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[MarkMclovin]

Phasma apparently plays a big part in Ep. VIII. I want her on a fucking revenge rampage.

Revenge on being completely shit?

My bet is that she's a rebel spy. It's the only thing that makes sense.

 

[QuantumZebra]

Man.

I'm still so disappointed by TFA. I'm not sure, if I just matured too much or got too cynical, but the movie is total schlock to me. The Star Wars equivalent to Jurassic World. Utterly forgetable, racing from scene to scene and feeling like another one of those plastic, soulless movies out of hollywood's movie mass production factories.
It's worse than anything Lucas could have made. It's boring and predictable.

I respect your opinion and all, but holy fuck that is literally the exact opposite of how I feel (I love Star Wars, thought the prequels were a sham and painful to watch, and HATED Jurassic World).

I mean I can't wrap my head around the notion that the guy who made Attack of the Clones could put out something that tops TFA - a movie which got amazing reviews from critics and moviegoers alike - and broke countless records.

To each their own, I guess.

 

[Fliesen]

how is the movie doing record-wise. Has it still been performing well?

i think for $ / time-unit it has pretty much beaten any record.

The only way it can / could beat avatar or Titanic is, if it were to stay in cinemas for a similar long amount of time / receive a re-release.

 

[Kurdel]

Revenge on being completely shit?

My bet is that she's a rebel spy. It's the only thing that makes sense.

Must be some deep ass cover if the only thing she did in Ep 7 was fuck over the Rebels with the shield.

 

[Halcyon]

Short of beating Titanic and Avatar in WW gross, it has broken every meaningful box office record ever for the most part.

The box office mojo page is literally just "1"'s all the way down (#1 records): http://www.boxofficemojo.com/movies/?id=starwars7.htm

I guess I was asking if it was in any way on track for taking titanic and avatar yet. I haven't been paying attention past the first few weeks numbers and could have probably looked up that info. I am admittedly lazy though and figured one of you fine people would know.

 

[sphagnum]

Revenge on being completely shit?

My bet is that she's a rebel spy. It's the only thing that makes sense.

Resistance.

And if she was a spy, wouldn't she have shown her credentials to Han and Finn so they didn't throw her in a trash compactor?

 

[Solo]

It's not topping Titanic, let alone Avatar.

 

[Sephzilla]

Phew, I still can't get over how much better the new lead trio is than the trio from the OT. They really nailed the casting and characters.

Rey > Luke
Finn > Leia
Poe > Han Solo

Also BB-8 > C3PO

If only Kylo Ren didn't suck so bad. Such a shame as they had a much better villain available, Captain Phasma, whom they utterly wasted.

Kylo Ren already has a head start over ANH Vader and leagues ahead of Episode 3 Anakin in terms of being a good villain. I don't get how Phasma could be considered a much better villain when Phasma literally has no character or motivation what so ever. Phasma is basically below Boba Fett-tier in terms of being a pointless villain who simply has a cool look.

In terms of comparing TFA's trio to strictly the ANH trio, I'd say Rey is better than Luke. But saying Poe is better than Han Solo is fucking nuts since Poe is a well acted but super one dimensional character who vanishes for about half the movie.

 

[DerZuhälter]

It's a thing of taste.

Skyfall epitomizes to me an almost romantic interpretation of what I regard as James Bond movie. But I know a bunch of people who hated it.

To me every Star Wars movie delivered the sense of something new and unknown right around the corner. And maybe that's my personal romanticization of the Star Wars universe. Sure I also love lightsaber fights, the space battles and the force. But the escapism it offered to entirely different universe was it's unique selling point to me.
Even with Lucas return to the franchise and several revisits of planets known, he offered a sense of new discovery and scope that is just missing from this new one.

Except for the Kanga Club/smuggler freighter scene (btw, how can you not shoot a fight scene with the team behind The Raid?!) everything felt stale, predictable and boring to me. The planets the places that get visited. It all tries to evoke nostalgia in favor of creating something on its own.

