That’s true, I’ll concede that. I think to me it just made the most sense in terms of the plot, so I figured it must’ve been what I saw.
Either way, I guess I just didn’t see the flaws that others did or it takes less for me to rationalize them, or something. It does have many similar themes to Ep 4 as well as other parallels to be made, but one will find this is the case for most artistic endeavors. I was rarely surprised and still enjoyed it, that says something to me, at least…mainly that the execution was there.
I’m going to admit, I didn’t realize that Kylo Ren’s name was Kylo Ren until I read this thread. I heard a bunch of people saying his name and not quite catching it, just getting en. Then when Han clearly called him “Ben” I thought everybody in the movie was mumbling Ben the whole time and I missed it.
It kind of undercut the emotional bit of Han calling his son by his given name.
Yeah… but, “news reports” told be there were “WMD’s” and “incubator babies”… and look at the Middle-East now…! :dubious:
Sure I can and SW has done it before and to much better effect. It’s just that, with the Mary Sue’s presence, Boyega stuck more than he might have; exacerbated by the cheesy character he was lumbered with to play (…and, of course, what I linked to hereinbefore).
Dunno… All I know is I saw a guy catatonic with fear thinking an entire legion would be on his tail 'cause… he’s a sanitary worker :rolleyes:, and then he about-faced as soon as some decidely un-come-hither tail wiped across his snout. Then I saw him resolute in this cowardice until the very end, after which I saw his spinal column cauterised. That’s all I have to go on – just calling it as I see it.
Ah. So you missed his ham-fisted effort at verbal date rape in MF after barely exchanging names with the beeline focus of his philandering…?
Fair enough. I just felt that some exposition for a character’s seeming god-like traits was in order. You know, before one risks the undermining of the entire substrata of a mythology for the sake of pushing some SJW agenda… that’s all.
I might have not worded my statement regarding this thoughtfully. Sure – SW has had blood before. However, it’s a far cry from the scenes you depict, their context and blood smeared on white ST helmets and blood at virtually every landed blaster shot. There was definitely an up-tick in the frequency and intensity of blood-related violence in TFA and denying this is kind of futile.
The author explicitly disclaimed the nitpicks in his preface. It’s discursive to focus on those. The fact remains, the film has a slew of inconsistencies (some laughably amateurish in their oversight) and open-ended elements that make for a product that feels rushed and wholly focused on wowing with fan service, than it is in weaving a substantive, cohesive narrative.
Han netting his ship, for example, may well have been explained. But the manner in which it was explained felt unsatisfying: Was the MF invisible (literally and for radar) while docked out in the open air on Tatooine v2.0? Why would a smuggler not have gotten word of his belovëd ship through the black market grape vine when it was being hocked by a peddler? Han ‘happening’ to find it, seemingly immediately (again, the timelines in the film are nebulous, to say the least – another issue) upon its first voyage back into space in decades, is alone a hard plot device to swallow… :rolleyes:
I don’t mind leaving my brain at the door from time to time in order to enjoy a popcorn flick. But having to lobotomise myself to reconcile myriad scriptural and narractive anomalies, is going beyond the pale. I feel people are becoming inured to this kind of cookie cutter “blockbuster” entertainment and therefore the bar is being lowered with every $200M+ opening weekend these films garner. Suffice it to say, this pattern does not bode well for the future of the medium… much less our brains.
I’m not trying to dispute you, I’m just curious–could you remind me what that justification was? I must have missed it, and I was one of those who was a little skeptical of the design of that saber.
Been thinking about this a bit more. So obviously, I’d have to say it was well worth whatever $7-10 matinee price I paid to see it.
It was a fine movie. Perfectly fine way to spend a couple of hours. I guess what nudges me to feel more strongly negatively about it is the adulation so many folk are heaping upon it.
I guess I see the film as essentially the same as any hero film dating back decades, where the heroes keep getting placed in impossible situations, and captured by insurmountable numbers of foes over and over again. You know most of them are going to survive, because you know there are going to be sequels. Fine for of-the-moment whiz-bang entertainment, but when so many folk talk it up as so much more, I guess that causes me to hold it up to a harsher light. Add in the extent to which I question the impact of PR/marketing in persuading folk that this is more than it is, and I find myself being more critical than I might actually feel.
One final thought - I watched the film and listened pretty closely, and didn’t catch a bunch of what you guys are discussing. Don’t know how much of it depends of rewatchings, or reading additional sources, but it kinda takes me out of things when I find myself repeatedly asking, “Wait a minute - what is his name? How is he related to her? Etc.” I understand how it might make it fun for folk who love to read up on the minutiae, but it leaves this moviegoer a little cold.
But, like I said, I got my $10 out of it. My rocket scientist son who is a huge SW, ST, and SF geek is coming into town tomorrow. He’s not a JJ fan and texted that he was “terribly whelmed” by this flick after seeing it opening night. So I’ll be able to depreciate that ticket cost even more! Thanks JJ/Disney!
