The Force Awakens - 20 x better than the prequels!

[stanard]

Yeah I fucking loved Kylo Ren. He's obviously incredibly powerful but has no idea on how to properly use it - which was a brilliant direction to go with his character.

[t0mby]

He's dead after the Death Planet blew up.

[Vince]

Can't wait to see what direction they take Kylo Ren. He's such a great character and has so much potential... Loved all his flaws in TFA. Best (original) character in a Star Wars film for a very long time.

[GeneraL CyberFunK]

I'm seeing again tomorrow night.
I definitely saw the history repeating element when you look at A New Hope and Force Awakens.. the droid with data thing seemed a bit convenient..
Perhaps I am a bit more forgiving about how certain things repeated. I blame Battlestar Galactica

[GameHED]

The new yoda is orange though... And doesn't speak back to front. Hopefully they change it back to green and change it into a man like a new hope. Can't believe they made such an obvious mistake remaking ep4 just to piss off fans.

[GameHED]

Can't wait to see what direction they take Kylo Ren. He's such a great character and has so much potential... Loved all his flaws in TFA. Best (original) character in a Star Wars film for a very long time.

Darth Maul seemed a lot more interesting imo. The double lightsaber > new europen lightsaber.
Give him a gun with lightsaber bayonet. This way we see him as gun + sword warrior. Part han solo with anakin's skill with close range combat. His weakness is his force powers are weaker because he focuses on defensive powers rather than offensive. (no lightning, just use blasters like Han) Think of it like levitating rocks to shield himself from ranged blows by rotating them around his body "NES ninja gaiden style" and throwing it at people instead of shooting things from hands. Since he is weaker than anakin he has to compensate by using his brains more like batman by having tech to aid his power. Anakin was overpowered because of nature, (was created by the force with no biological father) but this guy is powerful because he is mixed martial arts and incorporates anything into his style that is practical in order to not limit himself and use predictable attacks. The traditionalist won't adapt to things it was not trained to respond to by its masters. In that way he becomes like a creative villain instead of relying on powerful abilities only and formal training by old guys who are limited in thier teachings by those who came before them. As he rises above them he impresses the ladies, they use his lust for female validation by tempting him with thier boobs to kill snoke and voila! New female Sith Lord arises...

Luke decides to abandon his religion and becomes a masked vigilante that forms mercenary organisation after hearing about Han's death and recruits hispanic guy and black guy to fight republic (infiltrated by spies- politicians can't do shit because they are bought and paid for) and The first order to keep himself in business long enough to get revenge. No more wizards or magic. Just let it exist underground. End of trilogy. Legends about the star wars are forgotten as the Force stops communicating to materialistic beings.

People become thier own gods and take responsibility for thier own fucks ups.

Every 9th episode the franchise reboots like a final fantasy game with different universe. (keep the cash flowing to the bean counters)

related:
would cross guard lightsaber hurt you if real?

[stanard]

Even better the 2nd time round!

[GameHED]

some fair criticisms of the movie:

Lucas should create a sci fi tv series that is like star wars but is more like space opera and less adventure story.

Put some emo characters but the main character is like Cloud in Final fantasy, basically somene who doesn't give a shit about others. The story is about average people trying to survive under galactic dictatoship and the characters are on terrorist watch lists so have to work together out of necessity. Han Solo-type character is involved in pirate wars in space and uses the team to make money to pay for their rides on his ship which is just fast enough to avoid capture by government authorities. (think GTA in space but the good guys are the ones on the run as the bad guys hijacked the galactic government which recruits young people to become space nazis and droids to be brown shirts. There are no good guys anymore. It's space version of game of thrones)

[GreyWizzard]

First Chewie doesn't get a medal and now he doesn't even get to use his own bow caster. Humans really are trying to keep the Wookiee race down.

[Ambrose Burnside]

Finally saw it yesterday, and managed to avoid all spoilers heading in. Your "friend" is a dick Mavy.