Yes the prequels had their own fair share of problems, especially drab characters and horrendous dialogue, but TFA ain't a Tarantino/Sorkin movie either. And what is offered in terms of characters and characterizations only manages to compell by leaving several interesting questions open. How should it do anything else? They are constantly on the run.

I know the Lucas-hate is strong online but as much as people like to hate on him as director or writer, he certainly wasn't uncreative in terms of worldbuilding, scope and vision.

Yes, if you remove all these movies from the Star Wars franchise, than The Force Awakens is certainly a better movie then Attack of the Clones and/or Phantom Menace, but as a Star Wars movie, it feels derivative and forgettable to me personally which is, for me a person who watches a lot, a whole lot of movies, an even bigger sin.

 

[Sephzilla]

Yes, if you remove all these movies from the Star Wars franchise, than The Force Awakens is certainly a better movie then Attack of the Clones and/or Phantom Menace, but as a Star Wars movie, it feels derivative and forgettable to me personally which is, for me a person who watches a lot, a whole lot of movies, an even bigger sin.

Opinions, and all that, but the only things that save Phantom Menace and Attack of the Clones from being completely forgettable is their awfulness. So being memorable isn't always a good thing, technically. Also if you think TFA is derivative you're probably forgetting a lot about the prequels too, honestly.

 

[EdibleExplosives]

If only Kylo Ren didn't suck so bad. Such a shame as they had a much better villain available, Captain Phasma, whom they utterly wasted.

Phasma, the character who uttered about two lines in the whole movie, was a much better villain?

 

[Interfectum]

Yes, if you remove all these movies from the Star Wars franchise, than The Force Awakens is certainly a better movie then Attack of the Clones and/or Phantom Menace, but as a Star Wars movie, it feels derivative and forgettable to me personally which is, for me a person who watches a lot, a whole lot of movies, an even bigger sin.

Nah, the biggest sin a movie can make is the audience not connecting or giving a shit about the characters. PT committed this sin three times.

And the scenes on Jakku and the Kylo vs Finn/Rey fight at the end is far, far more memorable than anything in TPM or AotC.

 

[FloatOn]

man I'm so bummed about the star wars delay

I hope they start the drip feed of teasers asap as to sate my incredible hunger for more

 

[Einchy]

Inside the Incredible Visual Effects of “Star Wars” | Design FX

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OM58kkZpTNw&feature=youtu.be

 

[efyu_lemonardo]

To me every Star Wars movie delivered the sense of something new and unknown right around the corner. And maybe that's my personal romanticization of the Star Wars universe. Sure I also love lightsaber fights, the space battles and the force. But the escapism it offered to entirely different universe was it's unique selling point to me.
Even with Lucas return to the franchise and several revisits of planets known, he offered a sense of new discovery and scope that is just missing from this new one.

I'm not going to defend the prequels as good films because they aren't, but I share with you the expectation to be surprised by star wars, and that was something that the prequels did far better than TFA, even if I didn't like some of the surprises.

I wanted to see weird new locations, cool original starship designs, and most of all aliens unlike anything I've seen previously, and for the most part it felt like the TFA didn't even want to try to deliver such things. Maz Kanata's planet looked interesting enough from up above and on the outside (as did Luke's planet), but the scenes inside the castle felt uninspired and the aliens way too safe, especially the look of Maz Kanata herself. Some aliens from the prequels may have been hated but that doesn't mean all cgi creatures were bad. Sebulba and Watto were fantastic additions to the universe and they were done in the 90s! Surely we could have had even stranger and more realistic cgi aliens in 2015.

Opinions, and all that, but the only things that save Phantom Menace and Attack of the Clones from being completely forgettable is their awfulness. So being memorable isn't always a good thing, technically. Also if you think TFA is derivative you're probably forgetting a lot about the prequels too, honestly.

I'd replace awfulness with inconsistency, and I think that's an important distinction to make, because there were definitely positive aspects, especially in TPM.

