Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens

[Blarghagh]

Well if it heightens your enjoyment, more power to you. It'd just take me out of the experience.

 

Here's something my brother pointed out after he saw it: At the end, why did they use a Space Ship to drop Rey off at the bottom of the stairs?

[Rostere]

 

Did you expect to be convinced by the speech? Can you give an example of what the speech should have been like?

 

Yeah, but you could also make the argument that Hitler and Stalin had no need to further inflame the passions of their brainwashed armies as well. Yet they held speeches. Why?

Not sure Stalin did it to the extent that the First Order did supposedly, what with them taken from birth and indoctrinated (apparently Finn is special or skipped classes). First Order seem just as soulless as the Empire, even when silently fisting the air. I guess I was expecting a less frenzied screeching speech, if I had to expect a speech, something a bit more cold. I don't need to feel some emotional impact by it, just don't need to get a sense of someone trying too hard. The guy playing Hux wasn't all that bad, the snarky bits with him and Ren acting like **** grad students aside.

 

But maybe the character of Hux IS actually a comparatively young, ambitious general who IS trying is hardest at being a Space Nazi?

 

In this series, the bad guys will have character development just as the good guys. They aren't just static background objects. I find a lot of people think that it's bad that it is so similar to ANH, but then proceed to pan the part which are different (and which pretty much must be different for plot reasons). People complain that Kylo Ren doesn't appear as powerful as Darth Vader, and that Hux is not as cold and seasoned as Tarkin. Well, guess what, the Empire got schlonged after RotJ, and the FO is now only beginning to pick up the pieces, they probably take what they can get.

 

You don't have to feel roused, you just have to feel that the actor is doing the role properly. Which he isn't. He looks, as someone else put it, like a frat boy. He is not intimidating or convincing in the role. Its not (just) his youth, since Alexander the great was already a conqueror at his age - its the whole package. 

 

While the scene was going on, my friend and I both turned away at the same time at how embarrassing the whole thing was. It wasn't even a conscious decision, we just couldn't look at this somewhat comical looking guy trying to be gestapo. And the scene was not intentionally comical, just badly written.

 

It would have been interesting to have seen a speech by Alexander, yes.

 

Yes, when I watched the movie my GF also turned to me and smiled and shook her head when they did this salute thing at the end. I also thought it was silly in part, but that's also how real-life politics is. Donald Trump is silly. Adolf Hitler is silly. Benito Mussolini is silly. You have to have a stone face if you did not laugh at the Ancona speech I linked to earlier. Benito Mussolini is funnier dictator than Charlie Chaplin without even trying, and that's the point. Ultimately the character of Hux is a human being, and since his stated character flaw is that he is young and unseasoned, I thought he portrayed that sufficiently good in the movie for me. I think he captured the essence of a Fascist dictator in his speech perfectly, of course that includes some silliness and awkwardness.

 

My understanding of German is not well enough to understand his speeches.

 

Director can try portray space nazis as much he wants but if his efforts leave viewer bored then he has failed in what he tried to do (if boring the viewers wasn't what he tried to do)

 

Space Nazis in my opinion felt much more threating and their speeched more impactful in Iron Sky (which is just low budget comedy about Nazis that fled in Moon after WW2 and now are coming back to conquer world)

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=joTf7I1gel0

 

Seems like a better speech if you really wanted to convince someone, sure. But could you see any actual Fascist dictator making that speech? On the bad side, I would say it's a tad too movie-ish and pretentious.

[aluminiumtrioxid]

Here's something my brother pointed out after he saw it: At the end, why did they use a Space Ship to drop Rey off at the bottom of the stairs?

 

Interesting question.

 

I mean, if you seek out a supposedly-enlightened old master of mysterious space magic, you'd kind of expect there to be a pilgrimage involving unreasonably high stairs leading to a mountaintop and scenery porn galore, but I'm not sure Rey's companions would think of the tradition.

[Raithe]

 

Here's something my brother pointed out after he saw it: At the end, why did they use a Space Ship to drop Rey off at the bottom of the stairs?

