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

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Say what you want about Mark Hamill but the guy still knows how to act. The look on his face when he saw his fathers lightsaber in Rey's hand was a million bucks.

And he probably got paid several times that much for the 10 seconds he was on screen.

But seriously, he looked great. I can't wait to see what he'll be like in the next film.
 
So different writers are coming in to do each movie?

Please tell me there's already a full outline ahead of time so the trilogy has some plan in place...
 
"The ability to destroy a planet is insignificant next to the power of the Force"

Besides force ghosts, we haven't really seen any advanced powerful uses of the force. Kylo freezing the bolt was a great "Whoa, the Force is powerful" moment
 
My obsession with Tolkien is crossing over into Star Wars.

No joke, last night I dreamed that Ep. 8 opens with us revisiting Kylo killing Han - and then when Han falls down into the bottomless pit we follow him and he fights a Balrog.

fhXxaL8.gif


You can imagine my disappointment when I woke up.
 
So different writers are coming in to do each movie?

Please tell me there's already a full outline ahead of time so the trilogy has some plan in place...

From what I understand JJ and Rian Johnson spitballed ideas together before he went and worked on the script for VIII. Johnson is also writing IX. So we can expect some conformity among each entry of the trilogy, not just the next person making it up as they go.
 
I think this was more or less perfect for what it needed to be. All the four main actors were perfect in their parts and this new trilogy will be in awesome hands.

Kylo loses and is at the end of his second act. Him at his lowest. We're at the end of act 1 for both Finn and Rey. Poe is just fun to have around.

The next movie will be Training Montage the Movie. Kylo will become powerful and menacing and will dominate the movie and lead the way into the third as a force to be reckoned with. Rey and Finn will struggle with balance and discover they still have lots to learn.

I'm really looking forward to more. Hopefully we'll even get a Christmas special.
 
It's when she picks up the lightsabre. You hear like padme dying, Yoda talking, and some other stuff I think.

Obi-Wan talks to her. He says "Rey, these are your first steps."

Oh. Of course she hears voices during the vision, I'm not disputing that.

I was originally talking about when she's meditating during the lightsaber duel. There's just silence.

I'm specifically contrasting that to the Death Star battle, where Obi-Wan's constantly talking to Luke and most of Luke's significant contributions to the battle follow from Obi-Wan's spoken direction.

I wouldn't say that exactly. The film doesn't go against what Obi-Wan said to Luke in episode four:

"Remember, a Jedi can feel the Force flowing through him."
"You mean it controls your actions?"
"Partially. But it also obeys your commands."

A Jedi still needs training, which is why Snoke wanted to complete Kylo Ren's. Both Rey and Kylo Ren are untrained in that fight, but she came out on top regardless because she had the advantage of not being mentally screwed up, shot by a bowcaster and having fought with Finn right before that.

I think this is a horrendous cheapening of the final duel that has basically zero symbolic impact, which seems to go against the film's otherwise masterful use of allegory.

You're right that the Force both guides you and obeys your commands (Rey demonstrates both), but what I'm saying is that the Force's guidance consistently trumps people who try to wield the Force through command (Kylo exclusively demonstrates the latter with no evidence of the former).

People seem to like trying to substitute plot for meaning when that's never really been how Star Wars works.
 
My obsession with Tolkien is crossing over into Star Wars.

No joke, last night I dreamed that Ep. 8 opens with us revisiting Kylo killing Han - and then when Han falls down into the bottomless pit we follow him and he fights a Balrog.

fhXxaL8.gif


You can imagine my disappointment when I woke up.

Wouldn't a Rancor make more sense?
 
My obsession with Tolkien is crossing over into Star Wars.

No joke, last night I dreamed that Ep. 8 opens with us revisiting Kylo killing Han - and then when Han falls down into the bottomless pit we follow him and he fights a Balrog.

fhXxaL8.gif

What if Han was the real reason the planet blew up?
 
Rian Johnson needs to slow things down for episode viii. Now that the new characters are established they need to let the story breathe a bit. I think part of the reason why Williams score doesn't have the standout moments it usually does is that Abrams had the story (and camera) constantly moving at a breakneck pace. You didn't get the iconic star wars pairing of a strong, static visual composition with Williams epic score.
 
I'm actually hoping the rumors of Hayden in episode 8 are true. Yes the prequels are meh but I still like the story and would love to see it all tie in together and there could be some great integration.
 
All Star Wars protagonists are Gary Stu/Mary Sue. Though I do like that Luke has progression with the OT, I hope Rey has a similar progression. Anakin sucked imo because we never saw thr progression, it felt like giant leaps from a nerdy kid, whiny teenager, then angry manchild with each movie. Just being a Mary Sue/Gary Stu doesn't make people unable to like them, look at John Cena, he has fans!