 

[Anton Sugar]

I'm actually really wondering how the public is going over this. Because it's a weird thing to measure.

Everyone agrees that Kylo Ren is a wannabe.

But that's where his narrative strength lies in. He has a goal that he's striving for, trying to achieve, and meeting adversity.

It makes him more interesting than Vader was in ANH, where he was just a generic badass, yelling stuff and being intimidating and cool, but not complex. And I think that the latter always beats out the former in importance.

But some people do just want generic badassery.

So it's hard to gauge whose going "This dude sucks, I hate it" and "This dude sucks, I love it". I mean, in this thread alone, there has been atleast as much attention paid to his actual character arc as there has been to Rey and Finn's, and while everyone loves Poe no one really talks about him too much because the dude has no arc and is a flatter character.

Kylo Ren is the most interesting character to watch in TFA, IMO. Easily my favorite of the new group.

 

[donny2112]

My bet is that she's a rebel spy. It's the only thing that makes sense.

Would explain why she capitulated so quickly to drop the shields. Wouldn't explain why Kylo would've missed it, since he sensed Finn's start of turning.

 

[Cth]

Phew, I still can't get over how much better the new lead trio is than the trio from the OT. They really nailed the casting and characters.

Rey > Luke
Finn > Leia
Poe > Han Solo

Also BB-8 > C3PO

"A youth on a desert world making a hard living who discovers they have extraordinary powers, who feels compelled to do good and use those powers to become a Jedi. Who am I talking about?

A brave and compassionate young man standing outside the war who takes up the lightsaber to defend his friends and pays dearly for it. Who am I talking about?

A daring pilot in the fight against an Evil Empire who destroys a superweapon through impossible feats of flying. Who am I talking about?

A young Force user torn between light and dark, struggling with the legacy of Darth Vader and the shadow of his father. Who am I talking about?

Together, Rey, Finn, Poe, and Kylo all form a deconstruction of Luke Skywalker. "

.

 

[Deleted member 47027]

Would explain why she capitulated so quickly to drop the shields. Wouldn't explain why Kylo would've missed it, since he sensed Finn's start of turning.

Can't sense a droid! The perfect spy.

 

[donny2112]

Can't sense a droid! The perfect spy.

Can sense absence of a presence where you'd expect one to be, though.

 

[MarkMclovin]

Would explain why she capitulated so quickly to drop the shields. Wouldn't explain why Kylo would've missed it, since he sensed Finn's start of turning.

Did he? Or did he just notice a soldier just standing there?

 

[prag16]

It's a thing of taste. *snip*

Opinions, and all that, but the only things that save Phantom Menace and Attack of the Clones from being completely forgettable is their awfulness. So being memorable isn't always a good thing, technically. Also if you think TFA is derivative you're probably forgetting a lot about the prequels too, honestly.

Yay for opinions. You're both wrong!

TFA, while I have a few nitpicks, is great.

The prequels, while exhibiting a handful of major issues, are decent, fun movies that I have never removed from my Star Wars rotation. (I even rank RotS above RotJ.)

 

[Dubbedinenglish]

Did he? Or did he just notice a soldier just standing there?

Noticed enough to find out his designation. The way Finn's turn is shit and how Kylo noticed him, felt like it was supernatural.

 

[prag16]

Kylo Ren is the most interesting character to watch in TFA, IMO. Easily my favorite of the new group.

Yeah. It's close between Kylo and Rey for me, but agree, Kylo is great.

Would explain why she capitulated so quickly to drop the shields. Wouldn't explain why Kylo would've missed it, since he sensed Finn's start of turning.

Not sure he sensed it so much as he noticed a trooper standing there gawking like an idiot like he had his pants down.

 

[Sephzilla]

Yay for opinions. You're both wrong!

TFA, while I have a few nitpicks, is great.

The prequels, while exhibiting a handful of major issues, are decent, fun movies that I have never removed from my Star Wars rotation. (I even rank RotS above RotJ.)

