Ep7 Reviews (Spoilers)

[Channel72]

As for the lack of Rebel plans with regard to the Death Star plans, what real alternative did they have? If the Death Star stayed active, the Rebel Alliance would have been finished with or without Yavin.

The alternative was for Leia to simply not go directly to Yavin. She could have transmitted the plans, rendezvoused with someone from the Alliance anywhere else, etc, so that the Rebel engineers would have a lot more time to study the plans. Going directly to Yavin effectively put the Rebels on a strict deadline for no reason. There was no guarantee the Deathstar would even have some exploitable flaw, and even if it did, no guarantee they'd be able to find it right away. There was literally no benefit in going directly to Yavin, and every reason not to.

Even worse, when she arrives at Yavin, it's sort of incomprehensible that they didn't immediately start evacuating the way they did at Hoth at the first sign of an Imperial probe droid.

What strategic significance did Yavin really have? It was a long range fighter base with a few dozen fighters at most.

It was obviously of paramount significance to Leia, at least, since she refused to give up its location under threat of torture/death, etc. As far as ANH shows us, Yavin IV seemed to be the primary base of operations for the entire Rebel Alliance.

[Galvatron]

What strategic significance did Yavin really have? It was a long range fighter base with a few dozen fighters at most.

It was obviously of paramount significance to Leia, at least, since she refused to give up its location under threat of torture/death, etc. As far as ANH shows us, Yavin IV seemed to be the primary base of operations for the entire Rebel Alliance.

As I've theorized before, Yavin IV might have been THE rebel base in the sense that it was the only major staging ground for actual offensives against the Empire. Same for Echo Base by the time of TESB.

The other cells were probably more passive and covert, like listening posts or safe houses for commando teams and secret agents, etc. while Yavin IV is where the rebels actually launched the spaceships that won their first victory as described in opening crawl.

[Knife]

Meh, now that the old EU is dead, I've always just assumed the rebels we see in ANH and ESB were just the Alderaanian rebel cell. Those were not 'rebel' soldiers on the blockade runner, rather Alderaanian soldiers. Not until ROTJ did we see other cells hook up with them for a large military offensive. In ANH the rebel base had just two squadrons of fighters, some 30 birds IIRC from the dialogue. Hoth base wasn't much larger, though after the destruction of Alderaan, it makes sense they were able to replenish their ranks of pilots and other personnel with some growth.

[Elheru Aran]

Meh, now that the old EU is dead, I've always just assumed the rebels we see in ANH and ESB were just the Alderaanian rebel cell. Those were not 'rebel' soldiers on the blockade runner, rather Alderaanian soldiers. Not until ROTJ did we see other cells hook up with them for a large military offensive. In ANH the rebel base had just two squadrons of fighters, some 30 birds IIRC from the dialogue. Hoth base wasn't much larger, though after the destruction of Alderaan, it makes sense they were able to replenish their ranks of pilots and other personnel with some growth.

Yeah; for an *galactic* Empire, presumably you would have at least a *near-galactic* Rebellion. For a Rebellion to have the majority of its forces on only a few planets would be utter minimalism.

Granted, I can accept the notion that perhaps only a few prominent planets were able to subsidize rebel movements in the initial years, and as such the Alliance might not have had a large military for some time. Yavin and Hoth being the bases of an Alderaanian rebel movement works for me. The question is, how much mention is there of other Rebel detachments in ANH and ESB? In ESB there's the 'Fleet', IIRC, but that was about it...

[Themightytom]

Meh, now that the old EU is dead, I've always just assumed the rebels we see in ANH and ESB were just the Alderaanian rebel cell. Those were not 'rebel' soldiers on the blockade runner, rather Alderaanian soldiers. Not until ROTJ did we see other cells hook up with them for a large military offensive. In ANH the rebel base had just two squadrons of fighters, some 30 birds IIRC from the dialogue. Hoth base wasn't much larger, though after the destruction of Alderaan, it makes sense they were able to replenish their ranks of pilots and other personnel with some growth.

