I'm not giving this movie praise nor am I hating on it...but it seems like Star Wars fans expect too much for their movies. All I'm seeing on the internet (aside from official review sites) is pure complaining and critique. Don't get me wrong, the critique's are legitimate call outs, but this is the vibe I'm getting from the "Star Wars community"

Prequels: Too far from the Original Trilogy

Sequels: Too close to the Original Trilogy

Clearly the logical answer would be moderation between the two, but I think some "fans" might be forgetting that moderation is very difficult to achieve, and even then...I'm pretty sure there would be even MORE complaints.

Someone please help me understand what the community wants for a Star Wars movie...because right now I'm confused, and as I said...the critiques that are there are legitimate.

The problem with the sequel being too close doesn't have anything to do with it being in the same universe, its that they stole the *wrong stuff*. Give us the characters we love. Give us the setting we are familiar with. On those two points the sequel failed miserably. *Dont* give us the same tired story we already know. On that point the sequel failed miserably.

Compound that with Abrams lack of talent and lack of respect for the setting, and you have a near perfect storm of suck.

My only complaints against the prequels was the terrible acting by Hayden Christinson and the overreliance on CG. Lucas knows how to frame a camera, set up a shot, and show a logical sequence of events with classic skill.

Honestly nostalgia has been very kind to the prequels. Couple the understanding that the effects of the time were limited and the jarring realization that, yes, holy crap, things can get a hell of a lot worse and I have much much kinder views of One through Three.

I liked 3, I think they got that one right out of all the prequels. Not saying it was as good as any of the OT, but I think they got number 3 right.

I've never heard anyone felt the prequels were "too far from OT". They were just bad movies. Awful scripts, unsympathetic characters, bad special effects, etc. Just bad movies.

The new one, it's definitely better than any of the prequels, but the fans are right, it feels too much like a Reboot than a Sequel. Too many similar plot points from A New Hope. The story I *really* wanted to see in Eps 7 is the back story, the fall of Kylo Ren and the rise of the First Order. In other words, why reboot Eps 4 when you could have rebooted Eps 1/2/3 and made it soooo much better?

-shnar

I've never heard anyone felt the prequels were "too far from OT". They were just bad movies. Awful scripts, unsympathetic characters, bad special effects, etc. Just bad movies.

The new one, it's definitely better than any of the prequels, but the fans are right, it feels too much like a Reboot than a Sequel. Too many similar plot points from A New Hope. The story I *really* wanted to see in Eps 7 is the back story, the fall of Kylo Ren and the rise of the First Order. In other words, why reboot Eps 4 when you could have rebooted Eps 1/2/3 and made it soooo much better?

-shnar

Yes, it would be really nice to know what the heck was going on.

The problem with the sequel being too close doesn't have anything to do with it being in the same universe, its that they stole the *wrong stuff*. Give us the characters we love. Give us the setting we are familiar with. On those two points the sequel failed miserably. *Dont* give us the same tired story we already know. On that point the sequel failed miserably.

Compound that with Abrams lack of talent and lack of respect for the setting, and you have a near perfect storm of suck.

My only complaints against the prequels was the terrible acting by Hayden Christinson and the overreliance on CG. Lucas knows how to frame a camera, set up a shot, and show a logical sequence of events with classic skill.

Honestly nostalgia has been very kind to the prequels. Couple the understanding that the effects of the time were limited and the jarring realization that, yes, holy crap, things can get a hell of a lot worse and I have much much kinder views of One through Three.

I've never heard anyone felt the prequels were "too far from OT". They were just bad movies. Awful scripts, unsympathetic characters, bad special effects, etc. Just bad movies.

The new one, it's definitely better than any of the prequels, but the fans are right, it feels too much like a Reboot than a Sequel. Too many similar plot points from A New Hope. The story I *really* wanted to see in Eps 7 is the back story, the fall of Kylo Ren and the rise of the First Order. In other words, why reboot Eps 4 when you could have rebooted Eps 1/2/3 and made it soooo much better?

