Movies STAR WARS: THE FORCE AWAKENS v.9 (Dragonlord's Review)

Man, the random things you find searching for images.

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You want me to challenge one of your ideas? OK.

I have absolutely no problems with Ren in the final sequences of the film. He'd clearly been seriously injured and didn't seem to be taking Finn very seriously. The second he did, he turned Finn into a kebob. I was surprised by the success Rey was having, but there seems to be a lot to her story we don't know yet, and I imagine she's going to turn out to be incredibly strong with the Force.

I think your point about how your villain can't appear weak is fundamentally flawed. I think your position is one of the reasons two-dimensional villains are so typical in theater, most people don't need their villains to be actual characters with depth, characters that change, develop and grow.

He is also an apprentice with quite a bit of raw power. He demonstrated this early when he froze the blaster bolt, and then when he ripped the information from Poe's mind. We got our first glimpse of how strong Rey is going to be when she resisted his mind probe. It's entirely possible she's got a lot more raw power than he has. Many things are possible, this film is the first in a trilogy. I love that these two are so unknown as opposed to simply following the archetypes we've seen a thousand times and you seem to really want.

His "serious" injury doesn't seem to have had any impact on anything he did during the fight. So no...I wouldn't call that a serious injury. The little blood that was dripping from it? Come one. I've had nose bleeds that bled more. If you wanna sell me that you are hurt, you gotta do more than this periodic thumping on the wound. You gotta sell it whenever you move anything that has to do with the area injured.

So that's on the actor and the director.

Second thing I wanna point out is Ren (unlike Vader) was putting everything in his swings. And Finn was blocking them. That's crap.

This is not "cat and mouse" Kylo Ren is putting far too much effort into his swings for this to look "cat and mouse" or for him to be "injured".

FH2XjvFfgCwfK.gif


This is cat and mouse...Vader is using barely any effort here, and Luke goes flying.
3oFyDk6u1vOx0SATM4.gif


So now what? Just any janitor can pick up a lightsaber and fight with it? You know what would happen if you, an untrained person picked up a lightsaber? You'd be more likley to clip yourself with it, cutting off one of your own appendeges. I mean it's the all mighty coveted light saber for christ sakes. Not just any old sanitation duty storm trooper should be able to pick one up and even look half decent. It's the signature weapon of the heros of this fucking series. So congrats, you demystified the light saber AND jedi training to boot.


Their fight in the film was basically Rey doing everything she could to survive while an injured Ren fought not to kill her, while trying to turn her, until finally she tapped her raw power to prevail. I thought it was well done. That moment where she took the saber from him at the beginning (to the Force Theme) was a major HELL YEAH moment for me. It opened a world of possibilities, which hopefully we'll see blossom over the rest of the series. Aren't you curious about Rey's origin? I sure as hell am.

Rey's fight was even more bull shit. Here we have our main evil guy, that costume designed a nice scary costume for, and effects designed a new fandangle scary looking light saber with a firey effect, and he get's his shit kicked in in the first film. That's not how this works. So what? They are gonna train him even MORE now? Maybe give him a robotic dick and I'm suddenly suppose to get excited as I watch him inevitably get his ass kicked again? This follows the logic as to how many times can you kill spock and then bring him back to life before the act itself loses all meaning? The answer is once. You can only get away with this shit once until the imagery is used up. So JJ just used up his card of the audience watching both Rey become victorious and finish her arc, and the bad guy getting his shit kicked in.

Off topic:

Previously you stated there wasn't a decent main villain in Star Wars since Vader.
I pointed out Sidious, who was the main villain for the entire prequel trilogy.
You replied saying he wasn't in this movie (assuming you meant The Force Awakens).

My bad, I was confused at what you meant by Sidious so I'll straighten out what I mean. Sidious was not the main bad guy in the first three, even though he ranked higher than Vader it was most certainly Vader that had more screen time and story that the audience was connected too and feared and was interested in. Sidious was some unknown dude in a chair. And he wasn't even in the first film.

In this movie, don't play off that the evil hologram, Snoke is the main evil guy. As the movie gave him zero screen time, zero presence and no back story. That's not how this works. Why the FUCK should the audience be invested in a character who's only in the film for less than 5 minutes and has very little dialogue? So once again we spend 2 hours getting to know a main villian, and instead of him getting cut in half and thrown down a shaft like Darth Maul, he turns out to be a big pussy.

So I don't even know if that's a win for the audience, but what I DO know is that the trilogy will have to spend yet ANOTHER 2 hours building up yet ANOTHER bad guy for us, the audience, to get to know and hate. And you can't do that in 5 minutes with a hologram...that's not great story telling. Luke is more the main protagonist, than Snoke is the main antagonist.

