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

pixelburp

ancapailldorcha wrote: »

I don't know about this. When I went home for the holidays, I saw them on a dedicated Sky channel and they seemed more or less ok.

Well therein lies the difference of opinion, and by no means are the original trilogy flawless, but the scripts of the prequels are terrible and almost without merit. Borderline Ed Wood levels of terribleness, only without the charming naivity. The race plot alone is like something from a national school writing group

RoadhouseBlues

I think the prequels are ok for someone who hadn't seen Star Wars before. For me, the big difference is that I can watch the original movies several times over, but I can't watch the prequels multiple times. However that is just me. If people like them then thats fine. I'm looking forward to the next movie already though. Will be interesting to see what they do with Luke.

Gbear

ancapailldorcha wrote: »

Why do people insist on bashing the prequels? They're nowhere near as bad as they're being made out to be on the last few pages of this thread.

They really are total ****e.

The original films have their issues to start with, but that can be waved away as films that are 70's/80's era, american space opera.

You can see why some people might not like the cheesiness, even if it was a function of the era as much as anything (and people still like other films from then).

But leaving that aside, the films were very well put together in nearly every respect - in terms of the objective measures of quality the originals tick most of the boxes.

But that's not true of the prequels.
It's much harder to suspend your disbelief and go along for the ride when the films are technically so poorly made - script, acting, how they look, how poor the plot is.

You might have a film that's absolute nonsense, but if you have actors delivering really gripping performances, you just won't even remember or care about that.
Or it might be pure eye candy, which the prequels do have a certain degree of, to be fair, but the overreliance on CGI is making them age at a far faster rate than the practical effects of the originals.
Or you might have really heavy hitting action scenes, but while there are individual elements that are cool enough - the sky over Coruscant in RotS or Darth Maul's acrobatics, there tends to be too much visual clutter, the fight scenes are too rigidly choreographed, or there's too much of a disconnect from reality because they're just waving swords at things that aren't there and will just be CGI'd in later; it all just falls flat.

(Incidentally, I think that style of fighting works much better in animated productions they've done like the Clone Wars or those TOR cinematics because they have much tighter control of the choreography, and can make characters do things that are literally impossible, as well as cover them from impossible camera angles, and most of all because there's no conflict between reality and CGI to jar you out of the action.).

Rather than being great films with a few bits that some might find objectionable, they're bad films with one or two redeeming features.

Wibbs

ancapailldorcha wrote: »

Why do people insist on bashing the prequels? They're nowhere near as bad as they're being made out to be on the last few pages of this thread.

The prequels might have worked if George Sheldon Cooper Lucas had passed the loudhailer over to better dialogue writers and directors. I reckon you could still dig out a passable film if you edited the hell out of all three down into one long one. Maybe someone has?(the last act of the last one isn't half bad at all).

IMH the prequels as far as underlying themes goes are better than the Force Awakens. Lucas was attempting a fairly decent narrative into how someone goes "dark", but quite simply hadn't the writing and directing chops to pull it off, nor enough people to cry WTF George(if you watch them again, drink and fast forward help, you notice that pretty everyone lies to and distrusts Anakin, the Jedi in particular, the emperor actually lies to him the least and trusts him the most. He's the only real father to this fatherless child). He was at least trying to build a novel reality. That's what I mean when I say it was "better" than TFA. Clearly TFA is the far better film in execution, in intent not so much. Well, it is if you consider how well it has gone over as a rollercoaster in the box office and that's what counts as far as Disney is concerned. Naturally.

TL;DR for me the prequels were a human failure, but an attempt at something novel, TFA is a studio success by pushing all the obvious buttons and as I said it pushed my buttons, but Lawrence of Arabia, or Star Wars 1977 it was not. And I suspect time will agree with me.

Sad Professor

This Mary Sue stuff is bull****. It’s been thrown around as some objective, non-sexist critique of the character with no thought for the meaning and origin for the term. The term “Mary Sue" originates with a story written in the '70s that parodied Star Trek fan fiction, specifically the way female fanfic writers tended to write themselves into their stories. And subsequently it became a negative term for any female character that was considered an unrealistic form of wish-fulfilment.

Now consider the context – 1970s and Star Trek – and consider why female fanfic writers were doing this. I mean, how many female characters were there in the original Star Trek series? Hell, how many female characters were there in sci-fi, fantasy and adventure films and tv shows back then period? And what did they do in these stories? Seems like maybe the original Mary Sues were a response to what many women Trekies saw as a gender imbalance in Star Trek. And the criticism of Mary Sue characters as being bad is very much tied up with the era in which such gender imbalance was considered acceptable.

