Any fan backlash against Rogue One anywhere yet? [SPOILERS]

[Civil War Man]

Plus it would all but cement Luke as her parent because who else could do that?

I think pretty much the rest of the movie already did that. Intuitive understanding of machinery and mechanics? Check. Highly skilled pilot despite having little to no training? Check. Stupidly OP force capabilities? Check. Orphan on a desert planet with unknown parentage? Check. They all but made her wear a sandwich board with "HER LAST NAME IS SKYWALKER" written on it.

Plus, Han's keen interest in her future, Leia hugging her instead of Chewbacca, R2-D2 suddenly reactivating as soon as she stepped foot on the planet, Anakin's/Luke's lightsaber responding to her presence.

At this point, the super twist ending at the climax of Episode VIII is that all of that blatant foreshadowing was a red herring.

Luke: Han never told you what happened to your father.
Rey: He told me enough! He implied that you are him!
Luke: No! I am not your father!
Rey: No....no....that's not true! That's impossible!
Luke: Search your feelings, you know it to be true!
Rey: NOOOOOOOOOO!

[Galvatron]

I thought the idea is that Rey became a brillinat mechanic by collecting scrap, just like she became an ace pilot playing X-wing Alliance in her free time that she had plenty of while being a good samaritan slave struggling to survive in a wasteland.

Just curious if you've read Before the Awakening, because you're actually not far off:

She’d jury-rigged a computer using pieces scavenged from several crashed fighters over the years, including a cracked but still-usable display from an old BTL-A4 Y-wing. There were no radio communications to speak of—no way to transmit or receive and, frankly, nobody she wanted to talk to anyway. On the wreckage of a Zephra-series hauler, though, she’d once found a stash of data chips, and after painstakingly going through each and every one of them, she’d discovered three with their programs intact; one of them, to her delight, had been a flight simulator.

So when she wasn’t sleeping or just sitting and listening to the storm or tinkering at her workbench, she flew. It was a good program, or at least she imagined it was. She could select any number of ships to fly, from small repulsor-driven atmospheric craft to a wide variety of fighters, all the way up to an array of stock freighters. She could set destinations, worlds she’d never visited and never imagined she would, and scenarios, from speed runs to obstacle courses to system failures.

At first, she’d been truly horrible at it, quite literally crashing a few seconds after takeoff every time. With nothing else to do, and with a perverse sense of determination that she would not allow herself to be beaten by a machine that she herself had put together with her own hands, she learned. She learned so much that there was little the program could throw her way that would challenge her now. She’d gotten to the point where she would, quite deliberately, do everything she could think of to make things hard on herself, just to see if she could get out of it. Full-throttle atmospheric reentry with repulsor-engine failure? No sweat. Multiple hull breach deep-space engine flameout? A walk in the park.

It was, if nothing else, a way to pass the time.

It doesn't say how she learned basic literacy, however.

[eMeM]

Haven't read the book but I've heard about this simulator thing.

[Galvatron]

I mentioned it before as a theory, but I didn't know I was right until now.

[Kojiro]

I think pretty much the rest of the movie already did that...<snip>... They all but made her wear a sandwich board with "HER LAST NAME IS SKYWALKER" written on it.

Oh i agree that Luke appears to be the father, I just don't trust Hollywood to be so logical and consistent. They might do it, but they might go the twist as you suggest just to have the iconic parentage scene.

Plus, Han's keen interest in her future, Leia hugging her instead of Chewbacca, R2-D2 suddenly reactivating as soon as she stepped foot on the planet, Anakin's/Luke's lightsaber responding to her presence.

Isn't one of the traits of a Mary Sue the way everyone loves her? But seriously, Abrams has said that Leia hugging Rey was a mistake on his part. Or rather having Chewie in the shot was a mistake and people only notice the snub because he's in frame. Which is kinda true, but there's also this idea that the two already sort of know each other (in the same interview) because the Force. As if all Force sensitives just innately connect with each other. Which sounds like bullshit excuse making to me. But it'd be awkward as fuck for Leia to approach Rey and ask 'Rey?' as if she wasn't sure the person rescued from the planet was definitively Rey. I mean it's a fucking planet- what are the actual chances Rey will be held within walking distance of the critical doohicky?

