SPOILERS - Star Wars: The Force Awakens SPOILER THREAD

I mean in a Star Wars reality sense, if you have the designs for a super weapon that can "win" the war, wouldn't you keep building it?

Each time they even seem to update it to increase its defensive capabilities.

Death Star I, isolated for secrecy purposes, had Achilles heel design flaw that was still a one in a million chance. It's master Tarkin was killed along with it, he was a gun.

Death Star II, legitimately not completed yet operational, used as a lure to destroy the rebellion fleet with the greater portion of the Imperial fleet awaiting to spring a trap. Had a shield generator that was so large it had to be based on a nearby moon. Required a lot of lapses in Imperial expectations on Endor and a lot of luck in the space battle. The re-use here was honestly one of the best bits at showing imperial arrogance, the emperor was great, and it was definitely "his".

Star Killer Base, the first order is presumably not quite as powerful as the Empire in terms of size but they've managed to create a weapon in even greater scope with the hyperspace and star draining capabilities. The base appears to be actually embedded in an entire planet with its own eco system. Requires the Solo lucky as fuck infiltration via hyperspace and then Finns lucky as fuck capture of Captain Phasma to lower the shields. it then requires Han Solos sacrifice and Kylos completely not giving a fuck about the bombs or the danger to the base to open a breach that Poe can exploit. A lot of squadrons appear to be decimated in the fighter battle, I think four? Definitely depicted as hux's baby, who seemingly survives, which I found to be an interesting deviation from the other films.

Hux despite his kinda awesome Hitlery speech was the weakest of the Death Star "owners" in terms of presence, his survival may indicate an arc. The First Order are arrogant but not quite as supremely confident as The Empire. Tarkin and the Emperor answered to no one, Hux was like "boss, what do I dooooo?"

 

The bigger issue I had was the "plan" to destroy Starkiller base was probably the weakest of the 3. It mirrored A New Hope in its "last minute fight for survival, we gotta go now and hope for the best nature" when it really should have felt more like the escape from Hoth and the Return of the Jedis plan. The Resitstance does this for a job, I appreciated the members giving a lot of the ideas but why not show any attempt to evacuate the planet? Why do they not have anything larger than a fighter? Why don't they have more information about Star Killer base. The daring "last minute raid" felt more tired to me than the concept of Star Killer base.

 

Planet wide shield that requires presumably 0.0000000001 second timing to breach without exploding is probably a bit underrated.

It was a bit of a Indiana in the fridge avoiding the nuke scene.