TransatlanticFoe wrote:Rey beating Ren can be explained by the shot he took to the stomach (Chewie's bowcaster was fucking some serious shit up elsewhere so I'm guessing it wasn't just a flesh wound) but Finn being able to handle a lightsaber and hold his own was too far.
No, it can't be explained by that because it wasn't explained by that. Chewie's shot was another lazy script device to gloss over the fact that the entire thing was horribly dumb.
In Gladiator at the end when Commodus secretly stabs Maximous and therefore he struggles in the fight, we explicitly understand the situation and odds because it is clearly defined. In FA a guy who can stop laser bullets in mid air, blast people against trees or paralyse them at will suddenly can't overcome a flesh wound to defeat a girl who has never wielded a lightsabre in her life. And that's purely an aside to the fact she can wield a lightsabre with no experience whatsoever as if she's grandstanding in a fucking technique competition. It's just lazy and badly done. These scripts are not properly vetted or prepared or scrutinized or rewritten as they should be, even for the likes of Star Wars.
Did the prequels even have as many nonsensical narrative errors as this? I'm not sure.
On the First Order and Resistance, this was an aspect very poorly introduced. I think the idea is that the Republic is a small government of systems and the First Order is a competing regime born from Imperial remnants. The Resistance is not the Republic military but a rebel force within First Order held territory. That's what I took it as, but it wasn't really covered and the "destruction" of the Republic was confusing - I think it was just where the senate was based but no-one seemed to really care about it (even less so than Alderaan in Episode IV), so what were we supposed to think?
You weren't meant to care about Alderaan, but the fucking Republic was meant to be the central governing body of the immediate star systems. It's referred to (and shown in the SEs) enough times to establish its relevance to the saga's universe.
Now, that said, I don't really care much about the Republic, and if it gets blown up, that's OK too. But not like this. In FA we're basically shown a bunch of bad guys who, one assumes are working within limited means if we're to accept Jedi's victories, yet have built a death star out of a planet and all of a sudden, without any prior buildup or narrative introduction decide to blow two fucking planets out of the cosmos. And one happens to the Republic. immediately after this turn of events absolutely nobody seems to care that the Republic has been obliterated and the other ten plot threads continue as usual.
Whether you care about the existence of the Republic or not, it's not any kind of suitable demise. Exactly the same injustice served to Han shortly thereafter.
Despite receiving near universal praise from nearly every critic, I don't think TFA was really that good. TFA suffers from next to no explanation on anything in favor of action scenes, poor characterization of the main character, thoughtless copying of plot elements of ANH, and a poor portrayal of the Force.
Under the looking glass, the First Order and their Starkiller Base have more holes than the Death Star. Apparently the Empire somehow collapsed with the death of the Emperor and Darth Vader, and another group called the First Order has risen from its ashes. A splinter faction capable of converting a planet into a battle station within thirty years which is capable of destroying planets, compared to the Empire whose Death Star was only as big as our Moon. Not only that, but the First Order commands an enormous army which would be capable of victory over the Resistance whose response to a fuckhueg battle station is to send a squadron of circa 20 fighters. Either the Empire was bigger than originally imagined, or the First Order must have really gained some enormous financial support. Was it even necessary to replace the Empire with the First Order? People would have had less problems with a splinter faction being able to build bigger Death Stars if it was done by the good ol' Empire.
Really though, where did they get the money and manpower to convert a planet into a battle station? Did they really convert such a huge structure in thirty years, or was it still being built during the reign of the Empire? Is having such a super weapon even necessary? How does a Stormtrooper whose job was a janitor know the critical vulnerability of a giant battle station? What do you gain out of destroying planets anyways, isn't it more profitable to conquer them? (this applies to the OT too) Was it even necessary to convert a planet into a battle station that harvests solar energy for its planet-busting super beam when a moon-sized structure could do the same?
And the problems extend beyond just that. The Starkiller Base's place in the story feels just like yet another reference. In ANH, when the Empire used the Death Star to blow up Alderaan, it displayed the Empire's strength and mercilessness, as Alderaan was only destroyed as mere leverage to make Princess Leia tell where the Rebel base is. The destruction of a planet was only chump change to these guys, and it did a good job of making the audience dislike the Empire. In TFA, the First Order blows the Republic capital up because of reasons? The impact on the audience of such a weapon of mass destruction is lost when the essentially same kind of people have already done the same kind of thing three movies ago, and when it happens to a planet far, far away who nobody cares about (or in the case of people who really hated the prequel trilogy, they would even root for the First Order), there wasn't much to the planet destruction scene other than visual spectacle.
Not only that, but the destruction of Starkiller Base feels incredibly far-fetched. The original Death Star was destroyed by shooting a pair of (Force) guided missiles into a vent shaft that led directly to a reactor in the core of the Death Star, which would cause a chain reaction once destroyed that would decommission the entire Death Star. Everything in ANH led up to that very point, of Luke's growth and mastery over the Force and the confrontation with Darth Vader. The destruction of the Starkiller Base just feels like a formality, it is only a background event while the real boss fight happens on the surface between Kylo Ren, Finn, and Rey. The Starkiller Base was destroyed by the Resistance blowing up an installation on the surface that caused a chain reacton which destroyed Starkiller Base. You'd think that such a high-profile installation wouldn't have been so exposed to possible enemy airstrikes, or that at the very least they would have placed alot more defenses around such vital spots that could withstand an assault by a measly squadron of twenty fighters. Did the First Order truly place that much faith in the planetary shielding of Starkiller Base? Wouldn't they have stationed a fleet around Starkiller Base capable of intercepting a squadron of light X-Fighters? Why was it even necessary to reuse a plot element from the previous movies without putting a proper original twist to it? The Starkiller Base is really just the Death Star but bigger, without the story properly leading up to the final battle like it did in ANH.
Death Star-ripoffs aside, the story starts off with Poe getting a map from some old guy which (partially) describes the route to wherever Luke Skywalker is hiding. How the old guy got it, we'll never know. The First Order somehow found their position and decides to cleanse the village. Here we see our hero, FN-2187, conveniently marked with a bloodstain from a dying comrade to differentiate himself from other Stormtroopers, who is unable to kill anything. Despite Stormtrooper soldiers reportedly being abducted as a child and brainwashed to follow the First Order to the very letter, something somewhere must have clearly gone wrong with his indoctrination, but we'll never know what exactly. Poe gives the map to BB-8 and tells him to escape, as Poe gets captured by Kylo Ren. Not long after, we see Kylo Ren using some sort of Force mind reading technique on Poe. Since when was Force mind reading a thing? If Vader could mind read Leia, then the OT would have ended with the Empire figuring out where the Death Star plans are, destroying it, and blowing the Rebel base up. Are we supposed to believe this hothead is stronger than Darth Vader? He's clearly shown to be inexperienced when talking to the big bad, Snoke (what the fuck kind of name is that anyways?).
After that we're on the scrapyard planet, and we see the main character, Rey, freeing BB-8 from some slaver. A girl who (as far as we know) has lived alone as a scavenger on her own, without making much social contact, somehow shows enough compassion to free a droid. Either she did it because she really just hates those slavers, since she tells BB-8 to get lost after freeing him, so I don't think she freed BB-8 out of affection.
Lightyears away, in some First Order battleship, FN-2187 decides to escape far, far away. Apparently loyalty means nothing to many years of indoctrination and serving the First Order, as one day of eradicating a village is enough to change anyone's mind. FN-2187 manages to get Poe, and tells him he wants to somehow escape. FN-2187 clearly isn't the brightest guy around, so he and Poe get in a TIE Fighter stationed in the docking bay and want to escape far, far away with just a light fighter. The TIE Fighter is still chained, and the Stormtroopers start shooting at it once they realize it is escaping. I don't know how many of you have played Battlefield, but one vehicle against loads of infantry with anti-vehicle weapons only gets you so far. Miraculously, one TIE Fighter manages to escape despite constant enemy barrage, but is damaged by the mothership and is forced to crash-land on the scrapyard planet. FN-2187 is dubbed as Finn by Poe, and is told he needs to find a white-orange basketball droid. Finn is apparently the only survivor of the crash, and conveniently didn't land too far away from wherever Rey and BB-8 are.
