34 thoughts on “Star Wars: The Force Awakens–Discussion with Spoilers”
I had fun, and I’m glad I went. The sentimental grab stuff–you know, seeing old faces–worked for me, and made me happy.
That said, I thought there were some storytelling problems.
My first clue that there were problems came in the inevitable and nostalgic scroll-up, where as I read it, I found myself going, “Wait, what? I don’t understand. What are the sides?” The reason for this became clear shortly after things started.
Remember in Episode 1 (yes, I remember Episode 1, however much I try to block it out) the bit about the “duly elected Queen”? They want to have their cake and it it too: all the romance associated with royalty, but no, really, it’s a democracy, honest! Irritating as that was, the set-up for The Force Awakens was worse. They want to have the “plucky band of rebels” because, you know, that’s cool. They also want a “Republic” because that has a certain halo over it, and so the bad guys have something good they’re trying to overturn. But it makes no sense for “rebels” to be rebelling against a group that is attacking an established Republic. Those aren’t rebels, that’s the Republic’s standing army. It kept bugging me the whole movie.
Also, I really liked the Ray and Finn, especially Ray. It became clear toward the end that she was our Luke Skywalker replacement. The bad part of that is, “toward the end.” If I had been pulled into her story sooner and harder–in other words, if she’d been established as the one I was to follow and root for, I’d have had less trouble settling in and watching things unfold.
More minor issues (to me) where that the Darth Vader in this one isn’t Darth Vader enough; not intimidating enough, not powerful enough, and, if he’s had all this training, why is it two untrained people are able to hold their own against him? The conclusion from this is that the amount of training you’ve had doesn’t matter, it is all about how much the Force flows through you.
Those were my main problems. I’ll repeat, I enjoyed it, and old characters (especially the Millenium Falcon) were very welcome. I thought it was an interesting decision to kill of Han before he’d resolved things with Leia, and to only bring Luke in at the very end and leave us hanging about what role he’ll have. Sad that we won’t be able to have a Luke-Han reunion, though.
Well… gotta be brutally honest here… I liked it, but it was practically a plot-for-plot copy of the original Star Wars.
The characters were different, but even there they were a cut-and-paste mismash of the old characters identities and motivations.
Let’s see what we have: Plucky teen living on a desert planet, seemingly abandoned by her parents. Check.
Droid with secret plans crash lands on the planet, and falls into the hands of a scavenger (Rey, in this case). Check.
Said teen is inexplicably a hot shot pilot, and for reasons not really adequately explained decides to go off on a rescue mission with said droid. Check.
Han Solo confronts people he owes money shortly after a bar scene with goofy aliens playing oddball instruments. Check.
Evil villain in black mask weilding a light saber related to one of the heroes, who was seduced to the dark side by the Emperor… err… Supreme Leader. Check.
Giant weapon of doom destroys inhabited planet for flimsy reasons, then threatens rebel base. Check.
Beloved major character killed by said bad guy with light saber while plucky teen watches. Check.
Ominous torture scene to try to get the secret plans out of the damsel in distress. Check.
Daring rescues and high speed chases in the Millenium Falcon. Check.
One of the heroes happens to know how to turn off the shields on the giant weapon and goes in personally to do it. Check.
Rebel base minutes from destruction when X-Wing pilots fly down a trench full of laser cannons to destroy an ~~exhaust port~~Err, oscillator to blow up the giant weapon, saving the base. Check.
Up next: Plucky teen flies off to learn the ways of the force at the hands of the last Jedi Master. Check. Foreshadowing that there’s going to be an “unexpected” “I am your father” revelation in the next movie. Check.
About the only character that wasn’t a dicing of the original Star Wars characters is Finn… I don’t recall their being someone on the side of the bad guys who can’t stand the evil and comes over to the good guys…
Good points. Yeah, I like Finn, and he was new. But I kept getting the feeling they weren’t exactly sure what to do with him.
Oh, and you left out, evil-guy has family relationship with good guys. At least they didn’t keep us in suspense about that, but when it came up, I did roll my eyes a bit.
And the awakening of RTD2 came from nowhere; there should have been a reason for it to wake up just at that moment.
Oh, I forgot to mention, I love the new droid.
Even though elements of it were good, and the production quality itself was excellent, I thoroughly hated it. Its biggest sin, in my opinion, is that it retroactively undoes all the important parts of the previous movies. The triumph of the rebels over the Empire? Darth Vader’s sacrifice? The titular Return of the Jedi? None of it matters, just so this movie can rehash elements of the original trilogy to appeal to nostalgia.
I find it bizarre that people said the prequels (which I think are underrated despite being flawed) ruined their childhoods, even though they barely affected the original trilogy at all, but this takes everything we were invested in and destroys it in order to recycle it and few seem to mind. Now, when you see the romance between Han and Leia, you get to think of how Han ultimately gets murdered by their ridiculous goth Vader fanboy kid. And before that, we’re told, he just reverted to the character he was at the beginning of A New Hope. Great.
It’s good at evoking nostalgia, and I’ll grant you that the new protagonists were fun (although partially through Whedonesque meta-humour that’s not quite fitting), but it’s as soulless a reboot-disguised-as-sequel as the Trek movies were.
No matter your opinion of the prequels, you must admit they at least attempted to show us a different era, with a different visual design, different politics, etc. And they actually contained many memorable elements that even the harshest critics generally liked, such as the lightsaber fight with Darth Maul (or just the Duel of the Fates as a piece of music). This new movie doesn’t contain anything iconic at all, not even in the music, because it only consists of rearranged bits and pieces of the previous movies.
What a missed opportunity. I would have loved to see the story of the new Republic and its struggles to restore democracy to the universe. Hell, some of the video games did a pretty good job of that! And it would make real sense from a storytelling point of view, too, to have an entity that our characters are fighting for, even if it’s mostly out of sight. It would even make sense from a (bleurgh) franchise-building point of view.
But all the movie does is press the reset button.
My assumption about “the Rebellion” is that it’s a term being used to refer to the organization that defeated the Empire, distinct from the Republic. This would imply that they may have literally reestablished the old Senate, rather than rolling in and taking power themselves. They then apparently stuck around as an organization for reasons unspecified (but probably “ideological conflict with the remaining splinters of the Empire”).
That said, I am incredibly unclear on whether the planets destroyed by the weapon were the core of the Republic (which the big Nazi speech sort of implied), or just random planets in that system (because, you know, all visible in the sky)…
I pretty much agree with all the comments above. Yes it was fun, yes it was a somewhat soulless reboot of familiar themes and characters and yet, I enjoyed it. I admit some of that was nostalgia, which I am sure the writers were cynically banking on but I also went in without a lot of emotional investment. I never was a diehard fangirl where Star Wars was concerned, the first three (or 4,5,6) were a lot of fun and entertaining and I admit I never made it through any of the prequels.
