f13.net

Ok, here is your spoiler thread. Have at it.

Ok, my thoughts:

This is very much a character-focused movie. The story amounts to two plots: We have to find Luke Skywalker and we have to destroy this bigger, multi-shot Death Star. Not a lot is done with the first plot and it ultimately ends up being set-up for the next movie. The second plot doesn't really come into play until near the end of the movie. I don't have to much of a problem with this as the OT could essentially be summed up as "rescue the princess and blow up the Death Star", "Luke trains as a Jedi while the rest of the group is hunted down by the Empire", and "rescue Han Solo and blow up the Death Star". A lot of the plot in SW movies seems to be handled by coincidence a.k.a. "The Will of the Force". In the case of Force Awakens you've got BB-8 meeting up with Rey (who presumably might be related to Luke) by chance, while running away from the First Order, Rey and Finn happen to steal the Millennium Falcon, which puts them in contact with Han Solo, who takes them to a person who happens to have Luke's lightsaber, and so on. Generally, getting out of one situation often leads them into the next thing the characters need to get out of. That's fine. That's Star Wars (maybe a little too Star Wars, as some have mentioned it is in a lot of ways a remake of ANH), and it generally holds up as long as you like the characters on the screen.

Of the newcomers, Daisy Ridley is the strongest as Rey. She manages to strike good balance between seriousness and humor which helps Rey come across as one of the more well-rounded characters in the SW movies. I suppose one could make the argument that she's maybe a little too competent as she's better at working on the Falcon than Solo and Chewie usually were combined, and she picks up the Force quicker than Luke did despite not having an Obi-Wan to get her started. For the most part, I liked John Boyega as Finn, but much like Han suggested in the scene where they capture Phasma, he might want to dial it down a bit. In that scene in particular he looked like he was doing a Kevin Hart impersonation and there are a few scenes where it felt like that to me. That's not to say that I think he is a bad actor. He manages to convey a lot of emotion while he's still in full Stormtrooper gear, and he has really good chemistry with Daisy Ridley and Oscar Isaac. In fact it would have been nice to see more of Isaac's Poe Dameron as the little bit of screen time he has when he's not doing generic X-wing pilot stuff was pretty good. I'm still undecided as to how I feel about Adam Driver's Kylo Ren. There's nothing wrong with Driver's performance. Maybe the voice was just giving me Bane flashbacks or something.

The original cast was fine. Ford obviously was the main focus here which makes sense since this is his last movie. Sometimes he seemed to have a bit of a "let's get this over with" vibe about him, but maybe that's just how he acts these days. Hamill of course only gets about 20 seconds of staring, and Fisher's scene with Ford was good although I wouldn't mind her getting involved a bit in the action next time. The characters that didn't work for me are the CG ones I mentioned in the other thread. Supreme Leader Snoke in particular just felt a bit jarring to me. As an essentially human looking, but old and scarred character, I'm not sure why Snoke needed to be CG at all. His screen time in this movie is somewhat limited so it doesn't end up being a huge issue, but given that he seems to be the overall main villain it makes me worry about an eventual CG snorefest action scene as the climax of the trilogy.

So I don't know. There's a lot of stuff I liked here, but I still came away with the feeling that the movie isn't as good as the sum of its parts. That the likable cast, some cool action scenes, and nostalgia are masking the fact that this movie doesn't really have anything new to say about the SW universe. There isn't a story here that felt like it needed to be told. The closest they get to an original idea is Finn overcoming his upbringing as a Stormtrooper which could have been a much more interesting story on its own if we could see why all the other Stormtroopers end up so thoroughly indoctrinated but not Finn. Regardless, it's a fun movie and realistically that might be the most you can ask from a Star Wars movie. Still, barring flashbacks, this is likely the last time we'll have all of the original cast back together and it feels like a bit of a missed opportunity that they couldn't do more with it than just make a fun movie. I don't envy the pressure though of making a new movie that tries to live up to a series of movies that are generally thought of as being much better than they actually are.

Fun movie, liked it, probably on par with the OT , but seriously, what the fuck...


(Supreme Leader ) SNOKE ?

Who the fuck came up with that name.... the whole movie I thought I was mishearing something and could not stop giggling. That's a name less intimidating than Pizza the Hut.

So far that is my biggest problem with the movie, so ... Good job, I guess.

Yeah, I agree with the criticism of Snoke. There was nothing about him that couldn't have been done with prosthetic and mild CGI as opposed to full-on CGI. It looked weak and a little too reminiscent of the Prequels.

I thoroughly enjoyed it, with only a mild criticism that some of the wandering parts could have done with some tightening-up in editing. (Wandering the desert, wandering the woods, wandering the snow, wandering the stones to Luke)  A few paces and then a fast-wipe or pan to the next scene would have been better in all cases.

In the Original thread I called out Han being the one who died quite some time ago. I was happy and upset to see that be the case, but at least we've still got Chewie. I knew Ford wasn't going to let himself be dragged into another full trilogy but was glad to see Han one last time, even though Luke's always been my favorite. Glad to see he didn't go out in a totally punk fashion, either. He really thought he could save his Son.

Daughter is convinced that Rey is Luke's daughter. I'm mixed, but keep coming to the conclusion that it's the only thing that makes sense. Twins again? No, Han or Leia would have recognized their daughter (especially as old as she was when dropped on Jakku) and the vision we saw when Rey touched Anakin's saber says it's something familial.

I'm still not convinced Finn isn't force-sensitive somehow. He broke the mindwashing/ training of the First Order and the coincidences between he and Rey of "Good job/ I've never done that before!" were too coincidental. There are no coincidences in Star Wars.

So many little touch references back to the originals for Uber fans like me had me both cringing and tickled at the same time. I felt much conflict about them all through it, feeling it was a little cheesy but loving it all the same.

List I can remember:
* The Stormtroopers when Rey's sneaking around are having a conversation about TC16s. Same as when ObiWan was sneaking around.
* I believe Poe called Finn some other name when they embraced. Callback to Hammil calling Fischer "Carrie" instead of Leia after the Death Star fight. I'm not sure on this one, though.
* The freighter with Han trying to Hotwire the door.
* The shield bunker assault being led by Han.
* The Cantina scene attempt with new cantina band (not as good as Figrin' Dan  :awesome_for_real: )
* The gun display on the Falcon. I squeed a bit.

i really liked it and I think it did the best it could for having to rev up the start wars engine 20+ years later, you can't just jump into heavy plot because then you get trade wars. To say it was a carbon copy of the original is just a bit of an exaggeration.  There were stars and wars and lightsabers and giant planet killers but besides that...man I don't know where people get the copying shit from.

 Snoke was terrible, I was expecting bad cgi somewhere and when it got to him I just reminded myself he was a hologram and the first time we saw the emperor the effects were fucking terrible too.  That doesn't excuse it but it made me personally feel better.  The other cgi one, maz? I thought she was fine. Obviously cg but done well enough it was easy to forget. 

Kylo Ren has to have the most punchable damn face in all of the star wars movies.

Droid on desert planet carrying secret information needs to be returned to the Rebellion Resistance. Climactic space battle with X-Wings making a trench run into the weak spot of a giant planet destroying super weapon. None of these ringing a bell? They aren't exactly subtle about it.

I actually did the 17 hour marathon thing today, which was interesting to watch all 6 older movies and then straight into this one. I honestly had forgotten how goddamn fucking awful Attack of the Clones is. It's worse than Phantom Menace imo.

ANYWAYS - I loved this. My biggest concern was if Harrison would just mail it in or do a decent Han Solo. Watching episodes 4,5 and 6 right before this he nailed it as Han. I was super happy with that. Loved Rey and Finn, Poe needed more screen time. Adam Driver looks like a complete douche so I had no issues with him when he has the mask on and just wanted to punch him in the face when he didn't. Captain Phasma was a huge waste of a character and Snoke was a terrible big-bad.

The story was kind of dumb, but it was a hand-off movie so I was ok with that. The big things for me were a. it was damn fun to watch b. the acting was mostly good c. it was a good "Star Wars' movie and i am super excited to see what comes next.

I'm seeing it again on IMAX on Saturday which will be nice to just go see it alone, instead of a package of 7 movies. I think I'll probably nitpick it more after that viewing, but overall I am quite pleased with the result.

I really enjoyed it, but I still have to admit...

What movie am I talking about here?:
- droid carrying important plans for the rebellion lost on desert planet while bad guys search for him
- meets young punk who is unknowingly strong in the force
- Han and Chewie help deliver secret plans while black masked villain chases them
- a girl is captured by villain and the heroes must rescue her
- a giant superweapon blows up planet
- shield must be turned off to allow the attack on super weapon's weak point
- grizzled hero dies in front of the young future jedi at the hands of black masked villain
- shield comes down and the xwings start the trench run
- superweapon blows up and the day is saved!

It wasn't scene for scene or anything, but it really was a complete rehash of the same story. Take that away, and I enjoyed the hell out of it. The comedy worked. The cute characters were actually cute, not stupid six year old cute. I actually really liked the two main characters. All those points are significant leaps ahead of the prequels.

I was worried about how Solo would come across, but I thought Ford was excellent.

I think it suffered the most from having to be a "Star Wars Movie". Take Rey and Finn and put them in a well budgeted Star Wars tv show on HBO and I think I would have loved that a whole lot more. There wouldn't have been such a need to save the galaxy in under 2 hours.

And in the end, so what if it is?  If you want to find an even lower common denominator, these movies are always about either the rise, the fall, or the redemption of some force wielding person who also happens to be your son/father/sister.

Rey is clearly family.  My first thought was that she was a twin of Ben, but in retrospect, cousin seems more likely.  Han likes her all too quickly, Leia hugs her longer than would be reasonable, and Luke just kind of stares at her.  Like, oh shit, there's my kid.  She was also easily my favorite character in the film.  You could partly blame that on her severe hotness, but honestly I thought she played the part very well, and it was a well conceived character.  This isn't someone taking their tentative first steps in the force...she plunges in head first and embraces it.  I imagine some are lamenting the way she clowned Kylo Ren twice - the first time with the failed interrogation attempt, the second time when she basically kicked the ever-loving shit out of him (that scene really surprised me, I did not expect her to tear him up like that).  It showed not only that Kylo Ren was not anything like the juggernaut his grandfather was, but also that she is naturally way more powerful than him.  More powerful than Luke was at the same point.

I also think Finn may be force sensitive.  Nothing to the degree of Rey, but yeah, no coincidences here.  It probably wasn't too hard to figure out that JJ was pulling a switcheroo here if you were thinking about it hard enough...all the trailers and posters show Finn holding the lightsaber, when in fact it was intended for Rey all along.  But then we are possibly going to get the double switcheroo when we find out later that Finn is...going to bring balance, or something.  When Ren tells his master "there was an awakening", I'm not convinced he was talking about Rey at all.  I think they already knew Rey was alive and was off in hiding somewhere, as he sort of indicated during the interrogation.

Regarding Snoke...I am just not going to get my panties all bunched up here.  I dislike his name I suppose, but all we have seen at this point is a hologram.  We knew there was going to be a big, bad leader behind all of this.  I am waiting to see some still shots posted somewhere.  He has a fairly close resemblance to the way Darth Plagueis was depicted in artwork.  What I saw could easily have been the old, desecrated face of a Muun, which is exactly what Plagueis would be if he is still alive.  If true, that takes it from being a Golldemort imitation to being an actual depiction of a character we already know existed at some point.  Either way, I am not going to lose sleep over it.

First things first. I got the Han thing spoiled because a fucking Patriots fan dropped a spoiler onto the Broncos subreddit.

Moving on, honestly when you are to the point of building weapons that destroy planets, what do you do next? Build a bigger and better one.

Speaking of that Rey / Kylo Ren battle ... did something happened to Rey's eyes when they were facing of on that ridge, right before she started kicking the shit out of him ? If I was not imagining things , was that supposed to show either force use or some kind of "taint of the dark side" ? Because she sure looked angry during the fight sequence..

Then it's a valid thing to mention in a discussion about the movie. It's not an inherently good or bad thing although I could see people drawing some parallels between Force Awakens and Star Trek: Into Darkness in regards to how much Abrams borrows from previous movies in their respective franchises.

I enjoyed it all and as a film I rate it well above the prequels put together. I even enjoyed it more than RotJ. Whoever came up with BB8's characterisation deserves a medal. I actually preferred it to C3P0/R2D2 in the prequels and to an extent the latter OT. 3P0 just shits me. Always has, always will. BB8 had more personality.

Snoke - yeah they should fuck that shit off, it was bad.

Kylo Ren was just fucking terrible. Not the masked acting or what they tried to do but seriously, it was all angsty Anakin all over again whenever the mask was off. Would it hurt them to make the antagonist normal? AKA he's Han and Lei's son. Show him as a normal man in torment, not an emo.

I enjoyed the tip of the hat to the OT cast and the rest of the cast - I enjoyed their performances.

Writing and editing was good - I ate popcorn and was entertained.

This is pretty awesome: Daniel Craig played the Stormtrooper that Rey mindtricks.

http://www.ew.com/article/2015/12/17/daniel-craig-makes-cameo-star-wars-force-awakens

My current rating is: ESB, ANH, TFA, ROTJ, RTS, TPM, TCW.  Jedi and Sith are very close in this list, but hot 20-something Carrie Fisher and realistic saber fights beat Pregnant Portman and Rave Jedi.

My initial belief was that Ren was an insufferable douche and after giving it some thought i think that its perfect.  Think about it, hes someone desperately trying to live up to a legacy and shoes he can never fill.  He is impulsive, fearful, angry and everything else you would expect out of an angsty teen.  Hes only really intimidating when he has his mask on, without it hes just ben.  People also complain about Rey being so strong but she's supposed to be his superior and so naturally talented in the force that it fuels his jealousy.

I wish i could articulate it better but i think hes great precisely because hes not vader.

It wasn't as homagey or throw-backy as I thought it'd be, certainly not as bad as that last Star Trek one he did. It was a fun movie and I enjoyed it, but it just didn't have that iconic feel of the original movies. Ford was great, but it didn't take spoilers for me to know he was gonna die going into it. And they handled that perfectly imo. My biggest worry was I thought it'd be just like a multi-million dollar fan film, but it definitely rose above that.

My biggest wow moment was Luke, at the very end. Everything I've seen Mark Hamill in, I couldn't get over thinking "Hey kids, it's Mark Hamill!" like in Jay & Silent Bob Strike Back. This is the first time I ever just saw the character. That was Luke Freaking Skywalker. And Hamill didn't even have to say anything.

No, you're dead on and she even uses that against him in the mindfuck. Emo Kylo is perfect. Even Emo Anakin made sense because that's the kind of Petty, Jealous, small person who jumps at power over other people.

It's amazing what a better director and much better script can do.

Exactly.  Was just about to say "Kylo was a bit like Anakin, only with good screenplay and direction!"

Agreed.  I also like the line at the end from Snoke, about how now he can complete the training.  An angsty teen does not command the dark side the way someone truly filled with rage, loss, and hurt can.  Nice set up for the next movies.

Regarding Snoke, I thought his cgi was easily the worst of the movie, but I still kinda liked him.  Mainly because I totally bought that he was some giant dude and the 'o he just hologram' moment totally caught me by surprise.

The lightsaber effects in this were pure beauty.  How did I go six movies without ever noticing that the lightsaber glow never actually affected the surrounding environment?

I loved BB-8 so much that when R2 first came on screen my thought was 'who cares about this old junker?'  Welding torch high five made me genuinely lol.  Watching her(?) oh so carefully navigate down the steps was adorable.

I got to see this with my six year old son and his comment as the credits rolled was, "If the people who made this were here right now, I would give them a thumbs up!"  :heart:

Kylo needs to keep the helmet on. Helmet on kylo pretty bad ass helmet off kylo not so much. So just keep the helmet on and we are good sir. Pretty much the Snoke thing was probably my only issue with the movie as well kind of silly name and the cgi/hologram look was a bit lacking but as was said the emporer looked like shit too so if thats the only stuff that bugged me in the movie thats pretty much a grand slam compared to the last three starwars movies.

Yes BB-8 was a great design. Apparently JJ had the first napkin sketch of the concept and then the makers of it took it and ran with the idea. Honestly a little rolling ball is a far more plausible all terrain droid than the R2-D2 astromech design. How R2 ever moved on tattoine always confused me. BB-8 looks pretty damn natural all the time and shows a great amount of personality. Apparently there was a set accident at one point that totally trashed a BB-8 they were using on the scene and the entire cast and crew apparently were horrified when it happened. That is when jj said he knew BB-8 was being totally accepted as a character.

I liked the new characters; Finn, Rey Poe, BB8. I wasn't too keen on Kylo, but I don't think we should be given who he is and what head space he is in. Not every bad guy is going to be a bad ass and I get that. In fact I think its good that hes a bit of an emo punk.

The humor was good and seemed appropriate and overall I felt like it was entertaining enough.

That being said, I was hoping to see a new Star Wars movie. Instead we got a remake of A New Hope. Some homages would have been great, but the story was so blatantly the same it hard for me to not feel like I was being punked.

I just don't get why they had to obviously copy so many of the main story points of ep 4. It feels like a wasted opportunity.

So far, I've read this a lot. Hope to see this next week at some point so I'll weigh in later. But, I've assumed this would be Star Wars: The Next Generation. Strangely, JJ took Trek and kept the same characters and modified the stories with some references to the past series. Here, it seems he kept the story very similar but with new characters with some references to the past. I can't fault him for trying to make a movie with the same story for a whole new generation of kids to recapture that lightning in a bottle. But, we all know you just can't get that feeling back that you had the first time around.

Assaulting a planet sized station is really the only similarity and it's not even the main story or motivation of the main characters.

What???

As bunk said

- droid carrying important plans for the rebellion lost on desert planet while bad guys search for him
- meets young punk who is unknowingly strong in the force
- Han and Chewie help deliver secret plans while black masked villain chases them
- a girl is captured by villain and the heroes must rescue her
- a giant superweapon blows up planet
- shield must be turned off to allow the attack on super weapon's weak point
- grizzled hero dies in front of the young future jedi at the hands of black masked villain
- shield comes down and the xwings start the trench run
- superweapon blows up and the day is saved!

They also got a start on copying ESB with a fresh Jedi travels to remote planet to find legendary Jedi master.

I would have been cool with little homages throughout, like the new cantina, the light saber in the snow, little quips like the 12 parsecs etc but when the whole movie copies the same plotline the homages feel less so and more like piling on to the copying what has already been done train.

This same story had already been told and did not need to be retold. It just felt stale.

Hell, it was already a remake in the first place.

(https://s3.amazonaws.com/criterion-production/stills/129809-5c06b9f534572ab7918e57930ad04212/Film_116w_HiddenFortress_original.jpg)

 :why_so_serious:

Yeah, the story was similar enough and the same base outline, but so has just about every other good SW story. I'm good with it, personally. If it's a major issue then it's your problem, not the movie's.

I liked it. Some actual humor injected back into the franchise and it hit all the right beats.  I thought Driver did pretty well with the character which has rightly been pointed out as being in a state of perpetual adolescence (there is a reason these movies resonate with 13 year old boys, the Luke (chosen boy)/Vader (rage monster) dichotomy is pretty salient to them).   Glad they kept unctuous British people as the main bad guys.  I have a feeling we will see Phasma again.

One thing that is bugging me though is where Maz got that light saber. It's clearly Anakin's original one that Obi Wan gave to Luke and was then lost when his hand was chopped off in Cloud City.  Did someone dig it out of a ventilation shaft at some point and then it just made its way to Maz's basement?  Did Luke go back and find it after ROTJ and then stash it away?  Sorry, such minutia sometimes bugs me more than it should.

EDIT: Also the fact that Rey could control it more than Kylo means that she has to be as closely related to Vader as he is.

I fear that the final moments of Episode 8 will feature Hayden Christensen holding that lightsaber....

"That's a story... for another time.*"


*There won't be another time. Don't look too deeply into it.

They hand-waved it away, saying "its a story for another time".

In the trailers there was a shot of what appeared to be Maz's hand giving the lightsaber over to Leia. Pretty sure that shot wasn't in the movie, and I think Maz just kinda disappeared once the First Order attacked. Feels like they cut out her escaping on the Falcon.  Maybe she'll be back in Ep 8 to explain how she got it.

Edit: beat to the punch.

After a night to reflect, I really did enjoy the hell out of this. I had a shit eating grin on my face for the first twenty minutes. I do wish they had found something other than "destroy the giant superweapon before it kills our friends" as the main plot point, but I can live with it.

Was a little surprised at how little they used any of the iconic alien races. No Twi'leks, Rhodians, etc. I didn't expect Jawas or Sandpeople once it was clearly not Tatooine, but I still thought we'd see some of the more established aliens.

You say "hand wave"

I say "plant the seed for another movie or world-setting novel."

We'll see which proves right in the end.

(https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/704172/F13%20Photos/vader-nooooo%20%281%29.jpg)


Agreed on both points. Plus that reminds me of the other reference that gave me a good chuckle, "Is there a garbage chute nearby? Or a trash compactor?!"

Yes this. Every movie, every book, whether they were complete stories or parts of a trilogy follow the formulaec hero's journey from unknown hero in waiting to climactic battle against a specific weakpoint on a major target. I loved how they handled it in the movie too: "this was hte Death Star (1)*, this is the <whatever they named it>" followed by Han being all "Chewie and I broke out of a lot more heavily guarded spaces..." line like: "Yea, so it's bigger, it's gonna have a weak spot right"?

Point really isn't ever the objective, it's the protagnist's journey between dark and light along with the supporting cast of comedy relief, meat shield, rogue, good looking pilot, etc.

That makes a Star Wars movie. Of course it also makes any fantasy movie  :oh_i_see:

Btw, I saw seven previews, including Warcraft and some terribad Gods of Egypt thing. Warcaft looked interesting, if tihs was five years ago during peak-WoW hype. Probably too late now to be anything by a cheap Jackson knockoff to most people.

* Dunno why they didn't show DS2 there. The planet was still much larger, but DS2 was so much larger than 1...

Great casting, good acting, good dialogue, great chemistry between the leads, as "star warsy" as it gets, well done effects that don't take away from the movie. EXTREMELY derivative plot, it is almost literally a remake of a new hope from start to finish.


Gotta be fucking kidding me here...

BTW where we supposed to recognize the old dude who gives Poe the mcguffin?

Pretty much in agreement with everyone here.  Good to sometimes great.  But it was a rehash or reboot.  I wanted a new story and it was very awkward in places.  For instance,  I thought the First Order were going to be Space ISIS.  I don't get how they were remnants of the empire AND there's an apparently widespread but passive republic?  regardless, I like the new actors and droid and looking forward to the Dagobah rehash.

I don't think so but I haven't researched it at all. I get the feeling that's either more offshoot movie fodder. Or it's just meant to establish that Ren was known to a lot of the resistance prior to the reveal of being Ben Solo.

More "traitor" irony for when people shout it at Finn. (Speaking of.. If troopers don't remove their helmets, how did the one recognize Finn to call him a traitor. )

My theory about the accents telling the story is correct I believe.  Boyega transitioned into an American accent after being called by the light-side of the force.  Rey??  If you think she's a "good guy" you're daft.  Clearly a dark-side calling with her.  She tries very hard to portray that with her facial expressions all throughout the film.  And... she's a brit all the way through (brit=empire). Luke seeing Rey at the end was the nail in the coffin.  The look on his face is telling.  She might be his daughter, but he knows he'll be in deep shit if he trains her.  Very conflicted.  She will have trouble deciding which side to be on, and likely Finn will have to help her with this decision.  I like how she channeled Keira Knightly.  She's essentially a younger, less waify version.  Both her and Boyega were very strong; I was impressed.

Finn is force-sensitive.  No doubt.  The stuff he pulls off on-the-fly with Rey in the beginning spells that out, aside from being suddenly "awakened" from his stormtrooper-ness into a good guy.  Ren sensed it.  So did Snoke.  Maz sensed something also.  Snoke was not referring to Rey with the awakening.  I think Boyega+Rey bring a balance.. Boyega being clearly a light-side character that will require careful, deliberate training.  Rey?  Too powerful already.  She will be caught in the middle (which gives her an advantage), with angsty-Kylo rounding out the dark-side.  Stretch-theory:  Rey will end up with intimate feelings for both of them and Abrams' tweener twilight-hunger-gamering of Star Wars will be complete.

I got chills when:
-The Falcon was revealed and flown
-The ending with Hamill.  Best scene he's ever done.  The guy looked like a complete Jedi and total badass.
-The tie-fighter escape scene (best tie fighter combat scene ever done)
-Chewie's pain during Han's death (watching him die kinda messed me up inside also)


Definitely the 3rd best movie of the franchise, but my ordering is still ANH, ESB, then TFA.

Cool things:
-Lupita was Maz.  But, I thought she was extremely wasted in the role, though did a good job.  Abrams MUST find a way to plug her in better.
-Yahan Ruhian from The Raid (Mad Dog) was in this, and of course, he doesn't die.  So hopefully he shows up again later.  He's a total badass.
-There were a LOT of geeky homages and easter eggs (Abrams is good at this).  Some subtle (Porkins getting it from behind?  almost), some blatant.  I enjoyed picking them all out.
-For me, the 3D was worth it just for the Super Star Destroyer scene.  5 seconds of awesome.
-I love that this was done on film with largely natural sets.  The movie is very very visceral because of this and there little to no video-effect as a result.

I recognized the girl from Killjoys as one of the super weapon operators, seemed kind of wasted.

First off:

As a Patriots fan I give you full permission to kill this person.

Second:

This was a fucking Star Wars movie, we waited 30 years but we FINALLY GOT ONE.

Lastly:

FUCK FUCK FUCK THEY KILLED HAN SOLO FUCK FUCK FUCK.

I saw it coming but still FUCKING HELL YOU KILLED HAN SOLO (brass balls Abrams, brass balls)
Ford was excellent, he got all the best lines (cept for Finn with a few).

Now I have to wait what? two years for the next one? DAMNIT

Snoke's name is stupid, didn't mind the character.

Don't know about that theory, see Guinness, Alec.


18 months. May 2017.  (plus a Rogue One spin-off next year in December)

I did theorize about Rey going dark but with Ben also being evil it might be a bit much. Is every Skywalker but Luke just gonna turn? Finn being force sensitive is not even a question to me but how that will manifest in future movies is up in the air, will he go full jedi or take on the Leia "oh I sense some bad shit" role.

I would be willing to bet it was more Ford's call than Abrams, probably even a precondition to being in the movie at all.

Given he has wanted Solo to die since the beginning... pretty safe bet he had that stipulation in the contract before he signed on.

Heh. Yeah, Ford has been trying to kill Han Solo since 1976....


At least we got Admiral Ackbar! Yay! "IT'S A TRAP you young whippersnappers! Heh heh heh!"

At least the death was meaningful and yet not too sappy and drawn out.

Maybe this was obvious but I don't think it's been mentioned here...when Ben was talking to his father about helping him and handing the lightsaber over it was a test that Han failed.  Han still didn't believe he could redeem his son, even though he loved him so when he was given the lightsaber he took it.  That's the moment Ben could have been turned back to the light but instead it was seen as justification for going full on sith.  

In a lot of ways I think this was JJ's version of  "Anakin:how it should have happened"

Hm, I took that as Han thinking that Ben was asking for forgiveness, and giving it to him. Das jus me doe.

Like I said in the other thread, this should have been called Star Wars: The Homage because there were SO MANY CALLBACKS to the originals. The narrative structure was so similar, the construction of the three environments we saw (desert planet, ice planet and lush forest planets - just like each of the original trilogy), some of the jokes were callbacks, it was one long love letter to Star Wars from a geek, much like Super 8 was Abrams homage/remake to ET. However, I will say that I thought both Finn and Rey were really strong characters. Rey in particular seems to have a lot more acting chops and dramatic character arc than anything in the goddamn prequels.

I knew Han Solo would die, and the minute they said Kylo was his son, I knew how he'd die. More callbacks to Luke falling in the Cloud City battle. However, even seeing it from the meta, it still had an emotional impact because of the acting and the nostalgia for the character. It didn't feel forced. I actually thought Kylo Ren was great with the helmet on and dug his voice as an homage to Vader's without being too similar or too shitty. But yeah, when he pulls the mask off, he has a very punchable face. And this movie really hits home that the Star Wars movies have a shitload of Daddy Issues as their driving character arcs. It's like Lost up in this bitch.

NEGATIVES:

The names of the characters were bad, but they were typical Star Wars bad.

