Star Wars: The Force Awakens POST viewing thoughts

[Sentacotus]

Before I start I guess I should say that for anyone wanting to see the movie without spoilers tread carefully as this is a thread meant to discuss the movie after having seen it. I will still post story sensitive information in spoiler tags since the film is new and I strongly advise others do the same for the sake of others wanting to see the movie.

Lets get the obvious out of the way first:

Well I gotta say I was pretty amazed. Aside from solid acting I thought the filmography and how the scenes were done was great. The film doesn't overuse CGI and the practical effects coupled with on location filming is apparent in a good way here. There were only a few gripes I had with the plot but nothing that destroyed the film or my enjoyment of it one being how the light saber fight at the end was done. But hey no film can be perfect. That being said I did notice how this film seemed to mirror A New Hope quite closely. Whether you consider this a good or bad thing is up to you, but for the most part I think it was executed pretty well while making references to the old stuff that happened while still feeling new at the same time. I think whether you are a casual or big star wars fan its worth it to go see and if you're afraid of it being anything like the prequels put those fears to rest.

The rest of this will be pretty spoiler heavy so you have been warned.

Mirroring A New Hope:

Like I said before I thought the way they did this was good. It could have very easily been copy and paste the plot and while it seems like this in the beginning especially with how Poe Dameron gives the secret intel on Luke's location to BB8 to escape from the village that Kylo Ren attacks, it does remain to feel new at the same time. My biggest surprise was the super weapon. After seeing the poster I was concerned it was going to be death star 3.0 and it is...sort of. You see it absorbs suns and then fires a laser from an entire planet to destroy not 1 but 5 planets at once...oh and it can fire at anyone from any location. Yeah they stepped it up with this one. I like how they had to work in conjunction by deactivating the shields on the ground and blowing a hole for the pilots to actually destroy it. I also thought that Han's death at the hands of the fallen pupil of Luke (Kylo Ren) mirrored Obi Wan's death. Here you have a respected old veteran with stories of years past getting slain by the fallen jedi. BUT. He is also a character we have grown to love over 3 films so it had that much more impact and the fact that he is Kylo Ren's father also means his death serves the story in some capacity and isn't just pointless lets kill the old guy for the new ones. The filmography of that scene is particularly well done.

Filmography

I thought the way the film was shot was really well done. While JJ is well known for his overuse of lens flares he uses them at the right times for example when the death planet fires you see the massive red beam of death from the side of people receiving it on one of the planets giving you an idea of how hopeless the situation seemed. The scene where Han tries to convince his son Kylo to come back is extremely well done. While the death planet absorbs the nearby star the light is fading but shining through a gap on the two Kylo is in tears as he conflicts with what to do he seems ready to kick his mask off and hand his saber over but as he does so the sun gets completely adsorbed and the light goes away (little symbolism there) giving way to the red glare of the superweapon and kylo kills his own father. Just little things like that added to the tension of the film and had an amazing effect. Where this film was separate from all the others is that while there was always a sense of light heartedness and hoecky humor this was convincing and you truly felt the tension and emotions at play. Additionally, the end scene where Rey finally finds Luke Skywalker offering him his father's old lightsaber was so well done. Even though Mark Hamill didn't utter a word the way he was revealed was just spot on.

Casting/Acting

Overall good. As you'd expect Harrison Ford and Carrie Fisher are right at home and do their respective roles just fine. Oscar Isaac plays the part of hotshot pilot and fits the role like a glove. It was also interesting to see how he treated BB8 as almost as a pet when they reunite and its even evident in how John Boyaga and Daisy Ridley interact with the droid as they try to get it to the Resistance. A side effect of using life like props no doubt. Boyaga does a good job of playing the rogue stormtrooper and is very convincing. Daisy Ridley does about as good of a job. Adam Driver as Kylo Ren does great...with the mask on. His outbursts of anger and higher mobility than Vader makes for an intimidating and menacing enemy. He did well for most of the movie and in the scenes where he does take his mask off for short periods of time he executes well however, in the extended lightsaber fight at the end you could noticeably see some awkward voicing and acting which may just be a consequence of hearing his muffled mask voice.