Putting ROTS above the real best Star Wars movie?

 

[Interfectum]

Putting ROTS above the real best Star Wars movie?

But he didn't put it above Empire.

 

[Sephzilla]

But he didn't put it above Empire.

I know I just personally rank ROTJ as my favorite

 

[Deleted member 47027]

ROTJ had Yub Nub though, that counts for something. Good-ass shit.

 

[Cth]

Back again with another set of interesting observations/analysis I found online:

SYMBOLISM - Inheritance and Ownership in TFA

Originally appeared here in the form of a discussion, so excuse the edits:
https://www.overthinkingit.com/2016/01/15/ownership-acquisition-inheritance-force-awakens/

Another one that jumps out at me is Finn wearing Poe Dameron's jacket, which is explicitly called out a few times. The first that I remember is BB-8 using it as reason to be suspicious of Finn. The second is Poe calling it out, and saying that it looks good on Finn and that he should keep it. If there is a meta-level to this symbolism, those two instances capture it well. At first, we're distrustful of JJ Abrams wearing the Star Wars “Jacket”, but by the end of the movie, we've come around to the position that he should hang on to it.

Kylo has Darth Vader's mask, and BB-8 uses R2-D2's map. [..] Finn gets Poe's jacket. Rey gets BB-8. BB-8 stays with the rebels. [Han borrows Chewie's bowcaster]

[The saber in EP 7] isn't just Luke's lightsaber. [..] it's notable that Anakin starts with a green lightsaber in episode 2, and then is given a blue one by Obi Wan Kenobi so he can go dual-wield in the fight with Count Dooku. Then his hand is chopped off, and from there he only uses the blue lightsaber. And later Luke's hand is chopped off, and from there he only uses a green lightsaber. Then Palpatine takes Luke's green lightsaber and gives it back to him, and by that point Anakin is using a red lightsaber, and then Luke chops his hand off. So the blue lightsaber Rey gets is involved in two out of [three] hand-chopping-off incidents. [..] Finn also uses it against Kylo Ren [as does Rey]

Kylo Ren feeling the pull of the light side is a good example of this; you can also compare Darth Vader's head to the head Luke sees in the cave in Empire Strikes Back, which is a warning about the pull to the dark side. The characters are somewhat flipped in that regard.

Finn himself is commandeered property. He was abducted as a child and made into a stormtrooper, and he's supposed to want to fulfill his purpose

Rey is a hero by nature, Finn is a hero by choice [..] The nature/choice thing, yes, is very Han/Luke, in that Han has to choose to be a hero, whereas Luke is called. And that makes me start thinking of Kylo Ren again. Genetically, he's a mixture of Skywalkerian aristocratic predestination and Solovian free-agency. Where does his darkness come from? Perhaps it's the Vader in him that presented him with the ​option of going bad. Maybe it's the Solo in him that allowed him to ​choose​ that option. [..] Kylo Ren seems very uncomfortable with the idea of choice. He seems to crave externalizeable certainty.

It's not enough for him merely decide to be more bad, he has to commit the ritual murder of his father, because he thinks that act alone will dictate the universe's disposition toward him. And yet that seems unsatisfying. When he offers to train Rey, it's also strange, as if he merely sees circumstances that suggest, in line with the patterns of the past, that this ought to happen, that it ought to be destiny, but he's extremely out of touch with the notion that Rey would have to want to do it for it to happen, or even that he would want to do it and ought to make some sort of sell rather than just pop off with the cold ask. Kylo Ren wants to be like one of these teleological objects, like the lightsaber, which sit in the universe and want to be used. And which come into the ownership of various people who put them to their intended purpose.

If we go by our commentaries in the Overview which stressed that Han Solo's defining characteristic is the desire, from the standpoint of an outsider, to be loved and accepted, then that's a cool synthesis: Kylo Ren brags like Han, he shows off like Han, and he wants people to include him like Han, but the axis he sees for this is Darth-ness, rather than friendship, and he wants to be used rather than invited. He wants to do a Kessel Run in 12 parsecs and for everyone to know, but he wants to be hired by Destiny, or History, not by a person.

