STAR WARS: THE FORCE AWAKENS Official Thread v.6

[fingercuffs]

It's always seemed to me that they are just swapping out the 2 white guys for a woman and a black guy to gain greater market appeal. When I saw the star wars make up commercial at a friends house I was not hopeful.

Cynical bastard. Guess what? No gays.

 

[Big John]

Kylo Ren was fierce. Great casting for that role, Adam Driver has a real striking look to him.

 

[NelmarksGhost]

Cynical bastard. Guess what? No gays.

Are you wearing the makeup right now?

Don't answer. You seem to really be having a great time with it, so I won't kill your buzz. Glad you enjoyed it.

 

[LATEXXX COMMANDO]

 

[fingercuffs]

Kylo Ren was fierce. Great casting for that role, Adam Driver has a real striking look to him.

And yet so many people have been moaning that he was a pansy. Again, I love you, Sherdog. He killed his dad and there's another 2 films.

 

[fingercuffs]

Are you wearing the makeup right now?

Make up? I live this shit.

 

[Pseudo Sane]

I rated the film at an 8.

Individuals performances were good to great, the film was visually gorgeous, and it is clear that Abrams gets the 'feel' of Star Wars (hard to avoid it, as he cribbed so heavily from A New Hope, as others have noted).

However, I have some problems with the movie. I'll start with the small, technical gripes, since they are fun, and finish with my main one.

Spoiler

1) Finn is clearly a sociopath. He has been raised as a stormtrooper from such an early age he doesn't have a name. His decision to rebel against the First Order (aka Space Third Reich) is driven by his friend getting gunned down in the opening fight. The stormtroopers are his brothers in arms, and ought to be his best friends in the whole world. When he frees Poe, he guns down, without hesitation, a good half dozen of his stormtrooper pals. He goes on to kill a dozen or so more; he probably kills some people who he has known since they were both toddlers.

The fact that this isn't addressed after a deliberate effort to humanize stormtroopers (which I thought was generally well done) was super weird.

2) If the Falcon can fly through the Starkiller Base's (that fucking name...) shields and emerge intact, you don't fucking need a landing party. You can bombard the base with nukes from outside of the system. Hell, even purely kinetic strikes can get the job done. There is no need to take any shields down at all; the Starkiller Base was totally vulnerable to an orbital bombardment against which it had no conceivable defense. As a superweapon.

This is a result of Abrams doing his usual fucking trick of not thinking through the consequences of his plot devices. Teleporters with infinite range! Shields that can be pierced by vehicles moving faster than light! What could go wrong?

3)Abrams has no conception of the size of space or that it takes time to cross it. Others have noted how weird it was that everyone in the galaxy could apparently see the beam from the Starkiller Base, but I was actually bothered by how Rey appeared to instantly enter then exit hyperspace when travelling to Luke at the end of the movie. It's like Abrams is afraid to admit that interstellar space might take a while.

4) Daisy Ridley gave a great performance as Rey, and I did not mind that she was a Strong and Independent Female (tm). I was bothered by the fact that she was apparently omnicompetent as a mechanic, space pilot, scavenger, and hand to hand combatant. That doesn't even get into the fact that she has apparently limitless mastery of the Force. The accusation that she is a Mary Sue is a fair one, and the only reason it isn't so offputting as it might be is that Ridley gave a stellar performance.

On a more serious note:

Spoiler

1) The fight scene with Kylo Ren and Rey is bad storytelling. Rey's victory is incomprehensible, even allowing for Ren's injury and mental turmoil. She flat out should not have won in the fashion which she did, but Disney has this weird inability to give the villains an actual leg up on the heroes. This is a real problem with Disney's storytelling in general, and was particularly pronounced in the Avengers movies.

Go ahead, rewatch the Avengers. I loved both movies, but the Chitauri (and Ultron), were ultimately about as threatening as Cobra vs GI Joe, expect Cobra Commander got the upper hand from time to time. There is never a point where the Avengers appear even remotely endangered by either threat.

As a result of this, Disney sucked all of the threat out of Ren as a villain, and any potential tension out of their inevitable rematch. Luke beating Vader in Return made sense. Luke earned that narratively. Rey just didn't. I don't care if Ren trains in the future, because he has already been established as a lightweight.

2) TFA does not earn any of its gravitas. It leans way to heavily on the shared cultural knowledge of the original trilogy, which lets Abrams get away with telling the story in shorthand. As a springboard to a new trilogy, in the context of 6 previous films, it is a fine effort. But as a film, the character arcs are weak, the overall plot is simultaneously long and rushed, and it assumes so much investment from its audience that it is painful. This is Abrams biggest weakness as a director; he doesn't understand how to generate memorable moments, only how to draw us into his own nostalgia. This was painfully apparent watching TFA.

Overall, the film played it safe, and I am hopeful this will lead to a new direction in the films down the line. Bluntly, I don't think Abrams has the artistic vision to do something new.

 

[Flemmy Stardust]

Didn't care for it to be honest. It's the same plot as A New Hope, and it treads on a ton of other familiar territory.

Felt like this was their chance to give this shit a real face lift, and with someone like Abrams at the helm, it could have gone a lot better. Some of the humor worked, and i think i like Fin, but everything else was trite.

