Ep7 Reviews (Spoilers)

[Simon_Jester]

Is Wookieepedia incorrect or isn't the DS2 still canonically 160km in diameter?

Yes, I'm aware of the intended size and Saxton's commentary page.

Unless there's supporting evidence for the 160km figure in the discussion page of the wiki page or something, I'd say we should stick to "The second Death Star is bigger."

That's a wiki; anyone can edit it and they're not all careful about what they write down. It may be storing canon information but it is not itself canon.

[Themightytom]

NOOOOO! Sorry everyone, that was crap, this is the one I wanted. Sorry i was too busy messing with youtube tags to realize I had the wrong one

https://youtu.be/JbpgM-JTang

[Themightytom]

https://youtu.be/JbpgM-JTang

[Batman]

'Leia's gonna be pissed.'

'Wow.You're hot.'
'What? Gross!We could be related!'
'Never bothered me before.'

[The Romulan Republic]

A Disney subsidiary is being criminally charged for safety violations related to Harrison Ford's injury during filming:

www.cbc.ca/news/arts/star-wars-harrison-ford-1.3444279

British health authorities announced Thursday they have issued criminal charges against the producers of Star Wars: The Force Awakens over an on-set accident in which Harrison Ford broke his leg.

The actor was struck by a hydraulic door on the set of the Millennium Falcon — his character Han Solo's spaceship — at Pinewood Studios near London in June 2014. He was airlifted to a hospital where he underwent surgery.

Star Wars injury sidelines Harrison Ford for 8 weeks
Production on the film was suspended for two weeks after the injury to Ford, who was 71 at the time.

The Health and Safety Executive said Thursday it had charged Foodles Production (UK) Ltd. — a subsidiary of the Walt Disney Co. — with four breaches of workplace health and safety laws.

It said "by law, employers must take reasonable steps to protect workers — this is as true on a film set as a factory floor."

Foodles Production said the safety of cast and crew was "a top priority" and it was disappointed by the decision to prosecute.

The first court hearing is scheduled for May at High Wycombe Magistrates' Court, near the studio.

The Force Awakens is the seventh instalment in the space saga and has taken more than $2 billion at the worldwide box office since its release two months ago.

Filming is underway on episode eight, directed by Rian Johnson and due for release late next year.

[Juubi Karakuchi]

Something occurs to me regarding Phasma and the shields. Sorry in advance if this has already been covered.

The fact that she gave in so quickly has been much commented-on, though I'm inclined to agree with a common retort; what would you do when faced with two blaster-wielding nutters and an angry Wookie?

But to me it seemed somewhat strange that just because she turned off the shields, they stayed turned off. Was that really the only control system for the planetary shields on the entire planet? Could they not simply switch them back on from the control centre? If they can control the Weapon from there, why not the planetary shields?

Therein lies the point. If Phasma reasonably believed that the shields would be switched back on again, then that's an even bigger reason to give those three what they want; it's utterly pointless, and keeps her alive and them occupied a little longer. But this raises a problem for our heroes; if the shield can just be switched back on, then how is their plan supposed to work?

The obvious answer lies in the sheer speed of the Resistance fighters. I've timed this using my Itunes copy; the shields are visibly going down (on the display) at 1:39:14, the Resistance base notices the shields are down at 1:39:28, Red Squadron drops out of lightspeed at 1:39:43, and is inside the atmosphere by 1:39:52. In other words, the Resistance fighters are inside the shield's area of effect in less than a minute after it was deactivated. While we've seen in RTJ that a shield disappears almost immediately after being deactivated or its generator destroyed, we never see how long it takes to raise a shield; especially on that scale. It's entirely concievable that once the shield was deactivated, the fighters were able to slip through in the tiny space of time before the shields could be reactivated.

