The Droid Awakens: R2-D2’s Sudden Awakening Explained

r2-d2There’s no arguing that The Force Awakens left audiences with many questions.  But whereas some of those questions like “Who are the Knights of Ren?”,  “What are Snoke’s origins?”, and “Who are Rey’s parents?” are meant to be answered in future installments of the saga, there seems to be at least one question that fans are asking that might have been raised by accident, despite the intent of the writers. Thankfully, with a little help from some comments from the film’s writers and the film’s novelization by Alan Dean Foster, it’s one question that can actually be easily explained.

 

The question:

 

If BB-8 is unable to stir R2-D2 to action earlier in the film, what is it in the film’s ending that causes the old astromech to come to life once again to reveal that he has the rest of the map that leads to Luke Skywalker?

 

After viewing the film a couple of times, I agree that this scene is not presented very clearly on screen.  It seems extremely convenient that Artoo awakens when he does, and it isn’t explained in clarity as to why this event occurs at that exact moment.  If he had the map, why didn’t he respond to Beebee Ate earlier in the movie?

 

Many theories have been presented on the subject including but not limited to the following two scenarios:

 

  1. Luke senses that he is being sought out and sends a signal or uses the Force to plunge the droid into action at the appropriate time.
  2. Artoo senses Rey’s presence and (as previously programmed) responds by coming to life and revealing the map for her to follow.

 

r2d2-and-luke-skywalker-force-awakens

 

The Answer:

 

While I love fan theories as much as the next person, I believe the answer to this question is actually very simple, though I do not think it came across on screen as intended.  To find the truth, we have to turn to the novelization of the film by Alan Dean Foster.  Here is an excerpt from the book:

 

Located somewhat apart from the swirl of main activity inside the Resistance base, the conference room was perfect for a strategic gathering. Leia was there, as well as Poe, C-3PO, BB-8, a handful of chosen officers, and an assortment of equipment and gear that was considered important but was little used.

Never one to defer in the presence of superiors, Poe spoke first.

“Kylo Ren said that the segment held by Beebee-Ate is the last piece of the map that shows the way to Skywalker’s location. So, where’s the rest of it?”

“The First Order has it.” Rey looked over at him. “They extracted it from the Imperial archives.” Poe stared at her. “The Empire?”

Admiral Statura nodded in agreement. “It makes sense. The Empire would have been looking for the first Jedi temples. In destroying all the Jedi sanctuaries they would have acquired a great deal of peripheral information.”

So intent were they on the current conversation and its possible ramifications that no one noticed that a light had come on atop a small R2 unit shoved back among the rest of the equipment in the room. Nor did they see that its hemispherical head had turned to look in their direction.

“We’re still at war with First Order,” Leia pointed out. “A war that won’t end until either it or the Resistance is destroyed. The next time, without Luke, we won’t stand a chance.”

The silence that ensued was broken by a flurry of beeping and whistling the likes of which the somber gathering had not heard in some time. In the case of this particular beeping and whistling, not in years.

No one was more surprised than C-3PO when R2-D2 came rolling forward to join the assembly.

“Artoo! What—what is it? I haven’t seen you this functional since—” He was interrupted by a fresh farrago of beeping that all but drowned him out. “Slow down! You’re giving me data overload!” Whether the mechanical hand that rose to the side of the golden head to indicate a headache truly reflected what the protocol droid was feeling or was simply a gesture for the benefit of watching humans, only C-3PO knew.

An excited Leia moved closer. Of all the organics in the room, no one had a more personal relationship to the little droid than she did.

“What’s he saying?” she asked.

The protocol droid explained. “If the information you are seeking was in the Imperial archives, he believes he may have catalogued that data. He’s scanning through it now.”

Rey stared at the diminutive droid. “Artoo has the rest of the map?”

“He’s certainly implying the possibility!” C-3PO told her. “I’ve never heard him beep with this much energy before.”

Emitting a long, sustained whistle, R2-D2 projected a full three-dimensional image of a huge navigational star chart. No one in the room could fail to notice that it was missing a substantial fragment. In response to the hovering image, BB-8 began beeping excitedly.

r2 and 3po

 

Entertainment Weekly also posted an article a couple of days after the premiere of the film about this very same question.  At a post-screening Q&A, the writers of the film (J.J. Abrams, Lawrence Kasdan, and Michael Arndt) explained the reasoning behind Artoo’s awakening.  Although they didn’t explain exactly why Artoo came alive when he did at that precise moment in the final moments of the film (this is where the novel comes in), they did provide some clues as to how Artoo came to possess the map in the first place and what exactly jump-started Artoo on his road to recovery.

 

Michael Arndt on how R2-D2 obtained the map from the Imperial archives:

“We had the idea about R2 plugging into the information base of the Death Star, and that’s how he was able to get the full map and find where the Jedi temples are.”

 

J.J. Abrams concerning Artoo’s recovery:

“But the idea was that in that scene where R2 plugged in, he downloaded the archives of the Empire, which was referenced by Kylo Ren.”

“BB-8 comes up and says something to [R2-D2], which is basically, ‘I’ve got this piece of a map, do you happen to have the rest?’ The idea was, R2 who has been all over the galaxy, is still in his coma, but he hears this. And it triggers something that would ultimately wake him up.”

 

It is clear to me from reading the writers’ comments and the scene as depicted in the novel, that Artoo, after being stirred to life by Beebee Ate earlier in the film, hears Rey and Statura talking about the map being found in the Imperial archives in the film’s final moments and realizes that he could actually be of use in finding his old master.  After returning to full exuberant life, the little droid explains all of this to Threepio and searches his memory for the map to the first Jedi temple in the Imperial archives that he catalogued decades ago.

 

Ultimately, the scene was intended to make Artoo’s introduction into the film as dramatic as possible, and in light of further explanation, does actually make sense, although it is unfortunate that the scene doesn’t come across as intended on screen.  Abrams previously stated that Kasdan had instructed him that the best approach to storytelling was to – “Trust the audience. Trust the characters and that the audience will feel more, in a way, the less you explain the stuff to them.”

 

Although this approach works for most of the film, generally taking full advantage of the medium with the intent of “showing” as opposed to “telling”,  maybe there are still some situations, like this one, that would have benefited from some exposition. Maybe he trusted his audience a little too much in this case.  But alas, that burning question has been resolved…now on to the deeper and more pertinent questions…

 

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Jordan Pate is Co-Lead Editor and Senior Writer for Star Wars News Net, of which he is also a member of the book and comic review team. He loves all things Star Wars, but when he's not spending time in the galaxy far far away, he might be found in our own galaxy hanging out in Gotham City or at 1407 Graymalkin Lane, Salem Center, NY.

Jordan Pate (Hard Case)

Jordan Pate is Co-Lead Editor and Senior Writer for Star Wars News Net, of which he is also a member of the book and comic review team. He loves all things Star Wars, but when he's not spending time in the galaxy far far away, he might be found in our own galaxy hanging out in Gotham City or at 1407 Graymalkin Lane, Salem Center, NY.

280 thoughts on “The Droid Awakens: R2-D2’s Sudden Awakening Explained

  • January 5, 2016 at 7:47 pm
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    Interesting stuff, that was indeed one of my biggest questions about the film as well. Great article Hard Case!

  • January 5, 2016 at 7:48 pm
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    So why the heck wasn’t this better explained in the actual film? Arndt’s answer is a great one and could have been included in the film with 30 seconds of script.

    • January 5, 2016 at 9:07 pm
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      I’d really like to read his script now. Something tells me the whole film would have made a lot more sense had they shot it.

      • January 6, 2016 at 12:41 am
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        and much less Han Solo

        • January 6, 2016 at 10:42 am
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          Speaking of Han Solo, I’ve invented a TFA Drinking Game – (or, if you’re like me and don’t drink much, a donut-eating game!). Every time someone says the name “Han Solo” in the movie, you have a shot (or a donut). From my viewings of the film, I’m sure I heard the name from at least 7 characters:

          1. Han Solo introduces himself (tell him Han Solo just stole back the Millennium Falcon for good)
          2. Rey says “you’re Han Solo?”
          3. Finn later says “you ARE the Han Solo who fought with the Rebellion”
          4. Snoke says “the droid is on the Falcon, in the hands of your father, Han Solo”
          5. Kylo Ren senses (and says) Han Solo a few times. Kylo also says just before the final duel “Han Solo can’t help you now”
          6. Maz Kanata yells out “Han Solo!” when they enter her pub
          7. C3PO says “Goodness, look who it is, Han Solo!”

          Have I missed any?!

        • January 6, 2016 at 10:50 am
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          I’m guessing it was to make up for the fact we see the other OT characters for less than 30 minutes combined.

  • January 5, 2016 at 7:53 pm
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    Glad to know that my understanding (and guess) after hearing that in the Audible of the novel was the correct one. Yay me!

    Thanks for clearing that up.

  • January 5, 2016 at 7:57 pm
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    I agree with Kasdans methods, but we the audience have perhaps generally become so used to exposition and spoon feeding, that the force awakens in certain scenes becomes like a bitter cough medicine that makes us grimace and complain.

    • January 5, 2016 at 9:17 pm
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      That’s understandable if they plan on explaining in the next films but to do it for every other plot point is just lazy, They get paid good money to write this shit and should earn their pay.

    • January 5, 2016 at 9:21 pm
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      plot holes don’t equal subtle.

  • January 5, 2016 at 8:06 pm
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    This film is in serious need of an extended cut.

    • January 5, 2016 at 8:06 pm
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      Or a sequel or two.

      • January 5, 2016 at 8:08 pm
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        True that!

  • January 5, 2016 at 8:07 pm
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    R2 wasn’t asleep. He was just processing the huge amount of information he downloaded from the Empire archives. It takes time, people!
    Give a little respect to an old droid with low RAM capacity!

    • January 6, 2016 at 2:57 am
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      exactly! If he did download the “entire” imperial network then that information must have been seriously compressed, R2 probabbly had to search his files to even see if the data hadn’t been corrupted or anything after all he’s been through. I’m guessing he work up, but didn’t want to say anything and get leia’s hopes up until he was SURE it was good news. Plus everyone was a little busy lol.

  • January 5, 2016 at 8:09 pm
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    “The point is, I’m still not sure what the donut ships were there to do, and don’t any of you ******* tell me it was explained more in the novelization or some Star Wars book. What matters is the movies. I ain’t never read one them Star Wars books, or any books in general for that matter, and I ain’t about to start. Don’t talk about them stupid video games, or novels, comic books or any of that ******** crap. I seen enough of that ****. ” – Plinkett from TPM review

    • January 5, 2016 at 8:11 pm
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      A good criticism. I can’t believe JJ would let something like this slip in the editing room.
      Hopefully this scene Foster is describing was filmed and can be stuck back in the film for BR release.

    • January 6, 2016 at 12:31 am
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      Screw them and their opinions. They aren’t true Star Wars fans anyway. That’s their warped, irrational and delusional view of things anyway (and for the record, I didn’t need a book to understand the story in that movie nor in TFA).

  • January 5, 2016 at 8:16 pm
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    I thought about it as just an artoo-ex-machina, as guys from cinemasins would say.

  • January 5, 2016 at 8:17 pm
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    I was more interested in why Lor San Tekka had the missing piece, and how everyone knew it would lead to the location of Luke? Feel Lor San Tekka should have been in the movie more, hope his character is flushed out more in the sequel. For me, my biggest criticism was all these great new ideas like the Knights of Ren, and Church of the Jedi, etc, were under utilised. Still love the movie though.

    • January 5, 2016 at 8:21 pm
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      Lor San Tekka part I can see what they’re doing.. Think about it, his village is pretty close to Rey’s positiion. What is a village loaded with guns and insurgents doing just miles from Rey while Finn is screaming at Niima Outpost “Doesn’t anyone have blasters here!?”

      • January 5, 2016 at 8:30 pm
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        Why Lor San Tekka? Who is this guy? He obviously had some kind of relationship with Leia. What had he done in the past that he felt he had to make things right by handing over the missing piece?

        • January 5, 2016 at 8:42 pm
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          We’ll get the full details on this guy in 17 months; They got ‘Looper’ working Ep8 for a reason; expect “Time Travel”. But he’s close to Rey’s position for a reason.
          Just like another old hermit was close to Luke’s position for a reason..

          • January 5, 2016 at 9:07 pm
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            Not so sure about time travel, but I’m in total synergy with you regarding Lor San Tekka having a role in looking out for Rey.

          • January 5, 2016 at 10:16 pm
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            Lor San Tekka was connected to Luke somehow, he was a follower of The Church of the Force as the Visual Dictionary says. He mentioned to Kylo Ren he knew who his family was, and that Kylo could not deny his real family. First thing Kylo said to him was “Look how old you’ve gotten.”

        • January 5, 2016 at 8:56 pm
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          I also think that the opening line of “This will begin to make things right” is a nod to the fans as well saying, hey sorry for the prequels and special editions, we will give you the Star Wars you want!

          • January 5, 2016 at 9:01 pm
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            As well as blowing up the only characters in the film wearing prequel style clothing. 🙂

          • January 5, 2016 at 10:11 pm
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            WTF u talking about?

          • January 6, 2016 at 3:34 pm
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            The people in the Hosnian system that were killed by Starkiller are the only ones in the film wearing costumes that are prequel-esque.

          • January 6, 2016 at 10:14 pm
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            Well because they are in the senate and Gov’t offices. Leia’s dress at the end reminded me of that.

          • January 5, 2016 at 9:04 pm
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            Ha ha ha ha ha!!!!! /:O)

            I watched TFA again last night, and I could have swore near the end there was a Jar Jar Binks looking guy. The scene when the crowd were waving goodbye to Rey and Chewie as they jet off to find Luke. He was sandwiched in there. Need to watch that seen again.

