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

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Opto said:
What if Rey is, bear with me here, not related to anyone from the OT
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Ultimately, this would be my perfect universe answer to her lineage, especially since you know Kylo Ren is going to be all like, "You're a nobody from nowhere. I'm the Skywalker in this story. That means, I'm the big hero, I get to win, that's how this story goes."

And then of course, she ultimately whomps him anyway.

Maybe that's too meta, I dunno.
 
ReAxion said:
Feel like not enough is made of how long Obi-wan had it. Not that there needs to be, but it's groundwork for the future, possibly.
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In general, people seem to treat that 20 years Obi-Wan spent alone (as far as we've ever known) as trivia, which is odd.

Quite a bit can happen in 20 years.
 
ReAxion said:
I don't want her to be a Skywalker because a) the galaxy is bigger than that and b) I don't want these movies trying to chase or recreate "No, I am your father." That was a big moment for the OT, but it's not the only thing Star Wars is. I want characters built through more than just the reveal of who their parent is. It'll be a letdown, for me, if she's Luke's daughter.
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I want her to be a Skywalker because Star Wars, at its core, has always been about the Skywalkers to me.

And I think Rey is already a very strongly developed and multi-dimensional character - we won't need to know she's a Skywalker to know who she is as a character.

I also think it's vital for the series going forward after Episode IX. We probably know Kylo's fate at this point, and I struggle to believe that the Skywalker bloodline will end with him.
 
The Technomancer said:
Just got back from seeing it again, emerged quite a bit more positive the first time I saw it A lot of thoughts I'm going to dump:

-JJ Abrams is a legitimately incredible visual director. He's been coming into his own the last few movies but this is the one that really shows off that goddamn, this guy has an incredible eye. He shoots action well, he shoots conversations well, he shoots complex sequences with changing perspectives incredibly well. Mad Max is still the best visually directed film of the year, but I think this movie gives it a run for its money. Take any scene out of context in this film and its going to look somewhere between great and astounding

-JJ Abrams is also a painfully mediocre structural director. And this is a problem that has also shown up in basically every movie he's worked on and it doesn't seem to be getting better. His films, especially the big sprawling ones, always feel cobbled together between scenes, and there's an awkward feeling to how everything connects together that represents, really, the movie's biggest problems

-The Starkiller assault was much more enjoyable now that I wasn't expecting it to be the centerpiece of the finale. As background for everything else going on it works really well

-The visual design in the cantina is also astounding, and has some of my favorite stuff in the whole movie. I know they played up the whole "using real props" thing a lot, and I think that was mostly nostalgia pandering, but in that scene in particular it reminds me of my rich eccentric grandmother's weird house filled with weird things.

-Domnhall's speech before the first firing of the Starkiller is fucking awesome. The whole thing absolutely sells the "psychotic nazi" vibe

-Rey being so skilled with the force so quickly never bothered me that much, and it really doesn't bother me now. Look, maybe the critics would have a point if all we had were the first three movies where it took Luke a week of training to learn how to move a rock, but in the decades since the expanded universe including TV shows and especially video games have scaled up the level of "force magic" considerably. Plus the force prodigy angle is one that I'm okay with, I like the idea of an "awakening", that the force, as a quasi sentient oversoul, has selected its champion of the Light Side to put forth.

-On the other hand, Rey's character overall is still the thinnest of the main three, and having really paid attention the second time through this is almost entirely because she got Mystery Boxed in her own damn movie. The first time I saw it I didn't keep total track of just how much they were neglecting her backstory versus hinting at it, but having paid attention now yeah they're really leaning into "Rey's past" as one of the big dramatic hooks going into the next movie. Which is incredibly dumb, IMO, especially when she's juxtaposed right next to Finn and Kylo

-On the whole "she's good at everything" thing: she is, and whatever, that's not really a bad thing inherently. But they don't contextualize it well. People point to the "we used to hit womp rats, they're not much bigger then that" line as an example of how you can use a single line to establish skill without needing much more context, but the thing about the womp rat line is that does establish context, it gives us a mental image of a dumbass kid and his friends in the outback gunning down rats. Rey, on the other hand, basically gets two lines "I'm a pilot!" and "I've never flown off planet" to justify her piloting skills, neither of which tell us anything about why this scavenger character who just drives a speeder to wreckage and back would have ever seriously flown a ship before. All they had to do was throw in something like "I helped Dargo Bylan run stuff cross planet a few times but nothing like this!" Is this more mystery boxing? I don't know, I don't know if her mysterious past is "she has repressed skills" or just "why she was left alone

