The I've Seen The Force Awakens Thread (spoilers OBV)

[Pong Messiah]

Thanks guys. You a bestest!

 

<3

[Lord Darth Hunter]

So you're the one that's gonna be that guy? The one that goes to every thread to talk about how awful it is?

 

Now I know how people who like the prequels must feel about me!

Sith happens.

 

But no seriously, I don't want to be "that guy." I just wasn't as overwhelmed as most others seem to be about the film. Maybe subsequent viewings will make it better. The first time you are so busy trying to catch every single detail that I'm wondering if that has a negative effect on viewing the film.

I guess LDR is the lone hater of this movie. I don't understand, but I also welcome it. Like Driver I've talked so much **** about the prequels that I guess I deserve to be on the other side.

 

The problem, though, is that I don't think LDH truly hates this movie. He's just wearing a troll hat and crazy pants.

You are correct. I don't hate it. I just found it as disappointing as those of you who dislike the PT (for the same reasons I might add.) That makes me a troll?

[pavonis]

Not to get all sciency but photons do have mass

No! No, they don't! They have momentum but definitely not mass.

 

The physics in Star Wars are dodgy, but not that dodgy. Blaster bolts are plasma, not photons.

[Guest El Chalupacabra]

Further, how is Rey--with no training whatsoever--duel a man with years of training to a standstill, yet the most Force sensitive guy ever (Luke)--a guy so in touch that he had to be hidden for two decades--needed training to survive his brutal 1st duel against Vader? It seems like a significant inconsistency in order to fast track Rey to "uh-oh, she's the new biggest hero of the galaxy" status.

Apples and oranges there.

 

You must remember Vader was probably one of the most powerful force users ever. Even crippled. Vader had some 13 years of Jedi training, and his force potential, plus some 20 years as a Sith Lord. He probably still had the potential to defeat the Emperor on his own (indeed he did, it just cost him his life), but his own mental limitations prevented it, which also made him Palpatine's slave. Luke did pretty damn well his first time against Vader, considering he only had a few hours training from Obi Wan, and just weeks with Yoda. The way I read the first duel, Vader toys with Luke at first, but Luke ends up surprising him with his power potential, so Vader needs to go a 100% at him to put him down.

 

In Rey's case, Kylo Ren is no where near Vader. Ren is strong with the force, and granted he is credited with helping taking down Luke's students (we don't know the level of involvement, but I think we can assume he mirrors Vader, and the role was significant) but he's largely untrained and undisciplined. We also need to remember that Ren was wounded significantly, so that slowed him down, too. Ren relies on brute power more than training.

 

The thing is Ren is also a bully. He is used to whipping up on non-force users, and when he encounters Rey, who probably is at least as strong as him with brute force power, Ren is not used to facing oponents at Rey's level, so he actually fears Rey. He recognizes her strength, and he also has a genuine fear of the light side, in the same way Luke feared the dark side in TESB and he is not sure how to handle someone who may be as strong as he is.

 

Rey has no training at this point, but I think it is fair to say she is self-taught to a point with her staff. She may not have realized it, but she may have been tapping the force all that time. Unlike Luke, she lived a life where she had to struggle to survive, so she has a leg up on Luke at the same age.

[Poe Dameron]

 

The physics in Star Wars are dodgy, but not that dodgy. Blaster bolts are plasma, not photons.

 

If that's true, how did it start moving again after Kylo Ren let go of it? He'd have to add momentum back to it, wouldn't he?

 

And I'm still going mad trying to figure out how the Starkiller can destroy planets in other star systems in a matter of seconds. Or how people in other star systems could see the planets exploding. If they were getting shot by plasma, going slower than the speed of light, that makes it even more baffling as the shots from the Starkiller wouldn't arrive in even Yoda's lifetime.

 

Seriously, am I wrong to keep hammering on this point? I know, laser swords, but outside of the Force itself, I can't think of something in Star Wars that makes even less sense than the Starkiller.

