La Times: Admit it, The Force Awakens stinks

MagnarTheGreat · Jan 4, 2016

Cmdr. Ed Straker said: ↑

The guy in this video seems to be honest and is telling his opinion:

Folks, what do you think is he right or wrong? (videos like this come up now from right and left)

Edit: I will be honest to you folks in the cinema during the screening of TFA I said to my wife that Rey is portrayed too perfect and she agreed.
It was done purpose no doubt, I hope VIII will normalize the charaterization. (all characters)
Rey - perfect and flawless in TFA = I wish she will be portrayed more like Luke and will show some flaws in VIII
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#masculinitysofragile

Rey lets the Rathtars loose by accident, nearly getting everyone involved killed.
Her mind is stuck on Jakku, which leads to a series of bad decisions:
-She initially rejects the lightsaber as her destiny calls to her and Maz's advice and runs away with BB-8 with her, which leads to problems.
-Rey gets her mind probed for information by the villain. He learns that she has an image of the map in her mind and later about the island on the sea.
She is rendered unconscious and gets captured by the villain.
She fails with the blaster when she first tries it on Takodana.
She fails to pull off the Jedi Mind trick the first couple of times she tries.
She fails to protect the safety of those she cares about:
-She fails to prevent Han Solo from dying, who she feels is like the father she never had.
-She fails to prevent Finn from coming close to dying, her new friend.
She gets tossed into a tree by Kylo Ren's force push.

RuccusRob · Jan 4, 2016

MagnarTheGreat said: ↑

#masculinitysofragile

Rey lets the Rathtars loose by accident, nearly getting everyone involved killed.
Works to everyone's favor. Only almost kills Finn, who Rey saves in another sequence designed to make her look impressive.
Her mind is stuck on Jakku, which leads to a series of bad decisions:
What bad decisions? Not accepting her Harry Potter style destiny from a weird Jedi relic or not wanting to accept a job offer?
-She initially rejects the lightsaber as her destiny calls to her and Maz's advice and runs away with BB-8 with
her, which leads to problems.
How is it a flaw to reject something that's genuinely distressing? I guess not wanting to get ran over so I can meet my future wife in a hospital is flaw too.
-Rey gets her mind probed for information by the villain. He learns that she has an image of the map in her mind and later about the island on the sea.
She reverses it back on him and then makes him look like a b***** for the first of two times.
She is rendered unconscious and gets captured the villain.
Not a flaw, and not only that, but it was just a set up for her to do more cool stuff.
She fails with the blaster when she first tries it on Takodana.
She forgot the safety ONCE and then proceeded to channel Revolver Ocelot.
She fails to pull off the Jedi Mind trick the first couple of times she tries.
And then proceeded to succeed on the third. . .which is STILL flipping amazing.
She fails to protect the safety of those she cares about:
-She fails to prevent Han Solo from dying, who she feels is like the father she never had.
She just stared at him, so it's not like she tried
-She fails to prevent Finn from coming close to dying, her new friend.
He got that from failing to protect HER. And the fact that you think someone else's failing health is a personal flaw of Rey's says a lot. What, is she suppose to lay hands on him or something?
She gets tossed into a tree by Kylo Ren's force push.
Leading her to wake up and beat the brakes off of him
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A real flaw isn't something that makes a character look sweet in the end. Clumsily falling into a leprechaun's stash isn't a flaw. Failing to keep your friend from getting struck down in a sword fight when you are unconscious so you can wake up and not be interrupted when you whoop the villains butt isn't a flaw.

Excessive pride, sloth, cowardice, emotional coldness, narcissism, being overly selfish or hedonistic. These are flaws. Insecurity or small mindedness. Flaws.Things that, if left unchecked, will destroy the character from the inside. Failing to always have a solution isn't a flaw. Failure to act irrationally brave in a situation isn't a flaw.

If Rey acted like a petulant child when they wouldn't take her back to jakku, or rejected help when she needed it, it would be a flaw.

DFF · Jan 4, 2016

Here's a great bash written by someone called Darth Nerdling over at theforce.net. http://boards.theforce.net/threads/...he-official-haters-sanctuary.50036931/page-15

(yes, the basher's sanctuary has returned to theforce.net - it's now called the "haters" sanctuary )

It's a long read, but well worth the time in my opinion, as this guy does a superb job of touching on all TFA's major problems.

PART 1

Howdy, bashers! I thought you guys might appreciate my mostly negative review of TFA:

(In order to ensure its mediocrity and continuing profitability, the Star Wars legacy will be reorganized into the first Corporatized Entertainment Empire, for a safe and creatively bankrupt franchise which I assure you will last for ten thousand years...)

(So this is how Star Wars dies... with thunderous applause...)

I've seen TFA twice, and I'm not planning on seeing it anymore, so I think I'll type up my review of the film now. The film generally was a letdown for me. I was actually pretty bored while watching it, and while I knew JJ was brought on board because he is generally thought of as the "Rich Little" of American film directors and he had turned Trek into an action franchise, I thought he'd be more interested in developing the Saga in new directions. Honestly, it's a little perplexing to me to think about what motivates JJ. I believe that it's true when JJ says Star Wars is what first inspired him to pursue filmmaking, so it seems weird that when JJ finally got his shot at making a Star Wars film, he did little more than retell ANH's story with a little TESB and ROTJ thrown in. In terms of originality, I think most fanfic easily exceeds JJ's level of creative ambition. Most fanfic writers want to tell new stories -- even if those stories usually turn out to be lame -- but when JJ finally gets the opportunity that his 11-year-old self always dreamed of having, that many of us have dreamt of having, what does he do? Nothing new really, mostly just retell the same story that his 11-year-old self enjoyed long ago. If this story was JJ's own making and not forced upon him by Disney, then I have to say what JJ most reminds me of is a once idealistic politician who has lost his way, one of those longtime members of congress who through the process of seeking office has made so many concessions that his sole goal ends up becoming seeking re-election rather than any of those higher goals he originally hope to fulfill. Of course, retelling ANH's storyline may have been Disney's choice, but whatever the source of this decision, it was a soulless one that put commercial interests far ahead of artistic and creative ones. After seeing this film, I can understand why Lucas, the artist, was frustrated by what they gave us. If he were the egotist that many make him out to be, then he'd be bragging right now: "Look! They've used my old story again and it still works great! I'm so awesome!" Indeed, if imitation is the highest form of flattery, then TFA is the ultimate form of hero worship. Instead, Lucas wanted Disney to take TFA in original directions, while Disney only wanted to re-package things straight from the original trilogy. Regardless of whether TFA was a success or a failure, I think the film sets an awful precedent in an industry already hellbent on relying on recycled material and using formula. Honestly, why should they give us anything new when something old will earn billions?

