While we're on the subject of the mighty Chewbacca, did anyone think they would've loved to have seen him rip a few stormtroopers heads off after watching his best buddy die? Like some John Rambo shit here? I kinda needed more, but what can you do with a PG13 rating?
I absolutely loved how they portrayed the force in TFA. It looks legit terrifying. The way Kylo stop the laser beam, reading Poe and Rey minds and both looks really disturbed by it, was awesome. Out of all of the scenes in TFA, the one that made me go holy shit was the scenes where Kylo using the force to stop Rey movement. That sudden stop , freeze, and the looks on Rey face is freaking incredible to watch. Awesome.
When FA was announced there was a few things I said I would hate if they cheaped out and did; No.1 - Another Death Star but bigger. No.2 - Kill A legacy character to move the film along and turn it into an 'avenge me' cliché.
The visuals were fantastic and I loved the stormtrooper turned good aspect, Boyega did great aside from making Kylo Ren look incredibly weak by being able to fight him a trained Sith in saber combat the first time he's picked up a light saber. Rey embarrassed Kylo aswell in similar fashion. Maybe I'm old but there was too much 'teenageryness' overall for me haha. The film started off amazingly and just kind of teetered off halfway and ended disappointingly for me. Just felt overall like they had a superficial rehash checklist for the film plot. And I REALLY wanted cpt Phasma to be the new Boba but she did nothing in the film but sit down and give up lol. Im still hopeful for an actual story later on now that Luke's back tho. I'd say it's a 7/10 for me personally, great start but it soon turns into poor character development and plot. It does however make me wanna pickup Jedi Knight again.
It Started off in the right direction: The search for Luke Skywalker -awesome premise, but that whole strand of the plot gets thrown to the wayside so we can rehash the same old Deathstar raid ,that at it's best, is a watered down version of the originals. I could have forgiven it if they had done that well- was there some daring raid to get the plans for the StarKiller that a bunch of Bothans died for, no, they got there info from an ex-storm-trooper that worked in sanitation, that just happens to have intimate knowledge of it's weakpoints. And I swear the movie was one contrived plot device right after the other. Oh look, The Millennium Falcon. Oh look, Han Solo. Oh look, Luke's Lightsaber. Oh look, Jedi mind trick. Oh look, R2D2 has the rest of the map to find Luke
It makes me feel like a jaded old curmudgeon, but I can't get past any of that stuff, it just feels like bad story telling with a shiny Star Wars paint job.
And where were all my cool spaceships? ..the only one that even remotely stood out was Ren's transport ship
For the most part I enjoyed it. It wasn't perfect, but it was a fun ride. Speaking of space ships... I really liked that Black X-Wing with the orange/blue highlights.
Kylo isn't fully trained (clearly, since Snoke tells Hux to retrieve him so that he can finish his training) but he's also in a pretty bad place psychologically when he runs into Rey and Finn, as signified by his difficulty in pulling the saber out of the snow (though Rey might have begun trying before him). JJ said he wanted a more "primitive, aggressive and rougher" style of fight, and I think he perfectly achieved that aim. Rey is no stranger to melee combat thanks to her staff and upbringing, and Finn is a trained soldier (performed well in simulations) so I think it's perfectly fine that they could hold their own against Kylo. The overarching feeling I get from TFA is just "fun". No heaped exposition, no in depth explanation for every single thing on screen, just a nice flow between story beats and an enigmatic universe being presented, just how it was with ANH. Don't forget that we're seeing TFA through the lens of a long time star wars fan, that obviously makes a difference
Do you think light sabre should be able to "get stuck"? That part goes a bit against what my gut says. But I admit pushing the weapon into the ground was a pretty cool move.
it held up well on a second viewing. I was keeping an eye on all the nitpicks I had and that I've read about after seeing it a week ago. Honestly, none of it really mattered much. It even felt less like A New Hope, probably because I wasn't looking for similarities anymore. The duel between Kylo and Rey wasn't problematic for me either. It's established early and often that Rey can handle herself in a physical confrontation. And most of the duel is her retreating backwards while barely deflecting Kylo's blows. It basically mirrors the interrogation scene, where she's in danger until she manages to tap into the force. I'm fine with her simply being much more powerful with the force than Kylo is, and that's why she's able to win. Hopefully, they do something interesting with that dynamic. Like if she is that powerful, the force could be so overwhelming for her that something crazy happens (like the force version of the end of Akira or something). Also, someone on here said that Daisey Ridley's acting was bad - I really disagree. Basically, the only thing I dislike about her is that her voice reminds me of Keira Knightley in Pirates of the Caribbean.
All in all, it's not a perfectly told, perfectly crafted movie - none of the SW movies are. But the world building is almost perfect, the first act alone is worth the price of admission and it feels great to be back in the "real" Star Wars universe again.
I'm really hoping that Rey isn't Luke's child though... and I didn't really see anything in there that excludes other possibilities. Hopefully she was just one of the children Luke was teaching, that he or someone he trusted managed to smuggle away. Considering it seemed like she was left with Unkar or whatever his name was, the person who left her there probably didn't care that much about what happened to her. I doubt Luke would leave his child in that kind of situation
MASK_SALESMAN The 3 new leads are about the same age as the heroes at the start of the original trilogy. They felt more mature than Luke was at the beginning.