[pavonis]

Ok. They broke physics in TFA hard. Worst in the series as far as that goes. But it's space fantasy not science fiction, so I don't rag on it too hard. None of Starkiller Base makes sense, though.

[ShadowDog]

Wasn't there some dialogue about the Starkiller's beam going into hyperspace? That explains traveling to other solar systems but not how people can see it from other planets.

[Lord Darth Hunter]

I missed that part. Need to see it again to catch that because I wasn't understanding how Starkiller base worked. The Death Star could move around freely throughout the galaxy. But if this new weapon is built into a planet, doesn't that make the weapon only useful to the surrounding system of that planet? I also was disappointed when they attacked it with only a few ships. No back up or anything. But a friend of mine pointed out that during the briefing before the attack, they mentioned the fleet was gone.

[Tex]

 

So you're the one that's gonna be that guy? The one that goes to every thread to talk about how awful it is?

Now I know how people who like the prequels must feel about me!

Sith happens.

But no seriously, I don't want to be "that guy." I just wasn't as overwhelmed as most others seem to be about the film. Maybe subsequent viewings will make it better. The first time you are so busy trying to catch every single detail that I'm wondering if that has a negative effect on viewing the film.

I guess LDR is the lone hater of this movie. I don't understand, but I also welcome it. Like Driver I've talked so much **** about the prequels that I guess I deserve to be on the other side.

The problem, though, is that I don't think LDH truly hates this movie. He's just wearing a troll hat and crazy pants.

You are correct. I don't hate it. I just found it as disappointing as those of you who dislike the PT (for the same reasons I might add.) That makes me a troll?

I hear ya man. That's why I mentioned my PT hate. I really wanted to like them, but they just didn't work for me.

 

So my question to you is what would you have done differently?

[Driver]

Wasn't there some dialogue about the Starkiller's beam going into hyperspace? That explains traveling to other solar systems but not how people can see it from other planets.

They said that it fires into hyperspace so technically they explained how it could do that.

 

They left out the part of how they don't all die or get to fire it more than once if they drain their own sun to power it.

[Good God a Bear]

Put it on its charger...

[Metropolis]

I was wondering everyone's take on this. I've seen a lot of reviews and articles talking about how they loved how BB-8 gave Finn the thumbs up after Finn gave him the thumbs up. I was under the impression that BB-8 was gIvins Finn the proverbial middle finger for getting him to reveal classified information.

[Guest El Chalupacabra]

I thought it was a middle finger, too. But since it was his only "finger," it could be either.

[Darth Krawlie]

I took it as a thumbs up, though I honestly can't remember exactly when it happened in the movie now anyway.

[Poe Dameron]

 

So my question to you is what would you have done differently?

 

From an artistic standpoint, I probably wouldn't make them in the first place. I was cool with Anakin/Vader being the primary character and storyline of the saga. Plus, they pretty much shredded the novels I read in my teens and early-20s out of existence, which upsets me more than anything. But I suppose that shipped sailed when Disney dumped $4 billion into Lucas's lap.

 

A few differences I would make would be.

 

1. No Starkiller Base or any type of super weapon. They're just boring at this point.

2. Either give Finn with an actual soldier-type persona, or give Poe his role.

3. Keep the humor old school. Threepio interrupting Han and Leia's reunion for example. As far as I'm willing to go is BB-8's thumb's up lighter. But if you're feeling smuggishly clever after you write the gag, it probably doesn't belong.

4. Write Han with more charm than he had. Ford wants to go grumpy old man for some reason. Push him back into the lovable rogue.

5. Don't have Rey progress so quickly. Even Kylo Ren remarks that she's going to grow more powerful the longer she's running around the base. Just how fast do Jedi grow?

6. I don't know where they're going with Kylo Ren, but wrecking him so early was a mistake even if the guess are correct on where he's going as a character.

