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

I don't see how Rey can be a child of Leia/Han, and I'm kinda hoping she's not Luke's kid, either.

I think most people who walked out of the movie are expecting Rey to be either a Skywalker or a Solo.

But I'm actually hoping they subvert our expectations and give us a completely different explanation.

I understand why this movie had to stick close to the formula... as someone mentioned upthread, this movie was about re-establishing the brand.

But I'm hoping the next two movies really go their own way and start giving us something more original.

I went to the movie yesterday expecting boredom and disappointment. I was pleasantly surprised, I actually like it! Maybe those three prequels left a bad taste in my mouth. But it was a good story with good performances. That equates to a good movie IMO.

My expectations were low as well. I gave it a chance due to the fact Lucas was no longer involved and Abrams had come through before on Mission Impossible and Start Trek. And even then if the early reviews had only been lukewarm I would have waited awhile before seeing it.

I doubt shes a solo too, but conceivably, if they want to go down that route maybe Han knocked Leia up again just before he went back to his life of smuggling

Maybe Rey didn't have a father. The Force did that in the prequels.

Or she could be Obi-Wan's daughter, since a physical father isn't required when you have the Force. Or she could've acquired the force through a childhood blood transfusion. Did Luke or Leia ever donate to the Red Cross?

Thanks for those surprising revelations, George L!

Actually, having her conceived through the Force like Anakin would make sense. For some reason, anyway, the movie is called "The (!) Force Awakens", not "there has been a new awakening in the Force". Her strange untrained aptitude would be similar to Anakin's first space battle and pod race.

Well, part of our struggle with Star Wars is the search for logic and continuity.

It would make sense that Anakin was "created" by the spirit of a long-dead Jedi master who was nursing his skills along, essentially waking him through everyday actions. A similar thought might hold that Obi-Wan was responsible for Rey. She would be much less of a Mary Sue if they'd have spent a few minutes developing that idea, showing her using some Force powers while scavenging parts yet revealing that she didn't know why she could do such things, she'd just begun doing them as a child and quickly hid her abilities from everyone because it freaked them out. Maybe add a scene where she's trying to reach a particularly nice piece of junk across a chasm and we hear Obi-Wan say "Reach out, Ren, and use the Force" before she closes her eyes and yanks the part to her hand. Then we'd know that she'd actually spent years slowly building skills under the tutelage of a Jedi master, which to her was just some disembodied voice. Then traveling to Luke would be the same as Luke traveling to Yoda.

But Rey isn't unaware of what the Force can do; she has heard lots of stories, which is, among other things, why she comes up with the mind control trick. That's much more like young Anakin having imagined what being a good pilot is like, rather than having trained as Luke did.

I'm pretty sure Snoke is Voldemort.

Not to be too much of a downer, but I recall the same things being said about the Abrams Trek movies. I guess the difference here is that Abrams isn't going to be directing the next one. I just hope the studio doesn't somehow force it to be an Empire Strikes Back clone in much the same way "the second movie is the one with Khan in it" and "the third movie is the one where the ship blows up" seems to have been the case with the Abrams Trek movies.

But they threw in the line where she thought Luke Skywalker was just a legend - even though she knew all about Han Solo and the Millenium Falcon, which kind of sounds like a script written by a committee.

She knew Han as a smuggler, not a war hero. Finn obviously knew if Luke. It seems maybe the First Order trained to fight Jedi just in case. Hence the stormtrooper with the baton thing and the shield.

More bad writing. Overthrowing the Empire is going to make someone a thousand times more famous than smuggling. How many people remember the Kennedy family for a particularly fast whisky run? But if she was so into the speed records of the Millenium Falcon, how could she have crawled all over it for years without even recognizing it? They do have visual records in Star Wars.

Another major plot hole. When Rey ran towards the Millenium Falcon all she had on was this:



She wore that same outfit up until BB-8 inserted the new map image into R2's map image. The very next scene shows her kissing Finn on the forehead as he lays unconscious in the medical device - where she's wearing ALL NEW CLOTHES.