-shnar

I'm surprised by the logical, acceptable answers I'm receiving. Most people who have complaints usually tend to throw TFA right into a dumpster, and then they proceed to **** on it right before they kick said dumpster into a sarlacc pit. That is where most of my problems originate, but thank you for legitimate criticisms.

Dont get me wrong. I froth with boundless rage. The sarlacc can have Disney and Abrams and I hope he chokes on them.

Doesn't mean I can't articulate why

Things:

1- Hype machine.
2- You can't keep all the people happy, all the time.
3- The most important thing is whether this works as a good start point for the rest of the sequels and the relaunch of the franchise as an annual Marvel-esque affair.

From what I've heard about The Force Awakens, I suspect that I will regard it in much the same light as JJ Abrams's Star Trek: Not a very good movie, not a bad movie, but a good place to relaunch the franchise.

Here's hoping that Episode VIII doesn't turn out as poorly as Star Trek: Into Darkness (but Abrams isn't involved in VIII, so I'm not overly concerned that it will be). And Rogue One sounds like it has all the right people to turn it into the gritty Black Hawk Down-esque Star Wars movie some of us want to see.

I've never heard anyone felt the prequels were "too far from OT". They were just bad movies. Awful scripts, unsympathetic characters, bad special effects, etc. Just bad movies.

The new one, it's definitely better than any of the prequels, but the fans are right, it feels too much like a Reboot than a Sequel. Too many similar plot points from A New Hope. The story I *really* wanted to see in Eps 7 is the back story, the fall of Kylo Ren and the rise of the First Order. In other words, why reboot Eps 4 when you could have rebooted Eps 1/2/3 and made it soooo much better?

-shnar

Bad special effects in prequels? Okay, I can think of a few examples. But grievous looked great, yoda looked great 95% of the time, every single clone looked great (as long as their helmets were on). I will defend the prequels to my dying breath, because I am 100% convinced that 99% of the hate they receive is bandwagon jumping. The dialogue was spotty, specifically in terms of romance. But you couldn't sympathize with obi-wan? Or yoda? Or even Anakin? But you can sympathize with Kylo ren? Or finn? There wasn't even enough motivation behind either of those characters to know what you're sympathizing with!

I've never heard anyone felt the prequels were "too far from OT". They were just bad movies. Awful scripts, unsympathetic characters, bad special effects, etc. Just bad movies.

The new one, it's definitely better than any of the prequels, but the fans are right, it feels too much like a Reboot than a Sequel. Too many similar plot points from A New Hope. The story I *really* wanted to see in Eps 7 is the back story, the fall of Kylo Ren and the rise of the First Order. In other words, why reboot Eps 4 when you could have rebooted Eps 1/2/3 and made it soooo much better?

-shnar

Bad special effects in prequels? Okay, I can think of a few examples. But grievous looked great, yoda looked great 95% of the time, every single clone looked great (as long as their helmets were on). I will defend the prequels to my dying breath, because I am 100% convinced that 99% of the hate they receive is bandwagon jumping. The dialogue was spotty, specifically in terms of romance. But you couldn't sympathize with obi-wan? Or yoda? Or even Anakin? But you can sympathize with Kylo ren? Or finn? There wasn't even enough motivation behind either of those characters to know what you're sympathizing with!

People dont have any trouble understanding Little Wren because he just like every entitled self-absorbed temper-tantrum millennial riding on the coattails of their betters. Just another twenty something whining about how they didn't get what they wanted and willing to destroy everyone around them because of their poor sensitive feelings (listen to his dialogue on the bridge). That's why he's not scary. He's pitiful. He's a coward behind his mask, and would be more at home in a Starbucks and skinny jeans than on a star destroyer.