"That being the case, this is going to be difficult for some people to hear, but we might as well get it out of the way right now. Sorry folks, but there’s no way that Mara Jade is Rey’s mother.
Why am I so sure? There are several reasons, actually, the first being that the Star Wars expanded universe (now known as Star Wars Legends) didn’t contribute anything to The Force Awakens at all"
* If Rey has been using a Vibroblade, that would make more sense to translate to Lightsaber. Quarterstaff is too different to using a blade weapon. * Rey didn't know a thing or two about Jedi before. Suddenly she tries to mind-control a stormtrooper. If she had asked Solo about the Jedi and the legends, and maybe had Solo told her what a Jedi can do, that would explain it a bit more... (Solo to Finn : That's not how the Force works !) * If Rey had basic training in the past, or something. it wouldn't hurt to show 5-10 secs of her meditating. You know, ppl do meditate sometimes. Maybe after she finishes eating before BB8 shows up. or something. * Stormtroopers appear to wield single weapon in combat. You either carry a blaster, a flamethrower, or that melee baton thingy. Finn has been using a blaster, and suddenly he picks up a lightsaber and knows how to use it. * The Resistance....... why is it called the Resistance ? Who are you resisting ?? Usually it means you're resisting against the one in power... Like the French Resistance during WW2 after German occupied it. The Republic is in power. The First Order is but a faction. And the First Order plans to destroy the Republic that is helping the Resistance. Like, ummm, shouldn't it be the other way around ?? or something ? * The Resistance got the tip from a spy/agent that BB8 is found. And they sent....... bunch of X-Wings... Why no ground troops ? How did you plan to retrieve the droid with X-Wings ? It's almost like you know the First Order would be there before you. The First Order did the right thing. Bring in ground troops AND Tie-FIghters for (supposedly) air superiority... * Why not Y-Wings ... If Chewie didn't blow up that thing, the mission would have failed and everyone dies. X-Wings lack the firepower needed to destroy the thing. Bring Y-Wings please. * Why Ben Solo Why not just pay EU a bit of respect or reference or homage and go with Jacen Solo. Leia doesn't call Obi-Wan as Ben. Han doesn't care much about the old man either. Only Luke calls Obi-Wan as Ben. Ben is almost like a father figure to him. But, nope, let's mix Ben Skywalker and Jacen Solo together.
...................Deep breath... k, I'm done ranting now. Still 8/10.
*
Rey didn't know a thing or two about Jedi before. Suddenly she tries to
mind-control a stormtrooper. If she had asked Solo about the Jedi and
the legends, and maybe had Solo told her what a Jedi can do, that would
explain it a bit more... (Solo to Finn : That's not how the Force works
!)
* Stormtroopers appear to wield single weapon in combat. You
either carry a blaster, a flamethrower, or that melee baton thingy. Finn
has been using a blaster, and suddenly he picks up a lightsaber and
knows how to use it.
Rey did not know if it was all true. she knew who Luke Skywalker was, who Han Solo was and how he made the Kessel run. Im sure they told someone how they rescued Princess Leia to someone and then the story gets told to everyone after the battle of Endor in one Catina or another. so she probably heard the "these are not the droids you are looking for" story, and had a lucky guess on how to do it (someone had to figure it out that way at some point or obi-wan would have never had been taught how to do it).
On Finn not knowing how to do melee combat. Why would they only train a storm-trooper on 1 weapon. they kidnapped these guys when they were children. you are telling me they only trained them on 1 weapon for 10 years and they are all still horrible shots? Every branch of the US military goes through some kind of hand to hand combat, and some other kinds of modified weapons training why would the first order do anything different?
I don't want it to sound like I'm belittling the skill that's required to fight with a sword, but if someone swings a blade at you most people are going to try to move and block it with something of their own. and as far as offense goes, "stick them with the pointy in." Kylo was injured and was not an expert swordsman and he did end up beating Finn. The better question is why not freeze Finn in place like he did Rey and take his head off?
I'll have to watch the movie again before i will attempt to figure out the other questions.
PyrZern said: * The Resistance....... why is it called the Resistance ? Who are you resisting ?? Usually it means you're resisting against the one in power... Like the French Resistance during WW2 after German occupied it. The Republic is in power. The First Order is but a faction. And the First Order plans to destroy the Republic that is helping the Resistance. Like, ummm, shouldn't it be the other way around ?? or something ?
The First Order still controls a good chunk of the Galaxy, and is officially at peace with the Republic. The Resistance are guerrilla forces operating within First Order territory, allegedly with Republic support.
As for why they didn't send Y-Wings or ground troops; I don't think they had either, at least in meaningful numbers. The film implies, and the novelization explicitly states, that the Resistance is tiny.
The elements from the EU that might be in FA are so vague and general that there's barely any connection there at all. For instance the only similarity between Finn and Kyle Katarn is that they're both left the Empire/New Order. All the other stuff you listed is too vague/general and in some cases not even the movie (like "fast learner"... nothing in there to suggest that). Finn remembers the past, just not the family he was kidnapped from. There's also nothing to suggest Finn has any connection to the force.
