Star Wars (spoilers, obviously)
- Thread starter USFSucks
- Start date
It was amazing. Took my son to see it and it brought back so many childhood memories.
Absolutely unreal. Amazing. Fantastic. I can't think of enough glowing adjectives
Will see when it comes out On Demand.
What's funny is that Disney stock is still tanking since ESPN's shitstorm is weighing heavier than this movie.
What's funny is that Disney stock is still tanking since ESPN's shitstorm is weighing heavier than this movie.
This was a fantastic movie. I usually don't trust Rotten Tomato scores. But 95%??!! It is very much that worth. It's a great film.
Meh. I'm still trying to digest how I feel about it. It definitely kick starts the mind with the visuals. Six hours later and you still say to yourself "So that's what it's really like to fly an XWIng" even though you haven't flown one.
I guess my first impression is that they tried to do too much. Like the 1977 film, you could have made 3 films out of the plot.
Lucas admitted that they didn't know if all three would get made so they stuck them together. Same in this film.
The hows and whys of the Finn character from birth to desertion is a film in itself. And it felt like they left that open to be done later with some of the dialogue in the movie. We didn't really get a feel for why he was leaving The First Order until after he had done so and it was explained to us. He was hauling ass in a TIE fighter before we really knew why. Also, the swipe of blood on his mask felt forced. Like "see nerds, we read fan forums. Storm troopers really do bleed". Also disturbing and unexplored was the fact that Finn probably isn't the only trooper that feels that way. It makes it much tougher to root for the good guys when you know some of the bad guys are there against their will and might actually be good guys.
Some of the feminist themes in the movie went over board. Showing that Rey knew starship mechanics better than the male patriarch and could fight hand to hand better than the male lead were obvious ones. but I had a hard time figuring out how she suddenly had these supernatural powers of the Force, having treated it as a myth until a couple of days before she got them and without any training. And that they were stronger than the male villain's powers, even though he has spent years in practice and is obviously her genetic brother.
People talk about how Episode 4 and 5 are so much better than 6 and 1-3. That's because the first two films quite purposely borrowed dozens of icons, images, stereotypes, plot devices, humor, and special effects of classic drama and film that everyone could recognize. In redoing the classic 1950s cinema serial, Lucas brought in vaudeville skits, special effects from classic films like Dambusters, and typical plot lines like girl falls for bad boy in jalopy. You knew the story and could empathize with the characters immediately. Every young boy watching the first two films knew what it was like to be struggling to learn and being told by guys like Kenobi and Solo to slow down and shut up, etc. you saw yourself on the screen. In 6 and in particular 1-3, they simply tell the story and focus on putting the plot together. Nobody knew anything about interstellar tariffs and galactic bureaucracies and so you were confused or bored.
In 4-5, we had never seen talking robots before but we liked them because they acted like the big brother/younger brother team we grew up with and they had the physical comedy and banter of vaudeville acts that Laurel and Hardy took main stream and we all knew and enjoyed. In 1-3, we get Jar-Jar thrust on us. We don't give a crap about him and his character gets into some slapstick, but it was mostly stuff to appeal to kids from the cartoon world, not classic stage and cinema comedy. Accordingly, everyone over age 8 hates that mother****er.
In this film, we get the homage to classic stories and films (making the light saber Excalibur, etc) but we also get the tribute not only to classic films, but classic moments/styles in Star Wars films. The pacing and editing of the film, particularly the alternation between space battle and quiet stealth like moments indoors, had the feel of Ep 4 and 5, but was missing from 6, 1-3. I assume that was the main contribution of bringing Lawrence Kasdan back who helped Irving Kirschner make Empire a classic. The electronics of the starkiller looked like the Death Star. Luke wearing the hooded cloak of Kenobi and the hairstyle used by MacGregor and Christensen, etc. Other tributes were kind of gratuitous and out of place the way they were thrown in just for the mega fans like the chess board on the Falcon.
So the film works in a big way, it's truly an achievement. The acting and writing is terrible at times, but you ignore that because it brings us back to the Star Wars we remember and gives much more new material than we can handle. Much like the two Star Trek films, he will have trouble topping the first one.
Oh, and Amidala<Leia<Rey
I guess my first impression is that they tried to do too much. Like the 1977 film, you could have made 3 films out of the plot.
Lucas admitted that they didn't know if all three would get made so they stuck them together. Same in this film.
The hows and whys of the Finn character from birth to desertion is a film in itself. And it felt like they left that open to be done later with some of the dialogue in the movie. We didn't really get a feel for why he was leaving The First Order until after he had done so and it was explained to us. He was hauling ass in a TIE fighter before we really knew why. Also, the swipe of blood on his mask felt forced. Like "see nerds, we read fan forums. Storm troopers really do bleed". Also disturbing and unexplored was the fact that Finn probably isn't the only trooper that feels that way. It makes it much tougher to root for the good guys when you know some of the bad guys are there against their will and might actually be good guys.
