<looks at the undeniable classics James Cameron has done>

Yes, I would absolutely put him in Spielburg's level.

<looks at the undeniable classics James Cameron has done>

Yes, I would absolutely put him in Spielburg's level.

You clearly have a higher opinion of his films than I do, and that's ok. I like a number of his films quite a bit, but don't consider any classics. The closest to classic for me is Terminator and Aliens. I really, really, really like those movies. I like Avatar and Titanic was admittedly better than I thought it would be, but ultimately I think of both those movies as overrated.

And this post in it's entirety has nothing to do with The Force Awakens. Sorry. No wait I'll put them I'm order of how much like them and stay on topic.

1. Aliens

2. The Force Awakens/Terminator tie.

3. Avatar

4. Titanic

Back on topic, yeah.

P.S. I like T2 better than Titanic and Avatar, but included them because they are the big money makers that I mentioned above. ****, off topic again.

Into darkness was a bad movie but it pretty much just rehashed wrath of Khan.

In your opinion. In my opinion Into darkness is a good movie that is a rehash of Wrath of Khan. But then it's telling the same (similar) story in an altered timeline. Why wouldn't it be a rehash of WoK? JJ did an excellent job with it.

The force wakes up is on okay film that rehashed a new hope.

After the prequels SWs needed a reboot. I would say TFA is a very good movie, not great, that does an excellent job of getting SW back on track.

JJ can't do great he doesn't have it in him we are lucky tfa was as good as it was, he's never going to be on par with Spielberg or Cameron.

He's more on par with bay.

Why do I get the feeling that TFA could be the exact movie it is, but have been directed by Spielberg and you would think it's great?

TFA and JJ didn't have to be great, they just had to be good and better than the prequels, which happened.

I doubt JJ will ever be as good as Spielberg, but it would be a pretty amazing accomplishment if he managed it. TFA is on pace to break Avatars box office record last I heard, maybe JJ is already better than Cameron?

Money made means Jack squat the transformer films make money I don't know a single person that thinks they are good.

The phantom menace made bank doesn't make it a good movie.

That, is exactly my point about James Cameron. He is not in Spielberg's class either. What he and JJ have in common though, is making good movies people want to go see.

You don't have to like TFA, which is probably a good thing all things considered. Feel free to make your "feelings" about the movie known in these threads, which you obviously don't need me to tell you. But, please remember, they are your opinions and not shared by everyone.

You also don't have to like JJ, which is also probably a good thing all things considered. Just because you don't like his movies doesn't mean they're bad movies. It just means you don't like them. You don't mind if some of us do, I hope?

P.S. I liked the first Transformers movie, rest of them sucked, in my opinion of course.

Yes the 1986 transformers was quite good.

It seems to me IMHO that JJ Abrams didn't so much write a new Star Wars movie for TFA as just re-hash the plot from A New Hope. For example, in both movies...

...a droid is given secret information by a rebel before that rebel is captured by Stormtroopers.

...that rebel is then taken by the Stormtroopers to talk to a Sith lord dressed in black and wearing a cape.

...the droid with the secret information is alone on a desert planet before being captured by a small scavenger.

...the droid is rescued by the hero.

...the hero runs from Stormtroopers and escapes the desert planet in the Millennium Falcon.

...the hero is an orphan from a desert planet and is unknowingly incredibly powerful in the force.

...the heroes have to go to a cantina with weird alien creatures.

...the heroes have to go to a planet-destroying space sphere to rescue a girl.

...an old war veteran and mentor to the hero is killed by the dark lord while the heroes look on.

...the heroes escape the planet-destroying space sphere in the Millennium Falcon.

...X-Wings fight TIE Fighters to do attack runs on the planet-destroying space sphere.

...the planet-destroying space sphere is blown up by an X-Wing doing a last ditch effort just before the evil sphere is about to fire.

...the dark lord escapes the destruction of the space sphere.

Seriously, this was NOT a new Star Wars movie - it is a re-hash of the old one.

Other problems with TFA...

- Rey, a scavenger, can pilot the Falcon, a ship she considers junk and has never been in.

- the Falcon starts after sitting as junk for years in a scrap heap.

- Finn, a sanitation Stormtrooper who cannot bring himself to kill, mows down his own fellow Stormtroopers without a problem.

- untrained Rey can do Jedi mind tricks and defeat a Sith lord in a lightsaber battle.

- Falcon crashlands on Starkiller planet within walking distance of where they need to be.

- Rey is being held prisoner right next to the shield generators that need to be knocked out.

I can go on but this movie sucks so bad just thinking about it makes me want to puke.

Thanks to Disney and JJ Abrams for killing Star Wars for me.

Please let the door hit you on the way out since Star Wars is now ruined for you. TFW was infinitely better than the prequels.

How can anyone not call Aliens, Terminator, and Terminator 2 cinematic classics?

How can anyone not call Aliens, Terminator, and Terminator 2 cinematic classics?

Edit: I almost forgot Hitchcock

Keep fighting the good fight OP, I didn't think it was all that great either.

Yes the 1986 transformers was quite good.