As for Rey's flight simulator... Sounds like Rey wasn't all that hard up if she had time to rebuild a flight simulator and practice to master levels. Not exactly the kind of scenario one imagines for a hand to mouth scavenger. Also an odd fixation for someone who desperately didn't want to leave. Might also have been worth mentioning to Finn when he questioned her piloting but I guess 'I've got 300 hours in the simulator' would have raised more questions, like 'You live in a box with no door, where the fuck did you get a simulator?'

[Sea Skimmer]

Look at her scavengening, its very physically demanding, it's pretty reasonable that she'd not be doing that every daylight hour she could as long as she was eating. Also it stands to reason that scrapping might have been becoming less and less productive with time, as the hulks actually got stripped down of the easier to remove parts. Honestly really don't have a problem with her flying of all things, given that it's canon that a little boy can be the only human who can pod race at all because of his force sensitivity, and that Luke pulled off a computer impossible long range missile shot with gut instinct in a high performance fighter he'd been in the cockpit of for 10 minutes (what's the delay on the trigger button lol!). Rey just being able to suicide fly to Falcon around a little is nothing in comparison to those feats.

[Galvatron]

Might also have been worth mentioning to Finn when he questioned her piloting but I guess 'I've got 300 hours in the simulator' would have raised more questions, like 'You live in a box with no door, where the fuck did you get a simulator?'

She also said she was a pilot, but that she never left the planet. Why bother mentioning her simulator time if she had actual piloting experience? Just how much exposition do you need?

[Civil War Man]

Oh i agree that Luke appears to be the father, I just don't trust Hollywood to be so logical and consistent. They might do it, but they might go the twist as you suggest just to have the iconic parentage scene.

I personally don't think they're clever enough to do that. Or at least I don't think they'd go that overboard with the foreshadowing if the twist is "Surprise! She's some rando that has absolutely no connection to any established character from the original movies!"

[Kojiro]

Look at her scavengening, its very physically demanding, it's pretty reasonable that she'd not be doing that every daylight hour she could as long as she was eating. Also it stands to reason that scrapping might have been becoming less and less productive with time, as the hulks actually got stripped down of the easier to remove parts.

Oh for sure. I actually imagine that little outpost was one of many, set up to scavenge from the nearest 5 crashed ships or so before moving on every few years or whatever to the next site. Rey's etchings imply otherwise but in reality there'd be only so much you could strip from a warship before you'd need heavy equipment. Even if it's loose it'd be simply too heavy. Perhaps the outpost should have been more of a tribal migration type affair?

Honestly really don't have a problem with her flying of all things, given that it's canon that a little boy can be the only human who can pod race at all because of his force sensitivity,

Well that's a self defeating statement. Surely another force sensitive- someone with 'jedi reflexes' as Qui-Gon called it could also do it. Anakin was probably just the only local human. Which makes sense if force sensitives are rare.

Luke pulled off a computer impossible long range missile shot with gut instinct in a high performance fighter he'd been in the cockpit of for 10 minutes (what's the delay on the trigger button lol!).

Except it wasn't with gut instinct, it was with the Force, in a machine with familiar controls, at a target deliberately designed to be destroyed. I doubt Galen Erso intended the shot to be impossible or require a Jedi.

Rey just being able to suicide fly to Falcon around a little is nothing in comparison to those feats.

It's not that she can fly it- Han or Lando could do that too. It's that she goes from grinding the Falcon along the ground to high speed evasion and precision within minutes. It's that the movie gives us no reason to believe she should be capable of that feat. That and she seems to go from grinding the Falcon on the ground to combat ace in a few minutes.

She also said she was a pilot, but that she never left the planet. Why bother mentioning her simulator time if she had actual piloting experience? Just how much exposition do you need?

I need enough to understand what I'm seeing. When I see someone who can't take off without grinding the Falcon into the sand or crashing into buildings I infer that he piloting skill is akin to a learner driver. Now if there's pertinent information- like she's got 300 hours of extreme flight practice- that's something you want to tell the audience before she engages in evasive combat maneuvers through the interior wreck of starship. Insert some dialogue like:

Finn: Those are TIE fighters! Are you sure you can outrun them?
Rey (performing start up): I've had plenty of simulated practice at emergencies! Hundreds of hours!
(Grinding and crashing against the ground)
Finn (shouting): I THOUGHT YOU SAID YOU WERE A PILOT!?
Rey: The simulator didn't include take offs...
Finn (as they take to the sky): Wha- DID IT INCLUDE LANDINGS!?
Rey: You worry about those fighters, I'll worry about the landing!