Ayn Rand would hate the Star Wars universe. Property rights are not respected at all! When people do buy and sell things – think Uncle Owen buying the droids at the start of ​A New Hope​, or Watto clinging to his ownership of Anakin near the start of ​Phantom Menace​, we don't think of that sort of ownership as meaningful. Which is of a piece with what's probably the series's most forceful indictment of capitalism: the fact that in ​A New Hope​, if Han just fulfills his contract, takes his money, and leaves, that would make him an asshole.

The final step of a Jedi's training is building his or her own lightsabre – this is what Vader is referring to in Jedi when he notes that Luke has got a new one rather than the old one that Obi-Wan gave to both of them (and which Rey discovers). So inheritence is one thing – a person can deserve a lightsabre – but earning it is something else.

Something we do also see in Star Wars, albeit not onscreen. Between Empire and Jedi, Luke constructs his own lightsabre, which is what completes his training as a Jedi. Han won the Millennium Falcon in a card game – that's what causes him to “deserve” it – but what made him earn​ it was all the modifications that he and Chewie made to it over the years. He says as much to Obi-Wan and Luke in Mos Eisley. Similarly, Rey deserves that ship in a way that none of its other “owners” between Han and her did – but she still hasn't quite earned it. Han and Chewie just take it back from her and we all recognize that that's perfectly correct.

Actually this might also answer a question I had about why the motif of dismemberment is so absent in TFA. In the Original and Prequel Trilogies, dismemberment symbolizes a loss of identity – it's a reminder of the physicality of a person that the Philosophy of the Light Side is supposed to teach its followers to transcend. When Vader kills Obi-Wan, Obi-Wan ought to have been grusomely bisected, Darth Maul-style, but in fact his body vanishes completely because he is so attuned to the will of the Force.

Nobody that I can recall loses any limbs in TFA. Because the previous movies were about the risk of people treating other people like objects, which is the path to the Dark Side. This one is the reverse: people who have been objectified by external systems are learning how to enforce their own agency by rejecting those systems' expectations of them.

 

[Surfinn]

I'm actually really wondering how the public is going over this. Because it's a weird thing to measure.

Everyone agrees that Kylo Ren is a wannabe.

But that's where his narrative strength lies in. He has a goal that he's striving for, trying to achieve, and meeting adversity.

It makes him more interesting than Vader was in ANH, where he was just a generic badass, yelling stuff and being intimidating and cool, but not complex. And I think that the latter always beats out the former in importance.

But some people do just want generic badassery.

So it's hard to gauge whose going "This dude sucks, I hate it" and "This dude sucks, I love it". I mean, in this thread alone, there has been atleast as much attention paid to his actual character arc as there has been to Rey and Finn's, and while everyone loves Poe no one really talks about him too much because the dude has no arc and is a flatter character.

Right.. exactly. That's what makes Kylo Ren such a GOOD villain. What's up with everyone wanting some one dimensional goon? Even Vader wasn't that, had the viewer watched beyond ANH.

Kylo is probably the best part of TFA. His character is gripping. He's on self destruct from the beginning, and it will most likely be his undoing, as foreshadowed by Han.

It's annoying to me that people don't want more from their characters in universe that's driven by emotion and morality.

 

[Pamplemousse]

Kylo is probably the best part of TFA. His character is gripping. He's on self destruct from the beginning, and it will most likely be his undoing, as foreshadowed by Han.

This. Kylo was by far my favorite part Episode 7. It would have been so boring to do a Vader retread. Thankfully, they gave us a character with emotion and confliction. He's also kind of a cutie. 😘

The only problem is how badly Rey kicked his ass at the end. Her abilities should not have been that strong.

 

[CD'S BAR]

I'm actually really wondering how the public is going over this. Because it's a weird thing to measure.