I guess if I was to nitpick I’d wish that they gave us a little bit more character development for Ren/Ben and Rei and perhaps even a little more explanation about how Finn was able to break from his training since infancy when clearly no other storm trooper could (not even Daniel Craig (that was a hoot)). The writers could have both revisited the basic plot of New Hope, introducing a more youthful set of characters for further films but also they could have out a little more heart into this and not just tugging at our oldtimeyeartstrings.
That said, it was quite a delight to see the Falcon again. Oh and the light saber? Where did it come from, is their a skeletal hand in that box? Why does Ren worship Darth if Darth died on the side of light? And Ren and the other “bad guys” know that their creepy surpreme leader isn’t really a giant right? They aren’t stupid, so why are they so impressed? If ever there was a don’t look at the man behind the curtain moment….
Fake spoiler: Jar Jar Maul…
Star Wars did something to make bad logic and bad science and even bad continuity much more acceptable than the recent Star Trek novels. That was “A Long Time Ago, in a galaxy far, far away”. OK, it’s nostalgic fantasy. That doesn’t mean I don’t get irritated every time characters pause in tight action to look at each other. But it allows me to enjoy the movie. The aged space ships assist them (but why is everybody so poor with abandoned working space ships in moth balls?)
Instead of discussing plot issues (I agree with posts above), I will talk about the basic mythos. (Lucas used to understand Myth creation but forgot)
It does mean that the bad guys are Nazis, who haven’t discovered the power of Big Brother (or even more scary China’s Sesame Credit system). But the offer of stability is an offer that allows people to give into despots. I like the bad guys to offer something attractive to their followers – even as I watch world politics of today.
I also dislike the concept of genetic superiority, giving a select few power – even if the Little Lost Prince has more power than the Evil Usurper.
Amysue asks why the bad guys are so stupid to follow the good guys? There are lots of smart people following political platforms here on Earth that hurt them. Why? I guess human nature isn’t rational. We can be fooled easily into being directed to blame whomever the powers point to.
There is some hope in the saga. People can break conditioning. There is supposed to be a way to balance good and evil. (I hate “good vs evil”, as it ends up with True Believers being willing to commit all sorts of harm Knowing that their cause is Right).
Howard B:
>There are lots of smart people following political platforms here on Earth that hurt them. Why?
I don’t think it is just “irrationality”. A lot of political decisions are made on principal, sometimes right sometime wrong in opposition to individual self-interest (narrowly defined). Engels was a capitalist who was a supporter, sometime co-author of Marx? Was he being self-interested? No, he thought that a classless society was worth fighting for and that supporting the working class was a way to achieve that, and if achieving it meant his money would get taken along with all the other capitalists he was fine with that. (And he supported an income tax in the meantime.) It happens on the right too. Yeah a lot of it is hate. But it is also true that sometimes workers support reactionary candidates who will screw them because they believe those policies are best for the country and they are willing to take a hit for it. The assumption that rationality equals selfishness ignores that people can rationally seek what is best overall in opposition to their individual self-interest. And of course those decisions can be made wrongly and as irrationally as selfish ones. But starting with the assumption that rational decisionmaking equals selfish decision making will miss a lot of what is going on. Of course there something to be said about raitionalism and as well, and how it differs from being rational but that is another rant.OK back to Star Wars.
David said: “That said, I am incredibly unclear on whether the planets destroyed by the weapon were the core of the Republic (which the big Nazi speech sort of implied), or just random planets in that system (because, you know, all visible in the sky)”
It was strongly implied by the montage (though not actually said) that it was Coruscant, the capital city/planet of the republic/empire. My assumption based on their being four separate streams/beams/whatever that a few other nearby planets were destroyed as well.
Aesthetically it hit all the right notes. On that point it felt warm, fuzzy, comfortable.
Character wise – I liked the new ones. Han Solo felt like a greatest hits album. Leia felt like the album an artist does after rehab. Chewie and C-3P0 felt like an AC/DC album and a Motorhead album, respectively. That’s not a bad thing.
But somewhere at the halfway point it just started to feel like they were checking boxes to be clever to the fan boys…oh look! Han (the father) is going to confront Kylo (the son) on a catwalk over a large gaping space. Oh my. What could possibly happen. etc. *groans
I mean, I don’t want to point to too many plot holes – it is a Star Wars movie, and the plot holes are kinda part of the fun..but it just started to feel like McGuffins all the way down at a certain point.
Still it ‘felt’ like a Star Wars movie in a way the prequels didn’t..and on aesthetics and trueness to form it’s probably better than RotJ. It still gives the sense that the movie is a giant metaphor for something deeper, when in actual fact it’s all a muddled jumble of something utterly generic when you actually start to examine it – which is pretty much what the whole thing was always about anyway….
I mean – you take a frustrated director who can’t get an anti-Vietnam movie made in 1974, add in Flash Gordon, Joseph Campbell sloppy academic generalizations, Samurai philosophy aesthetics, hot rod culture and bad Nixonian era politics..well..there you go. It’s still true to that in this one.
I enjoyed the film thoroughly. I try not to overthink the galactic politics. Even a cursory analysis leads to the same conclusion skzb reached-as presented in VII they made precisely zero sense. That villain was very villainous, but I was tripped up by his name. Darth Vader–that’s a bad guy name. Sethra Lavode–super sinister and mysterious. Count Rugen–treacherous and black-hearted. Kenly Ren? Kenly sounds like a tween-age girl. And Ren is literally a ridiculous cartoon chihaua.
“Still it ‘felt’ like a Star Wars movie in a way the prequels didn’t..and on aesthetics and trueness to form it’s probably better than RotJ.”
I think you’re exactly right, and that’s why people love it so much. Which is legit.
I liked it, and had three big takeways.
1)- I like Rey. There is one shot of her running, through the forest, and her traps are popping and her arms are pumping and she looks like an action hero trying to get away. If these are our post buffy, post hunger games, young female roles, then good.
2) I love Han. Abrams made a lot of references to what my daughter calls the ‘orig trig’, at times it was a remake as much as a sequel, and that was fun and nostalgic, but seriously, it didn’t need it. Harrison Ford came in, stepped into his old boots, and immediately anchored the entire story. More than that he gave the newer characters a centre of gravity around which to orbit. This was his movie. (on a side note, when did Carrie Fisher decide that she didn’t have to move her lips anymore)
3) Controversially, I like Kylo Ren. I like his self doubt, I like (what I assume) is his having been driven to the dark side by his frustration in harnessing the good side of the force and his insgnificance beside the power of his unlce, only to find that despite his worship he is only a mere shadow of his grandfather. I like his rage, becasue as a spoiled child he has no other way to express himself. I think he will be a better character (perhaps not a better villain, but a better character) than Vader.