Just the choice to so closely retell ANH's storyline makes TFA seem odd as a part of the Star Wars historical timeline. Even in a mythological world like Star Wars, a succession of events would never repeat with so many similarities. Imagine if after the final Lord of the Rings book, Tolkien wrote a new saga in which a dwarf had to make a long trek to get rid of a magical necklace that would give an evil spirit ultimate power if he were to find it, or imagine if Jesus returned and he just started doing the same stuff he did in the New Testament in the exact same order, we'd be like: "Come on, God, you have supreme intelligence. Can't you come up with something new! That bread and wine trick wasn't that great the first time around!" That level of repetition is plain weird, and that's pretty much what we have going on in the Star Wars timeline now. Just for this reason alone, TFA seemed a little off to me. I went in expecting something new, and instead what I got was something that I already knew very well. Still, just the fact that TFA so strongly resembles ANH wasn't the only reason I didn't care for the film. Just because a film was inspired by creative cowardice doesn't mean that a film can't work. For all I know, James Cameron researched Dances With Wolves and Ferngullyand, for that matter, Star Wars too and he then used a computer program to seamlessly fuse those films together into a single entity. Even if this were the case, I still think Avatar was a pretty good if somewhat predictable film. In the big picture, what happens behind the scenes doesn't really matter. Grinding up pigs' snouts, feet, and anuses might be part of the ugly process that produces a hot dog, but a hot dog can still taste good. Of course, if you get the recipe wrong, then you don't end up with a hot dog. Rather you end up with a disgusting pile of pigs' snouts, feet, and anuses that someone else expects you to eat and enjoy, and unfortunately, for me, TFA less reminded me of a good hot dog and more a poorly assembled pile of leftover parts. Of course, I am speaking hyperbolically here, but my main point is that sometimes a good film can arise from an assembly line approach to filmmaking. It's just that this did not turn out to be true for me in this case.

(Yum! Yum! Behind the scenes footage of the production of hot dogs and TFA: you'll never eat a hot dog or watch the pre-production of a film the same way again!)
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Grand Moff Dinkleberg · Jan 4, 2016

TFA stinks, pause, not!!!!

DFF · Jan 4, 2016

PART 2

For me, the only time the film's copying of ANH's storyline became cringe-worthy was once its third act had begun and it was time to take out the newest incarnation of the Death Star. During the rest of the film, the repetitive nature of the TFA's storyline felt less overt, in the sense that I was not rolling my eyes. At the same time, the rest still seemed overtly familiar to me. Nothing seemed to surprise me because in one way or another it had occurred in other films -- mostly other Star Wars films but other well-known films in general. For instance, it was so obvious that Rey was going to adopt BB-8 that I didn't see the point of seeing that person-who-adopts-the-cute-puppy storyline once again. Of course, she was going to save BB-8; of course she wasn't going to abandon him; and of course, she wasn't going to sell him. BB-8 had important plans in it, so it was obvious that BB-8 and Rey would be stuck at the hip from the second they met, and because that was so obvious, that little puppy adoption storyline didn't work. It just seemed like filler. Neither did it help develop Rey's character. Since it was so obvious that the plot dictated that she and BB-8 remain together, instead I was just reminded of the writer's hand forcing her actions to conform to necessities of the plot. I've also grown tired of most action-adventure storylines, as most of these films seem too much alike. I'd greatly prefer a unique plot twist (like Bruce Wayne being trapped in a prison that he can only escape from if he is able to make a leap of faith embracing life in The Dark Knight Rises) rather than another fistfight or chase scene. As a consequence, TFA's borrowing not only made the film seem overly familiar but it also prevented the storyline from going in interesting new directions.

(Something's a little too familiar!)

JJ seemed more restrained in his cinematography compared to his Trek films. His camera movements were more less fast and chaotic, his fetish for lens flares was contained, and things weren't always blue. To some degree, I thought his visual style served as a bridge from the style of the rest of the Saga to a more contemporary style, not that I think it's necessary to make this change, but I'm fine with the Saga developing its visual vocabulary. At the same time, I wish he had stayed a little more true to the Saga style. The most striking visual departure was one whose rationale I don't understand completely. The color palette seemed muted and grainy, and none of the colors seemed bright. Its look was somewhat reminiscent of that of Man of Steel, but while Man of Steel was meant to be a more serious take on Superman, The Force Awakensfelt more like light entertainment, and so the only explanation I can think of is that they settled on a muted, grainy style to conceal CGI effects, as integrating CGI effects is more difficult on film than it is with digital, and grain and color correction can help improve CGI integration on film. JJ used many more close-ups than are typical for Star Wars films, and his use of a shallow depth of field also contrasts with the Saga, and while I typically prefer photography with a shallow depth of field, those changes made it feel a little less like a Star Wars film to me. This was not JJ trying to make Star Wars feel more contemporary. The cinematography ofThe Avengers and Avatar both come closer to the Star Wars style. JJ was simply staying closer to his own film aesthetic, and I wish JJ had looked to these examples as perfectly viable contemporary approaches for inspiration for his visual language, if he could not find enough inspiration in the Saga films themselves. These visual differences alone wouldn't have created too drastic of a contrast with the rest of the Saga, but combined with his editing style, the ultimate visual effect felt far less like a Star Wars film than any of its predecessors.

