I don’t think anyone who is eight pages (or upwards of 380 posts) into a thread about the movie is going to need a spoiler-free review.
He wasn’t there / in the film per se – it was shot in-studio. Hence the awkward-looking nature of the interminably protracted, Mission Impossible-esque scene. (NB: I have an image of him doing the shot, but did not save it. If I come across it again, I’ll forward it…)
This is indeed a relief. For Kylo is hardly becoming of said order. Carrying the lineage of the esteemed ‘Vader’ is another hurdle to surmount, however… even if only of a ‘mongrelised’ derivation.
No beard on him in the pub, though, so it’s possible he’s filming something for the next one, and was green screened for the cameo at the end of this movie.
Incidentally, as regards your last post :this is not a mullet.
For me the opening is missing the Fox fanfare, which is real beginning of the Star Wars theme. As a child, hearing that always meant that were were getting to see Star Wars again. Going straight into the title is like going on a roller coaster without the anticipation of the slow climb to the top. The “Long ago in a galaxy…” title is the pause at the crest of the first hill.
Did anyone else have a flashback to the 70s when you saw Poe Dameron? The first thing I thought when I saw him was that he looks almost exactly like the guy from the movie Airplane. After the movie I looked it up, and the actor that he reminded me of is Robert Hays in the role of Ted Striker.
She had to give him the lightsaber because that’s how these quests work. You go into the dungeon, find the plot coupon, and present it to the next quest giver to close out your quest and get some decent armor you can sell for a few credits.
Also, regarding whether or not Luke would abandon her on a desert planet, Obi-Wan did exactly that to Luke, presumably because it was too dangerous to keep him with the Empire after them. It’s at least within the realm of possibility that Luke would have left her with the pawn guy to keep her safely out of the way so Snoke and Kylo wouldn’t find her.
But yeah, it’s also just as possible that she’s just some girl. I do like the idea that she was just sort of manifested by the force, possibly due to a third party, like Anakin was. She does say “I’m nobody”, as I recall.
Wouldn’t she have been abandoned only a few years after the events of Return of the Jedi? I’m assuming that at the time she was abandoned that Kylo Ren was a young boy named Ben Solo. The question about Snoke is interesting. I wonder how long after the events of Return of the Jedi did he first make his appearance?
Hated it, and so did my gf.
I can’t believe how formulaic it was. This was essentially episode 4.
I’ve had some time to think it over, and here are my two criticisms. I want to make this very clearly beforehand: I enjoyed this movie quite a lot. It’s just that it has two glaring flaws to my eye.
(1) This film is a mad sprint to the finish line, with events that happen virtually in real time. One can afford to have some more quiet time to get to know the characters once in a while. Yes, they had some, and those were my favorite moments. But too much of his films feel like I’m yanked by a robe tied to my belt. While the actions scenes in Star Wars were (and are) fantastic, the film was built on the attachment deriving from the characters. The moments I really liked in this film were those quiet, tense scenes where Rey looked up at the sky and wondered, or when Finn walked a lonely path in a borrowed jacket, or when Han looked soulfully into Leia’s eyes and they talked about something so painful it drove a wedge they couldn’t get around.
I didn’t really care when we saw the third action scene in a row… especially not when they later did it again.
(2) Rey deserves a much better movie, or at least a more interesting role in it. I don’t really want to go into this but… well… she becomes uninteresting in precise proportion to the amazing superpowers she suddenly gains. Which means she does from an interesting character dragged into an amazing adventure into a walking plot vortex.
JJ Abrams doesn’t make films. He makes homages / references to already-existing material. “Star Trek: Into Darkness” was just a not-as-good “Wrath of Khan”. “The Force Awakens” was just a not-as-good “A New Hope”.
