Star Wars: The Force Awakens [** SPOILERS FROM POST 4472 ONWARD **]

S. Goodspeed

Just back from seeing it. I'm one of the weird people who didnt completely hate all of the prequels (well apart from Phantom Menace..) so it was going to be hard to not satisfy me but i really do think it is a fitting sequel to the originals. Definitely some repeated story lines but I am sure that was intentional.

It seems like a very big gamble to build a couple of hollywood blockbusters around an actor who hasn't acted at all really since the 70s. I wonder just how big a role he will have. I look forward to seeing it though.

I'm sure this has been said before but Rey is the spits of Keira Knightly in accent as well as looks. I don't think she was great with the light sabre but hopefully some work with Luke will sort her out. Theres no way she's just a random orphan child, don't have any theories on her yet though.

Turtyturd

Seen it earlier and I enjoyed it. It's a visually stunning film with so much stand out visuals (my favourite being when the camera pulls out to show Rey living in the downed AT-AT).

The first half is undoubtedly stronger than the second. I know the nod to the older movies was intentional but 4 of the 7 movies have revolved around blowing up a large enemy ship.

Ford steals the show. Ventures into caricature at times but still brilliant. And the scene

where he dies really got me even though it was telegraphed.

Phasma was fairly pointless.

Agree with some of the criticism about Finn descending into stereotypical black character at times.

Like others I thought Coruscant had been destroyed but when they mentioned it was just planets in the system I figured it was a different planet.

Red King

S. Goodspeed wrote: »

Just back from seeing it. I'm one of the weird people who didnt completely hate all of the prequels (well apart from Phantom Menace..) so it was going to be hard to not satisfy me but i really do think it is a fitting sequel to the originals. Definitely some repeated story lines but I am sure that was intentional.

It seems like a very big gamble to build a couple of hollywood blockbusters around an actor who hasn't acted at all really since the 70s. I wonder just how big a role he will have. I look forward to seeing it though.

I'm sure this has been said before but Rey is the spits of Keira Knightly in accent as well as looks. I don't think she was great with the light sabre but hopefully some work with Luke will sort her out. Theres no way she's just a random orphan child, don't have any theories on her yet though.

And Keira Knightly played one of Queen Amidala's decoys in The Phantom Menace

karma_

S. Goodspeed wrote: »

Theres no way she's just a random orphan child, don't have any theories on her yet though.

Only two possibilities.

She's either Luke's or Han and Leia's. I'm leaning she is the twin of Kylo and they were seperated at birth (for whatever reason). Just like the separation of Luke and Leia previously and a further nod to the originals.

Thelomen Toblackai

david75 wrote: »

Read the previous posts

You quoted me. All I said was there was a connection in that she was a Jedi. So made sense to send her after Luke who'd disappeared after losing his Jedi school.

Thelomen Toblackai

karma_ wrote: »

Only two possibilities.

She's either Luke's or Han and Leia's. I'm leaning she is the twin of Kylo and they were seperated at birth (for whatever reason). Just like the separation of Luke and Leia previously and a further nod to the originals.

Too obvious imo. It can't just be one family of Jedi's in the entire galaxy either. There has to be a twist.

Hrududu

In the scene between Han and Maz she asks him who the girl is. The way it cut away makes it look like he knew who Rey was and went on to tell Maz.

Red King

Thelomen Toblackai wrote: »

Too obvious imo. It can't just be one family of Jedi's in the entire galaxy either. There has to be a twist.

The Star Wars saga is about the Skywalker family and George Lucas himself said he wants to know what happens to Darth Vader's grandchildren.

We've already met one in Ren and I'd bet my house on Rey being the other

golfball37

S. Goodspeed wrote: »

. Theres no way she's just a random orphan child, don't have any theories on her yet though.

Finding her was the will of the force perhaps? Annakin had no blood connection either and was randomly found by QGJ & OWK

Red King

I'm not sure why people seem intent on ignoring the fact that the star wars saga is about the Skywalker lineage.

First trilogy about Anakin, second about his son & daughter, third about his grandkids.

Only Rey's identity has yet to be confirmed and EVERYTHING points to her being a Skywalker

bilston

Clearly Rey isn't a random. She could be Luke's daughter but that seems too obvious. I think it's fair to say she isn't Han's daughter, but that doesn't mean she isn't Leia's, but that seems unlikely as I got the impression that Han and Leia split over Ben's turning to the dark side.

