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Star Wars VII - Open spoilers

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So did the prequels, for what it's worth.

 

(that's not really a spoiler either. I haven't seen the new movie yet)

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You don't want to talk about Star Wars VII in the Star Wars VII thread? Can't you use spoiler tags? (Or perhaps this should just be taken as a spoilerful thread now the movie's out.)

Well, I imagine there'll be a lot of discussion and it gets annoying to have all of it tagged I think. Plus, weren't we supposed to make more new threads? :)

Anyway, I saw the movie. The trailers did nothing for me and I wasn't particularly excited. I liked it more than I thought I would, but at the same time it had all the problems I expected it to have too. Things I suspect most people won't see as problems. People who want to like it will.

The sequels have potential and might in hindsight make me like this movie more.

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So did the prequels, for what it's worth.

(that's not really a spoiler either. I haven't seen the new movie yet)

Honestly I didn't even remember that, I haven't seen them since they were in theatres.

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Anyway, I saw the movie. The trailers did nothing for me and I wasn't particularly excited. I liked it more than I thought I would, but at the same time it had all the problems I expected it to have too. Things I suspect most people won't see as problems. People who want to like it will.

Come on, let's get into it then!

I was really happy with several major aspects of the film: Rey coming through as the main character, emphasized by her final quest; herself and Leia being equal if not superior to many of their peers; the question of her parentage being left unanswered, in explicit terms at least, for example. Weaving in plot points that were originally intended for Ep VI also appreciated.

It did fit into the theme of Discovering Cool New Things People Can Do, but I couldn't buy her discovering her force powers, matching Kylo for force use immediately, and then beating him in a saber battle mere hours later.

I'm fine with keep spoiler tags on until Friday, the US release.

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Agree with everything you said.

Big spoilers:

Her ability to fly the Flacon after struggling to take off was strange to me.

Also, the amount of stuff lifted directly from A New Hope (and to some extent Empire and RotJ) annoyed me a little. Here's an incomplete list off the top of my head:

-Forcepulling Luke's exact same lightsaber out of the snow, it's the same shot

-Droid with secret info the rebels want is chased by the empire on a desert planet

-Reluctant hero escapes boring life on desert planet on the Millennium Falcon

-Stormtrooper takes his helmet off and rescues someone off an imperial ship

-Hiding from intruders under the floor of the Falcon

-The motivator on the Falcon being busted

-Finding Luke's / Anakin's saber in basically the same box

-The trench run

-"Death Star" that's just about to blow the rebel base up

-Self sacrifice to Darth Vader (Mk II) while Luke Mk II looks on

-The cantina scene with worse music

There's probably more. It felt as much if not more as a loose remake of Ep. IV than its own thing. That's fine I suppose, but you're never going to reach greatness by simply trying to copy what's come before. I suppose they really needed to play it safe after Lucas messed up so badly with the last three, but still. I think the new characters were good enough that the other two movies could end up being a lot better though, now that they've gotten the nostalgia out of the way.

The X-Wing stuff at the end was poorly done I thought. It either needed more screen time or less. It doesn't hold a candle to the space battles in Ep. IV and VI, there was no tension and it didn't feel climactic at all.

I liked that the light saber choreography was more reined in. I hated the acrobatic wankery of the prequels and I was afraid they'd go down that road. I thought they did too many editing cuts and I think they can do a lot better, but it was okay. However it did feel strange that Finn didn't die instantly in that fight. Also not a fan of Kylo Ren, or the "new emperor". He came off as an angsty teen and not as an imposing villain. Even Darth Maul was better.

The effects were great for the most part, it's a nice looking movie, but a few instances of CGI really stood out, like the scrap dealer, the stupid monster chase (worst part of the movie) and the lady with the glasses. You'd think that this movie would have the best CGI money can buy but apparently not.

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My Star Wars prediction? BB-8 is either going to be an irritating Scrappy-Doo or actually end up betraying the good guys somehow.

 

Or the new Star Wars is actually a 2 hour lecture on trade agreements delivered by Jarjar.

My prediction is one of the GOP candidates in the USA is going to say the film is liberal propaganda or try to use it as an example of how America has fallen / must be defended.

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Okay, just did Attack of the Clones.

 

- I stand by kung fu Yoda being awesome. I like that the lightsaber is a key component of being a Jedi and that he uses one when he absolutely must.