The film had some good moments, and it was vastly better than the prequels. But it was largely mediocre and derivative. Major plot points made no sense. (Why does that map exist? Why is it in pieces?) The pace didn’t allow for any quiet moments for the audience to catch their breath or enjoy the world. The callbacks were too numerous - some of them worked; many of them didn’t. Even if they had all worked, there still would have been too many of them. Other than some of the music, nothing in the film felt epic, grand, or amazing. The galaxy of “The Force Awakens” feels like a much smaller, less interesting place than the galaxy of the original trilogy.
Some of the good:
The two new main characters, especially Fin. Rey starts off as a good character, but gets Mary-Sued pretty quickly. Overall I like her, but I’m worried she’s already ruined as a character due to power-creep.
I expected to hate BB8. He thought he’d be exactly the kind of adorable plucky sidekick that irritates the hell out of me. But I like the little guy. Kudos to the filmmakers for actually making that character work.
C3PO’s cameo was perfect. True to form, he showed up at just the right time to interrupt Han and Leai’s moment. And although he stuck around a little while, he didn’t overstay his welcome.
We saw it last night. Very good. And I see Episode VIII is filming now and scheduled for 2017.
We saw it for free too. Our favorite cinemas are the Apex chain in Siam Square – the Lido multiplex of three screens and the Scala. The giant-screen Scala, one of the last old-style movie houses in Bangkok, is showing Star Wars, The Apex chain has one of those cards where once you get it stamped one time for each ticket bought. Filling up the card with 10 stamps gets you a free ticket, and compiling 10 stamped cards gets you two free tickets. We just happened to have 10 cards filled after watching Woody Allen’s Irrational Man last Saturday. Woo-hoo!
I’m not reading through this giant thread, and there’s already a spoiler warning on the title. So I feel free to speculate, as I’m sure others have already done, about ay being Luke’s daughter. She’s some sort of relative, that’s for sure.
Saw it today.
Apart from the very first online trailer and the ubiquitous images/references across all media, I went in unspoiled. From the poster art I’d assumed that Boyega’s character was the Force-sensitive, not Rey. I hadn’t seen Kylo Ren’s face nor been tipped to his parentage. And holy crap, I had no forewarning of the major character death. When Leia and Rey embraced back at the base, my eyes stung a bit.
I’m not much of a cinema analyst but I couldn’t help noticing that the characters in this movie were given time to interact with and react to one another. Finn in particular served as a bit of an audience surrogate in his scenes, except when that role was taken by Han. In contrast, I think it was Carrie Fisher who said the most common direction from George Lucas was “Faster, more intense”.
My mother hasn’t seen The Force Awakens yet so I will go with her, and I’ve already warned her I won’t give anything away.
I saw it again tonight. In Rey’s AT-AT dwelling right before she makes the 5 second bread you can see a handmade doll that resembles a rebel pilot in an orange jumpsuit. Rey takes her staff with her to see Luke. I would bet money that the staff is gonna have a lightsaber blade at one or both ends before the trilogy is finished. Snoke(who I’m sure is Plagueis) specifically mentions that Kylo is head Knight of Ren so we’re gonna see the rest of them in the coming movies. The Person Kylo stabbed in the back in the flashback looked like Constable Zuvio, who I don’t remember seeing in the movie, but this character lived on Jakku.
Yes. As sure as I can be from espying an image of Hamill standing on some platform, in front of a green screen, dressed in the exact garb he was in that final shot. What further confirms it in my mind is, the two characters never actually ‘meet’ – standing quite a distance apart in that scene, for an inordinately protracted time. This suggests that an actual tête-à-tête meeting might have run the risk of it looking fake and the game would be up; thus the long distance meeting was opted for.
Further, I doubt they would have bothered flying Hamill to a remote island off Ireland, risked getting him to the top of that perch he’s pictured on, just for that one, dialogue and gesture devoid scene – it just doesn’t follow (…in-keeping with most of the film, it should be said). That, and I’ve read Hamill had to lose a lot of weight to reprise his role (he may still be in the process of this transformation), which could lend even more weight my theory, for perhaps Hamill was not in the right shape for that scene when it was shot.