The new Death Star/planet killer pretty much invalidates any need for any warships ever. If you can launch goddamn planet killing death beams from entire other star systems with no apparent need to move the weapon, how would anyone feel safe, ever? And the second firing of the weapon KILLED THE GODDAMN SUN. Why would you need to fire planet killers when you can destroy entire solar systems by turning off their goddamn sun? Also, if firing the weapon drains the sun so completely, how did they fire it twice without moving the fucking planet? And did the sun turn into a black hole? There is some not thinking this thing through going on here. It was a minor quibble because it made the decisive fight scene in the snow look really fucking cool.

The CGI characters are so inferior to the makeup characters it hurts. Yes, Maz was impressive but still looked so out of place compared to the other characters in the cantina. It felt like a waste of that actress. And SNOKE? ... the fuck? At least with him, they can excuse his plasticness as being a hologram, but I really hope they make him an actual person in makeup when we finally see him. If they are trying to convey a size difference that the actor doesn't posses (like with Maz), I'd really like them to take technical cues from the Lord of the Rings because the size differences there were done incredibly well and the actors didn't have to be CGI'ed.

Story stuff:

Finn as a Stormtrooper was explained really well and I think we're going to see him be described as Force Sensitive because: 1) he broke the conditioning and 2) he lasted more than 5 seconds with a light saber in his hand, though granted it was against a wounded Sith apprentice. I think Rey is not Luke's daughter but the daughter of one of his students. She is also the real balance to the Force because I think Luke is going to tell her that she shouldn't be trained because the training always makes Jedi pick a side and that's what has put the Force out of whack. One should not tend to extremes but walk the middle path with control and compassion.

Was that planet that Hermit Luke was on Kimino?

All negatives aside, I really dug it and thought it was the movie the prequels should have been. I'll have to ruminate on it some more to see if it holds up.

Yes, my inner pendant was starting to think of all sorts of things wrong with the mega-weapon as the day went on, but after a while I figure it is just a big thing that blows up stuff that needed to itself be blown up and everything else was pretty irrelevant.

It was quite clearly just a McGuffin but it didn't have to be so incredibly powerful. I mean, killing a planet doesn't need force multipliers. Plus, the editing could have used a little more air - we didn't really get any sense of where these planets were in relation to one another or what kind of time scale we were talking about. Of course, that's probably deliberate because ANH had the same problem.

I also wanted to mention BB8 - holy shit but that was an incredibly well-done special effect AND well-written character. Put R2D2 to shame and is on a par with Groot. Plus, it's cute as hell without being Jar Jar stupid or too kiddy.

The mega weapon "draining" the sun was just to allow for a) a timing mechanism and more importantly b) to allow for the cool shot of the shadow falling over Ren as he decides to kill his father. Heavy handed maybe, but cool none the less.

Well he was handing Han the lightsaber saying "I need you to help me end it" so that was pretty much "Strike me down." definitely a callback to Luke giving in and trying to kill the emperor.

I may be imagining it but I could swear it was implied it just temporarily drained the sun. Which doesn't make sense but Star Wars is science fantasy so I tend to give it a pass on stuff that I'd call B.S. on in Trek.

Just rewatched that bit. From what I can tell it's just the reflections of the lightsabers in her eyes.

Great film.

Only big probblem I had with it: Pacing is way off... it needs another 30 minutes. JJ rushes everything.

I'd bet good money that the original script had Rey already knowing Han... likely guarding the Falcon while she waited for him to come back, but they changed it to better hide her parentage. Not that there is anybody that doesn't see the bread crumbs that tell us who her father is.

For what it's worth I always took British as more of a "core worlds" accent as opposed to exclusively an Imperial accent. Beyond the real world fact the actress is English I think her accent, in universe, could simply be shorthand for "She is from Corelli or Coruscant or <insert other core world> originally and never lost her accent."

Agreed it was a bit rushed. I would've been perfectly fine with being 30 minutes longer too...or 60 for that matter..:P~

I don't think the pacing was off except for the last couple minutes where it felt like they had to squeeze Luke in even though they didn't have anything for him to do until the next movie. The pacing on everything else felt very deliberate in that there isn't much of the run time that's just wasted, and they don't take much time to let things breathe because the characters don't get time to breathe. They could have thrown in more back story about the First Order and the Resistance, but that would likely have been worse for the pacing and I'm sure there's supplementary reading for those who are really interested.

I'll write up more thoughts later when I got some time.  As I said, I liked the movie.  You can nit pick all sorts of shit in a Star Wars movie (everything about the killer planet being an easy target in this one), but most of it I'm fine just accepting as is.  However, there is one immersion breaking thing that bugged me like non other I can't let go:

Who the good god damn fuck are the resistance, and why do they even exist.  Why call themselves the resistance even?  The galactic republic has been restored.  There is a crazy splinter group of the empire actively trying to destroy it.  Why aren't they just "the republic navy"?  Why isn't he republic sending armadas out to destroy this massive god damn threat it, like with the Death Star.  Instead, we have this small secret group of of soldiers who seem to only have a hand full of x-wings to their name (*couple of x-wings get destroyed* "that's half our fleet!"), taking on an even greater threat that previously needed an entire armada to take out.  Is the Republic not 'resisting' the First Order?

It makes zero sense at all to me, and bugs me more than anything in the film.

The way I saw it was that some worlds are now free from the empire and have rebuilt the republic but a good chunk of the galaxy still belongs to the first order. The newly freed republic worlds want fuck all to do with armed conflict because they would be big and obvious targets.  So you have the resistance off fighting the first order and the republic funding them but with enough distance they don't become targets.(the first order likely does not have unlimited resources to attack on all fronts)

Well they did show stormtroopers are now equipped and trained to fight lightsaber users, so it could just be that.

Apparently there is about 20 minutes of footage that was cut because of time. Wait for directors cut!

I disagree: Always leave them wanting more. I find most films nowadays try too hard to explain "the world" and run far too long because of it.


This makes sense, AND it does what Lucas tried but failed to do in the prequels with the Trade Embargo thing: creating a more nuanced political dynamic that reflects the real world. The resistance is fighting a proxy war against the First Order on behalf of the Republic. Both sides know it but either lack the resources or political willpower to step it up to a real war. The First Order bides its time until it can build the superweapon, then takes-out the Republic Fleet in a first strike for the real war.

This will let Ep8 have a Resistance/ Republic storyline around the war and give Finn & Poe something to do while Rey trains with Luke.

Of course all this is head canon for the next 18 months.

Other personal head canon: Rey's backstory.

So after Ben Skywalker has killed the New Jedi Order, Luke decides he must leave. Luke didn't know "Jedi aren't supposed to have romantic entanglements" because Obi-wan and Yoda only spent time turning him into a weapon against the Sith. There was no time for greater lessons on Jedi philosophy and such.

As a result, Luke had a girlfriend/ wife/ whatever that he abandoned when he leaves to find the first Jedi temple. He leaves not knowing she's pregnant. Mystery woman (who may or may not wind-up named Mara Jade) has child and goes looking for Luke. After some event she realizes it's too dangerous to take her daughter with her, and she drop her on Jakku. Woman dies on quest, leaving Rey stranded until the Force decides she's needed and sets up these coincidences to get her into the mix again.

It aligns Luke with his father's path: not knowing that he had offspring out there until he was much older and they were grown. It also sets-up Rey to go the dark-to-light path if you believe that will be her destiny because she'll follow both her Grandfather's and her Father's path. (Grandfather fell and was redeemed, offspring went the opposite path of his father)

Clues we have so far that Rey is a Skywalker:
- Lightsaber 'wtf' visions of Luke's life
- Force user
- Desert Planet parallel
- Rags clothing imagery (Luke and Anakin)
- Affinity for machines (Luke in old EU was a brilliant machinist based off some loose stuff in the movies, Anakin established by building poderacers and C3-P0)
- Evidently the only person who understands an Astromech without a translator
- R2D2 'wakes up' when she appears at the base. Low-power sensors may have been scanning for Luke's DNA/ Biosigns/ whatever

There is a throw-away line that explains the resistance. If memory serves it was something like "the Republic can't openly fight the First Order because 'reasons' so the resistance was set up to fight them and give the Republic deniability." At least I seem to remember it. I'll need to see the movie again to be able to tell you more since my first time was spent just taking it all in.

I even remember nodding and going mentally going "that explains it."

Given this modified EU, would Leia be able to give Finn any training at this point?  Seems like ep.8 is further along than some of my readings, wherein she is supposed to be actively honing her skills (when she's got time).  It's possible both Finn and Rey will be trained simultaneously; one by Luke, one (at least slightly) by Leia.  Kenobi's essence might show maybe?  I know it dissipates at some point.  Maybe in Abrams' version it's still around.  Maybe... Anakin's essence does some training!    (someone's essence is going to show up for sure; like it did in Maz's tomb)

Seems like Abrams broke apart the old dirt farmer to hero trope.  Really, it's split between Finn and Rey with both having questionable pasts and motives.  Rey being a very very neutral character.  I half expected her to flip out and kill everyone mid-film.  She was kinda scary in that way; great job if that was by design.  Finn was more like new-Luke to me.

Ahhh here we are.

http://birthmoviesdeath.com/2015/12/18/what-the-hell-is-the-story-with-the-resistance-and-the-first-order-in-the-f (http://birthmoviesdeath.com/2015/12/18/what-the-hell-is-the-story-with-the-resistance-and-the-first-order-in-the-f)

In the new mobile games (and I believe the pnp RPGs) you're essentially just that. Small splinter group full of smugglers and cast-offs holding a resurgent empire off; much of which think the emperor is still alive.

Bleh.  I mean, ok, that's fine (sort of).  But they gave zero context of that in the actual movie.  You needed to have read the auxilary comics/books to have understood that.  Which is terrible movie story telling.  I mean, it's not like they needed to spend much time explaining.  A minute or two of exposition (or a few scattered bits throughout the movie where a character takes a few seconds to say something about the current state of galactic affairs) would have done wonders.  As that article said, I certainly wasn't the only one who had no idea what the hell the point of the resistance was, and that's not good.

Though that means the 'resistance' had pretty much better be disbanded by the time the next film roles around, and it's just the republic fleet out chasing down and fighting the New Order ("The Republic Strikes Back"?  Heh).  I mean, they blew up the capitol of the Republic.  They can't just continue to 'ignore the threat'.  The only story line they can take where this doesn't happen, is if we get Chancellor LimpWristedLiberal afraid to escalate the situation, while Senator Trump valiantly rallies against him in the Space Senate, but to no avail.  Senator Trump then gets more funding and ships on the sly for the resistance, bypassing those cowardly limp wristed democratically elected bureaucrats, for more space pew pew.  And I reeeeeally hope they don't go that route.

Didn't whatever passed for the Republic just get blown the fuck up?

Well, four or five planets presumably all in one system (that bit annoyed me...).  Surely they have at least dozens.  The former empire had a thousand or more systems?  And was it the capital?  No idea.  The book comes out early in January, I will probably buy it.

According to that article, they apparently moved the capitol to that system after they restored the republic (so the capital got blown up, not the 1000 system republic).  As the article also mentioned, this was probably done entirely so they could use the planet death star thing and not have to blow up the well known Coruscant.

Seeing it again tomorrow, but I believe I remember those world's being specifically referred to as "friendly to the Resistance".

Maybe like targeting Pearl Harbor instead of a U.S. state in 1941?

Maybe I'm hallucinating and since I had surgery on Friday and am on pain meds that is very possible. But I could swear there was a throw-away line that referenced the Resistance being a proxy for the Republic to fight the Empire. I think it was Han that said it when Rey asked about it.

Again, pain meds so may be off my rocker.

Could be, and I possibly missed it.  But even then, "The resistance is a proxy to fight the First Order," doesn't really explain why the Republic is using proxies to fight a very well armed group of people hell bent on destroying it.   :awesome_for_real:

Got invited to go see it again tomorrow.  I think I might like it better after a second pass, were I can actually examine the scenes and catch things I missed before.  I'll hold off further comment till then.

Why did the US use proxies to fight the Soviet Union? Because fucking planet-killing weapons.  :awesome_for_real:

The line was given-off by the redheaded First Order guy in his speech right before they fired the weapon.

Just got back from seeing it.  Enjoyed it very much.  The new characters were well written and acted.  Finn got great lines, Rey got to defeat Ren and Poe got to shoot down like seven TIE fighters in a single, glorious scene.  I look forward to seeing more adventures with these three.

Very good seeing Han and Chewie again.  Han seemed to have mellowed with age.  He's not as cocky now, he's more composed.  He's seen shit.  Shit like the Force. "That's not how the Force works!" I knew they were going to kill at least one iconic character in this movie and I guessed right with Han.  Ford doesn't love Solo; he prefers Indy. Plus he's wanted Solo dead for a long time.  ROTJ might have been a better film if the Emperor kills Solo to goad Luke into turning or he dies in ESB like Ford wanted.  Nice to see Chewie get some fun 'lines'.

Thank you JJ for the practical effects.  Made all the difference.  As for SFX, saw it in 3D IMAX and the lightsabers looked amazing in the snow.  Other great sfx as well.

Kylo Ren was fine.  He's a punk ass Vader wannabe who throws temper tantrums.  I like how he popped off his helmet.  Now he's killed his Dad and got a nice scar, his true journey to the Dark Side is underway.

Ok the gripes.  Not too many, but once again JJ copies an original, trying to better it.  This was pretty much the same overall plot as ANH.  I got annoyed with it when the opened the doors and, of course, there was JJ's cantina scene.  Hopefully that's out of his system and now we can move forward instead of rehasing ESB.
 
I wish Luke had swooped in to save the day somewhere, instead of hanging out at the end of the film.  Luke is arguably the most powerful being in the galaxy; would have loved to see him really flex his Force muscles.

But overall it did feel 'Star Warsy' to me and that is what I was hoping for.  Finn's character really sticks out for me, and it was a great film, full of action, great characters and great lines.  Probably going to go see it again tomorrow.  There was clapping and cheering in my audience and I was one of the ones clapping.  It was not a perfect movie, but it was Star Wars.

One disagreement I have with many of you is that I preferred Kylo Ren with his helmet off. With the helmet on it just highlighted how much of a Vader wannabe he was with a Bane voice. With it off he was a much more interesting character with, you know, emotions and stuff.

That's a terrible analogy.   :-P  Both sides had planet killing weapons in the Cold War, and equal militaries.  The republic has nothing to loose fight the first order.  Meanwhile, the U.S. was on the verge of out right going to war with Iran over the thought they could possibly be working on planet killing weapons, which couldn't be allowed because they hate us.   :awesome_for_real:

As I said, I'll give it another watch.

Except you know, all those planets.

My latest "Hey, what the...":  Why would an interplanetary army who can build giant space-laser-planet-killers design a helmet for their elite shock troops that can filter smoke but not toxins?

Cause its cheaper to make new soldiers than fancy helmets? who knows, cause evil.

The First Order's primary goal, it seemed, was to hunt down and eradicate the Jedi (and the 1st temple - for obvious reasons), not obliterate the republic.  Since the Jedi are a relatively non-existent force at that point, why would the republic care?  I bet now they care though.  The Republic planets being destroyed is also more of a ploy to bring about the dark-side, specifically in Kylo...  it's not to "destroy the republic" per se; the way I see it.  Recall, Kylo's transformation was only really complete once the weapon was charged and aimed at his parent's most prized planets.

Today I watched it again:

What I like the most is the whole "package": great pacing (minus the "cantina" scene at Maz's that I found pretty boring and 'til the last 10 minutes, when things got rushed, yes); spectacular and very "star-warsy" feel with the explosions, camera angles,  starship fights through tunnels and the like.

It seems that the majority of us agrees that we really want to know what happens next to Poe, Rey, Finn and Kylo, and that's no small achievement given the often poor characterizations we see in movies, especially action ones.

Rey's actress (Daisy Ridley) is adorable, by the way; I think I'll basically stalk her through youtube from now on  :grin:
-----

I liked the lightsaber duels: coreography was essential and perfectly in line with the character development: Rey and Finn are very raw, Kylo would have sliced through them without that early injury inflicted by Chewie (and he was also very upset about what happened with his father). But boy, when he tries to force-pull the hilt and it goes to Rey, that's awesome  :drill:
---------------------

Finally, I guess we could start speculating about GrandMastah Snokeboogey: a popular theory (which is purely speculation, at this point) points to Darth Plagueis, Sidious' master, which would link it to the rest of the previous storyline, so to speak. Or, do you think Abrams is going for a villain that is totally "estranged" from the rest of the (canon) saga? I would like him/it to be a callback to the Rakata or even the Celestials (yeah, I know they basically retconned everything about....well, everything included in the EU :P), meaning someone that has a very "pure" and natural connection to the Force, instead of some sort of "zombie-human" we have already met.

That moment got the biggest cheers at the theater i watched, more than the opening crawl, more than the millennium falcon, more than seeing han and chewie or any of the original cast.

In mine as well :-)

But right up through her catching it, I had a moment when I thought maybe it was gonna be Luke who caught it, strong start at Ren and then a cut right to "directed by JJ Abrams" and closing credits style cliffhangar.

At which point, I would just up and die by nerdgasm...  :grin:

Jakku is China, the Resistance is the Flying Tigers and the Republic just got Pearl Harboured.

Our Rey theory is that she is Obi-Wan's granddaughter.

Who was Max Von Sydow?

Grand Moff Tarkin, commander of the first Death Star.

--Dave

Wut?

Did I miss a straight line? Max Von Sydow played Tarkin in ANH, setting the precedent of English accents for Imperial officers.

--Dave

Tarkin was played by Peter Cushing and died when they blew up the DS.  Sydow played a guy with a small role in this new one.

Derp.

Von Sydow was at the beginning, playing a character called "Lor Sen Takka" according to IMDB.  He was the one talking to Poe and gave the missing astrogation chart to him. It's nobody we've seen canonically before.

http://www.starwars.com/databank/lor-san-tekka

Oh shit.  Huh.


 :Love_Letters:  Totally agree. 

Interesting. Doubtful though since the main character(s) in SW have been Skywalkers. My theory is she is the bastard love child of Luke. Part of the reason he exiled himself...SHAME SHAME SHAME!

Of all the jedi, I'd say Obi-Wan was closest to being play-by-the-rules save for Yoda himself.

Starwars.com databank is being filled with Episode VII entries:

http://www.starwars.com/databank/


http://www.starwars.com/databank/first-order-stormtroopers

Ok, but their hit/miss ratio is still legendary bad, ok?  :grin:

As it should be.

Obi Wan did have a lot of time to stray a bit and even had a hint of romance in the Clone Wars cartoon.

I note that Finn also could have a mysterious parentage plot.

I really did love the three main characters, casting and acting and development. And Kylo Ren showed everyone what Anakin could have been.

I hope Snoke is actually that tall.

I spotted him at the beginning, I was just puzzled because he was talking as if he was someone we all ought to know--very fanservicey talk. Plus his whole village seemed like it was there for a reason--like it was a Resistance outpost. They weren't exactly acting like random scavengers when the First Order showed up. But I couldn't mentally match him up with anyone at all. Seems kind of a waste of an interesting bit of casting.

Another thing I really liked, by the way, is that the big set-piece lightsaber battle between Rey and Kylo Ren felt very different than anything that's been in any of the films. Much more raw and emotional and compelling.

I think my main mild dissatisfaction with the film on reflection the next day is maybe that I would have preferred the omega threat to be something a bit different than a planet-destroying laser. I don't mind the repeat of the story beats as a whole, but that seemed a bit like oh-really. I would think that the entire galaxy, from Hutts to Republic politicians to bounty hunters, would all align together if they got wind that someone was once again building a planet-destroying weapon.

Also the whole background political situation felt unaccountably hazy to me. ANH, ESB, ROTJ, you got it: there's a big Empire, there's a Rebellion that doesn't hold political authority anywhere, and there's lots of semi-autonomous and "Outer Rim" planets that the Empire doesn't technically control but that do not in and of themselves have enough power to challenge the Empire. The prequels also were pretty clear (one of the few common criticisms I don't agree with is that the prequels were too much about politics--that was fine, it was just that George Lucas had no skill or ear for dealing with that as a theme).  But in this film, I was like, "Ok, so there's a Republic, yeah, that has a big space fleet that it sounds like the First Order is actually scared of, and there's a Resistance, who are? the covert wing of the Republic? the equivalent of the Lincoln Brigade in the Spanish Civil War? Another political alliance on other worlds altogether?" And then the locations in between just didn't feel "placed" anywhere, like the planet where Maz Kanata has her bar. Was the First Order extending themselves into enemy territory going there? Was that an otherwise deserted planet? Is the First Order's killer planet actually pretty close to the Republic? How far can that thing shoot? Anywhere?

The original three Star Wars movies did manage to deliver some sense of distance. Getting to Alderaan required hiring someone, it wasn't just a walk around the block. Tatooine was far away from everything. Hoth was extremely remote and it took tons of resources for the Empire to search the whole galaxy for the Rebels. (It's big enough that you can hide in it!)  Hyperspeed meant everything was *relatively* close--we never got a sense that characters had to wait weeks or months to get somewhere far away--but scope and scale mattered to the dramatic situation.

I don't think I'd want pounds of exposition, but ESB for example managed to communicate the situation on Lando's cloudmine pretty efficiently, for example. Jakku I felt I got a good sense for, but not the planet Kanata was on, not the planet the Resistance was on, and not the Republic.

--------

For me, the big thing that the next movie has to do right is that Snoke has to be a different kind of Dark Side figure than Palpatine. There needs to be qualitatively something different about his motivations, interests, and capabilities.

I also hope they grasp the nettle and have Luke tell Rey (and probably Finn) that the old Jedi Order was badly flawed--that if he's going to try again, he (and they) have got to come up with a different kind of Light Side organzation. That should be pretty clear even without the full backstory of Ben (Solo? Organa?) turning to the Dark Side and killing off the first round of Jedi recruits.

I beg to differ, the lightsaber battles in the original trilogy were raw emotional and compelling, I do agree that bringing that back rather than making them action set pieces was a great move by Abrams though.

Rey is set up to be Luke's daughter. That is either a mislead or, more likely, a reveal for the second movie.  I'm betting it is revealed in movie 2.

My fear is that the heavy Vader worship is a precursor to his resurrsection.

I also think that Snopes is going to turn out to be really tiny when we see him in person. SNOPE. Like the website that covers false things....

Rey will be Obiwan's granddaughter? I don't think there will be any other decedents of the originals. It would get to hokey.

Well they obviously made a big deal about Rey getting abandoned by her family when she was little and her waiting for them to come back, so her lineage is definitely going to play a part in future movies.

Yup Rey is Luke's daughter as Kylo is Han and Leia's.  Next episode will parallel their training with missing canon exposition on the Force and events after ANH.

That's why we thought of it as we were musing afterwards--to keep making everybody a descendent of just the Skywalkers seems a mistake. So we thought: who is a) prominent enough that everyone knows his/her name? b) not a Skywalker c) Could have progeny that we know nothing about? d) human?

I think Padme and Leia had no other opportunities to have children. Anakin in his Darth Vader phase I assume no longer has the equipment for reproducing. There's a bunch of other named and semi-known characters who aren't human like Yoda, Darth Maul or Ahsoka.

I assume folks like Wedge Antilles and Mon Mothma fail the "everyone knows"--there's nothing exciting in revealing they had a grandchild or child.

I come up with only:

a) Han Solo, getting some on the side or getting some pre-Leia (I suppose if they keep "Sana Solo" around from the comics, that could be Finn's parentage)
This seems unlikely: a) it's not exactly family-friendly; b) comic-book/EU continuity is probably not a great place to be launching major plotlines

b) Mace Windu
His only bending of the Jedi regs seems to have been in his combat style.

c) Lando Calrissian
Don't think he has any chance of being Rey's father.

d) Count Dooku.
Like, no. I cannot see how they would think that was a cool reveal.

e) Palpatine, presumably pre "ULTIMATE POWAH!" disfiguring, but I suppose he could still have had the gear to make kids afterwards.
Ick.

f) Obi-Wan!
See, this would have all sorts of interesting mythic resonance. Not the least because then Rey's grandfather would have been responsible for Ben's grandfather getting all burned up and stuff but also they would once have been great friends--it adds a layering to their enmity/rivalry. It gives them a strong connection but not a kinship connection. Maybe this will even be what Obi-Wan meant by "more powerful than you can possibly imagine"--it's not his Force-ghosting around Luke he meant, it was augmenting the power of a descendent at the right time.

Maybe she was a virgin birth because the Force impregnated someone with a fetus having a massive midichlorian count.

<ducks>

It had occurred to me. Since that is "canon". I suppose that could be another thing JJ could decide to undo, is say, "Ok, midichlorians it turns out was Qui-Gon's weird dumb religious heresy and it was all nonsense, Anakin had an actual father and he was ...."   

I think Qui-Gon fails the "memorable enough to care about test" as a potential ancestor himself. Though who knows, maybe that's another reason he was on the outs with the Jedi.

Since it's well known that Lando is the only black dude in the entire Galaxy, he is obviously Finn's father. 

 :awesome_for_real:

Just saw it again and caught even more going on. I missed Carrie Fischer's daughter in the Resistance meetings before but caught her all over this time.

The X-wing helmet Rey puts on is damn close to Luke's but is missing the three red stripes on the crest and has the numbers 733 on the side where his has a circle with a bunch of lines through it.  The "V V" stickers and red tabs at the earpieces were there, though. The X-wing pilot doll she created was also meant as a hint, but lords know to what.

The Vision sequence has Ewen McGregor yelling "Rey" right as the snow scene starts and right afterwards the whispered "the first steps" happen. No idea what this could mean yet. Some are using this to promote her as Obi-Wan's graddaughter but I think it's more the Force Ghost yelling the same way we had Qui-Gon yelling for Anakin in his nightmares.

My brother is convinced Han knows who Rey is. That's why we get Maz asking, "Who's the girl" then they cut away as he goes to explain. It explains some of Maz's insistence that she take the saber, because she just found out. Also the line Maz has of, "You know the truth, the person who left you is not coming back. But there is another... Luke!" It would also explain why Leia actually comforts her instead of Chewie, because there's no reason for Leia to assume any sort of connection between the two.

Also to confirm, General Hux details out in the first lines of his speech that the Republic is knowingly backing the Resistance, "...while lying to the Galaxy." Implying that there's a good number of systems who belong to neither the First Order or the Republic. More like the Prequels where you had "The Banking Sector," "Huttspace," and the like.



This was reinforced even more on my second viewing. I'd the "Traitor" line and the emotional outbursts were miles beyond what Christensen brought to Anakin. Whether it's because of his acting ability or Lucas' piss-poor direction that didn't allow emoting, this sort of performance would have sold Anakin's fall a lot better.

Finn is Lando's and Leia's child.

Rey is Luke's and Leia's child.

Ewoks on the other hand...

I genuinely like Ren's fall partly because it was a nice subversion of previous fall/temptations. He seems totally brainwashed and set on becoming Vader 2.0 but keeps feeling these questioning voices and this easy to succumb to desire to turn his back on all of it. To give in and just return to his family that love him and offer him forgiveness. I don't think the moment with Solo was fake out on the character's part so much as he needed to kill his father to silence those doubts, to make a choice that would irrevocably put him on the path to the Dark Side. I think the reaction showed that this didn't quite work as he hoped either, he still got tenderness and forgiveness even after Han knew his son had killed him so I'm guessing we're going to continue seeing an unstable and tortured Renn as the trilogy unfolds who is constantly fighting to be more evil and pushing away from his hatred of his own actions. It was infinitely better than Anakin.

Just this today and that's my exact feeling. I didn't feel disappointed in the hologram or really anything although I can sympathize with some people's thoughts and gripes. It was so much better than Phantom Menace & whatever one came after that. I left the theatre not feeling like I wanted to punch one of the characters in the face or get my money back.

And I dislike Star Wars so I'm definitely not a giant fan who will swallow anything ;-)

He's not. He's Finn's father.

I mean, there's only one black guy of note in the original trilogy, so he must be the main black character's father, amirite?  :why_so_serious:

EDIT: And apparently I'm 3rd or 4th to that joke so fuck it. He's Boba Fett reincarnated.

Something I didn't see mentioned here specifically was that JJ really hit hard the idea of history repeating.   In A New Hope, Vader and Grand Moff Tarkin are co leaders under the Emperor.   In fact Moff Tarkin seemed to be a bit higher than vader as he orders Vader around and Vader obeys.  The same happened here, General Hux played Grand Moff Tarkins role.  Parts I didn't like about the otherwise awesome flick:


1.)  How did that guy get the data on Luke?   How did he end up on Jakku?  I think both questions needed to be answered better.   What is his connection to the Emp..First Order?   Clearly there is one since he ended up with a piece of the map that came from the Empire's archives?   I think that plot needed to be answered a whole lot better.