Now I'd just like to further reiterate that our main protagonist, Rey got HERSELF out of all danger and situations within this film. Giving the audience zero sense of danger or growth in character progression. Fly the Millennium falcon better than Solo? Sure! Give her five minutes. Learn the force? Sure. Give her 5 seconds. honestly where is the character arc here? She's the same chick at the end of the film that she was at the start. No person taught her anything, no guidance...she just said "force? give me a sec, let me close my eyes". So with this as the base of our main hero...a person who can get herself out of any jam, knows everything, and seems to learn everything else in minutes if not seconds...why the hell should anyone be concerned about her safety? Give her any problem and she will just close her eyes and create the solution.

That's just lazy writing getting your hero out of a jam by going against canon. Kinda like when Lucas put Obiwan and Quigon in a jam at the start of ep1 by giving them force super speed, and then completely abandoning that power for the rest of the films. I'm less curious about Rey's character so much as I am interesting in seeing how the writers try to paint themselves out of this corner without fucking up the canon further.
 
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@BVG you keep calling Fin a 'Sanitation' worker but it's already been established that first and foremost, he is a soldier. The person in his battalion at the beginning of the movie who dies and the storm trooper he fights with the anti-light saber weapon were his buddies.
 
@BVG you keep calling Fin a 'Sanitation' worker but it's already been established that first and foremost, he is a soldier. The person in his battalion at the beginning of the movie who dies and the storm trooper he fights with the anti-light saber weapon were his buddies.



Storm trooper is storm trooper. And nobody wants to see a storm trooper take on a jedi with a light saber. (even a half death bed, half trained sith).

*nevermind the fact that it was self admitted that the beginning was his first tour of duty and before that he was sanitation stormtrooper. But even if he was the most skilled STORM TROOPER ever...Nobody wants to see anything but a Jedi or Sith use a fucking lightsaber even half as well as they can.

It demystifies the lightsaber.
 
@BVG you keep calling Fin a 'Sanitation' worker but it's already been established that first and foremost, he is a soldier. The person in his battalion at the beginning of the movie who dies and the storm trooper he fights with the anti-light saber weapon were his buddies.

He's just one of this "I liked the movie, BUT..." kind of haters.
 
He's just one of this "I liked the movie, BUT..." kind of haters.

I gave it a 7. For fun dialogue, great visuals and some cool flying sequences.

It's not perfection. We can all grab hands and talk about the good parts though if you wanna sing kumbiya for us.
 
Why wasn't this movie nominated for the Oscar of best costume design?

I bet the costume designers were well pissed off.
 
Storm trooper is storm trooper. And nobody wants to see a storm trooper take on a jedi with a light saber. (even a half death bed, half trained sith).

*nevermind the fact that it was self admitted that the beginning was his first tour of duty and before that he was sanitation stormtrooper. But even if he was the most skilled STORM TROOPER ever...Nobody wants to see anything but a Jedi or Sith use a fucking lightsaber even half as well as they can.

It demystifies the lightsaber.

You are 100% correct but fanboys will fight you to the death over it. JJ fucked up on so many levels. Don't worry, it will become inevitable when they realize they cannot keep re-watching the movie like the original.
 
His "serious" injury doesn't seem to have had any impact on anything he did during the fight. So no...I wouldn't call that a serious injury. The little blood that was dripping from it? Come one. I've had nose bleeds that bled more. If you wanna sell me that you are hurt, you gotta do more than this periodic thumping on the wound. You gotta sell it whenever you move anything that has to do with the area injured.

So that's on the actor and the director.

Second thing I wanna point out is Ren (unlike Vader) was putting everything in his swings. And Finn was blocking them. That's crap.

This is not "cat and mouse" Kylo Ren is putting far too much effort into his swings for this to look "cat and mouse" or for him to be "injured".

FH2XjvFfgCwfK.gif


This is cat and mouse...Vader is using barely any effort here, and Luke goes flying.
3oFyDk6u1vOx0SATM4.gif


So now what? Just any janitor can pick up a lightsaber and fight with it? You know what would happen if you, an untrained person picked up a lightsaber? You'd be more likley to clip yourself with it, cutting off one of your own appendeges. I mean it's the all mighty coveted light saber for christ sakes. Not just any old sanitation duty storm trooper should be able to pick one up and even look half decent. It's the signature weapon of the heros of this fucking series. So congrats, you demystified the light saber AND jedi training to boot.




Rey's fight was even more bull shit. Here we have our main evil guy, that costume designed a nice scary costume for, and effects designed a new fandangle scary looking light saber with a firey effect, and he get's his shit kicked in in the first film. That's not how this works. So what? They are gonna train him even MORE now? Maybe give him a robotic dick and I'm suddenly suppose to get excited as I watch him inevitably get his ass kicked again? This follows the logic as to how many times can you kill spock and then bring him back to life before the act itself loses all meaning? The answer is once. You can only get away with this shit once until the imagery is used up. So JJ just used up his card of the audience watching both Rey become victorious and finish her arc, and the bad guy getting his shit kicked in.



