Star Wars: The Force Awakens - Spoilertastic Thread

[MartyS (Gromit)]

Partially what Scott said, arid = poor often. Arid also = alien for most people. Humans do live in deserts but as a species we tend to not do that all of the time. The image of people who inhabit a whole planet of sand makes things appear automatically alien in a way other environments do not.

Plus it's a call back obviously.

True, people that live in harsh climates are thought of as weird and "alien".

If you want your hero to grow up in a harsh environment struggling to get food, the choices are somewhat limited, arid and/or frozen are about it.  Both of those were done in the previous movies.  I would think arid is easier to work with than frozen.  Faking hot dry weather is usually more convincing on screen than fake cold, and real cold is a pain for everyone making the movie.

[Quantum Vagina]

Harsh environment would be literally any planet where there is a lot of hard necessary work. Frozen(hoth), arid(Tatooine), lava(Mustafar), an ocean planet(Kamino), an atmosphere that is toxic to most people (Mandalore for instance), a jungle/swamp (Dagobah). I agree that the desert planet has been overplayed in Star Wars in general. All of the prequels visit one, although ROTS is a brief visit, and two of the original movies feature it. Obviously it was a call back to A New Hope, since JJ wanted to tell us how good that movie was, but I'd have liked a little more deviation. I wouldn't mind seeing another new planet, but I'm damned sick of deserts in Star Wars. Hell, I could even enjoy if Rey had grown up on Courescant. She could've had literally the same job, with more competition. Hell, her back story is simple enough that she could be on any planets I listed, and it would function.

[MartyS (Gromit)]

 You're not thinking about making the movie or how it would look on screen.  CGI oceans still don't look quite right, toxic atmosphere and you'd have everyone behind a mask, Jungle or swamp could be done well but you lose the need to scavenge ship parts for food, it would be hunting for food instead.  Rey's knowledge of empire technology is what allows her to evade capture after she escapes Ren.

You don't want your new characters hidden behind layers of protective gear the entire time you are introducing them.
A surface you could crash on and walk away from was also needed.
A surface BB-8 could wander freely around was also needed.
Crashed empire ships were needed.
Scavenging those ships to buy food as the primary way to survive was needed.

To get all that the options are pretty sparse, tundra might have worked and be something new, but stuff does grow on tundra so it would have been a bit more difficult to portray Rey's life as on the edge of starvation.

[goflyblind]

A surface BB-8 could wander freely around was also needed.

it seemed to do okay on maz's forest planet.

[MartyS (Gromit)]

A surface BB-8 could wander freely around was also needed.

it seemed to do okay on maz's forest planet.

I guess if it could do stairs roots wouldn't be a problem, but that "forest" had a surprising lack of underbrush, easy to run or walk through all over the place.   Yes, a quite "alien" forest......

And again, forest negates the "needing to scavenge parts to get food" aspect.

[Imrahil]

It wasn't Tatooine because there was never a massive space battle directly above Tatooine in any of the previous movies that would have led to the crash of a Star Destroyer. Making it a planet we haven't heard of means we don't know its history and we don't need to answer the question of "when did that happen?" right away.

This isn't really the answer. Because all that stuff on jakku didn't happen until after RotJ anyway, so it could just as easily have been Tattooine.

[Edward J Grug III]

It wasn't Tatooine because there was never a massive space battle directly above Tatooine in any of the previous movies that would have led to the crash of a Star Destroyer. Making it a planet we haven't heard of means we don't know its history and we don't need to answer the question of "when did that happen?" right away.

This isn't really the answer. Because all that stuff on jakku didn't happen until after RotJ anyway, so it could just as easily have been Tattooine.

That entirely depends on if they have plans to reveal the story of what went down on the planet though.

[NRRork]

Well, presumably a battle involving the Empire. Perhaps it was some of that star warring we've heard so darn much about.

I mean, do we need EVERYTHING spelled out for us? For SOME, yes. But they can read all the supplemental stuff, extra homework can be their punishment for being so detail-obsessed.

