Why not? That’s the story. You can’t have continuing adventures without establishing a continuity of storyline from the original. The end of Return of the Jedi wasn’t “And They Lived Happily Ever After,” it was “And there Was Much Rejoicing.”
(OPEN SPOLERS…just to be super sure)
Instead of pooping on the main tFA thread I’ll lay my displeasure here.
Disclaimer: The only thing I know about the EU is that it exists so whatever is in there doesn’t matter to me at all, the only canon is the 6 eps. Also, I know that space wizards exist, but they aren’t wizards, it’s the midicholrians. But, even with those parameters…
My poop:
- One-ecosystem planets. It’s 2015, we have the CGI to do it better.
- The whole scavenger thingy on Jakku does not make sense at all.
- Pretty girl with a stick lives alone without fear. A stick as self-defense in a world with lasers?
- The flying USB can defeat gravity but it belches smoke because…it’s a diesel.
- What does a BB-8 do? Why can’t they give it a locomotion system that works? How about voice? I know it’s a callback to R2, but still…
- Idiot storm-troopers. Isn’t “duck or hide” on the first class at bootcamp?
- Can blasters affect solid objects or not? Why do they need sights? How can they miss at all? Why did the try to protect themselves behind granite blocks against blasters? Sweeping an area with your weapon is still not a thing? Still living troops? Still need separate guys for aiming and shooting your AA?
- Locks, PINs, and safety procedures apparently don’t exist. Also, motion sensors are still not a thing.
- A space bar in Jakku? You can fly faster than light and go there why?
- No matter how many “alien race”, still all the heroes are human.
- Another death star? Another trench? Another “let’s blow up the shields”?
- Writing a trilogy a one big three-part movie, means movie 1 is act 1 and nothing (except for Han’s death…cuz Ford didn’t want it) happens.
- Is Chewie still Han Solo’s bitch/errand boy?
- There’s a lost of excuses why Kilo Ren sucks at lightsabering (“he hasn’t finished his training”), but he can stop energy mid-air with his mind?
- Deus ex machina, deus ex machina everywhere.
- I watched in 4D and it’s really tiring, won’t do it again. Is it olbigatory that the fist scene of a 3D movie have some leaning on to the fourth wall?
- Kylo Ren does not feel menacing nor conflicted.
- Three guys with blasters in the “Han dies” scene and only one shoots once.
I could continue. It wasn’t a bad movie and it made a gazillion dollars, but I will have to be convinced to see the next one. I can’t imagine anything surprising happening.
If you liked it, great, excellent. I loved that I spent time with the family and had fun and tearing the movie a new one with my 15-year old is super-cool bonding, especially our fake spoiler “I couldn’t believe it when Ice Cube died!”.
Stromtroopers can’t shoot for shit and their armor appears to be about as worthless as papier-mâché. If it were any different they wouldn’t be stormtroopers, and they wouldn’t be taking orders from some pimply-faced boarding school reject. That’s been the case since their first appearance, Kenobi’s observation about the precision of their shooting notwithstanding. Stormtroopers are the archetype for mook armies The Lord of the Rings to Guardians of the Galaxy.
“…deus ex machina everywhere…”: But of course. It was the same with the original films. Heck, “The Force” is pretty much the ultimate deus ex machina; it turns the gifted users into the ultimate Mary Sue even if they are, like Luke, whiny, impatient, uneducable brats. The original films (well, at least the first two) handled this better, but the films have always had a great deal of contrivance.
Adam Driver is perhaps the most ridiculous casting for a villain ever. He’s about as threatening as the underage kids hanging down at the corner store trying to convince someone to buy them cheap bear. The original trilogy had the good sense not to show Vader’s face until the end of the third movie. In fact, the entire subplot about his origin really doesn’t work, either narratively or in building tension to the supposed big shock. But if they’d had a real villain with actual competence, the characters might have been in genuine peril and then the writers would have to figure that out.
Star Wars fans don’t anything surprising happening. They got their big shock in The Empire Strikes Back (although that had more to do with putting the hero in genuine peril and grievous injury, if but briefly) and have been satisfied since with the standard tropes of science fantasy. Disney isn’t going to go out on a limb and allow someone to make a Star Wars film in which something really genre-bending occurs or where they have to create a new story from scratch, especially given how much they’ve invested in both the property and the production of this film. Really, the point of the film is to make something that looks and sounds enough like the original Star Wars trilogy to make people forget about the prequels and recall the best moments from the first three movies. Given that this movie is essentially composed of scenes from the original trilogy, refilmed and character names changed slightly, it fulfills that goal. That it is narratively bankrupt and can’t stand upon its own is not only irrelevant, but actually deliberate. Lucas screwed the prequels by trying to add new content and interweave it with the existing mythology. He did it incompetently and without much regard for continuity, but even if it had been made by someone who could write about trade disagreements and civil unrest in great depth, it still wouldn’t have been the film that fans wanted.
