EP VII REVIEW and DISCUSSION, SPOILER THREAD!!!!!!!!!!!

[Felix]

Please do not read this thread if you haven't seen the movie yet.

I'll be going to watch it tomorrow (probably). Anyway, please use this thread to discuss the movie, good luck

and may the force be with you

[Bravo]

NOOOO! I read the thread.

I may not even seen this until after Xmas. I want to see it before, but I also don't want to deal with a packed theater.

[Felix]

lol! I'm going to try and see it tonight, I don't care about a packed theater. Stop reading this thread

[Swindle]

I'm going tomorrow with friends

[Felix]

Alright, spoiler time!!!!!








Bravo, look away look away!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!











I said stop looking!!!!!











I liked it.

I liked the girl Rei or Ray (SP?), her character and acting was good, a little cheesy between her and Finn at times, but isn't that the way romance is? It's nice to see the hero be a girl. And it's never revealed who Rei is, I mean where she comes from. I believe her to be Luke's daughter. Her ability to use the force isn't really explained, but she can use it.

Finn, was about what I expected. I still hate that they cast a black guy as a stormtrooper. The Evil Galactic Empire, I mean the First Order, is prominently white (even in this movie) and has always had an extreme racial superiority theme very similar to the Nazi's. But whatever. He played the part well.

Poe, the X-wing pilot rebel, was one of the more entertaining characters of the film, and I was hoping we would see more of him, which (here's an actual spoiler!) we do. Worth noting that Rebel Pilots wear red now, not orange, it just looks good. I'm not a fan of the new helmets though. I love the classic X-wing and ROTJ Y-wing pilot helmets. The new ones just suck, sorry.

Probably the best part is seeing Han Solo and Chewbacca, Han even carries and uses a whip! The Millenium Falcons return is just as important as these two characters, very nice to see them all in action again.

Kylo Ren is.....Han Solo's and Leia's son. He starts off as pretty badass and ruthless, and then we see he's nothing more than an angry teenager. I guess they sent him off to Luke's Jedi academy and he turned to the dark side, and killed all the Jedi, but Luke (everyone is looking for Luke too, that's what the movies about). And *major spoiler* Kylo kills Han. I suspected he would be killed off, and I was right. And he did it trying to help his son, and while blowing up the shield generator to the new Death Star thing. Harrison wanted his character killed off in ROTJ blowing up the shield generator, guess he finally got his wish. Hero's making a sacrifice, it's what makes a story good in my humble opinion. One guy in the theater shouted out "This movie fucking sucks!" when they killed off Han Solo. I think he was just a little emotional.


While the resistance is planning the attack, this has got to be the funniest part of the film, Han Solo is simply hilarious

Things that don't quite add up...
Rei gets whooped by Kylo Ren twice, then
Finn fights Kylo and gets his butt kicked, then
Rei kicks Kylo Rens butt, logical reasoning set aside, I guess it all had to do with the force.

Captain Phasma, really does nothing. Just has nice shiny armor!

The major new villain in this movie is a huge hologram of a giant bad guy sitting in a chair. A hologram makes me think he could really be just a very small guy like Yoda. This villains name is SNOOK. I am not making that up. I mean, how can you be a super evil villain with a name like "Snook"? Little kids would make fun of you. Oh well. Who is he? Where did he come from? How is he in charge? Why is Kylo Ren following his every command? Guess we will have to wait and see.


Last but not least, BB-8 kind of steals the show. He's the new R2-D2, and who can't love a droid that looks like a soccer ball?

Overall, it was a fun movie

[Bravo]

Saw this with my father today...which was the first Star Wars movie I've seen at the theater with him since ROTJ.

It was okay. They did exactly what people would expect and probably what they creatively shouldn't have...a bigger death star.

Tons of coincidences...so many...will of the force is all that can explain them.

FINN just won't kill people despite years of conditioning...because? He's kind of annoying at times, because he's the comic relief...yet, is supposed to be conflicted.

