I think the little crossbars are silly.
But the sound it makes is nice and heavy, promising brutality.
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I think the little crossbars are silly.
But the sound it makes is nice and heavy, promising brutality.
I disagree with most of what you've said, jazzcomp, but I don't want to drag out an argument either, so allow me to submit this basic theory: Han may have been a better choice to send after Ren than Leia, because as Leia is Force sensitive, Ren would have sensed her presence. This could endanger the mission to Starkiller Base. Forget flying low to avoid detection, Ren would've sensed Leia's presence at Starkiller the moment that the Falcon exited Hyperspace.
Darth Vader: "I sense something. I presence I've not felt since..."
And it seems that the ability to sense other Force users is even stronger between family members:
Darth Vader: "A small Rebel force has penetrated the shield and landed on Endor."
Emperor Palpatine: "Yes, I know."
Darth Vader: "My son is with them."
Emperor Palpatine: "Are you sure?"
Darth Vader: "I have felt him, my Master."
Emperor Palpatine: "Strange that I have not....."
Ren is stupid, he should have clouds everyone judgement and went back to alliance base and kill them all yes including Leia. :) lousy sith.
When it comes to franchises, the biggest enemy of the franchise is in the following saying; "Familiarity breeds contempt."
So it doesn't surprise me to see that in Skyfall, Daniel Craig and the director created a film involving references to previous 007 movies as a means to compensate for the lack of success from Quantum of Solace.
It therefore doesn't surprise that the Force Awakens does this as well to compensate for the lacklustre prequel trilogy. Although The Force Awakens takes a greater risk by drawing more heavily on the previous movies. But what really surprises most is that this movie is a sequel and reboot rolled into one and thankfully the risk factor pays off better than it does in the James Bond example.:D
Ren sensed when Han crashed on Starkiller. That's how they met, Kylo went looking for him.Quote:
Originally Posted by GoktimusPrime
I managed to avoid nearly all spoilers for this film, and I'm rather surprised but I still haven't seen the "big spoiler" on any of my social media feeds yet. It seems that (most) people are showing respect for not spoiling the movie which I find really good.
The only "spoiler" I had actually seen was in that Batteries ad that had the girl dressed as Rey using the force!
While watching I found myself frustrated by the remake aspect of it. Everytime a familiar plot point or scene from the previous movies came up it took me out of the moment because I could see the "we need an X moment" beneath it. But there was a lot to love and I will be going to see it again.
Rey and Finn were terrific new characters. I'm not 100% convinced about Poe - he seemed to have served his purpose in the tale by the time the TIE crashed - but I did get the queer vibe that others are now talking about (something about the way he was talking to that guy next to his X-Wing) but you know us gays, always looking for representation because we don't get it.
BB-8 was a great droid addition. The scene where Finn is trying to convince him to lie to Ray on the Falcon won me over. When it ended on the comic beat of the thumbs up I laughed out loud. I think that scene would have seemed really cheesy in the prequels, but in this film worked really well.
I was a bit confused about the relationship between the New Republic and the Resistance. I wondered if there's something to be said about the former Rebels and how they just keep looking for a fight even after they "won". How big was the First Order? A Starkiller base and a ship or whole star systems in their grasp? All the planets in this film seemed awfully close to each other too. But these are things that I think about watching a film like this because I'm interested in the big picture of this universe.
Remember this photo of the cast gathering for a script reading?Quote:
Originally Posted by Meister
http://i.imgur.com/AtQD9B5.jpg
Now I look at it and see Mark Hamill starting to wonder if he'll be in the film at all. Because I was. It did look like the movie was going to end on the jump to hyperspace cliffhanger - but we still haven't seen Luke Skywalker!
And because surely they knew people would be debating this for years, I was expecting Luke to say "Greetings my daughter". Cut to credits.Quote:
Originally Posted by MayzaPrime
But no...
But also because I'm so familiar with the Expanded Universe and Leia and Han having twins, most of the Rey and Kylo scenes suggested that relationship too.Quote:
Originally Posted by Krayt
My overall feeling after seeing it was I want to see more of Rey and Finn and BB-8 and am definitely excited to see the next film.
The thing I haven't decided is if it's worth going to see in 3D next time?
Clues that makes me think Rey is Luke's daughter:
1. Similar background - abandoned child on desert planet, finds special droid, gets upset at father-figure getting killed hours after meeting him for first time
2. When Ren is mind-reading Rey, he sees she has visions of an ocean and island - exactly where Luke has exiled himself to
3. The music when the lightsaber flies into Rey's hand and she realises she will take the path of a Jedi, is EXACTLY the same as when Luke comes across his dead aunt and uncle and realises his destiny lies on a different path.
