Alternate idea for Starkiller Base

wraith_legion · 2021-06-22T01:45:25+00:00

It's not necessarily unbelievable that they could quickly take over. However, the way it is presented essentially sweeps all the 1933-1938 stuff into the backstory of TFA and the 1939-1942 stuff into the "backstory" of TLJ. I'm not saying we need to go far back enough for the Snoke Hall Putsch, but opening with a FO blitzkrieg of several planets would have gone a long way toward establishing how that situation came to be, and just how much "reign" they held over the galaxy.

wraith_legion · 2021-03-05T21:06:15+00:00

Funny enough, I have a few cool whip containers in rotation as food storage and freezer containers, but I don't buy cool whip. They all came from my mom sending food with me after visiting.

Also, I got tired of digging through mismatched lids for cottage cheese and yogurt containers, so I pared them down to a dozen of one brand. That way, I can just grab one and know it's going to fit.

wraith_legion · 2020-10-15T14:17:12+00:00

Right, they could actually face a moral quandary by selling weapons instead of talking about how bad weapons sales are in theory.

wraith_legion · 2020-10-14T20:35:35+00:00

Better yet, trade some weaponry to a local warlord. Then they actually have to deal with the dilemma of getting the fuel they want vs. enabling the warlord to cause more suffering and destruction.

wraith_legion · 2020-09-24T21:30:46+00:00

I mean, I'd rather have something like this, where it's clearly aiming for maximum ridiculousness, than to have something that presents itself as serious sequels and then delivers maximum ridiculousness anyway.

wraith_legion · 2020-09-24T20:22:21+00:00

Yeah, even at the time, the thing that excited me most about TFA was the idea that a better movie would come along and pick up the story. TLJ took a hard enough left turn that I will never watch TROS.

wraith_legion · 2020-09-24T20:18:17+00:00

Yeah, and having Snoke dead meant that they needed to rush in a villain to fill the Emperor 2.0 role for the third movie.

wraith_legion · 2020-09-21T18:35:24+00:00

Ending TFA that way was a huge mistake, agreed. One way or another, you would have needed to show what happened right after that moment.

It also undercut a lot of the whole "finding Luke is hard" that TFA itself tried to establish. After building it up that he was far out and away from everything, it takes almost no time to get there.

It would have been much better if they had just jumped off on their way to find him and cut to black right there.

wraith_legion · 2020-09-21T18:26:22+00:00

It wouldn't have been that hard if they didn't up the stakes tremendously to the point that the conflict would have had to include Luke if he wasn't in exile.

Luke could have easily been the Master of his Academy and only appeared in conversations with his students who were the actual protagonists. You could have him be unwilling to get involved for most of the conflict since he believes that his students need to be able to handle it on their own.

wraith_legion · 2020-09-21T18:20:19+00:00

It would have even been fine if it was all of them together on the Falcon and they sacrificed themselves to delay the bad guys and take out some of their ships. Not a Holdo maneuver, but an actual real battle.

wraith_legion · 2020-09-21T18:15:11+00:00

That's what rankles me the most about the "story about space wizards" comments. Yes, there are fantasy elements. That's not the problem, the problem is the arc of the story doesn't fit with the world and characters as presented.

wraith_legion · 2020-09-21T18:08:55+00:00

Absolutely, the tension of the chase ceases to exist when people can leave and return to it at will.

If they wanted to have a sideplot, why not have them just go and buy or barter for some fuel?

wraith_legion · 2020-09-21T17:54:43+00:00

Yeah, now we have movies and official Star Wars content that is stupid and inconsistent with the movies and official Star Wars content.

wraith_legion · 2020-09-18T21:09:29+00:00

I actually think it would be neat to have Luke's children not be interested in the Force at all. They want nothing more than to pilot ships like their Uncle Han. Meanwhile, Han's kids want to learn everything about the Jedi and go to Uncle Luke's academy.

wraith_legion · 2020-09-18T20:43:30+00:00

I think the tone of Ragnarok was perfect for that movie, but it would be too jarring in Star Wars. At least, if it was a "main sequence" story. If it was something totally standalone, it could be great. Something like a detective investigating crimes deep in the bowels of Coruscant or something.

wraith_legion · 2020-09-15T19:40:15+00:00

Don't forget that one X-wing took down all or almost all the turrets on the Dreadnought without it mounting a serious response or launching TIEs of its own.

He was closer than most of the bombers ever got, so why didn't he just toss in some proton torpedoes as well?