... you couldn't sympathize with obi-wan? Or yoda? Or even Anakin? But you can sympathize with Kylo ren? Or finn? There wasn't even enough motivation behind either of those characters to know what you're sympathizing with!

Congrats, I think you've just figured out the difference between real Star Wars and the prequels. There was mystery behind the original trilogy, a lot of information hidden from casual observers that was really only elaborated on in the EU over the course of 30 some-odd years. Hindsight's a pain, but try to think back to your original impressions after seeing episodes 4-6 for the first time. What did you really know about anything, about anyone? Not much, I'll wager. But the prequels have a completely different vibe, the direct opposite, in fact. There's a wholesale demystification at work, and everything that was rare and precious in the original trilogy was stripped bare and paraded around ingloriously. It has the semblance of being Star Wars, but it is not.

Now look at Episode VII. You're right, there isn't enough background detail to offer us any particular insight into the majority of characters. Everything we think we know about the film, every assumption we make, every dot we connect and say "look, he ripped off Episode IV!", that comes from three decades worth of piecing these things together, of making a whole out of fragments of information. We've trained ourselves to make these connections, and so we see a jigsaw puzzle already put together in our minds when all that's really there are the individual pieces. The mystery is what makes Star Wars special, and I think Episode VII does a fine job of evoking that same vibe.

I watched today the movie with my brother and father, we represent the three stages, My dad is the original, I lived the prequels and my bro will live the sequels.

Honestly we were all kind of dissapointed.

The plot was way to Deus Ex Machina for my liking, in the originals there was a certain logic that made it believable, in this movies though a lot happened simply for the sake of convinience. In the prequels at least we have the idea of darth jar jar to give us a sort of explanation for the deus ex machina in episode 1

Also the background was kind of vague, a friend of mine suggested me to read the comics that come before the movie to get the universe. Which i will do, but i honestly believe that it should be an extra thing i do out of love for the franchise, not a neccessary step to understand why is the universe such a mess. I am a guy who loved how well thought and pressented the galactic republic was in the prequels, even though many didnt like the bureaucratic part i found it very interesting. Here i find a sort of vague terrorist cell fighting what would be state police, but who for certain reason call themselves la resistance, who are actually a separate entity from the main goverment, It is messy

Finally mi biggest rant is Kilo Ren, goddamit, the guy is more fragile than a disney princess(he even wears a dress), so pathethic seriously, he is anakin skywalker with all his redeeming cool traits taken of and replaced with blandness and over the top whininess. Also the guy playing him is horrible, if i have to see him unmasked in any other movie i will puke, he looks like bart the rat boy seriously, disney you have a disposable army of bishonens and you hire this ugly guy to play an important villain. Godammit in a world where we have villains like Vader, Palpatine, Maul, Dooku(who despite being a villain created out of convinience had attitude IMHO) and Grievious he simply doesnt add up. I was so relieved when the movie ended and i didnt had to watch this guy humiliate himself, and his grandfather and his father and the entire skywalker line anymore.

On the flip side, Snoke looks like a cool villain and i will like to see him. Rey is somebody we can relate to and makes a good lead, the only problem would be the slight deus ex machina that comes in the end, but it doesnt completely hinder her development. Finn is a great characther too who i hope gets more development, and finally Poe Dameron is the man, he is SW answer to james Bond and he works(and finn+poe is simply awesome). So at least most of the new characthers are indeed good,

So in the end while i think this movie is the second most dissapointing of the franchise(because lets face it expectation was high, and hype was really really hinting for this movie to be some kind of holy grail) and the third worst overall(and even then it is still a good movie). I can honestly say i have hope for the next one and that this one was at least a good way to begin a story even though its not exceptional.