Also, the first point at which the control centre is going to notice that something is wrong is when the shield starts dropping, but they have no immediate basis for knowing why. Yes, they know they have a security breach, but the chances of three people managing to slip inside and get anywhere near the controls or the generators is, realistically, pretty slim. They would at the very least have to do a quick check to see whether someone has simply switched the shield off, or whether something has identifiably gone wrong. That's going to take a few seconds at the very least; and if reactivating the shield takes a significant fraction of a minute, it could already be too late.

[Juubi Karakuchi]

Apologies if previous post counts as necro. Human error.

[Adam Reynolds]

Lately the necro rules seem to have somewhat lessened, based on the fact that things have slowed down as much as they have. Though definitely don't quote me on this.

Anyway, that is a fairly interesting theory. Certainly makes as much sense as anything. Personally this is why I almost like Star Wars plot holes, it lets people come up with interesting explanations for them.

[Reyvan]

I'd like to add to that, as the X-Wings begin their strafing run, the camera cuts to the Imperial command center. At 1:40:12 one of the officers in the background shouts "Shield up, shields up!" perhaps indicating that they've managed to raise the shields, though he could also be referring to some smaller local shields. If we go with the first interpretation though, that would mean that the First Order managed to get their shields back up in less than a minute, fortunately those 58 seconds were all the X-Wings needed to get in.

That might also explain why the resistance didn't bring in any capital ships to battle. They wouldn't have been able to get under the shields in time to be of use and would have just been fodder for any Star Destroyers hanging around.

[The Romulan Republic]

Timing how long the shields were down based on the time that passes in the film presumes that events in the film are being depicted in real time. Is their any reason to believe that is the case, as opposed to their being minor cuts/jumps over stuff that they didn't feel needed to be shown on-screen?

Still, the basic theory works well enough, I think.

[Juubi Karakuchi]

Lately the necro rules seem to have somewhat lessened, based on the fact that things have slowed down as much as they have. Though definitely don't quote me on this.

Anyway, that is a fairly interesting theory. Certainly makes as much sense as anything. Personally this is why I almost like Star Wars plot holes, it lets people come up with interesting explanations for them.

Going by the lack of Mod activity, I'd say you're right.

I'm inclined to agree on that point . One could almost argue that it's what keeps a universe alive; or at least it helps.

That might also explain why the resistance didn't bring in any capital ships to battle. They wouldn't have been able to get under the shields in time to be of use and would have just been fodder for any Star Destroyers hanging around.

That was pretty much confirmed in the novelization. Also, Starkiller base appears to have some anti-capship weapons too; you can actually see one early in Hux's big speech.

It's actually ironic. Phasma's decision wasn't all that unreasonable. It's just that she lives in a universe where the one-in-a-million shot will hit.

Timing how long the shields were down based on the time that passes in the film presumes that events in the film are being depicted in real time. Is their any reason to believe that is the case, as opposed to their being minor cuts/jumps over stuff that they didn't feel needed to be shown on-screen?

Still, the basic theory works well enough, I think.

A fair point, though things seemed to go quickly enough that there can't have been more than a few seconds in it. Admittedly this is intuition and 'feel' on my part. Hard evidence would be nice, but the novelization doesn't seem to contradict it.

One other minor point occurs. Poe has been criticized as an over-powered ace pilot, yet a lot of his kills seem to come fairly easily. At Takodana, when he begins his run at 1:16:26, Poe hits six fighters,then three or four more a few seconds later; all of which either happen to fly into his field of fire or are pretty close to it.

My point is that it seems like a fairly target-rich environment, both at Takodana and at Starkiller base. Compared to what I know of real-life air combat (admittedly not much), the TIEs were swarming in fairly close formation, and in considerable numbers. This could represent a failure of First Order fighter doctrine as much as anything else, though it might work better in space than in planetary atmospheres.

[Esquire]

I'll just leave this here - it's not actually unprecedented for people to destroy huge numbers of enemy aircraft in a single day; see here. Poe's a particularly egregious example, but it's not outright impossible.

[Juubi Karakuchi]

I'll just leave this here - it's not actually unprecedented for people to destroy huge numbers of enemy aircraft in a single day; see here. Poe's a particularly egregious example, but it's not outright impossible.

