ST Starkiller Base Discussion Thread

I think starkiller was a good idea.

if I wrote the story though I'd intentionally make it more crude and more flawed than the death star. like this rogue state puts all its resources into a super weapon built into a planet (bigger but not necessarily more advanced) desperately trying to mirror their romanticized empire. and I wouldn't have them use it to kill a bunch of people just cause. might type up the carlcockatoo special edition of tfa soon. I love the movie as it is but there's some ideas I want to get out lol.

 

I think I'd have kept the idea, but maybe make it more an ancient Dark Side weapon more. Something more mystical and primal maybe. And I'd make the X-Wing attack either different, or totally futile, i.e. only the Force can stop it... I don't know how that would work and you;d need to rework the climax so that Rey embracing the Force and letting it flow through her is the key to it all - after Poe has given it everything and still can't stop this thing because the First Order has learned from the Empire's mistakes when it comes to their Superweapons. That would be a little different.

If you want to riff on the trench run, I'd have them have to go under the radar through a natural canyon before swooping and diving vertically down into the firing mechanism itself as the thing is charging. That way you could raise tension itself as the closer Poe gets, the closer he gets to his doom, you'd get a type of shot that would be more unique to this attack as well and I'm sure you could continue to play with the light v dark symbolism nicely as well.

Of course, you could merge both the two ideas above with Poe's dive into darkness coming before Rey unleashes the light and saves the day. That would keep the existing structure and nods to the past but give you a different riff and subversion on what we've had before

EDIT - yes, you are quite right on how many times the senate is mentioned in ANH - I stand corrected and hereby hand over my nerd badge and gun. Some of you are still overplaying its relevance within ANH though. It's part of the backdrop and world building as opposed to any direct impact in the film.

 

DS1 was the size of a small moon, but still pretty massive. DS2 was even bigger. Now SKB is the largest yet.

Where to now? Will they drop the idea of a Death Star-ish weapon or what?

The devastation caused by SKB was impressive, but still felt to me like a worn out idea.

Let's hope they move into new territory with 8.

 

Satipo I like it though I wouldn't want it to where Poe can't do it because he's 'non sensitive' and Rey has to do that too lol.

halfway through my #fanfic not even my story so I can't bother doing it all tonight. just by changing a few scenes I've made it far less 'rehash' though.

 

What made it worse for me that there appeared to considerably less ships attacking SK base than the first DS around half so approximately15. The whole concept of Starkiller was ludicrous. Pablo apparently said the base can move. Well its on a planet of course it can that's called orbit but that would be round a star which they just drained by firing the weapon, totally nonsensical. How would it be powered to travel through hyperspace where are the engines. Maybe Snoke could move it by the power of his brain Although I found the film enjoyable I sometimes wonder if they wrote the story around the action sequences most of which had been ripped off from the OT without taking into account there is only so much some fans will find sensible or believable.

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I mean more along the lines of the tried and tested ways we've seen before won't destroy it this time. And I think the light side stopping the dark side work as well as riffing on Luke using the Force to blow up the Death Star. But yeah, I'm wary of the "only Force Sensitives" have worth idea that some fans seem to love.

 

Supposedly Pablo Hidalgo also said that his twitter comments aren't necessarily canon. But assuming the Starkiller can't move but is supposed to target any star system at will, there must be a possibility to align the planet so it can actually aim at a target.

While I dislike the concept, too, I can bring myself to believe that Starkiller was just designed to take out two celestial targets and that's it. What I find more irritating is the prospect that the New Republic (and Mon Mothma!) would seriously opt for a centralized government.

Mon Mothma is aware of what Death Stars I and II could accomplish, that it's possible to construct these things in secrecy and that it could never be excluded that the loyalists of the Empire would build another Death Star, have it appear above Hosnian Prime and destroy the new and centralized government with one swift stroke. Is really anybody with some sayso that stupid?