In the next scene we see Rey trading scraps for food rations with a merchant, and only gets jack shit for whatever she brought. However, the merchant is willing to offer boatloads of food rations for BB-8. For some inexplicable reason, a character who (as far as we know) is a loner and doesn't have any friends, would rather prioritize keeping a droid she just met over getting enough food for survival on a harsh desert planet. Three minutes later, Finn, Rey and BB-8 escape from First Order airstrikes by taking control of a pile of junk (the Millenium Falcon). Somehow Rey knows what ship is and isn't garbage despite having never flown a ship before (unless you think knowing how to fly a Speeder is enough to know how to fly a light freighter).
Even though Rey has never flown a ship, she manages to lift it off and engage in a chase sequence with First Order TIE Fighters without crashing. I get that Skywalkers are gifted pilots, but talent does not equate to experience. People learn by making mistakes. You can't just 1CC something (that isn't easy mode) on your first try. Luke Skywalker was known to be an experienced pilot on Tatooine. Even Anakin apparently had some minor experience, but he clearly didn't know what he was doing most of the time whenever he was flying in TPM as he got through relying mostly on luck and spinning. Rey at one point just pulls off a sick-ass maneuver with a light freighter during her first flight where she makes a sick 360. Are we really supposed to expect anyone can fly like Mobius One on their first try? We're never explained how Rey has such amazing piloting skills, she just somehow knows. It is also after this point in the movie that Rey stops showing any character, instead becoming Action Woman.
Three minutes later, our main cast manages to encounter Han Solo and Chewbacca, who just conveniently happen to be nearby, pulling the Millenium Falcon in with a tractor beam (REFERENCES). A pointless action scene happens next, a monster is freed who instantly kills most of the bad guys but inexplicably drags along Finn for a good minute before Rey frees him, and the main cast escapes with Han Solo and Chewbacca on the Millenium Falcon. Supreme Leader Snoke questions General Hux' ability to find BB-8 because of Finn's betrayal. Ren then suggests to use the Clones, while Hux protests. Seriously though, why aren't they using the Clones? There should be a great deal of them left, and they are less likely to become traitors. Isn't cloning more efficient than abducting children and indoctrinating them to serve you? What happened to the Clones anyways? We'll never know.
For once the movie decides it's time for exposition. Han explains to the new three that the Jedi are real, that Luke tried to make a new Jedi Order but one of his pupils was seduced by the Dark Side and killed all the other pupils, so Luke has gone into exile for some reason. They then fly to some bar in some planet to find someone who might lead them to the Resistance. There Finn tells Rey he actually isn't and doesn't want to be a Resistance hotshot, and says farewell as he leaves to apply for a job with some other people. We get introduced to Maz/not!Yoda who can figuratively see what kind of person you are by looking into your eyes, and knows everyone who enters her bar, but somehow can not tell apart a First Order agent from the rest. Rey is then drawn (by the Force?) to a vault where coincidentally, Luke's lightsaber was stored. Of all the planets, Luke just happened to cast away his weapon in a safe vault where Rey would happen to come across it. Rey then touches it, and then experiences a vision foreshadowing the future, showing how her parents left her alone as a child on a scrapyard planet populated by seedy folk, and Mickey Mouse brutally beating up Daisy Ridley for stepping out of her bounds. Which begs the question how Rey managed to survive on a rough planet like that on her own, when she was but a mere child. Most orphans like that would end up like slaves. We'll never know how she learned to scavenge, or how she managed to survive the scrapyard planet in her teen years. Rey then decides to fuck it all and runs off into the forest. Which is fairly interesting from a thematic point of view, as we see both Finn and Rey attempt to escape destiny. Then everyone sees the Republican capital getting blown up and First Order troops assault the bar. Finn decides to stay with Solo and fight off the attack, although Rey is just kind of forced into the battle. She would've been more likeable if she saw the Stormtroopers attacking the bar and decided to valiantly fight back.
Anyways, Maz gives the lightsaber to Finn, as everyone prepares to fend off the First Order. Han and Chewie are wrecking shit topside, as Finn mercilessly kills his former comrades with a lightsaber. Elsewhere, Stormtroopers find Rey and try to kill her. Rey remembers the blaster Han gave to her before, and starts firing back. She had no prior experience with blasters, yet she only misses once when she first fires it, and then barely ever misses a shot after that. Am I the only one bothered that Han has never fired Chewie's Bowcaster before in the many years when they have worked together? Why would he decide to only do it right there? We do get to see a great scene where Finn is challenged by a lone Stormtrooper with a shock baton as he overpowers Finn even though Finn has the coolest weapon in the galaxy, which shows that having a lightsaber does not make you invincible. Rey engages in a shootout, and then encounters Kylo Ren. Unfortunately blasters don't work against Kylo Ren, who then incapacitates Rey and takes her to some First Order battleship. The Resistance arrives at the last moment and drives away the First Order, as Han, Chewie, Finn and BB-8 make their way to the Resistance base.
On the Starkiller Base, Kylo Ren attempts to use the mind reading trick on Rey, but because she is naturally Force sensitive she manages to resist it and counter it by quickly reading Ren's mind. As far as using the Force goes, I'm okay with that. But then Abrams thought this was good enough of a reason for Rey to be capable of doing a Jedi mind trick. After Ren failed to overpower Rey, he leaves Rey, a high-profile prisoner, under guard by only one Stormtrooper. Most people, when imprisoned, usually don't expect the jailer to free you if you ask him. I'm not sure what Rey was thinking when she said that, or why she would think it would succeed. She had no prior experience with the Force (as far as we know), but somehow managed to use a cosmic force she has never learned to use, let alone ever heard of it, to influence a Stormtrooper into releasing her and walking away. As we all know, First Order/Empire battleships have poor security and patrols are easily avoided, so Rey starts to make her escape.
On the Resistance base, Han reunites with Leia, Poe escaped death (I forgot exactly how), and Finn decides to stick around with the Resistance for good. There we also find out that Kylo Ren was once called Ben Solo, and was Han's son. Kylo is portrayed as a hotheaded angsty teenager throughout the movie, which makes me thankful for straight-forward villains such as General Hux to make things even out. We never really know why he turned to the Dark Side either, just that Snoke had something to do with it. At some point we also see Kylo Ren being obsessed over Darth Vader like he's an idol. Wasn't it public knowledge that Vader committed betrayal by throwing the Emperor into a shaft which caused the Empire to splinter? We also reunite with R2-D2 and C3PO. R2-D2 entered standby mode for some reason, and C3PO got a new arm, but we are never told how he lost the old one. At this point it feels like a running gag by the writers to not explain anything. They devise a plan to destroy Starkiller Base in less time than it takes for me to order a pizza. Finn worked in sanitation duty, yet manages to know a weak spot which could cripple an entire base. Usually you don't want your soldiers to know the weaknesses of your base, because they might potentially turn on you, or reveal such information when interrogated. The Resistance then decides to send Han, Chewie and Finn on the Falcon to disable the shields on Starkiller Base, as an X-Fighter squadron of twenty men led by Poe will take out the weak spot and blow up the planet. Ok, I guess.
The planetary shielding can't stop anything that goes faster than light, so the Falcon penetrates it by exiting hyperspace just when it is inside the planet's atmosphere. The team infiltrates the shielding control facility, and manage to come across Captain Phasma, all by herself, who was in that control facility patrolling for some reason. At some point the screenwriters forgot they didn't give Phasma enough screen time, and the Disney execs still wanted to push her, so she was just forced in there, only to become the butt of a lol-reference trash compactor joke. Finn's reaction to having the upper hand over Phasma was amusing, although it would have been more amusing if we actually saw Phasma being an uppity cunt towards Finn before. Considering how Phasma was being pushed as a new Boba Fett by having a cape, distinct armor, and being the only female Stormtrooper on screen, and having a special spot on the promo art, she just feels shoehorned in considering her minor role in the story. Actually doing something of importance on screen is why a Stormtrooper with a shock baton fighting off a main character wielding a lightsaber becomes a meme, and why Captain Phasma figures will never be bought by anyone who don't just want to do a female Stormtrooper.