The most jarring departure from the Star Wars visual language was TFA's editing, which I believe serves a central role in the success of Abrams' narrative style. JJ's fast pacing combined with his rapid cutting is the key to holding an audience's attention even when the material makes no sense. If you're wondering what I'm talking about, pay attention to the light saber fight the next time through; JJ cuts after virtually every saber swing; this is totally unlike Lucas's approach to filming saber fights. His sensory overload approach to filmmaking creates an immersive experience that makes it difficult for the viewer to reflect upon what he is watching. Things jump around and move forward too fast.

(Is it thrilling? Is it nauseating? It's hard to say. It's just a roller-coaster!)
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--- Double Post Merged, Jan 4, 2016, Original Post Date: Jan 4, 2016 ---

PART 3

To a degree, this is the goal of most filmmakers, but JJ's adeptness at creating immersion is often undercut by his narrative deficiencies. If a viewer, as I did, starts to notice the many problems in the film's story logic, which I will later detail, then he is pushed outside of JJ's intended tunnel-vision immersion, left unable to get back inside. What might be an exciting roller-coaster to some becomes an unpleasant onslaught of loud sounds and quickly flashing images. Other filmmakers have employed this approach. The few detractors of The Dark Knight argued that its pace made the experience equivalent to two and half hours of constant climax (making it perhaps the ideal viewing experience for the musician Sting!). However, unlike TFA, The Dark Knight had a plot that held up to scrutiny. Though TFA's narrative problems are more extensive, it more resembles The Dark Knight Rises, which also utilizes the forever building immersion with a narrative that has problems with story logic. For me, this shortcoming on the part of The Dark Knight Rises was mostly offset by the investment in Bruce Wayne's storyline, the effectiveness of Bane as a villain, a sense that things were at stake, and a pretty original story. Unfortunately, TFA didn't compensate for its narrative shortcomings in any ways similar to these for me.

Abrams attempts to make a convincing reality out of narratives riddled with coincidences, bad story logic, and character motivations that often make little sense, and he does so by giving the audience the impression that any questions will be answered later on and then using persistent sensory overload to distract the viewer until he forgets what he was wondering about in the first place. For me, this worked to the film's detriment, especially on my second viewing of the film. I believe this is how JJ was able to immerse the viewer in a film like Trek 09, even though the film contains a ridiculous number of coincidences, characters making decisions that make no sense, and a villain, Nero, who has absolutely no reason to want vengeance against old Spock. In fact, he should want to thank Spock. JJ's narrative problems are less severe in TFA, but they are clearly here. Just a quick run through of some of highlights/lowlights -- 4 coincidences in row happen to connect BB-8 to Rey to Finn to the Millennium Falcon to Han, Han's visit to Maz really serves no purpose, 2 escapes are accomplished with ridiculous ease, the weakness in the Starkiller base is discovered within a minute of the Resistance learning of its existence, and the heroes are searching for a map to locate "the incredibly important" Luke who apparently purposefully does not want to be found and has no ability to be decisive in military combat unless he's become a Force god. Now that I've pointed these story issues out, what does this mean? Does this mean that I'm a smarty pants and people who didn't catch these things are dumb dumbs? Of course not. Some viewers simply may not care that the plot doesn't make a great deal of sense even on a surface level. There's nothing wrong with this. Some people don't demand that popular culture stand up to scrutiny.

(George Costanza: "I like stuff you don't have to think about too much")
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--- Double Post Merged, Jan 4, 2016 ---

PART 4

However, I think some people would find fault with JJ's story flaws in TFA when they notice them or when they are pointed out, but as I said, he pretty effectively disguises these flaws by utilizing a fast pace, an immersive visual experience, and the impression that questions about the plot will later be answered. These techniques can produce a thrill ride type experience, but they also prevent the viewer from noticing the serious problems with the film's story logic because things go by so fast. Certainly, many people reading this will immediately think -- "I liked this film! It can't possibly have so many plot problems!" -- and they will remain in denial about this until the day they die. Well, no, the problems are there. JJ simply has an effective way of slipping them by you.

Now, does this mean that TFA has a bad story? Well, for me, yes, because I care about story issues like this and I saw most of the problems from the get go and found them annoying and distracting and they undermined the film's reality for me, which was already hurt by the plot's derivative nature and its similarity to ANH. TFA's narrative has many qualities that have traditionally been considered hallmarks of weak storytelling: its narrative compromises basic story logic, its characters have motivations that don't make sense, it relies heavily on coincidences to move its plot forwards. Perhaps standards are changing. These basic story problems are present in Skyfall, Trek 09, and Gone Girl, and these were all critical darlings, and these all had a good to great reception by the public. In the end, I suppose it depends on your point of view. If you demand that the films that you love the most have plots that are reasonably believable, then maybe you should watch TFA with a more critical eye and catch what you've missed, and then be honest that the film amounts to, at best, a big dumb thrill ride. However, if what matters to you is the illusion that events in a film logically connect, then you probably won't mind TFA's story problems. JJ has effectively created the illusion that has convinced a lot people that his plot is believable, and with escapist entertainment, maybe that's all that matters.

Williams' score suffered because of JJ's fast visually immersive style. Most of the most notable musical motifs from Williams' scores come from moments when little is happening on screen, and Williams' music provides part of the meaning to the scene: Luke looking out at the binary sunset, Artoo rolling through the desert, the Emporer's theme as he walks with Vader or when he is sitting on his throne, Across the Stars swelling as Anakin and Padme kiss and are rolled into the Colosseum, Yoda lifting the X-wing out of the water, Leia interacting with a curious Wicket. Williams' music is best when a director gives him slow moments or situations that are melodramatic, whimsical, or idiosyncratic. Williams' musical style stems from Wagner, a German opera composer, so it should not come as a surprise that his music works best with a space opera/fantasy rather than sci-fi action adventure. TFA didn't give him these moments to work with. Except for the moments with Rey on Jakku, the film didn't allow Williams to bring meaning to its scenes, and it showed.