          • January 6, 2016 at 10:35 am
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            I didn’t notice him. But I’m pretty sure there’s a brief shot of a woman in “slave Leia” outfit (not Leia!) when everyone is running outside of Maz’s pub to see the planets that have been blown up.

          • January 6, 2016 at 5:14 pm
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            Didn’t see her. Damn. Need to watch it again now.

  • January 5, 2016 at 8:32 pm
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    what i still don’t get is that han saw the piece that BB-8 had and said “i don’t recognize any of these planets.” so if what bb-8 had was the final piece, i.e where luke is, how does the rest of the map help if you don’t recognize the end? or why do you need the rest if you have his coordinates already? they should have done it like in KoToR where they had to find various pieces of the star map.

    • January 5, 2016 at 8:45 pm
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      In the movie, you see a space lane on BB-8’s portion of the map going off into oblivion – which is useless without a frame of reference. When the piece is combined with the map from Artoo which contains known locations, you now have a reference point to start from.

      • January 5, 2016 at 8:47 pm
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        That is true.. good explanation.

      • January 5, 2016 at 9:17 pm
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        bunk, i say. if that was all there was to it, kylo could have found luke with out the final piece as his part of the map would be more important in your scenario.

        • January 5, 2016 at 10:39 pm
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          I see where you’re coming from. But that being said, it’s a whole system that’s uncharted, not just a planet. It’s like one man hiding on Neptune and telling someone that he is on one of the 8 planets (or 9 depending on who you ask) of our solar system. Now, go find him. Granted, their tech is far beyond what we know in the real world, but Obi-Wan and Luke were both able to hide for 20 years on a well-known planet that the one they were hiding from grew up on, so I don’t think it’s too far of a stretch. I’m sure the F.O. could have, through process of elimination, eventually found the planet and the Jedi temple, but the Resistance was also aware of the map that led to Luke, and if the F.O. wanted to beat them there, it was essential that they find the map. It was all about the race, not the impossibility of figuring it out eventually.

    • January 5, 2016 at 8:45 pm
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      I agree with the star map idea.
      There would have been your “original” movie.

  • January 5, 2016 at 8:43 pm
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    Interesting stuff, great article Hard Case!

    We might not get the answer to the R2 question, but I sure do have an idea about Rey. Many are coming up with great theories about her parental origin and how they require some type of “flashback” in future films. To me, SW does not require flashbacks as it’s story continuously moves forward (unless the Force allows visions of the past and future, but even then it’s very vague and requires the audience to brainstorm). Thinking about this brought me to Obi-Wan in Episodes IV and V – He simply explains the Force, Clone Wars, Anakin, Leia’s relation to Luke, that he was trained by Yoda and much more. This is a very simple storytelling device that cause for no objection, so why not continue to use it? I can totally see Luke or maybe a Force Ghost explain to Rey her parentage without any flashbacks.

    That being said, I had an idea that would allow Rey to have been born many, many years before we think she was. It’s very simple, CARBONITE. Think about it – She could have been trained how to use the force as a very young girl, allowing her to survive the freezing process. She could also be the daughter of Qui-Gon, Obi-Wan, someone from the Jedi council or even earlier than that! If this was the case, it’s possible she could have been freed from carbonite and someone left her on Jakku for whatever reason. Since she was so young before being frozen, it makes total sense she wouldn’t remember her training or parents. Again, this is something that could be explained to her in a variety of ways instead of using flashbacks.

    Anyway, this is my theory about Rey. Am I completely nuts? Let me know! Stay awesome.

    • January 6, 2016 at 12:30 am
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      One doesn’t need to be force sensitive to survive being frozen in carbonite. Han did fine, despite some “hibernation sickness” when he was unfrozen.

      But you are essentially right — as long as there is carbonite, the seeming chronological impossibility of Rey being the child of Obi-Wan, or Qui-Gon (or Palpatine!) isn’t an insuperable argument against such parentage.

      • January 6, 2016 at 12:36 am
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        I brought up her force sensitivity regarding carbonite survival because she would have been so young. They had to double check Han survived the freezing process and he’s a full grown man. Just covering my bases!

  • January 5, 2016 at 8:45 pm
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    I love the movie and all that but it’s not a good thing when things have to be explained after the movie, yeah some minor things explained in books is OK, but things like this should have been told in the movie.

    • January 5, 2016 at 9:01 pm
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      Yes, a press conference by the writers to answer questions about the movie is not a good sign.

      • January 5, 2016 at 9:06 pm
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        Star Trek all over again.

  • January 5, 2016 at 8:50 pm
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    My buddy is visually impaired and watched the movie with a narration headset. He said that after the initial scene where BB-8 pulled the tarp off and BB & 3PO were walking away, a green light started to blink on R2. Because he’s an older model, it took a while for him to re-boot. He was not turned off, just on low power mode, so he heard what was being said in front of him.

  • January 5, 2016 at 9:00 pm
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    in my mind he turned off to devote himself to seaching the incomplete map he had to find his master and trying lots of combinations of other maps to fit with no succes
    he wakes when he senses the missing piece .

    works for me.

    like my pre prequel thing of the falcon being chewies but imperial law prevents any non humans from owing ships so he allows others to provide cover . whoever “owns” it , then chewie comes with it. … doesnt really work outside my head.

  • January 5, 2016 at 9:02 pm
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    So why did that one particular system on the piece of the map BB-8 had not show up on the Imperial map? Was it uncharted or did they simply not know where the first temple was? A bit confusing, this is….

    • January 5, 2016 at 9:10 pm
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      That’s what I was wondering. Was it always incomplete, or did someone remove it, then it finding its way to Lor San Tekka?

    • January 5, 2016 at 9:14 pm
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      Someone must have erased it from the archive memory. Lost a planet master Snoke has…how embarassing…how embarassing…

  • January 5, 2016 at 9:03 pm
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    Artoo’s saved the day in every episode. I don’t see why they couldn’t have him be useful by helping Finn, Han, Chewie, and Rey out on Starkiller and then THEN at the end have him suddenly remember about where Luke was when they use Poe’s missing piece of the map.

    • January 5, 2016 at 9:04 pm
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      I’m at least hoping he goes back to live with Luke at the end of the film with Rey, So he gets more than a minute of screen time in the next one.

  • January 5, 2016 at 9:07 pm
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    still not buying it. poor excauses for lousy storytelling, thats it

  • January 5, 2016 at 9:22 pm
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    Nice one, Hard Case!

    This was one of the main scenes where I felt like J.J.’s breakneck pacing and admirable commitment to “show, don’t tell” tripped over its own shoes. Because no, it didn’t make sense at the time I saw it, and I’m sure he lost most of the audience on that one.

    IMHO, though I know J.J. doesn’t think much of Director’s Cuts, this is something that he needs to fix for the DVD/Blu Ray. Even just a slightly different Threepio voice-over would probably do it. He has to have at least a couple of extra shots of Threepio and maybe a reaction shot from somebody else that he could use. George Lucas did a TON of that in the editing room in ANH.

    • January 5, 2016 at 10:04 pm
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      Correction: Marcia Lucas and team did a TON of editing.

      • January 6, 2016 at 7:21 am
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        Truth be told, Marcia Lucas is the one who won the 1978 Oscar Academy Awards for Film Editing of Star Wars (A New Hope) that was released in 1977. The film editing “team” included Richard Chew and Paul Hirsch. Just for the record and to set things in perspective.

  • January 5, 2016 at 9:25 pm
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    The scene didn’t bother me at all. I felt all along that R2 knew everything going on around him the whole time.

    • January 5, 2016 at 10:07 pm
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      Yep. R2-D2 is in control the whole time. He always was. In fact, I don’t think he actually ever had his memory wiped.

    • January 5, 2016 at 11:08 pm
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      Clearly he was reading a downloaded iBook on the voyages of the Star Trek: Voyager. They were lost for a long time.

  • January 5, 2016 at 9:48 pm
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    Are they really spelling it out “Beebee-Ate”? Sigh.

    • January 5, 2016 at 10:00 pm
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      Yeah. BB-8 is all you need. I could be okay with a nickname shortened to “BeeBee”.

        • January 5, 2016 at 10:43 pm
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          I like “Ball”.

      • January 11, 2016 at 7:37 pm
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        That’s how I feel. Nobody called him a nickname in the movie, it was always BB-8. “Artoo” and “Threepio” are phonetic spellings of their nicknames. You don’t see “Artoo Deetoo” very often (thank goodness) or “See-Threepio), though I’ve seen both at times in the novels.

        I get the tradition. I just think it looks really dumb. 🙂

    • January 5, 2016 at 10:03 pm
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      Yeah, I dunno.

    • January 5, 2016 at 10:26 pm
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      I think they maintain that tradition to assure that the pronunciation in other languages is similar to the original English version. For example: in the Spanish dubbing, R2-D2 is “Arturito” (which is similar to “Artoo”) instead of “Ere Dos De Dos” – the Spanish phonetic pronunciation of his alphanumeric name. But I only speak English so I can’t verify that this runs across the board. Maybe others who have read Star Wars books in other languages can verify or disprove this?

      • January 6, 2016 at 12:26 am
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        latino spanish anyways. in Spain Ar Too De Too – Erre Dos De Dos

    • January 5, 2016 at 11:06 pm
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      I had the same reaction.

      Lets pray that inane way of pronouncing BB-8 falls into a Sarlac pit where it finds a new definition of pain and suffering as it is slowly digested over a…thousand years.

    • January 6, 2016 at 1:20 am
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      It’s not a big deal for me. See Threepio and Artoo Detoo go the same treatment, and I prefer to use the phonetic spellings of their names (and ONLY use it when referring to their nicknames).

  • January 5, 2016 at 9:50 pm
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    I’m still not buying it either. BB-8’s piece of the map was projected in the Resistance base before the attack on the Starkiller base. If BB-8 mentioned the map to R2 back then (i.e. in the first BB-8/R2 scene), why didn’t R2 come back on line immediately ? Are we supposed to believe that R2 learned about the map only after Rey’s and Poe’s dialogue (in the novel) or, after BB8 talked to him for the second time (in the movie) ?

    • January 5, 2016 at 9:52 pm
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      That’s just it, he did start to come back-online. It took him a little while to get there.

      • January 5, 2016 at 10:24 pm
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        That works just fine in a novel, not so much in a movie.

        I’m a big believer in trusting the intelligence of the audience, but the film has to give them the information they need to draw those inferences, and to do so with a minimum of mental gymnastics.

        The way it was presented in the movie, the only thing I could think of at the time I was watching it was that maybe Artoo came back online because Luke had instructed him to stay shut down until the right person came along with the map fragment. By the end of the movie. Rey had certainly proven herself to be that person.

        But that didn’t make much sense to me either. It’s not as though Artoo can sense the Force.

        Whatever the intended answer to this was, J.J. and company needed to make it clear to the audience and not leave it to fans to make logical leaps that don’t necessarily connect to anything that was in the movie. And IMHO, this is one of the few things that J.J. should find a way to fix before TFA is released on DVD/Blu Ray. (As I mention below, it should be a fairly simple editorial fix.)

        • January 6, 2016 at 1:46 am
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          I’m still confused as to what the supposedly official explanation is, and this article doesn’t sum it up well either.

          The fact is, based on what we SEE in the movie itself, it looks like R2 simply wakes up at the right moment — just after Rey shows up on the Resistance base — ready to give the rest of the map so that they (Rey) can go to Luke.

          Frankly, after you watch the movie multiple times, it looks like Rey’s presence is the trigger that wakes R2.

    • January 5, 2016 at 10:06 pm
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      I guess since the map was catalogued with a bunch of old data he didn’t realize he had it until he knew where to look.

      • January 6, 2016 at 12:24 am
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        that would fit to human, not droids 🙂

  • January 5, 2016 at 10:02 pm
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    This was the only thing that bugged me. And its not covered by the ‘trust your audience’, which is normally a very good thing to do, and the characters do enough, until this point – it was just convenient.

    I don’t have a huge problem with it – its Artoo, DON’T TELL HIM WHEN TO WAKE UP, HE’LL WAKE UP WHEN HE DAMN WELL PLEASES!!!

    But they could have implied some sort of answer, even without dialogue – Rey walks past, or somebody cries about Han’s death or something – THEN the audience can infer. Just needed one little thing. Not a big deal cause the action of the film is over, but a detail that was certainly missed.

  • January 5, 2016 at 10:08 pm
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    None of the Artoo stuff bothers me that much. What IS starting to make me scratch my head is why is everyone (in the film) so hot and bothered about Luke? It’s not like he’s been staging stealth Jedi raids for the past decade and needs to be stopped. As we have seen, he’s pretty much a gargoyle, stationary, haunting a corner of a castle on a planet no one can find.

    I understand Snoke’s obsession with getting rid of the possibility that Luke could ruin everything again, but what is the Resistance expecting Luke to come in and do? Is it just that they know they are up against a Sith/Ren/Dark Side Lord and sooner or later they’ll need a Jedi to take him down?

    A lot of resources being used to locate Luke on both sides, and even before his stoic reveal at the end, I don’t know that he was as big of a threat/ally as everyone was making him out to be.

    • January 5, 2016 at 10:19 pm
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      Its stated in the crawl that Leia is the one who knows Luke can stop this and she sends one pilot. They didn’t send a whole squad, haha

    • January 6, 2016 at 12:08 am
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      Couldn’t your argument be applied to any SW movie?

  • January 5, 2016 at 10:12 pm
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    Astromech droid instantly hacks and archives imperial database? Right. Convoluted, nonsensical explanations don’t negate half-assed, rushed, I’ll-conceived script writing.

