The official Star Wars: The Force Awakens Thread

Post by **Dodd Formeianna** » Fri Dec 18, 2015 12:47 pm

Discuss here...I'll begin.

All in all, I liked it. I'll post some more as I'm seeing it again in a few hours.

Spoiler:

and

Spoiler:

Post by **Dashl** » Fri Dec 18, 2015 2:17 pm

I hated it.

Now that I am home, I can post why. Only read this if you have seen it, and want to read what an angry man has to say and rip the movie apart.

Spoiler:

They do the reveal of Kylo Ren's origins way too fast. They could have saved that for later, not 20 seconds into the movie. Who was Max von Sydow? He was the ally from the opening scrawl, but they didn't explain who he was. Maybe he shot a flashback scene for the next one? Was he watching over Rey, didn't seem like it.
I knew about Han dying as soon as he agreed to be in the movie. He wanted to kill off Han as early as Empire I read.

This movie was just a remake of Star Wars, with a scene from Empire (father and son on catwalk over a pit} and a sequence from Jedi (Han has to go to a generator room and blow it up to take down the shields for the pilots. Trench Run, and a weak spot on a third Death Star? Do something original for once.

Finn, so are they saying he has the force, or just a cowardly storm trooper with a heart of gold? How was that his first mission, he would have been on other missions long before that.

Snoke looked like Gollum and the aliens from Close Encounter had a baby.I couldn't hear well, did they say he was also a student of Luke, when he attacked with baby Ben? Why is Ren named Ben, Leia didn't even meet him and Han knew him for an hour.

As for Rey, how does she suddenly become the most powerful Jedi of all? Who told her about Jedi Mind tricks? Jedi are supposed to be trained young, and she just knows how to do mind tricks and force pull a lightsaber? Not to mention she knows how to fight with a saber. Cuspar thinks she was trained as a child, and mind wiped like in KOTOR, and Ren somehow unlocked it. That makes sense to me. They are clearly setting her up as the daughter of Luke (since three generations love to sit in sand and whine about leaving the sand.

Captain Phasma was taken out like a little bitch. For all the hype for her and they do that?

Luke gets second billing but not a single line? Why was he hiding in the Scottish Highlands? Was his plan "well, they know I love to sit in sand all day, so I will trick them and hang out in Scotland with the Highlander"?

My favorite part, was after the movie. Some random stranger two seats away from me, turns and says "JJ fucked us, he fucked all of us".
I said "his name is Jar Jar Abrams, and don't forget it."

Post by **Marrkin** » Fri Dec 18, 2015 4:08 pm

Dashl wrote:I hated it.

Post by **Furiel** » Fri Dec 18, 2015 8:45 pm

I'd give it a 6.5 as of now. That may go up on subsequent viewings. Also realize I VERY successfully avoided spoilers.

Spoiler:

Post by **Dodd Formeianna** » Mon Dec 21, 2015 4:44 pm

OK, so I saw it twice over the weekend. Would have been 3 times since I promised my daughter to take her, but she decided at the last minute she didn't want to go. I will probably catch it one more time in the theater over the holidays. Surprisingly, the second viewing was better than the first.

It's not a flawless movie, but I feel like none of the OT or PT were perfect, so I wouldn't judge it by any different set of standards. I give it a solid 8.75 / 10, right behind ESB which sits at 9/10 for me.

Short of posting a full review, here are my thoughts after seeing it again:

Spoiler:

What I liked:
-The opening scenes - Dialogue between Lor San Tekka and Poe Dameron / BB8 interrupting the conversation / Stormtrooper raid on Jakku village...excellent. Establishes Kylo Ren as the new baddie very well. Unlike Furiel, I actually liked the use of new force powers...I found the way the blaster bolt was frozen to be a cool effect, something unpredictable that showed off his power...Poe Dameron's face when he sees that happen is totally like "Huh? WTF?"
-Everything else on Jakku...I thought the addition of another desert planet to be a bit unoriginal at first, but after actually watching the movie, it grew on me.
-Han Solo & Chewie back in action again (as well as the Falcon)
-The X-Wing and TIE battles - both on Takodana and Starkiller base
-The dialogue was pretty well scripted (compared to...say...the prequels)

