Star Wars Spoilers Thread [Spoilers]

Kramodlog · Dec 19, 2015

Umbran said:
There was a whole lot on the screen that was captivating. The audience in my theater was captivated - drawn in, wrapped up, and engaged - for most of the film.

By the story or by its pacing? There is an hypnotic effect to bombarding people with rapid images. You'll have them captivated, but not in the same way a good story will be captivating.

Plus there is the whole Star Wars brand + excitement of seeing new films that affects impression. People wanted to like it, which is understandable. Star Wars has a special place in pop culture. Again, I'll say it isn't a terrible film, but I wonder what people would say about it if didn't have the Star Wars logo on it. Guardians of the Galaxy was a much better film if we compare.

People in this thread have already questioned the point of the map to Luke and the "we can always destroy these things" comment about the Starkiller. It is pretty meta, but laughing at your own weak plot doesn't make your weak plot better. There weren't any stakes when it came to destroying the Starkiller. After watching it a few times with a cool head, people will be more critical. Like why was it so easy to get into the Millenium Falcon and just take it? Why couldn't Solo track it before it flew? How come Rey progressed so fast with her mastery of the Force? How did Tekka find the missing piece of Luke's map? Maz Kanata had the potential of being a Jar Jar if she had more screen time and talk about vacuous dialogues and a stereotypical character.

More stuff like this will surface after time will pass.

Part of the proble is that there is lots of pressure on director and screen writers. They couldn't produce film of prequel quality. So they played it safe, pandered to fans and went with lowest common denominaters. Maybe with a director that has more of a personal vision the next films will be better.

Sure, I'm rather harsh for a film about space wizards and I do not mention the positive. Finn and Po where great characters. Well acted and some nice lines. There arc at the start of the film works. The actors for Kylo and Rey are good choices for roles that will obviously be central to the new trilogy. It is really nice that the central Jedi for the new trilogy is a woman. BB-8 wasn't just comic relief, he didn't exist just to sell toys to kids and he wasn't too CGI-ish. I originally thought the ball-droid was a mistake, but he works. It is just that the film doesn't deserve all the excitement it gets. Yeah, I'm great at parties.

trappedslider · Dec 19, 2015

well at least you didn't use "star bores"

EDIT: I honestly enjoyed it,and it caused me to think about getting back into the books,and see what they have done with those. I plan to see it again when i have the money.

Janx · Dec 19, 2015

I saw it this morning. I spose I liked it, but I have some quibbles.

I did not like the opening text setup for how we transition from RotJ to this movie.

The rebels won on all the planets in RotJ, we saw the party (at least in the re-worked version). I have no doubt hordes of bad commanders slunk off somewhere, but the Republic should have reformed (or some other named thing) and had 20-40 years to grow and potentially set up for the new bad guys to try to take it down (making the bad guys be the Rebels).

Instead, we pretty much have the Empire with a new name still in power it seems.

As somebody else commented, Leia doesn't command the Resistance, they are supposed to already be in charge. It's the bad guys who should be rising.

Otherwise, as I read it, RotJ didn't accomplish a darn thing but change the name of the current evil leader.

The whole planet turned into a death star was a neat idea, kind of like some NASA guy's comment on making a death star from an asteroid. The fact that it kills its own star to fuel itself seems poorly thought out.

And as we all know, this film is suspiciously like A New Hope. Very same plot elements. That's unfortunate. It was nice to watch, but I didn't like finishing the film and having that comment come up as we talked about the film on the way home. At least on Trek's Into Darkness, it is SUPPOSED to have parallels to Wrath of Khan because it's the altered timeline.

Morrus · Dec 19, 2015

Janx said:
I saw it this morning. I spose I liked it, but I have some quibbles.

I did not like the opening text setup for how we transition from RotJ to this movie.