    • January 6, 2016 at 3:54 am
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      No movie script is perfect that I’ve seen. They spent two years writing this movie.
      I’m sorry it didn’t meet your perfect expectations of having no plot holes or too much unexplained material not filled in on screen.

      I won’t change your opinion, but dude have some appreciation for work that you’ll never be able to do. I’m sure your TFA script in your eyes is perfect and everyone would love it.

      • January 6, 2016 at 6:17 am
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        They spent 2 years trying to figure out a story and rushed into production to meet Disneys quarterly stock deadlines. If you’ve never seen a perfect script I can only assume you’ve seen few films. Sorry your expectations are so low.

        • January 7, 2016 at 10:25 pm
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          There is no such thing as a perfect film because people like you will find anything to critique.

          I’d love to hear some movies that you think are perfect and I’ll give you an opinion as to why it’s not.
          We should just agree to disagree right now because you clearly won’t see any reason to accept that no film is perfect besides what you deem as perfect in your eyes. Hence why I believe people should just enjoy movies for what they are and stop pretending to be professional film critics.

          • January 8, 2016 at 6:55 am
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            sigh. Yep, You keep on eating what you are fed, and I’ll continue to give a shit about cinema.

    • January 6, 2016 at 1:05 pm
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      That is not the theory I read… It says that Jedi Temple’s map was on the empire archives and R2D2 could have picked it from his visit to death star on ep IV. It is as easy to believe as seen R2D2 doing any other hacks he performed before. It is just unclear why he awakes and novellization says he just hears people talking about the map, he searches on its hard drive and once he found it starts beeping to let everyone else know he has it.

      Anyway I didn’t need such character introduction and there were several better ways to explain this like r2d2 visiting the star killer or bb8 instead and hacking data from it. C3P0 had no great introduction why r2d2 need it?

      The prequels and now this new sequel have a problem trying to keep alive all our original characters… Sincerely I loved r2d2 but i think we wouldn’t minded if he one day gets broken… Keeping alive technology from over 50 years ago seems weird… Saga needs to turn the page and look forwards.

  • January 5, 2016 at 10:28 pm
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    Wait, they’re saying that R2 downloaded this information when he plugged into the imperial base on Endor? L A Z Y

    • January 5, 2016 at 10:31 pm
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      No. The original Death Star.

      • January 5, 2016 at 10:36 pm
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        Even lazier. My man was looking for the cell where the prisoner was held up, then a way to shut down all the garbage smashers on the detention level… not download the ships hard drive. RETCON

        • January 5, 2016 at 11:21 pm
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          Because Star Wars has never had to create lazy nonsensical retcons to explain plot holes before. *cough cough* INCEST *cough cough*

          • January 6, 2016 at 12:23 am
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            if a small kiss is incest for you, what a life…. 🙂

  • January 5, 2016 at 11:14 pm
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    Nah, this was just poorly handled by Abrams. The fact that the guy couldn’t even come up with a device that Lucas ALWAYS used concerning R2 (using C-3PO as a translator for the audience) boggles the mind.

    The more I think of it, the more I come to the conclusion that TFA was rushed to meet Disney’s deadline. Seems like Abrams, Arndt and Kasdan didn’t have enough time to think many things through hence all these tiny details that feel like plot holes, no matter how much this book or that interview wants to sugarcoat it.

    • January 5, 2016 at 11:23 pm
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      ^^^THIS

      It’s simply a shoddy story element; ill-conceived and sloppily delivered. End of Story.

    • January 6, 2016 at 1:23 am
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      Mmm, I really enjoyed TFA…. but found the writing ‘lazy’ : the map McGuffin [should have needed the Force to unlock it !], the use of the OT droids, starkiller being charged up *twice* from *one* sun, Rey moving from scavenger to mechanic to pilot….. far too distracting, certainly so for the *fan* if not Joe Audience, who seems to have lapped it all up. And it’s a pity, since Kasdan, for one, had seemed to promise so much after TESB, ROTJ, and even INDY. TFA lacked Lucas’ involvement, Lucas would have streamlined the plotting, made it simpler with clean lines.

      • January 6, 2016 at 1:36 am
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        I wasn’t expecting a masterpiece, ever since I learned who’d be directing TFA, but I was also expecting Kasdan to boost the film’s quality, yeah. I also missed Lucas’ influence, especially concerning the more mystical, spiritual aspects of the Force. He might be a terrible director and screenwriter, but when it comes to a philosophical understanding of spirituality, few storytellers can match Lucas’ knowledge and studies.

        Also I don’t think he would’ve left so many things up in the air (not just R2’s “miraculous” reactivation, but how could the lightsaber project so many images to Rey, when it probably wasn’t around when all that stuff happened, except for the duel in Bespin, of course). It’s the little details like this that separate a classic from an entertaining, but not special film, IMO.

      • January 6, 2016 at 7:08 am
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        Hey there!!! Very nice point! Since Starkiller Base is a planet and not a Space Station, then it’s stationary in one Solar System. So the next question is, how many suns are there in that Solar System where Starkiller Base belong to? And draining energy from a star till its dead should produce a “black hole”? Really good point !!!

      • January 6, 2016 at 3:24 pm
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        “should have needed the Force to unlock it !”

        ^This…A Jedi holocron with this information would have been really cool.

      • January 6, 2016 at 6:23 pm
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        “Lucas would have streamlined the plotting, made it simpler with clean lines.”

        Um…..lol – maybe Lucas “with help”, yes.

  • January 5, 2016 at 11:20 pm
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    Yeah, two things about this explanation bother me quite a bit. For one, how did one little droid fit the ENTIRE Imperial archive into his memory banks? I don’t think astromechs were built to be massive-scale storage banks.

    For two, assuming he DID indeed get the whole thing into his rusty innards, how did all that information survive? Since “obtaining” the data, R2 has been:
    – shot directly by a TIE Advanced X1 bolt
    – dunked into a swamp TWICE and nearly eaten
    – retrofitted by a black market chop shop to be a slave
    There’s no way he still had all that information after his OT journey.

    • January 5, 2016 at 11:22 pm
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      I find your lack of faith disturbing.

    • January 6, 2016 at 12:21 am
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      I think Artoo spends too much time defragmenting his hard drives. Hence why he’s always so chirpy.

  • January 5, 2016 at 11:29 pm
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    I think this may also have to do with Rey. Rey was captured the first time we saw Artoo at the base. When he finally wakes up its because Rey is finally near him. After all she is the one that goes to find Luke with Artoo so its clearly significant that Artoo woke up when Rey was finally in the picture. Maybe Artoo was programmed to only wake up when Rey arrived because that meant she was ready to be taught.

    • January 5, 2016 at 11:31 pm
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      How would he know who she is though, unless droids, too, are Force-sensitive…now.

      • January 5, 2016 at 11:35 pm
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        If Luke and Rey are related or tied together in some way its very possible Artoo knew who she was when she was a child before she was left on Jakku. Thats why she had the vision of Luke and Artoo. If Luke is the one that left Rey on Jakku its extremely likely Artoo played a part in it as well.

        • January 5, 2016 at 11:45 pm
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          I figured that this idea would be tossed out there for justification. But there’s too many “IF’s” involved for my tastes.

          I don’t buy it, even if true because it requires way too much faith-in-story’s-implication. This was the only scene in the film where my eyes truly rolled in disappointment lol.

        • January 6, 2016 at 12:05 am
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          This is all based on speculation and that’s not how a good story’s supposed to work (unless it’s a book using the unreliable narrator “voice”, which is obviously not the case here).

          Everything seems to indicate that Rey’s a Skywalker, but we still need to see this confirmed. And besides, a droid recognizing a full grown woman based on him knowing her as a child? That’s quite a reach right there.

          • January 6, 2016 at 12:20 am
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            Skywalker DNA

          • January 6, 2016 at 12:39 am
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            Don’t know if you’re joking or not

            But that’s my theory, he somehow run an analysis on Rey DNA and verified she is a Skywalker

          • January 6, 2016 at 1:09 am
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            Hey, just because R2-D2 can be seen as some kind of pet that doesn’t make him a dog. Much less does it give him a canine sense of smell.

            Skywalker DNA…lmao.

          • January 6, 2016 at 1:53 am
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            That’s assuming Droids see things the same way as people. Droids have sensors that detect life and other types of entities in the area. It could be that Artoo was programmed to detect her based on any number of things. Maybe she had a tracking device inside that triggered Artoo when she got close.

            This is fantasy and not sci-fi so anything is possible when it comes to a droid recognizing somebody he was meant to wait for.

          • January 6, 2016 at 2:13 am
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            Yes, droids have sensors and scanners that allow them to identify life forms in the vicinity. But that’s not the same as having sensors and scanners that allow them to identify a specific being’s identity when they are in the vicinity.

            Again, this is speculation on your part to try and justify a scene that, based on most comments, felt contrived to the audience. You obviously are allowed to speculate, but that doesn’t fix this particular scene to my eyes, because contrived and Deus ex machina solutions don’t work in any genre, not even in fantasy.

          • January 6, 2016 at 3:26 am
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            Me thinks she is a Kenobi

          • January 6, 2016 at 3:40 am
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            I don’t think so, not even for a second. But this is precisely why I said we still have to see her origins confirmed. At this point, I guess anything is possible.

          • January 6, 2016 at 8:58 am
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            Well, almost anything. She’s probably not a Binks.

          • January 6, 2016 at 6:39 pm
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            Of course she is! Rey Rey Binks is her full name. It is known.

          • January 6, 2016 at 10:20 am
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            Yes, as I remember in her vision she only heard 2 voices talking to her and at the end, Obi Wan old and Obi Wan young.

          • January 6, 2016 at 3:21 pm
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            She also heard Yoda…maybe she’s a Yoda. 😉

          • January 6, 2016 at 4:04 pm
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            Well, it is possible that a daughter of Obi Wan had offspring with Luke XD

          • January 6, 2016 at 9:57 am
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            Of course it’s speculation. You can’t get mad and expect TFA to have ALL the answers when the story is just beginning. We have two more episodes to go.

          • January 6, 2016 at 6:36 pm
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            Um, yeah, I know the meaning of the word episode, don’t worry. Seems to me like you’re the one who is confused here.

            Rey’s and Snoke’s origins, Ben/Ren’s fall to the dark side, the Knights of Ren, Luke’s exile, all these things will obviously be revealed during the course of the next 2 films. This is obvious, but it’s got nothing to do with trying to find a solution to this R2-D2 “awakening”. This is what I was saying.

            Claiming that R2 came around because he “felt” Rey’s presence, based on a personal assumption that he knew the girl or that he had records of her DNA stored in his data banks, is not a fact. And I disagree with this theory, because it doesn’t feel right to me. That’s the kind of speculation I was talking about: something that has already happened onscreen, which wasn’t very clear. Not something that is yet to be revealed.

          • January 6, 2016 at 9:56 pm
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            And had you been up to date, JJ Abrams already explained R2-D2’s Awakening…

            “BB-8 comes up and says something to him, which is basically, ‘I’ve got this piece of a map, do you happen to have the rest?’ The idea was, R2 who has been all over the galaxy, is still in his coma, but he hears this. And it triggers something that would ultimately wake him up.’

            Abrams also claimed R2’s older technology just took a little bit to boot up.

          • January 6, 2016 at 11:32 pm
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            And if you didn’t assume things, you’d know that I had already commented on Abrams’ unconvincing explanation on this.

            He can say it as many times as he wants, too. That still doesn’t mean the explanation makes sense to me, simply because NO ONE in the audience understands the chirps and whistles that are supposed to make up an astromech droid’s language.

            The guy wasn’t even as clever as Lucas, who ALWAYS used 3PO (or a navigation computer) to spell out to the audience what R2 was saying. Something as simple as this would have gone a long way in making this perfectly clear to the audience, without taking anything more than 5 seconds on the screen.

          • January 16, 2016 at 1:09 am
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            Then there’s no sense in debating this… you’ve clearly made up your mind since you don’t accept the filmmaker’s explanation just because your mind can’t comprehend it. Not my fault.

          • January 6, 2016 at 10:29 pm
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            JJ Abrams already explained this: BB-8 pulls the tarp off of R2 and says to him in droid speak that he has this map and asks if he has any part of the map since it is incomplete and it can lead them to Luke. The idea is that R2 wasn’t “off” but on low power mode and he needed to hear this to wake up and activate.
            Abrams claimed R2’s older technology just took a little bit to boot up.

      • January 6, 2016 at 12:20 am
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        the same way he knows Luke, Leia…..he had to know Rey when she was at the Academy…

  • January 5, 2016 at 11:52 pm
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    So R2 has had the entire Imperial archive in his head since ANH and never bothered to share it with anybody? What a jerk.

    • January 6, 2016 at 12:19 am
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      isn´t it? He just happen to have time enough to download the ENTIRE imperial archives :-)))))))))))))))))))))

      • January 6, 2016 at 3:24 am
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        That’s why he was in a droid-coma. He finally had time to process the data after ROTJ and the whole time he was just was buffering…

        • January 6, 2016 at 5:48 am
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          So THAT’s why he forgot how to fly and couldn’t open the Endor base door! Too much information download!

    • January 6, 2016 at 2:50 am
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      Just like he knew who lukes father was and who made C3P-0 and never shared with anyone. R2 is a hardcore troll.

  • January 6, 2016 at 12:12 am
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    It was Obi Wan’s idea for R2 to plug in and “interpret the entire Imperial network”.

