TFA is a wonderful example of being designed, scene by scene, for the video game.

In your next mission, you need to destroy at least 6 TIE fighters before you can attempt your strafing run.

In your next mission, to defeat the ultimate boss level, you need to fly your X-Wing down a trench, through a narrow doorway, destroy half a dozen power cells mounted on the walls, then destroy the big widget, then escape.

I like the characters; some of the hinted at back story has engaged my interest, but the plot?

I preferred it when it was called Crimson Skies.

And, there's no arguing it, Rey is is a bad character. She has no character development, and no arc.

When she needs to fly, she is an ace. When the spaceship breaks, she is an engineer. All of this learned while picking up trash on Planet Afghanistan, apparently. When she gets captured, she learns to Force. When she has to lightsaber battle, she learns to Jedi.

Basically, she has no adversity. Everything in the movie set up to be adversity is actually just a vehicle to show the next thing she is really good at. She's even better at being Han Solo than Han Solo is.

This is the first criticism of the movie that I actually agree with. (Re: why not send commandos instead of geriatric old men, or send commandos WITH geriatric old men, I answer with "Why do you think the Resistance HAD commandos on that base?")

But accusing Rey being a Mary Sue is fair: she IS good at everything she touches. Even her 'failures' (releasing the tentacle monsters) count as successes, and while her engineering skills (you spend your life disassembling and reassembling broken war machines and see how good you get?) and Force skills (she was almost certainly an apprentice in Luke's Jedi Order and isn't so much 'discovering' as 'rediscovering' her skills) could be explained, the one thing that can't is her piloting.

Even allowing Jedi reflexes as the reason she doesn't smear herself all over the inside of the ship, where did she learn HOW to pilot a ship if she was abandoned on Jakku at a young age and has spent her life salvaging war machines?

But I'm willing to forgive it as there IS room in her lifespan to have learned it: a simulator 'video game' taken from a SD ready room, perhaps the camp is migratory and moves from place to place with T-16 equivalents, or the like. I don't MIND her presence and total lack of failure, as The Force Awakens isn't really HER story, it's Finn's.

Seeds of her story are laid out for the next movie, but the entire arc and growth belongs to FN-2187 as he moves from being a number to a coward to a hero - and you're mistaken if you think the movie belongs to anyone else.

At least you had legit complaints, not like this guy.

Much Wrongness From XBear.

You could try watching the movie instead of throwing popcorn and insisting it's ****. You might find out that every single one of your 'problems' was answered in the movie.

On the whole i really liked this film, and keen to see where they take the story in the future...But.. (and their is always a But..)

the one fly in the ointment for me at least is Starkiller base, i just cant believe that something that big(an order of magnitude bigger than the Death stars) could be built by what is in effect a second rate version of the empire, It took the empire at the height of its power 20ish years to build the first one(and about 121 minuets for the rebels to blow it up..lol) so to me it dosn`t seam right that the First Order could build something so much bigger while picking up the pieces and consolidating their power after the rebellion....

I do have a theory..but please bear in mind that i have not read any of the new novels which might answer my question or contadict it...

i dont think the First order did build it... or at least start building it, In the OT both Death Stars were referred to as `Battlestations` I think Palpatine`s plan was multi-layered, The Death stars would be a tactical weapons system able to move from system to system keeping order and able to destroy planets that showed signs of revolt, Starkillier base was the nuclear option, if a system went into open revolt he would be able to take it out in one fowl swoop..

I think they began construction of Starkiller base at the same time as the Death Stars, Due to its much larger size it would take a lot longer for it to be completed, After the Empire fell The First Order took over and did just that...

The Starkiller base is the one killer for me. Really JJ? You couldn't come up with something else for the bad guys to do and or the good guys to stop?

Also the fact that it arbitrarily blows up 5 planets that look like they are right next to each other and the fact that even less Resistance fighters than they had in ANH had really not a too difficult time blowing it up. At least in ANH the Rebels were literally down to their last shot.

I'm also a bit miffed that the Bluray has a whopping 4 minutes or so of deleted scenes. I've read there was about 40 minutes to nearly an hour of footage cut from the theatrical release. Where is the uncut version?

Mixed feelings here. Somehow it managed to be at the same time fun and disappointing.

4 out of 5 still.

The characters and dialogue are awesome. The mimicry while pretty much everything is different is interesting,but it does bother me a bit. My biggest annoyance is that there was another death star, if it was just a ruse to lure the attack I would have been happier (for an ambush or political justification or something).

