melmer

Star Wars VII - Open spoilers

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I am under the impression that Ren isn't fully trained in the ways of the force, and that includes his lightsaber technique. Rey has that pike, so she already has some feel for melee combat. Ren is also emotionally overwrought (mostly over killing his father moments before) and wounded (having been shot by Chewbacca and grazed by Finn wielding Luke's saber).

 

I also dislike Starkiller/the First Order stuff quite a bit, but there's a bigger gap of time between 6 & 7 than there is between 3 & 4, and you'd imagine that Starkiller base is founded upon years-long R&D so it's not impossible to imagine it having taken the Empire/FO four or five decades to pioneer the technology behind it.

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Given that Kylo Ren is prone to acting like a big baby (see: console destroying temper tantrum, getting whiny over Rey being able to resist his mind-reading nonsense and then getting Told by Nazi General), it's not a huge shocker that a driven Rey would be able to win a fight over a distracted Ren.

 

Ren's lightsaber is also inferior to Luke/Anakin's, as evidenced by the rough edges, so you'd imagine that would give Rey (and Finn) some extra help in some of the prolonged clashes. If Rey's saber is even slightly stronger than Ren's, requiring less physical force to push back, she's got a huge headstart, even if Ren's been trained in some capacity.

 

We also don't know how long ago Ren switched to the Dark Side, and it could very much be the case that pulling a hard switch like he did could have resulted in a "downgrade" on the power scale, especially since we know he's still got enough light in him that it bothers him on a day-to-day.

 

Also Rey just flat-out owns, which I am 100% okay with (see also: Ep IV Luke Skywalker, Death Star-destroyer despite having never flown an X-Wing until what, a week ago), so there's that.

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I'm fine with Rey being a badass, my problem is how much that scene undermined the villain.  Kylo had at least enough skill for Luke to be unable to stop him for whatever reason.  He also intimidates trained and hardened soldiers, even the general.  Grand Moff Tarkin from Episode IV isn't intimidated at all by Vader and Kylo fears that he's much less powerful than him.  All of that is undone when Rey just closes her eyes and whups his butt.  I saw his killing Han as the last step to fully committing to the Dark Side.  He's probably emotional and angry about it on some level, but anger is supposed to make a Dark Side user stronger. 

 

Also a lightsaber is supposed to be a unique weapon that is not like any other melee weapon and requires the Force to use effectively (hence Finn, a trained soldier who as of yet hasn't shown any Force affinity, being crap at it).  I can go along with her being strong in the Force but I don't know.  Rey may have some skill with a staff but this was literally her first time ever handling a lightsaber.  She forgot to take the safety off the blaster but the lightsaber is no problem?  I just can't buy it.

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I honestly thought no one but a Jedi COULD use a lightsaber, so when Finn used it I was really really confused.

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I could've sworn someone told me that Jedi used the force to contain the laser part, but I don't actually know anything about Star Wars and anyway Finn is amazing so he deserves to use lightsabers.

 

(Although thinking on it, General Grievous is a robot and used lightsabers soooo whatever.)

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Yeah, Han uses Luke's saber to cut open the tauntaun in Empire so we know non-Jedi can switch them on. I felt that the melee weapon stormtrooper on Takodana was partly the film's way of explaining how Finn wasn't totally useless with it in a fight, too.

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The defunct canon said that the lightsaber is energy held in a containment field generated by the hilt.  The Force comes into play in using what is a massless blade with extreme gyroscopic force such that a normal person using it would be more likely to chop off their own limb than do any damage to their opponent.  I think some lightsabers were also designed such that the switch had to be held in the on position by the Force, a deadman's switch of sorts.

 

Buuuuut none of that matters now since the only canon is the new movies (and Rebels I guess).

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Yeah part of force training (in EU stuff) is learning how to build a lightsaber, which requires Force manipulation to fuse the parts and create a basically infinite power source and etc etc etc etc, but the blade itself is just a thing. You could use a halberd to cut down a tree but infantry can use it for more complicated things, that sort of stuff.

 

 

 

 

 

You probably couldn't use a halberd to cut down a tree. Maybe some really rough pruning?

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I'm fine with Rey being a badass, my problem is how much that scene undermined the villain. Kylo had at least enough skill for Luke to be unable to stop him for whatever reason. He also intimidates trained and hardened soldiers, even the general. Grand Moff Tarkin from Episode IV isn't intimidated at all by Vader and Kylo fears that he's much less powerful than him. All of that is undone when Rey just closes her eyes and whups his butt. I saw his killing Han as the last step to fully committing to the Dark Side. He's probably emotional and angry about it on some level, but anger is supposed to make a Dark Side user stronger.

I don't think it made him stronger; he was hoping it would but in reality it made him more conflicted and weakened him. I don't think he'll be redeemed though.