I agree with Dashl that this movie borrowed thematically way too much from the OT. That said, it didn't bother me, since it was relatable and felt like SW. That Han and Leia named their son Ben actually makes sense to me. Obi-Wan is the hub of the OT. If it weren't for him, Han and Leia would never have met in the first place, a daring rescue from the Death Star would never have occurred, Luke would never have become a Jedi, or left Tatooine, for that matter (if Uncle Owen had his druthers).

Things that slightly bothered me, plotwise:
-R2D2 being in powersave mode for most of the movie, then conveniently coming back online when the plot informed him that it was ok to do so.
-The map that leads to Luke Skywalker...looked...awfully...simple
-On Rey being a "DIY Jedi", learning powers as she goes through Starkiller base...I would think that at bare minimum, they could have at least established plot-wise through foreshadowing that she had some intuition or heightened senses...some precursory knowledge of the force. All of a sudden, she's an expert? I hope that Cuspar's theory about the mind wipe is correct.
-I would have liked to see the Big 3 characters at least share a few moments together on screen. Killing Han off before any chances of that happening...was...in my mind...a bit of a miss from what the fanbase would have liked to have seen.
-A 3rd, bigger, badder Death Star with Starkiller base...really? Haven't we learned from our past mistakes, people?
-Captain Phasma's diminished role. She seemed like quite a throwaway character...she doesn't seem as badass as they made her appear in interviews, trailers, etc.

But all in all, I can overlook the bad in the fact that none of the OT movies were perfect, either.

Post by **Staris** » Mon Dec 21, 2015 8:22 pm

I enjoyed it giving it a 7 and will be seeing it at least 3 more times but yea has some things I wished where done better. I do feel that this is the movie they ended up with not necessarily the movie they started in mind.

Spoiler:

What I liked:
I liked how even though they threw out the books as cannon that they took quite a few influences from it. Did seem they where in some was taken in weird directions.
In agreement on what others have said was good about it.

I can understand why they had Kylo Ren's original name be Ben, he is clearly based on Jacen Solo and the next logical name would be be Anakin but would result in him being compared too much with the books. That and Lea was looking for Obi-Wan and knew he had been a General in the clone wars, so it stands to reason that growing up she was told stories about him.

I get the feeling that Rey is the spiritual successor to Jaina Solo, Jacen Solo's twin sister, and that Rey is obviously the Awakening in the Force that Snoke mentions. So her being very powerful makes some sense that she even untrained is capable of doing it eventual. I do find it interesting and hopeful that she could well end up as a Gray Jedi, the last fight scene she fought much stronger against Kylo when she was angered over over Fyn being hurt who she obviously cares about.

Things I disliked:
This movie has me hating Luke Skywalker. I am disappointed that he decides to run with his tail between his legs when Kylo turns on him. I can't help but feel its confused after its revealed why he disappeared as to why both the Rebels and Snoke seem to think Luke will some how solve the rebels problem and the destruction of the first order. I get the feeling this is to lead up to Luke been more a regular human that happens to have force powers as he won't be able or unwilling to help, to help speed up the next generation taking up the mantel. With Rey needing training to bring him back as a Obi-wan mentor roll but with Rey's potential to be swayed by the dark side / be a gray jedi means I give it a fifty-fifty chance of him training her or sending her away immediately.

I especially feel they missed out an opportunity to have R2's awakening be a baton pass to the new generation by having Rey awaken him instead of at seeming at random.

Granted we don't know how long Luke has been gone since it would have taken time to have Ben born and old enough to train and then betray, but I find it hard to believe Luke would have stayed in one spot, not like its the only planet to have Jedi history. Also get the feeling Luke wasn't wanting to be found at least the impression I got at the end of the film, which begs the question as to why or even how he left a map of where he was going. This I feel was originally suppose to be different, aka Luke got captured by Snoke when the betrayal happened and is needing rescue and the map the Rebels are trying to acquire is where he is being held.