Finally mi biggest rant is Kilo Ren, goddamit, the guy is more fragile than a disney princess(he even wears a dress), so pathethic seriously, he is anakin skywalker with all his redeeming cool traits taken of and replaced with blandness and over the top whininess. Also the guy playing him is horrible, if i have to see him unmasked in any other movie i will puke, he looks like bart the rat boy seriously, disney you have a disposable army of bishonens and you hire this ugly guy to play an important villain. Godammit in a world where we have villains like Vader, Palpatine, Maul, Dooku(who despite being a villain created out of convinience had attitude IMHO) and Grievious he simply doesnt add up. I was so relieved when the movie ended and i didnt had to watch this guy humiliate himself, and his grandfather and his father and the entire skywalker line anymore.

That's why his character is genius, by the end of the ninth movie, his ugliness will completely destroy all sympathy you have for the character, and you will just plead to Disney that he die a slow painful death.

Meh, Poe is just a Guatemalan Wedge Antilles. Another knockoff.

Finally mi biggest rant is Kilo Ren, goddamit, the guy is more fragile than a disney princess(he even wears a dress), so pathethic seriously, he is anakin skywalker with all his redeeming cool traits taken of and replaced with blandness and over the top whininess. Also the guy playing him is horrible, if i have to see him unmasked in any other movie i will puke, he looks like bart the rat boy seriously, disney you have a disposable army of bishonens and you hire this ugly guy to play an important villain. Godammit in a world where we have villains like Vader, Palpatine, Maul, Dooku(who despite being a villain created out of convinience had attitude IMHO) and Grievious he simply doesnt add up. I was so relieved when the movie ended and i didnt had to watch this guy humiliate himself, and his grandfather and his father and the entire skywalker line anymore.

That's why his character is genius, by the end of the ninth movie, his ugliness will completely destroy all sympathy you have for the character, and you will just plead to Disney that he die a slow painful death.

I didnt feel any kind of simpathy for the rat kid to begin with, i wish him to die just so he stops annoying people every 5 minutes, A Disney princess has more badass credibility than him

Seriously when i see kilo rens real face i can only think of this

https://i.imgur.com/3SZ4QdZ.png

Ugly guy, hope snoke brainwashes him to never remove his mask again.

When i think that they retconned Darth Krayt and Darth Wyrlook III out of existence to bring this guy into canon it really really grinds my gears

I like poe, he looks more like a sobbered up non smmugling han solo, you know what han would have been if he hadnt left the imperial academy

You do realize that the "rat kid" is a medically discharged United States Marine, right?

You do realize that the "rat kid" is a medically discharged United States Marine, right?

jajaja wow, lucky i have mi internet connection encripted.

Poor guy, from Marine to having to play the whiniest of the whiny, now i get why he is in so much pain. Its not my fault if he has ratlike features, its very common for me to relate peoples faces with animals, i once met a girl who had a chameleon like face, the one that got away got me because of her panda like features, the other one that got away because of her eagle like ones. Its just my way of seeing people(though for obvious reasons i dont tell them to their faces). The only face i havent been able to totally relate with an animal is my own funnily enough

I *liked* Kylo Ren. He seemed like a shadow of Vader, something he was trying to become, and thus kind of a weaker bad guy. There's room for growth with his character in the next movie, unlike say Darth Maul who had potential that was thrown away.

I watched it a second time, it's a lot better. And yes, it's reminding me a lot of Star Trek. There are plot holes, bad movie devices, awkward pacing, but dammit, the more I watch it the more I like the movie. The characters are fun, the settings are great, you just have to forget about the sillyness that is Red Matter/Starkiller Base.

-shnar

P.S. Oh, and my quip about bad special effects? It's in reference to the over-usage of special effects in the prequels. Watched Eps 2 the other day, and a lot of those Jedi 'war' scenes are so obviously bad green-screen, it almost looks fan-made. Some of the Jedi even just look like cosplayers got together to film a "star wars movie". Consider this, not a single set clone trooper armor was made for the movies. Every time you see one on screen, it's computer animated (and it shows. these movies will not hold up well).

