I’m figuring that pretty much everyone who is going to see it has seen it already. So off we go. There are copious spoilers attached.
I have seen any number of pompous diatribes deriding the film because of many parallels to the first one. There is, I suppose, some validity to the observances. In both films, a youth on a desert world comes into the possession of a robot that is carrying a piece of information that has to be carried directly to a rebellion movement because they have space ships, flying vehicles and light sabres, but not email. This young individual is strong in the Force and uses that ability to attack the Empire/First order, but watches helplessly while a father figure is cut down by someone he was once close to. And the entire film climaxes when the best pilot in the galaxy blows up a massive planet destroying weapon belonging to the Empire/First order. If anything, there are far more parallel story beats to “A New Hope” than there were between “Star Trek: Into Darkness” and “The Wrath of Khan,” and people decried the resemblances relentlessly.
Yet there are sufficient differences between the source material and the newest film to satisfy me, really. First and foremost, which no one seems to have pointed out: the dialogue is better. Much better. Lightyears better. Of the previous six films, the only one with good dialogue was “The Empire Strikes Back,” and this dialogue is on par with that. There are moments of genuine levity, and there is no dialogue evoking wretched hives of scum and villainy that make you say, “Only Alec Guiness could have sold THAT line.” And the characters are very different. They’re better written, better acted, and have intriguing back stories that we are convinced (or at least I am) will slowly be revealed as the story progresses (let’s remember we didn’t find out about Luke’s parentage until the end of the second film, so I’m content to wait to discover how Rey does what she does.)
Ah, Rey. The character decried as a Mary Sue simply because she is at Luke’s level of force manipulation by the end of the film rather than taking three movies to get there. Because how riveting does it sound to watch her go through the exact same voyage of discovery at the exact same pace? Screw that. We know what a trained Jedi can do now. So let’s just get to it. It took Luke three films to be able to defeat the bad guy. She did it in one. That makes no sense! How could she defeat Kylo Ren? Because he’s not on Vader’s level and he was suffering from a crossbow blast to his gut, nimrods, that’s how. Do we have to spell out everything?
Who is Rey? Well, before the film opened, I opined that Kylo Ren was Luke’s son and Rey was Han and Leia’s daughter. Got that exactly backwards. Although yes, they haven’t established that she’s Luke’s daughter, but they’ve sure hinted at it pretty strongly. She’s wearing his old fighter helmet and she has an old doll that looks like fighter pilot Luke. I figure her dad is either Luke or Wedge Antilles.
All I know for sure about Rey is that my teen daughter absolutely adores her and wants to role play as her, and that’s really all that matters because back in 1977 thirteen year old boys were all putting on their karate outfits and using flashlights as light sabres. Every generation needs its filmic heroes, and if Daisy Ridley’s Rey gets the job done, I’m fine with that.
We don’t know anything about Finn’s background, or Poe’s background, but that’s okay as well. “Star Wars,” which simply started off as a “Flash Gordon” rip-off that many contemporary directors thought was an appalling waste of Lucas’s time, was always less about the environment than it was about the characters anyway. They trusted the Force implicitly, so much so that when Luke shut off his targeting computer during the climax of “A New Hope,” the rebel alliance just took it on faith that he knew what he was doing rather than reacting the way you and I would have: ordering him to stop screwing around and turn the dámņëd computer back on.
So overall “The Force Awakens” is a big sweeping attempt to get back to basics. Yes, the prequels didn’t have a single planet destroyer to blow up, but they didn’t have anything else to recommend them either. That’s partly because Abrams went back to basics, rendering this film with practical effects whenever possible, as opposed to Lucas so embracing CGI that even dámņëd Yoda became freaking computer animated instead of being a puppet. That’s why the look and feel of this film gives us the warm fuzzies: because it FEELS like a Star Wars movie in a way that none of the prequels did. There wasn’t even lens flare.
There is also much discussion about Snoke. No one is saying what I’m saying, which is that Snoke is quite simply the worst name for a villain ever. EV-er. A villain’s name should fill you with fear, a sense of dread. Darth Sidious. There’s a name. Sounds like insidious. Darth Vader. Sounds like invader. Snoke? What the hëll? Even putting “Darth” in front of it wouldn’t help. There is also much discussion about whether he is actually a giant. Why? When Vader first spoke with the Emperor’s hologram, HE was a giant. They were just evoking that. Personally I would love it if Snoke were three feet tall. An evil Yoda. That would be freaking hilarious.
Was there anything I disliked? Honestly, yes. The music. That’s right, the music.
Hum the “Star Wars” theme. You know it. Hum Luke’s theme. Han and Leia’s theme. Hum the Darth Vader march. Remember the music when the Falcon flies through the asteroids? Hëll, the music of the big battle with Darth Maul? These were all tunes that you came out of the theater with them seared into your cerebral cortex.