Issues/problems

As great as Force Awakens is its not perfect and has a few issues. Nothing earth shattering or cringe worthy but worth mentioning. First is the lightsaber fight at the end. While yes Kylo was injured by Chewbacca's shot it doesn't make much sense to me how he gets his ass handed to him by a force sensitive (Rey) with no training. Stay with me here. Kylo was personally trained by Luke and supposedly so strong that he eliminated all of Luke's new jedi students when he betrayed them furthermore he had more training from Snoke who is supposedly the "new emperor bad guy". Then Rey not only holds her own but beats him injuring him quite a bit. For perspective Luke another very strong force sensitive at the time, after getting some training with Yoda went and fought Vader in Empire and lost a hand. It just doesn't make much sense. Another issue or rather thing I'm looking forward to them explaining in the next two movies is this Supreme Leader Snoke guy. Don't get me wrong Andy Serkis performs the voice over great and the look of him is evil and menacing to say the least but how some guy comes out of nowhere and is suddenly the new prime bad guy leaves a few holes. Kylo's background is already explained as the fallen son of Han and Leia who betrayed Luke's new jedi order. The first order makes sense they are the imperial remnant (they did have entire fleets at Endor after all). But Snoke...the guy who supposedly manipulated Kylo, where does he come from? Guess we'll have to wait and see. Another potential issue I see is the new movies mirroring the old ones too much. I thought this one balanced it pretty well but with JJ Abrams leaving I hope it can stay that way.

Feel free to discuss but please for the sake of enjoyment be nice and use spoiler tags.

[Rapier]

The mirroring was an issue at the time for me. The plot recycles so many ideas from Episode IV, V and VI at a single movie and feels very rushed because they tried to do so much in a single Episode. With that said, I really liked the movie and I'm looking forward the next ones, as I'm very curious about how this story will turn out to be. A part of me wants to see it again.

I just found Kylo Ren to be... well, disappointing as a villain. They're still very bad at "show, not tell", despite George Lucas not being around in the film's making.

I know he is not supposed to be that strong. He isn't even a sith, iirc, just a Dark Jedi that betrayed Luke for some reason and did enough crap to make him want to isolate himself on Machu Pichu, but still he is very incompetent and gets his ass handed by two people who don't even know how to wield Lightsabers. And he was Luke's fucking apprentice, someone who killed all of his other peers while his master could do nothing to stop him. You'd expect someone like this to be quite similar to Anakin in power levels, but no.

I also think his story could've developped better. It is told to us what he feels and it is told to us that he betrayed his family, yet very little is shown about him. Rey also suffers from this: We know nothing about her and she is far from being just an ordinary person.

Edited December 22, 2015 by Rapier

[solrocknroll]

Yeah, it's basically A Newer Hope, but that's not necessarily a bad thing.

I know I loved Rey, Finn, and BB-8. Kylo Ren was okay, but certainly not amazing. Phasma was barely in the film, and Snoke came out of absolutely nowhere.

I'd still rate the movies as V > IV > VII > VI > I > III > II

literally nothing made by man could be as awful as attack of the clones, and phantom menace at least has Liam Neeson to beat out "my heart is breaking" the movie

[Pixelman]

What can I say? The movie was worth the wait

Still can't believe they killed Han though

So ballsy it wasn't even funny

But other than that... Finn is one of my favorite characters in the movie

Hopefully he'll be able to wield a lightsaber again

[sirmola]

I quite liked this movie, although it had flaws. In adition to the retread problem, i had another that has not beem mentioned yet: often, there was not enough explanation. For example, the relationship between the republic and the resistance is not fully explained. sometimes explanation gets rushed through so quickly, hat most peolpe mssed it. for example, the planet that the republic is on when it gets destroyed is not corescont, but the first forum i went to was full of people who were convinced that it was. there was one rushed over line mentioning that the name of the system was the hoxian system, but most people apperently missed it. another example was the rational for non-clone storm troopers. I could swear that someone mentioned this, but it was one rushed sentence, so i don't know what the rational was. It seems to me is if they were trying to avoid the exposition slog that the prequals sometimes turned into, but they went too far in the other direction and just confused people. Overall a good movie, though (although the retred issue keeps it from being great in my eyes).