Saw it today. Initial thoughts are it seemed half-baked. It felt like a long movie and a short one at the same time, because all this stuff happens yet at the end you still don't know who the hell Rey is, or Finn... or what happened to kylo ren. They spent like a sentence on his backstory. There's all this pay off but without any build-up. It would have been nice to know a little more about Kylo before his showdown with Han.
But my biggest criticism was the star killer base, that just didn't work for me. You can't bring in this insane weapon, then quickly blow it up right off the bat. How did they even do that? Han placing those charges? You'd think a planet wouldn't just combust, we're talking about a planet. It blows up instantly-- really?
But other than that, there's some nice stuff in there. The first 20-30 minutes was fantastic, and I really liked the way the saber battles and fights were filmed, very visceral. I also liked Ren as a villian and didn't mind the angle they took with him, but again it was all too brief.
But my biggest criticism was the star killer base, that just didn't work for me. You can't bring in this insane weapon, then quickly blow it up right off the bat. How did they even do that? Han placing those charges? You'd think a planet wouldn't just combust, we're talking about a planet. It blows up instantly-- really?
Well the rebels have done that twice already, and this one had part of the sun inside the planet...
Eh, it just didn't feel earned. And the rebels blew up a moon sized thing, this is several times bigger and organic. The way it was handled was just cheesy, imo. Like purposely ramping things up just for the sake of it.
I feel like it would have been a much better film if they scrapped the whole star killer death run, and saved that for another film-- and spent more time on the characters. They made it seem too easy, a band of riff raff blowing up a planet without breaking a sweat.
They didn't blow it up, they just took out the part that stopped the energy of the sun from destroying itself from within. I really like The Star Killer, but I wish it stuck around longer.
yeah i dunno why i have to keep pointing out to people but when the planet vaporized from the inside out, the energy of the sun was very much still there afterwards. The planet very definitely didn't "explode" in the traditional sense.
was a tad boring but ok overall. They should have left the older actors out because they were looking bad Carrie fisher has aged really badly and Harrison ford is an old gimmer
Saw it the other day. Had fun, really enjoyed that it FELT like a star wars film.
The greatest crime that the prequels committed, imho, was that they were "lore contracting". They closed doors. They answered questions. They fleshing things out too much and tied things into connected, and often stupid, packages. Ep.VII was, by contrast, a "lore expanding" film. It left you with questions. It didn't bother to answer everything. It would focus on a random badass-looking background character on screen for one shot and then never show them again. I didn't leave the theatre thinking the movie was fantastic, but I DID leave the theater wanting more. That's how a Star Wars film should be.
My biggest complaints were 1: this was largely a remake of A New Hope, in terms of story beats and plot devices. And 2: that casual destruction of the republic was poorly handled. That seemed pretty stupidly dropped out of nowhere. Superfan pals of mine said that the Lore goes a bit deeper here and the republic/resistance/firstOrder relationship was more examined offscreen, but, but most of us only know the lore from the films.
My rewrite: they should have NOT fired deathstarV3.0 until the end battle--aiming at the republic HQ and not the resistance HQ..and the climax should have been them trying to prevent it firing...IMHO, they should have FAILED at preventing it (but otherwise, all story beats could have happened as-is, with them escaping).
This wouldn't have been the nicest ending for the happy-ending-lovers and the little kids, but the film already has a lot of dark tones (actually showing blood, people being eaten on-screen, etc). AND, This would have solved most of my nitpicky issues since:
1: it would have made the film suddenly shift from feeling like an Ep4 remake to an Ep5 remake, leaving the viewer shocked..and also getting "remake vibes" out of the way early. As it stands now, you can bet money that Ep8 will draw tone and story beat comparisons to EmpireStrikesBack, much like this has drawn comparisons to A New Hope. 2: It would have created pressure for Rey to go find Luke immediately and train. If they think they've beaten the First Order...why rush off to find Luke? Why did SHE have to go? Wasn't it the resistance-at-large looking for him? Shouldn't a whole gaggle of them go find him? 3: It would have firmly established the resistance at the end of the film....as actually resisting something. 4: It would have made Deathstar3.0 seem DEFINITELY more badass than Deathstar 1 or 2, making it a central "villain device" for Ep 8/9. Now we'll just get "Deathstar 4.0, Aka Death-one-step-larger-than-planet-and-by-gum-this-time-it'll-work-Star"
But yeah, I had a lot of fun, despite my critiques. I feel confident I'll want to see this again someday, maybe soon. I have had no desire to rewatch the prequels again.
was a tad boring but ok overall. They should have left the older actors out because they were looking bad Carrie fisher has aged really badly and Harrison ford is an old gimmer
Well, at least you won't have to worry about Harrison in the other 2 movies. He was really showing his age in Indiana Jones as well.
Theory from one of my friend: Kylo Ren's goal is to pursue what Vader couldn't end/achieve. Kylo's being Han sons probably learned that Vader at the end of his life, became ''good'' and repented itself. So there's a possiblity that becoming a Sith is not Kylo's goal at all.
There's a chance that his ultimate goal is to take control of BOTH THE DARK SIDE AND THE LIGHT SIDE!
