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So....
I just saw it - let's build in some spoiler defence now. Read past this point and you have yourself, and only yourself, to blame.
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OK - let the spoilers commence!
I saw the film this evening. My first reaction after the lights went up could be politely described as "whaaaaaaaaaaaaaaat?"
Overall I really enjoyed the film, the first half-hour and the last half hour especially, as well as everything with Han and Chewie. This really feels like Star Wars, it really is Star Wars and it's great to see that the characters from the original trilogy are well integrated and not just shoe-horned in. The new characters are all well acted, original and three dimensional. There were a couple of instances where it felt like the new characters didn't get as much screen time as they deserved simply because the cast is so large.
Standout performances were Harrison Ford and Daisy Ridley, though Mark Hamill's turn as Luke Skywalker was also extremely powerful.
As far as the setting goes - this isn't just a beautiful film with a variety of environments - this really feels like Star Wars. When Han and his young charges walk into a Cantina on a jungle planet you recognise that this is another one of those holes Han runs to when he needs something, like Mos Eisley. This isn't just a pastiche though - there's a different type of music, and the atmosphere is busy and frenetic rather than menacing. The new Star Destroyer looks great, as do the Imperial and Rebel bases.
Moving on the the plot and wider story - this is where things are a bit patchy. The stories for the individual characters, their arcs and their personal development were great. However, the wider story had massive holes in. You have a Republic, and a First order, and a Resistance. The First Order is basically an Imperial Remnant, the Republic is the successor to the Rebel Alliance and the Resistance is fighting the First Order.
However, a number of very important questions are simply not addressed. Why does the Republic not fight the first the First Order directly? How powerful is the First Order vs the Republic? What exactly is the Resistance Resisting?
My personal theory, based on what we've been told outside the films is that the First Order is a small but militarily powerful Imperial Remnant, that the Republic has avoided confronting it directly because they are technically at peace after the battle of Jakku and the Resistance is domestic - i.e. it resists the First Order within First Order space. This doesn't really make a lot of sense but it's the best I have.
another glaring question the movie failed to address was how long Luke has been gone - back of an envelope calculations based on Kylo Ren being his apprentice before turning to the Dark side suggests a figure of around five years. However, we aren't even given a ballpark figure, and it's not something you can infer whilst watching the film, you have to sit down afterwards and work it out.
these are big flaws in the film, and they did reduce my enjoyment of it - structurally this felt a lot more like The Empire Strikes Back than a New Hope and the ending in particular - whilst it held out hope for the next film - was very must a second-act ending, and that's also a problem.
Did I enjoy it? Yes. Was it objectively a good film? Yes, I think so. Can it be excused for relying on other media to fill out the blanks in it's plot? No, not really. I suppose you could argue that this is a film told from the point of view of the new characters, and their ignorance of Galactic Politics is therefore our ignorance but I still feel that we could have been given a line like "that was almost a decade ago" re Luke's disappearance or a shaded map to give us a rough idea of where the major players are - we certainly got enough star maps that a brief strategic briefing could have been worked in without it becoming a huge info dump.
My Final verdict is a comparative one:
Better than all the Prequels, but not as good as Return of the Jedi.
I just came back from the theater, quick thoughts:
Kylo Ren is meant to be in his mid twenties. I believe he was probably turned to the dark side when he was much younger. My estimate for Luke disappearing is around 10 years.
After talking about the plot with family, it seems likely that the Republic is a neutral, pacifist government with no standing army. Learning from the lessons of the clone wars, a large standing Republic army would scare those that remembered the rise of the Empire.
Unofficially, the Republic funds the resistance, which is essentially the continuation of the Rebel Alliance against the Imperial Remnants. But the Republic has no direct control over the resistance and has no direct military power or authority over the resistance.
The homages to the earlier films were obvious but well done. There was the death star 3.0 exploding, a cantina scene, the story originating on a desert planet, the reveal of family ties, Solo's scoundrel behavior catching up to him, even the first scene is an homage to the very first scene in A New Hope when a large star destroyer looming over the rebel ship versus TFA giving us an even bigger star destroyer looming over an entire planet.
Also @PVC, remember that space politics really bogged down the plot and pacing of the prequel trilogy. I would not be surprised if this new trilogy left out the details on the Republic's constitution and just focused on the exciting conflicts.
I'm wondering what happened to the rebel fleet after ROTJ. Seems wierd that, with such influential people like Leia and Akbar in it, the resistance would be limited to X-wings. What happened to the capital ships and the assortment of B/A/Y wing craft?
I saw TFA on it's release day and I enjoyed it. Good seeing the old guard again, Harrison Ford steals the show but I thought the new blood didn't suffer too much for it and had plenty of opportunities to shine, especially the X-wing pilot who helps Finn defect from the remenant.
