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

[Mage]

Highly enjoyable film, with some flaws, no doubt. It's impossible to make a movie like this and be perfect. Mostly because we all have different expectations.

Yes, the amount of references and similarities to the OT (mostly ANH) were a lot. I didn't mind. Yes, StarKiller seems like a rehash, but it worked for me.

In the end, I saw a great movie, that made me feel so many things. The only real problem I had, was

Spoiler: Spoilers

Han's death not having the big emotional impact I was expecting it to have. Maybe because I saw it coming, or because the lead-up in the scene was a bit to long. But it was a gutpunch.

But finding and flying the Falcon for the first time, Han and Chewie interacting, the lightsaber duel.....It was all simply perfect.
And BB-8... That little droid was so much of a character. Amazing work done there.
Poe and Finn..... Somehow, that was one of the highlights for me. The few scenes they had to together were just gold.
Solid performances really, Adam Driver surprised me. Kylo really felt like an annoying brat at times, with temper tantrums and all. And that worked, for me at least.
John Boyega and Daisy Ridley really nailed it. Not a moment throughout the movie where I felt their performances fell short. I had expected both Ford and Fisher to dail in a lot, but they delivered.
And Domhnall Gleeson.... His speech to the troops.... That send shivers down my spine. Hux is truly full of hatred and anger.

So yeah, all in all, I am one happy camper. This was not what I was expecting. I was expecting a much faster paced movie, that would go from action to action to action. But there was so much more in there, so much more depth and emotion. Sure, the plot at times seemed a bit to simple. But you know, I don't expect deep and thought-provoking plots with loads of layers in a movie like Star Wars. The plot served to show us characters we can rearlly connect with, and give us amazing visuals to gawk at. That's as A New Hope was originally, and this definatly captured that spirit, but in a new fashion.

 

[Venardhi]

Well I think the EU was canon, from a certain point of view...

I saw Return of the Jedi. 'From a certain point of view' means 'A complete and total untruth.'

In the trailers, we saw somone handing over the saber to a woman (assumed to be Leia) during the 'my sister has it' voice over. Did that end up in the actual movie?

That shot in the trailers seems to have been intentionally misleading. The shot of Maz's hand holding out the saber was used but it was Rey she was offering it to rather than whoever was wearing that blue sleeved dress.

 

[Trekkin]

I couldn't remember Rey actually taking it from Maz before refusing. That's why I was a bit iffy about whether it ended up included.



That does look like Rey's grey undershirt-thing.

 

[Ithekro]

I think it is an alternate take for the scene where Maz hands the saber to Finn. The angle is the same.


Does anyone get a Jaina Solo vibe from Rey.

 

[BigJake]

Oh and I see Greg Grunberg as somehow related to the Porkins lineage despite supposedly being named Snap(!) Wexley.

I just thank the Living Force they didn't call him "Porkins."

Snoke? Really? THAT'S the best name they could come up with for the Supreme Leader? Sounds like the name of a fucking Harry Potter villain or something. Jesus.

I felt the same way about his name before I saw the movie. After actually seeing him: the weird name... kind of suits him, and adds to his air of weird mystery. (At the very least it didn't give me a mental image of George Lucas staring in a mirror and repeating the word "dookie" over and over.)

I actually thought it contributed to the improvised feel of the First Order: nobody's worked up the guts yet to tell the Supreme Leader that his chosen name doesn't sound intimidating. They're working the Galactic Empire's template but they don't have all the beats in line just yet.

 

[Mage]

If there is, though, one thing that really bugged me, it's

Spoiler: Here there be massive spoilers

Han and Ben's struggle. It was too long, and you figured Han was gonna die. It made impact a little less to me. Still emotional, but it could have been more of a shock moment. It was nicely saved with Han reaching out to touch his son's face, forgiving him and telling him he still loved him. Not with words, but with a show of affection.

 

[Mr Light]

Ewan McGregor has a line of dialogue in Rey's Force vision?! I totally missed that!!!