I hope Captain Phasma survived and again think this is something that got diminished from where it was originally suppose to go.

To answer Furiel I knew in advance to expected it as Harrison Ford was very vocal even before filming started that he wanted Han dead before the end of this set of trilogies. I do wonder if his ankle getting broken on set caused that to be expedited and him potentially being unwilling to do more films, which could explain some of why we ended up with the film we got.

Post by **Dashl** » Thu Dec 24, 2015 12:10 am

Video review with spoilers from the Battlefield friends, first 3 mins from Thick sums up what I think, right down to calling J.J., Jar Jar.

Spoiler:

Post by **Blackferne** » Mon Dec 28, 2015 3:19 pm

Spoiler:

Post by **Blackferne** » Mon Dec 28, 2015 8:49 pm

Furiel wrote:I'd give it a 6.5 as of now. That may go up on subsequent viewings. Also realize I VERY successfully avoided spoilers.

Spoiler:
According to Cuspar Ford asked Lucas to kill him in Ep 6, so he expected it. I did not know that nor did I expect it and I was PISSED. I spent a good 5 minutes in the car after the movie ranting to no one about it.
I think they did a very good job of keeping Luke's involvement under wraps. I didn't expect it and was a little confused why the credits didn't roll once Rei, Chewie and R2 took off. I expected Ep 8 to be Rei chasing Luke around after she picked up his trail.
I expected Captain Phasma to play a much bigger role, there was what, like 2 minutes tops of screen time for her?
I thought the stopping a blaster bolt in mid-air thing was cheesy as hell.
When the hell did TIE fighters become 2 man crafts?

Spoiler:

Post by **Maizan** » Tue Dec 29, 2015 4:17 pm

So I finally got around to seeing it last night.

I give the movie 2 very big thumbs up. I loved it all from beginning to end.

Leading up to going, I re-watched episodes 4,5,and 6 and can honestly say I rate this one just slightly ahead of episode 5.

Spoiler:

Post by **Dood** » Mon Jan 04, 2016 9:04 pm

Since I discovered I still know where this forum is....I give the movie a B/B-, pending the release of the next movie.

Spoiler:

This movie did what it needed to do. It made me want to see the next Star Wars movie. However, its final grade is entirely dependent on that next movie. This was a soft-reboot that borrowed far too much from Episode IV and did a little too much fan service.

I didn't mind the Han dying because HOW THE FUCK DID YOU NOT KNOW THAT HARRISON FORD HATED PLAYING HAN SOLO?

I actually loved the fact that they revealed Ren's identity right off the bat. To me that was a refreshing "we won't try to out do every reveal so don't worry, no one else will be making out with their sister."

Things I Liked

CHARACTERS THAT DO THINGS AND HAVE REASONS
A really good villain that is everything Anakin should have been in the prequels
It felt like Star Wars
Harrison Ford sent Han out with a pretty good performance. The early bits were a bit too silly, but overall, it seemed like he was happy to get the death he wanted and gave us good Han stuff to take away
BB-8. I was really really expecting to hate that ball droid thing. I actually loved everything about it except for the moronic thumbs-up thing.
There wasn't too much fan service. Well, there was SLIGHTLY too much, but it didn't drown the movie a la Star Trek: Into Darkness.
I loved the flawed villains with inferiority complexes. You see this primarily with Ren, but I loved the fact that the MASSIVE and IMPOSING Snoke turned out to be a hologram, and I have a feeling we're in for a Yoda reveal with that. Yes, it would be more of the Star Wars "rhyming" but I think it's a salient bit of backstory without literal exposition. I think it could be really clever that way. Even the red-headed Tarkin seemed to have an inferiority complex. He's compensating for the Empire's loss and the fact that he's not a force user and instead of being scared of Ren he holds him in open contempt. This element of our villains (the unnecessary Phasma notwithstanding) was probably my favorite part of the film.
I want to see the next movie. I can't say enough that this accomplished it's most important goal: I'm interested in seeing where this goes. That's all it had to do, really. It's essentially a soft-reboot and did a decent job of transitioning us away from the legacy characters into the new generation.

