Star Wars Thread ***SPOILERS ALLOWED***

[crimsonfloyd]

A thread for all discussion Star Wars related.

What did you all think of The Force Awakens? Love it? Hate it? Indifferent? Why?

 

[crimsonfloyd]

I think you read too fast there CF, your inner-Mort came out. I said nothing about black representation. But you have to find it funny that the studio, with legitimate reasons, put a female and a black male as leads for this new trilogy. Meanwhile women are still represented in the film, blacks and other non-whites are not. It's kind of funny where the PC police find fault and don't. The stormtrooper storyline has more at fault than anything else, it's really weird how they justified his character arc. I wonder if any progressive-ist film critic will see the "re-naming of a black man" the same as the Christian renaming of slaves in early America. That'd be a fun read.

What did you dislike about the stormtrooper arc?

Dude her character is ridiculous. How does she boss that dude around to get the droid in the beginning? She's all alone and somehow has some authority on this planet? Then she knows more about ships than Han Solo, especially his ship, because she scavenged old parts on a destroyer or whatever it's called? It's all this silly techniques to make her seem that she's everything in the film, except in physical load bearing capacity. I find that funny, it's not misogynistic to say "How can this woman know so much about wiring and ships when she's been landlocked on a desert her whole life?" But to you, maybe it is. But you also enjoy the loops in logical thinking, that she was trained to a master Jedi at age 5 at skills of the force and the lightsaber and after ~10-15 years she can retain that skill like riding a bicycle I mean come on man, you don't really believe this do you?

None of those were issues for me. We only see a slice of her life. There's no reason to assume she's not good at mechanics. She has a cruiser, which presumably she manages.

And yes, that's exactly what I interpreted it as.

Come on man, Rey clearly won that fight. If the earth didn't split there the whole trilogy would have ended. You can say that he was wounded, but he wasn't showing any signs of it hurting him, instead he kept punching himself to get more amped up or whatever. I think he could have lost an arm and been able to beat Fin and Rey quite easily, but I guess that's ridiculous. You don't find the grandaddy complex hilarious? I've never heard that before. His uncle is the greatest hero in his time period but yet he's drawn more to his evil grandaddy? How many bad ideas did they throw in the trash before they took that one?

That doesn't seem strange at all within the context of the Star Wars universe. Every Jedi is temped by the dark side. The dark side is all about the drive for power and everyone is tempted by that at some point. The fact that your grandpa was one of the most powerful and feared men in the universe for decades would definitely create an allure for a young, powerful, Jedi, especially if he was being seduced by Snokes.

Why should Rey be composed? She's a complete novice. And he's taking it easy on her, because he thinks he can convert her (limited direction there and really just threw that at the audience quickly). She becomes composed by this awkward 5s eyes closed thing and then suddenly remastered herself? That was weird as well. I can't think of any signs that Rey was affected about his inadequacy of being Vader except when it was measly brought up by Rey pre fight. I would agree if you said the part where he killed Han but that fight scene? Ehhh He wasn't acting erratic or doing anything that would have shown signs of that.

You definitely see it when he kills Han, and throughout his interactions with Rey he seems uneasy and insecure.

 

[NinjaSweater]

Rey is hott

 

[Krigloch the Furious]

Absolutely love
Awesome characters
Funny spots
Tons of mystery
I think Rey has been trained by Luke before
Ren is going go be a monster! So excited
I want more info on Maz

 

[rms]

What did you dislike about the stormtrooper arc?

I didn't find it believable that Fin is the first one to ever "break" the mold of the stormtrooper and this is shaken only when a comrade dies? Seemed rushed, premature etc. Why couldn't he have infiltrated the military versus this weird scenario?

None of those were issues for me. We only see a slice of her life. There's no reason to assume she's not good at mechanics. She has a cruiser, which presumably she manages.

And yes, that's exactly what I interpreted it as.

Yes, her cruiser is comparable to a ship that goes into space and can travel at the speed of light. I didn't say she is inept at mechanics, but she shouldn't know shit about a ship that goes into space because she works on a land cruiser that's probably super old and terrible. The scene with her and Han wants to demonstrate to the audience that she is gifted and even smarter than Han, which doesn't make sense to me. Unless the force is now similar to the Matrix where all information is just in an iCloud and downloadable to everyone who can use the force.

That doesn't seem strange at all within the context of the Star Wars universe. Every Jedi is temped by the dark side. The dark side is all about the drive for power and everyone is tempted by that at some point. The fact that your grandpa was one of the most powerful and feared men in the universe for decades would definitely create an allure for a young, powerful, Jedi, especially if he was being seduced by Snokes.

