn't it have been an excellent surprise if Leia was already dead when we first saw her in ANH?

I find it more believable that Anakin built 3PO and Yoda knew Chewie than I do that the First Order just so happened to find out at the exact same time.

 

BINGO ^^

 

Try harder. "A disconnect"? Tell me, how did you feel when the craw of TESB said that Luke was "leading" a group of freedom fighters on Hoth? This was FAR from true.
Are you disconnected to TESB as well?

 

Yes, but that means that someone in the Resistance is a traitor, because that's the only way the FO could get there so quickly. The most obvious candidate is Poe himself, who was - let's not forget - left safely unkilled by Kylo Ren. That's quite a big deal.

 

The Resistance and FO arrived in a similar manner at Takodana (except they swapped who got there first), yet there was no Resistance traitor there. Why is someone from the Resistance the most obvious candidate and not one of the Tuanul villagers?

 

Good point. It took no time at all for the FO and the Resistance to arrive after being alerted about the droid. Of course, we don't know quite how long they actually spent on Takodana before the troops arrived - the movie shifts them through in ten minutes, but you have to imagine it would take a couple of hours to fit in the force vision, etc?. Presumably the Finalizer was already tracking the Falcon and may not have been far behind, but the Resistance was there quickly from a standing start.

 

Maybe it was all just a matter of how quickly the info got up their respective chains of command and how close each side were to the destination. Seemed to me Rey and the team were there in real time -- since not much else was happening apart from conversations. At most 30 minutes, I'd say. But then how long they were there was immaterial. In the Star Wars pseudo-science of faster-than-light light speed, what's critical is when each side is alerted to what. And what's more critical to this question is that the movie basically paints the pattern of civilians, not members of each side, being spies.

 

If you read my post again, I state that this plot point does NOT need further explanation... and that of all the plot points that are not explained, and are justly criticised, this one probably doesn't warrant it.

 

Fair enough, it wasn't clear from your post on which side of that imaginary line you put this on, and given you did say it was a result of "slapdash" writing, then it was natural for me to assume you meant the other side of the line.

 

I do believe the writing is largely poor, but there then becomes a tendency to level it at every facet/plot point. Kylo knowing about the map, at this juncture in the film, needs as much explanation as Vader knowing about the Tantive IV and Leia's involvement I.e. it's largely inferred. In terms of TFA, its's implicit that the information has got back to the FO and Kylo is following it up. I don't think it needs expanding on in the film beyond what's presented.

 

these are complaints that come from people who are stumped by logic.

 

In that case, why didn't any of these spies tell the Resistance about Starkiller Base?

 

Resistance had no spies that knew of it (until Finn came along). Wouldn't that be the obvious inference?

 

You said that everyone had spies everywhere, so why didn't any of them find out about it?

 

I didn't say that. You're making things up. I said there were three events of civilians spying for the FO around the galaxy. It's not even remotely similar to the words you're putting in my mouth.

 

I don't think the Guavian Death Gang were spies outright. I think they just ratted out Solo 2 the FO because they want revenge on him. Now Zebra Outfit Girl at Maz's was a spy. What was the third event?

 

I didn't mean to say all of them were literal full-time spies but civilians serving as informants of one form or another, effectively 'spying'. Bala-Tik informed on Han presumably because there was a price on BB-8 and presumably any info leading to his capture.

The 3rd "spying" or rather "informing" event actually came first -- with Unkar's thugs pointing out Rey and BB-8 to the arriving stormtrooper on Jakku.

 

I think the movie did a great job showing how many spies the First Order had.

And how fast the FO could spread the info that they were looking for BB-8.

Now think about it, if they could spread the info on BB-8 so quickly, considering that it was a new information, imagine how many people in the galaxy knew that the FO was looking for the map which they wanted for much more time already?

 

I don't think it really worked... largely because there was very little sense of the socio/political structure. That the First Order could chase around the galaxy blowing things up and shooting people, when there was (we assume) a democratic/benign political structure in place, seemed to have little context. I'm sure it was explained in comics, playing cards etc. but within the film itself, it wasn't really that clear. So when watching the film, one kind of wonders why the New Republic are letting the First Order hunt Luke Skywalker down (which wouldn't be in their interests surely?)... and what's the purpose of the resistance. The answer is of course that Abrams just wants to set up the Empire versus the Rebellion by proxy... he just wants to replicate the same scenarios from the OT without having to rationalise it. Which is fine in the scheme of things, but it makes it problematic (IMO) and underlines the perfunctory nature of the concepts/writing.

 

I'm still waiting on how Leia knew Obi-wan was on Tattoine. Or how the Senate allowed itself to give Palpatine the power to desolve them completely. Or how the Empire got to Bespin first, or how Boba Fett knew that Solo would disguise himself as trash, or how Lando infiltrated Jabba's palace, or how the Rebel alliance decided Hoth would make a good base location, or how C-3P0 was able to speak Ewok, even though they were an indigenous species, and there is no way their language could be related to any other language in the galaxy due to that. I demand answers to these questions! It's just too much for my already temperamental conscious.

 

She lived with Obi-Wan's good friend Bail Organa for 19 years.

The Senate gave Palpatine absolute power. Palpatine then used this power against them.

The trash was within Boba's line of sight. Boba noticed that one of the "pieces of trash" looked an awful lot like the Millenium Falcon.

C-3PO read a travel guide.

 

Leia knew Obi-Wan was on Tatooine because her father knew he was there, and we are shown this in Episode III.

As for the start of TFA, perhaps, but traitors, tracking their adversaries, spying and the like are all pretty interesting things that people like to see on screen. Maybe Lor, in his old age sends the wrong kind of signal, a kind that can be tracked easily. This could have played into his dialog with Poe, and there would have been much more urgency to their meeting in the hut. Would have been cool to get a glimpse of that and the feeling that the FO is this all seeing/hearing menace. But whatever.

 

Leia: Seriously? Luke you a***!