Prediction: in the next film, Finn will turn out to be the son of Lando Calrissian who was taken shortly after birth, and Lando has been searching the galaxy for him.
Stranger
Its locomotion system does work. Here’s proof.
Let’s see it climb up a flight of stairs.
Stranger
You know what I mean: climbing stairs, being more agile than an RC truck you can get for 20 bucks.
I has grapnels, I’m sure can make it up stairs.
With all due respect, I don’t find your criticisms very cogent. I’m not saying the film is perfect, but your problems seem to be a stretch.
That’s a problem in the original. And anyway, we only saw a few miles of Jakku and Edna Mode’s planet. What do you want, a desert right next to the cantina?
In what way? It’s pretty simple and reasonable.
The two toughs who tried to steal BB-8 didn’t use a laser. Maybe lasers aren’t super common in a shitty rag-picker society. There are women living in shitty cities around Earth who aren’t regularly savaged without owning a gun.
I have no idea what you’re talking about. Her landspeeder?
His locomotion system does work. You can buy a toy that you can control with your smartphone. And like R2 has reasonable locomotion for badlands.
They did have overwhelming superiority for most of their fights. Also, Star Wars.
Uh, yes?
Because sometimes you want to pew-pew at stuff far away?
Because people pew-pew at other people who are running around, and sometimes they miss. Honestly, what the hell?
Because granite blocks sometimes stop blaster bolts and are opaque? Cover and concealment.
Did you see a lot of full auto blasters?
Do they?
Specifics?
You go there for whatever reason you want, buy cheap salvage, purchase slaves. Who the fuck knows. What space bar?
Chewbacka, BB-8, C3P0, Akbar, Nien Numb, Edna Mode… er Maz Kanata.
In a setting with shields, you have to deal with them. They have a super-weapon, so what? It’s Star Wars.
This bullet point is staggeringly wrong. Did you even watch the film?
Yes. And you appear to not understand the nature of their relationship.
He had just killed his father and was emotionally unstable and was hit directly by a grenade launcher that blew groups of other men 5 meters into the air. I’d cut him some slack.
Star Wars.
If you don’t like 3D, stop seeing it. This isn’t a critique of the movie, it’s one of your decisions in ticket buying.
That’s your opinion, and you’re welcome to it. I’d say otherwise.
No, that’s not correct.
I imagine you could just rattle off random complaints indefinitely.
Consult with him and get back to us. 
I don’t get that impression at all. Yes, at the end of ROTJ the Rebels scored a huge victory by taking out the Death Star II, Palpatine, and Vader, but that doesn’t mean the rest of the Empire would just say “oh, well that’s that then, Emperor’s gone so we’ll just chuck all of these Star Destroyers into a black hole.” Just because the emperor and the death star are gone doesn’t wipe out the enormous fleet of really big ships and the countless powerful people with a vested interest in keeping the Empire going.
Oh, so it’s basically this thing?
Stranger
‘You bet I could. I’m not such a bad pilot myself.’
Your line isn’t copying any Star Wars movie. 
Why does Captain Phasma the only stormtrooper in silver armor? All the other officers don’t wear armor. And captain isn’t such a high military rank that we wouldn’t see dozens of similarly clad stormtroopers in the larger formations.
Why did that one stormtrooper (TR-8R as fans call him) have a riot shield and stun baton? Were they planning to disburse some protests?
I have to say that casting Adam Driver as a petulant douche wannabee Vader works a lot better than trying to top one of the most iconic villains in movie history.
Toys. Sorry, limited edition collectable action figures.
It’s another callback to the original trilogy. Boba Fett was a cool looking dude in badass armor for some unexplained reason. Instant fan favorite. So… Let’s make a Stormtrooper Captain that’s a cool looking lady in badass armor for some unexplained reason.
What we know at the end of Return of the Jedi is that the Death Star II is gone along with the Emperor and Vader. The Imperial fleet is still largely intact and the Rebel Alliance is basically a ragtag fleet of ships with no more authority to run the Galaxy than I have.
It’s the equivalent of a few states - let’s say Virginia, Pennsylvania and Maryland - rebelling and successfully pulling off a commando operation where they blow up the White House and Capitol and kill the President. Would the rest of the USA say “Oh. Okay. I guess you guys are in charge.” Shit no.
The very existence of a sequel requires a galactic conflict. The conflict as described so far - one in which it appears the Galaxy really has no clear governing authority at all, but is an ongoing struggle between the old Empire reborn as the First Order and the old Republic cobbled back together (I believe the Resistance is the continuation of the Rebels fighting in First Order territory) is consistent with the end of Return of the Jedi. It’s hardly original but it is perfectly consistent with the end of Episode VI.
Of course it’s “explained”. The world of Star Wars is basically a medieval one with knights and swords and whatnot (Vader stylized after a Japanese shogun, Kylo and his light-claymore more similar to a European knight). Boba Fett wears his for protection just like everyone else. And since he is a mercenary and not regular Imperial Army, his armor can be unique.