The Force Awakens does feel like classic Star Wars. I dare say it is about A New Hope/Return of the Jedi level of quality, but not quite reaching that of Empire Strikes Back.
By the way, did anyone else think for a minute like I did that the new deathstar equivialent blew up coruscant in it's first firing? For a second I thought the new movies had destroyed the main setting of the prequel movies as a "screw you".
Quote:
Originally Posted by Greyblades
http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Hosnian_Prime
I thought the movie was aight. It seemed incredibly rushed for character development and I just hate the names Ray and Fin. I feel like Ray gained super Jedi power far too quickly and how did she become the person to comfort after Han's untimely demise. Why didn't leia huge Chewie after they came back? It seemed like the ray and fin became too high in the resistance and intertwined with everyone in a very short period of time.
About the only thing we know about the Republic is that it had a Fleet and now it doesn't.Quote:
Originally Posted by a completely inoffensive name
Star Killer Base blew up multiple planets, possibly most of the Core Worlds.
Or did it?
I'm not asking to see the Republic Senate (they're all dead now anyway) but I would have liked a map after Star Killer base blew up showing us Republic territory and the planets that were hit just so I could get an idea of the size of the Republic and the impact that one strike had on it overall.
For a conflict to be exciting you need to know what's at stake - and the movie doesn't really give you enough to get invested in that. I was invested in the characters and the Resistance base not getting blown up but I have no idea what it means that the Resistance is apparently down to a dozen T-70 fighters.
Presumably destroying the Republic Fleet and the Capital will cause upheaval but because I don't know what the Republic was like before it's going to be hard to gauge the impact.
The destruction of Hosnian Prime was a great opportunity to key the audience in on what the First Order had actually achieved - without that it's hard to know exactly how to feel. The film doesn't even really establish that the Republic is the dominant power (territorially) in the galaxy.
The movie makes the audience work really hard if they want to understand what went on.
Don't get me wrong, I enjoyed it and I'll probably see it again before is closes but the omission is glaring and could have been easily fixed with another 2-3 lines.
That reminds me of Roald Dahl's Going Solo.Quote:
Originally Posted by Philippus Flavius Homovallumus
Agreed.Quote:
Originally Posted by Philippus Flavius Homovallumus
Like with Poe's re-appearance post crash landing on Jakku and Finn's reuniting with Poe.
Worthy successor to IV, V and IV
Lots of references to previous movies including I-III.
And some nice little interactions ie Chewie paternally giving Han his coat before they go outside in the snow again, or when Kylo is smashing the detention centre and as two storm troopers approach one of them grabs the other by an elbow and they do a u turn and march back the other way to avoid him.
To sum up the movie in two words. Emo Ren.
Disagree - whilst Kylo Ren is a fairly interesting villain on a childish and petulant sort of way he's virtually interchangeable with any other Dark Jedi.Quote:
Originally Posted by Beskar
This film as about Finn and Rey - and the question of WHERE IS LUKE SKYWALKER?
It is clear he is getting a Vader upgrade.Quote:
Originally Posted by Philippus Flavius Homovallumus
The movie is basically retelling a lot of themes from the 6 previous movies, but all in one movie. In a way, it works a lot as it plays a lot on the nostalgia.
I like Finn's character a lot.
I did not really like Finn's character. I think he switched (and made) the story a little too easily. Could have used some more elaboration. Also the story behind the Republic and the First Order... I would have liked some of that ^^ Where is the rest of the Empire? Did their army just vanish? If the Empire goes back to being a Republic does that get rid of potentially billions of troops and thousands of ships?
Are the First Order angry soldiers who stopped getting paid after the Republic said nope, we don't need an army and decided to sort themselves out? If so, how is the Republic so silly? If they wanted to get rid of the massive army, their first order of business should have been a gradual demilitarisation to prevent exactly what happened from happening!
If nothing like this or anything similar happened, why isn't the Republic using what remains of the imperial army to fight the First Order directly? Would the remainder of the army fight against their own once brothers in arms?
Whaa.. yes, the movie was good and I loved just about all the characters and they were great and the new bad guy was kind of cool although very generic as well and the girl was great and I really liked how well she fit in next to Solo and Chewy. Overall, an enjoyable movie.
It's re-telling some of it, but that makes a certain amount of sense - these characters are coming from the past films as history.Quote:
Originally Posted by Beskar
The Empire got beat when the Rebellion blew up the Death Star II - so if you want to convince people the Empire is back what do you do? Build a bigger Death Star, obviously.
