Massive spoilers below…
____
____
____
____
____
____
____
____
____
____
1) I suspect some viewers might roll their eyes at the fact that the galaxy is still in the middle of a civil war, but this is somewhat realistic. Civil wars tend to last a loooong time. The civil war in Afghanistan, for example, has been going on since 1978. One could argue that Korea has been in civil war for the last 65 years. (The Force Awakens makes it seem like both the Republic and First Order control and govern territory, like North and South Korea.) The good news, if there is any, is that political scientists have a pretty good idea why civil wars take forever to end.
2) What a strange world we live in where James Bond has more screen time in a Star Wars film then Luke Skywalker. (Daniel Craig is the stormtrooper that Rey pulls the Jedi mind trick on.)
3) The trailers spoiled Han Solo’s death. When Kylo Ren pulls out his lightsaber on the bridge, we have yet to see Ren’s battle with Finn in the snow. This means that Ren can’t be giving himself up here, and it would be weird if he simply re-holstered his lightsaber.
4) At the end of Return of the Jedi, Luke seems to believe Vader can go home and everything will be okay. Similarly, Mr. Solo…I mean, Han…seems to think that Kylo Ren can return home and everything will be okay. Their best case scenario is life imprisonment, and execution seems much more likely.
5) Perhaps the most unrealistic thing about A New Hope and The Force Awakens is that, within a few scant hours of receiving intelligence about the big evil weapon, the rebels have some genius plan to destroy the facility. The only way this could happen is if the vulnerability is obvious. But if the vulnerability is obvious, why don’t the bad guys spot it and fix the problem?
6) Also, when will the bad guys learn that sinking massive amounts of capital into one super weapon is not a good investment strategy?
7) How can Han manually leave light speed within a planet’s atmosphere? Given the speed involved and the small window, this is basically impossible.
William Spaniel 