Official Star Wars: TFA Review Thread (SPOILERS!!!)

I think many are questioning just how that is, given his heritage. I can't say I haven't wondered the same thing myself, but I assume this question will be answered in the upcoming movies.

All of the Skywalker boys have been conflicted, angry hero worship types. What's the mystery?

They're more trouble than them Duke boys.

Very entertaining and definitely more keeping with the spirit of the OT than the PT ever managed. The acting from Ridley, Boyega and Ford was absolutely brilliant. Definitely the 3 stand out characters for me. Adam Driver did well too as the conflicted wannabe-Vader but ffs, he looks NOTHING like Han or Leia, so I had a hard time picturing him as their son.
I loved the comedy moments too, very well done. The plot was okay but so many coincidental and odd things were going on which really got on my nerves. Rey being a scavenger but is also an amazing pilot and mechanic, and learns to use the force and light sabre in about 10 minutes with no training from anyone? Come on. Luke had to be trained by Obi Wan and Yoda before he could take on Vader. How is Rey able to defeat Ren, who showed tremendous force abilities throughout? How is Finn able to survive a lightsabre duel with Ren? Had he been an elite storm trooper it would be plausible that he could withstand a few strikes from a trained Jedi/Sith like Ren but Finn was a sanitation guy! And for a brainwashed Storm Trooper Finn sure had a sparkling personality.
And where the fuck was Luke while a new battle of our age was taking place? Hiding away on a mountain somewhere.

If you can ignore the weirdness going on with the plot it's a fun, adventure movie that's helped to redeem Star Wars after the disaster that was the prequel trilogy.
7/10.

Finally got a chance to see it, and loved it to bits. Provided everything you could reasonably hope for, and fulfilled a few unreasonable wishes as well.

I could repeat many of the points made in this thread and won't. I will say that I don't think any of the seeming coincidences other than the Millennium Falcon remained unexplained.

I am completely unclear on the political situation, though. Does the First Order control any planets? If it controls so many that the opposing force is still called a resistance, how does it differ from the Empire anyway?

This came up at work. My answer was that Kylo Ren has only been trained as far as his mentor deemed expedient, and who else uses a lightsaber to practice on? I think he has one because that's what he thinks he should have. He was also injured and had just killed his father. Despite what he may say, that probably wasn't easy (he was struggling the whole movie with being tempted away from the dark side).

As far as Rey goes, she is pretty good with stick-type weapons, plus very adaptable at using whatever just to survive. Plus, and this connects to Luke in the OT, she had begun to use the Force and it must impart/enhance some ability that translates to lightsaber use (or is useful for that) because Luke never had any training either. Obi-wan had him use the remote briefly in ANH, but that was all we saw. Yoda trained him to use the Force and taught him philosophy but no weapons training. And Luke was able to confront Vader in ESB - before it all went wrong - but was good enough for a brief time anyway. Which is all we saw Rey doing in TFA.

As far as Finn goes, that's harder. I thought about his "sanitation" line some. I figure all the laborers/techs used to build that massive station had to find other jobs when it was finished. And training them all (or most of all of them) as infantry makes sense. Once they used the weapon, assumably to force surrender and take the remaining systems from the Republic, they would need an occupying force of some size. Also, since I assume since he was infantry he must have had some training in using various weapons. And I've only seen the movie once, but I don't think he lasted all that long against Kylo Ren who, again, was injured and somewhat (we assume) lacking in training.

According to the novel (as much as I've read anyway) after ROTJ, the remnants of the Empire fell back to a smaller portion of systems they could control with what they had left. There may have been some internal conflict. Part of this turned into the First Order, which eventually subsumed all the rest of it.

Meanwhile, the New Republic took the rest of the galaxy. Though not without dissent and grumbling from some systems.

The Resistance, I believe, is funded by the Republic (because it furthers their goals) and is what remains of the Rebel Alliance that didn't care to join the Republic until the Empire was fully defeated (or possibly because they have political differences). It makes sense that the Resistance only operates in the First Order territories, but who knows.

I assume that when the Galactic Empire fell, it split into the New Republic, which sought to revive the ideals and culture of the Old Republic, and the First Order, which claims lineage to the Galactic Empire and views itself as successor AND continuation thereof.

I assume "the Resistance" primarily operates as a militia inside First Order territory, and is mostly backed, equipped, and funded by the New Republic, but not openly, as there is a cold war going on between the NR and the FO.

Said better and shorter than me.

You're thinking like Star Trek fans, where there would be boundaries and logic and diplomacy.

