Star Wars: The Force Awakens Discussion (HERE THERE BE SPOILERS)

[USS Triumphant]

Brilliant assessment

I agree wholeheartedly, and would like to subscribe to your newsletter.

A few things you may have missed:

Why in the name of the Force would the Imperials build *yet another* stupid superweapon with an obvious flaw?

Why would all of the Stormtroopers be carrying lightsaber-proof weapons to fight with in a time when there isn't anyone with a lightsaber to confront? Seems like a lot of effort and expense (assuming cortosis fiber or whatever it is is rare) to prepare for facing... Luke, I guess... who would own any Stormtrooper in combat, anyway, with or without a lightsaber.

Greg Grunberg. Freakin' Matt Parkman. Seriously? Broke whatever little suspension of disbelief I was managing at that point, entirely.

Do Nien Numb, Admiral Ackbar, etc, just hang out and play poker and drink cocoa with Princess Leia all the time now? Do these people not have other important places to be?

 

[Cutter John]

A few things you may have missed:

Why would all of the Stormtroopers be carrying lightsaber-proof weapons to fight with in a time when there isn't anyone with a lightsaber to confront? Seems like a lot of effort and expense (assuming cortosis fiber or whatever it is is rare) to prepare for facing... Luke, I guess... who would own any Stormtrooper in combat, anyway, with or without a lightsaber.

Who said it was all of them? I just put them down as a specialized unit, just like the Flame Trooper we saw earlier in the film.

The First Order leaders are quite aware that Skywalker is alive. They probably suspect that he's hiding somewhere training more Jedi. So having a handful of troopers armed with Electrostaff attachments might seem a reasonable precaution.

Greg Grunberg. Freakin' Matt Parkman. Seriously? Broke whatever little suspension of disbelief I was managing at that point, entirely.

I suppose that might mean something if I knew who these people were.

 

[Dude]

To CorporalClegg, regarding Finn's "joining" the First Order, it's covered at least twice in the film. Finn specifically says that he was taken just after birth and was raised to be a stormtrooper. Later, General Hux and Kylo Ren have an argument over whether they should begin using clones instead of the troopers and Hux replies that the troopers are raised from birth to serve the First Order. Even Phasma's statements about reconditioning make it very clear that the troopers are not volunteers.

As for the rest of film, it just didn't do it for me. I liked it well enough. I suspect that perhaps my expectations were just too high. The trailers were great. Abrams does well with his movies. I just really wanted to like it.

I'll go see it again, maybe a second viewing will turn out differently. In fairness, my wife (not a Star Wars person) liked it much better than any of the other films, as did my father (also not a Star Wars person). My teenage son loved it. And, truthfully, there really aren't other films that would have pulled that disparate group of filmgoers into a theater all together, which is a testament to the cultural phenomenon that is Star Wars.

In terms of my critique, I overlooked some of what bothered me as simply being narrative (for instance, I wanted to see the six main heroes from the OT together on the screen, but it didn't happen; frankly, that's a story choice and I generally don't criticize those).

The big three all felt flat to me. But Chewbacca was great and frankly, Abrams did so much better with C-3PO than Lucas did since Empire. He was funny here, but never grating as he was in ROTJ or the PT.

As with Star Trek, Abrams puts his planets too close together. The huge galaxy of Star Wars feels small. He didn't establish some of the basic narrative, so we couldn't figure out what was going on in many cases.

It was a fanwank to the OT and I absolutely hated the Starkiller Base. The story didn't provide any build or foundation and things just suddenly appeared (like, for instance, a giant planet destroying weapon). ANH spent time building up the existence and real threat poised by the Death Star. Here, they just shoot the thing the first time we see it.

I want to like the new characters and I hope that I do. I liked Finn and Rey, particularly their loyalty to each other. Perhaps the best scene in the film is when Finn admits he just came to save Rey and Han makes it clear that people are counting on them to come through. Both of them are truly honorable people in the clutch.

