Star Wars: Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)

[BurtReynolds]

ANything LV says is completely discarded. That kid is a mess. Ridiculous 6 is better than this? Get a grip, boy. HIlarious.


Perfect? No. A wonderfully great time? Absolutely. Ill take it to the spoilers thread.

Team thundercunt was saving a spot for you but now you've gone and ruined it.

[stip]

Was the film successful?

I think there are three things this movie had to do simultaneously, and it was succesful on all accounts, though some more than others.

1. Make people care about star wars again. I think it's hard to overstate the shadow the prequels cast over the series. Since Disney wants to make a billion more movies and recoup their investment they needed to super charge people's interest in this stuff again. This would not have happened with new star wars stories (I think) which is the fault of the prequels. There needed to be a bridge between the old and the new in terms of storytelling (which we had--this was very much a passing the torch movie right down to the final shot of Luke not accepting the lightsaber and leaving it with Rey) and the feel of the movie. Which is why Xwings and Tie fighters and storm troopers were updated while still being what we were familiar with--it's why we got so many familiar story beats that were tonally different, moved in new ways, and developed different characters, but were there to serve as a reminder of what you loved. Here I think the movie was wildly successful, and the prebuild to this movie validated this strategy. This didn't generate the hype it did because it was new star wars. It did precisely because it was old star wars. The honest trailer gets this totally right.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pegJQPIzfs4

2. It had to set up new characters and stories that people would want to follow. Again, I think it was extremely successful. The new main characters (our 3 heroes and villain) were all perfectly cast and were easy to fall in love with right away, and immediately established a relationship with the audience where you want to follow them. Mixing them with the older characters gave them credibility (they held their own), rooted them in the universe so they felt new and old at the same time, and killing off Han (the character most likely to overshadow them) was smart. I can see how it would be frustrating that there are underdeveloped threads (who is Snoke, why was Phasma underutilized, 60 seconds of Luke, that whole bit with the light saber, etc) but we've got two more movies to go, and this was written with the understanding that it was the first chapter in a three part story. And we need to readjust our expectations to how movies work (I think) in an age of serialized movie story telling. It's not just cliffhanger endings, it's getting used to movies laying groundwork where they payoff doesn't come in the film itself (the Avengers II issue).

3. It had to be a good movie in its own right. It's a good movie. It's a ton of fun. It's not a great movie as a stand alone, but it's still extremely good. It captures the feel and fun of star wars, and manages to be self-aware without being post modern about it, which we don' t get a lot of these days.

[stip]

Hi guys.

well?

[dimejinky99]

Okay, kids are asleep. Time for some long posts so Dime has something to read.

Afraid I was gonna leave without without giving you a goodbye kiss?

[Strat]

This was fantastic and i agree with stip. This is not a complete clone of A New Hope. Not at all. Sure there are some leemtns, but its fucking star wars. It mirrored aspects of it and other than a few throw back jokes, it is its own story.

Things I disliked:
General Hux. Dude looked like a 16 year old bro and I thought was a terrible choice for supposedly being one of the main bad guys.

Supreme Snoke. Just not sure about him/it yet. Perhaps it will be more fleshed out.

Captain Phasma. LOL. All of the articles and interviews with her were about how we finally have a female badass villain. She didnt do anything except get captured and take orders.

Thing im on the fence about: Kylo Ren. I think the character, and this may be the point, is still being fleshed out. Adam Driver played that pretty great but he seems a little thin right now. I did enjoy how unhinged he was but with his mask off he's not such a menacing character. I do think the character is growing, much like the hero's and is not already as established as Darth Vader was by the time we met him. So that is pretty cool

Things I loved: Everything else. I can't believe LV thought Boyega and ridley were terrible. actually, i can, its LV. Ridiculous 6. Ridley was wonderful. I'm super excited about the new characters. Poe Dameron is going to be great and Ridley is definitely going to be a "force" to be reckoned with. Super excited about her journey. She did a wonderful job.

Han Solo. RIP. You were wonderful. Im glad he played a central role here and he was the main catalyst for connecting the story to the OT. Sure, some of the jokes were over the top, but it worked for me. It made sense in that for han "shit, here we go again" being dragged into the battle he walked away from. Ford did a great job of playing an elder Solo.

I also loved how Lei wasn't a central character. She had very little to do. The movie definitely focused on the new characters.