I think that's pretty consistent with how we see things unfolding in Star Wards Rebels. Insular factions deliberately kept separate, the flaw being that Senator Organa is aware of Ahsoka's cell. Assuming though that he somehow didn't pass knowledge on to Leia and it died with him on Alderaan, that would explain why none of the force strong characters in SW Rebels made an appearance in the OT. It could even be, possibly why they don't in the Sequel Trilogy, depending on how compartmentalized the galaxy is depicted as becoming.

The Alderaanian cell led by Leia blows up the first death star, gets sent packing on Hoth, calls in as many other cells as they can find for DS 2, and either organizes collectively afterwards into the Republic, or what I kind of think is more likely, just facilitates the political reassertion of the republic on a limited scale. I'm sure we didn't see the WHOLE republic get blown up, but I could see it not having established itself as a galaxy wide power on the level of the Old Republic, so it's called the Republic, but it's a faction, the New Order calls itself the successor to the Empire, but it's a faction, and the galaxy has just become a very fractured entity with the fall of the Empire.

OR, everyone in Star Wars Rebels gets wiped out before A New Hope. Womp womp.

[Block]

and it's not like they 100% ignored the PT for TFA, there's references to it (or the PT era EU) they're just not prominent or in your face.

Well, that's a good sign!

The prequels had glaring problems in their actual execution (as in particular scenes, lines of dialogue, or side characters), but it painted an amazing picture of an incredible and believable fictional universe.
I suppose there are people that hate the PT with a vengeance, not just the movies, but every part of it, including the worlds and factions, scenarios and setting, but personally I hope those parts are maintained. If not the specific planets and such, then at least the feel and history of the universe.

I think it's actually a blessing that JJ Abrams did zero worldbuilding, because that leaves a blank slate for the coming movies to paint on. Or perhaps this was indeed the intention by the powers-that-be at Disney?

Also notice that Luke's real flourishing of abilities into ROTJ only occurred after his encounter with Vader. Rey simply had the fortune for that to occur earlier in her development as a Jedi.

This is actually a very interesting observation!

It does suggest that direct conflict with another more powerful/experienced Force user causes a budding neophyte to experience a jump in their ability.
I mean, some degree of this should be obvious already (surviving a life-or-death fight ought to make any combatant much more effective), but it does seem to indicate that it gives them a boost in Force-using experience beyond even what we'd normally expect.

Come to think of it, Obi-Wan's encounter with Darth Maul on Tatooine probably was obviously a defining moment in his career as a Jedi, but may have spurred him on to significantly improving his skills, more than we'd expect.

So in general, that the whole Force interrogation session could have actually given Rey what she needed to tap into her latent talents and later hold her own in the over physical confrontation at the end of the movie.


For the record, I'm not a big fan of TFA (there are a lot of nigh-unforgivable flaws in it), but I'm quite willing for the coming sequels to redeem the new movies in general, and TFA itself in particular (by fleshing out the missing parts).

I don't think the OT shows that at all. It doesn't do a great job of showing the passage of time, but there is at least a year between ANH and ESB, during which Luke is practicing. Yoda helps to eliminate a number of Luke's preconceived notions about the force, which allows him to develop further, which he again refines in the months searching for Han in carbonite. It's not until Jedi that you see Luke stand up to Vader in a fight, where Vader is still probably not trying to win. Remember, he doesn't actually want to kill his son, he wants him to join.
So Luke practices for at least a couple years after being given training routines by two masters before the final confrontation with Vader.

[Galvatron]

Yeah; for an *galactic* Empire, presumably you would have at least a *near-galactic* Rebellion. For a Rebellion to have the majority of its forces on only a few planets would be utter minimalism.

I addressed that in an earlier post in another thread...

I'd venture to guess that the bulk of the Imperial Starfleet (I steadfastly refuse to call it the Imperial Navy) was mostly used to surveil and even blockade suspected rebellious, but heavily defended worlds (e.g. Dac). Satisfied that none of those worlds could launch attacks or supply matériel to the rebellion without confirming the Empire's suspicions or exposing themselves to bombardment, their primary objective would then be to locate and destroy the hidden rebel base because that's where all of their offensives originated from.