Now hum ANY John Williams signature theme from “The Force Awakens.” Go ahead. I’ll wait.
If you can, you are way ahead of me, because I’ve got nothing. Rey, Finn, Kylo Ren: I can’t pull up any musicals cues directly associated with these characters, and I’ve seen the movie twice. When Williams evokes previous musical cues–Han and Leia’s theme when they reunite–they pop right out at you. But if there are musical themes for any of the new characters, I simply cannot perceive them. I suppose that’s a failure on my part, but to me there’s simply nothing there. I shouldn’t have to sit down and listen to the soundtrack with each piece labeled so I can pick them up in the film. I don’t know what the hëll went wrong with Williams in this film, but I’m hoping that it’s fixed by the next film.
As for me, I know what I want to do while waiting for the next film: I want to write a comic book about the adventures of Han Solo and his teen son, Ben. I want it to be that Leia is worried about the way the kid is developing and Han says he’s gonna take his thirteen year old son out on some adventures to the Outer Rim, and turn out twenty pages of excitement every month as Han and Ben go exploring and try to reconnect. Which you know ultimately won’t happen, but it would be a great ride.
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In response to your Han and Ben book — throw in some Chewie, and it could be “2 and Half Men” in Space! Except one’s a Wookie.
He can only write this story if he collaborates with the owner of this twitter feed https://twitter.com/kylor3n and copiously uses the phrase “What-ev-er DAD.” Even though Han and Leia were married (sure?) the way they sounded in the movie, is that Han would get frustrated or just want to go out with his friends so he would. So I imagine him to be a mostly absentee dad with little ability to relate to his son.
I do find Kylo Ren interesting. It’s a new take on the villain spectrum but I find it hard that he would have any real position of power (unless Hux was higher ranking) or that Snoke would let him out to run stuff without any complete training like they said in the movie. I also wouldn’t be surprised if Kylo Ren pulled a Snape like the internet thinks.
Yeah, this movie is okay–I don’t hate it, but I don’t love it. It does has a nice feel to it like the original with good new characters and decent dialogue, I’ll agree that much.
Oh and if you’re speading away from something collapsing in on itself then they better be warping at light speed otherwise the ship would be sucked into the gravitational pull.
You wanna know what’s really dumb? That planet they blew up was rich in resources. Resources they could have used to fund their galactic space weapon. Space weapons don’t grow on trees, you know.
This made me laugh:
How the heck do you aim the Starkiller Base? “Destroy Acklandia.” “Yes, my master… in about 5 months when we’re roughly lined up with it… unfortunately, the sun is in the way now…
If you have the soundtrack, check out Rey’s Theme – quiet and beautiful. It’s understated so probably a little difficult to catch in the movie, but it really is an amazing track. March of the Resistance is a great catchy track, in the film it’s hard to pick up because you only really hear it during big action scenes.
When I watching I thought it was “Smoak” instead of “Snoke” and so wondered just what could have happened to Fecility Smoak (in Arrow) to get to this point.
Duel of the Fates saved The Phantom Menace from Jar Jar.
Darth Jar Jar–he did hand over the controls of the Senate to Palpatine, a split personality where the off side was unaware of the dark side
I agree SO much with what you’ve stated here Peter. One thing that crossed my mind with Rey. Is it POSSIBLE she was TRAINED by Luke as a child, and she was put under some sort of “Jedi Mind Trick” to forget everything about her past to protect her?
Just spit-balling here, but it would make sense how she was “Awakened” in the Force so strongly…
i thought this too. maybe to protect her from……..maybe a brother?
Let’s not forget that R2-D2 came out of his coma the minute Rey touched down on the Rebel’s planet. He probably recognized her, and when she arrived was the time he was instructed to bring her to Luke.
in the vision sequence when she touches the light saber we know she was physically present at the scene where the little girl is told to be quiet, and the scene where she faces Kylo Ren in the snow. So it’s proper that she was physically present in all of the scenes including the revolt of the knights of Ren.
We know Ren just can’t dish out the evil without a big run-up, so what we he do with the youngest padawan?
Mind-wipe her and drop her with someone on Jakku?
Remember how Ren freaks out when he hears that a girl helped the droid escape from Jakku?
God, I hope that’s not the story. Too much like River Tam’s “killer amnesiac fembot” persona in Serenity.
“the dialogue is better. Much better. Lightyears better”
The dialogue was crap. Especially Finn’s. Every 20 minutes or so, he’d start talking like he was in a bad sitcom, and it was jarring and incongruous. How did he go his entire life without learning the universal sign for “look over there”?
“it FEELS like a Star Wars movie in a way that none of the prequels did.”