I'm surprised to see more people aren't complaining about Luke's five second silent cameo. This is the one thing that really, really bugged me. It's especially crazy because J.J. said the reason he took the gig was because he wanted to show what happened to Luke after ROTJ... then he goes and creates a story that Luke isn't even in...

So, I just realized something. Finn is NOT a Force sensitive? Only Rey is? Actually, my pre-existing theory about the Force awakening after thirty years of silence is out the window and I'm confused. What does the title mean? What was Snoke talking about when he said "there has been an awakening, have you felt it?" What woke up? Because we know that Luke was training new Jedi. People have been getting powers. So what changed? Why is the movie called The Force Awakens?

 

[Roshi]

Well, History (concerning Luke) became Legend, which became myth!
That's what happened to Luke after ROTJ.

 

[Mage]

I'm not 100% sure about Finn not being Force-sensitive.... During the raid in the beginning, at one moment, Ren felt something, and turned towards Finn. This might just be Ren sensing Finn's fear and all, and part of a misdirection so we'd all asume it was Finn being Force sensitive. But who knows....

 

[The Nth Doctor]

So does anyone else think it highly unlikely that, in all their adventures and years spent together, that Han never had reason to pick up and use Chewie's bowcaster before? Or was never even curious to try it out?

It was a funny moment in the film, but at the same time did strike me as a bit odd.

Unless it was a recently aquired replacement. I don't remember Chewie's bowcaster having such an explosive impact in the old trilogy.

I watched the trilogy again this weekend and I was surprised to note that you barely see the bowcaster at all. I don't think it's in A New Hope and it only shows up very briefly in the other two. I'm pretty sure the first time we actually see it is when he comes out of the Falcon when it's hiding in the asteroid and he doesn't even use it then.

I'm surprised to see more people aren't complaining about Luke's five second silent cameo. This is the one thing that really, really bugged me. It's especially crazy because J.J. said the reason he took the gig was because he wanted to show what happened to Luke after ROTJ... then he goes and creates a story that Luke isn't even in...

Because we know the meat of his story is going to be in the next film. This ending was merely a hook for the sequel. Yeah, it would've been nice to have a line or two from him, but it's not a big deal.

 

[Yoda]

Voted "it's a trap" somewhat in jest. It's an entertaining movie. It just didn't bring anything that new or exciting to the table. It was all fairly predictable. The humor was just a little too corny at points, some bits should have been played a bit more seriously. I don't remember much about the EU stuff, it had a lot of "hey look these guys are bringing the empire back and they got an EVEN BIGGER super weapon" which seems to be what this movie was doing but... I didn't quite follow. The rebels won right? There's a New Republic more or less? Or has Leia just been mostly sitting in bunkers fighting an endless war? On the one hand they keep calling them "The Resistance" on the other Death Star Planet Edition is zapping some government planet or something?

Did JJ wake up one day and say "You know what, the Empire in the originals just didn't look enough like nazis!"?

Just where they put the characters didn't really work for me. Oh great, Luke fucked up just like Ol' Ben with his apprentice, and then fucked off to hide in a hole while billions get slaughtered. Han's... a freighter captain... lost the Millenium Falcon again to some scoundrel or another and uhhh. he transports... space monsters. Or something.

Leia sat in her war bunker for 30 years while completely forgetting how to act.

It was a fun movie, but it's as disposable as your average Marvel movie. Star Wars deserved better but there was too much money on the line for this to not be the movie.

 

[Roshi]

I'm not 100% sure about Finn not being Force-sensitive.... During the raid in the beginning, at one moment, Ren felt something, and turned towards Finn. This might just be Ren sensing Finn's fear and all, and part of a misdirection so we'd all asume it was Finn being Force sensitive. But who knows....

Same here.

 

[Trekkin]

I thought he just noticed the one storm trooper standing stock still and staring at him, and picked up on his feelings. Phasma also seemed to notice Finn was out of sorts, and that he didn't fire at the villagers (assuming her demand for him to get a weapons inspection was anything unusual.)