This is my head canon explanation for why such a small rebel base was such an important target for the Empire.

No, I never subscribed to the rationalization that Yavin IV or Hoth were ever merely intended to be the Alderaanian cell and this is why I never resorted to believing that what Vader and the other Imperials kept referring to as "the rebel base" was anything other than THE rebel base.

Moreover, I always appreciated how Admiral Ackbar explained the mismatch of forces during the GCW back in one of the old EU novels:

You must understand that the problems of invading a planetary body from space, or defending one against an invasion, are quite different from the problems of destroying a planet, or blockading one, or laying siege to one. And it is a set of problems with which we have had very little experience. The veterans of the Alliance, whom Senator Marook so kindly praised, know all the secrets of fighting as an insurgent force—the roles of stealth, of mobility, of hit-and-run tactics, of disrupting the enemy's lines of supply and communication. But a commando force cannot defend a homeworld, a system, a sector. A commando force cannot tie up its assets waiting to be attacked. A commando force cannot carry out an invasion. You should remind yourself that at no time in its history did the Alliance enjoy the resources to fight a conventional war. And the one time we were forced by circumstance to do so, at Hoth, we suffered a terrible defeat. That is why Etahn A'baht was selected to command the Fifth Fleet. He brings to that bridge all the hard-won expertise of the Dornea, an expertise which I cannot match.

[Adam Reynolds]

The alternative was for Leia to simply not go directly to Yavin. She could have transmitted the plans, rendezvoused with someone from the Alliance anywhere else, etc, so that the Rebel engineers would have a lot more time to study the plans. Going directly to Yavin effectively put the Rebels on a strict deadline for no reason. There was no guarantee the Deathstar would even have some exploitable flaw, and even if it did, no guarantee they'd be able to find it right away. There was literally no benefit in going directly to Yavin, and every reason not to.

Going to Yavin meant that they knew when and where the Death Star would be in order to attack it. While it was a risky plan, it was not entirely an unreasonable one.

Leaving the Death Star free to threaten planets would cut off whatever support they would otherwise get. There is no way for any world to resist a Death Star, which made destroying it immediately imperative to the survival of the Rebel Alliance. That could be accomplished most efficiently by reversing the Imperial trap. Anything more clever would lead to the Death Star surviving to threaten additional worlds which would bleed the Rebellion dry.

You could also consider the action akin to Cortes burning his ships, which is also a strategy Sun Tzu advocated. If you force your army into a position in which they cannot turn back, they will fight far more effectively than if they have the option of retreating.

Even worse, when she arrives at Yavin, it's sort of incomprehensible that they didn't immediately start evacuating the way they did at Hoth at the first sign of an Imperial probe droid.

Hoth was clearly a prefab base intended to be evacuated. Yavin by contrast was assumed hidden and if found seemed built to fight. It was presumably thus likely even better shielded than Hoth(hence the desire to blow it up with a Death Star). The Rebel Alliance seemed to have learned their lessons with Hoth. Though even at Hoth they only evacuated around the same time the Imperial fleet arrived. Had it been a Death Star arriving instead, they would have never had the chance to evacuate.

It was obviously of paramount significance to Leia, at least, since she refused to give up its location under threat of torture/death, etc. As far as ANH shows us, Yavin IV seemed to be the primary base of operations for the entire Rebel Alliance.

It was worth her sacrificing herself to protect it but it was also worth risking Yavin if it meant the best chance at killing the Death Star before it could do any more damage to the Rebel cause. Risking Yavin was better than risking another Alderaan.

30 fighters simply cannot have that much value on a galactic scale. The value of bases like Yavin and Hoth is that it keeps the Empire looking for the secret base rather than noticing the development of Rebel allies like the Mon Calamari who have a proper fleet. This is in addition to the smaller spy networks and commando teams that were involved in other actions. Groups like that shown in Rebels never had proper bases that could be attacked in the same sense as Yavin or Hoth.