    • January 6, 2016 at 1:33 am
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      Yeah, the only way I can even begin to accept this is that Artoo downloaded the DS1 data archives, not the Imperial Archives [on Coruscant ???], and the Jedi Temple locations were on the DS1 data archives, hence R2 knowingly or unknowingly grabbed them.
      We know that Rian Johnson was involved with the production of TFA, so perhaps he’s going to address these things (with throwaway lines of dialogue).
      I still hold that the whole map McGuffin [which kind of dates back to the TESB drafts] should have been resolved by Leia and/or Rey by using the Force to decipher it ; and that Threepio’s comments about the map being “uncharted” is because it’s so old, it shows Force vergences, or some such, not astrophysical bodies…..
      I also fear that this ‘hidden’ location may end up being the ‘Unknown Regions’ of the canonical map, that is being pushed out in the new ref material…. 🙁

      • January 6, 2016 at 2:05 am
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        I don’t understand the point of the map piece. Luke is on planet “sneeze”, right? That planet is just a single point within finite three dimensional space (a galaxy). All you’d need are rough spatial coordinates (x,y,z). They aren’t looking for buried treasure on an island in the 17th century. If the First Order already has the destination then it shouldn’t matter which way they go to get there. Who cares about a missing piece? It can’t all be unknown.

        • January 6, 2016 at 2:32 am
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          But the First Order *doesn’t* have the destination.

          • January 6, 2016 at 3:54 am
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            True. Kylo Ren found out he was on an island but did not know where in the galaxy that island was.

          • January 6, 2016 at 6:36 am
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            I’m not sure Kylo even understood that the island was where Luke was – it seemed like he just thought it was Rey’s “happy place” she imagined to relieve her loneliness.

      • January 6, 2016 at 3:18 pm
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        What if the locations of the Jedi Temples were in the data archives on the Death Star because the Emperor intended to use the Death Star to wipe all traces of the Jedi off of the galactic map (literally).

  • January 6, 2016 at 12:16 am
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    Personally if felt like R2 and C3-PO were hardly in the film. The film itself is lacking focus IMO, instead relying on flashy new imagery (a force held blaster bolt and CGI squid loose on a ship to name two), and a loose plot following ANH in an attempt to relive the glory days of the OT. The focus of the film could of been a race to find Luke instead of the whole Starkiller Base/Death Star 3.0. A tragic misuse of potential considering the overall ‘feel’ wasn’t bad for Star Was 30 years after RotJ. Though some of the ships could of progressed better as well, look at the progress in development during the prequels. The new tie fighter appear to have just a paint job and a couple of mods…..

  • January 6, 2016 at 12:18 am
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    This is the most stupidest explanation I´ve ever imagined 🙂 the movie shows us that 3PO staying next to R2 and speaking about maps and Luke doesn´t wake up, then we see everybody´s out with the ship and R2 is alone, yet he hears something and wake up? Next scene Leia sitting alone and discussing nothing with noone. SO what did R2 hear again? Sorry, but this is the first fail they made. Why they made the movie so different from this scene in the book? Would be so hard to show the room with all those people discussing the map behind R2???? No it wouldn´t. It just doesn´t make sense – they arrived, Leia is sad as shown in the movie and she is in the mood to discuss Luke´s location??? I prefer movie version any time – that R2 senses Rey with his radar and no one was discussing the map – it came out of nowhere…

      • January 6, 2016 at 4:23 pm
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        Are we sure?

      • January 6, 2016 at 6:10 pm
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        No, but this one seems to have the ability to look for Luke or Leia with his radar, and recognize them. No Force, no midichlorians. And if he knows Rey from the past, or her DNA…

    • January 6, 2016 at 6:22 am
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      Star Wars movies don´t follow any book, it is the opposite, books complete Star Wars movies gaps, because it is impossible explain all details in 2 hours. So your complaint must go to the book writer.

      • January 6, 2016 at 6:52 pm
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        Movies should not require companion books to explain what happened onscreen. Not even film/TV adaptations. I didn’t have to read the Potter books to understand those films, for instance. And I know many people who’ve never read TLotR or A Song of Ice and Fire, and they love and understand Tolkien’s story and HBO’s Game of Thrones just fine.

        Complaints must go to the filmmakers. They’re the ones who need the extra explanations (be it in books or press conferences) to clarify points that they failed to convey clearly onscreen. The author of the novelization is not to blame for potential holes in the script that he’s given to work on. He can only try to fill those gaps as best he can.

        • January 6, 2016 at 7:23 pm
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          Harry Potter films are the opposite.
          There were long and complete succesful books before the movie.
          If one Harry Potter book is really good and the movie is giving wrong plot explanations, you cannot blame JK Rowling.

          I don´t think the Map thing is wrong explained in the movie.
          One piece of the map is owned by an old friend of Organa/Skywalker family and the other piece is owned by R2D2.
          Finnally one map piece is projected by the new droid BB8 and the other piece by the old one R2D2.
          R2D2 wake up to let Luke´s friends find him, and they send the girl who found the droid with the map, and coincidence the girl who his father lightsaber is calling, and made a good use of it.
          It is all symbolic, I believed all that it is very well assembled in the movie.
          I didn´t feel it needed more information… who has the part of the map missing? R2D2, of course, who else, the great droid friend of Obi Wan, Leia and Luke, always loyal and giving the best service, when it comes to the movie? just in the right moment.
          A filmmaker give the information to help the story, just that.
          There is a figure called ellipsis that trust in the intelligence of the audience. Most times is better than over-explaining.

          So, if the book writer wanted to give it a longer explanation, ask about it to the book writer and his editor not the filmmakers.
          They are related but they are not the same thing.

          • January 6, 2016 at 9:29 pm
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            Harry Potter films are the opposite? Obviously. And there were complete, successful books before the films came out, the same as The Lord of the Rings and A Song of Ice and Fire (even though in the latter’s case, the series isn’t complete yet)? Yes, this is exactly what I said.

            Furthermore, you’re right. I’m a huge fan of A Song of Ice and Fire, and I obviously don’t blame author George R.R. Martin for the changes that the producers of GoT have made in the TV show. But it is Martin’s fault that the show’s producers have run out of original material for GoT. All they can do is make up their own story and hope for the best. The same principle applies to this case, only in reverse.

            If Alan Dean Foster wasn’t given the best possible source material to write his TFA novelization, he can only do his best to write the book. And, as is the case with GoT, some people may not like Foster’s explanation any more than some ASoIaF readers haven’t liked changes made to the novels in the TV adaptation. This is the screenwriter’s (or the novelist’s) responsibility, not the people in charge of the adaptation.

            So, you didn’t feel the need for more information? I did. And I’m certainly not alone in this, as this very thread demonstrates. It’s not who has the missing part of the map that matters to me. It’s how this reveal was made in the film, which feels confusing to the audience at best, contrived at worst.

            A storyteller (be it a filmmaker or an author) has to give information to the audience in the best possible way, not just to help the story. If this were the case, the audience would be forced to fill in the gaps in every story ever told, be it on film, TV or the written page.

            “Show, don’t tell” is the best way to go indeed, not overexposure (or over-explaining, as you’ve called it). But in order for some part of a story to be overexposed, the writer must have exposed this very part of his tale first. And in this case, there was no exposure or explanation as to why R2-D2 reactivated himself right at the perfect time.

            This is precisely the reason why A.D. Foster gave a longer explanation in the film’s novelization: because it was necessary. And again, this was not his fault. The guy only did what he thought was best in this case. It was Abrams and Kasdan’s script that was at fault here. Period.

          • January 6, 2016 at 9:58 pm
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            Obviously, and again I am not agree.
            I believe the film is ok with the explanation given.
            Do you need more explanation? Up to you.
            Then, if you don´t like the book plot explanation… different explanations could be possible. so don´t blame the flimmakers for that.
            And if I repeat my arguments, we will start a never ending loop.

            From the OT, many different PT could have been done. You cannot blame the gaps in the OT of the vision in the PT.

            Have you read/watched “World without end”?
            Kenn Follet novel and TV serie.
            I don´t know what the TV serie producers though about it, but they bought a book and then they changed it totally.
            The book was about Cathedrals construction, freemasons, about medicine or healing, healers, plagues in that age. Feusalism and pesants… That might not be interesting for a TV serie and it developed to some knights battles story.
            They changed the role of characters, they changed the end of the book… a simple knight monk they made him also king.
            So, who is guilty of that…
            You could say, well, Kenn Follet sold the book without any guarantee they were going to respect that, because pbvoiusly he was not going to do that to their own book.
            But in my opinion you should make responsible the guys who did that work.

            You don´t like the movie and you take it personal with Kasdan and JJ, hate them, again, up to you.

            I liked it, and I liked it more the last time I watched it than the first time, that is a good sign to me.

          • January 7, 2016 at 12:05 am
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            Yes, you obviously don’t agree. I can see that clearly in your previous posts, lol. I’m not trying to convince you of anything either. I was just saying that this mistake, flaw or plot hole (whichever you prefer) is not the novelist’s fault, but the screenwriter(s).

            World Without End, V for Vendetta, Southern Vampire Mysteries (the basis for HBO’s True Blood)…all these stories have been changed greatly from the original source, yes. And don’t even get me started on The Hobbit, lol.

            Every original story will go through changes demanded by the new media where it will be told. And again, if something is missing or it isn’t clear in the original source, that is not the adapters’ fault, but the original author’s. You may like/dislike the changes, modifications or departures that need to be made, but that’s a matter of preference and it has nothing to do with the adaptation itself.

            Now as for this: “You don´t like the movie and you take it personal with Kasdan and JJ, hate them, again, up to you.” I loved Kasdan’s work in TESB and Raiders of the Lost Ark, I don’t really like Abrams (him personally and his body of work) too much, but just because I’m not blind to the film’s shortcomings, this doesn’t mean I hate it. That’s just a ridiculous thing to say, lol.

            Just for the record, I love the PT, flaws and all. Hence this doesn’t mean I disliked TFA. But I’m not blind to ANY of the SW films’ shortcomings and I have a right to express my opinion on the subject, just like you’ve done yourself.

          • January 7, 2016 at 5:51 am
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            So I now understand you, the Bible, Odyssei, El Quijote, Macbeth, Moby Dick… if someone comes and do a really bad adaptation of them, you blame the originals.
            Again… all that is up to you.

            It is a pity Cervantes or Shakespeare cannot change their work to make good movies.

            If someone make a bad movie, or write a bad book, it is their fault not the original.

            From some bad books came great movies.

            Even the same book can have good and bad adaptations.

            I personally prefer the way the force, jedi, sith… is showed in the OT.
            Humble people living in caves, huts, farming or being military but nobody trusting them about the force, some secrecy.

            I enjoyed many things in the PT, I loved Coruscant, but I don´t see both (PT and OT) belonging to the same galaxy, and that is a bad point for the PT.
            “A police of the force”, “this is Jedi business”, so linked to the senate… actually I don´t like that in the PT, I don´t feel it real.
            I have to say that my opinion have changed with my experience.

            Jedis don´t need to be public, or have that big academy and council… that was not in the OT.
            There is a Han Solo sentence in TFA that resume it well, something like “a force that unify good and evil…” and “I didnt believe in it”…

          • January 7, 2016 at 7:10 am
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            If the literary classics that you mentioned presented gaps and/or plot holes pointing at lazy or rushed writing, adaptations into other media would require changes to improve the original material. Yes. Absolutely. There’s no doubt about it.

            If this particular passage in the story had been clear, I’m sure Alan Dean Foster would’ve stuck to the original script. If he felt the need to add an explanation about R2’s sudden awakening, it’s because it didn’t come across clearly in the original source material. Again, you may like or dislike this, but that’s a matter of personal choice and taste, not a mistake on the novelist’s part.

            Now, the PT and the OT don’t belong to the same galaxy?

            Of course not, lol! This is exactly what Lucas intended. He always said that the galaxy was a completely different place under the rule of the Republic and that of the Empire. This was partly because he felt technology hadn’t yet reached the point for him to tell his story as he wanted, and partly because he wanted to illustrate the difference between the “more civilized times” and the “dark times”. This is a fact, but you don’t have to take my word for it. Google it, if you don’t believe me.

            Now, wait a minute…Jedi don’t need to be public? That was not in the OT? WTF?

            First off, there were NO Jedi in the OT, lol. Only a couple of former Jedi (“I was once a Jedi Knight, like your father”, Obi-Wan tells Luke, not “I am a Jedi Knight, like your father”) living in exile and a young man in Jedi training. All other Jedi had been wiped out by the Emperor and Vader.

            Secondly: “For over a thousand generations the Jedi Knights were the guardians of peace and justice in the Old Republic.” You remember these words? What, you thought Obi-Wan meant to say that Jedi were Batman-style vigilantes or something along those lines? His explanation is crystal clear: Jedi served the Republic. And obviously, this means they were a public institution, because that’s exactly what knightly orders have been throughout history.

            Jedi aren’t what you or I want them to be. SW is George Lucas’ vision and every author’s vision must be respected. Love it or leave it, but don’t blame Lucas for your misconstruction of the facts.

          • January 7, 2016 at 12:49 pm
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            If you have read El Quijote, or if you read it, it has 2 different parts, writen with years of difference and actually the book is sold as one. The characters evolve, they become wiser. Even the book is very inteligent, because in the second part it plays with the fact that they are known because the first part was already published.
            Do you know why?
            Because Cervantes in XVII century was aware that when anything is published it starts to belong to the audience too.

            But in El Quijote, the world in the book, Spain at the end of XVIth century is still the same.

            That is what I don´t like about the PT.
            I like many things, but I don´t read them as prequels, sorry about it but that is my personal opinion, based on my life experience.
            Of course I respect George Lucas work and I love SW, thanks to him we are here chatting about it.

            As I know I am free to imagine Jedi Era as I want, and humbly say, well the movies are ok, I like them, but I didn´t imagine the past of Anakin, Yoda, and Obi Wan like the prequels.
            Always from my humble point of view.
            That is called free speech.

            I like and enjoyed “The revenge of the Sith”, I think is the best movie in PT; but Leia claimed to know her mother in ROTJ, and we know it is impossible watching the Revenge of the Sith, we can twist it to the point she was talking about her foster mother, but we have to twist her words.