So apparently instead of checking on Finn immediately after the briefing, she went shopping for clothes - LIKE A GIRL. Are their fashion outlets located right on the Rebel base? Of course not. So she left the Rebel base and went into some nearby city to go clothes shopping, and only then did she happen to swing by to check on Finn. She no doubt researched her destination to buy a climate-appropriate and culturally acceptable wardrobe. But she didn't have any money when she fled Jakku, so what did she spend? Again, this is left completely unanswered. Did Leia give Rey a Rebel leader Platinum Gold card?

Maybe the clothes were on loan or Chewie had a change of clothes in his pouch?

I think the Falcon wasn't supposed to have been on nuDesertPlanet for a long time. It looks as if it was at first, but it doesn't really make sense considering that Han says it can be found fast because of the tracking device.

Also, just because Luke arguably overthrew the Empire (arguably, the attacking Rebels did), and overthrowing the Empire is a famous event, doesn't mean lots of people know Luke did it, or existed.

Probably because Mon Mothma went on all the talk shows taking personal credit for overthrowing the Emperor, releasing a photo of her and her team directing operations from her secure bunker in between golf outings.

Well, now we know Luke's first words to Rey. "You let the Wookie pick that outfit, didn't you?"

Obviously the daughter of Leia and Luke, before Luke discovered she was his sister, and an unfortunate incident at the abortion clinic booted her forward in time

True. We don't know what Luke told everyone after he got back to Endor. He was alone when he buried his father and after the festivities were over he might have just decided to leave his part of events out of it.

Finally caught it yesterday - much better than the prequels, even though we retread a lot of familiar territory.

I can easily forgive the retreads for a number of reasons - the Death Star Embiggended, because, well, look at how political intrigue as a weapon went down in the PT, and Snopes bad-guy bona fides had to be plausibly big enough to be a threat, and - like ANH - this was something of an origins story. Makes sense to use a familiar template. Hoping the next one will mix in a few more things.

Rey's rapid force-fu, well it is called The Force Awakens... And there've been hints the Force will be more than a McGuffin in this trilogy, which makes sense as just as the weaponry has evolved and improved, so the audience will expect Force powers to do so as well. Looks like we're starting to see what the Force looks like after a work-out, and by the end, possibly what it looks like on steroids.

The saber fights were much better, the PT was getting to look like it was choreographed by Tarantino, when this was much more dirty and, well, satisfying. Cirque du Jedi is pretty to watch, but does not a battle scene make.

Plenty of questions raised too, and characters to be fleshed out. This actually felt like the beginning of a trilogy, unlike TPM which felt like the beginning of a facepalm movement.

Well, finally went to see it with the little one. Contract fulfilled, lesson learned (hopefully). Had to watch the dubbed version because the theaters only play the original too late in the night. Come on guys, this is the generation which grew up with English as a foreign language since kindergarten and movies pirated off the 'net. They will understand!

Anyway. Made me quite happy. Also, the biggie I had no clue about because I absolutely refused to read any spoilers. Not that it's necessary, it's SW, the good guys win in the end and all that.

The good

- The new Three. I wonder how long casting took. They are just perfect - they have chemistry and they're sure to appeal to just about anyone. Pretty but not beautiful, sexy but no too much, heroic but stumbling... boy this is a piece of work. But it works without being too obvious.
- It looks like 2015 but feels like the original. Great job!
- The action scenes feel natural and they pack a punch. Even the CGI scenes do. I honestly had a hard time telling CGI and practical effects apart there. This is how it's supposed to work.
- The lightsaber duels. Could have been more of those though.
- The story. Yes it's a rehash of ANH with other elements thrown in. But that's OK. This is supposed to bring SW to a new generation and they don't have the attention span to watch the original trilogy. Heck those movies are so slow I don't have it any more. So fine by me.
- The physics. They're so absurd it really made me enjoy the movie even more. I wonder if they do this shit just to show the audience that this is NOT a SciFi movie. It's a Fantasy story in which a Parsec is a measure of time and you can suck star stuff out of a sun with your ski resort//Death Star hybrid planet.
- I definitely liked the absence of a Disney logo. Allergic to them after years and years and years and...
- Fan service. While I was never a hardcore fan, I did like the old movies for what they are - nice little fairy tales in space. However, putting the obvious ones aside, even I saw a lot of those little references.

