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Star Wars Episode 7: The Force Awakens Megathread (for news related discussions)

Mask-Salesman

And now.. That imp has it
Joined
Nov 4, 2013
Location
Netherlands
I don't really see why the original trilogy is so much better then the new movies. I liked them both, but they're just different. The storytelling in the original movies was superb, but I really love me some good CGI action, like in the newer films. I'm really looking forward to the new movies, I'm confident JJ Abrams will make this into an awesome movie. I never really liked Star Trek for example, but the latest movie was pretty good in my opinion.
 

Djinn

and Tonic
Joined
Nov 29, 2010
Location
The Flying Mobile Opression fortress
To me, I thought the main thing the prequels were missing was a normal guy. It was largely jedi action with few non saber elements. No Han Solo type character among the main cast and almost no space fight like the ending sequences of ANH and ROTJ. The chase sequence in ep2 and the intro scene in ep3 were pretty great though.

Also not 24 hours later get have fully made fan posters

8L0qdN4.jpg
 

Emma

The Cassandra
Site Staff
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Location
Vegas
In both the films and the EU, the Sith are egomaniacs obsessed with being intimidating and inflicting fear. It's not unreasonable for them to favor an intimidating, but impractical, weapon design over a more reasonable one. An insanely inflated sense of self worth and a desire to control through fear is kind of always been their thing.
 

Mask-Salesman

And now.. That imp has it
Joined
Nov 4, 2013
Location
Netherlands
In both the films and the EU, the Sith are egomaniacs obsessed with being intimidating and inflicting fear. It's not unreasonable for them to favor an intimidating, but impractical, weapon design over a more reasonable one. An insanely inflated sense of self worth and a desire to control through fear is kind of always been their thing.

Why would the new sabre be impractical?
 

Squirrel

The Rodent King
Joined
Jun 15, 2011
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The Tree
That lightsaber isn't impractical, it's just unnecessary. I just went over how the sword would be held and the only real way it poses a threat to himself is if he completely drops it and it falls towards himself but then it wouldn't be to much more dangerous than an ordinary lightsaber. The orientation that it should be held in would be if you hold your arm straight out, clench your hand in a fist and keep it pointed forward, the blades on the hilt should be pointed at and away from you, not sideways. So assuming he's not an idiot, knows how to fight, and is therefore holding it correctly, the only way he could hurt himself with the hilt is to either face the front of his fist right at or right away from himself and then touch his fist or wrist, respectively, to himself. If you try this, it is somewhat awkward and a relatively difficult position to put your hand. (except for touching your wrist to your chest. He could accidentally do that) But it's especially difficult to contort your arm if you're in the middle of fighting someone but I also figure he'd be more likely to make a mistake while he's in the middle of battle. Also If he's fighting, he isn't going to keep his blade near himself.
The only big three exceptions I can think of right now are if he puts his arm down with his palm faced back or front as apposed to towards himself, and if someone very strong pins him up against something and then pushes his lightsaber at him, forcing his hands to go back to his chest. In that last case, I'd think he'd try turn his wrist so that the hilt would be facing sideways but he could still get stabbed if someone just backs up his saber into his chest.

Now while I don't think it's impractical, I don't think it's necessary at all because it really can't be used for defense since there's some ordinary hilt that would just get sliced right through if an opponent had his saber near the hilt of the sith's saber. He'd probably only be able to use it to ram his hands into his opponent to stab them with the hilt which could come in handy, but really in only a very specific situation so it's really not a very relevant feature on his lightsaber. So I agree with Matt then, that the hilt is probably just meant to intimidate.
 

Zorth

#Scoundrel
Joined
Apr 22, 2011
Starting to even doubt if those extra sabers are even sabers at all, saw on twitter earlier a suggestion that they were exhaust ports for an overpowered lightsaber. Which would make sense since the blade itself looks unstable if you look closely at the scene where its ignited. Even so it would still be nothing more than just intimidation I guess, unless this hypothetical overpowered saber gives a huge advantage in a fight.
 

Mask-Salesman

And now.. That imp has it
Joined
Nov 4, 2013
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Netherlands
Starting to even doubt if those extra sabers are even sabers at all, saw on twitter earlier a suggestion that they were exhaust ports for an overpowered lightsaber. Which would make sense since the blade itself looks unstable if you look closely at the scene where its ignited. Even so it would still be nothing more than just intimidation I guess, unless this hypothetical overpowered saber gives a huge advantage in a fight.

But how could one sabre be stronger than the other? Like when one sabre can 'cut through' the other sabre's beam? Because a longer or thicker beam doesn't mean it's more powerfull, it's personal to the Jedi/Sith that uses it.

Anyway, I can't repeat enough I find the new sabre awesome. I got that *yay* feeling when I saw it, just like when I saw Darth Maul's double sabre for the first time.
 

Djinn

and Tonic
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Djinn

and Tonic
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http://insidemovies.ew.com/2014/12/11/star-wars-the-force-awakens-character-names/
J.J. Abrams, the film’s co-writer and director, and Kathleen Kennedy, president of Lucasfilm, have decided to reveal the identities of some of their new characters exclusively to EW—and they’ve done it in a retro fashion that should bring a smile to anyone familiar with the phrase “Collect ‘Em, Trade ‘Em.”

That was the catchphrase of the Topps trading card company, which in addition to baseball players and comic book characters put out a series of collectible cards featuring scenes and characters from around the galaxy for the original 1977 Star Wars movie.

There were five rounds of Topps cards for that movie, each one designated by a different color, with red and blue leading the line-up. Right now, Abrams and Kennedy have mocked up three from the red series, and five from the blue series.

GET EW ON YOUR TABLET: Subscribe today and get instant access!