But the fact that your grandpa was beaten by your uncle takes him down a peg, no!? It's not like Vader died after ruling for 80 years, he was killed! I mean come on, how could that conversation go between Ren and Snoke?

You definitely see it when he kills Han, and throughout his interactions with Rey he seems uneasy and insecure.

Examples? Other than the interrogation, for obvious reasons..

Rey is hott

Do you guys remember the part at the beginning when shes done scavenging and takes off her goggles? I swear to god she looked like episode 1 Anakin skywalker haha

 

[crimsonfloyd]

I didn't find it believable that Fin is the first one to ever "break" the mold of the stormtrooper and this is shaken only when a comrade dies? Seemed rushed, premature etc. Why couldn't he have infiltrated the military versus this weird scenario?

He's not the first. Two of the imperial folk have a discussion about how he has no prior history of resistance. I'm sure other troopers have resisted, but they were also probably terminated or "reconditioned" as Finn was scheduled to be. The big difference is Finn escaped.

Yes, her cruiser is comparable to a ship that goes into space and can travel at the speed of light. I didn't say she is inept at mechanics, but she shouldn't know shit about a ship that goes into space because she works on a land cruiser that's probably super old and terrible. The scene with her and Han wants to demonstrate to the audience that she is gifted and even smarter than Han, which doesn't make sense to me. Unless the force is now similar to the Matrix where all information is just in an iCloud and downloadable to everyone who can use the force.

We have no idea what her experience is flying or working on ships. They haven't mentioned it in exposition either way, so it's up to the audience to decide. I think that's a bit of stretch to say it shows she's smarter than Han, but it does show she's bright and resourceful.

But the fact that your grandpa was beaten by your uncle takes him down a peg, no!? It's not like Vader died after ruling for 80 years, he was killed! I mean come on, how could that conversation go between Ren and Snoke?

Vader killed numerous Jedi Masters and a Sith Lord. He was second in command in the Empire. That said, it's not about intangibles. The dark side appeals to people for a totally different reason than the light side does. It has a totally different seduction to it.

[quote[Examples? Other than the interrogation, for obvious reasons..[/quote]

The interrogation is mostly what I had in mind. Prior to that, he had no sense of the power she had. I also thought he had that sense during the battle, but you disagree. I'll have to look for that when I rewatch it.

 

[SWAT]

Really liked it, lots of humor, lots of action, a few scenes where you get the "feels" and rey is not to bad looking.

 

[SentinelSlain]

I just wish they'd made it more different from a new hope. That would run the risk of it being total shit though.

 

[Master_Yoda77]

I agree with Crimson on everything. Hell has frozen over.

 

[requiem]

Alright let me at this.

Overall, I thought this movie was brilliant. I'm going to divide this post into separate parts to differentiate my thoughts and make it a little easier for readers to follow because this is largely going to be stream of consciousness. If you feel I'm gushing for most of this, you're right - but I also provide some criticism in the Plot section.

Images and Details:

Firstly everything looked amazing. The close-ups of the First Order's ships were orgasmic and interesting, and the whole thing looked a lot more real than the prequels that were full of what I thought was hit and miss cgi. I was totally convinced by the universe that the story inhabits. The tie fighters and x-wings were cool and life-like. The scale was amazing too - seeing Rey standing next to crashed ships was awesome. This is easily the best depiction of the universe that it all plays out in. The little cameos from odd little beasts reminded me of the original trilogy and were also cool. Everything looked and felt right.

Characterisation:

I was mostly convinced by the characters. Rey is a star. I found the actress very compelling and natural and I really liked her character. There was nothing whiney or annoying about her and I loved her resourcefulness and wherewithal. I had no problem with her knowing how to bypass that flux capacitor or whatever it was. I just assumed she was some kind of electronics wiz like Annakin was as a child. I found her to be very humane, brave yet plausible and enough of an 'everywoman' for me to empathise with her (although I'm a dude of course).

Fin was also great. I laughed, I (inwardly) cheered. Again, he was compelling and I was with him all the way. In fact, I don't know how they got these characters to be so believable and effective. X-Men and the Avengers are absurdly awkward and unrealistic by comparison. Fin was also very funny.

Ren was a pretty odd looking guy to be honest. Apart from that I wasn't concerned that he was following the path of Vader rather than Luke. Apart from rebelling against his parents, he obviously has a psychotic element as evidenced by the two instances in which he smashed shit up with his light saber in massive tantrums that are evidently par for the course as shown by the storm troopers who wisely turn and walk the other way during one of his outbursts. He's unhinged which makes him scary. He's also brainwashed.

