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

So....?


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I do think the score was kind of lame and unmemorable, maybe John Williams just doesn't have it anymore - his score for Indy 4 was shit too but he did some good work in Episode I and II. The best parts of the score were just throwbacks to the originals.

Michael Giacchino did a great job with the Trek music and JW score, wouldn't mind seeing him in.
 
A lot of those things you mention don't bother me. I liked that the fairy tale ending only lasted so long, that they made mistakes and were paying for them (along with the rest of the galaxy).

And clearly the Starkiller base was designed to move. Finn talks about how it will deplete the star as it charges itself with the suggestion that it has and will move on to another star when that happens.


Possibly. If it depletes the sun why not just make a machine that depletes suns that keep planets alive? Why draw attention to even having a starkiller by destroying planets when its charged from the sun. Oh man I bet the writers are going to go there in one of the future movies.

I can see it now:


General Leia:"Oh no the new order has created a weapon Sun Destroyer that can destroy a soar systems sun thereby killing every living thing. We have to stop it. Ok Finn its your job to get the shields of that sun killing machine down and Dameron will lead a squadron of X-Wings to destroy it once they are down."
:)
 
I do think the score was kind of lame and unmemorable, maybe John Williams just doesn't have it anymore - his score for Indy 4 was shit too but he did some good work in Episode I and II. The best parts of the score were just throwbacks to the originals.

Michael Giacchino did a great job with the Trek music and JW score, wouldn't mind seeing him in.


Exactly. I was thinking about the poor score Williams did for Indy 4 and how SWTFA had a similar fault. I think he is phoning his musical scores in. Maybe the passion is gone for him now that hes older.
 
Does anybody even recall seeing Constable Zuvio?
Yes, extremely briefly. I can only say that because I saw a character and thought, "Hey, is that supposed to be Embo from The Clone Wars?" and then later on found out it wasn't and that his name was Zuvio. :)
 
Yeah, either the Empire/misogyny thing has been retconned a bit or the First Order is less picky as they're a lot smaller and less powerful than the Empire. Did they have any aliens in their ranks?
 
Williams' score is mostly forgettable, sure. But one cue I did enjoy was "Rey's Theme". Fits the character perfectly. Other than that, though, nothing stood really out, save maybe for the iconic themes.
 
For me it was a C, not Prequel Level bad but nowhere near the epic brilliance we all wanted (the movie could never stand up to the hype but even on its own it wasn't that great).

I think it was a mix of his injury and his confidence shaken.
The more confidence Rey gained the more he lost his.

He was unsure of himself the moment she resistated him in the torture chamber.
Then his father got to him emotionally.
Then he got shot.
Then he couldn't immediately kill a lowly stormtrooper in a light sabre duel.
Then Rey stole the light saber under his nose.
And then he shot himself in the foot by reminding her that she was strong in the force.

Failure after failure chipped away at him.

These two quotes sum up my impression of the new movie, with some minor differences. I cut out FPAlpha's breakdown, but he nailed almost every point I had. I gave the movie a B, however.

Kylo Ren bothered me at first, but I thought about him during the movie and came to appreciate the way the character was written. Timelord Victorious' comment above touches on some of the conclusions I reached.

Ren is, indeed a selfish, whiny emo but so was his grandfather Anakin. I think this typifies the type of personality drawn to the Dark Side. Virtuous people, people who are selfless and think of others are not easily drawn to absolute power and corruption. The Dark Side is quicker, easier, more seductive.

Likewise, I was bothered, too by the lightsaber duel at first. As the scene played out, though, I started looking at it from a different point of view. Ren was not fully trained in the Jedi arts. We don't know how far in his training had progressed before being seduced by the Dark Side. Further, Luke was not completely trained in the ways of the Jedi, despite Yoda stating that his training was complete. For a thousand generations (or less) the Jedi had each other to rely upon and an entire Academy to train new Knights. All Luke had was himself and whatever research he uncovered.

So Ren was poorly trained and had no great enemies to face up to this point. He had no challengers. He was selfish and overconfident and had never had his skills put to the test.

Then he was wounded by Chewbacca. The wound was so great that he was bleeding before (and during, no doubt) the lightsaber duel. The damage was so great that something was going on with that part of his body. He had to keep hitting himself in the chest or side. This told me his would was so great he was losing feeling in that side of the body or losing motor controls.

The duel between Rey and Ren was especially sloppy. Ren kept stabbing and thrusting with the saber. She had no skill. In the end the fight was what is was: two unskilled duelists with the stronger Ren complicated and distracted by his would and the emotional traumas he'd just been through.
 
