Force Awakens (with spoilers)

[Grieve]

Just saw it with the wife. Bit conflicted. Lots to like (Rey was great, quite liked Ren), but plenty not to like as well (a Death Star for the THIRD time, seriously? A shield generator on a foresty planet for Han to disable? What was the point of Captain Phasma? And a bit too much exposition in the dialogue).

Probably need to see it a couple more times to figure out how I feel about it. Definitely light years ahead of the prequels. But right now below the original trilogy, even Jedi.

What did you guys think?

[Zouji]

It was on par with episode IV "A New Hope" and essentially a remake of it. The new "bad guy" is at least believable unlike fucking Anakin in the prequels. It doesn't really take any chances or really rock the boat.


It most defiantly wasn't anywhere near as awesome as Mad Max Fury Road.


Also Gwendoline Christie and Max von Sydow were grossly unused. If you get an amazing actor or actress in your movie you could at least do something with their character.

I enjoyed seeing Domhnall Gleeson as a bad guy. He was in Frank, Ex Machina, and was Bill Weasley in the Harrry Potter movies.

Also they veered away from the absolutely terrible/awesome naming convention of people. So no Porkins, Wedge, Hobby, Biggs, or Elan Sleazebaggano.

[Grieve]

I agree Mad Max was better.

I liked Gleeson in Ex Machina (great movie), but I wasn't impressed with him here. No Peter Cushing, for sure.

A lot of characters got short shift in this one. Guessing we'll see more of Phasma and Poe (and Luke) in the next one.

One thing I did like is that they fooled us in the trailers and posters into thinking Finn would be the light saber-welding Jedi. That was nice misdirection.

[Zouji]

For all we know Finn may be force sensitive as well. Me and my brother think the girl is Luke's daughter.

I'm fine without a Peter Cushing type character. It shows that the old Imperial Command is dead. Long live the new Imperial Command.


I still hate how the Jedi are supposed to be the "good guys" and the Sith are the "bad guys". The Jedi (especially Obi-Wan) were a bunch of hypocritical assholes. Well except for maybe Yoda.

[Vanraw]

I liked it allot. I'm glad they didn't take themselves too seriously. The whole death star/ planet star was a almost a tongue cheek cameo. The run to blow it up was almost word for word with the death star mission, which was on purpose. Just like Hans Solo coming in and saying "were back". They whole movie set up a link to the original star wars movies and will now move forward.

[Vanraw]

nt

[TinStar]

Saw it this morning and was pretty happy with it overall but also pretty disappointed for many of the same reasons as above. Phasma was blown up in the trailers and all the PR but was a non-mover in the movie (did she die in the trash compactor? They kinda side-barred that). I read somewhere that Phasma was basically a late addition to the script as her armor was actually designed for Kylo Ren but then they decided against it but liked it so much they wanted to keep it in the movie. How the fuck does Kylo Ren do all this ridiculous force power stuff but then allows Finn to go toe to toe with him and then get his ass handed to him by Rey (who had 0 training and less than hours in movie time found out she was force sensitive). I felt that the things that made this movie great (other than Rey/Kylo) were kind of lay ups for the movie. Everyone was stoked to see Han/Chewie. Everyone was stoked to see Leia. Everyone was stoked to see Luke (even though he didn't talk or do shit). Outside of that there were really only a couple of events in the movie that were really good.

Now granted, I watched a bunch of shit before seeing the movie and spoiled parts of it for me. I saw a toy with Rey and a lightsaber so I was pretty certain that she was a jedi. I did think Finn was also going to be a jedi (which now to think of it didn't make sense that they would have 2 brand new jedi on the "good" side. I was fairly certain that Kylo Ren was going to be Han/Leia's kid but was questioning if Rey/Finn (rumors of possible Leia/Lando love child for Finn). I want Rey to be Luke's child but I'm leaning towards her being someone else's kid (possibly Han/Leia but feel that it wouldn't work seeing as they were very much up front about "Ben" being their child, but mentioned nothing of another). They only thing that really for me possibly foreshadowed Rey's background was when they talked about Luke training Jedi and he had 2 pupils or whatever but one of them ruined everything and destroyed everything/etc which makes me think that Rey was also one of the pupils but why doesn't she know anything about it. If she is a twin of Han/Leia then why would they drop her off and make her homeless? Granted there were so many holes in this movie that maybe it doesn't have to make sense to become reality but I dunno.

