[SPOILERS] Star Wars: The Force Awakens (Thread #2) - One Thumb Up

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As a point of reference, look at what Luke does in ANH with no training. Obi-wan parks a helmet that blinds him over Luke's head, and he's blocking laser blasts with a lightsaber within ~2 minutes (three times in a row). At the end of the film Obi-wan tells him to "use the force" to make a nigh impossible shot by eye. He has no context for what that means or how to do it, but does it anyways. Very similar to Rey, who was largely just seeing what Kylo Ren was doing, trying it herself, and finding to her surprise she could do it. It's a bit compressed but I think in both cases a natural with the force was doing amazing things very quickly. (And she still got her tail kicked by Kylo, until the very end.)

I know it's a shit movie but even child Anakin shows great ability with the force in his Pod Racing and the space battle at the end of Phantom Menace It's obvious an untrained force user naturally taps into the force even though they may not even know they are using it.
 
As far as we know Yoda never told him to never reproduce or any of that stuff that came about in the PT. Besides one would hope that after all these years of presumed study Luke would realize with his council of force ghosts how flawed the Jedi way could be.



Kylo thought that's what he needed to do, he thought it's what would end the conflict inside of him, he likely thought wrong.

maybe.

Yeah I took it as Kylo destroying that last temptation back to the dark side, or the one thing that was holding him back, like Arthas tearing out his heart.
 
How is the 3D? I don't care for 3D and have already seen it in 2d but I am going to the 3D imax tomorrow since that's what a friend wanted. Haven't seen a 3D movie since UP.

I saw it in IMAX 3D, so i can only speak about that. It was pretty damn well done for a post-converted movie. I had heard that post-converting had improved, but I never saw something like it myself. There's a scene where the star destroyer looks like it's going to poke you in the eye. That was amazing.
 
I don't think it's been posted in here yet, apologies if it has, but for the soundtrack freaks among you (myself included) even if you think this score is the least of all 7 films (and especially if you DON'T think that), more John Williams is always a good thing.

Disney's For Your Consideration website uploaded an alternate version of the soundtrack. It loses some cues from the official soundtrack, and adds about 10-15 minutes of music not available on that soundtrack, in different arrangements.

01 The Attack on the Jakku Village Part 1 (5:27)
02 The Attack on the Jakku Village Part 2 (1:53)
03 The Scavenger (1:52)
04 Lunchtime (1:12)
05 I Can Fly Anything (4:09)
06 Finn’s Trek (1:35)
07 Follow Me and The Falcon (7:09)
08 The Rathtars (1:19)
09 Snoke (2:07)
10 You Got A Name? (1:32)
11 I’m No Hero (1:06)
12 The Starkiller (1:52)
13 Kylo Ren Arrives at the Battle (2:15)
14 The Resistance (1:35)
15 The Abduction (1:35)
16 Finn and Poe, United (2:01)
17 The Bombing Run (2:07)
18 On the Inside (2:54)
19 Torn Apart (4:24)
20 The Ways of the Force (3:58)
21 The Journey Home (2:18)
22 Farewell and The Trip (3:49)
23 The Jedi Steps and Finale (9:58)
Yes! Lunchtime is delightful. I actually have Logic Pro open right now editing the Burning Homestead cue into Ways of the Force right now, so I'll need to double check this doesn't have that.
 
Yes this is the most interesting villain they have had yet. I'm actually excited to see his journey.

No kidding. I actually hate Kylo, where has all of the previous villains I liked. He is so much more interesting than Vader/Maul/dooko/grevious

Rotj emperor is the only thing that compares.
 
Rey not struggling with the force is not necessarily a problem. Her not struggling with anything is a problem. I don't think she's a Mary Sue, I think she's just thin as a character, there's not much to latch onto other than "she's great at a lot of stuff"
 
When Luke does it no body says anything, but Rey is suddenly a master jedi because she mind tricked a guard on her third try.

Its the same with people expecting Ren to VaderSuperSith 2.0 only to cry foul because they missed the point.

All Rey did that was amazing, was do the thing Yoda and Kenobi tried to beat in to Luke's head for 2 movies.



The exact moment is when he takes of his helmet. His entire demeanor changes and the audience doesn't know what to feel. I think its going down as my favorite part of the movie.
I believe it took Luke until the 3rd movie when he was a full fledged Jedi knight to pull mind tricks. Rey does it to a target that was actively hostile to her with no previous training or anything. It's pretty outstanding even by old EU standards.
 
Damn it, Boyega.
tumblr_nzqlk60aq41u7tud1o1_1280.png
 
maybe.

Yeah I took it as Kylo destroying that last temptation back to the dark side, or the one thing that was holding him back, like Arthas tearing out his heart.

