!!!SPOILER WARNING!!! Star Wars: The Force Awakens discussion

[whoozit]

Late to the party but just saw this today with two of my daughters.  Overall it was pretty good.  Was a bit disappointed because I have seen this movie before.  Why were there so many similarities to A New Hope?  With all of the planets in the universe why did it start on a desert planet?  I asked my daughters about the emo bad guy and they said it is a generational thing.  For a few seconds I thought the prequels were better than this but then remembered Jar-jar and sanity returned.

[trostol]

this was an..interesting thought i guess

http://imgur.com/gallery/7EhqwbF

[onan]

Yeah, Kylo the character is strong with the force. It is just that Adam Driver is weak with the acting.

[cweb]

Yeah, Kylo the character is strong with the force. It is just that Adam Driver is weak with the acting.

He wants to be like Hayden Christensen. In the story and the arts.

[Bounder]

The best Star Wars film to date?  Objectively superior to Jedi -- and No. 3 is no mean feat.  The first two, Hope and Empire, vibrate in and out of 1st and 2nd for me.  The impossible illusion of newness delivered by the first, the light and beauty of the second.

Best-acted Star Wars film, bar none.  Daisy Ridley's range, alone, takes this movie light-centuries beyond anything we've before been served.

Simply the most magnificent Millennium Falcon reveal ever.  "The garbage will do."

Didn't get enough Phasma?  #firstworldproblems

The line to retire, right now, is: "It wasn't perfect, but . . . " â€" a useless sentiment applicable to literally every made thing.

By far my favorite genre of "critiques" are "scientific": "but the Starkiller thingy couldn't work because . . . " â€" meanwhile lightsabers, hyperdrives, landspeeders, Yoda, an all-pervading intercessory Force and asteroid-dwelling worms big enough to park Millennium Falcons inside are, of course, totally cool.

"Ishi looked upon us as sophisticated children â€" smart but not wise."  â€"Saxton T. Pope

And attacks on comedy or humor . . . uh . . . Salacious Crumb, anyone?

Kylo does more force-manipulation than Vader ever tried, and it's stupendous.  Freezing laser-bolts midair.  Force holds.  Thrashing people about.  Any shade thrown at Driver's acting is, forgive me, extraordinarily unlettered.  Diamonds vs. glass.

Honestly, inventing BB-8 alone â€" the anti-Jar Jar â€" is enough to earn this effort an endless Niagra of praise.  You all saw the Celebration clip, I hope, proof that the little guy actually worked.  What other movies lately have taken such pains?

The cult of originality deeply retards creativity â€" it's the favorite canard of failed-filmmaker "critics" and a hyper-bizarre sticking point most io9/reddit types feel psychologically obliged to tick when taking-in any new entertainment commodity.  Anyone pretending they're offended by "failures of originality" needs to explicitly delineate the substantive plot differences between Alien and Aliens, and to get real specific about their third acts.

Remember: the book's called Hero with a Thousand Faces.  Similarities are deliberate â€" Kasdan is not ignorant on historical subjects.  Rome collapsed into a thousand-year theocratic tyranny.  Russia transmogrified into the USSR.  Germany: National Socialism.  On and on.  Two old adages are clichés for a reason â€" nature does abhor a vacuum and history, indeed, repeats itself.

Even long ago and far, far away.

[3OctaveFart]

Good comments.

[SredniVashtar]

The best Star Wars film to date?  Objectively superior to Jedi -- and No. 3 is no mean feat.  The first two, Hope and Empire, vibrate in and out of 1st and 2nd for me.  The impossible illusion of newness delivered by the first, the light and beauty of the second.

Subjectively superior. It's an opinion, that's all. The second film was as dark as it gets (amputation, torture, etc), I didn't see much lightness or beauty there. I can't say anything about the expression 'impossible illusion of newness', because it doesn't mean anything.

Best-acted Star Wars film, bar none.  Daisy Ridley's range, alone, takes this movie light-centuries beyond anything we've before been served.

The first film had Alec Guinness, Peter Cushing, Harrison Ford (when he could be bothered). TFA had some bird who sounds like she should be selling leg-warmers on a market stall in EastEnders. 'No-wuh!!'.

Simply the most magnificent Millennium Falcon reveal ever.  "The garbage will do."

Most people could see that one coming a mile off.