I *liked* Kylo Ren. He seemed like a shadow of Vader, something he was trying to become, and thus kind of a weaker bad guy. There's room for growth with his character in the next movie, unlike say Darth Maul who had potential that was thrown away.

I watched it a second time, it's a lot better. And yes, it's reminding me a lot of Star Trek. There are plot holes, bad movie devices, awkward pacing, but dammit, the more I watch it the more I like the movie. The characters are fun, the settings are great, you just have to forget about the sillyness that is Red Matter/Starkiller Base.

-shnar

P.S. Oh, and my quip about bad special effects? It's in reference to the over-usage of special effects in the prequels. Watched Eps 2 the other day, and a lot of those Jedi 'war' scenes are so obviously bad green-screen, it almost looks fan-made. Some of the Jedi even just look like cosplayers got together to film a "star wars movie". Consider this, not a single set clone trooper armor was made for the movies. Every time you see one on screen, it's computer animated (and it shows. these movies will not hold up well).

I was intending to watch this movie 4 times, now i doubt jajaa, maybe its like episode 1, were if you watch it thinking jar jar IS a sith posing as an idiot then the movie really jumps in quality

You did notice the awkward pace which is also kind of an issue, as i said the chracthers are indeed very fun which is why im expecting to like the next one.

I hope Kylo gets out of puberty or something, because as it stands he isnt even a shadow of vader, every time he can do something vader-ish he ends up embarrasing himself instead. As of this movie he is more like that henchmen who tries to act though but first embarrases you, and then he directly and utterly fails in his mission. Also if this guy is the most powerful of the knights of ren, then the stormtrooper that fought Finn with the riot stick is a much more menaciang hand to hand combatant than any of them ;D (way to waste a chracther riot stick stormtrooper could have developed into the anti finn or anti poe dameron really, well sw has a tradition of killing characthers before there time)

Yes the sequels abused CGI, but i really liked the political bickering and backstabing present in the senate, it was brilliant from my point of view, this movie lacks of that and it instead offers a really convoluted and hard to relate setting IMHO it is in an aukward place where it has the complexity of the prequels in terms of settings, but offers the level of explantion of the original ones(which lets face it were a little vague as we never see an imperial world or any real politics taking place)

Wait, political bickering and backstabbing? There were some bickering, but nothing along the lines of backstabbing or intrigue. A political thinking movie the prequels were not. They were pretty straight-forward cringe fests.

Anyways, the best thing from these new movies is the hope for even better movies. Didn't really get that from the prequels, as each movie got progressively worse.

-shnar

The problem is people are unfairly expecting a 2 hour movie to deliver the same level of experience that they've gotten from 3 amazing movies and 30 years of EU.

People are whining about not knowing enough back story or whatever about the new characters to like them, yet how much did you really know about Luke after only watching A New Hope? Almost nothing, and most of his back story ended up being kenobis lie anyway. Han? We know he's a smuggler, and that he owes somebody named Jabba some money, that's it, no Lando, no life-debt with chewie, nothing else. Same for all the rest of the characters, people were expecting to learn more about the same amount of info in 2 hours about the new characters what took 3 feature length films and years of EU to establish, which is ridiculous.

Honestly, I think too many of the fans are like a kid that just got a new step-dad. It doesn't matter how much better the new guy is than their real dad, who abused them and treated them and the things they loved like trash (yes, I can't even watch the original trilogy anymore without it looking like a prequel because of that A-holes contempt for history), it doesn't matter, nobody will be able to live up to their REAL dad, and the new guy that came along to save the thing you love that dying will never be good enough for them. These people will always have an excuse to hate these new films. But what upsets me is when I hear "fans" trying to ruin this movie for the people that are enjoying it.

The problem is people are unfairly expecting a 2 hour movie to deliver the same level of experience that they've gotten from 3 amazing movies and 30 years of EU.