Some of the feminist themes in the movie went over board. Showing that Rey knew starship mechanics better than the male patriarch and could fight hand to hand better than the male lead were obvious ones. but I had a hard time figuring out how she suddenly had these supernatural powers of the Force, having treated it as a myth until a couple of days before she got them and without any training. And that they were stronger than the male villain's powers, even though he has spent years in practice and is obviously her genetic brother.
People talk about how Episode 4 and 5 are so much better than 6 and 1-3. That's because the first two films quite purposely borrowed dozens of icons, images, stereotypes, plot devices, humor, and special effects of classic drama and film that everyone could recognize. In redoing the classic 1950s cinema serial, Lucas brought in vaudeville skits, special effects from classic films like Dambusters, and typical plot lines like girl falls for bad boy in jalopy. You knew the story and could empathize with the characters immediately. Every young boy watching the first two films knew what it was like to be struggling to learn and being told by guys like Kenobi and Solo to slow down and shut up, etc. you saw yourself on the screen. In 6 and in particular 1-3, they simply tell the story and focus on putting the plot together. Nobody knew anything about interstellar tariffs and galactic bureaucracies and so you were confused or bored.
In 4-5, we had never seen talking robots before but we liked them because they acted like the big brother/younger brother team we grew up with and they had the physical comedy and banter of vaudeville acts that Laurel and Hardy took main stream and we all knew and enjoyed. In 1-3, we get Jar-Jar thrust on us. We don't give a crap about him and his character gets into some slapstick, but it was mostly stuff to appeal to kids from the cartoon world, not classic stage and cinema comedy. Accordingly, everyone over age 8 hates that mother****er.
In this film, we get the homage to classic stories and films (making the light saber Excalibur, etc) but we also get the tribute not only to classic films, but classic moments/styles in Star Wars films. The pacing and editing of the film, particularly the alternation between space battle and quiet stealth like moments indoors, had the feel of Ep 4 and 5, but was missing from 6, 1-3. I assume that was the main contribution of bringing Lawrence Kasdan back who helped Irving Kirschner make Empire a classic. The electronics of the starkiller looked like the Death Star. Luke wearing the hooded cloak of Kenobi and the hairstyle used by MacGregor and Christensen, etc. Other tributes were kind of gratuitous and out of place the way they were thrown in just for the mega fans like the chess board on the Falcon.
So the film works in a big way, it's truly an achievement. The acting and writing is terrible at times, but you ignore that because it brings us back to the Star Wars we remember and gives much more new material than we can handle. Much like the two Star Trek films, he will have trouble topping the first one.
Oh, and Amidala<Leia<Rey
Last edited:
Lucas didn't say A New Hope was going to be three movies. He said he had originally intended the first trilogy to be one script, but it was too long for one movie, so he broke the story down to just A New Hope and then hoped to make the other part(s) later.
I just thought it raised far more questions than it answered.
Who is Snoke and where did he come from?
What is Rey's background? Who is her family?
What happened at Jakku where all the star destroyers and x-wings crashed?
Who was Max Von Sydow's character who was killed after giving the map piece to Poe?
Who else was a Jedi enough to train Kylo Ren, if Luke didn't do it? And to that point, who was the Jedi who turned and destroyed everything Luke had been building?
Was that the longest 2 minutes ever?
Who is Snoke and where did he come from?
What is Rey's background? Who is her family?
What happened at Jakku where all the star destroyers and x-wings crashed?
Who was Max Von Sydow's character who was killed after giving the map piece to Poe?
Who else was a Jedi enough to train Kylo Ren, if Luke didn't do it? And to that point, who was the Jedi who turned and destroyed everything Luke had been building?
Was that the longest 2 minutes ever?
Don't you want t to open up questions??? Now we have three years of theorizing ahead of us
Some, but not as many. The thing I disliked about Empire for the longest time was the lack of a conclusion. It was a great movie, but unfinished.
I disagree, I love it when people clap and cheer in the theater. It enhances the experience for me and that's why I went opening night.
That's why it's a trilogy. The open ended questions should be left to be answered later, or else why make a trilogy. I'm also curious about the pupil of Luke's that went dark. Leia said that she wished Luke had trained him. I'm also curious who Max's character is too. The battle of Jakku was explained in one of the new books and is shown in the Battlefront video game. It happened just after the 2nd Deathstsr blew up and was a huge battle between the empire and rebellion before word got out to that side of the Galaxy about the Deathstsr, Vader and the Emperor died. I didn't read the book, just the synopsis of what happened there.