Didn't get enough Phasma?  #firstworldproblems

The writers thought, 'let's have a shiny stormtrooper we can sell the to the kids', but forgot to have anything interesting for her to do. They also wasted Max von Sydow, who looked like he wasn't give much direction, and was given a handful of shitty lines before he was bisected.

By far my favorite genre of "critiques" are "scientific": "but the Starkiller thingy couldn't work because . . . " â€" meanwhile lightsabers, hyperdrives, landspeeders, Yoda, an all-pervading intercessory Force and asteroid-dwelling worms big enough to park Millennium Falcons inside are, of course, totally cool.

There was no internal logic. It was badly thought-through. You can invent the rules of your fictional universe, but if you don't stick to them then you look foolish - cf. the stuff in The Dark Knight Rises, where the writers got bored and threw in any old cobblers because they knew their army of half-witted fanbois would swallow it.

Kylo does more force-manipulation than Vader ever tried, and it's stupendous.  Freezing laser-bolts midair.  Force holds.  Thrashing people about. 

That was one of the big problems - it was too much too soon, and they were trying to cover up the two-dimensional nature of his character by making him too powerful. So powerful that he ends up getting his arse handed to him by a girl with a stick, who only picked up a lightsaber a few seconds before. It looked like too many rewrites had made a bollocks of the story and turned it into an incoherent mish-mash.

Any shade thrown at Driver's acting is, forgive me, extraordinarily unlettered.  Diamonds vs. glass.

Whatever that means. There were two reasons he should have kept that mask on. 1) it preserved the mystery of the character, 2) when he took it off we realised that Driver was pure timber from the neck up: Plywood Ren.

Honestly, inventing BB-8 alone â€" the anti-Jar Jar â€" is enough to earn this effort an endless Niagra of praise.  You all saw the Celebration clip, I hope, proof that the little guy actually worked.  What other movies lately have taken such pains?

Was that the little ball thingy that was just a rip-off from the first film, and was only there to sell a lot of cutesy toys to another generation of kids? They couldn't even give it anything to do except what R2-D2 did the first time.

The cult of originality deeply retards creativity â€" it's the favorite canard of failed-filmmaker "critics" and a hyper-bizarre sticking point most io9/reddit types feel psychologically obliged to tick when taking-in any new entertainment commodity.  Anyone pretending they're offended by "failures of originality" needs to explicitly delineate the substantive plot differences between Alien and Aliens, and to get real specific about their third acts.

It was a pastiche of the first film, no more. Most popular films these days stick to a clinical formula that is designed to provide a shallow appeal to a broad range of people. It wasn't that TFA was unoriginal, it was that there was barely an idea in the whole thing that didn't have its antecedents in an earlier film from the franchise. It was terrified of doing anything that might jar its audience and remained safe and stale. I am sure the original script was far more interesting, but all the interesting bits were smoothed off as it passed through the Hollywood meat grinder.

Alien was a brilliant film for adults, Aliens was strictly for the ADD crowd. Alien spent an hour patiently establishing its world, before allowing the audience to see these people being gradually picked off. You actually felt something for them. Aliens was a comic book where the ante was upped too far, a cast of characters was bumped off in various ways, and nobody gave a shit one way or the other. It was a classic example of more being less. All those dozens of aliens bouncing around means it's dozens of times more fun and exciting, right? Wrong.

Remember: the book's called Hero with a Thousand Faces.  Similarities are deliberate â€" Kasdan is not ignorant on historical subjects.  Rome collapsed into a thousand-year theocratic tyranny.  Russia transmogrified into the USSR.  Germany: National Socialism.  On and on.  Two old adages are clichés for a reason â€" nature does abhor a vacuum and history, indeed, repeats itself.

History may repeat itself, but it doesn't mean Star Wars has to. I should bloody hope that a writer has an elementary knowledge of history. Most ten year-olds would have the same knowledge, but that's not much of a credential. The whole film was derivative, not simply unoriginal. It was terrified of doing anything remotely fresh for fear of upsetting its fan base. If you like that, then fine, but don't try and come up with some highfalutin reason for liking a popcorn flick with no obvious merit.

[Bounder]

highfalutin reason

I wasn't determined to favor JJ's take.  As I recall (from a GabCast), you were down on the project prior to its release.  I'm a cynic, too, but this makes me more receptive to common pleasures, not less.  Perfection is meaningless â€" to perfection nothing can be contributed.  Not quite what is meant by "fun."  Voltaire, as usual, found the best way to say it:

Better is the enemy of good.