 

I agree with you that a Republic centralised govrrnment is a silly idea so its apparent disarmament programme. I dont think Mon Mothma would be that naive but is she still chancellor its thirty years since the Empire's defeat. Were all the Republic ships scrapped or destroyed. I would love it if there was a hidden Republic fleet somewhere something all the lines of the Dreadnought fleet in the Thrawn Trilogy in the EU

 

The Starkiller base was a great idea it was groundbreaking in 1977.

 

You mean like having an Imperial Senate?

TARKIN
The Imperial Senate will no longer
be of any concern to us. I've just
received word that the Emperor has
dissolved the council permanently.
The last remnants of the Old Republic
have been swept away.

TAGGE
That's impossible! How will the
Emperor maintain control without the
bureaucracy?

TARKIN
The regional governors now have direct
control over territories.

Sounds like there was something other than a dictatorship, or at least pretending not to be a dictatorship, before Palpatine dissolved the senate. If what you say is true, there was never a need for a senate if the first place.

 

Well, I'm looking at the Milli Falcon's worst fears coming true in Episode 8 - a few more Finalizer-sized destroyers coming out from the Unknown Regions and threatening to wage all-out war on the New Republic and Resistance!

Now that will not necessitate the building of any planet-sized battle stations anymore as these 3km-long giants will have enough artillery and manpower to launch frequent attacks on our heroes. Thus calling out the Milli Falcon and her fellow fighters into action once more - this time for a potential outer space battle, like in the old days!


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"Milli Falcon" feels weird when you say it like that.

 

I didn't mind it, but I felt they could have just had the idea that the First Order were threatening to recover the plans to build a new Death Star. Actually having one to be used sort of took away a threat of any future films if they can just make one without any problems. Well, at least they did something more important this time with it.

 

Yes this. I do enjoy starfighters slogging it out. But at the end of the day, the capital ships are super powerful for a reason. Thus Leia, Luke etc always pointed out the Star Destroyers in fear and it gave a sense of urgency in needing to get away. So let's see them in action.

I totally concur that the ROTS finally gave us this and that was epic. Would be great to see this in the future, maybe similarly donned Jedi cruisers/Star Destroyers versus Imperial ones. That would look cool.

 

While most of the New Republic's fleet was destroyed during the devastation of the planets in the Hosnian Prime system by the SKB's big laser beam, I can bet that some of the NR's destroyers were stationed elsewhere and are likely to have survived the blast.

But unless there's a miracle, it's not easy for whatever remains of the NR's fleets coupled with the Milli Falcon and her fellow fighters to bring down only the admittedly awesome Finalizer - let alone a few more such massive Star Destroyers. Such a tough fight will make the one that changed the SKB into a bright new star seem like child's play!

 

I can see where all the "yah, boo, unoriginal" comments come from, but I can also see the point of it, from a story and film-making point of view.

After ROTJ, the dark side could not simply be in the ascendency at the start of TFA. A crippling blow needed to be dealt. I think Starkiller was designed and built simply to take out Hosnian system - note how blasé Snoke was about its impending destruction. It had done its job. The galaxy is now ripe for the First Order to sweep through - no political leadership or navy for the New Republic anymore.

That could also have been achieved by a massive star battle, but then there's no central location for the final act where the main players need be together to do what's required (die, become strong with the Force, try to save Rey, be a swashbuckling hero pilot and so on). It also added the "destroy or be destroyed" tension.

Anyway, it's gone now.

 

I would say this describes more how it should have been dealt with but wasn't ending up being hyped as more powerful than the originals with the focus on size that shows just that cut out front section of the planet alone looks like it needs more resources than a DS to create.

A smaller scale creation(well making up less of the planet) would have made both its creation and the ease of its destruction make a lot more sense.