You have to think like Lucas. A good guess is that some of the Imperials activated midichlorian dampening fields and then followed a Hantotoine royal tree slug that was prophesied to rule by a Gungan oracle who said "Yousa destine to do mossie awesomie things if'n you follow da king slug!" But the slugs ship got blown up by an assassin hired by the Council for Standardized Video Formats that was secretly controlled by a recently resurrected Sith Lord who'd been frozen in Carbonite in an ancient Jedi temple on a planet ruled by flying purple turtles that speak with thick Italian accents.

Thank God Disney is throwing Lucas's advice in the trash can.

Well if you read the Expanded Universe all the way through all hell broke lose after the Empire fell. Eventually the Skywalkers receded into obscurity and the Empire was revived anyway (though with a considerably lighter hand. They adopted some kind of principle called "Expansion through diplomacy" or something like that.)

Finally saw it!

I feel like I've been waiting for this movie for an entire lifetime.

Without reading any spoilers, I already knew going into the movie than Han would die. IIRC, Harrison Ford originally wanted the character killed off in Return of the Jedi...

But actually seeing him killed on screen was like a punch to the gut, somewhat like Kirk dying in Generations but with far more dramatic impact. I'm sad that will never get a reunion between the big three.

I would like to know how Ren turned to the dark side. It doesn't really make sense or parallel with Anakin's fall. What brought it on?

Although the prequels did a poor job showing Anakin's descent, at least on paper we can understand why he would turn... raised as a slave, mother killed, experiencing the Clone Wars, being manipulated for much of his life by Palpatine... What's Ren's motivation? It seems like he had a pretty stable upbringing...

I wonder if he will be redeemed at the end? Killing your own father seems pretty unforgivable. I was hoping Rey would cut him into pieces...

Then again, they went through this whole arc with Jacen Solo in the EU so we will see how it develops. Will Rey be the Jaina Solo of this rebooted universe, except cousin instead of twin sister?

Another thought.

It seems that Luke is guilt-ridden over his failure to properly train Ren. Will Rey spend much Episode 8 trying to convince Luke to try again with her?

Also will Anakin's force ghost appear to Ren and tell him to knock this shit off? Or will he not even be able to commune with a Force ghost because he is too full of rage and too untrained?

Well, Ren turned to the dark side because of his parents.

When he was just a young boy Han started flying him around in the Millenium Falcon, and as he got a little older he realized that his dad was doing all sorts of business deals. After one deal little Ben said, "Dad, that Calimarian would've sold it for half what you paid." Han looked at him amusingly, "Oh yeah?" Ben nodded. "Yeah. I could read his mind through the Force." "You could?" "Easily. I could've made him go as low as a third." Han's eyes lit up. He had a new angle - and a new partner. A few short years later Ben was one of the most notoriously corrupt kids in the galaxy, and he became such a problem that Leia sent him away to Luke to try and turn him back to the light side. Luke failed because Ben ran some complex stock and banking schemes to take control of Luke's Jedi academy and vote him off the board.

Another question. Why did Leia hug Rey at the end of the film? They had never met before that moment, right?

I took that as a clue that they have met, and that Rey is less a Luke Skywalker-style Force sensitive who grew up as a nobody, and more a sleeper agent who has spent many years undercover but knows exactly who she is.

One theory is that she's Luke's daughter. However, while that fits with her being generally kickass with a lightsaber and hugging Leia, it doesn't fit with the fact that she does not appear to know Han (although there are hints that Han may know her, or at least recognize her name).

One scene hinted at the Vader mask influencing Ren. $5 says that by the end of the story arc he rebuilds it and starts wearing it.

Okay, just saw it. Initial reaction is that it's 1977 again and I'm fifteen years old. Wonderful film.

Rey is obviously Luke's child. Coincidences? In a galaxy where the Force "surrounds us, penetrates us, binds the galaxy together" there are no coincidences.

I was overjoyed to see Han and Chewie again. Han's death was a gut punch for sure, but I knew ahead of time thanks to multiple spoilers in multiple places. Leia not so much, as she wasn't given a lot to do and also because Carrie Fisher just doesn't have the presence to be a major character any more. Luke's appearance at the end was obviously an homage to Obi-Wan Kenobi from the original, beard, robes and all. Probably a clever wink that he's on a water planet instead of a desert one. If it had been Naboo . . . well, I would have found that amusing even if no-one else did.

Totally loved it.

Or she might be a trap, as Daisy Ridley has said that her dad is more of a Star Trek fan.

Could this be an opening move in a bid to co-opt or crush the alternate fandom? Could she convince Luke that the galaxy's future lies in technology and understanding instead of ancient temples and mystic forces?

The lines they cut from the ending have leaked.

