SPOILERS! Star Wars Episode 7: The Force Awakens SPOILERS!

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jb
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Re: SPOILERS! Star Wars Episode 7: The Force Awakens SPOILERS!

Post by jb »

I am still bothered by the defiance of physics in how starkiller destroys that other system. Those blasts would have to travel for years to reach the other star, even if it was closer than any other star we've seen to another to date-- in which case the target system would have been aware of what was afoot, since starkiller was eating their companion star. It's not like they had wormholes set up to move the energy along quicker.

So that bugs me. Quite a bit, probably more than it should.

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Re: SPOILERS! Star Wars Episode 7: The Force Awakens SPOILERS!

Post by fluffy »

It's been well-established that some things can move FTL in the Star Wars universe, including hyperdrive and psychic energy.

also I jut realized that al ot of problems with Starkiller Base are also applicable to the 'red matter' shit in the Abrams reboot of Star Trek, so.
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Re: SPOILERS! Star Wars Episode 7: The Force Awakens SPOILERS!

Post by jb »

Well, we established that those two things can travel FTL. Information transmission FTL only seems to be available to Sith Lords (thinking of the holographic evil dude from Force Awakens).

So are you saying that Starkiller base somehow converted the energy of that star into some third thing that travels FTL? FTL and yet we can still see it moving the entire time, rather than moving through some kind of wormhole?
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Re: SPOILERS! Star Wars Episode 7: The Force Awakens SPOILERS!

Post by fluffy »

As surprising as it is coming from me, I'm saying we shouldn't worry too much about scientific accuracy in Star Wars.
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Re: SPOILERS! Star Wars Episode 7: The Force Awakens SPOILERS!

Post by jb »

Generally, I agree. But I also appreciate when a story seems to earn its moments. And this movie has everything happen in such tight succession, it's as if everything happens all at once. I *like* things that take time-- I'd *like* to understand that this unstoppable energy is on its way and they have to evacuate the entire system. I like it when heroes earn their skills and abilities, and when their accomplishments are less the result of 10 minutes around a table and more a year of planning and practice.

*shrug*
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Re: SPOILERS! Star Wars Episode 7: The Force Awakens SPOILERS!

Post by fluffy »

Well, that's more of a problem with storytelling than with the lack of science. If the starkiller ray had to go at light speed then there'd be a MINIMUM of years between firing and impact, at least given our knowledge of astronomy in general (it's very rare to have two separate star systems be less than a few light years apart). From a story perspective it's garbage but it's also completely in keeping with how Abrams tells stories - bigger, louder, faster, one immediate threat after another, just throw in anything that seems cool and twisty without looking at the big picture, etc.

I mean I was just complaining one page ago about how it's goofy how the size of the star they selected contained exactly the amount of energy needed for the ray and they couldn't fire early or whatever, and yeah my not-so-inner science nerd was all "wait how are they achieving that amount of energy density within a planet-sized weapon without the whole thing melting into a quark-gluon soup" and so on but sometimes you just gotta let a fantasy movie contain fantastical elements.

So I give Star Wars a pass with stuff like this. (But not Star Trek, because while ST has always had fantastical elements in it they usually maintained a decent amount of internal consistency and at least some basis in current scientific knowledge, and they always at least had explanations for FTL/instantaneous occurrences.)
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Re: SPOILERS! Star Wars Episode 7: The Force Awakens SPOILERS!

Post by JonPorobil »

jb wrote:Generally, I agree. But I also appreciate when a story seems to earn its moments. And this movie has everything happen in such tight succession, it's as if everything happens all at once. I *like* things that take time-- I'd *like* to understand that this unstoppable energy is on its way and they have to evacuate the entire system. I like it when heroes earn their skills and abilities, and when their accomplishments are less the result of 10 minutes around a table and more a year of planning and practice.

*shrug*
Yeah, this is a good summary of what bothered me about Starkiller, too. The hand-waving on science stuff didn't bug me, but the story didn't devote any time to establishing just what it does and how it works—what the "rules" are, so to speak. And because of that, the wanton destruction seemed gratuitous and its demise didn't feel earned.
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