People are whining about not knowing enough back story or whatever about the new characters to like them, yet how much did you really know about Luke after only watching A New Hope? Almost nothing, and most of his back story ended up being kenobis lie anyway. Han? We know he's a smuggler, and that he owes somebody named Jabba some money, that's it, no Lando, no life-debt with chewie, nothing else. Same for all the rest of the characters, people were expecting to learn more about the same amount of info in 2 hours about the new characters what took 3 feature length films and years of EU to establish, which is ridiculous.

Honestly, I think too many of the fans are like a kid that just got a new step-dad. It doesn't matter how much better the new guy is than their real dad, who abused them and treated them and the things they loved like trash (yes, I can't even watch the original trilogy anymore without it looking like a prequel because of that A-holes contempt for history), it doesn't matter, nobody will be able to live up to their REAL dad, and the new guy that came along to save the thing you love that dying will never be good enough for them. These people will always have an excuse to hate these new films. But what upsets me is when I hear "fans" trying to ruin this movie for the people that are enjoying it.

This.

I've read sooooo many people complain asking things like:

"Who the heck is Snoke?"

"Why the heck is Rey using the Force so quickly?"

"What the heck happened to Phasma?"

you all get the picture. I keep telling these people that the other movies along with books, comics, etc. will fill in the gaps as what happened with the OT and the PT. just some patience is needed.

however, I understand the criticisms about the story/plot and the acting. yes Starkiller Base was the Deathstar 3.0, but I believe they used it to set up for a story more about a struggle between light side vs dark side instead of Empire vs Rebels. just a theory of mine, but the Empire didn't have a knighthood of dark side acolytes at their disposal in the OT.

as for the whiny acting of Kylo Ren, you can only put that on the writers, producers and director. again, I have a theory. with Darth Caedus Kylo Ren killing his father, that may have pushed him over the edge and go completely to the dark side. maybe it was the final step that needed to happen for Snoke to be convinced of Ren's conviction to the dark side. after all, Darth Vader couldn't bring himself to killing his family and he ended up betraying the Emperor.

notice how Ren didn't freeze Chewie's bowcaster shot in mid-air like he did with Poe's. he did appear to be going through some sort or shock and/or revelation after killing his father. I have a feeling that Ren isn't going to be a whiny character anymore.

... you couldn't sympathize with obi-wan? Or yoda? Or even Anakin? But you can sympathize with Kylo ren? Or finn? There wasn't even enough motivation behind either of those characters to know what you're sympathizing with!

Congrats, I think you've just figured out the difference between real Star Wars and the prequels. There was mystery behind the original trilogy, a lot of information hidden from casual observers that was really only elaborated on in the EU over the course of 30 some-odd years. Hindsight's a pain, but try to think back to your original impressions after seeing episodes 4-6 for the first time. What did you really know about anything, about anyone? Not much, I'll wager. But the prequels have a completely different vibe, the direct opposite, in fact. There's a wholesale demystification at work, and everything that was rare and precious in the original trilogy was stripped bare and paraded around ingloriously. It has the semblance of being Star Wars, but it is not.

Now look at Episode VII. You're right, there isn't enough background detail to offer us any particular insight into the majority of characters. Everything we think we know about the film, every assumption we make, every dot we connect and say "look, he ripped off Episode IV!", that comes from three decades worth of piecing these things together, of making a whole out of fragments of information. We've trained ourselves to make these connections, and so we see a jigsaw puzzle already put together in our minds when all that's really there are the individual pieces. The mystery is what makes Star Wars special, and I think Episode VII does a fine job of evoking that same vibe.

Epic like! Super-agree!

This is 100 % what I've been saying. There's a scant two or three lines in Episode IV about the Imperial Senate -- but I don't recall anyone ever complaining about how "We don't have any idea what that is?!?!" after seeing Star Wars. As Star Wars fans we're just so used to entering and exiting the movie theater an expert on all that went on that we ... we don't even remember what this sense of wonderment feels like! I love it! It's refreshing - the future is so full of hope!