Of course, it could all be one big mind-fcuk :)
Just watched the movie and what?! No more Han Solo?! NOooooooo......my favorite character....
I saw it today, in 2D... as I would see it again in 3D if I thought it was worth it.
I didn't allow myself to get hyped up in the last few months leading up to the release, and I was still left disappointed.
The first act was the slowest of the 7 movies, with very little action happening. The opening scene(s) should be intense or foreboding.
Ep4 had the blockade runner attacked.
Ep5 had a slow start but had the Hoth battle within half an hour.
Ep6 started with the reveal of the new Death Star and Emperor.
Ep1 had a slow start but was exciting to see fully fledged Jedi in action within minutes and then a full invasion force landing on the planet.
Ep2 started by showing us our first significant look at Corescant, which was pretty amazing visually.
Ep3 started with a massive space battle above Corescant. (I'm guessing the spelling)
Ep7 starts with a quick slaughter of a small encampment, and then about an hour with Finn and Rey. It took us until about half way into the movie before we even saw the Rebellion/Resistance... which is similar to Ep4, but that one at least had a significant battle at the start to give a good first impression and stick through an hour on Tatooine.
I think if you took out the Ep4-6 characters from the Ep7 story, it would have been panned more than the Ep1 for its Gungans. I actually wanted to see Ep1-3 again at the theatres, but not this one... I am willing to wait until it comes out on DVD before I will want to see it again. Seeing Han, Chewie, the Falcon, Leia and C3PO were the highlights in an otherwise slow moving story that only has me wanting to see the next two movies for their involvement as well as Luke, who is likely to be taking on the role of OB1 of Ep4 - a supportive role that isn't very active until he is about to die.
Knowing that Mark Hamill (Luke) was in the Movie somewhere (from the pre-production publicity and being at the premiere screening) it was in the back of my mind for much of the second half of the movie... wondering if he will suddenly show up to join the fight... but as some have noted, the final scene felt tacked on at the end just to include Luke somewhere (for the publicity). There needed to be more of a search or adventure than just landing on an island and just finding him standing there.
Because after all, R2D2 had most of the map with him but no one thought to plug him in to get the map by force as soon as BB-8's map was delivered to the Resistance.
I was surprised that there was no mention of Lando (we saw his ROTJ co-pilot), and wonder if he will appear in the next movie... if Billie Dee Williams is keen for it.
The destruction of Corescant felt unnecessary (not to mention, impossible for the Resistance to be able to see it in the midday sky, as their secret base wouldn't have been in the same star system... and even if it was, the distance between planets wouldn't have made it visible).
They also didn't explain much about the Republic Senate, or how it was re-instigated in just 30 years after the fall of the Empire, who needed a large army to keep in line a galaxy that was now a feudal system of governors in charge of their own star systems, according to Ep4. Without a Jedi Order or Imperial army, the Galaxy would have fractured into independent star systems that now had individuals with a lot of power that would be less likely to surrender it by voluntarily rejoining the new Republic (and the Rebellion wasn't a big enough army to liberate and police all those star systems)
And why are they still the Resistance? They liberated the Galaxy from the Empire and there is now a Republic Senate again... what official body are they resisting if the First Order is shown to be a rebellious army that is operating against the Senate, under the command of their own leader.
Now that some have noted on the first page of this topic how similar the plot is to Ep4, it makes it even more disappointing.
The death of Han was not a surprise to me, so I didn't get shocked or upset. I suspected it was going to happen when Ren spoke about him to his master as a source of conflict (so killing him would prove himself to his master), and then just before Han followed Ren onto the walkway I just knew that it was not going to end well. It is sad, but I guess those older characters will have to get killed off or disappear somehow to make way for the new generation to take on the spotlight. I just don't like how certain story writers are required to include a major death for no benefit than ticking the box of having a "tragic" element to appease their Directors & Producers as well as Movie Reviewers... when a good story doesn't do something so permanent on a major or fan favourite character, that prevents future potential plots, and upset the fans you are supposed to be attracting to spend more money on future movies or re-watching that movie.
As Transformers fans, we saw what happened in 1986 when Optimus and other significant Autobots were killed off in the Animated movie... he was supposed to stay dead, but Hasbro had to retcon it due to the backlash of fans, as including the required "tragic" plot element in the Movie was not a good idea (and rarely is... as we see when major characters are killed off in the comics - it upsets more readers who loved that character and will no longer see them, than those who actually got sadistic enjoyment from their death).