I personally think Rey does just get powerups as plot demands, almost losing a battle then closing your eyes is like shonen 101, Saint Seiya and even Sailor Moon was doing that decades ago. It's not an isolated case in the series though, like Anakin being the only human who can podrace and coincidentally end up in the naboo starfighter to take out the droid station is a kid's wish fulfillment fantasy. Luke in ANH seems like the least stretch to be honest even though he is still the chosen one. The trench run succeeded due to a cooperative effort like Han's backup and Obi-Wan's guidance. I don't think he curved the proton torpedos though, I always thought they curved to a degree in the Rogue Squadron games when you locked on, maybe at the time I was too used to Macross missile spam to question the missiles.

Edit: just noticed a crap ton of posts in between the previous conversation and what I posted lol. Carry on if it moved past it.
 
Nah, he'll have another Starkiller, that's orbited by two to four Death Stars.

We might as well have the final battle like the anime Gurren Lagann where they start using
entire galaxies as weapons.

You, uh, you got one of these for the scene of her pulling the lightsaber? Been wanting to rewatch that since I saw it in theaters.
Nope sorry. I got that link from the last thread.
 
It does seem that Rey taps into the dark side at the end of the battle though. Her style was definitely aggressive, despite just having used the light side to calm herself. I wonder if this will be addressed in Episode VIII, and if Luke will recognize that there's anger in her.

Most importantly, I wonder if he'll try to tell her to repress it, or show her how to use the dark side for good as part of some brand new teachings that don't necessarily mirror Yoda's.

I think this is a horrendous cheapening of the final duel that has basically zero symbolic impact, which seems to go against the film's otherwise masterful use of allegory.

You're right that the Force both guides you and obeys your commands (Rey demonstrates both), but what I'm saying is that the Force's guidance consistently trumps people who try to wield the Force through command (Kylo exclusively demonstrates the latter with no evidence of the former).

People seem to like trying to substitute plot for meaning when that's never really been how Star Wars works.

It feels like we agree, because I have no problems with what you just said. I was just talking about your statement that teaching is worthless when I believe it's not. You still need training in order to learn how to let the Force guide you.
 
Yeah. I loved Mad Max.. still need to see Creed and I bet it will be one of my top movies for sure. I just still think TFA has brought life back into the SW franchise even if it was safe. Its still refreshing and does make up for the let down that has been Star Wars movies for almost 2 decades. I just dont see it as "wearing goggles" like you said, it delivered what most wanted from a new SW movie IMO. Mad Max worked, it somehow got away without really having a throwback to the interceptor but it nailed the atmosphere. It was also a reimagining, not a direct sequel. No need for it borrow too much from the OG Max. TFA was almost a reimagining while being a direct sequel which I think is pretty impressive.
Cant wait to see Creed.

My biggest issue with TFA (and please don't think I hated the movie, I liked it a lot) is that it didn't need to retread ANH. The banter was working. The new characters were working. You had me! Then you tack on a Death Star and trench run that had me rolling my eyes in disappointment. The movie seemed to rely too heavily on "Remember how much you loved the OT? Here's a movie made to speak directly to that love!" It's not inherrently a bad thing and it's a formula that seems to be working tremendously for Disney.

It did its job. It re-inited the franchise and people are willing to trust again.I am one of those people that feels excited again for what is next. I guess I was hoping that JJ would make TFA what Aliens was to Alien:

New director, new vision, new story (without retreading) that compliments the original and most importantly, stands alone as its own film. I love Alien and Aliens for completely different reasons and they don't need each other to work. TFA I like BECAUSE I saw the OT but as a standalone? I don't think it works all that well.
 
It does seem that Rey taps into the dark side at the end of the battle though. Her style was definitely aggressive, despite just having used the light side to calm herself. I wonder if this will be addressed in Episode VIII, and if Luke will recognize that there's anger in her.

Most importantly, I wonder if he'll try to tell her to repress it, or show her how to use the dark side for good as part of some brand new teachings that don't necessarily mirror Yoda's.

I think you're mistaken confidence for anger. Definitely no dark side in her during that final stretch.
 
Oh. Of course she hears voices during the vision, I'm not disputing that.

I was originally talking about when she's meditating during the lightsaber duel. There's just silence.

I'm specifically contrasting that to the Death Star battle, where Obi-Wan's constantly talking to Luke and most of Luke's significant contributions to the battle follow from Obi-Wan's spoken direction.

It's kind of the same thing though. Obi-Wan says to Luke, "use the force" and he lets the force guide him. Obi-Wan isn't specifically telling him anything other than turn off the computer and let the force guide your aim. He's not specifically telling Luke where and when to fire.

In TFA Kylo says to Rey "I can teach you the ways of the force" and then she realizes that's when she needs to abandon her fear and let the force guide her. She and Luke both finally embrace the force as the powerful ally it is, at those particular moments.
 
