Star Wars : Into Spoilers - The Spoiler awakens.

[Samwise]

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).

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.

 

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.

[Shannow]

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.

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.

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.

[Khaldun]

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.

[Lakov_Sanite]

Hux in particular seemed very tired of his shit.

[Margalis]

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 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.

[Lakov_Sanite]

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 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.

[Malakili]

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.

[Wasted]

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.

[Mandella]

. 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.

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.

[Surlyboi]

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.

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

I hate this decision, but I understand it. I don’t even think it was a bad choice— once Mark Hamill, Carrie Fisher and Harrison Ford were confirmed to be reprising their roles, there’s no way the three original heroes were all going to be found contentedly sipping the Star Wars equivalent of mai tais on some beach planet somewhere. That’s not interesting, and furthermore the new generation of characters needed conflicts to overcome, which in turn meant conflicts that Luke, Leia and Han couldn’t solve. That’s basic storytelling, and it’s exactly the sort of construction that always informed Star Wars, in that Luke and his compatriots had to solve the problems the previous generation had left behind.

But that doesn’t make it any easier to see Luke, Leia and Han turn from heroes into screw-ups—for them to have saved the galaxy and then, by their various failures, almost immediately bring it into a sorry state once again. I don’t want them to have messed up this badly. I don’t want them to be unhappy. Honestly, I don’t even want them to be old. When I think of Han Solo, I don’t want to remember an elderly smuggler who’s got nobody left to swindle, and whose main legacy is Kylo Ren—I want to think of the dashing scoundrel whose heroic nature got the better of him.

The whole article is here.

[MediumHigh]

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.

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.

[Malakili]

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.

[HaemishM]

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.

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.

[Malakili]

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.

[Surlyboi]

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.

[Malakili]

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.

[Merusk]

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.

[Hawkbit]

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.

[Surlyboi]

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.

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.

[Merusk]

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.

[RT81]

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.

[Fabricated]

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

[Lakov_Sanite]

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.

[Surlyboi]

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.

[RT81]

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

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.

[RT81]

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.

Interesting. I need to read the novelization.

[jgsugden]

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

[Surlyboi]

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.

[jgsugden]

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?

[MediumHigh]

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

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.

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.

[Merusk]

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

[jgsugden]

MediumHigh: Obligatory Nazi comparison.

[Quinton]

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.

[Azazel]

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

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!

[Azazel]

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

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.