[jonalame]

Jakku is where most of the Empire's forces tried to rally after the destruction of the Death Star 2.0(yeah, yeah, and losing Coruscant). They were followed, however, and the Rebels swooped in and massacred 'em.

If you already knew this and are waiting for the finer details to be filled in, my apologies.

[Imrahil]

It wasn't Tatooine because there was never a massive space battle directly above Tatooine in any of the previous movies that would have led to the crash of a Star Destroyer. Making it a planet we haven't heard of means we don't know its history and we don't need to answer the question of "when did that happen?" right away.

This isn't really the answer. Because all that stuff on jakku didn't happen until after RotJ anyway, so it could just as easily have been Tattooine.

That entirely depends on if they have plans to reveal the story of what went down on the planet though.

As Jonalame said, they already did, really. In two different books.

[NRRork]

It's extra, it's there for people who really want it, but that kind of exposition would just stop the movie dead.

The movie did such a great job of showing us all we needed to know: there was a huge battle here, and we recognize the ships as mostly Imperial ships, and given the state of the wreckage, it happened many years ago. Long enough for everything to be half buried in sand and for small communities to show up around it. And they established Rey's character at the same time.

If Lucas had done this, it would've been Rey and Finn standing in front of a window overlooking a bunch of CGI crap. One would explain the battle that had been fought there, and the other would've explained how Rey was such a good scavenger and could defend herself. At some point they would have sat on a sofa during this discussion.

[Imrahil]

If Lucas had done this, it would've been Rey and Finn standing in front of a window overlooking a bunch of CGI crap. One would explain the battle that had been fought there, and the other would've explained how Rey was such a good scavenger and could defend herself. At some point they would have sat on a sofa during this discussion.

You mean like he did in the original Star Wars? Oh wait.

[ScottotD]

It's extra, it's there for people who really want it, but that kind of exposition would just stop the movie dead.

The movie did such a great job of showing us all we needed to know: there was a huge battle here, and we recognize the ships as mostly Imperial ships, and given the state of the wreckage, it happened many years ago. Long enough for everything to be half buried in sand and for small communities to show up around it. And they established Rey's character at the same time.

If Lucas had done this, it would've been Rey and Finn standing in front of a window overlooking a bunch of CGI crap. One would explain the battle that had been fought there, and the other would've explained how Rey was such a good scavenger and could defend herself. At some point they would have sat on a sofa during this discussion.

And all of it would have been laughably written and performed awkwardly, he doesn't like actors and never has which is why it's such a shame he surrounded himself with yes men during the prequels

[Quantum Vagina]

You're not thinking about making the movie or how it would look on screen.  CGI oceans still don't look quite right, toxic atmosphere and you'd have everyone behind a mask, Jungle or swamp could be done well but you lose the need to scavenge ship parts for food, it would be hunting for food instead.  Rey's knowledge of empire technology is what allows her to evade capture after she escapes Ren.

You don't want your new characters hidden behind layers of protective gear the entire time you are introducing them.
A surface you could crash on and walk away from was also needed.
A surface BB-8 could wander freely around was also needed.
Crashed empire ships were needed.
Scavenging those ships to buy food as the primary way to survive was needed.

To get all that the options are pretty sparse, tundra might have worked and be something new, but stuff does grow on tundra so it would have been a bit more difficult to portray Rey's life as on the edge of starvation.

I don't see why scavenging, which is a thing that happens in literally every society at some point, is limited to desert and tundra. A planet like Mandalore where the atmosphere is toxic would be fine, since the citizens live in dome cities. As for hiding the hero behind protective gear... did we not forget the fact that the first times we see her, she's covered head to toe in desert gear? Haven't people made a big deal about the fact that the first time we see three of the characters, they're wearing MASKS? I don't see how putting her in gear that suits the climate and having a different type of planet then the massively over done desert is a bad thing.

[Ben]

You mean like he did in the original Star Wars? Oh wait.

Young George Lucas and old George Lucas are two very different creatures. You should know that by now.