 

Interesting question.

 

I mean, if you seek out a supposedly-enlightened old master of mysterious space magic, you'd kind of expect there to be a pilgrimage involving unreasonably high stairs leading to a mountaintop and scenery porn galore, but I'm not sure Rey's companions would think of the tradition.

 

 

Well, if you actually look at pictures of the Island, there's bugger all space to actually safely land the Falcon...

 

It's a whole lot of slopes and gradients...

 

 

Edited December 31, 2015 by Raithe

[Malcador]

But maybe the character of Hux IS actually a comparatively young, ambitious general who IS trying is hardest at being a Space Nazi?

Then he's even more boring, never really see him achieve much (buuuut this is Star Wars where the bad guys' competence is never shown). He's going to die at Kylo Ren's hands once he's finished his training montage and leveled up, the Sith tryhard has to be like Vader after all

 

I am just glad they didn't write Ren having to say "these wounds will not heal" as gold as that would have been

[Raithe]

A Not So Brief History of George Lucas Talking About Disney's Star Wars

Edited December 31, 2015 by Raithe

[CoM_Solaufein]

A Not So Brief History of George Lucas Talking About Disney's Star Wars

He was stupid enough to sell his creation, what do you think the new owners are going to do with it? He can cry all of the butthurt he wants, not going to change the fact he made a mistake by selling off his baby.

If I had something popular like Star Wars as my creation, I never would have sold it, no matter how much money you offered me. You can buy it when I'm dead and buried.

[Darkpriest]

TBH i wonder what GL had in plans. maybe there would be something interesting, or perhaps it all would be crap like ep. 1. now we won't know

[Qistina]

Since we have another Death Star now....it is safe to say Obsidian can make KotOR 3 with giving us another Star Forge....

[Nonek]

 

That island which Luke was hiding upon, I was reminded of the small Monk Isles off of the Scottish and Irish coast, where they pursued their faith from an almost hermit like existence. I wonder if it was filmed upon one of them.

http://edition.cnn.com/2015/12/29/travel/stars-wars-force-awakens-island-skellig-michael/

 

 

Knew i'd seen it before, much appreciated.

[Meshugger]

 

That island which Luke was hiding upon, I was reminded of the small Monk Isles off of the Scottish and Irish coast, where they pursued their faith from an almost hermit like existence. I wonder if it was filmed upon one of them.

http://edition.cnn.com/2015/12/29/travel/stars-wars-force-awakens-island-skellig-michael/

 

 

Whoa, i have to go there sometime. Looks absolutely fascinating.

 

As for the movie, a week after it has all sinked in; the movie fails on another level that i do not recall mentioning: The villains did not at any point instill true fear or were displayed as having the capability of any tyrannical power. They could've been as well a bunch of Mandalorian raiders shooting left and right with very big, big weapons. They reminded me more about hooligans that could be contained and jailed if you had the enough fire-power and Snook (Snoke? what a dumb name) as the angry grandpa leading them.

 

It's more of failure of execution of than the base idea of a new empire rising with some omnious Sith working in the background. The only time it worked was in the beginning when Kylo stopped that blast in mid-air. That was a moment of power and control.

[Rostere]

As for the movie, a week after it has all sinked in; the movie fails on another level that i do not recall mentioning: The villains did not at any point instill true fear or were displayed as having the capability of any tyrannical power. They could've been as well a bunch of Mandalorian raiders shooting left and right with very big, big weapons. They reminded me more about hooligans that could be contained and jailed if you had the enough fire-power and Snook (Snoke? what a dumb name) as the angry grandpa leading them.

 

It's more of failure of execution of than the base idea of a new empire rising with some omnious Sith working in the background. The only time it worked was in the beginning when Kylo stopped that blast in mid-air. That was a moment of power and control.

 

I don't know about you, but I don't think there's any difference here between TFA and the previous six movies. I don't remember thinking once that any of the villains in those movies "instilled true fear" or had a significant capability for "tyrannical power" that the First Order doesn't. If anything the FO has more capability of tyrannical power than the Empire (through Starkiller Base) which is quite a bit of a fail, since they are meant to be more of an upstart faction.