-Finn and Poe fucking kill it at just seeming like super good buddies right out of the gate. Not much to say here, I just love those opening moments

-But...the best part of the movie is easily everything up until Finn and Rey find the Falcon. After that it starts to slide down pretty noticeably.

-In fact, while I liked him the first time around, now I really sort of wish Han Solo wasn't in this movie. The final scene between him and Ben is good, but everything with him feels like the movie playing into its legacy too cloyingly, and the movie is so much better when its about all new characters against the backdrop of the original trilogy we all love. He's only a decent actor in most of his scenes, his exchanges with Leia are particularly difficult since they're both...well, not great actors and now they have to act together. I wish I could see a version of this movie without either of them

-C3PO was a mistake. The initial gag, where he interrupts the reunion, is good. After that he's just playing awkward "what's that boy? you say old sally is in the well and we have to go rescue her?" translator to the droids when the much more effective method of having people just react to the droids and let us fill in what they said with context has already been working for the whole movie. I didn't like a single scene he was in

Hmmm what else...

-Kylo Ren remains incredible
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I agree with so much of this, but I wanted to specifically echo your praise of the visuals. Like you said, the cinematography is unbelievable and only rivaled by Mad Max (and probably The Revenant once it comes out) for me. The OT are definitely are great in this regard, but I don't think it's a stretch to say TFA is a level above them.
 
ReAxion said:
Curious. What area are you in, if you don't mind me asking. It also looks like they're only showing it in one of their theaters. How many do they have?
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South Florida. This is the only true IMAX theater in the area, and they only have one theater. There's a Regal across the street from me with 40-kagillion theaters and they have plenty of seats this weekend, but only have a LieMAX screen and are only showing 3D on it. Though indeed, the initial showing I went to at that Regal and the three that followed it (up into 1:30AM Friday) were all 100% sold out too.
Boke1879 said:
What type of theater? Imax?
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Yeah, full IMAX screen, 70mm <3
 
Hawkian said:
South Florida. This is the only true IMAX theater in the area, and they only have one theater. There's a Regal across the street from me with 40-kagillion theaters and they have plenty of seats this weekend, but only have a LieMAX screen and are only showing 3D on it. Though indeed, the initial showing I went to at that Regal and the three that followed it (up into 1:30AM Friday) were all 100% sold out too.

Yeah, full IMAX screen, 70mm <3
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I wonder how much mileage those are going to get. I'm pretty sure Full Imax will do well this weekend.
 
kylo leaving his mask off bothered me. i expected him to force pull it toward him after the han scene.

if he knew he was going into battle, why wouldn't he take it? it serves no other use right? except it changes his voice.

which doesn't really make sense to me either, only to show his love for vader. storm trooper helmets don't alter voices.

him walking down hallways was badass though. :/
 
MrPressStart said:
Everybody is entitled to their own opinion, but I have to say that if you are a Star Wars fan and you don't like this movie .... then I don't think you will ever be satisfied.
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I like the PT even though they're for the most part terrible movies. (3rd one isn't that bad) I still enjoy playing Battlefront 2 even though it's aged pretty poorly. I went into this movie wanting to love it. But ultimately it just feels like OT fan pandering with all the lore and world building that made Star Wars so special to me stripped out to make it more accommodating to the average fan. Hell I'm not even into most the deep lore of Star Wars and the fact that they just blew up Illum without even acknowledging it pisses me off. At least the prequels were made because Lucas had a story he felt needed to be told, even if that story was bad. This movie only exists because Disney wants money. It just feels so safe and insignificant. It's a good movie by itself but I don't like it as a Star Wars movie.