''I know what I have to do, I just don't know if I'm strong enough to do it'' he kept repeating.
''will you help me do it'', he asked his father on the bridge. Han replied yes. Ren then proceeds to kill him..
That was part of his test to grasp and start his training in the dark side. There's a chance that when he will have completed his training, he will destroy by himself the first order from within.
Think about it. Darth Vader is now considered a traitor by the Siths and the first order since he killed Palpatine and resigned from his dark ways. Why would Kylo Ren take Lord Vader as an example/ father figure if he wanted to become a sith lord? What do you think?
He might think Vader failed to save Palpatine instead. There was no eye witness.
That's my guess too. The only one who saw what happened was Luke, who might have not said anything to anyone. Seems like they'd save that plot card to help convince Kylo Ren to turn away from the dark side in Episode 9, when Luke and Kylo meet up and go out for milkshakes and saberfights and Luke is killed only to become more powerful than Kylo can possibly imagine.
This has probably been brought up a thousand places, but, people keep saying that Rey has to be Luke's daughter because the series is about "the skywalkers"...that seems weird. Leigh is a Skywalker too, right? So it seems like Rey could be the daughter of Solo, sister of Kylo.
1: she's good with the ship and immediately Solo takes her on as almost an adoptive father 2: Kylo Ren was, like Rey, "abandoned" by his parents for some reason...why? 3: If she and Kylo Ren were siblings, perhaps Leigh did the same
thing with them that Kenobi did with Luke and Leigh: separate them on
purpose to distribute the possibility of them both falling the dark side 4: Luke doesn't have a known romantic partner in the films, unlike Han and Leigh. If Luke is the father, than who is the mother..and why abandon the girl on that random planet? There's a lot more film work to cover there, none of which has been covered in prior films.
My theory is Rei is Kylo's sister, they seemed to recognize each other. And Kylo was like 'she will only get more powerful as time passes' or something like that while she was breaking out. Since there's an element of mind control in this movie, you could imagine Rei was also a jedi trainee, but Kylo force brain-washed her to think she was abandoned on Jakku and that her parents are coming back. As a way of getting her out of the way.
was a tad boring but ok overall. They should have left the older actors out because they were looking bad Carrie fisher has aged really badly and Harrison ford is an old gimmer
Well, at least you won't have to worry about Harrison in the other 2 movies. He was really showing his age in Indiana Jones as well.
Man, I don't know how anyone can say anything bad about Ford in this film. For the first in over a decade, he seemed like he genuinely gave a shit about a role and did a fantastic job being Han Solo, and not just Harrison Ford playing Han Solo.
The fact that she was fixing the Falcon left and right did bother me, I don't think they showed her doing any mechanical thing in the Star Destroyer wreckage. All she did was pulling out parts... it clicked more when she was manipulating those platform on the planet near the end, but definitely not on the Falcon.
The piloting didn't bother me much for some reason. But when I think about it it does seem out of nowhere.
I seriously was expecting Finn to be a better fighter than her. He's been trained, after all.
My theory is Rei is Kylo's sister, they seemed to recognize each other. And Kylo was like 'she will only get more powerful as time passes' or something like that while she was breaking out. Since there's an element of mind control in this movie, you could imagine Rei was also a jedi trainee, but Kylo force brain-washed her to think she was abandoned on Jakku and that her parents are coming back. As a way of getting her out of the way.
The fact that she was fixing the Falcon left and right did bother me, I don't think they showed her doing any mechanical thing in the Star Destroyer wreckage. All she did was pulling out parts... it clicked more when she was manipulating those platform on the planet near the end, but definitely not on the Falcon.
The piloting didn't bother me much for some reason. But when I think about it it does seem out of nowhere.
I seriously was expecting Finn to be a better fighter than her. He's been trained, after all.
she was talking about all the modifications Unkar (the guy she was trading stuff with in the settlement) had made to the Falcon, so she had some insight to the ship prior to this. If anything, I think they did a bad job at establishing what kind of relationship she had with Unkar. In her flashback, it sounds like he's the one she's left with as a child, so there's probably a lot of backstory there.
The fact that she was fixing the Falcon left and right did bother me, I don't think they showed her doing any mechanical thing in the Star Destroyer wreckage. All she did was pulling out parts... it clicked more when she was manipulating those platform on the planet near the end, but definitely not on the Falcon.
The piloting didn't bother me much for some reason. But when I think about it it does seem out of nowhere.
I seriously was expecting Finn to be a better fighter than her. He's been trained, after all.
she was talking about all the modifications Unkar (the guy she was trading stuff with in the settlement) had made to the Falcon, so she had some insight to the ship prior to this. If anything, I think they did a bad job at establishing what kind of relationship she had with Unkar. In her flashback, it sounds like he's the one she's left with as a child, so there's probably a lot of backstory there. The falcon scene is probably meant to be where we first realize that she's really good at fixing stuff
I was cautiously optimistic after enjoying the first Star Trek movie, and the trailer and sneak peaks of epVII looked pretty damn exciting, but the end result felt very rushed. Great first half hour, but then everything fell appart.
