After getting and watching Force Awakens again...

[Something Amyss]

They could have explained the politics, but after Episode 1, they were afraid to even bring that sort of thing up.

Because Episode IV had rebels fighting an evil Empire. Regardless if you liked the movie or not, it was just a remake of Episode IV to a near shot for shot level.

Yeah, I was surprised that people didn't figure out what was going to happen to Han. I saw the buildup and was like "tractor beam generator."

So I whipped out my phone and was all "okay, does Rey or Finn shout no?"

 

[DefunctTheory]

Yeah, I was surprised that people didn't figure out what was going to happen to Han. I saw the buildup and was like "tractor beam generator."

So I whipped out my phone and was all "okay, does Rey or Finn shout no?"

Were you surprised when it was Chewie who had the 'Big No' moment?

The big furry bastard was a freaking scene thief.

 

[Something Amyss]

Were you surprised when it was Chewie who had the 'Big No' moment?

The big furry bastard was a freaking scene thief.

Rey still did the "No!" thing, so I feel vindicated. Also, Chewie was always going to react. If George Lucas said tomorrow that Han and Chewie were lovers, I'd buy it. They were super tight. But the "death of a mentor" thing is what I was referencing.

 

[Elfgore]

This irked me off so much during and shortly after the movie. Don't make me read the novels, fucking tell me. I would have seriously been fine with a ten minute info dump just shoving who these three factions are in my face. Better than me having to go onto the wiki to get the full concept of who these people are.

 

[Neverhoodian]

I may enjoy TFA for what it is (a soft reboot/remake for the franchise), but damned if my inner Star Wars fanboy isn't filled with questions like these. Why are X-Wings and basic Tie Fighters still the de facto starfighter designs? What are "mag pulse" weapons (a nod to the X-Wing games, perhaps)? Who are the Knights of Ren and how were they formed? Who was the guy that gave the map piece to Poe? How did it come into his possession? Why the hell didn't Finn mention Starkiller Base sooner? Why was R2-D2 in a robo-coma? The list goes on and on. I only hope subsequent films address some of these concerns. I realize the new Expanded Universe is already starting to fill in the gaps, but I shouldn't have to resort to undertaking a fucking research project just to get some basic context.

The movie did fuck-all to explain what's going on; the novelization fills in the gaps.

The Empire still exists, nominally. They signed a peace accords (comparable to the Treaty of Versailles in scope and intent) with the Republic after the Battle of Jakku which broke the Empire's back, militarily. The remnants of the Imperial military fled into the Unknown Regions and formed the First Order. The First Order rebuilt on the Empire's dime (in secret), and then went forth to fuck couches and drink milkshakes.

Because lol, politics, the Republic won't step in out of fear of violating the treaty. Also, the dumbasses demilitarized. The galactic politicians who aren't morons started funding the Resistance on the sly. Which basically makes the whole shebang a proxy war between Republic and Empire. Well, made, being in the movie the First Order gets right to eliminating that moron gap.

Kind of makes the First Order the good guys, if you ask me. They Darwinated an entire star system.

Wait, didn't the Battle of Jakku take place just one year after RotJ? And it essentially destroys the Empire? Sheesh, that's some grade-A incompetence even by Imperial standards.

I'm not one of those "Disney ruined everything" types, but I gotta say I prefer the old EU's handling of galactic events up to the Palleon-Gavrisom Treaty,[footnote]Though a distressing proportion of events in said timeline were pretty stupid.[/footnote] where the Imperial Remnant and various warlords are gradually whittled down over the course of approximately fifteen years. It made sense that a militarist empire comprised of ambitious, power-hungry individuals would try to stave off the inevitable as long as possible, kicking and screaming as they went.

 

[FirstNameLastName]

Yeah, I have to agree, it did a pretty terrible job at explaining the political setting. Now, I get it, the prequels are PR poison and they wanted to get as far away from them as possible, and I get that people told George to go fuck himself when he filled his movies with boring political dialogue, but that doesn't mean politics to contextualize the story are automatically a bad thing. It seems I was apparently supposed to watch the movie, then go read the novelization to find out what the stakes were and why I should care.

 

[Hades]

Someone here already said it but its because they desperately wanted to return to the rebel vs stormtrooper days, even if a legitimate government by definition isn't a rebel. The fans demanded distance from the prequels and that distance was achieved by just remaking a new hope.

The new EU got into more detail about why it are ''rebels'' fighting the new order but we should not kid ourselves. The world building in the novels there to get the old Rebel vs stormtrooper set up back rather then that set up returning based on the events in the world building.

 

[Eacaraxe_v1legacy]

Wait, didn't the Battle of Jakku take place just one year after RotJ? And it essentially destroys the Empire? Sheesh, that's some grade-A incompetence even by Imperial standards.