Enjoyed it, much more than I expected to. Yes, some of what has been said above irks me as well, but, that being said, I think this gives us a great setup for what is to come. Hypothesis; Rey will have the chance to redeem Ben/Kylo, but will fail until Luke takes on Snoke and dies and becomes a martyr and then Ben/Kylo realizes that Snoke is the bad guy and is redeemed and kills him possibly with Rey’s help. Really looking forward to Snoke’s backstory and who is Rey’s mother since it is now fairly obvious that she is Luke’s daughter. Well done, even with some minor disappointments.
What I hated most about the prequels: lack of humor. Star Wars the original trilogy was a coming of age story with buddy elements and lots of fun quips going back and forth (“in that?”).
I like the new story. I don’t care about the plot holes.
As far as Ren not being a bad ass? He’s young, not yet a Sith Lord, not at the same level as Darth Vader was when we saw him in New Hope. They allude to the fact that Luke was training him and then realized that he should stop. Sith Lords aren’t known for imparting everything to their apprentices right off the bat, so I figure that what we have is a Sith apprentice that is not yet anywhere close to being a total bad ass.
I don’t know if anyone else caught it, but ESPN did a half hour segment on Lightsaber battles and it’s relationship to Ken-do. Very fun to watch. One of the most interesting parts was when various directors discussed how basic Luke’s dueling ability was basic, then in the prequels they had the Jedi masters much more proficient and now that everyone is dead, the people fighting with lightsabers aren’t as good. Lack of masters to pass on the skills from previous generations.
I look forward to the next installment with glee! (though I am hoping that Luke has gotten over his youthful penchant for whining – that seems to be covered by his replacement… ;) )
Matt: “(on a side note, when did Carrie Fisher decide that she didn’t have to move her lips anymore)”
So funny! My wife was commenting on that in every scene Carrie was in!
Yes, I agree with you – Ford anchored the movie. They did telegraph his death (every element from New Hope was present I think), but he sold the scene very well. Parent child relationships are hard – he did give everything to try and save his son and I suspect that in the end, it’s going to be his death that “saves” Ren in the end.
So when is the next Vlad novel coming out? It would make my year complete to have a new Vlad novel and a new Star Wars!
Random thought: The Star Wars universe is a *rough* place to live. Obi-wan is all of 57 in Episode VI, and he looks much older. Same with Luke and Leia, who are only 53 in tFA, and even Han is only about 60, and still looks older.
As for the movie itself, I liked it, but didn’t love it. Part of the problem, I think is that I’m so in love with the trappings of Star Wars–the opening crawl, John Williams’ score, lightsaber duels, battles–that I don’t actually care about the movies as movies any more. Just start it with the crawl, have the battles and space stuff, and then play the end titles over the credits and I’m there.
A more realistic criticism is that while we learned Kylo Ren’s name in the first few minutes, it was 15 minutes before we learned a second name (Po’s; and then he christens Finn). We never actually find out who Max von Sydow’s character is or why he knew “Princess” Leia. Makes it really hard to get pulled into the story.
Personally I didn’t like the cliffhanger ending. With all of the previous movies we always knew there would be more, but it still felt like the story being told at that moment had concluded.
This time the build up was to finding Luke. That made the Han Solo death scene and even the planet exploding into a star seem pre-climactic. Then the actual climax is climbing a mountain after which… nothing happens.
Yeah, that hit me too.
I liked it quite a lot. As others have said, it felt like a Star Wars movie. I cared about all of the characters.
I really liked the ending. It seemed like a beautiful moment captured at exactly the right time. Dialogue at that point seemed like it would have been extraneous.
It will be interesting if the next one picks up right there or some time later.
My take on some questions about the Resistance (assumptions are all mine after watching the movie):
Politically: the First Order, successors to the fragmented Empire, control a large and threatening portion of space. They have a big military. The Republic, restored by the Rebellion, also controls a lot of space and has a big fleet. They are ostensibly in a state of peace or cease-fire.
However, the Resistance, made up of Rebellion die-hards, is an insurgency movement within First Order controlled space, intent on bringing down any remaining fragment of the Empire (not without cause). While they’re disavowed by the Republic, they’re still fed money and weaponry by it (this claim is made onscreen). Hence why the First Order attacks the Republic in order to cripple the Resistance.
The First Order is (oversimplifying incredibly) Assad’s Syria; the Resistance are Syrian rebels; the Republic is the US, and the conflict is a classic proxy war.
Or anyway, that was my impression, and it seemed to hold together pretty well.
The whole movie felt like preamble to me. I won’t be able to properly assess how much I liked this movie until I see the next one, but I’m hopeful.
That said, I would include it in a Star Wars marathon. I wouldn’t include the prequel trilogy except as part of a ceremonial burning at the beginning.
Here’s something I noticed: everyone in the movie is a person. This isn’t terribly clear in the original trilogy. The background pilots all feel like cardboard cutouts; there’s no sense of fear or sadness when a compatriot dies.
Stormtrooper armour once again shows itself to be utterly, utterly useless. Literally exactly as good as having no armour at all. Nobody survives the first shot. And on that note, Ren is a pretty lacklustre Jedi. He gets hit by blaster fire. Weak.
On the flip side, Rey is the Jedi I hoped we’d see Yoda to be in the prequels. The way she stops and calms herself is exactly the sort of thing I’d expect from a light-side force user. I found her character to be entirely delightful. I know a lot of online troglodytes are crying Mary-Sue over her, but I don’t think she’s any more remarkable than Anakin is at the end of Ep1. It’s clear that she’s heard all the stories about Solo and Luke and the whole war, and she draws on that lore to guide her while she’s learning to use her power.
I saw a great description of this movie yesterday: it’s an alternate universe version of “A New Hope”, set in the same universe.
I thought this movie was a thousand times better than the previous trilogy, which I abominated. But I really hate callow juvenile villains. I just don’t think they work. Still, it was fine so long as Solo jr. was offscreen, or at least not talking. I also liked the Doc Smith Sunbeam weapon which they probably would have had to pay him for if he was still alive :)
Fun movie and definitely felt more like “Star Wars” than the prequels. That said, it had some problems.
Disliked the take-for-take rehash of the first movie. The physics of the planetary weapon (draining a star, really?) were ridiculous enough to interrupt my suspension of disbelief. I like the idea of a conflicted villain, but Ren was a little too whiny in my opinion. Biggest for me was the character of Poe. I liked the actor, but couldn’t get into the character. I wasn’t shown why to like him, I was just told to because he “was the best pilot int he rebellion” ad infinitum. His buddy cop scenes with Finn seemed very forced. Would have preferred his death was permanent, but that would have just served to lampshade that his only real purpose was helping Finn get off the base. The whole concept of R2’s awakening and his map component were unnecessary and forced.