            “Love it or leave it, but don’t blame Lucas for your misconstruction of the facts.”
            Well, change where you wrote Lucas and write now Kasdan, JJ, or Dean Foster and apply it to yourself.

            Obviously you don´t like the future of Leia, Han and Luke they have built. Free speech, that´s up to you.

            The sad facts between you and me about this discussion is that I never complained about the book explanation or the movie explanation, probably I will like them both, I just asked someone to blame the book writer for the plot explanation he didn´t like.

            So easy, if you don´t like the book blame the book, if you don´t like the movie, blame it.
            Don´t blame the movie for the explanation given in the book.
            Because in the movie the facts are clear.
            (Always in my opinion)

          • January 7, 2016 at 6:20 pm
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            Commercial, creative work doesn’t belong to the audience anymore than our friends’ toys belong to us as kids. Like our friends, authors invite us to play with their toys, but in the end the toys will always belong to them (at least till the intellectual property becomes part of public domain).

            If Cervantes had written a prequel to El Quijote, dating back to the time when Moors occupied the Iberian Peninsula, Spain would’ve felt like a different world in the novel. This doesn’t mean you have to like this radical change in the PT’s environment compared to the OT. It only means that the galaxy changed radically when the Republic fell, as has happened to many a nation (or even entire continents) throughout history.

            You’re free to see the PT as you wish, of course. I never said otherwise. I merely noted that some points you made about the Jedi were wrong. This has nothing to do with freedom of speech. It was just corrections on points about the Jedi that were clearly established as facts in the OT.

            I haven’t misconstrued anything about TFA. Abrams and Kasdan wrote the script, Foster wrote the novel, and this damn R2 awakening thing wasn’t clear, lol. Misconstruing this would be me saying “I thought R2 was awake all the time, but he was just playing dumb” or something along those lines. It’s like when you said “Jedi don’t need to be public” because you had your own interpretation of what Jedi were supposed to be like in the OT. And as I proved to you, with direct Obi-Wan quotes from ANH, this was not the case.

            Now, please don’t put words in my mouth. I never said I don’t like “the future of Leia, Han and Luke.” I’ve taken exception with a few things in TFA (i.e: Starkiller, R2’s awakening, Rey’s sudden Force-awesomeness, the blatant similarities between TFA and ANH), which are basically what most people also question about the film. This doesn’t have anything to do with the direction where the characters are headed, though. And just for the record, I have absolutely NO problem with the decisions made concerning the fate of the “Big Three” post-RotJ and into the future.

            You asked someone to blame the novelist for an explanation that he didn’t like. I just said that the novelist is subject to the source material that he was given, and that if he had to add an explanation to this particular passage it’s because it wasn’t clear. You may like/dislike either explanation, but this doesn’t change the fact that an explanation for R2’s sudden reawakening was needed. And obviously, this means the root of the problem is with the script, not the novel.

            Think about this for a while: If the blame was all on Foster, Abrams & Kasdan wouldn’t have had to address the question. Foster’s the one who would’ve had to respond. That’s simple common sense.

          • January 7, 2016 at 7:12 pm
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            Well, relocating El Quijote with muslims in Castilla would be like relocating George Washington in the Second World War, or the opposite. May be you could relocate Don Quijote in Lepanto battle against ottomans, a kind of Second World War in the Mediterranean Sea. Cervantes himself fought in Lepanto and he was prisioner for some years.

            As you obviously know I was not talking about “legal” intelectual property.

            I was not agree about your quotes of Obi Wan refering to the past of Jedis. The quotes didn´t imply all the world showed in the PT.
            I just didn´t want to start a new discussion about you said what you have said and me trying to argue your quotes point by point, my opinion about that was clear.
            And yes you are right, no one better than Lucas to imagine that world as he wanted, he was the legal owner as you have said, although not now.
            But I am not agree with you, a different way to show Obi Wan words in the PT could have been possible.
            They had not any doubt contradicting Leia words to make ROTS more dramatic. Yes, Vader would have chased Padme and her daughter all over the galaxy.

            I think TFA is a very good movie.
            The Starkiller base is totally out of scale… only the hole has the size of Mexico. And the depth of the trench is like 300 miles, in the Earth we have rock solid I think 50 miles maximum, Who cares? It is Sci Fi with low level of plausibility, more about the force than Science.

            I am glad you like the movie.

            I wouldn´t expect JJ or Kasdan saying that the book is wrong, would you?

          • January 7, 2016 at 8:06 pm
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            The PT could’ve gone in a million different directions, yes. But the Jedi were always going to be a huge institution attached to the Republic, no matter what. It’s there in the films, in Lucas’ so called Journal of the Whills, in Wookiepedia, and in many other sources. Lucas didn’t make it up in the 90’s, when he started writing the PT; this is how he envisioned the Order right from the start.

            Yes, Leia’s words about her mother were a huge plot hole. Then again, so was Obi-Wan not recognizing R2 or even Owen Lars not recognizing 3PO, despite his family owning the droid for several years, and 3PO’s unmistakable voice and mannerisms. This doesn’t have anything to do with the Jedi being a knightly order sworn to the Republic, though.

            I wasn’t talking about Starkiller’s specifications. I’m talking about Death Star III on steroids as a plot device in a fantasy tale. There’s just NO way to justify using this for a third damn time, especially since neither of the previous 2 times worked. Even the least intelligent person in the audience knew that the Super Weapon was doomed right off the bat. That’s TERRIBLY lazy writing.

            No, I wouldn’t expect Abrams or Kasdan to speak ill of Alan Dean Foster or his book. But let’s not forget that the original screenwriter was Michael Arndt, who was working on a story based on Lucas’ ideas. Then Disney decided that this wasn’t what they wanted and that’s when Kasdan stepped in.

            Clearly, Kasdan and Abrams didn’t have enough time to polish the script as much as they wanted or was needed. They’ve even admitted that they didn’t have enough time to develop the names, hence why we have some ridiculous names such as Snoke, for instance. Obviously the story takes precedence over such details, and this means they were rushed to get the film ready when Disney expected it.

            This obviously led to all the little details I mentioned in my previous post. I don’t blame them for this, because I know what it’s like to do creative work under a tight deadline. But this is obviously not Foster’s fault either. And it was you who criticized his explanation on R2’s awakening, not me, btw, lol.

          • January 8, 2016 at 4:32 am
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            No, I didnt criticize R2 awakening, you criticized the movie had not bigger explanations. I am ok with the movie explanations and asked someone else to blame the book not the movie if he didnt like the book explanations.

            And yes I knew you were talking about Death Star III, and I talked about the scale.
            I understand you think that is lazy a new Death Star, but the truth is that it worked really well in the movie. May be they didn´t want to lose many time explaining what was it about and they could focus in other plot ways.

            Sincerely I think Lucas wanted to have fun again and make really good movies in the PT. Probably in ANH he had lack of resources and in the PT he wanted to use all he wanted with no limits, in terms of material and script. And probably he also though that the OT was going to get old in a bad way as it happens with many movies, so not many people would care about the plot changes.

            Do you think Wookipedia is trustable now expanded universe is being re-written in the new trilogy?
            You still can find Jacen Solo or Ben Skywalker there.

          • January 8, 2016 at 5:36 am
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            The movie does lack in exposure. It’s not just me who’s complained about this. I know it’s because Disney means to make more $ from the sale of companion books (such as the novelization, precisely). But if people want to buy the so-called EU or Legends books & comics, that should be an extra, not a requirement to understand a film, in all honesty.

            Starkiller wasn’t even necessary to the plot. Snoke clearly mentions that BB-8’s unexpected escape from Jakku has forced the 1st Order to change their strategy when he authorizes Hux to destroy the Republic’s new capital. This could’ve easily been done using the 1st Order fleet, perhaps through the use of some innovative cloaking system that allowed their ships to approach a planet or a fleet w/o detection. Something like this would’ve been much more original and creative than having a 3rd incarnation of the Death Star, which seemed even easier to destroy than the 2 Death Stars combined, lol!

            As for Lucas, I’ve always said that his problem was not his ideas. It was the transition of his vision from his mind to the screen, IMO. Had he hired a few good screenwriters and directors to make the PT for him, and focused on writing the original story and producing only, I believe the PT could be as good as the OT. Unfortunately this wasn’t the case, as we all know.

            This doesn’t mean his ideas weren’t good, though. And they were definitely much more original than what 3 minds (Arndt included) could come up with in TFA. That’s the kind of genius that George Lucas is. And just like most exceptional geniuses, he is sorely misunderstood by most. I just consider myself fortunate to understand and appreciate his vision as he intended.

            I wouldn’t know about the EU, tbh. I read the novelizations for the films and a few other novels, but I found most of them so appalling that I decided to leave my love for SW for the films only, lol. Still, I did find some info on Max Von Sydow’s character in Wookiepedia, and it seemed to be accurate, based on what I’ve read on other sources. So I would say it is reliable, yes.

          • January 8, 2016 at 8:14 am
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            Haha I see you prefer absolutely all explained. Not me.
            “I know it’s because Disney…” You know too much!
            Disney film Frozen and do trillions in the theatres and selling from biscuits, shampoo, ice creams, bags to books. Do you think they need a lack of exposure estrategy? They need the most successful film they can and agressive advertising.

            About the Death Star and your paralel plot, I will quote you again, as we are talking too long:
            “Love it or leave it, but don’t blame ********* for your misconstruction of the facts.”

            “…easier to destroy than the 2 Death Stars combined…”

            It was not easy, but Resistance has the best pilot known ever in Star Wars. It is not me, it is a consensual opinion that he is the best pilot ever seen in a Star Wars movie.
            That is the greatness of the movie, they have the biggest Death Star and the best pilot with the best droid ever to destroy it, and the plot focus in the scavenger girl and the silver spoon sith. It could be another movie just about Poe Dameron.
            We though only the force could made the best pilot, we were wrong. lol. Or may be Poe is a force user but we don´t know yet, or him…

            Now Lucas is wrong and the PT are bad?
            well lmao…

            Wookipedia can be a big mess if someone doesnt start to re-write it and make it clear who is from EU and who come from Disney.

          • January 8, 2016 at 6:38 pm
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            You’re right. This has gone on long enough. Again, I merely wanted to explain why Alan Dean Foster had to provide an explanation for R2’s reactivation in the novelization and how this was because the passage isn’t clear on the film. That’s all.

            You can say that you didn’t like Foster’s explanation in the novel and that the film projected this to the audience just fine, but it still required an explanation from Abrams and Kasdan at a press conference and from Foster in the novel. Sorry to break it to you, but the facts don’t really seem to support your position. And personal attacks or distortion of my words won’t change that.

            If this passage in the film had come across clearly to the audience none of that would be required and this article wouldn’t even exist. This is simple common sense and it doesn’t have anything to do with who’s the best pilot or droid, or if TFA was “greatness” or just a good, entertaining film, or if Lucas was right or wrong about this or that.

            Needless to say, you and I couldn’t be more at odds with each other in any of these things. But the good thing is that agreeing on anything was never the intent here. Just remember: Only a Sith deals in absolutes 😉

            I rest my case.

          • January 8, 2016 at 8:59 pm
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            You insist insist and insist…
            I didn´t say any personal opinion about Foster explanation. I just asked a guy to blame the book if he didn´t like the book. And you want to blame the filmmeaker, up to you!
            It is the fourth time I am telling you this…

            I don´t feel the need of anymore detail about R2D2 awakening in the film. It is a 2 hours movie and it is impossible to show absolutely all. Your opinion is different, up to you!
            Again this is the fourth time I tell you the same.

            Of course our conversation has been derivating to many different topics. Most of them more interesting than R2D2 awakening.

            This webpage have articles about many details, big and small, in The Force Awakens. I certainly don´t give too much importance to this R2D2 awakening. It can be interesting for the people like us following the page, but it is not important.
            Of course from my point of view, up to me!

            Well, we both follow Star Wars and like it, and it seems we are not haters posting negative comments just for the morbid pleasure of doing that, so probably we have more things in common about SW than disagrements.

            I think the page should make a voting about if Poe Dameron is the best pilot ever seen in Star Wars XD

          • January 8, 2016 at 11:26 pm
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            OK, maybe I haven’t been clear, so let me explain:

            I never said that you disliked Foster’s explanation, *personally*. What I meant is that, whether you or I or anyone else likes it or not, it was necessary because the scene was not clear in the film. And no, this is not up to me. I didn’t ask Abrams and/or Kasdan to explain this at a press conference, nor did I ask Foster to provide an explanation of his own on the novel. It was many other SW fans who did it for all of us. And IDK how many times I’ve tried to say this to you, but it’s gotta be more than 4, lol.

            I’ve watched many 2 hour-long movies in my life, and the best ones manage to cover tiny details like this with no problems whatsoever. After all, this is not just some random event, like Chewie telling his tale to the Resistance doctor who calls him brave or Poe telling Finn to keep his jacket, for instance. This is the moment when Luke’s whereabouts are finally revealed. You know, as in the central plot of the film, because everyone’s been looking for him? IDK if I’d call the moment “interesting”, but I’d say it’s pretty important.

            Not to you, you say? Well, that’s just sad, because it tells me that you’re confusing (and missing) important plot points that have to come across clearly to the audience with other kind of details that can be left to the viewer’s imagination (like how Kylo knew that Lor San Tekka had part of the map leading to Luke, or how Rey learned to speak “droid” and Wookie.) Now those are irrelevant details that can easily be skipped. As we say in your and my native tongue: no se deben confundir las peras con las manzanas 😉

            No, I don’t think we’re haters trolling. I like to discuss the things I like with people who share my passion for them in an adult, mature way. I think the mission’s been accomplished here, so I thank you for that.

