WhiteRabbitEXE
Member
Kylo's "weakness" is why he's a great character. The PT villains were terrible because they were "bad-ass" and that was is it. Darth Maul did nothing but grimace, back-flip, and dole out an amateur tummy tuck. Dooku was a fantastically weak villain that's only remotely interesting because of Christopher Lee. Grievous and PT Palpatine... lol. They all rely on supposedly being powerful, without have any interesting story, character, or well, anything.
Kylo Ren on the other hand is much deeper and complex than those cardboard bad-asses. He has actual weaknesses, like a real person. He's powerful, but still quite young and has hasn't completed his training. He's terrified of not living up to his legacy. Altogether he's a far more compelling villain than the franchise has ever seen. And honestly, I don't know why you would want "Darth Vader 2.0 - This time he's Darthier." That's boring as fuck. We already had Darth Vader and he was awesome. We don't need him again.
And he wasn't bested by a bunch of "scrubs". He steamrolled Finn when the time came. He was fucking with him because he felt Finn was so far below him, and he allowed himself to get just cocky enough to let Finn get a lucky swing in. At which point playtime was over and the battle was ended instantly. Rey is far from a "scrub". She may not be trained with a saber, but she grew up on a harsh planet and we know from very early on in the movie this has made her a skilled fighter. Not only that, but she's abnormally powerful with the Force, to the extent that both Snoke and Kylo were shocked. And let's not forget that, again, Kylo dominated Rey for the majority of the battle, and it's very clear he's unwilling to hurt her and (especially) her saber, so he was holding back.
And don't forget, that was after he got shot in the gut by a Wookie bowcaster.
No. Stop.
This is a lazy critique that's both boring and overused, and it has gotten annoying to see now that it has become a bandwagon critique. It's one of those "criticisms" that's really caught on as much as it did because it sounds catchy, and a lot of people started repeating it without putting their own thoughts into it. "More like A New Hope 2.0", "A Newer Hope, get it? lul" There's a kernel of truth to it, for sure, but like other similarly overused critiques it becomes overblown and meaningless. Especially when in this particular case we have a lot of people outright mistaking the difference between plot (structure, core aspects) and story (the actual implementation), and thus using it as an end-all-be-all mic drop critique, forgetting everything else that matters.
While TFA shares a similar plot, the story built upon it has its own heart, its own focus, its own influences, and its own style that all differentiate it, among other things. For instance, A New Hope is very much inspired by old Westerns and Civil War fiction, with the Rebellion being similar to the idealized South of early Westerns, rebelling against the Big Government of the North/Empire. That influence frames the story in a very specific way. Force Awakens on the other hand focuses more on the ideas of insurgencies/freedom fighters and "movements", along with a much stronger allegory for Third Reich Nazi Germany (which influenced aspects of the original trilogy Empire as an entity for sure, but A New Hope as a film only really takes influence from World War II in its dogfights and some very basic imagery). This greatly changes the framing of the film and how the plot is actually implemented and stylized. The villains and heroes and the situation they're in, while superficially similar, are actually presented quite differently.
More importantly, it also ignores other aspects such as compelling character stories, and TFA has this aspect down in ways no other Star Wars film has in the past, even the original trilogy. For example, with Han, a character now in his fourth appearance, his moment with Kylo before he died was easily the character's best moment in the series, because it was a remarkably well done character driven scene. Going back to Kylo again, as I said above he is by far the most engaging villain the series has had. Vader was unimpeachably bad-ass, but I want to know about Kylo far more than I ever wanted to learn about Vader. And certainly more than Mal or Dooku. Comparing the quality is besides the point though, so I digress. What I'm getting at is that these are different and new character stories, which further sets it apart from being just "the same story".
Furthermore, it dismisses the utility of a similar plot for this particular movie. A big aspect of TFA was achieving an across the board "return to form" for the Star Wars franchise. So there's a lot of logic in paying strong homage to the film that started it all. Both in reengaging fans who found the prequel trilogy too different, and relearning what a Star Wars film is. Also, with the death of the old EU, we're traveling into uncharted water for the franchise, into a time potentially far more "alien" to fans than even the prequels (some of the details coming out about VIII seem to indicate this will be the case), which were constrained to having to lead up to the OT, and were hinted at throughout those original movies. So starting with something familiar before going all in on the new gives fans a good grounding without being immediately alienated.