2.)  How exactly does a girl without training beat a guy who is training in the darkness who has also been trained by Luke skywalker?  In one scene he is strong enough to paralyze her and wrench the blaster carrying arm back.   Then in the next, even though he is hurt, he is beaten by her.  I thought this was just plain weak.   He should have mopped the floor with her and it shouldn't have been a contest.  That whole part from him offering to complete her training to being defeated by her was horrid execution IMHO.

3.)  The last problem I had with the movie was  a JJ filming problem.  Sorry but the end panoramic shot looked like it was a story board.  Terrible picture quality to it and it seemed puzzling to me because the rest of the movie was brilliantly shot IMHO.  That last pan out sequence, just horrible.  IMHO it was a terrible way to end a really great film.

My guess is that Ren's strength has something to do with the "Force awakening"--that someone is more or less "downloading" Jedi skills into her. We've seen that sort of happen with Luke, too, in ESB. It's another reason I wouldn't mind seeing Ewan McGregor briefly pop up in the next film as a pre-Guinness Kenobi and say something of the sort--that he was with Ren for a bit in the forest, guiding her.

Either that, or my thought is that Kylo Ren is just a crap Jedi/Sith/whatever.  And he knows it - thus his tantrums and dummyspits.  Yes, he's still a Sith, so can pwn norms, but put him up against someone who has a lot of raw talent, and his crapness comes through.  Especially if she turns out to be his cousin or something, then we get that whole "My shithead cousin who is always so smart and good and strong, how I hate her."

Of course, which may end up making him a better Sith, since it will feed his anger and all that.

First off they had established that she was a good melee fighter at the start of the movie, second you are completely glossing over the hurt part.  He wasn't just slightly injured, he was gut shot by Chewie's bowcaster, they even made a point of showing that thing was extremely strong by having Han borrow it from him after watching it toss stormtroopers around like a grenade launcher, and not only that but Finn had gotten several hits on him with the lightsaber already.  To even be on his feet probably took most of his strength.  I think they did a great job of setting up the fight so it would not be unrealistic for either Finn (showing a stormtrooper taking on a lightsaber user earlier)  or Rey to hold their own and win.

I'm not crazy about the whole "Luke is Rey's father" theory, it just seems like lazy writing to me.  We've already got a Skywalker doing the whole light side / dark side torment thing, I hope they do something more interesting with her.  The whole "everyone knows everyone" thing was overdone in the prequels, I thought, I don't really want more of it.  Plus, I can't see them pulling a wife for Luke out of nowhere given how few women there are that anyone knows about.  Leia is the only eligible woman in the universe and that's not going to fly in a family flick.  And it makes Luke out to be even more of an asshole for leaving his daughter alone squatting in a shithole in the desert while he's lazing around his private ocean planet staring moodily over the ocean for twenty years.  The flashback scene where she's a kid and someone is holding her back makes me think forced separation, which implies they're soldiers or criminals or prisoners or slaves or something.  Obi-Wan seems too old, unless he was getting some local color on Tatooine she'd be older than Luke.  Palpatine might work, and I like that idea, since we don't know much about him.  But I also wouldn't be surprised it it was just some random they introduce in the next movie.

Finn was probably my favorite character in the movie.  I thought the idea was stupid at first, but he really quickly turned in to the "comic relief character done CORRECTLY LUCAS YOU ASSHOLE" for this movie, I thought.  It was refreshing after the prequels to see the emphasis on regular people instead of nothing but thirty different flavors of Jedi and space politicians.  Ren, I thought, was great.  There's no way you're going to out-badass Darth freaking Vader, so they go the other direction, and have the villain just be an asshole you want to see get kicked in the nads over and over again.

Given how much this movie takes from Ep 4-6, I was kind of surprised to see how much it apparently ignored Ep 1-3.  I was half expecting a "Jar Jar is violently killed by mind bees" scene somewhere.

I agree with the idea that the pacing was a bit off.  There was a lot of coincidence that could have been explained better if the timing was different.  They take off in the Falcon and are immediately picked up by Han, it seems like.  Drifting aimlessly for a few days / weeks would make it seem more like Han tracked them down rather than they just coincidentally flew in to his lap.  The StarKiller Deluxe WonderSwan or whatever it was called just straight up nukes the capital of the universe, that could have used a bit of build up or explanation or something (and the physics nerd in my head kept rolling their eyes at that whole scene, but meh, Star Wars).

The idea of a "map to Luke Skywalker" seemed really stupid to me.  No more "spiritual quest to find your mentor," now it's just "you need the red keycard".

Overall, I thought it was really good, the kind of movie the prequels should have been.

Ren is sort of on a reprise of Anakin's journey. But where Lucas and Christenson fucked it up by having Anakin emote so little they had to CGI the eyes in the 'I'm going to do something evil now' scowl, Driver and Abrams are making it much more subtle because it's against the background of the normal emotional range.

If it makes you feel better, when Ridley gets that steely-jawed calm look, imagine Obi-Wan saying 'Use the Force' or Yoda saying 'Do, or do not, there is no try.' And when she gets *pissed* and starts just whaling the fuck out of Driver in that forest fight, imagine the Emperor cackling 'Good, good!'

Kylo Ren/Driver is a punk, second rate, and knows it. He's tormented by his own sense of inadequacy, and self-loathing at what he has done for the Dark Side in order to make the most of what talent he has. The 'time-stop' trick is a good one, freezing opponents or even blaster fire, but in the end it's like the Mind Trick: It only works against those that are weak and blind to the Force.

--Dave

Interesting analysis and seems to fit.  I didn't catch that one and looking back on it I should have.   Anakin ultimately gives into fear in the prequels.  Rey when on the torture wrack also told him your afraid.  Fear about not having the strength to step into his grandfather's shoes I guess.  I will be interested to see if this is how it plays out.

Yup, and that's why Luke is Rey's father. Because the entire fucking thing is lazy writing. Sort of like everything else I said that turned out to be true after it was almost universally decried as being too lazy and stupid to be true.

And anyone being Obi-Wan's child would be shit, not some awesome mythical anything. Except maybe mythical shit. Shit so bad it would have to be imbued with magic to be so shitty that knowledge of it would pass into legend. The franchise is the story of the Skywalker family journey. Other "descendants" popping up is a shitty, stupid, boring idea. It is pretty much the entire plot of the next Naruto anime series, so maybe that will be awesome and mythical for you.

Seriously people, it's a fun franchise but its plot or execution aren't even on par with Fast and Furious. It could have been a lot more, but they shit away their last chance at greatness by hiring JJ Abrams, foul avatar of mediocrity. Oh, I forgot, we're pretending it's homage. BRILLIANT THEN!


Yeah, that never happened. Not in any of the movies, and not to anybody. The closest thing to that happened to Lobot and those were accounting spreadsheets, not knowledge of force use.

I believe the importance of the map was that is showed the location of the first jedi temple and that was where luke went.  This more so than luke was the reason the first order wanted it and the reason there would be a map at all.

"Leia is the only eligible woman in the universe" is a trope that's dead almost 15 years now. Yes the prequels sucked, but they showed more women than just Padme and Shmee.

Also there were not only female Resistance fighters shown, but multiple female First Order outside of Phasma. Hell, the Stormtrooper who tells Ren that Rey activated a motion sensor in the hangar was female.

 :awesome_for_real:

Speaking of stormtroopers, did any of you catch Daniel Craig?

Listened for it today and it only sounded like his voice on the "I will tighten these binders" line. Still, fun.

For all that AB might be right, it would be kind of cool if it turned out that this had all been some sort of long game by Darth Plagueis, playing for stakes that make the Galactic Empire seem like small potatoes. Remember, the goal of the prophecy for Anakin was "Bring balance to the Force", against a background where the Galactic Republic and Jedi Order have held control so long that the Sith are only legends even to the Jedi. If Plagueis became so powerful that he could control death itself, is it such a stretch that he might have been able to create life, a very special life, from nothing?

--Dave

"Eligible" in the sense that she's a viable partner for Luke, which nobody from the prequels is (too old) and nobody from Ep 7 is (too young) and nobody from the original trilogy is (too obscure for anyone outside the Mon Mothma slashfic community).  Other women exist, sure, but for the original trilogy it's Leia or nothing, which is why the EU had to invent Mara Jade instead of bringing in medic number five from that one scene on Hoth or whatever.

Why would Luke's baby mamma have to be in the original movies anyway? It's not like he couldn't have met someone and got lucky after ROTJ.

Obi-Wan's granddaughter is what I'm thinking. But it appears it is once again time to stop just having fun geek conversations because that is somehow offensive.

The most bizarre Rey theory I've seen so far is that she is Anakin reincarnated in a female body to "get it right this time." Still, being Obi-Wan's grand daughter is pretty high up on that list. The most reasonable I've seen is that she was either Luke's or Han's/Leah's and after Kylo Ren turned on him he hid her and then mind wiped everyone else. Kylo Ren definitely shows an interest when they mention a girl is helping Finn.

Luke has romance with one of his Jedi students. Baby Mama gets killed by Kylo Ren.  Luke leaves baby Rey on Jakku for her safety.

*iffy since we don't know character ages.

In real life, sure, that could happen.  But it's not the EPIC STORY THAT WILL SHAPE A GENERATION^{©2015 Disney all rights reserved}.  You can't have Luke effing Skywalker, galactic savior, chat up the waitress who served his coffee every morning and eventually get together and split a mortgage on a nice little house in the outer rim.  It needs to be epic, or else it will harsh this "Jesus Christ meets Gandalf" vibe they're laying on his character.  And if you DO spin a random nobody out of nowhere to be the mom, why not do the same for the dad, and avoid this cliche "No... I am your father" shit we've been rolling our eyes at since the 80s?

Yeah, Ren is second rate but obviously feels he should be wtfawesome like this grandfather. He can excuse his own inadequacy in comparison because Vader obviously got his power from the Dark Side (I'm going to guess Snoke told him that Anakin was just like him and relatively weak before embracing the Dark side). Thus his journey is war between his ambition and fear he can't live up to it against his compassion, guilt and horror at what he's done. I like it because he's not trying to break a habit or succumbing to the easy way out in going to the Dark side, it's clearly a hard choice for him but one he's made and is determined to stick with. My guess is that he was either one of the weaker students or just middle of the road having been told of his awesome Skywalker lineage and expecting to easily sail into first place as the most powerful. Snoke explains to him that Anakin only got his power through the Dark side and until he embraced it he'd never live up to his family name, his 'final test' was probably killing the other students while Luke was away and then he ran like hell.

I am kind of curious if we'll get some of the background on figures like Snoke. It's a change in the universe because after all the EU and prequels we're used to Star Wars having a Wookiepedia entry for every different model of blaster and the screwdriver that you see a Rebel technician using at 0:46 in scene 5 on Hoth in ESB. The prequels embraced that hard and went into huge overexposition on everything while cramming in as many background figures and aliens as possible. I think while he's clearly embraced Star Wars story tropes (by basically retelling ANH) Abrams has at least totally rejected this and, like the OT, there are things that happened but we don't need an info dump explaining. We've got a map fragment. Why/how? Who cares, maybe some Bothans died to get it, the important thing is what it does for the story.

I think even the Light Side Jedi conceded that the Dark Side at least *felt* like EZ Mode. I would guess that this is why they had such a control-freak approach to Jedi training and discipline in the first place, that they saw the temptation of the Dark Side as an overwhelming danger. That's probably why Luke has been hiding out--a sense of guilt at the hubris of trying to train more Jedi on his own without all that accumulated knowledge and experience, proven by Ben being so vulnerable to someone like Snoke.

I do hope the next movie is able to concede what virtually everybody watching the prequels concluded, though: that the old Jedi Order was kind of fucked-up. It would be nice to see Luke, Rey and whomever else (Finn, probably) find a new way to be Jedi.

Calling it now there will be a Ewin McGregor/Rebel girl romance in Rogue One

No. Kylo Wren is at most 22, an that's only if Leia got knocked up at the Ewok campfire.

http://sendvid.com/i0q9ybuc

This is Rey's vision sequence when she touches Luke's Lightsaber. You can hear a lot of Darth Vadar breathing. Also when you see the little girl being pulled away at the end you can hear old Obi Wan (Alec) saying "rey.."

I totally missed that when I watched in in the theaters.

I'll have to listen when I see it again, but what I've read is that Ewan McGregor's voice says something about "first steps". Which could mean--first steps into the Force. Or it could mean a grandfather speaking to a toddler granddaughter...

Apparently Yoda says something as well.

You can watch the link above, it's in there. When she transitions to the forest scene you hear "These are her first steps". It would be interesting if we find out who is talking to who.

The part when she's a little girl - the voice that says "quiet girl" almost sounds like Vader's, but we know it can't be.  It's definitely got that "speaking through a mask" sound though.

I thought it was that nasty guy in the scavenger's market. Looks like his meaty hand grabbing her.

It was. That was Simon Pegg's character.

The other voices in the vision, incidentally, belonged to Frank Oz (as Yoda), and both Ewan McGregor and Alec Guinness as Obi-Wan. http://www.ew.com/article/2015/12/20/jj-abrams-reveals-obi-wan-and-yoda-are-star-wars-force-awakens (http://www.ew.com/article/2015/12/20/jj-abrams-reveals-obi-wan-and-yoda-are-star-wars-force-awakens)

Apprently Ewn McGregor said the line "Rey these are your first steps". That's from a JJ interview.

edit: oops someone beat me to it by a few seconds.

Ohh.. I'd heard it was McGregor saying "Rey.." and then Alec Guiness' line from ANH "..your first steps.." dubbed in.  (from his time with Luke on the Falcon)

On that video, you hear someone in a kind of Darth Vader/Kylo Ren with helmet voice saying "Quiet, Girl!" when she's on the desert planet. And that's clearly Obi-Won's voice saying "These are the first steps" and "Rey" at the end.

The Quiet Girl line is the Junk Trader, Unkar Plutt. It's the same voice as when he says "1/4 portion" or whatever, they just have overmodulated it so it sounds mechanical, the same as when he's onscreen.

Yoda says: "Its energy..."
Luke screams "noooo" as someone else mumbles something like "Don't ... fear"
Rey screams "No, come back"
Unkar says, "Quiet Girl"
Then the ripped Guiness "Rey" followed by "these are your first steps" by McGregor

Which reminds me: I wonder how much of that floor footage is of the Sherriff guy. They made a figure and a bit of a big deal out of him in some of the prerelease articles, and he gets barely 1/4 second on-screen as Kylo offs him with a lightsaber in the vision. It seems like they might reuse some of that stuff in EP8 if they recount the story of Ren's inital fall.

As an aside, why do these kids always seem to get dropped off on some desolate planet with questionable guardians? Anakin, Luke, now Rey. Leia got a posh guardian, but other than her... the Skywalker line has been screwed.

Well this movie had my gf clapping like a seal during the obvious toy commercial parts and falling asleep anywhere else.


The people cried out for a star wars movie that didn't suck and we got one that wasn't great instead.

I also like how Rey is so strong and independent that she don't need no parents, no man, no rescuer and even no jedi master. Cause... :drillf:

I like how no one told Ren that Darth Vader chose the light side of the force in the end. Like nobody.

Did they forget about force ghost?

Oh fuck why did Finn survive the first 5 minutes of this movie. I thought the whole point of storm troopers were that their blind obedience to orders. Yet here this guy clearly freaking out not doing jack shit but hyperventilate and clearly not following orders. To the point that Ren notices and doesn't kill him on the spot. I mean the fuck? Funny thing is they make a big deal about him being a traitor throughout the movie, but for all intent and purpose you morons let a guy clearly having a moral crisis just roam around free.

I like how Finn is basically Jar Jar Binks, and no one is like offended. Like actually having a black guy be the clumsy loud moron instead of a CGI character representing all those racist undertones is ok. And while Finn's character can be argued to follow the tradition of regular bad ass normals doing the right thing despite coming from less than ideal backgrounds like Han Solo, he really just channeling Jar Jar.

Speaking of Finn, I find it funny that JJ Abrams decided that he rather have us assume we're going to see a black storm trooper jedi. As if the threat of this movie being labeled feminist propaganda was so great he had to take special pains to make it seem like the girl with all the similarities with anakin and luke is definitely not going to be the jedi the force "awakens" for.

Is it me or is the "best pilot the resistance" is the squared jaw blue eyed sub for Rey. Because having her fly the millennium falcon to destroy the death star and defeat a sith apprentice in a single 20 minute action set piece would have been too unbelievable.

Did I mention unbelievable? Like pepper pots becoming a flaming ninja of vengeance after her fake out death, this chic is officially better than Anakin, Luke, and hell Obi Wan. In fact she out phantom menaced obi wan flipping over sith lord maul and slicing him in half...except without the awesome. You see while obi wan may have had actual training and years of guidance and tutelage under his belt and maybe the motivation to avenge his master, this girl, this girl needs none of that. Within 3 minutes of being declared a force user she;
 
*masters the jedi mind trick
* she beats Ren in a force contest. Ok, lets rewind, she beats the guy who can rag doll a grown man, who can remove the friction of an incoming blaster bot as its fired, has actual jedi training to back his abilities. She beats him in the force. She beats him in the force.  :oh_i_see:
*'She beats Ren in a light saber contest. She out duels Ren. With a light saber. The guy trained by Luke. Trained by Luke Skywalker. She beats him. With the force.  :awesome_for_real:

The dark side is fucked.

Oh btw did anyone laugh there ass off when they revealed Ren/Ben Solo's face. Like  :awesome_for_real: the boy looks like a sith lord for the CW.

Funny how they declare the EU to be non cannon...only to rip the movie plot right out of the EU. Way to stay classy Disney.

They're in there. They speak to Rey when she has her Force Nightmare.


These aren't your fathers storm troopers, as was pointed out throughout the movie.

What happened to Vader force ghost. Something like
"Grandson...your too stupid for the dark side!"
Or Obi Wan
"Ren, this is not your destiny!"
Or Yoda
"This is not the right path, it is."

Do we have any examples of the ghosts talking to Sith?

I'm honestly asking. I've read like two books from the EU ever.

So much baggage.

MediumHigh, you have leveled to max. Your name is now ExtremelyHigh.

Pretty fucking much.

So you guys were cheering when Rey downloaded her jedi skills like neo from the matrix.

You live in a world where the force is a real thing.  You've heard stories about luke skywalker, han solo and the rebellion. You idolize to the point you've made little rebellion dolls.  You have likely heard of the force, of jedi and the things they can do.  Now, someone is in your mind, using this force to probe you for info but you feel something inside yourself pushing back.  You realize you are doing this, you have this in you and you push back.  Turns out you're still trapped in a detention cell, knowing you have this magic power in you and you DON'T try and use one of those mind tricks you've heard about in legends to get out?

Now the final fight.  They established Rey already knew how to fight without a lightsaber. They established how chewie's bowcaster sent stormtroopers flying through the sheer force of laser blasts.  The antagonist had suffer what to many would be a mortal wound and also gone through the mental anguish of killing his own father, not to mention a brief fight with a novice in which he took another wound.  Even after all that Rey still had a hard time until she focused on using the force to fight which is you know, in every god damn star wars movie ever. 

...Just because there wasn't a blue ghost whispering in her ear....for fuck's sake.

But, there was.

I'm not going to assume Ren is a powerful Sith Lord.  He is Leia's son and she was not strong with the force.  He did a new trick by freezing the blaster shot, but that doesn't mean he is powerful - different Jedi excel at different tasks.

I'm also not assuming that Rey had no training.  I'm betting we get the reveal that she is Luke's daughter, she was being trained by him at a young age, he left her with someone (Lando?, Ezra?, Kanan? - Rebels characters are unlikely, but possible) when he went into seclusion to protect her from Ren and the First Order (Driver is 9 years older than Ridley - if he were a teen when he betrayed Luke, the timing is about right for their biological ages), the person he left her with had to abandon her when he was discovered, and that the reason why there was no dialogue in the last scene is that she recognizes him.  Luke is almost crying for a reason there and it isn't because he missed his widdle wightswabber.

As for who Rey's mother could be: a version of Mara Jade, Sabine Wren, or someone entirely new.  Based upon the timing, if Rey is Luke's daughter and Daisy's biological age is an indicator of when the character was born, she was born a few years after Jedi ends.  That allows a few years for Luke to set up everything and for it all to fall apart.  

Maybe he's almost crying because billions of people just got wiped out? or because his failure lead to his friends death?

So basically she better than Luke. Cause even Luke knowing of the existence of jedi, of there skills and powers and fascinated with the old republic and the jedi order couldn't so much as retrieve his own light saber without proper training. Couldn't even deflect lasers from a practice drone without some form of instruction. Nope she good, she jedi now. Dear fuck christ I know the villain is pathetic and wasn't even competent enough to kill jar jar binks 2.0 but please don't pretend that Rey not only winning but almost killing the kid wasn't an ass pull. I know your standards are pretty damn low but damn.

Your own comments aren't even consistent with themselves. 

A pathetic villain in a star wars movie is not at all a positive.

In the same sentence you called the villain pathetic but found it incredulous that he was defeated? In fact all of your posts have made the same level of sense as that. 

LOL at this last page, bring it on folks  :grin:

Movie also made me realize I still have to start watching Clone Wars, Rebels and read the new "canon" book series (only "A New Dawn" came out so far, right?).


And...yes, I resubbed to The Old Republic. Fuckin' Star Wars.

Shame (http://www.sherv.net/cm/emoticons/object/bell-smiley-emoticon-emoji.png)

Dude said Luke was upstaged by Leia at one point in a ramble. I wouldn't argue too much with him.  :why_so_serious:

Except Luke was none of those things. Luke was a bored farm boy with a bit of a knack for flying and the idea that his father was a navigator on a spice freighter during the Clone Wars. But hey, you keep fucking that chicken.

I want to know where I can get the same drugs MediumHigh is on. I'm on pain meds after a hernia surgery and haven't had the same kind of incoherent rants as he has. Clearly my doc is holding out on me!

This is pretty great, been a while since I've witnessed a Star Wars nerd fight.

To join in for a bit, I do feel that Rey got her powers kind of undeservedly, she just became super badass without much explanation at all. That in turn made the fight seem anticlimactic as it was clear everything was at the mercy of Abrams Ex Machina. It would have been better to focus a bit on her inevitable destiny (of being Luke's and Leia's shameful yet super powerful offspring :why_so_serious:), instead of bait and switching with Finn.

If I'd seen this as a child, it would be perfect.  There were a lot of little things that my brain picked at during the film, though, like how distance didn't seem to matter at all.  It felt like our heroes could be anywhere in the Universe within a few hours.

My one niggling complaint is that even though I enjoyed Finn's character, and his chemistry with the other actors, at no point did he come across as someone raised from a young age to be a Stormtrooper.

Go with what works.

I am now a Star Wars fan.  Saw this twice.  I like how it was put together.

The Secret Formula for ultrapowerful Jedi is lots and lots of sand in their early diet.

My eyes glazed over.

It's the spice.

Oh yeah, he definitely had too much personality.  Maybe his force ability will manifest via *jokes*

Syfy has an article up about an early draft of the script that had Luke as a major character... http://www.blastr.com/2015-12-21/star-wars-force-awakens-screenwriter-reveals-films-original-plot (http://www.blastr.com/2015-12-21/star-wars-force-awakens-screenwriter-reveals-films-original-plot)  I agree with the logic that you just couldn't have Luke play a major role in this script if you wanted us to give a darn about new characters.

My biggest complaint is the pacing.  Why have characters meet and go on a grand adventure over a few days - so that when one dies, they really have no reason to be quite so attached?  It felt like the movie was a bottle of Red Wine that was shotgunned right after someone popped the cork.

My thoughts on the characters:

Poe: Original script was going to kill him off where it looks like he died.  I think I'd have been fine with that path.  He is just an extra distraction in the later half of the film.  If he plays into the future movies, I hope he has a real place in the story.

Finn: Not sold on him.  He reminds me of that spazz that says whatever lies he thinks will help him get out of trouble.  As he seems Force Sensitive, I am wondering if there is any chance he turns out to be a Windu....  I didn't feel like his character had much of a progression in the movie.  He just sort of did stuff and I didn't feel a reason why it was based upon fear at first, and then on loyalty later.  Why be brave and loyal later in the movie when he was only out for himself earlier..?

Rey: Love the actress.  Love the acting.  Like the idea.  Don't love the script she had to perform.  I agree with all of the comments that she took to the Force too quickly.  We either needed some subtle hints there was a reason she was so good so quick, or she needed to struggle and not show any mastery.  I could see having her win while using the Force as a blunt weapon as well, but having her find her inner peace and be a master swordsman without giving an explanation as to why she was able to do so does contradict the past stories we've seen.  Also, her character should not have been as phrenetic as she was.  JJ's tone was wrong for her.  Her quick mastery of the force would have made more sense if she was more purposeful earlier in the film and less random - more eye of the storm, less crazy teen.

BB-8: Like the idea in theory, but I spent every moment he was on screen wondering how he is supposed to go back up the stairs, is the head detachable, why design him to be a ball when we've never seen ball shapes before, etc...  I'd also have liked to have seen less of an R2 personality.

Ren/Ben: I get him being a tool.  He has been fooled into "following his grandfather's footsteps" even though Vader left the path of the Sith in the end.  We see him give into anger far more easily than any Sith we've seen before (which was kind of refreshing).  I don't think he is a powerful Sith Lord relative to Vader, Sidious, etc...  and he lacks control.  However, he reminded me too much of the character he plays on Girls.  I'm betting that he'll sacrifice himself in the 8th movie in order to bring back Vader (resurrection is part of the new Star Wars thanks to Clone Wars - and there was too much Vader worship for there not to be a payoff), but the Vader he brings back will not be the Sith he'd have expected.

Han Solo: Ford got his wish, but I was disappointed.  Solo was always a bit of a good hearted moron - and in the end he died like one.  I knew what was going to happen, but I feel like even if I didn't, and I was in Han's shoes, I'd realize my son was going to kill me any second there.  I like the nice touch of Han saying he can always talk his way out of tough spots earlier in the film only to have him talk himself into being killed by his son, but it just didn't sit right.  And we are assuming that he is dead - right?  He falls off screen which is a time proven hedge to allow you to bring a character back, but I am pretty sure that he is not returning.

Leia: Kind of wasted here - I hope she gets to do more in the next one.  A slower pace would have allowed her and Han some time together. 

Snoke: He just has to end up being a yoda sized character when we see him in "real life" instead of as a hologram, right?  Or smaller?  Maybe a few inches tall?  A tiny force master could be interesting...

Maybe midichlorians are just sand fleas.

Considering the Jedi this time is a white girl, it's pumpkin spice.

Apparently Carrie Fisher has some health issues that limit her mobility and kill her memory. First I'd heard about it was in another site's thread but I haven't been able to find much to back this up. If it's the case, I don't think we're going to see much more of her.

I just don't get why people don't see Finn the way I do. Yes his emotions and excitement is dialed up to 10 but he's been living as a child soldier his entire life and what one can imagine to be a joyless, mostly emotionless experience. Imagine being able to taste food for the first time, see the sun for the first time. Yes they don't come and spell it out but it seemed pretty damn obvious to me, this is a young man being able to openly express emotions such as joy, anger,fear,excitement,lust  :awesome_for_real:  all for the first time.

Maybe except he breaks all tension, which kinda sucks the air out the movie. But I do like how he feeds the comedy for the rest of the cast.

Read Fisher's memoir Wishful Drinking to get some sense of it. She still receives electroconvulsive therapy today I think--for some time she was getting doses of it every 6-7 weeks.

Yeah, isn't she like super bi-polar?

Yeah, diagnosed shortly before or after she first did ANH. She did coke to self-medicate  :ye_gods: which also gave her a hell of a bikini body. You may have seen pics.  :awesome_for_real:

Yeah, just read some stuff on the ECT, it does all kinds of bad things to you. Sad.


Yeah that's my read of the character, too. Think of kids in oppressive households and how fuck-wild they go once they hit college.

I will accept Rey being Luke's daughter only if Finn is Windu's lost son (Finn has Sammy J's intensity).  Then the two of them bone in epi. 8 and she bears the ultimate Jedi-Sith.  Because bi-racial kids are not only confused, but they clearly are superior beings.   :drill:

Anyways, I'm gonna take a stab and guess that the guy touching the R2 unit in Rey's vision is also Windu.  Windu lost his right arm to Anakin and likely got a prosthetic.  The arm in the vision doesn't look like Luke's, it looks like someone else's.  So maybe it's Windu's and Windu survived the fall, as has been speculated.  Technically, Windu would have been the most powerful Jedi alive at the time with Yoda having passed.

Windu was then the one tasked with taking care of Rey during Luke's forays, but has to leave himself after the fall of Ren.  You will find them both chillin on the ocean planet drinking Midichlorian martinis.