7. Cut that whole scene on Han's ship with the monsters. Or, at minimum, re-edit it so that the monster is never directly shown.

8. Completely reimagine Snoke's design. Actually, just make him human. Why does Serkis have to be every mo-capped CG character?

9. Make the fleets bigger. This movie matches A New Hope for the smallest number of vessels depicted in the series. The First Order seemed to only have one Star Destroyer. The resistance only had a few X-Wings. This universe feels very small at the moment.

10. Leave your sweeping crane shots out of my Star Wars!

11. Less nostalgia, more discovery.

12. Add a 2nd female lead. As long as I'm tossing away Finn, lets make the trio dominated by the girls.

13. Alternatively, make Kylo Ren female. I think Captain Phasma is the first female villain we've ever had at any level. Which is something to ponder.

[Dark Wader]

I was wondering everyone's take on this. I've seen a lot of reviews and articles talking about how they loved how BB-8 gave Finn the thumbs up after Finn gave him the thumbs up. I was under the impression that BB-8 was gIvins Finn the proverbial middle finger for getting him to reveal classified information.

I thought it was a thumbs up as well.

[Darth Kid]

Tank, yours was the first post that mirrored many of the same observations/thoughts I had while watching the film. In particular, all of the items I left in the quote below I whole-heartedly agree with:

 

So here's my feelings.

 

For the most part I was happy because it met my hope-o-meter requirements. It felt like a Star Wars movie, it wasn't completely terrible, and I was able to walk out not feeling utter disappointment. So it beat all the prequels.

 

It is easily the best looking Star Wars movie ever-- between the camera work, knowing when to use the right special effect for the intended scene, and the production design you couldn't have asked for a more perfect looking Star Wars look and feel.

 

Rey, Finn and especially Kylo Ren were GREAT.

 

THIS is what Anakin Skywalker should have been. Dark, powerful, but sloppy, undisciplined and reckless. We can SEE and FEEL his remorse and conflict thanks to an actor doing actory things-- but he never pontificates on it, and he never looks back. That is good writing and acting versus whatever bull**** we saw in the PT.

 

The story was fairly trite and old hat-- but Star Wars was never meant to be complex.

 

I'll be the lone voice of dissension. I didn't LOVE Han Solo. I would have been cool with him if he was 20% less in the movie. I felt like he was a bit of a caricature at times. Less would have been more.

 

I liked Finn-- but how does he know how to fight with a lightsaber? Granted, he got his ass kicked both times, but how could he even stand for a minute against Ren?

 

SO MANY unanswered questions. Who are The Knights of Ren? Who/what is Snoke and how can he be powerful and that old looking and not have been around during the PT or OT? Who was Max Von Sydow? What the hell is up with the Luke map?

 

Seriously-- if you work chronologically, Luke goes into hiding after Kylo Ren goes bad. He gives R2 a map to his location and somehow R2 goes back to Leia, but goes dormant. Part of that map is missing, and somehow Max Von Sydow has it. What's Luke's plan here? What's the point? If R2 is safe with Leia why can't he hold the whole map? If Luke doesn't want to be found until a certain time how does giving Max Von Sydow a part of the map separately ensure that will happen? IS it a coincidence he's on Jakku where Ren is? This is the JJ Abrams I don't like. As a writer he often times knows what he wants his final moment to be-- or even the middle. And the set-up is half-assed and if you really examine it, it makes no sense. Lost, Alias, and Into Darkness all have these overly complicated plots that are revealed out of order-- and if you put them in order, they make no sense.

 

Now-- I'm willing to let physics go for Starkiller base. At least the hand floating in space rumor wasn't true. It's not like the Death Star blowing up a planet from it's own orbit made much sense either. Also-- a lot of these questions might be answered in the next movie. After all, we knew Vader was a Lord of the Sith for 20 years before a movie came along with a canonical explanation of what a Sith was.