Williams' score is mostly forgettable, sure. But one cue I did enjoy was "Rey's Theme". Fits the character perfectly. Other than that, though, nothing stood really out, save maybe for the iconic themes.

Yeah that was the only really memorable one for me as well. I thought for sure we'd get something really cool for the big Falcon sequence early on, or the arrival of the X-Wings on the jungle planet, but nope.
 
It was almost like he was told to keep it low key, the music had a "wallpaper" feeling about it which was unfortunate. Usually the music is loud and fits Star Wars, makes certain scenes with its powerful music. I quite like Rey's music but even that was pretty quiet and low key. With the score we got, they should've just rehashed a lot of the music from the originals.
 
Williams' score is mostly forgettable, sure. But one cue I did enjoy was "Rey's Theme". Fits the character perfectly. Other than that, though, nothing stood really out, save maybe for the iconic themes.

I hate to agree with you on this.........but alas I have to. The music from the last full trailer (which he did not score) was much better and gave me chill bumps.
 
Kylo/Ben's struggle could have been sold infinitely better with two lines and a few seconds. Have him hand the saber to Han and clearly insinuate that he needs his father to kill him because he knows he doesn't have the strength to walk back from the path he is on. Having Han refuse would further confirm to his twisted mind that the light side is inherently weaker and give him the push he needed to kill him.

Nah I thought the way they did it worked really well. Here it was all about Kylo needing to extinguish the good side that was eating away at him, and when he asks Han to "help" him, you realize that could mean either truly helping him, or helping to rid himself of the last traces of good that were being represented at that moment by his father.

And as they struggle for the lightsaber you realize it's the latter option that Kylo ultimately decides to go with.

The ending was about as underwhelming as could be. Long cross-fading shots of Rey climbing a mountain and then more overlong shots of her and Luke looking at each other from across the top of it. At least give him a wry line to button it closed with.
The only part I found underwhelming about that was just the growing realization that we were not going to see much more of Luke in the movie than one final shot of him.

But putting that aside, I DID think it was a pretty powerful and amazing last shot. Not only did Hamill look really damn cool, but the conflicted and haunted look on his face was just incredibly interesting to see. And makes me excited as hell to see what happens next.
 
Williams' score is mostly forgettable, sure. But one cue I did enjoy was "Rey's Theme". Fits the character perfectly. Other than that, though, nothing stood really out, save maybe for the iconic themes.

I hate to agree with you on this.........but alas I have to. The music from the last full trailer (which he did not score) was much better and gave me chill bumps.

I wonder if this was Williams saying I'm tired of doing these films or the director's and producers call?
 
The soundtrack is actually pretty good, overall. Especially Rey's theme and how it is used and evolves. Really great stuff there. Some tracks, like "The Falcon," "The Jedi Steps," "The Scavenger," and "Torn Apart" are really good. Not only is Rey's Theme particularly exceptional, but I like the theme for Ren and Finn's motif. It's a very deliberate, effective score. However, the lack of that singular, easily-identifiable, unifying theme (Duel of the Fates, Across The Stars, Battle of the Heroes, Imperial March, Yoda's Theme, Ewok March) is a disappointment.

Kind of reminds me of the scores for the last couple of Hobbit movies. Not immediately enjoyable, but well-worth repeated listens.

And besides, this is orchestral John Williams in an age of Hans Zimmer-esque soundscapes. While it may not live up to usual Star Wars expectations, it's certainly an exceptional, refreshing, and well-executed score.
 
Ahh, rise of the Sequel Haters; This is going to be a fun era in Star Wars history.

For my part, I loved it and found it to be an excellent and well crafted addition to the Star Wars saga. Fifteen months is going to seem like a very long time.

This entire discussion thread reminds me of similar threads after Episodes II and III. The majority loved them, but there was a loud minority who was extremely critical to the point of disgust. As the years went by, that minority set the zeitgeist. I wonder if it will happen again?
 
Some positives- I thought John Boyega owned the movie and really enjoyed his performance and character. The biggest laugh in my cinema was definitely the moment between him and the BB8 with the thumbsup

BB-8 is bro?
 
Why in the name of the Force would the Imperials build *yet another* stupid superweapon with an obvious flaw?

There are weaknesses everywhere--they had to hammer this one--a single proton torp wouldn't do.

You succinctly spoke to my biggest gripe with the movie. I felt in some ways it was a paint by the numbers star wars movie. Someone took a hard look at the formula for ANH and essentially updated it. Need a Darth Vader, ok we will add Kylo Ren, we need a Death Star lite weapon, It all felt very generic in some sense.

You have to do that--rather like any movie with the ALIEN has to have the facehugger. The big changes will come

^ Maz was well done. She reminded me of someone I know in real life. Has a similar name too.

