The Romulan Republic wrote:
Did it occur to you that maybe its not easy to hide a planet-sized base that sucks stars dry and fires visible beams across interstellar space? Its a planet-sized strategic/terror weapon, not a stealth bomber.
Besides, its clear the fighting's been going on for a while in the film. They could have done previous recon./espionage to locate it before hand. Do they need to show and spell out every bit of background stuff for your pea brain to accept it?
But you didn't like it, so its okay to lie, right? At least by the reasoning of rabid fans with an ax to grind.
Also, there's actually no confirmation in the film, as far as I recall, that Starkiller Base can move at all.
Obliviously the Rebels knew where it was because the movie tells us they made a recon flight there. They couldn't do that if they didn't know where it was.
So, AGREEING WITH YOU THEY MUST HAVE KNOWN ALL ALONG, because nobody on the good guy side we see outside the Rebels could have know where it was, one has to ask why the Rebels didn't seem to give a shit about it before hand, as evidenced by how trivially they conducted said recon flight.
More than one scene. And they were trying to kill him. I'm sure he would have taken the option of walking away peacefully if it had been open to him (it isn't until Rey is taken that he actually seeks out a fight with the First Order).
His desertion, before any civilian killing was involved, was prompted by the death of his comrade. A guy just like all the dudes we see him waste with abandon ten minutes later. In fact, we don't even know if he would have refused to kill those civilians had he not seen someone he cared about killed. That's some cold blooded shit right there. Its like if Bergdahl had murdered 20 of his squad mates before walking off post.
Does that jive with the bumbling can't-do-anything-right comic relief character we see (and I like) in every other scene?
You are making claims about the characters thought process not verified by the film.
I didn't say anything about his thought process, I told you what he knew and when. If I were commenting on his thought process I would have pointed out that he intended to sacrifice the Rebels so he could mount a rescue mission for Rey. Which he of course confirms himself to Han. What exactly are you objecting to again?
The Resistance pretty much had to attack Starkiller base, because it was a do or die situation. Presuming that thing could hit anywhere in the galaxy, it was literally impossible for any faction that wasn't the First Order to safely hold territory in the galaxy as long as it existed. So I think they would have done it with out without Finn.
They would have done it with no plan to take down the shield generator? What would that accomplish.
The Rebels have attacked superweapons with some pretty long odds before, but never with no plan to prosecute it successfully. Hitting the exhaust port proved pretty damned hard, but in theory it was a legitimate weakness even without the force (the DS crew calls out the vulnderabilty as legit, not knowing anything about the possibility of a force user pilot).
In ROTJ they send the strike force to the Endor to drop the shield. It wasn't a sure thing, but it was a viable plan should things go their way.
TFA makes it clear they are relying on Finn to take down the shield. They have a whole dialogue chain to establish this, and then make the point of telling us its a big deal when Finn has to tell Han he lied can't do it. Han improvises to save the day, but he wasn't supposed to have to do that. What if Phasma took an extra minute on the shitter and never ran into our do gooders?
The point is the Rebels made a plan, and took a course of action, based on the risk mitigation they believed was legitimate. Had Finn said nothing their course of action would have been different. Maybe they would have retreated. Maybe there was a plan B or a plan C they could have attacked with instead that was also somewhat viable for different reasons but chose against them because of what Finn said. Either way, Finn knew he was intentionally leading the Rebels on a course of action that if it had proceeded as he expected would have lead to all of their deaths. Thats being a dick.
And as it turned out, Finn was able to figure out a way to get the shield down.
Han did that. And if the plan was "randomly walk around compound and hope we run into a treasonous coward to do it for us" do you think that would be a good basis to mount an all or nothing attack on?
The Rebels, faced with no viable plan of attack, could have just escaped. They had this situation at Hoth, and they didn't stand and fight for no reason. Finn fucked them, and it was a horribly short sighted and selfish thing for him to do.
But its worth remembering that Finn believed for much of the film that the First Order couldn't be beaten, which given his past is understandable. So in his mind, maybe it didn't make a difference weather he brought down the shield or not.
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That just proves my point. He knew, from his perspective, that he was sending the Rebels to their death for no good reason other than to get himself a ride.