I give the movie a 5 out of 10.
I forgot to mention one thing that kept bugging me through the movie was their new "cutesy" droid for the kids... it used similar sounds as Wall-E, which was also a Disney film, so I think they recycled robotic sound effects from their existing sound library instead of giving it a new unique sound.
Some times after beeping I was expecting it to start talking like Wall-E... spoiling the serious tone at times.
They didn't destroy CorUscant, they destroyed the new 'Republic Homeworlds' which was a seperate Solar System.
Kylo's couldn't if he wanted to anyway, he's about as useful as tits on a bull.Quote:
Originally Posted by drifand
The only thing that he is good at is striking down defenceless old men standing/kneeling down in front of him.
I agree with that assessment of Ren... he might have been very powerful with the force but sucked with his saber skills, to have two newbies who had never held a saber before, be able to duel against him for a while, and one actually defeat him.
I also thought that the CGI face of Ren's master (as a hologram) looked very fake (like JarJar), so should have been a real person in a mask (like in the original Movies).
And they still haven't been able to master CG snow yet, as the crashing Falcon throwing up snow on the destroyer planet looked really bad.
I think that he definitely needs more work on his force skills, as Rey did manage block and use his force mind power in her favour, and again when they were both reaching for Luke's lightsaber.
Come to think about it, I'd be pretty frustrated if I was proudly strutting around as the poster boy for long lost Sith Lords, only to be bested by an amateur who'd discovered the force 3 minutes ago :p
Speaking of CGI, I didn't notice the Falcon snow, but I also thought that Snoke was represented poorly.
He looked like a mixture between Gollum and agog from the hobbit films. Very disappointing as I think Gollum forum the LotR films over a decade ago looked better.Quote:
Originally Posted by Sinnertwin
Having re watched the original trilogy and this new film, I must say I am disappointed by the limited light sabre fight time. I think I've been spoiled by the clone wars series!
The film was good... not great. But still better than a typical Transformers movie :p
Hard to disagree with your Transformers reference. Doesn't take much convincing. :DQuote:
Originally Posted by Robzy
All this talk of Luke Skywanker being Rey's father. I don't ever recall Luke ever getting married or laid for that matter. For all we know, he's the 40 year old virgin. My bet is on a plot twist with Luke being Finn's father, albeit through sperm donation. Let's see scripwriters working that into the script.
Always good for a laugh! :p :cool:Quote:
Originally Posted by Megatran
Someone on this thread also mentioned Snoke looks like Voldemort and looking at Voldy's appearence in the first Harry Potter movie, he has a point.Quote:
Originally Posted by i_amtrunks
To be fair though, he had just taken a shot to the side from Chewwies crossbow and was fairly wounded, which is why he kept striking himself and couldn't concentrate during their fight.Quote:
Originally Posted by griffin
In hindsight the man shouldn't have taken off after Rey in his condition.
Also in my opinion I believe they're eluding to Rey being much more powerfully naturally, similar to the Sith-Ari version of the light side.
Considering Kylo managed to hold a laser beam in mid air, make a cup of tea, have a lay down & discuss world politics before releasing it, taking a shot from Chewie who was up way up high in the rafters seems rather weak to me.
I personally never saw that as a spoiler (even in hindsight), but rather just an image of kids playing around with Star Wars. Similar to how a lot of kids might imagine themselves as Han Solo and still wield a lightsabre anyway! It doesn't canonically make sense, but you're just having fun swinging your plastic swords about pretending to be hacking baddies apart. :DQuote:
Originally Posted by Paulbot
I do like how neither the Finn or Rey action figures come with a light sabre. :)
Some people interpreted it as Beebee flipping Finn the bird. ;)Quote:
Originally Posted by Paulbot
Yeah, that confuses me too. The Alliance have now become the Republic, the new reigning government. This means that the First Order are now the resistance. How can a government-backed force be called a 'resistance'? What are they resisting against? Shouldn't they just be called Republic Forces/Army? :confused:Quote:
Originally Posted by Paulbot
Star Wars at its worst is better than Transformers at its best. Sadly. :(Quote:
Originally Posted by Megatran
Perhaps he conceived Rey through the Force. :pQuote:
Originally Posted by Megatran
I still really hope that Rey isn't related to the Skywalkers at all. It's just too damn predictable. :rolleyes: And the last thing that the sequels need is more predictability. ;)
I'm sure it's all explained in guidebooks, novels, comics etc but it should be clearer from just the text of the movie.Quote:
Originally Posted by GoktimusPrime
My interpretation as I thought about it was that the First Order must rule over a chunk of the former Empire and are trying to expand it, and therefore in conflict with the New Republic's "free worlds". Former Rebel alliance members, including several of their former leaders, have entered First Order space and are recreating a new Rebel alliance amongst the people of the worlds within the First Order's control; Creating a "Resistance" movement in the occupied worlds rather than the New Republic going to war.
