I believe they are siblings rather than cousins. Though it remains to be seen.
What I want to know is who the hell is this Snokes dude? Where did he come from and why does 1st Order follow him unquestioningly? Is he Sith (and is Kyle Ren?)? I thought there were always supposed to be 2 Sith in the universe, but since both died in 6 can that gap be filled? Would have been nice to get at least a little backstory there.
I also got a real Wizard of Oz vibe from the giant hologram. I bet when we finally see him in person he’ll end up being 18 inches high.
What will be gratifying to JJ Abrams and Kathy Kennedy is a) how much she figured out correctly from limited context, including the unanswered questions, and b) that she enjoyed it. Those are both very important for any sequel.
There’s a fan theory that he’s Darth Plagueis mentioned in the prequels. Could be pretty cool if true. Palpatine, and the lore around him, was one of the better things from the prequels.
A post on Imgur about it with extra information on Snoke from the TFA novelisation:
Plagueis, depending on how it’s pronounced, sounds like a Sith lord. Snokes sounds like a stoner you knew in college who was always hanging around in front of the student union playing hackey sack.
The Rule of Two was put in place by the Sith themselves, to try to stop two weaker Sith ganging up to murder their master and thereby diminishing the power of the Sith as a whole. That point of doctrine could have died with Palpatine and Vader.
They claim to have a mole inside. Since apparently they allowed any random Finn to have vital internal knowledge of the base at his disposal, a spy would have a field day in there, so that’s consistent.
Just saw the film yesterday - so a bit late to the party here…
I agree with the consensus that this was a good film, albeit one which borrowed perhaps a little too heavily from plot elements of the original trilogy.
One thing which stood out for me was the strength of Rey as a character; she is well-cast, well-acted and well-written. It is nice to see a strong female protagonist who is not unnecessarily sexualised - and she had a nice balance of self-reliance and vulnerability.
I’m sure it isn’t considered canon*, but the Darth Bane books (which take place thousands of years before the battle of Yavin) discuss how this rule came to be. Before that there were many Sith and even training facilities like we saw for the Jedi in the prequels. Since both Sith lord and apprentice died at the end of Jedi, the current dark side would be some new group that might have their own rules.
*I do believe they included Darth Bane in the one of the cartoon episodes, which would make him part of canon.
PS saw the movie twice now: liked it a great deal. One thing I noticed the second time around, apparently they keep prisoners in the “thermal oscilator” facility instead of … well the rest of the planet. Mighty convenient.
Just saw it and feel very happy that I’ve seen a good solid action entertainment, that could have been great if:
it didnt feel filled to the brim with homages to the original film and also getting its ducks into well-telegraphed lines for the sequels [Abram’s Star Treks also very guilty of the latter];
It did something different with the Magic Weakspot on the Starkiller. Until the TIE fighters discovered that the explosions had created a new oscillator-hole, I though that there was going to be a twist so that we didn’t go into what was essentially a shot-for-shot reworking of the original movie’s climactic scene.
Very much enjoyed and approve of new casting - Rey especially, who was completely convincing. Has a strong touch of Keira Knightley without KK’s ability to always be playing KK.
Not a fan of BB8’s anthropomorphic emotions [bow ‘head’ = sad etc]. Emoting robots = shit me to tears.
Solid work, and two more may re-balance the Force against George Lucas’s hubris.
I thought I recognized the location! Only from pictures–but what better place for a hermit’s retreat?
(Just saw the film yesterday. Glad I remained unspoiled. Definitely derivative but I’m hoping for further development in the next films. Alas, I’ll miss Han.)
Sure looks like people who didn’t see the movie in the first weekend are trending toward “like, not love” (which is my position as well). It will be interesting to see how the general opinion shakes out over time.
And many of the people seeing it now are people who wouldn’t have gone at all if it hadn’t become such a huge cultural phenomenon. That’s the problem with going big.