Okay, so people are saying Rey is a female wish-fulfilment character. But wait a second, whose wish-fulfilment is she – JJ Abrams’? But he’s a man. Okay, whatever, lets look at his other films. Well that’s funny he directed a reboot of Star Trek whose main character seems an awful lot like wish-fulfilment. James Kirk is young, he’s smart, he’s handsome, he’s brilliant, he graduates from the Academy early, gets his own ship and saves the universe every other weekend. Sounds like a Mary Sue to me. And then there’s Ethan Hunt in Mission Impossible… another series that originated in the popular entertainments of the ‘60s. Do we want to talk about James Bond maybe? Or Han Solo? Should I go on?

Were these male characters unrealistic wish-fullfilmment on the part of their male creators? Absolutely, no doubt whatsoever about it. Were they bad, poorly written character? Far from it. In fact they are among the most memorable characters ever put on screen. Perhaps in no small part because they weren’t just wish-fulfilment for their creators, they were wish-fulfilment for their (mostly male) audiences as well.

But here’s a question: Do girls look up to James Kirk, James Bond and Han Solo the way young boys do? Not a chance. But they will and already are looking up to Rey that way.

Genre films and stories are littered with wish-fulfilment characters. They are everywhere but they are mostly male because most of the writers of these stories tend to be male. We’re so used to this we don’t even think about it. So if we are going to use Mary Sue as a perjorative term for a female wish-fulfilment character, then we should think about double standards. Like whether we have any, and whether they amount to a form of unintentional sexism because we can’t get over the fact that Star Wars isn’t just a boys thing anymore.

/rant

ancapailldorcha

Wibbs wrote: »

The prequels might have worked if George Sheldon Cooper Lucas had passed the loudhailer over to better dialogue writers and directors. I reckon you could still dig out a passable film if you edited the hell out of all three down into one long one. Maybe someone has?(the last act of the last one isn't half bad at all).

IMH the prequels as far as underlying themes goes are better than the Force Awakens. Lucas was attempting a fairly decent narrative into how someone goes "dark", but quite simply hadn't the writing and directing chops to pull it off, nor enough people to cry WTF George(if you watch them again, drink and fast forward help, you notice that pretty everyone lies to and distrusts Anakin, the Jedi in particular, the emperor actually lies to him the least and trusts him the most. He's the only real father to this fatherless child). He was at least trying to build a novel reality. That's what I mean when I say it was "better" than TFA. Clearly TFA is the far better film in execution, in intent not so much. Well, it is if you consider how well it has gone over as a rollercoaster in the box office and that's what counts as far as Disney is concerned. Naturally.

TL;DR for me the prequels were a human failure, but an attempt at something novel, TFA is a studio success by pushing all the obvious buttons and as I said it pushed my buttons, but Lawrence of Arabia, or Star Wars 1977 it was not. And I suspect time will agree with me.

Well said. To reiterate, I wasn't saying that they were perfect or even great, just that they're not as bad as a lot of people here make out. Plenty of flaws though one would find that with any action-orientated franchise.

KingBrian2

Just got back from new Star Wars film the Force Awakens found it was a good movie, lacked the greatness of the originals, nonetheless it managed to put together some memorable moments and when I saw the originals I was smaller these movies will never catch me at that age again. The prequels were fun but certainly no originals by any stretch of the imagination.

I did feel the movie needed more creativity and it really struck me how old the cast from the originals were. Going to have to see the sequels after to this just to check them out. This movie never reached the heights of the old ones which I would have preferred now I feel after multiple Star Wars films the originals are truly special films.

me_irl

Hey, how about that megathread?

http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2056794383

SarahBM

The Prequels were my first encounter with Star Wars and I must have been in college (about 10 years ago) when I first saw episode IV-VI.
A previous poster was right, the CGI heavy prequels have aged worse than the originals.

And also can I just say when I realised the other week that George Lucas didn't actually direct episode IV-VI - mind blown. and when I realised he DID direct episode I-III - I was very sad.

I also think that if there was to be an extended edition of TFA released, Poe Dameron and Phasma would have been given more screen time.