Finn and Rey were very likable and I’m looking forward to their development.
@Ian Really? It was the draining the sun thing that ruined your suspension of disbelief? Not the telekinesis or mind control, or the faster-than-light projectiles coming from the planet-weapon? Man, one of the great things about Star Wars is that it’s all so hopelessly wrong, once you give up on one thing you may as well give up on all of it. :)
Yes, Ian, I must say that Star Wars has never made the slightest effort at portraying hard SF. Not even a veneer of it, really. Despite my love for logic and consistency in SF plots, I went into the movie knowing the science would make no sense (nor would the politics or government or military). It’s all just superficial genre trappings for a pulp romance, so you really have to start with wanting to see a pulp romance. That being said I would like the series better if it made more sense.
I do think Poe was the weakest major character in the movie apart from Kylo Ren, who just annoyed me. Even a minor character like Maz Kanata had more zip to her than Poe did. In a way Poe seemed to me like a token young white male, and I could have done without him completely. But he wasn’t objectionable, anyway; I just didn’t much care about him.
I agree that Poe doesn’t make sense as a main character. He was useful to get Fin free. Then after a lot of character development on Fin, he is the one who dies, leaving us wondering who this Poe guy is who got resurrected.
I hope they find a way to explain this in the next film(s).
I really enjoyed this one.
There were two things that really bothered me. The first one you pointed it, I agree with the forced plucky band of rebels being both confusing and unnecessary. Just a little bit more info on how the Resistance became the Resistance and what they were resisting would have been nice. And maybe mention something about the how the First Order managed to have such a large standing army and the resources to turn a planet it into the weapon.
The second thing that bugged me was the back story they gave Luke. I was really young when I saw the originals, but my mind isn’t letting me just accept that Luke turned into someone who would just give up and run away from his problems.
I also agree that Poe was a weak main character. It felt like they wanted to answer the question, “what would happen if Wedge was cool and we followed him instead of Luke?” Well that would happen. It wasn’t good.
I believe Kylo Ren can be a really good antagonist moving forward. As long as we get to see him grow into someone more calm, collective, and powerful at the same time we see Rey grow into her powers. Not only did he throw a tantrum every time he failed, General Hux came off as the more competent leader each time they were reporting to Snoke. It also doesn’t work if he was as already as powerful as Vader by this point in the story. There is no way Rey and Finn would have been able to survive an encounter with someone as strong as Vader.
One of my favorite things was the way light saber battles reverted back to the more realistic sword fights of the original instead of elaborate dances of the prequels.
Rey and Finn were both great. I hope they expand more on Finn in the next few movies. I’m not convinced he isn’t a force user as well. But if not, and they turn Finn into more of the side kick Hon Solo role, Rey makes a great Luke Skywalker character and can hold the movies on her own.
Well, Snoke wasn’t Jar Jar bad, so I guess I won’t be needing my “No Snoking within 9 Parsecs of this Sequel” signs.
I wonder if the new droid has a brother whose main body splits open for cooking – BB-Q? Others might be BB-C, BB-King and BB-GUN?
My other thought was “The Whine is strong in my family. My father had it. I had it. My nephew has it.”
Yeah, I wonder why Snoke tolerates the Whiner at all. For the force? Didn’t help him much this movie, anyway. Why put him in charge of anything when he’s patently unsuited to command even a single squad of storm troopers.
I had mixed feelings about the movie. JJ Abrams seems to like making re-makes, using the same storyline with enough changes to call his own. The movie just seemed to be a remake of episode IV, with a spattering of V and VI thrown in. While I enjoyed seeing the old characters return to transition, Hans role seemed more of an incompetent oaf than the wise-cracking rogue of the original series. Leia’s role, in contrast, was perfectly believable as someone whose family has completely fallen apart. Chewbacca….seriously, how old is he? 100 by now (since he was in episode II) and without a gray hair? How long do Wookies live?
I liked the new characters Rey and Finn. They seem to work well. The pilot (who is so unremarkable I don’t recall his name) is a Han Solo wannabe that didn’t really work for me. I did like the bartender. She was fun. Ren? Vader was a paranoid schizophrenic and I guess that was passed on to his grandson as Ren is just bat-shit crazy. And a spoiled rotten brat… Its hard to feel anything for him except contempt.
Did I hear the difference of the force explained right? The “Light” side is able to manipulate the forces outside of their body, while the “Dark” side is able to use what is inside of them? That would make sense if they were trying to complete the prophecy from Episode I and bring “balance to the force”, further explaining why Luke went in search of the ancient Jedi temple. When Rey is able to use both sides of the force, can you say “Terry Goodkind”?
The biggest problem I had with the movie is Rey being able to mind-control a guard, and levitate a light-saber without even the rudimentary training that Luke had had from Obi-wan. At least he had spoken to a Jedi before he could call a light-saber to his hand from 20 feet away. And mind control? He had to run through a jungle with Yoda on his shoulder for a week before he was even allowed to attempt mind-control!
The movie had plenty of action, and great fight scenes, just like a Star Wars should. It was fun, just like Star Wars should be. The plot holes didn’t matter, because it was Star Wars and it should have plot holes.
I think if they had better writers they could have done more with the cooking scene.
“And mind control? He had to run through a jungle with Yoda on his shoulder for a week before he was even allowed to attempt mind-control!”
Maybe Yoda enjoyed having somebody run through the jungle carrying him.
I liked the movie, it was more or less the same as all the other Star Wars movies, but hey history repeats itself and when did Hollywood ever try to make something new as long as the old stories still work.
I’m very curious about how the story is going to develop.
After looking into my crystal ball I saw a glimpse of the next episodes: as it turns out, Professor Snake – I mean supreme leader Snoke is only 3 foot tall – he tries to hide that by using a huge hologram when talking to other people. Had he listened to the force, he would have discovered that size doesn’t matter (see Yoda). Unfortunately the rare mineral that can be used to fuel the hologram machine was only ever found on one of the republic planets which were destroyed by the death star ehm star killer. Thus Sna^Boke retreats into exile and the First Order becomes the leaderless First Unorder until finally Luke finds Snoke and shows him with the good of the force that he doesn’t have to be ashamed of his little size. Thus everybody is happy. The armies are no longer needed and the stormtroopers are retrained to teachers, gardeners and clowns. The film has seven ending stories: a double marriage of Rey + BB-8 and Ren + Snoke, Luke and Leia retire on Tatooine together with C-3PO and R2-D2 watching podraces, … the crystal ball was a bit misty about all those endings (or I was a bit lazy inventing them), but the crystal ball was pretty sure that J.J. wanted to top Peter Jackson’s Return of the King.