I'd venture to guess that the bulk of the Imperial Starfleet (I steadfastly refuse to call it the Imperial Navy) was mostly used to surveil and even blockade suspected rebellious, but heavily defended worlds (e.g. Dac). Satisfied that none of those worlds could launch attacks or supply matériel to the rebellion without confirming the Empire's suspicions or exposing themselves to bombardment, their primary objective would then be to locate and destroy the hidden rebel base because that's where all of their offensives originated from.

This is my head canon explanation for why such a small rebel base was such an important target for the Empire.

I would argue this is true, but from the opposite perspective. The Empire actually fell right into the trap of the Rebel Alliance by attacking overt bases rather than keeping their focus on potentially rebellious worlds like Dac. Because they were still thinking they were fighting the Clone Wars, Imperial officers thought conventional actions could win. They failed to realize that in an insurgency, the loyalty of the people is far more valuable than direct military resources. Thus, in the absence of a Death Star, it was impossible for the Empire to keep worlds in line.

The fatal overconfidence in this scenario was not the Rebels, it was the Empire.

[Kreller1]

"The fatal overconfidence in this scenario was not the Rebels, it was the Empire."
I think that fits nicely with what Luke says to Emperor Palpatine, "Your overconfidence is your weakness." The Empire was playing follow their leader.

[Galvatron]

Going to Yavin meant that they knew when and where the Death Star would be in order to attack it. While it was a risky plan, it was not entirely an unreasonable one.

Not entirely unreasonable if they knew for certain that the plans would reveal an exploitable weakness. They didn't. Hell, even Motti and Tagge didn't.

Leaving the Death Star free to threaten planets would cut off whatever support they would otherwise get. There is no way for any world to resist a Death Star, which made destroying it immediately imperative to the survival of the Rebel Alliance. That could be accomplished most efficiently by reversing the Imperial trap. Anything more clever would lead to the Death Star surviving to threaten additional worlds which would bleed the Rebellion dry.

Agreed, but that still doesn't justify Leia's chosen course of action versus all of the other plausible alternatives that would have bought the rebellion precious time. For example, if the Death Star plans showed no external weaknesses, the rebels might have had to resort to an infiltration of the station itself in order to sabotage it from the inside. This is just the sort of option that the extra time would have allowed them to plan for.

Hoth was clearly a prefab base intended to be evacuated. Yavin by contrast was assumed hidden and if found seemed built to fight. It was presumably thus likely even better shielded than Hoth(hence the desire to blow it up with a Death Star). The Rebel Alliance seemed to have learned their lessons with Hoth. Though even at Hoth they only evacuated around the same time the Imperial fleet arrived. Had it been a Death Star arriving instead, they would have never had the chance to evacuate.

Had there actually been a Death Star at that time, I imagine the rebels would have made far different preparations in place for dealing with an Imperial attack.

It was obviously of paramount significance to Leia, at least, since she refused to give up its location under threat of torture/death, etc. As far as ANH shows us, Yavin IV seemed to be the primary base of operations for the entire Rebel Alliance.

It was worth her sacrificing herself to protect it but it was also worth risking Yavin if it meant the best chance at killing the Death Star before it could do any more damage to the Rebel cause. Risking Yavin was better than risking another Alderaan.

Again, the uncertainty of the existence of a weakness is what made risking Yavin so dumb. What if it took the rebel analysts months to pore over the Death Star schematics to find a weakness and only then discover that it would require the aforementioned infiltration team to exploit? Had Leia played it smart instead of going to straight to Yavin while knowingly being tracked, this scenario would still have allowed the rebels a chance at neutralizing the Death Star eventually.

Meanwhile, there was no indication that Tarkin planned to go on a rampage and start destroying worlds on a whim. He outright stated that the regional governors would rule the worlds of the galaxy through fear of the Death Star and then made his point by actually destroying Alderaan. Unless there were actually worlds who were brave or stupid enough to openly defy the Empire after that, I highly doubt that Tarkin intended to destroy any others.

