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The gaping maw of a huge vehicle moving to swallow whatever smaller vehicle you're in is a powerful visual symbol. It conjures up echoes of Jonah and the Whale, and can be seen in Star Trek's "The Doomsday Machine" and "The Motion Picture" among many other examples.
It's a cool thing to use in a game, but be aware of the potential escape plans of a group of desperate PCs, which could turn your engulfing vessel into shrapnel if you're not careful. Tractor beams are one way to ensure compliance, but we're sure you can think of others.
Commentary by Keybounce (who has not seen the movie)
A strange, unknown ship design, only described as "Rectangular". Hundreds of meters long - that's on par with the largest ships we've seen. And free parking!
So the seats on the Falcon are as bad as the rest of the ship.
So lets look at a decision made by the players a few strips back. Do we go back to Tatooine, or use this strange hyperdrive motivator?
Yep. Trying to use the motivator triggers this strange time loop. We might never actually see this MacGuffin in use, other than the whole "time machine turned on, travel back in time to that point" point. Because right now, it looks like they "used" it, and the results resulted in the future heading back to the past, and a successful tractor beam capture. So they won't get a chance to get away, use the drive, get into trouble, and need to go back to stop themselves...
I feel like I'm playing a game of Achron and watching time waves alternate the present based on shenanigans in the past.
Commentary by memnarch (who has not seen the movie)
Well. I'm not sure what exactly I was expecting for a time travel anomaly of some kind, but this wasn't it. It's like a giant flying space hangar crossed with an angry mechanical dragon. Even if the red glowing inset panel didn't make it look like a wing was removed, this ship would still have the teeth-like protrusions around the red maw that make it Wyrm-like. It also feels like a familiar design for some reason, but then again, there's only so many ways to make a hangar for spacecraft even when it's nothing but a hangar.
Also, it's nice that the GM noted that BB-8 was the first one to detect this mystery thing after the Repair skill thing. I think I've mentioned the difficulty in getting all the players to have equal-ish time in the spotlight, so to see things like this worked in so smoothly is great. Which makes me wonder how Ben and Jim are going to do this session for action. Ben's character seems somewhat marginalized on team First Order for potential appearances (in movie) being an unflashy general, and Jim... still hasn't made a new character yet.
I wonder what side this is rectangular ship is allied to; it showed up almost immediately after the new modulator was installed, so there's obviously a connection there. But the experiment that it came from was Imperial, not First Order, so why would this time-disrupting ship tractor beam the Falcon versus hailing on the comms first? And I bet even with the engulfing by this mystery ship, the Falcon will still end up being parked in a bad location. Either there's going to be the possibility of damage I'd thought of before from where it gets dropped inside, or the Falcon is going to end up blocked in by other ships/machines that this flying hangar has also grabbed.
Transcript
Finn: Can we see anything?
GM: No. But BB-8, your sensors detect something coming over the top of the Falcon.
BB-8: Guys, look up!
Finn: I stand on the seat for a better look.
GM: It wobbles unsteadily.
Finn: I brace myself. {Finn steadies himself by putting a hand on Rey’s head}
Rey: Oy!
Finn: Stop wobbling unsteadily!
GM: You see a ship, a few hundred metres long, drawing you into a docking bay.
Rey: Well, this is not good.
BB-8: Look on the bright side.
Rey: What’s that?
BB-8: You don’t have to find a parking spot.