And I think the banter between Han and Chewie is what saved Ford's performance in this. He seemed to be about 80% there. He probably was convinced by JJ to come back for just the one film and then they were able to kill him off.
Plus now Luke has motive to come back, to avenge his old friend Han and help his sister beat the baddies.

KingBrian2

They characters felt like they came from a Star Wars novel and they did not sync in with original movies. When the digitally re-mastered versions came out they really improved on the existing world. The story was strong enough to include all those wacky special effects like you see in ROTJ in Jabba's Palace. The Snow Beast in ESB was awesome and if you look at ANH the additional crawl and visual adjustments made certain aspects of the movie better.

This movie still had too much CGI and very little drama. A case in point the beginning of Star Wars when we see C-3PO and R2D2 in the desert comes across as much more exciting than the dialogue and the cast and characters running around with those monsters Han was smuggling. If a movie is to be seen on a par with the originals they will need to work on a way of having a space opera that can incorporate brief moments of CGI into a compelling story. This movie lacked the script and the journey of the originals.

Wibbs

Sad Professor wrote: »

This Mary Sue stuff is bull****. It’s been thrown around as some objective, non-sexist critique of the character with no thought for the meaning and origin for the term. The term “Mary Sue" originates with a story written in the '70s that parodied Star Trek fan fiction, specifically the way female fanfic writers tended to write themselves into their stories. And subsequently it became a negative term for any female character that was considered an unrealistic form of wish-fulfilment.

That's lovely an all, but maybe dial back your Right On indignation gender imbalance credentials for just a second there Ted and actually look at how this character actually operates and maybe address the points being cogently made, or is that a bridge too far for you? As I said I give two hoots about their gender and if they were a bloke called Ray I'd still be calling WTF. And I haven't even gotten started on Darth Emo and last time I looked he was male. Finn is another day's work.

Oh and BTW I agree with you 100% about Abram's Kirk in his Star Trek reboot. Marty Sue ahoy. Damn near the wiki definition of it. Effin ridiculous actually. Utter failure, prone to brawls and testosterone, banned and thrown off the Enterprise and yet one act later is somehow in the captains chair? Just because? G.T.F.O Abrams.

Abrams is seen by the studios as a cut price Spielberg, a Coldplay to Steve's U2, a safe pair of hands to bring some spectacle and keep the lights on and the greasy till ringing. Just enough talent to milk the market, not nearly enough to actually change it artistically, or screw said market. If he had an original idea in his head anytime soon he'd likely need a month in a facility for the mentally delicate.

Oh he's bang on with the whizz bangs and the easy crowd pleasers, but god forbid any novel narrative makes an entrance. Example Uno; A certain main character does a Ben Kenobi and dies, leaving the younglings bereft and the next scene after, the hairy best friend of his life, walks right by his ex wife(and also friend) with not even a glance. Oh no Mary Sue Rey takes over there too. Never mind that out of the fcuking blue and apropos of eff all ends up being the pilot of the Falcon. Perfect example of Abrams looking at the whizz bangs and missing the human. Not the only example in that(or his other) flic. Same when the Death Star part Tres fires it's uber weapon. We'll ignore the daftness of witnesses seeing this another solar system away(but that's the level he sees the audience working on), but Oh noes mass death on a multi global scale. A repeat(of course and yet again) of Alderaan getting blown to bits, but the latter had far more emotional impact written and played onscreen. No Kenobi feeling a great disturbance, a scene later and it was a nothing. Now I would say if your emotional repertoire on screen and on script is running below the range of Howard the Duck George Sheldon Cooper Lucas, it might be a good plan to have an oul rethink.

Still it has worked, we are ranting about it. Damn that Hollywood machine.

Marty McFly

Is there no thread up yet for next installment?

Seen this last night still trying to take it in.

Grew up loving Star Wars and in recent weeks have re watched all 6. Episode 1 to 3 aren't as bad as I first remembered at there time of release and are quite enjoyable imo.

Have to say really enjoyed really feels like I need to watch it again so I ca sit back pick up on the bits I missed and really enjoy it.

Look he has basically done a Wrath of Kahn/Into Darkness on Star Wars.

Made an enjoyable puff piece (out of something intentionally light originally) out of the source.

I laughed a bit at Wibbs comment about seeing the destruction from another system (in real time too) as JJ did the same with Spock witnessing Vulcan's destruction from a random planet light years away

KingBrian2

Deleted User wrote: »

Look he has basically done a Wrath of Kahn/Into Darkness on Star Wars.

