After the train wreck that was the Star Trek reboot I did not have high hopes.  But I was pleasantly surprised.  I have not followed the EU much, so that was not a factor for me.  I enjoyed it and thought it was a good addition to the franchise.


I love Luke, Leia and Han, but time marches on.  Frankly, this is the sort of treatment that should have been done for the Star Trek franchise.  Instead of recasting the main characters with some sort of time travel nonsense, set it in the future with the remaining main cast as admirals and other mentor types.



Ditto.

I finally saw it.

Having been in High School when the original came out, and remembering the impact in a way the young whippersnappers these days can't, I have to give it a point just for being Star Wars.

Another for not having Jar Jar.

Mix of good and bad, but fun throughout.

My worst:  Where the (de-spoilerized) dialogue went like this:

"But isn't this just like the time in that other movie when..."
"No, this is very different.  Really. Look at my handy audiovisual aide".

When you have to explain to the audience that this is NOT the same situation you used before... no.  Too late. You blew it.

My best:  Finn.  Because the movie needs a hero without a bizarre intertwining back story and/or "royal birth".  Just "A Guy" who grows a conscience and decides to be a hero.  Mister Everyman Anonymous.  The "Jack" of traditional European folklore.

(If he turns out to be Lando Carlrissian's long lost son, though, I take it back.)

Overall:  Worth the matinee price.
This message was last edited by the user at 03:28, Tue 12 Jan 2016.

Well, that's the thing about evil, it's usually immature.  If something bad happens, how often does the bad guy say, "Ok, that's no problem, we can work this out."  That's what the good guys says.  If the bad guy were to say that, the audience would start to really empathize with him and the whole tenor of the movie would be different.

Remember:What if he did alter the deal further?  What if Vader set things in motion?  Calrissian, afraid of what happened, sent his wife and son into hiding for safe keeping.  After the second Death Star blew up, everyone celebrated and Lando went home.  He walked in to find a destroyed house and has never heard of his wife or son since.

Although, if that was the case, it'd make Anakin out to be more of a jerk than he already is if his spirit is hanging around with all these live people and he never told them all the bad things he did that could still be fixed if someone got right on them.  Actually, come to think about it, a lot of what the new Empire does is going to have a plot point in it if Vader, who's now on the good guy's side, doesn't speak up and say something.  I guess that means no more Force ghosts from earlier trilogies.

In reply to Genghis the Hutt (msg # 31):

Oh, don't get me wrong.  I don't expect the villains to have a calm, rational response to setbacks.  But one of the things that made Vader such a phenomenal villain was the way in which his rage was so firmly controlled and focused (at least, in the original trilogy...the immature, "Imma slice up everything in my path 'cuz I'm MAD!!!' version of Anakin, while fitting in with the premise of the prequels, was yet another one of those things that made him such a pathetic figure, overall).

I mean, I get it.  Kylo Ren is SUPPOSED to have anger issues.  But he would have been far more scary, to me, if that anger wasn't spewed indiscriminately like someone dropped a firehose.  He's supposed to be the 'right hand' of Snoke, and you don't wind up in positions of trust and authority very often when you are prone to outbursts of total lack of self-control (and destruction of valuable equipment that your side owns.)

I just feel like he would have been a much stronger villain if he wasn't indiscriminately destructive.  And making HIM stronger would have made the heroes look even stronger, for having succeeded in spite of his focused rage.

To be fair to him, I think Snoke might be playing Kylo's pride with that "right hand" bit.  We saw in the movie that the military figure was given more precedence than Kylo was.  Additionally, Kylo may have usually had more calmness -- we really saw him destroy things when he started to fail, though.  I don't think he's very good at accepting failure with equanimity. ;)

In reply to facemaker329 (msg # 32):

I noticed that whenever he destroyed some electronic wall thingy, nothing happened at all.  Lights don't flicker.  No one on the bridge notices the sudden damage, no alarm sounds. No "We've had an explosion in sector 7B!".   And Stormtroopers just turn their backs and walk away.

This leads me to suspect that they are prepared for his outbursts- areas that Kylo is expected to be in are equipped with expendable "prop panels".

In reply to facemaker329 (msg # 32):

I completely agree with, well, all three of you about Kylo. My question is, what purpose in the story is it to have him that way? Snoke has to know about Kylo and his emotional issues. I have read a couple of interesting theories about him. I will leave it at that to avoid spoilers though.

Also yeah, don't go with someone who is a fan of the EU. I did, becus a ride is a ride. But it was over a week before he shut up about it.

Well, the obvious answer is that he's a major character and not just a villain.  As such, he's going to have a full character arc with development and everything else.  Giving him interesting motivations, showing his internal struggles, and making him relatable (maybe not to us crusty old people, but teens certainly know what that kind of anger is like) is all part of that.

