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

[Michael]

Just came home from the theater. Loved it! Easily the best and most fun of all the Star Wars movies for me. Sure, there a lot of callbacks to the previous films – some of them really unnecessary, if you will – but it was great nonetheless. For me it works because of the new characters. Rey, Finn and Kylo are just awesome!

I'm more inclined to think Finn is Force sensitive.

You know, I would love it if he wasn't. It's just cool to have a normal dude be the hero for once. He doesn't have to be a Jedi to be awesome.

Ren was a whiny bitch

He wasn't. He was a brilliant, multi-layered character I just loved to watch. I looking forward to seeing more of him.

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

Indeed.

 

[DimesDan]

I liked it, thought it was brilliant, the wife liked it too.

 

[Relayer1]

Ren was a whiny bitch

He wasn't. He was a brilliant, multi-layered character I just loved to watch. I looking forward to seeing more of him.

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

Indeed.

OK, whiny bitch was a cheap shot I suppose. I get that the character was written as conflicted and even multi-layered. This was undermined by a performance that was, however, juvenile, shallow and wholly unconvincing. Pretty much everyone else in the film was at least decent, but Adam Driver was poor.

 

[Phily B]

I didn't think he looked the part, I dunno. I thought his performance was fine though, I get the character they're going for - someone who wants to be Vader, but is falling short quite clearly which leads to him being a bit of an emo edgelord.

 

[ConRefit79]

So from what I've read here Kylo Ren is Ben Solo, Han and Leia's son. Why would they ever name their son after Ben Kenobi? If that's why he was given that name. Han never liked or respected Kenobi. Leia didn't really know him. Only Luke knew him.

Anyway apparently Kylo kills Solo in a fit of rage? But he's a force amateur. How could he ever hope to kill of Luke in the sequels? The only way I could think of is their new planet killer. But sounds like that was destroyed.

 

[Phily B]

So from what I've read here Kylo Ren is Ben Solo, Han and Leia's son. Why would they ever name their son after Ben Kenobi? If that's why he was given that name. Han never liked or respected Kenobi. Leia didn't really know him. Only Luke knew him.

Anyway apparently Kylo kills Solo in a fit of rage? But he's a force amateur. How could he ever hope to kill of Luke in the sequels? The only way I could think of is their new planet killer. But sounds like that was destroyed.

Well it's said that Luke was training a new generation of Jedi, Kylo turned and killed them all so he isn't that amateur. The only reason Rey beat him was because he'd been shot, then Finn managed to get a hit on him too.

 

[Tosk]

Why would they ever name their son after Ben Kenobi?

I thought the same thing. This whole thing where fictional characters always name offspring after dead friends and relatives is over the top already, let alone when you have to reach like that.

Of course, the name might just be a coincidence.

 

[Allyn Gibson]

I saw the film this evening at a work function.

It's adequate. I was entertained. Harrison Ford was always worth watching.

The story was at its best on Jakku; after that, I felt like it started to go increasingly off the rails, to the point where I felt I was watching an adaptation of a Kevin J. Anderson novel. (Though the coolest moment was Rey's discovery of the lightsaber, which reminded me a lot of Ezra's discovery of the lightsaber in Rebels.) The last half was really undercooked; there were things that seemed to happen because they needed to happen, not because they happened organically.

In any sort of sane universe, the destruction of Starkiller Base -- and with it, the loss of all the men and material there -- would be the final death knell of the First Order. Those resources can't be quickly or easily replaced.

I guess Gollum survived the plunge into the fires of Mount Doom.

I hope with, the nostalgia buttons out of the way, the next film breaks new ground and does things with the universe and characters that we've never seen before.

 

[Vyse]

Absolutely loved it. Tired now, time to go to sleep.

 

[Snick27]

I enjoyed the movie for what it is. But felt like I've seen this movie before.
Also was not long enough an I really did not learn much about anything between part 6 an this one.
I mean we learned Luke trained Jedi an Han an Leia had a kid whom went bad whom killed all the other students.
Just need more. Lots more.
This should of been a 3 hr movie, not feel like half a movie.