Will we get more some day? Perhaps…

There’s certainly much more to reveal. We haven’t yet seen Lupita Nyong’o, Gwendoline Christie, Adam Driver, Domhnall Gleeson, or Max von Sydow—let alone any of the veteran stars Mark Hamill, Harrison Ford, or Carrie Fisher. And we’ve heard, but not seen, Andy Serkis. (Someday we may see similar reveals with yellow, green, and orange borders.)

For now, we’re getting to know the characters played by John Boyega, Daisy Ridley, and Oscar Isaac—as well as that shadowy figure in the snow with the crossguard lightsaber.

Also, we no longer have to call that adorable, rolling robot “ball droid.” Like C-3PO and R2-D2 before him (her?), that character now has its own alphanumeric moniker: BB-8.

The card captions also give a hint about the state of mind of the characters, but this far from the Dec. 18, 2015 release date, the filmmakers don’t want to reveal any more.

“I’m only sorry we couldn’t give everyone a stick of gum,” Abrams says.

Here’s a rundown of the reveal, listed in order of their collectible card number, with some analysis and speculation thrown in for good measure. (Asked if there was significance to the numbering, Abrams replied: “YES.”) Time to get on that, Bothan spies.

• #11 — BB-8 on the move

• #53 — Poe Dameron in his X-Wing

• #67 — Kylo Ren ignites his Lightsaber

• #74 — Rey on her Speeder

• #76 — Finn on the run

• #81 — Stormtroopers prepare for battle

• #88 — X-Wings in formation

• #96 — The Millennium Falcon

Kylo-Ren.jpg
 

Djinn

and Tonic
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looks like some new info has come out

http://www.slashfilm.com/disney-abandoned-george-lucas-star-wars-7/

In the years to come, we’ll certainly learn more about the behind the scenes development of the new Star Wars movies. But, for now, the public narrative is as follows. George Lucas was quietly developing Star Wars 7 when he decided to sell Lucasfilm to Disney. He passed along his outlines and work on the movies, which screenwriter Michael Arndt began adapting. J.J. Abrams came on board as director, but he and the writer didn’t see eye-to-eye. Arndt left the project, Abrams took over writing duties with Lawrence Kasdan, and Star Wars: The Force Awakens went into production.

The rumored disagreement between Arndt and Abrams was over Lucas’ vision. Apparently, Lucas and Arndt wanted Episode VII to focus more on the younger characters, while Abrams wanted the younger generation to be secondary to the old guard like Luke, Han and Leia. We still don’t know precisely how that balance worked out. In a new interview, Lucas himself admitted Disney abandoned his Star Wars 7 ideas, adding fuel to this fire.

The ones that I sold to Disney, they came up to the decision that they didn’t really want to do those. So they made up their own. So it’s not the ones that I originally wrote [on screen in Star Wars: The Force Awakens].

That sounds very much like the narrative described above, the one we’d heard rumors of everywhere. That Lucas wanted to put his characters – Luke Skywalker, Han Solo, Leia Organa – in the background and give the fans something new. The Force Awakens certainly seems to do that, with new characters Finn, Rey, Poe, and others, but they’ll be co-starring with the older characters in this first chapter, leaving the story open to the younger generation going ahead.

To be fair, if this is all true, I don’t think J.J. Abrams or Kathleen Kennedy, the president of Lucasfilm, are the bad guys. Lucas might sound upset and while his idea to go young is admirable, there really was only one shot with the older actors. The fact Mark Hamill, Harrison Ford, Carrie Fisher, Peter Mayhew and the rest are alive and well now is something Abrams obviously felt he needed to take advantage of. Someone, probably Rian Johnson, can always make a new Star Wars movie with new characters. But there was only a small window to make one final adventure with our old heroes. Decades from now, we’ll probably be quite happy for that. And we’ll get to see more hints of Lucas’ vision.

Anyway – it’s a pretty startling revelation from Lucas. What do you think of the quote?

I'm pretty mixed on this. On one hand you have the production company just dropping Lucas and deciding they can do better on their own. On the other you have the prequel trilogy that shows us Lucas really has lost his touch in his later years. I'm not totally sure where to go from here except keep on believing in Kevin Smith swearing that this is good despite his legally not being able to say why he thinks fans will love it.
 
Joined
Nov 5, 2014
Location
New York
On the subject of the lightsaber here is the research I have done:




The crossguard on an actual sword is *HIGHLY* useful because it protects your hands and keeps your opponent from sliding down your blade and removing your arm. Also if you clash with an opponent the crossguard allows you to guard their blade and disarm them (possibly literally).

So the principal is sound, but what about the "lightsaber generators" that stick out the side, wouldn't those make it useless because cutting down the blade would straight up remove them?


Which suggests that the guard casing is useless and just for decoration with beams on the inside. I don't find that likely personally. Seems silly to include something that would just be cut off the first time it is used in combat. Here is what I think is likely:



So one of the materials Lightsabers can be made from is called Phrik (Time where it is talked about is 2:58) which the Emperor's saber was built out of and it is black and can not be cut through. The material in the trailer is also black so it being Phrik alloy that can not be cut through would make a lot more sense to me. As for if one blade can be stronger than another:




So Lightsaber crystals decide what kind features the blade has and possibly the plasma density which would allow for pushing back/through another lightsaber blade.

A rumor I have heard is that the crossguard is actually a gun as well:



And note that this video is from November 29th, so something that adds a good deal of credibility to that rumor is that 2 months later in Star Wars Rebels season 1 episode 8 we actually saw a lightsaber gun! (This is a pic of it firing in episode 9)

tumblr_ni2vwnUPch1s6fqh2o1_500.gif

So it seems like the lightsaber handle is made of Phrik and can't be cut through and it may be a gun as well.
 

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