If I was going to take a swing, I'd say the similarities between Marvel and Star Wars films comes from the Star Wars series (all of it) being the template for the modern blockbuster. Both TFA and Marvel were trying to emulate the Original Trilogy, it's just TFA was actually licensed to do so.

Speaking of comics, has anyone read the latest 'Princess Leia' comic? I've been eyeing it, but the trades are pretty pricey here if it turns out to be shit.

 

[The Doctor]

I don't think that Finn is Force-sensitive, but we don't know for sure. I think that he may have been 'nudged' to do the right thing by the Force. That's what the movie is referring to as the Force 'awakening.' People with the right skills are being forced into conflict to meet this new Dark Side threat.

 

[Ovation]

Just got back from watching it. Thoroughly enjoyed it.

It's not a great "film" film, but it's a bloody good Star Wars film: plenty of rip-roaring action, derring-do, rubbery sense of time and space and plotting and schlocky Death Ray villains but animated with real heart, characters you connect with and care about (even if they're a bit thinly drawn), suffused by a real feeling of awe and magic. It's classic Republic-serial spacey-schlock adventure and that's as it should be, and you can feel in every frame that this was a project Abrams connected with and was born for; he's at home here in a way that he never was in... well, That Other Franchise.

I think it could have been just as good with a completely different MacGuffin and with no call-backs to the original cast and characters -- but it would've been a very different movie, and overall those call-backs and the original cast were done well and used wisely. The through-line of family drama (which frankly I think Abrams "gets" just fine, Lucas' kvetching notwithstanding) brought some real weight to the proceedings. Not just for Han and Leia and Kylo "Ben" Ren but also for Rey and Finn, both of whom are tragic orphan characters in their own ways, in search of families to belong to [and whose immediately intense connection actually therefore makes better sense than most of the character relationships in ANH].

And Rey and Finn (and Poe Dameron and Kylo Ren, too) were great, the real core of the film as was fitting. I smiled to see Han come back onto the Millennium Falcon but it was Rey's flashback, and her having to face that her family was never coming back, that brought a tear to my eye. Finn is a darned fun flying-by-the-seat-of-his-pants accidental hero almost in the best Harrison Ford tradition (I say "almost" because Boyega makes it entirely his own). Poe Dameron as a secondary character feels much more like I always thought Wedge Antilles was meant to be -- a fly-boy accessory to the group but still a vital part of the team.

I see some mixed reviews for Adam Driver but I thought he was excellent: satisfyingly sinister in his armour, but his frightening mantrums marked him out as still having much to learn and he delivered exactly the kind of birth-of-a-monster arc, in minimal strokes as part of a single film, that the prequels tried and failed to deliver for Anakin. He was convincingly still-slightly-conflicted but committed to the dark path in such a way that -- without having been spoiled about Han's death, thankfully -- I knew from the moment Han shouted "Ben!" and stepped onto that bridge that he was a dead man. I'm already looking forward to he and Rey opposite each other as the parallel apprentices of Light and Dark in this next movie. And that final set-up of those parallel arcs with Rey and Luke staring at each other on the wind-blown heights of Planet Scotland... pure magic.

Other things I enjoyed:

- Little touches with the First Order, like the way even most of its top brass are strikingly young and the mention of its stormtroopers being janissaries stolen from their families and re-educated. They came together to give a nice feeling of a resurgent, Galactically regional warlord power racing to assert it dominance. There's a pervasive sense of the movement's fragility and insecurity in every thing it does -- they're "thugs," as Dameron calls them, trying to give the impression of power -- and the overreaching Empire-envy of its even more super-colossal Death Ray strikes an apposite chord as part of that.

- Supreme Leader Snoke was actually quite creepy and intriguing, and I'm looking forward to learning more about him.

- I was bracing myself to dislike BB8 but instead found myself thoroughly liking the little guy. He was plucky comic relief that was actually funny, they brought some genuine pathos to him too (like his Droid-heartbreak when he learns of Dameron's "death"), and that wasn't gratingly over-used and over-done. I liked that C3P0 and Artoo had cameos... and that they were cameos, not attempts to make them the story's Greek chorus yet again.

