[SPOILERS] Star Wars: Force Awakens thoughts

[Khenglish]

So there is a recently watched movies thread, but I thought this movie deserved its own thread.

 

IMMENSE SPOILERS. STOP NOW IF YOU HAVE NOT SEEN THE MOVIE.

 

Spoiler

 

So I'm not really sure how I feel about this movie. I overall had a good impression when watching it at the time and thought it was definitely better than all the prequels. I had a bunch of minor issues, things like copy-cat planets and plots. The main problem I had though...

 

They destroyed the galaxy... everyone is dead.

 

So yeah... the New Order destroyed the Republic, not just militarily, but its major planets as well, including Coruscant. This is equivalent to making a movie about the cold war where the US and USSR nuke each other and kill 99.99% of each other's populations, but then still try to "win" the war against each other, even though everyone is dead and they both already lost. In the movie everyone being killed with nothing left to defend was brushed off as "whatever" by all the characters, with saving their puny resistance (I found this "resistance" concept corny and convoluted) as something more important than saving the lives they were supposed to protect.

 

What I thought would have been tremendously better would have been the New Order tried to blow up too many planets at once, and planetary shields (these were a thing in the expanded universe) blocked the attack on the major worlds, but their orbiting fleets and defense platforms were destroyed. It would then be up to the movie's heroes to save what was left of the galaxy as the Republic was defenseless. Instead of saving their "resistance" of 20 fighters, they'd be saving the galaxy by preventing the New Order from firing again. This also would have differentiated the story from A New Hope a little more, which is something that was also needed.

 

Thoughts?

 

 

 

 

[Brian]

I can't get tickets to see this yet because all the theaters around me are sold out. I'm hoping by Monday/Tuesday it will die down a bit and I can go see it. Hope it was enjoyable, I avoided your spoilers. 

[HTML]

My impression was meh.

It had good eye candy, but I left the movie thinking that there was really nothing to spoil.

Spoiler

I mean, Han died, but that was really not super big.

 

The movie in general made me feel, ok this is a guy betraying his civil duties... becoming an enemy of the state.

He was portrayed as too weak to handle what was going on... but he had no problem killing his own when he switched teams.

I felt the plot was weak and the concept was teaching people to betray your team who was just following orders also.

This is acceptable sometimes, but this is a Disney film.  I'm not sure if that is the value they want to present.

Then again, this is a Disney film and they go after people for doing the same thing they did with copying characters.

Then again, this is Disney, a fairly evil company who has a good front.

 

I liked it, but I would not necessarily call it a good movie.

It left the door open for the next Star Wars movies.

 

[Brian]

Ok now that I saw the movie, I agree with the consensus that the movie had a subpar plot overall:

 

Spoiler

In addition to what Khenglish said:

• Not plot related but the casting choice for mini me vader aka Kylo Ren couldn't have been worse. The guy has zero screen presence and just comes off as a whiny pussy.
• There's no way Han Solo and Leia Organa would give birth to such a sissy. Plus he got his ass handed to him by a girl (Rey). Even Finn aka new Jar Jar gave him a good fight and he's a sanitation storm trooper.
• It was obvious from the very start that Han Solo was gonna get killed by Kylo Ren soon as we learned he's his father and it became a cheap plot device to garner sympathy for Solo and hate towards Kylo Ren as some evil dude. 
• The entire concept of Luke Skywalker becoming emo because Kylo Ren wiped out all the Jedis and retreating to some planet to become a hermit is asinine. What's worse is the choice of making the map to Skywalker as the main storyline. Besides, in space, why do they need a traditional 2D map that connects the dots? They would just need a set of x/y/z coordinates. 
• Why is there a need for a resistance after the Republic is clearly in power? Shouldn't they build a proper army to deal with threats like the First Order (another silly name).
• Finn is the new Jar Jar binks.
• Lots of pew pew, little substance - welcome to JJ Abramsville. 

 

[iloveb00bs]

i think my little 3 year said it best. "it's boring" lols

felt it was a let down but maybe i was expecting to much. anyway hope it leads to something good.

[Aspire]

How can it be that such a movie is produced without realising that facts above? Nearly everybody has the same thoughts.... There was loud laughter in the cinema when "mini me vader" lifted his Mask  

 

I felt like every 5min somebody lifted his mask and a Sith-kind of Person like Kylo shouldn't have trouble with his anger management.... 

 

Conclusion: Not the worst movie I've seen, but not  nearly what I expected

[lumi]

I may be the only one, but I beginning to find the whole, huge star destroyer, obliterating planets, one detrimental weakness concept a bit tiring, but then its good that they're sticking to the formula.