As much as I disliked the prequels for their awful pacing and tonal inconsistencies, they at least had the merit of introducing memorable imagery and previously unseen worlds. EpVII sure had decent pacing and better acting direction, but at the end of the day it was all very forgettable. I think my main problem with the movie (besides the plot holes and boring story) is the may it suggested that nothing at all happened between VI and VII. By comparaison the EU did a great job at exploring the whereabouts of Han, Luke and Leia after epVI and even between episodes.
I still have some hope for future TV serials though. I simply want directors/writers to go back to the actual sources of Star Wars (Samurai stories, vintage sci fi, and so on) and giving those a cool new SW spin rather than producing fan fiction carbon copies of eps III/IV/VI. In other words : Less Reloaded/Revolutions, and more Animatrix. I would also love to see a hard sci-fi take on Star Wars, which would be a great change from the usual space fantasy tone.
I think my main problem with the movie (besides the plot holes and boring story) is the may it suggested that nothing at all happened between VI and VII.
Really? It set up the entire rise and fall of a new Jedi Academy that we know nothing about including some dark Jedi, the start of a family between Leia and Han, and a set of galactic politics that feels very much like the time between WWI and WWII.
This is where the new novels/EU are really set to step up. They couldn't touch on it prior to TFA to prevent too much information from becoming known, and they couldn't show it in the movie because the actors are 30 years older than the characters at that period, and people would bitch about exposition after the prequels. Now that TFA is out and we have two years for a follow up, I expect we'll start to see some books at least delve into the first decade.
Why not Y-Wings ... X-Wings lack the firepower needed to destroy the thing. Bring Y-Wings please.
The Resistance might not have any, or they might be phased out now that they're so old (they were introduced in the Clone Wars). Imperial forces received a substantial upgrade to their weaponry over the decades, so a slow moving Y-Wing may not be a good option anymore (and a guerrilla group like the Resistance probably can't be seen flying the latest replacements in military technology).
Cryrid, I see your point, but this is just a case of "this happened because this character said so". Imagine watching the movie in another language, or even without audio and this wouldn't be apparent at all - except maybe for the fact that the actors are older and 3PO has a red arm. In other words, sure, things "happened" as in, someone wrote something about it and made the characters say some lines, but in terms of movie story-telling there is nothing hinting at anything.
Now I am not saying that I have a cool answer to that issue, but something as simple as showing Leia as a saber-wielding Jedi (since the Thrawn trilogy showed that even though she was not dedicated to it, she did get some training) and/or Solo as a Republic/Resistance officier would have worked. Or even some cool flashbacks, shown in first person perspective, showing Han, Luke and Leia fighting battles like in SW Battlefront. Possibilities are endless !
I find it interesting that we don't actually see what happened before Ep VII. It lets the actors tell the story through their acting and conversations rather than giving us and the other characters a full recap that would feel like a "previously on SW" kind of thing. That's the role of the scrolling text at the very begining of the movie, and it is vague enough for the spectator to make up his own version of what and how it happened.
I think we are not really talking about the same thing here - I do understand that there is a backstory, and some events are mentioned in the opening scroll and through dialogue. But what I mean is that the movie itself is neither hinting at or showing any of those. Besides Luke not wearing a glove anymore and C3PO using spare parts, it's as if nothing happened at all. I understand that this might be fine to some viewers, but personally it left me very disappointed.
I think we are not really talking about the same thing here - I do understand that there is a backstory, and some events are mentioned in the opening scroll and through dialogue. But what I mean is that the movie itself is neither hinting at or showing any of those. Besides Luke not wearing a glove anymore and C3PO using spare parts, it's as if nothing happened at all. I understand that this might be fine to some users, but personally it left me very disappointed.
I agree with that--the "world" they bring you into feels too similar to the "world" they introduced in New Hope--similar power struggles, characterization, etc. It's as if all the progress at wiping the empire away with Ep6 was undone, thematically, for Ep7. That feels unfulfilling.
heh, already seeing a lot of complaining about the movie. People saying Revenge of the Sith was better, etc. Thought it would take a while longer, but lol... Can't please everyone.
The space battle at the start of Revenge of the Sith was certainly better than any space battle in Ep 7. My favourite still goes to the Battle of Endor in Ep 6 (ITS A TRAP!) as there's more strategy involved with many more types of ships. It didn't look that spectacular, but given its age there's no way it will look as good as the newer ones.
Ep 7 sword fight is my favourite at the moment. Up there with Ep 6 Luke vs Darth Vader. I see many ppl bringing up Anakin VS Obi-wan a lot saying that's the best... I personally think sword fight in the prequel was soooo cheesy and game like, it had no weight to the fight at all. Just hate it personally.
Sword fight in Ep 6 looked vicious... there's strength involve, very very powerful strike. Ep 7 followed the same direction and make it carry even more weight. I love that. Ep 1-2-3 is just... fast... and fast... and fast... and looks so easy and weightless. Lame if you ask me.
So much disappointment, the cinematography was great and I loved the practical effects but the plot was just awful.