Things I Didn't Like

Whereas the prequels suffered from getting too mired in politics, this movie suffered by not clearly explaining anything about what the fuck was going on. Why is the Resistance to the First Order not just "The Army of the Republic?" Yes, I know NOW that the answer is that the Resistance is essentially like the French Resistance in WWII and the New Republic is essentially Britain/US funneling support to the Resistance, but that wasn't clear in the movie AT ALL. 3-4 lines of dialogue could have cleared that up. Or maybe take one of the three paragraphs in the crawl telling us repeatedly that everyone is looking for Luke, and maybe layout who the Resistance is.
Rey just knows how to use The Force. I'm hoping this will get explained better in the next movie and we'll find out she's received training before and been mind-wiped a la KOTOR or something, but it bugged me in the movie.
Rey is just fucking good at EVERYTHING. Like, seriously, what did this character struggle with other than getting fair pay for her work? She flies the Falcon like Han, fixes it like Chewie, learns the Force via books on tape even faster than Luke does in Empire...the only growth in her arc was really her confidence. It made her accomplishments feel a bit cheap as it kept going on like that. (nitpick)
Light speed is too fucking fast. This bugged me probably more than it should, but the universe felt smaller because it took 30 seconds to go anywhere. Episodes IV and V actually made good use of the time people spent getting places. It made the Star Wars universe feel expansive - like a real place where people were doing things. It gave everything scope. Now they can't find Luke in an unmapped part of space that seems like it was next fucking door. Basically, they took the Star Tours route as though we were on a ride (and my guess is that this is because Disney is building a ride that will be just like this). (nitpickish)
The Han and Chewie Chthulu smuggling took too long and added nothing other than stupid CG monsters. Pull that out and give me the exposition on who the Resistance is. Hell, fix the lightspeed thing and have that conversation while the Falcon is in transit to the secret base! OMG, I just fixed a huge chunk of what I didn't like in this movie with a single edit!
Chewie's fur was way too smooth and soft. Go watch Empire and tell me that THAT isn't the right Chewie (massive nitpick).
Snoke is the fucking stupidest name for a villain ever. EVER. Professor Dingle would have been more menacing. (nitpick)
The Starkiller Base. Are. You. Fucking. Kidding. Me. This was the laziest piece of writing in the whole movie. Honestly, this element alone almost has me giving this movie a C instead of a B. Planetoid destroyer of planets that has a single weakness along with a trench run? REALLY? Jesus fucking Alvis what the fuck? That could have literally been ANYTHING other than a Death Star ripoff and I would have happily accepted it. This felt like a "See, people who don't actually like Star Wars? It's Star Wars!" Let the X-Wings, TIE Fighters, and light sabers do that for you. Maybe don't blow up the Armageddon device every single episode. Honestly, this nearly ruined the whole fucking movie for me more than the fact that this is almost a shot-for-shot remake of Episode IV.

All in all, I'd say this is the third best Star Wars movie, just ahead of Jedi, which - the older I get, the more I hate it because I realize more and more how bad of a movie it really was. That's still damning with faint praise. Episodes IV and V were not without problems, but they didn't feel as lazy as this did in spots, and had some legitimately fantastic cinematography and writing. This had OK and occasionally good writing and lots of in-atmo flying of space ships.

Post by **Dood** » Mon Jan 04, 2016 9:07 pm

I don't think it's a spoiler to say this:

One thing that I think makes the movie complicated to digest is that the story takes place - just like the movie - 30 years after ROTJ. I think that it can be hard to make those connections some times, especially when you're still seeing TIEs and X-Wings and YT-1300s.

As a friend of mine said, "This movie really needed to be made in 1986."

