By far my favorite historical example of a backwater battlefield is the Battle of Cowpens during the American Revolution, which took place near an area primarily known for being a popular place to graze cattle (now the site of the thriving metropolis of Cowpens, South Carolina, population a touch over 2,000, making it bigger than the high school I graduated from by a small portion).
Sometimes battles happen where they do because that’s where you catch up with the enemy, or because it happens to be an important crossroads for the moment, or it’s simply on the easiest navigable route between two important places. The fact that Jakku was some podunk backwater could have made it an ideal place to stage a fleet or set up a base away from the prying eyes of the enemy, the discovery of such leading directly to the massive battle.
And of course, some places aren’t podunk backwaters until after they’ve been torn up by a war. Those with the means might head towards greener pastures, with those left being those who lack the means.
The irony is that what were, for towns like Gettysburg, unimaginable catastrophes at the time - especially as the wounded and dying filled their houses, churches and schools - became lucrative sources of tourism dollars ever after.
Jakku doesn’t get much tourism, though, it looks like.
Unless you’re Ms. Fisher (who I was overly snarky towards in my last post and would apologize to), save your condescension for something important, not just someone who has a different opinion than you.
We’re talking movies here, not real life.
We’re talking Star Wars here, which is even more stylized.
Generals often are grandparents and act like grandparents at home, but don’t act like grandparents on base and in their high-level military meetings.
If you’re satisfied with her depiction of a general, fine, but I didn’t buy it. MHO.
New plot speculation: not only is Rey Luke’s daughter - but Luke is really “Snoke”! He really turned to the dark side just like his dad, but wants to play both sides (for his own evil purposes of course).
It’s obvious once you think about it!
Han Solo Jr.? Who just happens to ‘turn to the dark side’? And who is now “Snoke”'s loyal follower? Who trained him in the force? Luke!
You never actually see “Snoke”. Just a hologram projection. That could be anyone from anywhere.
Luke’s “disappearance” may be when his GF found him transmitting as “Snoke”. She flees, drops their kid off at a nearby planet, Luke kills her. Luke makes himself scarce in case anything incriminating turned up, leaving his faithful pupil - Han Solo Jr. - to carry on his “work”.
This explains why Luke was glaring at Rey when she turned up. He was all “WTF do you know about me?”
The First Order wasn’t really hunting Luke. They were hunting anyone who knew shit about Luke, to keep his secret. That’s why they killed everyone in that little village.
Well, I bought it, for the reasons **Raguleader **mentioned. In fact, I saw the Resistance’s no-bullshit, egalitarian manner as a deliberate contrast to the First Order’s fascist posturing.
I thought we were talking about Star Wars, not some half-baked but far too long epic tale set in a galaxy that has space travel and blasters but is still based on sword fighting and poorly justified psychic powers, set around a young hero thinking he’s abandoned on a desert planet, but finding out he’s psychic and destined to avenge his father’s murder and exploit low-tech natives’ religion to recruit them to defeat the galaxy-wide Empire… um… … Hmm…
Heh, you have a point. Probably didn’t make that much sense then, either, though it may have made sense a little more that the pickings were really slim at the time, so they were more generals by default than real generals. And in that sense, I guess it would work for the depiction of Leia now. But I was under the impression she’s supposed to be a grizzled veteran of thirty years of fighting and commanding, not a general-by-default, so I expected a little more sense of leadership, which would have been awesome if done right.
I guess I don’t recall all of it. Which military bases and high-level military meetings did he participate in? How many divisions was he commanding at the time?
To wit, you’re completely missing the point. Alec Guinness did just fine portraying a wise old man who also happened to be a former general.
Another thought… Han seemed pleased and surprised by the effectiveness of Chewbacca’s crossbow. Hard to believe he’d never used it in the 30-some years they’ve been shipmates.