It could be the thing he needed but I don't think in that moment or the moments after he suddenly fully turned. I think it's just a part of the process and the final push for Snoke to apparently finally going to finish his training.
 
Rey not struggling with the force is not necessarily a problem. Her not struggling with anything is a problem. I don't think she's a Mary Sue, I think she's just thin as a character, there's not much to latch onto other than "she's great at a lot of stuff"

Or she is the quickest study of Force powers. People complaining about this while accepting Ren ability to read minds is like wow.

Rey's fast track leveling up isn't hardly the worst problem in this film.
 
His motivations are pretty poorly fleshed out beyond the "I'm a vader fanboy who was too cool for Luke's training".
His motivations are informed by everything from Vader's legacy, to the "seduction" of the light (his attachment to his parents), to his incomplete training and volatile temper, to his lack of respect from his peers. He is a well defined, well layered character who starts out looking like a Vader rehash and then subverts the audience's expectations in dramatically interesting ways. Sorry dude but you missed a lot.
 
His saber got straight up cut in half by Kenobi.

Obi wan snapped the double bladed in half and Maul just one half of it as a normal lightsaber

Maul could either use a single side or turn both blades on. In the comics and then the Clone Wars cartoon/series, Ventress had the rad set of curved sabers which could join together and form a double-sided joint.

Anyway, got my Dad's review of the movie. Pretty awesome: "...Han Solo has a son. Don't remember that - must have missed an episode - but he's in the force and is a real piece of work. And there's a girl, don't know who she belongs to, but she's in the force, too. The new seats are nice but the heat was blowing right down on me. It was alright."


Gotcha, thanks.

Also, lol at Dr Prob's dad.
 
Rey not struggling with the force is not necessarily a problem. Her not struggling with anything is a problem. I don't think she's a Mary Sue, I think she's just thin as a character, there's not much to latch onto other than "she's great at a lot of stuff"

She struggled with accepting her greatness. Still a struggle!
 
Rey is using heirlooms by having Luke/Anakin Skywalker's lightsaber and she inherits the Falcon. The lightsaber gave her +10% xp and damage boost. Kylo going to be carried by Snoke in Episode 8 and get 2500 rated gear.
 
Did it bother anyone else that a lightsabre just didn't cut right through that Stormtrooper melee weapon? I know it was hitting mostly the 'electricity stun part' but I kept thinking it really should just be cutting through this weapon.

Energy weapons like that have been in the fiction for ages now. I mean, Obi-Wan best Grievous while using one.
 
Probably late unless someone has debunked this theory with some solid evidence but now probably sold on the theory of Darth Plaguesis being Snoke. Yes I heard about the themes being the same and stuff. I just came back from watching it for the 2nd time and noticed that Kylo Ren says to Han Solo that "Supreme Leader Snoke is wise"

Darth Sidious once said "Did you ever hear of the tragedy of Darth Plaguesis the Wise?"

I mean that is enough especially with the face wounds that Snoke has from a potential strike with a lightsaber by Sidious.

I don't buy the word being just a common word in that use.

I said the same thing yesterday. More so as a joke but I think it's something to look at
 
The only thing that actually bugged me was using Force Persuasion on someone when she thinks the Jedi are basically myths earlier in the movie and she never sees it ever used on anyone in the cut of the movie that exists (also, mostly because it is a throwaway joke). Everything else is basically her pulling the typical fantasy hero tropes ala Luke / Gohan / insert hero who gains power when the chips are down and gets angry. The pacing of the movie also makes it much worse (since there are a lot of cuts, and there's no time for Rey to breathe). We also have the benefit to see Luke's whole journey through 3 episodes versus just one movie so far for Rey. Mind you, Rey's my 2nd favorite character besides Finn in the series (Finn is much more relatable from the first movie), and I still want my damn Rey shirt.
I agree about the trooper mind control scene. It was the only thing she did in the film where she did not have a point of reference to work from.

Plus, why is it a bad thing to have her be a Mary Sue? People like power fantasies, and often times main heroes, when introduced, are basically power fantasies. There's nothing inherently bad in her being a fairly common trope that pretty much every fantasy movie uses.

People seem to be getting upset that their favorite character might not be perfect, and getting super defensive about criticisms that all sorts of characters get now a days. People getting defensive (and refuting the criticism) is one thing, calling people sexist because they dare question the perfectness of Rey is extraordinarily insecure and thin skinned. That argument is basically "I don't agree with you, so I am calling you a bad human being."
Was this directed at me? This isn't an angle I've argued here, because I don't find it helpful.