The characters from the original trilogy = panzergodly. I shed a tear or two when Han Solo was killed (I'm going to presume he's definitely dead). And it was great that they didn't use name characters like Ewan MacGregor and Liam Neeson and all that. That was a terrible move in the prequels. God I hate the prequels.

Plot:

Yes it was a little 'New Hope-ish'. I thought the main storyline, though, the introduction of Rey, Fin and Ren worked really well. It was well paced. There were a hell of a lot of coincidences, and some things were a little unlikely. They all entered the new death star (or death planet I guess) separately yet they all stumble upon each other, "Oh hi there!". And when the word has been given out for the storm troopers to search for the intruders there are these groups of four storm troopers kind of jogging around the halls. It was fucking hilarious. Why would they do that? It's the worst 'looking for intruders' behaviour that I've seen. Just jogging along, not looking around corners where the good guys were hiding.

It was also really easy to break into the death planet- just slip in through one of probably hundreds of doors/tunnels. Do they not have door codes or at least security? Look at the infrastructure of the thing - it uses the power of the sun for god's sake. Yet anyone can just walk in there and set, like, three bombs to go off and kick start the whole annihilation of the planet. Similarly, stealing a tie-fighter was too easy. I can't even break into a car on the street but these guys can break into a tie-fighter, turn her on, and fly out and escape! You know that in real life there would be a code, or cornea recognition or something. You couldn't just flick a switch, surely. I challenge anyone to go to a military base and try to steal a tank right now. You couldn't do it. There's no way the First Order is letting people steal their ti-fighters.

The other thing was that both Fin and Rey found it pretty easy to fight with Luke's light saber. Ok, Rey is obviously strong with the force, and maybe she could have withstood Ren, but Fin being able to turn the damn thing on let alone wield it half well seems unlikely.

Overall: 9/10. Easily the best action/super hero/adventure movie I've seen in maybe forever. I love this movie. It's the first movie of this style too that I haven't felt talked down to. They treated the audience with respect. Compare that to the farcical Avengers movies or any of those Marvel things. Even the preview for Batman Vs Superman before Star Wars had cringeworthy dialogue that made me spit. So much applause to the filmmakers for the dialogue in The Force Awakens. Loved - It.

 

[Matt]

I did get a little emotional for a second when Han died. Part of me was genuinely hoping that he could somehow turn Kylo back.

 

[requiem]

I did get a little emotional for a second when Han died. Part of me was genuinely hoping that he could somehow turn Kylo back.

It really was a bit like hearing (or seeing!) that a distant relative had died. I didn't know Han personally obviously, but he had been a fairly major hero for the entirety of my 36 years of life. I was quite moved.

 

[Omni]

https://open.spotify.com/user/official_star_wars/playlist/0mJWJsZTz0I1iXFFeyRzcS

The official playlist for Kylo Ren. He is an angsty poser.

 

[arg]

absolutely loved it. very likable characters and funny moments. wasnt expecting to root for Finn but i did. Rey is sexy as hell, love her accent. so sad than Han died. Emo Vader is such a little faggot, wanted to slap him.

 

[Krigloch the Furious]

People ripping on Kylo. I thought he was perfect.
His path to the darkside is now complete

 

[crimsonfloyd]

People ripping on Kylo. I thought he was perfect.
His path to the darkside is now complete

Agreed. I like that you see the potential for pure evil within him. Those moments when he speaks with that calm, cold, objective tone are absolutely phenomenal. He has the ability to totally command all the space around him.

However, he's an incomplete "sith" (don't know what else to call it), and is still often controled by his emotions, especially fear. I see him at the similar stage to the one Luke was at in ESB, only heading toward the darkness and being tempted by the light.

I can't wait to see Kylo's training process in VIII. We've never seen the training for the darkside before.

 

[Master_Yoda77]

Agreeing with Crimson again there. Darth Autism may have been a little bitchy, but that is a trait of an inexperienced/untrained sith. Remember Anikan ruthlessly murdering all those sand people in Episode 2 and his meltdown when he arrives back at Luke's homestead? Just another reason why the sith are flawed as equally as the jedi.

Grey Jedi are the only Jedi.

 

[Krigloch the Furious]

I hope he kills Snoke. Please become a Sith Master!!

 

[Matt]

Snoke is probably Darth Plagueis, who was Sideous' master.

My other problem with the movie was the Starkiller base concept. It was completely retarded.

 

[crimsonfloyd]

I agree Starkiller was the weakest part of the film. Please, no more circular planet destroying bases that are easy to blow up.

And yeah, either Snoke is Plagueis or someone new.