What have you changed your mind about?

I would agree with many of you on this thread in saying that the score was the biggest thing that I've changed my opinion on since opening night. Originally, I thought it was pretty weak; I blame that on getting lost in the excitement of watching the movie and not listening to it closely. With subsequent viewings and listening to it on the internet, I have got to say that this is one of the best soundtracks that John Williams has done. I would say that some pieces like Rey's theme and March of the Resistance are right up there with the Imperial March and the Force Theme.

There are also some sequences that I've generally warmed up to over time like the Rathtar scene and the Starkiller Base battle scene. While they are still not my favorites I like them more than I did initially. Really at this point any problems I have with the film are just nitpicking on my part now.

 

Now that I have watched it on Bluray, I have to say I like the movie more the more I watch it. Still, my biggest complaint now is the ending. Not so much the Luke not saying anything, but no celebration. In Phantom, we got the Naboo celebration and parade, and leaving on a victory note. Same as in a New Hope, the medal ceremony that ignored Chewie, but everyone left on a good victorious note, same pattern as Phantom. Now, everyone is saying that Episode 8 needs to end on a cliffhanger to mirror Empire, however, I say we already got that in the Force Awakens instead of a celebration. Since they didn't have Luke say anything anyway, I feel that the movie should have ended with the Falcon taking off to find Luke, and everyone cheering as it roared off. roll credits.

 

I didn't like the idea of Snoke and Maz Kanata at first because of the blatant Emperor and Yoda copies. But the more I think about them the more i like them (even Snoke).

Snoke is not a Sith but seems to know how they operated and who they were. Like he was watching them from afar. Besides use of the dark side he doesn't share Sith tendencies for power and seem to only use the First Order and not care about them that much. His major beef seems to be just ridding Luke.

Maz is a light side user but not a Jedi. Just like Snoke she seems to have watched the Jedi from the side but not get involved. She never wanted to be in a policing force like the Jedi. They're both ancient. But aren't specific in alignments like Jedi and Sith.
I probably wouldn't like one if only one of them was introduced in Force Awakens.
But I like both almost as if they're yin and yang of each other.
The irony that one tutors the father(Han) and the other tutors the son(Ben) is not lost on me.

 

+1

And the more I think about him the more i hate him.

 

My original thoughts on Kylo Ren was that he was a dumb angry child that throws tantrums at the drop of a hat, and as a result I figured him to be a pretty weak villain character initially

But after another viewing I've come to grow that it was intentional to portray him as this angry confused child, because that's what he is. He wants to be powerful like Darth Vader but he's unsure of himself, and he's battling with his inner thoughts on what he really wants. Where the Jedi feared the Dark side, he fears the light, because he believes it makes him weak or he just doesn't want to face himself for his past deeds. He says he can feel the light pulling him back, much like how a Jedi would react to the dark side pulling on them. He's scared of redeeming himself because I believe he thinks he doesn't deserve redemption for his choices.

He doesn't know what he is, or what he wants in life and as a result he's angry, temperamental and is prone to making rash decisions and mistakes. He's no Darth Vader, but he's not supposed to be. He's supposed to be his own character.

I can appreciate that now

 

This film gets better for me with age and is still rewarding multiple re-watches.

A few things I've changed my mind about:

• The CGI. It seems fine
• I wouldn't call Rey a “Mary-Sue” anymore. I can see a strong force sensitive young woman/convergence with the time/inclination/ability to study, an aptitude for engineering/languages and the force awareness/reflexes for piloting and fighting.
• Good use of humour - plenty of laughs that don't spoil the story.
• The movie echoes TESB and ROTJ almost as much as ANH.
• I no longer feel the lack of Luke, or need more detail of Ben's seduction/rebellion/slaughter or Rey's history/lineage.
• Ambiguity is a strength. It makes the universe seem bigger and more realistic (like ANH) and leaving our own imagination/speculation to fill in the gaps keeps the story giving and fresh.

 

I always argue with anyone who calls her a Mary Sue that she easily gets captured by Kylo Ren.

 

I agree as I wonder if the 'Mary Sue crowd' out there were the same one's who weren't happy with a female protagonist to begin with.

 

Scavengers can wield the force, that's how much my mind has changed.

 

That is an assumption I would not make that easy.

 

No doubt I am generalizing, but I do remember a lot of complaints on SW boards when the rumor was that the Luke/Anakin of this trilogy was a female. I honestly never heard the term 'Mary Sue' until after TFA, so I figured that this group of fans were trying to marginalize her character. Again, I am generalizing as I'm sure not everyone feels this way.

 

Changing my mind about some of the more seemingly "on the nose" rehashes and questionable dialogue/editing choices in TFA.

Big thanks to @FN-3263827 for sharing this link. The interesting and intellligent insight/speculation makes suffering through some of the questionable audio quallity well worth it.

[edit] Beware of possible 8 spoilers from 42mins on. (I turned off about then.)

 

After watching 6 times (4 in theathers and 2 in Bluray) the rathars sequence doesnt look so bad after all, but I still think it is the weakest part of the movie.

 

What I've changed my mind about is arguably the movie's most valuable supportive element: that is, the music John Williams wrote. I now appreciate it, and what it was trying to do, so much more than I did at first.

I instantly recognized the "compositional smarts" of it. It was very well written, and I always knew that. But in my first viewing, it didn't "move" me much, aside from the Rey theme and the "Jedi Steps" tune from the last minute and a half. Otherwise, it didn't sound very memorable to me. It certainly lacked the "hit you over the head with drama" style of Revenge of the Sith, the last Star Wars score Williams had done, and considering that it had the three OT films as immediate predecessors with returning characters, I was hoping to hear more of the themes from A New Hope, Empire, and Jedi. Initially, it bothered me that the only "old tunes" we got back were the main title (of course), the Force theme (of course), brief statements of Leia's theme / Han and Leia's love theme, and the Millennium Falcon tune. I wasn't a huge fan of Kylo Ren's tune, and Snoke's theme only was interesting insofar as it sounded like the opera scene's music in Ep. III (thus giving ammo to the Plagueis enthusiasts). There was an "anonymity factor" to so much of it at first (and in fact, some guy wrote an article about this very thing the week after the film was released: https://www.inverse.com/article/955...ms-star-wars-soundtrack-for-the-force-awakens )

Then I listened through the score several more times. The "anonymity factor" that I had mentally applied to the music from my initial listen slowly began to fade. I realized, firstly, that however much it might be nice to have older tunes come back more strongly, the music was a reflection of the movie, and the old stuff wasn't the focus. The new stuff was, so the old stuff had to be used sparingly. Secondly, I was able to discern more clearly the significance of the new stuff: Poe had his little tune, Kylo Ren's theme became more menacing despite its apparent simplicity, and the whole score, like A New Hope, promised development and expansion as these movies go forward. It still isn't my favorite Star Wars score - that hovers somewhere among the best sections of Ep. 5, Ep. 6, and Ep. 3 - but it's an accomplished work if ever there was one, a worthy continuation of the sage (after all, what other composer has written for seven movies and made something new each time?!), and even an interesting look at how Williams has changed his style over the decades.