Made an enjoyable puff piece (out of something intentionally light originally) out of the source.

I laughed a bit at Wibbs comment about seeing the destruction from another system (in real time too) as JJ did the same with Spock witnessing Vulcan's destruction from a random planet light years away

JJ Abrams Star Trek is a travesty.

MEGA BRO WOLF 5000

KingBrian2 wrote: »

JJ Abrams Star Trek is a travesty.

Do go on.

The Golden Miller

Falthyron wrote: »

We didn't see the attack. We don't know how many turned on Luke and whether or not a powerful Sith like Snoke was there as well... Considering Luke's hand has gone back to a very unsophisticated robotic version perhaps he lost his hand again? Luke is also quite old now, not too far off Obi Wan's age in A New Hope - he didn't stand much chance against Vader. Wait and see what Episode VIII shows us. If it is ridiculous then ridicule it, but there are many reasons why Luke was forced to go into hiding/search for answers.

Oh and the Jedi Anakin killed were children, hardly a competition. :P

Luke is way above Snoke and the rest in power, hence why they are so terrified of the resistance getting him back in the fight. Obi wan was rusty, Luke when he left wasn't, plus Obi wan was up against Anakin who he even struggled with and was over powered against in episode 3 which was his prime, whereas Luke was up against a bunch of nobodys. One application of the force from Luke could have taken out all the knights of Ren. There will be a reason in the next film for the sake of it, but I can't fathom one genuine reason for his absence that's credible.

Didn't Anakin hunt down all the remaining Jedi between episode 3-4 who weren't children? Maybe that isn't canon anymore

The Golden Miller

Riddle101 wrote: »

I'm pretty sure doing something like that would be more akin to the dark side. Hunting down a bunch of amateur Jedi/sith to kill them? That's not Luke's style. Keep in mind that Vader and Sidius were both Sith lords when they do those acts. But I guess all the answer will come in the next movie.

Jedi do hunt and kill Siths, especially if it's for the greater good. And he could have captured them, not killed them

KingBrian2

The Honey Monster wrote: »

Do go on.

I can't at the moment due to the fact i'm about to play chess with my bro suffice it to say the movie was really atrocious to us Star Trek fans.

SarahBM

KingBrian2 wrote: »

I can't at the moment due to the fact i'm about to play chess with my bro suffice it to say the movie was really atrocious to us Star Trek fans.

Speak for yourself! I really enjoyed them.

Did many people go see it in 3D? I went to the 2D both times.

jones

SarahBM wrote: »

Did many people go see it in 3D? I went to the 2D both times.

Same as

Grayditch

From a non fans perspective, I enjoyed Star Trek, but it didn't look or feel like anything Star Trek related that I'd ever seen.

Grayditch

Grayditch wrote: »

From a non fans perspective, I enjoyed Star Trek, but it didn't look or feel like anything Star Trek related that I'd ever seen.

Related is a key word for me here. Old Trek was dead and did need a kick up the arse BUT not fundamentally changing what Trek was at its core.

To a lesser extent he has done that in Star Wars now too. Lesser as Wars was more of a fantasy to begin with but the key JJ-esque signs are there.

No need to follow in-universe logic: check
Rehash older/better plot points: check
Massive coincidences in place of plot: definitely check.


I'm way more a Trek fan than Wars and, as objective viewer, I really enjoyed the new Wars while watching it (like some people do the nu Trek) but it is so far off, compared to the originals even I had to call shenanigans after the credits.

wally79

Riddle101 wrote: »

I didn't even doubt for a second that Rey was Luke's daughter. The way she was drawn to the Lightsaber kind've made me feel like it was due to it being Luke and Anakin's Lightsaber. First Anakin's, passed down to Luke by Obi Wan, and now passed down to Rey through the Force. Plus her ability to fix things is reminiscent of Anakin and Luke. Anakin was a slave who used to spend his times fixing things when he was a kid, he even made C3PO, and was working on a speeder or something. Luke also seemed pretty handy at fixing things when we first see him in A New Hope, I would imagine he spent a lot of time fixing things on his Uncle's farm. There are just a lot of similarities between Rey and Anakin and Luke that makes me think that perhaps her talents come from her genes.

I don't think it's anakins lightsaber. Didn't Luke build a new one for ROTJ.

Relikk

wally79 wrote: »

I don't think it's anakins lightsaber.