 

The other thing that really gave me trouble, is the HUGE handy coincidence that Han Solo just happened to be in the system where his old ship was currently living after it was stolen from him years ago, AND it just so happened to be the ship that Rey stole AND they just happened to bump into each other.

 

Really, ONE LINE could have fixed it. Han could have said they were in the system looking for his old ship and had tracked it that far. I could have bought just the one coincidence that it was one of the few ships on the planet available to Rey. I might have bought those odds. But the way it played out was just too handy.

 

And-- the entire sequence with Han on the freighter, the cgi monsters and the pirates was really out of place. It felt unneeded and like it was from a different movie.

 

That may seem like a lot-- but like I said. I think the OT defies physics, leaves a lot of things unanswered between films and plays with a lot of coincidence too, and nostalgia helps me over look them. I may sound like I am bashing the movie-- but for the most part, I really did enjoy it.

 

I only had a few points of contention, or things I would like to add/emphasize. Namely:

 

"I felt like YES, it did steal it's best moments from ANH-- but it was different enough, and told through different points of view that made it feel familiar and fresh-- which for a franchise movie, you want."

 

I wanted to elaborate on this one. JJ actually explained what he was going for in an interview recently in regards to this. He believes that Star Wars has essentially become it's own genre, and that it is a "feeling" just as much as a story. Therefore, his strategy with the film was to add in all the elements that define the genre and capture the Star Wars "feeling", then from there: build the story around those essential elements. The example he uses in particular is that of the Spagetti Western. Every film of this genre has things like, vigilantes, bandits, standoffs, quick draws, et cetera. Without certain elements, it just doesn't qualify as a film of that genre.

 

You really see how he incorporated this mindset into the film during the battle planning scene. Everything is a hyperbole of the OT films almost to the point of mocking them. While I didn't agree with everything that JJ included in the film as essential to the genre, I think that his decision to do so was a direct response to the community backlash to the PT films. He likely viewed one of the PT's big issues as it didn't mantain a good cannon of events that are required for the genre. However, by making the events relatively similar to those in the OT, JJ won't suffer the same harrassment that George faced for making them too different.

 

 

"I'll be the lone voice of dissension. I didn't LOVE Han Solo."

 

No you won't. I think that the script relied too much on the audience's prior knowledge of Han to really sell this new version of the character. When those things got released on the frigate, I felt like I was watching Indiana Jones in Space, instead of Star Wars for a minute there. That really was a lazy attempt to incorporate him into the movie in a meaningful way to the build-up towards his death. I think we saw him shine through a bit with his conversation with Rey about joining the crew, but any unfortunate soul that walked into that theater without having seen the OT, would have thought Han was just some grumpy old prick, and would not have particularly cared if he died. You can really see this in the pre-release interviews. Harrison just seems a little disconnected as if he didn't give a **** about the film. His role was largely required in order to smoothly transfer custody of the Millenium Falcon over to the new cast, but beyond that, his other roles could have easily been filled by other characters. While I was really excited to see him in the film, I just really feel like he was under-utilized and a relatively flat character within the confines of this film.

 

 

"What the hell is up with the Luke map?"

 

This bothered me the most. I don't care what JJ has planned, this just doesn't make sense. If you really didn't want to be found that badly, why do this? Was this guy supposed to hold on to this piece of the map and wait for a certain event to transpire before broadcasting it to the universe that he was in possession of it, in the hopes that the Resistance would arrive before the First Order? Sounds like a solid plan, Luke. Why wouldn't you just come back after a predetermined amount of time, or once you've found this First Jedi Temple you're looking for? Did Qui-Gon's drunk ghost hatch this whole map plan? JJ's got some 'splainin' to do in the next film for this one.

 

 

And while I didn't hate bb-8 as much as I thought I would, I don't see how that couldn't have just been R2-D2.

