SPECULATION The Force Awakens is a great movie.

So far TFA is my favorite Disney / new Lucasfilm Star Wars movie. I can't mentioned it enough but I think the first 30 minutes of TFA is the best we have ever seen in the whole Star Wars saga. The first act of this movie is fantastic. The second one not that much, the third act is okay.

If JJ can deliver a similar experience with IX, then I'm satisfied.

 

You can definitely tell the difference between TFA and TLJ by how they were shot.
I like TLJ a lot, but I think TFA was shot better for sure. I'm excited to see what JJ does in Ep9

 

Absolutely. TFA is my favorite of the three Disney-era movies. Seamlessly applies modern filmmaking techniques to the OT Star Wars aesthetic.

I have some gripes with it. Didn't need another Death Star. Needed a little more world building (you can jump right in when it's the beginning, but when it's a sequel like this you really need to explain the changes somehow, especially if your protagonists know things you don't and the information feels artificially hidden by the plot).

But neither of those things ruins my experience. Love this movie. The first time I saw it, I left the theater with such a high.

 

THIS! Although, I was almost front row at an IMAX so it was a bit close to the face. I did then see it a second time that same night and it was still great, especially from a normal viewing distance, haha.

 

I totally agree, I LOVE TFA. I was really glad to hear JJ was back for Episode IX because I thought he did a great job on TFA.

 

JJ will probably age another 10 years after IX is done. The dude had/has from all the new filmmakers the toughest jobs.
First Star Wars movie in 10 years and making a sequel to Jedi that was 34 years "in the making".

And bringing the ST and the saga overall to a closure.

 

Ctrl + O
Document: A New Hope
Ctrl + A
Ctrl + C
Ctrl + N
Document: The Force Awakens
Ctrl + V
Ctrl + S

Hey look, I just saved Star Wars and it’s not even lunch yet

*KIDDING*

TFA was an impressively well executed film and a pure joy to watch. JJ directed the hell out of that flick. “Great” though? That’s a bridge too far for me.

 

I'll go along with great but still would it third of the three released Disney era Star Wars films (being pending on Solo).

This isn't a slight on Force Awakens at all, I just see Last Jedi as the 2nd best in the franchise overall and Rogue One is also elite to the point of actually making Star Wars a more weighty movie for me.

Nothing wrong with being in the class of Last Crusade, The Untouchables, or Deadpool.

 

When I re-watched it right prior to heading into TLJ, I was almost surprised how well it held up.

The first act is pure SW fun. The stuff JJ does with Rey on Jakku is definitely up there with ESB as far as great filmmaking. There are some plot conveniences but I still have to rank it as the top Disney film so far, probably by plenty (and I saw TLJ four times).

 

TFA is a very good, fun movie but it lacks the same sort of ethos (for the lack of a better term) that the OT and I feel that the TLJ had. This is what lead TLJ to be what it became.
JJ created a bunch of unanswered questions (the infamous JJ Mystery Box) and left everything open thus making a near infinite amount of potential results.
While it does allow you to feel that immense rush of joy watching it unfold, it is one of the most FUN Star Wars films period, it does seem to lack it's own narrative at times.

Basically the character building is the best in the franchise IMO. You get more in depth characters in this film than you do in any others that don't come with a predestined back story.

The score is one of the best start to finish in the SW saga.

Overall it is a great movie and it did everything it needed to do to push Star Wars back to the forefront of pop culture. It didn't NEED to build the world, it needed us to fall in love with Rey, Poe and Finn. It needed us to sympathize with and hate our villains. It accomplished that.

 

Except it really didn't. Especially in the light of The Last Jedi. Rey and Finn hardly resemble their backgrounds much of the time in order to be believable characters, Poe is hardly in the film for enough time to even care about him, Ben has an interesting motivation here that would then end up proving fruitless as he drops it completely in TLJ and Snoke proves to be a nonentity. Ridley, Boyega and Isaac's charisma do not make the characters good. You need good writing, a setting with a sense of verisimilitude, and a good plot to serve as a backbone for that. It lacked all of those things.

 

Unfortunately, I wouldn't call it great. I'd call it a good-researched movie. A safe movie. An homage movie. A fan-service movie, even (also Rogue One is so much better in that respect).

It was definitely not what I wanted. I wanted something new, something brave, but respectful of the lore. Like TPM. Instead I got a compilation of the best moments of the OT with a few new characters. We got Rey, who has always been a non-character to me. We got Finn, who was genuinely funny thanks to the actor, Han, who was fantastic because it's Ford, who can half-ass his way to Oscars if he wants to. Hux seemed like an interesting guy (thanks for destroying him, Rian)

But overall I was very disappointed. There was nothing new: it was as if the creators didn't have the full rights to Star Wars and made it all look very Star Warsy instead. The new Jedi is as amazingly gifted, the new baddie is immensely powerful, Kylo is basically an Anakin/Jacen mix. The plot repeats from the OT, there are way too many nods to the OT overall, some of them felt unnecessary (like the holo chess scene, which is painfully obvious).

But the movie was harmless. It almost completely ignored the prequels, which angered me a lot, but it didn't dismiss them as well. It showed us some exciting stuff. The New Order is a lazy re-brand of the Empire, but we've seen something like that in the books. The film was offensively mediocre to me, but it could've become a lot better with a great sequel. And the sequel made it so much worse... but that's another story.