See now I'm expecting some nice flying from her and her take off is a moment of humour. Plus you get a(nother) tiny EpIV throwback. You're not causing cognitive dissonance with the audience by claiming she's got a valuable skill (piloting) but lives as a scavenger, or that she can fly under extreme stress at high speed but can't handle a take off. As is we're given what amounts to the third world scavenger kid not only being able to fly that old Spitfire, but able to perform equally with the trained combat pilots attacking it.

And that's why Rey got the backlash she did. She appears to learn to fly amazingly- even amazing herself in moments. She appears to transition from rubbish to expert in seconds. When the pirates attack she 'accidentally' saves Han and Chewie by releasing the rathgars (or whatever they're called) but then grasps the controls (and ship layout!) well enough to time a saving of Finn. First time she tries to fire she doesn't even know the safety is on. But of course she then wins a firefight with two trained from birth stormtroopers. First time Kylo interrogates her he gets some info then a few minutes later...she's kicking his ass and doing mind tricks. Same again for when she duels him. Starts off losing, then a moment of clarity and once again she's kicking ass. She's like some sort of savant who works out anything given a bit of time and to many people, that makes her success feel very undeserved. I become conscious of the writers attempts to make her look good, at which point I lose interest. Also the problem isn't any one of these things, but it's the pattern of these things. I can't watch TFA now without seeing it. Rey is in peril? Just give it a moment...

[The Romulan Republic]

Something that occurred to me, since people often complain about Rey being too perfect/successful, and other people complain that male characters are given a pass for the same kind of thing...

Its a different franchise, and they aren't identical, but Newt Scamander from the Harry Potter spin-off film Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them reminds me quite strongly of Rey in some ways.

Let's see:

1. They're both fairly attractive, but not heavily sexualized characters.

2. They're both somewhat social awkward loners initially, but both genuinely nice people with no real major character flaws besides naiveté (in Scamander's case) and an understandable unwillingness to leave home and try to become a Jedi (on Rey's part).

3. They both have a vaguely hinted at but not really developed dark/tragic backstory (Scamander's expulsion, failed romance, and prior encounter with an Obscurus; Rey's abandonment on Jakku and possible relation to Luke and his Jedi).

4. They both do very well against opponents who by all rights ought to be out of their league (Rey beating Kylo Ren; Scamander capturing Grindelwald, who's pretty much supposed to be the most powerful wizard on Earth and the most powerful dark wizard ever at this point), and seem fairly skilled at combat despite not having a background that would lead one to expect them to have great skill in that field (Rey is a salvager, Scamander is a magic zoologist).

Their are differences of course. For example, Scamander seems to have more formal education than Rey, although perhaps not much-he was apparently expelled from Hogwarts before completing his education; and some prior military experience, though their are no details besides the fact that he worked with dragons, which is suggestive of being in more of a support position. Still, comparing the two characters, and audience reactions to them, might be illuminating.

Edit: Text miniaturized for spoilers, since Fantastic Beasts is a quite recent film.

[Shroom Man 777]

Lots of people didn't like Newt. Some people say he's on the spectrum. He's also not a reluctant protag. And... he's not the inheritor of some kind of mysterious legacy. He's a guy who runs into some bigger problemo and the strange thing about Newt, one of the divisive things I guess with Fantastic Beefs that I don't mind and kind of appreciate, is that he actually doesn't have a super-personal stake on the affairs, he blundered into it doing something else, the Grindlewald thing isn't something integral to Newt's story or his backstory or his personhood. He's not directly tied to the whole battle vs. good vs. evil thing. I like that, he's not the Campbellian Chosen One. That makes Fantastic Beef's story odd, some people would say disjointed. But I like that.

Also man I like rephrasing Deathly Hallows into DEADLY HELLOS.

[The Romulan Republic]

Lots of people didn't like Newt. Some people say he's on the spectrum.

I wasn't actually aware of a strong audience response to the character either way. More wondering how people took the character, in comparison to Rey.