          • January 9, 2016 at 5:07 am
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            Haha now is not “personally” me.
            Yes I remember Kasdan and JJ giving a worldwide press conference in 6 languages to explain why R2D2 awakened so suddenly. It was opening story in CNN news and FOX news, front page in The New York Times.

            How many things are important in TFA do you think?
            5?
            10?
            TFA has many new important information, 30 years gap!…
            But for me none of them is the reason R2 suddenly awaken.
            Luke hiding, veyr importantish, the map is important for the plot although not essential… how exactly are the details of R2 awakening with the rest of the map… well… interesting but not important.
            How many important things in Ep. VIII?
            Who is Rey.
            What are Rey and Luke doing in the time together.
            What is doing Kylo with Snoke.
            Who is Benicio del Toro, if he is an important character.
            What is doing the best pilot in history and his beloved droid.
            … and some more…
            That is what people is asking themselves after watching the movie, no why R2 suddenly awaken.

            I believe Rian Johnson has a similar list in his office now haha…

            I also believe that if any new movie has to change something appearing in the previous books, they will do without any doubt.
            Films information is sacred, in Star Wars movies are the First Source. not the books.
            I have tried to explain that point to you like 10 times.
            Confundes el tocino con la velocidad. Sí, ya sé que los cerdos también vuelan. XD

            Who is San Tekka, and many other questions would be nice to know in detail, yes. But I am not sure precissely you are going to enjoy the answers!
            I remember watching the trailers, who was wearing Poe´s Jacket or with whom was BB8 was so helping for me to stablish some chronological order in the footage.
            About the jacket, well, if Poe is ejected, if Finn is ejected, how the jacket is ending where Finn found it?
            Haha I think they should write the book again to understand it!!
            May be a press conference with Katherine Kennedy and Disney CEO is necessary.

          • January 9, 2016 at 7:02 am
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            IDK if another book or press conference with Kennedy and Disney’s Bob Iger is needed. What I do know, however, is that a press conference with Abrams and Kasdan was already necessary, and to clarify a few more points other than R2’s awakening, too. That’s never a good thing, when the author(s) has to provide extra explanations about his/their work. Anyone who knows a little about the storytelling process will tell you this.

            As for the rest, you clearly have a problem with reading comprehension. I’d post something in Spanish, but the truth is IDK if this is because of your English or if it’s just you, lol. Suffice it to say that you didn’t understand a thing I said. If you had, you wouldn’t have tried to get your point across so many times, because you would’ve understood what I was saying all along.

            The mere fact that you’d actually believe that I don’t know that Star Wars was, is, and always will be a film series, and that the films come before the books, comics, TV shows, etc. (and that you tried to tell me this like 10 times, which is not true, btw) is proof enough of this.

            Now, you go on assuming you know what everyone wants to see in Ep. VIII and I’ll go on wondering if/when Jon Snow will be brought back to life come April, lol. SW is just a tasty snack for me, you see? The main course is A Song of Ice and Fire/Game of Thrones. Best story ever told, baby! Oh, and here, the books DO come first, lol.

            See how different people can be? See ya around, kid 😀

          • January 9, 2016 at 10:19 am
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            Lol
            hahaha
            Well, the sources of John Snow are clearly different to Poe Dameron. XD.
            Which are your theories of Snow?
            Do you think Melisandre has anything to do?
            At some point TV series are going to advance the books.

            Do you think they will surprise us with the Ep.VIII plot?
            I hope so!!!
            Although visiting this forums I guess a surprise is not possible!
            The surprise probably will come in 2016 when the film will be in 2017.

          • January 9, 2016 at 7:27 pm
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            Jon Snow’s sources are different to Poe Dameron? Not sure what you mean here, but Jon and Poe are 2 completely different character archetypes with entirely different arcs. One’s a protagonist, the other a secondary character.

            I’m sure Melissandre has the power to resurrect Jon, yes. Not so sure she’ll actually do it, though. This is ASoIaF/GoT, after all. Melissandre might slip on the snow and break her neck before she can bring Jon back to life…or something like that, lol.

            The next book won’t be released before the start of the new GoT season in April. So yes, the series will move past the books. It already has in some cases, actually, but this isn’t the place to discuss ASoIaF/GoT, 😉

            I do hope we get something different and surprising in Ep. VIII, yes. I think Rian Johnson is a much better filmmaker all around than his predecessor, so I have faith in him.

          • January 10, 2016 at 6:40 am
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            I don´t feel they are changing any art design or anything like that from Ep. VII… It would be stupid because it works very well.
            Even Maz Kanata Castle I didnt see it well the first times, I like it more actually.
            The plot development is other matter, probably they will re-take the story 1 or 2 years later, more than enough, many things could happen in that time.

            I understand now why you hate JJ and Kasdan, they played you with Gwendoline Christie!
            And she finished in the trash compactor hahaha
            Do you know anger leads to hate that leads to the dark side?

            I watched the movie again yesterday, I never have seen a pilot in a Star Wars movie doing what Poe does in Ep. VII, Han and Rey do great flying stuff too, but Poe is just incomparable. 😉

            Well, I guess Game of Thrones have much more protagonists than SW 3rd trilogy…. what do you think about Snow, will he have Stark land as a Stark or will he make a new kingdom… supposing he survives, or anything else?

          • January 10, 2016 at 7:43 am
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            I do hope there’s a jump of 1, 2 years in Ep. 8, because at this point I don’t care to see another young Jedi hopeful in training under a wizened Jedi Master. I’ve had enough of that with Obi-Wan/Yoda/Luke first and then Qui-Gon/Obi-Wan/Anakin, lol.

            Not sure why you keep saying that I hate Kasdan. Again, I loved his work in TESB and Raiders of the Lost Ark. I’m sure TFA’s best parts were his. In fact, I’m positive he was brought in to fix up what must’ve been a mess of a script to that point.

            Gwendoline Christie’s doing just fine as Brienne, don’t worry. Unlike Phasma, she does much more than just pose to look cool in her shiny armor in GoT, lol. Plus poor Phasma didn’t have the Kinslayer to ransom her with zephyrs, which I’m sure Han would’ve considered taking at least 😉

            The true conflict in GoT is the upcoming invasion of the White Walkers. By the time they come, there will be no more Game of Thrones to play for anyone in Westeros. Jon’s destiny, I believe, is to play a key role in this war, the same as Dany. Hence A Song of Ice (Jon vs. the Walkers) and Fire (Dany and her dragons).

            Speaking of dragons, I’m sure Luke and Anakin could tame and fly Dany’s children through the Force. Dameron would end up as lunch instead, lol. So much for him being the best pilot in the galaxy 😉

          • January 10, 2016 at 4:22 pm
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            Totally agree, Luke fits so well as Tyrion Lannister, shorter than his dad, witty, inteligent, and same dad-son conflict, and Vader of course as Tywin. Tywin and Vader are essentially the same guy.
            Sorry to say but a better development of Dameron would show you he fitts very well in Jon Snow clothes.
            Dany clearly is Rey and she is going to find a dad figure in Tyrion.

            All that so funny.

            But probably because they are always improving the scenes, offering better stuff, what Dameron did with the X-wing in the Castle and in the Ice planet has not possible comparison with any other SW dogfight.
            Millenium Falcon and Rey do very cool things too, but we already had watched it doing great things in ESB or ROTJ.
            I wonder if Dameron and Rey will sit together in the Falcon. Who knows.

            Noted, you hate JJ, but not Kasdan XD

          • January 10, 2016 at 6:42 pm
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            Nah, I love these 2 stories, but they’re apples and oranges.

            You’ll probably find this hard to believe, actually, but it’s GoT producers, Benioff & Weiss that I have a problem with, because it’s they who are butchering my favorite story, not Abrams. Doesn’t mean I hate them, though. If it wasn’t for them, there would probably be no conclusion to my favorite story, lol.

            My dream team for SW would be Lucas as writer of the story and producer, Kasdan as screenwriter and Abrams as director. You’ll probably find this hard to believe as well, but there’s an explanation for it.

            Lucas is a creative mastermind, but he’s a terrible director. Abrams is the opposite: excellent at directing his actors, but creativity’s never been his forte. Kasdan has proven to be a great screenwriter, but even Lucas found more success as a director than him. Just because I’m able to recognize the strengths and flaws in people this doesn’t mean I hate them. I hope you note this too 🙂

            As for the best pilot, just remember that human beings were supposedly not meant to drive podracers, let alone a kid of 8 or 9. And what happened when faced with a missile crisis? Anakin shook them off without even blinking. Poe ended up crashing into Jakku. But I’m sure it was all because of the droids. Anakin had R2 by his side, Poe was missing BB-8 ;-P

          • January 11, 2016 at 4:58 am
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            In Maz Kanata Castle BB-8 is in the forest with Rey, not with Poe… and what that X-Wing do is incredible, never seen before in Star Wars, hardly we will see it again. And at the same time so original.

            The Ben-Hur quote race is cool, although many times it looks like a Paris-Dakar videogame thanks to cgi… and monks taking for training in castity for life a 8 years old boy doesn´t look nice, for that reason they needed to invent the slavery and the child working to make it more digestible, to desguise it as savoirs.
            Of course all that is not sugegested even in a small way in the OT. We could start again a debate about the PT sources, isnt it?

            I admire you are trying to limit your anger to not fall into the dark side, although I believe your inclination to the dark is stronger than you, it is a matter of time anger, fear and hate will invade you and you will succumb to the dark side.

          • January 11, 2016 at 7:01 am
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            IDK about you, but I think it’s past time to bring this looong discussion to an end. At least on my part, lol. So if you want to reply to this, by all means do. This is just my final comment.

            Just between us, I feel Han does more as a pilot than Anakin (even as Vader) but this is just an opinion (mine, lol). The fact is Anakin is the best pilot according to the creator of SW. So I suggest you make your peace with it and move on, ’cause nothing we can say will change this, since it’s obviously canon at the highest level.

            I’ve debated the PT endlessly since ’99 with more people than I care to remember, lol. I’m sorry so many of you hated what Lucas did with these films. But I don’t hate anything about SW, I simply couldn’t. Been here since ’77 and SW helped to shape my life and make a storyteller out of me 🙂

            This is also why I could never hate Abrams or any other filmmaker or writer who shares their stories with us, no matter how I feel about said stories, because I know the effort that goes into this kind of thing. And I sure don’t get angry either, lol, not even when someone trashes my work in their reviews!

            May the Force be with you till we meet again on some other thread in this wonderful site.

          • January 11, 2016 at 8:09 am
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            I see you are surrendering to the clarity of concepts of the light (luz).

            No, now desguise as a lamb, but you have thrown much more hater comments here.

            Yes, you are right I forgot Anakin is Howard Hughes, the aviator, best pilot ever… best in all, even in the dark side he is the darkest… well probably Dameron is the best… architect in the galaxy, who cares.

  • January 6, 2016 at 12:33 am
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    What I want to know is why didn’t R2 have the entire map? Did the empire map out everything but that one sector?
    Thanks for the article. It does clear up a little why R2 didn’t wake up the first time, but it would be a lot more clear if nobody even mentioned the possibility of R2 having the map until the end, that way it would seem like the cause of him waking up. Had BB8 just insisted more they could have woken r2 and had the complete map a full 20 to 30 min earlier. And why not? They could have found the full map but decided to rescue Rey first and it would have made more sense also.

    • January 6, 2016 at 12:56 pm
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      Maybe that map was never finished and what needs explanation is who finished it before to give it to Lord San Tekka (or whatever his name is). But that bit makes sense to be explained in future episodes.

  • January 6, 2016 at 1:36 am
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    Could have done it many ways. Here’s one: R2 shows the slightest signs of life at tail end of first encounter with BB-8 and others. Nobody but audience sees this. Then as the Resistance prepares to launch attack, R2 comes fully to life. As Resistance ships take off for battle, R2 arrives just in time to realize he’s missed the chance to join in fight. All this is done without anyone paying him any real attention — they are just pure R2 moments intercut with the bigger events going on. Then he reunites with 3PO watching the battle at Resistance HQ. C3PO is excited to see him but when R2 has something important to tell him 3PO tells R2 to shut up because they’re in the middle of trying to blow up something. R2 beeps “Not another Death Star.” 3PO, “Well, not quite another Death Star.” R2 beeps out a WTF question. “Ok, yes, another Death Star! Now be quiet — we’re losing!” Then once the fighters return 3PO interrupts with R2’s important news. Ta-da! Both droids now have a real scene.

    • January 6, 2016 at 2:06 am
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      Nice. Too bad that 3P0 and R2 had to take a total backseat to BB-8, but toys MUST be sold…. This is where good story-telling gets scooted over a little bit for marketing -_-

      • January 6, 2016 at 2:16 am
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        Nah. BB-8 toys would sell regardless of screen time (see Phasma). This was just Abrams’ ego trying to compete with Lucas by creating his own “adorable” version of R2-D2, while relegating the real thing to the backseat.

        • January 6, 2016 at 2:24 am
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          Yeah that part too. I do believe that it went hand-in-hand though.

        • January 6, 2016 at 4:22 pm
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          So now we’re picking and choosing what we ‘want’ to be original and what we want to stay the same?

          C’mon guys, let go of the emotional baggage.

          • January 6, 2016 at 6:23 pm
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            I have no problems with BB-8 (anymore than Jar Jar or Ewoks, for that matter) but it is a fact that the little ball droid is Abrams’ creation and that it was featured much more prominently in TFA than R2 and 3PO.

            This is how *I* feel about it. You can pick and choose w/e you like, the same as anyone else. Just because we all love SW that doesn’t mean we all have to look at it the same way. I’ll let go of my emotional baggage when you let go of this absurd “we” hive mentality.