The rebels won on all the planets in RotJ, we saw the party (at least in the re-worked version). I have no doubt hordes of bad commanders slunk off somewhere, but the Republic should have reformed (or some other named thing) and had 20-40 years to grow and potentially set up for the new bad guys to try to take it down (making the bad guys be the Rebels).

Instead, we pretty much have the Empire with a new name still in power it seems.

As somebody else commented, Leia doesn't command the Resistance, they are supposed to already be in charge. It's the bad guys who should be rising.

Otherwise, as I read it, RotJ didn't accomplish a darn thing but change the name of the current evil leader.

No, that's not it.

The Republic is in charge. The First Order (made up of Empire leftovers and sympathisers) is the up and coming threat.

The Resistance (led by Leia) exists because the Republic doesn't take the threat seriously. At least yet. Presumably the destruction of 5 planets will convince them.

Kramodlog · Dec 19, 2015

Calling it the Resistance doesn't make it clear that the First Order wasn't in power. I thought it was.

Curmudjinn · Dec 20, 2015

From what I've read of others' thoughts, Luke didn't make a map for people to find him.
He was plotting his course using R2D2 as he sought out the First Temple. The last section was shown to him by Max Von Sydow's character, whom reproduced that piece for Leia. Luke had R2 intentionally power down when he was given the last piece just in case Kylo Ren found the droid.

Makes sense.

Greg Benage · Dec 20, 2015

I liked it quite a lot. The new characters and performances were excellent. Kylo Ren is a fascinating villain. There are a lot of unanswered world-building questions, but that's fine -- there were in the OT too. I'm sure some of those questions will be answered eventually, but honestly, I'm pretty okay with the idea, voiced by Maz Kanata, that there always has been and always will be some manifestation of the Dark Side, whether Empire, First Order, or whatever. It seems appropriate that it's not something that can really be defeated in the Star Wars universe. Maybe we had unrealistic expectations for what victory would look like after RotJ.

Mostly, though, I really loved the characters and the acting and I look forward to what comes next.

Hypersmurf · Dec 20, 2015

Morrus said:
No, that's not it.

The Republic is in charge. The First Order (made up of Empire leftovers and sympathisers) is the up and coming threat.

The Resistance (led by Leia) exists because the Republic doesn't take the threat seriously. At least yet. Presumably the destruction of 5 planets will convince them.

The destruction of five planets specifically including the Republican seat of government, wasn't it?

And there was a line about the Resistance having to do it without the assistance of the Republic Fleet, but I'm not clear on whether that's because "There's no time for the fleet to get here" or because "It just blew the hell up along with the President, the Senate, and the rest of the Republican bigwigs".

-Hyp.

Hypersmurf · Dec 20, 2015

Curmudjinn said:
From what I've read of others' thoughts, Luke didn't make a map for people to find him.
He was plotting his course using R2D2 as he sought out the First Temple. The last section was shown to him by Max Von Sydow's character, whom reproduced that piece for Leia. Luke had R2 intentionally power down when he was given the last piece just in case Kylo Ren found the droid.

Makes sense.

Huh. That does actually make sense, at least for the Luke/R2/von Sydow/BB8 side of things.

Implication was that the First Order also had access to the larger (R2) piece of the map from Imperial records, which doesn't quite fit the theory, but it's close enough that I'm happy to adopt it as my understanding of what's happening

-Hyp.

Water Bob · Dec 20, 2015

Morrus said:
No, that's not it.

The Republic is in charge. The First Order (made up of Empire leftovers and sympathisers) is the up and coming threat.

The Resistance (led by Leia) exists because the Republic doesn't take the threat seriously. At least yet. Presumably the destruction of 5 planets will convince them.

I didn't get that from the movie at all. What I saw was that the First Order was the most influential political body in the universe, but it wasn't near at the strength of the old Empire. The Rebellion had hurt them, badly. And,the war is still going on. After their victory, the Rebels became the "Resistance". The Empire became the "First Order". And, much of the galaxy is independent--self ruled.