I am willing to overlook flaws if I feel it is a great addition to the mythos of Star Wars. This movie on its own does not contribute much and sort of screws up some things that already happened. The prequels once you look past the actual films added a ton of great possibilities of spin offs by creating a great world with tons of possibilities. This movie establishes there's pretty much no force users besides a handful and scales back the Empire vs Rebels conflict significantly. The Galaxy seems so small now.
 
Ophelion said:
Ultimately, this would be my perfect universe answer to her lineage, especially since you know Kylo Ren is going to be all like, "You're a nobody from nowhere. I'm the Skywalker in this story. That means, I'm the big hero, I get to win, that's how this story goes."

And then of course, she ultimately whomps him anyway.

Maybe that's too meta, I dunno.
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No I prefer that. It makes the Force less understood, which is for the better. Why is this person strong with the Force? I dunno, shit's magic
 
shortsFortallPeople said:
then the whole lightsaber flashback moment means zilch. And the whole "it was anakin's then luke's, it's been in the family" thing is a red herring, too.

I don't buy it.
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The dialogue of Maz is "and now it calls to you" after talking about how it was Anakin's and then Luke's. it wasn't explicit enough to be obvious but it wasn't vague enough to be considered a twist then if it does turn out she's the daughter. Everything on a second viewing to me points to red herring.
 
The Technomancer said:
-On the whole "she's good at everything" thing: she is, and whatever, that's not really a bad thing inherently. But they don't contextualize it well. People point to the "we used to hit womp rats, they're not much bigger then that" line as an example of how you can use a single line to establish skill without needing much more context, but the thing about the womp rat line is that does establish context, it gives us a mental image of a dumbass kid and his friends in the outback gunning down rats. Rey, on the other hand, basically gets two lines "I'm a pilot!" and "I've never flown off planet" to justify her piloting skills, neither of which tell us anything about why this scavenger character who just drives a speeder to wreckage and back would have ever seriously flown a ship before. All they had to do was throw in something like "I helped Dargo Bylan run stuff cross planet a few times but nothing like this!" Is this more mystery boxing?
Click to expand...

She (and Finn) really both fumble through that sequence, though, don't they? I mean, the only real masterstroke moment is when Rey flips the Falcon so Finn can get a clean shot at the last TIE; everything up to that was quite rough and they never really had a clear upper hand at any point during the chase.

And it's not like she gets any other opportunity to be put into a tense dogfighting scenario and come out without any scrapes; it's just putting her extraordinarily well-established mechanic skills to work to bypass the compressor and smooth sailing to Luke at the end.
 
Bad_Boy said:
kylo leaving his mask off bothered me. i expected him to force pull it toward him after the han scene.

if he knew he was going into battle, why wouldn't he take it? it serves no other use right? except it changes his voice.

which doesn't really make sense to me either, only to show his love for vader. storm trooper helmets don't alter voices.

him walking down hallways was badass though. :/
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it probably would have protected his face
 
Gleethor said:
Wow. Could be awesome if done right. Hopefully that rumor of him being in 8 is true.
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I'd like it if it wasn't actually a force ghost, but was just something jangling around in Kylo's messed up head. It being his actual ghost goes against his redemption at the end of Jedi and kind of invalidates it. But it is such a great image, it seems a shame not to use it somehow.

Though now that I think of it, I don't know how you would convey to people that something was a hallucination and not a force ghost. Even if they don't make him blue and glowy, everyone would just assume it was the actual spirit of Anakin.
 
Joey Fox said:
Did Anakin's force ghost return to the dark side? That would be strange. Why is Anakin's force ghost MIA if not?
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and if force ghosts are only their good forms then what does ghost anakin look like in his dark form? Also, if you can see dark side anakin as a ghost, doesn't that mean the sith can see their old, dead ghost form buddies too?

Now we have ourselves ghost problems if this ends up being true
 
I didn't like how Vader's skull and mask remains were used. It worked great in the trailer here, but it fell flat for me in the actual movie.
 
Bad_Boy said:
kylo leaving his mask off bothered me. i expected him to force pull it toward him after the han scene.

if he knew he was going into battle, why wouldn't he take it? it serves no other use right? except it changes his voice.

which doesn't really make sense to me either, only to show his love for vader. storm trooper helmets don't alter voices.

him walking down hallways was badass though. :/
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I think it's pretty obvious that Kylo uses the mask more as a way to hide his insecurities and instill fear and intimidation in others. He wants so badly to be like Vader but knows the truth that he isn't, so he goes so far as to use a literal mask, which can be interpreted as a metaphorical mask as well, to hide behind.
 