On edit, I guess I should have read iLemming’s last post more closely. Yeah, it was a fine popcorn flick. But as I alluded to in one of my first posts in this thread, really impressed me as fungible with all the Marvel and other blow-em-up flicks. But I doubt there has ever been a time that the most popular entertainment was “high-brow.”
The other thing that people keep mentioning is that Kylo should do well because he’s a highly trained user of the Dark side. The thing is, he really isn’t. As Snoke himself says, Kylo hasn’t even completed his training yet. My guess is that Kylo is at about the same stage in his training that Luke was before he met Yoda. It could also be that he just isn’t very strong in the Force either.
Agreed. Without the tugging of childhood nostalgia, this was an okay - maybe pretty good - action movie. But that’s it. It was fun but, take away seeing Solo, the Millennium Falcon, etc and I don’t know if it would be particularly memorable.
Indeed. You watch the film in the moment and get your impressions then. Someone coming back and lecturing you from Wookiepedia the next day doesn’t change that impression you had of a moment in the film. It’s a space action film and it should be able to stand on its own. Having to research imaginary space politics for the plot to make sense is a failing.
The same.
Some of that Huffington Post list makes it look as though the author got a lot of popcorn during the film and missed a lot (the monsters got out when Rey flipped the wrong fuses to close the doors; there was dialogue and an oops! joke and everything) although I agree that Kylo Ren not using the Force to stop Finn is just dumb and diminishes Ren as a character for being stupid. And being mad or inexperienced might be an excuse for being stupid but it doesn’t make you less stupid and I prefer my bad guys to be of the non-stupid variety. I really have no idea what people see in Kylo Ren as a villain.
But that HuffPo guy was being rather nitpicky about some stuff and despite his protestations, seemed to have an axe to grind. More amusing was this Cracked article about weird aspects of the Star Wars universe. Aside from making some good points, it’s the first Cracked article I’ve laughed at continually in a long while.
No, I have no real idea what exactly she was paid. I’m just assuming – and yes, I know what they say about never assume – but still, she’s an Oscar-winning actress. And I don’t mean the kind like Louise Fletcher, who win their Oscar and then disappear into obscurity while desperately hoping for work, any work at all. No, she just won her Oscar this year and must be on Hollywood’s A list. She can pick and choose.
Well, that piece had a bunch of (planets? star systems?) in it. I can accept that they couldn’t just start hitting a hundred planets looking for one guy somewhere on one of them.
The “map” part was kind of funny to me, mainly the line connecting all the planets leading to Luke. Wouldn’t you just need the one secret Jedi hideout planet to be highlighted? As was (combined with the 2D nature of the map) it looked like “Ok, so you’re going to take I-77 to 340, get off westbound and stay on it for seventeen light years until you hit the Pordesoron exchange…”
She’s also had a total of 4 credits before TFA. One a short, one a mini-series, her oscar-winning role, and 1 other movie. (according to IMDB) Oscar or not, she’s an up and comer, not an A-lister yet, and I’m sure she’d jump at the chance to be in one of the most anticipated movies ever. Also, it wasn’t just voice-over. she did performance capture too, just as Serkis did.
Her role was certainly bigger than Daniel Craig’s, and he’s Jame F’n Bond.
…wow… there’s some racism and arm chair quarterbacking all over this thread.
I saw it last night. It’s fun but not great.
I think the First Order vs Republic/Resistance stuff was nearly nonsensical. I think they just didn’t want to bog down the movie with politics like the prequels but I shouldn’t need JJ Abrams interviews to explain what’s going on.
The pregnant pause at the end with Luke and Rey was ridiculously too long.
That Huffpost link is written by someone who doesn’t know what a “plothole” is and was grasping poorly.
My biggest disappointment was the CGI characters all looking horribly CGI. They looked like cartoons on the screen. None of them seemed real.
2nd disappointment-- the new cantina music by the “Hamilton” guy? That was some weak ass reggae stuff. I expected something way more interesting.
And don’t forget actors would want to do a Star Wars movie so they can be in a Star Wars movie. Getting paid is nice, but getting the opportunity to be in Star Wars is pretty cool too.
Woody Allen got a lot of talent to work for cheap in order to be in one of his movies. Similar concept.
If that’s what’s intended, it’s undercut by the extent to which he does things that we’ve never see a force user do before, seemingly effortlessly… stopping a blaster bolt, very aggressive force choking, etc. He certainly does far more with the force than we ever saw Luke do, pre- or post- Yoda.
Another interesting data point: when he tried to force-grab the other light sabre after defeating Finn, not only did Rey end up grabbing it away from him, but it looked like he could barely get it to move at all. Maybe he’d just “used up” all his Force-ing by tossing Rey through the air like kindling a few minutes earlier, while already severely injured?
I kept thinking: “Why is he so angry at poor Rey? Is he gonna kill her?”
I guess that they were going for a sort of “noble yet ambivalent at the idea of getting back to business” look and Hamill fell short of it and made it “annoyed and probably slightly constipated”.
The JJ Adams quote is very different than what you said about Boyega; deciding that diversity in the cast is good is very far from casting him as a sop to black audiences.
I still don’t get your criticism of Finn, and especially the accent thing. None of what you describe fits the movie as I remember.