Though I don't know why being on the autism spectrum would be seen as a bad thing in a character, other than bigotry (though its a label I'm also suspicious of, as while I'm really not qualified to say either way, its my impression that its currently popular to apply that diagnosis to any character who's notably odd or awkward).

He's also not a reluctant protag. And... he's not the inheritor of some kind of mysterious legacy.

Fair points both.

The similarities I saw were more in terms of being an "outsider" without major character flaws, who is far more successful than their background and established abilities would lead one to think is likely.

The fact that Newt wholeheartedly throws himself into the situations he encounters is probably the strongest difference in personality between the two.

[Shroom Man 777]

Ah, some people who say Newt's on the spectrum say it in a positive way.

I think Newt and Fantastic Beefs isn't that major a film though, it's a not-so-strong attempt at franchising. TFA is a major event. Like TFA was WRESTLEMANIA. Fantastic Beefs is some TNA event. Before Matt Hardy making it awesome.

Newt's character flaws is in his social awkwardness. He threw himself to the thing he did and the things he blundered into... but he was just bad at dealing with people personally. I liked that.

But I mean Eddie Redmayne has super acting chops. And looks like Jessica Chastain with short hair. So that's something else Newt's got. Rey's actress is good but Redmayne's like a vet.

[Sea Skimmer]

Oh for sure. I actually imagine that little outpost was one of many, set up to scavenge from the nearest 5 crashed ships or so before moving on every few years or whatever to the next site. Rey's etchings imply otherwise but in reality there'd be only so much you could strip from a warship before you'd need heavy equipment. Even if it's loose it'd be simply too heavy. Perhaps the outpost should have been more of a tribal migration type affair?

Some largescale gutting appeared to have already happened. Working in groups would certainly be far more productive, but I think Abrams wanted the ship in the desert meme and never thought past that. Certainly Rey herself was not planning for the future.

Well that's a self defeating statement. Surely another force sensitive- someone with 'jedi reflexes' as Qui-Gon called it could also do it. Anakin was probably just the only local human. Which makes sense if force sensitives are rare.

If you ignore the legends stuff pushed it as only he could, and mixed with the the canon but possible hyperbowl said about Anakin basically being the best pilot ever, then sure, you could take that opinion. But the fact remains that he was doing something superhuman without even knowing he could, in a sport basically tuned to ensure mistakes at fatal. At that point how the hell is someone flying a ship in a loop a big deal? Its not like this was happening at mach 15 or indeed anywhere near the known maximum performance of these craft.

Except it wasn't with gut instinct, it was with the Force, in a machine with familiar controls, at a target deliberately designed to be destroyed. I doubt Galen Erso intended the shot to be impossible or require a Jedi.

Then what the hell is your point if you just want to invoke the force anyway? Like how does the force tell you where the catch point is for the trigger in that specific spacecraft when you already need superhuman reactions and perception to do this, and the fire control system is literally turned off? Familiar controls means nothing at that point, they aren't that ship and the T-16 sure didn't have proton torpedoes. The force is some powerful fuck ass magic, and apparently one highly aware of non living material even when its not directly wielded by a living creature. A bit of flying skill is nothing in comparison to that kind of encompassing power, that can be used by the completely untrained, or someone with perhaps 8 hours of relevant jedi training.

It's not that she can fly it- Han or Lando could do that too. It's that she goes from grinding the Falcon along the ground to high speed evasion and precision within minutes. It's that the movie gives us no reason to believe she should be capable of that feat. That and she seems to go from grinding the Falcon on the ground to combat ace in a few minutes.

That's where getting used to the controls, and presence of actual g force, is actually a justified thing. Past that shew as no combat ace, she never even got on the enemies freaking tail which a rather basic requirement of that, and was still on the road to death had the Imperial pilot made any decision even slightly differently at like ten different points. She flew through a hulk she knew well, and that's about it. Imperial TIE tactics always suck, since rational pilots would have just orbited while calling for help. I'm not overwhelmed by this compared to the pod race which is more or less like constantly flying through that hulk, or the death star shot that basically makes no sense unless the force physically pushed the projectiles down the vent. Which was actually how I tended to interpret it myself in before the Prequels came out and made life much more muddled.

Also if you listen to the movie Galen Erso says nothing about the vent specifically, but does say any detonation against the reactor will be fatal. Which that plus the rebel instinct to get a jedi who conducted shitloads of infiltrations in the Clone Wars but hated flying, suggests that the exhaust port was not the only way Erso expected this might work out. The station would seem to have been unstable from the get go.