Emperor Gollum is lame, Darth Solo is bitchy Hayden Christiansen reborn, etcetera etcetera. I'm not looking forward to how this plays out at all.

 

[hearthstone25]

I haven't seen it yet. Have been waiting for some reviews before I decide to give any more money, or attention toward this franchise. Metacritic has it at 80 right now. That's not good. The user reviews are even lower. Unless there's a big turnaround I'm skipping it.

I know many people feel compelled to see it just because of how popular it is; regardless of quality. At some point you have to remember if you're fooled twice it's shame on you. With star wars I've already been fooled 3 times.

imdb rating is still at 8.9 from a 100,000 users. Thats not too bad.

 

[fingercuffs]

Didn't care for it to be honest. It's the same plot as A New Hope, and it treads on a ton of other familiar territory.

Felt like this was their chance to give this shit a real face lift, and with someone like Abrams at the helm, it could have gone a lot better. Some of the humor worked, and i think i like Fin, but everything else was trite.

Emperor Gollum is lame, Darth Solo is bitchy Hayden Christiansen reborn, etcetera etcetera. I'm not looking forward to how this plays out at all.

You've let me down. Were you not entertained?!?!? Just a weeny bit?! Did you not actual laugh out loud along with the other cinema goers with the thumbs up and the droid "????" stuff? She's fucking awesome and I tend to not like female lead characters. The 2 hours flew by for me, it was just hit after hit, but I also realised it was lining up for the next two films which I think a lot of people missed.

 

[fingercuffs]

So many naval bro's in the cinema last night going nuts. Thankfully they STFU when the film came on. Then they went mental with the Mil Falcon. Which I was dead happy about.

 

[Hank The Tank]

It's always seemed to me that they are just swapping out the 2 white guys for a woman and a black guy to gain greater market appeal. When I saw the star wars make up commercial at a friends house I was not hopeful.

Why should it always be 2 white guys to begin with anyway?

From: a white guy

 

[Prefect]

The film felt like the original three but with a bad case of ADD. There was no pacing. It felt like one long battle scene.

 

[Misfit23]

Cynical bastard. Guess what? No gays.

I still have hope Poe's character will turn out gay in the next film. Can you imagine all the jimmies that will be rustled? I'd be soooooooooooooo happy.

 

[fingercuffs]

I still have hope Poe's character will turn out gay in the next film. Can you imagine all the jimmies that will be rustled? I'd be soooooooooooooo happy.

Let it happen ! There's so much hatred coming forth in the subsequent films. Everyone's getting their knickers in a twist thinking it's a film in its own right. Remember the twats in the cinemas after The Fellowship of The Ring? It's a fucking trilogy, dullards.

 

[Edgar Allan Hoe]

I already know it will suck because honestly, the only reason why the original movies were good was because of Harrison Ford and the John Williams soundtrack. I saw the lineup of the new actors and lol, it might as well be hosted on the Disney channel.

 

[Flemmy Stardust]

You've let me down. Were you not entertained?!?!? Just a weeny bit?! Did you not actual laugh out loud along with the other cinema goers with the thumbs up and the droid "????" stuff? She's fucking awesome and I tend to not like female lead characters. The 2 hours flew by for me, it was just hit after hit, but I also realised it was lining up for the next two films which I think a lot of people missed.

The hardest i laughed was when Darth Solo took his helmet off the first time revealing that he was a complete pansy.

I was entertained, but it wasn't good, and I'm pretty pissed that my boy Rian Johnson is going to be tied up trying to make chicken shit into chicken salad when he could be making another awesome movie like Looper.

 

[ironwolf]

I haven't seen it yet, not expecting anything good..

Exactly. Star wars is dumb as fuck. ITs always been a kids movie but they went full retard with the last 3 that came out. Im not expecting anything from the new one. I dont even think ill download it when it hits the torents.

 

[Big Brown Clown]

So I think I enjoyed the movie. But part of me thinks most of it was just that, "Oh my god I'm watching a new Star Wars movie" feeling. I do not think it will hold up as well to repeat viewings. We'll see tomorrow. I went out on Thursday night at the earliest possible showing because I needed to see it ASAP and I'm not going to watch it again till tomorrow most likely when I could have gone tonight. The fact that I'm not breaking down the door to see this again kind of says a lot(I do that for a lot of movies I liked). I hope these new movies don't tarnish Star Wars. Star Wars was able to withstand the prequels, however.

I currently rank the Star Wars movies like this:

1. Empire Strikes Back
2. A new Hope
3. Return of the Jedi
4/5. The Force Awakens/Revenge of the Sith(I think ROTS could take the fourth spot once the hype dies down. I feel like hype and freshness is pushing TFA above ROTS atm)
6. The Phantom Menace
7. Attack of the Clones

 

[fingercuffs]

The hardest i laughed was when Darth Solo took his helmet off the first time revealing that he was a complete pansy.

I was entertained, but it wasn't good, and I'm pretty pissed that my boy Rian Johnson is going to be tied up trying to make chicken shit into chicken salad when he could be making another awesome movie like Looper.

When Han and Chewy showed up? Not even a titter?