- The writing of Anakin and Padme is all over the place. Anakin comes up with the most teenage, corniest shit out of the blue ("I'm haunted by the kiss you should never have given me," "I don't like sand. It's coarse and gets everywhere. Here everything's soft" *lech*). At least he's consistent. Poor Natalie Portman, though. First she has to belittle Anakin to make him bitter when Obi-Wan's not around to do it ("You'll always be the little boy I knew on Tatooine", "Don't look at me like that - it makes me uncomfortable",  "Oh, Anakin's not a Jedi Master..."). But simultaneously she has to fall in love with this petulant dude and his schoolboy lines ("Now that I’m with you again, I’m in agony. My heart is beating, hoping that that kiss will not become a scar"). After a quick slaughter trip to Tatooine we find that the corny patter is catching when she declares "I've been dying a little bit each day since you came back into my life...I truly deeply love you..." out of nowhere. Nightmare.

- The constant blue screen is a quiet killer. The scenes in the Jedi Temple feel absolutely dead. There's always some light source  blooming down a hall and impossible structures. Ironically Tatooine feels like a breath of fresh air when 99% of the screen is in-camera as opposed to one or two real actors.

- CG Yoda, in general is still pretty impressive.

- Jango should have got more cool stuff to do. He has a scrap with Obi-Wan, blasts a few things, then Samuel L lops his head off. No wonder the Stormtroopers were so shit.

 

It was okay. Maybe I'm going soft, or reduced expectations make it palatable now. The music is top-drawer. Obi-Wan is pretty bad-ass, mullet and all. C-

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I honestly think Ewan Mcgregor's performance as Obi Wan is my favorite part of the prequel trilogy. There are so many problems with those movies obviously, but for me, Obi Wan was the one character that was done decently. I can't put my finger on exactly why, he just really worked for me.

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I honestly think Ewan Mcgregor's performance as Obi Wan is my favorite part of the prequel trilogy. There are so many problems with those movies obviously, but for me, Obi Wan was the one character that was done decently. I can't put my finger on exactly why, he just really worked for me.

 

He manages to introduce some modicum of personality into his dialog. Obi Wan is hardly the most colorful character in the original series, but in the prequels he plays against wooden boards Anakin and Padme, the exposition nozzles in the Jedi Counsel, and whatever slightly-offensive caricatures are supposed to be comic relief. Obi Wan's dialog isn't much better than the other characters, but Mcgregor manages to find places to emote wherever he can. Usually the emotion is "exasperation with Anakin" but it's done well.

 

There's a line in Attack of the Clones, at the beginning of the arena scene on Tatooine, when Anakin (captured and tied up) says he's come to rescue Obi Wan (also captured and tied up) and Obi Wan says "good job". This is some corny, clichéd dialog, sure, but it's such a refreshing bit of levity in a movie where most dialog is delivered dead-serious and super-boring.

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Just got back from the force awakens :tup:

I went with my wife who hasn't seen any of the films so I thought I'd better fill her in an hour before the film.

"So, they live in a galaxy where there's space travel and aliens all over the place. The whole galaxy is run by this evil army called the empire, that's who all the storm troopers are..." "The guys in white armour?" "Yeah", "oh, I thought they were the good guys"

Luckily, I didn't make an additional spoiler thread as I was going to call it (obviously don't read this SPOILERS)

Han dies: a force awaken spoiler thread

That would've been awkward. Saw that happening a mile off. They handled it really well though, felt a bit emotional. None of the rebals gave a shit... I guess loads of pilots died, and they just blow up a Death Star 20 times the size of the last one, with only 20 X-Wings. Whoop Whoop!

We both really liked Kyle Ren. He's supposed to be an weak angsty loser, easily manipulated. I can see there being flash backs in the next film and he'll be an underdog in training, can't handle not living up to expectations, why he went to the dark side to get more powerful.

Annoyed when he shouted "traitor" at Finn, he didn't come back with "says the guy who just killed his father". I guess Finn didn't actually know they were related. Maybe Kylo is angry at himself as he knows he's the real traitor... Is this a given or am I reading too much into it.

I didn't like how they made Ray look really feeble at the beginning, struggling to pull a relatively small pile of scrap metal. Cut to her beating up two guys, followed off with her beating Kylo in a test of strength. All of that is fine, just don't show her struggling to pull 20kg of trash.