(Just how poignant a person walking and standing can be when accompanied by Williams' music. ♪♫Let it slow! Let it slow! JJ, slow down your pace much more. Let it slow! Let it slow! Stationary objects are not always a bore.♪♫)

The mise-en-scene (any object that you see on-screen) feels most like the rest of the Saga. If you stop most frames, you'll see sets, costumes, locales, spaceships that feel right at home in the Star Wars universe. Of course, part of the reason for this is that they relentlessly re-used the imagery from the OT, and I wish they had given me the opportunity to see more new things. After looking at the book The Artwork of The Force Awakens and seeing the many ships and locales that developed upon OT-tech and settings, I'm convinced that Disney, not JJ, forced this retro look upon the film as a corporate mandate. I can't imagine any director who possesses a human soul and an ounce of dignity tossing out these really cool new concepts just to give us more of the same. Part of what makes Star Wars compelling to me, like Avatar, is that it is typically so visually original. Probably TFA was most successful in this department with its introduction of new aliens. Say what you will about TPM, but for me, especially for its time, it had far more visually striking images than this film, and each PT film that followed it exceeded what TPM accomplished. The Gungan city, the underwater creatures, the pod-race and its pod-racers, the battle droids being deployed from their carrier ship, even the interior of the senate chambers were more visually wowing than all but the few highlights from TFA: the Star Destroyer grave yard, hogsquattle, the rathkars (the rolling, tentacled blobsters), that shot of the Starkiller being fired in front of the First Order troops. That's about all I can think of. Honestly, one of the most visually unique things in TFA was that self-rising muffin, and that a muffin can upstage most of the visual high points from TFA sort of shows just how safe creatively they were playing it.

(Nothin' says lovin' like a muffin that needs no oven!)
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DFF · Jan 4, 2016

Part 5

I thought the performances were generally good. I think Ford was best as Han. It was nice to see him onscreen once more, and Chewbacca had some good moments too. Isaac was greatly underused. He immediately comes across as a likable confident character, but after the first fifteen minutes, all he really gets to do is fly around. I do think that Rey is pretty much a Mary Sue, not that that hurt my appreciation of her character much. It only was glaring when she was telling Han how to fix the Falcon. There were a few times when her performance seemed forced (her fangirl enthusiasm when learning the Falcon's owner is Han, her yelling to Finn as she runs towards the ship on Jakku), but she, just like Finn, most of all needed more character development. They were more character types or sketches than fully fleshed out characters. Finn was likable, but JJ's choice to alternately use him as a source of comic relief and dramatic tension undermined his reality as a character somewhat. Especially when he was being humorous, it was very clear that Boyega had switched on the "I'm the comic character persona." Then a moment later, he'd switch it back off. Finn's character was also a lost opportunity. He was a child soldier trained from infancy, yet despite this background, he came across as the most genial character in the film. No real hints of darkness, no real sense of him losing the only life he ever knew, no real connection to his former comrades. (Heck, he had no problem blowing away his buddies as early as his escape.)

I enjoyed Adam Driver as Kylo Ren. I liked his hissy fits. I thought he was interesting as was his Force mind-reading battle with Rey, and I liked the sense of conflict in him before he killed Han. Unfortunately, while he worked well as a character, he was not an effective villain and antagonist, and neither was Snoke; in Snoke's case, I don't think I even need to go into why he came off as lame. For my personal viewing experience, great villains are very important to the overall success of this type of film. Great villains played pivotal roles in raising the stakes in some of my favorite films -- The Joker, Bane, Hans Gruber, Alex in A Clockwork Orange, Jack in The Shining, and, of course, Vader and Palpatine. For me, some films, like Skyfall and Into Darkness, were saved from being absolute turds by their memorable villains. So, TFA's lack of menacing villains really worked to the detriment of the film. Clearly, memorable villains are not as important to other viewers. The MCU continues to thrive despite falling short in that department again and again.

(Great villains are so much fun!)

From the initial crawl, I was curious why finding Luke was such an important goal. From spoilers, I knew that they would be looking for him, but as that was one of the central goals in the film, my mind kept coming back to why Luke was gone and why finding him was so important. It can't be that they want him to train the apparent Force prodigy Rey because they didn't know about her yet. It also can't be that he's needed for military victory unless he's become some kind of Force god. Well, it turns out they never give us a good reason, and so as the film goes along that entire quest felt more and more hollow. The film also leaves the impression that Luke simply didn't care about the Resistance and left for no good reason except that he was down. An earlier draft actually gave Luke a compelling reason for leaving. He didn't approve of the Resistance's choice to develop their own super-weapon, and that sub-plot would've added some interesting grey area to the film. The super-weapon also had the capacity to ram through the 1st Order's shields so that would've brought something new to the space battle. Again, I can only surmise that these interesting twists on an old theme were squashed by studio executives.

The interior of the drop ship did not feel like it belonged in a Star Wars film. It immediately reminded me of Aliens, and that brought me out of the film just as it was beginning. Once they landed on Jakku, it then felt much more like an Imperial military exercise. Poe's exchange with Max Von Sydow's character came across as very perfunctory, and their slaughter of the villagers felt just like regular run-of-the-mill bad guy behavior. Kylo's Force freeze of Poe and his Force mind reading of Poe felt much more threatening, and the latter was cool new spin on the Jedi mind trick. Poe's escape from custody was ridiculously easy. He's supposed to be the Resistance's best pilot and he knows information vital to the Resistance, yet Finn is basically able to walk off with him with no hassle. Just compare the ease of his escape with the escape from the Death Star in ANH. Han, Luke, and Leia have considerable difficulty escaping, but Lucas, recognizing how improbable an escape like this still would be, gives the further explanation that Vader allowed them to escape so that they can be tracked, making it that much more realistic that they could've escaped and giving the escape an unexpected twist. On the other hand, on two different occasions in TFA, Poe and Finn as well as Rey are each basically able to walk out of custody virtually unimpeded.

During their escape, it was a good moment when, after Finn says, "Stay calm. Stay calm," Poe tells Finn he is calm only to have Finn admit he's talking to himself. I did like the look of the tether as the TIE-fighter tried to pull free, and while I think recycling the TIE's is lame, there is something cool about the texture of their black solar panels. The aerial escape was not very exciting, I think because attempting to dodge lasers isn't as exciting as out-maneuvering other ships. Poe's choice to christen Boyego's character with the name Finn seemed out of place during their escape and made them seem incompetent, as they were shot down moments later.