Post by **Dodd Formeianna** » Thu Jan 07, 2016 6:35 pm

I like what Dood said particularly about...

Spoiler:

Post by **Maizan** » Fri Jan 08, 2016 1:39 pm

Question for you all.

Was the main story lines/scripts written for all 9 episodes back in the 70's?

Maizan

Post by **Dodd Formeianna** » Fri Jan 08, 2016 3:26 pm

Maizan wrote:Question for you all.

Was the main story lines/scripts written for all 9 episodes back in the 70's?

Maizan

According to wikipedia, Georgie wrote the treatments for the sequel trilogy in the late 70s, but later abandoned them. Keep in mind, these were treatments, ie a brief synopsis, with no fleshed outlines. Disney bought these are part of his sale, but after reviewing them decided to shelve them since they felt that they weren’t as marketable as they had hoped.

Rumor is that when Lucasfilm was sold, they offered Lucas to stay on as a creative consultant. But when he discovered that they were canning his treatments, he felt unwanted and decided to divorce himself from the movies, going forward. Probably still some bitterness there. I get the feeling that Disney wanted to maintain a lot of elements that originally made SW popular (eg an oppressive empire, with a group of heroes taking them straight on, one or two key memorable bad guy icons, limited use of Jedi, etc.). I’ve read in interviews that they also wanted to distance themselves from the unpopular elements of the prequels, as much as possible.

The story for TFA was basically created by JJ Abrams and Lawrence Kasdan with oversight from Kathleen Kennedy and the Lucasfilm story group (Pablo Hidalgo and team). Disney/Lucasfilm has more or less a story arc they’re going to follow for the characters that was generated from this, but Episode 8 is being written by Rian Johnson, who consulted with Abrams during the filming of TFA. Ep 9 will be written by Colin Trevorrow (Jurassic World).
Quite frankly, with Episode 7 out of the way, I’m a little more excited where they plan on taking the story for Episode 8. With the “reboot” out of the way, all the characters’ identities now established, they have carte blanche.

Post by **Dood** » Mon Jan 11, 2016 8:02 pm

Maizan wrote:Question for you all.

Was the main story lines/scripts written for all 9 episodes back in the 70's?

Maizan

To sum up Dodd's post and likely actual history: No.

Hell, Lucas barely had Ep. IV fleshed out and there were constant rewrites while it was happening. Key plot points in the OT were decided fairly late in the game (like the whole Luke/Leia twins thing wasn't decided until they were already filming ROTJ if memory serves).

Basically, Lucas likes to say he wrote everything at once, but it's bullshit. He only mostly wrote ANH's arc and then it got fleshed out as they butted up against what was feasible to film and the assistance of his (then) wife and some really great screenwriters and producers.

Post by **Staris** » Mon Jan 18, 2016 4:37 pm

Spoiler:

I am hopeful of episode 8 but I do fear that where they start out in a new direction and after running into trouble, that instead of taking the time to do it right they again fall back to tried and true, aka episode 5, as seems to be the case for episode 7 if early rumors of what the movie was suppose to be about are true. This may be the one fault Disney can run into with the franchise is they require the films stick to the schedule and not allow for delays when necessary.

Post by **Dodd Formeianna** » Mon Jan 18, 2016 5:40 pm

Staris wrote:
Spoiler:
Having watched it for a forth time time, the one thing I wish was changed which would fix my biggest beef with the movie is if Luke is reestablishing the Jedi in secret because he recognizes that the Initiates won't be ready to face the dark side any time soon. I know why they didn't do that because they wanted the Jedi and Sith scarce aka no large Jedi vs Sith battles. That and would have led into a more compelling reason for Rey to stay and train, with her eventual leaving to help the Resistance in need.

