Star Wars episode 7: The Force Awakens

[Tulius Hostilius]

I liked the movie. It worth the ticket!

And, like many, I think that can be considered a remake of the first one. A teen Disney remake. Teen movies seem to be a trend now!

Then we can say that it has many plot holes, most of the characters are plain, it defies more science and common knowledge that it should, the destruction of a Death Star is becoming easily boring, the plot is thin, and the villain is unspeakably unconvincing, especially after he removes the helmet:

Also, Captain Pharma is a good looking character when we see the movie posters! But did I saw her in the movie?

When I saw that stormtrooper with the lightening club… I thought… that is ridiculous! It almost seems an insert!

In resume: I liked it, but still want to know why! Just don’t give the movie Oscars!

 

[Parson]

In resume: I liked it, but still want to know why! Just don’t give the movie Oscars!

Little worry of that. Hollywood seems to despise the idea of giving an Oscar to a movie that the "unwashed masses" might have found enjoyable. But let some artsy tartsy thing with mumbled incomprehensible dialogue, shot in very dim light, with long meaningful gazes and an undiscoverable plot show up, which is shown on only a couple of hundred screens, and suddenly you have a contender!

 

[JunkMonkey]

For the same reason the Mann Booker Prize or the Pulitzer don't go to crowd-pleasing pap like Fifty Shades of Gravy or Stephen King's latest logorrheic witterings. Thank the gods. They're for the best - as judged by professionals in the field. Not what the the lumpen proletariat likes

Oh crap. I just realised someone, somewhere is working on a biopic of Donald Trump....

 

[Overread]

Just saw it and I honestly am woefully disappointed

Spoiler

The film was a series of vast events occurring through convenience. The Falcon just happening to be rusting away on the same planet as a mysteriously abandoned force sensitive child (who is likely Luke's Daughter or other relation) and a guy with a map to Luke (who appeared to have no connection to the force sensitive at all).

Then the Falcon takes off and the force sensitive gal proves she's a darn good pilot even though she's apparently never used a spaceship, but randomly has fixed most of the Falcon (yes she's been junking around ships her whole life but that she's fixed up the Falcon is a bit of a stretch).

Then the Falcon - missing for years - is picked up within seconds of launch by Han and Chewy - who it appears not only double crossed two groups of smugglers, but managed to lose/kill his whole crew just before that.

Then the random friend of Han happens to have Luke's Light Sabre in an unlocked storage box in the basement of a rowdy bar.

Then then - GAH honestly I get that they've got to advance the story but event after event happens so perfectly to the plot its jut unbelievable.



Then there's another issue - there's only 1 good actor not from the original film. The force sensitive gal (sorry bad with names already forgotten her name) is honestly the only good actor. She carries her role well and really does work which is a shame when the story around her is terribly written and her support actors are - well - by the end with the great epic final fight in the winter woods it felt like a Harry Potter type battle between 3 school friends rather than two friends and a Dark Lord.

Which brings me to the janitor - er storm trooper - who apparently has had hand to hand combat training and blaster training but who is utterly useless in battle it seems. I get that he's supposed to be panicked and somewhat a coward/green warrior but I seriously doubt that the New Empire group would have someone like him rise through training to battle. He's just too inept and lacking any gravity of his character.




And then we hit the science. Firstly WHY is a bar full of aliens on a random world which sees a few red streaks in the sky scared of them. At that point, seconds after the planet gun fires, they've no idea what they are. It's like looking up on Earth and seeing smoke trials - you'd not assume its a weapon of mass destruction - you'd assume its just a plane going over.
Then the planets are struck - a huge event that is over in seconds - and for some reason this world far from anywhere of importance can SEE this happening? ? I mean heck I can accept the blast going PAST the world and being visible within a reasonable amount of time but it takes so freaking long for light from solarsystems away that its unfathomable as to why they'd see those planets explode.


Then finally there's the Republic and Resistance; where it is not explained at all why the Resistance is basically a few dozen X-Wings fighting out of a backwater planet in the back end of know-where. Especially when the Republic is supposed to be in power again and doing pretty well for itself. Why is the Resistance so underfunded - at the height of battle at the end of Return of the Jedi they had cruisers and a considerable fleet and even account for losses due to continued war and politics surely they'd have more than a handful of X-Wings by the time we reach this new film. And for that matter surely the Republic has a fleet?
Oh and the huge part about losing a sun to fire the main planet destroyer (totally fine with that level of science - no seriously sun-canon I'm happy with!); where was the first sun? We are given no understanding that this Battle Planet can move so we have to assume its in a binary solar system and consumes one sun to fire the first time? Or something?

It's just - GAH It feels like they tried to re-tell the first 3 original film themes into a single film whilst being supported by a strong old acting cast being siderailed by a few kids from school and one good actress. I mean GAH at least the prequels made sense story wise for the most part and just annoyed us with 1 Gungan!

