It had starships and lightsabers and good guys vs bad guys and explosions and John Williams music and old characters doing new things and new characters doing old things.
It was fun.
Yep, plus good acting, dialogue, and characters.
I saw this movie a couple of days ago. I’ve also kept up with this thread since it started, and much of what I liked and didn’t like has been discussed already so I won’t repeat it. One tiny bit that annoyed me, though (and I’m sure it’s just me) is the monosyllabic names of most of the primary characters. Han and Luke get a pass because they were established since ANH, but you have Rey, Fin, Poe, Maz, Ren, Hux, Ben, Snoke. Did the writers find it difficult to string two or three syllables together for a name? Giant bad-ass behind-the-scenes super-evil guy’s name is…Snoke? Seriously?!
Despite the general consensus that EU stories were crap, the characters at least had names which sounded exotic or evocative. Joruus C’baoth, Mitth’raw’nuruodo (Thrawn), Jaina, Jacen, Teneniel Djo, Corran, Brakkis, Exar Kun, etc.
Eh, just my personal peeve. Still liked it and would watch again.
I agree it was fun. But wow…
They really mixed things up. I would think that the “Mistakes” of the movie’s continuity with the past films would either be caught early or intentional.
My friend feels lonely in hating it… He and I both agreed that we didn’t like the score of the movie as much as we would have liked.
John, Mark, Ben, Matt, Tom, Dick, Bruce, Greg, Jake, Will, Sam, Jim, Grace, Jane, Joan, James, Phil, Jack, Fred, Jude, Paul, Frank, George, Carl, Brad, Bret, Chad, Dave, Earl, Zack, Vick, Nick, Mike, Mick, Quinn, Lee, Kim, Kate, Hans, Ian, Hank, and Dale would like to have a word with you.
I think this Washington Post review nails a lot of the film’s weaknesses, that characters are essentially driven by the audience having seen the previous films: they do what they do simply because we expect them to do it. How does Captain Action Figure survive the crash and get off the desert planet to rejoin the fray? Because we know he has to be there for the final trench run on the nuDeath Star.
This is a world where someone thought that AT-ATs were a good idea.
By the way, can a droid like R2-D2 just choose to power down like that? Surely someone would say “Hey! R2 unit! Get back to work!”
Now, if he’d shut himself down while waiting for Han Solo, I’d understand.
Because he’d be pining for the Ford, y’see…
There have been some possible explanations for this in this thread. One is she had some training by Luke before Kylo killed everyone but spared her and she doesn’t remember. Also, her limited exposure via touching the lightsaber and getting in Kylo’s head may have shown her that could work. She wasn’t confident in her ability to do it obviously…it was more “Let me try this”
And poor old Captain Fangasm; people have speculated why a smart, tough, ruthless, competent commander folded like an umbrella and betrayed her entire side to destruction - and it’s notable that this collapse took place off screen, because the script couldn’t find a way to sell it convincingly - just because a deserter and an scruffy old guy waved pistols at her. Sadly for Fangasm, she was in a Star Wars movie, which dictates that the ragtag misfits have got to get into the base so that the NEOW PEW PEW DAKKA DAKKA ARGH BOOM finale can happen. Han and Finn might have well have just told her “Sorry, love, you have to let us in because we’re in Star Wars”.
ISTM the Republic was so badly beaten down, in that part of the galaxy anyway, that it’s back to being just a resistance now.
As Maz put it, in explaining how she got Luke’s lightsaber, “That is a good question … for another time.”
Because monsters always play with their prey for as long as the script requires, before the miraculous rescue.
You’ll find the explanation in the Harry Potter books.
The Republic was concentrated on Hosnian Prime. They are now all gone thanks to Starkiller.
The Star Wars universe does have a way to get R2-D2 back to work, but that is basically a reset to factory defaults. If he’s carrying encrypted information it might be impossible to access that information without R2-D2’s cooperation.
Minimalist nonsense. If someone nuked Washington D.C. that wouldn’t be sufficient to destroy America’s chain of command. Even if it caused the collapse of the nation into individual states again, that would not happen immediately - the existing military would have plenty of time to use its full strength against the enemy first.
For a typical astromech droid, maybe. R2, on the other hand, has gone over 60 years without a memory wipe, so he’s developed enough of an independent personality that he presumably doesn’t have to obey commands from anyone that he doesn’t trust and have faith in.
It’s not clear to me, but from the speech given before firing the Starkiller, it seems the Republic and the First Order are nominally at peace, even though the Republic is actually giving material support to the Resistance. (Hence the speechgiver’s talk of the New Republic’s lies.)
Why are they nominally at peace? The movie doesn’t say. I can only assume the First Order is somehow powerful enough to make outright war with them untenable.
Disney put out a working BB-8 toy. In a universe where a droid like that is expected to work, I’d think the engineers have figured out these problems.
Those were Hux’s exact words. How could it be made any more clear? As for why the First Order and the Republic weren’t at war already… probably because they’re both equally matched.
And again, the wife and I saw it for free thanks to having enough frequent-viewer cards filled up. Haha! Stickin’ it to The Man! 
I feel this is a good spot to mention the Han Solo fridge. Great as a last-minute Christmas present for your favorite geek.
This is an odd complaint.
1977:
[ul]
[li]Mark Hamill, age 26[/li][li]Carrie Fisher, age 21[/li][li]Harrison Ford, age 35[/li][/ul]
2015:
[ul]
[li]Daisy Ridley, age 23[/li][li]John Boyega, age 23[/li][li]Oscar Isaac, age 36[/li][li]Adam Driver, age 32[/li][/ul]
Incidentally, in doing that research, I just realized that John Boyega and I have the same birthday!
(different years)
I thought the movie was below average. Besides everything else mentioned in the thread, I found it irritating that the space neo nazis had a planet killing gun but no closed circuit cameras to find out where their prisoner went.