Offical TFA media review thread

Jesus...

 

He's apparently a 'top critic' as well. Oh dear.

His review is literally just 'it takes stuff from the originals' and nothing else. It doesn't go on about the characters, the acting, anything.

There's 3 there now. To be fair, I wouldn't expect it to stay as high as it was anyways, I was expecting something in the mid 80s to be honest.

 

That's a clever first line. And since it seems to mirror ANH, it's a great balance of improving from the prequels while showing respect to its origin.

Good move.

 

He gave Guardians of the Galaxy and Dawn of the Planet of the Apes a rotten score too. Jesus wept.

Oh my god, he even gave A Million Ways to Die in the West a FRESH rating.



That reviewer is seriously not to be trusted...

 

Awww, the waiting for tommorow premiere is the worst!
It's just one day before I'll go to the IMAX screening and it's the longest waiting ever

 

CNN's review:

http://money.cnn.com/2015/12/16/media/star-wars-the-force-awakens-review/index.html

Another good one.

 

Funny how Stuckmann says it goes at a good pace with less exposition, yet one of the three negative reviews says the film is really slow...

I think I'm more inclined to believe Chris to be honest. He's probably my favourite reviewer.

 

Current RT score: 97%

Average Rating: 8.3/10
Reviews Counted: 140
Fresh: 136
Rotten: 4

 

He's the guy I relied on for an honest Star Wars review.
Now, I am 100% sure I'll love it.

 

Most pleased about this NON- spoiler review over many others even Collider's. Something about other reviews felt very incomplete or emotionless as if the reviewer didn't truly receive the movie, they weren't trying to enjoy or be surprised but instead make a check list. Some felt like they were hung up on one thing they didn't like. This review seems to be a complete 360 without hang-ups.
-

 

I watched it! My reaction went something like this:



Daisy Ridley was absolutely amazing

 

And so here I am, returned from the theater and The Force Awakens. What follows are my first impressions/partial review and I'll hide it in a spoiler tag, though I won't be very elaborate. Edit: Forget that, I'm elaborate. FULL OF SPOILERS

Spoiler: My first impressions

Most of the reviews so far are spot on, both the positive ones - and the negative ones. It's just a matter of how important certain elements are to you. If you're looking for Luke Skywalker - which is kind of what the film tries to be about - your view will probably be negatively slanted. If you're ready for some pretty fast-moving action and one-liners, you'll probably be more positive.

Me?
I'm in the middle somewhere.

I absolutely really liked the first ten minutes of the film. Despite knowing everything beforehand, getting to see the scenes unfold was a treat. It struck the right chords by throwing us right into the middle of things and everything had great choreography, and Kylo Ren...well he makes a badass entrance, possibly more so than the classic Vader entrance in A New Hope because this guy is angrweeey. Compared to Anakin's pouting in the prequel trilogy, Kylo Ren is absolutely a much more intimidating villain, at least in this section of the film.

When the story moves to Rey, JJ Abrams manages to capture the charm of the original trilogy, mainly through Rey's interaction with BB-8 and later with Finn. The whole sequence until they escape Jakku is, in the word of Lawrence Kasdan, delightful. I got goosebumps. I was with Abrams all the way. I fell in love with Rey, who, as many reviews rightfully point out, is the breakout star of the film - some reviewers felt that Boyega's character became a sidekick and in a way I agree but I enjoyed Boyega's role a lot, even though his presence in the latter half of the film becomes...it's as if the film suddenly decides to go a different way, a way where his character no longer has a role to play. Too bad, because Finn, on Jakku, was just great. Chemistry with Rey, perfect in the classic, somewhat goofy/campy Star Wars style: They're just sweet.

The biggest surprise and relief during the first quarter of the film: Jakku is not nearly as Tatooine-ish as I've been fearing.

There is little to breathe in the opening, as we are thrown from one action sequence to the next; the first look at the Millenium Falcon had the audience, including myself and my son, applauding and cheering. But once it lifted off, and we got to the chase we've seen a lot of in the teasers and trailers...well, if the Jedi in the prequel trilogy were over the top in their fighting, the Falcon is a little over the top in its flying. There are some moves there that just didn't convince me, but fortunately the footage is intercut with short bits of Finn and Rey trying to get a hang of it, and both were funny here.