There's a lot I could and should like from this, but the story they've strung together is just terrible. Poorly paced, poorly explained, poorly presented and reliant on SO many convenient events happening in a row with no real reason for them to be happening in the right order.

Oh and a question

Spoiler

When Luke met his daughter (yes its so blindingly obvious it hurts) right at the very end - was anyone moved by that scene? Because for the WHOLE of the scene I was left wondering - why the heck she went alone to see him of all people.
I mean yes she's got a mystical unknown to her connection with him; but all those who knew him and who spent years looking for him, they all waited. Even his own sister let someone else go instead. Even Chewy didn't follow her up the steps.

Also - why the heck didn't Chewy hug Leia? Right after the battle, just landed and both have just lost possibly the most important man in their lives and he walks right past her after the janit.....heroic stormtrooper. Instead she gets a hug from someone she met only hours before and has little to no real emotional connection to. Even if she's somehow aware that its Lukes daughter she's still had only a tiny fraction of time to build a relationship.

So yes the ending; the huge emotional climax that should have been the huge spark for the next film - left me feeling empty. And that's the greatest crime this film has done; it didn't just kill me for itself with some sloppy writing, its killed the next film for me too. It's killed Starwars for me.

 

[soulsinging]

Just saw it and I honestly am woefully disappointed

Spoiler

The film was a series of vast events occurring through convenience.

Then the Falcon takes off and the force sensitive gal proves she's a darn good pilot even though she's apparently never used a spaceship, but randomly has fixed most of the Falcon (yes she's been junking around ships her whole life but that she's fixed up the Falcon is a bit of a stretch).

Then the Falcon - missing for years - is picked up within seconds of launch by Han and Chewy - who it appears not only double crossed two groups of smugglers, but managed to lose/kill his whole crew just before that.

You mean as opposed to the farm boy that can outshoot storm troopers all over the Death Star, fly an X-wing better than their most experienced pilots, be saved by an old man who's able to wander a military base for hours and walk right into the "tractor beam" area and turn it off totally unseen, all after arriving conveniently MINUTES after a planet was exploded? If we're going to start taking Star Wars to task for consistency and believability, you may find the originals don't fare a whole lot better.

As to Han

Spoiler

and his smuggling/crew woes and everyone's reluctance to see Luke, that made perfect sense to me. It was clear from Han and Leia's reunion that whatever happened to Ben devastated everyone. It broke Han and Leia's relationship and pushed Luke into hiding. Since Han and Leia didn't seem all THAT excited to see each other (more pained) it seems reasonable to me that they felt Luke didn't really want to be found and they didn't want to be the ones to violate that. There was undoubtedly nothing left Leia could say to Luke at that point in time, so she hoped (as she did in sending Han on essentially a suicide mission) that maybe a new voice could reach him.

 

[soulsinging]

I'm going to go ahead and say I loved the new movie. The only thing that I didn't care for was the scene with the beasty on the salvage ship... felt kind of out of place and unnecessary and I think the writers missed a chance to both show how some characters had fallen on hard times and focus on the new ones learning to work together. It was also jarringly CGI in a way the movie otherwise avoided, much to my satisfaction.

Things I think the movie really did right:

Spoiler

• Humor - The characters once again get to have a little fun, after the overly weighty tone of the prequels.
• Real sets and spaceships - Gone is the Lucas obsession with packing every shot with as much CGI eye candy as possible. Instead the ships look used again, the world lived-in.
• Premise - I love that this is not the slick, golden age of the Republic, nor the sterile might of the empire. We now have a universe that's messy and shows that it's easy to rebel but harder to build.
• New characters - I honestly can barely remember any of the prequel characters and the ones I do added little to the story (and what little they offered was given better context in Clone Wars). This new movie gave us 2-3 characters I look forward to seeing again, and managed to use the old characters in a way that both paid tribute to their place among fans while also making clear that this new story would not be about them.
• Intrigue - whereas Phantom Menace left me pondering such thrilling stuff as the legality of trade sanctions under senate regulations and the technology behind midichlorian testing, this movie ended with real intrigue... what HAPPENED to Ben to make him a monster and is there any real chance of redemption from the decisions he's already made? Is there anything left of Luke or is he as broken as everyone seems to think?
• New effects, not toys - The prequels gave us some pretty awesome lightsaber duels, but otherwise jedi were basically whirling dervishes with telekinetic powers (or lightning if they go bad) and everything else that was new seemed to be a ship or something else that could easily be turned into a profitable toy. Here we have Kylo Ren stopping a blaster in cool ways, the mystery of Chewie's bowcaster brought to light, BB8 taking droids to new heights... all are small but all are the sorts of fun discoveries that were missing from things like the midichlorian revelation or the jedi being neutralized by shielded machine gun droids.