30 fighters simply cannot have that much value on a galactic scale. The value of bases like Yavin and Hoth is that it keeps the Empire looking for the secret base rather than noticing the development of Rebel allies like the Mon Calamari who have a proper fleet. This is in addition to the smaller spy networks and commando teams that were involved in other actions. Groups like that shown in Rebels never had proper bases that could be attacked in the same sense as Yavin or Hoth.

Conceded. In fact, the new EU shows us that the rebels had a refueling base on Vrogas Vas that had fighters and soldiers of its own. Of course, this takes place after ANH when Yavin IV had already been evacuated, but the refueling base on the Vrogas Vas was never stated to be THE new rebel base.

I'd venture to guess that the bulk of the Imperial Starfleet (I steadfastly refuse to call it the Imperial Navy) was mostly used to surveil and even blockade suspected rebellious, but heavily defended worlds (e.g. Dac). Satisfied that none of those worlds could launch attacks or supply matériel to the rebellion without confirming the Empire's suspicions or exposing themselves to bombardment, their primary objective would then be to locate and destroy the hidden rebel base because that's where all of their offensives originated from.

This is my head canon explanation for why such a small rebel base was such an important target for the Empire.

I would argue this is true, but from the opposite perspective. The Empire actually fell right into the trap of the Rebel Alliance by attacking overt bases rather than keeping their focus on potentially rebellious worlds like Dac. Because they were still thinking they were fighting the Clone Wars, Imperial officers thought conventional actions could win. They failed to realize that in an insurgency, the loyalty of the people is far more valuable than direct military resources. Thus, in the absence of a Death Star, it was impossible for the Empire to keep worlds in line.

The fatal overconfidence in this scenario was not the Rebels, it was the Empire.

Well, yeah. As Mon Mothma said, by ROTJ the Imperial fleet was scattered throughout the galaxy in a vain effort to engage the rebels, but my belief has always been that the rebels at that time had gone completely nomadic after they had finally acquired giant warships of their own.

Prior to that, all we know for sure is that Vader's fleet was scouring the galaxy with a few star destroyers and thousands of probe droids. The rest of the fleet could have been occupied with defending strategic targets from possible rebel offensives and keeping the more suspicious systems from doing anything that might help the Alliance.

[Iroscato]

Is it just me that thinks this board contains some of the haughtiest, most jaded, hard-to-please cynical motherfuckers on the entire internet? It can't just be me right?

[Galvatron]

It wouldn't surprise me if a goodly number of this board's participants are somewhere on the high end of the autism spectrum. Being hard to please and obsessed with minutiae in a particular area of interest is par for the course.

That being said, the critical reviews and box office office performance of TFA clearly don't reflect the negativity of the people who seem so displeased with it here.

[ray245]

Is it just me that thinks this board contains some of the haughtiest, most jaded, hard-to-please cynical motherfuckers on the entire internet? It can't just be me right?

That's every fanbase out there. Have you seen the debates in OTHER Star Wars forums over TFA?

[Batman]

In all fairness, we've been at it for a very long time, so we're very very good at it.

[Galvatron]

Is it just me that thinks this board contains some of the haughtiest, most jaded, hard-to-please cynical motherfuckers on the entire internet? It can't just be me right?

That's every fanbase out there. Have you seen the debates in OTHER Star Wars forums over TFA?

Yes, but this forum has the distinction of having been spawned by participants of the SWvST debates, so we're a particularly anal bunch. I, myself, never cared for those debates, but it explains why a lot of people here seem to care more about things like asteroid vaporization calculations than most.

[CmdrWilkens]

Yeah; for an *galactic* Empire, presumably you would have at least a *near-galactic* Rebellion. For a Rebellion to have the majority of its forces on only a few planets would be utter minimalism.

I addressed that in an earlier post in another thread...

I'd venture to guess that the bulk of the Imperial Starfleet (I steadfastly refuse to call it the Imperial Navy) was mostly used to surveil and even blockade suspected rebellious, but heavily defended worlds (e.g. Dac). Satisfied that none of those worlds could launch attacks or supply matériel to the rebellion without confirming the Empire's suspicions or exposing themselves to bombardment, their primary objective would then be to locate and destroy the hidden rebel base because that's where all of their offensives originated from.