Bad_Boy said:
thats what i mean. he should have taken it to fight rey. it's not like he underestimated her. he knew she was strong.
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I think it's pretty likely he underestimated her. Sure, he got burned because of it once, but one of the biggest messages the movie told was that Kylo is an arrogant fuck with serious mental/emotional trauma.

Either that or he just forgot it ¯\_(&#12484;)_/¯
 
I would love to see Anakin make an appearance in episode 8 or 9.

Just to further conflict Kylo Ren.

Maybe drive him to the point of total madness where his idolized figure is telling him he is wrong.
 
LegendofLex said:
She (and Finn) really both fumble through that sequence, though, don't they? I mean, the only real masterstroke moment is when Rey flips the Falcon so Finn can get a clean shot at the last TIE; everything up to that was quite rough and they never really had a clear upper hand at any point during the chase.

And it's not like she gets any other opportunity to be put into a tense dogfighting scenario and come out without any scrapes; it's just putting her extraordinarily well-established mechanic skills to work to bypass the compressor and smooth sailing to Luke at the end.
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I think his point is that there's an in movie contextualization of Luke's flight skills but Rey for whatever reason doesn't get that, at least not the same way Luke did even if it could have been one line.
 
Hollywood Duo said:
I'd prefer that. It also leaves the door open for even more storylines to be expanded upon in further trilogies.
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Lucasfilm has reaffirmed the Episodes are about the Skywalker family. They will absolutely make episodes 10-12 and probably more. Unless Kylo gets redeemed and has a kid, the Skywalker family line ends with this trilogy. The other option is Luke has a child that isn't Rey. Which could happen, but why build up Rey so much in this film?
 
Trigonometrize. said:
The dialogue of Maz is "and now it calls to you" after talking about how it was Anakin's and then Luke's. it wasn't explicit enough to be obvious but it wasn't vague enough to be considered a twist then if it does turn out she's the daughter. Everything on a second viewing to me points to red herring.
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Two viewings in, I really can't put it any better than this: I think she's Luke's daughter, all the pieces are there for her to be Luke's daughter via any number of explanations. If she isn't Luke's daughter I will be truly surprised. So I won't be disappointed if she is, but it's legitimately exciting to consider the possibility that she's not.

If all of the hints thus far are in service of a red herring, then I bit down on that herring hard and am being reeled in.

This trailer will, frankly, be an enormous misdirect if no new characters are revealed to be related to Luke Skywalker.

Then again, if the eventuality comes to pass that Luke adopts a wholly unrelated Rey as his daughter... the repurposing of those lines from Jedi will actually be even more powerful.

...I got goosebumps while typing that, lol
 
Gleethor said:
Wow. Could be awesome if done right. Hopefully that rumor of him being in 8 is true.
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If pulled off correctly it gives a new and very interesting dynamic to the Force.

Joey Fox said:
Did Anakin's force ghost return to the dark side? That would be strange. Why is Anakin's force ghost MIA if not?
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At the end of Jedi we are to believe he returned to the light side based on his force ghost standing with Obi and Yoda.


But this about this. He's the Chosen one and was a very powerful Sith. What if that darkside energy was so strong Vader is still literally it's own entity? Anakin Skywalker and Darth Vader from a "certain point of view" are pretty much two different people.

Yoda mentions this in Sith. "the boy you trained, gone he is. Consumed by Darth Vader."
 
Am I alone in thinking the scene of Rey eating outside her hovel and putting the pilot helmet on before hearing BB-8 might be the best of the movie? Just a perfect, quiet character moment that makes her so endearing. That moment and the scene where she pulls the lightsaber out of the snow almost choked me up on my second viewing.
 
Were the names "Kira", "Sam", "Jedi Killer" originally the names, code names, or both?

The art book refers to the characters by those titles even on pieces that seem pretty close to final.

Do we know if the names were decided pretty late in the game, or were those code names? or the original names that became code name?
 
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