Edited January 1, 2016 by Rostere

[Meshugger]

 

As for the movie, a week after it has all sinked in; the movie fails on another level that i do not recall mentioning: The villains did not at any point instill true fear or were displayed as having the capability of any tyrannical power. They could've been as well a bunch of Mandalorian raiders shooting left and right with very big, big weapons. They reminded me more about hooligans that could be contained and jailed if you had the enough fire-power and Snook (Snoke? what a dumb name) as the angry grandpa leading them.

 

It's more of failure of execution of than the base idea of a new empire rising with some omnious Sith working in the background. The only time it worked was in the beginning when Kylo stopped that blast in mid-air. That was a moment of power and control.

 

I don't know about you, but I don't think there's any difference here between TFA and the previous six movies. I don't remember thinking once that any of the villains in those movies "instilled true fear" or had a significant capability for "tyrannical power" that the First Order doesn't. If anything the FO has more capability of tyrannical power than the Empire (through Starkiller Base) which is quite a bit of a fail, since they are meant to be more of an upstart faction.

 

 

That's the point. They have all that technology but still failed to convince me that they were a force to be reckonned with. **** characters in leadership positions and presentation, IMO.

[Drowsy Emperor]

Vader and the Emperor are simple archetypal characters (prior to the back-story in the prequels) that were very well executed. Its very hard to do something so simple so well, because its been done a million times before. The new villains are supposed to have more drama about them, at least Kylo Ren is, but everything from his appearance to his temper tantrums are on a Jar Jar Binks level of embarrassment.

 

Most of all he lacks a credible reason for being what he is and doing what he does. The other three villains might as well not exist in the film. Waiting for a sequel to provide the necessary reasons is the epitome of corporate film-making.

For all its flaws, A New Hope is a completely rounded film, and so are the next two. The characters are sufficient as they are and filled in over time.

 

I'm playing the Warcraft 3 campaign and I'm struck by the fact that Arthas is better written than any TFA villain. And he has, maybe fifty lines of text in a video game.

Edited January 1, 2016 by Drowsy Emperor

[Drowsy Emperor]

 

 

As for the movie, a week after it has all sinked in; the movie fails on another level that i do not recall mentioning: The villains did not at any point instill true fear or were displayed as having the capability of any tyrannical power. They could've been as well a bunch of Mandalorian raiders shooting left and right with very big, big weapons. They reminded me more about hooligans that could be contained and jailed if you had the enough fire-power and Snook (Snoke? what a dumb name) as the angry grandpa leading them.

 

It's more of failure of execution of than the base idea of a new empire rising with some omnious Sith working in the background. The only time it worked was in the beginning when Kylo stopped that blast in mid-air. That was a moment of power and control.

 

I don't know about you, but I don't think there's any difference here between TFA and the previous six movies. I don't remember thinking once that any of the villains in those movies "instilled true fear" or had a significant capability for "tyrannical power" that the First Order doesn't. If anything the FO has more capability of tyrannical power than the Empire (through Starkiller Base) which is quite a bit of a fail, since they are meant to be more of an upstart faction.

 

 

That's the point. They have all that technology but still failed to convince me that they were a force to be reckonned with. **** characters in leadership positions and presentation, IMO.

 

 

Yes, amateur screenwriters like the people who wrote the film seem to thing that "Evil" needs no reason or justification. In the beginning when they shoot up those civilians without even a pretense of an excuse is more suited to Mongols burning European villages (and even that has a reason behind it) than a fascist empire, an epitome of institutionalized cruel order. Merely because the film needs them to be "evil" and the main guy to be "badass" screenwriters throw in that sort of arbitrary nonsense. 

Edited January 1, 2016 by Drowsy Emperor

[Malcador]

Well the reason was to get the map from Max Von Sydow. And want no witnesses I guess.

Edited January 1, 2016 by Malcador

[Rostere]

Most of all he lacks a credible reason for being what he is and doing what he does.