My bad, I was confused at what you meant by Sidious so I'll straighten out what I mean. Sidious was not the main bad guy in the first three, even though he ranked higher than Vader it was most certainly Vader that had more screen time and story that the audience was connected too and feared and was interested in. Sidious was some unknown dude in a chair. And he wasn't even in the first film.

In this movie, don't play off that the evil hologram, Snoke is the main evil guy. As the movie gave him zero screen time, zero presence and no back story. That's not how this works. Why the FUCK should the audience be invested in a character who's only in the film for less than 5 minutes and has very little dialogue? So once again we spend 2 hours getting to know a main villian, and instead of him getting cut in half and thrown down a shaft like Darth Maul, he turns out to be a big pussy.

So I don't even know if that's a win for the audience, but what I DO know is that the trilogy will have to spend yet ANOTHER 2 hours building up yet ANOTHER bad guy for us, the audience, to get to know and hate. And you can't do that in 5 minutes with a hologram...that's not great story telling. Luke is more the main protagonist, than Snoke is the main antagonist.

Now I'd just like to further reiterate that our main protagonist, Rey got HERSELF out of all danger and situations within this film. Giving the audience zero sense of danger or growth in character progression. Fly the Millennium falcon better than Solo? Sure! Give her five minutes. Learn the force? Sure. Give her 5 seconds. honestly where is the character arc here? She's the same chick at the end of the film that she was at the start. No person taught her anything, no guidance...she just said "force? give me a sec, let me close my eyes". So with this as the base of our main hero...a person who can get herself out of any jam, knows everything, and seems to learn everything else in minutes if not seconds...why the hell should anyone be concerned about her safety? Give her any problem and she will just close her eyes and create the solution.

That's just lazy writing getting your hero out of a jam by going against canon. Kinda like when Lucas put Obiwan and Quigon in a jam at the start of ep1 by giving them force super speed, and then completely abandoning that power for the rest of the films. I'm less curious about Rey's character so much as I am interesting in seeing how the writers try to paint themselves out of this corner without fucking up the canon further.

I'm back at work so I don't have much time.

I feel I accurately summarized your position when I said you were upset because this movie wasn't exactly what YOU wanted it to be. I'm going to say I'm really happy it wasn't the boring, template film you would have preferred.

Any time you say a character SHOULD have done this or that, you're part of the reason most films are utterly predictable.

You' ve pointed out what you didn't like, and people have shared their opinions on your position.

You don't need to keep hitting people over the head with it.
 
I'm back at work so I don't have much time.

I feel I accurately summarized your position when I said you were upset because this movie wasn't exactly what YOU wanted it to be. I'm going to say I'm really happy it wasn't the boring, template film you would have preferred.

Any time you say a character SHOULD have done this or that, you're part of the reason most films are utterly predictable.

You' ve pointed out what you didn't like, and people have shared their opinions on your position.

You don't need to keep hitting people over the head with it.

LOL.

"You were happy it wasn't a boring template" I can't believe you just said that about a film that rips off most of the major plot points of new hope.

Good call buddy! Good call!
 
You are 100% correct but fanboys will fight you to the death over it. JJ fucked up on so many levels. Don't worry, it will become inevitable when they realize they cannot keep re-watching the movie like the original.

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LMAO, another discussion about Kylo Ren vs Finn and Rey.

I get both sides of the argument. It was obvious that Kylo Ren was badly wounded, and that he was toying with Finn. That's why he finished him quickly when he wanted to. Rey was trained in combat, so it's not far fetched to think she could be at least decent with a lightsaber. So she could hold her own against an injured Kylo Ren. It's also possible that Rey has had training in the past. Which could explain her extremely fast progress.

But I also get that some people feel that it's a bad idea to show a major villain like Kylo Ren so vulnerable already. Even if that can be explained by the injury. But I guess that's just a personal preference. So no big deal IMO.

And I also get why some people think the scene wasn't that well done, considering Kylo Ren still moved quite well and it looks like he put a lot of power in his strikes. He didn't really move like a severely injured person, or at least it looks like that to me. So they could have portrayed that a bit better IMO.

So overall, I would have preferred it if the scene would be a bit different, and I think they could have handled it a bit better. But in the end, I get what they wanted to tell and that does make sense. Plus, who knows what we will learn about Rey.

And we shouldn't forget that the OT also had plenty of silly moments, and everyone still loves them. So all in all, it really isn't that big of a deal IMO.
 
LOL.

"You were happy it wasn't a boring template" I can't believe you just said that about a film that rips off most of the major plot points of new hope.

Good call buddy! Good call!

That was the point, you maroon.
 
I wonder whether Kylo Ren can even be redeemed after getting Aldo'd. He certainly lost his aura of terror and the all round coolness of his character at the end of the movie.

I don't think even a lightsaber shaped like a flying shark will help him leave a similar impression to what he did in his introduction scene, which is one of my favourites throughout all the movies.
 
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