When I saw the TFA today, there was a preview for the new TMNT movie... I really wanted to hate it, but Bebop and Rocksteady!!!. I'm going to see it and love it and hate myself for it.

TFA is amazeballs and better each viewing.

Yes the 1986 transformers was quite good.

When I saw the TFA today, there was a preview for the new TMNT movie... I really wanted to hate it, but Bebop and Rocksteady!!!. I'm going to see it and love it and hate myself for it.

TFA is amazeballs and better each viewing.

Pfft. Get the IDW TMNT comics. I assure you, they will be much, much better than the new movie. And they have great versions of Rocksteady and Bebop. (truthfully, I like IDW's updated designs, with the Kanye glasses for Bebop)

I think there's a worthwhile distinction to be made between the things that happen in a movie and what the movie is about. Ep 4/6/7 are great examples of films where the same things happen, but the plot of each is about completely different things. Of the 3, only one story is actually about blowing up the Death Star.

How can anyone not call Aliens, Terminator, and Terminator 2 cinematic classics?

Truly, I love Aliens, and I like Terminator and T2 a lot. I think we can agree these films are James Cameron's best work (and it happened 25+ years ago). Where we differ is what it takes for us to call something a classic film.

The Wizard of Oz, Citizen Kane, Vertigo, and Rear Window are classics. More recently Lawrence of Arabia, The Godfather, Chinatown, and Jaws are classics. As good as Cameron's 3 best are, I just don't think they match the caliber of the movies I listed above and many others that truly are classics.

That's just the way I see it. It may be that despite the fact that I'm here on these forums and do like science fiction and fantasy books and movies, I may not be as enthusiastic about the subject matter as many of the other users who frequent these forums are.

It seems to me IMHO that JJ Abrams didn't so much write a new Star Wars movie for TFA as just re-hash the plot from A New Hope. For example, in both movies...

...a droid is given secret information by a rebel before that rebel is captured by Stormtroopers.

...that rebel is then taken by the Stormtroopers to talk to a Sith lord dressed in black and wearing a cape.

...the droid with the secret information is alone on a desert planet before being captured by a small scavenger.

...the droid is rescued by the hero.

...the hero runs from Stormtroopers and escapes the desert planet in the Millennium Falcon.

...the hero is an orphan from a desert planet and is unknowingly incredibly powerful in the force.

...the heroes have to go to a cantina with weird alien creatures.

...the heroes have to go to a planet-destroying space sphere to rescue a girl.

...an old war veteran and mentor to the hero is killed by the dark lord while the heroes look on.

...the heroes escape the planet-destroying space sphere in the Millennium Falcon.

...X-Wings fight TIE Fighters to do attack runs on the planet-destroying space sphere.

...the planet-destroying space sphere is blown up by an X-Wing doing a last ditch effort just before the evil sphere is about to fire.

...the dark lord escapes the destruction of the space sphere.

Seriously, this was NOT a new Star Wars movie - it is a re-hash of the old one.

Other problems with TFA...

- Rey, a scavenger, can pilot the Falcon, a ship she considers junk and has never been in.

- the Falcon starts after sitting as junk for years in a scrap heap.

- Finn, a sanitation Stormtrooper who cannot bring himself to kill, mows down his own fellow Stormtroopers without a problem.

- untrained Rey can do Jedi mind tricks and defeat a Sith lord in a lightsaber battle.

- Falcon crashlands on Starkiller planet within walking distance of where they need to be.

- Rey is being held prisoner right next to the shield generators that need to be knocked out.

I can go on but this movie sucks so bad just thinking about it makes me want to puke.

Thanks to Disney and JJ Abrams for killing Star Wars for me.

OMG they copied the OT!

Just like the OT copied Kurosawa!

Well MS Gundam copied Star Wars, so it's all fair.

Well it was obvious that Harrison Ford wanted out. I expected him to die before he was killed. Lets face it that sorry substitute for Darth Vader's Grandson was total emo. What to we call him? Darth Whiner? Darth Emo? Darth Wanabe Vader? Anyways he was the weakest character by far in contrast to Darth Vader. Also Darth Vader never took off his mask untill the end of the trilogy. He should have done the same.

Was it bad, well it wasn't prequel level bad. The masses love it but then again I don't always love what the masses do. It was far better than the prequel although the plot scenes were greatly rushed and clumped together. They tried to make you sympathize with those inside the 1st order a little but soon it all goes back to space nazis being evil destroying good. I guess Coroscuant and the core worlds are no more thanks to the super weapon.

So how was it well on a scale of 1-10 with 1 being Attack of the Clones to 10 being The Empire Strikes Back I give this a solid 4. Better than the prequels but not that much. Glad to keep my expectations low. I was not impressed, but I was not disappointed.

The phantom menace made bank doesn't make it a good movie.

it had better actors moar lightsabers, moar fights.

so PM>TFA

The phantom menace made bank doesn't make it a good movie.

it had better actors moar lightsabers, moar fights.

so PM>TFA

The lightsaber fights were better. It had more action (not as ninja choreographed like the prequels) but it was almost as personally involved as the OT where the inner struggle was present.