I completely disagree. The prequels felt much more like Star Wars movies than this one did, practical effects or not (but then, I’ve never felt that practical effects vs. CGI were defining characteristics of Star Wars). Cinematographically, this movie was much more J.J. Abrams than Star Wars, even without the lens flare. It felt more like a fan film to me.
“Yes, the prequels didn’t have a single planet destroyer to blow up, but they didn’t have anything else to recommend them either.”
Other than creativity and originality and interesting plots and visual beauty and a sense of fun, all of which this movie mostly lacked.
I agree about the music, though. And the name “Snoke.”
as for Finn not knowing the universal sign, he was raised by stormtroopers to be a storm trooper. In the previous movies if the stormtroopers heard a sound they had to turn their whole bodies to look. those helmets are terrible. so i’m assuming that they couldn’t really pick up on a subtle head nod…or they just thought it would make an amusing scene.
To be honest, it’s amazing that Finn is a human as he’s shown to be, after being turned into a child soldier as an infant (toddler at the latest). Regarding the head gesture thing, I suspect that Finn has detailed knowledge of hand signals that Stormtroopers use for silent communication, but that was actively discouraged from using head movements for things like that because they’re useless when you’re wearing one of those helmets.
I had very few problems with the dialogue and none that I can think of from Finn. The most jarring to me was how Han and Leia consistently called Kylo Ren “our son” just that the first time we hear him called “Ben” is when Han shouts it too him. It was distracting and obvious. It would have been better if they’d just said “him” after the first time Han says “out son” to Leia.
I respectfully disagree, with the exception of “fun” being left out. For all of the faults of the pre-quels, they were, at their very core, fun. There was no edge-of-your-seat moments in Episode VII, like the pod race, or the all-out Jedi rescue in Attack of the Clones, or the Yoda lightsaber fight, etc. While I enjoyed Episode VII, and LOVED the characters, I kept waiting for the thrilling part.
As far as the music, I think its more a matter of the existing themes dominating your attention by being so recognizable for 30 years. They kind of drowned out the newer pieces, and I think Williams was smart in this one not to try to push new ones forward.
Listening to the score several times, I suspect as the trilogy moves forward the music will get more layered.
And yeah.. Snoke? Phasma?
I agree that the music wasn’t quite up to spec. Listening to the soundtrack for “A New Hope” lets you relive the movie. Listening to the soundtrack for “The Force Awakens” is merely enjoyable.
In particular, the one part of the movie where I thought the music was genuinely inspiring was the bit where Rey takes up the saber and fights Kylo Ren, and that bit isn’t actually in the (new) soundtrack. The track “The Ways of the Force” is similar, but doesn’t actually include that particular moment, which appears to have lifted it’s audio directly from “The Burning Homestead” in the ANH score.
Regardless, yes, John Williams peaked at Empire Strikes Back and hasn’t made anything as good since, IMO. But I’m not sure what the alternative is. Would Michael Giacchino have been able to deliver a score that ‘felt like Star Wars’? His work on Star Trek was great, but that franchise has already had many hands, so there’s no single composer who is inexorably linked to the franchise.
When I first heard the name Snoke, I thought of Snape.
When Kylo took off his helmet the first thing I thought was “young Snape”.
Yeah, I thought “young Snape” – followed quickly by “Snape and Benedict Cumberbatch had a lovechild”.
I noticed one or two lens flares. In the command room of the new planet killer, there is a shot through the window that shows the sun. Cue the lens flare!
To quote the original, “several transmissions were beamed to this ships by Rebel spies”, so they have email. And as shown with the numerous holograms in several of the movies, they can send live messages across systems instantaneously. So I assume they just don’t know how to securely encrypt data.
Encryption and decryption tend to be in an ongoing arms race of mutual development in our own time, so I can see the data not being able to sent without it being intercepted and decoded. The Resistance doesn’t want that map becoming public because they don’t want the First Order carpet bombing Luke’s location.
I still like my theory: that when Ren tried to mind-rape Rey, her resistance turned the event backwards, and she got a bunch of info from him — like how to use the Force for mind manipulation and telekinesis, how to fight with a lightsabre, and a few other tidbits. WHY that would happen I will leave up to the sequels, but that’s my hunch for how.
Finn was a bit cringe-worthy at times, and there were some major plot holes, but overall it was big fun. I’d put it third in quality for the series, behind Empire and New Hope, ahead of Jedi and the prequels.
Kylo Ren is a fascinating character. He is worried about being seduced and corrupted by the light side. He has serious self-control issues, and I was genuinely unsure about how his confrontation with Han would end. It honestly could have gone either way — it would have been perfectly in character for him to turn away and command Han to leave, as well as what happened.
And I’m glad we will only have to wait one year instead of three for the next one.
Agree with your assessment of film rankings.