 

WTF?

 

To be honest, at this point I can't tell if you are just trolling. In the OT, we know absolutely nothing about the motives of Darth Vader. If there is one criticism that can be thrown at the OT, it is that the villains have virtually nothing with regards to motivation. They are just the "evil Empire" who goes about doing their evil stuff like all evil empires do. It's kind of telling the GL felt compelled to make an entire prequel trilogy to explain Vader and the Empire.

 

 

For all its flaws, A New Hope is a completely rounded film, and so are the next two. The characters are sufficient as they are and filled in over time.

 

IMO the failure which seems hard and unlikely to correct is Captain Phasma. We were told she was going to be a badass, but for most of her screen time she is being captured without resistance. Perhaps they took "Boba Fett of the new trilogy" a little bit too literally... Snoke is also a failure of sorts, he is just a bit too exposed to be mysterious, his appearance is frankly a bit lame (did they recycle some generic LotR orc or what? That was not what I expected when I heard they had hired Andy Serkis...) and plot-wise he is basically only seen repeatedly receiving the failures of his subordinates. I would have liked to see him a lot more active and less reactive. I can still see how they can turn this around, but I think TFA was a bad introduction for the character. I definitely think Snoke has better control and better understanding of the situation than what it appears (especially with regards to Rey and Kylo - as we will probably see later on). IMO they have consciously avoided the trope of the villain who conveniently explains his entire plan, but without this what we see is just a hollow punching bag listening to Kylo Ren and Hux explain their failures. They should just have cut all those scenes altogether, or minimized and mystified Snoke's appearance as much as possible.

 

I like TFA because it gave me quite a bit to think and to theorize about. Pretty much all of the previous Star Wars movies have largely failed in this regard, albeit for completely different reasons. My greatest fear is that they fill in what is left for us to fill in at this point with ****. It's interesting that I expected TFA to be 5/10, got positively surprised, but I'm still fearing that the sequel will be 5/10 for these reasons. I hope the director is not prone to blatant exposition and banal storylines.

 

 

I'm playing the Warcraft 3 campaign and I'm struck by the fact that Arthas is better written than any TFA villain. And he has, maybe fifty lines of text in a video game.

 

(°_o)

 

Yeah, definitely trolling...

 

Yes, amateur screenwriters like the people who wrote the film seem to thing that "Evil" needs no reason or justification. In the beginning when they shoot up those civilians without even a pretense of an excuse is more suited to Mongols burning European villages (and even that has a reason behind it) than a fascist empire, an epitome of institutionalized cruel order. Merely because the film needs them to be "evil" and the main guy to be "badass" screenwriters throw in that sort of arbitrary nonsense. 

 

But this being nonsensical depends on what you are comparing with. Do you remember this:

 

It is a period of civil war.

Rebel spaceships, striking

from a hidden base, have won

their first victory against

the evil Galactic Empire.

 

"The evil Galactic Empire"? Really? You are being a hypocrite of you think the OT was good, but TFA is bad in this regard. The Empire in the OT (especially Darth Vader and Palpatine) is pretty much the pinnacle of flat and banal villains, personality-wise.

 

BTW, if the village of Lor San Tekka was indeed a cult of the light side of the force, it makes quite a lot of sense for Ren Kylo to see them as an abomination. Clearly he know Lor San Tekka well, which you can gather from their dialogue. This is not the FO shooting up a random village. This is the equivalent of Falangists shooting up a fervent Marxist study group or something. I can definitely see this happening.

 

In the very first scene of ANH we see Vader killing a captured Rebel soldier on a whim, while other soldiers are seen escorted as prisoners. If that is not equally arbitrary, then I don't know what is.

[Fenixp]

To be honest, at this point I can't tell if you are just trolling. In the OT, we know absolutely nothing about the motives of Darth Vader. If there is one criticism that can be thrown at the OT, it is that the villains have virtually nothing with regards to motivation. They are just the "evil Empire" who goes about doing their evil stuff like all evil empires do. It's kind of telling the GL felt compelled to make an entire prequel trilogy to explain Vader and the Empire.

