Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens

[Walt Flanigan]

I thought it was kind of funny that Finn said he worked in sanitation. Just made me think of that Star Wars discussion in Clerks "Do you think the average Storm Trooper knows how to install a toilet main? All he knows is killing and white uniforms!"

 

[Pete Cash]

Well whatever his origins are, its certainly a different take on the traditional villain role. Thats what im enjoying and i suspect others see it that way too. If you prefer your bad guys to be all powerful, confident maniacs then i guess its a disappointment

As much as i like the homages to the original trilogy, i certainly dont want the new ones to be carbon copies. The approach to Kylo certainly changes things

I think there will be a reversal of sorts in the second one. Rey will take a fall because she is too confident. Kylo will conquer his insecurities because he defeated the light side of the force.

Its interesting because the villian is so young and he doesnt yet know his place in the world. His hero vader had spent most of his life being the best at everything and being told how great he was. So it just makes sense that he is nowhere near as powerful and imposing as vader.

So yeah after sitting down and thinking about it i like the character a lot more.

 

[Walt Flanigan]

Yeah I do think that Kylo's insecurities could make him more dangerous than Vader.........and his obvious lack of self control.

 

[RoosTah]

Well whatever his origins are, its certainly a different take on the traditional villain role. Thats what im enjoying and i suspect others see it that way too. If you prefer your bad guys to be all powerful, confident maniacs then i guess its a disappointment

That's strawman nonsense. I never said anywhere that I like my villains to be all powerful; I just said that I don't find privileged little brats who're upset over silly daddy issues to be terribly compelling as villains. Ren feels more like the kind of villain you'd find in Harry Potter. It just kinda takes me out of it having him be such a little twerp...

Magneto in the X-Men movies is a good example of a villain who isn't all powerful, has conflicted motives and whose motives are actually kinda understandable.

As much as i like the homages to the original trilogy, i certainly dont want the new ones to be carbon copies. The approach to Kylo certainly changes things

It's what's called a 'soft reboot' and it's a lot like the Star Trek 2009 movie in that way. Lots of fun, but not perfect.

As I said, I really enjoyed almost all the characters and the plot in general being mostly lifted from the OT, but aspects of it did take me out of it here and there.

 

[Caped Crusader]

That's strawman nonsense. I never said anywhere that I like my villains to be all powerful; I just said that I don't find privileged little brats who're upset over silly daddy issues to be terribly compelling as villains. Ren feels more like the kind of villain you'd find in Harry Potter. It just kinda takes me out of it having him be such a little twerp...

Magneto in the X-Men movies is a good example of a villain who isn't all powerful, has conflicted motives and whose motives are actually kinda understandable.



It's what's called a 'soft reboot' and it's a lot like the Star Trek 2009 movie in that way. Lots of fun, but not perfect.

As I said, I really enjoyed almost all the characters and the plot in general being mostly lifted from the OT, but aspects of it did take me out of it here and there.

Never said you did mate.

Plenty of the nay-sayers online have sighted his flaws/immaturity/etc as the reason they dont like him as a villain. I was just addressing that when you said opinion of him was split into 2 camps

Besides, noone knows his motivations. The Daddy issues thing I brought up was just a guess at one of 100 different things that could be motivating him. I very much doubt its all just "Mummy and Daddy didnt love me enough" though

I know what a soft reboot is however what they did with Star Trek doesnt really apply in relation to Ep7. Ep7 is canon with the other movies and needs to dovetail with them. The new Trek movies are completely separate

 

[Munky]

Won't happen.

Imagine the tantrums if they included the characters but changed their story or personality in any way.

A clean break is best

It's wishful thinking I know.

In my teenage years I probably read all the EU novels released to 2001 and looking back the only ones that were more than serviceable were the Thrawn trilogy. Many were just awful fan fiction.

Mara Jade and Thrawn are the only characters I'd like to see. Just keep Mara a red haired former assassin of the Empire/New Order and Thrawn a blue skinned red eyed strategic genius.

I wouldn't mind a reference to Darth Revan from Knights of the Old Republic, especially if they reference it as memory wiping a Jedi as being possible. Be pretty cool if they don't reveal what happens after the memory wipe and say that the stories in folklore vary with some saying he returned to the light side and some saying he went even darker. Would keep the choices in KOTOR non canon.