I hope phasma gets to shine in the next movie(s), Rey, fin, and poe get lots of screen time, that Luke is more interesting than Han was in 7, and of course more ships, droids, and pilots/crew!

The Starkiller base is the one killer for me. Really JJ? You couldn't come up with something else for the bad guys to do and or the good guys to stop?

Also the fact that it arbitrarily blows up 5 planets that look like they are right next to each other and the fact that even less Resistance fighters than they had in ANH had really not a too difficult time blowing it up. At least in ANH the Rebels were literally down to their last shot.

I'm also a bit miffed that the Bluray has a whopping 4 minutes or so of deleted scenes. I've read there was about 40 minutes to nearly an hour of footage cut from the theatrical release. Where is the uncut version?

iamafunboy said my complaints were wrong and answered in the movie. since I also complained about the planets seemingly being in the same system like you are pointing out, I have to resign myself to being a moron who didn't understand this point. at least I'm not alone in having missed that point. I would ask iamafunboy to explain to us lower intellects, but I dare not speak to such high One directly for fear of showing my inadequacy. I shall inform Cambridge's council I'm not fit to hold a Cantab degree anymore. My sensitivity to intelligence has diminished.

Honestly, it was "Fun".

But "Fun" in the kind of description you give a movie that was entertaining for a couple hours, and you didn't waste your time or money.

TFA is basically the Lethal Weapon 4 of Star Wars. It had the characters you love, some new characters you kinda like,and the plot moves along competently. But, in the end, it's really only worth a repeat viewing if you come across it on cable on a rainy Sunday afternoon in the football offseason.

Let's just get over the hump right away. The writing is bad. You can tell where a three time Academy Award Nominated screenwriter tried to make a gritty drama, and where the esteemed author of Gone Fishin' and Taking Care of Business tried to turn it into a buddy cop action adventure. The dialog is painfully campy in parts, the action as well.

A good story has the story follow events in a logical order. This happens because of this, which happened because of this. The Force Awakens does essentially the opposite. Events happen in the movie only because they have to, in order to facilitate the next scene. Look! we found a TIE Fighter with two seats! Look, I didn't find my friend who was thrown free of a crash in the open desert so we can have a joyous reunion later! Look, it's the Millennium Falcon! Look, Han Solo found us in the Millennium Falcon! Look, here's Luke's lightsaber in the basement of this random Space Bar! Look, R2D2 woke up and knew what we needed all along!

Nevermind the ridiculous borrowing, they didn't even borrow well. In Return of the Jedi, they knew the protagonists would need some help on Endor, so they sent commandos. The writers figured out a reason to separate the protagonists from the commandos who were less important to the narrative than they were to the story. If life as you know it is about to end. If your entire organization is about to be crushed. And the only way to stop it is to infiltrate a heavily defended space base, do you A: send a crack team of commandos, or B: send a recent defector of untested loyalty and a conflicting goal to save his friend, a seven foot tall unstealthy wookie known for snacking on food he finds left out, and a geriatric smuggler with his own conflicting goal to find his son?

And, there's no arguing it, Rey is is a bad character. She has no character development, and no arc.

When she needs to fly, she is an ace. When the spaceship breaks, she is an engineer. All of this learned while picking up trash on Planet Afghanistan, apparently. When she gets captured, she learns to Force. When she has to lightsaber battle, she learns to Jedi.

Basically, she has no adversity. Everything in the movie set up to be adversity is actually just a vehicle to show the next thing she is really good at. She's even better at being Han Solo than Han Solo is.

Now, at this point, some people will be clamoring to say "Whatevur. You just don't like because girl. Luke Skywalker was just as good"

Except these people have never actually seen Star Wars. Luke Skywalker contributes almost nothing in the original film other than to use his mediocre flying skills to be positioned to save the day through luck and the intervention of others. He gets beaten up by sand people. He is saved by Obi Wan in the cantina. Han Solo is the one with the ship and the savvy to escape from the Imperials. Obi Wan turns off the tractor beam and distracts Darth Vader. Wedge saves Luke from a TIE Fighter, Han Solo saves Luke from Darth Vader. Obi Wan reminds him to trust his feelings and the Force.

Then we get to The Empire Strike Back. A movie that has 40% of its running time dedicated to Luke Skywalker failing. He gets beaten up by a snow monster. He sucks so bad at being a Jedi that Yoda is constantly disappointed in him and doesn't think he is disciplined enough. He leaves to go to Cloud City, and he sucks so badly at lightsaber fighting that Darth Vader gets bored and just starts throwing things at him instead. Then he loses his hand and has to be saved by Leia.

