Kylo Ren is what Anakin should have been in the prequel trilogy.
I saw it last night. For reference, I rarely watch movies and haven’t for maybe the last 15 years. The last time I was in a theater was for the first Hunger Games and before that was the Simpson’s Movie. I don’t watch movies at home, either. This was my first Imax AND first 3D flick.
The Force Awakens is absolutely amazing. I can’t wait to see it again.
The casting was beyond my wildest hope.
The action scenes were spectacular.
The dialog was just right.
The plot and storytelling was …above average but not quite to the same superlative levels. Another Death Star?
Vader didn’t have a father.
Agreed!
So can anyone tell me what the capsules are that everyone has on their outfits (such as Solo has on his jacket)?
Google is absolutely no help (no Google, I don’t want to buy a Star Wars themed item of clothing).
Extra blaster clips?
It’s just sartorial greebling.
Hate, anger, and fear lead to the dark side. Vader was motivated by fear, Palpatine by hate, and now we see how anger manifests itself.
This is Star Wars. There’s a backstory for those capsules somewhere.
Those are Imperial rank insignia. Solo was an Imperial officer once upon a time, and mutinied when ordered to slaughter Wookies, which is how he and Chewie became friends. If you look at Solo’s original outfit, the pinstriped pants, boots, and jacket are all remnants of his old Imp uniform.
Only 2 years to Film 8! 
I’m going with “space pens”. Which is a thing you can buy in real life, BTW. Great pens, those.
I don’t think that’s it. These are Imperial rank cylinders. These what Han’s sporting in the new movie. Seems to be something completely different.
Besides, that’s a new jacket.
It’s obvious. CO2 bulbs for his Soda Syphon.
I figured her ability to speak Droid was the Force coming into play. She also seemed to understand Wookiee immediately.
But I think Poe could understand BB-8 too, and of course Han speaks Wookiee, so maybe not.
I was waiting for Han to finish up with “…same tailor, though”.
This, exactly. Harrison Ford is aging and can’t carry the story much longer. So Han has to die, but he’s got incredible luck and self-preservation skills. And he can’t die offscreen from complications of heart failure. He could only die at the hands of his own son.
For me, I understand all the complaints about it being derivative and repetitive, but I think they miss the market. What we needed from this movie was to see what happened to the characters after all these years, how the torch gets passed to the new generation, and how the Star Wars universe looks under the freshened brush of gritty contemporary realism. And after all, the plot stakes are necessarily constrained to stuff like blowing up planets, people dying, and betrayals of friends and family. We saw what happened when Lucas tried to inject political treaties and tax treaties or whatever kind of bullshit.
All in all I think this was an awesome nostalgic trip for the old, a great introduction for the young, and a highly effective opening shot in the reboot of this series. Congrats to J. J. abrams.
I just saw it last night. I was and still am skeptical of Star Wars as a Disney franchise. JJ Abrams did a fine job with it though and I enjoyed the movie just fine. Kylo Ren character was an annoying shit though. Not Good At All as the central bad guy for this installment.
I think the movie was just rough enough about story progression and character development (especially Kylo) that there is room for maturation throughout the series.
I remain skeptical because it seems JJ Abrams will not remain at the helm and I fear for consistency and quality of style and story.
That’s a lot of Sudafed he has stuck to his cloak. Was the Death Star just one big meth lab?
I think you and JSexton are the ones missing the point. Enjoyment of a movie is a subjective thing. I would never insist that anyone who loved the movie was missing the point. I don’t really see how my lack of enjoyment comes from some point that I missed. If I had gotten the point, would I not have been checking the time over and over, wondering how much longer before it was mercifully over, and pondering whether I should just leave the theatre? (It did get more enjoyable at the end, hence the three stars and C rating instead of two stars and D.)
Agreed. I’m not sure what strawman you are constructing here. Does anyone disagree about this point?
No planets were blown up, or even threatened to be blown up, in The Empire Strikes Back, which is close to being the best SW film of them all and certainly the best of the sequels (it’s not really fair to judge sequels in the same category as the original, just like it’s not fair to judge other episodes against a TV pilot).
As for the rest, that really is a strawman. I don’t object to this being recycled on general terms that people died, or even because people were betrayed. I object to all the lazy fanservice like: the clone of the Mos Eisley bar (though I did like the proprietor); hiding the secret plans/map in a cute droid; having Han back to inexplicably being both the best and worst smuggler in the galaxy and being on the run from his clients; another ground mission as in Jedi to turn off the force field; scenes of Leia, Akbar, et al worriedly watching the countdown to when the Starkiller/Death Star would be ready to destroy the planet, as the X-Wings engaged in trench runs and quipped with each other in individual head-and-shoulders closeups.
And while I did like Finn and Rey in general, their initial scene in the Millennium Falcon as they shot at TIE fighters was practically beat for beat copied from Han and Luke in the original film (even though it didn’t make a lot of sense for Rey to play the grizzled veteran to Finn’s whooping and hollering rookie). All this stuff was so slavishly copied from earlier films, that other scenes seemed fresh even though on their own they would have seemed distinctly reminiscent. I’m talking here about a father-son confrontation over a giant yawning chasm, and the skulking around the Death–er, star killer, like that done in the original film. Those were at least executed a bit differently.
The light sabre battle in the woods, I have no complaints about. I think that would be a more reasonable way to have continuity between the films: gotta have a light sabre duel! No argument from me.
I saw one review that said the prequels may have been disappointing, but at least Lucas had a vision. And I agree with that. He made a cutting backhanded compliment to this new film by saying publicly that “the fans will love it”. It is definitely fanservice taken to the extreme, and not only do I give Lucas credit for not having done that, I would cite his final SW film (RotS) as unequivocally better than this one.
But that’s just my opinion, and I’m happy for all of you who loved it…as long as you don’t insist I am wrong not to.
One and a half, next one is in may 2017.