Edited December 22, 2015 by sirmola

[Sentacotus]

I quite liked this movie, although it had flaws. In adition to the retread problem, i had another that has not beem mentioned yet: often, there was not enough explanation. For example, the relationship between the republic and the resistance is not fully explained. sometimes explanation gets rushed through so quickly, hat most peolpe mssed it. for example, the planet that the republic is on when it gets destroyed is not corescont, but the first forum i went to was full of people who were convinced that it was. there was one rushed over line mentioning that the name of the system was the hoxian system, but most people apperently missed it. another example was the rational for non-clone storm troopers. I could swear that someone mentioned this, but it was one rushed sentence, so i don't know what the rational was. It seems to me is if they were trying to avoid the exposition slog that the prequals sometimes turned into, but they went too far in the other direction and just confused people. Overall a good movie, though (although the retred issue keeps it from being great in my eyes).

I kind of attribute that and the lack of details in regards to Kylo to leaving things to talk about and reveal in the next two movies. Don't wanna play all your cards at once you know?

The Republic planet we see getting blown up is one of like five. I think the Republic is at Corusant but those were just some other systems. Makes sense when you think about it. The First Order is trying to prevent the Republic from supporting the Resistance by destroying some of their planets.

Edited December 22, 2015 by LordTaco42

[Pete Rose: Baseball Legend]

I ended up walking out of the film satisfied. Not amazing but good enough to bear the Star Wars name.

As someone who enjoyed the prequels for what they were(except maybe Clone Wars), I'd rank this slightly infront of the prequels but far behind the original trilogy. It had some pretty major holes.

A few random things:

1. Should've taken more time to develop Rei or least made her character more inherently interesting. Is there anything this character can't do? She's great with machines, she's a great pilot, she's resourceful, her will is unwavering(except maybe when she sees the lightsaber for the first time), she masters the force in a matter of minutes(maybe hours in movie time), and she's somehow a pretty good swordsman.

She beats the main badguy in a 1 on 1 sword fight despite never using a lightsaber before. I thought you needed guidence before you could harness the power of the force. Ren even says "you need training" lol evidently not because she bests him easily after that.

Because of this I found her character to be more boring than it should have been.

2. Under explaining was a huge problem in this as someone mentioned before. While the prequels explained to much, this explained too little.

Case and point: when the Republic gets destroyed and we know next to nothing about who they were and why it was such a big deal they're gone. There was a throwaway line like "without the Republic, we're defenseless". OK cool, maybe show us instead so we understand the gravity of what just happened.

Another example is the First Order. Despite presumably being smaller than the Empire, how the devil can they make a new Death Star that's 10 TIMES as big as the old one? And why does the republic/resistence just stand by while they build it? Haven't they learned anything?

Something minor, but where are the A-wings, Y-wings, B-wings, Tie-interceptors, and Tie-Bombers? It's like Abrams was like "X-wings and Tie-fighters, that's it. They're the most iconic so that's it".

They could've added 10 minutes of extra exposition and most of this could have been fixed.

Thankfully, this is mostly nothing a sequel can't fix.

3. Killing off Han this early was a huge missed opportunity. If they wanted his death to mean more than it did, they should have let him and Rei have a more fleshed out relationship than just a few scenes tinkering with the Millenium Falcon. It was mentioned that he was "a father figure she never had" but we really didn't get to see much of that.

His death would have meant a whole lot more in the second or third film.

As I said I liked it, it just felt poorly paced and too fanservice heavy(although that will proabbly be toned down after this film).