I'm looking forward to seeing Kylo Ren's character development and also to hear more about his past and Snoke remains a curious character.

Very good movie anyway, it has left me hungry for more which is a good sign although not everyone I went with were fans. But what's important to me is that I liked it although it could have done without the bit in the middle with gangs after Han and I wasn't sold on the Starkiller. I preferred the Death star myself!

Kiith

Did anyone notice two of the mercs (were they mercs?) that boarded Hans ship were the two lads from the Raid/Raid 2 (Rama and Mad Dog)? Was cool seeing them in something else, even if it wasn't a particularly good scene.

bilston

Kiith wrote: »

Did anyone notice two of the mercs (were they mercs?) that boarded Hans ship were the two lads from the Raid/Raid 2 (Rama and Mad Dog)? Was cool seeing them in something else, even if it wasn't a particularly good scene.

I just thought it was a bit of a filler scene, although I suppose it highlighted what had become of Han so it probably served a purpose.

Mitch Connor

Remember reading that their scenes were supposed to be amazing, and that they were hired for a reason. Can't even think an extended cut would have much more of them - given how they were killed.

Red King

The Force Awakens novel implies that Ren knows Rey. She is NOT some randomer. They have history.

When she force grans the saber he says to her - "It IS you!"

Also Leia says that Snoke was whispering in Rens ear since he was a kid and that she tried to protect him from Snoke but to no avail.

Snoke also knows who Rey is.

Sad Professor

Red King wrote: »

The Star Wars saga is about the Skywalker family and George Lucas himself said he wants to know what happens to Darth Vader's grandchildren.

We've already met one in Ren and I'd bet my house on Rey being the other

Lucas isn’t in charge of this trilogy, though. They ditched his treatments, apparently in part because they focused on the young descendants of Anakin. After Lucas's comments about Disney not understanding that Star Wars is a family soap opera, I suspect his question to JJ about what happens to Vader’s grandchildren might have been intended as a resentful dig. This along with Kennedy’s “Who is Luke Skywalker” pitch to Abrams suggests to me that Disney wanted the main characters (in the first film at least) to be free of the baggage of the OT’s bloodlines and thus more accessible to younger viewers.

For this reason (along with the Rey casting call which didn’t specify a race), I don’t think Rey was originally conceived as being related to anyone. Now that the characters have been established, Disney probably don’t care too much. It depends what Johnson wants to do. It would seem that some of the loose ends in TFA may have been added at his behest, so anything is still possible.

Red King

Sad Professor wrote: »

Lucas isn’t in charge of this trilogy, though. They ditched his treatments, apparently in part because they focused on the young descendants of Anakin. After Lucas's comments about Disney not understanding that Star Wars is a family soap opera, I suspect his question to JJ about what happens to Vader’s grandchildren might have been intended as a resentful dig. This along with Kennedy’s “Who is Luke Skywalker” pitch to Abrams suggests to me that Disney wanted the main characters (in the first film at least) to be free of the baggage of the OT’s bloodlines and thus more accessible to younger viewers.

For this reason (along with the Rey casting call which didn’t specify a race), I don’t think Rey was originally conceived as being related to anyone. Now that the characters have been established, Disney probably don’t care too much. It depends what Johnson wants to do. It would seem that some of the loose ends in TFA may have been added at his behest, so anything is still possible.

If that is the case then Disney couldn't have done a worse job of distancing Rey from the Skywalker bloodline. Not to mention the main villain is a Skywalker descendent.

So I don't buy that idea and I believe I read a comment from Kennedy where she denied that they abandoned Lucas's ideas.

EDIT: Here it is

Lucasfilm CEO Kathleen Kennedy says that while the Force Awakens doesn't follow George Lucas' original treatments for a sequel trilogy, they were an inspiration
"We had discussions based off of George's treatments," she says, "and then when J.J. and Larry came into the process, there were new ideas being discussed, which is normally what would happen in a development process. We didn't have a script, we didn't have an extensive treatment of any kind, so we were still trying to find the story for the movie, so it's not as though something was just read and then set aside, and everybody said, 'Oh, we don't want to do that, we're going to start on this new thing.' Everything emanated from what George had created with the original movies, and then some of the things he was talking about in this brief synopsis. We carried on from there."

Also

Peter: Who and how is it decided that the treatments that George Lucas had submitted for the sequel trilogy were to be abandoned?

