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

Sonics2k

So I saw it the other day and I thoroughly enjoyed it, must say it's quite possibly one of my new favourites.

Rey was fantastic

I somewhat expected her to be the new Jedi as opposed to Finn, and she was a fantastic character. I did find her to be somewhat of a Mary Sue in that she seems to be amazing at everything. For a scavenger growing up on Jakku which she has never left, she's a surprisingly good pilot. I'm fine with her sudden skill the Force mind control, it's been known that someone with a strong connection to the Force can have sudden use of it in times of danger.

Kylo initially annoyed me when he

took off his helmet. He seemed a little bit whiny, but as it went on I realised that this is actually a good thing. Here we have a supposed big bad villain who's actually just a lost boy with pretty bad daddy issues and hero worship for Vader, almost as if he has romanticized Anakin as some kind of great hero. The death of Han really did catch me off, I had a feeling something would happen when they stood together, but it made me a bit sad anyway. You can see Kylo's conflict as he truly struggles to choose, but his connection to the Dark Side just pulls him over and finishes the job.

Finn was brilliant, and possibly my favourite of the new cast

It perfectly explains how Finn is not a clone and should hopefully shut up the ignorant lot complaining about the colour of his skin. It makes complete sense that a faction like the First Order would essentially kidnap children and force them into working for them.

In terms of the plot

It really did scream of A New Hope, which I'm surprisingly okay with, though you'd expect people like the First Order

orubiru

I'm wondering if people are really falsely remembering the original Star Wars and Empire Strikes Back as these pure and perfect movies?

Sure, we all loved them as kids and we all remember then fondly but it was still a big budget film franchise determined to sell as much merchandise as possible, right?

A New Hope and The Empire Strikes Back still have plenty of flaws.

For those who loved the original trilogy but found The Force Awakens to be disappointing by comparison, what would have been a satisfying movie for you?

If ANH and ESB are the absolute pinnacle then it almost seems unreasonable to expect ANY movie to live up to that level of expectation.

Would you say that The Force Awakens compares favorably to the Lord of the Rings movies or some of the recent Marvel films or Nolan's Batman movies?

Is it reasonable to expect Star Wars to deliver storytelling on a par with the movies that will be up for academy awards etc? Bearing in mind that, just like the original trilogy, the primary goal is to excite and entertain an diverse audience of all ages, from all backgrounds.

I'm just curious, for the people who were disappointed, what would have been a satisfying movie for you? Remembering that it is wholly unreasonable to expect a movie studio to create a big budget film tailored to your specific, probably unique, tastes.

I don't really buy the criticism that it's just a rehash of ANH and therefore it's unimaginative. These kinds of films are always going to follow a particular formula, I think.

Sad Professor

tony1kenobi wrote: »

You shouldn't be. You should be busy looking up misogynist in the dictionary.

Red King wrote: »

I'm no misogynist. I think its great that the central character is a heroine, no problem with that at all. See you epitomise exactly what I was talking about. You wade in here with your agenda throwing labels around without a clue what you are talking about.

This is a Star Wars thread. Not some course in gender studies 101.

Take your agenda elsewhere, it is nor needed or wanted in a discussion about a harmless family movie.

You lot just love to seize upon the latest thing and politicise it not caring one iota that you suck the last ounce of enjoyment out of it in the process. Its a fun family movie, not some treatise on gender quotas and hashtag feminism.

Keep it friendly please, guys.

Red King, please stop telling anyone with socio-political reading of the film to go away. If you disagree with such interpretations, then make your case for why. Don’t tell them they can’t discuss it here. They can. And if you don’t like it, ignore the posts. Thanks.

SouthTippBass

Sonics2k wrote: »

So I saw it the other day and I thoroughly enjoyed it, must say it's quite possibly one of my new favourites.

Rey was fantastic I somewhat expected her to be the new Jedi as opposed to Finn, and she was a fantastic character. I did find her to be somewhat of a Mary Sue in that she seems to be amazing at everything. For a scavenger growing up on Jakku which she has never left, she's a surprisingly good pilot. I'm fine with her sudden skill the Force mind control, it's been known that someone with a strong connection to the Force can have sudden use of it in times of danger.

Finn isn't a jedi. Rey is a jedi, and also the protagonist of this movie. The trilogy will likely centre around her.

py2006

SouthTippBass wrote: »

Finn isn't a jedi. Rey is a jedi, and also the protagonist of this movie. The trilogy will likely centre around her.

She will be a Jedi... ;-)

budgemook

SouthTippBass wrote: »

Finn isn't a jedi. Rey is a jedi, and also the protagonist of this movie. The trilogy will likely centre around her.

She isn't a Jedi, yet.

Baggy Trousers

I was astounded that

Luke did not speak a word in the whole movie.

Genius.

py2006

Baggy Trousers wrote: »

I was astounded that

Luke did not speak a word in the whole movie.

Genius.

Still a fantastic and powerful scene.

Sonics2k

SouthTippBass wrote: »

Finn isn't a jedi. Rey is a jedi, and also the protagonist of this movie. The trilogy will likely centre around her.

I uh, never said he was. I'm simply saying that before the release of the movie a few of the trailers made it seem that Finn would be the Jedi as we see him holding the lightsaber quite a few times.

Baggy Trousers

py2006 wrote: »

Still a fantastic and powerful scene.

Oh absolutely.

Interestingly Luke isn't on the promotional posters either.

The movie poster suggests she might turn to the dark side yet

S. Goodspeed

I see lots of references to books, comics and computer games etc which provide more info and insight into the plot of TFA. Who is writing / over seeing all of these?

Sad Professor

Guillermo del Toro on this “Mary Sue” business:

https://twitter.com/RealGDT/status/678475428139520000

Sad Professor

S. Goodspeed wrote: »

I see lots of references to books, comics and computer games etc which provide more info and insight into the plot of TFA. Who is writing / over seeing all of these?