In the end, it just didn't feel like Star Wars to me. It was too superficial, didn't feel like the situation was epic. Ultimately, that is the one thing Star Wars always was: epic.

Speaking of which, the music didn't do it. No epicness, didn't feel like Star Wars music. Someone upthread said that the music in Star Wars drove the narrative and the dialogue was really secondary. They were right. This music just didn't help the film at all. Even in the circumstances where the score reflected the OT themes, it felt forced. It didn't help that the commercials and trailers so prominently featured the OT music.

Ultimately, Lucas has said that Disney didn't like his treatment for the new trilogy. I don't know what ideas he had, but I think what this film was missing was Lucas. I wish that Lucas was allowed to create the vision and then let others carry it out. Let someone else write the script and Abrams can direct, because Lucas absolutely struggles with these areas. But it should have been Lucas' story. Or at least, it felt like that element wasn't there.

Anyway, I hope everyone who comes after me does enjoy it and certainly hope that I will like it more on second viewing, as well.

 

[Dude]

A few things you may have missed:

Why would all of the Stormtroopers be carrying lightsaber-proof weapons to fight with in a time when there isn't anyone with a lightsaber to confront? Seems like a lot of effort and expense (assuming cortosis fiber or whatever it is is rare) to prepare for facing... Luke, I guess... who would own any Stormtrooper in combat, anyway, with or without a lightsaber.

Who said it was all of them? I just put them down as a specialized unit, just like the Flame Trooper we saw earlier in the film.

The First Order leaders are quite aware that Skywalker is alive. They probably suspect that he's hiding somewhere training more Jedi. So having a handful of troopers armed with Electrostaff attachments might seem a reasonable precaution.

Good thought. I took it that maybe Leia has a weapon and they expected to run into her at some point, that occasionally lightsabers show up with others, or that the sticks were the backup plan if Kylo Ren returned to the Light (vaguely like Order 66 in reverse).

The soldiers who travel with the person who wields the Force were prepared to face someone who also wields the Force. Actually, sounds like good tactical planning. Which, of course, makes it completely crazy since these are stormtroopers we're talking about. Seeing a capable soldier among them just threw me off!

Greg Grunberg. Freakin' Matt Parkman. Seriously? Broke whatever little suspension of disbelief I was managing at that point, entirely.

I suppose that might mean something if I knew who these people were.

While I didn't recognize the actor or any of his previous roles, when I saw the character, I sensed something was wrong. It felt like the character was fitted in, very unnatural, looked wrong.

 

[USS Triumphant]

Also, I forgot to mention that the opening crawl has seemed like it was written from the perspective of a future historical source for each of the other movies. This one seemed to try for about a sentence and a half, then turned into someone trying to describe the backstory on the phone to someone else while distracted by something. It was right about then that I started to get a bad feeling about this.

Greg Grunberg. Freakin' Matt Parkman. Seriously? Broke whatever little suspension of disbelief I was managing at that point, entirely.

I suppose that might mean something if I knew who these people were.

Your nerd card can go in the box beside the door on your way out.

(Actually, I almost envy your ignorance of this. )

 

[Dream]

This was a remake of ANH. A remake! People complain about ROTJ rehashing elements from ANH with the Death Star II, but TFA took it to another level.

I'm kind of surprised at all the positive reviews it has been getting when it was so derivative. I did enjoy the new characters and the humor was much better handled than the PT, but it's a shame the characters they went through nearly the entire plot of ANH, with a bit of ESB and ROTJ sprinkled in. I couldn't help but faceplam at the reveal of the Death Star 3.0, and that trench run by X-wings being chased by TIE fighters.

Also John Williams' score for this was incredibly disappointing, something that I have NEVER thought about any of his Star Wars music until now.

 

[Dream]

 

[Turtletrekker]

Apparently the rumored Daniel Craig cameo was a real thing. He supposedly played the Stormtrooper that Rey mind-whammied.

