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[SPOILERS] Star Wars: The Force Awakens (Thread #2) - One Thumb Up
- Thread starter Bobby Roberts
- Start date
- Status
Starsailor
Banned
Maybe it will end up like Metal gear solid 5 "everyone can be a jedi" like "everyone can be Snake"
Dubbedinenglish
Banned
I don't mind it if she is Luke's child (literally they spell it out). I just don't want her to be the only one. Snoke said the "next generation of Jedi" so I hope there are more to balance between Snoke/Kylo/Kinghts of Ren.
CassidyIzABeast
Member
Same shot, J.J.A is a genius
Mr. Fantastic levels of reaching
half a moon
Banned
You'll meet erigu one of these days.
I was really hoping we'd get more of the Knights of Ren in the film. Love this shot.
Then again, the film was pretty packed as it was.
Really hate Disney for the marketing they did, pumping up Kylo as the end-all badass. Then we get dunce, comic relief, screw-up Kylo in the movie.
Quite emotional? Wouldn't say that at all. Did people really care about Qui-Gon Jin? Did the movie do a good job of establishing their relationship?
That makes you more of a Damon Lindelof fanboy!
Starsailor
Banned
WadiumArcadium
Member
I was relieved Kylo wasn't Vader 2.0 to be honest. Makes him a lot more interesting. I don't agree he was comic relief either.
Lifejumper
Member
Disagree.
yeah and Carlton cuse too
Those two could probably make a great star wars film tbh.
Wow, and here I'm thanking them for not compacting the whole plot into their trailers. Guess I'm doing it wrong.
What's interesting about him? He gets beat up and runs to whine to Snoke that he can't handle it...Actually, come to think about it, he spends the whole movie getting his ass handed to him and whining about it.
Salty Catfish
Member
That was the entire point -- he is an imitation Vader and somewhere, deep down, he knows it. It's a way for him to mask his uncertainty and insecurity.
SporeCrawler
Member
Yes. Qui Gon is established as a wise Jedi Knight that has a very deep relationship with Obi wan and albeit not being accepted fully by the Jedi Council is shown as having a very deep understanding of the force. Obiwan seems to be much more "traditional" in his views, in particular at the beginning of the film, but progressively accepts and respects his master.
This baseless "OMG Prequels are the worst thing in the world and everthing in it is garbage" type of bashing has to stop.
A Serious Man
Member
Kylo was the best surprise of the movie, I can't wait to see where his character goes.
EatChildren
Currently polling second in Australia's federal election (first in the Gold Coast), this feral may one day be your Bogan King.
He's young and brash and littered with insecurities that even he's not confident on, masquerading as someone greater than himself at the cost of who he could be, which makes him an interesting character study for the dark side that we haven't seen in any of the films before. He's like a competent execution of what Lucas tried to aim for with Anakin in the prequel trilogy; temptation and the struggle in fall from grace, coupled with rude awakenings of the challenges he faces and his true weaknesses.
He's not a blank slate Vader retread, basically. And I think that goes a long way to making a driving antagonist more interesting than "here's another sith lord who kills everyone for fun".
JetBlackPanda
Member
In disagree I loved Kylo and I am so glad he isn't a traditional Star Wars villian.
BruceLeeRoy
Banned
I read posts like this and feel like subtlety is a dying art form
A villain with psychosis and doubts is very interesting. An edgy person with a broad brush, not so much.
He's interesting because he has human weakness, which is actually what makes Vader interesting too. If Vader had remained as he was introduced, a cold, angry, hateful soldier, he'd have been very flat and uninteresting. The fact that he loved his son, that he used to be a good man, and that he was still trying to save his son in a twisted way by trying to get him to join him made him more interesting than if he was STOIC ANGRY BADASS ROBOT all the time.
It's the contrast of vulnerability and strength contained within a single character that makes them interesting. Kylo Ren isn't weak. In his fight, he took more damage than I think any other sith in the franchise without falling, and displayed greater abilities than a lot of them. But that strength is contrasted with insecurity and instability. If you have more specific complaints about his depiction, that's fair, but if you're just angry he has human weaknesses, then you don't know what you're asking for.