Always wanted to see a TIE fighter up close. Why did it just sink and blow up though? Looked like it was being eaten by a giant sand slug or something.

Sandworm--the sleeper--I mean the Force has awakened. This movie even had three shoggoths.

Still, this is a Star Wars film. Somehow, that's actually what surprised me.

I don't know why--but I was surprised at the opening scene of the words trailing out in back--every film has done that. I guess I've seen so many remakes and what not--that I was expecting something more sedate--with very brief cameos. JJ made this feel different from Trek--and best of all--he had his Bad Robot racing through the grass at the very end of the film.

Loved the new Star Destroyer.

SPOILERS!!!



As far as the main spoiler about a certain death. I saw that coming with the bridge. You knew that wasn't going to be good. Now Star Wars fans know what us trekkies felt back at the end of STII: TWOK

But that hit harder--at the end of the film. No time for bagpipes here--although they did give us a Genesis moment with the Starkiller base turning into a replacement sun--despite the size disparity. The beloved character is now sunlight.

I don't think we'll see his ghost at the end of this trilogy. Lucus would just have the original cast go off into the sunset--sort of like how ST The Undiscovered Country ended. I would have taken that, however.

More sad to me--they killed off E!'s The Soup!

Is nothing sacred? Now this too? That's okay--now that Joel McHale is free, he'll be the new Jedi master---Dunka Dubawl.


You were meant to believe (Snoke) was just that huge, until he was revealed to be a hologram.
In the very first moment you see his face he reminded me intensely of Gollum, ironically.
I would not be surprised if (Snoke's) actual size is no bigger than Yoda or a Hobbit, if not smaller.

( The name sounds like something from Harry Pothead, I know)

Maybe the name Snoke is a play on 'smoke & mirrors'.

Good call.


I have my own theory about all this:

Now for a real spoiler. Here is where my force sensitivity may shine a bit--I've been wrong of course--thinking Vengeance would have been called Excelsior--but I wasn't too far off. I thought Matt Smith would lose his Tardis--and it did blow up--so I'm still near the target.

About a quote from another website:

"It occurs to me that- considering they supposedly tossed the Expanded Universe- TFA borrows heavily from it!"

Ben/Kylo instead of Jacen, looking like Revan yes...

But it is more than that.

POSSIBLE ADVANCED SPOILER------------

Remember the anchorites?
http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Force_wielder

Here is what I am thinking.

Luke is Snoke.

He is also Skywalker.

Remember, his father was to bring balance to the force.

Luke must do this now--to train both Jedi AND Sith--to become like another Father:
http://www.starwars.com/databank/father

But it backfires.

Evolutionary conflict must go on--to prepare for something worse?

I've often thought the Vong were like entities from the Far Realm in AD&D--atheists of a type.

"For all the evil the enemy do, they aren't dark, exactly—the enemy are entirely outside the Force."
―Jacen Solo (now Kylo)

We are seeing some of the EU in a different form.

Perhaps we go from The Hero with a Thousand Faces to JLB.

Here is what might be a horrible secret even the Jedi might hide.

The real hero in Star Wars wasn't Anakin, as Lucas wanted.

The real hero of Star Wars is the Emperor.


With this vast military Empire in place, the Star Wars Galaxy is at last ready to face the Vong--the real enemy of the Force.

---Luke had to step into Palpatine's role after all.

*Shades of Borges'
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three_Versions_of_Judas

This is why Luke lost himself--a truth so ugly as to drive a man to leave his friends.

Remember, Snope called Kylo home right as Luke was about to get company.

The Force has awakened

The Anchorites are about to be reborn.

*"God became a man completely, a man to the point of infamy, a man to the point of being reprehensible - all the way to the abyss. In order to save us, He could have chosen any of the destinies which together weave the uncertain web of history; He could have been Alexander, or Pythagoras, or Rurik, or Jesus; He chose an infamous destiny: He was Judas."
---JLB
 
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The attack on the Starkiller bass could've been much more enjoyable with a Battle of Yaven-esque score. I can't imagine why JJ and company would tell Williams to keep it low-key, so I'm convinced he just doesn't have it anymore. Probably best to get someone else to score the next film.
 
The attack on the Starkiller bass could've been much more enjoyable with a Battle of Yaven-esque score. I can't imagine why JJ and company would tell Williams to keep it low-key, so I'm convinced he just doesn't have it anymore. Probably best to get someone else to score the next film.

Williams is The Man - he always will be. No one can take away Star Wars, Raiders, Jurassic Park, Superman, Harry Potter...

It may be time to think of retiring though...
 
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