My biggest issue with TFA (and please don't think I hated the movie, I liked it a lot)

Don't worry, that's why I'm here!

This is the safest movie ever in the history of safe. They start with a pretty damn good 30 minutes, but the second Han shows up, the movie takes a massive goddamn nosedive into boredom territory.

It's a movie that doesn't stand on its own whatsoever. Which bites, since they clearly set the table to do exactly that.
 
By making things personal, it just goes to show how attached you are to a piece of entertainment, and unfit to have proper discussion about it.

If I say this movie is weak, it doesn't mean you are weak. You understand that right?

I honestly don't give a shit what you think about the film. I don't think it's the best film ever either.

It's just saying someone prefers one film over the other is cringe worthy, whatever that film is, is a weird way of putting it.
 
Here's a question about that ending saber fight which has me wondering if people are misinterpreting things..

Clearly, Kylo has history/knows Rey. He throws a saber fit when they lost BB-8, but when he finds out it was "some girl" he kills a guy over it. Chances are, Luke had to send Rey away because she was showing more aptitude than Luke's students, and with Ben already unstable, it threw him over the edge. Maybe he threatened her and Luke sent her away temporarily?

Anyways, recall in ROTJ, Vader was toying with Luke much like Kylo was toying with Finn/Rey. It was only until they gave into their anger that they started overpowering Kylo/Vader. Look at Rey's expressions, she's pissed and starts getting the upper hand. Kylo loses confidence and is all over the place emotionally that he can't focus.

Sure, Rey starts calm and focused, making a connection with the Force, but it seemed the more the fight continued, the more dark side creeped in. And they said that Vader was strong in Ben, the same would be true for Rey theoretically, even moreso if she's Luke's kid.

TDLR: Did Rey win the fight because she started connecting with the Dark Side like Luke did in ROTJ?

BTW, I loved Kylo's fits. Such a troubled, weak character. He's so ominous. Everything can happen with him. I loved him! How someone can criticize SW VII for an under powered villain is beyond me.
 
It's kind of the same thing though. Obi-Wan says to Luke, "use the force" and he lets the force guide him. Obi-Wan isn't specifically telling him anything other than turn off the computer and let the force guide your aim. He's not specifically telling Luke where and when to fire.

In TFA Kylo says to Rey "I can teach you the ways of the force" and then she realizes that's when she needs to abandon her fear and let the force guide her. She and Luke both finally embrace the force as the powerful ally it is, at those particular moments.

Ben tells Luke to trust the Force. Luke then switches off his targeting computer and trusts the Force.

Kylo is telling Rey she needs a teacher. Rey then proceeds to ignore what Kylo is saying and let the Force guide her directly, defeating the guy who professed she needed him to teach her.

How is that at all the same thing?

It feels like we agree, because I have no problems with what you just said. I was just talking about your statement that teaching is worthless when I believe it's not. You still need training in order to learn how to let the Force guide you.

I'm not actually convinced this is actually true or that it has ever been truly important to good triumphing over evil in the Star Wars universe.

- Anakin's Jedi training was insufficient to keep him from falling to the dark side. He certainly was never concerned with listening to the Force's guidance; he wanted to wield the Force as a weapon to achieve his goals.
- Almost every formally trained Jedi failed to survive the Jedi purge, and we're told the Jedi's ability to tap into the Force was diminished, presumably through Palpatine's influence.
- Luke was formally trained, but in the end ignores the instructions of his masters to defeat Vader and wins in the end precisely by refusing to participate in the struggle.
- Vader doesn't even actually use the Force to defeat the Emperor; he just opens his heart to compassion for his son, an act that requires no training whatsoever and in fact goes directly against his own Sith training.
- Yet again, every one of Luke's students-in-training either is slaughtered or is Kylo Ren and turns to the dark side.
- Rey, the only Force-sensitive person we've encountered in the films who as far as we know has had no formal training, defeats Kylo Ren simply by tapping into the guidance of the Force.

There's nothing saying that anything the Jedi or Sith have ever told us about the Force is actually pristine advice, and in fact the "formal" ways of both the Jedi and the Sith have been pretty consistently fallible.
 
Am I the only one who thinks Finn is also force sensitive?

It's intentionally left open so they can do what they want with him in the next film. It could really go either way, the novelization indicates he is not force sensitive at all, but that isn't made as clear in the movie.
 
The only hope for a Rey Kenobi is if obiwan and the dutchess of mandalore had a secret kid who had a kid who then found out their parantage and left their kid with Luke.

Luke not returning Rey to them might mean that Kylo knows who the parents are and either killed them or it was too dangerous to return her to them so he hid her away.

Still i am not a fan of rey kenobi or rey solo or even rey skywalker.