Also, apparently the trader that Rey dealt with on Jakku was played by Simon Pegg.

 

[Maurice]

Just saw it. There were lots of moments I liked. There were lots of moments I thought fell flat. There were a lot of convenient plot contrivances.

It entertained me more than any of the prequels. It's too illogical to top any of the originals (albeit Jedi is so flawed it comes close to being a tie with it).

I largely liked the cast, even if some of them were wasted. I really liked the two young leads, and, yay, strong female character!

The large use of practical locations and sets made the film feel more real in general, but made the CGI characters really stand out like a sore thumb amongst all the practical goodness.

Too many callbacks.

BB8's mission is to give the Resistance (not Rebellion, people) the map bit with Luke's position. For why? To protect Luke? To let the Resistance find him for their own purposes? If just to protect Luke, the easiest answer is just to erase it. And, um, sorry, even without the rest of the map you could figure out which chunk of the galaxy the BB8 carried portion represented. It might take time, but you could figure it out.

R2's wakeup was too convenient for words. I mean, if if BB8's data was the key the R2 waking, I coulda bought it. But not as-is. Cause and effect beats coincidence in drama.

Speaking of convenient: Han found the Falcon pretty damned fast.

A few quick thoughts on the Stuporweapon du jour:

The Starkiller was the least-welcome aspect of the film for me. Not only is it YADS (Yet Another Death Star), it's even more illogical than those.

• It's a planet, so how do you aim it? What if the target planets are 90 degrees to the equator? Can you maneuver the whole planet?
• It sucks the power from a star, which appears to be the local one. In the process of getting its second charge it appears to have eaten the entire star. So, now what? Or can it suck up stars from across the galaxy?
• In both Star Wars and ROTJ the overarching plots concern the need to destroy these superweapons. In this film it just happens to be there. It's tangental to the real story, which concerns the search for Luke. As such, it's even less necessary to the story than the Death Star II.

 

[DWF]

Greg Grunberg. Freakin' Matt Parkman. Seriously? Broke whatever little suspension of disbelief I was managing at that point, entirely.

I suppose that might mean something if I knew who these people were.

While I didn't recognize the actor or any of his previous roles, when I saw the character, I sensed something was wrong. It felt like the character was fitted in, very unnatural, looked wrong.

Greg Grunberg is a personal friend of JJ Abrams and is just about everything he directs/produces. Here was an X-Wing pilot for the Resistance.

 

[TREK_GOD_1]

Psst! Don't tell anyone that this copy+paste of ANH could not stand ion its own merits in its screaming attempt to create a female mythical figure in SW on the level of Luke. There was so much telegraphing with her, it would make Samuel Morse grin.

 

[Herkimer Jitty]

Daniel Craig's cameo spoiled my immersion and took me out of the movie.

The X-Wings were different. And I don't like things that are different.

I expected the entire movie to be about Luke, Han, and Leia, but instead we got a bunch of damn kids who noone probably cares about anyways.

I didn't like Kylo Ren's haircut. And he reminded me of an emo with too many Linkin Park albums or something.

Han should have gone out swinging, because going out swinging is the only mark of a true hero.

Captain Phasma's armor was not shiny and chrome enough.

MEDIOCRE.

(It was solid. Definitely iterative rather than innovative. Middle of the pack as far as the whole saga goes, IMHO. There's a million and one nitpicks to be made, but the only part of the movie that brings it down for me is the whole 3rd act Starkiller Base plotline which comes out of hyperspace from nowhere partway through the movie, then dies with a fart.

ESB>ANH>ROTJ>TFA>ROTS>AOTC>TPM)

 

[DarKush]

Looks like this threads getting negative fast (Being a Doctor Who fan, I'm kinda used to it). Think I'm gonna bail before the "This was worse than the Phantom Menace!" crowd turns up.