SporeCrawler
Member
At the end Quai Gons decision was right because Darth Vader ended the reign of the Sith.
That's because everyone knows that Qui-Gon was a Sith spy.
He is actually all the more interesting for it. If he was a pure evil bad ass he would've been cool but shallow. Now he has character and better even: an arc. He is a human villain, which is much more interesting then a guy in a suit doing bad ass stuff. I know people hate on him for his whining and 'weakness', but it is his inner conflict and the choice he makes that make him a great character, with lots of potential for viii and ix too.
One can only wonder if - had we taken Anakin entirely out of the picture - everything would have happened the same, including Mace Windu besting and disarming Palpatine in the duel.
Interfectum
Member
Kylo is easily the best thing about TFA, is one of the more interesting villains in the SW universe and is perfectly setup for the next two movies.
WadiumArcadium
Member
What's interesting?
- He can use the force in completely different ways to other force sensitives - stopping blaster bolts in mid air, extracting memories and information etc
- His insistence on trying to live up to Vader
- He's tempted by the light instead of the dark side
- His conflict over killing his father
- How did Snoke seduce him with the dark side and why is he so determined to not turn good?
- His history with the Knights of Ren
Indeed -- the "Kylo is too underpowered" complaints are by far the most frustrating ones I read. Do people just want an unstoppable, all-conquering bad-ass for a villain, or do they want an actual character with motivations and flaws and room to grow?
Silliness.
FeenixRising
Banned
Stolen from Daisy Ridley's FB pages, she is a gift.
😂😂😂
People should really stop thinking Rey has had her memory wiped, imo. It's incredibly cheap writing and I hope it doesn't happen. Yeah, she sees Kylo in her vision, but she also sees Cloud city. Doesn't mean she was there! Jeez. Amnesia is the worst gimmick a protagonist can have, JJ knows better
Already Torn
Banned
I knowww. Best part of the movie. The only problem is I feel like a tool liking Kylo because of the marketing. Like I wouldn't make him my avatar people some people might think he's a Darth Maul type you know?
Don't know about "comic relief" though.
Dubbedinenglish
Banned
Has that ever been said it's the past? I think Snoke said something like like "You will lead the Knights of Ren."
FeenixRising
Banned
Had the wrong pic copied from another wrestling forum I post on, fixed it
Lifejumper
Member
Is this sarcasm i dont even know.
is this a thing? yeah that would be horrible.
Hidden One
Member
Still waiting on Jar Jar to be snoke.
WadiumArcadium
Member
It's heavily implied the flashback in the rain is when Kylo turned on Luke's academy. Plus JJ explicitly says he's a member of the Knights of Ren but didn't form them.
psychotron
Member
I cared at the time. I felt more enraged for Obi-Wan more than sad for Qui-Gon though. I wanted to kick Darth Maul's ass, lol. Really wish he wasn't pushed aside so quick in the movies.
Already Torn
Banned
Not at all!
SporeCrawler
Member
paplatine would have still had a lot of jedis he could seduce. he was able to seduce count dooku who was one of the wisest in the council. anakin was just unlucky to be the youngest and most powerful jedi at a time where the relationship between count dooku and palpatine wasnt the best (count dooku had his own apprentice and made no qualms that he wanted to overthrow his master)
in general the prequels do a great job at showing that the jedi council itself was corrupted to the core. unlike the senate it had no democratic legitimacy and simply forced their religious belifes to the intergalactic politics. none of the jedi would truly be free from greed in regard to influence. I would not be surprised if a lot of those noble jedis would have been sith, if palpatine had tried to seduce them.
It'd actually be pretty impressive if they actually did something with him. It'd be easier to just assume he died sometime, I know, but just as a matter of writing, if they managed to get the audience turned around on Jar Jar, they could basically do anything.
Came back last night from this. Hate to be so hyperbolic to say this movie felt very close to Indy 4 compared to Indy 1-3.
It has a promising and intriguing start and first act but once the movie gets going, it just falls apart. It feels too fast for its own good, compresses time too much and features a climax it just hasn't build towards enough nor has it earned the character drama of Kylo and Han.
There is so much wrong with how JJ compresses time, the complete vagueness of vast parts of the background and plot, world building logic flaws and also mistakes in character bits which you would think he could nail.