Everyone agrees that Kylo Ren is a wannabe.

But that's where his narrative strength lies in. He has a goal that he's striving for, trying to achieve, and meeting adversity.

It makes him more interesting than Vader was in ANH, where he was just a generic badass, yelling stuff and being intimidating and cool, but not complex. And I think that the latter always beats out the former in importance.

But some people do just want generic badassery.

Right.. exactly. That's what makes Kylo Ren such a GOOD villain. What's up with everyone wanting some one dimensional goon? Even Vader wasn't that, had the viewer watched beyond ANH.

Kylo is probably the best part of TFA. His character is gripping. He's on self destruct from the beginning, and it will most likely be his undoing, as foreshadowed by Han.

It's annoying to me that people don't want more from their characters in universe that's driven by emotion and morality.

Vader wasn't a generic badass in ANH. His character is developed but it's done a more restrained fashion than the tears and melodrama they went with for Kylo.

In ANH you don't know why Vader wears that strange armor, breathes like he does, or if he's even human underneath (adds to his mystery), but you do know that he's a fallen good guy, he's got strange powers (force choke), and despite being a menacing figure he's spoken down to by his superiors and made fun of for his archaic beliefs. There's quite a lot to his character in ANH alone.

 

[boiled goose]

I watched it again and still enjoyed it.

It was a very well made movie and i have a few critiques and updates.

The CG seemed less bad in 2d. Snoke and tentacle monsters looked more fake in 3d for some reason or the bigger imax screen. Seemed less bad this time.

I still got chills in many of the emotional peaks.

The movie had a lot of "weight". Rens heavy helmet. Impact during fights. Steering the Falcon required effort.

The sound was superb. Tie fighters and blaster shots have never sounded better. Also damn i loved the Falcons turret sounds.

The soundtrack is disappointing. Really little new hear.

The over homaging definitely hurts it and was unnecessary. Heard some folks strongly complaining after the movie. Yoda too much like orange girl. I wish that star killer base did something other than killing planets. Eating stars to screw over orbits and energy or something. Killing the planets lacked emotional punch. We dont know enough about the Republic too care.

The third act drags a bit. Too much pointless running in the base. They should have gotten to the solo ren confrontation faster.

I would slightly alter a few other things like mind trick scene and force powerup.

Leia hugging rey and ignoring chewie was weird.

I wish they would have shown less of snoke. Keep him morw veiled and mysterious.

Overall, the flaws are there but it's so well made that I still enjoyed it.

 

[injurai]

The CG seemed less bad in 2d. Snoke and tentacle monsters looked more fake in 3d for some reason or the bigger imax screen. Seemed less bad this time..

I think the whole movie looks better in 3D.

 

[FlashbladeGAF]

In ANH you don't know why Vader wears that strange armor, breathes like he does, or if he's even human underneath (adds to his mystery), but you do know that he's a fallen good guy, he's got strange powers (force choke), and despite being a menacing figure he's spoken down to by his superiors and made fun of for his archaic beliefs. There's quite a lot to his character in ANH alone.

where does it say he was a fallen good guy

 

[Sephzilla]

where does it say he was a fallen good guy

From A New Hope:

Obi-Wan: A young Jedi named Darth Vader, who was a pupil of mine until he turned to evil, helped the Empire hunt down and destroy the Jedi knights. He betrayed and murdered your father. Now the Jedi are all but extinct. Vader was seduced by the dark side of the Force.

Vader wasn't a generic badass in ANH. His character is developed but it's done a more restrained fashion than the tears and melodrama they went with for Kylo.

In ANH you don't know why Vader wears that strange armor, breathes like he does, or if he's even human underneath (adds to his mystery), but you do know that he's a fallen good guy, he's got strange powers (force choke), and despite being a menacing figure he's spoken down to by his superiors and made fun of for his archaic beliefs. There's quite a lot to his character in ANH alone.

