The Battle Bar, Our Wretched Hive of Scum and Villainy

Originally posted by Beniboybling

Spoiler:
Was that supposed to be Ackbar? Lol I though it was just some Mon Calamari dude

I would have taken it a step further though, actually putting in some politics scenes to highlight the relationship between the First Order, Republic and Resistance.

I think it would have been really cool to have say interactions with the First Order and Republic pretending to be friends, with the Resistance trying to stop Starkiller Base in the background.

Spoiler:
Yeah, they call him Admiral and he's in the cast as 'Admiral Ackbar'. Very easy to miss, and again a misuse of a character. And yeah agreed. Although at the very least they could have included a small seen like the one I mentioned.

Ackbar looked more fake than he did 35 years ago, btw.

To be honest he didn't even sound that much like Ackbar.

Originally posted by Beniboybling
To be honest he didn't even sound that much like Ackbar.

What? Its the same actor lol. Yeah he did.

Meh it sounded off to me 😛

I thought he was another Mon Cal, hard to say with him. I thought the whole Starkiller base thing was needless, and Abram's could've just either made it a smaller scene and devoted more time to character development. I'm not complaining though that base was ****ing EU tier power though

Starkiller base was sick. It was like a rapid fire galaxy gun that can fire across hyperspace.

Yeah, it was very poorly utilized in the film. I think they should've saved it rather than give some poor homage to A New Hope. That is one of the main flaws in the film imo

Originally posted by carthage
Yeah, it was very poorly utilized in the film. I think they should've saved it rather than give some poor homage to A New Hope. That is one of the main flaws in the film imo

I'd prefer if they damaged the weapon in time to save the Resistance, but didn't actually destroy the damn planet.

Also I'm curious, Starkiller base isn't moveable right? Since its weapon can fire across the galaxy.

I'd assume it is. Considering it sucks up stars. It would need to move around to get more fuel.

Originally posted by Beniboybling

Spoiler:
Was that supposed to be Ackbar? Lol I though it was just some Mon Calamari dude

I would have taken it a step further though, actually putting in some politics scenes to highlight the relationship between the First Order, Republic and Resistance.

I think it would have been really cool to have say interactions with the First Order and Republic pretending to be friends, with the Resistance trying to stop Starkiller Base in the background.

Spoiler:
Yeah, because obviously what we need in Star Wars is more politics.

Originally posted by Nephthys

Spoiler:
Yeah, because obviously what we need in Star Wars is more politics.

Spoiler:
Politics in Star Wars isn't a nice thing.

I agree that they should have done some exposition on the state of the galaxy but after the Prequels its inconceivable to think that anyone wants to see more politics or that a director would ok scenes like that.

Originally posted by Nephthys

Spoiler:
Politics in Star Wars isn't a nice thing.

I agree that they should have done some exposition on the state of the galaxy but after the Prequels its inconceivable to think that anyone wants to see more politics or that a director would ok scenes like that.

Spoiler:
I think it is.

I am aware though that not everyone shares my tastes, however it's obvious J.J. took the backlash a little too much to heart, by offering next to zero political exposition.

Spoiler:
I'm glad they didn't waste time on politics. Instead, they focused on the far more personal and interesting plotlines involving the Solo, Rey, and Finn.

With that said, Starkiller destroying the Republic was very confusing. At first I didn't they had destroyed it considering the laser and the planets being destroyed could be seen on Takodana.

The original trilogy had politics and it was just fine you ****ing plebs.

The OT had about as much politics as this film.

Spoiler:
Anyway, what more exposition did we really need? The Republic is funding the Resistance which is fighting the First Order. Then the FO blows up the Republic. Seems simple enough.

Originally posted by Tzeentch
The original trilogy had politics and it was just fine you ****ing plebs.

The politics were that the empire dissolved the senate and that was A Bad Thing. I can't recall anything else from the OT. Ares is right, Force Awakens has just as much exposition over politics as ANH did. Stormtroopers Bad, Rebels Good.

This film had no politics at all. In A New Hope it's established within the first 20 minutes of the film that

- The Rebellion is growing in popularity with the Senate and by extension the galaxy, which is chafing under Imperial rule.

- Politicians such as the Organas who are sympathetic to the Rebel cause are using their political influence as a smoke-screen to help them. The Rebellion can move between systems and pass information along by doing things like... posing as ambassadors.

- There was once a Republic- it was replaced with an Empire.

- The Emperor dissolves the Senate and removes the Rebel's political connections.

- Moffs are intended to directly control their own star systems- thus the necessity of creating the Death Star. With the Empire foregoing appearances of a democracy altogether, fear and brute force are required to keep the Empire unified.

This is all told to us via dialogue snippets within ANH, and it works to frame the setting. That's the difference between good story-telling and mediocre.

Why does the Resistance exist? If there is a Republic and this Republic has a fleet, why is the Republic not fighting the First Order? Is the FO it's own sovereignty or is it some kind of shadowy "resistance" as well? What was the Hosnian System? Did it have any actual relevance to anything? We know it was a Republic world but is that it? If the Republic has a fleet then why is it not sending its own fleet to destroy Starkiller base in relaliation instead of the Resistance, which apparently only has about 10 ships to its name?

etc. They could have answered pretty much all of these questions with 5 minutes of exposition within this 130 minute movie.

And going back to what originally started this conversation, the point is that saying "grrr no politics in my Star Wars" is stupid. There's a difference between politics as a plot-point (Prequels) versus politics as exposition (the original trilogy). I can accept that this new trilogy doesn't need to be a political-space-drama like the prequels were, but if you're going to have a ****ing Republic then the onus is on you to explain why this (presumed) galactic-spanning entity is completely irrelevant for most of the movie.

I mean, honestly, why is the Republic even in the story? If they wanted to go for "underdog resistance versus the big, scary machine" then why not just have the Empire still be the central power in the Galaxy? Perhaps with just a different name?