Watch the trailer again! Trust me.

@Grand Master Galen Marek

This is by far my favourite.

 

I couldn't have said this any better. I completely agree.

 

You would be surprised.. and sadly not in a good way. Even though they weren't dissecting every rumor and spoiler, they had nonetheless engaged in rampant speculation within their own mind. It's impossible not to; and speculation about episode VII has been percolating in every fan's mind for the past 30 years. And in many ways that breed of speculation was even worse, because it's the same overhyped pitfall that people walked into in 1999.

 

i would hope those of us who survived the PT learned better. i don't think i was even fully aware and prepared to acknowledge that there was a new Star Wars movie until Force Friday ~ that's how deep in the hole the PT put me.

never again.

 

You're right in principle. There is no excuse this time; everyone has been warned:

Yet in my encounters with angry fans over this film they did just that: bought the hype and walked into that theater thinking they were going to get proof of god. The saving grace though is that the amount of people who were foolish enough to do that yet again was pretty small in the grand scheme of the fandom at large.
Personally, I think I did better knowing what I was getting into. I probably would not have reacted with any real anger at this film even if I walked in blind. It's just a good movie.

 

i get a little saddened and (i admit) rankled by the haters, but i do agree that by-and-large they appear to have brought it on themselves one way or another.

TFA isn't perfect. i'm not blind to its faults.

but it's really good Star Wars.

 

It saddens me too.

 

Hmm, interesting. Never knew that. Yeah, I suppose it would have been awkward to handle it that way, so I see why it was altered. Probably for the best.

Looking at that teaser again, based on the clothing and bit of the body we can see, wow, that's TOTALLY Leia she's handing it off too. Obviously I haven't seen that teaser since some time before the movie came out. At the time, just saw a female hand and thought it might have been Rey, and the scene we did get with her and Maas confirmed that in my head. Boy was I wrong...

 

That scene better be in the deleted scenes on the bluray.

 

It did happen. They filmed it. They even did the cgi work on Maz. You and I saw it in the 2nd teaser.

 

Empire isn't perfect, the godfather isn't perfect, Schindler's list isn't perfect. I'm getting a bit upset by the critical criteria "a fault" or "a flaw". I can nitpick any movie that I want. But nitpicks are not the same as structural flaws. I don't see Star Wars fans nitpicking a movie like the Revenent or Mad Max. Why? They don't care about those movies. Someone said those are good and that's it. Both those movies I just mentioned however had some real structural flaws which were on the level at The Phantom Menace. Glass in the revenant showing no character development and suddenly changing into Leonardo Di Caprio at the end of the movie to do a shallow fight with Tom Hardy just to force closure people can understand. Mad Max, a story designed around action set pieces, while it should be the other way around. I can be very critical of Star Wars movies, I can even point out structural flaws in A New Hope, namely that the transition from the second to third act do not make sense from a structural perspective, and I can also point out that A New Hope has an inconsistent pacing most and foremost because three story acts are condensed in one story. Something Lucas admitted. I won't even begin about Return of the Jedi. That thing is structurally a potpourri. Once you get through the burned layer it tastes alright, but it does take some effort to get there.

I often say that I did not like Phasma's fate in the movie, but the moment did made me laugh. So what should I pick: should I value that scene because the movie tried to provide some closure to the Phasma-Finn tension presented earlier in the movie which was actually very funny, or should I say, well I wanted Phasma to be a bad ass so her fate does not fit my expectation. Then I remember those two stormtroopers in the hallway are justfollowing her example:

In other words, I realise that her actions did not seem to make sense to me in accordance with my expectations, but that they did make sense in the contained world and context of the story, and fits in with the motivation and character of the stormtroopers in general. No wonder Kylo Ren questions HUx training regimen. So, in that respect, simply by looking at the world and context in which the story of TFA is placed, Phasma's easy surrender is not a flaw after all.

If I look at the Force Awakens, eliminate all my emotion, I see a movie that is indeed perfect, just like Empire Strikes Back, Raiders of the Lost Ark, Schindler's list, Munich, Shawnshank Redemption and The Godfather. If I put my emotion back on and be a Star Wars fan I think it is together with Empire Strikes Back, the best Star Wars movie I've ever seen. I keep coming back to see it. You people keep coming back to see it. And for good reason the movie is tapping into something which is you: it's like seeing yourself at that moment when you first saw star wars.

 

when i say the movie has flaws, i mean i think Snoke and the rathtars are stupid. those are my "flaws". everything else is intellectually explainable or utterly forgivable (like you said: what doesn't have flaws?). my hatred of Snoke and the rathtars are largely premised on bad design propped up with bad cgi. i'm perfectly fine with Maz Kanata, so i want to emphasize that it's not just that i hate cgi.

structure is secondary to me so long as the journey is a good one and the company doesn't bore me. the characters have always driven Star Wars. the plot is matchsticks and glue. and i never have a problem with pacing if i like who i'm spending time with. again, doesn't mean i don't recognize the problems. just that i don't care.

i like how you explain Phasma's arc. the whole FO has the appearance of efficiency and intimidation, but it really is a fragile mess of disorder under the surface (just like Kylo Ren). i'm still disappointed in Phasma, but she doesn't ruin the movie or my experience of the movie. that's just mostly about wanting her to be in it more.

there's a culture in Africa, i believe (and i hate myself for not remembering specifically which), who embroider beautiful decorative pieces. they subscribe to the notion that nothing that is not created by the gods can be perfect, so they deliberately sew a glaring flaw into the piece to allow the spirit of creativity to escape and continue to inspire.

imperfection allows us to always appreciate the next thing. if anything was ever so absolutely perfect, we would just spend the rest of our life in frustrated replication or quit trying altogether.

 

Hmmm I didn't know that they do that in Africa. I think it is a bit of a vogue thing in the Star Wars fan base to say that the new movie has some minor flaws. Some fans are twisting themselves in such a way so that everything looks pale in comparison with the originals. If some mogul on Collider or Popcorn Talk says it "had flaws" many fans are inclined to copy it without thought. But I must commend you for understanding the subjective and personal nature of the flaws you see in the force awakens. You don't see them as general facts like some others do. I like that.

 

hahaha ~ i don't understand bandwagon mentality. but i suspect the people who do it don't even realize that's what they're doing.

objective reasoning sometimes feels like a lost art form, along with recognizing one's own subjective biases.

 

I loved (and still love) The Force Awakens, but watching the trailer again makes me notice how so many things were so very different from how I had imagined they would be, or turn out to be. It feels a bit odd, actually, though I think this is pretty much the norm for me when I re-watch a trailer after watching the movie it belongs to.

 

as for the bandwagon mentality, usually this principle: "people who do the thinking for you is much easier than to do the thinking yourself". Some people are just lazy