You know, in retrospect, I think the whole Starkiller/Blow up the Republic scene in TFA is the worst part of it. . . not because its a terrible story decision, but because *its almost completely lacking in dramatic meaning*. Which might sound crazy, given its the destruction of a whole star system, but think about it. What effect does firing Starkiller Base *actually* have?
1. It cripples the New Republic, in theory. . . except the Resistance was already acting as scrappy rebel-analogs against the New Order, with little real support. Nothing actually changes about this status.
2. It kills countless people. . . that you never seen, have no names, and which only some of the cast could ever have conceivably even met. Few of the heroic cast actually have a real emotional response to these losses, and the audience certainly doesn't.
3. It destroys places that the audience hasn't even seen, and thus doesn't have even the most surface level of attachment.
4. it establishes stakes for the remainder of the movie, vis a vis why Starkiller Base must be destroyed. . . except that the majority of the personal drama is about Kylo Ren instead, vis a vis Rey, Leia, and Han.
Pretty much its *only* real effect is to go "Hey, audience, remember that thing you remember from the original movies?" Only in A New Hope, you had characters actually reacting meaningfully to it, the entire rest of the movie's stakes and drama revolved around it, and also it was establishing something actually new rather than something already known for decades. You could literally replace Starkiller Base's functionality with "Its a big gun that blows up the whole Republic Fleet that shows up in their system" and it would have the same dramatic effect.