The team finds Rey as they see her being a badass by climbing a huge structure. They reunite, as Chewie and Han place bombs all around the support pillars of the shielding control facility. Han then sees Ren sending a squad of Stormtroopers away, and decides to confront Ren. After some emotional father 'n son talk, we find out that Kylo Ren wants to be hardcore, but his dad won't let him. It is constantly alluded to in the movie that Ren hasn't completely turned over to the Dark Side, so to prove otherwise, Ren kills his father, Han Solo. Chewie goes berserk and shoots Ren in his side, and blows up the pillars which shuts down the planetary shielding system. Rey and Finn escape into the woods to escape on the Falcon, and Poe commences the bombing.
Not after long, Ren catched up with the duo, and the final climax begins. Finn pulls out Luke's lightsaber and manages to hold his own against Ren for a while, until Ren eventually overpowers him despite being injured by a Wookiee Bowcaster shot. Finn drops the lightsaber, and Ren tries to take it. Then Rey somehow uses Force Telekinesis to grab the lightsaber. Has she ever seen someone using Force Telekinesis before? I don't think so, yet she manages to do it like she always known how to. Even then Ren has the upper hand over Rey, who has never used a lightsaber before. They then enter a contest of might, and either time just slows down as the camera focuses on Rey's face, or they really just stand there doing fuck all. I believe this is the point where Rey is focusing in order to become the Force-equivalent of a Super Saiyan, as she then disarms Ren with several swift combos like's she's a Jedi Grandmaster even though she was just losing.
This is what we call in fiction an 'asspull', where the writer just decides to solve a difficult situation with an answer that does not make much sense, was never expected or foreshadowed, or when the answer feels like it just came out of thin air. Rey received no prior training in the Force, yet is able to perform Jedi mind tricks and mindreading, telekinesis, and use the Force to amplify her fighting prowess. Compare this to Luke's abilities in ANH, where he did train with the lightsaber using the Force on the Falcon together with Obi-Wan. However, he used a blaster most of the time, and he only really used the Force at the end where he shot the missiles in the Death Star ventilation shaft, and only that happened after the Force Ghost of Obi-Wan told him to 'use the Force'. It fit the build-up of the movie perfectly. And even then Luke had to go to the Dagobah system for some serious Jedi training. There's no build-up in TFA or whatsoever aside from the fact we knew it was coming. Rey just masters the Force just like BOOM, POW. To illustrate this point, I'll use the battle between Dio and Jotaro in JJBA Stardust Crusader as an example.
Dio's Stand allows him to stop time, which is a near ultimate ability. When Dio is about to strike Jotaro as time has stopped, he noticed that Jotaro was able to move by an inch even though time has stopped, suggesting Jotaro's Stand is able to stop time as well. Rather than attack Jotaro, Dio remains careful and tries a more ranged approach by throwing knives at Jotaro. Jotaro's manages to stop time for himself for a bit longer than before, so he can dodge just enough knives to not get killed. Some more fighting later, Dio stops time again and throws a fucking roadroller on top of Jotaro as he tries to punch it away, but Dio manages to win this contest of might. Dio believes he is victorious, but then time is stopped, and Jotaro stands behind him, meaning Jotaro stopped time in order to escape death. Whether Jotaro suddenly gaining timestop powers being an asspull is debatable (some say he already showed such signs in the D'Arby fight, although I never really believed that), but it doesn't really feel like one, because the build-up to Jotaro slowly gaining more control over his timestop powers is handled in a better way than Rey's mastery over the Force.
This is also why Rey is considered by many to be a Mary Sue. A Mary Sue is usually considered to be a female characters with little to no character flaws (that aren't endearing), is naturally good at everything (flying ships with no training, using the Force with no training, being really good at fighting with lightsabers with no training), liked by everyone (Luke, Leia, Han weren't BFF's when they first met, as Han and Leia were usually annoyed by Luke's naivete), is REALLY important to the story and is basically Miss Perfect. Rey only has a dark past we know little about, if you consider that some kind of flaw. If you'd perform the Plinkett test on Rey, you wouldn't get alot of positive results. Any character Rey has disappears after the second half of the movie, just so she can become Action Woman. They could have just as well made Finn the main character. He's black, so Disney could have filled the diversity quota right there. And he actually has some personality to him. A main character should be relateable, or at the very least interesting. A Mary Sue is unrelateable because of her inability to make mistakes, but I guess some people out there just wanted a perfect female vessel to project themselves onto.
Poe blows up the macguffin, the planet tears itself apart, a crack in the earth conveniently seperates a wounded Kylo Ren and Rey, as Rey and Finn escape the exploding planet on the Millenium Falcon piloted by Chewie. Starkiller Base explodes, and millions of Stormtroopers die. Back on the Resistance base, the heroes are welcomed, and thankfully not too much time is spent on the grieving of Han Solo, because everyone including the audience knew it was going to happen anyways. R2-D2 magically turns on again, and reveals the missing part of the map leading to Luke Skywalker. Rey then takes off by herself in an aircraft in search of Luke. The movie ends with Rey extending Luke's lightsaber to an old grizzled Luke, as the camera spins around the two so often while nobody says or does anything, it would make the actual situation feel awkward. Mark Hamill's role in the movie only extends to pulling back his hood. 'Starring Mark Hamill' my ass. THE END
And there we have it. The Force Awakens simply does not explain everything important to the story. How did Rey manage to master the Force so quickly? Find out in Episode VIII. How did Rey survive on her own as a child on Jakku? Find out in Episode VIII. Who the fuck is Snoke? Find out in Episode VIII. How did Ren turn to the Dark Side? Find out in Episode VIII. The writers have effectively written themselves in a corner. Either Episode VIII provides the answers like any second part in a trilogy should, or they simply won't do it. I fear that Episode VIII might have TOO much exposition as Episode VII had barely any, to make room for the bombastic conclusion of Episode IX. Right now I can only speculate on why some things are the way they are, such as Rey's affinity with the Force being explained by her being a Jedi Knight in the past but having amnesia or something.
TFA goes overboard with the referencing to ANH, to the point where it is straight-up copying plot elements. Heck, JJ Abrams himself doesn't even deny it, saying it was necessary to show the public they won't be making the same shit like the prequel trilogy. I guess that was everyone's expectations of the movie: 'at least it won't be as bad as the prequel trilogy'. It's true that TFA isn't as boring as TPM, but it sure as hell isn't better than ANH. I would have forgiven Abrams if he took ANH and improved upon it, the only area TFA improved upon ANH was visuals, and that's nothing special at all. Not only that, there's barely anything new in Episode VII. Shit on the prequel trilogy all you want, but at least it brought us new places, weapons, enemies, characters, worlds etc. There's not much new world content in TFA despite 30 years having passed. The Stormtroopers look a bit different, they wield different weapons, I guess the TIE Fighters look different, there's Kylo Ren's lightsaber, there was that giant space monster in the action scene where we first meet Han Solo, and there's Captain Phasma. I thought Disney would just shove in alot of new shit just so they can make merch of it and PROFIT, but I guess that will only happen in the next movies.
And then there's the Force. When Yoda teaches Luke about the Force, the audience also learns about it as well. We learn it is a cosmic force, but that you need a deeper philosophical understanding of the Force to effectively use it. Using the Force irresponsibly, and acting on your emotions would only lead you to the Dark Side. We see that the Force can be used for peaceful and for malevolent purposes. Then George Lucas ruined the Force in the prequel trilogy, by taking away the mystery of the Force thanks to MIDICHLORIANS, only to never mention it again. At that point, the Force just devolved from being a philosophical concept to straight up wizard powers, which was only fueled by public perception of the Force thanks to all the Star Wars games and cartoons treating Force as your mana. George Lucas ruined the Force, but J.J. Abrams didn't fix it. Rey has never tried to understand the Force, only (subconsciously?) using it as a power in times of danger whenever the plot demands it. I'm also bugged by the fact that the Force has mostly become a hereditary thing, as only characters related to Skywalker in some way are Force-sensitive. I was under the impression that you could become a Jedi through harsh training, as we see a whole COUNCIL of them in the prequel trilogy. Being born with natural sensitivity with the Force just takes away the relation between the audience and the character, because the audience is more able to relate with someone reaching his goals through hard work, rather than just being born with it. I'm not even sure why Rey needs training in the Force anymore. She can do anything. She has beaten the new trilogy's equivalent of Darth Vader, what's there left to do? Why do they even need Luke after destroying Starkiller Base? You'd think that would be enough to defeat the First Order.