I will sleep on it and see if I feel differently .

 

[Corran Horn]

I really enjoyed it.

Great acting between Ridley and Driver during her interrogation - love the looks on both of their faces when they both realize he can't do what he's trying to do.

Wonderful Han/Chewie moments.

The ending shot was fantastic.

I'm still processing the Han moment. I can see why Ford would return.

 

[Sisko_is_my_captain]

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, performance issues. You know?...quite common...one out of four...JARVIS, any time now. Deploy!"

<Sisko_is_my_captain is defenestrated.>

 

[EyalM]

Saw it last night and had some time to process.

I enjoyed it overall. It is well made and the acting was good. But my main problem is how much was a retread of previous movies. The similarities kept building up that when they did the trench run I just rolled my eyes. But others already covered this aspect.

I do think they made Rey too strong and Kylo too weak at the end. In the original trilogy, Luke didn't even face Vader in the first movie, and got his ass kicked in the second. Here, Rey gets very powerful too fast and without really earning it. Kylo is shown to be too weak and this will undermine the tension of them facing each other in the future.

 

[Roshi]

There's one line of dialogue that made me lol but after the facts.

I'm currently showing the OT to my kids in school (my Xmas gift for them) and when I played ANH, especially the scene where Obi-Wan disables the tractor beam, you could hear two stormtroopers discussing "The new T-16" and then BAM, I remembered the line from TFA when two stormtroopers discussed the "New T-17"!!!

 

[Tulin]

FANTASTIC!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Oh look - here come the haterz bleeting about how Jar Jar is just retreading STAR WAR!!!!!!111!!!!

 

[Commander Richard]

• In short, Abrams brought back the spirit of Star Wars, something that was missing from the prequel trilogy. He upstaged Lucas himself. How about that.
  
  
• I love the new characters. Finn, BB and especially Rey. They all won me over in no time and I look forward to more of their story. Can't say enough about them. Fortunately others here have.
  
  
• Adam Driver fascinates me. He's the only actor I know who could get away with doing near-pornographic sex scenes with Lena Dunham and then go on to play a serious Jedi Master. He was pretty menacing as Kylo Ren, then less so with the mask off but he was supposed to be that way. His story was nicely woven into the existing saga. By the way, why not Darth [Something]?
  
  
• I also thought it was Coruscant that was destroyed. Made me think of Vulcan.
  
  
• Looks like I'm in the minority but I liked the new Death Star Planet. What a creative and formidable piece of work.
  
  
• I heard that Han Solo might die but I wasn't sure. It didn't come as a total surprise though. I couldn't see Harrison Ford doing the full trilogy. Didn't he say a few years back that he'd return if Han was killed off?
  
  
• Awesome light saber fight. I actually did like the superfast hyper-stylized stuff we got in the prequels but this one had something more behind it.
  
  
• Are Rey's parents Han and Leia? If not, maybe Luke?
  
  
• A few seconds of Luke and no lines, but his presence was there throughout.
  
  
• Looking forward to Lando Calrissian in Episode VIII. He'll be there, right? Right?

 

[Greylock Crescent]

I quite liked the film overall. Rey was the character I was most attached to and interested in (followed closely by Finn and Han - and BB-8, too).

But some weak points were:

• The CGI characters (Maz and Snoke) were distractingly obvious (on par with The Hobbit films).
• The First Order baddies were all interchangeable and unremarkable.
• Except for Phasma who did next to nothing in the story.
• And Ren who seemed like a whiny-Anakin on Force-sensitive steroids to me.
• R2 was a rather clumsy deus ex machina.

 

[Commander Richard]

^ 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 jus sink and blow up though? Looked like it was being eaten by a giant sand slug or something.

 

[Roshi]

I agree about the TIE Fighter. I was "whoa"!

 

[Tulin]

Rey had already warned BB8 about the "Sinking Sands" in the North(?).

Chekov's gun.