# Star Wars: The Force Awakens - Seen It (Assume Spoilers Within) **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [December 16, 2015, 11:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/star-wars-the-force-awakens-seen-it-assume-spoilers-within/740645 "2015-12-16T23:16:03Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 10
**Author:** ![Smapti](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/smapti/32/17938_2.png) [@Smapti](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Smapti)\ **Post date:** [December 19, 2015, 6:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/star-wars-the-force-awakens-seen-it-assume-spoilers-within/740645/181 "2015-12-19T06:46:28Z")
> [@Jophiel](#): > > Again, didn’t come through for me at all in the film. The First Order didn’t seem to be on the run – they had just built a giant star-eating-planet-ship for heaven’s sake. One assumes that if Otto Skorzeny had become president of Venezuela in 1946, people in 1976 wouldn’t consider his regime to be “on the run” either. ---
**Author:** ![Jophiel](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jophiel/32/66_2.png) [@Jophiel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jophiel)\ **Post date:** [December 19, 2015, 6:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/star-wars-the-force-awakens-seen-it-assume-spoilers-within/740645/182 "2015-12-19T06:47:25Z")
Late edit to the above: I don’t even know if it’s accurate to say that they “just” built the giant star-eating-planet-ship since it seemed to be in much more complete condition than Death Star v2.0, for instance. The First Order didn’t come across to me at all like a new start-up organization. All this is sort of besides the point that the bad guys lacked any gravitas or menace. Wanking in some excuse for the young general doesn’t make him any better an antagonist, much less villain. ---
**Author:** ![Jophiel](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jophiel/32/66_2.png) [@Jophiel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jophiel)\ **Post date:** [December 19, 2015, 6:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/star-wars-the-force-awakens-seen-it-assume-spoilers-within/740645/183 "2015-12-19T06:49:29Z")
> [@Smapti](#): > > One assumes that if Otto Skorzeny had become president of Venezuela in 1946, people in 1976 wouldn’t consider his regime to be “on the run” either. One assumes he wouldn’t be leaning on people who were infants when he came into power, either. By 1976, he’s have people who were in their 20’s or 30’s thirty years ago and now, you know, have the benefit of another three decades experience before appointing them to command his giant doomsday ship. ---
**Author:** ![Smapti](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/smapti/32/17938_2.png) [@Smapti](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Smapti)\ **Post date:** [December 19, 2015, 6:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/star-wars-the-force-awakens-seen-it-assume-spoilers-within/740645/184 "2015-12-19T06:54:54Z")
> [@Jophiel](#): > > Late edit to the above: I don’t even know if it’s accurate to say that they “just” built the giant star-eating-planet-ship since it seemed to be in much more complete condition than Death Star v2.0, for instance. And yet, it only took the Empire four years to have Death Star 2 as nearly-complete as it was. The First Order had 30 years to improve on the concept. > [@](#): > > The First Order didn’t come across to me at all like a new start-up organization. If they weren’t a new organization, they would have been present and active during the events of the original trilogy. Why did they never come to the Empire’s aid? ---
**Author:** ![Smapti](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/smapti/32/17938_2.png) [@Smapti](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Smapti)\ **Post date:** [December 19, 2015, 6:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/star-wars-the-force-awakens-seen-it-assume-spoilers-within/740645/185 "2015-12-19T06:57:00Z")
> [@Jophiel](#): > > By 1976, he’s have people who were in their 20’s or 30’s thirty years ago and now, you know, have the benefit of another three decades experience before appointing them to command his giant doomsday ship. People who grew up before the new order came into power, in other words. People who weren’t raised to believe that the Leader is always right, who might have been raised to believe in other idealogies, who are capable of passing those ideas on to the younger generation. In other words, potential subversives. Threats to the regime. ---
**Author:** ![Jophiel](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jophiel/32/66_2.png) [@Jophiel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jophiel)\ **Post date:** [December 19, 2015, 6:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/star-wars-the-force-awakens-seen-it-assume-spoilers-within/740645/186 "2015-12-19T06:58:14Z")
> [@Smapti](#): > > If they weren’t a new organization, they would have been present and active during the events of the original trilogy. Why did they never come to the Empire’s aid? Because they’re essentially just a rebranded Empire under new management. Again, it’s like asking why Xfinity wasn’t helping Comcast ten years ago. You can’t act as though they’re “established” because they’ve been around for 30 years and yet they need kids to run the show because they got rid of the old guard. After thirty years, there’s already a new old guard. ---