This is my head canon explanation for why such a small rebel base was such an important target for the Empire.

No, I never subscribed to the rationalization that Yavin IV or Hoth were ever merely intended to be the Alderaanian cell and this is why I never resorted to believing that what Vader and the other Imperials kept referring to as "the rebel base" was anything other than THE rebel base.

Sure...but how often have our political leaders talked about the bases for Al Qaeda or ISIS. The terminology for any large political entity facing an uprising from a decentralized insurgent force tends to focus on discrete targets and assign them importance above what the represent in the larger movement because it allows them to claim discrete and "significant" victories with which to help maintain the appearance of control over such a situation. I mean I'm not certain that's whats going on here (Lucas in several of his interviews certainly seemed to subscribe to a minimalist enough perspective that the victory at Endor was sufficient to ensure a galactic domination by the alliance and the end of the Empire) but I would say calling Yavin IV a cell rather than THE base isn't a reach despite the importance Imperial leadership seems to assign to this location.

[Channel72]

Yes, but this forum has the distinction of having been spawned by participants of the SWvST debates, so we're a particularly anal bunch. I, myself, never cared for those debates, but it explains why a lot of people here seem to care more about things like asteroid vaporization calculations than most.

I occasionally like to masturbate to Turbolaser Commentaries.

Anyway, yeah, it's hard to understand why any Star Wars fan would hate TFA. It's really just pure Star Warsy fun. I mean, like, what the fuck do you want? Yeah, it's derivative and has plot holes, but (A) nothing will ever compare with the originals because they were so groundbreaking at the time, and (B) plot holes don't really matter if the characters are awesome and the story is at least decent - plus the OT had tons of plot holes.

Sure...but how often have our political leaders talked about the bases for Al Qaeda or ISIS. The terminology for any large political entity facing an uprising from a decentralized insurgent force tends to focus on discrete targets and assign them importance above what the represent in the larger movement because it allows them to claim discrete and "significant" victories with which to help maintain the appearance of control over such a situation. I mean I'm not certain that's whats going on here (Lucas in several of his interviews certainly seemed to subscribe to a minimalist enough perspective that the victory at Endor was sufficient to ensure a galactic domination by the alliance and the end of the Empire) but I would say calling Yavin IV a cell rather than THE base isn't a reach despite the importance Imperial leadership seems to assign to this location.

Our political leaders tend to focus on a figure-head, like Osama bin Laden, to score political points. With ISIS it's a bit different, since their leader/figurehead is something of a non-entity (al-Baghdadi rarely makes public appearences), so they focus a bit on "bases" (i.e. Mosul, Raqqah.)

Regardless, ANH as a story clearly implies that Yavin IV is seriously fucking important. You can apply SDN nerd analysis and talk about "scale" all you want, but ANH at least clearly is betting a lot of the drama on the audience investing in the idea that Yavin IV is a "really big deal" for the Rebel alliance, and losing it would mean "really bad things".

[Galvatron]

Regardless, ANH as a story clearly implies that Yavin IV is seriously fucking important. You can apply SDN nerd analysis and talk about "scale" all you want, but ANH at least clearly is betting a lot of the drama on the audience investing in the idea that Yavin IV is a "really big deal" for the Rebel alliance, and losing it would mean "really bad things".

And TESB continued this theme with the Vader's fleet searching the galaxy for THE new rebel base because he deduced that he would find Luke there.

Now, one can always rationalize that he took one look at the power generator on Hoth and the Force told him "the rebels are there," but this would still imply that the Empire had reason to believe that the rebels were all concentrated in one place.

This is why I came up with the theory that the rebels did only have one base, but what set it apart from all the minor outposts and safe houses throughout the galaxy is that this base was where the rebels actually launched offensives against the Empire from.

[Patroklos]

There is precedent for pathetically small rebel groups becoming regime toppling forces in a somewhat similar timeframe as the OT. Read up on Mao.

[Purple]

This is why I came up with the theory that the rebels did only have one base, but what set it apart from all the minor outposts and safe houses throughout the galaxy is that this base was where the rebels actually launched offensives against the Empire from.