It is. It was the saber that was in Lukes hand when it was chopped off on Bespin and disappeared down the shaft. That's why he had to build a new one. It was found somehow, hopefully explained in one of the later movies, and made its way to Maz where she had it stored in the box where Rey found it.

Penn

Relikk wrote: »

It is. It was the saber that was in Lukes hand when it was chopped off on Bespin and disappeared down the shaft. That's why he had to build a new one. It was found somehow, hopefully explained in one of the later movies, and made its way to Maz where she had it stored in the box where Rey found it.

I don't really think it needs to be explained tbh. It fell down the shaft, someone found it, sold it, may have even changed hands a few more times, then Maz bought it, and kept it, knowing what it was.

I think it'd be fairly needless exposition to explain its journey.

Relikk

Penn wrote: »

I think it'd be fairly needless exposition to explain its journey.

You're probably going to get an explanation as they seem to want to explain it considering Maz said when asked how she got it... "A good question, for another time".

Penn

Relikk wrote: »

You're probably going to get an explanation as they seem to want to explain it considering Maz said when asked how she got it... "A good question, for another time".

I took that more to be "No point explaining, just go with it".

Sad Professor

The journey of the saber was originally part of the Force vision so it might be in the deleted scenes on the Blu-ray.

orubiru

Tony EH wrote: »

This and the pretend "Alpha males" above are two sides of the same coin. Simple minded fools that, basically, cannot view things outside of the limited prism of their own silly obsessions.

Out of all of the musings on 'The Force Awakens', these have to be the most lamentable.

Unfortunately this is what "Geek Culture" or "Nerd Culture" has become over the past couple of years. People want to view these things through their own particular lens and then want to moan online about it when their standards are not met or, even worse, when their worldview is contradicted.

That seems to have escalated to the point where if a movie does not pander to certain sensibilities then people on one side or the other are up in arms. You have social movements trying to claim that a particular movie supports their movement or that a particular actor "brilliantly destroys" people who oppose their movement.

You have people going nuts when a character is gender-swapped or has their ethnicity changed. As if "fan fiction" type stuff, or alternate universe stuff, has never ever been popular amongst geeks and nerds.

When you introduce trolls to the equation it's tough to tell the difference between someone having a laugh, someone deliberately trying to provoke others and someone who genuinely believes what they are saying.

The end result is that you can't discuss movies that are supposed to be fun and exciting, such as Star Wars, Mad Max and Marvel movies from 2015, without wondering when exactly the topics of racism and sexism are going to come up. Can't people just enjoy the movies?

For some people, no, they can't just enjoy the movies. I read a comment very recently about Jurassic World in which the person had counted that the female character in the movie had disagreed with men 14 times. This female character was in the wrong 13 of those 14 times and this shows that Jurassic World is sexist. What kind of person watches a movie in that way?

Or maybe I am the one who is out of touch here? Are we supposed to be scouring the content of a film before deciding if we are really allowed to enjoy it or not? Does a films political message determine where it should be boycotted or nominated for an Oscar?

I feel it's not good to apply this kind of reasoning to movies that are not even trying to deal with subjects such as race or gender. It's not like Rey is saying "I never want to have kids and I don't need a man and General Leia has a beautiful body and we should #KillAllSithMen". It's not like Han is saying "throw Captain Phasma into the garbage compacter along with the rest of the feminism". If that were the case then, yeah, there would be much outrage. That wouldn't be Star Wars though. Rey just happens to be a woman. The movie makes no comment on that AT ALL.

The whole discussion is kind of daft, I suppose, but it is really being pushed HARD in the media. You have articles like this http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/geek-male-identity-has-been-reduced-to-kylo-ren-impotently-thrashing-a-computer-with-his-sword-this-a6790401.html

"If Rey and other kick-ass heroines are icons of geek feminism, Kylo Ren seems like a portrait of geek masculinity at its worst." :eek:

What can we say about this? Is this the future of Star Wars related discussions?

helimachoptor

went to see it after watching the new 3 a while back and the older 3 over the last couple of weeks.

- Should have left Rens mask on, he isn't going to evoke anything other than me thinking he's an emo
- After Solos death, the MF lands back on the planet, Chewwie walks right by General Lea, i mean he should be going over to embrace her
- As has been said, Reys super duper accelerated use of the force is a bit ****

a few questions

- No point building a bigger badder weapon, with a bigger flaw, i mean come on people
- Why did they move away from the clone army?
- The new big bad, where did he come from?
- What are the knights of ren?