There's also a certain market appeal to the tortured bad guy with a tormented past (Loki, Snape).  I like to refer to him as Space!Snape because there's a bit of a resemblance in so many ways.  A whole lot about him says "this guy is here for the early-teen girl to drool over".

If Kylo Ren is there just for tweener girls, then he's as shallow an inclusion to Star Wars as Jar Jar Binks was in the prequels for pandering to kids.

That being said, I don't think either of those characters were intended to be included for those purposes. My problem is that I just don't believe Kylo as a serious threat, let alone a sympathetic character. He wipes out an entire village, and then delivers a soliloquy to a mask where he complains about still feeling the Light side of the Force. He throws temper tantrums when things don't go his way, and the reactions by the rest of the First Order show that they're used to this. To me, he felt as intimidating as a toddler, and just as annoying.

There are a lot of people saying Kylo Ren is the Anakin Skywalker we should have had in the prequels. I don't agree with that. When Anakin Skywalker cuts down the Sand People in Attack of the Clones, I felt like there was an emotional charge to it. When he admits it to Padme, he doesn't say that he's sorry, but instead says that he's satisfied. Other people might look at that scene as crybaby whining, but it was one of the few things in the prequels that really worked for me (much more than "Now this is podracing!" or the 1950s diner scene in Coruscant).

However, movie tastes are subjective things. People like different stuff. A lot of people like Episode VII. I don't, and I'm not trying to convince people to agree with me. I'm just trying to explain my particular point of view.

In reply to JxJxA (msg # 37):

Cool, and I completely understand. I for one can't wait for the next movie and to find out just what is going on with those weird issues.

At least, I will be severely dissapointed with disney if they were not put in for a good reason.

To begin with, I really enjoyed the movie. It was a lot of fun, and the filmmakers really made an effort to take the series back to the feel of the original movies, which I appreciated. While I’m sure there was a lot of digital/CGI work (of course), this movie seemed grittier and more realistic than a lot of the prequel trilogy. So well played!

The good:

Han Solo – My goodness, Harrison Ford just slipped back into the character as if he’d never left. He gets pretty much all the best lines in the movie and his delivery (“That’s not how the force works!”) is really top-notch. Stole almost every scene he was in.

Humor – TFA had more laugh lines than any other Star Wars movie, as far as I can recall.

Space Battle Excitement/Choreography – The three set piece spaceship battles

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(Falcon v. TIE, X-wings at Temple, Assault on Starkiller base

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), were all really well done.

Rey and Finn – I thought these characters were introduced really well and both actors are very charismatic. They were immediately likable and I was rooting for them the whole time.

Finn (Part 2) – I really liked Finn a lot. His continuing amazement at being able to do things well and his (justifiable, given his experiences!) fear of the First Order made him really relatable.

The bad:

Kylo Ren – A man I’ve taken to calling “Darth Emo.” He just didn’t seem very threatening, and having your main antagonist throwing several temper tantrums like a spoiled child doesn’t increase his threat level. He just seemed like a whiny kid.

Rey (Part 2) – While I enjoyed Ridley’s portrayal, I did not enjoy Rey’s Mary Sue qualities.

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Here she is, a scavenger on a desert planet, and she is also: 1) an expert spaceship pilot (how?); 2) an expert spaceship mechanic (how?); 3) an expert staff-fighter (more explicable); 4) apparently a linguist; 5) able to use the Force to overcome Kylo Ren’s mental defenses in a matter of literally under a minute; 6) able to use the Force to dominate a stormtrooper in an hour or two; and 7) able to defeat Kylo Ren, a guy who looks to have at least 80 pounds and reach on her, in a lightsaber battle. Doable, but this meant she would have to be an expert swordswoman as well, since staff-fighting and sword-fighting are completely different things.

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One or two or even three of these would have been okay, but all of them? It challenged my suspension of disbelief.

Poe – Woefully underdeveloped.

General Hux – Seemed a bit over the top.

That said, I really enjoyed the movie and am really looking forward to the next one.

I really don't get all the hate for Kylo Ren. First off, this is just the first movie. If the fact that he stopped a bolt blast MID AIR wasn't enough to key you in to his power, I don't know what else could. He's young, he's conflicted, he unsure of himself. Honestly, he has a dynamic I haven't seen before in the SW movies. He WANTS to be bad, but his heart still is good. So yeah, we're gonna see it as "emo." I don't think it's fair that so many people are juding the entire trilogy on just one movie. I mean, c'mon...there's still two more movies to go. I want Kylo to be the villain we can hate.

So do I.  That's why he bugs me, as is...*grin*

Mary Sue

Not really, but close, a couple of things she did, added to things she should/could do gave the illusion of Mary Sue-ness. Also scenes of her fails were removed from the film.