"Illusion of Newness" â€" nothing can be created, only changed.  Lucas, in that 1977 film, gave us a sense that this is not so.  (JJ, I grant, did not).  Certain other masterworks achieve the same order of illusion.  When a "new" idea stays with you after the credits roll: "resurrecting dinosaurs," "acid for blood," "liquid metal man," firstborn Monoliths, the Force. 

Empire's lightness and beauty is photogenic.  Bespin, Hoth, Dagobah. 

Driver's acting, next to Christensen's . . . incomparable.  Thus "diamonds vs. glass."

The Force Awakens does derive ideas and even specific moments from its heritage . . . adding enough newness (Finn, for example) not to be discarded as a derivative pastiche.  That's Galaxy of Terror. 

I do get it â€" it's fun to rag on the popular.  Commercial art is my profession (concept design, illustration) and I'm perforce more protective of my fellow toilers â€" however it does seem the default position, "out there," is catchpenny contrarianism.  Of the comment-writing public, outcry and complaint are the new popular stance.  (Ironic exceptions come when the commodity is deeply derivative, viz. Mass Effect, Halo, BioShock, Red Dead Redemption, right up to Kung Fury, Far Cry 3: Blood Dragon, etc).

[Open Lines Gerry]

I just received my copy of the John Williams soundtrack from Amazon today.  He did an amazing job (as he always does), but I'm kind of disappointed that Kylo Ren didn't have a stong, indentifying, signature theme.  I realize that Darth Vader didn't get the Imperial March until The Empire Strikes Back soundtrack, but I was hoping that there would be some indication when Kylo Ren is on the screen.  I was looking for it when I saw the movie, and still can't really determine what it is listening to the CD now.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NRRPCjr1Ito

Here's the track for Snoke, and once again, I'm having a hard time picking up anything even remotely close to the level of the theme that Emperor Palpatine had in Return of the Jedi.  This one kind of sounds like the space opera that Anakin Skywalker attended with Palpatine in Revenge of the Sith, but it's certainly not as evil or ominous as I would hope for.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mSQ3BJVMfAI

I'm hoping that we'll get some much stronger Dark Side themes in Episode VIII!

[cweb]

I found Kylo Ren's signature song for ya 
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gd9OhYroLN0

[3OctaveFart]

Gerry, today Andy Serkis, the guy who voiced Snoke, said there is no correlation between the character and Darth Plagueis. That it's a completely new storyline.

http://www.joblo.com/movie-news/andy-serkis-says-exactly-who-supreme-leader-snoke-is-not-plust-more-info-710

[cweb]

Gerry, today Andy Serkis, the guy who voiced Snoke, said there is no correlation between the character and Darth Plagueis. That it's a completely new storyline.

http://www.joblo.com/movie-news/andy-serkis-says-exactly-who-supreme-leader-snoke-is-not-plust-more-info-710

However, he did reveal that Snoke is Gollum's cousin.

[onan]

I read an interesting article regarding the timeline between The Return of the Jedi and The Force awakens. The article made the point of how badly the lives of Han, Luke and Leia had turned out.

From the end of The Return of the Jedi, where they were enjoying what was assumed to be the end of the war, and Han and Leia were in love and to live happily ever after, to The Force Awakens where Luke is in an apparent exile, Han has returned (for what appears to be many years) to smuggling, and Leia, although a General, has lost her "husband" due to an unstable relationship and has lost her son to an opposing ideology.

That would have been a more interesting movie.

[SredniVashtar]

I read an interesting article regarding the timeline between The Return of the Jedi and The Force awakens. The article made the point of how badly the lives of Han, Luke and Leia had turned out.

From the end of The Return of the Jedi, where they were enjoying what was assumed to be the end of the war, and Han and Leia were in love and to live happily ever after, to The Force Awakens where Luke is in an apparent exile, Han has returned (for what appears to be many years) to smuggling, and Leia, although a General, has lost her "husband" due to an unstable relationship and has lost her son to an opposing ideology.

That would have been a more interesting movie.

My guess (and it's nothing but total speculation) is that the initial draft of the script was a lot more interesting than what we saw on screen, but it gradually got worn away as too many people wanted to have their say and all sorts of compromises were made. Almost certainly the discussions were on the lines of, 'oh, but that bit's too dark, how can we sell cute and cuddly toys based on that?'. Near me, they built an entire shop to sell merchandise to the kids and it seems that everyone between the ages of 4-12 has their own lightsaber. There was probably a lot more in the script involving the old guard (the stuff that people like me would have liked to see) but instead we had a bunch of mediocre twenty-somethings faffing about to little effect.