After you get past the campy Buddy Cop dialog and the story built on convenience and contrivance, you have a protagonist who is just really good at everything, and whose "adversity" is all fake and staged. She's like John McClain in Die Hard 4.

Basically, Disney was so worried about their Star Wars investment that they made the safest movie possible. And in the process, created MaRey Sue.

The key to TFA's overwhelming success was that it neatly and cleanly skipped over the extremely low bar of "Better than the Prequels".

Very well said. This felt like a big budget fan film to me, just bad impressions of your favorite characters.

The Starkiller base is the one killer for me. Really JJ? You couldn't come up with something else for the bad guys to do and or the good guys to stop?

Also the fact that it arbitrarily blows up 5 planets that look like they are right next to each other and the fact that even less Resistance fighters than they had in ANH had really not a too difficult time blowing it up. At least in ANH the Rebels were literally down to their last shot.

I'm also a bit miffed that the Bluray has a whopping 4 minutes or so of deleted scenes. I've read there was about 40 minutes to nearly an hour of footage cut from the theatrical release. Where is the uncut version?

After the first viewing I thought the Starkiller beam hit a planet and a few moons. After the third I was 100% sure it was a planet and a few moons. It would be an overkill, but well, it's Abrams.

But everyone keeps telling me about the destroyed system.

Even the **** novelization states that it destroyed a system, although in a completely different way.

why Han, whose character is all about being Han Solo, walks over to obviously be killed immediately? are we supposed to believe that Han didn't know what would happen? are we supposed to believe he was blinded by "fatherly love"? Han? after his son killed young padawans? we're supposed to believe he rides around the galaxy and never goes back to see Leila.

it seems they just brought Han back to kill him off so there could be space for the new characters, which to be honest weren't so memorable anyway.

Okay, let me explain Hans motivation here. First of all he most definitly is not the Han Solo we left at the end of RotJ. He has become a father and had a brief period of happy family life. He then lost everything because his own flesh and blood betrayed all the things he fought for since after Yavin.

He was not stupid, he was not blinded. He knew exactly what would happen, but has decided that he can't run away from the confrontation forever. Leia gave him a faint hope, too, so he was willing to bet against all odds or find an end. This is why he seems suprised when Kylo first hands him the lightsaber and why in the end there is no accusation in his eyes, only a sad love.

"We want more OT"

*disney absolutely delivers*

"too much like the OT!"

"We want more OT"

*disney absolutely delivers*

"too much like the OT!"

That's not how that works.

For example: "We want less politics" doesn't mean "We don't want to know what's going on".

If I wanted to watch the OT I would just watch it.

The Starkiller base is the one killer for me. Really JJ? You couldn't come up with something else for the bad guys to do and or the good guys to stop?

Also the fact that it arbitrarily blows up 5 planets that look like they are right next to each other and the fact that even less Resistance fighters than they had in ANH had really not a too difficult time blowing it up. At least in ANH the Rebels were literally down to their last shot.

I'm also a bit miffed that the Bluray has a whopping 4 minutes or so of deleted scenes. I've read there was about 40 minutes to nearly an hour of footage cut from the theatrical release. Where is the uncut version?

iamafunboy said my complaints were wrong and answered in the movie. since I also complained about the planets seemingly being in the same system like you are pointing out, I have to resign myself to being a moron who didn't understand this point. at least I'm not alone in having missed that point. I would ask iamafunboy to explain to us lower intellects, but I dare not speak to such high One directly for fear of showing my inadequacy. I shall inform Cambridge's council I'm not fit to hold a Cantab degree anymore. My sensitivity to intelligence has diminished.

*sigh*

The weapon goes through hyperspace. It was used to target the current home system of the Republic, which was also being used to base their main fleet. None of the planets - not the Starkiller Base, not the one that Finn & Company are on, not the planets destroyed - were in the same system.

Although it might be difficult for someone of your staggering intellect to discern, if you watch the movie it cuts from Finn seeing a single beam to the beam splitting and targeting multiple positions in the Hosnian system who knows how many light years away. We know that Finn & Company are not IN the Hosnian system as Han Solo states they're heading to another system named something else (though the name escapes me at present), therefore whatever Starkiller Base shoots is visible at intergalactic distances.

And you're really going to question how this is, in a universe where space wizards use magic crystals to power swords made of light?