Kathleen Kennedy: Well, here’s the thing. There are certain things they retained and obviously everything George created, you can imagine, every single person involved in this process hugely respects and wanted to know as much as they possibly could about the universe that he was describing. He had specific plot ideas that evolved. He sat down with me in 2012, and now it’s almost 2016, and you know the development process, where you bring writers on and once the story starts to take shape, it evolves. George wasn’t a part of those development discussions, so it was a fairly natural process of evolution. It sounds like we ignored him but that’s not really what happened.

Peter: How is J.J. Abrams’ final movie, The Force Awakens, different from what was planned early on?

Kathleen Kennedy: You mean from what George was talking about?

Peter: Yeah, like was George’s story more focused on the original trilogy characters?

Kathleen Kennedy: No, because the legacy characters play a significant role in this, and I would say and inside the balance that George was talking about to begin with. It was really much more to do with the specifics of the history of the saga. We changed the order of a few things, let’s put it that way. We didn’t make some wholesale change.

Peter: What are the differences between the Saga films and the anthology films?

Kathleen Kennedy: Well the Saga films are primarily the soap opera centered around the Skywalker family. The standalone films can be a wide variety of genres inside the Star Wars universe, and they very definitely have a beginning, middle, and end. They are not being designed to necessarily build new franchises. They are really being designed as standalone movies which is fantastic for the filmmakers we bring in, and the actors we hire, because it’s a different sensibility. And the stories can fall pretty much anywhere on the timeline. There is no strict guidelines for what we’re doing. Although what’s brilliant about what Kiri Hart is doing inside the story department is, we’re really looking at everything we’re doing. Our story group looks at and gets involved with animation, anything we’re doing with games, anything going on with theme parks, anything that’s happening with publishing, even certain things inside DCP. We are very closely tied to any of the narrative storytelling in those divisions because that does have to make some kind of sense. We don’t want something heading off in some direction that completely undoes what was setup in another story.

If Rey is not a Skywalker I'll eat my hat.

The barber of chewbacca

Sad Professor wrote: »

Lucas isn’t in charge of this trilogy, though. They ditched his treatments, apparently in part because they focused on the young descendants of Anakin. After Lucas's comments about Disney not understanding that Star Wars is a family soap opera, I suspect his question to JJ about what happens to Vader’s grandchildren might have been intended as a resentful dig. This along with Kennedy’s “Who is Luke Skywalker” pitch to Abrams suggests to me that Disney wanted the main characters (in the first film at least) to be free of the baggage of the OT’s bloodlines and thus more accessible to younger viewers.

For this reason (along with the Rey casting call which didn’t specify a race), I don’t think Rey was originally conceived as being related to anyone. Now that the characters have been established, Disney probably don’t care too much. It depends what Johnson wants to do. It would seem that some of the loose ends in TFA may have been added at his behest, so anything is still possible.

Just a quick thought about Rey's race not been specified - Her mother could have been from another race which wouldn't rule out Luke as her father.

I think he is her father btw. Probably a little simplistic, but while watching, I thought when she force-grabbed the lightsaber it showed that she was stronger than Leia's offspring. And as Luke is stronger than Leia, she is therefore Luke's kid.

Red King

Luke is only stronger because he was trained. Leia has the same potential

Manic Moran

golfball37 wrote: »

R2 started to come to life again when Rey was close, he surely picked up on something was my first thought.
Also why was she allowed go find Luke?
Surely something that important wouldn't have been left to novice unless there's a connection.

I thought it was Chewwie's moan/roar who triggered R2?

Grayditch

shreddedloops wrote: »

Obviously you very quickly realise this isn't the case. Still would have been an interesting direction for a powerful Jedi looking to disappear.

Hey Luke, remember when you said you were going to Ireland for a while, but instead you just put a mask on, joined the dark side and ordered the massacre of a village?

it miiiight work.

budgemook

Not sure about Rei being Luke's daughter, he is a Jedi after all and therefore supposed to be celibate. I do think there is some sort of relationship though as I guess it's going Rei trained by Luke vs Ren trained by Snoke next. Should be great.

Really enjoyed this movie, was sucked in from the beginning. So happy that they made a proper Star Wars movie again. I read some people saying that it was a bit silly that Fin almost matched Ren and that Rei beat him but Ren had just been shot by Chewbacca's blaster! That thing was sending Stormtroopers flying about 10 meters. And then when he faced Rei he had another injury so was really up against it.