In the OT, most evil characters didn't have much characterization aside from being evil tho, which is why they worked reasonably well. Force Awakens is desperately trying to characterize the villain which is why things like lack of motivation seem so jarring to a viewer. That's along with the downward power curve shown about Kylo Ren, who starts off seemingly competent and actively works his way down trough the movie.

 

I love well made villains, but if you want to see one who's well done from a recent production, just look at Daredevil and Winston Fisk. Conflicted and makes mistakes about as often as the show's hero, yet fearsome and competent. Kylo Ren is unbelievable and his character traits seem to be all over the place, and "But he'll get better in next episodes!" is a fairly weak argument.

Edited January 1, 2016 by Fenixp

[Drowsy Emperor]

Well the reason was to get the map from Max Von Sydow. And want no witnesses I guess.

 

Because witnesses are gonna witness what? Tell who? I'm talking about the execution after the attack, not the attack itself. And its just there as a device for the screenwriters to make TFO, like, really bad, man and Kylo Ren "evil". Its pointless. It'd be like the Empire finding R2D2 and then nuking Tatooine because they can. The film is full of such things hoping that the quick pacing will keep you from thinking about what you're seeing.  

[Rostere]

In the OT, most evil characters didn't have much characterization aside from being evil tho, which is why they worked reasonably well.

 

You mean, why their personalities were flat and boring.

 

I love the aesthetics of the Empire. The concept of Darth Vader as a powerful knight-magician on life-support inside his armor is also great, all of this especially in 1977. But Star Wars and its sequels never at any moment felt like particularly "smart" movies as far as plot goes, and once you start thinking about things, they tend to fall apart. Star Wars with worse props, visual effects, sound and music would have ended up on the garbage heap of campy 60s/70s sci-fi.

 

Star Wars is decent in spite of the lack of characterization of villains, not because of it.

 

 

Force Awakens is desperately trying to characterize the villain which is why things like lack of motivation seem so jarring to a viewer. That's along with the downward power curve shown about Kylo Ren, who starts off seemingly competent and actively works his way down trough the movie.

 

I don't think it's jarring, I don't think he has a lack of motivation, and I don't think he has a downward power curve.

 

If you mean the ending fight, he is distraught from killing his father - he thought it would give him clarity, but it did not resolve his inner conflict, he is wounded by Chewie's bowcaster (which is seen punching Stormtroopers off their feet earlier) among other things to take into account. He also clearly has a "thing" for Rey and would rather train her than kill her.

 

I think Kylo Ren is a great character because I recognize several of his traits from people I know who have real mental illnesses. Giving the villain such traits suddenly gave Star Wars a much, much darker and more realistic tone than earlier (I think I said earlier that for this reason I immediately associated Kylo Ren with Scorpio from Dirty Harry). If you have no experiences to relate this to yourself, then maybe you just don't understand. For all the reviewers throwing around SJW accusations this goes very contrary to that. While Anakin in the PT was just a dude who made some bad choices and suddenly started to look angry and "evil", Kylo Ren is a fundamentally disturbed and impaired individual. The bittersweet thing is that even if Kylo would abandon the FO he will still be clearly dysfunctional - he can never have a truly happy ending in that sense. Compare this to Vader in the OT (who at least in the first part has no motivation for his deeds other than that he is doing his job), or Anakin in the PT who seemingly could just at any moment go "oops, I made a couple of bad choices there, sorry about that".

 

 

I love well made villains, but if you want to see one who's well done from a recent production, just look at Daredevil and Winston Fisk. Conflicted and makes mistakes about as often as the show's hero, yet fearsome and competent. Kylo Ren is unbelievable and his character traits seem to be all over the place, and "But he'll get better in next episodes!" is a fairly weak argument.

 

I've never seen a superhero movie that I liked, and I doubt that will change. Those things are pretty much always below 5/10 for me, I can spend my time watching other movies.