I enjoyed seeing Rey's life on Jakku. The shots of her rappelling in the Star Destroyer looked cool. Her AT-AT home, making muffins alone, popping on a helmet all helped to make her seem lonely and bored, and I wish the film had spent more time developing this. I think the much longer time spent getting to know Luke in ANH paid off in the long run. Disney was able to make it work with Wall-E; I don't see why they would be afraid of a little more character development here. Her adoption of BB-8 seemed trite, as it was obvious to me that she would adopt him, and they did nothing new with the adopt-a-puppy storyline. Once Finn met Rey, they should've given them much more time to get to know each other, but unfortunately, it was already time to run away from bad guys, and for some reason, they decided to include some really dumb dialogue about hand-holding then. The escape on the Falcon was exciting and the high point of action in the film for me. I wish I had seen less of it in commercials, but I'm glad JJ mostly removed the Falcon roller-coaster shot that I so scathingly criticized which appeared in the first trailer. He must have been convinced by the side I was on when some of us argued against it on the forums! I think the aerial footage throughout the film did the best job of incorporating the old Saga style while expanding its visual vocabulary at the same time.

I enjoyed seeing Han and Chewie together again, but really they didn't do much with that conflict between him and the two gangs, who also just coincidentally showed up on Han's freighter at the same time. Rey just accidentally (i.e. conveniently) let loose those rolling tentacled blobsters that helpfully swallowed up or chased away all the gangsters. I liked the look of the creatures, but there was nothing exciting about the scene. On my second viewing of the film, the coincidences that led up this point, which I had already noticed before, really stood out as egregious. BB-8 just happens to find Rey, then Poe just happens to find Rey, they both just happen to find the Falcon, and Han just happens to come upon the Falcon in outer space, then two groups of gangsters coincidentally are able break into Han's freighter and board it at the same time, and we're not done yet -- we're about to have another coincidence when Rey stumbles upon Luke's saber in Maz's castle. (This covers about every major plot point in the 1st half of the film.) I can certainly think of minor tweaks that could've eliminated some these coincidences, but JJ just doesn't seem to care about fixing things like that, even when there are easy fixes.

It was nice to see Han telling Poe and Finn there is truth to the Force, and it's understandable why Finn who was part of the First Order and Rey who lived in First Order territory wouldn't know about this part of galactic history. The rationale for dropping by Maz's place makes little sense and adds little to the story. Han simply intends to drop them off there so that Maz can find them a ride to the Resistance, but Han had no reason to do this. Han could've just hopped into hyperspace, dropped them off on the Resistance planet, and flown off without ever seeing Leia. The visit to Maz's seemed more like an excuse to give us another cantina experience, but again, without the proper rationale. This issue is also too easily resolved. Maz changes Han's mind simply by telling him he should go see Leia. Big drama there. I did like Maz. She was quirky, but I wish they had done more with her. Rey's vision was well-done, and more dream-like than comparable visions in Man of Steel and AoU. Still, so much more could have been done with it. Yoda's visions in the Yoda arc of the Clone Wars TV series put any of these moments to shame. It was very weird that Rey chose to go for a long jog to de-stress after seeing the disturbing vision, but this was clearly included so that she could be captured. It also made little sense that Kylo chose to pull back his troops after capturing Rey. He would still want to prevent the Resistance from finding BB-8, and I doubt his issue was that he wanted to save 1st Order lives. It was cool to see Han and Chewie shooting things up, but I didn't care about the aerial combat as I didn't care about anyone involved in it and a great deal of it was shown from a ground point of view. (This was at least a new perspective from which to watch a dogfight, but I think the choice didn't work well.) Finn getting bested by the Imperial with that weapon didn't bother me, though I wonder why a stormtrooper would have such a weapon, but his failings here makes it weird that Finn is able to wound Kylo.

The scenes with Snoke and Kylo fell completely flat and felt completely derivative. Snoke's choice to go with Hux's military approach didn't make much sense. It's presented as an either/or scenario as Hux says "Our strategies must change," but there's no reason this has to be an either/or decision. There was no reason to postpone destroying the New Republic worlds as they waited for BB-8 to be found. BB-8 wasn't going to be taken to those worlds. They wanted to return him to Leia. Also, their failure to find BB-8 gave them no greater reason to fire the weapon at that time. Just because the Resistance was slightly more likely to find Luke didn't mean that New Republic worlds needed to be blown up. Blowing up those planets also came across as pretty flat. In ANH, there was a logical and dramatic reason for blowing up Alderaan -- to rule by fear and to gain information from Leia. We got to see Leia's shocked reaction to their choice to fire and Obi-Wan is traumatized by its destruction. Here, we get a nearly incomprehensible nonsense rant from Hux criticizing the Republic government for "acquiescing to disorder," whatever the heck that means (I guess he really doesn't like neat freaks). This is followed by shots of basically anonymous worlds being destroyed. Also, for me, Kylo asking the mask of Vader to give him the power to resist the light side is pretty absurd. He's positively the worst guy to ask given that he's the only guy who was able to resist the dark side (and yes, the novel establishes that Kylo is aware that Vader returned to the light side and was redeemed).

The reunion of Han and Leia was nice, but unfortunately, I was found myself distracted not at all by Fisher's age but rather (not trying to be mean, just honest) the effects of her plastic surgery/botox on her facial expressions. Let's just say that it limited her emotional range. The scene within the map room played out almost like a parody of what occurred in ANH, with their pointing out, "Look at how much bigger this one is!" I also thought it was so lame that, in a matter of minutes, they were able to identify yet another weak point that could destroy the entire super-weapon planet. (I hope earth doesn't have one those self-destruct points!) One high point for me during their ground assault/rescue mission was Han's line: "That's not how the Force works!" The Force mind-reading battle between Rey and Kylo worked well, and JJ made effective use of editing and cinematography to bring a great deal of drama to what was essentially 2 people engaged in stressful staring contest, and I think this may have been his high point as a director in the film. However, the revelation of Kylo's big ambition came across as pretty lame. He wants to become as tough as Vader. What is he -- an eight-year-old? Soon after that, we have another ridiculously easy escape from custody, this time by Rey. One interesting bit of information that I noted in their Force mind reading battle: Kylo mentions seeing an island in Rey's mind, even though she was never exposed to it up to that point in the film. Perhaps, Rey has actually been to the first Jedi temple where Luke is waiting, but she had her mind wiped.