1. COMPRESSION OF TIME AND CONVENIENCE OF COINCIDENCES
After a promising start where Max Von Sydow is wasted we have Rey and Finn steal the Falcon and head out into space.
(Feels weird how the movie cycles around Jakku so much, the First Order goes down to Jakku, goes back up, then Finn goes back down, then they go back up. Then Rey wants to go back down.)
Having escaped what seemed like 5 minutes ago, suddenly everyone in the whole galaxy got a mail from the First Order to search for BB-8. Both arriving pirate parties know what is going on and we get a weird time wasting action scene with tentacle monsters in non-descript freighter corridors noone gives anything about.
(There probably was more to those Raid guys's pirate party scenes and JJ decided to cut it as the movie would have derailed even more at this point.)
Then we head to Takodana which feels like a really unmotivated stop for Han. Goggle lady Maz gives some exposition while at the same time Snoke is discussing BB-8 (!) with his underlings and how they now need to head to Takodana and kill everyone.
Would Palpatine have discussed ridiculous things like R2D2? Snoke at this point feels more like a cheap reacting Voldemort instead of a Machiavelli scheming Palpatine.
Snoke is basically
"Ok now we need to accelerate our plans and crush the Republic - fires shots at the Republic, crushes the Republic"
"Ok now we need to accelerate our plans and crush the Resistance - proceeds to fire on the Resistance base"
Holy shit has this guy a badly planned out master scheme. Why didn't he do it before? (and how bad is he at training his wannabe Vader?! Didn't he have like 10 years to train the guy?)
Anyway so after 30 minutes on Takodana we get another very small scale pewpew assault of a "division" of the First Order troops which feels more like a bunch of cosplayers with paintball guns. (who decided to paint the Stormtrooper rifles like white plastic?)
And then suddenly as if everything in the fucking galaxy is right next door even Leia and Resistance guys show up and manage to somehow force the "division" of First Order troops to retreat.
So how does this work exactly? It feels like Finn and Rey escaped the planet an hour ago, they have a quick tentacle monster encounter and head to Takodana and then suddenly the First Order and the Resistance both manage to be there super fast after spies in the Mos Eis..er pirate castle cantina inform them?
I mean Leia was there like 30 minutes later to save the day. How small is this universe?! In the OT the hyperspace travel times were kept vague at least or in the case of ANH they actually travelled a long time through the hyperspace tunnel before arriving at Alderaan.
With every scene where characters arrive from a distant corner of the galaxy 10 minutes after being called it makes the world building look so broken.
Why are there poor people on desert worlds making a living on scraps if all they would have to do is hop to the next lush green watery world full of culture and all it would take is 10 minutes of travel time on a cheap rusty freighter?
2. NOSTALGIA AWAKENS
No need to list them all here, but the unbelievable number of callbacks and references was just grating.
The Falcon run through the pipes and tunnels inside the Imperial vessel, the "Don't get cocky kid" moment of shooting down Ties in the Falcon (btw why do Finn and Poe Dameron not need TIe pilot breahting apparatus?!), the Falcon being tractor beamed into the bigger vessel, hiding underneath the Falcon floor panels, seeing the door before the "stormtroopers" break in, the hydrospanner moment, the Kesselrun quote, it was just way too much. From the moment they found the Falcon the movie was in full on self-reference mode. This was borderline Terminator Genisys territory at times.
What saved it once in a while is the witty character banter and BB-8's cuteness but the whole thing felt like kids playing with their parents old history and retreading their paths, down to the last fucking rhyming trash compactor joke to help sequel bait Phasma and that Death Star announcer voice running the remix tape on Starkiller base of "We think they have split up".
3. CHARACTER MOMENTS & CAST
The movie does have some functioning nice character bits with Finn and Rey and also Han feels like Han at times, but it also has some real head scratchers.
Finn goes from "I can't kill" to "Wohoo lemme blast my ex-comrades left and right" real fast.
He also seems like nothing could separate him from Rey until he needs to disappear for her vision, so he goes into "I need to go to the Outer Rim" mode for 5 minutes and then comes back more motivated than ever to not get seperated from her again.
