Too bad there’s no Ebay rating about that one.

I haven’t seen the movie yet, although thanks to Richard Aubrey’s spoilers, I know that Han dies. I will enjoy watching the movie nonetheless.

Yes, it usually bothers me when I see a historical film and know enough about the events portrayed therein to know how many liberties they are taking. I knew enough to avoid those Oliver Stone films—I would have been so angry had I been watching them.

I have another pet peeve—films about dance where non-dancers play the role of dancers and don’t look or stand or walk like dancers. “Black Swan” (a film I detested for other reasons) pretty much avoided that problem by training Natalie Portman very intensely to the point where she could somewhat pull it off (with the help of a dance double), but usually it’s not done.

I remember hearing an interview with one of the most prolific conspiracy theorists who had been approached by Stone for the rights to one of his books. To paraphrase: “I had data and facts that point to the CIA killing the President but even that wasn’t enough for Oliver Stone!” The author refused to provide the rights. His point being, using available facts and data one can make an argument for several, sensational films, but Stone still wanted to make up his own facts.

I had the same problem with “Titanic.” With all the real life drama and thousands of true stories on that ship why make up a fictitious one? And the politicization of some of the famous characters… The script had wealthy gentlemen and women who had behaved admirably and courageously acting like craven murderers. Awful.

It’s too bad that you can’t make it that far into Watership Down. While the opening has a strong sense of the supernatural (iirc, it opens with Fiver’s prophetic vision of doom), most of the book is actually very grounded. The characters are rabbits, and they think and act like rabbits (for the most part). They’re not human minds in animal bodies, like you’d encounter in a Beatrix Potter book. Of particular interest, one of the recurring topics is how governments come about, and what the results of those governments are. Efrafa, encountered late in the book, is pretty much the blueprint of where the progressive path takes a nation, which means that it’s a controlling hellhole for anyone who lives in it, aside from the people at the top.

The problem with your analogy is that the F-14 was not phased out due to being an outdated fighter. It was phased out for other reasons. iirc, at the time, it was considered to be a superior fighter than its replacement, the F-18 Hornet. But the Hornet had other advantages that were considered more important by the people who make the decisions (the fact that it was a multi-role aircraft was probably one of those advantages), so the Tomcat was replaced by the Hornet.

Meanwhile, the F-15, which was introduced in 1976, is still in service. And so is the MiG-29, which had its first flight in 1977.

Resistance – They’re resisting the First Order, which is the government of a small star nation (seemingly modeled after the fallen Empire) in which the action in the movie takes place. I’d have thought that the movie made this clear. Based on statements made during the film, financing for the Resistance appears to be handled via donations by wealthy private individuals within the Republic, as the government of the Republic does not currently view the First Order as an immediate threat.

In 1977 when i saw the first one, the Navy’s F14 Tomcat was just coming online and was state of the art. By 2015, the F14 had been decommissioned for many years. So, you would think that in 38 years the Tie and X-wing fighters would have also been replaced by newer technology. You would be wrong.

And then there’s the politics. In the first movie, the government was the hated empire which had supplanted the beloved republic. The rebels were rebelling against that government. 38 years later, the republic has been restored and there is still a “resistance” (…with Carrie Fisher as it’s leader.) Who are they resisting?

And then there are the economics. Where does the money come from to pay for all of this high tech wizardry?

Oh well, it’s just a movie.

Here’s a rough plot —

An agent puts urgent secret information into an android and sets it loose on a desert planet. The android finds its way into the company of a young adventurer, who eventually finds their way off the desert planet aboard a certain space freighter. The freighter is intercepted and dragged into another ship, and its crew hides under the floor grates. A young woman is tortured by the main bad guy to get the information the droid carries, but eventually gets away with the help of rescuers. The bad guys kill a whole bunch of people using an awesome space weapon. They then make their way to a ragtag bunch of rebels, and as they get ready to destroy the rebel base, the rebels attack the super weapon in small fighters. During the fighting, a mentor and father figure to the young person we met on the desert world is killed by the main bad guy, who he knows from the past. One of the small fighters is able to race down a narrow chink in the super weapon’s armor and destroy it just in the nick of time. We all go home for tea and medals.

Now, are we talking about 1977 or 2015?