I'd assumed Max Von Sydow's character would be really interesting or revealing, but it's a meaningless role.

The Republic is destroyed...and their fleet....wait, what? WHAT? The Republic/Resistance thing was convoluted. So the Republic doesn't want a constant war with First Order, but they fund a Resistance that does (badly since the Starkiller Base was unknown to them!)...it's like they wanted an excuse to put the good guys in a weaker position than they should be, when having the villains in that position would've been far more interesting.

First ORder was less interesting than the Empire...they seem to exist to hunt LUKE, but yet target "the Republic". I wasn't bothered by their racial/intergender ranks, but am wondering why they are taking order from an alien (Snoke?)...when the Empire was sort-of-anti-alien...I never bought into that, either.

Harrison Ford got his wish...I suppose it was nice to see him again. I liked when Chewie straight up shot Kylo Ren. (Who doesn't instantly die like every other person shot in the film)

Kylo Ren may be the weakest lead villain ever. I was hoping Rey would finish him.

Who were Ren's allies in the flashbacks...other knights of ren? Knights of Stimpy?

Snoke or snookie or whatever...CGI via hologram looks like CGI. Who the heck is he? How was there another unseen dark side master? I've heard theories.

Admiral Ackbar....yay!

Phasma, yeah, sort of a pointless character. Why is there a chrome named female stormtrooper? Just because...merchandizing!

So is Rey Luke's daughter or what? I'd think Han and Leia would mention another child. Some theories she's a clone of Luke...a female clone. Or a surviving Jedi student.

Mark Hamill probably got paid a lot for less than a minute with no lines. Disappointed he won't have any scenes with Ford in VIII or will it be IIX?

Was Constable Zuvio even in the film? He got a 6 inch figure. LOL.

I still hope Lando shows up in episode 8, and is NOT Finn's father. Please, enough of that already.

I guess I should be happy Boba Fett is not in the film. And I am. At least that fan service was ignored.

[Swindle]

Yeah, the Republic/Resistance thing was not well thought out. The good guys should be in a much stronger position and the bigger badder Death Star was weak sauce. I don't question that they'd want to build something like the Starkiller base, only that the Republic would not know of it.
They should have been willing to put the bad guys on the defensive and let the dark side be their weapon. There's enough personal conflict to carry the movie with Kylo Ren at the center of things.

Smoke, no opinion one way or another.

I do like Rey, though. The actress was strong. I also like Ben Solo errr... Kylo Ren. He's basically a Vader fanboy. I can dig it.

Han Solo, the latest wise old man to die. He did go from a sceptic to a believer.

[Felix]

I like Bravo's idea of a smaller Empire, maybe they are?

I still think the Kylo Ren should have been Darth Revan, he could have been frozen in carbonite, the Imperial Officers seek him out to have a great leader. Plus, force users can possibly live very long lives. The First Order would almost immediately regret unfreezing him, he kills storm troopers right away after being defrosted, not realizing they're there to help him. He seeks more destruction than "order". Means there's a reason for Storm Troopers like FINN to start defecting. But that didn't happen, so it doesn't matter.

[Felix]

I watched this again, but this time with my mom. We rarely go the movies together, but we've always watched Star Wars.

Her thoughts, she liked the old ones better (original trilogy), and the ships seemed too much like toys

She also felt like it was just a newer version of the first one, which it totally is.


My thoughts on the rewatch:

I totally agree with my mom

FINN as a Storm Trooper is argued about briefly between Kylo Ren and one of the main officers about "They should have used a clone army". This pretty much addresses my previous complaints.

Ray's force abilities are explained slightly by Ren, "The longer she escapes, the more powerful she'll become!"

The final space battle bothers me. It's too confusing. In ROTJ, the space battle is epic, easy to follow, you see everything. In this, the camera is zooming around so much in the final space battle that it's hard to tell what's happening.

I like that the lightsaber battles aren't like the prequels, with flips, super jumps, and stupidly complex choreographed rehearsed moves. It feels like the good ol' days.