True, but each Stormtrooper hit by it was thrown back like 6 feet, so they showed the capacity of the gun being much larger than your simple blaster.Quote:
Originally Posted by Sinnertwin
With regard to the fight at the end and how Kylo Ren was beaten:
Kylo Ren took a shot from Chewie's bowcaster. The wound slowed him down and made him less effective in combat, but one observation that someone made was that he was punching himself in the wound to make himself feel pain and anger, which would fuel his dark side power/connection. Still, the pain would be distracting.
Kylo is probably also feeling conflicted/distracted, maybe even guilty, from killing his father just a few minutes prior.
He's not very disciplined - you see this in his lightsaber-swinging tantrums. Compare this to Vader at the end of The Empire Strikes Back when the Millennium Falcon escapes - Vader simply walks off the bridge instead of erupting into a rage.
Basically, Kylo Ren isn't as effective as he could be; he can't concentrate and is injured.
Now, to Finn and Rey:
Finn has most likely had melee combat training, being an ex-stormtrooper, so he's probably handled melee weapons at some point. He's already handled the lightsaber, so he has a vague idea how to use it, if not handle it with appropriate technique. He may even have had some unseen practice messing around with it aboard the Falcon on the way to Starkiller base.
Rey has melee combat experience - she used the staff to good effect on Jakku, so she's agile and has good body control, and her use of a staff goes some way to helping her handle a sword. Plus, her newfound proficiency with the lightsaber was a way of showing her newfound Force ability.
I really don't know if Vader's much better though. When Ren has a tantrum, he damages property. When Vader gets mad, he kills his own officers! :eek: When Ren gets mad, they send in a repair crew. When Vader gets angry, they send in the coroner.Quote:
Originally Posted by Magnus
One of my favourite abilities in the Star Wars Miniatures game is this Commander Effect from Darth Vader, Dark Jedi:
Whenever an allied character without a Force rating gets a natural 1 on any roll, that character is defeated and all other allies without a Force rating get a +2 Attack. (These bonuses stack)
So what this means is that if any non Force-user on Vader's team rolls a 1 on a 20 sided die roll (which means a critical failure), Vader kills that character, which then scares the Poodoo out of the rest of the team who all fight harder (hence the +2 to Attack) because they don't want to be next! And if another character rolls a 1, they also get killed and everyone else gets another +2 to Attack (hence it becomes a +4, +6, +8 etc.). Every time I played a squad with Darth Vader, Dark Jedi in it and I'd roll a 1, I would put on my Vader voice and say, "You have failed me for the last time," and make choking noises as I removed that defeated piece off the map! :p
Vader seemed able to draw strength from his rage, whereas it might be more of a liability for Ren. But this may further serve to demonstrate that Ren's (attempted) conversion to the Dark Side hasn't been nearly as comprehensive as Vader's. He's arguably more of a wannabe Sith.
I've heard the Disney Infinity game has given away Rey's background. Apparently there is a section where Kylo refers to Rey as his cousin.
It's been debunked by the person that started it.Quote:
Originally Posted by Ralph Wiggum
Quote:
YouTube personalty Joe Vargas, A.K.A Angry Joe, posted a video online claiming that Disney Infinity 3.0 spoiled the currently mystery parentage of Rey.
...
It sounds like he says, “Face me cousin!”
....
Kylo Ren merely says “Face Me!” before a barrel explodes above him, making him say “Curses!”. It was just well timed so they sounded like a complete sentence. Joe ended up taking his video down and confirming his mistake in a tweet.
I like to think he's new and Snoke isn't a full blown Sith.
We need someone like Grand Admiral Thrawn. Not Force sensitive but just as big a threat.
I dunno about that, the prequels are pretty bad, I think I'd rather watch Transformers 1 over the abysmal Episode 2 at least.Quote:
Originally Posted by GoktimusPrime
The only EU books that were any good were the original Thrawn trilogy. I agree that someone like him would be much better as the Big BadQuote:
Originally Posted by CBratron
General Hux has the potential to be such a threat.
It's a shame that they decided to go down the route of Ren eradicating all the new Jedi and Luke running off to not train any more, as this is a story universe of the Force and the Jedi/Sith... and yet we are back to one or two amateur/half-trained people running around occasionally lighting up a saber.
