SPOILER THREAD: SW: The Force Awakens

[Lint]

I thought Star Killer base was the dumbest part of the movie, it would of been a better movie without it. I would be happy if it was just a base, but without the ridiculous super weapon.

Yep, it should have been left as the doomsday device for the final movie in this presumed trilogy (which would have been a nice throwback to the climax of the original film). Now to one-up the threat level in future they're going to have to go full retard: like a weapon that can destroy the entire galaxy in a single shot.

Definitely a more enjoyable movie than the prequels (and even some of the original trilogy films IMO). Found the pacing to be particularly good, especially when compared to the dialogue heavy scene to dialogue heavy scene to pointless CGI battle scene prequels.

[drifand]

I am with goki here, I think a lot of people try to think too hard and make sense out of every flaw is where you are not going to enjoy the movie to someone sitting back and relax.

I mean you don't need to be a Jedi to spot the evil base that big. I be very concerned if my sun is being played around with someone.

I can totally forgot 1,2,3 ever happened when I watch this movie and that's what made it enjoyable.

[GoktimusPrime]

Definitely a more enjoyable movie than the prequels (and even some of the original trilogy films IMO). Found the pacing to be particularly good, especially when compared to the dialogue heavy scene to dialogue heavy scene to pointless CGI battle scene prequels.

IMO the Prequels were a poor execution of a good concept, and Force Awakens has been a good execution of a pretty ordinary concept (i.e. mostly rehashing A New Hope).

While the Prequels did certainly have their share of flaws, they were - IMHO - fundamentally sound. Because those movies did fulfill the following:

• Showed us the origins of Anakin Skywalker, including his gradual journey from being an innocent and good person towards his ultimate fall from grace into villainy. And of course, Anakin's romance with Padmé, culminating in the birth of the twins.

• The Jedi in their prime. The Prequels gave us an unsurpassed amount of lightsabre action. As griffin pointed out before, the Original Trilogy was set after the fall of the Jedi; so all we saw were old men, a cyborg and a quasi-trained boy.

• The Clone Wars! Something that we've been itching to see ever since the 1977 film where Luke asked Ben, "You fought in the Clone Wars?!" and nothing more was ever said about it.

• The transformation of the Republic into the Empire.

Of course, one of the core problems with the Prequels was that the stories themselves were more driven by these events rather than being character driven. The Prequels spent more time world-building which left less time for character-development. We didn't really need to see so much world-building, such as all those boring Senate sessions (seriously, who wants to watch a galactic version of Question Time?), the Pod Race (they only really need to show ONE lap), the Kaminoan cloning facility, the Geonosian droid foundry etc. While they were all cool things to see, they ultimately weren't that pivotal to the plot per se. They could've been made much shorter or just mentioned in passing. Then Lucas would've had more time to intensely focus on characters like Anakin Skywalker etc.

To me, The Force Awakens feel like the complete opposite of this. The general story is pretty much a retelling of A New Hope, but the story is reasonably well driven by its two protagonists -- Finn, the man who's desperate to flee his past, and Rey, the girl who's desperate to run back to her past. Both characters go on a personal journey and they grow and become different people by the end of the film. Finn learns to stop running away and become a selfless hero (similar to Han Solo's journey in A New Hope, actually), and Rey learns to living in the past and embrace her future.

Hopefully the future Sequels will give us a good combination of having a good character-driven plot, which is what the Original Trilogy gave us (hence why it's regarded as the best by fans). Bear in mind that Abrams is not directing Episodes VIII and IX, I think that we may have a new hope for this franchise to strike back and deliver a return of the story-telling standard that we loved from the OT.

[drifand]

Gee if Abrams not doing the later ones, it may fall back again.

[Magnus]

Of course, one of the core problems with the Prequels was that the stories themselves were more driven by these events rather than being character driven. The Prequels spent more time world-building which left less time for character-development. We didn't really need to see so much world-building, such as all those boring Senate sessions (seriously, who wants to watch a galactic version of Question Time?), the Pod Race (they only really need to show ONE lap), the Kaminoan cloning facility, the Geonosian droid foundry etc. While they were all cool things to see, they ultimately weren't that pivotal to the plot per se. They could've been made much shorter or just mentioned in passing. Then Lucas would've had more time to intensely focus on characters like Anakin Skywalker etc.

To me, The Force Awakens feel like the complete opposite of this. The general story is pretty much a retelling of A New Hope, but the story is reasonably well driven by its two protagonists -- Finn, the man who's desperate to flee his past, and Rey, the girl who's desperate to run back to her past. Both characters go on a personal journey and they grow and become different people by the end of the film. Finn learns to stop running away and become a selfless hero (similar to Han Solo's journey in A New Hope, actually), and Rey learns to living in the past and embrace her future.