[aluminiumtrioxid]

I love well made villains, but if you want to see one who's well done from a recent production, just look at Daredevil and Winston Fisk. Conflicted and makes mistakes about as often as the show's hero, yet fearsome and competent. Kylo Ren is unbelievable and his character traits seem to be all over the place, and "But he'll get better in next episodes!" is a fairly weak argument.

 

I've never seen a superhero movie that I liked, and I doubt that will change. Those things are pretty much always below 5/10 for me, I can spend my time watching other movies.

 

 

 

To be fair, Daredevil is more like a noir series with superhero trappings than an actual superhero series. (Which is what's good about it, make no mistake.)

Edited January 1, 2016 by aluminiumtrioxid

[Fighter]

TBH i wonder what GL had in plans. maybe there would be something interesting, or perhaps it all would be crap like ep. 1. now we won't know

 

The Force Awakens isn't exactly rich on ideas. It's the "feel" that the movie gets right.

[Fenixp]

Star Wars is decent in spite of the lack of characterization of villains, not because of it.

Never claimed otherwise, just saying that characterization of Kylo Ren is a pretty bad attempt :-P Besides, Star Wars always drew from fairy tale archetypes primarily which is why "Evil for the sake of evil" characters sort of worked in spite of not really being great characters.

 

I don't think it's jarring, I don't think he has a lack of motivation, and I don't think he has a downward power curve.

It's not about me thinking it, he just had one - his introduction was that of a badass who knows exactly what he's doing, going trough a powerful force questioned by his own allies, a force user who can't even keep his temper, a learned mind reader who can't penetrate mind of an untrained force user from our perspective, all the way to the final fight (so yeah, it wasn't even the final fight alone either). At the start of the movie he's set an expectation and he then kept failing to live up to this expectation repeatedly.

 

Now all of that is fine and could be an interesting character arc, both for Kylo and Rey - if the movie communicated it well. But it didn't. Which brings me to...

 

I think Kylo Ren is a great character because I recognize several of his traits from people I know who have real mental illnesses.

Great, you (potentially) understood Kylo's character because you know what his writers knew. I don't. Good writers will write the character in such a way that after watching this movie, I will *understand* what Kylo Ren is going trough. He just didn't have enough screentime for that to happen tho, his entire conflict got like 5 minutes out of the entire movie. If it's so essential to gain understanding of his character, he should have gotten way more than he did, even instead of protagonists - that would be an interesting spin on Star Wars formula, actually.

 

Similarly, Rey could have resisted Kylo because she got previous Jedi training ... Alternatively, the movie had piss-poor writing. It was never even suggested that her resisting is hugely out of the ordinary for a force user in any way, nor did an invisible Obi-One appear, saying "Use the force, Lu... I mean, Rey!" It was just a thing that happened and you need actual understanding of the previous movies to get that it's weird - what most viewers will get out of that scene is that Kylo Ren is bloody incompetent.

 

All of these ideas you keep talking about are interesting - but if any of them was the actual intention of scriptwriters, it was communicated absolutely horribly, which is kind of bad for a movie of this caliber. You can argue all you want with your interpretations of events, but it doesn't change the fact that *while watching the movie*, most people saw Kylo as an utterly incompetent fighter with no redeeming qualities to make him an interesting villain. And for such overwhelming thoughts, what you felt while watching the movie is what matters the most.

 

I've never seen a superhero movie that I liked, and I doubt that will change. Those things are pretty much always below 5/10 for me, I can spend my time watching other movies.

It's superhero TV serial and it's... Quite untraditional. Edited January 2, 2016 by Fenixp

[Blarghagh]

I thought Kylo Ren was done quite well. It was the "unreveal". We think he's a badass like Vader because he presents himself as a badass like Vader despite not even coming close. Throughout the movie he just unravels completely, getting more and more distraught because nothing he does works out the way he wants.

[Oerwinde]

I just thought of Kylo Ren as Anakin from the prequels done much better.

 

And people talk up the original trilogy more than they deserve. They were fun, well plotted, with entertaining characters and great special effects. They were the Marvel Studios movies of their time, but because there had never been anything like them before, they are looked at much better than that.