I suppose TFA is better than the prequel trilogy, since it actually had some entertaining characters, didn't go overboard with the lightsabers and lightsaber choreography, and didn't make me fall asleep. It's true that this people will be enjoyed more by people who have never seen Star Wars. But I do not think it is anywhere near close to a 9/10. Far from it.
Xyga wrote:
chum wrote:the thing is that we actually go way back and have known each other on multiple websites, first clashing in a Naruto forum.
Liar. I've known you only from latexmachomen.com and pantysniffers.org forums.
Holy shit... I think you need to cool off a little, because I don't think even Skykid has ever had that much to say about a movie.
It's far from perfect, but you don't need to write a fucking book about it.
BryanM wrote:You're trapped in a haunted house. There's a ghost. It wants to eat your friends and have sex with your cat. When forced to decide between the lives of your friends and the chastity of your kitty, you choose the cat.
That's a long one for sure, but I read half of it (edit: finished it now) and it all seems on point. I'm glad to see the glaring narrative errors and script failures haven't eluded the masses.
For what it's worth I did get a real buzz out of FA actually being Star Wars again, but some of the gushing fanboys are complete fawning idiots when it comes to blind praise.
Last edited by Skykid on Sun Jan 17, 2016 4:09 am, edited 2 times in total.
Lord Satori wrote:Holy shit... I think you need to cool off a little, because I don't think even Skykid has ever had that much to say about a movie.
It's far from perfect, but you don't need to write a fucking book about it.
It's funny you should say that, considering Waserkopp opened his account by writing 3 times that much before deleting it all and starting another argument from scratch.
It was an entertaining read, I can't fault Durandal on that. I've written a few lengthy posts here too.
RegalSin wrote:Japan an almost perfect society always threatened by outsiders....................
Instead I am stuck in the America's where women rule with an iron crotch, and a man could get arrested for sitting behind a computer too long.
In case anyone wants to fling shit at someone regarding FA's disappointing aspects, here's the silly smug plonker to train your aim at:
His long and distinguished screenplay writing history includes:
Little Miss Sunshine = ok
Toy Story 3 = No work of art, but certainly sufficient
Oblivion = Terrible
Hunger Games: Catching Fire = Admittedly the best of the series by some margin
His professional credits include being a personal assistant to Matthew Broderick. That's about it.
Now compare this to Leigh Brackett who penned Empire Strikes Back: Spoiler
Wiki RIP:
Brackett was first published in her mid-twenties. Her first published science fiction story was "Martian Quest", which appeared in the February 1940 issue of Astounding Science Fiction. Her earliest years as a writer (1940–42) were her most productive in numbers of stories written. Occasional stories have social themes, such as "The Citadel of Lost Ships" (1943), which considers the effects on the native cultures of alien worlds of Earth's expanding trade empire.
The Brackett-Bradbury collaboration "Lorelei of the Red Mist" took the cover of Planet Stories in 1946
Brackett's first novel, No Good from a Corpse, published in 1944, was a hard-boiled mystery novel in the tradition of Raymond Chandler. This led to her first major screenwriting assignment. At the same time, though, Brackett's science fiction stories were becoming more ambitious. Shadow Over Mars (1944) was her first novel-length science fiction story, and though still somewhat rough-edged, marked the beginning of a new style, strongly influenced by the characterization of the 1940s detective story and film noir.
In 1946, the same year that Brackett married science fiction author Edmond Hamilton, Planet Stories published the novella "Lorelei of the Red Mist". Brackett only finished the first half before turning it over to Ray Bradbury, so that she could leave to work on The Big Sleep. The story's main character is a thief called Hugh Starke.
Brackett returned from her break from science-fiction writing, caused by her cinematic endeavors, in 1948. From then on to 1951, she produced a series of science fiction adventure stories that were longer than her previous work. To this period belong such classic representations of her planetary settings as "The Moon that Vanished" and the novel-length Sea-Kings of Mars (1949), later published as The Sword of Rhiannon, a vivid description of Mars before its oceans evaporated.
With "Queen of the Martian Catacombs" (1949), Brackett created a character that she later returned to, Eric John Stark. Stark, an orphan from Earth, is raised by the semi-sentient aboriginals of Mercury, who are later killed by Earthmen. He is saved from the same fate by a Terran official, who adopts Stark and becomes his mentor. When threatened, however, Stark frequently reverts to the primitive N'Chaka, the "man without a tribe" that he was on Mercury. From 1949 to 1951, Stark (whose name echoes that of the hero in "Lorelei") appeared in three tales, all published in Planet Stories; the aforementioned "Queen", "Enchantress of Venus", and finally "Black Amazon of Mars". With this last story, Brackett's period of writing high adventure ended.
Brackett's stories thereafter adopted a more elegiac tone. They no longer celebrated the conflicts of frontier worlds, but lamented the passing away of civilizations. The stories now concentrated more upon mood than on plot. The reflective, retrospective nature of these stories is indicated in the titles: "The Last Days of Shandakor"; "Shannach — the Last"; "Last Call from Sector 9G".
This last story was published in the very last issue (Summer 1955) of Planet Stories, always Brackett's most reliable market for science fiction. With the disappearance of Planet Stories and, later in 1955, of Startling Stories and Thrilling Wonder Stories, the market for Brackett's brand of story dried up, and the first phase of her career as a science fiction author ended. A few other stories trickled out over the next decade, and old stories were revised and published as novels. A new production of this period was one of Brackett's most critically acclaimed science fiction novels, The Long Tomorrow (1955). This novel describes an agrarian, deeply technophobic society that develops after a nuclear war.
But most of Brackett's writing after 1955 was for the more lucrative film and television markets. In 1963 and 1964, she briefly returned to her old Martian milieu with a pair of stories; "The Road to Sinharat" can be regarded as an affectionate farewell to the world of "Queen of the Martian Catacombs", while the other – with the intentionally ridiculous title of "Purple Priestess of the Mad Moon" – borders on parody. She and her husband shared Guest of Honor duties at the 22nd World Science Fiction Convention in Oakland, California.[3]
After another hiatus of nearly a decade, Brackett returned to science fiction in the seventies with the publication of The Ginger Star (1974), The Hounds of Skaith (1974), and The Reavers of Skaith (1976), collected as The Book of Skaith in 1976. This trilogy brought Eric John Stark back for adventures upon the extrasolar planet of Skaith (rather than his old haunts of Mars and Venus).
Brackett's Solar System[edit]
Often referred to as the Queen of Space Opera, Brackett also wrote planetary romance. Almost all of her planetary romances take place within a common invented universe, the Leigh Brackett Solar System, which contains richly detailed fictional versions of the consensus Mars and Venus of science fiction in the 1930s–1950s. Mars thus appears as a marginally habitable desert world, populated by ancient, decadent, and mostly humanoid races; Venus as a primitive, wet jungle planet, occupied by vigorous, primitive tribes and reptilian monsters. Brackett's Skaith combines elements of Brackett's other worlds with fantasy elements.
Though the influence of Edgar Rice Burroughs is apparent in Brackett's Mars stories, the differences between their versions of Mars are great. Brackett's Mars is set firmly in a world of interplanetary commerce and competition, and one of the most prominent themes of Brackett's stories is the clash of planetary civilizations; the stories both illustrate and criticize the effects of colonialism on civilizations which are either older or younger than those of the colonizers, and thus they have relevance to this day. Burroughs' heroes set out to remake entire worlds according to their own codes; Brackett's heroes (often antiheroes) are at the mercy of trends and movements far bigger than they are.[4]
Screenwriter[edit]
Shortly after Brackett broke into science fiction writing, she also wrote her first screenplays. Hollywood director Howard Hawks was so impressed by her novel No Good from a Corpse that he had his secretary call in "this guy Brackett" to help William Faulkner write the script for The Big Sleep (1946).[5] The film, written by Brackett, William Faulkner, and Jules Furthman, and starring Humphrey Bogart, is considered one of the best movies ever made in the genre. However, after her marriage, Brackett took a long break from screenwriting.