Harrison Ford was an absolute boss. The new guys were uniformly great but were insignificant next to the power of Han Solo. I wasn't expecting much, he always seems like such a cantankerous old bastard in real life, like Mick Malthouse, so I was worried he'd just not get into it. I was wrong. I knew he'd die when he walked out to confront Ren but it was still a blow to the guts. It's HAN SOLO ffs

Carrie Fisher is a great advertisement against heavy smoking, drugs, booze, basically everything

Agree it was pretty much a remake of A New Hope, but at this stage I don't care. The bitter taste of the prequels is gone. No midichlorians, no senate discussions on trade embargoes, no Jar Jar, no kids, no wooden acting/shitty dialogue and no over-reliance on green screen. The jokes were of the OT style too. No more "meesa steppin' in da poodoo" but instead it was a bit more subtle. Like Ren going nuts after Rey escaped, you see two Stormtroopers on patrol outside, they hear Ren, they turn around and walk back the way they came I re-watched IV-VI in the last week and they still hold up. Whoever it was who mentioned the changes made to Jabba's Palace is the worst thing from the "special" editions was bang on the money. I can't stand it and I generally love RotJ. The fight between Luke and Vader in RotJ is still my favourite from the series, not lame like the "fight" in ANH, not flashy dancing like the prequels, but just brutal two-handed "heavy" fighting. Pretty much the way my fights play out in any RPG The duel in Force Awakens with Ren swinging wildly and chopping down trees and stuff was to me the closest we've come to Luke hammering down on Vader until he chops off his arm

I will see it again sometime this week before I go back to work.

But ... to me this is where it gets tricky. There are a lot of unanswered questions. Who is the old coot at the start who originally had the map to Luke's location? I just assumed it was Wedge Antilles until a Google search afterwards told me otherwise. Why is Threepio's arm red? How are the Republic and Resistance related and how did the new Space Nazis emerge? Who is Rey?

My fear is that these won't be explained clearly in the movies and that Disney will expect everyone to read all the books, graphic novels, watch the TV series and cartoon series etc etc etc and it will end up like a lot of movies these days, like Harry Potter, where the later movies don't actually make much sense and snooty fans look down at you as they roll their eyes and say "well it makes sense if you read the book". FFS that is a failure of filmmaking right there. Plenty was cut from LotR but the movies still stand on their own. It's happening with games too, lots of characters were introduced in the Dragon Age novels who then make their first appearance in-game in Dragon Age: Inquisition. I have read the books so I got a bit of a thrill seeing them, but their introductions and motivations etc in-game won't make much sense at all if you've only played the games. And that sucks.

I'm worried VII-IX won't stand on their own.

[Megaman]

Nah, all those questions will be answered in the pre-sequel trilogy, coming to cinemas in 2025.

[unfnknblvbl]

watched all six films this week, so saw Ep7 again today.

Significantly less crappy the second time around, but it still bugs me how Rey knows everything, straight away. Also, it's completely fucking obvious she's a Jedi right from the start; just look at the way she dresses! Do all Force-sensitive people dress the same by some kind of instinct?

[t0mby]

Word on the street is there will be a Han Solo movie released in between Ep VIII and IX.

[Vince]

Went with a few friends again. Saw it in 3D. Really not feeling this movie. I've tried. Believe me I've tried. Yet it seems to be missing something. It just feels so much like a cheap Star Wars knock off. It's so fucking disappointing. All 6 previous films felt like they were Star Wars movies in the same universe. This doesn't. To me it's like they got together to concoct a fanboy film that just completely misses the point.
And some of the inconsistencies in this film... Finn not knowing about the force inside the Millenium Falcon, yet he travels to Jakku with Kylo Ren? And watches Ren force freeze (???) Poe AND Poe's laser beam bullet thing?!?
Crash landing on a planet conveniently where Poe was when he sent BB-8 off with the map, yet Poe disappears without trying to find BB-8? I could go on and on, and even talk about the convenient meetings between characters. Why the fuck does Luke leave everyone behind because his nephew went bad? He stuck around and bugged his dad, but his nephew he neglects? That's not Luke Skywalker from the OT... Lazy lazy screenwriting. And people criticised George Lucas! At least he admitted his script writing is poor. But to conveniently forget the prequels this is somehow getting great reviews and a pass from fans. Sorry but I don't see it...