Points
1- Agreed though there may be a unity of flight systems from rafts to ships as Luke, Biggs were pilots too. She also repeatedly bounced off the sand too and quickly captured by the passing Nostromo. ;)
2- She was an expert at parts from years of experience.
3- She carried one
4- If seen as a stand alone talent, not an issue
5- Agreed
6- Agreed. Oh and that Storm Trooper was Daniel Craig.
7- Villain had a blaster bolt in his guts and a fight before hers. Wonder he lasted as long.

A scene of pistol combat with pirates was removed, she had no clue what a safety was. Such has happened in real life with Tom Horn being a victim of same back around 1905.

There's definitely more going on with Rey than shows up at face value.  As evidence, I offer Kylo Ren's tantrum when someone mentioned not that the droid had been found by someone, but that it had been found by a woman.  I suspect she's a lot more developed in the Force than they bothered to demonstrate (developed, as opposed to trained...it would explain why she's such a good scavenger and survivor, if she's learned to trust the Force...which could also explain her ability to understand droids and Wookiees and others--she doesn't necessarily understand what they're saying, but she senses what they're trying to communicate...)

If Ren knew, or could sense, that she was there, it would do a lot to explain why he was so volatile when it was reported that a woman had the droid...because she would actually be BB-8's best chance of getting his information off-world.  That much, if it actually proves to be the case, would be enough for me to forgive the first of his multiple destructive outbursts, because it would actually feel motivated by real frustration, as opposed to petulance.

Unfortunately, Abrams seems to have developed a tendency to include critical story elements that aren't explained in the story (how a Romulan mining ship that was rushing back to save their home got sucked into a time vortex, and somehow emerged from the other side with the offensive capabilities of a whole battle-fleet, for instance...)  I suspect he's been guilty of that here, as well, and I really hope the pieces get picked up as the trilogy goes along.  Star Wars (the original) wasn't necessarily brilliant story-telling, after all, but it gave you everything you needed to know (for the story to make sense) within the body of the story. I can appreciate leaving some mysteries to be theorized over by the fans...but there's a difference between leaving room for speculation and just completely skipping the introduction of crucial information.

So, for the time being, I'm reserving judgment on Rey.  I found her to be remarkably conveniently talented, but I can think of reasons to explain it (other than the prospect that the writers just got really sloppy).  I know more information will come to light as the trilogy progresses, just as the information we had about Darth Vader evolved over the course of the original trilogy.  And unlike the original, this one was written KNOWING it was the first of three movies, so the pressure to make it a solid stand-alone wasn't anywhere near as great (it just had to be enjoyable enough to bring in solid audiences and boost hype for Disney's marketing campaign of all things Star Wars, as well as the multiple movies following it).

I don't think it's the right way to tell the story...but it's not my story to tell.  And for all the things about it that did leave me going, "Eh....I don't know how I feel about that..." I have to say that I did, overall, enjoy it.  And when it gets to the discount theater where I work, six months from now (if I'm lucky), I will probably watch it at least a dozen more times.

In reply to facemaker329 (msg # 43):

Actually, if I recall correctly, Lucas actually had the whole story written out before he started filming. Him having such a large story was part of the reason why he had such troubles finding a company to produce it, and why he had to create ILM to do the special effects.

In fact, the fact that Disney is not using the original story he wrote apparently is something Lucas is upset about.

Lucas had the original trilogy written out...and realized, early on, that there was no way he could make a coherent story out of it, so he focused on the section that became Episode 4.  It was a huge gamble, by everyone involved, to even try and make a sci-fi epic...at the time, sci-fi did not generally do well in the box office and if you look at stuff from the era, you can see where Star Wars was a drastic departure from the way sci-fi was done.

But because it was such a gamble, there was no knowing whether or not it would go over at all, much less be popular enough to warrant sequels.  So he had to make Star Wars function as a stand-alone...you didn't need to see or read anything else for it to make sense, because at the time, there wasn't anything else to look at to fill in the gaps.  When it proved to be the blockbuster that it was, he could go into Empire and lay out pieces that didn't need to be wrapped up in one movie...because he already knew there would be another one after that.

I think I've heard tell that he had some basic ideas for the prequel...because you can't have a story about a villain's redemption by his son without some ideas about how the villain fell from grace in the first place...but I don't believe he had Eps 1-3 laid out in the same clarity (which shows, I feel, in the lackluster pace of the storytelling).

