McParadigm wrote:Fair point about the speed, I suppose, but that's always been part of the appeal of Star Wars. Pulpy serials that move quickly
Don't be dumb. New Hope spends more time on Luke's Tatooine misery than this movie invests in all of its non-plot-rushing character development, period. 30 minutes of Empire is a dude chatting with a muppet in a swamp, and a portion of that is intercut with a love story.
That's true about the start of star wars, for sure. But once they meet Han that movie doesn't really ever pause to catch its breath. I mean, Ben's death is a character defining moment for Luke, and he has a mopey moment when he says 'I can't believe he's gone' and then that's it. Time to shoot some tie-fighters and then we're planning for the death star run.
McParadigm wrote:
This is nonsense. Having your lead villian be an inversion of the story arc of your previous primary hero is pretty original
I was actually referring to the cartoony Imperial general guy here. I think Ren actually plays ok, aside from too much JJ (or Avengers) "why write depth or complexity when he can just smash some things when he's angry" dumbdumb stuff. But they really undercut both their own ability to show that character and the First Order's ability to feel like a threat by having him paired up with a crazy-eyed screaming ginger and a stupid white Orc that never offers anything useful to the movie. Luke was paired with kind-hearted idealism and sneering cynicism, and that gave him something to bounce off of. Ren basically plays like a mix of Loki and that loony queen from Snow White and the Huntsman, except for those terribly few scenes that allow him to be around people who are not other generic bad guys.
Okay, my apologies. I thought you were talking about Ren, not Hux (who I didn't mind but was far from memorable). And I do like the tantrum aspect of Ren. It's an immature juxtaposition with Vader's tantrums (although interestingly enough, Ren doesn't actually kill anyone, whereas Vader murders whoever brings him bad news), and highlights the fact that underneath the intimidating exterior you're really dealing with a pretty stunted person.
McParadigm wrote:
I bet you really hated that moment in a new hope where the rebellion lets some random farmer from a desert planet fly an x-wing for the first time as part of the life or death military assault on the super weapon coming to kill everyone. Also he saves the day with his magic powers.
Well I admit I did hate it when, 3 minutes after stepping into the Falcon, Luke showed Han how to cut the power and slide into a back flip in order to target incoming fighters. That was pretty hokey, and it really diminished any sense of threat to him as a character. It was almost as bad as when he got in trouble in that bar and Obi-Wan started to rush in, but then Luke just kicked the guy's ass. It just resulted in a feeling that, rather than Luke being a miserable disenfranchised kid embarking on a grand adventure, he was just there to be a series of bite-sized wish fulfillment moments that we'll call a character. What a dumb movie.
The whole process of being a jedi is wish fulfillment. They are wish fulfillment characters (noble space knights that can use magic alongside laser swords), especially after the prequels and video games and everything else ratcheted up the power levels of what Jedis could do (I understand that Luke is supposed to be a powerful jedi but it seems like any of the scrubs from the pre-quels could have taken him). What we know about Rey is that she's a talented mechanic and pilot (a better mechanic than Han, probably, but not necessarily a better pilot than him or Luke), she's level headed and competent, and that she probably is so good at this stuff because she's a powerful force user. But that's also basically Anakin, so it's nothing we haven't seen before.
But the interesting side of Rey thus far has really been her emotional vulnerability--that's where here weakness was, and that's where the tension in her character was introduced. The threats she was dealing with weren't physical, and so the fact that she was able to do so well against those physical threats wasn't really a problem. If the tension related to the Rey character was 'how is she going to survive this' I'd be more inclined to agree with you.
McParadigm wrote:
Practical effects! A lesser movie would have cgi'd that bread.
And a better one would have known how to incorporate it without taking 5 long seconds to stare directly at only the fucking food while characters are waiting to be developed.
The bread was a neat little 'alien' kind of moment--something to help establish the galaxy far away feel of the movie--something we haven't seen before. And the scene that follows it--the way she eats the food with this fast bites, furtive glances, licking the plate established how along she was, how precarious her existence was, and how sad the whole thing is since she's clearly talented enough to have left the planet, but was emotionally unable to.
