The Force Awakens. Your reaction? (Spoilers)

By JJFDVORAK, in X-Wing

Po/FIN needs more development its like they became best friends in 5 minutes!!

I like to assume that Poe is instantly best friends with anyone he meets and likes. He's a dashing, debonair ace who everyone only ever wants to kill or ****.

Reminds me of someone...

Edited by __underscore__

I loved the movie, but I also liked Ep I-III...

Kylo Ren scares me.

...

Strange! For me and my wife Kylo was the only weak character in the movie.

Not good casted and IMO not frightening at all. I laughed when he got his outburst, IMO it was also meant funny since the two Troopers on patrol acted accordingly and altered their patrol route.

;)

He reminded me on a Big Bang Howard Wollowitz playing a Sith on a cosplay occasion, honestly!

I m not saying this to offend anyone, but I am ABSOLUTELY amazed how different we all react to the same scenes and characters.

The more I think about it (I've only seen it once) the more I like it.

One of the biggest things for me is that TFA is a 'proper' film. I mean it has proper acting, proper characters, proper cinematography etc which the prequels did not. It actually felt jarring that the actors were on real sets which is crazy.

Very much looking forward to seeing a second time next week.

I saw couple remarks about Kylo not being as intimidating as Vader. And it got me thinking. What if we take age into consideration. Vader was about 50 in ANH, Kylo is what? Below 30? Early 20ties? Vader has seen some real ****, was under constant threat from Palpatine, one of themost powerful Siths ever. Tested constantly and at the same time planning to destroy Palpatine. That requires serious self control.

A few more comments:

Maz Kanata was likened to a Chinese dragon lady stereotype. Maybe, but she really served as a 'magical *****' stereotype, helping the main character to accept her destiny. Bagger Vance, you know. Anyway, Maz was awesome, I wanted to see more of her, and she didn't look CGI to me. Snoke though...well at least he has the excuse of being CGI (or a hologram) within the movie itself.

It's so wierd that Episode IV had a ton of reference to backstory in the Clone Wars and Vader killing the Jedi as well as a rebellion that was already active and winning victories, throwing you into the middle of the film and just asking you to accept it, and all this gets a pass. We don't know why Luke is so whiny, why Vader wears a respiratory, we don't know anything about the senate except that the emperor (who we don't see) just disbanded them. They blow up aldraan, the home planet of on of the principals in the movie, and we never get to see anything about it before it's gone, we are just supposed to care. Why was there an alien monster in the trash on a space station? Are we supposed to care about Obi Wan when his former student kills him? I guess, I mean he became Luke's surrogate dad and we care about Luke, right? Oh, and he picks up a laser sword and after one lesson he can deflect blaster bolts...and make an impossible shot that blows up the Death Star. Sure, ok.

And then there's all the errors like not coloring Vader's sabre after he kills Kenobi, the storm trooper hitting his head, the reused footage during the droid purchasing scene that makes R5-D4 ('red') teleport between cuts, the fact that TIE fighter have different canopy viewports depending on if it's a model shot or an inside the cockpit shot...you get it, I'm sure.

The Force Awakens was awesome. It's a great movie on its own, funny, action packed, emotional, great acting, a fitting return to the Saga and a great nostalgia trip, making this old dude feel like a kid again. And of course the original tag line for Star Wars was 'it will make you feel like a kid again'...you know, all those folks who grew up with Saturday matinees who made Star Wars the highest grossing movie back in 77.

I can't wait to see it again and again, TFA is the movie I've been waiting for, for over 30 years. Star Wars is fun again :)

I suspect the dude at the beginning of the film is kind of like Obi-Wan from a new hope, put there by Luke to watch over Rey when you look at it like that a lot of the forced co-incidences go away. He had Lukes flight plan because Luke told him how to find him should he need to and then asked him to stay on Jakku and make sure his daughter stayed safe.

Maz Kanata was a Yoda-species, right? Or am I wrong?

A good looking movie with hype and promisses that ends up turning Star Wars into a childish comedy.

Star Wars is for childre, TFA has some good not really forced comedy moments the OT has much much worse ones. It also had some super heartfelt, tragic, terrifying scenes in it that made me feel like a kid again. It was a Star Wars film and you need to get over yourself. Take a look at your own perception of the OT and realist these films are full of the same sort of "awfulness" you perceive in TFA. You will like it a lot more. Find some inner peace.

Everyone loves it, I dont. Why?