And, yes, Lucas has said that he had ideas for this trilogy, as well...but that's all I've ever heard him say in interviews...ideas, not scripts, not full stories, just ideas.  One of the longest-running fan myths surrounding Star Wars is that Lucas had the whole thing written out in three trilogies before he ever started, but given the disparity in style between the prequels and the original trilogy, I have a hard time buying that.  And the fact that Lucas made the prequels and then stopped doing Star Wars again leads me to believe that he didn't have a sequel trilogy ready to go, either...  His big excuse for waiting so long on the prequels was that 'technology needed to catch up to his vision', so he could tell the story effectively, which was also the justification for the Special Edition of the originals...he could include scenes or rework scenes that he wanted to change because technology made it a viable option (but a lot of people look at the Special Editions as a solid example of "Just because you CAN do a thing, doesn't mean you SHOULD do a thing.")

For sure Lucas didn't have the whole thing written out before he started. Darth Vader wasn't even Luke's until quite late in the development process. As facemaker said, ideas maybe, but that's it.

And he wanted the first movie to feel like a single episode in a continuing story. That was part of his aim. He wanted to create something akin to the Buck Rogers serials he watched and loved as a child. And, in fact, he tried to buy the rights to Buck Rogers and only turned to Star Wars when he couldn't get them.

In reply to truemane (msg # 46):

You almost make Star Wars sound like a piece of Buck Rogers fan fiction?

In reply to Merevel (msg # 47):

It almost is. Along with a healthy dollop of jidaigeki filmsm, which are Japanese period dramas, usually samurai movies (say that word 'jidaigeki' out loud and see if it sounds familiar, especially the first two syllables).

And. among samurai films in particular, there's a lot of Akira Kurosawa's Hidden Fortress, which Lucas considered re-making as his next film.

I have to say, the issues with Rey didn't bother me too much.  She is a Mary Sue character, but on the other hand, there could still be a good reason for it all.  I think there is- it's too much of an open door.  It's a setup- it leaves the next movie to say "she can do all these incredible things because, you see, she's really...."

Having already noted that my favorite character was Finn, I can say there was one who I did have a problem with.  Poe.

Not the "How did he get off the planet?" problem.  He's hot shot super-pilot.  He found a way.  Other things.

The attitude bugs me.  They really overplayed the brash hot shot.  I think, prior to flying for the Resistance, Poe flew in 1940's war movies.  Hey, I'm awesome... but you bro, you're awesome!  Overdid it.

I can accept the fact that he flies his X-wing on a top secret mission to meet an undercover agent.   Parks it in the open right next to the village he's visiting, not even a hint of camouflage.  Sure, he just blew the cover of the Resistance's contacts there, but hey, he was described as the resistance's "Most Daring" and also "Best" pilot.  Never their brightest.

I can accept

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his remarkable escape going completely undescribed.

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  Okay.  We'll close up that plot hole in another movie.

What I cannot accept is this:  At what point did Poe

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TAKE OFF THE FURSHLUGGINER JACKET??? He was wearing it while flying, and then somehow left it behind...

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think about it.

In reply to Eur512 (msg # 49):

Of all the complaints in that thread, that is mine too.. Other than that, thoroughly enjoyed the movie.

Personally, I got a strong Finn/Poe vibe out of their interactions later on.  Less "over the top" and more "hitting on him".

As for Rey... she's less of a Mary Sue than Luke and Anakin, in some ways.  The Force apparently digs that.

How is she less of a Mary Sue than Luke or Anakin?  Especially Luke?

Here's what Luke could do in the first movie:

1)  Fly

2)  Whine

He had some undeveloped affinity for the force, but he couldn't really do anything with it.  It took the tutelage (and spirit) of a powerful Jedi Master just to get him to the point where he could effectively use it once, at the very end of the movie, to guide his torpedoes.

That's it.  Otherwise Luke is CONSTANTLY getting into scrapes and having to be rescued.

1)  Rescued from Sand People by Ben;

2)  Rescued from Mos Eisley Cantina Confrontation, again by Ben;

3)  Rescued from Tatooine by Han;

4)  Rescued from Trash Compactor by R2-D2;

5)  Rescued from Death Star by Ben (both by deactivating tractor beam and distracting Vader);

6)  Rescued from Vader by Han during final trench run.

So I don't get how Luke is a Mary Sue.  He has one, maybe one-and-a-half useful skills, and continually has to rely on other people to save him.

He turns some relatively limited land-vehicle piloting experience into the ability to pilot a starfighter effectively against everyone but the best pilot in the galaxy?  I mean, Star Wars space battles are generally terrible for realism in general, but why they would let Luke pilot a starfighter when he has no experience (and makes idiotic statements that show he doesn't understand the scale and speed of space travel) is a mystery.

Honestly, I think we're in a bit of a Matrix situation with Rey.  They've given us a glimpse of a character and hints that she has a big, important backstory.  If that backstory is put together well enough, most of the Mary Sue stuff becomes baseless.  However, just like with the Matrix, they could royally screw up the second movie.