[The Romulan Republic]

Ah, some people who say Newt's on the spectrum say it in a positive way.

Fair enough.

I think Newt and Fantastic Beefs isn't that major a film though, it's a not-so-strong attempt at franchising. TFA is a major event. Like TFA was WRESTLEMANIA. Fantastic Beefs is some TNA event. Before Matt Hardy making it awesome.

Granted. TFA is always going to be one of the biggest films ever, and hence subjected to more scrutiny across the board. Though I still think its interesting to compare attitudes towards the characters from those who have seen both films.

Newt's character flaws is in his social awkwardness. He threw himself to the thing he did and the things he blundered into... but he was just bad at dealing with people personally. I liked that.

That, and his naiveté. He's constantly trying to help out and seeing the good in people and creatures without seeming to fully grasp (or just being indifferent to) the degree of danger.

Again, this is where he differs strongly from Rey. The similarities are in other areas.

Edit: Mind you, while its a little off-topic here, if Fantastic Beasts is a weak attempt to expand the franchise, I at least respect them for choosing a premise which is quite different from that of the previous films in the franchise, and going with almost entirely new characters with only indirect connections at most to the previous cast. While the themes and style carried over, certainly, it was in some respects a far more innovative approach than TFA's "let's rehash the OT to pander to bitter fans" method.

[Shroom Man 777]

I think as I've stated before (maybe not here), I think the problem is that Rey (and Finn's) storylines were abruptly derailed thanks to the lame Starkiller Base sidetrack. Unlike ANH where the Death Star was a key plot point from the very beginning and from that basis we got the Luke Skywalker drama and coming of age stuff... Starkiller Base came out of nowhere so it didn't gel with the narrative flow of Rey and Finn, it was a spectacle but it suspended Rey and Finn's story until some pew pews later Rey throws down with Kylo for the World Heavyweight Championship or whatever.

The McGuffin went from the vague "star maps to Luke" to "suddenly superweapon" whereas "Death Star plans, save princess!" were laser focused. I think it would have been better if the stakes were defined earlier on, or at least the chain of causation if un-revealed and kept as a surprise at least nonetheless formed as a basis for the writers to work the rest of the plot around, so Rey and Finn's characterization would flow with the rest of it. Fuck it, why not a SPACE GITMO where the Kylos and the Stormtroopers and the Huxes take GODDAMN ORPHANS to indoctrinate into child-soldierness ala Boko Haram or ISIS or whatever?

The major problem might also be we and the writers themselves have no true clue as to why Luke is gone, why finding him is so important and why the Kylos came to be.

EDIT:

Yes I agree that Fantastic Beefs' "sideplot" nature serves it well, keeps it intact, whereas forced main franchise resurrectionbootquelmake compromises TFA. In fact, the slightly forced tie ins to the "main plot" in Fantastic Beefs, the Grindlewald stuff... I think were its weaker parts. The parts that WEREN'T oooh magical war oooh dark lord (that came out of sorta nowhere though we knew about it) were the better parts. The acting of these vets was the bests. The world. Even though "MACUSAAAAAA" sounds stupid.

[The Romulan Republic]

The two worst points in the film, plot-wise, are probably the out of nowhere plot contrivance vision Rey has at Maz's castle, and the more or less unexplained "oh look, R2 just randomly woke up, now we can find Luke" resolution to the main plot.

Now, I'm not saying you couldn't work Starkiller Base and the search for Luke into the same film effectively, but one very much does get the sense that the one was focussed on at the expense of the other here, yes.

[Shroom Man 777]

...yeah how the hell did they know that the vital stuff was in Maz' castle with R2? Was it something Poe Dameron had?

God. Red Letter Media is right.

[The Romulan Republic]

Err... R2 wasn't in Maz's castle.

If I recall correctly, Han took the Falcon to Maz because she was some old associate of his. R2 didn't show until the Resistance base.

[Shroom Man 777]

Ok, it makes sense for R2 to be with Leia...

My god, Maz just having those Force artifacts... goddamn it JJ Abrams, you and your friggin shortcuts. That doesn't make sense!

[The Romulan Republic]

That's not nearly as bad as what he did in Star Trek.