I had fun, and I’m glad I went. The sentimental grab stuff–you know, seeing old faces–worked for me, and made me happy.
That said, I thought there were some storytelling problems.
My first clue that there were problems came in the inevitable and nostalgic scroll-up, where as I read it, I found myself going, “Wait, what? I don’t understand. What are the sides?” The reason for this became clear shortly after things started.
Remember in Episode 1 (yes, I remember Episode 1, however much I try to block it out) the bit about the “duly elected Queen”? They want to have their cake and it it too: all the romance associated with royalty, but no, really, it’s a democracy, honest! Irritating as that was, the set-up for The Force Awakens was worse. They want to have the “plucky band of rebels” because, you know, that’s cool. They also want a “Republic” because that has a certain halo over it, and so the bad guys have something good they’re trying to overturn. But it makes no sense for “rebels” to be rebelling against a group that is attacking an established Republic. Those aren’t rebels, that’s the Republic’s standing army. It kept bugging me the whole movie.
Also, I really liked the Ray and Finn, especially Ray. It became clear toward the end that she was our Luke Skywalker replacement. The bad part of that is, “toward the end.” If I had been pulled into her story sooner and harder–in other words, if she’d been established as the one I was to follow and root for, I’d have had less trouble settling in and watching things unfold.
More minor issues (to me) where that the Darth Vader in this one isn’t Darth Vader enough; not intimidating enough, not powerful enough, and, if he’s had all this training, why is it two untrained people are able to hold their own against him? The conclusion from this is that the amount of training you’ve had doesn’t matter, it is all about how much the Force flows through you.
Those were my main problems. I’ll repeat, I enjoyed it, and old characters (especially the Millenium Falcon) were very welcome. I thought it was an interesting decision to kill of Han before he’d resolved things with Leia, and to only bring Luke in at the very end and leave us hanging about what role he’ll have. Sad that we won’t be able to have a Luke-Han reunion, though.
Well… gotta be brutally honest here… I liked it, but it was practically a plot-for-plot copy of the original Star Wars.
The characters were different, but even there they were a cut-and-paste mismash of the old characters identities and motivations.
Let’s see what we have: Plucky teen living on a desert planet, seemingly abandoned by her parents. Check.
Droid with secret plans crash lands on the planet, and falls into the hands of a scavenger (Rey, in this case). Check.
Said teen is inexplicably a hot shot pilot, and for reasons not really adequately explained decides to go off on a rescue mission with said droid. Check.
Han Solo confronts people he owes money shortly after a bar scene with goofy aliens playing oddball instruments. Check.
Evil villain in black mask weilding a light saber related to one of the heroes, who was seduced to the dark side by the Emperor… err… Supreme Leader. Check.
Giant weapon of doom destroys inhabited planet for flimsy reasons, then threatens rebel base. Check.
Beloved major character killed by said bad guy with light saber while plucky teen watches. Check.
Ominous torture scene to try to get the secret plans out of the damsel in distress. Check.
Daring rescues and high speed chases in the Millenium Falcon. Check.
One of the heroes happens to know how to turn off the shields on the giant weapon and goes in personally to do it. Check.
Rebel base minutes from destruction when X-Wing pilots fly down a trench full of laser cannons to destroy an ~~exhaust port~~Err, oscillator to blow up the giant weapon, saving the base. Check.
Up next: Plucky teen flies off to learn the ways of the force at the hands of the last Jedi Master. Check. Foreshadowing that there’s going to be an “unexpected” “I am your father” revelation in the next movie. Check.
About the only character that wasn’t a dicing of the original Star Wars characters is Finn… I don’t recall their being someone on the side of the bad guys who can’t stand the evil and comes over to the good guys…
Good points. Yeah, I like Finn, and he was new. But I kept getting the feeling they weren’t exactly sure what to do with him.
Oh, and you left out, evil-guy has family relationship with good guys. At least they didn’t keep us in suspense about that, but when it came up, I did roll my eyes a bit.
And the awakening of RTD2 came from nowhere; there should have been a reason for it to wake up just at that moment.
Oh, I forgot to mention, I love the new droid.
Even though elements of it were good, and the production quality itself was excellent, I thoroughly hated it. Its biggest sin, in my opinion, is that it retroactively undoes all the important parts of the previous movies. The triumph of the rebels over the Empire? Darth Vader’s sacrifice? The titular Return of the Jedi? None of it matters, just so this movie can rehash elements of the original trilogy to appeal to nostalgia.
I find it bizarre that people said the prequels (which I think are underrated despite being flawed) ruined their childhoods, even though they barely affected the original trilogy at all, but this takes everything we were invested in and destroys it in order to recycle it and few seem to mind. Now, when you see the romance between Han and Leia, you get to think of how Han ultimately gets murdered by their ridiculous goth Vader fanboy kid. And before that, we’re told, he just reverted to the character he was at the beginning of A New Hope. Great.
It’s good at evoking nostalgia, and I’ll grant you that the new protagonists were fun (although partially through Whedonesque meta-humour that’s not quite fitting), but it’s as soulless a reboot-disguised-as-sequel as the Trek movies were.
No matter your opinion of the prequels, you must admit they at least attempted to show us a different era, with a different visual design, different politics, etc. And they actually contained many memorable elements that even the harshest critics generally liked, such as the lightsaber fight with Darth Maul (or just the Duel of the Fates as a piece of music). This new movie doesn’t contain anything iconic at all, not even in the music, because it only consists of rearranged bits and pieces of the previous movies.
What a missed opportunity. I would have loved to see the story of the new Republic and its struggles to restore democracy to the universe. Hell, some of the video games did a pretty good job of that! And it would make real sense from a storytelling point of view, too, to have an entity that our characters are fighting for, even if it’s mostly out of sight. It would even make sense from a (bleurgh) franchise-building point of view.
But all the movie does is press the reset button.
My assumption about “the Rebellion” is that it’s a term being used to refer to the organization that defeated the Empire, distinct from the Republic. This would imply that they may have literally reestablished the old Senate, rather than rolling in and taking power themselves. They then apparently stuck around as an organization for reasons unspecified (but probably “ideological conflict with the remaining splinters of the Empire”).
That said, I am incredibly unclear on whether the planets destroyed by the weapon were the core of the Republic (which the big Nazi speech sort of implied), or just random planets in that system (because, you know, all visible in the sky)…
I pretty much agree with all the comments above. Yes it was fun, yes it was a somewhat soulless reboot of familiar themes and characters and yet, I enjoyed it. I admit some of that was nostalgia, which I am sure the writers were cynically banking on but I also went in without a lot of emotional investment. I never was a diehard fangirl where Star Wars was concerned, the first three (or 4,5,6) were a lot of fun and entertaining and I admit I never made it through any of the prequels.