SO FAR...I was thoroughly entertained. SO FAR...it is not nearly as awkward as anything in the prequel trilogy. AND, SO FAR...to my huge surprise ... it felt like a new Star Wars movie, and not the ANH-rip-off I expected.

Sometime during the scenes with Han Solo, the film begins to fall apart for me. The magic was there, oh yes, but now as the film changes gears it loses some of that early power, and I'm not sure why, though I'll try...there's just something "off" about the whole incident aboard the weird freighter with the Kanjiklub and the Deathsomethings, it feels like it's from some other scifi movie. There's a hint of Alien in there, actually, but anyway, it was fast-paced and entertaining, but it was totally unnecessary in my opinion and the sequence could have been put to better use. And by better use I mean some room to let the characters breathe. No, I don't need endless exposition; that's the PT's territory. No, I don't need to have everything explained. But some things should perhaps be explained so as to give the characters more depth. I don't particularly care about what Han Solo's been doing (apparently, he's been trading grotesque monsters for thirty years) - I can imagine that myself. But we need more about the new characters. Well, Finn is kind of taken care of, but Rey; I miss a scene where she tells Finn how she ended up on Jakku. I know, it's supposed to be mysterious, but she could've said something like, "I was left on Jakku when I was very young. I don't remember much. I remember...they promised me they would come back."

Right. Let's see.

There is some fun banter, and Harrison Ford does a good job with Han Solo. Better than Return of the Jedi Han Solo; and despite what Abrams or Ford may say, Han Solo is the Han Solo as we knew him from The Empire Strikes Back. It's like nothing has changed. He could have accidentally stepped into a time machine as he was about to leave Echo Base on Hoth and stepped out again here. Some fun one-liners, though. Han and Finn is, like the other combos I've mentioned, a fun combo. Chewbacca is great, too, actually. He's treated more like a dog this time around, but he's really Chewbacca in the film. Happy to report!

The rest of the film, well. It has some good, some bad, and some ugly. I'm still processing, of course, and it will need repeat viewings (although I sense, through the Dark Side, that this film might not hold up as well as, say, the originals). There are some horrendous nods to the original Star Wars and I don't mean Starkiller Base. There are a few scenes and bits that are basically copy/pasted. I guess they can get away with calling it "homage", but to me, it became dumb (Rey overhearing two Stormtroopers talk about the latest model...though one can wonder if that scene, since it is identical to the Obi-Wan scene aboard the Death Star in Star Wars, hints that Rey is a Kenobi. Nope, not buying it but there it is).

Right.

THE GOOD:
Rey and Finn are really doing their best to become the leads of a new Star Wars generation, and they do it. I like Rey, I like Finn. They are not superawesome, but charming and relatable.

Kylo Ren - when masked - is nasty business. When the mask comes off...he loses coolness points. Still, I admire the writers for daring to unmask him and show the vulnerable, dare I say emotional, character underneath. And, sigh, yes: His name is Ben Solo. Bummer.

Carrie Fisher. I was surprised at how old she sounds but how good she looked in the film. Her role is minimal, but when she's on screen, you know it. She got some of the best lines, too.

BB-8: Not bad for a football, the little droid was able to sneak into many scenes without dominating. Unlike R2 and 3P0, the droid's character wasn't as one-dimensional, it had some great (imagined) lines - such as when you can infer that BB8 is saying something naughty - but it did not have the presence (and of course, history) of R2 and 3P0.

THE BAD:
Poe Dameron is great in the beginning of the film, and becomes sorely underutilised for the remainder of the film. Yes, he's whooping and throwing out some lines from the cockpit of his kewl X-Wing Fighter, but - and this shows how good Isaacs is in the film - I missed him in the latter half of the film. I actually missed Dameron more than I missed you-know-who.

General Hux was underwhelming as a character. Gleeson unfortunately didn't have the presence (or age) to make me believe in the character. Yes, Star Wars has its fair share of stereotypical evil villains, but Hux was relatively unnecessary for the plot. The one scene in which Gleeson gets to show off some character, the Nuremberg-scene, is not enough. Hux wasn't a Tarkin, he was more a Force-less Count Dooku. They should have played up that hint of mad powerlust in more of his scenes. Oh well. I guess this counts as a nitpick.

The Starkiller Base. Yeah, well. It's another superweapon and it's fueled by suns. I thought it was dumb, even for Star Wars. It never feels like a threat, though.