Also, Snoke is tiny like Yoda. That's my prediction. Can't wait for Episode VIII and I really enjoyed the movie and will probably watch it again in the theater but wish I didn't have so many more questions now than before the movie started...

[Zouji]

Kylo Ren got a full bowcaster blast and still fought 2 people in lightsaber duels. He even beat on his side on multiple occasions (where he got shot) during the fight.

Rey is more than likely Luke's daughter. Luke had very little training when he went up against Vader.

You got to hand it to Luke. He went hand to hand with Vader in Empire Strikes back. Granted Vader handily defeated him, Luke still handled himself well for a bit, even though Vader got the upper hand in the end.

[Breand]

This article is the closest I've seen to express exactly how I felt about the movie with this line as the most important: "Let's be clear: if anyone made this movie without the Star Wars name, no one would accept it for a moment. It'd be universally derided as the thinnest, most obvious plagiarism. "

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I'm puzzled as to why so many of my friends loved it. They were controlled like a marionette, as JJ was hitting their nostalgic pleasure centers, and got his cheap laughs out of call backs to the other movies. Almost every humorous moment in the movie required knowledge of the previous ones to be funny. I'm going to call it that as time passes and the euphoria wears off, this movie will not be looked back on kindly. I think of movies like Independence Day, Avatar, Titanic...these were all huge movies people loved when they came out and they have not stood the test of time. The plot is an obvious rehash of IV with unexplained stuff in between. Why did Han stop at a bar filled with hundreds of shady characters? Why did R2 suddenly come back to life...even JJ can't explain it except as an ex machina device to make people happy after Han's death: <!-- m --><a class="postlink" href="http://www.cinemablend.com/new/J-J-Abrams-Explains-R2-D2-Introduction-Star-Wars-Force-Awakens-101197.html">http://www.cinemablend.com/new/J-J-Abra ... 01197.html</a><!-- m -->

"While it may seem, you know, completely lucky and an easy way out, at that point in the movie, when you’ve lost a person, desperately, and somebody you hopefully care about is unconscious, you want someone to return." Yeah, thanks JJ. That makes sense...bleh.

And because of all that, it simply wasn't good enough to kill Han Solo. That's what gets me. Han Solo didn't deserve to die at the hands of JJ's weak ass script.

I have hope. Rian Johnson is a good storyteller and director, and is doing the next one. Rey is a good character to root for. Daisy Riddley and Jon Boyega gave great performances. So we move on and hope for something better. And no more JJ. That's the biggest plus.

[TinStar]

Kylo Ren got a full bowcaster blast and still fought 2 people in lightsaber duels. He even beat on his side on multiple occasions (where he got shot) during the fight.

Rey is more than likely Luke's daughter. Luke had very little training when he went up against Vader.

You got to hand it to Luke. He went hand to hand with Vader in Empire Strikes back. Granted Vader handily defeated him, Luke still handled himself well for a bit, even though Vader got the upper hand in the end.

Yeah I totally get that Kylo was injured but he was still very powerful in the force which would have been more than enough to dispatch of Finn with a flick of the wrist. You could argue that because Rey has the force and was an accomplished fighter before that that she would be more formidable but I just think it's a stretch. Luke had training with how to use the force. Rey was literally making shit up based on what she knew about jedi. The only reasonable explanation would be that she was trained by Luke but made to forget her training at an early age for some reason then dropped off to be homeless and then as she gets put under pressure, quickly remembers everything she was trained.

One thing that always bothered me about Star Wars was when they choose to use the force. Kylo can knock Rey out with the force and hold her completely frozen but then he just lets her kick the shit out of him later.

Also, when Luke went up against Vader the first time, Vader wasn't trying to kill him. He was trying to protect him enough to use him and turn him. I do think this is also the case with Kylo vs. Rey but not to the extent that it was with Vader as with Vader it was his son and with Kylo it was some girl that could replace him and seeing as he was still "struggling" with the light/dark I don't really buy it..

[TinStar]

And because of all that, it simply wasn't good enough to kill Han Solo. That's what gets me. Han Solo didn't deserve to die at the hands of JJ's weak ass script.

I have hope. Rian Johnson is a good storyteller and director, and is doing the next one. Rey is a good character to root for. Daisy Riddley and Jon Boyega gave great performances. So we move on and hope for something better. And no more JJ. That's the biggest plus.