Poe is the greatest human being that ever lived :) who needs the fucking force amirite

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Han dies: a force awaken spoiler thread

That would've been awkward. Saw that happening a mile off.

You're probably already well aware, of course, but just as a point of interest there's this nugget (from t'wiki for Ep VI: Return of the Jeds):

"Ford suggested that Han Solo be killed through self-sacrifice. Kasdan concurred, saying it should happen near the beginning of the film to instill doubt as to whether the others would survive, but Lucas was vehemently against it and rejected the concept."

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This was about as good as it possibly could've been. It's not the second coming, but it's a fun action movie that has all of those things you liked as a kid.

 

Complaints:

 

Snoke sucks. So much. Worst part of the movie. Fuck all of that. Cut it out and hand it back to Peter Jackson, thank you very much.

 

The First Order in general was the weakest bit of the film. If you have the ability to destroy everything, why are you waiting? The machinations that led to the third act were so weak, I was afraid Abrams & Co. were about to lose all the good will they'd built until that moment.

 

Gwendoline Christie got to do nothing, which was incredibly disappointing.

 

The script did a real poor job of summing up the galacto-political state of affairs; how big is the Republic? What's the difference between the Resistance and the Republic? How much power does the First Order wield?

 

The four new leads are all aces, though I could've done with a bit more Poe.

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Well that was pretty fun. My partner and I both came away thinking it was really good. I still think Fury Road was better but he's sure they're about the same.

 

Our biggest nitpicks are that quite a few scenes felt like they went on for too long. Especially the later torture scenes and (for him) the scene on the island. There's only so long the force torture looked interesting.

It makes sense for Kylo Ren to be petulant and whiny but I'd rather wished for him to have actually had his shit together. I think his rival in The First Order's army was more interesting.

Poe should have died, either in the crash or as a final action on the construct planet.

I was worried that it'd spend way too much time nostalgia'ing to be fun but luckily it wasn't so bad. There was a fair bit of deja vu though.

We're disappointed that there wasn't more time with Gwendoline Christie's character. She seemed fun, I'd love if there was a spinoff where she basically acted as evil commander Shepard.

The First Order is such a super dumb name. What were they thinking?

Some of the shots didn't have a lot of focus. Maybe it was the screen, But we saw it on one of those big Titan XE screens and some shots were disappointingly blurry.

The movie was filled with good bits! But I think the standout for me was the cantina scene; I know that was a callback but it just reinforces for me how much I really need a bounty hunter spinoff. I want to see the movie version of Nar Shaddar.

I liked that the lightsaber combat was back to basics. Slightly miffed that normies could almost hold up to force users with them but maybe that just emphasises how wimpy Kylo was?

I liked the New Emperor scenes but something was missing.

I agree that the movie could have done better to say how big the New Republic was, or how this secret planet(s) killer was built and not fired in total silence. Plus at several times I'm fairly sure the 'Resistance' was given tip offs about the planet firing again, so they have agents stationed there but they don't know anything about it or had no plans to do anything? Maybe the Resistance should spend less time chasing after Luke and more time stopping a sun powered star system killer instead?

 

I really, really did like the film but now that I think of it a few things were dumb. I'm only really bothered by some of the scene pacing and blurry screens though.

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Now that I've thought about it some more, my biggest problem with the movie is

The plot.

 

The first half or more of the movie is focused on something that barely relates at all to the second half / last third of the movie. I mean, everything revolves around how important the map BB8 has is, but the First Order doesn't take the map (only Rey) and the Resistance doesn't really seem all that concerned about Rey. So you have this almost entirely separate plot (blow up the "Starkiller Base") that just happens to take place where a character we care about is being held. A character who escapes on her own anyway. The first plot doesn't flow into the second one at all. That's why when they go to blow the thing up it doesn't feel climatic.

 

I think it's fair to compare it to A New Hope, which certainly isn't a perfect movie either, but I do think it's plotted much better. In ANH you have a droid whose information is the key to making the final battle work, so everything in the movie was leading up to that. It also had less contrivances, okay the droids going down on Tatooine was a bit of luck, but Luke meeting Obi-Wan wasn't, getting his lightsaber wasn't, getting captured by the Death Star really wasn't (they were going where they thought Leia would be). In TFA I'm okay with some of the contrivance, the Falcon just happened to be there? That's fine. Getting boarded by Han and Chewie, sure why not. Finding Luke's lost lightsaber on some planet they just happened to land on, that's sloppy writing. Oh and as soon as anyone sees a presumably mass produced droid the First Order storms the planet? That was a cheap callback to Mos Eisley, except there they were looking for droids in a small area, not the entire universe.