Another weird one was Leia and Chewie. So Chewie's partner of 40 years JUST died, they come home. There is Han's wife, the princess and he just walks past her, without even throwing a look and ends up as a background character in a group scene.
Leia meanwhile comes up to the girl she met 5 minutes ago and gives her a deep hug. Huh? I know Leia called Chewie "a walking carpet" in ANH but quickly bonded with the fellow and now not even any type of scene after Han is dead? This felt super weak.
While the new primary cast had some really good moments, the bad guy casting seems like they didn't think ahead too much.
Everyone survived. Hux, Phasma, Kylo and Snoke and none of them even remotely feels as menacing and "real" as Tarkin, Vader or Palpatine. How they will turn this bunch of wannabes into proper EPVIII villains has to be seen.
3.A) STARKILLER BASE
Isn't a planet sized, atmosphere-possessing forested snow world as the new Death star being a bit nonsensical when it comes to travel? Does the whole planet including the trees jump into Hyperspace?! How does it get to other star systems?
This thing singlehandledly manages to make the Star Wars universe become smaller again, as it seems to be able to destroy a bunch of distant worlds in real-time with people on planets in other systems being able to watch the event.
You can feel the writers trying to be clever with this thing. "Hmm how about it literally swallows the light, sucks it up and then it turns dark?! Let's do it!" Everything surrounding that thing not only bent and fundamentally broke the laws of physics (which is totally fine if it would keep in line with the world building) but it also felt like something you would expect in a LordofTheRings movie and not in StarWars. It felt too mythical, too fantastical to make sense. And it all is commandeered by a 30something year old wannabe General trading blows with another 30something wannabe Vader. How did this thing come into existence? Where did the funding come from? When ANH gave clues that the Death Star is this bueraucratic instrument of terror, with the senate possibly giving financial support, the First Order is a cult of freaks with 15x the resources of the Empire? The movie showed the audience nothing for them to "earn" that superweapon.
3.B) MOVIEKILLER BASE
Where is it in space? You don't get a feeling for why this thing is a danger. Where is it in relation to the warmed up Yavin IV Reb..er Resistance base, where is it in relation to the unanonymous "New" Republic's core worlds? In ANH Lucas did the whole slow approach around the gas giant Yavin and the audience could see on a clean infrographic how long until the Death Star would be in a direct fire line. This builds suspense and a sense of urgency.
In TFA starkiller base is SOMEWHERE and we have to take the director's word for it being a now or never situation. And it also seemingly has some weird magic beams that can arc around stuff instead of having the need for a direct fireline (and the beam seemlingly is like 1000x times faster than the speed of light)
Then onto the battle plan: In ANH Lucas included Death Star plans as its weakness, something we normal audience can relate to. Of course! If the rebels get the blueprints, they will find a weakness to exploit.
In ROTJ we had the exposed Death Star II under construction, dependent on a shield coming from the moon below. Simple stuff that even Reagan could grasp and give the audience a plausible justification of why a bunch of rag tag rebels were capable of destroying a Death Star 2 times.
Now in TFA they have Death Star III aka Starkiller base. This thing is like 15x times bigger, has no weaknesses, nothing set up in the plot in act1 or act2 to give any indication of how to defeat it.
So we get a cookiecutter rebel pilot briefing scene around the same Yavin IV looking big battle plan room. Truelly democratic the resistance has a brainstorming meeting with everyone participating.
There is Ackbar, the weird looking other guy from ROTJ, another general, a fat pilot, Leia, Han, C3P0 and Finn enthusiastically chiming in with ideas and after some hard 2 minutes of thinking they know how to defeat it!
"Doesn't this thing have a compressor, or resistor, or shield generator or other Stark Trek techno bubble thing?!"
Sure it does! Easy we assemble 8 X-Wings and destroy the compressor, or resistor or generator or whatever it is.
So much wrong with this whole thing.
First: The First Order didn't think of ships bypassing their shield by coming out of Hyperspace directly above the planet? Super weak excuse. Coming out of hyperspace seems to be fucking common in the Star Wars universe.
Second: The Resistance has what feels like 8 X-Wings to finish off the ultimate doomsday weapon? Even the absolutely desperate rebels in ANH had more ships and knew that Y-Wings and B-Wings are used for bombing runs.