Because it's really really good and you decided months ago you wasn't going to like it.

Maz Kanata was a Yoda-species, right? Or am I wrong?

You are wrong.

I think.

Also, Yoda is a mogwai/gremlin anyway.

I feel like everyone saying they didn't like the movie are just nitpicking too much. Episode 4 had TONS of holes but it's old and it's almost seen as blasphemous to criticize it.

The film was never going to be perfect, and if they hadn't needed to cut probably an hour's worth of footage from the film, then maybe some of the few nit-picky scenes might make more sense. I loved it.

I don't care that Rey was able to "Figure out" the force - (even though there are 3 explanations, 1-the Force is awakening, so it might have manifested itself in her in a new way. 2- touching the lightsaber had a deeper impact than we realize, or 3-Kylo Ren's mind meld actually imparted some knowledge to her).

I thin Han died well. He was trying to save his son. in a way that even Luke couldn't do. and he almost succeeded. The symbology was all over the place... there was (is) still some light in him, and Han started to bring that out in him. Just because he wasn't able to redeem Ben, doesn't mean Han had a weak death. It was great. (and sad).

Finn betraying the 1st order. This might be because some force awakened within Finn. I'm willing to bet there is more to Finn's story than we know yet.

Any issues you have there are probably explanations for. Suspend your disbelief a bit people - the movie was amazing!

Yeah i bet Phasma had a good section cut too.

Wait for the special extended edition with added CGI banthas

Anyone else wonder why they chose the name Ben? Leia and Han didn't really have the connection to Old Ben the way Luke did. I mean, Leia knew of him through her father and he was Han's travelling companion for a bit but not like Luke seeing his Force ghost all the time.

Ben Kenobi was responsible for bringing them all together. Leia wasn't looking for Luke or Han.

At least they didn't call him Anakin...or Jacen.

*spoiler Ep. 10* Rey and Finn name their kid Hans. It's a girl.

Yeah i bet Phasma had a good section cut too.

Wait for the special extended edition with added CGI banthas

Lumpy's stuffed bantha toy will be replaced with CGI in the super special edition of Holiday Special.

Phasma should have duelled Finn instead of the unnamed storm trooper, IMO.

problem is, if they get too many good reviews, they'll think they've done nothing wrong and won't improve.. then we'll end up with another "marvel universe.. star wars style" and i shutter to think that this will happen and hope they don't completely destroy the franchise

the only good thing left from the marvel universe is the X-men.. and only because 20th Century Fox won't give up the rights.. and i hope they never do

We won't be getting an MCU because Kathleen Kennedy isn't Kevin Feige. She is willing to give her directors more freedom than Feige.

Well, because it's like poetry, it rhymes.

imsosorry

You win the internet today. Go Forth Captain Lackwit and be merry with this knowledge.

My two biggest issues:

1 How did Poe make it back after crash landing, not explained at all "i was thrown from the ship" doesnt count

2 Rey's wardrobe on the ice planet.... she would have frostbite wearing that, yes she was captured and brought there, but still

Edited by comawhite

I feel like everyone saying they didn't like the movie are just nitpicking too much. Episode 4 had TONS of holes but it's old and it's almost seen as blasphemous to criticize it.

The film was never going to be perfect, and if they hadn't needed to cut probably an hour's worth of footage from the film, then maybe some of the few nit-picky scenes might make more sense. I loved it.

Any issues you have there are probably explanations for. Suspend your disbelief a bit people - the movie was amazing!

I don't really care about plot holes - all films have those. The film as a stand-alone film was very good.

My issue is that it seemed like it was written by someone who only had casual knowledge of star wars. The level of continuity from I through VI was minimal, just the big 3 characters really, and a few fallen Imperial ships in the sand at Jakku. It felt like the writers didn't know what to do, so just stuck to elements from Ep IV. It didn't feel like episode VII.

So I was kind of whelmed. Here's my gripes:

1) It was just too much New Hope for me. Couldn't they have done something other than yet another Death Star? Stop me if you've heard this one before: droid carrying plans important to the Rebel alliance crash lands on desert planet and bumps into bored teenager with latent Jedi powers ...

2) In a New Hope, when Alderaan was destroyed, it was horrific mass murder at its core, and the casual way it was effected -- as a shock tactic to soften up Leia -- was chilling. In TFA, they destroyed multiple planets, and it was casually glossed over. At least in New Hope we had Kenobi there to witness the event, but this particular instance of super mass murder had no emotional resonance. It was cheap.