I would say that what you've described is actually TFA's biggest weakness - it doesn't give us the entire context for what's happening. There seems to be a massive gap in information/exposition delivered on-screen, as if there's required reading/assumed knowledge, but we don't have that knowledge. Yeah, the First Order is descended from the remnants of the Empire, but if the Empire is defeated, why is there a resistance? What's the go with the New Republic, and aren't they fighting the First Order?

Episodes IV and I actually worked in that there was no backstory needed to understand what was going on - the opening crawls for those two movies told us what we needed to know with regards to backstory and context, whereas Episode VII's doesn't.

[GoktimusPrime]

I personally see it as more of a strength. I think that in the limited time that you have to tell a story that it's not always necessary to overly delve into world-building expositions. I think that it's fine to allow audiences to fill in the gaps. This is what the Original Trilogy did, and I think that it worked in its favour because it gave those films more time to cut to the chase and focus on the characters; to tell the story about what's happening right now rather than what's happened before.

In the OT we know virtually nothing about the Clone Wars, other than the fact that Obi-Wan and Anakin fought together in it. That's it. But as far as experiencing the story of the OT is concerned, that's really all you need to know. Knowing that Boba Fett is a clone and a product of the Clone Wars really isn't essential to one's experience of the OT. We know nothing of Anakin's origins; just that he was Obi-Wan's student who turned to evil and that he's the father of Luke and Leia. But again, that's all you really need to know. Don't get me wrong, I do like world building, and the knowledge garnered from the Prequels helps to embellish the Original Trilogy, but that's basically what they are -- an embellishment. But not an absolute necessity, as far as the core story of the OT is concerned.

If I may make a comparison with Transformers; look at Beast Wars. Although Beast Wars is set in the same continuity family as G1, it stands alone enough that you don't absolutely need to know G1 canon to watch and appreciate Beast Wars. Yes, G1 canonical knowledge does certainly enhance one's enjoyment of Beast Wars, but BW is perfectly enjoyable to an audience who knows nothing about G1. This is because while BW often referenced G1, it didn't stop to weigh itself down by delving deeply into G1 itself. This is what the Original Star Wars Trilogy did -- it referenced the Prequels, but didn't delve into it. The Prequels very much delved into itself, which was fine in many parts, but it became cumbersome in others. As mentioned before, the Pod Race is a prime example of this.

So I think that TFA also does well in simply making quick references to the events that have occurred between RotJ and TFA without bogging itself down by pausing for exposition. The movie provides almost all of the basic information that we need to know, such as:
* Luke did indeed create a new Jedi Order, as instructed by Yoda.
* Ben Solo/Kylo Ren was one of his students who was seduced by the Dark Side and helped to destroy the Jedi.
* Kylo Ren was a member of some order (as seen in Rey's image)
* Ben's fall caused his family to fall apart, as well as forcing his Uncle Luke into exile.
* The Imperial Remnant^First Order has risen from the ashes of the Empire. They are apparently under the rule of a Sith with an adorably cute and cuddly name. Awww... Snokey!

The only real loose end from the film is Rey. But it's obviously deliberate because they're building for the upcoming sequels.

Would it be cool if official canon helped to fill in the gaps? Absolutely. But the Force Awakens movie itself doesn't necessarily have to do this. Isn't Disney going to make some spin-off movies? Cos if so, those films could easily fill in these gaps.

[Lint]

IMO the Prequels were a poor execution of a good concept, and Force Awakens has been a good execution of a pretty ordinary concept (i.e. mostly rehashing A New Hope).

While the Prequels did certainly have their share of flaws, they were - IMHO - fundamentally sound. Because those movies did fulfill the following:

• Showed us the origins of Anakin Skywalker, including his gradual journey from being an innocent and good person towards his ultimate fall from grace into villainy. And of course, Anakin's romance with Padmé, culminating in the birth of the twins.

• The Jedi in their prime. The Prequels gave us an unsurpassed amount of lightsabre action. As griffin pointed out before, the Original Trilogy was set after the fall of the Jedi; so all we saw were old men, a cyborg and a quasi-trained boy.

• The Clone Wars! Something that we've been itching to see ever since the 1977 film where Luke asked Ben, "You fought in the Clone Wars?!" and nothing more was ever said about it.

• The transformation of the Republic into the Empire.

I agree, good story, woefully poor execution. I'm watching the Clone Wars series on Netflix right now and it fulfills all but (presumably) the last of the points you mentioned above. In fact if you had never seen the prequel films previously they would appear like some kind of live action homebrew some fanboy has cooked up on youtube based off the Clone Wars series.