That's not how PTSD and the many other fucked up things in trauma survivors manifest. Acute or chronic. If that's the angle they were trying for, they fucked it up hard.

I just saw it.

Rey sucks and the sort of people freaking out about people rightly criticizing her sucking are all you need to know about why she sucks.

If it does come to pass that Ren saved her when the knights ripped through the jedi school, then it might fit with Rey knowing a little more about the force than first appearances. She might not have realized it as a little kid and forgot all about it after the trauma of being dropped off on sand world #357.

 :popcorn:

The movie however is very good. I liked it!

My suggestions:

-Kill Rey or make her far less Jesus Mary Sue and reduce her role in the movie
-Make Fynn the focus of the next movie because he was really super good
-Leia is a better female character than Rey and even if she has health problems I would like to see more of her
-Maybe more actual character arc stuff instead of just leaving it to the next movie

So, what, we're up to 3 people who didn't like it?  :oh_i_see:

No wonder it's gonna fail. It's the new Phantom Menace! Run away!  :awesome_for_real:

You want to know bullshit? Ep5 Vader literally brings up a video screen and force chokes to death someone from the other end of a star destroyer.  Rey shouldn't and isn't on Vader's level but fuck man, they have been doing force related deus ex bullshit since ESB.

I liked the movie. Rey is just kinda bad.

She was Exposition Girl in a reboot through most of the thing, which is a pretty thankless task. Hopefully Rian Johnson can bring a bit more style to the entire thing in the next one.

The most coherent bitch I've heard about Rey is that she's a Mary Sue. So fucking what? So was Anakin. He was also a whiny bitch.

Every other complaint I've seen about Rey has been of the type leveled against Furiosa in Mad Max and fuck anybody and everybody in that camp.

Rey wasn't very good. Saying that Anakin was a Sue too isn't actually a very good argument because 1) the prequels were insanely bad and 2) Anakin actually gets his ass kicked good a couple times in the series.

If Rey was a dude, he'd still not be very good. Rey the character is not very good.

I am in agreement that Rey was not very good.  I won't say bad and I dug Ridley's Keira Knightly vibe, but beyond that I'm with Fab... she was a fairly bland character.  Kind of a young, female Anakin really.  I will give her that the script didn't really help, but the script didn't really help the actors in ep. 4-6 either... and they made it work with just flat out awesome acting and improv.  Ridley phoned it in in this regard.  

To be fair, Ridley is nowhere near the skill level of Boyega.  There's a reason he's the only black guy in the film; he's just a really really damned good actor.  You could tell he was moving beyond the lines, similar to how Ford approaches his craft.

In the next film hopefully she grows into the role and/or maybe receives some more direction or more forceful writing.  Akin to what happened with Hamil's Luke in ESB.  That said, if she was channeling Hamil's ep4 Luke, she didn't do a very good job with that either... but I'll blame that on the direction of her character as she's clearly going to be more of a grey Jedi.

Seems relevant ...

http://io9.gizmodo.com/please-stop-spreading-this-nonsense-that-rey-from-star-1749134275?utm_campaign=socialflow_jezebel_facebook&utm_source=jezebel_facebook&utm_medium=socialflow

 (http://io9.gizmodo.com/please-stop-spreading-this-nonsense-that-rey-from-star-1749134275?utm_campaign=socialflow_jezebel_facebook&utm_source=jezebel_facebook&utm_medium=socialflow)

I saw the film in a half-empty theater at the 10:30am matinee. I liked it the same way I liked the first JJ Star Trek film, and it was a lot better than that one.

But yes, let's talk about Rey: I liked that she was as good as Han Solo at diagnosing what was wrong with his ship.

She'd been trading pieces of engines and power couplings for food for functionally her entire living memory. Smugglers and traders visited regularly so she'd been working with ships, and the Falcon itself had been there for long enough that she had opinions about its various owners modifications. Repairing things, fighting with her stick, survival in the desert, alien languages, piloting a speeder, and crawling around giant spacecraft: All skills that, within the first ten minutes of introduction of the character, I felt the movie had sufficiently cued that she had earned.

When Han Solo offers her a job after knowing her for a couple of days, it was not a Mary Sue moment. Rey was genuinely the sort of person Han should probably hire. When she's flying off in the Falcon with Chewbacca at the end, that's perfectly acceptable. I can see her becoming a hell of a smuggler in some other movie. She certainly knows how to take his sort of insane, borderline unnecessary risks.

I could not accept her as a better Jedi than Ben after a few minutes of watching him use force powers.

Like Finn (has anybody else commented on how his name is a THX1138 reference?), she thought the Jedi were a myth. Later, after a few seconds of practice, she mind tricks a storm trooper. Then she force-pulls the saber better than Ben. Then she beats him in a duel.

Remember when Anakin accidentally defeated all the robots by accidentally destroying their central brain by accidentally flying into their base after accidentally getting locked in a fighter? Because the midichlorians, I guess? This was better than that, but it has the same basic problem. The movie needed to give us some background (A few minutes even! Luke in the Falcon with the drone in E4!) where we have some sort of explanation for how that's something she can do. Either that or she needs to be as shocked and disoriented as we are (like she was after deftly piloting the Falcon through the skeleton of a Star Destroyer).

Yeah we've all seen Obi-wan do the mind trick on Storm Troopers... WHEN DID SHE? "The Force awakened!" "The saber called to her!" These are Mary Sue bullshit. How did she earn that, movie? I'm sure it will all be explained when we can read her inner monologue in the upcoming novelization, but I would have liked to see some of it on screen.

Show, don't tell.

Gosh was it a fun time at the cinema, though!

"Yeah, but why are you rescuing me?"
"Because it's the right thing to do."
(beat)
"You need a pilot."
"I need a pilot."

Star Wars!

The novelization is out and it doesn't cover that.

Someone on my Facebook feed came up with a decent fanwank that I'm willing to go with for the time being: She learned kind of by osmosis. She's a fairly skilled staff fighter and she has a force-aided knack for improvisation. That helped her focus and adapt Ren's style. Also, Ren was beat to shit by the time they started fighting anyway and, let's face it, he's a shitty jedi. His whole motivation for going dark was that he was a shitty jedi. Look at his Fisher Price fucking lightsaber fer chrissake. You think that fuzzy, frizzle effect was because it looked cool or menacing? Hell no, it's because he can't make a full-fledged saber. That's one of the reasons he wanted Luke/Anakin's so bad.

A cool way would've been to show Rey covertly using the Force to survive on Jakku. And wondering to herself why she's the only one that can do it.

Heh, when she gets knocked out and Finn picks up the light saber, at first I thought "Yes!  They were building her up to be Super Jedi Jesus, but it was just a misdirect for the other more humble less of a bland dick character to be the jedi protagonist!  That's actually pretty cool and original!"

Alas.   :heartbreak:

I have never ever seen the term 'Mary Sue' used in a way that implied it was only for female characters.  It's used constantly to refer to any protagonist that is overpowered/naturally good at everything in Fantasy and Sci-fi literature,  which is mostly men.  So the author is already talking out of their ass from the get go.

The big thing the author is right on is that a Mary Sue arises out of fan fiction and is much, much more "awesome' than Rey is presented as being. Rey is far from it and as for her learning the Force "too fast" it didn't bother me at all. It seemed to me she was acting purely on instinct and it was also nicely used to subvert the "helpless woman gets captured and needs rescuing" trope.

Also, her beating Ren in the final duel:

1) He'd been shot by Chewie
2) He was visibly bleeding from said wound.
3) He just fought Finn who wounded him again.
4) When the duel with Rey begins he is visibly exhausted. At the START of the duel.

Yeah, the author outlines the real origin and history of "Mary sue" characters.

I like the "Force Osmosis" theory put forward in the article. Seems in tune with the duality of The Force and the strike me down bit in a way Abans would twist them. I've just figured she had training prior to being dropped off and had been told post that it was all kids games and shed forgotten the same way we forget how our toys used to "talk" to us as we grew up.

I can see you reaching. Knowing how to fly in the star wars universe has been literally beat over our heads how easy it is. Farm boy luke can blow up the death star and avoid being shot down by Vader. Slave Anakin can destroy an entire droid army with only relevent skills being super humanly good at pod racing. Reys a scavenger of ship parts and probably picked up flying like the way teenagers kinda know how to drive, maybe, who cares the shits easy. In fact Finn not knowing how to fly is a bit more absurd.

You know whats not easier then flying the millennial falcon? Being a motherfucking jedi. And you guys just shrugging your shoulders like "whelp it was like osmosis" or something. Nostalgia is a hell of a drug.

How much training did Luke get in the Force between Farmboy/Hero of the Rebellion?  Right, an orbiting little training droid and sage words from Ben.  And Luke and Rey were not Jedi yet.  Look at ESB; Luke spends most of the movie training and goes up against Vader.  What does Vader say? "You are not a Jedi, yet."  And kicks Lukes ass without breaking a sweat.  They have established that you can pick up Force powers and go and do pretty good, but to be a Jedi requires training. 

Luke blew up the Death Star while evading Vader.  Cool.
Rey defeats a wounded, exhausted and mediocre wannabe.  Unrealistic!  Mary Sue!

Please.

I look forward to all of the "THE TERM MARY SUE IS DEAD" articles from insanely shitty clickbait websites like this one.

She's a fucking Sue. She fits this fucking chart that they've probably posted before.

http://www.overthinkingit.com/2010/10/11/female-character-flowchart/

Nope, not that. FN-2187 is a reference to Cell 2187 on block AA-23. Princess Leia's cell on the first Death Star.

Also, the whole "Rey picked up how to use the Force pretty damn quick" is entirely keeping with Star Wars history. Hell, Kyle Katarn found a lightsaber in a garage and that made him a Jedi, so why not someone who had a Granny Weatherwax moment with a wannabe Sith?

 :why_so_serious:

Luke not getting shot down by Vader was dumb. Star wars was always dumb like that. However him actually using the force to do anything besides fail at dodging training droids and barely retrieve his light saber after being knocked out by a yeti is another. And the fact that a week with yoda wasnt enough to make Luke even a padwan is the point.

As it stands now all Rey needs is a week worth of "trust your instincts" and she'll be lopping snouks head off. The fact that they have no desire to make Ren threatening is beyond bothersome turning the movie into a platform to tell meta star wars jokes which is kinda all I remember this movie being. Funny.

We were first introduced to Rey as a pretty amazingly capable human being.  She was crawling around and rappelling through a massive shell of a star destroyer in a decidedly impressive fashion.  She warned off another scavenger, one who must have know she could wipe the floor with him.  Right before meeting Finn, she kicks the shit out of three dudes looking to steal the droid.  She then outruns and out maneuvers Finn and knocks him on his ass.  She is clearly not your average moisture farmer.  She is a scavenger in a nasty place and has presumably lived there for many years on her own.  As a female, no less.

She was a badass from square one.  She would have beat the stuffing out of Luke at the same stage of their stories.

So she's better than Luke   :awesome_for_real:

I actually want to know where she learnt to pilot on Jakku

Yeah, I'm starting to think she actually got intensive training as a child/young teenager (together with showing incredible attunement to the Force); then, maybe, Luke pulled a "Revan" on her  :grin:

Kyle Katarn is a good example. Or Starkiller. The only modestly popular Jedi character who seems to have come by his powers through hard work and training is Obi-Wan. I suppose Yoda too but we don't know much about his earlier days.

Maybe Jedi training wasn't ever about developing your skills in the use of the Force, but about developing the discipline to stay away from the Dark Side. Or maybe it was just about hierarchy, really. Or maybe it was meant for otherwise marginally Force-sensitive sentients that needed the training to develop their connection into something grander.

I mean, if we're going to complain about all this, how about Luke Skywalker being able to pilot an X-Wing *and* knowing the formations and so on of the X-Wing pilots for the Rebellion? Oh, really, being able to fly a T-16, whatever that is, lets you fly a military vehicle as if you were highly-trained? If it's that easy, they should have three or four hundred of the things in the sky, because surely they're cheaper to build than a big capital ship. It's like a character saying, "Well, I can fly a Piper Cub, how hard can a F-16 be?"

I didn't mind it in any event. I'm not sure I even care if she's a Sue. She's a fine character and she was well-acted.

I don't think Rey being so good at the Force so quickly is a Mary Sue thing, it's a "hey, Jedi have been made a lot cooler and more powerful since the OT thing". It's power creep. It's the same reason Kylo can freeze blaster fire and the person shooting, whereas Vader had to block blaster fire with his hand and then force pull the blaster away from Han. Between the prequels, the video games, the EU, etc..., how the force could be used went far beyond the handful of tricks shown in the OT. On a continuity level, I mentioned that even I found it jarring that she got so good at using the force without any training. From a story-telling perspective though, nobody wants to wait until Episode VIII just to get to point where Rey can do a Force jump or slowly levitate a large object. Star Wars and special effects have changed since ROTJ. Back then, the pinnacle of Luke's abilities as a Jedi was to swing a lightsaber around somewhat competently.

They could have come up with an explanation of how Rey learns so much, so fast. Maybe they still will at some point. In the meantime though, some shit you just have to let slide a bit because a lot of things have changed in the last 30+ years.

This is what I'm thinking too.

I also think she was conditioned to always go home no matter what.

Kyle/Starkiller kinda don't matter since they're EU and have thus been jettisoned from the canon.

From day one they've said they are keeping the EU they like. Everything about ep7 screams KOTOR.

If that's the case they shouldn't like Kyle or Starkiller or Mara Jade since they suck.

But I think that is the point. I don't remember hearing about people saying, "Oh, my, I won't play those games because my character becomes improbably skilled and powerful in too short a time. I would only enjoy playing them if I spent the first sixty hours of play killing womprats and working with a training droid". Ren isn't a Mary Sue, but she is getting a certain amount of narrative compression. (From a director who is perhaps overly fond of narrative compression for getting his stories to the genre-expected place, sure.)

I forgot this was Bastilia's main thing...

http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Battle_meditation (http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Battle_meditation)

Respectively those things were videogames AND insanely bad EU shit. Kyle and Starkiller were shitty characters and they sucked- they just provided a character for me to self-insert on to own people with lightsabers because they're designed to be user power fantasies. Mara Jade is just really insanely terrible EU shit in general.

Rey is by every means and definition a Sue. That doesn't make her TERRIBLE; I thought her actor did a pretty decent job, and she was really fun in some parts of the movie. I just think she was flat out the weakest PART of the movie overall, especially at the end.

At the same stage of each respective story?  Self-evidently.  That doesn't mean a lick about whether she is actually stronger in the Force, only that her life situation has made her to be stronger at this point.  It isn't really hard to figure out.  They even fucking showed it on the screen.

While yes her current showings don't necessarily say she'll be better than luke by the end of the series... there is a stronger argument she will be by miles. And that the kinda thing that took me out of the EU. Everyone is the next anakin and luke, and not enough guys like Obi Won or Qui Gon. Middle of the road guys who got to where they are through perseverance and simple stepping up to the challenge, and not just simple being born into greatness. While yes that is the premise of the original trilogy and the prequels; some kid born so awesome that his destiny is to save the galaxy!

But when every new character with the last name luke or solo is basically the second coming jesus, the story becomes exhausted as they easily dispatch darth lame and darth incompetent. And the EU did run into this problem, basically the heroes ran through all opposition so easily due to everyone having force powers from the moment the egg was fertilized (not joking that's an actual EU character), that the plot had to become convoluted and the sith/dark side couldn't be written interesting and new weapons of mass destruction had to be made bigger badder and ultimately lamer ever story arc. Right now the EU jedi are so over powered that they basically destroyed the dark and side and fighting taxes or something. Who knows and the greater part is who cares, note no one mourned the EU not being considered cannon....

I think the plot is terrible because she is a mary sue. However she is a great character, showing actual emotions, not following deeply into the modern action girl stereotypes and displaying a warmth and energy on screen despite her life being shit for the most part of probably 10-13 years They could have waited or had her first confrontation with Ren be tragic but inspiring her to greatness, instead of just proving she's neo. Cause fuck the plot is bad.

There needs to be a sticky post explaining that beating Kylo Ren at that point in the movie wasn't such a great feat.

1. He is not as strong as Vader, they say this explicitly
2. He was incredibly fucked up physically in the last battle.
3. He was incredibly fucked up mentally in the last battle.
4. His training as a sith had not even begun. Snoke says "Find Kylo Ren so we may begin his training"

She didn't see the coding in the matrix, she used some force power to beat a half dead wannabe.  She's strong but this wasn't some asspull mary sue victory guys.

This is a good point and to that I need to add that the people in this thread calling her a Mary Sue literally do not understand what a Mary Sue is. By definition, she literally is not a Mary Sue. Also, she's not much more competent than Luke was at a similar stage of his development. Calling her a Mary Sue reveals more about the person making the claim than it does about the character.

Yea yours' plus Rigg's list is where I'm at.

Personally, anyone who thinks Rey is a Sue is looking for her to be a Sue. She's not some refined fighter like Maul or Jinn. She doesn't have training. Finn had more training in both ranged and melee weapons, which is why he could hold his own. Rey by comparison is just a brawler. Pay real close attention to her fight the next time you see it.

She's an unskilled brawler who learned to survive on her own, with a stick who channels anger to make her stronger, against a guy who'd already been beaten down by Chewie and Finn and oh by the way, his already fucked up head being compounded by just offing his own father.

Luke beating Vader in their second battle is more unbelievable than Rey beating Ren in this scenario. Vader had decades of nothing but training since his early teens as both a Jedi and a Sith while Luke gets a few month with Yoda before trundling off to save Han, and then had to teach himself everything from scratch as an adult. Watch that fight scene again too. He's barely able to go toe to toe because Vader is holding back just to ensure Luke loses his shit on his path to succumbing to dark side. Theirs' is also not some choreographed dance like any of the prequels battles. It's a beat down. And that's pure canon, putting aside all the EU-now-Legends stuff.

Oh and compared to Rey, he had a positively normal upbringing with two parents that had a steady income.

I don't want to think anyone's being misogynistic, because we all know better. But put a guy in that role and give it a thought.

Fakeedit: btw I do love this debate :-)

I know what a Mary Sue is. She's a Mary Sue. That's not enough to declare her terrible or anything; it just makes her the least interesting part of the story.


She's not really flawed in any significant manner. She's (correctly, due to her awful circumstances) distrustful and abrasive for...all of like 20 seconds. After that she's pretty much non-stop awesome start to finish outside of getting captured once (and everyone in the fucking movie gets caught at least once). I can't think of any actual character flaw she has outside of just being so gosh darn great!

If it was a guy I'd call him a Gary Stu and probably would hate him more since I doubt he'd have as good chemistry with Finn.

Seems to pass the 5 questions on that flow chart to me. You're trying too hard.

She doesn't seem in the least bit flawed. Sorry about your really bad opinion.

Oh yeah not flawed. Like she doesn't have this wierd longing to stay on the shithole that is Jakku, or is terrified by her visions and goes running off into the forest.

Nope not flawed.

That flowchart is by far the dumbest thing I've seen today. You could literally post the text "Strong female characters don't exist anywhere because reasons." and it would be the same.

also from wikipedia basically describes every fantasy protagonist ever...including Luke Skywalker.

A simulator. There are three short stories for her, Finn and Poe about what they were doing just before the movie starts. She spent the better part of a year rebuilding a crashed ship she found on Jakku and a lot of time before that flying different ones in a simulator she'd rebuilt.

Yes, except Luke spends a lot more time failing and screwing up onscreen than Rey does.

I'm not upset because her learning of the Force is "unrealistic". The Force itself is unrealistic so writers can make up whatever they want about it. I'm upset because those writers need to show their work. Back to E4 again:

Luke gets some wisdom and guidance from Obi-wan, but the important scene is the one with the laser remote: He's ineffective and getting zapped, so Obi-wan blinds him by putting on an opaque helmet. Luke complains that he can't see, and Obi-wan tells him to reach out with his feelings and Luke does and blocks laser shots with his saber and Han says "Pfft, he got lucky." and Obi-wan says "No such thing as luck."

In a screenplay sense this is the direct mirror to the scene in the trench at the end of the film.

Luke is failing to target properly, so the ghost of Obi-wan says EXACTLY THE SAME THINGS about using the Force and his feelings, and then Luke turns off his targeting computer. Also, making his own luck, Han returns at the last minute to blow Vader off Luke's tail. Together Luke, Han, and Obi-wan blow up the Death Star. In the tiny world of the movie it's all part of the same conversation.

Rey runs off into the woods because she has strange and horrible visions. There she meets Darth Disappointment and he immobilizes her, reads her mind, and knocks her unconscious using Force powers. Then he fails to get the map from her mind because she out-Forces him, then she invents the mind trick in order to escape. Later she is better than him in every way.

Where, in storytelling terms, does this come from?

I don't care about what happened behind the scenes, I want the movie itself to give me a little reason to suspend my disbelief. The difference between a good Chosen One and a bad one is the way that events for the former follow a careful, methodical logic and events for the latter just kind of work out.

Luke Skywalker is a mary sue.

He's a perfect shot despite never used a gun
He can out dog fight a veteran of the clone wars despite never flown a fighter before
He has uncanny aim with the falcons turrets
He can actually a hit darth vadar after a week of walking around with a green frog
He is the third most powerful jedi after a months of training
He beats darth vadar by over powering him. He beats a man with super human mechanical limbs and force augmentation with brute force....

Fuck that guy. Sometimes. The only thing that prevents Luke from going fully down that uncanny valley is that he actually loses to Vader the first time they met. And the number of casual failures he suffers as he attempts things the first time. And the amount of guidance and assistance he gets from his friends and mentors, ultimately over coming the odds with a combination of his intangible strengths AND the help of people who care. However In the EU Luke Skywalker is basically the son of force god, able to do every force power ever shown including the ones associated with the darkside.

Fantasy and Scifi is full of "the one". Which is why only handful of works in the genre doesn't sound like uninspired drivel. Some blond hair prince being denied his rightful place in some kingdom he shouldn't' care about wades his way through his enemies with improbably level of swordsmanship and probably good at magic and shoe making too. Yawn. Sometimes it work, most of the nostalgia factor stuff generally about OP characters. But this is 2015. Only very few movies can get away with generic tough guys swan diving into a machine gun nest and only needing to brush there teeth afterwards.

Rey is a good character. But I like her wins to be actual wins, instead of "well I guess she's a swordsman now! THE FORCE!!". I mean shit. That's not hard, its been done. Vulnerability and heroics, wins and loses.  As the movie itself said "The FORCE DOESN'T WORK THAT WAY" only for the force to work exactly that way 10 minutes later.

This. I really think that they were trying to say that Rey is just a very instinctual survivalist who can absorb skills like a sponge when needed. Look at her on Jakku when she was dropped off (less than 10 years old I'd say) and what, 15-20 years later, she's survived on space junk? This is a kid who's just supernaturally adaptive and I'm going to guess that her strong connection to the Force is the reason. The Force isn't meant to be a purely conscious thing - a lot of it is an instinctual connection to the eddies of the universe. And I think they are clearly trying to show WITHOUT TELLING that she may be one of the strongest Force users out there from birth.

Neither of those are what I would consider personal character flaws and both are essentially resolved in a matter of seconds. After running out of the bar, she encounters Kylo Ren and is captured, and by resisting his mind probe she is now a semi-master Jedi and knows the mind trick which by all appearances in the original trilogy was supposed to be a pretty high-level trick. That's pretty much the end of her giving a shit about the visions. She's wistful about not leaving Jakku for like 20 seconds total in the movie.

Finn isn't perfect either; his heel-face turn is so complete it beggars belief- particularly when he's brutally impaling a dude on a lightsaber like an hour in after having his PTSD experience on Jakku maybe a day or so earlier- being traumatized watching a fellow trooper die in his arms while smearing his blood all over his helmet, and having to watch a bunch of unarmed people get gunned down in cold blood.

I'm just judging her by the standards of people who are twisting themselves into knots trying not to apply those standards to Rey because they're invested in being able to call her a "strong female character".

edit: and again, I'm not even saying being a Mary Sue makes her terrible!

I hate to do this because I basically agree with you, but again: screenwriting.

Perfect shot and turret aim: He used to bullseye womp rats in his T-16. Like I say, I got no problem with Rey's piloting and technical expertise. When we see her flying the Falcon she's crashing into stuff left and right and making crazy moves because she's overwhelmed and unfamiliar. It works better than Luke's ability to shoot.

Dog-fighting: Luke isn't dog-fighting. His X-wing is one of the bombers in their formation. The other Red fighters are supposed to defend him while he focuses making the impossible shot into the exhaust port. He gets that job because of the excellent aim he's displayed in the movie up to that point

Darth Vader: Here's their fight from E5. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C-DeI3ohVbY) Vader toys with him and casually wipes the floor with him... then offers to train him because that's what he wanted all along. Then in that final fight Luke wins because Vader doesn't want to kill him. Which is pretty much the entire point of both Luke and Vader's arcs in E6.

...and by the time he's the third most powerful Jedi, Yoda is dead. So he's the third out of three.

Yes, and this is what Lucas was trying to show with making Anakin great at everything he did from pod racing, to building robots, to sitting in the cockpits of fighters. Abrams and Kasden are better at it. It's still bad Chosen One bullshit unless you explain it in the movie.

Luke is the third most powerful  jedi by virtue of being a fucking jedi in a world with two other jedi. Holy shit.

http://www.nydailynews.com/entertainment/movies/neil-degrasse-tyson-fun-star-wars-article-1.2473686 (http://www.nydailynews.com/entertainment/movies/neil-degrasse-tyson-fun-star-wars-article-1.2473686)

Fight over this instead.

I take Finn's turn a little easier because, like he said, he knows what the First Order does. He knows it's either him or that stormtrooper. Especially considering he's pretty much a marked traitor by the time they show up.

As for the people twisting themselves in knots about Rey being a "strong female character", there are just as many twisting themselves in knots calling her too perfect while letting male characters with the exact same qualities slide.

I don't think there's any male characters that qualify as a Gary Stu in this movie.

Poe almost gets there because he's closer to a stereotypical action hero than even Finn but he just doesn't get enough face time. He is just super-competent however; knows a Tie Fighter up and down (yet somehow can't disengage a tether...), him and Finn fuck up part of a Star Destroyer with said SINGLE Tie Fighter, and he gets his own trench run after playing "Super Badass Guy who isn't afraid of no torture"- only giving up the goods when Darth Cosplay rips the location from his mind.

Not in this movie, no. But as I said earlier, Anakin was a total Gary Stu.

And he was terrible.

I like Rey a lot more than him because while Rey being a Sue was really eyerolling later in the movie, her actor and lines were generally pretty damn good and her chemistry with Finn was great.

Edit: lmaoooo I was checking out the apparent debate over Rey's sueness and I guess there are people who think Finn and Poe are in a romance. What do you call the non-Japanese manga/anime equivalent of Fujoshi?

Poe was supposed to die in the first twenty minutes.  They changes his destiny right around the time of casting.  His lack of depth is a product of not being intended to survive as long as he did and not having a story purpose later in the film.  However, he is supposed to have a more substantial role in the next film.

I hope he does, Poe was a really fun character at the beginning of the movie. Him, Finn, AND Rey together would be awesome.

"So, how's this supposed to work? Do you talk first? Do I?"

That line sold me right away.

Yeah that made me double take , 'oh they are going to be funny as well? awesome!'

I would be down with a Finn, Rey and Poe travelling roadshow. 

Little Anakin was pure shit, but so was the whole Phantom Menace. Rey's bizarre force competence is an embarrassing little skid mark on an otherwise well put-together character in a pretty darn competent popcorn movie.

Pointing out that Anakin is a Gary Stu is silly because that's the least of those movies' problems. The patient is dead. Rey's brush with Sueism in the third act is just an annoying papercut. A single, outstanding flaw (if you will) that serves to drive meaningful conflict on this message board. Like the sort of thing Rey could have used to drive meaningful conflict in her own fucking character arc.

What the fuck, did they consult the Destiny devs on storytelling or something?

And for all the reasons you listed, that is why people generally didn't walk out of the ending of 4,5,6 with the "that's bullshit". By episode 6 when sidious wants to replace Vader for Luke no one questions that Luke is powerful enough to be worthy of the top slot next to the emperor. Because by movie logic he earned it, even though logically he really should have been ragged dolled.

But the movie flaw is ultimately being good not great. Something worth the tickets but not the popcorn. Ultimately it has me a little worried about how good episode 8 will be.

Me too.  I was distracted waiting for Poe to resurface after he went missing.  5 more minutes before he disappeared and I think he'd have stolen the show.

Ok, now you're just concern trolling.

Star Wars Justice Warriors?

