Star Wars: The Force Awakens Reactions - SPOILERS HERE ONLY

[_MJ_]

How any Star Wars fan can say this film is good when it contradicts an established scene and general concepts in how things work, keeps making me questioning the sanity of some people.

 

It's completely fine to dislike or be disappointed in the movie, but when you say things like "questioning the sanity of some people" aka "we're smart, but majority who enjoyed it are stupid" your intentions might appear dubious to some people.  There is going to be push back to that type of statement.  Obviously.

 

And it's not as if there isn't a fair amount of critical and even negative takes on the The Force Awakens out there too.  I don't think anyone is bursting a big groupthink bubble now.

 

Unrelated:  Someone or a group of people have finally told Lucas the whole "white slavery" comment wasn't exactly going over well.  He's done the patent clarification through a release statement thing now.  Checklist complete.

Edited January 3, 2016 by _MJ_

[Super Weak Machine]

I found it thoroughly satisfying.

[DTTW]

 

How any Star Wars fan can say this film is good when it contradicts an established scene and general concepts in how things work, keeps making me questioning the sanity of some people.

 

It's completely fine to dislike or be disappointed in the movie, but when you say things like "questioning the sanity of some people" aka "we're smart, and majority who enjoyed it are stupid" your intentions might appear dubious to some people.  There is going to be push back to that type of statement.  Obviously.

 

And it's not as if there isn't a fair amount of critical and even negative takes on the The Force Awakens out there too.  I don't think anyone is bursting a big groupthink bubble now.

 

Unrelated:  Someone or a group of people have finally told Lucas the whole "white slavery" comment wasn't exactly going over well.  He's done the patent clarification through a release statement thing now.  Checklist complete.

 

 

I'm sure time will take this movie down a peg or two, but people saying this was a great movie....I just don't get how they come to that conclusion other than nostalgia kicking into over drive. It's just not that good of a film unless you only compare it to the last three Star War films.

With that said, Disney already has my money for the next film.

[goodhelmet]

There are paragraphs and essays explaining why they like it even on this board. We have not seen the same thoughtful analysis from you. 

[The Nature Boy]

I liked the movie and I hadn't seen a Star Wars movie since Episode III came out. I also haven't seen the prequels since maybe 2004. 

 

This movie made me want to watch Episodes 1-6 again

[DTTW]

Eh, nevermind.

[andrew8798]

Finally got a chance to see it was good But I can see why people compare it to New Hope.

 

Need to redo my rankings this one would be third.

 

TPM and ATOC would be the bottom two after I did a rewatch

[tigertooth]

The only suspension of disbelief that I struggled with was how Finn and Rey got the Falcon off the ground before it got destroyed during the attack in Jakku. I mean, they were bombing everything visible , but yet they had time to get in,get powered up and take off. That was a bit of a stretch.

Again, a minor gripe, but I'm nowhere pretentious enough to let that dissuade my feelings about the movie. This fucking rocked...

 

I can sort of see why they wouldn't have targeted something that was covered up by a big blanket.

 

Wait a minute... that's not a blanket!

 

[tigertooth]

Also also I totally laughed at the Luke reveal because for some reason it just felt TOO dramatically staged and I thought "I've been standing here for 20 years waiting for someone to come see me looking cool." And the hobo beard just sold it. It wasn't made better when Rey held out the lightsaber just a LITTLE too long without either of them doing anything. Accidently hilarious ending.

 

I didn't find it as bad as you did, but I did sort of think Poe Dameron was going to pop in and say "So do you talk first or do I?"

 

The list below might imply otherwise, but like nearly everybody else, I really enjoyed the movie (which I just saw Saturday, as I was out of the country for a bit).  I have a bunch of questions and stuff, but it's possible those questions have perfectly good answers.  Here we go.

 

So anybody can just run in the Falcon, and fly it off?

Even after reading this thread, I don't find the "mysterious map to Luke / R2 randomly starts up" stuff to be satisfying.  I mean, I don't care how R2 got a general map of the galaxy. I care how he got the directions to Luke's current location.  I guess the idea that Luke decided to hide but left a breadcrumb trail is the most logical, but still seems weak.  It might get better if it's explained more.

 

When they're in Maz's cantina, Finn says he's going to take off with the aliens at the corner table.  He hands his blaster back to Han, but Han says to keep it.  Then the First Order attacks, and Finn is going out to fight and says he doesn't have a weapon, leading to Maz suggesting he use Luke's lightsaber.  So what happened to the blaster?  Maybe I just missed him dropping it or something.  Still seems weird that they bothered to do the "no, you keep it" bit for (as best as I could tell) no reason.

 

Someone mentioned that Han using Chewie's crossbow came off as a favor to Harrison Ford.  I felt like the most obvious favor to him was Chewie handing him a coat for the last brief scene outside on the snow planet. 