It was an okay beginning. But it is now a beginning of something I don't want to see. Sadly.

 

Huh?
They aren't supposed to resemble their backgrounds. Their whole point is over coming their circumstances. If they resembled their backgrounds, one would still be a junker on Jakku and the other still a FO trooper.

Poe has about as much Han did in ANH and that works for most people...soo...*shrug*

Ben's motivation is and always has been feeling neglected and looking for a source of approval. In TLJ he realizes he's never going to get it from anyone and just takes control himself. He didn't drop anything.

Snoke was always a nonentity. Sorry to burst your bubble on that one.

 

I meant that they possess qualities that are largely unrepresentative of their backgrounds from the very beginning, making their characters less interesting. The fact that Finn acts the way he does with Rey in the beginning given the way the First Order accrues infantry is idiotic as he practically never has to deal with what he was forced to do in the organization. It's the same thing with Rey where her justification for being affiliated with the Resistance is flimsy at best.

Yeah, but Han at least has something resembling a change in the first film he was in. His time was used effectively and he interacted with the other characters a lot. It's not like he was shown communicating with a supposedly important character about a plot device that is crucial to the film's plot and then disappeared until the very end, which is basically what happened with Poe, which makes his "camaraderie" with Finn come off as incredibly forced.

Snoke literally says that he must work towards completing his training after getting wounded. That's literally the exact opposite of neglect. It implies guidance. It implies refinement. He is named Master of the Knights of Ren in The Force Awakens and is supposedly being groomed and cultivated in ways Anakin never was due to Ben retaining all of his potential. The fact that his ideological foundation changes entirely on a backhanded remark about his mask and that Snoke's demeanor, methods of communication and attitude change seemingly overnight is ridiculous. This is some flimsy characterization.

And the trilogy suffers for it. Why waste time constructing a pointless red herring when you could have made a character that was actually interesting?

MOD EDITED

 

Finn acts like a guy who is coming from a place of being brainwashed. He is immediately enamored with the first people who are kind to him. (Poe and Rey).
He clearly has a special bond with both as they are the ones who facilitated his defection.

Rey's attachment to the Resistance is one of necessity. She is lost. She is without guidance. She is seeking guidance. The FO tried to kill her, killed her mentor and nearly killed her only friend. The Resistance offers her guidance. To Luke Skywalker. How is that flimsy? "Hey person who needs guidance, here's guidance"

Poe was never supposed to be in the movie passed the first act. So yeah his character gets short changed a bit and Han's only change comes in the last 15 minutes. Until then, he's more or less the same guy he was the whole movie. His camaraderie comes from a shared experience of near death. Both relied on each other to escape with no reason to trust one another. They did the Band of Brothers, Saving Private Ryan thing. Share an incredible heroic act together bonding super fast type thing. It's condensed in a Star Wars movie rather than the whole point. But it's a tried and true trope. Nit picking it is trying too hard.

Snoke's relationship to Ren is abusive. He belittles him. He mocks him. He shows more interest in Rey at one point than Ren. The "so-called Knights of Ren" so don't act like Snoke treated it as a prestigious title. He's legitimately MAKING FUN OF Ren. In TFA, Han tells Ben that he is being used by Snoke. In TLJ, Ben realizes this. He doesn't change his foundation as a character. He's still a lost little boy who feels alone and neglected. He realizes Snoke is using him and uses Snoke's arrogance to his advantage. He still completes what his Grandfather started. That doesn't change. It's just not explicitly stated.

Snoke was a misdirect. It happens. It pays off in the next film. That's how long form story telling in movies works.

 

I didn't like TFA on first viewing, I thought initially it did do little to explain the events that were occurring and wanted to breeze past coincidences in order to keep the story moving swiftly.

However, upon second and third viewing, I realized it was a superb vehicle for the character of Rey, probably the greatest Star Wars character we've received in decades.

TFA works because it dares to take its time with character development, something often missing in ADD action films that refuse to spend even 90 seconds with development in lieu of another explosion and chase sequence.

TFA is how Star Wars should be rendered, with an emphasis on character, moral contrasts and a general sense of heroism, despite all odds. I feel like this is precisely what is missing with Solo, that feels more like a roller coaster, a cookie-cutter, single tracked, action film.

I like TFA, it's the standard bearer for Star Wars films of this decade and hopefully a template for how to produce box office success moving forward.

 

I loved it from the start. It was great fun. The acting is very good. The directing is also very good. I didn't mind the WMD planet myself. All in all it did, in my opinion what it had to do. As the first words of the film said, it would set things right.

Was it a GREAT film? No but it didn't need to be a great film. Had he been given more time to flesh out the script, I think JJ would have delivered an even better film than what he was able to do. Really makes me excited for Episode IX.

 

I do agree that JJ is likely to do even better with more time but I do think his level of difficulty is up some too though if they go the direction I'd prefer actually not as difficult as it seems on the surface, the trick is doing it with minimal abrasion and not ending the story but rather essentially half sequel to Last Jedi and half re-setting the table for the next movie or two or three in the saga storyline.

People like them the trilogy thing though but I'm not married to it a all.

Nothing wrong with just one or two or four or five.

Tell the story in no fewer nor more episodes than it requires and then let it rest until you have more to say in the storyline and focus on other tales, times, and locations.