 

[Bodhi]

When the Rathtars escape on the ship, it was certainly out-of-place. I thought it was the only thing they took a chance on, to do something different and risky from the Star Wars "feel". Most other things were just playing it rather safe. It did seem like a different movie at that point in time.

 

[Bugg]

When the Rathtars escape on the ship, it was certainly out-of-place. I thought it was the only thing they took a chance on, to do something different and risky from the Star Wars "feel". Most other things were just playing it rather safe. It did seem like a different movie at that point in time.

That bit felt to me like it would be more at home in an episode of Farscape, with Crichton and D'Argo instead of Han and Chewie

 

[Brian G Turner]

Yeah, that was a bit I might just fast-forward, and imagine the Yakkity Sax (Benny Hill chase music) playing over it.

 

[ZombieWife]

You mean as opposed to the farm boy that can outshoot storm troopers all over the Death Star, fly an X-wing better than their most experienced pilots, be saved by an old man who's able to wander a military base for hours and walk right into the "tractor beam" area and turn it off totally unseen, all after arriving conveniently MINUTES after a planet was exploded? If we're going to start taking Star Wars to task for consistency and believability, you may find the originals don't fare a whole lot better.

Or, the kid raised on Tatooine who built his own droids, can win the pod-race with a crappy vehicle, enters into a vacant starfighter, joins the battle against the Federation droid control ship in space and destroys it from within, deactivating the droid army. And Jedi mentory-dudes try to barter their way off the planet. The old Jedi dies while fighting Darth so-and-so. Young Jedi enters into training at the end of the episode after getting a puppy love crush on a princess.

MINE is def. more original. Totally.

 

[JunkMonkey]

When the Rathtars escape on the ship, it was certainly out-of-place. I thought it was the only thing they took a chance on, to do something different and risky from the Star Wars "feel". Most other things were just playing it rather safe. It did seem like a different movie at that point in time.

What was out of place was that the beasties ate everyone they encountered INSTANTLY - apart from our secondary hero who was dragged around for a while for no other reason than he was one of the heroes and was to be rescued by the heroine (who was able to analyse and take control of the ships internal blast door opening and closing controls within seconds.) I think was at this point that I gave up on the movie. 'This,' I thought, 'even for a Star Wars film, is bollocks'.

 

[soulsinging]

What was out of place was that the beasties ate everyone they encountered INSTANTLY - apart from our secondary hero who was dragged around for a while for no other reason than he was one of the heroes

You noticed that too eh? Like I said, that scene was pretty bad, but it stood out as being both bad and out of place and makes me a little more willing to believe it was the exception rather than the rule.

 

[Culhwch]

I didn't like that scene either, but perhaps the idea was that the beasts were full after the first couple of snacks, and were taking Finn to keep for later...

 

[Bodhi]

It's all fun and games until the hero gets hurt.

 

[Narkalui]

Definitely the fourth best Star Wars film and absolutely worthy of the Star Wars label, unlike those prequels, which weren't worthy.

 

[soulsinging]

When the Rathtars escape on the ship, it was certainly out-of-place. I thought it was the only thing they took a chance on, to do something different and risky from the Star Wars "feel". Most other things were just playing it rather safe. It did seem like a different movie at that point in time.

After seeing it again, this scene made me think of the rancor, hoth yeti, and death star garbage monster... so maybe not as out of place as I thought.

 

[Harpo]

I'm finally going to see it, in about 30 minutes from now.
I haven't been putting it off, I just live on a remote island where the local cinema (twelve miles from my house) chose for some reason not to show it until now.

I'm glad this thread has been kept spoiler free, you lovely lovely people

 

[Denise Tanaka]

What was out of place was that the beasties ate everyone they encountered INSTANTLY - apart from our secondary hero who was dragged around for a while for no other reason than he was one of the heroes and was to be rescued by the heroine (who was able to analyse and take control of the ships internal blast door opening and closing controls within seconds.) I think was at this point that I gave up on the movie. 'This,' I thought, 'even for a Star Wars film, is bollocks'.

SPOILERS and sorry to anyone who has not yet seen the movie yet. Close your eyes!

Spoiler

OK, so I went back and saw it a second time. I want to give them the benefit of doubt and it kind of looks like the thing's tentacle got wrapped around Finn's leg without the thing realizing it???? Maybe?? And the thing was slithering / skittering away and unknowingly dragging Finn along? You'll see again, at the end of the sequence when the severed tentacles are thrashing about independently, they almost grab onto Rey. I'm trying really hard to make sense of that. Otherwise it's a horrible mistake to show these monsters eat people in one gulp except when it's the hero.

 

[Brian G Turner]

Added the spoiler tag for you, Denise.

 

[Denise Tanaka]

Added the spoiler tag for you, Denise.

Thanks Brian! Is that something I can do myself or it needs the mods admin tools?