Thanks to whoever posted the bullet points explaining the relationship between the Republic, the Resistance, and the First Order.  Kinda wish that had been laid out in the opening crawl.  Still don't totally get how the Republic would think they're going to keep the First Order from reneging on their deal and taking over when the FO is a serious military power and the Republic seemingly has no official army. 

 

What exactly did the Starkiller destroy?  They said they destroyed the Republic, but if they didn't wax Coruscant (and Naboo and wherever else), then surely some of the Republic remains, right?

I hope Kylo Ren doesn't turn babyface. Not even like Anakin did at the end of Jedi. You don't get to come back from murdering your father in cold blood.  I'd accept a babyface tease of him killing Snoke at a critical moment, only to reveal that he actually did it so he could take over as head Dark Sider.  BTW, I hate Snoke's name and the fact that he looks so generic.  Dumb fan theory: he's a grown up Darth Maul.  Yes, that's ridiculous on several levels, but at least it's not as bad as the name "Snoke".  Almost as bad as "Dooku".

 

I do like the idea somebody mentioned about Kylo being seduced by the light side.  They could even underscore that idea by having him fall for Rey.  Granted, that gets a bit weird if it turns out they're cousins or siblings, but that wouldn't be new in their family.

The monsters Han was trucking around were kind of goofy.  After the roller droids in the prequels and BB8, did we really need to turn a sarlacc into a rolly-ball?  Should have just been Rancors.  Granted that would have made the "death by automatic door" finish seem like even more of a retread. 

I didn't feel the love for Phasma or Poe.  I didn't get any depth from either of them.  Finn and Rey were cool.  I disagree with the Mary Sue criticism.

I don't totally love the fact that Rey got the better of Kylo in their duel, but as others have said, they set it up well: We know Rey has melee weapon skills, we know Kylo was wounded, we know Kylo isn't fully trained and that he loses focus easily, and we know Rey is stronger in the Force.  So while it's still unfortunate for him to do a job right after going over Han, it could have been much worse.

If Finn was in sanitation, why was he on the front lines in the initial raid on Jakku?  Maybe he had been in sanitation and had just been called up to his first action assignment.  That'd explain why he was so rattled by the violence.

Why didn't the X-wings use photon torpedoes on the Starkiller?

 

As has been pointed out many times, the movie was very much a retread of stuff we've seen before, but I was fine with that.  Given the crappiness of the prequels, I'm perfectly happy for Ep 7 to get things back on track by starting off with a solid helping of familiarity.  They'll need to dial that down moving forward, but for this one I think the positives of the approach outweighed the negatives.

[Matt D]

My parents saw this over the weekend. First movie they've seen in many years, maybe since War Horse? My mother thought it was loud enough that one could not fall asleep in it and that all the actors were good except for she really didn't like the whiny bad guy, partially because he didn't look anything like his parents.

[The Unholy Dragon]

In hindsight, they even set up that Stormtroopers/Finn has melee weapon training with the "TRAITOR!" guy that's become a huge, hilarious meme.

[Matt D]

In hindsight, they even set up that Stormtroopers/Finn has melee weapon training with the "TRAITOR!" guy that's become a huge, hilarious meme.

 

The Rucka short story book goes into a little more detail there setting that up. I got that from the library for the 13 year old and I'm through the Finn and Rey stories this weekend.

[The Nature Boy]

My parents saw this over the weekend. First movie they've seen in many years, maybe since War Horse? My mother thought it was loud enough that one could not fall asleep in it and that all the actors were good except for she really didn't like the whiny bad guy, partially because he didn't look anything like his parents.

 

Minor point but I am also not sure if I buy Adam Driver as the son of Harrison Ford and Carrie Fisher.

 

But Daisy Ridley as Natalie Portman's granddaughter is right on and I'm not sure if that casting was intentional or if they just got lucky. 

[Jingus]

What exactly did the Starkiller destroy?  They said they destroyed the Republic, but if they didn't wax Coruscant (and Naboo and wherever else), then surely some of the Republic remains, right?

That's something that bugged me too. Which planets were those? Who were the people on it? Why did the First Order target them in particular? We never even learn those worlds' names. Compare this to A New Hope, which only says the name "Alderaan" about thirty times in a row to make damn sure that we know exactly what this place is. And there certainly wasn't anything close to Alec Guinness's "millions of voices" moment to sell the death and destruction of what just happened.

[Craig H]

The names of the planets in the context of the movie are irrelevant, but serve as a launchpad to the satellite content surrounding the movie, if you're into that. What you needed to know was that the planet with the Republic leadership, along with four other planets, were destroyed, and the Republic is no more. All that's left is the Resistance.