[blah the Prussian]

This film was very, very conflicted for me. On the one hand, it is virtually scene for scene A New Hope. Also, I really, really, really hate Kylo Ren as a villain. He has the same problems as Voldemort, really; extreme buildup, followed by disappointing payoff. I also found the symbolism to be far too heavy handed, especially in the scene where Kylo kills Han. Now, apart from that, this is a great film. If it came before A New Hope, it would be the better movie, especially in terms of acting. I might get some flak for this, but the acting in A New Hope sucked, except for James Earl Jones and Alec Guinness. Fortunately all the actors straightened their acting out for Empire. There's also the fact that Princess Leia's home, family, people, and culture get annihilated in what the UN would call the perfect genocide, and she is not in the least affected by this. She sobs a little, and that's it. The presentation is great, and the First Order is far less... confused than the Empire. The First Order knows what it wants to be; a Fascist dictatorship. The Empire is a monarchy without hereditary rule based around a religious order that is basically Objectivism with magic. I'm pissed, though, that Leia gave up her royal title, but that's just because I'm a monarchist. This was the second best Star Wars movie for me, but I think that the only great Star Wars movie was Empire. This movie suffered from its lack of originality. It would have been as good as Empire if not better, but Empire actually had an original storyline. The good news is, if the next film has an original plot and the same caliber of writing and acting, it will be a worthy successor to the originals.

[solrocknroll]

This film was very, very conflicted for me. On the one hand, it is virtually scene for scene A New Hope. Also, I really, really, really hate Kylo Ren as a villain. He has the same problems as Voldemort, really; extreme buildup, followed by disappointing payoff. I also found the symbolism to be far too heavy handed, especially in the scene where Kylo kills Han. Now, apart from that, this is a great film. If it came before A New Hope, it would be the better movie, especially in terms of acting. I might get some flak for this, but the acting in A New Hope sucked, except for James Earl Jones and Alec Guinness. Fortunately all the actors straightened their acting out for Empire. There's also the fact that Princess Leia's home, family, people, and culture get annihilated in what the UN would call the perfect genocide, and she is not in the least affected by this. She sobs a little, and that's it. The presentation is great, and the First Order is far less... confused than the Empire. The First Order knows what it wants to be; a Fascist dictatorship. The Empire is a monarchy without hereditary rule based around a religious order that is basically Objectivism with magic. I'm pissed, though, that Leia gave up her royal title, but that's just because I'm a monarchist. This was the second best Star Wars movie for me, but I think that the only great Star Wars movie was Empire. This movie suffered from its lack of originality. It would have been as good as Empire if not better, but Empire actually had an original storyline. The good news is, if the next film has an original plot and the same caliber of writing and acting, it will be a worthy successor to the originals.

Uh, I was under the assumption that Leia simply is no longer a princess. Since, you know, Alderaan kinda went boom. She was known as a princess in Empire and Jedi but was never actually seen ruling anything.

[Phoenix Wright]

solid 6/10. it didn't deliver anything spectacular in terms of characters or story. fin and rey are pretty cool but the mistakes they made with rey (way too strong way too fast. kylo was trained by fucking luke skywalker and she's able to do jedi mind tricks and shit pretty much the moment she discovers she's a force user?? come on) anger me too much. kylo sucks. the edgy teenage(?) evil boy is so boring. always has been.

visuals were pretty on point. chewie's mouth movements were awkward looking, though.

also, luke didn't force pull his lightsaber back smh

Edited December 23, 2015 by Phoenix Wright

[solrocknroll]

While I do think that Rey's development hit way too high, I'm also going to give the movie the benefit of the doubt and say that she's still rough or something but has a lot of natural talent and is good in a pinch. I think they could probably say that she was in a crisis or something and have Episodes VIII and IX improve on her and make her get actual training.

Edited December 24, 2015 by Freyjadour

[Clarinets]

Well, about Rey suddenly being able to best Kylo Ren in a lightsaber battle, she had been using a staff in the beginning of the movie to fight. When she was using the lightsaber near the end, the moves she had been using looked more like they suited the aforementioned staff than a sword. So I think her win against Kylo was at least somewhat justified.

[Rapier]

Uh, I was under the assumption that Leia simply is no longer a princess. Since, you know, Alderaan kinda went boom. She was known as a princess in Empire and Jedi but was never actually seen ruling anything.