Hans death was awful and has 0 suspense, the plot was a direct replica of EP4, Another emo baddy, and what pissed me off the most was the saber battle. Kylo Ren injured or not would have destroyed both of them
IMO I wish they didn't get Abrams to kickstart this thing. He can make it look good, but the guy couldn't come up with an original idea to save his life; I'm still wondering where he got his reputation. This quote is a good insight into his method of film making: “It’s this massive tradeoff,” Abrams said of Han Solo’s death. “How can we possibly do that!? But… if we hadn’t done that, the movie wouldn’t have any guts at all. It felt very dangerous.”
I think thinking that Abrams is responsible for the plot weaknesses and key scenes is a little naïve. There were likely dozens of people working on the script. Abrams had a part in it, but I don't think the plot would have been much different with another director. Disney decides where the franchise is going, not Abrams.
I'm sure Disney had their say, but Abrams Kasdan and Arndt wrote the script. And I don't think Disney mandated it take place on a desert planet, have a droid looking for its master with secret information, leave said planet on millennium falcon, have a guy who is basically darth vader, another death star, another death star rebel attack, a fatherly figure dying inside death star, etc etc. I think it's a little naive to think Abrams didn't have a hand in all this, especially when his whole career has been one nostalgia hit after another.
I'm not down on the movie as I seem to be, it's just the good parts make the weak stand out all the more.
Replies
Also
No.1 - Another Death Star but bigger.
No.2 - Kill A legacy character to move the film along and turn it into an 'avenge me' cliché.
The visuals were fantastic and I loved the stormtrooper turned good aspect, Boyega did great aside from making Kylo Ren look incredibly weak by being able to fight him a trained Sith in saber combat the first time he's picked up a light saber. Rey embarrassed Kylo aswell in similar fashion. Maybe I'm old but there was too much 'teenageryness' overall for me haha.
The film started off amazingly and just kind of teetered off halfway and ended disappointingly for me. Just felt overall like they had a superficial rehash checklist for the film plot.
And I REALLY wanted cpt Phasma to be the new Boba but she did nothing in the film but sit down and give up lol.
Im still hopeful for an actual story later on now that Luke's back tho.
I'd say it's a 7/10 for me personally, great start but it soon turns into poor character development and plot.
It does however make me wanna pickup Jedi Knight again.
It Started off in the right direction: The search for Luke Skywalker -awesome premise, but that whole strand of the plot gets thrown to the wayside so we can rehash the same old Deathstar raid ,that at it's best, is a watered down version of the originals. I could have forgiven it if they had done that well- was there some daring raid to get the plans for the StarKiller that a bunch of Bothans died for, no, they got there info from an ex-storm-trooper that worked in sanitation, that just happens to have intimate knowledge of it's weakpoints.
And I swear the movie was one contrived plot device right after the other. Oh look, The Millennium Falcon. Oh look, Han Solo. Oh look, Luke's Lightsaber. Oh look, Jedi mind trick. Oh look, R2D2 has the rest of the map to find Luke
It makes me feel like a jaded old curmudgeon, but I can't get past any of that stuff, it just feels like bad story telling with a shiny Star Wars paint job.
And where were all my cool spaceships?
I thought BB8 was fun
I'm seeing the movie again tomorrow, really looking forward to it
The overarching feeling I get from TFA is just "fun". No heaped exposition, no in depth explanation for every single thing on screen, just a nice flow between story beats and an enigmatic universe being presented, just how it was with ANH. Don't forget that we're seeing TFA through the lens of a long time star wars fan, that obviously makes a difference
All in all, it's not a perfectly told, perfectly crafted movie - none of the SW movies are. But the world building is almost perfect, the first act alone is worth the price of admission and it feels great to be back in the "real" Star Wars universe again.
I'm really hoping that Rey isn't Luke's child though... and I didn't really see anything in there that excludes other possibilities. Hopefully she was just one of the children Luke was teaching, that he or someone he trusted managed to smuggle away. Considering it seemed like she was left with Unkar or whatever his name was, the person who left her there probably didn't care that much about what happened to her. I doubt Luke would leave his child in that kind of situation
Why am I so sure? There are several reasons, actually, the first being that the Star Wars expanded universe (now known as Star Wars Legends) didn’t contribute anything to The Force Awakens at all"
http://dorksideoftheforce.com/2015/12/21/the-force-awakens-mara-jade-not-rey-mother/
* If Rey has been using a Vibroblade, that would make more sense to translate to Lightsaber. Quarterstaff is too different to using a blade weapon.
* Rey didn't know a thing or two about Jedi before. Suddenly she tries to mind-control a stormtrooper. If she had asked Solo about the Jedi and the legends, and maybe had Solo told her what a Jedi can do, that would explain it a bit more... (Solo to Finn : That's not how the Force works !)
* If Rey had basic training in the past, or something. it wouldn't hurt to show 5-10 secs of her meditating. You know, ppl do meditate sometimes. Maybe after she finishes eating before BB8 shows up. or something.
* Stormtroopers appear to wield single weapon in combat. You either carry a blaster, a flamethrower, or that melee baton thingy. Finn has been using a blaster, and suddenly he picks up a lightsaber and knows how to use it.
* The Resistance....... why is it called the Resistance ? Who are you resisting ?? Usually it means you're resisting against the one in power... Like the French Resistance during WW2 after German occupied it. The Republic is in power. The First Order is but a faction. And the First Order plans to destroy the Republic that is helping the Resistance. Like, ummm, shouldn't it be the other way around ?? or something ?