You are wrong. If you watch the final fight with Ren carefully, you can see her biggest flaw is going to be her anger. It's part of the reason she beats him - not so much her balls out connection to the Force (although I again think that's part of it) - but also because she gets just sick angry. And as a result is channeling more of the Dark Side than Ren. It's another callback to the Empire Strikes Back fight and the Return of the Jedi one in which Luke loses his shit and starts whaling on Vader. The difference is that in Return of the Jedi, Luke is more attuned to the force than in Empire and so beats Vader. Rey's anger is probably going to be one of her flaws. Another one is that she starts out somewhat selfish - "I have to return home rather than fight for good." She doesn't choose to fight the First Order, she gets captured.

Rey is a Mary Sue by the common definition: A hyper-competent character that doesn't earn their place at the center of the story, but takes it out of sheer awesomeness (if she were a guy I'd call him a Gary Stu, it's not about gender). She's a well-done Sue, in terms of how it was acted and directed, and it may actually be very important later that she was so effortlessly awesome. Note that the title of the movie is "The Force Awakens". Maybe it's not just a Force user awakening to the Force, but that the Force *itself* has manifested an avatar.

And yeah, it's by no means certain that she's going to be the triumphant crusader for good. I wasn't kidding about imagining the Emperor cackling when she beats down Kylo Ren. I think Abrams is trying to do what Lucas failed at with Anakin: Make us actually like her, so that when she does her Face-Heel turn, it really stings.

--Dave

Yeah, rey is dangerous. She's a problem. I think Luke knows that, and knows exactly who she is, and was probably involved in making sure that she was compelled to self-exile.

And now she's there, with that compulsion broken, and he is basically thinking "if rey is here, and she has that lightsaber, oh I'm in trouble this is trouble what do I even do"

Whoever linked that ESB fight scene, thank you. I'd forgotten just how goddamn good that scene was filmed. The slow menace of Vader unsheathing his light saber, the differences in fight styles that so totally fit the characters' personalities, the ominous lighting - it's just genius. Sure, the effects are a little dated because '80's but still, it's amazing. Also, I was wrong - there were a few times where Luke got some good shots in but for the most part, he got his ass kicked.

I can't even hope for a plot as daring as evil Rey. This is Disney Star Wars and post-Into Darkness Abrams. It's going to be predictable formula all the way.

Where do we see that anger other than in the final fight? That's not a flaw, that's stepping up because somebody is hurting your friend.

When is she selfish? At the beginning when Finn is trying to drag her into somebody else's fight? Finn is the selfish one!  Rey's already refused to sell BB-8 for almost a YEAR'S worth of portions. The point in the movie where she wants to return home she's not refusing the fight for good, she's refusing a job as mechanic sidekick from Han Solo... who does occasionally fight for good but is mostly a conniving smuggler.

Sure, she is favoring loyalty to old dreams over faith in new ones. That's not a flaw, that's the Refusal of the Call part of the monomyth... and it's the whole of her character arc in this film.

Also it turns out these new dreams are your old dreams, kiddo. Congrats, you're the protagonist.

100%.

My fear is that this trilogy will be the fight for her soul and they'll resurrect Vader to fight it.  Too many Vader worship moments.  They brought back all the other jedi voices but his... There are the stories about Christiansen being trained for a role in episode 8...

Genuine criticize of the movie, points that have been made by other people multiple times, is trolling? Cause I'm not sipping on the nostalgia koolaid?

 :ye_gods:

Putting aside loaded termslike trolling: Rank the following films on your expectation of their quality based upon the evidence at hand: Gods of Egypt, Star Wars 8, X-Men Apocalypse, Star Trek Beyond, Justice League, World of Warcraft, Assassin's Creed.  I'm not sure about the exact order, but I have a pretty good idea which of those will be the one you expect to be best...

http://www.inquisitr.com/2452882/star-wars-rumor-says-hayden-christensen-to-return-to-the-star-wars-universe-for-episode-8/ (http://www.inquisitr.com/2452882/star-wars-rumor-says-hayden-christensen-to-return-to-the-star-wars-universe-for-episode-8/)If true, they can't hide it for long. 

http://io9.gizmodo.com/please-stop-spreading-this-nonsense-that-rey-from-star-1749134275

No. You're concern trolling because you went from your opening salvo of, "this movie sucked" to "I liked it but I have concerns about the next one due to some things I didn't like in this one."

Yeah, we already saw it. It's nonsense: "She isn't a Mary Sue because here are some totally implausible justifications for why she's so damned awesome at everything!" It's exactly as plausible as Anakin being the Universe's Greatest Mechanic/Pilot. But where Anakin was completely unlikable even as a child, and insufferably smug later, we actually like Rey, so we want to find excuses about how it's totally reasonable that she knows more about the Millennium Falcon than Han and Chewie put together, and she can overpower Ren in the Force just by being around him using it, *once*, and invent the Mind Trick from scratch without ever seeing it done.

It's not, but as a reflection of a deep connection to and natural talent with the Force, it can be explained and even add to the story, and I think Abrams and Ridley did an excellent job of setting that up. But certain quarters don't want it to be a totally arbitrary accident of birth following naturally from the series mythos, but Grrl Power in human form. She's totally a Mary Sue, but they want her to be *their* Mary Sue.

Lots of things happen in the series that wouldn't make any sense at all unless they were actually manifestations of the Force, that's the whole damned point of it. It's why they are mythic, rather than pure deus ex machina.

--Dave

A new theory thrown around: Rey and Ren are ... twins.  Luke mojos Han, Leia and everyone else to forget Rey because he wants to protect her from Ren.  The only one that he can't mojo is Ren after the massacre... so he makes Ren believe she is dead by faking her death and making him believe he hid her existence from her parents as a mercy...  A mercy he even might support.  He doesn't seem to hate Han and Leia - they're just not on his side and he is willing to sacrifice them to his cause.

Thus, when Ren encounters her, he doesn't have any inkling it could be her, but he might suspect it as the story progresses.  Those that are suggesting this say that you might be able to see an inkling of suspicion on Driver's face as he fights her, as he sees her with the Skywalker Lightsaber, etc...  

I don't give the idea much credit right now, but I will be watching the acting on the next rewatch to see if there is any chance the acting supports the idea...  I also think that the age of the actors (Driver is 9 years older than Ridley) defies this pattern.  They could be older brother / younger sister siblings instead of twins with the same story, but I still doubt it.

No. Not a chance. Too many places that should have been in the subtext in her interactions with Han and Leia for me to have missed them all, I'd consider it a total ass pull retcon even worse than "Luke Kissed Leia".

--Dave

This isn't a zero sum game.  Rey is not either total mary sue neo the one plot device ex machina OR grrl powah, don't need no man look at how she does it on her own.  It's just you have a character, that character has abilities which make them stronger in some ways than other characters and these abilities are not fully explained in R.A Salvatore-like detail.

Adam Driver is 9 years older than Daisy Ridley so I'm gonna think they don't go the twin route the age gap was way too noticable to me at least.   As for Rey being stronger in the force? I don't see an issue because that whole mind pushing thing seemed more like raw, untrained power than any sort of finesse.  Kylo has training, he can stop laser blasts, read minds and drag people across a room but he doesn't have the raw power of his grandfather or of Rey even untrained.

That's a really bad article, thanks for linking.

Lakov: They want to have an argument that nobody is giving them. Rey is a fantastic feminist character, first surviving on Jakku alone, then making her own escape (Finn is just along for the ride), then subverting the Damsel trope by rescuing herself, then inverting it by rescuing Finn. But Abrams did such a great job of the subversion and inversion that everybody just accepts them, they work.

They want to have the "Furiosa is the star of Fury Road" argument all over again, but nobody is giving it to them. So, "they called Rey a Mary Sue, that's totally the same thing, right?" That's saying she only won because the director (a man) wanted her to, totally taking away her agency and warrgarrble....

No. She's an implausibly hypercompetent character (a Mary Sue/Gary Stu), and it works.

--Dave

I've never heard of the term Mary sue and I've never seen it written on these or any forums. Then all of a sudden everyone is using it.

I'm so looking forward to the extended edition DVD/Blu-Ray release featuring 45 minutes of extra exposition footage to keep you guys happy.

Seriously, the film was 136mins which is more than stretching the bladder capacity of the younger members of the audience and was still overstuffed with too much happening in too short(!) a time. Which was my biggest problem with it. Another 45 to extend some of those scenes, add in some of the stuff that inevitably ended up on the cutting room floor would work wonders for me, at least - and probably a lot of you guys as well. Until then, I was (mostly) happy with the film, and I can't blame anyone but Ford for the part that I didn't like. Then again, I could have happily watched three films worth of "The Adventures of Han, Chewie and the Kids", so there's that.

I'd happily buy that alongside the Super Special Restored Edition releases of the Original Trilogy where Han shoots first and bad-'90s-CGI Rontos aren't in the fucking way of every second shot on Tattooine. Now Disney is in charge, they might actually make that happen.

And shit - I'd even be open to it if the Hayden Christensen rumours turn out to be true. I'm not exactly a fan of his in general, and Anakin sucked, but I'm willing to almost all of the blame for that on Lucas' fuckawful dialogue writing and hard-on for greenscreening everything in sight. With Lucas excised from the whole thing and Disney and co in charge, along with the "back to the original feel" ethos, he could be just fine, especially if used very sparingly. McGregor is a hell of lot more of a talented actor and charismatic individual than Hayden which is the only reason that Young-Obi-Wan gets a pass from all of us. That and his badass lightsaber duels.  :oh_i_see:

I can't keep track of who it is that's oversensitive anymore. I need a scorecard or something. Because people are using "plausibility" in apparently earnest ways to state with apparent certainty what is or is not a reasonable use of a magical power in an imaginary fairy-tale galaxy, a power that has already had a long history of being wildly inconsistent in previous stories in that galaxy.

I just don't know how most people have fun going to movies on this board.  Being overcritical is hip I guess.

I honestly think they're just pissed at the implication that Rey is stronger than Luke. MediumHigh stated it enough times that it appears to be part of the argument.

So what if she is? Why does Luke have to be the strongest Jedi? His virgin-birth Jesus father? The 35 years of baggage on the character? Personal preference? Only men can be 'the strongest?'

Nah, fuck all that. Doesn't matter. Fun movie was fun and was as good as the originals with a modern twist to them. If you want something heavier or more consistent, go watch nothing but independent High Sci-Fi movies and not Space Operas.

Here's my theory:
Remember the vision scene we see where Rey is facing off against the "Knights of Ren" and seems to be about to be struck down and the assailant get run through by apparently Kylo's blade? Here's my few points in that.

1) It's a vision from the future. Future is based on emotion (ESB). Doesn't have to be the way things are.
2) Kylo Ren saves Rey because he's in love with her (crazy obsession + immature tantrum + loves what he can't have/beat).
3) Rey doesn't give a shit about Ren, ends up killing him. Goes Darkside. Big reveal in the second movie ala "I am your father".

Ren is a very weak character. Very weak mentally and self-esteem wise. Needs to wear a mask to intimidate with his "parlor tricks". Throws tantrums. He has power as in he has abilities no one else does but he doesn't have the aptitude to wield them like a Vador or someone else. He's a child pretending to be a grown up for the most part. He killed his father because of theorycrafting reasons. I don't see how you transition a character from throwing a tantrum in a room where you see Stromtroopers turn the other way into a badass that is a main villain.

That's the crux of the whole series. You don't have a villain. You have Snokes but he's some kind of unreal imaginary/background villain like the Emperor. There is no Vader here. You need to twist a knife into the audience and introduce someone that you're emotionally attached to that you believe will ruin your day. Do you really think Kylo is scary and oppressive? He's just some whiny young shit pretending to be a badass. That does not lend itself to a good story later on. Can you really write a story that takes the character that is essentially a brat and turn him into a dreaded figure over the arc of a three part story? We've seen him unmasked (big hint). We've seen his weakness. We've seen him act unsettled. What we need to really look for is a villain to fear. No one fears Kylo Ren who got beat by a startup "Jedi" and a ex-stormtrooper who saw one half a battle.

I know it's a long shot, but I can see Rey turning into that badass that you fear. It would be quite a turn similar to Vader's "I am your father" moment. Rey has already shown anger/passion/fear which leads to the darkside!

Anyway, I can see it happening.

Now its "well of you dont like my dumb plot and none sense story telling just go watch something more series". Come on people said the same thing about the prequels and the transformers. And Rey being hinted effectively being stronger than luke is just more eu uncanny valley bullshit. If she is to be stronger actually train her. Actually put her through something. There is a way to make a chosen one believable without following right into Anakin Skywalker levels of just cause. At least star trek fans were pissed when Into Darkness literally pulled the same levels of nonsensical story telling.

Been watching for two pages and still haven't found a compelling reason to change my position:

Replace her character with a him. Feel the same? Luke Skywalker literally made no mistakes until he didn't anticipate telekinetic attacks near the end of the second movie? How's he not a Sue? Shit, almost every mistake he's made in canon came after becoming a self-proclaimed Jedi Knight.

Separate thought experiment: how much is her and how much is shit happening to her?  First BB8 discovers her. The Finn helps her evade the First Order. Then the Millenium Falcon miraculously working at all helps her. Then Han Solo finding her helps her. Then Luke's lightsaber calling to her helps her. Then Ren trying to mindrape her helps her discover he own powers. Then Finn and Han again. Then then then. Shit is happening to her and she's adapting.

Now replace "her" with "him".

Just want to point out that in the first movie alone Luke gets tricked by R2 into removing the restraining bolt, and has to be saved by Obi-Wan twice (from the sand people and in the cantina). Luke doesn't really accomplish much throughout the movie until he makes the shot on the Death Star at the end. At the start of Empire, Han has to go out and rescue him, and later on he's too impatient to complete his training and leaves despite Yoda's warning that it will only make things worse. He's far from infallible throughout the trilogy.

He does have a 100 percent blaster hit ratio after Obi Wan is struck down lending some credence to the "anger makes the force flow through you more and on easy mode"  theory.

Also, Rey has been living a rather hardscrabble life on a shitty planet as a scavenger and mechanic for 10 years rather than sitting around drinking blue milk with his Aunt and Uncle.

Don't try to defend her. She's obviously too talented.

Yeah we already had "him", his name was Star Killer or any random EU jedi with Solo or Skywalker as a last name. It was lame in the video games, its lame in the books, its lame in the movies.

The cut and pacing of the new film is also much more rushed than the old ones. Everything seemed to happen in a day and storytelling corners were cut to fit in all the action. Whereas the old one had time for calm dialogue and small scenes, making it seem more of a long journey. Which in turn makes it more acceptable for a character to change during the movie.

Yeah, I think that's a good analysis.  Even if it wasn't a short 90 minute movie, it felt like one.  The flow felt way to rushed and chaotic, which is why I would have liked for it to be 20-30 minutes longer.  Would have been better if they'd just gotten the pacing down in the first place.

Mind you, again, I really enjoyed it.  Just one of those things I felt they didn't get quite right.

There was only one place where it was clear that something was cut: Rey disappears into the guts of the machinery, and then we don't see her again until Han starts nodding his head at her. What happened in between?

There were other places that a few seconds obviously got chopped and made it feel rushed. But that was a whole missing scene.

--Dave

Another thing that slightly bugged me with the movie that I knew was going to happen is that it's doing the Marvel-continuity nod stuff where dangling plot threads and half-finished character arcs are left with big winks and nods that are basically, "Hey, be sure to see the next movie in a year or two if you want this to make any sense!".

To really determine what was and wasn't dropped/badly written in the end as a whole you're going to have to see the whole trilogy. Empire ends on an obvious cliffhanger, but the original trilogy had the main cast have mostly realized character arcs every movie.

The Marvel movies hardly invented leaving dangling plot threads for the sequel. Also in the OT they couldn't really leave stuff dangling with ANH because they had no idea if it was going to be successful enough to get a sequel, and they couldn't leave things dangling with ROTJ because it was the last movie in the trilogy.

I should note that most of the times I've been in an auditorium when Force Awakens is finishing up, there's an audible groan from the typically large percentage of the crowd the stuck around through the credits when they find out there isn't a post-credits scene. If they truly were pulling a Marvel, they would have found some way to tease Rogue One or Episode VIII. I should also note that I really hate post credit scenes now and how people have been trained to stick around through 5-10 minutes of names and job titles that aren't relevant to 99.99999% of the people watching them on the off chance that they might miss 10 seconds of footage that may or may not be there. There's no incentive for flim makers to encourage people to sit through that shit, and it makes it take that much longer for a crowd to get out of an auditorium so the theater staff can start cleaning and getting the next group in. It benefits nobody and is an inconvenience to just about everyone involved.

I don't mind the "big speculative mystery that you have to wait for the next installment to resolve". That's fun.

I do mind the "just wait for the ten films that will tell you about all  the backstory". I wouldn't be too surprised for example if Max von Sydow's Lor San Tekka character is the older version of Mads Mikklesen's character in Rogue One. Dropping people in stories and acting like they're important largely just so you can pre-advertise some other bit of franchise product is not even fanservice, it's just annoying.

Agreed on both counts and that's been my biggest beef with Marvel's stuff. I totally see it happening with Star Wars now and it will be obnoxious. I care about the films, maybe a TV series but little else.

This whole making a movie with the future movies in mind really sucks ass overall. You get plodding movies that just spin their wheels till the next one comes out. The minor shit gets resolved and is only there to push the main arc into the next film...and the next...and the next. By the end, the main arc is completed and never satisfies the build up. It is one of the reasons I gave up on going out and seeing films - why bother when it is just going to leave me hanging on for another 2 years to see some sort of resolution which will just get extended to the 3rd film. Movies are being made now with sequels already in mind so that the first movie really suffers for it. I'd rather just read about the movie and wait till the box set comes along and marathon it.

It only sucks when the movie can't stand on its own.

For all you guys bitching that Rey beating Kylo Ren makes her some super badass "Mary Sue" this is what JJ Abrams said about Kylo Ren:


Yes, he's a powerful Jedi but he is by no means meant to be considered on a level with Darth Vader or probably even Anakin when he was turned to the dark side. He's likely about as capable as Luke was at the end of ANH or during the fight scene in ESB. And he was seriously wounded twice and had no ability to control and focus his anger as seen many times in the movie.

Lets not forget he's got some serious motivation to get worse now. He's killed his dad (hey in for a penny in for a pound, lets hunt down mommy and deal with her too!?), he's been beaten by some junk scavenger girl and now get's to take the AP Sith course with SL Snopes (am I weird for wishing that dearest Supreme Leader would actually be as big as his hologram? that'd be kinda cool). I hope ep 8 isn't completely derived from ESB (once is enough Abrams)..aka the First Order goes Hoth on the resistance and then Luke plays the part of Yoda teaching Rey.

I think it would be damn cool as well to have Snoke be a sith user from the past projected from a holocron or something that is in actuality an AI replica of that Sith lord.  Maybe even the Sith who "cheated" death.  Wouldn't that be the ultimate deception looking back towards the prequels and what Palpatine told Anakin.  Wouldn't that be one hell of a twist if done right?  This evil can't be beat, its immortal as long as you have the galactic equvivilent of the internet.

But...but...

(http://a.dilcdn.com/bl/wp-content/uploads/sites/6/2014/02/3-Lando.jpg)



That's basically the beginning of the Consular storyline in SWTOR, with the jedi holograms and Rajivari

Episode 8 doesn't need to echo Episode 5... Episode 7 already did it.  What is the most iconic moment of Episode 5 and of 7?

A father and son stand on a metal platform over a great drop.  The father pleads with the son to choose his side of the Force.  The son makes a defining choice.  The hero falls, with a lightsaber wound...

Why don't we take this down to Politics and argue about whether it's an allegory for the 1% who are slowly being taken down by the dying middle class? The Occupy Awakens.

It'd be more productive and make more sense than bitching about a character in a movie about space wizards.

They're not wizards, they're more like telepaths.  Ugh.

Heh, you think arguing in the Politics tab is productive. Also, I'm sorry someone forced you into this thread and made you read it.

Appropriate.

(http://img.pandawhale.com/134713-star-wars-this-is-useless-gif-eSvl.gif)

Novelization clears up some things that many of us suspected:

http://www.blastr.com/2015-12-23/star-wars-force-awakens-novelization-answers-some-pesky-questions-film (http://www.blastr.com/2015-12-23/star-wars-force-awakens-novelization-answers-some-pesky-questions-film)
http://www.dailydot.com/geek/star-wars-force-awakens-novelization-highlights/ (http://www.dailydot.com/geek/star-wars-force-awakens-novelization-highlights/)

Ren did recognize Rey.  
Rey is battling the Dark Side when she dives into the Force untrained.
Ren knew Vader sacrificed himself.

R2-D2 is turned on by BB-8.  As are we all.  Such a huge ball on that thang.

Emo Kylo Ren (https://twitter.com/KyloR3n?ref_src=twsrc^tfw)

Everytime I see somebody say something like "I hope Abrams doesn't do X in Episode VIII" I wonder if they know he's read the script but had no hand in it and isn't directing it. Abrams did Episode 7 then stepped aside. He may stay on as a producer or whatever but that's about it.

Anyone see the design of Luke's prosthetic arm in the last sequence?  If so, does it match Rey's vision?  If not, then it's Windu in the vision petting R2.

It's not Windu.

Saw this earlier this evening.

The Good:

 - Poe, Rey, Finn, and BB-8 are all fantastic characters
 - The integration of Han, Chewie, and Leia into the plot
 - Lightsaber battles looked and felt great
 - The crazy tentacle monsters on the ship were rather fun

The Bad:

 - 3D remains utter balls
 - "Snoke"
 - While Rey and Fin's story was good, the rest of the plot really felt paper thin and shoehorned on
 - Scenes were two characters just stare each other down for ages without saying anything, too many of these

The other thoughts and gripes:

 - A lot of plot points weren't built up enough; Starkiller station just materialised out of nowhere, and when it does kill some planets it doesn't have the same impact as the destruction of Alderaan, because those people are gone as soon as they appear.
 - Ren being Han and Leia's son wasn't all that shocking, but maybe it wasn't supposed to be
 - Captain Phasma was entirely superfluous and seems to have only been included to have someone to lower the shields under duress, which was an awful gambit anyway. She's numbingly one dimensional. As is the new General Hux, his speech to the troops felt like something from Saturday Morning TV.
 - I'm not looking for more exposition, but some elaboration on the status of the republic and the resistance would be nice. Is the republic at war with the first order? If so why does the resistance exist? Who is the resistance resisting against? If the republic isn't fighting the first order what are they doing? Another underdeveloped plot point.

But aside from the 3D being awful, there was a ton of shooty-shooty space fun, and Rey and Fin's story with Han and Chewie was really enjoyable. Expecting Star Wars to be a narrative masterpiece is a reach anyway, but the latter third of the film did feel a bit half baked. Overall I liked it though, and would watch it again. A solid 7/10 film.

I dunno if he's necessarily even that powerful. Two other things occurred to me earlier this morning when I was loading up Star Wars Infinity - they stood out because of all the butthurt in this thread about him being beaten by Rey (after being gutshot by Chewie's "turned up to 11 lampshades" Bowcaster, being generally mindfucked in general and especially so after murdering Han, bleeding all over the place, banging his wound many times to demonstrate that he's wounded, and getting wounded again by Finn) : In the crawl, Kylo Ren is not referred to as a Sith, or a Sith lord, but as "An Agent of the First Order". Also, his name. It's not Darth Ren, or Darth Kylo. He's not a Sith at all yet. He's perhaps a Darkside apprentice at best. As pointed out, Gollum told Not-Tarkin to "bring him to be so he can begin his training".

 :roll:

Luke did a lot of fumbling all through the first two movies before emerging as a Jedi badass in RotJ. 

In ANH he stands by helplessly while Vader cuts Ben down; we don't see him even attempt to use a lightsaber outside of that brief training sequence (where he's clumsy and gets hit by the thing).  He doesn't do any Force tricks at all aside from using Force intuition to make the Death Star shot (something that could easily be handwaved away as "normal" skill or luck).

In ESB he fights the main antagonist and gets his ass handed to him.  Before that he gets surprised and almost eaten by a yeti.  He manages to do one cool Force trick before being trained by Yoda, which is pulling the lightsaber to him in the yeti cave, and he does that with great difficulty and lots of urging by Ben's ghost.

In RotJ he's doing mind tricks, force chokes, he's good with a lightsaber, etc.  Total badass.  But that's at the culmination of a trilogy, not the introduction of his character.

I don't think Rey's at all a bad character; I found her very likable.  I just wish we got to see her go through that sort of an arc instead of being instantly and automatically being better than the main antagonist at everything.  I like watching the hero get good at being a hero, or at least get an explanation of why they're so good at heroing (even a throwaway line like "I used to bullseye womp rats" is enough for me).  Maybe the next movie will do a bunch of flashbacks, I guess, but that seems kinda lame.

I'll grant you that, though I'm surprised that he wouldn't even have a co-writing credit? How do we feel about Rian Johnson? He hasn't directed or written a movie since Looper. Seems like a big jump. Hope he doesn't go all Trank on us.

I'm going to assume that going Trank on this one would lead to being taken out behind the shed and told to direct Disney Channel shows as a consolation.

I think Snoke says, "complete his training" not begin it. But the basic point is right: he's wounded, he's kind of a wannabe to begin with, and he knows it. Why else have to kill your own dad to prove you're up to grade? So it is not that big a deal to hurt or beat him. He's learned a few parlor tricks but there's every sign that the men around him mostly tolerate or have been told to tolerate him.

Hux in particular seemed very tired of his shit.

I want to like his movies more than I do. I thought Looper was ok but really fell down in the second half. The premise, while great, was somewhat wasted as well.

Trank was someone who had never worked on a "real" Hollywood film and totally fell apart. I can't see that happening here - Johnson has worked with at least decent budgets, on a fairly hyped movie, with big-name actors, etc. He might make a mediocre movie but I can't see him self-destructing. It seems like Trank's big downfall was that he just couldn't function in the higher pressure, more professional setting.

I'll just add that with a cash cow this big, disney is not gonna fuck around.  If they see Johnson floundering he will be gone in less than 10min and more likely than not JJ will just step back in, he is exec producing after all.

So, I skipped the last couple pages of the thread, but I read most of it and I'm wondering if people really buy the "Rey is competent with the force" thing.  Remember the old the force controls your actions but also obeys your commands.  I got the impression is was basically entirely the former in this movie.  I don't think it has been established that she is just some kind of bad ass Jedi now.

I didn't have much issue with Rey's quick learning of the force, it mainly served to keep the story moving fast.

I like the film, but my nitpicky issue mainly was with the universe not feeling like it has moved on since RotJ.  You don't get any sense really that things got a lot better for the average alien after the empire was defeated.  The New Order gets so much focus and are so well resourced that they seem as omnipresent as the old Empire and the Republic have no presence to speak of, their shadow sponsered troops are actually called the rebels when surely the New Order are the rebels.  We only get to see a crappy little scavenging town and a backwater cantina (except very briefly some senate planets before they explode) and have no sense of what anyone in the original trilogy actually accomplished. 

The movie has more a feeling of a reboot, than a continuation.  Emphasised by the face that Han is back smuggling, and that with Luke missing and his fledgling academy dead we are in the same position as in a ANH where the Jedi are almost exinct.  Nothing has progressed, except some wrinkles and waistlines.

I have to credit a friend of mine for exclaiming when he saw Kylo's weapon, "Hell, did he get a critical fumble on his craft lightsaber roll?"

I just got around to seeing the movie, and like everyone here I too have strong opinions about space wizards, but the hour is late and it's all been said so I'll just drop in that I loved it, with all its warts -- just like the original film.

Someone on io9 (Yeah, gawker, I know...) had a really good take on exactly this.


The whole article is here. (http://io9.gizmodo.com/theres-one-thing-i-totally-hate-about-the-force-awakens-1749285767)

The problem was this was beat for beat episode 4 with EU story elements thrown in order to reset the universe back to zero. In fact its probably a greater plagiarism of a series of books considered "non cannon" that I'm starting to wonder what kind of back room blow jobs the old EU authors must be getting not to be throwing a fit.

Another thing about Rey's "possible turn to the dark side"... eh. Nothing so far says this series will have that amount of nuances. Hell the fact that Ren doesn't immediately torture her once in custody in order to secure the one thing his entire career is counting on is the biggest red flag. The villain has already "peaked". We have seen the worst he can do. Ren "additional training" will be like +1 upgrades that are meaningless to the story since no one believes he's a threat. Morally he has the most chance to waiver and I can see the trilogy revolving around him slipping and sliding between light and dark and ultimately regretting his actions far more than living up to his self prescribed destiny.