If I remember the new canon right, especially by that point the Empire was an economic and military paper tiger. They blew their entire wad building the Death Stars, and their best ships and "best and brightest" personnel were lost at Endor. Once the dominoes started falling, they couldn't replenish their own forces fast enough to compete with the Rebellion and nascent New Republic (who were accomplished asymmetric fighters), especially being fractious and reduced to warlord semi-states.

 

[Kolby Jack]

It's a pretty obvious parallel to Germany between WW1 and WW2. Germany/Empire was destroyed/dismantled, treaties supposedly restrict the remains to a point where they can't function as a militaristic state, charismatic despot takes the reigns and galvanizes the citizens into a frenzy over supposed prejudices inflicted on them, they remilitarize rapidly while the dominant power tries to pretend that they couldn't possibly be a threat, dominant power gets its shit pushed in for its blindness, America saves the day in the endthe Allies rally and win.

It's not a 1:1 comparison obviously, the allies in WW1 were a military powerhouse equal to/greater than the Central powers, unlike the rebellion which never really matched the Empire pound-for-pound even after all the damage it inflicted (not just the Death Stars, either). The rebellion used its resources surgically because overt attacks were obviously futile. But the point is, the First Order are the Nazis. The only real difference is the First Order doesn't seem to be overtly racist.

I mean, you can over analyze the fuck out of this stuff and find all sorts of things that just don't make logical sense, but it's Star Wars. It never made that much sense to begin with, and anyone who says it did is either an idiot or a liar.

Rey was a classic Mary Sue

She's a classic Hero(ine). I know fiction these days tends towards anti-heroes, but she's just Luke. Again. The term Mary Sue doesn't mean ANYTHING anymore because people interpret it as "good person who succeeds." Mary Sues are a LOT more than that, and typically just found in bad fan fiction. The only real reason Rey is called a Mary Sue is because she's a girl. Or just go ahead and call Luke a Mary Sue too; you'd be wrong, but you'd at least not appear to be sexist.

 

[votemarvel]

She's a classic Hero(ine). I know fiction these days tends towards anti-heroes, but she's just Luke. Again. The term Mary Sue doesn't mean ANYTHING anymore because people interpret it as "good person who succeeds." Mary Sues are a LOT more than that, and typically just found in bad fan fiction. The only real reason Rey is called a Mary Sue is because she's a girl. Or just go ahead and call Luke a Mary Sue too; you'd be wrong, but you'd at least not appear to be sexist.

Luke was a good pilot, that's about it, in A New Hope. It wasn't until Return of the Jedi, the third of that trilogy, that he became a half decent force user.

Yet Rey appears to almost be at Luke's third film level in her first.

While I have no doubt that some of the complaints are coming from the mindset of "OMG it's because she's a woman", I would like to think that many are coming from the worry of just where they are going to take her power level in the following two films.

 

[Neverhoodian]

Why are X-Wings and basic Tie Fighters still the de facto starfighter designs?

Why did we keep F16s and M1 tanks and AK-47s and M16s and Black Hawks and so on in service for 30 to 60 years? Because they work and it's cheap. At least they're not the same X-Wings and TIE fighters.

I understand that, but the thing is the Empire was already starting to build replacements thirty years prior in the form of the Tie Interceptor. They were supposed to be faster, more maneuverable and more heavily armed. It's not like they were some obscure EU element either; they featured prominently in the Battle of Endor. If you really want to split hairs, the massively OP Tie Defender from Tie Fighter <a href=http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/TIE/D_Defender>is part of the new canon. Yet the First Order stubbornly insists on sticking with the basic Tie Fighter design despite upgrading just about everything else in their military. I guess when you're building a planet sized superweapon you have to reallocate funds from something.

As for the X-Wings, I'm more willing to buy that. They were a proven design, and the T-70s definitely look leaner and meaner than their classic trilogy counterparts. Also, the fact the Resistance was being supplied by the New Republic could indicate that they were getting second-rate hardware, aging designs that the Republic no longer had any need for.

I guess when you get down to the root of the matter I just wanted to see some cool new ship designs, not more of the same.

 

[Zontar]

Rey was a classic Mary Sue

She's a classic Hero(ine). I know fiction these days tends towards anti-heroes, but she's just Luke. Again. The term Mary Sue doesn't mean ANYTHING anymore because people interpret it as "good person who succeeds." Mary Sues are a LOT more than that, and typically just found in bad fan fiction. The only real reason Rey is called a Mary Sue is because she's a girl. Or just go ahead and call Luke a Mary Sue too; you'd be wrong, but you'd at least not appear to be sexist.

The comparison of Luke and Rey is one I see often, and it makes me wonder if people remember how much Luke had to overcome in the original trilogy.

As votemarvel pointed out, Luke was only a good pilot in New Hope. He wasn't a better mechanic then people doing the job longer then she'd been alive, he straight up sucked as dualing and spent a whole movie failing to use the force.