**Author:** ![Jophiel](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jophiel/32/66_2.png) [@Jophiel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jophiel)\ **Post date:** [December 19, 2015, 7:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/star-wars-the-force-awakens-seen-it-assume-spoilers-within/740645/187 "2015-12-19T07:01:01Z")
> [@Smapti](#): > > People who grew up before the new order came into power, in other words. People who weren’t raised to believe that the Leader is always right, who might have been raised to believe in other idealogies, who are capable of passing those ideas on to the younger generation. > > In other words, potential subversives. Threats to the regime. People with experience. People who rebuilt the new regime. People who know where the toilets are located and which rack has the Death Star keys. In other words, competent people. Which Tweedle-Dee and Tweedle-Dum most certainly did not come across as, as they fucked shit up and pointed at one another and looked ready to get into a slapfight in front of their dad. ---
**Author:** ![Smapti](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/smapti/32/17938_2.png) [@Smapti](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Smapti)\ **Post date:** [December 19, 2015, 7:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/star-wars-the-force-awakens-seen-it-assume-spoilers-within/740645/188 "2015-12-19T07:02:27Z")
> [@Jophiel](#): > > Because they’re essentially just a rebranded Empire under new management. Except that they’re _not_. They’re using the imagery of the Empire, but they have as much to do with it as George Lincoln Rockwell had to do with the Third Reich, as much as the Third Reich had to do with the Holy Roman Empire, as much as the Holy Roman Empire had to do with the Roman Empire. They’re johnny-come-latelies co-opting an old idea for their own purposes. > [@](#): > > You can’t act as though they’re “established” because they’ve been around for 30 years and yet they need kids to run the show because they got rid of the old guard. After thirty years, there’s already a new old guard. We don’t know how long it’s been since Snoke took over or since the purges occurred. ---
**Author:** ![Smapti](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/smapti/32/17938_2.png) [@Smapti](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Smapti)\ **Post date:** [December 19, 2015, 7:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/star-wars-the-force-awakens-seen-it-assume-spoilers-within/740645/189 "2015-12-19T07:03:27Z")
> [@Jophiel](#): > > People with experience. People who rebuilt the new regime. People who know where the toilets are located and which rack has the Death Star keys. > > In other words, competent people. Which Tweedle-Dee and Tweedle-Dum most certainly did not come across as, as they fucked shit up and pointed at one another and looked ready to get into a slapfight in front of their dad. _Exactly_. They’re incompetant and the Resistance beats them because the regime values idealogy over competence. ---
**Author:** ![Jophiel](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jophiel/32/66_2.png) [@Jophiel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jophiel)\ **Post date:** [December 19, 2015, 7:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/star-wars-the-force-awakens-seen-it-assume-spoilers-within/740645/190 "2015-12-19T07:05:41Z")
> [@Smapti](#): > > Except that they’re _not_. Who cares? My point was, that’s what came across when I was watching the film. Like I said: More stormtroopers, more of the same ships, another Death Star, another dude in a mask. If you want to say this was all new stuff and clearly a new group, go for it. Didn’t look like that at all to me. You obviously care a whole lot more about Star Wars than I do. As a casual viewer, it looked like Empire v2.0. Whether or not it was is pretty much irrelevant when that’s what I’m seeing in the theater. ---
**Author:** ![Jophiel](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jophiel/32/66_2.png) [@Jophiel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jophiel)\ **Post date:** [December 19, 2015, 7:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/star-wars-the-force-awakens-seen-it-assume-spoilers-within/740645/191 "2015-12-19T07:07:36Z")
> [@Smapti](#): > > _Exactly_. They’re incompetant and the Resistance beats them because the regime values idealogy over competence. Yeah, remember when I said that the bad guys lack any gravitas or menace? We didn’t need to spend a whole bunch of posts on silly remarks about Nazis in South America to just agree on this point. What the excuse for the bad guys being a couple dorks is secondary to the fact that the bad guys are a couple dorks in a movie where I’m supposed to view them as a menace. ---
**Author:** ![Smapti](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/smapti/32/17938_2.png) [@Smapti](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Smapti)\ **Post date:** [December 19, 2015, 7:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/star-wars-the-force-awakens-seen-it-assume-spoilers-within/740645/192 "2015-12-19T07:14:26Z")
> [@Jophiel](#): > > What the excuse for the bad guys being a couple dorks is secondary to the fact that the bad guys are a couple dorks in a movie where I’m supposed to view them as a menace. Who says dorks can’t be menacing? Pol Pot went from being a college professor to building mountains of human skulls. Kim Jong-Un grew up in trendy European boarding schools and today he’s a god-king. Hitler was a perpetual failure who talked his way into power and then half-assed it until it all fell apart around him. Fascist regimes are often capable of wreaking great destruction even when the people running them are completely incompetent. If anything, having the evil mass-murdering empire be run by people who are inept, blinded by idealogy, blind to their own failures, and wracked by self-doubt only makes them more _real_ than the one-dimensional mustache-twirling villians of yesteryear. ---