Some questions:
► Given the character Finn was clearly cast (perhaps written) in order to buck up Afro-American males by presenting them with a positive role model to latch on to (all but confirmed by the non sequitur ‘ghetto’ accent Boyega put on for the role), why was said character so irredeemably shallow?
Finn’s only motivation was self-preservation: cowardly to the last – about to walk away from the gang he’d established such a supposed rapport with, even after being entreated to stay by the object of his lechery. Speaking of which, the guy was an utter sleaze! He couldn’t wait to ‘pop the question’ to Rey – sidling it in during a moment of commotion (in the MF) – almost as if he wanted to trick the girl into shacking up with him! But not even licentious lust could override this cad’s cravenly nature; failing to take the lead when confronted by the film’s antagonist and effectively letting Rey take the frontal assault. Only engaging said threat when he was literally forced to… to protect himself.
Specifically: How is Finn a the positive role model which he is patently in the film to be, when his character traits consist of cowardice, concupiscence, incompetence and clown-like behaviour? Are these not the stereotypes Afro-American males are trying to escape…?!
► How are viewers supposed to find a character like Rey engaging when she’s literally never in danger; is a ‘renaissance girl’ / savant; has a wooden in demeanour / disposition; and isn’t particularly aesthetically engaging (poe-faced, curt)? Who thought it a good idea to introduce a female lead into the Star Wars universe and reduce the character to an archetypal ‘Mary Sue’ that only fundamentalist feminist females could possibly find endearing?
► Why was blood introduced into the SW universe with TFA? Was it necessary? Is it consistent with how laser weapons function, in the SW universe and out? Should not certain synonymous tropes be adhered to in order to maintain the ‘feel’ of a brand? Did Abrams go to far with the gaudy smearing of blood down Finn’s Stormtrooper helmet…?
► Although J.J.Abrams was obviously employed in order to produce a ‘safe’ re-commissioning of the SW franchise (in light of the Arctic reception the prequel trilogy got), was the trade-off off in using such an infamously derivative director - a film that progresses the story and mythology nowhere - really worth it? That is to say, where do the subsequent two sequels go from here:
- Rey’s training? For what – she’s already Super Mary Sue!
- Finn’s recovery? Who cares – are people really that interested in a shoehorned, bumbling sidekick character with knavish motivations like those I’ve already delineated…? I highly doubt that.
- Kylo’s training? I cannot see that even being entertained, as TFA was as light on exposition, and heavy on explosions, as most Micael Bay films are. I don’t envisage the antagonists’ travails being detailed, even explained in ‘VIII’ and ‘XI’. That’s the stuff of fan fiction.
- Another indefensible Death Star / Starkiller super weapon?.. :rolleyes:
I cannot see what, if anything, TFA brought to the SW franchise (beyond revenue) and where it can go from here (narratively speaking). Is ‘VIII’ going to be another ‘V’? ‘IX’ a ‘VI’…?! Is the SW franchise now a “blockbuster” franchise that pays little due to continuity or character development – only crashes, clashes and carnage? Has Star Wars gone from the ‘toy story’ Lucas made it into (post Kurtz) to a no story, with even more toys entrained…?
I don’t get your criticism of Finn at all. What ghetto accent? Seemed like a typical American accent from this American’s memory. And to me, he had a pretty good arc: going from disillusioned and selfish soldier to selflessly risking himself to help Rey.
We were wondering about Lupita Nyong’o. Her role was so small – what, one single line? That’s all I remember – but being an Oscar winner, she commands big bucks now. why would they pay her so much money for something so minuscule? Unless her role will expand in future installments.
I thought she had several lines, at the table in the bar and in the underground chambers talking about the Force.
Okay, I guess I didn’t notice it was her until late in the film. But still, did they really need someone probably commanding such a high salary for that?
Noticed Ken Leung too of course. His role was also small, but I know he worked with Abrams on Lost.
Small role, but certainly more than one line. She spoke to them at the table and she did tell Rey that it was Luke’s lightsaber after Rey had her “forceback” moment.