- Jakku the garbage planet was spectacular and haunting. I also enjoyed Maz Kanata's "Malaysia in space" wretched-hive-of-scum-and-villainy (though that role seemed a waste of Lupita Nyong'o). All the other interstellar settings were impressive, too. The much-ballyhooed return to a focus on practical effects paid dividends in making the settings feel solid and lived-in.

- Brilliant little touches in the lightsaber duels (like the use of steam as a secondary weapon, or Ren's use of his cross-guard) and the use of Force powers.

My only minor gripes were a) the Order's death ray revealing again that Abrams has trouble with conveying the scale of space (less of a problem in a deliberately schlocky franchise like this, but still a bit meh) and b) that Rey and Finn, sans Jedi trainer, apparently learn how to use a lightsaber by... osmosis or Force instinct or something?

Honestly if it weren't directly built out of the raw materials of the Original Trilogy I would have rated it better than ANH and possibly better than ROTJ. It still stands worthily in the same league with the original films at least. Good to feel just uncomplicated pleasure watching a Star Wars movie again.

Nailed it. (And saves me the trouble of a long write-up).

As for the complaints about a simplistic plot with huge holes? Hello! Has anyone actually seen a Star Wars movie? They are rich in symbolism but as stories, they are no more sophisticated than the 30s--50s serials upon which they are modelled.

I was a bit disappointed in the music, relatively speaking, but Williams is in his 80s, well past his creative peak--and it wasn't bad.

My ten year old son summed it up in a word: AWESOME. I agree.

 

[The Doctor]

The soundtrack was a bit thin but Rey's theme will go on to be one of the great Star Wars musical pieces, I think.

 

[Mr Light]

<<Speaking of comics, has anyone read the latest 'Princess Leia' comic? I've been eyeing it, but the trades are pretty pricey here if it turns out to be shit.>>

The only two Marvel Star Wars comics I haven't liked are the Leia and Chewie series.

 

[Saul]

The movie worked it's magic on me. I was actually thinking it wasn't going to but the second half of the film nails it and got me one, two with a knockout in the final round.

 

[Tulin]

So, I'd rank this below TESB and ANH but above ROTJ and the prequels.

Two things:

Snoke? Really? THAT'S the best name they could come up with for the Supreme Leader? Sounds like the name of a fucking Harry Potter villain or something. Jesus.

Was Coruscant one of the planets destroyed by the Starkiller? Wasn't sure if that cityscape was supposed to be it or not. They just said "The Republic" when the planets blew up.

I think "Was Coruscant the one that blew up" has now replaced the RIDICULOUS (and thankfully now defunct) "Kylo Ren is Luke" meme.

No - it was not Coruscant. That planet is closer to the core. The planet we saw destroyed was Chandrila - Mon Mothma's home world.

 

[lurok]

Just got back from watching it. Thoroughly enjoyed it.

It's not a great "film" film, but it's a bloody good Star Wars film: plenty of rip-roaring action, derring-do, rubbery sense of time and space and plotting and schlocky Death Ray villains but animated with real heart, characters you connect with and care about (even if they're a bit thinly drawn), suffused by a real feeling of awe and magic. It's classic Republic-serial spacey-schlock adventure and that's as it should be, and you can feel in every frame that this was a project Abrams connected with and was born for; he's at home here in a way that he never was in... well, That Other Franchise.

I think it could have been just as good with a completely different MacGuffin and with no call-backs to the original cast and characters -- but it would've been a very different movie, and overall those call-backs and the original cast were done well and used wisely. The through-line of family drama (which frankly I think Abrams "gets" just fine, Lucas' kvetching notwithstanding) brought some real weight to the proceedings. Not just for Han and Leia and Kylo "Ben" Ren but also for Rey and Finn, both of whom are tragic orphan characters in their own ways, in search of families to belong to [and whose immediately intense connection actually therefore makes better sense than most of the character relationships in ANH].