Luke looked fucking awesome and what a great shot at the end. I am really hoping to see him be an elder badass Jedi. Wow that brought huge smiles and chills.

Still letting it settle but that was well worth the wait, the price and everything. JJ Abrams did a fucking fantastic job.

This is an upgraded Star Wars. Even Chewie was more mobile (and he saved the heros!"). The Falcon and some of its flying was so amazing to see. The X Wings, the tie fighters. What technology can give to that part of the Star Wars universe is fantastic.

I had so much fun.

Cantina scene? Ok fine, but it looked nothing like the OT. And Maz did not come across as a yoda type at all. other than the fact she was small and non human.

Luke needs to put a glove on that cyborg hand

[Strat]

Stip: The movie ended before he could take the saber from Rey. Still dont know how that is going to play out

[Strat]

ANything LV says is completely discarded. That kid is a mess. Ridiculous 6 is better than this? Get a grip, boy. HIlarious.


Perfect? No. A wonderfully great time? Absolutely. Ill take it to the spoilers thread.

Team thundercunt was saving a spot for you but now you've gone and ruined it.

How did i ruin it?

[B]

Alright, without reading all 23 pages, here were my favorite things.

- Kylo Ren's berserker blowouts with his lightsaber are pretty cool.
- The lightsaber fights. I like that everyone keeps taking hits b/c they're sloppy. Though I'm sad to see no missing limbs in this movie.
- Han's death scene was great. It make's Mace Windu look even more like a bullshit death.
- I like Maz a lot.
- Just about everyone acted their asses off.
- BB-8 was way less stupid than I expected.


I don't have a lot to complain about.
- I thought Snoke looked really fake, but that may have been that he was a hologram. Also, I bet he's tiny in real life.
- The physics of sucking a star into a planet which is obiting said star. So many things wrong with that, they just keep negating each other. I guess this is science fantasy, so it's OK.
- Why the fuck did Chewbacca just cruise on by Leia like he didn't know her when he got off the Falcon at the end. They both are friends who just lost the most important person in both of their lives. Why were they not huggin' that out?

[Strat]

bb8 was GREAT. Great character. Cracked me up. Added a lot to the story.

I loved the saber battles. I do like the unpolished I think Kylo is still becoming, the same way Rey and Finn are.

[Strat]

Also, I thought Rey had cut Rens head off :\ At first I was pissed because I thought that meant we would ge ta new bad guy every movie, like the prequels.

Good thing she just scarred his face He needed to look more badass.

[stip]

The Characters:

I think for the most part the film really shined here.

Han: As many people have said he felt like Han Solo would feel 30 years later, rather than an old Harrison Ford playing Han Solo. He was carrying the baggage of what happened to his son, seemed eager to mentor, and was totally believable. I understand why he and Leia would have split over Ren as well, so that part works, though the timing of everything is unclear. I thought his death, though not hard to spot, was still pretty moving, and really helped cement Ren as a villain. A case of where we have something similar to a New Hope but inverted in an interesting way. Here the son actually does kill the father, who is trying to find the good in him. The fact that Ren killed his father, who was a father figure to Rey, should also create some interesting dynamics going forward.

Chewie: This may be my favorite Chewie performance. they capture his petulance while actually making him pretty badass, rather than just intimating it. I felt horrible for him when Han died (his NOOOO was much better than Vader's.

BB8: Adorable and mischievous. He's basically a smart puppy. It's hard not to fall in love, especially the way he tilts his head forward when he runs.

Rey: She was a triumph. The best character in the film, with tons of layers. Supremely competent but desperate for love and a place to belong. Occupies the Luke role, but an inversion who always had people who cared about him throughout the trilogy and was concerned about proving himself. Her need for her family, the desire to return to Jakku in case they came, was palpable and quite affecting.

Fin: Here was a totally new perspective--the Empire (first order, sorry) defector trying to redeem himself while running from his past. Similar to Han in that regard, but Han's struggle was about changing who he was, while Finn's is about discovering who he is. I quite liked his arc, and the contrast with Solo. Finn has no confidence in himself (unlike Han) but is willing to take risks anyway. My only issue was I feel like his arc was rushed. There needed to be more space between his spiritual awakening and his comfort with other people, unless Storm Troopers without names have a rich social life we haven't seen yet.