Whether Kylo Ren is actually going to get a Vader upgrade or not remains to be seen, I imagine not actually - he wasn't as badly hurt as Vader and it would be supremely silly. After all - the big reveal with the character was that under the helm was an attractive young man. I can't see them no going full-on Vader, it's too obvious.
Having said that, after his Patricide I doubt redemption is on the cards for Kylo Ren.
First Order are the Imperial Remnants. They cannot exactly attack themselves?Quote:
Originally Posted by Sp4
They sure could.Quote:
Originally Posted by Beskar
The term is "civil war"
On the other hand, he did seem to have some real internal conflict somewhat before his patricide. It seems they'd do something with it other than just make Han's redemption attempt seem more plausible.Quote:
Originally Posted by Philippus Flavius Homovallumus
One thing I liked about the prequels was the idea of Anakin bringing balance to the force adding more poignancy to his change of heart with Palpatine at the end of VI. Clearly, it seems he didn't bring an end to those using the dark side. However, I'm hoping that his existence ultimately has some role to play in bringing balance to the force through his posthumous legacy.
http://i1.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/...56/427/efd.gifQuote:
Originally Posted by Papewaio
The prophecy was dumb to begin with. I just assume that the Jedi were completely mistaken and arrogant of their righteousness due to their political power during the republic.
He kind of did bring 'Balance' to the force, since there were always two Sith and he reduced them to two Jedi. (Obi-wan and Yoda)Quote:
Originally Posted by a completely inoffensive name
That assumes that equity between the Dark Side and the Light Side means "balance". That argument doesn't really hold up, though.Quote:
Originally Posted by Beskar
or Balance could be the Grey knights. The Jedi are too stoic, the Dark side is too passionate, bringing balance would be the middle ground.
The fall of Kylo Ren undermines the prophecy however you spin it. Luke was the Grey Jedi that could embrace both emotion and control, then Episode VII shows that in the end, the teaching of the force will ultimately devolve back into opposing camps that pursue polarizing views in direct conflict of each other.
Except that the idea of "Grey Jedi" never appears in the films - it actually originates with ad hoc rules created by fans of the Old WEG RPG. Luke wasn't a "Grey" Jedi in any case, he isn't actually a Jedi Knight until the end of the film when he finally rejects his passions and embraces the Stoic Jedi point of view in that scene when he discards his lightsaber before the Emperor and declares, "You've failed your highness, I am a Jedi like my father before me,"Quote:
Originally Posted by Beskar
Up until that point you don't know if he's going to be the hero or whether he's going to fall, like his father. The first thing you see him do is choke two Gamorians and later he succumbs to rage and cuts off Vaders hand, it's not until he looks down at his own prosthetic that he realizes how close he is to becoming his father.
He steps back from the brink, he finally embraces the Force and he becomes a JEdi.
A lot of people project a dualistic "Good and Evil" balance thing onto the Star Wars Universe but it's not like that at all. I'm pretty sure until Episode VII that nobody ever talks about "The Light Side" they just talk about "The Force" and "The Dark Side of the Force".
What separates the Jedi and the Sith is not that one is "Good" and one is "Evil", it's that the Jedi "let the Force flow throw" them and the Sith try to command the Force. The Force is the energy field that surrounds all things, the Jedi flow through it and the Sith try to swim against it. If you look at the Jedi in the Prequals they aren't "good" Paladins by any stretch - Obi-Wan and Qui-Gon don't try to overthrow Jabba and free all the slaves, they rescue Anakin because Qui-Gon senses his strength in the Force and he sense that it is the right thing to do. It's not "right" in the sense of Good and Evil though, it's "right" as in the Force will it.
If you're looking for a way that Vader fulfilled the prophecy then it's through killing Palpatine and destroying the Sith. Note that everybody has said that Snoke and the Knights of Ren are not "Sith" even if they do represent the Dark Side.
Fan theory:
https://youtu.be/j66qVexOrU0
Apparently Kylo Ren uses the Light and Dark Side - making him your notional Grey Jedi.
Apart from being emotionally stunted in their self enforced emotional and physical eunuch existence, Jedi are also mathematically inept.Quote:
Originally Posted by Noncommunist
Balance 1000 Jedi, 2 Sith
Answers
A) 501 of each
B) 1000 of each
C) two of each is Ben, Yoda the Emperor and Darth Vader
Incorrect answers 1000 Jedi and no Sith.
I don't see why they would necessarily need to be physical eunuchs. The rule is against attachment so I suppose a Jedi could have a bunch of one night stands.Quote:
Originally Posted by Papewaio
I think the Jedi view of bringing balance to the force was a removal of the dark side that corrupted or unbalanced it. So not so much of a balance between the light and dark side as some other concept of balance that involves only the light side.