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

Just saw it in 70mm Imax at the Franklin Institute. If you like the movie, I definitely recommend taking a hike to a real Imax to see it. The Falcon escape sequence is sick.

 

Not a big victory in my book. The resistance has now lost a huge and main part of the republic. They are now weak and small and billions are dead. Not a great victory.

 

Maybe not TOO big a part - according to the additional reading, the New Republic rotates planetary hosts for the seat of government. So the rest of the Republic elects new representatives, and they keep on going. I mean, sure, sad loss of life and all, but honestly the loss of that fleet, and maybe some of the senior leadership (but certainly not all, since apparently most of them thought Leia was off the reservation in running her Resistance), are probably the bigger practical issues going forward.

Really, this may actually increase Leia's ability to fight, if it causes Republic worlds to come around to her way of seeing the situation.

 

I'm sure it's not as big and nice as the one in the Prequels, since the New Republic doesn't control as many systems as the Old Republic did.

 

I assume there's more of them out there. But I agree, there's a LOT about the First Order that was never made clear in the movie.

On the one hand JJ and Kasdan initially talked about them being a remnant of the Empire or suggested they were more like a neo-Nazi group trying to reclaim lost glory, but then we see that they've already built something three times the size (and power) of the Death Star?? And according to something else I read, they now basically control half the galaxy by this point?? Say huh?

If that's the case, then either the victory at Endor was a whole lot less comprehensive than we thought, or Leia and and the New Republic have done an awful job of monitoring and tamping down the First Order in the last 30 years.

 

On the other hand, a more hollow victory after losing billions of citizens and several entire planets is the kind of thing that makes this victory more textured and nuanced. Sure, they destroyed Starkiller Base and saved billions more from death but at the same time the carnage inflicted by the weapon's one blast into New Republic space will leave the Resistance and its supporting government hobbled for a while and more vulnerable to whatever the First Order has planned next.

Sometimes the cleanest victories aren't the most interesting ones. Even the Rebel victory at the Battle of Yavin came at a heavy cost in lives and equipment, not including the billions who died before the final battle when the Death Star obliterated Alderaan.

 

Of course now the Millennium Falcon has been involved in the destruction of three giant planet destroying superweapons.

 

The old girl gets around. Got a superweapon that needs to be blown up from the inside? You know the name. All you have to do is call.

 

And still everyone just keeps banging on about the twelve parsec Kessel run...

 

TFA's domestic box office run has so far been nothing short of incredible. It's certain to finish north of 850 mil., but the real question is - can it break one billion? We'll see.

 

I'm calling it now: The Force Awakens will pass Titanic after next weekend and Avatar after the following weekend.

 

Actually, it could very well overtake Avatar by Monday (according to box office nerds over at boxofficetheory.com forums).

On the other hand, Avatar's global record (2.78 bil.) is entirely out of reach. Star Wars is the biggest thing in America, but for some reason we people overseas don't "feel the force" the way you guys do.

 

It doesn't open in China until January. They played a pretty big part in Jurassic World's international take.

 

$228.7 mil., 22.5% of JW's overseas earnings.

I was bummed to see that in my country TFA made only half of what the third Hobbit movie made. It's still a lot, though... But it saddens me that a CGI crapfest like The Battle of the Five Armies gets twice as much love over here than a legitimately good Star Wars movie. I've only seen TBOTFA once, and that was one times too many. And I love anything LOTR related.

 

TFA will pass TBot5A foreign take by the end of this week, and it has a good month of running after that, and the China release... I think your understating the global appeal of SW just a tad.

 

We'll see. I know TFA is going to destroy TBOTFA globally, but this is my country I'm talking about. At global scale Croatian box office may be entirely insignificant, but it isn't to me.

Oh, and from what I see, TFA pretty much bombed in Japan. Only about 30 mil. so far.

 

Subconsciously, a quantitative measure to compare against other teams. Now it's "Wars is better than Hobbit, and the financial success proves it."

Humans have a natural need to compete. If it's sport teams or movies, doesn't matter. But the success of a sport team over another can be measured better.