**Author:** ![SlackerInc](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/slackerinc/32/275_2.png) [@SlackerInc](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SlackerInc)\ **Post date:** [December 19, 2015, 8:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/star-wars-the-force-awakens-seen-it-assume-spoilers-within/740645/193 "2015-12-19T08:07:53Z")
I was bored/annoyed almost immediately, and kept checking the time (I was this close to leaving, but sunk cost). I actually liked the last hour better than what preceded it (the opposite of what many other people have said), and I liked Finn and Rey, probably because they were somewhat original. Overall, though, I agree with James Berardinelli: > [@](#): > > The degree to which The Force Awakens is derivative is at times surprising. Apparently, writer/director J.J. Abrams is so frightened of “messing up” Star Wars that he does the safest (and laziest) thing imaginable: tosses new characters and old ones into the mix and has them do pretty much the same things we saw in A New Hope and Return of the Jedi. Also, I love Adam Driver in “Girls”, but just couldn’t take him seriously here. ---
**Author:** ![russian\_heel](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/f05b48/32.png) [@russian\_heel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/russian_heel)\ **Post date:** [December 19, 2015, 10:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/star-wars-the-force-awakens-seen-it-assume-spoilers-within/740645/194 "2015-12-19T10:06:55Z")
> [@Frylock](#): > > And the Ben backstory is just a re-hash of the first 99/100 of Vader’s biography. Sorry meant Fin ---
**Author:** ![russian\_heel](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/f05b48/32.png) [@russian\_heel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/russian_heel)\ **Post date:** [December 19, 2015, 10:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/star-wars-the-force-awakens-seen-it-assume-spoilers-within/740645/195 "2015-12-19T10:09:58Z")
> [@Sarabellum1976](#): > > Harrison Ford is 73 years old; the concept of him having a real-life grandson in his 20s would not be unthinkable. There is indeed a eye-catching disparity between the age appearances of Han and Ren, IMO. It fits with continuity, but it’s still noticeable. Adam Driver is 32. So, for Harrison Ford to spin him in his early 40s is not unthinkable. ---
**Author:** ![Quartz](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/quartz/32/267_2.png) [@Quartz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Quartz)\ **Post date:** [December 19, 2015, 10:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/star-wars-the-force-awakens-seen-it-assume-spoilers-within/740645/196 "2015-12-19T10:12:16Z")
> [@Northern\_Piper](#): > > 1. She appears to have an innate ability at light-sabre duelling, to the point that she can beat Ren, a well-trained opponent, in her first ever light-sabre duel. Again, this ability resembles Anakin’s and Luke’s prowess with a light-sabre. Finn put up a good show against Ren too. ---
**Author:** ![SlackerInc](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/slackerinc/32/275_2.png) [@SlackerInc](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SlackerInc)\ **Post date:** [December 19, 2015, 10:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/star-wars-the-force-awakens-seen-it-assume-spoilers-within/740645/197 "2015-12-19T10:12:33Z")
> [@russian\_heel](#): > > Adam Driver is 32. So, for Harrison Ford to spin him in his early 40s is not unthinkable. Indeed not! I’m in my early forties and my youngest is 3. ---
**Author:** ![russian\_heel](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/f05b48/32.png) [@russian\_heel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/russian_heel)\ **Post date:** [December 19, 2015, 10:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/star-wars-the-force-awakens-seen-it-assume-spoilers-within/740645/198 "2015-12-19T10:13:59Z")
> [@Death\_of\_Rats](#): > > How the does that freaking Starkiller thing work? How in the hell would you aim a freaking PLANET? Do they have to wait for juuuuuust the right point in the orbit and rotation to be pointed at your target and if you miss your window have to wait another revolution around the sun you just sucked up, changing the gravitational field in the entire solar system? and how do you move it to a new system to reload? Its a galaxy far, far away from a long long time ago. The Universe is 15 billion years old. I would assume they had the physics worked out way before we even crawled out of the oceans. ---
**Author:** ![mr.jp](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/48db29/32.png) [@mr.jp](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mr.jp)\ **Post date:** [December 19, 2015, 12:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/star-wars-the-force-awakens-seen-it-assume-spoilers-within/740645/199 "2015-12-19T12:31:14Z")
> [@XT](#): > > It’s funny all the speculation about Luke turned out to be totally wrong, and, honestly, while it might have been cool I think this is better. What was the speculation? ---
**Author:** ![Quimby](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/q/22d042/32.png) [@Quimby](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Quimby)\ **Post date:** [December 19, 2015, 12:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/star-wars-the-force-awakens-seen-it-assume-spoilers-within/740645/200 "2015-12-19T12:38:06Z")
> [@Hampshire](#): > > I wonder if the killing off of Han was one of the conditions in which Harrison Ford agreed to reprise his role. He always felt Han should have been killed off in ROTJ. It probably was but beyond that, from a story telling perspective, he had to die. He was Rey’s Ben Kenobi (her Mentor character) and he was Ren’s crossroad to the Dark Side. Both those roles say he had to die. ETA: I didn’t think Ren was hitting his wound; I thought he was literally beating his chest. I think it was a way to show he was in no control of his emotions (in contrast to Rey who was at peace). [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/star-wars-the-force-awakens-seen-it-assume-spoilers-within/740645.md?page=9) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/star-wars-the-force-awakens-seen-it-assume-spoilers-within/740645.md?page=11)