I don't know that they won't be able to help mirroring episode 5 some, unless they just have Luke immediately turn Rey away, which I fear they will do, thus totally destroying my image of Luke. My only hope is Luke quickly confirms that Rey has previously been trained but doesn't remember it and unlock those members so that she is now trained and ready to face a fully trained Kylo.
I am hopeful of episode 8 but I do fear that where they start out in a new direction and after running into trouble, that instead of taking the time to do it right they again fall back to tried and true, aka episode 5, as seems to be the case for episode 7 if early rumors of what the movie was suppose to be about are true. This may be the one fault Disney can run into with the franchise is they require the films stick to the schedule and not allow for delays when necessary.

Apparently, according to rumor initial photography has been delayed 2-3 weeks from Jan to Feb due to some rewrites in the script. It's all pure speculation on my part, but I suspect that maybe Ep 8 had some OT story elements that may have been "written out" due to the criticisms faced in Ep 7.

Post by **Dood** » Wed Jan 20, 2016 5:26 pm

Dodd Formeianna wrote:Apparently, according to rumor initial photography has been delayed 2-3 weeks from Jan to Feb due to some rewrites in the script. It's all pure speculation on my part, but I suspect that maybe Ep 8 had some OT story elements that may have been "written out" due to the criticisms faced in Ep 7.

That would be welcome. They did a little too much of the "see? This is Star Wars like you remember" in the new movie. I understand why they did it, but it felt lazy and the story literally has a turning point where the movie jumps from new territory to running on the rails of Episode IV.

I'd love to see them just grow from here.

Post by **Dodd Formeianna** » Wed Jan 20, 2016 9:17 pm

And just like that - the movie release has been pushed back from May 2017 to December, due to rewrites.

http://www.starwarsnewsnet.com/2016/01/ ... -2017.html
http://www.starwars.com/news/star-wars- ... d=20528618

In a way, I'm glad...they should take the time to produce a quality product. But sad panda is still sad.

Post by **Blackferne** » Wed Jan 20, 2016 9:38 pm

Dodd Formeianna wrote:And just like that - the movie release has been pushed back from May 2017 to December, due to rewrites.

http://www.starwarsnewsnet.com/2016/01/ ... -2017.html
http://www.starwars.com/news/star-wars- ... d=20528618

In a way, I'm glad...they should take the time to produce a quality product. But sad panda is still sad.

Be honest though what is a more fitting story in December than a young person from a desert who has a deep connection with some mystical and supernatural power and is serving as a savior to those in need?

Post by **Maizan** » Thu Jan 21, 2016 12:24 pm

Blackferne wrote:
Dodd Formeianna wrote:And just like that - the movie release has been pushed back from May 2017 to December, due to rewrites.

http://www.starwarsnewsnet.com/2016/01/ ... -2017.html
http://www.starwars.com/news/star-wars- ... d=20528618

In a way, I'm glad...they should take the time to produce a quality product. But sad panda is still sad.
Be honest though what is a more fitting story in December than a young person from a desert who has a deep connection with some mystical and supernatural power and is serving as a savior to those in need?

Can I get a HALLELUJAH from the Congregation!

AMEN preach it brother.

Post by **Staris** » Thu Jan 21, 2016 3:36 pm

It makes sense especially if they need the extra time but does throw an Alivs get together out the window unless enough people say screw seeing family which I doubt, or are willing to do more travel around then which isn't a good bet either.

Post by **Dodd Formeianna** » Fri Jan 22, 2016 3:36 pm

Staris wrote:It makes sense especially if they need the extra time but does throw an Alivs get together out the window unless enough people say screw seeing family which I doubt, or are willing to do more travel around then which isn't a good bet either.

Yes, I agree. But the other option for a gathering would be if the die-hard Alvianites met at a SW Celebration, which is held in April-May timeframe. This year's was sold out in minutes, and is in London, but next year's is back in Anaheim, if I am not mistaken.

I went to Celebration V when Episode III came out and met a few former guildies from SWG. We honestly had a blast, and for me - meeting Alvians at a gathering of that magnitude would be awesome. Plus, we could tie in a side Disneyland trip. Juss saying.

The Church of Alvis

The official Star Wars: The Force Awakens Thread

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