I guess if I was to nitpick I’d wish that they gave us a little bit more character development for Ren/Ben and Rei and perhaps even a little more explanation about how Finn was able to break from his training since infancy when clearly no other storm trooper could (not even Daniel Craig (that was a hoot)). The writers could have both revisited the basic plot of New Hope, introducing a more youthful set of characters for further films but also they could have out a little more heart into this and not just tugging at our oldtimeyeartstrings.
That said, it was quite a delight to see the Falcon again. Oh and the light saber? Where did it come from, is their a skeletal hand in that box? Why does Ren worship Darth if Darth died on the side of light? And Ren and the other “bad guys” know that their creepy surpreme leader isn’t really a giant right? They aren’t stupid, so why are they so impressed? If ever there was a don’t look at the man behind the curtain moment….
Fake spoiler: Jar Jar Maul…
Star Wars did something to make bad logic and bad science and even bad continuity much more acceptable than the recent Star Trek novels. That was “A Long Time Ago, in a galaxy far, far away”. OK, it’s nostalgic fantasy. That doesn’t mean I don’t get irritated every time characters pause in tight action to look at each other. But it allows me to enjoy the movie. The aged space ships assist them (but why is everybody so poor with abandoned working space ships in moth balls?)
Instead of discussing plot issues (I agree with posts above), I will talk about the basic mythos. (Lucas used to understand Myth creation but forgot)
It does mean that the bad guys are Nazis, who haven’t discovered the power of Big Brother (or even more scary China’s Sesame Credit system). But the offer of stability is an offer that allows people to give into despots. I like the bad guys to offer something attractive to their followers – even as I watch world politics of today.
I also dislike the concept of genetic superiority, giving a select few power – even if the Little Lost Prince has more power than the Evil Usurper.
Amysue asks why the bad guys are so stupid to follow the good guys? There are lots of smart people following political platforms here on Earth that hurt them. Why? I guess human nature isn’t rational. We can be fooled easily into being directed to blame whomever the powers point to.
There is some hope in the saga. People can break conditioning. There is supposed to be a way to balance good and evil. (I hate “good vs evil”, as it ends up with True Believers being willing to commit all sorts of harm Knowing that their cause is Right).
Howard B:
>There are lots of smart people following political platforms here on Earth that hurt them. Why?
I don’t think it is just “irrationality”. A lot of political decisions are made on principal, sometimes right sometime wrong in opposition to individual self-interest (narrowly defined). Engels was a capitalist who was a supporter, sometime co-author of Marx? Was he being self-interested? No, he thought that a classless society was worth fighting for and that supporting the working class was a way to achieve that, and if achieving it meant his money would get taken along with all the other capitalists he was fine with that. (And he supported an income tax in the meantime.) It happens on the right too. Yeah a lot of it is hate. But it is also true that sometimes workers support reactionary candidates who will screw them because they believe those policies are best for the country and they are willing to take a hit for it. The assumption that rationality equals selfishness ignores that people can rationally seek what is best overall in opposition to their individual self-interest. And of course those decisions can be made wrongly and as irrationally as selfish ones. But starting with the assumption that rational decisionmaking equals selfish decision making will miss a lot of what is going on. Of course there something to be said about raitionalism and as well, and how it differs from being rational but that is another rant.OK back to Star Wars.
David said: “That said, I am incredibly unclear on whether the planets destroyed by the weapon were the core of the Republic (which the big Nazi speech sort of implied), or just random planets in that system (because, you know, all visible in the sky)”
It was strongly implied by the montage (though not actually said) that it was Coruscant, the capital city/planet of the republic/empire. My assumption based on their being four separate streams/beams/whatever that a few other nearby planets were destroyed as well.
Aesthetically it hit all the right notes. On that point it felt warm, fuzzy, comfortable.
Character wise – I liked the new ones. Han Solo felt like a greatest hits album. Leia felt like the album an artist does after rehab. Chewie and C-3P0 felt like an AC/DC album and a Motorhead album, respectively. That’s not a bad thing.
But somewhere at the halfway point it just started to feel like they were checking boxes to be clever to the fan boys…oh look! Han (the father) is going to confront Kylo (the son) on a catwalk over a large gaping space. Oh my. What could possibly happen. etc. *groans
I mean, I don’t want to point to too many plot holes – it is a Star Wars movie, and the plot holes are kinda part of the fun..but it just started to feel like McGuffins all the way down at a certain point.
Still it ‘felt’ like a Star Wars movie in a way the prequels didn’t..and on aesthetics and trueness to form it’s probably better than RotJ. It still gives the sense that the movie is a giant metaphor for something deeper, when in actual fact it’s all a muddled jumble of something utterly generic when you actually start to examine it – which is pretty much what the whole thing was always about anyway….
I mean – you take a frustrated director who can’t get an anti-Vietnam movie made in 1974, add in Flash Gordon, Joseph Campbell sloppy academic generalizations, Samurai philosophy aesthetics, hot rod culture and bad Nixonian era politics..well..there you go. It’s still true to that in this one.
I enjoyed the film thoroughly. I try not to overthink the galactic politics. Even a cursory analysis leads to the same conclusion skzb reached-as presented in VII they made precisely zero sense. That villain was very villainous, but I was tripped up by his name. Darth Vader–that’s a bad guy name. Sethra Lavode–super sinister and mysterious. Count Rugen–treacherous and black-hearted. Kenly Ren? Kenly sounds like a tween-age girl. And Ren is literally a ridiculous cartoon chihaua.
“Still it ‘felt’ like a Star Wars movie in a way the prequels didn’t..and on aesthetics and trueness to form it’s probably better than RotJ.”
I think you’re exactly right, and that’s why people love it so much. Which is legit.
I liked it, and had three big takeways.
1)- I like Rey. There is one shot of her running, through the forest, and her traps are popping and her arms are pumping and she looks like an action hero trying to get away. If these are our post buffy, post hunger games, young female roles, then good.
2) I love Han. Abrams made a lot of references to what my daughter calls the ‘orig trig’, at times it was a remake as much as a sequel, and that was fun and nostalgic, but seriously, it didn’t need it. Harrison Ford came in, stepped into his old boots, and immediately anchored the entire story. More than that he gave the newer characters a centre of gravity around which to orbit. This was his movie. (on a side note, when did Carrie Fisher decide that she didn’t have to move her lips anymore)
3) Controversially, I like Kylo Ren. I like his self doubt, I like (what I assume) is his having been driven to the dark side by his frustration in harnessing the good side of the force and his insgnificance beside the power of his unlce, only to find that despite his worship he is only a mere shadow of his grandfather. I like his rage, becasue as a spoiled child he has no other way to express himself. I think he will be a better character (perhaps not a better villain, but a better character) than Vader.