When she returned to screenwriting in the mid-1950s, she wrote for both TV and movies. Howard Hawks hired her to write or co-write several John Wayne pictures, including Rio Bravo (1959), Hatari! (1962), El Dorado (1966) and Rio Lobo (1970). Because of her background with The Big Sleep, Robert Altman hired her to adapt Raymond Chandler's novel The Long Goodbye for the screen.
The Empire Strikes Back[edit]
Brackett worked on the screenplay for the first Star Wars sequel The Empire Strikes Back. The film won the Hugo Award in 1981. This script was a departure for Brackett, since until then, all of her science fiction had been in the form of novels and short stories.
The exact role which Brackett played in writing the script for Empire is the subject of some dispute. What is agreed on by all is that George Lucas asked Brackett to write the screenplay based on his story outline. It is also known that Brackett wrote a finished first draft which was delivered to Lucas shortly before Brackett's death from cancer on March 18, 1978. Two drafts of a new screenplay were written by Lucas and, following the delivery of the screenplay for Raiders of the Lost Ark, turned over to Lawrence Kasdan for a new approach. Both Brackett and Kasdan (though not Lucas) were given credit for the final script.
Some fans were reported to believe that they could detect traces of Brackett's influence in both the dialogue and the treatment of the space opera genre in Empire.[6] However, Laurent Bouzereau, in his book Star Wars: The Annotated Screenplays, states that Lucas disliked the direction of Brackett's screenplay and discarded it. He then produced two screenplays before turning the results over to Kasdan.[7]
Brackett's screenplay has never been officially or legally published. According to Stephen Haffner, it can be read at one of two locations: the Jack Williamson Special Collections library at Eastern New Mexico University in Portales, New Mexico (but may not be copied or checked out); and the archives at Lucasfilm, Ltd. in California.
^Writing with Bradbury.
Her bibliography includes 58 short science fiction stories published in magazines, ten sci-fi novels, eight non sci-fi novels, 9 collected works, and screenwriting credits including:
- The Vampire's Ghost (with John K. Butler), 1945
- Crime Doctor's Manhunt (with Eric Taylor), 1946
- The Big Sleep (with William Faulkner and Jules Furthman), 1946
- Rio Bravo (with Jules Furthman and B.H. McCampbell), 1959
- Gold of the Seven Saints (with Leonard Freeman), 1961
- Hatari! (with Harry Kurnitz), 1962
- Man's Favorite Sport? (uncredited), 1964
- El Dorado, 1967
- Rio Lobo (with Burton Wohl), 1970
- The Long Goodbye, 1973
- The Empire Strikes Back (with Lawrence Kasdan), 1980
Now, if I can have your attention just a moment longer, I want to reiterate why I'm always trying to explain why a great movie begins on paper. In the past Hollywood used to actually choose people for big projects based on the quality of their existing work, not on how many of their movies made big bank. Nobody is going to give a fuck about Hunger Games 2 or Little Miss Sunshine or Oblivion in years to come, they're just disposable. But The Big Sleep, The Long Goodbye, Rio Bravo and Empire Strikes Back will always be observed as artistic successes.
You can't ignore the talented people. Matthew Broderick's PA may have written screenplays in his spare time, that doesn't mean he has the required brainpower to create a good script for a Star Wars sequel. It does mean, however, that most of the planet don't have the brainpower to recognise a bad script, which in Hollywood's mind, is perfectly ok. Hence, art is not a priority.
Durandal wrote:Poe escaped death (I forgot exactly how)
So did the entire cast and crew of the movie. Since it's JJ "Mystery Box" Abrams, I am going to assume that Poe used the transwarp equation to beam himself directly to the Resistance headquarters moments before the TIE fighter crashed.
They could have just as well made Finn the main character.
If you ask me, that seems like the original intention, prior to some executive meddling. Poe is established as an ace pilot willing to risk certain death to recover BB-8. He abandons his mission and vanishes into thin air, with no explanation for either of those mysteries, right before a scene featuring ace piloting. He's also presented as being responsible for the destruction of the Super Saiyan Death Star. Rey, on the other hand, never does much of anything; when she gets kidnapped, none of the heroes change their plans or actions based on this development. Even her defeat of Kylo Ren means nothing because Ren still escapes unharmed and Finn is still mortally wounded and unconscious on a dying planet, waiting to be saved by Chewbacca. There's also the fact that Finn and Poe have better chemistry than anyone else in the damn movie, and that Poe with five minutes of screentime is more compelling than Rey with an entire movie.
If it hasn't been mentioned already, it may make more sense to think of Kylo Ren as a caricature of Prequel Anakin and overly zealous Prequel fanboys in general, rather than a stand-in for Vader himself. Hence the Vader worship, the helmet that serves no real purpose, the ridiculous lightsaber design (which had a quasi-precedent in a stupid Clone Wars comic), the impractically flashy fighting style, and the hack 'n' slash temper tantrum we see early in the film. (You've all seen the Red Letter Media reviews explaining how lightsabers were whored in the Prequels. The fact that Ren pulls out his lightsaber at such an unnecessary time, and for something so immature, could be interpreted as a nod to how the Prequels did this.) There is irony in how Ren, in his adoration for the Dark Lord of the Sith, has succeeded in embodying all the hated aspects of Prequel Annie while falling short in everything that made Vader a great villain in Empire. This indirect mocking of the Prequels is even funnier when you realize that they aren't acknowledged at all in the movie (with the exception of a few background details).
And this is probably a coincidence, but even Ren's name evokes something ridiculous. "Kaaa-looow-reeeeeehhn..."
Lord Satori wrote:
Well it does now. So I guess you're wrong about that. Saying something "just doesn't happen" is hardly an excuse at all.
I think someone said a page or two back that it's a matter of accuracy. Lightspeed travel to various planets has to be very precise to prevent warping inside the surface. Han Solo is such a skilled pilot that he manages to warp inside the shield, but outside the planet.
Regarding the actual shields, they are not infallible. Any object going at a fast enough speed can break through anything, including the shields. Their primary purpose is to prevent ships (and projectiles) that warp in from the outside from staging a planned attack. If there was a shield capable of blocking lightspeed, particles of light would probably end up being blocked as well.
Here's another reviewer's take on the subject:
The most inexcusable technical gaffe of the film is that ships can now pass through shields via lightspeed. In "A New Hope," the technology is clearly spelled out by Han:
"Without precise calculations we could fly right through a star or bounce too close to a supernova and that'd end your trip real quick, wouldn't it?"
In a significant rewrite of canonical rules, Han jumps the Millennium Falcon to lightspeed from the bridge of a ship – through its shields, not even knowing such a thing is possible (that's a question to be asked AFTER he tries it, he quips). Armed with this new information, Han uses this trick to get through Starkiller Base's shields.
TransatlanticFoe wrote:On the First Order and Resistance, this was an aspect very poorly introduced. I think the idea is that the Republic is a small government of systems and the First Order is a competing regime born from Imperial remnants. The Resistance is not the Republic military but a rebel force within First Order held territory. That's what I took it as, but it wasn't really covered and the "destruction" of the Republic was confusing - I think it was just where the senate was based but no-one seemed to really care about it (even less so than Alderaan in Episode IV), so what were we supposed to think?
They were introducing the New Republic and the Imperial Remnant from the Zahn books back into the canon, just as they did with Han and Leia's wedding (in a modified form, but nevertheless). Just another bit of fanservice. While knowing this doesn't make the movie better, it does make Disney's intent more clear.
Durandal wrote:Was it even necessary to convert a planet into a battle station that harvests solar energy for its planet-busting super beam when a moon-sized structure could do the same?
I admit I'm reaching a bit here, but I like to think of this as a nod to how ridiculous all of the superweapons in the Expanded Universe were. Even Starkiller Base is itself a conceptual amalgam of the Star Forge, the Sun Crusher and the Galaxy Gun.