That was the one thing exciting about Ep1-3, was finally seeing the Force in action by MANY fully trained and active Jedi/Sith... it was exciting after 20 years of teasing us with two slow old farts and a half-trained kid in Ep4-6. :p
I was hoping/expecting to have a dozen or so Jedi in various stages of training in Ep7... after all, that's what the title implied to me (the Force was reborn and the Jedi order was being re-established).
Luke appears to be the last person who has any real knowledge of the old ways of the Force, and if he stops passing on what he knows, or gets killed off, anyone new will just be Force sensitive and never be true Jedi (without hundreds of years of re-mastering the skills and abilities of their true potential - like Rey needing to be told of a couple of tricks, which saved her life at the end of the Movse, because they don't just automatically know what they can do).
One thing I'm hoping to see in the next movie (which I was really disappointed that I didn't see in this one), is Leia being confirmed as a fully trained Jedi, from her Brother during the last 30 years. She should be as powerful as Luke with the Force, and a long time has passed since ROTJ.... so Luke would need to first pass on as much of the old Jedi knowledge to someone close or trusted, before going off to hunt down new Jedi padawans all over the galaxy.
She doesn't need to be a master saber wielder or be active as a Jedi in the film, but I think it would have been more exciting to see her written into a situation that showed her using some sort of Force ability, or reveal her very own hidden lightsaber to defend herself or someone else before going back to being a supporting character at their secret base for the rest of the movie.
Maybe (hopefully) that's a major plot point of the next movie, as she has to exact revenge for the death of her husband, by needing to kill her son in a duel. (because Ren is not a worthy or interesting enough villain to be around for a whole trilogy like Darth Vader... Darth Maul was a more interesting villain, and he was "killed off" after one movie - if you only go by the Movies)
By talking the Alliance into submission? :pQuote:
Originally Posted by GoktimusPrime
I'll concede that one. My point was that Kylo Ren seems to be less disciplined in comparison to Vader, and that Vader in general is far more 'controlled' and less likely to erupt in rage.Quote:
Originally Posted by GoktimusPrime
I think Kylo Ren is trying - he knows that anger and pain are linked to the dark side, which is why he kept punching himself where he was shot by Chewbacca while fighting Finn and Rey. He was trying to augment his dark side power to compensate for the fact he was injured.Quote:
Vader seemed able to draw strength from his rage, whereas it might be more of a liability for Ren. But this may further serve to demonstrate that Ren's (attempted) conversion to the Dark Side hasn't been nearly as comprehensive as Vader's. He's arguably more of a wannabe Sith.
Interestingly, Ren (and to a lesser extent, Snoke) is concerned with 'corruption' from the light side. It's an interesting contrast to the recurring idea that the Jedi are on guard against corruption from the dark side.
FINALLY got to see the movie today.
6 initial pretty-much-non-spoilery thoughts:
1. Devin Faraci is right - Star Wars is basically FanFic now.
2. Max Landis is wrong - Rey is not really a Mary Sue.
3. From Disney's perspective, the movie worked a treat - I really wanted to go out and buy merch afterwards. I'll resist though.
4. Carrie Fisher CANNOT move her top lip from all the Botox. Seriously. They could've at least CG'd some movement in there.
5. I spotted Daniel Craig's cameo. Simon Pegg's too, I think....
6. It was really very good :)
My impression is that Vader didn't kill his officers in a fit of rage though. It was more as though he just had zero tolerance for failure (quite amusing considering he fails at everything task attempts in the OT) . I suppose I t could also be interpreted as just cold, controlled rage, as opposed to the hissy fits we see Kylo throw.Quote:
Originally Posted by GoktimusPrime
Simon Pegg was the scrap dealer on Jakku....
Meanwhile, according to the book (finally finished it) ratio didn't exactly have the rest of the map left by Luke.
The visual dictionary says "most don't know this, but R2 has been storing all info from every system he hacks"
Also "R2 still has not had a memory wipe"
So in the book, after the return to the base, Rey says that the FO has the rest of the map, pulled from the Empires archives. At this R2 wakes up, coz he has the archives as well, and 3PO says R2 is scanning what he has. Then he projects the rest of the map, minus the chunk
Vader had that "oh, crap" factor to him, which I found cool, especially in Empire.
But you're right. He didn't do much in ANH, apart from victory by default & in ROTJ he's just meh, I'll lay down here and let Luke cut my hand off.
I agree that's just Darth Vaders way of motivating his men.Quote:
Originally Posted by Trent