Rey on the other hand, the implications of her wavering to the darkside is unlikely. Fact is she is too strong, too early and if she grows as expected the only one that can stop her is Luke if she ever turns. And I highly doubt they'll choose a violent way to stop her so a lack of a major confrontation kills that idea in the water. Story telling wise she has to least the lose and suffered the least on her journey, while she had it rough like Anakin she doesn't have a tether to that life anymore like Vader did with his mother still being a slave. Also its highly unlikely they'll show the darkside actually winning so the other implications of her killing Luke, while possible, isn't likely. In a lot of ways Rey will be the Lukes redemption for the initial mistakes he made with Ren and whatever his connection to Rey is that forced her to be put on a deserter planet her entire life.

We're set up for Rey to be the light jedi with occasional Dark Side temptation and Kylo Ren to be the dark jedi with some light side conflict.  And that's fine.  Star Wars doesn't need super nuanced, complicated plots with people switching back and forth between sides all the time.  The original Star Wars had a nice simple plot and it was great.  We get this redemption story for Vader, but he's still the bad guy and the redemption plot really only exists in the last 30 minutes of the final movie anyway.

These are space adventure films. Just let them be space adventure films.  The prequels fucked up by exactly NOT being space adventure films.

Take everything you said, then try to filter it through the expectations you likely had about what was GOING to happen in Empire vs. what really happening. Empire was such a great film because it really did fuck with your expectations quite a bit. It fleshed out the overall conflict as well as the individual conflict so much more than you probably would have thought after the end of ANH. Not to mention that it ended at basically the half point of the story with nothing resolved. ANH felt complete because it was written as a complete story that you could come back to, while ESB was written KNOWING they'd get a third movie. In this case, TFA was written with the idea of a continuation from the start and I expect that a lot of the predictions about where it should or will go will be completely wrong and that we'll actually see a lot more nuance than anyone thinks.

Consider the fact that Darth Vader had almost no characterization in ANH.  He was just bad guy with magic powers that used to be a good guy. That was literally it.  The duel with Obi Wan was really more about Obi Wan sacrificing himself for his friends than about the big confrontation between Obi Wan and Darth Vader that had been built up as this epic moment.  They just find each other in a hallway and fight for 2 minutes.  All of his characterization came in the Empire and then a bit more in Jedi.

In ANH, he wasn't even the bad guy that used to be a good guy. He was the bad guy that killed Luke's dad.

As I recall, Obi Wan says Vader was a pupil of his that turned to the Dark Side and betrayed and murdered Luke's father.

Yep.


The difficulty of analyzing any of this comes from the baggage of nearly 40 years of fan lore, head-canon, and other contradictory wankery. Add to that the actual revision and retconning done by not only the prequels but even the original three movies. Now layer on the inability to see even ANH as a standalone movie without any of that to compare it to TFA.

Lots of butthurt to go around if you take them more seriously than they should be. And again, I say this as a guy with no room to mock Star Wars lovers. I fucking own Stormtrooper armor now for chissake.

I enjoyed it quite a bit.

Things that bothered me:
1. Droid, please. For various reasons.
2. Han/Leia. Both characters felt tacked on and neither was really needed to tell the story.
3. Lack of Luke. The second thing my daughter said after the movie was that she had hoped Luke would have been in it more. I would have liked it more if we replaced the Han/Leia story with Luke beginning to guide Rey through this movie.
4. Snoke was dumb idea; Ren would have been okay on his own.
5. Pacing could have used some middle-movie quiet portions.
6. Typical JJAbrams has to one-up any previous incarnation of everything. The dude won't just drink Mountain Dew, he'll only drink EXTREME Mountain Dew. The next movie will have the entire galaxy as a weapon to kill other galaxies. Because.

Things I really liked:
1. Haphazard lightsaber battles. Nobody really knows how to use them and it showed.
2. No fart or poop jokes. We did get one enormous butt on Jakku, but luckily it was quiet.
3. The setup for future movies.
4. The overall tone and design. It felt like a damn Star Wars movie, and that's a good thing. All but one of my "didn't likes" are nit-picks.

He did. I just never took that as a good guy.

That said, I loved this movie and will continue to love it. I don't have stormtrooper armor but I do build my own lightsabers, so I'm pretty bad.

You rich guys and your lightsabers.


I've got a college classmate who's not-so-rich-as-you but is in the 6-7 figure range with the same hobby.

Maybe I'm just getting old, but did anyone else find it jarring that no one in the First Order appears to be over the age of 25? In the OT, the Imperials we saw were mostly middle aged officers.

Maybe that's what they were going for? Like the bad guys are a bunch of impetuous kids? I did notice that the resistance members appeared to be a older, on average, that the First Order.

Well, don't most of the old guard end up on the death stars and star destroyers that got blown up?

Basically my thoughts as well, most of the old guys are dead.

Hux is the son of one of those old guys. His motivation in the novelization is, I shit you not, "Make the Empire Great Again" I'm paraphrasing just slightly, but he grew up being told all these stories by his Imperial general father about how the Empire cleaned up the galaxy and he bought it all hook, line and sinker. I'm pretty sure most of his First Order recruits came from his dad's academy and were all the kids of REMF jack holes that survived by not being on the front lines.

As for the lightsaber hobby, if you've got a dremel and know someone with a lathe, it's not that expensive until you get to the more flashy sound cards.

I'm sure quite a few did. But there's always going to be career officers and veterans from the Empire that would join up with something like the First Order. I would assume they would be very valuable if an all-out New Republic-First Order war broke out.

Overall, I really liked the movie, but I couldn't really put my finger on why I couldn't take the bad guys as seriously as I did the Empire. Upon further reflection I think it's the age thing. They come off less like Nazi/Wehrmacht stand-ins and more like misguided Hitler Youth being used by a leader that doesn't really care about their interests.

Again, maybe that's EXACTLY what they were going for.

Interesting. I need to read the novelization.

If someone does read it, let us know if it is interesting and worth a read or painful to read like most novelizations.

It's by Alan Dean Foster so it's not horrible, but it does have some clunky bits. It clears up some ambiguous bits like the Kylo Ren/Han Solo interaction.

Yeah - I posted a summary of those a page or two back.  For me, the question is do O rely upon what others say about it or can I get through it myself?

You know the funny thing about the Empire. There not really the bad guys once you zoom out. Sure if your in the upper echelon you chummy chummy with the dark lords of the sith. But consider the genius of Palptine plan. Discredit the jedi and their religion. Place himself and his regime as the enders of a galactic civil war that saw his relatively small number white knights fend off against millions of exterm-o bots that threaten life across the galaxy. And place a universe mostly overrun with crime, slavers and evil wall street types under government regulation and control. Hell Luke Skywalker, the paragon of morality and goodness WANTED to join the empire. Which by the way was offering jobs to lowly moisture farmers. So the Empire offers upward mobility, order, and rule of law.

We never see the Empire be dicks to anyone who doesn't directly oppose them. At all. In three movies. What made them evil besides us seeing the Empire from the view point of people called "the rebels". Sure the Empire did make the death star but only pointed it at planets rebelling against them. Imagine a world were we see no problem dropping a nukes on an nation because we believe they've been over run by some fanatical ideology...oh wait... Tie in the fact that a good number of rebels properly believe in the force (discredit religion remember) and well from a normal persons perspective the rebels are basically space ISIS.

Now you've just gone and tipped the trolling thing to confirmed rather than suspicious.

MediumHigh: Obligatory Nazi comparison.

I enjoyed it.

I could have stood a bit less revisiting all the key "star warsy" bits we loved in ep4 and I hope this is the last deathstar I need to see exploded, but I'm willing to cut them a little slack for probably wanting to build a bridge between the old and new fans and the new trilogy.  I hope they can be a bit more creative story-wise in episodes 8 and 9.

I liked Rey -- good character.  Maybe a bit too competent to easily with the force, but maybe that's an opportunity to introduce some new and different challenges into her path to learning to use it.  I will be disappointed (but not surprised) if she turns out to be related to the first trilogy main cast somehow.  I'd love to be a bit more surprised by the later movies.

It definitely felt like a star wars movie.  They definitely avoided the plasticy too-CGified-and-greenscreened feel of the prequel movies,

The dialogue was hit or miss.  In particular there were a handful of little "say what the next step in the plot is" scenes that were a bit painful and could have been omitted or at least made a bit more subtle.  It is star wars, so even as a fan of the original trilogy, I should not set my expectations too high here.

Oh, I did like that our not-so-big-bad of the film was a fuck-up.  Quick to anger, but does not really inspire the fear that Vader did (those two storm troopers backing up and heading off the other way when he's throwing his second tantrum in the interrogation chamber after Rey escapes kinda drives the point home).  His boss, the CGI hologram guy, was less interesting.

Not to mention the uncoutable number of First Order guys that were on the Starkiller Death Star that got blown up as well! So much for the young'uns!

Actually, it's the first things he's said in this thread that make much sense at all. (Even with Obligatory Nazi comparison.) There's more than could be said even, but fuck derailing this into a Politics thread.

He's not the first to point it out! It's more coherent by far than his earlier postings. He came back to medium from fully high.

Relevant. The radicalization of Luke Skywalker, a Jeri's path to jihad. (http://decider.com/2015/12/11/the-radicalization-of-luke-skywalker-a-jedis-path-to-jihad/)

That was more of a slow breaking apart of the planet, i would assume a large number got away.  At least i hope the girl from killjoys made it.

I didn't like it.

I blame expectations. The buzz had me expecting something much better than the Trek reboot and this was not that.

Personally I thought Rey was great, the x-wing pilot was great and the droid was great. MAYBE they can save the new vader. Maybe. But he was pretty lame in this movie. If as someone suggested upthread the new emperor with the terrible name hadn't existed (so he's a dark side guy with no master except grandad's helmet) that could have super worked. He's not strong at all by jedi standards because he lacks direction and training. But I think they made him feel not very menacing and his temper tantrums were so lame. He's already lost to the main good guy. Someone suggested that he will now be motivated by jealousy and anger that she is better than him at everything and that could work. We'll see. Could be redeemed but overall the bad guys in this sucked a lot compared to even Darth Maul who at least was one of the cooler edgelords ever.

The pacing was fucking awful. Especially in the first third. Just jumping from coincidence to coincidence too fast, very jarring.

The plot armor was too intense for words especially any time the MF was involved. Fucking nuts at times.

As for Finn. He was shit. His character was written so poorly. The just recently unbrainwashed guy is the one carrying all the humour for the kids? It was bad. Really bad. He was poorly written, his motivations gave me whiplash and made almost no sense except that he is just in love with the girl. Which works but doesn't explain how he can defect and 5min later he is ok with shooting up any new order dude he sees and cheering about it. Really not comfortable with anything about that character, didn't work for me at all. Had the worst lines and worst character motivations.

The shit that threw me out of the mood of the movie the most though was everything involving the new death star. I had to suppress a groan I think when they were going over their plan to blow it up. That was by far the weakest bit of the movie.  The scale of events was just all off kilter. It reminded me very much of Khan. JJ just can't get big picture stuff right seemingly. The rebels are so small that they only have x-wings? Are the new order big or small? I honestly could never tell.

It didn't suck. Especially when we're all just trying to wash the prequels out of our minds. And it could lead to good things. Hopefully it was just dragged down by a desire to pay a lot of homage to the first 3 and fit the old cast in. They did ok with the old cast. Except that entire scene with Han and the two smuggler gangs and the tentacle monsters (thanks 3d for forcing stupid shit for the sake of 3d into every movie). I have no idea what all they cut to keep that fucking scene but I'm positive it was a mistake.

What if the reason Rey is picking up force powers so quickly, so easily, is that she is channgelling the dark side?  Didn't Yoda warn Luke that it was quicker, more seductive?  Look at how she flipped out on Ren.

Apparently in the Infinities 3.0 set, Ren calls Rey out as his cousin. No link as I'm on a phone and it was a Facebook linked article.

If true, I bet she's subconsciously remembering her Jedi training.  I bet Luke gave her a mind whammy before leaving her on Jakku.  That makes some of her reactions to information make more sense.  Like how she knows Han as a smuggler and kind of glosses over the mention of him being a General in the Rebellion.  She also seemed totally disinterested in anything Jedi before her first vision.

If you think this was on par or worse than the trek reboot(either of them) you are objectively wrong.

Debunked. He says the same thing against other characters, too. It is actually two things he says... "Face me" and "Curses"...

I wonder if we have to wait till the second movie  before your fanboyism turns to horror and disgust.

This is not the best film ever, nor the worst.  It gets bonus points for being a worthy continuation of the most beloved adventure movie series ever, after seeing a first attempt at furthering the franchise be such a horrible failure. I don't expect VIII to be a masterpiece, but I have May 2017 circled on my calendar because I am looking forward to the continuation of one of my favorite stories ever.

Because it is Star Wars, it does not need to be a masterpiece to be great.

(http://i.imgur.com/wwEtXD1.jpg)

(http://i.imgur.com/DZn2Qhd.jpg)

Let it go. Find another windmill to tilt against.

The answer is yes than.

Serious question: If you hated the film so badly, why are you still posting in this thread? I mean, it doesn't need to be a circle jerk echo chamber, but you seem to have really really disliked/been horribly disappointed in the film, and now mostly seem to be dedicated to shitting on it rather than discussing it.

What it comes down to is that some of us enjoyed a movie that you didn't. Why so upset with that?

I think he started with hoping to convince people he was right in his rants and has now migrated to trolling the thread.

Well, it's certainly not a rarity on the internet...  :why_so_serious:

But it's not even like most folks here can't see the flaws in the film, it's just that, for me and most others, the positives outweighed the bad. And I am certainly looking forward to the next installment of the series, which I will then judge on its own merits. I may be disappointed, I may not.

That's how it goes, when you're not prejudiced.

I do have to admit that I had the definition of Mary Sue wrong. I thought it was when an author effectively writes himself into his work, and then gives himself super powers/makes himself central to the story/universe (M. Night Shyamalan's character in Lady in the Water comes to mind right off). That sort of thing can be irritating when obvious, just for the egotism involved.

But a Mary Sue is just any super powered character that doesn't "earn" her powers in some way shown in the movie/book/whatever? Huh. That's actually not that bad, depending on how it is shown. Good acting/directing/writing can pull it off, as can a good crew of secondary characters. In any case, I see Rey as one of the enigmas of the story. Someone we're supposed to discover more about as the series progresses. And I do suspect she will have a fall. After all, she, as it stands now, has little concept of the possibility of failure.

But one day she's going to reach for a skill, and maybe the Force just isn't going to be online that day.

Or maybe I'm writing too much into a plot device. We'll see.

But at least I'm looking forward to it.

The original meaning was the author surrogate, but Hollywood has been playing with the trope and it has expanded and refined. In the "Superstar" episode of Buffy, Jonathan becomes a sort of Mary Sue/Gary Stu character, suddenly he is the hypercompetent and super-popular center of attention.

Expendables is filled with Gary Stu characters, especially things like the Chuck Norris cameo. Wil Wheaton's Wesley in TNG is a notorious example of an actual author surrogate in the canon. The list could go on, but the TV Tropes page on it will cover it in detail if you want to risk your evening.

--Dave

I pretty much agree with everything he said.  I mean, I loved watching the movie, felt like a kid again even, but It was a shit movie.  I'd compare it to Pacific Rim, another dumb, fun movie.   TFA was more fun and much more dumb.  I like reading criticism of the film not because I hated the film, but because everyone on my facebook feed is calling TFA the second best Star Wars after Empire, and that scares the shit out of me.  That's crazy.

In my opinion, 95% of the problems with TFA are directly attributable to Abrams, from the pacing, to the lack of scale, to the flat storytelling, emotionless climax, to the plot chopped into nonsense.  But all the actors, artists, special effects teams, puppeteers, sound teams and even the fucking caterer came to the movie with heart and talent, so it wasn't a painfully bad film like the prequels.  At least Abrams didn't fuck with the actors, and knows a thing or two about action.  That Falcon chase scene on Jakku was worth the price of admission.

Sorry- Nothing is dumber than an movie about giant monsters and giant robots and the idiotic giant wall constructed to keep the monsters out. Ernest Goes To Camp was a better script.

So on your scale of bad opinions shit movie ranks above  painfully bad. One scene was  worth the price of admission  and the people in the movie worked with heart but it was a shit movie, worse that Pacifc Rim.

You must be a hoot at parties.

It was fun.  The pacing was terrible.  Han's death was actually boring.  Rey, Poe and Finn are all written as contrivance characters who know or can do whatever a scene requires in order to move the plot immediately forward.  There was more homage and call back than original material.  Abrams had to one up the OT with a bigger Death Star that blows up more planets, an older Yoda, a Sarlacc pit that walks, no two walking Sarlaacs, and not two Greedos, not three Greedos, but two teams of Greedos.  Every single part of the movie involving Starkiller base and its destruction was equally dumb as the Wall in Pacific Rim.  Pacific Rim asked the audience to accept one stupid premise (the robots) and then ran with that with only the wall standing out as an aberration from the basic premise in stupidity.  TFA has stupid characters (Does Ren always take the sanitation department on I portent raids?  Aren't there special forces troopers to go with the special forces TIEs?), a stupid plot (a map of a completely charted Galaxy missing a piece, and neither the map nor the piece have enough I for to find the location?  How many coincidences does it take to tell a story?  I could go on), a completely stupid inability to deal with scale or even the basic premise (Starkiller base, coincidences, Han Solo the super famous smuggler putz, Luke quitting and running away like a Jedi), and a stupid resolution.  There really is far more about TFA that is stupid.  Pacific Rim had a more competent director and got more out his giant robot story even with a mediocre cast.  TFA had an amazing cast who were a joy to watch on screen.  They deserved a better director.

You know what movies had terrible pacing? The prequels.  This movie did not have terrible pacing.  It was not a perfect movie, but it was a good, solid Star Wars movie. I guess you can say the fact that they remade A New Hope is a point against it, but context matters here. They needed to make a good space adventure movie while proving to people "Star Wars is back."  They did that.  Was it a little heavy handed at times? Sure.  But again, fun space adventure movie that gets the fundamental elements of Star Wars back into Star Wars.

So you're the type person that can't enjoy anything. Got it.

Um he said it was fun and credited the cast and he clearly had even more fun watching PacRim which nobody would ever mistake for a competent movie.

Seems like you are the type of person who can't handle people not liking something you like as much as you think they should.

Clearly this message board is not know for mocking people with awful opinions. Said movie was shit goes on to explain all the things he liked about it and parts that were worth the price of the ticket.

Sock puppet? I'm thinking sock puppet.

This is where I think about renaming this thread...

Don't you understand? ALL OF US ARE WRONG AND HE NEEDS TO FIX US!

He's a Movie Justice Warrior?

Cinema Justice Warrior

Look, this is practically the spirit of Christmas or something, considering that the person who keeps this whole thing going has famously bad taste when it comes to culture. As long as nothing ridiculously extraneous enters the discussion, rock on Amadeus. Let dumb opinions that are very nearly objectively wrong reign supreme! What would the world be without them?

Went and saw again (good sign for Disney, showtimes were almost all sold out all day, had to sit in the front row, now have a headache), still enjoying it. Maybe even more.
Couple of notes:

Really digging 'Rey's theme', nice work with the flutes JW

Did the Republic Navy skimp on ships? Why no A, Y or B wings??? (Just had a 5 minute argument in the car about the procurement policy of a made up navy with made up ships . I love Star Wars..:D)

Snoops says 'complete his training' not begin it (in regards to Ren).

Yeah, going tomorrow for the IMAX poster and even the 9am showings are 1/4 full already. Crazy that there's not only 9am showings but that they're still that full ahead of time. The 12:30 showing was 1/2 full as well.

Rey's Theme still strikes me as familiar and I can't figure out why. The refrain you're talking about reminds me of another piece and I just can't figure out which one.

Y-Wings were old and retiring at the end of ANH, but they were also primarily bombers not superiority fighters like X-wings. Ditto the B-wings, although the troop carrier Leia arrives on is obviously B-Wing inspired.

A little research just now says that having only X-wings and Ties was a JJ call.

No, I enjoyed the movie quite a bit.  The opening scene?  Loved it.  Escape from the Star Destroyer?  Awesome.  Pretty much everything on Jakku?  Made me misty with happiness.  The two azathoths that ate all those Greedos?  I want the toys.  Kylo Ren?  A stroke of brilliance.  Danceless light saber fights?  Yes Please!  All of that witty banter and chemistry between the protagonists?  I loved every bit of it.  The score?  John Williams phoned it in, but still glorious.

The problem is that I won't shut off my brain during the film and keep it off.  The plot had more contrivances than Independence Day and directing as obtrusive as in Peter Jackson's King Kong.  The movie was a thrill ride, but it was poorly plotted, ineptly put together, and stupidly executed.  The Hosnian Prime subplot, if you can still call it that, came out of nowhere and added nothing to the story.  The characters never really earned their victories.  Finn and Poe barely meet, then act like best buddies.  Every character moment in the film is slapped onto the screen by a director who doesn't know how to use his craft to tell a story and simply hopes the actors or the audience will add emotional weight and importance to the events that tick off on screen like stocks on a ticker.  He directs like Sheldon Cooper, someone who knows what people will say and how other people should respond, but with no idea why nor how to express emotions with anything more subtle than dialog.



As for the pacing...pacing can have bigger problems than being slow.  A constant chop chop chop cut to cut scene to scene robs the film of emotional weight and makes it feel monotonous.  With no time to breathe or reflect on events, the audience cannot process them to reach an emotional understanding of the story as it progresses.  It also killed the X-Wing scenes to cram so much business into so few shots with no concrete point of reference.  Compare that to Star Wars or Jedi, where the space battle effects reflect what the actors are talking about, and where the action  lasts long enough to form some tension.  I may not be explaining this quite how it felt, but I definitely felt like the movie was rushed, perhaps "water skiing" to keep the audience from thinking too hard about some of the rough spots.  In the end it made the film feel vapid.

Let me dial it back then.  It was a fun movie.  It was an enjoyable movie.  A crowd pleaser.  I just can't call it a good movie.  Better than the prequels in most ways.  But compared to most action or adventure films made in the last decade, it was incompetent and embarrassing.  The chemistry of the cast and the heavy lifting of the effects and score are what saved TFA from becoming Star Wars Into Darkness.

Same here. I took my dad to see it, and I ordered reserved seating tickets days in advance. Glad I did, because the theater hall was packed.

I still love this movie.

It's a solid Star Wars film. But it's no more than that (from a movie stand point; from a franchising stand point: $$$$$$$$).

I think it benefits a lot from people saying it isn't as bad as the prequels, which sets the bar very low. Plus "The Force Awakens" rides a very heavy dose of nostalgia that means the new characters really don't get of personality building time. Rey can do anything the script requires her to - pilot and fix a ship she's never been in before, beat a trained Dark Side warrior, shoot down a Stormtrooper platoon. Finn blanches at killing people, and in the very next scene is shooting down Stormtroopers (his brethren just moments before) whooping all the way. 

It's a fun continuation of the Skywalker-family-screws-up-the-galaxy saga, and its major narrative successes are achieved by stealing significant plot beats from "A New Hope" or having Han Solo do something.

Really, you missed that part?

finn blanches at being ordered to kill completely innocent villagers and realizes that he is part of an evil empire that kills completely innocent villagers and that his conscience does not allow him to do this.

finn then does not express the same reservations in blasting his way out of said evil empire to save a rebellion pilot in an act of escape that his conscience does not have the same objections to.

of the movie's problems, the consistency in his actions here doesn't really register as a real one.

Just found out the theatre down the road from me is only 1 of 18 in the nation that actually shows the movie in the format many of the scenes were made in...  70mm 2D IMAX.  Evidently it was Disney over-riding Abrams with the whole 3D IMAX thing, which is why those of you who wanted the size had to deal with 3D only. 

I will be seeing it again in this format and report, but if memory serves other movies wherein I did this were absolutely glorious in standard museum IMAX 2D.  Seeing Star Wars in this way is worth the effort.

I'm pretty sure they established that she had actually been in the Falcon previous as she knew many of the modifications that its previous owners had done to the ship from first hand experience. As for beating a trained Dark Side warrior, you forget the part about the Dark Side warrior bleeding out of his anus from a rather powerful blaster wound as well as the wound inflicted on his arm by Finn. And you also gloss over the fact that said trained Dark Side warrior was actually wounded in saber combat by a goddamn Stormtrooper with no training in the use of light sabers whatsoever. I mean, if you want to make Kylo Ren some kind of super bad ass Sith Lord, that's your call, but the movie took great pains to show that such an assumption is really really wrong.

Star Wars episode VII: The Knees Sharpen

One of the curious side effects of humanizing the Stormtroopers via Finn, though, is to slightly complicate the complete lack of a moral concern on the part of the good guys about killing tons and tons of them. If Finn can shake off the programming maybe others can, assuming there isn't something unusual or special about him. (Phasma and Kylo Ren did seem to almost anticipate that this particular trooper would be the one disobeying orders.) In the past no one in the Rebellion or now Resistance has seemed even slightly discomforted by blowing away tens of thousands of Stormtroopers. But then the SW universe has always had a moral coding that is kind of odd, I guess. The Jedi in the prequels were often more worried about adherence to their own internal code of ethics than they were about the consequences of their actions--e.g., I don't think we ever saw a Jedi in the main films (prequel or originals) conflicted about whether he was doing the right thing when that involved combat with an enemy or relating to a civilian who was a potential obstacle to their mission. Anakin knows he's supposed to take Dooku prisoner if he can but that's about the only time we've seen a Jedi really worry much about death or dismemberment of an enemy. Almost nobody in the SW universe worries even for a second about the sentience of droids--even the droids don't really react to mistreatment of droids per se, even if non-droid sentients treat particular droids as trusted friends and allies. The obvious human-centered bigotry of the Empire/First Order has never been a plot point in the actual movies, only in EU books. Expecting *any* SW film to pay nuanced attention to moral contradictions of most kinds except for the struggle of Force-sensitive characters with the management of their own emotions betrays a lack of basic familiarity with the entire series and its background universe. The most complex ethical dilemmas I can think of in SW that are canon only appeared at the very end of the Clone Wars animated series, particularly in Ahsoka's disaffection with the Jedi after she was falsely accused of misconduct.

Not really innocent villagers. Most of them were shooting at the storm troopers as they were going. They lost the fire fight and gave up. Than Ren ordered them all dead, pretty unnecessary since even the storm troopers werent gunning them down once they stopped fighting. Actually finn panics way before the "burn the villiage" order. Finn is clearly freaking out and flailing like jar jar not sure what he's doing or even if anything happening around him is real. Again the movie kinda, ok not kinda, completely  glosses over what being a storm trooper "conditioned from birth" would actually look like or gives any context to his sudden desire for a career change. The fact that Finn paints it as a moral decision is the biggest groan of the movie though its the most convenient way to keep Rey from clocking him.

 The simpliest explanation is this is his first battle, storming the sands of jakku was too much for someone who was a janitor for years and finally the order to kill everyone who just surrended made him say "enough!". Or Rey is so strong with the force she subconsciously forced Finn to the light. Actually makes more sense. Finn crash lands on a earth sized planet and not only lands near Rey but within walking distance of Rey. I suspect she even summoms Han Solo who is heading in her direction despite not even looking for the falcon and just "finds" her. Feel the force.

Also storm troopers rarely die from blaster boltd there armor disperses the energy. They fall down because the impact knocks them out. Except death by light saber, Finn killed the shit out of a few guys with that.

Maybe he was condition from birth by Captain "Oh, you mean this gate key" Phasma.

So trying to defend yourself from being slaughtered means not innocent?  I bet all those kids were wearing hoodies.

Please, just let it go. Your rants are not just wrong, they're incoherent and rambling messes that lack any kind of intelligent thought behind them. At this point you've moved way past "here are some issues with the film" to "WarghabargleReyWaaarghReyWarrghhabbbargleConspiracyTheoryWarragharbargleI'mRight"

Don't make me link that famous retort from the debate in that one Adam Sandler movie.

I think it was THE thing that marred the Jakku section of the movie.

He's freaking out a bit before the kill the villagers stuff. iirc it seems like he just can't handle the entire wade into battle and slaughter and die thing. Fmpov he was shaken when that other storm trooper gets blown away, in a very un-ST like gesture he tries to check on him or whatever and isn't that how he gets the bloody lines on his helmet so we can ID him? Except someone who is overwhelmed by the violence and killing is not that long after literally looking for high fives because he figured out how to blow people to shit.

Finn could have worked. He could have been scared and troubled and whatever and just wanted to avoid conflict, the fact that he's going to leave with those guys to the outer rim from the bar suggests that at least somebody writing the script was trying to go that direction at some point. But somewhere along the way someone decide that Finn needed to crack more jokes and he needed to be more fun. So instead Finn makes no fucking sense and isn't even badass or interesting he's just a nonsense character.