[Bravo]

Final A NEW HOPE battle works better because the focus is entirely on it, here the real focus is on Han/Finn/Chewie/Rey. But that's how it's been in so many of these fantasy action movies, split between fights.

My dad found the film disappointing. LOL.

I don't know how Rey knows about Jedi Mind Trick. BTW, that tricked trooper was Daniel Craig, current James Bond.

[Felix]

I kind of have to disagree with you a tad bit, because in ROTJ, the final battle is split into three separate battles, and it manages to flow easily, and the ships battle is easy to follow. It might have had to do with watching it in 3-D, but after two viewings, I was still like "where are we going, whats happening, what was that?" during the space battle.

I did like when the X-wings flew in and rescued Han Solo & crew, the action then was visible and easily understandable, like you said one action sequence. I was able to count at least ten TIE-Fighter kills from POE, in one continuous shot, plus the storm trooper strafing runs

Disney could always go back and edit the films if they want right?

The Jedi mind trick did seem odd, considering she hadn't learned that. I believe after the second viewing that she develops this ability because of Kylo Ren. He was trying to read her mind, and by defending herself, she was able to read his mind instead. The only explanation is that this encounter helped trigger her force abilities.

[Bravo]

I'm not sure if I wasn't agreeing with you or not now about the space battle. Yes, it didn't flow as well as ROTJ or even LOTR movies (which had a lot of fights going on).

Looking around other sites. Just saying this movie was okay is enough to get some fans' back's up. How did everyone tear apart the prequels, yey now peeps get really defensive about The Force Awakens? I'm a bit let down, but I'm still interested in future movies. So...whatever. As they said in the Star Wars parody HARDWARE WARS "Relax, kid, it's just a movie."

[Felix]

Man, I'd love to watch Hardware Wars again

I mentioned in the MOTU forum that Han Solo died, but put a SPOILER WARNING, and then a lot of space before I started talking about it. It was just in response to someone elses post. The dude I responded to got really pissed off, mods deleted my post.

Maybe its just too soon for most people. Maybe they already bought a bunch of toys and Star Wars product.

But Kylo Ren is lame.
Dare I say, worse than Jar Jar Binks!

[Bravo]

Star-wars-the-force-awkens-deleted-scenes

JJ Abrams doesn't like director's cuts/etc. Whatever, after two Trek movies and this, I think he's not that great of a director.

[Felix]

I'm not exactly sure what Disneys plans are, but I believe they're going to be using different directors, writers, on each movie. I feel Star Wars is now in a permanent "young adult" book section. You know, the books that are aimed at 9 year olds.

JJ Abrams did "LOST." and with talk of the next film being "Really weird", I wonder just how long before they use time travel to reset and reboot the Star Wars franchise. Yeah, I'll bet my vintage Darth Vader, that's where it's headed...sooner or later.

I am with him on not wanting to do a Directors Cut, but I like seeing deleted scenes. In my copy of Pulp Fiction, Quentin Tarantino explained how he included deleted scenes in the copy of the video, but he wouldn't do a directors cut. He said, "He made the movie the way he wanted it to be seen the first time," that's the way movies should be. They are what they are. It really felt like a stab at Lucas for the special editions, but I totally agree with this. If you've got the energy to redo a whole movie, just make a new one.

I'm sure when fans have had a chance to rewatch, they'll catch some of the really bad plot holes. There's a lot of situations where there simply isn't enough time for events to take place.

Mainly when the new Death Star is going to fire at the resistance base. They say they've got like two minutes or something, a lot happens in that time frame, a lot of ground has to be covered, I think the whole lightsaber battle happens then, it's kind of weird. I need to rewatch it to really pick it apart, but I could tell something is definitely off there.

Also, after the new Death Star fires at the Republic planets, we see Kylo Ren on his ship watching it. Moments later he's landing on the planet Han Solo, Chewbacca, Ray and Finn are on to get aid. This time frame is really off, even with light speed.