But I gotta disagree here, Vader is a glorified henchmen in A New Hope. They never even bother to hint at why he wears armor (Empire actually does this) and the backstory given to him is there simply to serve as explanation for why Obi-Wan was in hiding.

 

[guek]

Phew, I still can't get over how much better the new lead trio is than the trio from the OT. They really nailed the casting and characters.

Rey > Luke
Finn > Leia
Poe > Han Solo

Also BB-8 > C3PO

Shouldn't BB-8 be compared to R2D2 instead?

I like all of these characters but I disagree with your comparisons

 

[Inferno313]

where does it say he was a fallen good guy

"A young jedi named Darth Vader, who was a pupil of mine until he turned to evil..."

 

[QuantumZebra]

Right.. exactly. That's what makes Kylo Ren such a GOOD villain. What's up with everyone wanting some one dimensional goon? Even Vader wasn't that, had the viewer watched beyond ANH.

Kylo is probably the best part of TFA. His character is gripping. He's on self destruct from the beginning, and it will most likely be his undoing, as foreshadowed by Han.

It's annoying to me that people don't want more from their characters in universe that's driven by emotion and morality.

I thought Kylo was great - I think Rey overshadowed him a bit (she's about as charismatic as they get) - but you couldn't ask for more from a villain.

Kylo and Rey's dynamic through the next 2 films is what im most excited about. I really hope Rey is Luke's daughter so we can see Leia's son vs. Luke's daughter (and one wielding Anakin's blue saber and one wielding his red one) ... the fanboy in me would explode irl.

 

[FlashbladeGAF]

From A New Hope:

Obi-Wan: A young Jedi named Darth Vader, who was a pupil of mine until he turned to evil, helped the Empire hunt down and destroy the Jedi knights. He betrayed and murdered your father. Now the Jedi are all but extinct. Vader was seduced by the dark side of the Force.

Because ANH was the first movie, I just took it as a student learning a discipline and chose evil.

...Not as a hero who fell from grace, which the sequels further fleshed out.

Not one moment in ANH did I think Vader used to be a hero or like you put it "a fallen good guy".
Just someone who tried to learn the Force and went down the wrong path.

 

[efyu_lemonardo]

Anyone else think there was overuse of puppets and costumes? For instance, that bird in one of the first shots on Jakku where Rey drives by was just there for the hell of it..
I would have like to see more creatures and aliens done with cgi.

 

[WadiumArcadium]

Poe > Han Solo

Poe's hardly in the film and he's already better than Han?

 

[Interfectum]

Anyone else think there was overuse of puppets and costumes?

No, I loved the use of puppets. It made the movie feel more real instead of a cartoon with live actors.

 

[Sephzilla]

Because ANH was the first movie, I just took it as a student learning a discipline and chose evil.

...Not as a hero who fell from grace, which the sequels further fleshed out.

Not one moment in ANH did I think Vader used to be a good guy.
Just someone who tried to learn the Force and went down the wrong path.

I think the fact that he's once referred to as a Jedi is kind of an indication that he used to be a good guy, or at least on the good path, and not inherently evil. Being seduced by the dark side of the force kind of implies he was on the good side at one point and thus a "good guy" or hero. Also, betraying the Jedi means he was once on their side.

 

[Einchy]

Anyone else think there was overuse of puppets and costumes? For instance, that bird in one of the first shots on Jakku where Rey drives by was just there for the hell of it..
I would have like to see more creatures and aliens done with cgi.

No thanks.

TFA has the right balance of CGI and practical effects. It knows exactly when to use them and when not to.

 

[-griffy-]

Vader wasn't a generic badass in ANH. His character is developed but it's done a more restrained fashion than the tears and melodrama they went with for Kylo.

In ANH you don't know why Vader wears that strange armor, breathes like he does, or if he's even human underneath (adds to his mystery), but you do know that he's a fallen good guy, he's got strange powers (force choke), and despite being a menacing figure he's spoken down to by his superiors and made fun of for his archaic beliefs. There's quite a lot to his character in ANH alone.