I think for me Finn made me feel old. Like he only makes sense if the characters in the movie have to work a certain way because its a movie for 8-16 yr olds. Which it probably was but his character really rubbed my nose in it.

It was jarring. His character is the absolute weakest link for me of the new cast in several ways.

Just re-watched it and I guess I can see Rey more as Mary Sue now.  So I concede the point.  I just never thought one of the two main heroes would quality as a MS.  I was thinking of it if Wesley Crusher captained better than Picard, fought better than Worf and fixed things better than Geordi.  My main nitpick about Rey is not how she can Jedi, but how she can fly a ship; surely her 'captor' would not let her near a ship?  So maybe MS there.

The gun destroyed five planets in a single Republic system then it was aiming at the Resistance system they say.  So the Repubic wasn't defeated, but it sure took a hit (probably their fleet manufactories/shipyards?) losing that one system.  Yes, in the movie they do say the Republic was arming and equipping the Resistance to fight the First Order.  So I'm quite happy to hear that. 

Really glad to watch it again, very enjoyable.  To those of you who aren't trolling and didn't like it, welp better luck with the next one!

I'm looking forward to where they take Finn..is he Jedi material? I also enjoyed the character because he was actually funny. You people think too much.

I liked Finn a lot more than Rey honestly.

I never felt like I really got to know who Finn is in this movie.

I think it's because we're watching Finn figure out who he is. A bunch of his earlier laugh lines (after escaping the SD) seem to be based on figuring out how to be a normal person, not a trooper who has been conditioned from birth to be a trooper.

He finds a chance to get away (the outer rim guys) and then is pulled back in, just like Rey was trying to find a way to help just enough and get back to Jakka.

But I liked this a lot. I need to go back and see it in IMAX at some point soon.

 Emo Kylo Ren  (https://twitter.com/kyloR3n) is magnificent.

Finn just got a name for the first time and now he might not have a spine anymore. His character development will be interesting.

Given the look Ren gives him at the massacre, and that Ren also noticed him enough to have memorized his trooper number I'm still convinced they're doing the double-bluff on the Jedi thing.

Every time the Force is mentioned by a non-Dark Side character you see Rey and Fin in-shot. It's never one or the other, always both. The sole time the Force is relevant and it's Rey alone is when she's finding the saber.

I'm even more convinced Luke is her father after reviewing the scenes with Maz. The cut from her asking, "Who's the Girl" of Han and then suddenly being all gung-ho for her to take the saber is too coincidental. Then the quote that goes, "The people who left you aren't coming back, but there's still one person ..."  Wish I could recall the exact line. It's just a direct pointer to Luke, though, and not said in a "hey be a Jedi" way.

Rey starts to turn, kills kylo, finn as jedi redeems her. Fin  :why_so_serious:

(http://i6.photobucket.com/albums/y222/Abagadro/LT4GuFu_zpsvkyux9sn.gif)

That's my thinking also.

Will lights guide us home?




See, here's the thing, Mr Probable Sockpuppet. A couple of the things that you wrote make sense, but you lost me in your desperation to tie every fucking thing that you saw in the new film into the OT as a throwback of sorts.

Finally saw this, good way to restart SW. I disliked the CG bigbad and felt the pacing was a bit off in places, but otherwise great flick.

Saw it 2d, non-IMAX; the first theater we were going to see it at was sold out Saturday evening so we had to drive across town.

I've yet to see this in 2D, that star destroyer scene, man.

That's really the thing though. Star Wars doesn't really work at all if you try to assign it some more refined ethical code than your typical 8 to 14 year old holds. At first Finn was fighting for the "Bad Guys" and he didn't like it. Now he's with the "Good Guys" and everything is fine.

Fortunately for me, my inner 14 year old is strong, and I don't have much of a problem at all at sitting back and just letting things be simple for a couple of hours of movie watching fun...

There is more nuance than what you'd see in an 8 to 14 year old animated show.  Finn and Solo are both selfish jerks that can't bring themselves to screw over everyone.  They're not quite so black and white.  They want something, and to get it, they kill (mostly bad people), they lie, and they put people in jeopardy.  Yet, when all the chips are on the table, they come through for the heroes... barely.  It is pulpy, but there is more than black and white ethics there.

On another note: Side theory floating around out there: Ben Solo was not a Solo at all, but another spontaneous Force birth like his grandfather.  It would explain the Vader worship, the rebellion against his "father", etc...  and add a different level of meaning to him killing Solo.  I don't buy it, but it is another theory I'll have in my brain as I watch the film again.

Anyone who has ever thought or uttered this out lout or in text can fuck right off.

That's why I didn't say black or white, or even simple. 8 to 14 is actually pretty complicated, ethics wise. But you still have good guys bad guys, or maybe just "our" guys versus those guys. As bad as Solo is/was, he's still presented pretty clearly as being one of "our" guys. (And fake edit: straight up good guys/bad guys is pretty boring to your average 8 to 14 -- conflicted heroes are pretty much the meat and potatoes of that demographic.)

I'm actually agreeing with your point here, I just don't think it makes sense to overthink Finn's ability to cause carnage on the side of his new buddies. Especially since he is mid process of struggling to define himself. He doesn't even know himself how much he was morally conflicted and how much was just fear and cowardice, not to mention just becoming aware of and resenting the First Order conditioning he's been subjected to.

This needs to be repeated.

Interesting reactions: If it turns out to be true (unlikely, but still possible), I wonder if it would set off massive nerd rage across the interwebz....

Yes. It would basically validate the prequels and return us to midichlorians.

It's as possible as episode 8 being a two hour horse scat film. Stop.

"Let's double down on the dumbest part of the prequels" is probably not an idea that made it through.

Given your history of dismissing things that turn out to be true, I wish you'd not be so opposed to this idea.  It might force it into existence.

Suuure...more Midichlorians..

And 'Politics' claims Trump will be president in 2016.

Occam's Razer says this forums is full of idiots.

(No offence meant! I am just drunk. *hugs all around*  :heart: )

What?  Why are you drunk and posting in this thread?  Star Wars is srs bsns!

It just seems so pointless from a business standpoint.  With all they went did to use this movie as evidence that hey star wars is back, it would be shocking to see them build that bridge to the prequels.  They may as well find a part for jarjar at that point.

If so, why would Han and Leia think of him as "their" son?  Nah, they totally went to bonetown.  Nerds just want to think they are the only ones who could possibly have sex with Leia.

True.  But let's not discuss that it goes bad places.

Ben was a love child.  Anyone trying to introduce otherwise was missing just how hard the script ignored almost everything prequel related.  The bit that WAS in there was a sarcastic barb.

I don't believe in the theory, but if true, Han and Leia would not necessarily know that Han isn't the papa... Maybe Luke figured out it, but didn't share the information (by the way, Han, yo Baby Daddy is an infestation of Force Bugs) and Supreme New Jersy Snookie used that information to turn Ren...

And as long as we're dismissing anything prequel oriented, we're dismissing the idea that Supreme Leader Snoke might be Darth Plaugeis, right?  The Sith Lord that Palpatine struck down that had mastered death (and who's secrets were the main reason Vader turned... to save his love)?  We're going to discard the similarity in the music when Snookie was on screen and the music played in Episode 3 when Palpatine describes Plagueis?  The links between the newer novel by James Luceno (Tarkin) that is canon and his prior novel (Darth Plagueis) which is no longer officially canon, but for which there are direct references in Tarkin to events in Plagueis?

The Art of Force Awakens book showed a few more ties to the prequels that were dropped - Force Ghost Anakin... but it also showed Snoke as a female, which kind of potentially nixes the Plagueis idea...

I see it the other way around.  If they really can shake of their conditioning then the fact that they don't makes them even more fair game than if they were mindlessly obedient clone troopers.

The fact that some people get better from an infection without medicine means fuck the people who need anti-biotics.  :oh_i_see:

Infection doesn't invoke culpability, generally.  You don't choose to be infected.  You choose to follow orders.  If you want to argue that most Storm Troopers lack free will, that makes it more like an infection, but Finn, Phasma, and the two troopers that turn tell during Ren's tirade demonstrate they do have free will.

If child soldiers in Africa are shooting at you of course you defend yourself but outside war would you try them for war crimes?

The movie makes it pretty clear they are conditioned to behave, follow orders, have their names taken away, etc.  Finn managed to break that conditioning, but that doesn't mean it's just as easy as choosing to.

Please insert 8 pages of Brown Shirt discussion here and then move on to the next topic. 

Yeah let's go back to midochlorians  :oh_i_see:

Trying to find grey areas in a story with defined Black & White evil and good lines is a sure sign you might be overthinking things.

Goddamn, get a hobby.

Again, Jedi morality is black and white historically (although there is a note in the Artbook that indicates that maybe Luke has decided that things are not so black and white - it refers to him accepting his Dark side and being "new entity").

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2015/12/29/how-anakin-skywalker-and-the-prequels-factor-into-star-wars-the-force-awakens.html (http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2015/12/29/how-anakin-skywalker-and-the-prequels-factor-into-star-wars-the-force-awakens.html)

Many other characters have more diversity in their actions.  Han, Lando, Finn, Chewie, C-3PO ... all have actions under their belt that are not exactly heroic - and some of them are murderers from a certain perspective.  
 

If you find yourself making comments about jedi morality, you have gone off the deep end and applied too much nerd to the movie.

Honestly, the first thing I thought after viewing the movie was how much I was going to enjoy how bad ass Rey is going to get. I mean, come on, its a fucking movie series about space wizards. I enjoy my lead characters being bad ass. If I want a dose of reality, I just go outside. To me, movies like this are about excursions into the impossible.

We have already had pages of speculation about the parentage of what is effectively random Stormtroooper #730,874,398,453,948,930 (Token Black division) and how the genetics of the entire known bloody universe must flow through his Y chromosome, I think we are WAAAAY past being horrified at them nerding over their EU version of Rambojedi morality.

So...

I'm overthinking this and nerding out big time here, but stay with me for a moment.

Rey was possibly the original Master of the Knights of Ren and had her mind wiped and was dropped on Jakku, while Luke worked on some way to fix her and Kylo. She'll find out halfway through and go dark, potentially killing Kylo and Finn helps bring her back. All this a-la Knights of the Old Republic's Revan story.

Yeah, too much whisky.

I'd be shocked if Rey goes dark. At most she'll have a moment of choice like Luke did in Return of the Jedi. I do think, however, she was likely mind wiped following the attack on Luke's academy and she may just be his daughter. Kylo Ren clearly knows who she is and seemed alarmed when he heard she was involved.

I saw this yesterday and liked it as far as it goes, in particular

A live action Disney film with a proper female character - they really should send a copy of the script over to the Marvel department.
Everything on Jakku is awesome especially the IMAX bit.
Han Solo and Chewbacca were as good as you could hope for.
But most of all it sets out a position on what Star Wars is, and mostly makes good choices that increase confidence that better films can be made once out from the crushing necessity of following the OT and removing the aftertaste of prequel. I'm sure Star Wars will get straitjacketed by the formulaic committee storyboard process that Marvel films are subjected to, but so long as they remain fun I'm ok with that.


Inevitable nitpicking and missteps :

Pacing & the death of billions - the whole thing went at one speed, which was fine when focussed exclusively on Rey and Finn running and shouting, but the destruction of the whatever system lacked any impact as a result. It also meant the film was never properly able to deliver the whole 'choose your destiny' theme that it was aiming for (and which original Star Wars manages).

Darth Emo - I see what they wanted and it kind of makes sense, but of the scenes without a helmet, only the one with Han actually worked.

Luke Skywalker - Why was he in this film? It trivialised the search and ate minutes that could have helped fix the pacing problems. Also why was he standing on a hillside in Wales looking like an idiot?

Pandering to 3D - Want to guess why every damn scene is so brightly lit, even those set at night or when the fucking sun burnt out?

Black widow judo flipping the hulk. Cause pressure points and shit.  :drillf:

Even telling us what was getting destroyed would have been better. I was watching and wondering if this was some "Let's blow up Coruscant" move, but I'm assuming not because nobody cares about the whatever system.

There is a comic from the 80s (when Hulk was separated from Banner and just a huge mindless rage monster) where a little old lady scientist proceeds to own the Hulk with a little martial arts... you made me have a total flashback to it...

As for Rey going Dark: I think the next movie is going to be about a different view of the Force and the Dark Side.  Based upon the quote from the Artbook about Luke being a new entity that embraces his dark side, I think we'll see Luke's trip to the first temple to be one in which he goes back to the roots of the Jedi, before the Dark Side was considered only to be a tool of the Sith.

I didn't tie everything in.  However, there were tons of callbacks and reused story elements from the OT.  The stormtroopers raid at the beginning was different, and awesome because of it.  The escape from Jakku was original.  Kylo Ren's conflicted nature and incompetence were a bold new direction for Star Wars villainy.  Poe Dameron was more Ace Rimmer than Wedge Antilles, but it worked.  The banter and humor felt modern and natural, much better than the humor in RotJ.  Still, from Emperor Snoke to the Starkiller Base to Grand Moff Hux to Alderaan Prime, there really was a ton of playing it safe with the franchise, keeping things familiar.  That isn't even really my complaint.  My complaint about all the callbacks was Abrams' approach to them.  Bigger Death Star, bigger star destroyer, bigger emperor, more criminals coming after Solo to collect debts in order to establish him as scoundrel, older wise old short alien, even the totally sweet azathoth aliens were callbacks to the Sarlaac in that they had tentacles and dentata and swallowed their prey whole.  No time to absorb anything new, therefore use established tropes as a crutch.  It robbed many elements of their impact, replacing actual tension with nostalgia, spectacle and flash-bang pacing.  But I admit I really detest Abrams' style as a director.

There was a lot to love in the movie, and I plan to see it again because I had fun, but I really don't consider the film to be good on its own.  It's for Star Wars fans who want another fix, and it works for that.  The Star Wars brand and the sheer effort put into it by the actors and SFX guys because of its legacy are the only reasons this isn't considered just another disposable sci fi action movie.

My only problem with the sameness complaint is that nearly everything about star wars in the past, from the EU books to the games has been about sameness. Fuck man, knights of the old republic which is widely loved by nearly every star wars fan, rips off the original trilogy left and right.  Nothing here is out of line with what has come before and then fresh stuff was added on top of it.  At least we didn't get fucking lightsaber knees.

Given the first six movies have pretty many mentions about how some force users are very intuitive natural pilots and her having pretty close working knowledge of the falcon and the mods on it that she can fly well is not that much of a stretch. Hell look at luke he was flying air speeders shooting at rats and then bang stick him in a high end starfighter and he is now their best pilot they have. She seems to live on her own but clearly had a lot of access to the falcon and other ships and had watched and or assisted with their repair and maintenance. It is very possible she was shown how to fly as well even if only from point a to point b as a copilot. She was not on jakku because she had to be there she was on jakku because did not want to leave it.

I am pretty Okay with revan skywalker.

If "I'll pay to see it, twice" isn't enough for a movie to be considered good, I don't know what the fuck your standards are.

I've seen Krull way more than twice, but I wouldn't call it good, either.  For me, a movie can be a lot of fun without being well made or meaningful.  I suppose I should instead say that it is a good movie with poor writing and incompetent direction that actively sabotages audience engagement.  If the big climactic death scene fails to move me, I have trouble calling the movie a complete success just because it had some fun action scenes and charismatic actors.

I admit I wouldn't be so harsh on TFA's faults if it hadn't been for all of my friends and dozens of posters on message board overhyping the movie and declaring it to be better than RotJ or Star Wars.  Just like the characters and their achievements, the movie didn't earn that.

Regarding the Darth Plague guy theory, as there are only 4 star wars films in the canon I don't care if they reference a guy from a film that no longer matters but who we have literally no information about even if we accept RotS as a real thing. Happy to judge it on its own merits if/when it happens.

But I will say noone mentioned Sith in this film. Kylo Ren is not called Darth Kylo and the only reference to an over arching bad guy team was the Knights of Ren thing. So we don't have any direct evidence Sith exist at all. Anything that sticks two further fingers up at bullshit EU nonsense history/future of the Sith is of course, eternally welcome.

No, the prequels are still canon. They're just studiously ignoring them. The rest of the EU is trashed and gone. They'll pick some stuff from it but we can already see that they're not going to take big chunks. Just little bits and side stories, maybe some settings and races.

Maz gives you the key to the evil storyline. She talks of the Sith, then the Empire, now the First Order as the face of evil. These guys aren't Sith they're something else (as eldaec notes there's no "Darth" titles in play). The Jedi are necessary to balance this evil out.

The old guy in the beginning is an adherent of a Church of The Force. Maz senses and understands the Force. We're seeing an expansion of the Force outside of Jedi/ Sith religions.

As for the grey Jedi stuff, doubtful. You can accept your inner evil without giving in to it or even needing to follow it. It's also too nuanced for a film series that uses such a heavy-handed metaphor as "the sun goes out as he stabs his father" to illustrate the death of good in a character.

I think for the movies they will stick with the Light and Dark with no middle.  Although I guess you could call Ahsoka a Grey Jedi, but she's the "walked away from the Jedi Council" kind. 

Also I think the grey area is better filled by the roguish types like Han and Lando.

It doesn't have Ewoks. That alone makes it better than RoTJ. Really, the only good bit in RoTJ is the resolution of the storyline with Luke and Vader. (And Leah's slave bikini of course.)

Really?  I always thought turning Han Solo into a sarcastic schlub was the worst part of RotJ.  The lighthearted handling of Slave Leia and the robot torture scenes both bother me more than the Ewoks, too, at least since I've grown up.  I guess I see the Ewoks as annoying, but the movie almost makes up for them when they die in droves.  The Luke and Vader scenes, as well as the space battle, I find to be satisfying and well constructed.  They make the film for me.  In essence, the worst parts in RotJ may be as bad as the worst parts in TFA, but the best parts in RotJ are better than the best parts in TFA.  Plus RotJ completes the cycle from the other two films, lending it emotional weight it wouldn't have earned on its own.


Also, the direction is much better even if the acting is much worse.  Overall, that makes RotJ at least feel like a better film.

Just because...

http://youtu.be/lQDvsf5lAp0

Massive spoilers but these deleted scenes give a much better idea of the world they built.

http://www.slashfilm.com/star-wars-the-force-awkens-deleted-scenes/2/

Personally I'd love a 3hr cut of this.

Unfortunately Abrams said there aren't going to be any other cuts.  That doesn't mean Disney won't do something, but who knows.  Also he said the DVD will probably have like 15-20 minutes deleted scenes.

Watch RotJ again. Without the rose-coloured glasses. I watched the (unedited) OT from the shit-quality DVD limited release the other day, and despite a bunch of cool bits, RotJ is really not a strong film. Hell, TPM had some cool bits (ok, the lightsaber fight) but is still a shit movie. RotJ's bar isn't that high...

Despite having known about Ford's wishes and that it was likely he was going to croak in this, I kind of took this scene differently - that Ren was still conflicted, but the sun going down (and it's implications) finally gave him the resolve to kill Han.

Despite going in with the assumption that Han must die, and despite all the in-film foreshadowing, Kylo's line about how "I know what I have to do but don't know if I'm strong enough" fooled me enough to take it the way Han did in the moment. I felt slightly silly a few seconds later, but in a good way.

He was certainly meant to be conflicted, the thing I thought was neat was the way throughout the film he talks about the light side tempting him from the dark, not the other way around. Citizen Kane it is not, and like a lot of stuff there isn't much room to explore it as an idea, but it was a nice touch and just about justified Darth Emo.

Also RotJ is not great. The Jabba section is about 20 minutes too long, does nothing except unwind an Empire plot point and feels like a completely separate film, Endor is bad,  but the space battle is so very cool, and the Luke thing is pretty good.

The problem with critiquing Jedi is you're fighting not only 33 years of nostalgia but the memories of a lot of kids who saw it pre-teen and only catch bits here and there. I used to watch them every year on Spike and Jedi was the one I felt I could turn off. It has a lot of cool, memorable moments but wasn't a good film as a whole.

If I was able to divest myself of the baggage of the prequels sucking I might even put it below ROTS as far as a narrative goes. Too much bullshit in Jedi you hand-wave away because "It has to happen this way to get characters where they need to go."

Hell for "just go with it" Jabba scenes alone make so little sense that it would get destroyed by the same people bitching today. WTF Lando. Wtf 3P0 saying nobody saw Chewbacca again then showing up with Leia. WTF Luke wandering in assuming he'll be able to get his saber from R2. WTF Luke's plot armor keeping him from just getting splattered by Jabba's 300+ goons with blasters in the palace. WTF conveniently dropping Luke first. Wow, good thing Boba Fett was so incompetent he didn't just shoot Han and Chewie in the face after Luke jumped and instead focused on the Jedi. Woah, good thing that little 5'1" 110# woman was totally ignored and Jabba was a big bag of air, because the water weight of his arm alone would have been enough to fling her about like a fucking sock puppet, never mind actually using his bodyweight. Good thing there was a giant ass magnet to salvage the sand-sunk droids after they jumped-ship. (And hell, double-plus good magnetism in the Star Wars universe does nothing at all adverse to electronics.)

 :awesome_for_real:

Ranting about the failures of the Jabba scenes... when there were Ewoks?

Yeah, TFA is better than Jedi in my opinion. Jedi has some very good scenes, the Luke, Emperor, Vader stuff is some of the best stuff in the series, and the space battle at the end is cool.  Jabba's Palace is an good little sequence, but not great in a movie about the redemption of Darth Vader and the destruction of the Emperor. Most of the Endor stuff is terrible and that takes up a really large chunk of the film.

Yes, because that's the point. There were so many problems in one of the better segments, yet it's held up as some great classic by groups tearing-down TFA now. It's blinding nostalgia.

I guess I hear it differently more often - that 6 is on par with 3, and considered a weakness in many ways.

Georgie's thoughts on Star Wars in a Charlie Rose interview are kind of interesting and address why 6 and 4 had such cimilar elements....

http://www.aintitcool.com/node/74065 (http://www.aintitcool.com/node/74065)

6 on par with 3? Who are these people? Do they have substance abuse issues? I would be cautious around them.

Lucas comes across as butthurt.

Well, his ideas for the movie weren't worth a billion dollars.   :awesome_for_real:

Of course he is petty and angry.  Star Wars is his legacy, and he was effecitvely told, "We want to buy it from you because you are going to screw it up and we can make a film that people want to see..." And those people were right.

As for 3 versus 6: 6 gets a pass due to legacy, but there are as many story, action and acting problems in 6 as in 3.  I give 3 an edge because 6 was such a disappointment after 5.

(http://media0.giphy.com/media/4pMX5rJ4PYAEM/giphy.gif)

3 or RotS was an absolute fucking travesty of cinema. It was the absolute fucking WORST of all the Star Wars movies, and yes I put it below AotC because FUCKKKKKKKKKKK. The fact that Ani-douche turns to the dark side with almost no prompting ONSCREEN is just horrific writing and film making. It has no dramatic impact because the fucking acting is horrific, the dialogue is worse and there's nothing to foreshadow it other than creepy sideways eye glares from Darth Raisin. The slaughter of the Jedi including the children is handled with an '80's montage that might as well have "YOU GOT THE POWER!" as its score. And the fucking high ground... oh the fucking high ground. There is absolutely zero redeeming qualities in RotS including Christopher Lee having yet another punk ass death in a role that he shouldn't have wiped his ass with. Granted, it didn't have an Asthmatic Droid General with 50 whirling light saber dildos like Clones but holy fuck.

None of the prequels are even remotely on the same level as TFA, or as RotJ. TFA is better than RotJ on so many levels despite its obvious flaws. I actually liked the Jabba scenes in Jedi, and felt they were necessary as a "get the band back together" scene after the events of ESB. It all falls apart when the Ewoks show up as the amount of "it happened this way because reasons" overshadows all the good parts. But it's still miles better than any of the prequels, especially 3.

Super Fuck Revenge of the Sith.

When people start talking down any of the OT to the level of any of the Prequels in order elevate the new film they now worship, we are officially in "The lady dost protest too much, meethinks." territory. Holy fuck.

Agree completely. The first prequel was probably the least offensive; kid Anakin wasn't as wooden and awful as Hayden, plus Darth Maul and Liam Neeson (despite the midichlorians stuff :uhrr:).

I hate to tell you, Haemish, but the asthmatic droid was Revenge of the Sith also.

I actually like 3 the best of all the prequels even though it has cringe moments. I find 2 unwatchable and boring. 1 has Darth Maul and the Pod Race. Note: This doesn't mean 3 is a good movie, I just find it the most watchable of the prequels.

I distinctly remember when 3 came out most people thought it was the best of the prequels.

I think I'm going with a new year resolution to never speak of the prequels again.

RotJ wasn't great. It doesn't need to be better or worse than other hypothetical bad films for this to be the case.

The failures of 3 are not at issue. The failures of 6 are what put the worst of the originals on part with the best of the prequels. They have different flaws, but man are they both disappointments,

Fuck people who bitch about 6. Seriously fuck you. Oh so it had Ewoks. Fucking shut the fuck up. God you people would take a shit on your own birthday cake if you could. It was a perfectly fine movie, with good action and a satisfying ending.

Fucking
Shut
Up.

 :awesome_for_real:

Yub nub!

Saw it again in the 2D 70mm theatre as I promised myself I would.  It was pretty glorious.  WAY better than the 3D Imax version with both sight and sound (holy fuck; Luke's sabre and the Falcon).  Granted, there were only 18 theatres doing it this way.  Also, there were only a couple of true IMAX scenes (I remember one from Jakku when they were running from the air raid), but when they popped... they popped huge and had me wishing he'd done the whole thing that way.

So, after seeing it again.  I will say that this movie, though the 3rd best of the franchise, had the best imagery of any of the SW films.  The issue with pacing, however, really effs this up... because you have these amazing scenes in the star wars verse, and Abrams just has to be Abrams (and moves too quickly) instead of maybe channeling some Coppola from time to time.  The only instance where he fought his tendencies was the last one with Luke, which was the weakest framing of them all anyways.  I understand time was of the essence, but still.

Also, yes, that is indeed Luke in the vision now that I've seen his hand again.  Can't be Windu.  There a leak that says Finn is a Calrissian, but it's from an unsanctioned Lucasarts product.  Studying the 2nd film a bit more, I definitely believe there are a lot more layers to this onion than a simple ep.4 redux; we're being set up for some pretty epic twists.

I will say growing up that the fight was over weather RotJ or ESB was best, with most people siding with RoTJ.  I did at first, but as I grew older, leaned towards empire just because of the dialog.  Nobody ever brought up the first movie in these conversations.  So I've always found it odd when F13 broke out with RotJ hate (well, not hate, just that it wasn't great).  I didn't think that view even existed till F13.   :awesome_for_real:

I really try to restrict the number of posts I make about how bad 3D is, but just to follow up Ghanbits point about the 70mm edition, it really demonstrates how much of a plague on mankind 3d is, when Star Wars of all things can't justify shooting entirely in imax because less than a couple of dozen screens in the world will show the damn film in correct format; preferring to show retrofitted 3d of all things because for some reason people will pay 20% extra for a shittier image.

But yes, the 15/70mm is beautiful.

Thank you.  So it had stupid Ewoks doing stupid shit; we also had Jabba's scenes, the big space battle, Han and Leia on the planet and of course Luke vs. Vader.  Luke not only defeats Vader but doesn't succumb to the dark side and thus saves his father and the galaxy.  Great ending to a great trilogy.

TFA is a great movie and maybe it's nostalgia also, but RotJ edges it out. 

I'm pretty sure I'll prefer TFA on repeated viewings because I can't imagine I'll start willing TFA to get to the good bits or get annoyed when it cuts from space battle to ewoks the way I do in RotJ.

The problem with Ewoks is that you have this multi solar system spanning empire supplying "An entire legion of my best troops" (per Palpatine himself!) Said legion of best troops is easily dismantled by a one tribe of goddamn primitives using rocks.  In minutes.  My eyes cannot roll hard enough every time I see the bolas strangling men in armor.  Or AT-ATs destroyed by fucking trees.  Or vines strung across the path.

If this is the best the empire has to offer, how do they manage to hold anything?  Clearly a horde of preschoolers armed with popsicle sticks would be capable of routing your average garrison.  And it really takes the shine off of the rest movie.

If the rumors that those scenes were originally written for Kashyyk and Wookies are true, it would have worked a little better. 8 foot tall furballs with bowcasters that also used vines and tree deadfalls wouldn't have been as jarring as waddling teddy bears.

--Dave

Agreed.  Wookiees are already in-universe badasses (Chewbacca!) so imagining a large group of them pulling the same thing isn't much of a stretch.

How the Ewoks managed to set up all of what they managed (particularly chop down those large trees, and drag them up high enough to hit an AT-AT or AT-ST or whatever it was precisely in the cab) is beyond my imagination.  There was an episode of Myth Busters where they demonstrated a similar thing with trees and an armored van.  It did work, but it took them hours, maybe days, and heavy equipment to manage it.