3) And what's with that planet laser anyways? This is going to sound nerd-nitpicky, but my inner scientist was screaming quietly (why isn't the atmosphere igniting? why is there still snow on the ground? how did the laser emission fragment post launch? ). Not a huge deal but it bothered me.

3) Solo did not have the gravitas I wanted. He was like a old dude in a clown suit.

4) Chewie was way more emo than I liked.

5) Ray's rapid progression from total n00b to Jedi apprentice happened too fast for my taste. She gets mind-#$%'d once by a Jedi and suddenly she's got Sith powers. And then she's able to successfully light saber fight a Jedi with some pretty spectacular force powers (better mind-@#%ing skills than Vader, great teleketic skills -- dude can stop a laser mid air). It just felt too easy. Some goes for Finn in his lightsaber fight with Kylo. That fight should have lasted like, 3 seconds. Force freeze followed by decapitation.

6) Poe Dameron's character felt flat to me.

7) Phasma was a let down. A few scenes of stalking around in chrome armor, meh. Hopefully she'll become a real bad guy.

I feel Phasma might have her day in later episodes, or be a total Boba Fett and just live awesomely in the minds of books and comics. As it stands she had more of a role in TFA then Boba did in ESB.

I really enjoyed TFA! Yes, it had its issues, and I understand the gripes about it being too similar to A New Hope, but it made me feel like a kid again, and brought me back to when I watched Star Wars for the first time. This was all that I had hoped for, and TFA delivered.

The acting was great, cool dog fights, and I much preferred this style of lightsaber duels to those from the prequels.

Some of the criticisms that I'm reading are coming across as ultra nitpicky. The fact that we don't know a lot of the back story of the new characters? That's because this is the first act of 3. We will learn more in the episodes to come! Also, can we please stop criticizing the "science" of the movie? This is a universe with swords made of light, star ships that fly like in-atmosphere airplanes, and a magical force. Let's just accept that science is different in the Star Wars universe.

Im excited to go watch it again, but in 2D this time!

only niggles, was I wanted to see more Phasma.. and Ray got her powers soo **** quick and knew how to use everything off the bat, I dnno.. took Luke years of training.

Over all I liked it and was prepared for a worse movie. It seemed like JJ wanted to get a bunch of stuff out of the way to make sure everyone was thinking of the OT and not the PT.

Desert planet: Check

Ice Planet: Check

Forest Planet: Check

Bar filled with a bouilabaisse of aliens: Check

Death Star: Check

Detention Block and Trash Compactors: Check

Things I liked:

+ Bad guys are clearly evil and a threat.

+ Rey was a hero not a heroic girl. You could have easily swapped her gender and had almost the same movie.

+ Kylo Ren's fits of rage were a great contrast to Vader's much more controlled fits.

Things I didn't:

- Action overload. The movie would have benefitted from slowing things down a little and spending more time with the characters interacting with each other and the world.

- Poe could have died in the crash and it wouldn't have really changed anything.

- The relationship between all of the factions in the movie was a little muddy and confusing. I think this comes back to the movie needing more exposition and less explosions.

Edited by WWHSD

I really enjoyed TFA! Yes, it had its issues, and I understand the gripes about it being too similar to A New Hope, but it made me feel like a kid again, and brought me back to when I watched Star Wars for the first time.

see THIS is the real problem with the new movie.. it's exactly what i hoped it would not be.. a NOSTALGIA FEST!

can't you see that all it was good for was bringing back old feelings? We wanted something new.. and the first half of the movie was doing, just that.. then all of a sudden it went a new hope on our ass and it pissed me and what seems a lot of big star wars fans off

i believe the only reason why it's getting such good reviews is because it's pulling on our inner child feelings

and it's not acceptable in my mind

I really enjoyed TFA! Yes, it had its issues, and I understand the gripes about it being too similar to A New Hope, but it made me feel like a kid again, and brought me back to when I watched Star Wars for the first time.

see THIS is the real problem with the new movie.. it's exactly what i hoped it would not be.. a NOSTALGIA FEST!

can't you see that all it was good for was bringing back old feelings? We wanted something new.. and the first half of the movie was doing, just that.. then all of a sudden it went a new hope on our ass and it pissed me and what seems a lot of big star wars fans off

i believe the only reason why it's getting such good reviews is because it's pulling on our inner child feelings

and it's not acceptable in my mind