Rey: "I believe this lightsaber belongs to you."
Luke: "Actually it was more of a loaner from Ben Kenobi. Did you find MY HAND?!"
Rey: "Your hand?"
Luke: "Yeah. Last I saw it, it was firmly attached to that lightsaber."
Rey: "No, there was just this. I guess someone threw your hand away."
Luke: "I loved that hand."
Rey: "But you've replaced it."
Luke: "You ever make out with a droid before?"
Rey: "No. What's it like?"
Luke: "It's like making out with a droid. That's what it's like!"

Don't give up your day job (assuming it's real).

QFT. I cringed more than once...

He has Anakin's blood. He's corruptible just like his grandfather. In fact it is hinted more than once in Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi that Luke himself is on the edge and could easily fall. All the Skywalkers fight a battle within themselves, and Kylo Ren is certainly wrestling with internal conflict in this one. I suspect we will find out that Snoke was able to have dark side influence over him in much the same as Palatine did Anakin.

I think as far as one of the actual "big ideas" in Star Wars (that actually made sense) was that the power of the force had a very naturally seductive quality that tended toward being abused.

Which is probably why the Jedi in The Phantom Menace were shown to be a near useless group.

I'm going out on a limb and saying that Rey can't possibly be a Skywalker because she doesn't whine like a baby all the time.Then again Leia wasn't a whiner either so maybe that flaw only affects the guys in the family.

Unfortunately Lucas had no idea how to come up with a good story so he relied on Joseph Campbell's hero's journey myths with a bunch of random sci-fi crap thrown in. The "Force" sounds like something that would've been cooked up as a story element in 650 BC. Maybe Lucas thought it should be magic, like electricity, and noted that batteries have a positive and negative terminal. Obviously the positive terminal is good and the negative terminal is bad. Given what's been established, it's hard to recover a workable, non-embarrassing sci-fi universe.

If I was going to make an attempt at it, while rewriting as little as possible, I'd posit the following:

• The force exists at the quantum level and has somehow become accessible to rare living organisms.
• A tiny sliver of the galaxy's sentient population can access and manipulate it with their brains.
• But as the brain manipulates it, unleashing very powerful forces externally, those forces are first unleashed and manifested inside the heads.
• Using the Force through anger and rage correspondingly enhances anger and rage with the power of the Force.
• Those aspects of the Force are a very dangerous thing to be playing with, worse than doing crystal meth, and if misused it can lead to profound and potentially permanent behavioral changes.
• Among the common symptoms of abuse are psychosis, psychopathy, and a complete disdain for others as "lesser beings".
• In about one percent of cases a natural psychopath is Force adept, and they can cause a whole lot of problems if they get any training.
• Jedi training comes from long and painful experience about using the Force in safe ways that don't backfire or cause mental degradation.
• The long and painful experience with the Force includes those who abused the heck out of it (thugs and gangsters) and who revel in the power and destruction they can cause and the empires they can control.
• These are more dangerous and often more powerful than the Jedi because they ignore the safe limits and boundaries and use their powers with abandon and little regard for keeping their own minds from harm.

With that approach you'd have understandable parallels to drug addiction, psychopathy, narcissism, and psychosis waiting to strike any Jedi who dabbles with banned powers, yet also with the obvious parallel that some people could recover from the "dark side" with proper treatment, motivation, and time, but always with the possibility of a relapse. Others might simply self-destruct into madness or attempts to become quasi-mystical energy beings of pure evil. The Sith would be equivalent of powerful and psychotic criminal masterminds who don't work together well in large groups because they're power-mad psychopaths, but they would take on loyal apprentices as enforcers.

But instead we have all the nonsense about "seduction" and a Force that inherently has a good and evil side.

Eastwood wouldn't touch a Star Wars script. He does characters that aren't black and white like a bad witch and a good witch, where one where's black and grumbles and screeches and the other wears white and talks like a fairy godmother. It's so poorly conceived that you can make a much better argument that the Empire was good and the Jedi were evil, and apparently anyone can switch sides from good to evil or back in about 10 seconds. Due to those flaws things just naturally get worse. How long does it take someone untrained in the force to develop all the powers and skills necessary to defeat a Dark Lord? Oh, maybe 10 minutes. What is the Dark Side? It's apparently just having ADHD and bipolar disorder. It's a mess, but a very profitable one for Disney.

Saw it Sunday. Quick review before I read the thread:
Daisy carried the film well - she's a fine actress and enjoyable to watch.
Harrison Ford was wonderful and funny ("Oh, you're cold?"), and nice to see in action again.
Emo Sith Lord was a good villain, but he should have left the mask on.
Did we really need yet. another. Death. Star? OY!!
The film was a lot of fanservice and copied the beats of the original film. I would have preferred something entirely new and different, rather than what was essentially a sideways remake (which, counting Jedi, makes it the second remake of the original).
Still, I had fun, and I like the new kids who will carry the torch forward. I just hope the next films are more original.