Altogether it's almost as bad as the spectacularly bad "Wrath of Khan 2 lololol" comments.
tl:dr: That's only a superficially good descriptor, since it deliberately ignores everything beyond the core plot details and is dismissive of all context. While not entirely inaccurate (and in fact direct homage to ANH was a goal for TFA), it comes off as dishonest and dismissive, which is why I have a problem with it.
Kylo Ren on the other hand is much deeper and complex than those cardboard bad-asses. He has actual weaknesses, like a real person. He's powerful, but still quite young and has hasn't completed his training. He's terrified of not living up to his legacy. Altogether he's a far more compelling villain than the franchise has ever seen. And honestly, I don't know why you would want "Darth Vader 2.0 - This time he's Darthier." That's boring as fuck. We already had Darth Vader and he was awesome. We don't need him again.
And he wasn't bested by a bunch of "scrubs". He steamrolled Finn when the time came. He was fucking with him because he felt Finn was so far below him, and he allowed himself to get just cocky enough to let Finn get a lucky swing in. At which point playtime was over and the battle was ended instantly. Rey is far from a "scrub". She may not be trained with a saber, but she grew up on a harsh planet and we know from very early on in the movie this has made her a skilled fighter. Not only that, but she's abnormally powerful with the Force, to the extent that both Snoke and Kylo were shocked. And let's not forget that, again, Kylo dominated Rey for the majority of the battle, and it's very clear he's unwilling to hurt her and (especially) her saber, so he was holding back.
And don't forget, that was after he got shot in the gut by a Wookie bowcaster.
No. Stop.
This is a lazy critique that's both boring and overused, and it has gotten annoying to see now that it has become a bandwagon critique. It's one of those "criticisms" that's really caught on as much as it did because it sounds catchy, and a lot of people started repeating it without putting their own thoughts into it. "More like A New Hope 2.0", "A Newer Hope, get it? lul" There's a kernel of truth to it, for sure, but like other similarly overused critiques it becomes overblown and meaningless. Especially when in this particular case we have a lot of people outright mistaking the difference between plot (structure, core aspects) and story (the actual implementation), and thus using it as an end-all-be-all mic drop critique, forgetting everything else that matters.
While TFA shares a similar plot, the story built upon it has its own heart, its own focus, its own influences, and its own style that all differentiate it, among other things. For instance, A New Hope is very much inspired by old Westerns and Civil War fiction, with the Rebellion being similar to the idealized South of early Westerns, rebelling against the Big Government of the North/Empire. That influence frames the story in a very specific way. Force Awakens on the other hand focuses more on the ideas of insurgencies/freedom fighters and "movements", along with a much stronger allegory for Third Reich Nazi Germany (which influenced aspects of the original trilogy Empire as an entity for sure, but A New Hope as a film only really takes influence from World War II in its dogfights and some very basic imagery). This greatly changes the framing of the film and how the plot is actually implemented and stylized. The villains and heroes and the situation they're in, while superficially similar, are actually presented quite differently.
More importantly, it also ignores other aspects such as compelling character stories, and TFA has this aspect down in ways no other Star Wars film has in the past, even the original trilogy. For example, with Han, a character now in his fourth appearance, his moment with Kylo before he died was easily the character's best moment in the series, because it was a remarkably well done character driven scene. Going back to Kylo again, as I said above he is by far the most engaging villain the series has had. Vader was unimpeachably bad-ass, but I want to know about Kylo far more than I ever wanted to learn about Vader. And certainly more than Mal or Dooku. Comparing the quality is besides the point though, so I digress. What I'm getting at is that these are different and new character stories, which further sets it apart from being just "the same story".
Furthermore, it dismisses the utility of a similar plot for this particular movie. A big aspect of TFA was achieving an across the board "return to form" for the Star Wars franchise. So there's a lot of logic in paying strong homage to the film that started it all. Both in reengaging fans who found the prequel trilogy too different, and relearning what a Star Wars film is. Also, with the death of the old EU, we're traveling into uncharted water for the franchise, into a time potentially far more "alien" to fans than even the prequels (some of the details coming out about VIII seem to indicate this will be the case), which were constrained to having to lead up to the OT, and were hinted at throughout those original movies. So starting with something familiar before going all in on the new gives fans a good grounding without being immediately alienated.
Altogether it's almost as bad as the spectacularly bad "Wrath of Khan 2 lololol" comments.
tl:dr: That's only a superficially good descriptor, since it deliberately ignores everything beyond the core plot details and is dismissive of all context. While not entirely inaccurate (and in fact direct homage to ANH was a goal for TFA), it comes off as dishonest and dismissive, which is why I have a problem with it.