Vader is just a bad guy in ANH. There isn't any development other than he is an imposing presence and he is a badass wearing a cool mask. He made an impression because he's such a well done larger than life villain. We don't learn anything about why he is the way he is. We pretty much just know he killed our hero's dad, but we certainly don't know why he is evil. As you yourself say, we don't really know anything about Vader. It's all a mystery. There's no motivation. We don't even understand what falling to the dark side of the Force really is until we see Luke grappling with it in ESB, which further informs and illuminates Vader as a character. In ANH he's the bad guy and that's why he does bad guy stuff. He's pretty much literally the evil knight wearing black who keeps the princess locked up in the castle that our heroes sneak into.

I'm not criticizing Vader in ANH or anything here, as this is exactly what they were going for with the character. It's all very clearly taken from the adventure flicks of yore, like The Adventures of Robin Hood. You know, the movie where the heroes sneak into the castle and free the princess from being imprisoned by the evil bad guy.

We don't really get any depth to Vader until ESB, where there's a lot of work done to start to humanize him before the big reveal at the end. Vader was a great villain, but became a great character in ESB and ROTJ. Kylo got a lot more characterization in TFA than Vader did in ANH. We understand why he is the way he is, why he wears the mask and presents himself the way he does to others, we understand his temperament, his internal struggle, and at the end of the film we have a very personal fight between the lead characters that ends giving Kylo incredible motivation for where he goes next, and why he would oppose our heroes beyond just being the bad guy.

To say Kylo is more developed than Vader in ANH is not a slight against Vader, and it doesn't take anything away from Vader, it's just kind of the truth. The movies had different goals for their respective villains. It's perfectly reasonable to recognize that Kylo has more depth than Vader in ANH, while also still preferring Vader as a villain as well. They don't have to be mutually exclusive thoughts.

 

[Surfinn]

Poe's hardly in the film and he's already better than Han?

Yeah, that's a ridiculous thing to say. Poe has a chance to be great, but as it stands.. uh hell no.

 

[Familienoberhauptvogel]

I get what people say about Kylo. He could be a good villain he just wasn't one in TFA.

As an audience member I want to see insecurity when it is presented to me in words, I want to see the foundation of character traits in general. Kylo talks a lot but none of it is backed by his actions. Where did he ever get drawn to the light side of the force, did he ever show compassion? The only time we've seen insecurity was through his need for validation by Snoak and when Rey withstood his mind control. Which is understandable and momentarily. The part on the bridge felt especially forced, hue hue, wanting us and Han to believe he could be redeemed making his further betrayal all the worse. It was a weak attempt of a rather telegraphed twist.

 

[guek]

Poe's hardly in the film and he's already better than Han?

I'm pretty bummed how he was conveniently cut out of the movie after the crash on Jakku. He would have had a perfect role to play in their escape and him being around would have effectively avoided some of the pitfalls of the film.

 

[Sephzilla]

I get what people say about Kylo. He could be a good villain he just wasn't one in TFA.

As an audience member I want to see insecurity when it is presented to me in words, I want to see the foundation of character traits in general. Kylo talks a lot but none of it is backed by his actions. Where did he ever get drawn to the light side of the force, did he ever show compassion? The only time we've seen insecurity was through his need for validation by Snoak and when Rey withstood his mind control. Which is understandable and momentarily. The part on the bridge felt especially forced, hue hue, wanting us and Han to believe he could be redeemed making his further betrayal all the worse. It was a weak attempt of a rather telegraphed twist.

I don't think we really need to see a demonstration of him being tugged to the light though, at least in Force Awakens. The moment they establish that Kylo is part of the Skywalker bloodline it makes perfect sense that he feels that pull - because both his Uncle and Grandfather were tempted by the dark side and ultimately were pulled back to the light. So it would make sense that Kylo is also naturally pulled to the light side of the Force as well. That's really all that's needed, in my opinion. This is one of those instances where, given the backstory of the character, I don't think they need to visibly demonstrate that.