4. STAYING VAGUE
TFA gave off this feel that the writers were not knowing where this thing is headed, the Disney shareholder promises deadline loomed and they needed to come up with something that works to keep people interested in the brand for years to come.
So we get this super vague plot where the Republic is non existent, the First Order motivations stay non existent, where Rey's past feels like not even the writers know what is in store for her
(and even admitted as much in an Interview where they stated that it is now in Rian Johnson's ballpark).
This flashback feels like it was the maximum they dared in order not to write themselves into a corner. So we get a movie that guarantees people will go see the 2nd one to see how the mystery of vague stuff gets resolved and then even if EpVIII will be lackluster they will also jump into EPIX.
It feels a bit like Pirates of the Caribbean I-IV but without a coherent self contained first movie.
CONCUSION
I could continue with smaller things like the music being really weak, the Falcon bouncing like a physics defieing toy against scenery in every other scene or how the set design was just a rehash of Tatooine, Bespin walkways and Death Star corridors but this is already a wall of text. Just needed to write my thoughts down in order this movie somehow keeps up the hype and I get sucked into believing it was somehow on
par with the OT later on. It wasn't. Like at all. It had a nice primary cast, the chemistry was there, the OT banter was there, but holy shit at the gaping holes in the plot and world building, the obvious JJ disregard for basic physics and logic, the mystery box of vagueness and reference overload.
Really hope Rian Johnson can make something out of "Missing in Action" Wizard Luke and that whole "who murdered the younglings at the academy?" flashback mystery box setup.
It has a promising and intriguing start and first act but once the movie gets going, it just falls apart. It feels too fast for its own good, compresses time too much and features a climax it just hasn't build towards enough nor has it earned the character drama of Kylo and Han.
There is so much wrong with how JJ compresses time, the complete vagueness of vast parts of the background and plot, world building logic flaws and also mistakes in character bits which you would think he could nail.
1. COMPRESSION OF TIME AND CONVENIENCE OF COINCIDENCES
After a promising start where Max Von Sydow is wasted we have Rey and Finn steal the Falcon and head out into space.
(Feels weird how the movie cycles around Jakku so much, the First Order goes down to Jakku, goes back up, then Finn goes back down, then they go back up. Then Rey wants to go back down.)
Having escaped what seemed like 5 minutes ago, suddenly everyone in the whole galaxy got a mail from the First Order to search for BB-8. Both arriving pirate parties know what is going on and we get a weird time wasting action scene with tentacle monsters in non-descript freighter corridors noone gives anything about.
(There probably was more to those Raid guys's pirate party scenes and JJ decided to cut it as the movie would have derailed even more at this point.)
Then we head to Takodana which feels like a really unmotivated stop for Han. Goggle lady Maz gives some exposition while at the same time Snoke is discussing BB-8 (!) with his underlings and how they now need to head to Takodana and kill everyone.
Would Palpatine have discussed ridiculous things like R2D2? Snoke at this point feels more like a cheap reacting Voldemort instead of a Machiavelli scheming Palpatine.
Snoke is basically
"Ok now we need to accelerate our plans and crush the Republic - fires shots at the Republic, crushes the Republic"
"Ok now we need to accelerate our plans and crush the Resistance - proceeds to fire on the Resistance base"
Holy shit has this guy a badly planned out master scheme. Why didn't he do it before? (and how bad is he at training his wannabe Vader?! Didn't he have like 10 years to train the guy?)
Anyway so after 30 minutes on Takodana we get another very small scale pewpew assault of a "division" of the First Order troops which feels more like a bunch of cosplayers with paintball guns. (who decided to paint the Stormtrooper rifles like white plastic?)
And then suddenly as if everything in the fucking galaxy is right next door even Leia and Resistance guys show up and manage to somehow force the "division" of First Order troops to retreat.
So how does this work exactly? It feels like Finn and Rey escaped the planet an hour ago, they have a quick tentacle monster encounter and head to Takodana and then suddenly the First Order and the Resistance both manage to be there super fast after spies in the Mos Eis..er pirate castle cantina inform them?