I never understood where the princess part of her title came from. She's the adoptive daughter of a senator and the daughter of a jedi knight, so what the hell. Plot hole from a change of direction in the story (which probably happened, since Leia and Luke kiss in the first movie)?

Well, about Rey suddenly being able to best Kylo Ren in a lightsaber battle, she had been using a staff in the beginning of the movie to fight. When she was using the lightsaber near the end, the moves she had been using looked more like they suited the aforementioned staff than a sword. So I think her win against Kylo was at least somewhat justified.

It is not, because Kylo Ren received training from Luke Skywalker before her, killed all of his apprentices, and then... took a long time to defeat Finn, who was pretty crappy with a lightsaber, and took a beating from Rey, as if she had channeled Anakin at that moment.

His build-up, as pointed before, was bad. I like him as a character, but they need to portray him better and, in the Force's name, nerf Rey. Also, establish a good motive for him to become a villain that doesn't feel like he wanted to be a badass and turned emo because he couldn't.

And they shouldn't have killed Han so soon. He could've added a lot to Rey's character, but the "adoptive father" part was left to the script, it seems, since we don't get this feeling at all from the movie.

Edited December 24, 2015 by Rapier

[Knight]

The acting, visuals, sound, dialogue, characters and worldbuilding were all perfect, but the plot itself kind of sucked. Didn't mean though that I didn't get a little teary-eyed at one particular scene, and the whole thing was pretty good. If they didn't retread so much of the originals (something I was expecting going in because JJ Abrams) and if some of the villains were more developed, I think it could have been even better. I've told all my friends, this movie didn't exceed my expectations, but it didn't fall below the either. I expected to see a good movie, and I saw a good movie, I just hope the next one is a great movie.

Also, this might be controversial, but I really like Kylo Ren as a villain, it's just the other villains really that I felt boring (Snoke, Hux) or underdeveloped (Phasma). I also love the new heroes. And I really like the last shot of the movie.

[secondworld]

I have my fair share of things to say about the movie but right now I'll just add to the Kylo Ren vs Rey thing

Ren worn out and injured too. That laser crossbow is powerful enough to blast multiple storm troopers into the air and he just took a shot from it. And then injured his shoulder of his light saber swinging arm in the fight with Finn. Even after all that he still dominated most of the fight with Rey, who only got the upper hand at the very end. I also got the impression that Kylo Ren isn't exactly a master, not yet anyway. It's not certain yet how long he trained with Luke and how long ago that was but we do know that his training isn't finished yet.

That said some things probably could've been shown better.

Edited December 24, 2015 by DavidSW

[Rapier]

Hux looks like an aryan nazi. He seems awesome as a villain.

[peener weener]

Finn was definitely the highlight of the movie for me. Rey would be kind of an uninteresting character if not for the hints that she might be Luke's daughter. I liked Kylo Ren for most of the movie, but the final fighr definitely broke immersion and made me dislike both Rey and Kylo Ren even more. I didn't enjoy Carrie Fischer's performance too much and the same goes for Daisy Ridley but that's about as much as I can complain about the acting. Solid movie and I wouldn't mind watching a trilogy like this.

edit: I also didn't enjoy how a lot of character development and relationships are assumed rather than shown organically. Han Solo being a father figure to Rey and Finn's close relationship with both Rey and Poe are kind of jarring considering how little they interact on screen.

Edited December 24, 2015 by fuccboi

[Crysta]

Rey was promising at first but I agree with the other sentiments about her powers manifesting/developing way too fast for any of us to appreciate the journey and I fear she might wade into Mary Sue territory because of it. We'll see. I'd be kind of turned off if she turns out to be Luke's daughter tbh.

lol Kylo's gonna get hate because he's not what people want in bad guys in terms of skill level and demeanor. I don't begrudge him for losing that fight considering it looked like he was in the middle of bleeding out. I'm curious about his backstory and I already peg him as the sort of antagonist who is significantly more astute/aware of his surroundings than the typical big bad (he knew right away Finn was the storm trooper who defected and seems to be more aware of Rey's potential than anyone else so far) so I want to see how he develops just as much as I want to see the heroes develop, which is a plus in my eyes. I can tolerate his character flaws so far since they don't seem terribly unrealistic for a young man.