Rey by comparison was a starving orphan scavenger who somehow managed to become a better mechanic then Han Solo, on her first flight was better then two literal born and raised ace pilots, could use the force better then people who had trained all their lives with it moments after discovering its existence and could out dual someone who had trained with a weapon she had never even touched (I know Ben was injured but that fight still was the literal opposite of what basic storytelling should have made it if they wanted us to not think Rey's arc is already complete).

Given how there is literally nowhere left for Rey to go, I honestly hope Fin turns out to be this trilogy's protagonist because his story is actually an interesting one.

 

[The Purple Grape]

Nah they're right, wanting female characters who have flaws in their personality and are more than 'girl power' is patronizing, sexist and misogynistic.


/sarcasm

But then the good stories were not the movies. Or at least were. Bring me HK-47 a good disintegration might do some of the meatbags good.

 

[Hades]

I don't thing we can hold Rey knowing more about the Falcon then Han does against her. Its explained why that is.

The Millennium Falcon had been sitting on Rey's junkyard for quite some time and had been tinkered with. Han did not know that but Rey, who lived there did.

 

[JUMBO PALACE]

The movie did fuck-all to explain what's going on; the novelization fills in the gaps.

The Empire still exists, nominally. They signed a peace accords (comparable to the Treaty of Versailles in scope and intent) with the Republic after the Battle of Jakku which broke the Empire's back, militarily. The remnants of the Imperial military fled into the Unknown Regions and formed the First Order. The First Order rebuilt on the Empire's dime (in secret), and then went forth to fuck couches and drink milkshakes.

Because lol, politics, the Republic won't step in out of fear of violating the treaty. Also, the dumbasses demilitarized. The galactic politicians who aren't morons started funding the Resistance on the sly. Which basically makes the whole shebang a proxy war between Republic and Empire. Well, made, being in the movie the First Order gets right to eliminating that moron gap.

Kind of makes the First Order the good guys, if you ask me. They Darwinated an entire star system.

Thanks for the info. One of my biggest pet peeves about the movie was that they kept calling the "good guys" the Resistance while also making it seem like the First Order was a rebellion against the dominant governmental body. You're not a resistance if you work for the government. Leave it to JJ not to bother making his plot and it's details make sense.

 

[DefunctTheory]

I don't thing we can hold Rey knowing more about the Falcon then Han does against her. Its explained why that is.

The Millennium Falcon had been sitting on Rey's junkyard for quite some time and had been tinkered with. Han did not know that but Rey, who lived there did.

Silence, person who paid attention, lest they use your knowledge of the movie against you and claim you're a Mary Sue.

 

[DefunctTheory]

Spoiler

The comparison of Luke and Rey is one I see often, and it makes me wonder if people remember how much Luke had to overcome in the original trilogy.

Indeed, the number of people outright ignoring Luke's accomplishes does make one wonder if they remember what Luke actually did in the original trilogy. I mean, it's stupidly easy to see that a lot of people barely paid any attention to the new movie, but the new movie isn't some decades old trilogy that is a supposed staple of nerdom and sci-fi.

Oh look, a horribly misrepresentative image that downplays every one of Luke's accomplishments and hypes up every last thing Rey did. And you're just throwing it up as if it's even remotely accurate.

Last time I checked, Rey beat up two guys, knew about a single modification that she was involved with installing on the Millenium Falcon that Han had absolutely no fucking way of knowing about, stated that she's flown before but not in space, gets her ass handed to her by a heavily wounded and emotionally distraught Kylo Ren until she gives into the Force, can resist mind probing and manages to trick a weak minded stormtrooper on her third attempt, is trusted by Leia, the leader of the Resistance and Force sensitive, to go find her Jedi brother, speaks several languages like literally every other character in the universe, and has an actual reason why she would be competent at these things considering she lived on a junkyard planet and is a former student of Luke's.

Meanwhile, Luke is the best pilot in the Rebellion who can survive a trench run and Darth Vader simply because he flew some speeder back home, blew up a giant superweapon by giving into the Force allowing him to make a shot no one else was able to make, and has no reason to be the least bit competent at any sort of combat or piloting. But I guess him being put upon makes all his achievements go away.

And you didn't even go into the part where Rey get's knocked the hell out.

Twice.

On topic, however:

I'm not being funny you guys, but just because [Jyn Erso]'s white and got brown hair, it doesn't mean she's my mom.

...

I think the amazing thing about VII is that Finn and Rey don't come from anywhere, and they find a place. So to me, it's funny that people think it's so important because I don't really think it is

http://comicbook.com/2016/04/11/daisy-ridley-knows-whose-reys-parents-are-doesnt-think-its-impor/

Ridley (Damn, that's awesome to have as a last name) appears to have known about her character's parentage since the beginning of filming Episode 7, and she claims that it's not important to the plot, or that she's related to anyone in the current canon.

Of course, this could all be a smoke screen, but I think this is the biggest piece of evidence anyone's going to get until Episode 9 comes out in theaters.

EDIT: Whoops, just realized I got this thread confused with the other one. Transferring!