This need not necessarily be true. THE base could just be the one base where most of their leadership is concentrated. Even without any military significance at all such an outpost would carry extraordinary strategic worth. And it would explain why Vader wanted the base taken by ground forces.

[Galvatron]

This is why I came up with the theory that the rebels did only have one base, but what set it apart from all the minor outposts and safe houses throughout the galaxy is that this base was where the rebels actually launched offensives against the Empire from.

This need not necessarily be true. THE base could just be the one base where most of their leadership is concentrated. Even without any military significance at all such an outpost would carry extraordinary strategic worth. And it would explain why Vader wanted the base taken by ground forces.

I realize it's not necessarily true, but it would explain why it was so important even though we saw no signs of any other generals, Mon Mothma or Admiral Ackbar. Its function as the rebels' only strike base would be what makes it of strategically vital importance to both the Empire and the Alliance.

After all, going all the way back to the opening crawl of ANH, it was rebel spaceships attacking from their hidden base that finally won them a victory against the Empire. Presumably, this was either the first time the rebels had the proper resources to mount an offensive or all other previous efforts failed.

[Crazedwraith]

This is why I came up with the theory that the rebels did only have one base, but what set it apart from all the minor outposts and safe houses throughout the galaxy is that this base was where the rebels actually launched offensives against the Empire from.

This need not necessarily be true. THE base could just be the one base where most of their leadership is concentrated. Even without any military significance at all such an outpost would carry extraordinary strategic worth. And it would explain why Vader wanted the base taken by ground forces.

...

We know exactly why Vader wanted the base taken by ground forces. To capture Luke.

[Galvatron]

But getting back to TFA, my rant about the dumbness of ANH was meant to put into perspective the "dumbness" of TFA. I hate the prequels for a lot of things, but I could have forgiven the plot holes if I liked the characters and the story.

Maybe you guys should just admit that TFA is no dumber than the other SW movies and simply admit that you didn't like it because it didn't strike the proper chord with you.

[Crazedwraith]

Maybe you should just admit that other people are more bothered by it than you... and that that's okay?

[Channel72]

The point is the OT has lots of flaws, but since everyone universally loves it, people are way more willing to expend energy rationalizing things. Leia returning to Yavin IV when she knew damn well they were being tracked makes no fucking sense, no matter how you rationalize it. All the rationalizations are wild guesses that still fail when you think about them for more than a second. Even if Yavin IV (or Dantooine, prior to that) wasn't the only Rebel base, it was at least damn important if the way characters act in ANH means anything.

So why did Leia return to Yavin IV even though she knew she was being tracked? Because Leia is being controlled by a Hollywood screenwriter, and it was way more dramatic for her to return to the base immediately. This upped the stakes because now not only do the Rebels have to mount an assault against this giant space station, but they're also on a ticking-clock strict deadline, since their base is about to get completely blown up (meaning that main characters such as Leia herself and lovable C-3PO would all die.) I mean, Hollywood screen-writing 101 usually dictates that any final action sequence needs some kind of urgency brought on by a "deadline timer", giving the heros a very limited amount of time to accomplish something before the bomb explodes/everyone dies, etc.

Writing a scene where Leia like, travels to some other planet, changes ships, or meets up with Rebel operatives somewhere else before going to Yavin IV would have just slowed down the story, and denied us the climactic ending battle that changed cinematic history. People need to just fucking admit this and get on with things.

Still, I find it funny that in any realistic scenario, the Rebel leadership should have been fucking pissed at Leia the moment she arrived. "Uh... thanks your highness for getting the Deathstar plans... but um... you realize the Deathstar just jumped out of hyperspace because the Empire knows where we are now. You fucking. idiot." Also it's hilarious that even after blowing up the Deathstar, they act like everything's okay and they can just sit around and have an award ceremony on their now-revealed hidden base. Why didn't like 10 Star Destroyers come out of hyperspace and immediately blast that temple on Yavin IV to smithereens immediately after the Deathstar exploded?