Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens

[biostem]

It would have been very interesting/haunting to have seen Rey searching through the wreckage of the DSII.

[Adam Reynolds]

One random thing I was just thinking about is that TFA and ANH had almost exactly the same plot hole, the one I was complaining about earlier.

In TFA, Kylo Ren and General Hux ignored the map to Luke in favor of the final battle and Starkiller base.

In ANH, Vader ignored chasing the Death Star plans, which were previously onboard the Death Star itself, in order to attack the Rebel base.

[Purple]

One random thing I was just thinking about is that TFA and ANH had almost exactly the same plot hole, the one I was complaining about earlier.

In TFA, Kylo Ren and General Hux ignored the map to Luke in favor of the final battle and Starkiller base.

In ANH, Vader ignored chasing the Death Star plans, which were previously onboard the Death Star itself, in order to attack the Rebel base.

That's not so much of a plot hole when you think about the fact that both are just data. And data can be duplicated. As long as it was still just one copy in the hands of a spy or plot important character capturing it was an option. But the moment either of those data objects got out and into rebel hands there is absolutely no reason not to believe that every rebel courier would not be handed a flash drive and told to run to every rebel cell, sympathizer and in the case of the new movie the new republic.

At that point the only realistic option is to abandon trying to hunt down every physical copy and instead focus on dealing a decisive decapitating strike to your enemy in order to prevent or at least delay their inevitable exploitation of the data until such a time that you manage to put a hatch over that exhaust port.

[Elheru Aran]

That's not so much of a plot hole when you think about the fact that both are just data. And data can be duplicated. As long as it was still just one copy in the hands of a spy or plot important character capturing it was an option. But the moment either of those data objects got out and into rebel hands there is absolutely no reason not to believe that every rebel courier would not be handed a flash drive and told to run to every rebel cell, sympathizer and in the case of the new movie the new republic.

At that point the only realistic option is to abandon trying to hunt down every physical copy and instead focus on dealing a decisive decapitating strike to your enemy in order to prevent or at least delay their inevitable exploitation of the data until such a time that you manage to put a hatch over that exhaust port.

Sounds good...

Except that this movie was written in the mid-1970s (assuming you're talking about ANH). The concept of easily duplicating electronic information in seconds was still a decade or so away in the future. We are talking about a period where the main method of storing electronic information was a reel-to-reel tape. Those aren't exactly something you can just fire up and copy-paste information to and from if you don't have the equipment on hand.

Also, as for ANH, Vader had no idea what specific droids were carrying the Death Star plans-- all he knew was that a smuggling ship, carrying Obi-Wan Kenobi, had been captured, and that the passengers were causing some excitement. No idea on his part whether droids had come aboard or not. Killing Obi-Wan Kenobi was a greater priority to him in any case, and if Kenobi had been given the plans, so much the better.

I could also note that *Tarkin* was in charge of the Death Star and giving the orders, not Vader...

[Purple]

Sounds good...

Except that this movie was written in the mid-1970s (assuming you're talking about ANH). The concept of easily duplicating electronic information in seconds was still a decade or so away in the future. We are talking about a period where the main method of storing electronic information was a reel-to-reel tape. Those aren't exactly something you can just fire up and copy-paste information to and from if you don't have the equipment on hand.

Which is why there is this window of time before the rebels can get it from a lone spy or plot character and to a base with a copy machine.

Also, as for ANH, Vader had no idea what specific droids were carrying the Death Star plans-- all he knew was that a smuggling ship, carrying Obi-Wan Kenobi, had been captured, and that the passengers were causing some excitement. No idea on his part whether droids had come aboard or not. Killing Obi-Wan Kenobi was a greater priority to him in any case, and if Kenobi had been given the plans, so much the better.

I could also note that *Tarkin* was in charge of the Death Star and giving the orders, not Vader...

What does this have to do with anything? Vader knew that the plans had slipped under the radar one way or the other and were gone, likely for good. Thus the window of opportunity to prevent copies from being made was gone. The rest of the movie is just him improvising with what he had on hand to try and salvage the situation.

[Elheru Aran]

You're missing the point of my last sentence. While Vader was part of the Imperial force, he was still under Tarkin's authority and more or less along for the ride, whether he liked it or not. Tarkin was calling the shots, not Vader. It was him that decided to pursue the Falcon to their Yavin base after they destroyed Alderaan and found out that Dantooine was a decoy. The only real independent actions that Vader took after he was on the Death Star were chasing down Kenobi and getting into his TIE fighter to counter-attack the Rebels.

Tarkin was always in charge, and was making the key decisions regarding their overall mission of destroying the Rebellion. My issue is that you're saying (or implying) that Vader was in charge, and he wasn't at that point. In later movies, absolutely, but in ANH he was always subordinate to Tarkin.

The dynamic between Kylo Ren and General Hux in TFA on the other hand is a little more interesting and unsettled from the look of it. Hux doesn't care about the map to Skywalker as much as he wants to destroy the Republic and the Resistance. Kylo Ren, on the other hand, is very interested in finding Skywalker, but once he finds out about Rey that shifts his focus sharply. He's only interested in working with Hux insofar as it advances his search for Skywalker and his mission to destroy the Jedi.

[Purple]

That I don't disagree with. I was just explicitly against the argument that the behavior in the movies was strategically unsound.

[APlayerHater]

Vader did say "They must have been trying to return the plans to the princess" when he was informed that a vessel was caught by the deathstar, so I assume that he thought or knew that Luke/Leia/Han had the plans. Since they let the rebels escape anyway, they must have assumed the Rebels (Leia, Luke, Han, Etc) were so desperate to get the plans to their home base that they would risk heading straight to their base after escaping the death star, and so could be tracked.

Later, the imperial guy mentions to Tarkin that they've analyzed the plans and there might be a danger. So I'd say it's obvious that they either kept backup plans of the DS, or the rebel spies just copied the plans and sent them by transmission.

At the beginning of the movie they mention that Leia's ship intercepted some transmissions, implying the plans were sent over radio.

I know they mention "Stolen Data Tapes", but Vader says "several transmissions were beamed to this ship" while talking to Leia. So maybe they meant there were "tapes of stolen data", not "data holding tapes that were stolen".

---Aaaanyway.
TFA just seems to forget about the whole "everyone wants to find Luke" thing, since even though Leia and the resistance were desperate to find Luke and sent Poe on a secret mission to get is whereabouts, Leia just sends some girl(Rey) whom she has literally never met, to go find Luke, while she just decides to stay behind and do something else. This is despite having gone through so much hell to find out where he was, and putting the resistance's best pilot on the job to find him.

I guess sending the self-insert fanfic character off on her next adventure is more important than the fate of the entire galaxy.

[Galvatron]

[APlayerHater]

Huh, that was pretty great. I am a Plinkett fanboy though, and someone who enjoys having all their complaints echoed back to me in the ultimate echo chamber of the internet, but it was fun.