TFA is definitely not worse than The Phantom Menace. But I'm not with the crowd that feels this movie is the best Star Wars film or some kind of transcendent experience either. I think some are just buying into the hype and there's a ton of it so it's hard not to be immune from it-I'm not-and also I think others are just hungry for new Star Wars and others might delight in taking the prequels down another peg.

As the start of a new trilogy I think TFA sets things up better than The Phantom Menace though I can't say I felt the rush I did when Darth Maul showed up on Naboo and the Jedi moved to confront him or the chill when Palpatine patted a young Anakin on the shoulder and told him he looked forward to his future or something to that effect. What came close to me in TFA was mostly the scenes with Han, Leia, and then Luke at the end.

 

[Cutter John]

TFA is definitely not worse than The Phantom Menace. But I'm not with the crowd that feels this movie is the best Star Wars film or some kind of transcendent experience either. I think some are just buying into the hype and there's a ton of it so it's hard not to be immune from it-I'm not-and also I think others are just hungry for new Star Wars and others might delight in taking the prequels down another peg.

As the start of a new trilogy I think TFA sets things up better than The Phantom Menace though I can't say I felt the rush I did when Darth Maul showed up on Naboo and the Jedi moved to confront him or the chill when Palpatine patted a young Anakin on the shoulder and told him he looked forward to his future or something to that effect. What came close to me in TFA was mostly the scenes with Han, Leia, and then Luke at the end.

Actually I went ahead and deleted my comment. It took a second read-through to realize that Herkimer Jitty might not have been entirely serious.

 

[Dream]

Looks like this threads getting negative fast (Being a Doctor Who fan, I'm kinda used to it). Think I'm gonna bail before the "This was worse than the Phantom Menace!" crowd turns up.

Actually I went ahead and deleted my comment. It took a second read-through to realize that Herkimer Jitty might not have been entirely serious.

Psst! Pretty sure Jitty's real review begins after the word MEDIOCRE, while everything before was sarcasm.

 

[Commander Richard]

TFA is definitely not worse than The Phantom Menace. But I'm not with the crowd that feels this movie is the best Star Wars film or some kind of transcendent experience either. I think some are just buying into the hype and there's a ton of it so it's hard not to be immune from it-I'm not-and also I think others are just hungry for new Star Wars and others might delight in taking the prequels down another peg.

As the start of a new trilogy I think TFA sets things up better than The Phantom Menace though I can't say I felt the rush I did when Darth Maul showed up on Naboo and the Jedi moved to confront him or the chill when Palpatine patted a young Anakin on the shoulder and told him he looked forward to his future or something to that effect. What came close to me in TFA was mostly the scenes with Han, Leia, and then Luke at the end.

Actually I went ahead and deleted my comment. It took a second read-through to realize that Herkimer Jitty might not have been entirely serious.

Your comment was funny and still had a ring of truth.

 

[Gryffindorian]

I haven't seen it yet, but I couldn't resist spoilers.

Wow. So JJ Abrams is a revisionist of sorts.

 

[Cutter John]

One thing I did love though was that planet destruction seemed a lot more realistic here, if you can call it that. Instead of just exploding like a huge bomb, they seemed to burn up inside and break into fragments.

 

[Shaka Zulu]

When Han went down to that catwalk, I knew what was going to happen.

I was really hoping that Kylo would basically say "leave me alone old man, go away while you still can" and turn his back on him, and they would part ways. Alas, that was not meant to be.

Kor

Well, Harrison said that he wanted Han to die since forever, so I guess that Abrams granted his request.

 

[Herkimer Jitty]

Looks like this threads getting negative fast (Being a Doctor Who fan, I'm kinda used to it). Think I'm gonna bail before the "This was worse than the Phantom Menace!" crowd turns up.

Actually I went ahead and deleted my comment. It took a second read-through to realize that Herkimer Jitty might not have been entirely serious.

Psst! Pretty sure Jitty's real review begins after the word MEDIOCRE, while everything before was sarcasm.

The Force is strong with this one.