I think there’s a committee at Lucasfilm who looks after it all.

py2006

Deleted User wrote: »

The movie poster suggests she might turn to the dark side yet

Yea?

Luke could still be gone to Darkside too...

Red King

Nah been there done that. Luke had his big test and rejected the dark side. To have him turn now would undermine his entire character.

And there is a lot more to Rey than being just a scavanger on Jakku.

The next movies will fill out her back story so we will understand why she is able to do the things she does, beyond just explaining it away as "the force" at work.

david75

Luke in the trailer
The force runs strong in my family
My father has it
My sister has it
I have it

(You're my daughter) you have that power too.

McLoughlin

david75 wrote: »

Luke in the trailer
The force runs string in my family
My father has it
My sister has it
I have it

(You're my daughter) you have that power too.

Thats force runs strong in the trailer is from the Return of The Jedi its not new and wasn't going to be in The Force Awakens

david75

McLoughlin wrote: »

Thats force runs strong in the trailer is from the Return of The Jedi its not new and wasn't going to be in The Force Awakens

I aware of that. But they re recorded him saying that for this. Fits in the storyline and almost certainly he'll say it in the next one.

OU812

I'm hoping she's not related at all & is just unique (as Anakin was), in the books she's the most powerful Jedi that ever lived & Luke knows this. It's possible she was placed on Jakku to keep her as far from Jedi & the force as possible, for her & other's safety.

david75

Watch the last scene again. She starts crying the moment he takes the hood off.
And he knows her. He's the father.

Also.
Sneaky cinemas.

Saw this on Thursday ticket was €7.50
Saw it in the same theatre yesterday ticket was €12.50

That sucks.

Sad Professor

I’m not ruling it out. This is Johnson’s baby now and if he wants to make Rey a Skywalker he can. But it kinda goes against Abrams’s preference for the Force being inclusive.

Abrams:

And there I am sitting in the theater at almost 11 years old and that was a powerful notion. And I think this is what your point was, we would like to believe that when **** gets serious, that you could harness that Force I was told surrounds not just some of us but every living thing. And so, I really feel like the assumption that any character needs to have inherited a certain number of midi-chlorians or needs to be part of a bloodline, it’s not that I don’t believe that as part of the canon, I’m just saying that at 11 years old, that wasn’t where my heart was. And so I respect and adhere to the canon but I also say that the Force has always seemed to me to be more inclusive and stronger than that.

This harnessing of the Force that Abrams describes is exactly what Rey does in the final duel when she closes her eyes. Everyone is reading that moment as “oh that proves she is a Skywalker or has had training”, but read what Abrams says above. He doesn’t believe the Force should be tied to bloodlines, so in his mind Rey doesn’t have to be a Skywalker or have had training to be able to do what she did.

Also consider Kennedy’s pitch to Abrams, which was very much making the film accessible to new viewers. Abrams again:

"That question of this young woman asking ‘Who is Luke Skywalker?’ I don’t know why, but it made me feel like ‘f–k, that’s so cool,’” Abrams said. “These would be essentially kids who didn’t see Star Wars themselves, in this movie, who would be in this universe … the idea of discovering or rediscovering this world that had been created.”

Kennedy and Disney came up with this after Lucas and his treatments which focused on Anakin’s grandchildren (plural) departed. So Rey was not originally conceived as being related to anyone important. Of course, neither was Luke. Lucas came up with the Vader twist much later, so anything is still possible. But I think we need to stop taking it for granted that Rey has to be a Skywalker based on pretty flimsy evidence.

david75

Oh wow!!

Someone spotted Rey has a little padewan braid in the flashback scene where's she's crying come back!!

david75

Also

During the flashback/forward, young Rey shouts Come Back and then you hear Ren's voice say "Quiet, girl".

edit: If not Ren then someone with a voice modulator.

Relikk

david75 wrote: »

Watch the last scene again. She starts crying the moment he takes the hood off.
And he knows her. He's the father.

He probably is but, I put that more down to that he's Luke Skywalker. She knows who he is from legend and with the journey she's gone through to find him, she's emotionally overwhelmed that she's actually found him, and still alive.

Does she actually shed any tears? I thought she just slightly welled up.

david75 wrote: »

Also

During the flashback/forward, young Rey shouts Come Back and then you hear Ren's voice say "Quiet, girl".

Pretty sure that Max Von Sydow's voice.

Sad Professor

david75 wrote: »

Also

During the flashback/forward, young Rey shouts Come Back and then you hear Ren's voice say "Quiet, girl".

edit: If not Ren then someone with a voice modulator.

That’s Simon Pegg’s scrap dealer character.

Re: the flashback, Ren saving her from being clubbed in the rain is more interesting. But I’d be cautious about reading too much into that as well. We can’t be sure how much of what she saw in the “Forceback" was her own memories.

Dempsey

People forget that JJ Abrams directed this film...

py2006

Relikk wrote: »

He probably is but, I put that more down to that he's Luke Skywalker. She knows who he is from legend and with the journey she's gone through to find him, she's emotionally overwhelmed that she's actually found him, and still alive.

Does she actually shed any tears? I thought she just slightly welled up.

I feckin welled up...

Sad Professor

Dempsey wrote: »

People forget that JJ Abrams directed this film...

Yes and most likely didn’t spend a lot of time thinking about the next two films. He literally made things up on the set of the Lost pilot and said “we’ll figure it out later” (he left show shortly after). If he planted any important seeds in this film he did so at the behest of Johnson (I reckon the Knights of Ren was Rian's idea) and not because he had a masterplan for the trilogy.

McLoughlin

I'll groan if there is a Luke saying "I am your father moment" in the next film.