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I dunno, the lightsaber battles are so much better than the Starkiller base shit that I fail to take issue with it. I think Ren is probably the most interesting of four great characters, which is the film's biggest strength.

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-In all the time that Han and Chewie were together, did he not use Chewie's bowcaster? I can't believe that he's never fired it before.

This. It really bothered me.

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Maybe someone has already mentioned this in the thread, but I was discussing the awful death star stuff with my friends after watching it again this evening, and we realized just how completely unnecessary all of it is.  You could make a near seamless cut of this film that takes out all of the death star stuff.  You don't need to blow up 5 planets that no one cares about.  You don't need an unwatchable assault "planning" scene.  You don't need a pointless space battle that has zero tension; that even the rebels know the outcome of going in so that they don't even bother to evacuate.  All of it can go.  (While you're in there, may as well axe the terrible smuggling space monster bit too.)

 

You're still left with Han and Finn going to get Rey and the confrontation with Ren.  It would have been better if that stuff wasn't happening on a giant death star planet, but you can only do so much.

 

Imagine how much better the film would have been if it had actually been shot this way.  If the confrontation with Han and Ren and Rey had been the culmination of the movie Empire Strikes Back style rather than being buried in a bunch of pointless clutter that no one cares about.

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This. It really bothered me.

 

Chewie's bowcaster used to shoot green. This one shoots red, so it's a new one?

 

I took the fight between Finn and Kylo as Kylo arrogantly playing with Finn. Kylo ends the fight really quickly after Finn manages to hit him in the arm.

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Watched it again last night and came to the conclusion that the third act of this film is essentially Star Wars: The Hubris Awakens

 

- Han thinks he can sway his corrupt super-murderer son back to the Light

- Ren thinks he can play games with Finn before getting tagged

- Ren assumes he can still go easy on Rey after she beat him earlier

- The First Order thinks that blowing up the Republic makes them A-OK to blow up the Resistance, learning nothing from the Empire

- Phasma lowers the shields (admittedly at gunpoint) while assuming (and vocalizing) that this is a waste of their time and the Resistance will be crushed

- The Resistance thinks they can go after a massive base and not lose half their already tiny fleet

 

Lotta assumptions!

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2, 3, & 7 are the most common numbers in the Star Wars universe.

 

The Falcon is tractored to bay 327 on the Death Star. The trash compactor is unit number 3263827. The odds of successfully navigating an asteroid field are 3,720:1. The odds of surviving a night on Hoth? 725:1. The Falcon is granted permission to land on Bespin platform 327. 

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Maybe someone has already mentioned this in the thread, but I was discussing the awful death star stuff with my friends after watching it again this evening, and we realized just how completely unnecessary all of it is.  You could make a near seamless cut of this film that takes out all of the death star stuff.  You don't need to blow up 5 planets that no one cares about.  You don't need an unwatchable assault "planning" scene.  You don't need a pointless space battle that has zero tension; that even the rebels know the outcome of going in so that they don't even bother to evacuate.  All of it can go.  (While you're in there, may as well axe the terrible smuggling space monster bit too.)

 

You're still left with Han and Finn going to get Rey and the confrontation with Ren.  It would have been better if that stuff wasn't happening on a giant death star planet, but you can only do so much.

 

Imagine how much better the film would have been if it had actually been shot this way.  If the confrontation with Han and Ren and Rey had been the culmination of the movie Empire Strikes Back style rather than being buried in a bunch of pointless clutter that no one cares about.

 

Yep. Compare it to the first film: The Death Star plans drive the plot the entire time, so the conclusion being about the Death Star absolutely fits. Following that, this movie's entire plot should've been following a series of clues to find Luke, instead of starting that way and wandering off into a different plot halfway through.

 

(The space monster bit didn't really do much for me either, but at least it serves to establish the sort of things Han and Chewie are up to these days.)

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Yeah, I keep wishing the final act hadn't been a suicide mission to blow shit up, just some insane jailbreak attempt. Perhaps have Finn trying to steal the Falcon only to be subdued (and then aided) by Han & Chewie.

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That's definitely true. Birdsong's version would have been the logical one. I don't know if the movie is that much weaker for it, though. I liked the space monsters.

 

It would've been more interesting if the eventual Death Star had been built by hardline rebels.

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(The space monster bit didn't really do much for me either, but at least it serves to establish the sort of things Han and Chewie are up to these days.)

Speaking if which, is there a decent Star Wars equivalent of (or fan mod for) the Elite / Frontier space trading and smuggling type of game?

That was my first thought when seeing the scene unfold.

Didn't Amy Hennig work on the Uncharted series of games? Doesn't Nathan Drake have traces of the Han Solo cocky rogue character about him? And isn't Hennig working on a Star Wars project at the moment?

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