And Rey and Finn (and Poe Dameron and Kylo Ren, too) were great, the real core of the film as was fitting. I smiled to see Han come back onto the Millennium Falcon but it was Rey's flashback, and her having to face that her family was never coming back, that brought a tear to my eye. Finn is a darned fun flying-by-the-seat-of-his-pants accidental hero almost in the best Harrison Ford tradition (I say "almost" because Boyega makes it entirely his own). Poe Dameron as a secondary character feels much more like I always thought Wedge Antilles was meant to be -- a fly-boy accessory to the group but still a vital part of the team.

I see some mixed reviews for Adam Driver but I thought he was excellent: satisfyingly sinister in his armour, but his frightening mantrums marked him out as still having much to learn and he delivered exactly the kind of birth-of-a-monster arc, in minimal strokes as part of a single film, that the prequels tried and failed to deliver for Anakin. He was convincingly still-slightly-conflicted but committed to the dark path in such a way that -- without having been spoiled about Han's death, thankfully -- I knew from the moment Han shouted "Ben!" and stepped onto that bridge that he was a dead man. I'm already looking forward to he and Rey opposite each other as the parallel apprentices of Light and Dark in this next movie. And that final set-up of those parallel arcs with Rey and Luke staring at each other on the wind-blown heights of Planet Scotland... pure magic.

Other things I enjoyed:

- Little touches with the First Order, like the way even most of its top brass are strikingly young and the mention of its stormtroopers being janissaries stolen from their families and re-educated. They came together to give a nice feeling of a resurgent, Galactically regional warlord power racing to assert it dominance. There's a pervasive sense of the movement's fragility and insecurity in every thing it does -- they're "thugs," as Dameron calls them, trying to give the impression of power -- and the overreaching Empire-envy of its even more super-colossal Death Ray strikes an apposite chord as part of that.

- Supreme Leader Snoke was actually quite creepy and intriguing, and I'm looking forward to learning more about him.

- I was bracing myself to dislike BB8 but instead found myself thoroughly liking the little guy. He was plucky comic relief that was actually funny, they brought some genuine pathos to him too (like his Droid-heartbreak when he learns of Dameron's "death"), and that wasn't gratingly over-used and over-done. I liked that C3P0 and Artoo had cameos... and that they were cameos, not attempts to make them the story's Greek chorus yet again.

- Jakku the garbage planet was spectacular and haunting. I also enjoyed Maz Kanata's "Malaysia in space" wretched-hive-of-scum-and-villainy (though that role seemed a waste of Lupita Nyong'o). All the other interstellar settings were impressive, too. The much-ballyhooed return to a focus on practical effects paid dividends in making the settings feel solid and lived-in.

- Brilliant little touches in the lightsaber duels (like the use of steam as a secondary weapon, or Ren's use of his cross-guard) and the use of Force powers.

My only minor gripes were a) the Order's death ray revealing again that Abrams has trouble with conveying the scale of space (less of a problem in a deliberately schlocky franchise like this, but still a bit meh) and b) that Rey and Finn, sans Jedi trainer, apparently learn how to use a lightsaber by... osmosis or Force instinct or something?

Honestly if it weren't directly built out of the raw materials of the Original Trilogy I would have rated it better than ANH and possibly better than ROTJ. It still stands worthily in the same league with the original films at least. Good to feel just uncomplicated pleasure watching a Star Wars movie again.

Nailed it. (And saves me the trouble of a long write-up).

As for the complaints about a simplistic plot with huge holes? Hello! Has anyone actually seen a Star Wars movie? They are rich in symbolism but as stories, they are no more sophisticated than the 30s--50s serials upon which they are modelled.

I was a bit disappointed in the music, relatively speaking, but Williams is in his 80s, well past his creative peak--and it wasn't bad.

My ten year old son summed it up in a word: AWESOME. I agree.

Agree and disagree with a lot of both

Liked Driver, Boyega, Snoke was intriguing.

Not sure about Ridley...kept thinking 'the next Keira Knightley'? (wooden sometimes, but potential)

Score was disappointing...no new great leitmotifs as the OT.