Durandal wrote:Not only that, there's barely anything new in Episode VII. Shit on the prequel trilogy all you want, but at least it brought us new places, weapons, enemies, characters, worlds etc. There's not much new world content in TFA despite 30 years having passed. The Stormtroopers look a bit different, they wield different weapons, I guess the TIE Fighters look different, there's Kylo Ren's lightsaber, there was that giant space monster in the action scene where we first meet Han Solo, and there's Captain Phasma. I thought Disney would just shove in alot of new shit just so they can make merch of it and PROFIT, but I guess that will only happen in the next movies.
All of the planets and nearly all of the alien species are new. Not very inspired, perhaps, but they are new. We also have several new spacecraft, such as this. I don't really see the point of "new" species that are easily mistaken for Ithorians or Lutrillians (or Whiphids), but they're there. The Cosians from the 2008 Clone Wars series were basically Yarkora with hair, so I guess there was some sort of (lousy) precedent.
Durandal wrote:Not long after, we see Kylo Ren using some sort of Force mind reading technique on Poe. Since when was Force mind reading a thing? If Vader could mind read Leia, then the OT would have ended with the Empire figuring out where the Death Star plans are, destroying it, and blowing the Rebel base up. Are we supposed to believe this hothead is stronger than Darth Vader?
The scene with Poe and Kylo was a throwback to Vader's interrogation of the princess in the first movie (confirmed with the presence of an interrogation droid strongly resembling the old one). Brian Daley's radio adaptation of the first movie describes the droid injecting powerful mind-altering drugs that make the victim very susceptible to suggestion, to the point that Leia could be made to feel unbearable pain with only a few words from Vader. There was no mind-reading going on.
Alternatively, I don't have a precedent for it, but I interpreted that scene as torture via the Force, rather than mind reading (which would have introduced the plot holes you mentioned). As for Rey's comment about Kylo Ren, I want to say that anyone could conclude as much about him without mind-reading, but that assumes Rey knew a lot about Kylo. As for your second question here, no, for reasons stated above.
Durandal wrote:I'm also bugged by the fact that the Force has mostly become a hereditary thing, as only characters related to Skywalker in some way are Force-sensitive. I was under the impression that you could become a Jedi through harsh training, as we see a whole COUNCIL of them in the prequel trilogy. Being born with natural sensitivity with the Force just takes away the relation between the audience and the character, because the audience is more able to relate with someone reaching his goals through hard work, rather than just being born with it.
I just wanted to mention that being a Prequel Jedi had nothing to do with harsh training and everything to do with your midi-chlorian count. Also, the notion that some beings were Force-sensitive and others not was established long before midi-chlorians were introduced (albeit in the Expanded Universe).
Last edited by WelshMegalodon on Mon Jan 18, 2016 1:58 am, edited 6 times in total.
RBelmont wrote:A little math shows that if you overclock a Pi3 to about 3.4 GHz you'll start to be competitive with PCs from 2002. And you'll also set your house on fire
Sly Cherry Chunks wrote:^Why him? He left the movie before he completed a first draft.
If that's the case then I've got the wrong guy and responsibility lies with a different culprit, but the RT headline says "Abrams directs from a Michael Ardnt script" and he's credited all over the place, so I guessed it was his work.
Little Miss Sunshine is less a work of artistic merit than Toy Story 3, the latter more thanks to Pixar than the script, the former a nice clean product of indie Americana filmmaking. Pleasant but forgettable.
Durandal wrote:Since when was Force mind reading a thing?
Now that I think of it, Vader discovered that Luke had a sister when he read his mind in VI, didn't he? I guess that means they've always been a thing?
WelshMegalodon wrote:There is irony in how Ren, in his adoration for the Dark Lord of the Sith, has succeeded in embodying all the hated aspects of Prequel Annie while falling short in everything that made Vader a great villain in Empire.
I thought this was immediately apparent when he takes off his mask and he has the exact same haircut as Anakin in III. It's amazing that people aren't picking up that he's purposely pathetic.
BryanM wrote:You're trapped in a haunted house. There's a ghost. It wants to eat your friends and have sex with your cat. When forced to decide between the lives of your friends and the chastity of your kitty, you choose the cat.
Lord Satori wrote:It's amazing that people aren't picking up that he's purposely pathetic.
People are picking up on it. It's just unforgivably bad writing, because it means the obstacle the heroes must overcome is pathetic. You set up the villain as strong and the hero as conflicted, duh. The awful writing would actually be pretty decent if they were setting up for a role reversal. But since TFA was the most boring, safe, focus-group approved movie I've ever seen, there's zero chance of the guy who killed Han Solo being given the chance to be sympathetic.
Durandal wrote:
Lightyears away, in some First Order battleship, FN-2187 decides to escape far, far away. Apparently loyalty means nothing to many years of indoctrination and serving the First Order, as one day of eradicating a village is enough to change anyone's mind.
Again, fanservice as a reference to canonical precedent. Kyle Katarn is the first rogue stormtrooper that comes to mind, though I wouldn't be surprised if there were others. He even learns to wield a lightsaber and later enrolls in Luke's Jedi Academy.
Racial minorities as stormtroopers also have precedent, though it's probably not canon:
Durandal wrote:We never really know why he turned to the Dark Side either, just that Snoke had something to do with it.
I personally felt "he was seduced by the dark side" was a sufficient explanation, but if you want, even that can be seen as fanservice. First we have Jacen Solo, the son of Han and Leia in the old Expanded Universe, who became Darth Caedus. There's also Kyp Durron, who was a student at Luke's Jedi Academy until he was turned by the mysterious apparition of a Dark Jedi (sound familiar?).
RBelmont wrote:A little math shows that if you overclock a Pi3 to about 3.4 GHz you'll start to be competitive with PCs from 2002. And you'll also set your house on fire
Lord Satori wrote:I thought this was immediately apparent when he takes off his mask and he has the exact same haircut as Anakin in III. It's amazing that people aren't picking up that he's purposely pathetic.
Wait... you think that Ren's haircut is intentionally the same as Anakin in EpIII as a sleight against that movie? And that, like Anakin in the prequels, he's meant to be a pathetic character, even though Lucas didn't intend Anakin to be pathetic, just conflicted.
This is all nonsense.
I don't think Ren is actually meant to be "purposely pathetic", I think he's meant to be conflicted. He mentions he feels a pull to the light, again, and is trying to overcome it. He is aspiring to be Vader but is afraid he'll never be able to match him. He is also rocked when he gets a glimpse of what Rey is harbouring in terms of Force ability.
None of that makes him pathetic. What makes him pathetic is the casting choice, really. I don't think Adam Driver was terrible, but it wasn't quite the right casting in terms of look and tone. The mask is a lot more of a personality, which is why Vader didn't take it off until he wasn't Vader anymore.
THE FORCE AWAKENZ: SCREENING TWO
I went to see this again yesterday with a person who had only seen Episode IV, recently, and none of the others (Chinese people know nothing about SW, there are huge backstory guides draped around the movie theatres). After FA finished I asked, "what did you think" and she asked "Why is it exactly the same as the first movie?" Not anything we didn't know, but interesting.
For me, it's better on second viewing. We all went into it the first time not knowing what to expect, and there's that kind of lingering edginess during the viewing where you're still in anticipation mode and full of mixed emotions that stops you from digesting it properly. Knowing what was coming it was easier to settle in and do a little examination. Here are my findings:
- Again, Abrams did a fine job in the director's chair. Honestly, if there were a group of responsible people you wanted to lambast for this, you could probably let Abrams leave the room. He delivered Star Wars from a practical level from the script he had, about the best anyone could have done. There were a couple of scenes that could have been done better, mainly the Han/Leia schmaltz, but a lot of that is down to age and Fisher not quite being in the mindset to give a performance. But for the most part, if you analyse his cinematography, editing and creativity onscreen he has done a really great job of rekindling Star Wars from a mechanical level - and that's a very important part of it.
- Sorry guys, Daisy Ridley just isn't a very good actor. I know I called this from the trailers, and in all honest I don't dislike her. I feel as though her persona is appropriate for the character and therefore the casting is half-right - but she overacts like crazy. There are times when it's borderline embarrassing but then Abrams always cuts the shot before it tips into scene breaking over-emote territory. As a contrast Boyega is much, much better. I was pleasantly surprised, but then remembering him in Attack the Block I probably needn't have worried too much.