* The Resistance got the tip from a spy/agent that BB8 is found. And they sent....... bunch of X-Wings... Why no ground troops ? How did you plan to retrieve the droid with X-Wings ? It's almost like you know the First Order would be there before you. The First Order did the right thing. Bring in ground troops AND Tie-FIghters for (supposedly) air superiority...
* Why not Y-Wings ... If Chewie didn't blow up that thing, the mission would have failed and everyone dies. X-Wings lack the firepower needed to destroy the thing. Bring Y-Wings please.
* Why Ben Solo
...................Deep breath... k, I'm done ranting now.
Still 8/10.
On Finn not knowing how to do melee combat. Why would they only train a storm-trooper on 1 weapon. they kidnapped these guys when they were children. you are telling me they only trained them on 1 weapon for 10 years and they are all still horrible shots? Every branch of the US military goes through some kind of hand to hand combat, and some other kinds of modified weapons training why would the first order do anything different?
I don't want it to sound like I'm belittling the skill that's required to fight with a sword, but if someone swings a blade at you most people are going to try to move and block it with something of their own. and as far as offense goes, "stick them with the pointy in." Kylo was injured and was not an expert swordsman and he did end up beating Finn. The better question is why not freeze Finn in place like he did Rey and take his head off?
I'll have to watch the movie again before i will attempt to figure out the other questions.
As for why they didn't send Y-Wings or ground troops; I don't think they had either, at least in meaningful numbers. The film implies, and the novelization explicitly states, that the Resistance is tiny.
But my biggest criticism was the star killer base, that just didn't work for me. You can't bring in this insane weapon, then quickly blow it up right off the bat. How did they even do that? Han placing those charges? You'd think a planet wouldn't just combust, we're talking about a planet. It blows up instantly-- really?
But other than that, there's some nice stuff in there. The first 20-30 minutes was fantastic, and I really liked the way the saber battles and fights were filmed, very visceral. I also liked Ren as a villian and didn't mind the angle they took with him, but again it was all too brief.
Well the rebels have done that twice already, and this one had part of the sun inside the planet...
I feel like it would have been a much better film if they scrapped the whole star killer death run, and saved that for another film-- and spent more time on the characters. They made it seem too easy, a band of riff raff blowing up a planet without breaking a sweat.
Carrie fisher has aged really badly and Harrison ford is an old gimmer
The greatest crime that the prequels committed, imho, was that they were "lore contracting". They closed doors. They answered questions. They fleshing things out too much and tied things into connected, and often stupid, packages. Ep.VII was, by contrast, a "lore expanding" film. It left you with questions. It didn't bother to answer everything. It would focus on a random badass-looking background character on screen for one shot and then never show them again. I didn't leave the theatre thinking the movie was fantastic, but I DID leave the theater wanting more. That's how a Star Wars film should be.
My biggest complaints were 1: this was largely a remake of A New Hope, in terms of story beats and plot devices. And 2: that casual destruction of the republic was poorly handled. That seemed pretty stupidly dropped out of nowhere. Superfan pals of mine said that the Lore goes a bit deeper here and the republic/resistance/firstOrder relationship was more examined offscreen, but, but most of us only know the lore from the films.
My rewrite: they should have NOT fired deathstarV3.0 until the end battle--aiming at the republic HQ and not the resistance HQ..and the climax should have been them trying to prevent it firing...IMHO, they should have FAILED at preventing it (but otherwise, all story beats could have happened as-is, with them escaping).
This wouldn't have been the nicest ending for the happy-ending-lovers and the little kids, but the film already has a lot of dark tones (actually showing blood, people being eaten on-screen, etc). AND, This would have solved most of my nitpicky issues since:
1: it would have made the film suddenly shift from feeling like an Ep4 remake to an Ep5 remake, leaving the viewer shocked..and also getting "remake vibes" out of the way early. As it stands now, you can bet money that Ep8 will draw tone and story beat comparisons to EmpireStrikesBack, much like this has drawn comparisons to A New Hope.
2: It would have created pressure for Rey to go find Luke immediately and train. If they think they've beaten the First Order...why rush off to find Luke? Why did SHE have to go? Wasn't it the resistance-at-large looking for him? Shouldn't a whole gaggle of them go find him?
3: It would have firmly established the resistance at the end of the film....as actually resisting something.
4: It would have made Deathstar3.0 seem DEFINITELY more badass than Deathstar 1 or 2, making it a central "villain device" for Ep 8/9. Now we'll just get "Deathstar 4.0, Aka Death-one-step-larger-than-planet-and-by-gum-this-time-it'll-work-Star"
But yeah, I had a lot of fun, despite my critiques. I feel confident I'll want to see this again someday, maybe soon. I have had no desire to rewatch the prequels again.
There's a chance that his ultimate goal is to take control of BOTH THE DARK SIDE AND THE LIGHT SIDE!
''I know what I have to do, I just don't know if I'm strong enough to do it'' he kept repeating.
''will you help me do it'', he asked his father on the bridge.
Han replied yes. Ren then proceeds to kill him..