I got the feeling that Harrison Ford was done with Star Wars so they pretty much had to kill him. I read that somewhere and it kinda stuck with me an was the reason why I wasn't surprised at all when he confronted Kylo an was killed.

I honestly felt like this movie was made for very casual Star Wars fans who have seen the other movies once (maaaybe twice) but won't really care about the shenanigans.

[Zouji]

The more canon explanation you can give of the poor fight results between Kylo and Rey could be Rey harnessed her fear and anger far more effectively than Kylo and used the dark side to the fullest.

The dark side of the force doesn't require concentration or practice just sheer willpower and emotion.

[Breand]

And because of all that, it simply wasn't good enough to kill Han Solo. That's what gets me. Han Solo didn't deserve to die at the hands of JJ's weak ass script.

I have hope. Rian Johnson is a good storyteller and director, and is doing the next one. Rey is a good character to root for. Daisy Riddley and Jon Boyega gave great performances. So we move on and hope for something better. And no more JJ. That's the biggest plus.

I got the feeling that Harrison Ford was done with Star Wars so they pretty much had to kill him. I read that somewhere and it kinda stuck with me an was the reason why I wasn't surprised at all when he confronted Kylo an was killed.

I honestly felt like this movie was made for very casual Star Wars fans who have seen the other movies once (maaaybe twice) but won't really care about the shenanigans.

They weren't going to kill Han originally. I mean it's hysterical, because JJ basically admits here that his script was bad so they had to kill Han:

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“[Han Solo’s death is] this massive tradeoff. How can we possible do that!? But… if we hadn’t done that, the movie wouldn’t have any guts at all. It felt very dangerous.”

Ford got paid $20 Mil plus .5% of the gross. He would have had no issues coming back for more. Plus he's been in some REAL clunkers lately.

[TinStar]

They weren't going to kill Han originally. I mean it's hysterical, because JJ basically admits here that his script was bad so they had to kill Han:

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“[Han Solo’s death is] this massive tradeoff. How can we possible do that!? But… if we hadn’t done that, the movie wouldn’t have any guts at all. It felt very dangerous.”

Ford got paid $20 Mil plus .5% of the gross. He would have had no issues coming back for more. Plus he's been in some REAL clunkers lately.

Yeah I read all that and I get it but Harrison Ford is 73 and has shit tons of money. I did a little exploring and he wanted him killed off in Return of the Jedi but from a toy/marketing perspective he didn't get his wish.

[Breand]

He definitely wanted his character to die in Jedi, and I think he was right that they should have killed him back then. But I don't think using the mindset of an actor at the top of his game in 1983 and comparing it to how he feels in 2015 is comparable.

If you take a look at his filmography, the guy hasn't been in a good movie since 1997 (Air Force One), other than maybe "42."

Plus he's signed to appear in Episode 8, in some way.

[TinStar]

Yeah like I said before, I read it and it stuck with me, I just didn't have the comment in perspective as there is no telling when I read it. Maybe Han really had the force and will come back as a ghost

I also read that Hamil wanted Luke to turn to the dark side. Maybe he'll get his wish before he dies/gets killed off.

[strife]

I finally saw it today, and I did enjoy the movie. The movie tugs on some of the obvious Star Wars heartstrings and nostalgia.

But...
I felt this movie was a rip off of many of the previous movies, from Ren getting his ass kicked and left for dead(like Anakin) and Snope having to send storm troopers to recover the still alive body, to the death star being destroyed again, to more abandoned kids turning out to be the hero... I could have written this script by taking the other 6 movies and shuffling the pages and see what came out.

I was annoyed that they overpowered Kylo Ren at the start of the movie and then allowed him to get his ass kicked by Rey(and Finn put up a decent fight with him), and the injury wasn't enough to cause that. He could have just force crushed Finn to death... but that wouldn't make for a good movie.

I was annoyed by Rey using the force to get the Storm trooper to let her go(that Storm Trooper was Daniel Craig btw)... that felt cheap and was a big let down to me.

[Jakensama]

Better than A New Hope, worse than Jedi or Empire.. Also better than 99% of the EU dreck that wasn't named "Knights of the Old Republic I + II"

None of the movies are exactly masterpieces if you remove our nostalgia. This felt like a Star Wars movie, which is more than you can say for the last 3. I guess its on par with what Abrams did with the first new Star Trek, made the third best movie in a franchise that only had 2 good ones to begin with.