 

[redvscotty]

I like parts of that theory. But i still think rey being Lukes kid would be to obvious. I'd like her to be the kid of one of the other Knights of Ren. When kylo kills her parents Luke sees the need to hide Rey (who he sees as being strong with the force) from kylo's clutches.

Now if force awakens was to be a parallel to a new hope then VIII will be a dark twist like empire

I'd like to see
Luke train Rey to be powerful. Then towards the end of the training reveal what happened to her parents and how kylo killed them.

In the meantime kylo continues to be trained by snoke. While having powerful tricks, snoke can see kylo's weaknesses and knows he isn't the person to lead the first order.

Rey is now powerful and ready to take on kylo, but she keeps hearing luke and leia talk about trying to save kylo. This and the thoughts of kylo killing her parents and forcing her to grow up in slavery on jakku makes anger grow inside Rey. In the films climax she defeats snoke in an epic battle, before confronting a surrending kylo, who she kills in cold blood turning her to the darkside. We've had evil, whining emotional people turn to the darkside, but what if the good natured, kind and bubbly rey was the one to turn to the darkside. What a twist that'd make. Episode 9 would be devoted to stopping her (shock horror when the first order and the resistance team up to fight her, finally bringing peace to the galaxy), and the person who has to stop her is Finn, the guy who spent the 1st movie running away from his problems, and the person who spent the first 2 movies falling in love with her.

I had this exact thought minus the bit about Finn.

 

[roostersrule2]

Wow. So it's only $8million short and hasn't touched the market of well over a billion people. That's huge.

How much did Disney buy Lucasfilm for? $4billion?

Hasn't been shown in Greece or India too apparently, though I'm not sure they're huge markets. India does had a billion people though. It's been shown in 70% of their market apparently.

It's a huge opening.

 

[adamkungl]

It's wishful thinking I know.

In my teenage years I probably read all the EU novels released to 2001 and looking back the only ones that were more than serviceable were the Thrawn trilogy. Many were just awful fan fiction.

Mara Jade and Thrawn are the only characters I'd like to see. Just keep Mara a red haired former assassin of the Empire/New Order and Thrawn a blue skinned red eyed strategic genius.

I wouldn't mind a reference to Darth Revan from Knights of the Old Republic, especially if they reference it as memory wiping a Jedi as being possible. Be pretty cool if they don't reveal what happens after the memory wipe and say that the stories in folklore vary with some saying he returned to the light side and some saying he went even darker. Would keep the choices in KOTOR non canon.

The new writers might take inspiration from EU characters while re-imagining them, or deliberately avoid it but still come up with similar things anyway - ie it's not hard to imagine there being some love story in Luke's last 30 years.

One person on my FB has already chucked a bit of a tantrum because she claims Jaina Solo has been changed into Rey Skywalker

 

[Iafeta]

Fkn people boo-hooing at the prequels because they were nothing like the originals are now sooking because the latest one is too much like the originals.

Fkn hate people.

If you are referring to me given my post prior to yours implied I think it was unoriginal, I didn't watch the prequels with any passion. I prefer to think of it as Star Wars starting at IV so I really have no opinion on the prequels whatsoever.

I'm happy for it to be like the originals, but I don't want the same story rehashed.

The similarities I noticed:

1) A Darth Vader clone. I do look that he does remove the mask though, that was original.
2) The ledge fight between Luke (son) and Darth Vader (father), here has Kylo (son) and Hans Solo (father). Given Rae's earlier comments how Kylo was not as strong as Darth Vader it was obvious who was going to win.
3) Rae, seems to have lost her parents, much like Luke had, and lived on a dusty planet and seemed to have lost everything (like Luke had when his uncle and aunts place was destroyed). Luke ended up being Darth Vader's son obviously, and I would infer Rae is the daughter of Luke.
4) A massive death star like object, again
5) Going into Moz's place, it looked like the same set from the canteena

I could suggest R2D2 is kinda replicated by BB8, but I saw enough differences to be happy.

