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

I got it just fine. You obviously got it too.

 

The Skywalker family need to stop reproducing.

 

This also bothered me even though I did notice (as others have pointed out) that Chewy injured him prior to his face-offs with Finn and Rey. One wound doesn't seem like it would be enough to incapacitate someone with his apparent training and capabilities against two largely untrained individuals.

 

So he gets to be awesome early on but sucks when the script requires it, against two untrained "hero" people? Darn...that's out of clichés 101. Maybe they were doing it to clearly show he's no Vader, but that's a pretty glaring weakness.

 

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.

 

Well explained that way it makes more sense...he definitely has Anakin in him. I'm going to read the novelization before I see the movie. Maybe it has some stuff in it that explains his character more deeply.

 

That's a good way of looking at it. I'll keep that in mind the next time I watch the film and see if it improves my perspective of the situation.

 

Or maybe the character is just THAT bad?
s
At the screening I went to there were four guys wearing shirts with Jar Jar's face on it and the words, "Never forget".

BRILLIANT!!!!!

 

He initally had the upper hand against Rey, util she for lack of a better term let The Force flow through her.

 

Saw it last night. Loved every second. It's not a perfect movie, but it's damned close.

Some things though - they de-aged Leia with CG right? It looked good, but I think the tell was they used shots from the OT as reference. She had the exact same look as some shots from Jedi in half of the shots she was in. Also thought that was Coruscant getting blown up at first, but apparently it wasn't (that whole scene didn't have THAT much of an impact because it was so out of the blue). Ackbar also sounded really off - yeah, he's 30 years older, but I've heard SO MANY people take the piss with the It's a trap line and do it perfectly that I was surprised how weird he sounded. Finally, the pacing is really the only thing I can knock with the movie. That last act is crazy rushed. It has some absolutely amazing moments within it, but little of it is given a chance to breathe. Because of this, the X-Wing assault felt very basic.

 

I don't think that's Ackbar there, just a Mon Calamari.

Come to think of the Superweapon, it doesn't even make any sense how it works.

We see it fire what seems like a huge, honking lasershot - kind of like the Death Star Laser x100, we see the shot move through the sky and people look up in horror, then we see a space shot of this single beam suddenly split up in what seems like single shots that aim for several planets and final shot is the sky again with the explosion.

Where the heck was this Superweapon located? Where was everybody so they could see this in action?

We never see the shot enter hyperspace to cover interstellar distances so it can merely move at light speed yet moments later it destroys planets somewhere in the galaxy.

For that scene to work the Planetdestroyer had to be in the same system as the Republic capital planet and Maz Kanata's planet/moon where Han and everybody else was should have also been in the same system.

If that would have been like this why didn't the Republic's home fleet kick the living crap out of the Planetdestroyer (assuming they had a fleet protecting the capital system)?

That entire scene made zero sense to me and it bothered me even while watching it.

 

^It is Admiral Ackbar, well at least according to IMDB.

 

And IMDB is always right

 

The voice is *very* close to the original voice actor then.


I'm more inclined to think Finn is Force sensitive. I can't help but think about the opening scene with the village massacre where at one point Kylo Ren stops and stares at FN-2187, as if he felt the Light Side in the Finn-to-be.

I think the Force awakened with Finn, too. So being, Force sensitive helped him handle Luke's lightsaber.

 

Although I have yet to see this film, from what I have read, it is aligning with my beliefs about JJ Abrams. I am entering the theater with lowered expectations. My one hope is that the film gives me a two-hour break from daily life. If it succeeds, i will know contentment.

 

There'll be a million reviews so I'll be quick- saw it this afternoon, really enjoyed it. Niggles for me are the quite high number of unanswered questions but I assume they'll get to them eventually with VIII & IX.

But the main let down for me was "let's fly into the big space weapon and blow it up from the inside" AGAIN! First Star Wars, then Return of the Jedi, then Phantom Menace, and now Force Awakens. I mean seriously? 4 out of 7 movies the same thing has happened. They couldn't think of something a bit different?


But other than that I enjoyed it a lot

 

Yeah, it was a good solid start but I'm not getting the glowing reviews. I went into it unspoilered and it was good, but looking at a lot of reviews they seem motivated by nostalgia rather than the quality of the movie. It's a good base to build upon, I just hope the next is a more original story. I don't want to see an Empire rehash where Luke is Yoda etc.

 

First impressions -

I really enjoyed it, but...

There were issues regarding how many plot lifts there were from the original trilogy, Ren was a whiny bitch, Rey got very good with The Force very quickly (mind you, Yoda trained Luke in an hour or two !), how did the plot device (sorry, superweapon) shoot multiple targets many light years away, it seemed rushed and the music was lacking the big themes that punched up scenes like the tie fighter attack in IV and Duel of the Fates in I, but my main issue was always going to be Han.

Yes, I know Ford wanted it. He probably wouldn't have done it otherwise, but... it robbed us of seeing the three main characters back together one last time. It was too soon - hell, he and Leia only reconciled for about half an hour ! Couldn't he have just had a cameo at the end and died in the next one ?

It seemed like 'Here's what you wanted, you did want it didn't you ? Well here it is, here it is...gone'. Lucy and the football and Charlie Brown...

It was still a dealbreaker for me.

 

I'd say better than the prequels, probably better than Jedi, not as good as ANH or ESB.

Kylo Ren is very good and convincing both in and out of the mask.

All of the new leads are great and I've no doubt they'll carry the sequels easily. The action sequences were great.

I agree with the view that using yet another super-weapon felt tired. I didn't feel that the climactic attack was on a par with ANH or ROTJ's attacks on the Death Stars. Actually, I'd say the opening battle in ROTS was more spectacular.

That death - wow. Still processing it. Saw it coming but still a gut punch.

Loved the ending but wanted more Luke.

I can understand that the writers didn't want to have 30 years of backstory/exposition but some more background on the state of the galaxy would've been helpful. What's the difference between the first order and the empire or between the Republic and the resistance? My own view (partly based on what I read in interviews) was that the Republic and Order had a sort of Cold War going on and that the resistance was the republic's proxy army inside FO territory. But it was hard to understand why Leia was a general in the resistance rather than high-ranking in the Republic. A little Lucas-sequel politicking would actually have helped!

Anyone else think the supreme leader looked like an escapee from Middle Earth? And was he meant to be huge or was that just the hologram?

I actually think I'll enjoy this more on second viewing.

 

You were meant to believe he 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 his actual size is no bigger than Yoda or a Hobbit, if not smaller.