To me, The Force Awakens feel like the complete opposite of this. The general story is pretty much a retelling of A New Hope, but the story is reasonably well driven by its two protagonists -- Finn, the man who's desperate to flee his past, and Rey, the girl who's desperate to run back to her past. Both characters go on a personal journey and they grow and become different people by the end of the film. Finn learns to stop running away and become a selfless hero (similar to Han Solo's journey in A New Hope, actually), and Rey learns to living in the past and embrace her future.

Hopefully the future Sequels will give us a good combination of having a good character-driven plot, which is what the Original Trilogy gave us (hence why it's regarded as the best by fans). Bear in mind that Abrams is not directing Episodes VIII and IX, I think that we may have a new hope for this franchise to strike back and deliver a return of the story-telling standard that we loved from the OT.

I suspect JJ Abrams was either given or chose to follow the same sort of mandate he got for Star Trek: have enough nods to the old stuff to hook the fans in but establish a new and clear enough playground for the franchise to grow into. While I would have liked to have more of the new trilogy based off EU (now branded Legends) material I think we have to accept that while a lot of it was absolutely brilliant, theres a lot of crap that simply would not work and we'd almost certainly recieve something that violates previous canon AND doesn't live up to expectations.

I hope the future creators and Disney make the most of the fresh start.

[GoktimusPrime]

As a nerd, I really really really wanted the sequels to follow the EU. I was looking forward to pointing out the correct pronunciation of "Xizor" ("shee-zor," not "zick-zor"). But alas, this will probably never come to pass. Also, even if it did, there is a chance that actors may still mispronounce the name, unless Peter Jackson were directing (a lot of people refused to believe me when I said that Smaug is pronounced as "smOWg" and not "smorg"). Whatever. Don't even start me on the way that a lot of people mispronounce "Yuuzhan Vong." What do you mean that these are fictitious languages and it doesn't matter?!? #itsleviosanotleviosa

*ahem* But yes, I would like to see the dismissal of the EU as means for the sequel writers to have the freedom to take the next movies to new directions rather than redirecting it along the same parallels as the Original Trilogy.

[Deonasis]

I saw it a few weeks ago but haven't been near a keyboard to type so here are my thoughts for a long time ago..

- I hope that Rey is no relation of Luke's or any other established family. Keeping it all in the family is what the The Bold and Beautiful is for. I hope there is no ultra super special family in SW.

- I doubt a bigger-er Star weapon would suit any more movies so I wouldn't mind the Sith go to hunt down Rey's family in the next movie - it is a proven way to disrupt a young Jedi's training. Just like the Star-gun was a new take on an old formula I think a "chase for Rey's family" movie could be a new take on another familiar SW event.

- The defection of Finn was strange. Could the ex-stormtrooper split out hero group if the Rebels start to suspect the Empire has (by a series of strange events) actually planted him? I mean his behaviour was so different from other Stormtroopers that I am surprised that such malfunction was not noticed before this seemingly sudden and extreme battlefield meltdown.

- The safe return of Poe was strange. This is an area where I think the Sith may have pulled strings. Finn could make a great red-stormtrooper-herring whilst it is Poe that is being used. Now I know that Poe pretty much destroyed the Planet-gun but for the Sith to find the last Jedi? I think they would be so ruthless.

- At the time I thought Ren was punching his side to inflate/deflate a punctured lung which would've showcased how darn hard it is to kill a force user AND leave him in a much weakened state for the beginners to battle him. Looking back now I think he was just getting amped off the pain, shame.

- I don't know the back story but Phasma should survive (like they nearly all do) and kick arse in the next movie.

- BB8 worked better than expected.

- Loved Ren's tantrums. It was the best way to showcase his emotional state and immature Sith training.

[Tetsuwan Convoy]

SAw a few days ago and my thoughts will follow.

Nice visuals, Han Solo and Chewie were cool, but the rest was fairly ho-hum. This was the original Star Wars movie with a "search for....." thrown in for good measure. I've already seen the story of the death star. Twice. It seems ludicrous to think anyone would think that type of weapon is good idea... surely.

The names were stupid. Snoke or whatever doesn't sound intimidating, but then neither did Count Dooku. It's fairly unlikely that Snoke is a fully trained Sith lord isn't it? What with the eliteness of the Jedi and sith bizzo.

Had a hard time liking the characters as well. Finn came off as incompeteant. Rey, kind of unlikeable. Ren was the most interesting for me, as you can tell the commander of the star killer base thing thought he was weak and shouldn't be in the position he's in. I did think Ren was way too emo and when he took off his mask, any threat level he had disappeared. I really hope he is developed more than just becoming a serious bad-ass sith lord.

I think most of all, I found it disappointing as the movie felt more like a re-hash than anything else. Surely with a decent director on board we'd be getting something good. Oh no. Lets just go for the original again.
Needs more Mark Hamil. Oh and that last scene, waaaay tooooo looooong!

2.5 out of 5.

Wasn't bad, wasn't good either. A perfectly safe movie.