Fair enough. I just couldn't help but notice he was getting his kills in fairly rapid succession; more so than I would expect for an air battle.

[The Romulan Republic]

Poe is pretty clearly Wedge Mk. II, basically a once in a generation savant in his field.

As to Phasma's choice, which was discussed a few posts above, I quite like it. It showed that she was smart enough to know when she was beaten, and had some independence/self-interest, rather than being a one-dimensional loyal to the death fanatic.

Of course, given the loyalty she demanded from her soldiers, it also makes her a hypocrite.

Edit: But its basically the closest she gets to proper characterization in the film, which horribly underused her.

[Esquire]

I'll just leave this here - it's not actually unprecedented for people to destroy huge numbers of enemy aircraft in a single day; see here. Poe's a particularly egregious example, but it's not outright impossible.

Fair enough. I just couldn't help but notice he was getting his kills in fairly rapid succession; more so than I would expect for an air battle.

Oh, absolutely no question there; the whole scene is patently ridiculous as filmed. My only point is that if we wanted to take it as an artistic representation of a much longer engagement, it wouldn't actually be outside the bounds of possibility.

[Esquire]

Poe is pretty clearly Wedge Mk. II, basically a once in a generation savant in his field.

Actually, re: my own last post (and I'm sorry about that), this makes Poe a bit less silly. The ends of the bell curve go out very far indeed in a galaxy of quintillions.

[Adam Reynolds]

Poe is pretty clearly Wedge Mk. II, basically a once in a generation savant in his field.

As to Phasma's choice, which was discussed a few posts above, I quite like it. It showed that she was smart enough to know when she was beaten, and had some independence/self-interest, rather than being a one-dimensional loyal to the death fanatic.

Of course, given the loyalty she demanded from her soldiers, it also makes her a hypocrite.

Edit: But its basically the closest she gets to proper characterization in the film, which horribly underused her.

In some ways the character of Phasma almost seems like an anti-Boba Fett joke.

[The Romulan Republic]

Actually, I think that its mostly just a case of advertisement/fans/media playing up Phasma's role due to the cool armour, the fact that she's played by Gwendoline Christie (who already had at least a bit of a name for herself thanks to Game of Thrones), and the fact that it was another female character added to the franchise. So the attention focussed on her before the film premiered was entirely disproportionate to her role in the film, leaving people disappointed.

Phasma in TFA is basically a bit part that was advertised as a major role.

Still, they really could have made better use of Gwendoline Christie. But then, they gave Daniel Freaking Craig a one-scene cameo. The difference is that that was unambiguously a cameo. Phasma was little more (having only one major scene and minimal characterization), but was hyped as though she was a major character.

I've read that she'll have a bigger role in the next film, and I hope that's true.

[Purple]

Well now she has motivation to personally hate the main cast. That's something.

[Galvatron]

I hope Phasma is shown kicking ass instead of just ordering other stormtroopers around. I want to see a good justification for her shiny armor and cape.

[The Romulan Republic]

I'm sure I'm not the first person to suggest this, but I'd like to see her developed as Finn's personally arch enemy (while Ren is Rey's). There's some basis to that in TFA, with Finn's history in the First Order and him gloating over finally getting one up on her on Starkiller Base. And her subsequent humiliation at the hands of him and his allies.

Edit: To continue with the Boba Fett comparisons, sort of like how while Vader was Luke's arch enemy, Han had his own mini-nemesis in Boba Fett.

[Batman]

For a very generous definition of nemesis. The first time they actually interacted, Fett ended up in the Sarlacc. By accident.

[The Romulan Republic]

Well, I suppose ultimately Jabba was more Han's nemesis (though not the action-kind, obviously), though it was Boba who tracked him down and brought him to Jabba in ESB.

[Galvatron]

Here we go.

[Darth Yan]

This article is some months old but
http://www.chicagoreader.com/chicago/st ... erComments