I thought the meeting between Kylo and Han was dramatic. I really got the sense that Han cared about his son, and that Kylo was torn, though the dark side was still dominant. I like the little play on words there: "I'm being torn apart. I want to be free of this pain... Will you help me?" Han believes that Kylo wants to return to the light, but for Kylo, Han is the source of his pain because he tempts him back towards goodness. So, Han's presence there does help Kylo by allowing him to break another link to what was good in him. Kylo was too under-powered in his saber fight with Finn. Though he seemed to be toying with him to a degree, Finn was still able to wound him, though it wasn't entirely clear how because of the editing, and really how does Finn know how to use a saber at all? Also, that Kylo was wounded did not seem like a plausible explanation to me for his failings in combat the way it was portrayed. He didn't even walk with a limp. I did like how he smacked his wound to anger himself. If you want to be nit-picky, Kylo should've just force froze Finn and then sliced him in two, but Force-users often don't use all the powers available to them for some reason. The saber fight between Rey and Kylo was equally unimpressive. It basically went like this: Kylo was wiping the floor with her, then Rey had her Force "Hulkamania/Super-Saiyan" moment, then she was wiping the floor with him, then the crumbling planet's surface decided that it wanted to save Kylo's life. I'll assume that Rey had years of training and had her mind wiped by Luke after the Jedi massacre. (Say goodbye to a Darth Revan spinoff and its big plot twist.) If she hasn't had any training, then her success against Kylo is beyond stupid.

The aerial attack on the Starkiller base reminds me of my perspective on song remakes: either make it better or make it very different, and if you can't do either one, what's the point? That about sums up that attack. ROTJ can be criticized for re-using the Death Star a second time, but I would argue that battle at least exceeded what occurred in ANH both in terms of scale and drama. The stakes were high in ANH, as pilots were being shot down around Luke left and right, and we care about him much more than we care about Poe, but the story there has a very simple linear trajectory, whereas ROTJ's Death Star attack has twists, reversals, and the drama works like interconnected moving parts. Unlike in ANH, Palpatine in ROTJ wants the Rebels to attack the Death Star, though they don't know that, and if it weren't for Lando's quick thinking about Imperial jamming, the entire Rebel fleet would've splatted on the Death Star's shields like bugs on a windshield. At that point, the space attack is totally dependent on the success of the ground assault. Then, there's another twist: the Death Star is operational. So, the Rebels improvise by attacking the Imperial fleet. At the same time, Palpatine uses this perilous situation to anger Luke as he keeps giving gleeful play-by-play commentary on the Rebellion's imminent destruction and his friends' imminent deaths on Endor. This, in turn, brings extra drama to the space battle and the Endor battle. We identify with the frustrated Luke and see the battle through his eyes, and as the Rebel fleet continues to be routed and Palpatine keeps rubbing it in, we want Luke to shut him up, but that is exactly what Palpatine wants too, which only increases the tension further as both we and Luke conflicted. We all know how it turns out, but my point here is that ROTJ provided us with was near perfection. Most people cite ROTJ's space battle as the Saga's best, but really, it has very little to do with the special effects. Teddy bears or not, what matters is the battle's dramatic structure that connects the space battle, to the land battle, to Luke, as I just described above. That's what makes it work so well. And TFA's aerial combat is just a pale imitation of what occurs in ANH, let alone the much more intricate and dramatic ending to ROTJ.

In TFA, they fly through a trench, but it's not entirely clear why they need to fly there when their goal is blowing up that hexagonal area. That just seems like something to be done for our visual checklist. Plus, the X-wings are being led by a guy we hardly know. Han forces Phasma to turn off the shields, but wouldn't somebody notice that, and just turn them back on? Or are the shields only controlled at one spot protected by virtually no guards? Then Han, Chewie, Finn, and Rey place explosives all over the place while hardly running into any 1st Order resistance. I know it's cold out there, but shouldn't they have this structure overrun with guards? Or is this a case where the Resistance can figure out how an entire planet can be destroyed during a one-minute conference but the 1st Order has no knowledge of this planet-destroying weak point? Ultimately, all the aerial combat to destroy the Starkiller was very underwhelming as was the destruction of the planet itself, mostly because it contained none of what made ROTJ's space battle so special, and I think JJ even recognized just how weak this part of the film was. That's why we got to see very little aerial combat. Unfortunately, the Starkiller Base's destruction was also supposed to be the climax of the film, so showing us less of the film's weak climax only prevented it from being more boring. It in no way added in making it any more dramatically effective.

Once they returned to the Resistance home planet, it was bizarre that JJ left in Chewie walking right by Leia. Maybe he's still angry at her for the walking carpet remark and the award ceremony snub. Then we're off to complete our original storyline, and the ending came off as very anti-climatic, probably again because I was finally expecting, once R2 came on, some explanation for why finding Luke was so important, but no, again, nothing. So, at that point, I already knew what the end would be -- merely our first chance to see Luke. Even this brief glimpse of him wasn't dramatic or impressive, even with the Force theme swelling in the background. To me, Luke just looked kind of crazy, and JJ lingered on that shot for way too long, especially when it went to the helicopter angle. I was hoping for a nostalgia rush at that moment, but it didn't do much for me at all.

