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.

 

[Grumpy RPG Reviews]

You completely missed the point, which was that an inconsistent standard was being applied.

Fairy tales and fairy tale movies are always going to be wildly inconsistent is terms of morals, backgrounds, incest and the like because they are about the razzle-ma-tazzle, not about consistent nuance.

 

[Hussar]

The point being though, [MENTION=6678305]Grumpy RPG Reviews[/MENTION], that you can't, on one hand, complain about how the impact of one element (in this case, possible incest) isn't dealt with on screen, and then brush off the idea that burying your entire family after they have been brutally murdered is a non-issue. Or watching your entire planet be destroyed gets a single, "no" and then is never mentioned again. In this case, all three are dealt with in a consistent manner - they are entirely ignored.

 

[Bedrockgames]

The point being though, [MENTION=6678305]Grumpy RPG Reviews[/MENTION], that you can't, on one hand, complain about how the impact of one element (in this case, possible incest) isn't dealt with on screen, and then brush off the idea that burying your entire family after they have been brutally murdered is a non-issue. Or watching your entire planet be destroyed gets a single, "no" and then is never mentioned again. In this case, all three are dealt with in a consistent manner - they are entirely ignored.

I just want to clarify my point here. All three are glossed over as I would expect them to be in a movie like this. I wasn't saying that the kiss needed to be addressed. They handled all those things just fine. But the glossing isn't equal in my view. The tragedies both get acknowledgement, I would argue movingly given the space they were working within. The kiss was never really acknowledged in light of the brother-sister revelation. This is why it stands out more to me. When I watched Star Wars for the first time, it never struck me as odd that they didn't spend more time dwelling on his family dying or on Alderaan being blown up. However when I found out Luke and Leia were Brother and Sister, the kissing scene always stood out as unusual. Again, it isn't a big deal. This is soap opera in space. But if someone is going to argue that the Force Awakens is bad because it wasn't as perfect as the original trilogy, I think things like the kiss, like R2-D2 rolling easily over sand dunes on wheels that are inferior to the ones on my swivel chair, like Han never finding a way to get the money to Jabba before he gets frozen, like storm troopers never hitting anything but Leia's shoulder despite being 'so precise' with blasters, are all worth pointing to to remind people the first movies were not perfect and they were basically making them up as they went (and they worked beautifully). But sure, if you feel those tragedies were also odd bumps in the movies, then I'd just add them to the list of things as well.

 

[Water Bob]

There's so many Star Wars comics that have been written over the decades since A New Hope came out, I guess it's inevitable that similar ideas would appear. I saw several ideas used in the prequels and original trilogy long before those scenes made it to Star Wars feature films.

Think the idea of exiting hyperspace inside the atmosphere of a world is new (as we saw in the new film)? Nope. Here's the same idea used by the pilots of Rogue Squadron as they attacked the Imperial base on Tandankin.

 

[Hussar]

Heh. Maybe they borrowed the idea from Battlestar Galactica.

Something I'm confused about. Ten kills all the Jedi and Luke goes into seclusion twenty years ago right? Why is Ren so young? Shouldn't he be like late thirties at least? Or am I confused?

 

[Water Bob]

Heh. Maybe they borrowed the idea from Battlestar Galactica.

THAT was a cool scene.

Something I'm confused about. Ten kills all the Jedi and Luke goes into seclusion twenty years ago right? Why is Ren so young? Shouldn't he be like late thirties at least? Or am I confused?

The way I understand it, Luke has been missing for years, but it wasn't quite 20 years ago that the Knights of Ren destroyed the New Jedi Order. It probably happened about a decade or so ago.

We know little about the Knights of Ren at this point. I'll bet that they emerged from the Jedi that Luke was training.

And, Luke is all screwed in the head because his attempt at cultivating new Jedi has gone so horribly wrong, creating a new evil order.

 

[Hussar]

That makes more sense I suppose. I didn't think there would be ten years between the actors, but, actually there is between Daisy Ridley and Adam Driver.

Of course, that does raise the question of what the heck has Kylo Ren been doing for the past decade? Why didn't he finish his Sith training? That was one of the weaker parts of the movie, IMO, that Rey, while proficient with a staff, holds her own in a sword fight against someone who's supposed to have been doing this for decades. Finn rightly goes down quickly, but, Rey actually holds her own for a while. Although, to be fair, I suppose, she is losing by the end. It just makes Kylo Ren seem a lot weaker than maybe he should.

Then again, maybe this gets explained in the next movie. Maybe he wasn't full on Sith until he killed Han, so, his powers weren't all that strong.

 

[Hypersmurf]

That was one of the weaker parts of the movie, IMO, that Rey, while proficient with a staff, holds her own in a sword fight against someone who's supposed to have been doing this for decades. Finn rightly goes down quickly, but, Rey actually holds her own for a while. Although, to be fair, I suppose, she is losing by the end. It just makes Kylo Ren seem a lot weaker than maybe he should.

As has been pointed out, Ren was a lot weaker than usual at that point. The film took several opportunities to say "Look how super-awesome Chewie's bowcaster is!", and then shot Ren with it just before he fights Finn and Rey...

-Hyp.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

And he is kicking her butt in that fight, right until the end, even though he is badly injured, exhausted physically and emotionally, etc. and she may not be trained with a saber, but she is very good with that staff.
In my experience, for those lucky ppl who are gifted in melee fighting, it definitely carries over. I've fought ppl who are using a new weapon for the first time, but are really good in general, and it is eye opening how quickly they can pick it up. Yes, even a few exchanges into a sparring session. They don't become experts, and neither did Rey, but her fight choreography was spot on with my experiences relating to talented fighters picking up a new weapon. Also, again IME, staff fighters are freakishly good at picking up new weapons and styles quickly.

 

[Bedrockgames]

Of course, that does raise the question of what the heck has Kylo Ren been doing for the past decade? Why didn't he finish his Sith training? That was one of the weaker parts of the movie, IMO, that Rey, while proficient with a staff, holds her own in a sword fight against someone who's supposed to have been doing this for decades. Finn rightly goes down quickly, but, Rey actually holds her own for a while. Although, to be fair, I suppose, she is losing by the end. It just makes Kylo Ren seem a lot weaker than maybe he should.
.

Kylo Ren was pretty badly wounded right before that scene, and he had just killed his own father (and according to Abrahms, that had more than just an emotional impact on him). Personally I'd like more explanation on the latter bit, but the Bow caster was built up as super powerful for most of the movie, so I think that was a fair reason for him being defeated by Ren.

There is a another possibility I find interesting, which is maybe Ren has been Miyagi'd her whole life and was trained without knowing it. We know she is important for some reason (either because she is Luke's kid, Obi-Wan's kid, etc). So they may have planted the seeds to keep her trained while she was on Jaaku, but to do so without fully awakening her force abilities. It is entirely possible her scavenging work was a way of training her force powers for example, the way Daniel learned to block doing wax on, wax off. I doubt they would go this direction, but I still thought this was a fun possibility, especially if there were someone else present subtly training her while she grew up.