That said, I have found a lot of the critiques of Rey troubling. We had the MRA freak out over Furiosa over the summer, and then all this arguing about Rey with TFA. I don't think it's a coincidence that two strong female characters in returning franchises were met with resistance. In 15 years of being on GAF, I've never heard the term Mary Sue (I had to google it) and certainly never heard the kind of arguments made against Rey be leveraged against a male action lead. A large proportion, though not all, of the arguments against her I've seen have required double standards to be applied. This is not to say some critiques are not valid. Rather that folks making them need be particularly clear in doing so because they are sharing a position made by those with more overtly sexist viewpoints, and there's a danger of being lumped in. (Which is another reason folks should not be accusing others of being sexist, but rather argue on the merits.)
 
It could be the thing he needed but I don't think in that moment or the moments after he suddenly fully turned. I think it's just a part of the process and the final push for Snoke to apparently finally going to finish his training.

He seems like he's after that power.


Maybe I'm projecting my dislike of
Arkham Knight
onto Kylo. He definitely had some of the coolest shows of Force with that midair laser stop.
 
She's never even heard of the force, despite being good with it.

Him probing her mind may have been just enough to get her to push-back.

She's heard of it, it was just stories and like mythology to her, she's however not skeptical or seemingly cynical about it so its easy for all the things she dreamed and fantasied about turn out to be true. She accepts it easily and basically without question or resistance.

I'm probably not quoting this right but...

"The force is calling to you, just let it in."
 
Rey not struggling with the force is not necessarily a problem. Her not struggling with anything is a problem. I don't think she's a Mary Sue, I think she's just thin as a character, there's not much to latch onto other than "she's great at a lot of stuff"

Nah, Rey's got stuff going on. In many ways she's the Anti-Luke. He was all about getting off Tattooine and doing somethings but doesn't get a chance until he learns that he has this crazy newfound potential.

Rey already has potential, tons of it, but she doesn't want to go anywhere. She wants to stay put and reject her fate. Whereas Luke was all about getting away, and becoming a Jedi, Rey rejects her fate until she finally finds a surrogate family like the one she's been waiting for.
 
Nah, Rey's got stuff going on. In many ways she's the Anti-Luke. He was all about getting off Tattooine and doing somethings but doesn't get a chance until he learns that he has this crazy newfound potential.

Rey already has potential, tons of it, but she doesn't want to go anywhere. She wants to stay put and reject her fate. Whereas Luke was all about getting away, and becoming a Jedi, Rey rejects her fate until she finally finds a surrogate family like the one she's been waiting for.

Yeah, but that was an issue for all of like, 2 minutes

Who the hell designs a helmet that blocks smoke but not toxins for military application. They should function as gas masks...
Stormtrooper armour is clearly a product of bureaucracy rather than military application
 
His motivations are informed by everything from Vader's legacy, to the "seduction" of the light (his attachment to his parents), to his incomplete training and volatile temper, to his lack of respect from his peers. He is a well defined, well layered character who starts out looking like a Vader rehash and then subverts the audience's expectations in dramatically interesting ways. Sorry dude but you missed a lot.

Didn't miss anything you're talking about. I just don't think that's interesting or really adds much to the narrative. Something subverting expectations does not always mean it's good, and in this case I feel like it actively degraded the threat that he presented, to the point where the story had to compensate with a "Gigantic super-duper deathstar" to make up for it.

He might be a more interesting character if we were shown how he got to that point, I'll give it that much.
 
Yeah, but that was an issue for all of like, 2 minutes

No, it's a continuing thing through the film. First she won't leave Jakku, then she won't accept the light saber or the force, she continuously brings up wanting to get home. It's not until she realizes Finn and Han came back for her, and seeing them get fucked up by Kylo Ren that she fully accepts her fate.
 
Rey was pretty whatever and I thought Finn was kind of wasted but I really liked Kylo Ren. I dunno, I find the combination of tremendous power and no discipline to be pretty scary.
 
I think people are expecting ESB Vader but they are getting ROTS Anakin. Give it time, by episode IX he probably will be ESB Vader.

Probably. It felt like that's what they were pitching him as from the trailers. Maybe it's like how people were expecting a horror film in Crimson Peak.

Maybe Ren will go in reverse from emotional and frustrated force user to emotionless.
 
I think people are expecting ESB Vader but they are getting ROTS Anakin. Give it time, by episode IX he probably will be ESB Vader.

If not by episode 8. I expect his training and him having killed his father I suspect the next time we see him he'll be very refined and focused.


I'm curious as to how long the time gap will be from 7 to 8.
 
The exact moment is when he takes of his helmet. His entire demeanor changes and the audience doesn't know what to feel. I think its going down as my favorite part of the movie.
The first time I saw TFA and Kylo took off his helmet, there was this delicious silence where you could tell the audience knew something had shifted and was trying to process how to react. From that point on, he spends most of the film unmasked and his dialogue gets a lot more personal. What a great way to add real complexity to a character who easily could have been another Darth Maul.

"As you wish master. Something something revenge. *lightsaber noises*"
 
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