TFA ANALASYS

Weakness: story, plot, Poe Damerom, Leia, Starkiller.

Strengths: characters, VFX, not knowing what's happening.

 

Just answering the main question...

Yeah I meant that about Poe and also that his lines were overly childish at times.

Leia shouldn't die .

 

Starkiller and the Rathars were no problem for me. I'm glad the politics were left out. My only problem was Phasma, they could have left her out or kept her silent. People are more dangerous when they're silent

edit: In fact I loved Starkiller for a number of different reasons which mainly had to do with its function as a meaningfull narrative space.
https://thecantina.starwarsnewsnet.com/index.php?threads/in-defense-of-starkiller-base.8524/

 

Weaknesses:
- Pacing (some parts of the movie are rushed)
- the execution of Starkiller (I see it as a necessary evil in the plot, but it didn't have the narrative weight it needed to actually feel important)
- Phasma was a waste
Strengths:
- cast
- characters
- humour
- effects
- cinematography
- lighting
- sets/props/costumes.

 

Phasma looked cool, but didn't actually do anything. There was all this talk of Phasma being the new Boba Fett. At least Boba Fett fired his blaster and tracked the Falcon to Cloud City. The entire reason the Empire found Han and Leia, allowing Vader to set his trap, was because Boba Fett.
What did Phasma do? She asked Kylo Ren what to do, she reported on Finn's history, and she lowered the shields.
Phasma may as well have been a generic officer or stormtrooper. There was no reason to set her apart with that armour... unless they plan on having other Captains wearing the same.

Mostly just handeled differently. Give more time to establish it as a real threat and help explain it better. A lot of the story would have fallen apart without Starkiller.
How would they have ever "rescued" Rey, had Starkiller just been a hidden base?

 

What it all boils down to is the feel of the movie. The adventure aspect of it punctuated by the humor, which also gave the serious moments more gravitas. Not too many movies can make you both laugh and cry.

The PT had a much more serious tone, and when it GL tried to break it up with humor, it fell flat on it's face...except for Death Sticks and rethinking your life...that was funny.

 

Stuckman is cool. I agree with you about Phasma and that she does nothing more than the lead trooper in MosEisley the original Star Wars . The trooper who says "move along" She has potential though. I hope the expand her role.

 

I thought the rathtars should have been less extreme creatures. I like the scene as a whole, but I think it would have been a cool nod to the prequels (ya they happened) to have Han hauling one of the three creatures from the Geonosis Arena.

 

Basically, if there is no Starkiller weapon, there is no climactic X-wing battle.
Leia wasn't going to send what little forces she had to rescue a seemingly unimportant girl.
The third act would have become about Finn trying to get there to save her, without help from the Resistance.
With Han attempting to reconcile with Leia, he may not have been so eager to help Finn.
The weapon gave Han a reason to go, which Leia was willing to allow.

 

That would have changed out the weapon works.
The only reason the planet "blows up," is because the weapon works by consuming a star in a containment field. Destroying the oscillator destroyed the containment field, and the star's gravitational pull did the rest.

The only way they would have been able to not blow up the planet, is to destroy it before it had drained the sun.

 

It was drained... but then it consumed another star (hence why it got dark).

It works like this:
Starkiller destroys the Hosnian system, in part to lure out the Resistance.
The Resistance wants to find out how.
Finn shows up and gives them limited information.
Snap Wexley flys a Reconnaisance mission to verify the information, and gather some sort of map data.
The First Order track Snap Wexley's ship back to D'Qar.
Snoke orders Hux to fire Starkiller on the Ileenium system (where D'Qar is).
The Resistance learn that Starkiller is charging again.
The Resistance devise a strategy to destroy Starkiller first.
Finn, Han, and Chewie infiltrate the base and manage to disable the shields.
Following their plan, Resistance squadrons make an attack run on the oscillator, but are unable to penetrate it.
Han and Chewie plant explosives to create an opening in the Oscillator structure.
Starkiller completes the charging cycle and prepares to fire.
Poe Dameron manages to fly inside the oscillator and destroy it just in time, resulting in the planetary collapse.

If Starkiller were not preparing to fire on the Ileenium system, which puts the planet at risk of collapse, the Resistance would not have an urgent need to assault, and no justification for Han to head there with Finn.

In order to destroy a system, you need to destroy a star, but if your containment system fails, the planet basically collapses into another star.
Personally, I like that as a drawback.
From a design perspective, I like Starkiller a lot more than either Death Star.

I just wish it had a bit more screentime to make it feel more important.