#teamReyShan
 
Rian Johnson needs to slow things down for episode viii. Now that the new characters are established they need to let the story breathe a bit. I think part of the reason why Williams score doesn't have the standout moments it usually does is that Abrams had the story (and camera) constantly moving at a breakneck pace. You didn't get the iconic star wars pairing of a strong, static visual composition with Williams epic score.

This was my feeling as well. Initially I was underwhelmed with the soundtrack but I think it was a stylistic choice on Williams's part to have the music more as punctuation than focal point given the pace of the story/editing/camera work.
 
I think you're mistaken confidence for anger. Definitely no dark side in her during that final stretch.

Hm, maybe you're right. I still need to watch the movie again, but it's hard when we still can't have it readily available for us to check.

If I had my way, I'd already have the DVD and rewatch that final duel over and over again. It's my favorite part of the movie by far.
 
Rian Johnson needs to slow things down for episode viii. Now that the new characters are established they need to let the story breathe a bit. I think part of the reason why Williams score doesn't have the standout moments it usually does is that Abrams had the story (and camera) constantly moving at a breakneck pace. You didn't get the iconic star wars pairing of a strong, static visual composition with Williams epic score.

I imagine that's what he'll end up doing. None of Johnson's films are particularly fast paced, in fact, I've seen a lot of people on GAF (wrongly) criticize Looper for being "boring," because it has a slower post than most similar films in the sci-fi/action genre.
 
BTW, I loved Kylo's fits. Such a troubled, weak character. He's so ominous. Everything can happen with him. I loved him! How someone can criticize SW VII for an under powered villain is beyond me.

Different strokes for different folks I guess, but I'm with you.

We finally have a villain that is struggling with becoming a villain...who is volatile...who is confused...who is powerful...You hate him and identify with him in the same breath...

Quite frankly, Rylo is more relatable they Rey is at this point. (Though I totally dug Rey's character, but they need to give her some complexity...though the mystery around her is fun to speculate).
 
Don't worry, that's why I'm here!

This is the safest movie ever in the history of safe. They start with a pretty damn good 30 minutes, but the second Han shows up, the movie takes a massive goddamn nosedive into boredom territory.

It's a movie that doesn't stand on its own whatsoever. Which bites, since they clearly set the table to do exactly that.

I'm not as critical as you but I just felt the movie went incredibly safe when it really didn't need to.

It had all the ingredients to forge completely new territory. It felt like JJ really wanted to remake ANH in his image (complete with a cantina and bigger death star) but also had to write in the new blood so this is what we got.

I was more disappointed at what could have possibly been and wasn't.
 
Oh. Of course she hears voices during the vision, I'm not disputing that.

I was originally talking about when she's meditating during the lightsaber duel. There's just silence.

Wait doesn't she remember back to Maz during her little meditation? Am I misremembering?
 
My biggest issue with TFA (and please don't think I hated the movie, I liked it a lot) is that it didn't need to retread ANH. The banter was working. The new characters were working. You had me! Then you tack on a Death Star and trench run that had me rolling my eyes in disappointment. The movie seemed to rely too heavily on "Remember how much you loved the OT? Here's a movie made to speak directly to that love!" It's not inherrently a bad thing and it's a formula that seems to be working tremendously for Disney.

It did its job. It re-inited the franchise and people are willing to trust again.I am one of those people that feels excited again for what is next. I guess I was hoping that JJ would make TFA what Aliens was to Alien:

New director, new vision, new story (without retreading) that compliments the original and most importantly, stands alone as its own film. I love Alien and Aliens for completely different reasons and they don't need each other to work. TFA I like BECAUSE I saw the OT but as a standalone? I don't think it works all that well.
I can totally see where you are comming from. I blame Lucas and the PT for JJ feeling the need to do this. Had there not been so much backlash from the PT, JJ would probably have been a little more creative in his direction. I think its a safe bet the next few movies will do their own thing with less throwbacks. I do think we will see some in the form of like... episode 8 being about the dark side getting the upper hand like in ESB.. not much beyond that I dont think. I think Rian will do great. Im a bit worried about how Trevorrow will handle it after Jurassic World TBH.
 
Please tell me there's already a full outline ahead of time so the trilogy has some plan in place...

Much like the Marvel films the director (who ever it might be for the third) will have to stick to the Disney template, they *might* get away with a bit of directional flair here or there but the next Star Wars film will look and feel the same as FA.
 
BTW, I loved Kylo's fits. Such a troubled, weak character. He's so ominous. Everything can happen with him. I loved him! How someone can criticize SW VII for an under powered villain is beyond me.

The hissyfits made for some great comedic moments, but as a tortured and conflicted villain carrying any real depth? I was not convinced. I saw more of Anakin whining to Obi-Wan in Ep. 3 than I did the cold ruthlessness of Vader in him.
 
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