[unfnknblvbl]

I think it's getting a 'pass' because the acting and directing is en pointe, even if the story isn't. The prequels had a seriously solid storyline and were let down by the wooden acting and shonky screenplays.
We'll see how 8 & 9 go, but at this point, I'm not sure that history will judge Ep8 as kindly as it's being treated now.

[stanard]

Still wanna know where them B-Wings at!

[Vince]

I don't think history will be kind to this film. Shoehorning in old characters for nostalgia sake is no different to George Lucas putting Chewie or R2 or C3PO in the prequels. As they served no real purpose in the prequels they do the same here. It's just cheap film making. And Disney are making an absolute fortune.

[stanard]

The only OT characters that were in any way shoehorned in were Nien Nunb and Admiral Ackbar and they still made sense. The rest were either integral to the story (Han, Leia, Luke) or logical (Chewie, 3PO, R2).

Nothing will ever be as pointless as Chewie's appearance in RotS.

[GeneraL CyberFunK]

I saw it again last night. Loved it even more.

As for characters being shoehorned? Stanard is spot on about Chewie in RotS.

As for Rey knowing everything? It doesn't bug me.. it just makes me curious. We've been considering the concept that she was mind wiped hence why it's an awakening..

As who she belongs to? I think Luke is a bit too easy an answer.. I'd be cool if it was Leia and Han's daughter.. and Luke mind wiped them in order to preserve her safety.

[unfnknblvbl]

I'd be cool if it was Leia and Han's daughter.. and Luke mind wiped them in order to preserve her safety.

I doubt it. At the start of the film, she wears a Rebel Alliance pilot helmet. Obviously this belonged to somebody important to her, and the only such character we know anything about and who is a Force sensitive is Luke Skywalker.

Which brings me to another point about the Star Wars universe. Is it now pretty safe to say that Force sensitivity is handed down through familial lineage only? I mean, for the whole what, 15-16 years between Episodes 3 & 4, is it really plausible that no other Force users just sort of... popped up?

..anyway, I will be quite happy to be proven wrong about Rey being Luke's kid. As long as it's done in a plausible manner, that is.

[GeneraL CyberFunK]

It just seems to be too obvious.

[pilonv1]

Still wanna know where them B-Wings at!

This was probably my biggest annoyance too, besides the fact that the Empire just seemed to be back again and no one cared to stop them

[unfnknblvbl]

It just seems to be too obvious.

This, in a film where everything 'big' about it was obvious...

[Megaman]

Here's a possibility that everyone will hate - Rey is the daughter of the Jedi in that Star Wars Rebels cartoon. You know Disney are going to want to tie these two properties in somehow.

[Vince]

I saw it again last night. Loved it even more.

As for characters being shoehorned? Stanard is spot on about Chewie in RotS.

As for Rey knowing everything? It doesn't bug me.. it just makes me curious. We've been considering the concept that she was mind wiped hence why it's an awakening..

As who she belongs to? I think Luke is a bit too easy an answer.. I'd be cool if it was Leia and Han's daughter.. and Luke mind wiped them in order to preserve her safety.

That's lazy story telling. We know absolutely nothing about those characters cause they told us nothing. We can't, and shouldn't guess, why they know stuff. It's lazy to say we will see it in the next film.

As for the characters being shoehorned in- I thought the only reason we go back to han and Chewie and Leia and Luke is for nostalgia only. They served no purpose whatsoever! They could've created a whole new story with new characters. Instead they banked on our love of these characters to get us back in, and then they kill Han, make Leia absolutely irrelevant and we have no idea what Luke is for. I mean, he ran away to hide! Luke! Ran away! He would NEVER do that! And why did he give away his light saber to that stupid cgi character to conveniently place in a box for Rey to conveniently find... Sorry but this whole movie, once broken down, is utter nonsense and goes against all character traits from the OT (Han dies, and when they land back on the planet where Leia is, Chewie walks right by her without so much as a hug yet Leia hugs Rey? Why?!? Who was Han to Rey? Yet he was Chewie's best friend)!
Anyway, I'm rambling and could keep rambling for hours about such minor and major quibbles.