Also agree with previous poster who says Rei already has had training and that her and Ren were probably training partners or something.

Episode 8 opening scene: Flashback to Jedi school where Rey an Ben (Ren) are training partners. One thing leads to another, Ben turns, Rei loses her memory, Luke goes AWOL.

bilston

I read a theory on Reddit that it was Kylo Ren who left Rey on Jakku, the idea being that he spared her for some reason (family I guess). I'd need to see the vision scene again but I suppose it's possible. Something clicked with Ren when the First Order guy told him that the droid was with a girl! This is based on theory that Ren is a bit older than Rey of course.

budgemook

bilston wrote: »

I read a theory on Reddit that it was Kylo Ren who left Rey on Jakku, the idea being that he spared her for some reason (family I guess). I'd need to see the vision scene again but I suppose it's possible. Something clicked with Ren when the First Order guy told him that the droid was with a girl! This is based on theory that Ren is a bit older than Rey of course.

I think he would have been a bit young for that.

OU812

In the flashback there's a very dark rainy scene with just Ren & Rei & as the camera pulls out, there's what looks like dozens of bodies on the ground.

Also Maz told Rei that the saver called out to her after Luke

Radiosonde

budgemook wrote: »

Not sure about Rei being Luke's daughter, he is a Jedi after all and therefore supposed to be celibate. I do think there is some sort of relationship though as I guess it's going Rei trained by Luke vs Ren trained by Snoke next. Should be great.

Like midichlorians, Jedi celibacy is sure to be ignored by the new movies; the order banning its members from falling in love is a creepy idea best forgotten.

I'm pretty confident she'll turn out to be Luke's daughter. The casting call could have been a deliberate misdirection and was at a time when they still could make changes to the story. And even more significantly, she will have a mother too, so there might have been nothing incongruous about a Rey who appeared mixed race.

The thing about Rey is she seems almost too powerful a force user. Without training she was already beating Ren (Solo even stated that his son could never match Vader). I felt the movie didn't make him quite menancing enough, and it was far too keen on making jokes at his expense. When he returns in VIII - presumably in some variation of the famous Vader helmet - he will hopefully be more fearsome.

budgemook

Radiosonde wrote: »

Like midichlorians, Jedi celibacy is sure to be ignored by the new movies; the order banning its members from falling in love is a creepy idea best forgotten.

I'm pretty confident she'll turn out to be Luke's daughter. The casting call could have been a deliberate misdirection and was at a time when they still could make changes to the story. And even more significantly, she will have a mother too, so there might have been nothing incongruous about a Rey who appeared mixed race.

The thing about Rey is she seems almost too powerful a force user. Without training she was already beating Ren (Solo even stated that his son could never match Vader). I felt the movie didn't make him quite menancing enough, and it was far too keen on making jokes at his expense. When he returns in VIII - presumably in some variation of the famous Vader helmet - he will hopefully be more fearsome.

Was Jedi celibacy just a prequel thing? ah right.

Radiosonde wrote: »

Without training she was already beating Ren

I think she must have had training and just didn't remember.

TerrorFirmer

I'm kinda hoping that they will mould Ren in the image of Darth Vader, to steel his resolve given 1) his reverence of Vader and 2) the terror he inspired across the Galaxy.

One thing I'm not so clear about - we have the First Order as the continuation of the 'Empire', but given that there's also some sort of a functioning Republic now, where is the Republic's army? How is the rebellion suddenly so very weak? It didn't appear to have any fleet or considerable presence - just a handful of X-Wings.

Also, there was a scene where Snoke made reference to using clones to get the job done, which was rebutted by General Huxx (or was it Ren...either way) who wanted to use his own stormtroopers - are we to understand that there is still an army of the original clonetroopers knocking about somewhere? It would be interesting to see how that comes into it down the line.

py2006

I'm slightly confused:

Did Han

shout Ren or Ben to Kylo? It did sound like Ben in the cinema but I assumed I heard it wrong. But then I have heard some people mention Ben.

bilston

py2006 wrote: »

I'm slightly confused:

Did Han

shout Ren or Ben to Kylo? It did sound like Ben in the cinema but I assumed I heard it wrong. But then I have heard some people mention Ben.

Pretty sure he shouted Ben.