[cweb]

My guess (and it's nothing but total speculation) is that the initial draft of the script was a lot more interesting than what we saw on screen, but it gradually got worn away as too many people wanted to have their say and all sorts of compromises were made. Almost certainly the discussions were on the lines of, 'oh, but that bit's too dark, how can we sell cute and cuddly toys based on that?'. Near me, they built an entire shop to sell merchandise to the kids and it seems that everyone between the ages of 4-12 has their own lightsaber. There was probably a lot more in the script involving the old guard (the stuff that people like me would have liked to see) but instead we had a bunch of mediocre twenty-somethings faffing about to little effect.

You can almost always tell when a film has suffered from too many cooks, like this one did. It's too bad we'll never see any of the earlier scripts.

[ONeill]

They killed Han Solo... motherfuckers...

[Value Of Pi]

Well said.

I feel like any "threat" here would diminish the ability of Disney to sell toys to kids. A friendlier film is more likely to get the kiddies into the whole Star Wars thing, but I also remember the childhood thrill from thinking Darth Vader was a bit scary. I wonder what the kids will think about the film's emotional depth (or lack thereof) in 20 years.

J.J. delivered what Disney wanted and needed, a box-office success and a viable series relaunch. It was fun for what it was. But to reach the level of "Empire Strikes Back" next time out will require a more gifted and creative director/auteur, like Christopher Nolan with Batman. It's also a challenge similar to Batman.

Batman got too light and fluffy pre-Nolan -- and Star Wars threatens to go the same way. The original trilogy was heavily good versus evil and full of menace. The current bad guys as scripted are weak sisters no matter how many planets they destroy.

This series needs to get darker real fast. It might feel very risky to Disney to make this shift. But I doubt we'd even be having this conversation if Lucas hadn't recognized early not only the power of the Dark Side but the critical need for it in making this a successful franchise.

[Value Of Pi]

I wasn't sure to think of Ren but he is a different kind of villain than any of the movies have had, and that might be a good thing in a movie that was great but formulaic.

He is evil because because he knows he comes up small in comparison to others. It's not as shopworn as a kid who loses it because his mother died.

Everyone knew that Darth Vader was a tough act to follow and they came up with an interesting solution: Let's tip our hat to the audience and admit they're right by creating a successor whose feelings of inadequacy and evil nature stem almost entirely from not being Darth Vader (and not being evil enough).

I like it but I think Ren is really going to have to try much, much harder to be like Vader. Got any ideas, other than destroying more planets or smashing his light saber on the furniture?

[SredniVashtar]

Everyone knew that Darth Vader was a tough act to follow and they came up with an interesting solution: Let's tip our hat to the audience and admit they're right by creating a successor whose feelings of inadequacy and evil nature stem almost entirely from not being Darth Vader (and not being evil enough).

I like it but I think Ren is really going to have to try much, much harder to be like Vader. Got any ideas, other than destroying more planets or smashing his light saber on the furniture?

The whole film had the air of instant noodles to it. They weren't prepared to let interesting ideas develop over the course of several films so we were given it all in one go. Rey had to become a badass Jedi overnight because the Reddit generation will get bored and be checking their twitter page after half an hour of patient character development. Likewise with Kylo Ren. If they had taken the time to establish him as a character then it would have  made for an interesting story arc, but they plunge us in medias res, and throw in a few footnotes later, as an afterthought, to try and compensate for his deficiencies as a character. As for the entry of Luke at the end - I can't think of a less satisfying conclusion to a film; it was as though Abrams said 'fuck it' and handed it over to the next director because he couldn't be bothered any more. Most of the older audience were waiting for his entry, and they throw it away at the end in the tamest way possible.

[onan]

Oh hell, the bastards already have my 40 bucks for the next one.

[ziznak]

I would have liked to see the movie that should have come out before this one... ya know that shows the rise of the first order and luke's training of lil-han... and lil han's desertion for the dark side...

wait they already did ALL OF THIS ALREADY.

star wars has gone the way of the "pokemon franchise."  take that idea that worked and just keep grinding out the same damn product over and over just prettier and prettier.