Christ, Scotty just happening to be hanging out right next to Vulcan, and Kirk just happening to get marooned within walking distance of him and geezer Spock.

At least Maz, who hosts travellers from all over the galaxy, knows Han, and seems to have some knowledge of the Force and be some kind of information broker, might plausibly get her hands on Force artifacts, though its rather fortunate that Rey would happen to go their right then (Will of the Force, I guess).

Edit: Of course, Trek had different writers, but I suspect the script still had Abrams' fingerprints on it, partly because of this.

[Kojiro]

If you ignore the legends ...<snip>... At that point how the hell is someone flying a ship in a loop a big deal? Its not like this was happening at mach 15 or indeed anywhere near the known maximum performance of these craft.

I ignore legends only because I'm not a big EU fan. If I don't see it in the movie there's a good chance I don't know about it. The feats aren't the problem, it's the person doing it and what we expect to see her do at that age, raised in that environment, with what backstory we have. I take no issue with Lando flying through the DS2 for example.

Then what the hell is your point if you just want to invoke the force anyway?

I don't have a problem invoking the Force. I have a problem invoking the Force out of your ass.

Like how does the force tell you where the catch point is for the trigger in that specific spacecraft when you already need superhuman reactions and perception to do this, and the fire control system is literally turned off? Familiar controls means nothing at that point, they aren't that ship and the T-16 sure didn't have proton torpedoes.

My understanding is that Luke used to bullseye targets of similar size in the T-16 and the T-16 has a similar control interface due to being the same manufacturer. Luke doesn't even think the task is that hard right off the bat and the Alliance certainly didn't think it was a superhuman feat. As for the trigger, come on man it's not unreasonable to assume they gave Luke some quick pointers.

The force is some powerful fuck ass magic, and apparently one highly aware of non living material even when its not directly wielded by a living creature. A bit of flying skill is nothing in comparison to that kind of encompassing power, that can be used by the completely untrained, or someone with perhaps 8 hours of relevant jedi training.

See I think we differ here on how much Luke used the Force. You seem to think it was impossible but for divine intervention, where I think the Force only gave him a small 'bonus to hit' something not much smaller than a wamp rat- a feat he is apparently accomplished at long before he heard of the Force. Even so, surely consciously attempting to use the Force should be more potent than incidental subconscious effort?

That's where getting used to the controls, and presence of actual g force, is actually a justified thing.

I've no doubt she could learn it given time. She literally learns in seconds though.

Past that shew as no combat ace, she never even got on the enemies freaking tail which a rather basic requirement of that, and was still on the road to death had the Imperial pilot made any decision even slightly differently at like ten different points.

She flew well enough to avoid getting blasted to bits as it took her a good while to even raise the (co pilot activated it seems) shields. And again, against elite pilots, in a 'garbage' according to her, 50 year old freighter. One that she's never flown before.

She flew through a hulk she knew well, and that's about it.

In an asymmetrical freighter she's never flown before, at high speed while evading attacks from elite fighters. At what point does this strain your SoD?

Imperial TIE tactics always suck, since rational pilots would have just orbited while calling for help.

Oh for sure. But if the film villains were competent they'd have tracked Finn to the ground and when Rey and Finn got to orbit they'd have found the stardestroyer and more fighters waiting. Yet somehow Han finds them by accident while the FO are supposedly actively pursuing them...

I'm not overwhelmed by this compared to the pod race which is more or less like constantly flying through that hulk, or the death star shot that basically makes no sense unless the force physically pushed the projectiles down the vent. Which was actually how I tended to interpret it myself in before the Prequels came out and made life much more muddled.

Each to their own I guess. I always thought the 90 degree turn of the torpedoes was odd but considered one of their abilities from what I read here.

Also if you listen to the movie Galen Erso says nothing about the vent specifically, but does say any detonation against the reactor will be fatal. Which that plus the rebel instinct to get a jedi who conducted shitloads of infiltrations in the Clone Wars but hated flying, suggests that the exhaust port was not the only way Erso expected this might work out. The station would seem to have been unstable from the get go.