- Han Solo's death is a real shame. As one YT reviewer pointed out, it didn't do anything for the audience. It wasn't a death that gave the movie anything it didn't already have except a short-live surprise. If you're going to kill off Solo, it should be a saga defining moment with serious after effects. But in the end there's no gravity here. It feels as though they destroyed the most popular character on a whim and with no real payoff. Sad.
- Adam Driver is more acceptable on second viewing because you know that mask is coming off. He still looks a little goofy (they should have pinned back his ears) but I got more of a feeling of the character's internal conflict here than on first viewing. I'm hoping there's some later development of the character now he's facially scarred and guilty of patricide that actually informs the audience more of his state in TFA, and therefore makes him more relevant.
- Mistakes, mistakes, mistakes. They're still everywhere, but it's impressive how Abrams punchiness allows you little time to ponder them, to the movie's benefit. Does that change the fact that it's still a copy of IV? No. The accusation of lazy scriptwriting is a fair one, there's nothing new here and the locations are still really bad. If anyone has seen Hellboy II, where they visit this marketplace in another realm - THAT'S the kind of imagination one expects from a Star Wars universe. I would rather have seen Luke Skywalker being a hermit in some filth-ridden den, down an alleyway and in a hole in a wall than on top of a Highlander mountain somewhere on Earth. When you can hire the world's best concept artists and visionaries, there's not really any excuse to keep landing in forests.
- Rey's Force awakening is still OTT and damaging to the mythology, but I admit Ren's wounding in the finale is more pronounced than I gave initial credit for. Doesn't mean Finn should stand much of any chance, but he goes down fairly quickly, and if you watch closely Rey is actually getting whipped one-handed by a gut shot guy pretty bad until she reaches the valley edge and has her "use the force" moment of realisation. After that she uses brute Force (sorry) to give him a quick beat down. Still not entirely satisfactory but less offensive than it was on first viewing. The thin air Jedi mind trick is still preposterous though.
- In fairness, the second half is still weaker than the first. As someone here said, Maz Kanata's bar is the turning point. I don't like that character at all, either, and after than it's a downhill slope to try and cram everything into the finale. But it is more digestible on repeat because you know what's coming. The Starkiller base infiltration still feels a little empty and cold, and devoid of genuine hijinks, and it is just another Death Star assault, but when you're waiting for the beats they're easier to organise in your head.
Is FA better than Jedi? Yes and no. On one hand Abrams is a better overall director than Marquand, in that he governs his picture better for the duration. It's more creative and consistent. But the script does shoot him in the foot. It is a rip off of A New Hope, obviously done that way to kick start a new generation of fans, but it doesn't have Jedi's highs - the emotions as Luke tries to tip his father to the light, the Emperor trying to tap into Luke's psyche, and the other previously mentioned high points. I don't think FA manages to better what Jedi did best, it's just more consistent with most of everything else.
I'd neither call it a failure or an injustice, or an outright success. But I'm not unhappy it exists as part of the SW canon and I think it could have been a lot worse.
Now, do we all know Rian Johnson is currently directing Episode 8, and does anyone have any thoughts about that? The crew have reported they've never seen a director take the camera and lie on the floor to get the angles he wants, ever, so he's clearly someone with passion - but can he deliver the goods?
Skykid wrote:I don't think Adam Driver was terrible, but it wasn't quite the right casting in terms of look and tone.
Strongly disagree.
Kylo was by far the most enjoyable aspect of the movie for me and the only thing worth further discussion afterwards. I wouldn't call him pathetic, he's a conflicted edgelord. Kind of like Coldsteel The Hedgeheg. Driver was correct when he stated that the crossguard lightsabre was a metaphor for the character. This amused me no end. In fact he's already become a meme character.
As for letting JJ off the hook, I'm not so sure. The art book suggests that he was partly responsible for the story, which was cobbled together from random, disjointed but cool things that his art department came up with in their pre-vis. (As in, they were designing scenes before a script was even started.) The book even goes so far as to admit that a lot of the ill-fitting elements such as Vader's helmet, the randomly rediscovered lightsabre and the whole Po Dameron character were left overs from earlier drafts where they had more prominent roles - JJ carried them across with each revision simply because they were "cool". It was also his decision the have the movie locations be somewhat familiar to the old trilogy - desert, forrest, snow. This is a big shame because the art book is full of good stuff, such as a much more industrialised version of the junk planet and a design for Starkiller Base far superior to what we ended up with.
Solo's death was part of Kylo's character development. They're really banking on the audience being into this guy, he seems like a evil ANH Luke opposite Rey's good Vader. Perhaps his journey will be more interesting than the heroine's.
Sly Cherry Chunks wrote:such as a much more industrialised version of the junk planet
Ahh, sounds like they missed a chance to introduce Bonadan into the new canon!
On that note, that spin-off movie better be called something like Han Solo and the Rapids of Rampa or I'm not watching it. Flight of the Sunfighter Franchise wouldn't be bad either. Perhaps The Red Bloodstripe of Courage?
RBelmont wrote:A little math shows that if you overclock a Pi3 to about 3.4 GHz you'll start to be competitive with PCs from 2002. And you'll also set your house on fire
Lord Satori wrote:I thought this was immediately apparent when he takes off his mask and he has the exact same haircut as Anakin in III. It's amazing that people aren't picking up that he's purposely pathetic.
Wait... you think that Ren's haircut is intentionally the same as Anakin in EpIII as a sleight against that movie? And that, like Anakin in the prequels, he's meant to be a pathetic character, even though Lucas didn't intend Anakin to be pathetic, just conflicted.
This is all nonsense.
I don't think Ren is actually meant to be "purposely pathetic", I think he's meant to be conflicted. He mentions he feels a pull to the light, again, and is trying to overcome it. He is aspiring to be Vader but is afraid he'll never be able to match him. He is also rocked when he gets a glimpse of what Rey is harbouring in terms of Force ability.
None of that makes him pathetic. What makes him pathetic is the casting choice, really. I don't think Adam Driver was terrible, but it wasn't quite the right casting in terms of look and tone. The mask is a lot more of a personality, which is why Vader didn't take it off until he wasn't Vader anymore.
Skykid, are you trying to tell me that you didn't think Kylo's temper tantrums were pathetic? I get what you're saying, though.
I'm not sure how "takes off the mask too early" equates to "bad actor choice", though. I do think that his face reveal would've had a lot more impact if it'd happened for the first time in front of Han Solo as opposed to Rey. He took his mask off again and I'm thinking "I know, we've seen it already."
I admit, the hair is probably a coincidence, but I just thought it was interesting to note.
BryanM wrote:You're trapped in a haunted house. There's a ghost. It wants to eat your friends and have sex with your cat. When forced to decide between the lives of your friends and the chastity of your kitty, you choose the cat.
Skykid wrote:I don't think Adam Driver was terrible, but it wasn't quite the right casting in terms of look and tone.
Strongly disagree. Kylo was by far the most enjoyable aspect of the movie for me and the only thing worth further discussion afterwards.
The first time I watched the movie I was A: surprised he took the mask off at all, and B: genuinely felt he didn't have an appearance compliant with the villain he had been up to that point. He came across as too soft both in appearance and vocals.
However, on repeat he held together better. I suppose knowing what's coming means there are no surprises and you can focus more on what the character is about. I agree he's the only worthy talking point at this stage because his character isn't completely predictable or one-dimensional.
As for letting JJ off the hook, I'm not so sure.
Right, well to be clear, I'm mostly stating that from a purely mechanical level, discounting his influence on the story itself, I think he did as good a job as anyone could. As I mentioned after first watch, his technique is straight from the Spielberg playbook and you couldn't pick a better film-making aesthetic than that for Star Wars in my opinion. His general control of scenes, timing, camerawork and the placing of humour all fit the bill as accurately as I could have hoped.
The failures of the script of course, are another matter. If he had a major hand in that, then he bears responsibility along with the rest of the production team.
Lord Satori wrote:
Skykid, are you trying to tell me that you didn't think Kylo's temper tantrums were pathetic?
No, I thought they were a mark of immaturity and frustration at not being able to match Vader's convictions. Pathetic isn't the term I'd use.