  • January 6, 2016 at 2:31 am
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    I still don’t get it.

  • January 6, 2016 at 2:34 am
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    I just interpreted it as Luke putting the info into R2 when he laid his hands on him. Because, you know, he can do that kind of thing.

    And in case you were wondering how BB8 functions…

  • January 6, 2016 at 2:37 am
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    This is stupid, I loved the movie and think everything bad is trivial next to what was good about the film, but to assume that R2D2 downloaded all the Empires information? Or he knew what to download? And the rebellion left the info in Artoo. Sorry for my first negative comment but this is dumb.

    • January 6, 2016 at 6:15 am
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      I believe is more symbolic than anything else.
      The old droid linked to Obi Wan, to Leia, to Luke has part of the map.
      The new droid linked to Poe, Rey, Finn has the other part.
      The explanations about how or when are whatever.

    • January 6, 2016 at 8:08 am
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      Yeah and R2 was blasted during the first death star run .. som that data should be kind of corrupted. besides I doubt the majority of the archives could fit in a single R2 unit. its just lazy writing.

    • January 7, 2016 at 2:39 am
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      You are right, this is stupid… the movie, is stupid… I wish george one day uploads his script ideas for ep 7 8 9… I want to know if we got the best or the worst…

  • January 6, 2016 at 2:41 am
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    Hopefully it will be explained in TFA special editions.

    • January 6, 2016 at 3:47 am
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      Onenhope I have for an extended cut is that it slows the lacing a bit and includes deleted characters and explains plot points like this better.

      • January 7, 2016 at 2:37 am
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        It’s so sad, people trying to find plot points where there are none… I’m so sad, was hoping for much more… and got a movie about the empire led by a crossbreed between gollum and king kong, a crazy emo sith wannabe, and a cartoon hitler, fighting a resistance over a map to find luke… this is starwars disney… star wars, not pirates of the caribbean… if the next movie involves a compass driven by the force to find a cursed jedi temple, don’t say I didn’t warn you

  • January 6, 2016 at 3:59 am
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    R2 detected the presence of Luke’s lightsaber…

    • January 6, 2016 at 5:46 am
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      Finn had it when they arrived from Takodana.

  • January 6, 2016 at 5:25 am
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    I believe is well explained in the movie.
    Actually we watch many TV series were scripts can explain until the last detail, but that is not possible in a movie. If there is not any contradiction we can trust some ellipsis because a longer explanation could be possible, always work like that.
    Who could have the rest of the map that lead us to Luke?
    Obviously R2D2, so the movie is totally coherent in that.

    Luke has been in the first Jedi Temple for years, so I wonder if he has learned something new there, some new stories or abilities we can see in the next movies.

    • January 6, 2016 at 8:54 am
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      “Why is he in Jakku near to Rey?”

      Because he’s visiting a Resistance outpost where he can rendezvous with Poe. (I assume it’s a Resistance outpost because the people around set up barricades and start shooting at the Stormtroopers the moment they’re in sight.)

      I think (and hope) that Rey’s involvement is pure chance along with some nudging from the Force.

      “Kylo Ren and him know each other.”

      He’s obviously an old friend of Leia’s, and must have known the whole family. I would like to see more of his backstory.

      • January 6, 2016 at 9:56 am
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        I though from the movie that he was living in that village.

        Is that information in the book?

        So why is the First Order after him? Just searching the map to Luke, I guess…
        He is a family friend clearly, from times of Organa family or times in Endor Moon, we don´t know when people stopped calling her Princess.

  • January 6, 2016 at 6:21 am
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    Kasdan gives some of the audience members to much credit. These are the same people that act like it’s the movies fault that they don’t get something, when they are to stupid to actually piece it together. I remember talking to people about the Matrix movie when it came out, some said “I didn’t like it” when I asked them why, they simply said “I didn’t get it”…

    • January 6, 2016 at 6:34 am
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      I believe is symbolic.
      BB8 has part of the map, R2D2 has the other part.
      Poe, Rey and Finn and then Obi Wan, Leia and Luke.
      The explanations can be better or worse, I think they did well avoiding a longer one.

    • January 6, 2016 at 6:50 pm
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      This.

      A lot of people are blaming Christopher Nolan – apparently his movies have a lot of quirky exposition. Personally, I don’t think so but that’s the trend. Its like when younger fans point out the plot holes in the OT, its just funny.

    • January 7, 2016 at 2:22 am
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      I didn’t like Matrix, because Smith wins, and somehow gets cheated, and, whoops, he lost… that and finding out that to get to the sun you only had to take a ship and cross some clouds, or use the planet core for energy as they did in sion… if it was that easy why bother turning humans into duracells? thats why I didn’t like matrix…

  • January 6, 2016 at 6:25 am
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    The TFA Visual Dictionary says that while R2 is in low power mode, his diagnostic systems are organizing the “vast trove of information in his databanks from over seven DECADES of uninterrupted operation” … can you imagine that defrag? So as some have suggested, perhaps he was aware of his surroundings, and during his reorganization found what he heard everyone was looking for, and powered up to give it to them.

    • January 7, 2016 at 2:16 am
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      don’t waste your time, this movie is about finding luke with a map, and showing OT characters every 20 minutes, so they left R2 to the end of the movie, that’s it… it’s all marketing, corporate choices, no creativity whatsoever……. George, what have you done!!!! you sold your kids for money… so sad

  • January 6, 2016 at 6:35 am
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    Some of it really needed more clarification. Kasdan may have trimmed the explanations a bit to much. I had gone with the whole… Luke woke him up. Either way I wasn’t to bothered by it.

    • January 6, 2016 at 6:45 am
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      Too much coincidences lead to anger, anger leads to fear, fear leads to hate… we will be in the dark side soon.
      Coincidences… why Rey find BB8, just a coincidence, why Finn save Poe, just another coincidence, why Finn meet Rey that´s another one, why the Millenium Falcon is there waiting for them, more coincidences…
      R2D2 awakening could just have been another coincidence in the right time, we had accepted that. Random stuff happens.

      • January 6, 2016 at 3:09 pm
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        I don’t think anything that happens is coincidental in Star Wars. I think there is a sort of divine providence in the Force. You often hear Jedi talk about the “will of the Force”. While some get all bent out of shape (I’m not saying you are) about too many coincidences in Star Wars, I think in light of the Force, the concern is not warranted. The Force has a will and pushes itself on certain beings (that’s kind of what this movie was all about) and situations to see that will come to fruition.

        • January 6, 2016 at 4:07 pm
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          Yes indeed, I was just being sarcastic.

          But if people start to complaint about random coincidences they should complaint about them in all the movie, in all trilogies, or in all movies ever…

        • January 6, 2016 at 6:30 pm
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          I don’t think we even have to assume – but there are limits.

          “In my experience there’s no such thing as luck”.

          Like how much of a “plothole” is it that we don’t “know for certain” that Bail Organa knew the location of Ben Kenobi? Don’t we have to be shown that in canon? If the answer is ‘no’, then we’re taking a small leap of faith that Bail Organa was risking everything when he kept the coordinates of Kenobi and/or the Lars family somewhere relying on the Emperor never finding out, then giving them to Leia.

          The aforementioned is a ridiculous logical tangent that the movies don’t really ask you to go on (fans do sometimes because we’re psychotic) and the franchise just asks you to ignore, which is easy. We’ll see what happens with R2’s awakening, if Luke addresses it with ONE line then it fades away into our own short-sightedness.

          • January 7, 2016 at 2:13 am
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            what are you talking about??? in ep3 yoda tells obi wan, in front of organa, to take luke to his family in tatooine…

      • January 7, 2016 at 2:04 am
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        yeah, about finn and poe… this guy’s an idiot! he gets into a tie fighter with a storm trooper he just met, tells him everything about the map on BB8 and takes him to find it… to bad the first order are reeeeeeally stupid… tarkin had it right though, that’s how he found the rebel base… oh yeah, I forgot now disney is writing this… so sad

        • January 7, 2016 at 5:29 am
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          No, I was being sarcastic about it.
          I really love the movie.
          Sorry.

          • January 7, 2016 at 3:20 pm
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            We could blame every movie because of coincidences…

          • January 7, 2016 at 6:49 pm
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            Totally true, all stories are about coincidences, being in the right place in the right moment, we just believe them.

  • January 6, 2016 at 6:49 am
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    Wild speculation that makes the storyline smaller (but so what, you love Star Wars in spite of these things or choose to hate it): The Rogue One team, who steal the Death Star plans, will also grab a piece of permanent computer memory from the Empire, either randomly as a quick attempt of further sabotage, or because a team member recognizes the importance of the map to jedi temples (Eventually making its way in secret to Lor San Tekka and finally Poe/BB-8). This would conveniently explain why both R2s data taken from Death Star I and the First Order’s is missing a piece.

  • January 6, 2016 at 7:03 am
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    Wouldn’t it have been more elegant and logical to just have had Luke put the map into R2, saving it until the time was right?

    • January 6, 2016 at 8:51 am
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      I don’t think Luke wanted to be found while he was looking for the first Jedi temple.

      • January 6, 2016 at 12:35 pm
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        I think that map in R2D2 is Luke´s and the info in BB8 is from Luke too.
        He just was making sure he could be found but not easy.
        I believe we can be sure that if R2D2 had that map, Luke knew it.
        What image we see when the Jedi Academy is destroyed?
        Luke´s hand over R2D2.
        May be the last time he was seen.

        • January 7, 2016 at 2:01 am
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          what a stupid story… sadly, I believe you are 100% correct

          • January 7, 2016 at 5:30 am
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            Hhaha, you are one of those who just watch the movies/series/books so they can hate them in the forums…

      • January 7, 2016 at 4:41 am
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        We don’t know where BB8’s fragment came from except that Lor San Tekka acquired it somehow. R2’s portion was from the Imperial archives.

    • January 6, 2016 at 2:03 pm
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      in my mind, that IS what happened… Luke trusted R2-D2 with the map just like he did with his lightsaber at Jabba’s.

  • January 6, 2016 at 7:18 am
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    The article makes a great point. And probably why Kasdan’s writing is better when Lucas is there to reign him in. I hope the writers of the next few movies do not continue this approach, or are too scared to delve deeper into story. We could run into a situation where all these mysteries become giant plot holes real fast.

    • January 6, 2016 at 10:45 am
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      It’s LOST all over again

    • January 7, 2016 at 1:59 am
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      finally people saying it… I thought I was the only one… don-t expect much of people who only could come up whith a movie about finding luke with a map… It’s disney alright

      • January 7, 2016 at 3:18 pm
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        it is not a map that points to Luke… it is a map of old Jedi Temples… I like to not have much explanation as I always liked to figure on my own Darth Vader’s past…

      • January 7, 2016 at 8:09 pm
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        Agreed. Leia could sense Han dying but not where Luke was. The films have established that people strong in the force can sense others, even their location. Palpating found anakin this way, Luke found Han and Leia this way. A huge blunder for the writers I think.

  • January 6, 2016 at 7:34 am
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    the biggest bag of bullshiit non-answers i have ever heard. Just admit you fucked up Kasden and JJ. ….I hope we see I bit of an edit when they release the movie on dvd.

    • January 6, 2016 at 2:34 pm
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      I’m not reading anymore interviews with JJ about this movie. His explanations just make the whole thing seem more convoluted.

      • January 6, 2016 at 5:57 pm
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        well I´m still expecting the explanation of how can Rey understand wookiee, if she lived almost her entire life on Jakku…..

        • January 6, 2016 at 6:14 pm
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          The Force lol

          • January 7, 2016 at 1:57 am
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            oh maxi big da force

        • January 7, 2016 at 3:16 pm
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          George Lucas will make a trilogy for those who need every little bit explained. Also another trilogy about how Kylo joined the Dark Side…

  • January 6, 2016 at 8:29 am
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    If you didn’t like the movie, the scene bugs you, if you liked the movie the reason R2 wakes up didn’t need explaining.

  • January 6, 2016 at 10:25 am
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    Arg! Its ‘beebee EIGHT’ not ‘beebee ATE’!

  • January 6, 2016 at 12:08 pm
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    I was hoping it was al an elaborate plan of Luke (just like the whole hiding the saber in R2D2 in ROTJ). That he knew in advance someday Rey would find the missing piece and only then R2D2 would wake up…if a true hero (one with the light) would present itself. I got that feeling because in every interaction with Rey it seems Leia knows more then she’s letting on. So I thought JJ and Kasdan where deliberate in being vague. But guess I was wrong. 🙁

    • January 6, 2016 at 1:07 pm
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      I believe Luke knows what is inside R2D2.
      Remember the image we have about the Academy being destroyed is Luke´s hand over R2D2.
      Even I think he found the temple from the information R2D2 had inside.

      • January 6, 2016 at 3:04 pm
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        In Rebels, Kanan and Ezra use the Force to find the Jedi Temple on Lothal. I think Luke may have done the same.

        • January 6, 2016 at 4:09 pm
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          Yes, true, I watched that Episode.
          He also can speak with Yoda 😉 quoting you… I am sure Yoda is well informed about old Jedi Temples.
          But the idea of Luke trusting his location in part to R2D2 and in part to an human friend makes sense, at least to me.

          • January 7, 2016 at 3:15 pm
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            I could trust this… but they could have explained this on the movie… I wouldn’t expect all the audience to watch Rebels or any other expanded universe…

          • January 7, 2016 at 6:48 pm
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            Yes, I am agree.
            I believe they will not let Rebels to be ahead a Star Wars movie.
            I mean, for example one character appearing before on Rebels than in a movie, or even their offspring.

    • January 6, 2016 at 4:58 pm
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      I assumed the same, however I don’t think the explanations from JJ etc necessarily negate that theory – if this is the case, and Luke does have some pre-determined plan, then that could be an important plot point for Episode 8 which they wouldn’t want to be giving away right now.