The phantom menace made bank doesn't make it a good movie.

it had better actors moar lightsabers, moar fights.

so PM>TFA

The lightsaber fights were better. It had more action (not as ninja choreographed like the prequels) but it was almost ad personally involved as the OT where the inner struggle was present.

the lightsaber fights sucked here, almost to the level of "fight of a crooked old man an augmented half-robot disabled"

except this time it were two completely untrained guys with plot armouring and wounded failure of a sith.

I hope you are joking when naming it "action"

and there's no personal involvment whatsover thanks to JJ crumping the plot into 2 hours. It needed to be 2 separate films. not one TFA.

no time for character buildup or development.

Well overall I liked it - it had a weak moments. The "rehash" parts were overall my favourite; after reading, writing, watching a lot of stories you will eventually find that every story out there is similar to something else from before.

The Maz Kanata castle scene was by and far the weakest arc in the movie. Who were the storm troopers fighting in that scene? The Scum probably wouldn't have stuck around but there was no evidence of them fighting a retreat. The castle itself seems to be weakly defended for someone who hosts the most cuthroat characters in the TFA era.

The pace of the story was good - This is something that JJ does better than most others.

The plot was ok - could have been more contained and original but we were explicitily promised the opposite.

The action was good.

Character development was average - Finn's was good, Rey's was rushed.

Props were ok - a lot of homage here with little originality, what was new looked decent but not outstanding.

Overall I'd give it 7.5.

For the other parts (I: 2; II: 1.5, III: 1.5; IV: 8; V: 9; VI: 7.5; VII: 7.5)

I'm torn on the lightsaber fights - I loved the fights in the PT as they were supposed to be fighting arts as demonstrated by highly trained practitioners of the art-form so, for all the complaints about choreography and twirling, I believed they were exactly as they should have been. The OT fights were (as others pointed out above) more about the passion and emotion and were either performed by cripples or the untrained and were exactly as they should have been. Not two samurai facing off, but a kid with a sword against an old man with barely working limbs.

Neither of the fights in the ST really did anything for me. I loved when "the force" theme started playing as Rey came into her own but that was nothing to do with the sabers or the fight. However, if this was part of JJ's attempt to move away from the focus on the sword play and back to the emotion behind it, maybe it was exactly as it should have been.

It was the sound of mary sue understanding the full power of the darkside plot armouring

Regardless of how irrelevant his opinion is, the title of this thread needs to be changed.

proper **** move to post the content of the thread in a *spoiler* title

The phantom menace made bank doesn't make it a good movie.

it had better actors moar lightsabers, moar fights.

so PM>TFA

The lightsaber fights were better. It had more action (not as ninja choreographed like the prequels) but it was almost ad personally involved as the OT where the inner struggle was present.

the lightsaber fights sucked here, almost to the level of "fight of a crooked old man an augmented half-robot disabled"

except this time it were two completely untrained guys with plot armouring and wounded failure of a sith.

I hope you are joking when naming it "action"

and there's no personal involvment whatsover thanks to JJ crumping the plot into 2 hours. It needed to be 2 separate films. not one TFA.

no time for character buildup or development.

You don't understand cinema.

The phantom menace made bank doesn't make it a good movie.

it had better actors moar lightsabers, moar fights.

so PM>TFA

The lightsaber fights were better. It had more action (not as ninja choreographed like the prequels) but it was almost ad personally involved as the OT where the inner struggle was present.

the lightsaber fights sucked here, almost to the level of "fight of a crooked old man an augmented half-robot disabled"

except this time it were two completely untrained guys with plot armouring and wounded failure of a sith.

I hope you are joking when naming it "action"

and there's no personal involvment whatsover thanks to JJ crumping the plot into 2 hours. It needed to be 2 separate films. not one TFA.

no time for character buildup or development.

You don't understand cinema.

*snip(*

and I was wondering how best to explain how boring and unnatural the PT fights were even before we consider the utter lack of plot and character

TFA was a much needed return to form over that tension-less drag

that, and it wasn't plot armor that let the protagonists win as much as Chewie putting a bowcaster bolt to Ren's gut

that and Ren's stupid pride making him want to beat Finn in a swordfight instead of just crushing his windpipe with the force

Hell, if you think about it, this is the first Star Wars movie where Chewbacca does all the work in blowing up the base, crippling ren, and saving our heroes' helpless asses after the fact

and he still doesn't get his freaking medal!

If the OT is in the neutral position of a dial, the PT went too far to the left, for me the newest entry to the series has gone too far to the right.

I liked elements of the PT, it had it's own identity. The new film got the "style" right, let's face it if they didn't get that right, there would have been fan uproar. I am hoping there will be an extended version with more information given out. The film was a rollercoaster which I did enjoy, just the story suffered for it, plus I hate all of the points mentioned in the original post.

So many big films that don't come from novels seem to really lack in story. If the movie was given more time for somebody to actually sit down and right a proper story then we might have gotten something a bit more decent, but Disney have put down a pretty harsh release schedule.

If this was a standalone film, I would be giving it 4.5/5, as it isn't, 3.5/5.