Star Wars: The Force Awakens Reviews (SPOILER-FREE THREAD)

[RAMA]

Wait, isn't this exactly what Yoda does? He knows just as Obi Wan did in SW that he will not "die" he will still be alive and one with the "Force" and he indeed uses his physical death as a way to keep from telling Luke everything he really should know, but had already lied in ESB as well.

SW:FA was a carbon copy of SW:NH and the second movie after SW:FA (Not Rogue One)looks as if it will go down the same route, ie: Luke training another Jedi to fight the rising 'First Order"/Empire as Yoda did...to fight the son of Leia who has turned to the dark side like Luke's father (ESB). It's all really familiar. The Jedi have to be the dumbest mystical powered good guys ever.

I disagree with Brin on one point. CHaracterization is not a strength of SW+FA. Only Rey stands out as even marginally interesting among the new cast.

RAMA

I get the feeling Brin just doesn't like Star Wars in general. Where does this idea that Yoda faked his death, and lied to Luke come from? I've honestly never heard anything like that before.
I also have no idea what evidence there is that VIIII will be as close to ESB as TFA was to A New Hope. The pictures I saw from Croatia actually looked like nothing anything we've seen in Star Wars before. There was nothing there that reminded me even slightly of ESB. I could maybe see a scene playing out similar to one in ESB if the rumors about Rey are true, but even if it did the actual scene would probably be the complete opposite of the ESB scene.
The only thing that comes to mind was Mark Hamill on Daisy Ridley's back, but that was just them goofing off during their down time, not a production photo.

 

[Set Harth]

He knows just as Obi Wan did in SW that he will not "die" he will still be alive and one with the "Force"

Luke's comment about dying is clearly meant in the sense of physical death, so Yoda's claim that he is not strong enough in the Force to avoid death should be interpreted to mean corporeal death as well. We know that Force ghosting is not simply an issue of strength in the Force anyway. Besides, if Yoda is supposed to be deceiving Luke here, it's utterly pointless as Ben lets the cat out of the bag mere moments later: "Yoda will always be with you."

and he indeed uses his physical death as a way to keep from telling Luke everything he really should know

He ends up telling Luke everything he should know before vanishing.

but had already lied in ESB as well.

No, that did not happen.

 

[Tosk]

but had already lied in ESB as well

What lie did he tell?

 

[Kor]

the Blu Rey

I see what you did there.

Kor

 

[JD]

Will LEGO TFA be the first Star Wars game to actually have new dialogue from the original cast members?

 

[Reverend]

Will LEGO TFA be the first Star Wars game to actually have new dialogue from the original cast members?

Depends. Does Billy Dee Williams showing up in one of the old Dark Forces/Jedi Knight games count? How about Temuera Morrison playing the lead clone in 'Republic Commando'? Then there's Sam Jackson playing Windu in one of the other Lego games and I'm pretty sure Erik Bauersfeld voiced Ackbar in at least one of the X-Wing games. Or how about Anthony Daniels playing C-3PO in at least half a dozen other Star Wars games?

If those don't count then yes. Totally the first time ever.

 

[B.J.]

I'm pretty sure he means it's the first time they'll have ALL of the original cast members, not just a couple of them.

 

[JD]

I admit, I forgot about Billy Dee Williams and Anthony Daniels, but I was mainly talking about people like Harrison Ford, Carrie Fisher and Mark Hamill. I don't think I've ever heard of Ford ever doing any original dialogue for a video game. I just looked at the Mark Hamill page and Luke Skywalker on IMDB, and the only time Hamill ever played Luke outside of the movies was an episode of Robot Chicken. I would have at least expected him to have voiced him in some of the games or something.

 

[Reverend]

The weird thing is, the video games have very rarely even used the original main cast. The vast majority of Star Wars games appear to be more or less their own thing. Don't get me wrong, there's been a few--the Super Star Wars games on the old SNES leaps to mind--but they're in the minority by a fairly significant margin.

 

[JD]

Yeah, there really aren't many that directly involve the main characters from the movies, and I think most of the ones that do are just adapting the movies, or at least parts of them.

 

[Reverend]

I think that a big part of why the Star Wars licence was so great at it's peak. Rather than being shackled to merchandising a particular movie like most licence games, they were more or less free to play in the same sandbox as the EU authors and artists. It's a shame they're not really doing that anymore.

 

[JD]

Oh I agree complely, I loved the fact that you weren't just playing as the movie characters all the time.
The LEGO TFA demo is up in Playstation store for the PS4, not sure about X-Box 1. I played, and it was a blast. You play as Rey, Finn, BB-8 and briefly as another droid during the First Order's attack on Niima Outpost, and then fly the Falcon during their escape.