As far as your degree, my talking twelve-inch ***** happens to think that anyone from Cambridge would now how to express their ideas in a much clearer fashion (or at least how not to abuse the comma in such a fashion!), and my concierge/accountant looks up from his work keeping track of my several million dollars to further opine that anyone can claim anything on the internet. My beautiful wives (what can I say? You'd be surprised at how many women are willing to accept a time share on a talking *****!) are split on the issue, with one stating I should not be so cruel to someone between so obviously between the ages of 9-14 with so much growing up to do, and the others wanting only to banish the troll back under the bridge.

An object going through hyperspace would not be able to be seen by the victims it would arrive before the visible light those people would be dead before they even knew there was an attack.

The Force Awakens is a great Star Wars film.

It is however, heavily flawed.

Great, but flawed.

So, greatly flawed?

I kid, I kid!

It certainly wasn't bad. It was definatly a whole lot better than the prequals. It was good but it's no Deadpool.

An object going through hyperspace would not be able to be seen by the victims it would arrive before the visible light those people would be dead before they even knew there was an attack.

Ah Star Wars physics...

"We want more OT"

*disney absolutely delivers*

"too much like the OT!"

That's not how that works.

For example: "We want less politics" doesn't mean "We don't want to know what's going on".

If I wanted to watch the OT I would just watch it.

If you're talking about the whole "how does the Resistance, Republic, New Order thing all work", how much of that did we get in the OT?

Over the entire trilogy we had "Empire Evil; Rebellion Good". That's it. In the opening crawl of TFA we were told there is a Republic, it supports the Resistance in what amounts to a proxy war against the First Order, which has risen from the ashes of the Empire. That's more exposition on the state of the galaxy in 2 minutes then we got in the entire 3 movies of the OT.

I'm not sure what people were expecting to be honest in this regard.

The problem with the lack of exposition in TFA is that we already have an established universe. We know who the bad guys are, good guys, etc. We really didn't need to know a lot of details in ANH. We pretty much get who the bad guy is in the first 5 minutes, but it was basically ignorance is bliss. TFA throws you into a story 30 years after the story you know and doesn't give you much of an explanation of what the hell happened.

Honestly, it was "Fun".

But "Fun" in the kind of description you give a movie that was entertaining for a couple hours, and you didn't waste your time or money.

TFA is basically the Lethal Weapon 4 of Star Wars. It had the characters you love, some new characters you kinda like,and the plot moves along competently. But, in the end, it's really only worth a repeat viewing if you come across it on cable on a rainy Sunday afternoon in the football offseason.

Let's just get over the hump right away. The writing is bad. You can tell where a three time Academy Award Nominated screenwriter tried to make a gritty drama, and where the esteemed author of Gone Fishin' and Taking Care of Business tried to turn it into a buddy cop action adventure. The dialog is painfully campy in parts, the action as well.

A good story has the story follow events in a logical order. This happens because of this, which happened because of this. The Force Awakens does essentially the opposite. Events happen in the movie only because they have to, in order to facilitate the next scene. Look! we found a TIE Fighter with two seats! Look, I didn't find my friend who was thrown free of a crash in the open desert so we can have a joyous reunion later! Look, it's the Millennium Falcon! Look, Han Solo found us in the Millennium Falcon! Look, here's Luke's lightsaber in the basement of this random Space Bar! Look, R2D2 woke up and knew what we needed all along!

Nevermind the ridiculous borrowing, they didn't even borrow well. In Return of the Jedi, they knew the protagonists would need some help on Endor, so they sent commandos. The writers figured out a reason to separate the protagonists from the commandos who were less important to the narrative than they were to the story. If life as you know it is about to end. If your entire organization is about to be crushed. And the only way to stop it is to infiltrate a heavily defended space base, do you A: send a crack team of commandos, or B: send a recent defector of untested loyalty and a conflicting goal to save his friend, a seven foot tall unstealthy wookie known for snacking on food he finds left out, and a geriatric smuggler with his own conflicting goal to find his son?

And, there's no arguing it, Rey is is a bad character. She has no character development, and no arc.

When she needs to fly, she is an ace. When the spaceship breaks, she is an engineer. All of this learned while picking up trash on Planet Afghanistan, apparently. When she gets captured, she learns to Force. When she has to lightsaber battle, she learns to Jedi.

Basically, she has no adversity. Everything in the movie set up to be adversity is actually just a vehicle to show the next thing she is really good at. She's even better at being Han Solo than Han Solo is.