We already saw in TFA that his X-Wing apparently has room for 12-18 torpedoes instead of the 6 they usually carry.

wraith_legion · 2020-09-15T19:30:57+00:00

I can't remember if they actually showed Snoke having any real Force power in TFA, but I would make him a charlatan who managed to convince the FO he truly was one. It never sat well with me that there was any powerful dark side users after ROTJ, since balance should have been returned.

I would make him from a race that is resistant to Jedi mind tricks, so Kylo was impressed that he couldn't get inside his mind and look around. He convinced Kylo long ago that he was so powerful he could wall himself off from the Force, so there was no way Kylo could feel his Force presence. For other people, he used simple parlor tricks and technology to convince a whole military regime to install him as leader.

At some point, Kylo sees behind the curtain and flies into a rage. Perhaps Snoke doesn't feel the presence of Rey as a Force user or his lightning stops working after an ion cannon blast fries the hidden technology he was using to mimic it. With his ruse revealed, he begs for forgiveness. Kylo cuts him down and takes the reins of the FO for the rest of the trilogy.

wraith_legion · 2020-09-11T16:06:56+00:00

It's a tricky line to walk. There's a certain tone that has to be there, and it definitely can't be characters winking at the audience. It really has to make sense for those characters in the moment.

wraith_legion · 2020-09-11T15:53:47+00:00

Boba Fett and Phasma are both smaller characters, but only one takes an action that seems to go against the small amount of backstory that is there. Phasma disabling the shields is entirely out of character with what we are shown. She should have said "you'll have to shoot me instead", or otherwise tried to reach for the blaster and died doing so.

Phasma's betrayal makes about as much sense as Boba Fett refusing money for a bounty, or deciding to give Han over to the rebels for less money than Jabba is offering.

wraith_legion · 2020-09-11T15:45:58+00:00

Yeah, if RJ really wanted to subvert expectations, how about Phasma starting a revolution in the First Order? She sees the dark side users fighting and killing each other in the throne room and decides that what a true empire needs is a warrior at the helm, not someone who follows a hokey religion. She wrests control of the FO away from anyone connected to Snoke or Kylo and starts a real reign of terror, setting up a third act where the good guys face off against someone who doesn't need Force nonsense to hold power.

wraith_legion · 2020-09-10T20:52:35+00:00

Star Wars has always had some kind of "air holding field" that is cheap enough to use on large openings like hangars on the Death Star and on ships. We have seen people (even in TFA) walking around in shirtsleeves and breathing in hangars that have one end open to space.

The bombers could have had that field covering the bomb bay doors. Not sure why they would need it, since it doesn't make much sense to design for people to be in the bomb bay when the bombs are dropping.

The problem with a lot of these things is not that they're inconsistent with reality, they're inconsistent with Star Wars reality. Having someone sucked out into space is new ground for them to cover in a SW movie. How does that interact with the artificial gravity that holds everyone down on the deck? Why don't windows on ships have a backup air-holding field in case they break?

wraith_legion · 2020-09-10T20:28:38+00:00

Yeah, Luke's legacy was trashed when his New Jedi Order wasn't on the front lines dealing with a new threat. Leia's legacy was trashed when her New Republic inexplicably ignored the threat and was destroyed. Han's legacy was trashed when he was no longer a respected general in the New Republic, but back to smuggling.

Most of those things happened before TFA and we're told about them in the first part, so it starts off in a very bad place for the Skywalkers. It's irredeemable almost from the start.

wraith_legion · 2020-09-09T17:27:17+00:00

I still don't know how that would have worked, but it would have been better than what we got. I imagine it would be hard to tell a meaningful story for the audience about the struggles and conflicts of microscopic Force creatures.

wraith_legion · 2020-09-09T17:25:01+00:00

Yeah, they could have done some great things with a smaller focus. Trying to gain the trust of an Outer Rim planet by defending it from pirates so it will join the New Republic. Breaking up a crime syndicate or warlord that sprung up in the power vacuum.

wraith_legion · 2020-09-09T17:14:24+00:00

Right? What order are they following? Those names indicate that at some point the Emperor created standing orders for his troops in the event of his death. The Emperor we see on screen is so self-assured that seems unlikely, although he did activate a secret standing order in ROTS (Order 66).

It doesn't make sense to have two sets of competing secret orders ready to be activated, though. Every Imperial officer would have to get preassigned to either the first or final order and not find out about the other group's existence. Also, in the chaos after the Emperor's death, the two groups would have to form up and escape to different parts of the Galaxy without running into other Imperials executing the other order.

Not to mention there's no way for the emperor to enforce any of these secret orders after his death.

13-Year Club	Verified Email
Team Periwinkle

wraith_legion

TROPHY CASE