That was part of his test to grasp and start his training in the dark side. There's a chance that when he will have completed his training, he will destroy by himself the first order from within.
Think about it. Darth Vader is now considered a traitor by the Siths and the first order since he killed Palpatine and resigned from his dark ways. Why would Kylo Ren take Lord Vader as an example/ father figure if he wanted to become a sith lord?
What do you think?
That's my guess too. The only one who saw what happened was Luke, who might have not said anything to anyone. Seems like they'd save that plot card to help convince Kylo Ren to turn away from the dark side in Episode 9, when Luke and Kylo meet up and go out for milkshakes and saberfights and Luke is killed only to become more powerful than Kylo can possibly imagine.
This has probably been brought up a thousand places, but, people keep saying that Rey has to be Luke's daughter because the series is about "the skywalkers"...that seems weird. Leigh is a Skywalker too, right? So it seems like Rey could be the daughter of Solo, sister of Kylo.
1: she's good with the ship and immediately Solo takes her on as almost an adoptive father
2: Kylo Ren was, like Rey, "abandoned" by his parents for some reason...why?
3: If she and Kylo Ren were siblings, perhaps Leigh did the same thing with them that Kenobi did with Luke and Leigh: separate them on purpose to distribute the possibility of them both falling the dark side
4: Luke doesn't have a known romantic partner in the films, unlike Han and Leigh. If Luke is the father, than who is the mother..and why abandon the girl on that random planet? There's a lot more film work to cover there, none of which has been covered in prior films.
The piloting didn't bother me much for some reason. But when I think about it it does seem out of nowhere.
I seriously was expecting Finn to be a better fighter than her. He's been trained, after all.
she was talking about all the modifications Unkar (the guy she was trading stuff with in the settlement) had made to the Falcon, so she had some insight to the ship prior to this. If anything, I think they did a bad job at establishing what kind of relationship she had with Unkar. In her flashback, it sounds like he's the one she's left with as a child, so there's probably a lot of backstory there.
I was cautiously optimistic after enjoying the first Star Trek movie, and the trailer and sneak peaks of epVII looked pretty damn exciting, but the end result felt very rushed. Great first half hour, but then everything fell appart.
As much as I disliked the prequels for their awful pacing and tonal inconsistencies, they at least had the merit of introducing memorable imagery and previously unseen worlds. EpVII sure had decent pacing and better acting direction, but at the end of the day it was all very forgettable. I think my main problem with the movie (besides the plot holes and boring story) is the may it suggested that nothing at all happened between VI and VII. By comparaison the EU did a great job at exploring the whereabouts of Han, Luke and Leia after epVI and even between episodes.
I still have some hope for future TV serials though. I simply want directors/writers to go back to the actual sources of Star Wars (Samurai stories, vintage sci fi, and so on) and giving those a cool new SW spin rather than producing fan fiction carbon copies of eps III/IV/VI. In other words : Less Reloaded/Revolutions, and more Animatrix. I would also love to see a hard sci-fi take on Star Wars, which would be a great change from the usual space fantasy tone.
This is where the new novels/EU are really set to step up. They couldn't touch on it prior to TFA to prevent too much information from becoming known, and they couldn't show it in the movie because the actors are 30 years older than the characters at that period, and people would bitch about exposition after the prequels. Now that TFA is out and we have two years for a follow up, I expect we'll start to see some books at least delve into the first decade. The Resistance might not have any, or they might be phased out now that they're so old (they were introduced in the Clone Wars). Imperial forces received a substantial upgrade to their weaponry over the decades, so a slow moving Y-Wing may not be a good option anymore (and a guerrilla group like the Resistance probably can't be seen flying the latest replacements in military technology).
Now I am not saying that I have a cool answer to that issue, but something as simple as showing Leia as a saber-wielding Jedi (since the Thrawn trilogy showed that even though she was not dedicated to it, she did get some training) and/or Solo as a Republic/Resistance officier would have worked. Or even some cool flashbacks, shown in first person perspective, showing Han, Luke and Leia fighting battles like in SW Battlefront. Possibilities are endless !
That's the role of the scrolling text at the very begining of the movie, and it is vague enough for the spectator to make up his own version of what and how it happened.
Ep 7 sword fight is my favourite at the moment. Up there with Ep 6 Luke vs Darth Vader. I see many ppl bringing up Anakin VS Obi-wan a lot saying that's the best... I personally think sword fight in the prequel was soooo cheesy and game like, it had no weight to the fight at all. Just hate it personally.
Sword fight in Ep 6 looked vicious... there's strength involve, very very powerful strike. Ep 7 followed the same direction and make it carry even more weight. I love that. Ep 1-2-3 is just... fast... and fast... and fast... and looks so easy and weightless. Lame if you ask me.
Hans death was awful and has 0 suspense, the plot was a direct replica of EP4, Another emo baddy, and what pissed me off the most was the saber battle. Kylo Ren injured or not would have destroyed both of them
There were likely dozens of people working on the script. Abrams had a part in it, but I don't think the plot would have been much different with another director. Disney decides where the franchise is going, not Abrams.
I'm not down on the movie as I seem to be, it's just the good parts make the weak stand out all the more.