Way back when in 4th or 5th grade I read some news article in the weeks before Jedi released after these same complaints came up on the school playground. I remember from the article that the Ewoks were supposed to be "as strong as 5-7 adult humans."

However I've never, ever, ever been able to find reference to that again. Once I heard about how Endor was originally to be Kashyyk I've assumed the articles writer spoke with someone at one of the first drafts. Who knows, it's 33-some years in the past, now.


That's why I was pointing out the flaws in the first place. Not to bring Jedi down but to point out it's loved despite the very obvious flaws to people in their 30's and 40's. Therefore the pendants bitching about TFA need to ratchet it down a notch. They're goddamn space fairy tales and none are unassailable. Enjoy them for what they are or admit you're too cynical and broken to find your inner child anymore and move the fuck on.

The local IMAX had to fight pretty hard to get it shown right.  They even had an infosite explaining the differences and so forth to moviegoers who were all like "wtf, why not 3D?" The theatre is managed by some pretty hardcore cinemaphiles though.  Then again, their pricing structure is the same regardless of format, so that likely had something to do with it.  In contrast, the prior 3d true imax I saw in Albuquerque just couldn't effectively bring the entire image into focus given the screen size; especially at the periphery.  A lot of double-image and lack of contrast.  They also didn't have the proprietary IMAX sound setup.  I blame this on the fact Regal is pushing its own RPX format, which is good for dumbed-down 3d IMAX films in some cases.

Recall, I saw del Toro's Pacific Rim (which was filmed with this type of format it mind; 35/70mm film 3D) in this same theatre and it was damned glorious to me.  Whereas folk who saw it "normally" thought the movie sucked.  :shrug

Back to the movie....  Snoke is Plagueis, quite obviously.  All sith lords have two names, one bland "standard" name and one darth name.  Hence why the name "Snoke" is so lame.  Also, he clearly is an injured Muun as was Plageuis post Sideous' betrayal (if he survived).  The music is the same.  He was called "the wise" purposefully by Kylo.

The theory about Kylo being the Resistance's Luke-trained spearpoint against Snoke is an interesting one, especially given Snoke likely being Plagueis... a tremendous danger to the galaxy.  Han and Leia (understanding this danger) sent Kylo away to be trained by Luke and go undercover (hence Leia wishing she never did); eventually getting caught between the light and the dark...  It all went wrong and Luke had to abandon Kylo and go underground, leaving the Knights of Ren to be twisted towards the darkside; to the extent he had to murder his family ala Palpatine in order to fully engender himself to Snoke.  Han "helps" him by completing this part of his mission, in death.   His grandfather's unfinished rite to bring the balance is Kylo's ultimate goal, at all cost including his own soul.  Kylo will eventually destroy Plagueis to that effect, but not before wreaking Skywalker havoc on the galaxy.  His family is essentially a martyr for it; ultimately doomed.

Rey is a wiped Padowan who was "programmed" to sit on Jakku, hence her clearly robotic behavior (and why I hated her character so much) and obvious skills.  She broke her "programming" just like Finn broke his, who was programmed to be a loyal Stormtrooper.  They both were essentially awakened in this way, re-kindling innate skills and behavior.  Finn's betrayal, uncanny luck, and shooting skill may point him moreso to being Lando's son.  Lando had Jedi-like qualities in this regard, if you recall... manifesting in his gambling prowess (he rarely lost) and aim (single-shot deathstar kill and so forth).  Lando also betrayed the empire, becoming a general for the rebels eventually.

I'm thinking the franchise will break away from the Skywalkers with Rey and Finn.  I'm hoping they're force-carriers but not by Jedi-blood.  The Skywalkers will ultimately sacrifice themselves for the fate of the galaxy with Rey and Finn's help, basically... and things will start anew; ending that particular family space-opera.  Also, maybe we'll see a proper bi-racial relationship in a blockbuster franchise?  It could happen, maybe.  Probably not.   :oh_i_see:

I just don't see why Snoke is Plagueis.  There is no reason for them to trot that character out in this series.  The casual fan/viewer won't remember a character mentioned in one scene in the prequels and the fans will at best roll their eyes at something from the prequels coming back when there is no reason.  Could it be? Sure I guess.  But the question is why.

As for your backstory speculation, I think they are trying to get away from that kind of story.  It's all about Anakin and Luke in that theory and I think they want to establish the new characters more than make this trilogy ANOTHER one all about Anakin Sykwalker.

If it is Plagueis it explains why there's another darkside force user running around so soon after the death of the last two Sith.  Although I suppose 20+ years is enough time for someone to train up and become a powerful force user?  I think holocrons are canon?

Still, it's interesting to see the bits where the person they've shown does seem to fit Plageuis.  Of course, it could be a misdirect, or something.  Eventually we'll see the actual Snoke, and it'll be be a damned Ewok.

Yes, indigenous populations using improvised weapons, the ability to hide, and better knowledge of local terrain have never caused signification difficulties for a better armed and classically trained mechanized army.  :awesome_for_real:

Yeah Snoke needs to be older than Palpatine and likely the 1000 year old counterpart to Maz(who thanks to deleted scenes is likely to be a jedi herself) so Plaugis kinda works in the whole cheating death regard.

They do cause a great deal of trouble for a more advanced army, but almost never in a straight up firefight.  That tilts the field heavily towards the more advanced army.

The trouble they do cause is in sabotage, or sneak attacks.  Not an assault in broad daylight like the Ewoks manage.  That should have ended in a straight up one sided fight that the imperials won with few if any casualties.

They proved this possible on Mythbusters!   :awesome_for_real: :awesome_for_real:

In my defense, I do point that out a post or three down.  It also took them quite some time to build the structure that would hold the trees, and needed heavy equipment to pull the trees far back enough to have the energy needed to smash the armored van.

Also, I suspect that the AT-*T has slightly better armor than an armored van.  We did see Rey plow the Millenium Falcon into the ground a couple of times without smashing it into pieces, and that's a civilian craft.

In the lore she's said to be a force user, but not a Jedi.  She never openly admitted this until after the emperor's death.  And supposedly there is a bust of a Muun jedi master in her castle (I didn't spot it).  She's small though, so can't be a Muun like Plageuis.

Most of the webs is pretty convinced he's Plageuis, which to me would make him a better/stronger character.  Also recall, Lucas is/was pretty bitchmode about Disney essentially re-tooling his work rather than coming up with an original plotline.  I'd expect this to continue with the franchise; that's what disney dropped $4B to do.  They didn't drop all that money to come up with original stories.

I give no fucks if he is Dsrth Plagues. He is a clean slate either way. If it happens all it means is a throw away line that he trained the emperor.

But Kylo Ren as a double agent really doesn't work. It invalidates this whole film, makes Han's death ridiculous and him being complicit in the destruction of the whatever system is really hard to square.

Trees are heavy, strong, and dense as fuck. Trees falling over or otherwise fuck up logging equipment, including bulldozers and backhoes. That scene looked stupid because of how they handled the AT-ST being destroyed, not because it was destroyed by two giant logs slamming into it. For all anyone knows they have that trap set up all the time to kill big game by luring it through there.

 I'm not even going to go into the vines around the legs. wrap a bunch of yarn around your ankles and try to walk. Let us know how it goes for you.


I doubt that the AT-ST has better armor than an armored van. If it's that big of an issue I'm sure that there is a resource in some past RPG or other nerd reference material that lists it's armor specs.

Also, the Millenium Falcon is a civilian craft. A civilian craft that has deflector shields. Ones that would be used to absorb impacts from shit in space while it was flying. UNless she drove it straight into the ground, the forces involved would be trivial in comparison.

Honestly, it must be painful for you to be yourself sometimes.

What annoys me about that whole sequence is multiple things.
1.  That they set up the tree smash AT-*T in almost no time at all.  They're tiny little goddamn bears, that they managed to cut down two very large trees, get them to the right spot, and manage to suspend them/drag them up to the correct height to smash the cabin of the vehicle is beyond belief.
2.  I have noted, twice now, that Myth Busters proved that one was at least plausible.  It also required days of setup, and the use of heavy equipment.  Neither of which the Ewoks had.
3.  I find it very difficult to believe that the empire had never encountered tactics like the use of lines/vines/ropes to trip their vehicles, and did not have countermeasures for them.  Plus the idea that tiny bears could hold a vine that was able to trip an AT-*T is, again, not terribly plausible.
4.  Ditto for the logs under the AT_*T.  Difficult to believe that they could not manage to stabilize through that, when they are already able to stabilize the thing to stand up in the first place.

As for being me, it's the best.  At least I'm not a rage filled fuckstick who shits on everything.

Not sure if you've seen the movie, but she literally bounced it off of the ground twice, with no apparent damage.  I don't believe it had shields that were on at that point.  That is a lot of energy being absorbed by the hull alone.

Plus, why wouldn't the military vehicle have better armor and better shields.

I dunno.. if your entire population builds and lives in trees far above ground, they would know how to do shit like that pretty quick.

Holy fuck. Shuuutup

With how close the trees are in the endor forest I'd tie the trees along the path at the height required then cut the bottoms out.Seems easier then hoisting them up there.

I keep trying to change the subject, but it's apparently not working.

Using the war realism of the battletech system, would the mechwarrior clans defeat the rebel alliance?

Does the Rebellion have an Ewok special forces platoon?  If so, I give it to the Rebels.

The empire should've used tanks.


Ep 7 sets more records, I wonder if JJ Abrams has shut himself in a room and just yelled 'I FUCKING NAILLLLED IT BABY'.

Supposedly he regrets passing on doing Episode 8.

He's exec prodcer for ep8 if he really wanted to he could direct it but he's not insane, he knows passing it to another director is better than running his personal vision into the ground.

Do we know who is going to direct Episode 8?

Yes, Rian Johnson. The guy who directed Looper and the Ozymandious episode of Breaking Bad. If you don't know that episode he also directed Fly, the one where a fly was loose in the lab. Other than that he's pretty light in direction credits.

I admit, I was bemused when I saw who they turned over writing/directing the next episode to.  I had to look him up on IMDB, at which point I wondered if Looper was actually that good.

He seems really light on experience, particularly to helm the next episode of a multi-billion dollar franchise.

The Empire doesn't appear to put much into survivability of it's military personnel, especial the low and middle ranking ones. To all appearances anything they make except capital ship level shields seems to function more as a placebo for the person relying on it than as a source of actual protection. Think Soviet Army, but without all of Stalin's concern for the wellbeing for his troops.

Also, while JJ is happy to take credit for the success of this movie, it literally had nothing to do with him. This is a movie that could have been directed by literally anything on the planet and it would have been huge. A fucking magic 8-ball could have made the directorial decisions and it would have made the same amount.

Since Looper is one of my favorite movies, and most favorite Sci-fi movie, to come out in the last decade, I'm willing to put full trust in him.   :awesome_for_real:

Looper, and those 3 Breaking Bad episodes are probably stronger directing credits than, for instance, a guy who only had the last two Star Trek movies, Super 8, and Mission Impossible 3.

You love being wrong. After the prequels this movie had a lot to prove. The wrong director would've killed Star Wars dead as the prequels very nearly did.

The Star Wars subreddit has people defending the prequels and ranking TFA below them because "they're denser and have more memorable scenes."

Time to kill all the 20-somethings.  :why_so_serious:

Tbh I've heard this same argument from my brother, who is a Gen-Xer.  Some of his points are valid, as he prefers a more "epic" presentation rather than Abrams' quick-hit filmography.  The prequels just felt a lot bigger with a lot more coverage of the IP (regardless of quality), and for some this is a deciding factor.  Let's be real, Abrams has never been good at scale and pacing with any of his projects.  It's just his style to make large movies seem small and twisty, which works at times for certain IP but not necessarily something like SW.

Your brother's a moron.

That said, watch Rian Johnson's directorial debut, "Brick". Film noir as performed by millenial high schoolers. Priceless for the dialogue alone.

Just got to see this. Still pretty wowed. For a couple hours, I got to be a kid watching a Star Wars movie in the theater again. Pretty damn cool.

I think this is why I enjoyed the first third of TFA the most.

When the focus is on individuals navigating something bigger, the style works great. When JJA has to work with a story in which heroes influence the world (or even just travel around it) it unravels a bit and I'd blame direction for that. Same can be said of the new Star Trek movies.

Important note: I enjoyed this film.

A friend recommended this to me a few years back, and I couldn't get through it. Came off somewhere between weird and pretentious.

As someone who loves noir, I thought Brick was just great. Yeah, it's weird, but lots of good movies are weird.

He did "Brick?" Oh that was a damn good film. Very stylish and not that similar in tone to Looper, which tells me the guy has some writing talent. My confidence in the next movie just went up a notch.

I really liked Brick, Brother's Bloom and Looper. I rewatch Brothers Bloom every couple of years or so and it still makes me laugh.

Yes, those prequels that nearly killed the franchise by making as many inflation adjusted dollars as all the other Star Wars movies except for the original? The prequels that damaged the franchise so badly that theaters were sold out for months ahead of time sight unseen, to a movie that could have been an East German art piece featuring a stream of jism saturating photos of the last 10 Soviet Premiers with Darth Vader helmets PhotoShopped in for all anyone knew?

Please, do go on about how this movie had to deliver on all counts to pre-sell all those tickets. The prequels, despite nerdraging, did not damage the franchise in any way whatsoever. Maybe they used fucking Looper time travel technology to send happy viewers back in time to buy tickets for their past selves or some shit like that. That would certainly explain why the daily numbers keep getting bigger and bigger. Oh, wait...

Seriously, just face it. This movie could have had literally anybody writing and directing it, starring literally anybody, with literally any story at all and it would have made the exact same amount of money the opening weekend.

...People would bitch about it on the internet.

Ep. 1 was fairly close to Empire and Jedi for domestic inflation adjusted box office numbers. Eps. 2 and 3 are quite a bit lower.

Edit: One note that should be made about Ep. 7's box office grosses though is that Disney required theaters to not accept various kinds of passes nor allow theater employee see the movie for free until today. It's the only time I've ever seen a studio restrict that kind of stuff.

Yes Ep 7 would've made a lot of money no matter who directed it. But when you've paid 4 billion dollars for an IP there is a huge difference between a lot of money and a METRIC FUCKTON OF IT. Plus you also want to make a mft with the next two movies and the spinoffs, a Phantom Menance effort would've significantly hurt the take from those efforts. Plus when you make a good movie (which Ep VII is, not great, but good) vs. a mediocre, good enough, effort you attract non Star Wars fans as well. A colleague of mine was asking me today about the movie, he's never even seen the OT, but he's going to see it , partly based on the fact that I said it was a good movie..That's the difference right there.

Star Wars is basically immune to shitty products. If you make a terrible Star Wars thing maybe the direct sequel won't do as well, but beyond that it's a teflon brand.

Think of it this way: if you add up all the movies, TV shows, specials, etc, there are probably 200+ hours of Star Wars content and out of those maybe 5 hours are good. Yet people still get excited.

I think under Lucas we were already seeing diminishing returns, and while a Lucas-made Ep. 7 might have seen a substantial bump compared to 2 and 3 if he had also decided to bring the original cast back, I don't think the numbers would have been what we are seeing now. I agree that it probably doesn't matter who Disney ended up getting to direct Ep. 7, but I think what ultimately mattered here almost as much as the Star Wars brand was Disney itself. These guys know how to develop and market the shit out the properties they have.

Only major complain for me was the movie was way too rushed. Also I worry how they will back up without Ford and pulling the strong homage/remake angle.

That said, I probably enjoyed it more than any other Star Wars movie I've watched... at the time. However it doesn't have the space and scope in feel that made the originals as epic, and doesn't capturey imagination afterwards to the same extent.

My GF said that it felt very Disney, and I agree. A very decent film, but not as unique in its character as it could have been. No auteur edges, wve if they were stupid ones.

I'd say we have about 7 good hours in the movies. Most of the Clone Wars and Rebels have also been very good.


Opening weekend sure. But once word spread it wasn't any good its numbers would have gone down. The prequels made decent money but they also badly damaged the brand. Star Wars was seen as sort of limping along with awful novels and only the Clone Wars being good. Hardcore fans were even getting discouraged.

So, yes, anyone could have directed it and it would have made a ton of money in its opening weekend but you wouldn't see what is happening now with it on track to possibly dethrone Avatar as the highest grossing movie of all time. (in actual dollars, not accounting for inflation.)

Personally I think without JJA directing and without Han Solo, the next one is likely to be better.

This film had to have Solo, and had to have a safe pair of hands like Abrams. But both limited what the film could do.

I liked Ford in this, but on reflection the scenes with a genuine sense of threat are all those without Han Solo in them. Rey and Finn escaping Jakku was as exciting as any action sequence I can remember, and the misdirect on Rey and Finn's roles kept the part after Solo dies fresh. Will be interesting to see if post-Solo stands up to a second viewing, pre-Solo certainly will.

Saw this last night, overall decent, entertaining movie. The thing that bugged me the most was also the worst thing about JJA New-Trek, the way he throws away long established technological conventions of these universes seemingly on a whim, like they are no big deal. In Star Trek the transporters are supposed to be a big deal, finicky things with all kinds of limitations, but in new-Trek he just blows through them by having them transport someone off a planet while passing it warp speed, and then a guy transports a multi-sector distance from Earth to the Klingon home planet. Now he is doing the same in Star Wars where in Ep. IV there was a big, cool scene where Solo won't blast to lightspeed because the calculations aren't done because it would be suicide so they have to hold off a fighter squadron while its done, now in Ep. VII he light jumps out of a hanger on a whim with seemingly no calculations. The lightspeed jump into a planetary atmosphere seemed pretty absurd too but at least we can say he gave that one some forethought.

I get it's a movie for kids so the plot doesn't have to be air tight but he leaves gaping holes. It was also pretty stupid to watch in both films the way these guys with all this future tech seemingly have zero radar. How does the Falcon escape Jakku so easily when the Imperials are doing a space supported critical search operation? Aren't there covering spaceships supporting it? During earlier Star Wars movies escaping Imperial covering ships was difficult, creating memorable scenes, now in JJA land the top line Star Destroyers don't notice ships like the Falcon (even though it just escaped Stormtroopers on the ground, who presumably have radios), but Han's dumpy freighter has no problem capturing it in the same scene? Then during that battle around the jungle lake you had a large imperial raid so how does those rebel squadrons get in so easily with complete surprise? You would assume there is an Imperial task force in orbit, with Ren's Flagship and other escorts who could have at least warned the fighters who were covering the transports. You had the same in Star Trek 2, first when Khan steals a gunship and then attacks the Starfleet HQ building with zero local security response other than Kirk jump kicking, then later there's also a long space battle near Earth and Starfleet doesn't notice. We have better airspace tracking & response tech now, and also did in the 1960s when these universes' tech were spawned.

Really just seems lazy and irresponsible of the writers & directors to break the rules and then leave these holes. All these issues could have been pretty easily dealt with and none are essential plot elements. I guess I am just disappointed to see this when the people responsible are paid a lot of $$$ and can't even keep this kind of thing tight, especially when they are carrying very valuable story franchises that is trying to run for decades.

Edit: Just remembered, kinda weak how no political background was given. What planet did that super death star blow up anyway? How come no one seemed to care? Was it Coruscant? What exactly was the Republic? It's capital? How was it supporting the "resistance"? And how seriously given that they only seemed to have a grand total of one squadron of x-wing fighters and one transport shuttle? How much did the 1st Order control? Just that one planetkiller and a few destroyers? Or entire sectors?

Saw this again and it hasn't changed my opinion - it's a solid Star Wars film that relies too much on "A New Hope" and nostalgia.

I left wondering if Snoke is going to turn out to be the Dark Side equivalent of Yoda and if Luke Skywalker is going to get killed in Ep VIII so he can force ghost advice in Ep IX ala Obi-Wan Kenobi. Or if they'll kill Leia off because she's really not being given things to do.

Or if Finn will turn out to be Lando Calrissian's kid, because the Star Wars universe has a very narrow gene pool.

This wasn't just a rehash of New Hope -  Empire and (to a lesser extent) Jedi moments are echoed. 

Atmosphere battle on a cold world?

A father and son have a conversation on a bridge where the father tries to pull the son to his side - and then the hero falls?

The heroes go down to the planet so that they can take out the defenses of the big laser and the heroes can destroy the bitg laser with Space Ships - by flying inside and shooting up the exact right thing.

A mission to rescue a captured hero?

This movie was a rehash packed with all three of the original trilogy's key moments. 

To be expected, but I hope they are just dumping them in to try and create the most nostalgist thing possible for Ep. VII to play it safe, since a lot was riding on it.


Always funny when characters complain about the cold but don't even have cold breath. Is it just that they are too lazy/cheap to CGI it or that everyone who makes these films is in such a SoCal bubble that they have never exerted themselves in sub-freezing temporatures?

The references are part of what what makes it space "opera".

Starkiller base was also a horrible overliteral rehash. Hopefully they'll stop doing it badly.

But father and son on a bridge over a literal and figurative chasm is the sort of thing that defines the genre.

Good movie making but terrible star wars film. Basically you get 2 hours of movie with about 10 minutes of actual plot.

Keep chasing that brass ring you crazy dreamer.

Very much a tell, don't show movie. If you don't wear underwear in space you don't need to have anything under the surface.

I agree that the first third was the best bit, there was no escalating sense of scope to really carry the later parts.

I could nit-pick a lot of other things to pieces, but I'll just stick with I enjoyed it, which was a surprise, and that it was good but not very good or great.

Also, seems clear that Finn is going to be a Jedi, or at least be the balancing side of Rey's force power. Unlike Rey he doesn't get as angry, and is much more motivated by love. He doesn't shoot defenceless villagers, and he comes back from running away only to save Rey. He is fearful, but it is handled with introversion and determination, not anger and rage. Obviously he is going to be the 'light' side, while she is a badass who can kick ass but struggles with her anger. She manifests her force powers more strongly in response to agression and fear - it's only her moment not selling the driod that really demonstrates some sort of selflessness (and even then it's pretty obvious that someone offering you too much for a driod means it's worth even more).

Rey also has all the major roles locked down, being both fighter and smuggler, and I doubt they're going to write Finn out of the series, so he needs a further arc.

And there's a slight pause in the bit where Maz is talking about Finn's eyes that suggests she's seen something other than just cowardice in him.

Edit: Can't help myself. This also reminded me of one of the stupid things that I think is symptomatic of JJ's flaws as a writer and director. There's this tension about Finn lying to Rey about being in the Resistance, and it's built up for about 10 mins, and then just dropped as nothing. He doesn't know how to build and hold narrative tension. Stuff just appears instantly and is forgotten as quickly. He doesn't have any patience; hence instant travel and other pacing issues that undermine both this and his other films.

I agree with the travel but the impatience of the Finn resistance thing was perfect for me because I hate secret keeping tropes like that.  You could argue to not have it there in the first place but I'm just glad they got past it fast and didn't drag it out.

Ep8 is gonna have the 'twist' be they try and redeem Kylo but Rey too angry about Han will kill him instead and become the main antagonist that Finn(jedi) will have to stop/redeem.

I'm not keen on the trope, however it was one of the main points of relationship development between Finn and Rey and they just dropped it without any consequence. "Oh well, we don't need that anymore, lets dump it". There's no cause and effect, it's just writing and direction borne of convenience, with a bit of heavy pointing to the audience telling them what they're meant to be feeling now. That point was about when the movie needed to change up pace and scope, and draw some new stuff out, but instead they just hit the 'action sequences' button, and quick cut all the way through to the end.

Regarding Finn, I assume he is the new heart character / Han Solo. The effort to reference Luke Skywalker has fairly superficial, my take was that it was simply a misdirect to play on how easy it is to make the viewer assume main character will be a man. On reflection I can't see any real foreshadowing that he might become a jedi, and I don't see much narrative advantage in having  both Rey and Finn be jedi.

I expect Poe emerges as the new straight man / Princess Leia, and clearly Rey is main character / Luke.

The marketing through the idea of "storm trooper to jedi" to at least avoid people not seeing it because the main characters a girl. Don't know why they bothered because the longer I watched this movie the more and more I didn't want Finn to touch a light saber and rolled my eyes when Rey decided to run from destiny so Finn can complete his marketing cycle.

There's not much foreshadowing for Finn to be anything at all - but they have to take him somewhere. He certainly can't be Han. He is closer to Luke than Rey, as Rey is closer to Aniken.

He's closer to Jar Jar than anything.

End of tFA only leaves 4 characters we can expect to follow, Rey, Finn, Poe, Chewbacca.

Rey is clearly main character going on heroes journey. I assume Poe is Rey's link to the struggle against the empire and the true believer in the cause, while Finn is Rey's sceptical friend, and link to her humanity and the audience. If Finn is also a jedi you have no one left to be relatable to the audience or play foil to Poe. I'd guess the next film develops Poe and Finn as a double act. If it works well you could even use it to explore Finn's fear of the rebellion turning out like the empire (I accept this is probably over optimistic)

Also I don't understand why Finn didn't go to see Luke if they were hinting at Jedi.

Probably right to say he is closer to what Jar Jar was supposed to be than anyone else in the saga. But I think Lucas was aiming for Jar Jar to grow into the relatable sceptic that Han provided in the OT as well as whatever the hell else Jar Jar was supposed to be.

Naturally I could be completely wrong - but that's how I'd do it.

Also, by the end of their arc, Jedi are basically Gandalf.

Having the two most significant of three leads turn into Gandlaf doesn't sound like good planning.

Maybe they'll go off script and Rey won't be a Jedi at all!  :why_so_serious:

Also why did they cast Rey as a British accent when no one else in Star Wars has one? Since there is no England planet, and she actually grew up in a scrapyard on a remote desert planet, how did she acquire this pretentious British accent? Is that actually a Jakkuian accent?

Did you seriously just say nobody in Star Wars has a British accent?

What accent ?

(on a not unrelated note, the Scottish Chap who was after Solo in the freighter was the worst fucking actor I've ever seen.  Also, Tarkin wannabe, who I know can act, was utter shit too.)

I don't remember any

 :why_so_serious:

Apart from Obi Wan Kenobi, C3PO, Tarkin, Amidala when trying to be posh, that guy talking about communications failure, the James Bond stormtrooper, Palpatine, Snoke, and the guy who Vader thinks shouldn't be so proud of the Death Star?

And Ming the Merciless.

Also General Zod, Fu Manchu, and Wedge.

And the Many Bothans Died Woman ; Mon Muffma.

Also, the guy who played both Mr Bronson from Grange Hill and Hitler.

And the black chap who was the Naboo head of security.  And the Naboo politician that faked the 'come home, it's shit here, help, honestly, not a trap' message.


We could go on.  I mean, literally forever.  The movies were made in the UK for fucks sake.  The amount of Brits in there is LEGION.

Naboo queen's spaceship pilot man. So important a character he got his face on a pepsi can.

The entire jedi council except for Shaft.

And the youngling who answered the stupid question about the clone planet.

Also Liam Neeson.

Cantina guy who doesn't like the way luke looks.

All OT stormtroopers.

Ok so there's been a few forgettable supporting characters with them. I still want to know where these accents come from though. Why do people from the same area have different accents? Is there a British planet they have immigrated from? Or are there British ghettos on normal planets?

Babelfish translations, obviously.

Based on the evidence so far, you'd be better off asking where freaks like Han Solo get their fucked up speech impediment.

But I'm happy to go with 'they come from different places and travel a lot' then follow it up with 'have you ever visited a city and observed that people living in the same area often have a variety of accents? It's like that.'

But if you really really want a planet on which everyone speaks properly, Naboo. Amidala in Padme mode is only exception I can think of.

I wish I kept that 'Not Sure If Serious' pic around.

Fucker, you owe me a new keyboard. Now I have to explain to my supervisor why the right side of my keyboard no longer works.

You mean Kastagir from Highlander?

No, the Doctor from Holby City.   :awesome_for_real:

Pretty much every single Imperial officer in any of the movies has a British accent while most of the Rebel alliance soldiers have American (usually Southern) accents. How you missed this is beyond me as it makes me think you haven't even watched the movies. It's blatant to the point that it was clearly done on purpose.

The best in-universe explanation used to be "Core Worlds = refined language = British" and "Other worlds (Tatooine, Hoth, Bespin, etc) = unrefined = American." Daisey Ridley throws a bit of a wrench in that.

Unless she came from a refined world and kept her accent after being dumped on Jakku.

Well if she was Luke's daughter it's reasonable to assume she grew up on a core world before it all went to hell.

Well, either way it's quite clear she isn't from Jakku.

Edit: Oops missed the page jump /edit

 :uhrr: