ST Starkiller Base Discussion Thread

It serves its purpose as part of the background and setting of the story of the characters, and I'd say it does it well, regardless of having seen it twice before.

 

I used to dislike Starkiller Base but its grown on me! I didn't like it at first cause I thought it distracted from the main plot of trying to find Luke, but I've come to realize that having another super weapon was necessary to re-establish the villains as a threatening power source and the heroes as underdogs worth rooting for. Furthermore, with a super weapon, it would be hard to tie a climatic dog fight into the third act without it feeling contrived, and while a dog fight isn't always needed in Star Wars, I feel it was needed for the first installment in over a decade.

With that being said, there are still a few things about it that bug me. For starters, it could've been designed in a far more creative manner to further differentiate it from the Death Star(s). The second draft apparently had it written as an ancient Sith super weapon which the Republic and First Order (still just called the Empire in this draft) are fighting for control over. The control station is made of ruins since the planet/weapon is so ancient. That would've been pretty neat to see imo!

Also, I think its sole function should've just been to suck up stars. Not it's own, but stars from far away, and when a star disappears, the worlds surrounding it all freeze to death, as do the lifeforms inhabiting these worlds. That would've been a cool way to integrate a threatening super weapon to shift the power dynamics (and for the X-Wings to fight later, of course) without it feeling so much like a Death Star rehash (again) imo.

Lastly, I really liked the concept art that presented it as a fire-and-ice world, rather than a forest-and-ice world. Not only because it would've been more of something new for the series, but playing with the motif of fire-and-ice is just fun! Hopefully they're saving this idea for something else.

 

wow it was a horrible idea i mean u aren't even defending the core?????

 

To be honest I don't think it was. Chuck's book gave a preview of what this movie was going to have. Starkiller in a nutshell is a weapon that partially has to be from the dark side since it uses special dark matter energy. Its a combination of the galaxy gun with centerpoint station. One of the things that I hated about the prequels was that it got away from the OT feel of things and having a super weapon is part of it. This movie brought that back and yes, its way more powerful that both death stars combined. Hopefully, if the follow the OT formula the next movie should give us a super ship and the last one should be another super weapon to end all weapons.

 

vong333 wrote

Starkiller in a nutshell is a weapon that partially has to be from the dark side since it uses special dark matter energy.

No. It's just a coincidence that the observed cosmic effects have been called "dark" (instead of the more appropriate "invisible") and dark matter and dark energy are two completely different things ("dark matter" holds the galaxy together while "dark energy" makes everything disperse).

These are real-life astrophysical phenomena that were not invented by Star Wars.

 

The thing that gets me is how the rebels always choose to put up a fight when threatened by a super weapon but choose to flee when attacked by a comparatively harmless Star Destroyer fleet.

 

Issues with Starkiller Base:

1) If it uses the power of the sun until the sun is gone - then did the base move after if destroyed the Republic? Because there werent two suns.

2) Why build a weapon that can only fire once per sun?

3) If you use the power of the sun and collapse your sun, doesnt that kill your gravitational pull and would send the planet spinning out of control into the reaches of space?

#lamebase.

-C

 

1. I presume it moves.

2. I presume it swallowed up the whole sun in question in order to fire a long distance. Perhaps that's not always the case?

3. If the planet does not have propulsors of some kind, then the planet would move in a straight line through space (as a theoretical rogue planet would do), on a trajectory determined by its last position in orbit and its direction. It would not, however, "spin out of control." It would just shoot out in a straight line.

 

Given that Starkiller base system becomes "a binary" in the novelization at the end - that would suggest that when the planet blew up, the original star "turned back on".

Maybe that would apply if it had fired, as well - the star is only dimmed to near invisibility - and only for a very short space of time - rather than actually being "swallowed".

 

Whilst I would not want to suggest for a moment that the whole concept itself could be believable I wonder if when StarKiller starts to suck the energy of the Star its is not in fact pulled towards the star. Hence at its closest point the star is near depleted of energy. You would also assume a single star would provide enough energy to be used many, many times. I know the screen images don't support that but they had to show some dramatic effect of how the weapon worked. Someone may be able to explain better than me but the energy from the weapon hitting the planet surly only needs to be a fraction of the entire energy released from the star due to its velocity.

 

The idea was nice, but I think it's uncreative and boring to have another Death Star in disguise. I was kind of disappointed because of this when I was watching the movie.

Also, though Star Wars is more fantasy than (hard) science fiction, I immediatly realized that it's illogical that Rey and the rest of the team can immediatly see death ray and destruction of the Hosni system from the jungle planet, because it's in the Outer Rim/Unknown Regions while Hosni is located in the Core Worlds, it would have taken the light of that explosion millennia zu reach them. xD

Edit: I also noticed the similiarity between Starkiller Base and the Star Forge from Knights of the Old Republic. Both draw mass and power from a star.

 

I was thumbing through the ART OF book as I like to do (always finding new things or things I had forgotten) and there is concept art about what I had been envisioning. The SKB supergun based in a volcano and the X-wings having to fly into the volcano during, what it seems like, the nearby sun's ray's being sucked into it. Would have been a cool idea. If you are going to repeat, why not do so in a visually different and stunning way.

I will say, though, that I liked the idea of the planet having to suck up the energy of a sun, using it to create a massive laser, and the good guys having to destroy the oscillator that turns the energy into a laser. That way, when the planet base tries to shoot the laser, it gets clogged up and the planet is actually destroyed by its own energy it got from the nearby sun. And it would have been interesting if the nearby planets were left in darkness and the SKB's explosion became their sun.

 

Oh I know the logic of the thing is dodgy in a dozen different ways. But eh. You know. Star Wars.

What disappointed me was that this was a planet with a big chunk cut out of the side, and we never got a shot of X Wings flying down into that chunk! It was such a missed opportunity.

 

Just noticed I never voted, not sure what to vote though..

 

Yes Starkiller base literally sucks.
Have to say I really enjoyed The Force Awakens however we could of done without Death Star 3 it was lame the 2nd time.

 

SKB would have been cool if it was an actual base and they left it at that, instead of making it Death Star 3. I was hoping it was going to be the equivalent of Hoth where it was a well defended, heavily fortified base that the Resistance had to infiltrate and disable/destroy, but not necessarily destroy the entire planet.

The movie practically breaks the 4th wall when they are detailing SKB at the Resistance HQ and saying "no no no... this isn't like the Death Star.... see, it's THIS MUCH bigger..!!" Of course, once you get to be the size of, say, a small moon then at that point it's all pretty arbitrary. At that point it doesn't matter how big it is because we accept that it is simply too big to destroy using conventional means.

So then how does the Resistance destroy it? Well, by flying a single x-wing (plus wingmen) down a long trench so he can shoot it in just the right spot to trigger a chain reaction that destroys the entire space station, uh I mean moon, uh I mean planet. I seem to remember seeing that somewhere else, but can't quite put my finger on it.

 

Agreed. Though in the end, the SKB does actually turn into a sun, as you suggest.

 

SKB has rocket boosters. It can move.

jedijax - I also think the x-wings should have flown down into the firing mechanism. I would have made SKB some kind of ancient dark side weapon (excavated and augmented by the FO). Like a hybrid of the Sith weapon from the Rebels finale and the SKB we got. I also would have made it impossible for the x-wings to destroy it. It's Rey finally answering the call of the Force and letting the light in somehow that wins the day. That would raise stakes, increase tension, subvert ANH and keep Rey's catharsis as the key to the climactic victory, hopefully making SKB feel less like a subplot that runs parallel to the main plot.

I say that still enjoying what we get in TFA with the SKB, whilst acknowledging the strength of the echo stops TFA being even better for me. The echoes don't ruin anything for me, but I can appreciate that more originality in a couple of places might have been a better way to go.

What I love most about SKB is the light v dark symbolism it brings in. But you could perhaps do that even better with the Dark Side doomsday weapon.

 

This. And it seems that originally, with the "Jedi Killer" weapon idea, something like this may have been explored. Personally, I would also have tied the super weapon to destruction of the Jedi/ Luke, rather than the destruction of the New Republic. Would have kept the focus on finding Luke for the whole film, rather than the very sudden pivot to the SKB focusing on the New Republic.

 

Yes. And that would be quite simple. If they know where Luke is they can destroy his system. And the Intel/ lore suggests only a Jedi with a blade of light (give me a chance I've only just woken up) can stop the darkness. The resistance wants Luke because they think he's the only one who can save them. The bad guys want to to find Luke because if they wipe him out there is no one to stop them. Enter Rey. If she has to channel the force through her as she plunges the saber into the heart of the weapon somehow (not that tricky - the rebels doomsday weapon is powered by a holocron and stopped on a personal level) then you could also riff on the sword in the stone motif in a fun way (a chosen one putting the sword into the stone). And her fight with Kylo could be him trying to stop her. That would be a very minor rewrite that doesn't change much structurally or in terms of character, but might make things feel more unique, more mythic and more organic.

I don't often agree with Darth PJ in terms of the merit of the film (s) but I do agree with him that they somewhat ran into a brick wall in terms of a release schedule, where more time might have eradicated or diminished some of the issues.

 

And there you have it. Executed well, it would have made for a better film, IMO, and defused the central node of the rehash criticism.

 

You don't have to change any of the stuff a lot of us like either.

 

That's right. Could have still maintained the star-devouring nature of the weapon, which I love. It's just that the weapon would be aimed at Luke's planet instead (after Kylo learns of Luke's location via his interrogation of Rey), and Rey would be key to destroying it with the saber/ her awakening force ability. And if you still wanted the Resistance to be a part of the battle, you could have Rey and the saber be responsible for destroying the weapon, while the Resistance swooped in (via X-Wings and/or ground forces) to attack the main base and act as a diversion (ala Aragorn's diversion in ROTK which kept Sauron's eye away from Frodo and Sam).