I mean Leia was there like 30 minutes later to save the day. How small is this universe?! In the OT the hyperspace travel times were kept vague at least or in the case of ANH they actually travelled a long time through the hyperspace tunnel before arriving at Alderaan.
With every scene where characters arrive from a distant corner of the galaxy 10 minutes after being called it makes the world building look so broken.
Why are there poor people on desert worlds making a living on scraps if all they would have to do is hop to the next lush green watery world full of culture and all it would take is 10 minutes of travel time on a cheap rusty freighter?
2. NOSTALGIA AWAKENS
No need to list them all here, but the unbelievable number of callbacks and references was just grating.
The Falcon run through the pipes and tunnels inside the Imperial vessel, the "Don't get cocky kid" moment of shooting down Ties in the Falcon (btw why do Finn and Poe Dameron not need TIe pilot breahting apparatus?!), the Falcon being tractor beamed into the bigger vessel, hiding underneath the Falcon floor panels, seeing the door before the "stormtroopers" break in, the hydrospanner moment, the Kesselrun quote, it was just way too much. From the moment they found the Falcon the movie was in full on self-reference mode. This was borderline Terminator Genisys territory at times.
What saved it once in a while is the witty character banter and BB-8's cuteness but the whole thing felt like kids playing with their parents old history and retreading their paths, down to the last fucking rhyming trash compactor joke to help sequel bait Phasma and that Death Star announcer voice running the remix tape on Starkiller base of "We think they have split up".
3. CHARACTER MOMENTS & CAST
The movie does have some functioning nice character bits with Finn and Rey and also Han feels like Han at times, but it also has some real head scratchers.
Finn goes from "I can't kill" to "Wohoo lemme blast my ex-comrades left and right" real fast.
He also seems like nothing could separate him from Rey until he needs to disappear for her vision, so he goes into "I need to go to the Outer Rim" mode for 5 minutes and then comes back more motivated than ever to not get seperated from her again.
Another weird one was Leia and Chewie. So Chewie's partner of 40 years JUST died, they come home. There is Han's wife, the princess and he just walks past her, without even throwing a look and ends up as a background character in a group scene.
Leia meanwhile comes up to the girl she met 5 minutes ago and gives her a deep hug. Huh? I know Leia called Chewie "a walking carpet" in ANH but quickly bonded with the fellow and now not even any type of scene after Han is dead? This felt super weak.
While the new primary cast had some really good moments, the bad guy casting seems like they didn't think ahead too much.
Everyone survived. Hux, Phasma, Kylo and Snoke and none of them even remotely feels as menacing and "real" as Tarkin, Vader or Palpatine. How they will turn this bunch of wannabes into proper EPVIII villains has to be seen.
3.A) STARKILLER BASE
Isn't a planet sized, atmosphere-possessing forested snow world as the new Death star being a bit nonsensical when it comes to travel? Does the whole planet including the trees jump into Hyperspace?! How does it get to other star systems?
This thing singlehandledly manages to make the Star Wars universe become smaller again, as it seems to be able to destroy a bunch of distant worlds in real-time with people on planets in other systems being able to watch the event.
You can feel the writers trying to be clever with this thing. "Hmm how about it literally swallows the light, sucks it up and then it turns dark?! Let's do it!" Everything surrounding that thing not only bent and fundamentally broke the laws of physics (which is totally fine if it would keep in line with the world building) but it also felt like something you would expect in a LordofTheRings movie and not in StarWars. It felt too mythical, too fantastical to make sense. And it all is commandeered by a 30something year old wannabe General trading blows with another 30something wannabe Vader. How did this thing come into existence? Where did the funding come from? When ANH gave clues that the Death Star is this bueraucratic instrument of terror, with the senate possibly giving financial support, the First Order is a cult of freaks with 15x the resources of the Empire? The movie showed the audience nothing for them to "earn" that superweapon.
3.B) MOVIEKILLER BASE
Where is it in space? You don't get a feeling for why this thing is a danger. Where is it in relation to the warmed up Yavin IV Reb..er Resistance base, where is it in relation to the unanonymous "New" Republic's core worlds? In ANH Lucas did the whole slow approach around the gas giant Yavin and the audience could see on a clean infrographic how long until the Death Star would be in a direct fire line. This builds suspense and a sense of urgency.
