Star Wars Spoilers Thread [Spoilers]

So here's my review: 100% a Star Wars film which belongs with the original trilogy.

It's a transitional film, but it does it well. The new generation is really good.

I think the major death was kinda signposted a bit. You knew it was coming long before it happened. I felt worse for Chewie, but he, Rey, and BB8 make a great team.

Is this the first Star Wars film where nobody gets their hand cut off?

Luke lives in Ireland, eh?

Question: WHY was there a map to Luke, and why was it split into two? I feel like I missed something. For that matter, why a map and not just some coordinates? Seems like a random puzzle set up for the sake of it.

 

[dd.stevenson]

Just saw it.

Not bad, but the plot wasn't anywhere near as tight as I felt a star wars movie should have been. Han's death was a pretty good case in point--han had (apparently) no agency in the moment of his death, and it bore no real consequences for the remainder of the story (consider: if he had been badly injured instead of killed, would anything have played differently?)

Nice to see the brand being competently managed, though.

 

[Umbran]

yet within moments of that, she is blocking his mind reading, and developing mind control all by herself.

Note something - she generally shows new power *after having power used upon her*. She's learning from Kylo Ren, not from thin air.

 

[Jester David]

We still don't know how the Force Awakens. That title was particularly meaningless compared to the others. Not very Star Wars at all.

During the credits I thought to myself, how was the Starkiller Base needed at all. They were going after Rey anyway. All the major character stuff would have happened anyway, even if it was on a spaceship like the star destroyer we saw. That whole bit was superflous.
Then I started thinking about all the similar unneeded bits. Like the big CGI chase in Han's ship that feels just as pointless as the big alien chase in Star Trek or the giant fish scene in Phantom Menace.

Or completely and totally wasting Gwendoline Christie. She could have been giving the speech or fighting Finn with the electro-club thing.

I really didn't like how so much of the movie was a retread, a mishmash of old bits from Episodes 4-6. The orphan on the desert planet. The rescue while dressed as a stormtrooper. A droid carrying secret data. An untrained kid just handed a lightsaber kept in a chest. Deactivating a shield generator on a planet. A trench run to blow up a base. The older mentor figure dying. Going off to train on a remote planet with the last Jedi.
Small homages are one things (shots, lines, etc) but this was large segments of the plot.

Much of the original content also didn't feel original either. Never read any EU books or comics, but I was familiar enough from the RPG and video games to know Luke has a kid named Ben and Han and Leia have two, one of which goes to the dark side. And Chewie dies, being the token major character to snuff it. But the novel authors purposely avoided having Ben Skywalker go dark side because that'd just be retelling the story of Anakin, the obvious tale this movie runs headlong into.
It really felt like they removed the entire EU just so they could retread some of the same narrative ground from a slightly different perspective, but in a more obvious route.

The movie is also unclear how the First Order, Resistance, and Republic interact. Is the Resistance a branch of the army of the republic? Is the First Order the actual empire rebranded, a side nation, or a terrorist organization? Did the Republic take over the empire? Having just watched the movie and read none of the books, it really looked like the Rebels lost after Endor and the Empire is still around. Everyone is afraid of the First Order but dismissive of the Republic.
The original Star Wars was also light on the backstory, but this was unneeded. Everyone knows the archetype of the evil, corrupt government and the rebels fighting.

I liked a lot of the film. Rey was good and Finn's character arc was interesting and I want to know where it goes. The movie was at its best when it wasn't copying an established structure and going off in its own direction. There was a lot of potential, but so much was squandered. Much like the prequels.
I'm excited for Episode VIII and the possibility of something new and original.

Not sure where I would put this on the Star Wars scale. While they had some horrible moments, Episodes 1-3 had a lot of redeeming qualities. If you watch a fan edit it's surprising how enjoyable they are. They weren't poor movies, just poorly edited movies. And having better dialogue and editing doesn't make a movie more original, and being endlessly inventive was always something Star Wars had done well.
I'd put Force Awakens above Episode 1 and 2 but below Revenge of the Sith.

 

[Cor Azer]

Boy Anakin in Episode 1 is pretty much a Gary Stu. Older Anakin makes mistakes and loses his fight with Obi-Wan.

I've no problem with Rey being an good pilot, mechanic and speaking several languages, after all she is kind of filling the Luke role in the movie and he is all those things. Being a decent pilot and mechanic seem to go hand in hand, and being multi-lingual isn't that uncommon in the Star Wars universe.

However Luke requires training to use the lightsabre, and even then he loses pretty much every battle he is in using it. You see Luke fail on several occasions. He also starts the film as a whinny bitch, but develops as the series goes on. The only point of vulnerability Rey shows in the film is when Kylo Ren holds her with the force, before bringing her back to Starkiller base, yet within moments of that, she is blocking his mind reading, and developing mind control all by herself. Now there maybe some explanation for all of this (like she's Luke's daughter, and very strong in the Force), but I still think it would have made for a more dramatic film if the hero was a little more at risk, and threatened.