Now, at this point, some people will be clamoring to say "Whatevur. You just don't like because girl. Luke Skywalker was just as good"

Except these people have never actually seen Star Wars. Luke Skywalker contributes almost nothing in the original film other than to use his mediocre flying skills to be positioned to save the day through luck and the intervention of others. He gets beaten up by sand people. He is saved by Obi Wan in the cantina. Han Solo is the one with the ship and the savvy to escape from the Imperials. Obi Wan turns off the tractor beam and distracts Darth Vader. Wedge saves Luke from a TIE Fighter, Han Solo saves Luke from Darth Vader. Obi Wan reminds him to trust his feelings and the Force.

Then we get to The Empire Strike Back. A movie that has 40% of its running time dedicated to Luke Skywalker failing. He gets beaten up by a snow monster. He sucks so bad at being a Jedi that Yoda is constantly disappointed in him and doesn't think he is disciplined enough. He leaves to go to Cloud City, and he sucks so badly at lightsaber fighting that Darth Vader gets bored and just starts throwing things at him instead. Then he loses his hand and has to be saved by Leia.

After you get past the campy Buddy Cop dialog and the story built on convenience and contrivance, you have a protagonist who is just really good at everything, and whose "adversity" is all fake and staged. She's like John McClain in Die Hard 4.

Basically, Disney was so worried about their Star Wars investment that they made the safest movie possible. And in the process, created MaRey Sue.

The key to TFA's overwhelming success was that it neatly and cleanly skipped over the extremely low bar of "Better than the Prequels".

What I think.

I saw another movie that was a reboot actually. Crouching Tiger 2 with the Chinese dialog. (Oh god the english version is campy.) And, while that one was also rehash-y it was less rehashy than SW7. Since then, I've been emotionally easy at giving SW7 a clear 3/5. Meh. Entertaining.

Too much plot left out. Not even the last name of the main character. Its pretty meh.

"We want more OT"

*disney absolutely delivers*

"too much like the OT!"

That's not how that works.

For example: "We want less politics" doesn't mean "We don't want to know what's going on".

If I wanted to watch the OT I would just watch it.

If you're talking about the whole "how does the Resistance, Republic, New Order thing all work", how much of that did we get in the OT?

Over the entire trilogy we had "Empire Evil; Rebellion Good". That's it. In the opening crawl of TFA we were told there is a Republic, it supports the Resistance in what amounts to a proxy war against the First Order, which has risen from the ashes of the Empire. That's more exposition on the state of the galaxy in 2 minutes then we got in the entire 3 movies of the OT.

I'm not sure what people were expecting to be honest in this regard.

In the OT era the situation was much simpler, it was indeed Good Rebels vs Evil Empire.

(although there was some talk about politics, namely the Emperor getting rid of the Senate)

But we've seen those rebels win the war and now suddenly we're back with Good Rebels vs Evil Empire (this time with more powerful superweapon and Star Destroyers twice the size) and mysterious Republic which does nothing.

I enjoyed it. It felt like Star Wars (with the exception of the hand to hand combat Stormy - that was just gimicky).

Qui Gon Jinn thought Anakin was going to bring balance to the force.

Obi Wan thought Luke was going to bring balance to the force.

I think it will be Rey. I get the impression that in the past 'balance' meant equal representation from Light and Dark factions. I think we'll find that 'balance' means the ability to possess both light and dark knowledge within an individual and control the force through a full spectrum of emotions. The Jedi Council and Sith are kind of extremists in their thinking - It's all or nothing.

Rey (through Kylo) will learn to balance the light and dark within herself .. bringing balance to the force.

Urgh, you guys just reminded me of starkiller base. I am so torn about it! I loved the scenes that took place on it and I guess it shows a progression in super weapons. But after the other similarities in the film it just felt wrong, especially with the trench run.

I personally would have been happy with a massive naval battle with capital ships going at each other, maybe with the first order having a massive eclipse class star destroyer (badass) that needed destroying. I still feel a bit robbed by the battle of Coruscant in ROTS, that battle had so much potential but I felt robbed that it fully centred around Obi-Wan and Anakin messing around with droids.

For those of you waxing poetic about Luke's rise from farm boy to rebellion hero & Jedi knight...that's not how I remember it. This will probably get me kicked of the forums for good but he is my least favorite Star Wars character <ducks>! I remember him as a whiner that pouted every time things got a bit rough. And it continues in TFA. Oh your nephew goes crazy and kills your students and what does the greatest Jedi in the galaxy do? Runs and hides on an island.

Rey, flaws and all, is everything Luke should've been. Tough. Gritty. A survivor.

(Yes I'm being somewhat cheeky but it is how I feel about the dude.)

so the planet killer beam goes through hyperspace, OK. does it say this in the movie? because if it does, I must have dozed off from the excitement. I know it says this in the novel, but that hardly matters. the film should be self-contained