 

[Set Harth]

I just looked at the Mark Hamill page and Luke Skywalker on IMDB, and the only time Hamill ever played Luke outside of the movies was an episode of Robot Chicken.

Don't forget the Holiday Special!

 

[JD]

I did forget it actually, but I think that was probably just a reaction to the trauma I endured when I watched it.

 

[LJones41]

I really tried to like "THE FORCE AWAKENS". I really did. I enjoyed John Boyega and Harrison Ford's performances very much. But in the end, it seemed like a rehash of "A NEW HOPE" . . . but with a bit more plot holes. Very disappointing.

I disagree with Brin on one point. CHaracterization is not a strength of SW+FA. Only Rey stands out as even marginally interesting among the new cast.

Really? Rey seemed nothing more than a female version of Luke or Harry Potter to me. That's it.

 

[LJones41]

Blooper. My mistake.

 

[fireproof78]

Wait, isn't this exactly what Yoda does? He knows just as Obi Wan did in SW that he will not "die" he will still be alive and one with the "Force" and he indeed uses his physical death as a way to keep from telling Luke everything he really should know, but had already lied in ESB as well.

SW:FA was a carbon copy of SW:NH and the second movie after SW:FA (Not Rogue One)looks as if it will go down the same route, ie: Luke training another Jedi to fight the rising 'First Order"/Empire as Yoda did...to fight the son of Leia who has turned to the dark side like Luke's father (ESB). It's all really familiar. The Jedi have to be the dumbest mystical powered good guys ever.

I disagree with Brin on one point. CHaracterization is not a strength of SW+FA. Only Rey stands out as even marginally interesting among the new cast.

RAMA

I disagree that characterization was not a strength of SW:FA. I personally liked all of the new characters, and felt that each had their own personality that stood out among the rest. Even Poe, who probably needed more screen time to flesh him out even more. There isn't a lot about him which makes it more interesting to me.

Rey was interesting as was Finn. I agree with Sam Witwer that each character took a slightly different tone of characters that we had seen before, presenting a unique take, even if their background and abilities are not 100% unique.

I'm do agree that Jedi appear pretty dumb for the most part. I'm hoping Luke proves us wrong in Episode 8.

 

[Greylock Crescent]

I disagree that characterization was not a strength of SW:FA

Ya. The characters were the best part of TFA. The story was, at best, a retread. What made the movie work was its characters - especially Rey ... but also Finn, Poe, Ren, Solo, Leia.

 

[Reverend]

Personally, the only problem I have with TFA is the way Starkiller Base just appears out of nowhere about half-way through the film. Up until that point it was all about the map to Skywalker. I guess they couldn't come up with a

In a way, it actually has more in common with the earlier drafts of ANH than what we saw in the cinema. I forget which one (there's like 4 or 5 major versions IIRC) but in one of the later ones, the Death Star literally only shows up for the final battle. Leia was initially imprisoned on the floating prison over the Imperial capital planet Alderaan (a concept that got recycled as Cloud City in tESB and yeah, obviously they recycled the name too.) Also back then the MacGuffin wasn't the plans at all, it was the Kyber Crystal.

Basically the went to save the Princess, Ben grabbed his crystal, they escape (with Ben alive!) and on the way to the rebel base Leia says something to the effect of "oh by the way, they have a planet killing battle station, but luckily I hid the plans in that robot that's been following you around for the whole movie." I think it's literally not mentioned prior to that point. It wasn't until subsequent drafts that they combined the prison and battle station and made destroying the Death Star the objective from the outset.

I don't know how the story for TFA was developed, but it feels like they got to the bit with Maz and had no idea what to do next, so they just threw in SKB because "Star Wars!"
I suppose logically they could have had the whole interrogation/prison break scenes on the Star Destroyer from the beginning, but they wanted something more diverse than metal corridors for the fight between Rey & Kylo (fair enough), which means a planet not a ship or station. I suspect they also had trouble justifying that the Resistance would mount a cool fighter battle effects sequence just to rescue Rey, so they made her prison a super-weapon too.

I think this was less a case of mimicking ANH and the plot having to adhere to certain prerequisites with no clear idea how it'd get stitched together.

Don't get me wrong, I really enjoyed the movie and have watched like half a dozen times now, but as much as I love the characters, that particular part of the plot just seems stick out more and more every time I sit though it.

 

[LJones41]

I once read an "Entertainment Weekly" article that managed to find at least 18 similarities between "A New Hope" and "The Force Awakens". That's sad.