THE UGLY:
I'm sorry to say that Supreme Leader Snoke is, for me, the movie's least exciting element. The character was underwhelming. The obvious CGI didn't help. The fact he looks like Voldemort after having his head cracked on the ice, didn't help. The fact that the film doesn't give us anything about this mysterious character didn't help (even a small hint would perhaps help). Total waste of Andy Serkis' talent. I can't believe that this design got through the process of creating the film. If I had been a chairman or whatever, I'd put my foot down and said, "No, this isn't good enough." Seriously. I can think of a hundred different character designs that would be more interesting than Snoke. There is no charm to the character. He doesn't feel threatening even when he tries. And though the film doesn't specifically state it, I get the feeling that Snoke is, like the embodiment of the Dark Side or something. Left ambigious, they of course have a lot of freedom going forward with this character, but. No. Took me completely out of the movie. As if he had stepped in from a Harry Potter film to spoil the fun ride we were having.

THE PLOT:
Oh, it's so weak. It is so weak. A New Hope wasn't weak. It was simple, yes, and effective, but once we leave Jakku The Force Awakens becomes messy. It doesn't longer know which way to go, or what to do to get there in the most believable manner. All of a sudden, Han Solo begins to jump to lightspeed from inside freighters, and leaving lightspeed right above the surface of a planet, while a more streamlined script wouldn't need to have Han do these things that never were shown to be possible in the previous movies. It comes out of nowhere - as does the identity of Kylo Ren (although I appreciate how casual Han and Leia are about this, in the sense that we're just listening in and nobody's going to stop, look at the camera, and explain it for us). Poe Dameron is left for dead on Jakku and whoo! He's on Taco Diner or whatever the planet's called. The entire last half of the film feels derivative, with a few sequences that feel right and good and fresh, and even Han comments on it in his gruff manner: "We're going to do the same thing as we always do when superweapons come up." (No, that's not an actual line of dialogue, but you get the point). I groaned.
In other words, it begins strong and for the first half of the film I was barely aware that "I had been here before"; there's enough new stuff to occupy the senses. Toward the end, it has become tiresome.
I feel the film never defined its story well enough; it kind of floundered. Is it about the threat of the Starkiller Base? Is it about finding Luke? Why are people looking for Luke anyway, after so long? Is it about Kylo Ren? Rey? This might improve of course with more viewings. Unlike the original trilogy, however, The Force Awakens remains a bit...unfocused.

Adam Driver. Solid actor, but I wasn't sold. I don't know why, to be honest. The character came off as unhinged in some sequences (mainly as Kylo Ren) and then all of a sudden..I don't know. I need to see the film again to re-evaluate my thoughts on Driver and his character. I actually thought he was too evil for this film, and that he kind of didn't fit entirely.

Let me try to explain: The Force Awakens tries both to capture the spirit and heart of Star Wars, the darker side of the saga and its mythical underpinnings of The Empire Strikes Back, and the core stuff about family from Return of the Jedi. It's a look back, and a look forward. The callbacks just aren't as convincing. And in this montage of memories and hints of the future, strides tall, lanky Kylo Ren, angrier than Anakin, more unhinged than Anakin, though much less imposing than Darth Vader, a character almost too dark for the rest of the film. He certainly puts a damper on things just before the end, there.
At the same time, I understand what Abrams is trying to do here (or at least I pretend to understand): he wants to entertain all of us, most of us anyway, and some want the Jedi and the Dark Side and some the fun banter and some the action and The Force Awakens has all of it. It just doesn't mesh as well as the classic films did.

I almost wish Lucas was a little more involved with the script,

no scrap that.

Right!

Wow.

I was underwhelmed, but also positively surprised. I didn't really miss Luke. I didn't get the feels when Han was murdered. Not even Chewbacca was too upset about it. I expected the most primal rage ever from our favorite Wookiee.