 

You know I thought the whole the Starkiller Base Death Star copying was silly however on repeat viewings and thinking about it it made a lot more sense. See the first order is trying to emulate the empire keeping the same basic style of their more iconic troops fighters ships etc. So it would make sense they would try to recreate in their mind what was the greatest technological triumph of the old empire, the Death Star. In fact it plays into the whole presentation of Kylo Ren, who is trying to imitate Darth Vader in all things so the entirety of the First Order is aping the Galactic Empire possibly as a lost '"Golden Age" possibly to how the Alliance saw the Republic. It may not matter to the First Order that the original Death Star's suffered from critical and impractical flaws that made them utterly unsuited to their particular tasks (controlling the galaxy and defeating the Rebel Alliance). It is the idea of equally and surpassing the achievements of the Old Empire that matters not whether the Base itself was a functional strategic or tactic weapon. So the First is in the end made up of an army Kylo Ren's the lost children of the galaxy endlessly attempting to live up to poisonous self defeating ideal that they have been seduced tricked or brainwashed into supporting.

 

I would've rather have had something more original. Giving us a battle station that resembles the Death Star is as pointless as giving C-3PO a red arm, I mean it works almost the same way as the first two Death Stars did, only difference being that it's a planet with a built-in super laser capable of destroying more than one world. I get that they were paying tribute to the Original Trilogy but the climax felt too similar to the one in A New Hope. If the movie introduced a battle cruiser capable of firing a black hole, people probably wouldn't compare it to A New Hope that much but it looks like they overdid the OT homages. A man who dresses up like Darth Vader i can tolerate but there was no need for the Starkiller base. Episode 7 wasn't bad or anything but I'm hoping we see something different in future movies.

 

The thing I didn't like about Starkiller base is that it overpowered the First Order from the get go. To have a weapon that could destroy a star system seems like a bit much for a unit that was supposedly still reeling from the fall of the Empire. I think it would have been much more interesting if it was just an ancient weapon that Snoke led them to that sucked up the sun of a system leaving all the planets and stars around it without a source of energy. Not only is that much more feasible but when Starkiller is destroyed and turns into a sun it would have been kind of poetic. It would become the very thing it was trying to destroy which is very Star Wars-y to me.

Another good idea I read somewhere was to have the Resistance capture Starkiller base instead of destroy it. That would present a neat moral gray area for them, especially after the Republic and fleets were destroyed. Would they use the very weapon that devastated them against the First Order? Thatss a cool idea to me and probably would have stopped a lot of the "re-tread" criticisms.

 

It was a horrible, messy, lazy and unneeded plot device. Those who continue to defend it do so (in my opinion) out of some misguided self defense mechanism that wont allow them to be critical in any way of TFA. You can still enjoy, say even really like, a movie that has a major plot device failure.

To learn that the whole idea was made up by some desk jockey out of ILM is even worse. Why didnt the real power brokers of the movie (JJ, Kennedy, Kasdan) sweep aside and deride such a horrible idea.

If they wanted to destroy the Senate and most of the Republic power so as to remove its need from the rest of the story going forward, then how about something like this: The FO, hidden and slowly building up its power in the outer rim, suddenly appears at the NR's central planet, the New Republic, having turned a blind eye to the last remnants of the Empire due to its fatigue from war, is unprepared for the surprise attack. The Resistance, set up in almost as much secrecy as the FO, by General Leia, in response to what she sees is a terminal blindness and self imposed ignorance by the NR, upon hearing of the attack on the NR's home planet, responds and an epic space battle takes place. The Resistance arrives to late to save the day, and eventually has to retreat. The First Order, satisfied it has set the NR back with a devastating blow, now feels it can turn its attention to its grand leaders real objective: finding Luke Skywalker!

Its wouldnt have been hard to write a much better story without the SKB than what we were given.

 

I feel the same way about SKB as I do about the Ewoks (actually I hate the Ewoks more.. but whatever). I still think TFA and ROTJ are great despite this

 

There are interstellar planets known as Rogues that move across the galaxy outside of an orbit around a star. Crazy but true.