To conclude my review, I'll mention a description of the difference between Lucas's approach to Star Wars and JJ's filmmaking approach that I read elsewhere on these forums: Lucas takes complex ideas -- mythological, spiritual, philosophical, political -- and makes them accessible to children in a fantasy world context (as Lucas's goal was to make a modern mythology for children from the beginning); whereas JJ takes comic book ideas and makes them accessible to adults. Even though TFA is arguably the most adult film of the Saga, it seems to me to also have the least depth and makes the least effort to tell a story that makes sense. Maybe it would have been cool if Lucas had made his Saga films on a more adult level. Though fine as they are, I think they would've worked with a fully adult tone as well. However, given what we have now, I can say without hesitation that I greatly prefer Lucas's complex world for children over JJ's comic book world for adults. I'll say this. One the best aspects of this film is that it leaves things wide open for Rian Johnson to take things in creative new directions, and I'm certainly glad that he has finished his script and he is deep into production, because both of those things make it a little less likely that Disney can intervene and force Johnson into safe formulaic filmmaking, which is what I felt we got in spades with TFA. Of course, there's another scenario that might prove to be true. Maybe that kid from Boyhood at age thirteen was right on the money when he ad libbed one of his scenes for that film years ago:

("Yeah, no, Return of the Jedi, it's over. There's nothing. What are you gonna' do -- turn Han Solo into a Sith lord?)
Click to expand...

harvywallbanger · Jan 4, 2016

?...?...?

GuyWithABreathingProblem · Jan 4, 2016

Darthchocolat said: ↑

Can't read it because no subscription but will say this..

1) JJ could have avoided the ANH-reboot criticism by not going overboard with the whole deathstar 3.0. storyline which just didnt work as intended as shows by how many people bring that up. All the other stuff, while certainly very much reminiscent of ANH, would be more easily forgiven as it's used in a different way. "It's familiar but different" to quote the filmmakers themselves.

2) I personally hope that a lot of the flaws aren't flaws at all but deliberate witholding information by JJ/Kasdan in planning out the trilogy with Johnson. Only time will tell.

3) Wouldnt call it dull. In contrary I think a lot of people (even those who are not SW-fans) enjoyed TFA so much because it was an exciting thrill-ride with characters that evoked emotions in a film that tickled the imagination. So much so that people where willing to overlook or accept certain shortcomings as 'fun' is ultimately maybe more important than perfect. ;-)
Click to expand...

Agree 100%. Having another Death Star like weapon holds back what is otherwise a good movie.

Rieekan · Jan 4, 2016

GuyWithABreathingProblem said: ↑

Having another Death Star like weapon holds back what is otherwise a good movie.
Click to expand...

But there is a catch, we talk about repetition but not the story itself, there are ways to explain how the Starkiller makes sense.

Hunin · Jan 4, 2016

Ya it is curious to see how little or how much the Starkiller subplot matters to different people.
I find myself in the camp of those who thought it is the least engaging part of the setting - however that matters very little when I concider it a ( more or less ) necesarry backdrop for the real plotines to converge in front of.

That being said if I take it at face value its a very evocative concept.
Its design and technical execution on film are beautiful and memorable.
The fact that its a genocidal superweapon is neither here nor there in that regard.

Rieekan · Jan 4, 2016

Hunin said: ↑

however that matters very little when I concider it a ( more or less ) necesarry backdrop for the real plotines to converge in front of.
Click to expand...

Agree, you get dropped right into the action, no senate and this behemoth the challenge that makes the heroes grow. Just a backdrop, a Star Wars backdrop.

Hunin said: ↑

The fact that its a genocidal superweapon is neither here nor there in that regard.
Click to expand...

I agree it lookked great and just from the looks you can see that it is either old or took years to build.
Just a quick brainstorming. was it an ancient weapon, retrofitted by the FO in the last decades? I mean it is just a part of a planet, that makes it a kind of bionic implant.
Is there a connection to the Empire? A deathstar would have been the perfect countermeasure for this thing, to bad the Rebels destroyed one, but the emperor immediately build a second one, why? We know the Emperor send out agents to the unknown regions and the Acolytes of the Beyond were sneaking around in the core worlds, too. Could this be a Dark Side Cold War?

Hunin · Jan 4, 2016

I think the planet used to be natural.
And I find the whole ancient technology angle very enticing.
Kylo uses ancient technology and both his personal shuttle and the Resurgance class SDs have a deliberate relic like look.
Add to that that Rakata Prime popped up on the recent canon map ( no matter what they say about it right now ) and that the star forge operated on plasma drawn from its parent star. . .
If it is coincidence its one major coincidence.

The movie doesn't make much of the fact that the First Order is literally based off the map.
I hope we'll see the Republic frantically throw everything it still has at the unknown regions only to run into something truly scary and overwhelming.
Not only would that mirror/invert ESB nicely - it would also explain why Snoke is so casual about Starkiller Base.
They might have literally build a throwaway hyperspace weapon with only a limited number of shots to decapitate the Republic and lure it into defeat.

Duke Groundrunner · Jan 4, 2016

MagnarTheGreat said: ↑

#masculinitysofragile

Rey lets the Rathtars loose by accident, nearly getting everyone involved killed.
Her mind is stuck on Jakku, which leads to a series of bad decisions:
-She initially rejects the lightsaber as her destiny calls to her and Maz's advice and runs away with BB-8 with her, which leads to problems.
-Rey gets her mind probed for information by the villain. He learns that she has an image of the map in her mind and later about the island on the sea.
She is rendered unconscious and gets captured by the villain.
She fails with the blaster when she first tries it on Takodana.
She fails to pull off the Jedi Mind trick the first couple of times she tries.
She fails to protect the safety of those she cares about:
-She fails to prevent Han Solo from dying, who she feels is like the father she never had.
-She fails to prevent Finn from coming close to dying, her new friend.
She gets tossed into a tree by Kylo Ren's force push.
Click to expand...

Han put himself in that situation, there was no helping him.

--- Double Post Merged, Jan 4, 2016, Original Post Date: Jan 4, 2016 ---

"She forgot the safety ONCE and then proceeded to channel Revolver Ocelot."
Ha ha ha ha.

77th · Jan 4, 2016

I've read this article in Yahoo a week ago and i must say i do agree with the majority of what is been said with one exception, "The Force Awakens" is a good and entertainment movie and well deserves the Star Wars Logo, despite agreing with his flaws i must say i really liked TFA.