I said the film fell apart, and I feel it did, and that I'm still picking up the pieces. The film, already longer than most Star Wars films (unless I'm mistaken), feels like an abridged version of Abrams' vision. Between scene jumps, you just feel there's more that should have been in here. This becomes the most apparent in the last third of the film, where everything is thrown at you and you never get the time to let stuff sink in (oh Blast I'm getting old...is that it?), it's as if the playful, delightful opening makes the rest of the film more cramped. Eventually you almost sense the checklist boxes being checked off. In its hurry to get to Luke, it fails to account for a number of things that brings up that feeling of missing scenes - there's no transitional scene for Poe between Jakku and Takodana; Hux, where did he go? Maybe while I blinked. Phasma? She in the movie? Yes, I saw her. She even had a few lines of dialogue. And I'm fine with that, she wasn't very interesting anyway, but where did she go? Of course, you can let certain threads dangle loose by the end of a first film in a trilogy; not everything needs closure - but in this case it felt rushed, jumbled, likewise with the aftermath of Han Solo's fate, no I didn't need an overblown funeral or anything, but acknowledging that Solo's arc is over, that's something the film needs for its own internal consistency (IMO).
There's a thin line between too much information and too little, and perhaps this film veers too much toward too little. I don't know.

All this being said,
I can see how people can really enjoy this film for what it is. It's fun.
But for a grognard like myself, it was a leaky affair, and as the end credits rolled...
...I didn't feel terribly excited. Of course, three years of pent up anticipation was finally released,
and the most important thing for me was whether my nine-year old liked it.
The evidence was clear: He hadn't opened his bottle of Urge, he hadn't opened his candy bag, and he had barely touched the popcorn.
He'd been too hung up in what was going on in that galaxy far, far away.
Kylo Ren was a tad too much for him, and he shed a tear for Han, but on the way home he was laughing and retelling the fun scenes with Rey and Finn and Chewie and Han.

I was left with the feeling that I had been entertained, but in the same way I am entertained by a Star Wars novel or comic. It's nice and all that, but not really-really Star Wars....in the sense that I feel that we could have had a better story than this. What was I worried about before going in? The story.


As of now, I'd rank it definitely above the prequel trilogy-
if the film has been as consistently good as the first twenty minutes, I'd rank it above Return of the Jedi no doubt.

I must add that I saw the film in 3D, which to me gave it a look that reminded me more of, say, Marvel movies. A proper 2D viewing is in order, I suppose. In conclusion (I need to get in time for a match of Battlefront before bedtime), good stuff and bad stuff. Usually not as good as the classics, and usually not as heart-breakingly bad as the prequels.

For Episode VIII, my wish list is short:
* More Rey and Finn and definitely more Poe Dameron
* Stop mimicking the existing films and come up with fresh plotlines
* Give me a good explanation as to why Luke Skywalker is a hermit.
* Ditch Snoke

Things the film seemed to allude to:
* Rey is Kylo's sister
* The Force awakened in Rey and she is not Kylo's sister
* Kylo and Rey were both at Luke's Jedi temple

Oh man I can't even stop writing. Why didn't I have more feels?
Will I like it more next time? Maybe?

Let's see anything I forgot...oh, yes, Maz Kanata! Where did she go, anyway? Unlike Snoke she wasn't too bad. She did stick out as a mocap, but the character was wisely not as Yoda-ish as I had feared. Neither was she very memorable. The sequence in her castle was busy, will be a fun bit to rewatch to spot all the different aliens etc. Place looked a little too much like a medieval tavern though I had to laugh when the characters entered.

 

So you think Rey is Kylo' sister but you think she is not? ?¿?¿?

 

I was trying to convey the feeling that the movie hints at several different possibilities; in certain scenes it feels like, yeah, she definitely is Kylo's little sister, in other scenes I was like, yeah she's definitely Luke's daughter, and with the derivative Stormtrooper-talking-scene I thought of Ben Kenobi.

 

I'll be seeing the movie in a couple days. But it seems the one main criticism that many people have with this movie is how similar to ANH and all the fan service gets tiring. Occasionally I'll read questions from people whether or not ANH will be remade or if the saga would be rebooted at some point. Seeing how similar this movie allegedly is to ANH, perhaps in a way it is reboot/remake?

Even at that, I find it somewhat disappointing that Abrams/Kasdan couldn't give us something really clever and new to the SW saga other than a rehash of previous SW stuff.

But I'm still looking forward to seeing the movie Friday and I imagine that I'll find it entertaining anyway.

 

Well, saw it last night. The film is outstanding. Cannot WAIT for the next installment

 

My Rewiew whithout spoilers : http://entertainment-maw.blogspot.fr/2015/12/star-wars-episode-7-le-reveil-de-la.html