Enjoyed it, much more than I expected to. Yes, some of what has been said above irks me as well, but, that being said, I think this gives us a great setup for what is to come. Hypothesis; Rey will have the chance to redeem Ben/Kylo, but will fail until Luke takes on Snoke and dies and becomes a martyr and then Ben/Kylo realizes that Snoke is the bad guy and is redeemed and kills him possibly with Rey’s help. Really looking forward to Snoke’s backstory and who is Rey’s mother since it is now fairly obvious that she is Luke’s daughter. Well done, even with some minor disappointments.
What I hated most about the prequels: lack of humor. Star Wars the original trilogy was a coming of age story with buddy elements and lots of fun quips going back and forth (“in that?”).
I like the new story. I don’t care about the plot holes.
As far as Ren not being a bad ass? He’s young, not yet a Sith Lord, not at the same level as Darth Vader was when we saw him in New Hope. They allude to the fact that Luke was training him and then realized that he should stop. Sith Lords aren’t known for imparting everything to their apprentices right off the bat, so I figure that what we have is a Sith apprentice that is not yet anywhere close to being a total bad ass.
I don’t know if anyone else caught it, but ESPN did a half hour segment on Lightsaber battles and it’s relationship to Ken-do. Very fun to watch. One of the most interesting parts was when various directors discussed how basic Luke’s dueling ability was basic, then in the prequels they had the Jedi masters much more proficient and now that everyone is dead, the people fighting with lightsabers aren’t as good. Lack of masters to pass on the skills from previous generations.
I look forward to the next installment with glee! (though I am hoping that Luke has gotten over his youthful penchant for whining – that seems to be covered by his replacement… ;) )
Matt: “(on a side note, when did Carrie Fisher decide that she didn’t have to move her lips anymore)”
So funny! My wife was commenting on that in every scene Carrie was in!
Yes, I agree with you – Ford anchored the movie. They did telegraph his death (every element from New Hope was present I think), but he sold the scene very well. Parent child relationships are hard – he did give everything to try and save his son and I suspect that in the end, it’s going to be his death that “saves” Ren in the end.
So when is the next Vlad novel coming out? It would make my year complete to have a new Vlad novel and a new Star Wars!
Random thought: The Star Wars universe is a *rough* place to live. Obi-wan is all of 57 in Episode VI, and he looks much older. Same with Luke and Leia, who are only 53 in tFA, and even Han is only about 60, and still looks older.
As for the movie itself, I liked it, but didn’t love it. Part of the problem, I think is that I’m so in love with the trappings of Star Wars–the opening crawl, John Williams’ score, lightsaber duels, battles–that I don’t actually care about the movies as movies any more. Just start it with the crawl, have the battles and space stuff, and then play the end titles over the credits and I’m there.
A more realistic criticism is that while we learned Kylo Ren’s name in the first few minutes, it was 15 minutes before we learned a second name (Po’s; and then he christens Finn). We never actually find out who Max von Sydow’s character is or why he knew “Princess” Leia. Makes it really hard to get pulled into the story.
Personally I didn’t like the cliffhanger ending. With all of the previous movies we always knew there would be more, but it still felt like the story being told at that moment had concluded.
This time the build up was to finding Luke. That made the Han Solo death scene and even the planet exploding into a star seem pre-climactic. Then the actual climax is climbing a mountain after which… nothing happens.
Yeah, that hit me too.
I liked it quite a lot. As others have said, it felt like a Star Wars movie. I cared about all of the characters.
I really liked the ending. It seemed like a beautiful moment captured at exactly the right time. Dialogue at that point seemed like it would have been extraneous.
It will be interesting if the next one picks up right there or some time later.
My take on some questions about the Resistance (assumptions are all mine after watching the movie):
Politically: the First Order, successors to the fragmented Empire, control a large and threatening portion of space. They have a big military. The Republic, restored by the Rebellion, also controls a lot of space and has a big fleet. They are ostensibly in a state of peace or cease-fire.
However, the Resistance, made up of Rebellion die-hards, is an insurgency movement within First Order controlled space, intent on bringing down any remaining fragment of the Empire (not without cause). While they’re disavowed by the Republic, they’re still fed money and weaponry by it (this claim is made onscreen). Hence why the First Order attacks the Republic in order to cripple the Resistance.
The First Order is (oversimplifying incredibly) Assad’s Syria; the Resistance are Syrian rebels; the Republic is the US, and the conflict is a classic proxy war.
Or anyway, that was my impression, and it seemed to hold together pretty well.
The whole movie felt like preamble to me. I won’t be able to properly assess how much I liked this movie until I see the next one, but I’m hopeful.
That said, I would include it in a Star Wars marathon. I wouldn’t include the prequel trilogy except as part of a ceremonial burning at the beginning.
Here’s something I noticed: everyone in the movie is a person. This isn’t terribly clear in the original trilogy. The background pilots all feel like cardboard cutouts; there’s no sense of fear or sadness when a compatriot dies.
Stormtrooper armour once again shows itself to be utterly, utterly useless. Literally exactly as good as having no armour at all. Nobody survives the first shot. And on that note, Ren is a pretty lacklustre Jedi. He gets hit by blaster fire. Weak.
On the flip side, Rey is the Jedi I hoped we’d see Yoda to be in the prequels. The way she stops and calms herself is exactly the sort of thing I’d expect from a light-side force user. I found her character to be entirely delightful. I know a lot of online troglodytes are crying Mary-Sue over her, but I don’t think she’s any more remarkable than Anakin is at the end of Ep1. It’s clear that she’s heard all the stories about Solo and Luke and the whole war, and she draws on that lore to guide her while she’s learning to use her power.
I saw a great description of this movie yesterday: it’s an alternate universe version of “A New Hope”, set in the same universe.
I thought this movie was a thousand times better than the previous trilogy, which I abominated. But I really hate callow juvenile villains. I just don’t think they work. Still, it was fine so long as Solo jr. was offscreen, or at least not talking. I also liked the Doc Smith Sunbeam weapon which they probably would have had to pay him for if he was still alive :)
Fun movie and definitely felt more like “Star Wars” than the prequels. That said, it had some problems.
Disliked the take-for-take rehash of the first movie. The physics of the planetary weapon (draining a star, really?) were ridiculous enough to interrupt my suspension of disbelief. I like the idea of a conflicted villain, but Ren was a little too whiny in my opinion. Biggest for me was the character of Poe. I liked the actor, but couldn’t get into the character. I wasn’t shown why to like him, I was just told to because he “was the best pilot int he rebellion” ad infinitum. His buddy cop scenes with Finn seemed very forced. Would have preferred his death was permanent, but that would have just served to lampshade that his only real purpose was helping Finn get off the base. The whole concept of R2’s awakening and his map component were unnecessary and forced.