There's a big rumour spreading around the internet that TFA is just JJ Fan Fiction and all the characters are Disney politically corrects, forced politically corrects, and in that matters i think there's plenty of room to discuss weither way.

One last thing to say that i, a super Prequels hater, after TFA must public say is that at least the Prequels story was ORIGINAL but comparing to TFA they felt so out of the Star Wars Line.

Cmdr. Ed Straker · Jan 4, 2016

MagnarTheGreat said: ↑

#masculinitysofragile

Rey lets the Rathtars loose by accident, nearly getting everyone involved killed.
Her mind is stuck on Jakku, which leads to a series of bad decisions:
-She initially rejects the lightsaber as her destiny calls to her and Maz's advice and runs away with BB-8 with her, which leads to problems.
-Rey gets her mind probed for information by the villain. He learns that she has an image of the map in her mind and later about the island on the sea.
She is rendered unconscious and gets captured by the villain.
She fails with the blaster when she first tries it on Takodana.
She fails to pull off the Jedi Mind trick the first couple of times she tries.
She fails to protect the safety of those she cares about:
-She fails to prevent Han Solo from dying, who she feels is like the father she never had.
-She fails to prevent Finn from coming close to dying, her new friend.
She gets tossed into a tree by Kylo Ren's force push.
Click to expand...

Thanks for your opinion, you have some valid points.
I don't saw it from this perspective.
Nonetheless I think that she is superior over any other Star Wars character we ever had in a Star Wars movie.
I suppose she will not lose a limb in the whole ST and will beat the bad guys without much effort.

I found this:
A Mary Sue or Gary Stu or Marty Stu is an idealized fictional character, a young or low-rank person who saves the day through unrealistic abilities.
In my opinion she comes very close to this description.
I don't say that I don't like her, only that I find it hard to relate with her.
I hope she is Luke Skywalkers daughter, in this case it would make more sense about her abilities.
(a gifted child thanks to DNA and Luke/her father as her teacher in her childhood)

Rieekan · Jan 4, 2016

Cmdr. Ed Straker said: ↑

Nonetheless I think that she is superior over any other Star Wars character we ever had in a Star Wars movie.
Click to expand...

Every force user has superior powers in this movie, some people don't get the title at all, can't help them. Compare blaster bolt scenes Kylo vs Vader at the Bespin dinning room. Or how Vader needs help from a little droid to interrogate. Yeah the force expression is on turbo boost, thats it.

The funny thing is we have multiple male characters in cinematic history that were great at everything, but nobody came up with the agenda talk there.
Rey isn't so flawless as some people want to see or describe her, you have to ignore a huge portion of the movie to come to that conclusion.

Cmdr. Ed Straker · Jan 4, 2016

Rieekan said: ↑

Every force user has superior powers in this movie, some people don't get the title at all, can't help them. Compare blaster bolt scenes Kylo vs Vader at the Bespin dinning room.
Click to expand...

I know, but both guys had training beforehand. (Rey just heard of the force 30 minutes ago for the first time and pulled off a jedi mind trick)
Lazy writting in my opinion, Rey must escape alone from the interrogation room, how about Jedi mind trick.
It's paying hommage and it's preposterous at the same time

Rieekan said: ↑

Or how Vader needs help from a little droid to interrogate.
Click to expand...

Like you wrote, Vader needed help to interrogate.
Kylo wants to become Vader, but his skills are already superior. (freezing blasts/people - interrogation/mind reading) (contradiction in writing again)

Rieekan said: ↑

The funny thing is we have multiple male characters in cinematic history that were great at everything, but nobody came up with the agenda talk there.
Click to expand...

I guess it's a new phenomenon to speak about this stuff. (thanks to internet)

Rieekan said: ↑

you have to ignore a huge portion of the movie to come to that conclusion.
Click to expand...

No, I guess we saw the same movie, but came up with a different point of view.

Rieekan · Jan 4, 2016

Cmdr. Ed Straker said: ↑

I know, but both guys had training beforehand. (Rey just heard of the force 30 minutes ago for the first time and pulled off a jedi mind trick)
Click to expand...

Luke wasn't really surprised to see her and we don't know if she had a training or not, that is yet to explore, but she got into his head, when we watch the training lessons of Obi Wan or Yoda they talk one or two sentences and Luke gets better. One might think that a telepathic connection transfers much more information then just language->good training method. Kenobi tought Luke to let the force flow and he could see through the blast shield, yeah we bought that. Yoda is a little green alien, but a powerful beeing, but a girl is a mary sue...

Cmdr. Ed Straker said: ↑

Kylo wants to become Vader, but his skills are already superior. (freezing blasts/people - interrogation/mind reading) (contradiction in writing again)
Click to expand...

The force is awakening, the force itself more powerful. We see it in every time the Force shows up. Kylo can't even get a working lightsaber together and is not fully trained but he is more powerful then Vader, because of the force itself.

Cmdr. Ed Straker said: ↑

I guess it's a new phenomenon to speak about this stuff. (thanks to internet)
Click to expand...

Oh the irony, entitled fanboys rage on the internet from momys basement do some vids in underwear. It is not the first time a little vocal minority makes a big fuzz. I think it would be quite manly, to not be intimidated by a female hero in a movie. But no, whining on the internet is really a great masculine behavior.

Lt. Hija · Jan 4, 2016

Rieekan said: ↑

The force is awakening, the force itself more powerful. We see it in every time the Force shows up. Kylo can't even get a working lightsaber together and is not fully trained but he is more powerful then Vader, because of the force itself.
Click to expand...

"It's an energy field created by all living beings". The fundamental problem, IMHO, is that a dark side user is killing living beings and therefore is not contributing to the Force but rather diminishing it. Yet, a dark side forcer as inexperienced as Kylo can now achieve bigger feats than an experienced and trained dark side user like Darth Vader?

I'm really confused. It almost appears that Sir Alec Guiness was a bit premature when he called it all "mumbo-jumbo" back in 1976.

MemphisRains · Jan 4, 2016

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