If they revealed everything at once, what would be left to told later? It's an episodic series.
I think Rey is Luke's daughter and she was there when Ren turned on Luke and the new Jedi he was training.
I get that the actors aren't there to appreciate the applause, but human reactions occur naturally in different situations. I've clapped at my TV set during shows that revealed a cool twist. It's what makes seeing it in an audience fun. Hearing cheers and clapping is nice to feel after you've felt the same emotions. I think I clapped at the end just because I knew that the most recent SW movie going experience in my life wasn't anything like the prequels. In fact, I can't wait for the next one or how many they make. It's nice to have an Episodic big movie back again where I can't wait to see what happens next. This movie isn't flawless, but neither were the the OT movies. But they're still awesome.
I also think that if anyone trashes Star Wars and chooses to hate it because it's everywhere right now and very popular, is lame. Especially those that take pride in the fact they haven't seen any of them and feel cooler because they haven't. So much so, they brag about it, as if it's an achievement. Because if they haven't seen it, they have zero to stand on to say anything about any of the movies.
So who did you dress up as when you saw Ep VII?
You seem like a Darth Maul kinda guy, maybe even Admiral Motti considering your views on insolence derived from your followup post after the quoted one.
Haha! No I didn't get dressed up, but I'm cool with those that do. If it's fun for them, who am I to tell them they're weird for doing so. Plus, cos-play is a big thing these days, more so than I can remember it from the past. So, it's not that unusual anymore. I just have always liked event movies at the theater, especially when they deliver. I don't go to the theater for many movies, unless there's a reason to see it on the big screen with a thousand speakers surrounding me blasting music and sound effects.
Clapping at movies is not OK, but it you say anything about people yelling where the bad guy is in a horror movie you're a racist.
or since it's a planet, how does it propel itself across the galaxy to go from star to star?
I was assuming that, since it's a planet, it stays stationary in orbit of its star
Don't be ridiculous. What you see as a feminist agenda I see as smart marketing, a realization that as Star Wars' popularity has grown, its fan base has dramatically diversified and a desire to tell a story about a completely new and different character. Besides, Rey's talent in mechanical engineering, Lightsaber dueling and the Force have solid basis in the story and larger SW cannon, and have nothing to do with her gender.
First, she's spent the balance of her life scavenging the remains of the Battle of Jakku for technology to sell for food and water. Considering the Falcon was an outdated rustbucket in the OT (and still considered a "piece of garbage" by Rey 30 years later), the Empire's technology was more advanced than the Rebellion's, Jedis are predisposed to tinkering and piloting through the Force and that Chewie (not Han) was the Falcon's mechanic, it's entirely plausible Rey could fix something Han couldn't.
Regarding her duel with Kylo, perhaps you missed the encounter on Jakku where she fended off a whole group of attackers with her staff. Sure, it's not the same thing as a lightsaber battle with an unhinged Vader wannabe, but many of the skills would translate. Factor in she finally embraced the Force and allowed it to guide her actions while Kylo's judgement increasingly was clouded by emotion and frustration, I it's reasonable she could hold her own. Besides, while she did land a few blows and disarmed him, I would hardly say she won the fight; she also was injured and the ground splitting is what ended the duel.
Her rapid command of the Force in relation to Kylo is a bit more of a stretch, but still grounded in the story they were telling. Rey is the "awakening in the Force" referenced by Snoke and the film's subtitle. Obviously her power potential is great if Snoke wanted her brought to him to convert. The Force "spoke" to her through Anakin's lightsaber, not a common occurance as far as we've seen.
Contrast that with Kylo, who despite having more experience in the Force, is still in training himself (per Snoke) and is a "work in process" as evident by his cobbled-together unstable lightsaber. By his own admission, he is being pulled back and forth between the Dark Side and the Light, which would likely compromise his command and control of the Force. Since there's nothing to lead me to believe Kylo is an especially adept Force user, I believe Rey getting the upper hand had everything to do with her accepting her destiny and letting the Force flow through her, and was a case of natural ability overcoming experience.
I wondered that too, but that thing had light speed capability. I didn't catch it the first time I saw it, my family came in town and we all went and I saw it again. I didn't mind seeing it again and I had a few beers the first time, last Friday and missed some things. It was planet sized and a planet, but it was explained how during the "plan scene at the resistance base" that's it's really a big ship. Btw, second viewing was even better than the first.
No it said the weapon had light speed capability, the laser itself. Never said the planet could move.
But given the name "Starkiller Base" I would assume it kills stars as it goes around the galaxy.