As pointed out, Luke doesn't lose very many fights at all.

I will also point out, to the best of our knowledge, Luke didn't really get in many fights before getting his lightsabre either (the Tuskan Raiders got the drop on him). Rey has apparently for some time carried around and fought with her staff, so she already has some insight of the ins-and-outs of melee (and if D&D's BAB has taught us nothing else, it's that being trained in one weapon lets you use others too - Yes, that's tongue-in-cheek).

Plus, the on-screen training Luke got with his lightsabre was pretty much centered around blocking laser blasts from a remote. I don't recall seeing Rey trying any of that defection stuff, so we really don't know if she can do any of that very well at all.

Also also - Kylo Ren was shot by Chewie, then fought Finn while injured, and then fought Rey while still injured. I think being beaten after facing essentially three-on-one odds doesn't hurt his potential threat level too much.

Also also also - When the call of destiny came, Luke overcame the deaths of his uncle/aunt pretty darn quickly without an apparent lingering thought. Rey considered ignoring her call to destiny several times (and outright ran when finding Anakin's/Luke's lightsabre triggered its Force vision thing). She has plenty of weaknesses to face ahead of her.

 

[Umbran]

During the credits I thought to myself, how was the Starkiller Base needed at all. They were going after Rey anyway.

No, they weren't. Finn wanted to go after Rey. Solo and Chewbacca have no real drive to do so, and certainly the rest of the Resistance doesn't.

 

[Jester David]

No, they weren't. Finn wanted to go after Rey. Solo and Chewbacca have no real drive to do so, and certainly the rest of the Resistance doesn't.

They don't need the rest of the Resistance. They were irrelevant to that scene without the weapon.

Solo liked Rey and wanted to give her a job. It wouldn't have been a stretch for him and Chewie to want to rescue her, with the ulterior motive of finding Ren. And they would know she'd seen the map, and Poe could tell them Ren reads minds, so there's the incentive to rescue her before he can find Luke.
They all go to the base or ship and everything unfolds exactly the same.

The Starkiller Base is redundant and unneeded in every way and just makes the movie more of a copy and less original.

 

[Morrus]

No, they weren't. Finn wanted to go after Rey. Solo and Chewbacca have no real drive to do so, and certainly the rest of the Resistance doesn't.

Indeed. Finn had to lie about being able to shut the shields down to get a mission going. His plan was to rescue Rey. Everyone else was just there to lower the shields and then blow up the base.

 

[Shasarak]

I think you guys were watching a different movie to me! She crashed the Falcon several times, she got her ass utterly kicked by Kylo Ren once, and in her second fight with him was pretty much desperately staggering back trying to survive until the last bit where she used the Force. I don't think she's as super-competent as folks are saying, though she clearly has an advantage by virtue of being strong in the Force (like Luke and Anakin were natural super-pilots, etc.)

Nah, she wasn't a Mary Sue. She competent, and a Force user. In other words, a real female protagonist.

Kylo was a stroke of genius. Trying to make him into a super villain like Dart Vader - the greatest movie villain ever to exist - would have instantly doomed the film to failure. There is no way to win that comparison, and even if you managed it, you'd be accused of simply copying. So they did the right thing - they took a completely different route. The fact that he's not as awesome as Vader is built-in to his character and drives his flaws. It makes him interesting.

Kylo Ren is Luke from the original trilogy, not Vader. The role is reversed - he's learning the dark side and trying to resist the light, unlike Luke whose arc was learning the light said and trying to resist the dark. Vader is the wrong comparison in terms of both ability and story role. This is the story of an evil Luke, not a second Vader.

I wish I had seen your movie - sounds cool!

 

[Morrus]

I wish I had seen your movie - sounds cool!

Did she not crash the Falcon, get easily captured by Kylo, and get beaten about by him until she used the Force when you saw it? Or are you disputing that any of those events took place? I'm not sure where you're going with that.

 

[Umbran]

Solo liked Rey and wanted to give her a job. It wouldn't have been a stretch for him and Chewie to want to rescue her, with the ulterior motive of finding Ren.

I disagree. If Kylo Ren had taken her back to a major First Order base that wasn't a megaweapon poised to shoot anyone down, I don't see as he's got a compelling reason to go after her. Given the situation where Kylo has a potential map to Luke, and the Resistance has a map to Luke, the top priority becomes a race to Luke - his longtime friend and the last known Jedi who is now at risk, not rescuing a girl he'd just met. Without the threat of the megaweapon, Leia would send Han (best pilot, fastest ship) to save her brother, not save the otherwise unknown girl.

If he wants to find Ben, the best thing to do is to find Luke first, and wait for Ben to show up.

By the way, I don't think we should refer to him as "Ren" any more than we'd refer to later Annakin as "Darth". There are potentially several "Ren"s - all part of the Knights of Ren. HIs personal name there is "Kylo".