I also quite liked seeing a Sith lose his shit and tear a room to pieces, they were some of the more insightful and intriguing moments.
I'm not sure how "takes off the mask too early" equates to "bad actor choice", though. I do think that his face reveal would've had a lot more impact if it'd happened for the first time in front of Han Solo as opposed to Rey.
Yes, now this I do agree with. That would have actually had a lot more impact, especially because his performance in that particular exchange was fairly well measured. His inner turmoil was at its peak there, and that would have been the only time worth removing the helmet for. He should have been wearing it again during the final battle - you could still have achieved some facial scarring by the end of it.
On another note, Team Negative1 have finished up their restoration of Star Wars. Harmy rates it higher than his own Despecialized edition. For those who don't know, their version us a scan of an original 1977 35mm print. No bullshit, more accurate colours etc. there's a huge 25gb MKV floating around, expect a smaller file soon.
Was watching the news today (1-21-2016) during my lunch break and it mentioned that Disney & Lucasfilm originally intended to release Star Wars Episode VIII on May 17th, 2017 but ultimately decided to postpone it to an official December 17th, 2017 theatrical release date (this is regarding the USA theatrical release, of course). Means still owning the international box office all to themselves again like with Tron Legacy (December 18th, 2010 release date) & SW:TFA (December 18th, 2015 release date). It's a given in this day of age.
Was curious to see exactly how much Disney/Lucasfilm spent on getting SW:TFA made -- according to the IMDB.com site, it mentions a $200 million dollar production budget. Not to mention the TFA film surpassed the $1 billion barrier on the international box office scene in just a mere 12 days from it's initial debut/sneak preview release (Dec. 18th & Dec. 17th 2015 respectively). Go figure.
PC Engine Fan X! ^_~
Last edited by PC Engine Fan X! on Thu Jan 21, 2016 6:01 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Saw it thought it was cool as.fuck. Typing on a phone so will be brief:
Snoke is a stupid name and a stupid character, that looked more like an escapee from Labyrinth that a super baddie.
The whole 'use the force in five minutes' thing was bullshit.
The entire pirate scene on the Falcon was like a bad outtake from the prequels.
On the other hand
Some of the cinematography was amazing. It was superb to see dogfight in taking place against planetary scenery instead of just the cold blackness of space. That shot of The Ties against the sunset.... Wow.
Lightsabre fighting looked heavy and dangerous again. Reminded me more of Luke and Vader in Jedi that the prequels. I approve.
Finn was a genuinely likeable character that I'll be happy to see more of. Not so sure about Rei yet, but on the other hand, anyone that gets the 'Manosphere' s' collective panties in a bunch is cool with me.
Thought Ren was superb, the kind of performance I'd have expected for Anakin in the prequels actually.
The first half hour in particular made me SQUEEEE like a kid. Yeah, there are some crappy plot devices, but the kid in me was telling the adult to shut the fuck up during this one, instead of the other way around.
Hey Lucas! Humour that wasn't forced, stupid, and immersion ruining!
Enjoyed immensely. If the next two can maintain this level, I'd be happy enough. The plot recycling was a bit annoying in places, but I totally get that this was.also an attempt to reestablish the franchise as something worth watching so it was played somewhat safe, I'd say it was a good decision that they got away with
Once.
As probably the last person on earth, I saw it yesterday and liked it quite a lot for the most part. I don't really have much to add to what everyone has said before, except that they desperately need someone new to invent character names. (Everytime Poe's name came up I wondered if Laalaa, Dipsy and Tinky-Winky are likely to arrive soon.)
Marc wrote:Snoke is a stupid name and a stupid character, that looked more like an escapee from Labyrinth that a super baddie.
I think there's a chance that "Snoke" is supposed to look that silly. I have a suspicion he might actually be some kind of Wizard-of-Oz-style humbug, just an elaborate illusion to distract from whoever is pulling the strings. As to who that could be is open to speculation, I guess we'll find out in episode VIII.
-The plot recycling killed it for me. Sorry Abrams and Kasdan, but Episode III felt more Star Wars than this. (You can all crucify me later)
-Rey's fight with Kylo Ren. Yeaaaaaaaah, no. There's a reason why Luke didn't fight Vader until ESB, and still got a severe beating. Just because the Force is suddenly with Rey, that doesn't impart her with better fighting skills. LAME.
-Kylo Ren is fugly as fuck. There's no way he could have been made from the genes of Han and Leia. (I was expecting him to put on some thick nerd glasses, TBH)
-The ship battles didn't feel as epic as in Eps 3, 4, and 6.
-"Snoke". It sounds like some cheap drug cooked with soda pop. FAIL.
-The way the events happen right after the other, like dominoes falling in sequence... I wonder if this is Abrams' fault. Lucas at least made it feel like an event had started while another was halfway through its course, but here, things feel rushed. TOO LINEAR.
-The music didn't move me at all. There was no adrenaline-pumping horns (wonder if it was the theater?), no melancholy-inducing strings like in the Tattooine sunset in New Hope... only a few instances of Han Solo and the Princess brought me nostalgia.
-The Resistance and The New Order. **YAWN**
-Didn't feel any tension building up even with the superweapon firing. The whole movie felt "flat".
-Finn needed to fight with a blaster AND a lightsaber, IMHO. Not cool enough.
-THE famous smuggler and general Han Solo dies, and everyone is like "Oh, well. We all die one day!"? Vader got a funeral pyre. Luke grieved for Obi-Wan. No memorial for one of the pillars of the Alliance's victory?
-C3PO popping up like that made me smile, genuinely. Too bad he got relegated to basically a prop in the background.
-I could spend a day quoting the myriad of parallels happening between ANH and this, but others have pointed it out. (Just as an example, Finn and Poe meeting and greeting at the rebel base echoes Luke and Biggs meeting in Yavin IV in the special edition. Same concepts in a new coat of paint, all over the movie.)
I really wanted to like it, but I can't. It sounds like Star Wars, it feels like Star Wars, but it's not Star Wars for me. The whole thing feels like a fanfic brought to life with a big enough budget.
Skykid, let's have lunch together one day. My treat.
Specineff wrote:
Skykid, let's have lunch together one day. My treat.
Ha ha, you're on.
Although I think all criticisms are on the same page with FA, I do feel like reiterating that it could have been worse and isn't all fail for me. There's good stuff mixed in with the bad.
If you want a dinner topic I don't agree with anyone who thinks Episode III was a better movie. That one is such trash I'm not even sure it's better than Episode I, truly.
Herr Schatten wrote:As probably the last person on earth
Nope, it is I !
Well, well, well...
People can't make great epic movies anymore, the first half is probably the most expensive fan-trailer ever made, the second half too only just in expensive generic action form.
Before saying it was shit, I have to admit it definitevely wins on the aesthetics, almost everywhere, except maybe the rebel base that oddly looks like a public park.
I would have liked more fancy pulp-y vehicles, spaceships and gadgets, but I bet that would have meant just more minutes of CGI.
Now I'm saying it: TFA is shit.
It doesn't make much sense because of the too many stupid and far-fetched things killing what could otherwise have been a decent story with good ideas.
Even without those mistakes the movie could have been 'just' super entertaining...if the rhythm wasn't completely off, things happen in succession without any sense of timing and drama.
The camera doesn't do shit during the second half, just chaining scenes without any effort to pull you into the action, plus the music is totally generic and random.
Most actors play horribly, except maybe the new girl who at least tries to make faces like in good ol' cinema.
The old cast is just...old, not bringing anything special to the story, you're not even particularily happy to see them.
You can't deny they've made real efforts, there's a lot of work to try and make it look as much SW as possible, but they've forgot SW before everything is supposed to be an old-fashioned sci-fi play, a stage for a space epic...not another sci-fi action show.
Now thinking about the prequels, bar TFM which didn't happen, I'd say those were much more in line with what SW is supposed to be, when TFA just comes out of nowhere feeling too detached from the formula.
The biggest mistake they've made with TFA, is certainly to have opted for the 'several decades later' solution, without the extreme care it requires.
Okay, well, it's just Star Wars anyway, the original trilogy ended up better and greater than it was supposed to be, creating billions of fans and a huge market, so accidents such as more movies were predictable, it's just too bad they won't stop.