I'd give it an 8.5/10

[Pete Rose: Baseball Legend]

It felt like Abrams was trying to impress the faithful soo much he didn't take time to really flesh out the world and characters.

JJ, you've already got the fanboys orgasming, mission accomplished but now it is time to write a more compelling narrative.

[blah the Prussian]

I never understood where the princess part of her title came from. She's the adoptive daughter of a senator and the daughter of a jedi knight, so what the hell. Plot hole from a change of direction in the story (which probably happened, since Leia and Luke kiss in the first movie)?

Based on the expanded universe the gist of it seems to be that Bail Organa is also the King of Alderaan or something, and the Republic isn't actually a Republic, its more like the European Union in that it is a very loose federation of a bunch of different planets with different government types. Naboo was also a monarchy and it is part of the Republic. Then again, Naboo has its own problems given that the Queen is apparently elected which means that a. the head of state can only be a woman, which is sexist, and b. the people of Naboo elected a sixteen year old girl to lead them! And we thought the people voting for Trump were morons...

[Rapier]

I thought Padme was 13 in canon?

That said, I really like how this movie has so much potential. At the end, I wanted to keep watching and see where it'd get to. I'm rather disappointed that we hardly saw Luke and he looks like a drunkard, which is what happens when you isolate yourself in Machu Pichu or whatever for decades. Finn was developped well, kind of, and Kylo Ren is all "tell, don't show", but Rey was very underdevelopped. Definitely excited for Episode VIII - I only hope it doesn't crush my expectations by being like Episode II.

[The_Vernster]

Loved this film. Made me go back to watch the previous Star Wars movies.

And I am sad that Han Solo is dead ;_;

[blah the Prussian]

I thought Padme was 13 in canon?

That said, I really like how this movie has so much potential. At the end, I wanted to keep watching and see where it'd get to. I'm rather disappointed that we hardly saw Luke and he looks like a drunkard, which is what happens when you isolate yourself in Machu Pichu or whatever for decades. Finn was developped well, kind of, and Kylo Ren is all "tell, don't show", but Rey was very underdevelopped. Definitely excited for Episode VIII - I only hope it doesn't crush my expectations by being like Episode II.

Wait, people thought episode 2 was going to ge good? Admittedly I was too young to see it when it came out and to get involved in the hype for it, but still. Actually one of my first memories was everyone losing their shit that Revenge of the Sith was about to come out.

[The_Vernster]

Wait, people thought episode 2 was going to ge good? Admittedly I was too young to see it when it came out and to get involved in the hype for it, but still. Actually one of my first memories was everyone losing their shit that Revenge of the Sith was about to come out.

I was actually watching the prequels.

Phantom Menace is just boring. Attack of the Clones is kinda bleh, now I knew where twilight got its inspiration. Revenge of the Sith however was actually really good imo.

[Rapier]

Wait, people thought episode 2 was going to ge good? Admittedly I was too young to see it when it came out and to get involved in the hype for it, but still. Actually one of my first memories was everyone losing their shit that Revenge of the Sith was about to come out.

That's not what I said =P

I said that I hope episode 8 won't be as disappointing as 2 - I don't know if people had high expectations for it. Both were sequels of promising stories, and yet 2 failed miserably (despite me liking Count Dooku, the Obi-Wan scenes and the fight in the arena up until the end). Revenge of the Sith was pretty nice, though, the only glaring bad point imo is that it rushed Anakin's descent into darkness. I was also too young when these came out, so I had the privilege to watch everything later at once when I discovered that I liked Star Wars (when I was 9, iirc).

You know, the prequels should've been a series. They had too much story to convey, too many plot important characters to develop, too many events to show and too little time to shorten it all in three films. Anakin in particular needed to be developped better. I really like him as a character, but the way he was portrayed was not the best, to say the least. Kylo Ren suffers from the same syndrome.

Edited December 24, 2015 by Rapier