I'll admit I've only seen R1 once so my memory could be faulty here. Was Obi-wan sent for before the plans were analyzed? I'm pretty sure he was. But that kinda raises the question- a detonation against the reactor sounds like a largely fatal event for just about anything. In Rebels for example I'm pretty sure S1 ended with explosives on the reactor of a ISD causing it's destruction. Like, it just doesn't seem like the kind of thing a master engineer would have to work into the plans. A direct connection from the surface that can reliably chain all the way to the reactor? That sounds more like a feat of engineering brilliance. But you're right, it could be either way. I like to believe that the vent was his actual goal if only because he couldn't possibly know what the Rebellion had access to, let alone a Jedi.

[Shroom Man 777]

Hmmm... Rey somehow knew how to activate the Falcon really fast. Maybe she did take it out for a ride in the past? Maybe drifted with DOMRIDDICK TURRETO. That furious individual who can pilot craft very fast.

I think the most important thing the Force did for Luke was to give him a cool head before firing the proton torpedoes. Enabling the timing. Whereas the others were stressed (by being murdered by TIEs). Han getting Vader off his tail was good too. I mean, the other feats of the exhaust port shot were done by the proton torpedo itself...

[Adam Reynolds]

I think as I've stated before (maybe not here), I think the problem is that Rey (and Finn's) storylines were abruptly derailed thanks to the lame Starkiller Base sidetrack. Unlike ANH where the Death Star was a key plot point from the very beginning and from that basis we got the Luke Skywalker drama and coming of age stuff... Starkiller Base came out of nowhere so it didn't gel with the narrative flow of Rey and Finn, it was a spectacle but it suspended Rey and Finn's story until some pew pews later Rey throws down with Kylo for the World Heavyweight Championship or whatever.

The McGuffin went from the vague "star maps to Luke" to "suddenly superweapon" whereas "Death Star plans, save princess!" were laser focused. I think it would have been better if the stakes were defined earlier on, or at least the chain of causation if un-revealed and kept as a surprise at least nonetheless formed as a basis for the writers to work the rest of the plot around, so Rey and Finn's characterization would flow with the rest of it. Fuck it, why not a SPACE GITMO where the Kylos and the Stormtroopers and the Huxes take GODDAMN ORPHANS to indoctrinate into child-soldierness ala Boko Haram or ISIS or whatever?

The major problem might also be we and the writers themselves have no true clue as to why Luke is gone, why finding him is so important and why the Kylos came to be.

I would say this is the fatal flaw of the film overall. Rogue One even justifies the question of why the Rebels were even able to blow up the Death Starin the first place, which The Force Awakens addresses worse even without that addition. To repeat what I said the last time this came up:

All of A New Hope was about establishing just how amazing the Death Star and how much of a threat it was. It was mentioned in the opening titles, the reason Leia was chased by Vader, and the mcguffin of the plot was all about it. In The Force Awakens, by contrast, the entire plot was about finding Luke, with that being reflected in all of the above. Starkiller Base simply appeared and was used with no buildup, and then blown up almost immediately afterwards with no real work involved. There is an entire movie about the buildup to destroying the Death Star coming out in December. Starkiller Base was blown up with a clever trick from Han and incredibly lousy internal security.

The final battle should have reflected the rest of the plot of the movie and instead been about stealing the final map section, as they assumed the First Order had the only copy. You could then instead have a partial victory in that the heroes get out alive and prevent the First Order from finding Luke, but are unable to solve the problem. R2 finally wakes up with the final segment, having finally broken the encryption he has spent the last several years working on, gaining a bit of help from what Rey and Finn recovered.

As for a set piece, you could use something like the Star Forge instead of another Death Star, even using the visual of drawing from the star in a similar fashion. For the problem of dramatic timing, you could have the station trap Leia's command ship with tractor beams, as the First Order wants the section of the map that she controls given that they lost Rey when Han showed up. Destroying the station is the only means to free her, allowing the finale to play out as it did in the film, with Han and company blowing a hole in the station and Poe making his trench run. Leia could have been planning her own escape using a tactic to likely destroy her ship via ramming the station, with her own escape unlikely.

Thus you would have a battle that feels familiar in terms of setpieces, but is actually new in terms of tactics*.

* Though they are largely stolen from Timothy Zahn. Clone Wars notably did this on one occasion as well(Storm Over Ryloth), when Ashoka nicely used a trick from his books against a fleet of droid frigates, after Anakin had blown up the command ship.

[Shroom Man 777]

How the hell did the Rebels get the schematics for Starkiller Base anyway?