Poe: They lumped all the swashbuckling good guy heroics into him, and he should have been a bland character but the actor gives him enough of a twinkle to just make him extremely likeable. He's going to be the straight man, it looks like--no arc or complexity, just the guy who moves the resistance stories along, so this was great casting since you care about him for some reason.

Kylo: He was a great villain. Unlike Vader, who is fully developed, his training isn't complete, he's conflicted, obviously powerful but insecure, volatile. And intimidating. This is basically exactly what Anakin skywalker was supposed to be. I like that they teased his inner conflict right off the bat, and I love that his killing his father, rather than resolving it, unhinged him further. Watching his growth parallel to Rey's will be interesting.

Hux/Snoke/Phasma: All underdeveloped. I like that there is a rivalry between Hux and Kylo for Snoke. Vader was always clearly the emperor's right hand. I assume we'll see more of them, especially phasma--you don't cast a name actress in such a minor role otherwise. But there's more movies, so there is time.

Leia: Fisher was fine. I like how they had her retreat into her work as a response to her grief/her failed relationship with Han (and that you can probably make the case it wasn't just Han who f'd it up). I wonder if she knows who Rey is. It seems to be implied, but maybe their embrace was sharing the grief over Han.

Luke: His shadow is much larger than his role, but I do like how hesitant he was with Rey. He has to know who she is. There's a complex array of guilt over abandoning her, what happened to Ren--stuff I look forward to seeing explored in Episode 8.

[Strat]

I loved the quick shot of the Jedi Training Blaster Ball or whatever it is, in the falcon.

[stip]

Other Shit:

The lightsaber fights were great. Brutal, untrained, and it felt like the characters were working out their arcs and advancing their relationships with each other through the fighting, which is what you want.

The dogfights looked great, but I must confess that they were not as engaging as I had hoped. The problem was they were always peripheral to the main story. Plot advanced, but characters weren't impacted. Still a blast to watch, but the real story was always elsewhere.

I'm not sold on Maz Katana's character, and the whole temple interlude felt a bit too expositiony. Kylo was great in it, and it was a wonderful reintroduction to the X-wings. I still don't understand the lightsaber bit awakening Rey. I presume we'll learn about that next film.

It really looks like these movies will explore the origins of the dark side, which I'm excited for.

The whole Jakku sequence from start to finish was great for introducing characters (and the Falcon).

The interlude with Han was a nice introduction, and I liked everything about it, but we all know/remember who Han is. That's time I think I would have preferred that we got to spend with the new characters.

The Starkiller Base sequence worked really well since they made the dismantling of the shield a vehicle for advancing the character arcs and building relationships (unlike Endor, where it was entirely about moving the plot forward). We got to see Rey come into her own, Finn prove himself, Chewie's great freak out, Han's meaningful death, a huge step for establishing Kylo as a complicated villian, and it set up the wonderful lightsaber fight. The problem is the X-wing stuff all felt a little peripheral since it was simply plot.

[stip]

I loved the quick shot of the Jedi Training Blaster Ball or whatever it is, in the falcon.

Lots of nice call out moments that rewarded fans but weren't distracting.

[stip]

you liked it.

[Strat]

you liked it.

I dont want in that club anyway then!

[Sgt. Crackpot]

I know what's involved in the initiation process for team thundercunt. I'm happy staying out of that club.

[stip]

First Order/Resistance/Rebellion

Okay Burt, here you go.

Accordingly to the new canon the Empire basically collapses after the battle of jakku a year or so after Jedi. The First Order is the heir to the empire. I guess they can't call themselves the empire anymore. But First Order is a shitty name.

I think they are also supposed to be significantly less powerful than the Empire was, at least militarily. That's probably why the starkiller base was necessary--to make them a credible threat without a galaxy spanning navy. Clearly they are hoping that a few force users are enough to also push the balance, assuming they can kill Luke.

The New Republic has the resources of the galaxy at its disposable. If you want a smaller empire (to make the force stuff matter more) you need a smaller army. So the story goes that the new republic basically disarms, but Leia convinces them to fund a small military technically unaffiliated to fight off the first order. Picture the US arming some other army to fight a proxy war. This way you can keep your forces balanced.


A criticism I have of the movie is that the destruction of the New republic home planet (i think) should have been made a bigger deal than it was. THen again, Leia got over Alderran pretty quickly in A New Hope so maybe this is just par for the course.

[Strat]

I loved the scene when Ren tried to force fuck Rey and she tossed it back in his face.

[stip]

I really love how they handled the force here.