That’s kind of my problem with JJ Abrams Star Wars. He threw in a lot of stuff because it looked “cool”, but ultimately kind of doesn’t make a lot of sense.
Like the whole scavenging on Jakku thing. Wouldn’t a graveyard of downed star destroyers attract more than a tent city full of desert rats pulling the batteries out of the smoke detectors? After 30 years, I would expect to see a city full of salvage teams from half the quadrant breaking it apart for scrap and spare parts.
Maybe this is what’s left after the salvage teams have taken everything that was easy and worth having a whole team there. I don’t get the impression Rey was getting rich off her finds.
Ok, “going upstairs is a non-completely idiotic and enery-wasteful way”
Ok.
If Rey is a good pilot as some say then she should’ve seen all the planet and not be surprised abput a green planet.
The planet were Luke lives is “island planet”
It makes no sense to have such an inefficient recovery system if so many flying things exist and there is so much technology. Spaceships have to be incredibly complex, you can’t simply have a bush-mechanic fit a non-standard piece and then bend spacetime, even in SW. One of the scavengers even rides a preposterously slow animal-
They didn’t use blasters because they wanted it whole.
Super hot women living in a shitty places are regularly molested, it’s the norm. There is no societal structure that could help her, no cops, mayor, family, no bonds between them. Ask any woman how many days can they live there without getting raped.
Yes.
A smooth metal surface that spends energy balancing its head is a terrible locomotion system. It incredibly wasteful where simple tracks or wheels are so much better. It’s almost product placement. I still don’t know what it is supposed to do aside from having the smallest, yet conveniently shaped, drawer.
R2 is, conveniently never shown moving in places where its locomotion system would suck (it does some stupid hoping/waking thing). It also moves absurdly slowly. MY 94-year old gramma had a stroke 40 years ago and her left side is paralyzed and she moves more quickly with a cane.
When they attack Edna’s bar and the counterattack starts there is no command structure, no order, no basic training. If they were peasants just picked up I’d understand, but once they are under fire they simply stand almost begging to be shot. They, in practice, have acommand structure that is private-captain-general, no NCOs or sergeants directing stuff, no communication, no planning, and also they are still, basically, relying on eyesight and hearing to find enemies with energy weapons. A company of WWI soldiers with bolt-action rifles would been more effective.
Of course the use of massed soldiers is idiotic in a super technological society. Apparently the drone hasn’t been invented.
When they are attacked in the corridors of the base they have no sense to move with any precaution.
Really? It’s very selective. Blasters don’t seem do affect flesh that much (i.e. it doesn’t go through it) or anything on bases except when they need it. We see stormtroopers being flung back by direct energy hit without being crushed.
Blasters work as required by the scene.
We have cameras now that constantly track and focus the nearest eye in constant motion and they have no computer aid? They are a laser M-1 not even AK-47, they are stupid weapons designed.
How can they miss a slow moving object of medium size in a highly technological society. Have they got no aiming aids? Missing should not be possible.
The next scene blasts the granite away. It’s like getting cover from a machine gun behind a flower
No, they are, therefore, less useful than an AK-47 or an M-60. But even if they are semi-auto, they could fire in an arc to sweep the area.
All the time. They have a condition called “not ready” while in full alert and it takes time for them be “ready”. Tie fighters, the falcon and X-wings need actual people shooting.
Doors in super important places open incredibly simply. It’s your main planet-destroying weapon and the enemy goes in there very quickly opening only one or two locked-but-easily-openable doors.
There are two, one desert one forest. It also shows the limitations of such bars catering to tens of different species, yet having uniform-sized table and chairs and one or two bartenders/cooks. Unless you simply serve water (or you have a soup kitchen were beggars can’t be choosers) you need 1000 different drinks and 1000 different dishes just to get by.
All B-list. There is the token non-human x-wing pilot, but all the actions is moved by humans.
Shields that two idiots pull down. They also decide to have no ships protecting the planet, no automated defense systems.
Nope, nothing happens that could not have been told with 99% the same effect on 30 minutes.
He went down form assistant to bitch.
Your choice, it sucks for me because there is no struggle you can detect. Also, as usual, force-user forget that they can use the force and move things, a tree, a branch , a stone, a shoe.
Ok. Then it’s perfect, every little bit. So, if Han Solo comes back in episode 9 it’ll be “cuz Star Wars”.
4D, not 3D. We went 4D because my wife wanted it (she paid) and 4D is also 3D-
Me, I would’ve been happier with 2D.
OK
Chewie, Finn and Rey
Yup
Willco
I agree. I know nothing about an “Expanded Universe” and don’t care. I loved The Force Awakens because it recaptured the magic of the first 3 films. I’m not a Star Wars fanboy by any means (never bought any toys or, god forbid, dressed up like a character or anything), but fun movies are fun movies. And J.J. Abrams mad a fun movie.
I’m actually more of a Star Trek fan (original series), and also liked really Abrams’ reboot of that. I only saw the one that had the fire drilling a hole and blowing up Vulcan. I didn’t see any others yet.