In TFA starkiller base is SOMEWHERE and we have to take the director's word for it being a now or never situation. And it also seemingly has some weird magic beams that can arc around stuff instead of having the need for a direct fireline (and the beam seemlingly is like 1000x times faster than the speed of light)
Then onto the battle plan: In ANH Lucas included Death Star plans as its weakness, something we normal audience can relate to. Of course! If the rebels get the blueprints, they will find a weakness to exploit.
In ROTJ we had the exposed Death Star II under construction, dependent on a shield coming from the moon below. Simple stuff that even Reagan could grasp and give the audience a plausible justification of why a bunch of rag tag rebels were capable of destroying a Death Star 2 times.
Now in TFA they have Death Star III aka Starkiller base. This thing is like 15x times bigger, has no weaknesses, nothing set up in the plot in act1 or act2 to give any indication of how to defeat it.
So we get a cookiecutter rebel pilot briefing scene around the same Yavin IV looking big battle plan room. Truelly democratic the resistance has a brainstorming meeting with everyone participating.
There is Ackbar, the weird looking other guy from ROTJ, another general, a fat pilot, Leia, Han, C3P0 and Finn enthusiastically chiming in with ideas and after some hard 2 minutes of thinking they know how to defeat it!
"Doesn't this thing have a compressor, or resistor, or shield generator or other Stark Trek techno bubble thing?!"
Sure it does! Easy we assemble 8 X-Wings and destroy the compressor, or resistor or generator or whatever it is.
So much wrong with this whole thing.
First: The First Order didn't think of ships bypassing their shield by coming out of Hyperspace directly above the planet? Super weak excuse. Coming out of hyperspace seems to be fucking common in the Star Wars universe.
Second: The Resistance has what feels like 8 X-Wings to finish off the ultimate doomsday weapon? Even the absolutely desperate rebels in ANH had more ships and knew that Y-Wings and B-Wings are used for bombing runs.
4. STAYING VAGUE
TFA gave off this feel that the writers were not knowing where this thing is headed, the Disney shareholder promises deadline loomed and they needed to come up with something that works to keep people interested in the brand for years to come.
So we get this super vague plot where the Republic is non existent, the First Order motivations stay non existent, where Rey's past feels like not even the writers know what is in store for her
(and even admitted as much in an Interview where they stated that it is now in Rian Johnson's ballpark).
This flashback feels like it was the maximum they dared in order not to write themselves into a corner. So we get a movie that guarantees people will go see the 2nd one to see how the mystery of vague stuff gets resolved and then even if EpVIII will be lackluster they will also jump into EPIX.
It feels a bit like Pirates of the Caribbean I-IV but without a coherent self contained first movie.
CONCUSION
I could continue with smaller things like the music being really weak, the Falcon bouncing like a physics defieing toy against scenery in every other scene or how the set design was just a rehash of Tatooine, Bespin walkways and Death Star corridors but this is already a wall of text. Just needed to write my thoughts down in order this movie somehow keeps up the hype and I get sucked into believing it was somehow on
par with the OT later on. It wasn't. Like at all. It had a nice primary cast, the chemistry was there, the OT banter was there, but holy shit at the gaping holes in the plot and world building, the obvious JJ disregard for basic physics and logic, the mystery box of vagueness and reference overload.
Really hope Rian Johnson can make something out of "Missing in Action" Wizard Luke and that whole "who murdered the younglings at the academy?" flashback mystery box setup.
Yes, plenty of people have speculated that Luke trained her as a kid, that's why she's so good at the Force. Then her memory was wiped.
Why is he trying to live up to Vader? It's corny that he's running around trying to live up to someone he's clearly not in the same league with. Kinda pathetic, and not interesting at all.
Conflict over killing his father? It lasted all of 5 seconds and then he somehow ran a couple of miles, injured, to beat Rey/Finn to the Falcon.
History with the Knights of Ren? He's their master supposedly. I feel really bad for that crew...Blind leading the blind.
I'm all for a more layered villain that has emotions, is dynamic and such, but at no point in the movie did any of those manifest into something beyond being whiny.
WadiumArcadium
Member
Fair enough, I disagree.
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