 

Damn straight you didn't hate him as much as you thought you would. You know why? He is frickin' adorable, that's why. True story: of all the characters in this film, the only one my son could name and/or cared about an hour later was that god damn bowling ball. I guess we'll have to see if R2's low-power mode thing was an actual requirement of the storyline/ghost Qui-Gon's drunken map plan or if R2 could have actually been freed-up to do the exact same thing BB-8 did during the early parts of the film. Either way, I'm looking forward to the banter between ol' red arm and the other two droids in the next film. I felt like the movie was missing some droid humor.

 

Lastly, Snoke was lame, but I do believe we needed some Emperor-like puppet-master pulling Kylo's strings at least until Kylo is a fully-baked Sith. It doesn't really make sense that Han would have been trying to lure him away from the dark side if he had gone to it willing without any assistance. I'm interested to see more of Mega-gollum's backstory and how the 1st annual Darth Vader Memorial Padawan Pummel went down.

[Driver]

DARTH KID HAS A KID!?

 

I mean, CODY! Stay!

[Stevil]

Hey guys...

 

Driver is Sequel Gusher and Abrahms Apologist.

 

Let's get him!!

[captainbleh]

 

they pretty much shredded the novels I read in my teens and early-20s out of existence, which upsets me more than anything

 

A few differences I would make would be.

 

1. No Starkiller Base or any type of super weapon. They're just boring at this point.

2. Either give Finn with an actual soldier-type persona, or give Poe his role.

3. Keep the humor old school. Threepio interrupting Han and Leia's reunion for example. As far as I'm willing to go is BB-8's thumb's up lighter. But if you're feeling smuggishly clever after you write the gag, it probably doesn't belong.

4. Write Han with more charm than he had. Ford wants to go grumpy old man for some reason. Push him back into the lovable rogue.

5. Don't have Rey progress so quickly. Even Kylo Ren remarks that she's going to grow more powerful the longer she's running around the base. Just how fast do Jedi grow?

6. I don't know where they're going with Kylo Ren, but wrecking him so early was a mistake even if the guess are correct on where he's going as a character.

7. Cut that whole scene on Han's ship with the monsters. Or, at minimum, re-edit it so that the monster is never directly shown.

8. Completely reimagine Snoke's design. Actually, just make him human. Why does Serkis have to be every mo-capped CG character?

9. Make the fleets bigger. This movie matches A New Hope for the smallest number of vessels depicted in the series. The First Order seemed to only have one Star Destroyer. The resistance only had a few X-Wings. This universe feels very small at the moment.

10. Leave your sweeping crane shots out of my Star Wars!

11. Less nostalgia, more discovery.

12. Add a 2nd female lead. As long as I'm tossing away Finn, lets make the trio dominated by the girls.

13. Alternatively, make Kylo Ren female. I think Captain Phasma is the first female villain we've ever had at any level. Which is something to ponder.

Re the novels / EU / whatever: that didn't upset at all. I didn't really delve in to SW much after ROTJ (apart from being obsessed with the ships & technology, especially A-Wings) because I thought it was a simple good v evil / light v dark story (plus Campbell blah blah) with cool technology and locations and a mysterious force that was focused on a few principal characters with a massive supporting cast.

 

I thought about the remnants of the Empire a lot (always saw the victory of ROTJ as a "end of the beginning" moment for the Empire and Luke was just saving his Father) and how Leia's Force sensitivity might develop and any children etc., but I never got attached to any particular version of that or made it terribly complicated.

 

So TFA being a clean sheet in some ways wasn't a problem for me.

 

((the thing I like least about the prequels is the way they introduced a load of really dogmatic / inflexible destiny / predestination nonsense like prophecies and chosen ones and balancing the Force etc.; they attempted to turn a simple story in to bloody literature. Obi screaming "you were the chosen one!" at Anakin pretty much sums it up for me. It's bollocks.)