I enjoyed it, if for the reminiscing and the modernisation. I just thought, given the epic hype, it was a slight let down because it lacked originality, and in this fantasy world there is a lot of leg room for originality IMO.

 

[Caped Crusader]

Due to the hype and expectation, there was always going to be a feeling that it didnt quite measure up.

Not sure i agree with you saying Kylo is a Vader clone. They are very different characters from what i saw

 

[HayneKloppter]

Started off pretty good.

Went to utter shit imo at the end.

Too tired to fully disect but was disappointed. Very disappointed. The whole climax seemed a little............. repeated like in eps 4 and 6 perhaps???? How many times can you send rebel ships in to blow up a moon/planet/death star and require a well placed bomb in a perticular area of said planet/deathstar. Come up with something new ffs.

disappointingly......... i agree

 

[Walt Flanigan]

3) Rae, seems to have lost her parents, much like Luke had, and lived on a dusty planet and seemed to have lost everything (like Luke had when his uncle and aunts place was destroyed). Luke ended up being Darth Vader's son obviously, and I would infer Rae is the daughter of Luke.

The difference here is that Luke and Anakin were desperate to leave their sandy planet and go on adventures, whereas Rey desperately wanted to get back to Jaku. They both embraced learning the force and Rey didn?t want a bar of it.

There were some glaring similarities to Episode IV but I believe it was all designed to introduce the new characters and show how they fit into the new trilogy. I?m sure (I hope) it takes on a more original direction from here.

 

[nöyd]

If you are referring to me given my post prior to yours implied I think it was unoriginal, I didn't watch the prequels with any passion. I prefer to think of it as Star Wars starting at IV so I really have no opinion on the prequels whatsoever.

not directed at you by any means, if it was i would have quoted you to ensure the conversation was not lost.

i was referring to the kids on youtube with a webcam and mic, spewing forth their "reviews" as gospel, seemingly unaware that this film was simply the first act of three.

 

[nöyd]

Double

 

[LESStar58]

I'm wondering what it was about Finn that made Kylo take a good look at him at the beginning of the movie. Did he sense the force in him or did he just foresee that he was trouble?

The latter I think. If he was force sensitive wouldn't they have just killed him?

 

[LESStar58]

A good read if you're like me and didn't take Rey's visions in very well.

http://www.ew.com/article/2015/12/20/jj-abrams-reveals-obi-wan-and-yoda-are-star-wars-force-awakens

Pretty cool how they used Alec Guiness and Ewan McGregor's voices.

I heard Yoda but not Obi Wan...

 

[Walt Flanigan]

The latter I think. If he was force sensitive wouldn't they have just killed him?

My first thought when Kylo looked at him was that he thought he sensed the force in Finn but then thought ?nah, he?s just a fkn storm trooper? and went on his way.

Mind you, at this point I still thought Finn was going to be the jedi of the movie??..based on him wielding a Lightsaber in the previews.

 

[strong_latte]

Due to the hype and expectation, there was always going to be a feeling that it didnt quite measure up.

Not sure i agree with you saying Kylo is a Vader clone. They are very different characters from what i saw

Yeah, Abrams was never going to be able to please everyone to be fair, and even with its issues its still a beautifully made Star Wars film.

Now that we are being nit picky though, is it just me or is it weird that there's still both a rebellion force and a republic. Like, if the empire has been reduced to this first order thing, then shouldn't the republic have its own well funded and sophisticated armed forces agin? Also, and I know this was raised earlier here, but how is it the empire have now effectively built 3 Death Stars without anyone thinking about a possible counter measure? I mean shit, the Americans started investing in a nuclear missile shield literally nicknamed Star Wars back in the 80s without a nuke ever actually being used on them. Oh, and while we're on the logic train, where do the First Order get all their money from? They don't have an empire anymore, so are they like Space ISIS and just extort it all? It seems to me like the Republic really ought to be the more well resourced and well armed force at this point.

 

[Walt Flanigan]

Now that we are being nit picky though, is it just me or is it weird that there's still both a rebellion force and a republic.

Yeah I don't quite get this either. After the Empire was destroyed then obviously the Republic was put back in place, so why are the people who brought down the Empire a different entity and what are they a resistance to?