I tried to watch the whole movie again a few nights ago but right when all of the ends were starting to get tied I peaced out into blissful sleep.

[Value Of Pi]

The whole film had the air of instant noodles to it. They weren't prepared to let interesting ideas develop over the course of several films so we were given it all in one go. Rey had to become a badass Jedi overnight because the Reddit generation will get bored and be checking their twitter page after half an hour of patient character development. Likewise with Kylo Ren. If they had taken the time to establish him as a character then it would have  made for an interesting story arc, but they plunge us in medias res, and throw in a few footnotes later, as an afterthought, to try and compensate for his deficiencies as a character. As for the entry of Luke at the end - I can't think of a less satisfying conclusion to a film; it was as though Abrams said 'fuck it' and handed it over to the next director because he couldn't be bothered any more. Most of the older audience were waiting for his entry, and they throw it away at the end in the tamest way possible.

Re: Instant noodles, I think they willingly painted themselves into this corner of having to cover 30+ years of history in two hours by including the original, 30+ years-older cast. Not saying they shouldn't have included them, or that the Reddit factor wasn't a factor, but Disney played it safe and what we have is the result. Lucas proved to them that even Mr. Star Wars could screw things up and they weren't taking any chances.

Still, the opportunity is there for the next director to make a better movie with more focus on exploring character. It's not only possible to do this and make the movie fun and riveting, but the character emphasis should make it *more* fun. As for Kylo Ren, if I'm not feeling the sense of dread I felt when Darth Vader's music cue played, something is definitely missing. That's the first thing I would fix because I just wasn't feeling it with Ren.

[FightTheFuture]

I had to wait until the last scene to see Luke? WTF?

SMH

[ziznak]

I had to wait until the last scene to see Luke? WTF?

SMH

I really didnt think it was mark hamill when I first watched the scene... In my head I was like.... " oh dayum I guess they had to get somebody else whose this guy?

[ziznak]

They killed Han Solo... motherfuckers...

for some reason that scene actually kind of made me jump... i knew it was coming before it happened but when it happened my inner child took a shit

[Value Of Pi]

I had to wait until the last scene to see Luke? WTF?

SMH

If it makes you feel any better, you know that giant hunk of rock he was standing on? In one of the cut scenes, he used his by-now awesome telekinetic powers to move it six yards to the left. Yoda would have been proud and us, too. As it is, in the final cut, he didn't even get to grunt, much less speak. And he was well paid for that. You got something against Hollywood, friend?




P.S. I made this all up to make you feel better.

[3OctaveFart]

Everyone knew that Darth Vader was a tough act to follow and they came up with an interesting solution: Let's tip our hat to the audience and admit they're right by creating a successor whose feelings of inadequacy and evil nature stem almost entirely from not being Darth Vader (and not being evil enough).

I like it but I think Ren is really going to have to try much, much harder to be like Vader. Got any ideas, other than destroying more planets or smashing his light saber on the furniture?

I understand the criticism, but I feel patricide is as dark as it gets (short of slaughtering an academy of younglings - the gravity of which naturally was botched by Lucas).

As I have said, the movie works if you think of the First Order as a terribly organized terror movement. There is time for the bad guys to raise their game. Gen. Hux, however, was just a sneering dipshit to me. I can't buy him in a position of any sort of power. I also don't care for Kylo Ren having Darth Tyranus-level powers at a legal drinking age, but eh.

Saw the movie again with my sister today and overall I just can't not like it.

[FightTheFuture]

If it makes you feel any better, you know that giant hunk of rock he was standing on? In one of the cut scenes, he used his by-now awesome telekinetic powers to move it six yards to the left. Yoda would have been proud and us, too. As it is, in the final cut, he didn't even get to grunt, much less speak. And he was well paid for that. You got something against Hollywood, friend?




P.S. I made this all up to make you feel better.

And better I feel.

[FightTheFuture]

I really didnt think it was mark hamill when I first watched the scene... In my head I was like.... " oh dayum I guess they had to get somebody else whose this guy?

That's what three decades of hard whiskey and cold women will do to ya.

[onan]

Han is dead. But, in the EU, Darth Maul had been cut in half in The Phantom Menace and returned. Probably not for Han.

I have hope that Luke will have more of an Obi-Wan/Yoda presence. Probably not. I am not sure why Mark Hamill was limited in his role of Skywalker to what appears to be a cameo/extra.

I am planning on seeing the movie again this weekend, and looking forward to it.