Finn and Rey were very likable and I’m looking forward to their development.
@Ian Really? It was the draining the sun thing that ruined your suspension of disbelief? Not the telekinesis or mind control, or the faster-than-light projectiles coming from the planet-weapon? Man, one of the great things about Star Wars is that it’s all so hopelessly wrong, once you give up on one thing you may as well give up on all of it. :)
Yes, Ian, I must say that Star Wars has never made the slightest effort at portraying hard SF. Not even a veneer of it, really. Despite my love for logic and consistency in SF plots, I went into the movie knowing the science would make no sense (nor would the politics or government or military). It’s all just superficial genre trappings for a pulp romance, so you really have to start with wanting to see a pulp romance. That being said I would like the series better if it made more sense.
I do think Poe was the weakest major character in the movie apart from Kylo Ren, who just annoyed me. Even a minor character like Maz Kanata had more zip to her than Poe did. In a way Poe seemed to me like a token young white male, and I could have done without him completely. But he wasn’t objectionable, anyway; I just didn’t much care about him.
I agree that Poe doesn’t make sense as a main character. He was useful to get Fin free. Then after a lot of character development on Fin, he is the one who dies, leaving us wondering who this Poe guy is who got resurrected.
I hope they find a way to explain this in the next film(s).
I really enjoyed this one.
There were two things that really bothered me. The first one you pointed it, I agree with the forced plucky band of rebels being both confusing and unnecessary. Just a little bit more info on how the Resistance became the Resistance and what they were resisting would have been nice. And maybe mention something about the how the First Order managed to have such a large standing army and the resources to turn a planet it into the weapon.
The second thing that bugged me was the back story they gave Luke. I was really young when I saw the originals, but my mind isn’t letting me just accept that Luke turned into someone who would just give up and run away from his problems.
I also agree that Poe was a weak main character. It felt like they wanted to answer the question, “what would happen if Wedge was cool and we followed him instead of Luke?” Well that would happen. It wasn’t good.
I believe Kylo Ren can be a really good antagonist moving forward. As long as we get to see him grow into someone more calm, collective, and powerful at the same time we see Rey grow into her powers. Not only did he throw a tantrum every time he failed, General Hux came off as the more competent leader each time they were reporting to Snoke. It also doesn’t work if he was as already as powerful as Vader by this point in the story. There is no way Rey and Finn would have been able to survive an encounter with someone as strong as Vader.
One of my favorite things was the way light saber battles reverted back to the more realistic sword fights of the original instead of elaborate dances of the prequels.
Rey and Finn were both great. I hope they expand more on Finn in the next few movies. I’m not convinced he isn’t a force user as well. But if not, and they turn Finn into more of the side kick Hon Solo role, Rey makes a great Luke Skywalker character and can hold the movies on her own.
Well, Snoke wasn’t Jar Jar bad, so I guess I won’t be needing my “No Snoking within 9 Parsecs of this Sequel” signs.
I wonder if the new droid has a brother whose main body splits open for cooking – BB-Q? Others might be BB-C, BB-King and BB-GUN?
My other thought was “The Whine is strong in my family. My father had it. I had it. My nephew has it.”
Yeah, I wonder why Snoke tolerates the Whiner at all. For the force? Didn’t help him much this movie, anyway. Why put him in charge of anything when he’s patently unsuited to command even a single squad of storm troopers.
I had mixed feelings about the movie. JJ Abrams seems to like making re-makes, using the same storyline with enough changes to call his own. The movie just seemed to be a remake of episode IV, with a spattering of V and VI thrown in. While I enjoyed seeing the old characters return to transition, Hans role seemed more of an incompetent oaf than the wise-cracking rogue of the original series. Leia’s role, in contrast, was perfectly believable as someone whose family has completely fallen apart. Chewbacca….seriously, how old is he? 100 by now (since he was in episode II) and without a gray hair? How long do Wookies live?
I liked the new characters Rey and Finn. They seem to work well. The pilot (who is so unremarkable I don’t recall his name) is a Han Solo wannabe that didn’t really work for me. I did like the bartender. She was fun. Ren? Vader was a paranoid schizophrenic and I guess that was passed on to his grandson as Ren is just bat-shit crazy. And a spoiled rotten brat… Its hard to feel anything for him except contempt.
Did I hear the difference of the force explained right? The “Light” side is able to manipulate the forces outside of their body, while the “Dark” side is able to use what is inside of them? That would make sense if they were trying to complete the prophecy from Episode I and bring “balance to the force”, further explaining why Luke went in search of the ancient Jedi temple. When Rey is able to use both sides of the force, can you say “Terry Goodkind”?
The biggest problem I had with the movie is Rey being able to mind-control a guard, and levitate a light-saber without even the rudimentary training that Luke had had from Obi-wan. At least he had spoken to a Jedi before he could call a light-saber to his hand from 20 feet away. And mind control? He had to run through a jungle with Yoda on his shoulder for a week before he was even allowed to attempt mind-control!
The movie had plenty of action, and great fight scenes, just like a Star Wars should. It was fun, just like Star Wars should be. The plot holes didn’t matter, because it was Star Wars and it should have plot holes.
I think if they had better writers they could have done more with the cooking scene.
“And mind control? He had to run through a jungle with Yoda on his shoulder for a week before he was even allowed to attempt mind-control!”
Maybe Yoda enjoyed having somebody run through the jungle carrying him.
I liked the movie, it was more or less the same as all the other Star Wars movies, but hey history repeats itself and when did Hollywood ever try to make something new as long as the old stories still work.
I’m very curious about how the story is going to develop.
After looking into my crystal ball I saw a glimpse of the next episodes: as it turns out, Professor Snake – I mean supreme leader Snoke is only 3 foot tall – he tries to hide that by using a huge hologram when talking to other people. Had he listened to the force, he would have discovered that size doesn’t matter (see Yoda). Unfortunately the rare mineral that can be used to fuel the hologram machine was only ever found on one of the republic planets which were destroyed by the death star ehm star killer. Thus Sna^Boke retreats into exile and the First Order becomes the leaderless First Unorder until finally Luke finds Snoke and shows him with the good of the force that he doesn’t have to be ashamed of his little size. Thus everybody is happy. The armies are no longer needed and the stormtroopers are retrained to teachers, gardeners and clowns. The film has seven ending stories: a double marriage of Rey + BB-8 and Ren + Snoke, Luke and Leia retire on Tatooine together with C-3PO and R2-D2 watching podraces, … the crystal ball was a bit misty about all those endings (or I was a bit lazy inventing them), but the crystal ball was pretty sure that J.J. wanted to top Peter Jackson’s Return of the King.