    • January 7, 2016 at 4:35 am
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      It was simply a map to the first Jedi temple. It wasn’t a “map to Luke” per se. They (Han speaking) assumed Luke went off to the first Jedi temple after Kylo Ren destroyed everything.

  • January 6, 2016 at 12:48 pm
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    What the novel tells makes all the sense to me but I think is sad they could not make it better in the movie. As far as I know it doesn’t seem too difficult to make a proper edit of this scene, maybe even making it literally as it is in the novel could have worked just making the movie less than a minute longer.

    Kasdan said to JJ to not explain things too much to fans and I agree only if applied correctly… When Han and Leia have a dialogue making a short review of how they lost their son I found it not needed… I could figure it out… Instead they don’t make a proper dialogue to explain R2D2’s awakening… I think the script is ok but they rushed on making the final cut to accomplish the schedule’s deadline…

  • January 6, 2016 at 6:30 pm
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    Could you also explain why the girl in the film is so strong?

    I think I missed that explanation.

    Thanks.

    HH

    • January 6, 2016 at 6:30 pm
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      The Force.

      • January 6, 2016 at 8:20 pm
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        Luke wasn’t this strong in the first film. And she only just heard about the force recently. So…..

        • January 6, 2016 at 9:04 pm
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          Blocking laser shots blindfolded, guiding torpedoes flying through space…..

          There are no absolutes with how the Force affects somebody, unless a viewer wants to impose rules from a certain point of view.

          • January 6, 2016 at 9:30 pm
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            Only Sith deal in absolutes…

          • January 6, 2016 at 9:40 pm
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            The more I think about it, the more I think Obi-Wan was short-sighted – he basically said that Luke has to kill Vader (although he didn’t), while – somebody please correct me if I’m wrong – Yoda left that question open.

            Pretty sure Yoda only stated that Luke was a fool to face Vader the first time and that only a fully-trained Jedi could confront and defeat Vader and the Emperor. I’ll have to watch it again but it seems Yoda had a bit greater insight into how to defeat the Sith via Anakin’s legacies of love rather than just genetically powerful Skywalkers. Yoda basically retreats from Palpatine after they fight to a draw, and does have hope that Leia can succeed if Luke didn’t Kenobi appeared way more cynical and small-minded about it, too many mind games, as that line demonstrates lol (silly line irregardless)

          • January 7, 2016 at 3:13 pm
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            Leia wasn’t suposed to be Luke’s sister… they just made it to make you think Luke could die when facing Vader the first time you watch “Empire”.

            But from a more romantic point of view, I buy it!

          • January 6, 2016 at 10:33 pm
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            How about having your cake and eating it?

            Always seems to be some cheap explanation as to how someone with no prior training was able to do things that it took Luke three films to do.

            Nothing in this film tells me she is special. We can’t just assume so. That is lazy writing.

          • January 6, 2016 at 11:07 pm
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            I don’t assume anything when it come to the Force – it might impregnate me.

          • January 7, 2016 at 1:54 am
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            also agreed

          • January 7, 2016 at 7:18 am
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            1. She may have been trained and for some reason doesn’t remember.

            2. She may be the most powerful force user we’ve seen.

            3. She may embrace and understand the force faster than Luke because she has a more hopeful, believing outlook (“my family will come back for me” versus “looks like I’m going nowhere”)

            4. She may embrace and understand the force faster than Luke because she has been hearing stories about the Jedi and what they could do her whole life. Luke has never heard of the Jedi or the force.

            5. This is a new set of movies and the force works a little differently this time around — just like the prequels.
            6. It’s 40 years later and audiences already understand what the force is so the filmmakers didn’t want to spend three movies getting the hero up to basic abilities.

            7. You will never be happy with “the girl in the film” being the hero so why ask for an explanation over and over again?

          • January 7, 2016 at 2:03 pm
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            And she fights Kylo Ren, a rookie arrogant sith that is overconfident with his skills. I don’t see Rey has defeated any superlative Sith on the movie. Also, lots of the knowledge about the force she got came from touching Lukes light saber… lots of those dialogues she could use to try things otherwise she could have never tried… I really feel Rey skills evoluting naturally and can’t see the problem with it. We are all asuming the force is learnt and used always the same way for all its users and that is completely wrong from my point of view.

          • January 7, 2016 at 7:51 pm
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            She may…..

            She may….

            She may….

            Too many questions left unanswered.

            Ergo…stupid film.

          • January 7, 2016 at 2:00 pm
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            She has fights with her staff when someone tried to stole her BB-8… that scene was there to make you understand that… to show you she is a capable character. By the way, it took me 3 years to finish some videogames some friends of mine finished in a month… but hey we all were humans!

          • January 7, 2016 at 7:50 pm
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            Oh….so because she can fend off some rabble with a staff she’s now great with a lightsaber?

          • January 7, 2016 at 8:23 pm
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            I did not see Ray been great with a lightsa er in the entire movie… She two handed her sword against a ROOKIE arrogant sith tha was hurt and didn’t finish his training…

            Ray is the HEROine, she is more force capable than many others. Kylo could have trained for 6 years and be worse the same way Jordan at a young age than many others.

            How come Luke destroyed the death star? Did he pilot an x-wing before? Did he train long enough with the force? He could hear Obi Wan’s voice guiding him like Ray did hear Yoda or Obi Wan when she touched the lightsaber.

            We assume everybody learns the force at the same speed and there is no natural talent allowed. This way of course, all thr new padawans in saga will need to spend three movies to become Jedis… Well i think it makes sense to speed up some narrations to get to a point where we can see some new situations.

          • January 7, 2016 at 8:29 pm
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            Destroying a Death Star is vastly different from almost killing someone trained by both luke and snoke.

          • January 7, 2016 at 8:34 pm
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            So everybody who had the greatest teachers have become the best on their areas without even finishing the training? Lots of examples in sports or arts come to my mind that are oposite to this thinking

          • January 7, 2016 at 9:28 pm
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            All these explanations and theories to account for the plot holes and inconsistencies of the film…therein is the root of the problem

          • January 7, 2016 at 9:49 pm
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            A problem within you, not everyone. Truth depends on your point of view. Mine doesn’t need a movie to be fullfiled of dialogues and explanations and yours need them.

          • January 7, 2016 at 1:57 pm
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            And some people quote Yoda when he said Luke was too old to be trained… but hey! Yoda also stated no one could come back from the Dark Side and was wrong! There are not certain rules for the foce, just assumptions. Like with any religion or magic I would say…

        • January 7, 2016 at 6:56 am
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          I thought that was the entire point. She is strong. REALY strong. Stronger than Luke, than Kylo Ren… Maybe even stronger than Obi-Wan. So strong that she caused a noticeable rift in the force when she learned that it was real and decided to try it. Almost as if there was some sort of, oh, I don’t know… awakening?!?

          You hear stories of people like Tiger Woods or Michael Jordan or Jimi Hendrix. They first time they tried their particular talent they were better than those who had been doing the same thing all their lives. This is how I interpreted Rey.

          I find a lot of the criticisms about story and characters in TFA are based on assumptions of how things have been or should be. But this is a whole new game and entirely different characters. So with that in mind: Rey is so easily and quickly abnormally strong with the Force because that is the entire point of the character. Raw, untapped vast Force power that was awoken suddenly. That look on Luke’s face said it all. He knows. He felt it.

          • January 7, 2016 at 7:53 pm
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            Sorry, but these are still theories. Nothing in the film we watched let us know she is super strong.

            She just does it out of nowhere.

            That is poor writing and I don’t have to be the one as the audience member, connecting all the dots as to who she is.

            She’s still and english lady with a stick who can use the force all of a sudden out of nowhere.

          • January 7, 2016 at 8:59 pm
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            You say she just used “the force all of a sudden out of nowhere.” and then say there is no evidence she is strong. But her using it all of a sudden out of nowhere IS what shows us she is strong. Not sure what you were looking for. Did you want her to look into the camera an say “I could get used to THIS!” then have “Bad to the Bone” start playing?!

            If there was a movie where some kid picks up a basketball for the first time and tosses it half court right in the basket that would show he has a natural proclivity for it. It would be a moment in a movie that shows the audience how naturally talented he is. That is what I got from the scene with Rey where she uses mind-control over the Stormtrooper. I remember thinking “wow, if she can do this just by trying it, imagine what she can do with training!”.

            I don’t need things spoon fed to me. I am good with actions on screen telling the story and allowing me to make conclusions. I have a lot of issues with TFA but that isn’t one of them.

          • January 7, 2016 at 9:30 pm
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            A Jedi Mind Trick is used by JEDI…hence the name…JEDI mind trick. So is she a Jedi? Let me guess, we should just ASSUME she is one?

            She can totally own someone who just stopped a laser blast in mid-air and was trained by both Snoke (crap name) and Luke. But let me guess….we should just ASSUME her training was better?

            Stupid film.

            HH

        • January 7, 2016 at 1:55 pm
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          Not all people are capable of acquiring the same skills on the same time, some people are better than others. Rey is used to fight with her staff and seems a strong girl already without using the force. Luke successfully shot a 2m wide target on his first X-Wing flight to destroy the death star… there were more experienced pilots with him but hey the rookie got it… why? because he used the force!

  • January 6, 2016 at 6:56 pm
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    This issue could have been, or even in the future, be at least partially fixed by a closeup of R2 right after BB8 leaves showing one little light flickering and no one noticing. It would at least set up that R2 stirred because of BB8 from the moments earlier. And then just a slightly altered line from 3PO would suggest that R2 was looking for the data as opposed to suddenly just having it.

    I don’t think this is a big issue. I’m just saying the confusion for those who were concerned about it could be easily cleared up. I doubt they try and fix it though…

  • January 6, 2016 at 8:16 pm
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    I can answer that question: Lazy writing.

    • January 7, 2016 at 1:53 am
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      agreed

  • January 6, 2016 at 8:18 pm
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    Am I the only one who is loves this “BB-8 comes up and says something to [R2-D2] which is basically ‘l’ve got this piece of a map, do you happen to have the rest?'”. The idea of R2-D2 and BB-8 having a conversation warms my heart and I can’t wait until episode 8 & 9 when the R2-D2/BB-8/C3PO show starts. If they can figure out a way to get Chopper in the mix my head might explode!

    • January 6, 2016 at 10:06 pm
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      Eh, Chopper has a little too much attitude and defiance.

      • January 6, 2016 at 11:23 pm
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        Chopper’s been mixing cocktails for Luke on the beach. Straight chillin’

  • January 6, 2016 at 9:33 pm
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    I thought this was pretty obvious…

  • January 7, 2016 at 12:21 am
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    The more they try to tighten theses plotholes, the more plotholes slip through their fingers.

    At least this isn’t as bad as them finding the Falcon because the Imperial tracking device is still working.

  • January 7, 2016 at 1:07 am
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    It seemed negligent for Artoo, this usually witty, helpful and intelligent character, to fail to even check his data banks (stasis/de-frag or not) for information leading to the recovery of his MISSING friend.

    If the writers are giving the ball to the audience on this one, this audience member will have to chalk it down to “creative/corrupted astromech programming”.

    The chief weaknesses of the Dark forces (dodgy exhaust ports, tractor beam failures, and encryption issues) continue to ensure they snatch defeat from the jaws of victory…

    • January 7, 2016 at 1:46 pm
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      R2D2 didn’t know what information they were looking for. The map is not leading to Sky Walker, it leads to old Jedi Temples, why should he just go and tell them “hey I have a map with the old Jedi Temples on it, just in case you need it!”…? he just hears what they need and then makes the proper search, exactly as Google does. The information is there but the query needs to be done by someone else.

  • January 7, 2016 at 1:16 am
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    I’m going to throw out another fan theory. This all ties in to Rey’s vision.

    Ben Solo goes rouge, kills all the new Jedi. Luke is either related to or knows of Rey’s latent Jedi powers. Like Ben knew of he an Leia, Luke knows he has to hide her to protect her. Being a little sentimental about his own homeworld, he dumps her on the sandpit Jaku.

    The scene in the vision where we see Luke touch Artoo? Same as when Leia imparted the DS plans. Luke removes a piece of the map to give to someone he trusts or hides away to be found later, knowing the Force will guide it. Luke then instructs Artoo to go dormant until he is either in Rey’s presence or hears of her . Can’t have the droid that knows where you are running about the galaxy can you? Anyway, when that condition is met, wake up, asses the situation, impart the necessary information or go back to sleep. Mission accomplished.

  • January 7, 2016 at 4:30 am
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    I saw it again today and the R2 awakening scene still didn’t bother me at all. He doesn’t seem to “wake up suddenly at just the right moment”. It seems more like R2 began the process when BB8 spoke to him a bit earlier in the movie. The time lag was appropriate. It’s not like the resistance was standing around talking about the map when he woke up. R2 woke up and told BB8 and 3PO about the map.

  • January 7, 2016 at 1:50 pm
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    What the novel tells makes all the sense to me but I think is a shame they
    could not make it fit better in the movie. As far as I know it doesn’t seem too
    difficult to make a proper edit of this, maybe even literally as it is in the
    novel could have worked making the movie less than a minute longer.

    Kasdan said to JJ not to explain things too much to fans and I agree only if
    applied correctly… When Han and Leia have a dialogue making a short review of
    how they lost their son I found it unnecessary… I could figure it out on my
    own… Instead they don’t make a proper dialogue to explain R2D2’s awakening…
    I think the script is ok but they rushed on making the final cut to accomplish
    the schedule’s deadline missing such things…

  • January 10, 2016 at 5:27 am
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    This definitely is does not come across as intended in the movie. Just saw it for the 5th time and this bothers me more and more each viewing.

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