SPOILER THREAD: SW: The Force Awakens

[Trent]

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.

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 Bad

[GoktimusPrime]

General Hux has the potential to be such a threat.

[griffin]

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.
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)

[Sinnertwin]

General Hux has the potential to be such a threat.

By talking the Alliance into submission?

[Magnus]

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! When Ren gets mad, they send in a repair crew. When Vader gets angry, they send in the coroner.

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.

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 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.

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.

[M-bot]

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

[Trent]

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! When Ren gets mad, they send in a repair crew. When Vader gets angry, they send in the coroner.

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!

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.

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.

[Krayt]

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

[Sinnertwin]

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.

[Lord_Zed]

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.

I agree that's just Darth Vaders way of motivating his men.