 

Re suggestions:

 

#1 I really liked the idea of Starkiller Base, even though it was a bit silly (even by SW standards science); it was awesome and beautiful and terrifying, but I would have incorporated it in to the story in a different way (might thrash that out later) and postponed its destruction for the beginning of the next film (even though that would have been an inverted mirroring of the revenge of the Empire in ESB), and that might have given us the really tense and deadly serious space battle that we both wanted (I think we both feel the same way about the climax of ANH, and I found the flippant treatment of a task of even greater magnitude in this film really jarring)

 

#2 We don't agree about Finn & Poe, which is interesting instead of "I hate you; you're an idiot". Out of the five major new characters (inc. BB-8), Poe was my least favorite. I liked him at the beginning, but was tiring of him by the end (but that may have been a plot thing, related to my problems with Starkiller Base)

 

#3 Also disagree about C-3PO; his interruption of Han & Leia was possibly the worst moment in the movie for me, and I think he added nothing to it anywhere else. I've always defended droids / droid humor in SW because it's been there from the start (although it was turned up to eleven in the prequels), and I've always liked C-3PO even though I'm aware he's a Marmite (love-or-hate for non-UKdians) character. But I wanted to deactivate him permanently after watching this.

 

#4 I agree with the other people who thought Han had too much screen time in this.

 

#5 Rey's progress (along with a few other seemingly implausible/convenient things) is something that I think will irk me when I watch it again; I was noticing it, but I was having too much fun to be really bothered by it. My worry for this movie is that (with the exception of some dramatic scenes) most of it will just collapse like a house of cards when I'm able to watch it several times.

 

#6 I liked Kylo, possibly because I wasn't expecting a Vader-esque character in this.

 

#7 I would have cut that too (mainly because it took took too long), possibly having Han's enemies just attack their ship and forcing them to abandon in it the Falcon...

 

#8 I really want Snoke to just appear in the next movie (and quickly) as a humanoid; didn't like his depiction at all.

 

#9 More capital ships would have been nice.

 

#10 Well, there was only one...

 

#11 Agree with that (C-3PO's role in this was nearly all nostalgia), but I can see why they played it safe

 

#12 & #13 I think giving Phasma a bit more screen time would have dealt with that

 

Seeing it has filled my head with a load of thoughts that I'm struggling to articulate (autism-related writer's block is very bad at the moment), and at a time when I really should be thinking about other things. So I'm just using this thread to spit stuff out really.

 

It's also opened up old "fierce arguments about Star Wars" wounds (the arguments I used to have with people here...), but now I'm more interested in polite and nuanced discussions about how people react to things differently (like "You don't like Kylo Ren? That's interesting; tell me more") instead of getting so "passionate" about it

[ShadowDog]

About BB8 ... I hate hate hated him in the trailers. I went into it knowing he was the Scrappy of this movie.

 

I haven't wanted to admit that he grew on me. But yeah he did. It was right around the time that he was giving the thumbs up and especially when he was looking back and forth between Finn and Rey trying to decide whether or not to sell Finn out. That shit was funny and adorable.

 

I HATE liking a character I wanted to hate!!!!

[captainbleh]

Yes, the looking back and forth between Finn and Rey was great

[Jedi Cool]

Was Poe originally supposed to be Wedge? Leia's most trusted pilot would, imo, be Wedge, but since I think we heard that Denis Lawson turned down a return, they just created Poe instead?

 

 

[ShadowDog]

That's actually a very good point I bet you're right. Poe actually wasn't in the movie very much which is why confuses me when people try to make him part of a big three when it's really just a big two

[Justus]

 

((the thing I like least about the prequels is the way they introduced a load of really dogmatic / inflexible destiny / predestination nonsense like prophecies and chosen ones and balancing the Force etc.; they attempted to turn a simple story in to bloody literature. Obi screaming "you were the chosen one!" at Anakin pretty much sums it up for me. It's bollocks.)

 

The prequels merely built on what was clearly set up in the OT; GL's use of Luke as a savior figure with a destiny was introduced in ANH, but made central to the fate of the galaxy from ESB-forward. SW was always a fantasy mix of a religion-meets-heroic epic.