The not so good

- The new Three. I wonder how long casting took. They are just perfect - they have chemistry and they're sure to appeal to just about anyone. Pretty but not beautiful, sexy but no too much, heroic but stumbling... boy this is a piece of work. Talk about a complete lack of personalities. Or *gasp* an edge. They are the perfect average of 100 focus groups.
- There is a tad too much paint-by-numbers going on. Silence-BAAAAM-silence-BAAAAM-silence-BAAAAAAM!!!! But the quiet scenes fall flat. They feel like filler material. They are not written to build up an epic story arc. ANH was never designed to have sequels so it's excusable but this new bunch? They are probably planned through until deep into the 2040s. There must be a master plan. Use it.
- Didn't really like the coincidences. But that's expected from a movie such as this.
- Didn't like the bad guy. Yes I'm expected to but he looks like somebody who plays a snooty upper class child in a off-Broadway production. Nah.
- Could have done without the Solo family drama. T'was a really weak spot there because it was not needed. I mean, bad guy kills his father (I wondered if Han would shoot first and just kick him down that conspicuously railingless walkway). Ten minutes later he's dead too. So... what? Same goes for Han/Leia. I expected some flying sparks there.
- I'm kinda missing the really original ideas. Like the sand monster that eats people and digests them for 100 years. The living asteroid. Such things.

The ugly

- THEY KILLED HAN! Nobody kills Han Solo goddammitmotherfuckin'pieceofsandpeopledung!
- The amound of money Mark Hamill received for his cameo.

In short: liked it a lot and I'm glad I finally saw an SW movie on the big screen. JJ has arrived I think. This is what he was born to do. 9/10.

Seen it three times.

http://dickynoo.blogspot.com/2015/12/big-winter-movies-part-3.html
http://dickynoo.blogspot.com/2015/12/big-winter-movies-part-35.html
http://dickynoo.blogspot.com/2016/01/big-winter-movies-part-375.html

He was way better than Hayden Christensen.
In fact, his character is how Anakin should have been.

Yea, well, that goes without saying. It's really not hard to be better than anything in the prequels. While those movies certainly had their moments it was just that, moments. The BS on the other hand dragged on. And on. And on.

The really interesting part is: All this would have been possible back in 2001. Really, there is nothing in that movie that couldn't have been done 15 years ago. But Lucas fucked them up because he just doesn't understand that technology is here to help. It's not the sole reason to be for a movie. You know who also almost fell into that trap? James Cameron with AVATAR. But just almost. He still managed to make a half-compelling take on Pocahontas that's more than just look at me, look at me.

I'm not yet convinced by Kylo Ren. I'd heard so much about how good Driver was, but he just felt like a poor man's Vader to me. The kind of Sith type you'd get in a youtube fan film. Frankly I'm more interested in what Snoke turns out to be at this stage.

He IS the poor man's Vader, and he knows it, that's the point.

I meant in terms of acting performance, not plot.

Since this is a spoiler filled thread, you can give us a bit more than, "fuck yeah, OMG, my pants are filled with cum!" I mean, yeah, we all had that response, but if you want to give a more descriptive evaluation, this thread is the pace.

I'm curious as to why you'd rank 6 ahead of 4. I don't think I've ever come across somebody else who does that. Personally, I'm at 5, 7, 4, 3, 6, 1, 2. But I won't be surprised if ESB drops a slot next time I dust off the DVD. Some of the first place ranking is no doubt nostalgia based. Will it really stand up against TFA? I'm not sure.