 

You also didn't need the "millions of voices" moment. The gravity and impact of actually seeing the faces of those on Hosnian Prime and the inescapable horror approaching them, combined with the look of horror of those outside of Maz's place, did as much to sell the death and destruction as Alec Guinness' line. It's one thing to see a planet destroyed from afar, as was the case in Star Wars (because really, fuck that "New Hope" name). It's something entirely different to see the people about to die and know there's nothing they can do to stop it. It's what made me think that shit was about to get for the Resistance, even though there was no f'n way they would kill all of them off. I found it to be one of the best sells of a doomsday weapon ever.

[Matt D]

Troublingly, those were probably all the moderate voices, so we're left suddenly with all the neocons and batty old Leia Organa-Solo-Skywalker running the galaxy.

[Craig H]

I tend to agree with what I read elsewhere about how the First Order could afford a new doomsday weapon. After the Empire fell, there were likely very many royalists and other neocons in the Galaxy to fund anything to bring down the Republic/Galactic Senate. I know the Republic leadership rotates from planet to planet, so it's possible there were government officials scattered around the galaxy, but none who would be good enough to have a seat at the table. So either those remaining (races within local governments on whatever swamp planet or junker haven they come from) fill the void, or the First Order does.

 

Then again, a silver lining is that the Republic completely buried their heads in the sand, wanted to pretend that the First Order wasn't any kind of threat, they de-militarized and secretly funded the Resistance to handle defense duties, so maybe decapitating the leadership on Hosnian Prime wasn't THAT bad. Although, I wonder where Leia receives her funding from if the Republic is dead.

[Matt D]

The Hutts.

[piranesi]

There were so many big swelling emotional moments at the end it's easy to overlook how downer the ending should have been and how royally fucked the galaxy is if all the resistance has is what we saw from them.  The First Order seem to basically have all the remaining fleet/weapons of the Empire (minus one death star and a few destroyers) and now an open field to run in.

 

One imagines that the planets that don't want to fall into their clutches will scramble to form some sort of alliance. But, like, their pretty doomed.

[piranesi]

Thinking about how little Luke's whole storyline did to actually change things in the long run and I wonder if the ways TFA mimics ANH don't point to something kind of poetic how the "balancing" that the force does is without any agenda other than balance itself.

 

"The force" seems to renew balance by pairing people up generation after generation to go through the same struggle leading to the same points over and over.  It really doesn't have a consciousness to care if good or evil wins or to make things better for people through this balancing, but just to keep the balance in place.  It's not a linear thing leading to an outcome.  Balance is a circular thing.  TIME IS A FLAT CIRCLE MARTY!!!

 

So 30 years after Luke/Vader we get Rey/Kylo.  How important are they to what would eventually have happened anyway politically in this world?  In terms of the big events not very.  But just enough so that the cycle of dark/light keeps going for more generations.

[Matt D]

The issue is that God, being Lucas, abandoned his children.

[Craig H]

Which is funny, since he adopted.

 

Oh, you meant his fake children...

[Matt D]

If he had kept going, he would have never let them suffer such losses. His ego likely wouldn't have let him, if nothing else. Things wouldn't have ended up cyclical. You almost need a thirty year gap for that or else everyone would have rebelled against it.

The Force behind the Force abandoned Luke, basically.

[Craig H]

There were so many big swelling emotional moments at the end it's easy to overlook how downer the ending should have been and how royally fucked the galaxy is if all the resistance has is what we saw from them.  The First Order seem to basically have all the remaining fleet/weapons of the Empire (minus one death star and a few destroyers) and now an open field to run in.

 

One imagines that the planets that don't want to fall into their clutches will scramble to form some sort of alliance. But, like, their pretty doomed.

 

Pretty much this. The one criticism many people had was, "how could this just all happen again?" Well, we live in a world where that's happened time and time again. World War 1 and 2 specifically. And so now, neglecting what a problem the First Order could grow to be has lead to this point where the Republic is dead (unless some facet of leadership exists on Chandrila), Han is dead, the Resistance didn't have many X-Wings to begin with and only 3 or 4 made it away from Starkiller Base in tact, Finn is in a coma, Maz's place is in ruins and the artifacts there are presumably destroyed, Maz's status is unknown, and Kylo Ren is going to become even more powerful. Red Letter Media pointed out how this was really elements of Star Wars and Empire combined because it has a really downer ending that's overlooked. I wonder what the immediate reception was to the Empire Strikes Back and if it took time for people to see what a downer ending it had.

[tigertooth]

The names of the planets in the context of the movie are irrelevant, but serve as a launchpad to the satellite content surrounding the movie, if you're into that. What you needed to know was that the planet with the Republic leadership, along with four other planets, were destroyed, and the Republic is no more. All that's left is the Resistance.

But I don't get how the Republic can be totally gone if Coruscant still stands.

I mean, of course there are possible answers to that question, but the movie didn't answer it satisfactorily.  Not a huge deal, but a little distracting.  I mean, you can tell me that this means the end of the Republic, but it's hard for me to feel it unless it's Coruscant that's getting starkilled.