 

Sorry, this was a bit rambling.

Anyway, I think I like the first act of the movie way more than the rest. Jakku had some really nice shots and good sets, and I liked the slow pacing. The rest was a bit more "well, we gotta have some action".

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I've seen it twice now and I really liked it. I had no expectations before and I was surprised how much it pulled me in.

Also In reply to eot ^ I think the droid was mentioned as one of a kind or something.

 

I thought the film was part playing it safe (death start, trench run etc) and part moving forward(Kylo rens insecurity/inverted strive to be dark, hans death etc). I wasn't too on board with some of the previous and I think they may have tried to have their cake and eat it too by doing both. Maybe thats why the death star stuff didn't quite land how it should have. I hope the future installments can now focus on moving forward and play it less safe.  

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Now that I've thought about it some more, my biggest problem with the movie is

The plot.

 

The first half or more of the movie is focused on something that barely relates at all to the second half / last third of the movie. I mean, everything revolves around how important the map BB8 has is, but the First Order doesn't take the map (only Rey) and the Resistance doesn't really seem all that concerned about Rey. So you have this almost entirely separate plot (blow up the "Starkiller Base") that just happens to take place where a character we care about is being held. A character who escapes on her own anyway. The first plot doesn't flow into the second one at all. That's why when they go to blow the thing up it doesn't feel climatic.

".

 

So I think that the decision to go after Rey and not the droid by Kylo Ren is going to come into play in the next movies. There was obviously a lot of tension/competition between Kylo Ren and General Hux while they compete for the admiration of Andy Serkais.

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They were telegraphing a Kylo Ren/Rey sibling relationship so hard -- to me, at least. Kylo Ren asking "Which girl?" when they say a girl helped the droid escape, the little green lady asking Han about her followed by a cutaway, some of the sounds/images in the forcey woo woo flashback, Kylo Ren showing such an interest in her... and with all the parallels in the plot that there already are, that idea is just sticking in my mind.

 

But I'm probably being a wrongo bongo so who knows.

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Boom. It's great to come out of a Star Wars film with questions because you don't know where it's going to go! Good film. Darker than expected.

 

Some nice strong female roles (although Captain Phasma was little more than a footnote - perhaps a victim in the editing room? - hopefully we'll see more of her). The plot doesn't bear too much scrutiny, but it rattles along fast enough not to matter. I like that it tees up dozens of questions. The Galaxy's gone to shit and Luke's hanging out on the Shetland Isles?! What's he been up to? I really enjoyed Kylo Ren and his terrible insecurity. Having these legends to live up to and lashing out violently. I liked that his lightsaber was rough and his mask was like a crappy copy. Using the force to hold a laser blast mid-air=awesome, though I thought it was strange that both Finn (and Rey, to an extent) could hold ground with a lightsaber against a Sith Lord in training. The script was punchy enough, plenty of New Hope callbacks but nothing sickly. I'm still processing it. I'm feeling a little solemn now, actually. I like how Han (sorry, Harn)'s death was 'shocking'. By which I mean he didn't make a touching quip before running into the reactor with a thermal detonator to destroy the shield and save millions. He died with shock on his face.

 

But now Han Solo is dead. sadface

 

Just to check, it WAS Coruscant that got obliterated, yes?

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They were telegraphing a Kylo Ren/Rey sibling relationship so hard -- to me, at least. Kylo Ren asking "Which girl?" when they say a girl helped the droid escape, the little green lady asking Han about her followed by a cutaway, some of the sounds/images in the forcey woo woo flashback, Kylo Ren showing such an interest in her... and with all the parallels in the plot that there already are, that idea is just sticking in my mind.

 

But I'm probably being a wrongo bongo so who knows.

I think another sibling story would be kinda lame. Also the main character in every movie has been a Skywalker and I'm not sure Kylo Ren counts.

 

One idea I heard was that she was in training at Luke's academy at a very early age, but doesn't have any memory of that. Maybe Luked dumped her on Jakku when he went off to do his thing.

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