So do you think Ren is redeemable? (and it just now occurred to me that we will soon be seeing Kylo Ren & Stimpy tee shirts, if they are not out already.) We all want to see him suffer. He’s a stone cold murderer. Vader’s killing of Obi Wan turned out to be an understandable reaction. Still wrong mind you but the guy did cut off his legs and leave him to die by slow burning. Obi died in battle. Han died trying to save Ren. Ren is a terrible terrible, awful guy. We have probably not even seen the worst he is capable of.
Is he redeemable? And not in the Vader sense, hey, I had an epiphany, I do ONE GOOD THING and die and yay! All is forgiven! I get to be a force ghost and not a force ghost as old scarred Sebastian Shaw but young virile Hayden Christensen, which is a better deal than either Obi Wan or Yoda got and WAY better than Liam Neeson got! Yay me!
No, I mean he is forced (hyuck!) to confront the implications of his actions, the failure of his life choices. And instead of taking an easy way out and throwing his life away on one selfless act he has to live with it. Become Xena. Wander the galaxy righting wrongs, many of which would be in some way caused by actions he himself had a hand in creating. Realize that it is highly unlikely he will ever save as many lives as he has taken. Do it anyway. THAT’S Gøddámņëd redemption!
And there were rumors of a Solo/Boba Fett film after episode 9. I assumed it was a prequel telling the pointless story of Fett transporting Han to Jabba’s place and Han trying to escape (Spoiler alert! He doesn’t) but what if the Solo in question was Kylo? THERE’S a story I could get into–an evil man trying to become good and he ends up somehow partnered with a guy who will do good or evil, depending entirely on who pays best.
I know there is a rumored young Han Solo film after episode 8 and a Boba Fett film after episode 9. I haven’t seen any plot rumors about either.
Is Ren redeemable? Tough call. Remember Vader slaughtered a whole templeful of younglings, and was still redeemed. (Granted, the redemption was presented before the slaughter, but it still holds.) Vader’s redemption came at the price of his life; in that context, it would be consistent for Ren to die redeeming himself.
I also find myself hoping Rey isn’t related to anyone from the previous movies. It’s a big galaxy; not everyone has to be related to the Skywalkers. Going with Leia as the central figure, we have major characters in her father, mother, brother, husband, husband’s sidekick, husband’s old friend, and now son.
Also, Lucas also screwed up the whole “the Force is strong in families” thing by making the pre-Empire Jedi celibates who recruit/abduct their new members as children. So making Rey descend from Obi-Wan or even Qui-Gonn a bit problematic.
Just don’t make her another Force-induced virgin birth like Anakin was, please…
I don’t care if he’s redeemable or not. He killed Han. I want him to die horribly.
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snoke made me think it was a jersey shore thing.
darth tyranus was a pretty bad name too though
Snoke is obviously a pseudonym. He is probably Darth Plagueis, who finally had the thought “Hey, no wonder they always suspect us…General Grevious, Darth Sideous, we might as well just call ourselves Captain McEvilbad…”
And Sinestro says “Yeah, I totally hear you.”
Just glad that Lucas stopped letting his kids name characters with Jar Jar. Otherwise we might have gotten a more obvious villain name like “Darth Doodyhead”
I can see what you mean about the music. I noticed few themes that weren’t from the original films, but I suspect that they stood out to me because they were embedded on my soul. I really don’t know how many themes from the original films I could have hummed before I listened to the soundtrack. IMO, The real test would be to listen to the soundtrack and see if the music brought certain scenes to mind.
I liked the film and will be seeing it again, with my nephew, at some point in the near future.
In the previous thread, I said I had a theory as to why Rey is strong in the Force. My original theory– based on Kylo Ren’s “what girl?” comment– was that she’d turn out to be his sister. After all, as I understand it, the expanded universe novels established that Han and Leia had twins and one went to the Dark Side. And just as the original trilogy focused on a son redeeming his father, this one could focus on a sister redeeming her brother.
Except…
It soon became clear that Ren had never seen Rey before. Nor had either Han or Leia.
So, I revised my theory before the movie had ended. She’s Luke’s daughter (and Ren’s cousin). A conflict between cousins isn’t as dramatic as one between siblings, but it still works, thematically.
No, Luke didn’t show any sign of recognition, either, but maybe he just has a good “poker face.”
As I said in the previous thread, some of Rey’s “familiarity” with the Force comes from her having heard about it and figuring she had nothing to lose by trying the “mind trick.” Again, Luke had no clue what the Force was when he was her age. Both Luke and Rey had inherited Force abilities (though neither knew it when we first met them); Rey just has the advantage of more about the Force than Luke.
In the previous thread, someone said it was a bit of a stretch that Rey knew the ins and outs of the Millennium Falcon. Don’t forget, it was “garbage”, sitting amid those various ships for who knows how long? Rey probably explored it out of curiosity and learned the various things it could do (but apparently remained unimpressed).
By the way, I’m sure most everyone has seen by now that Dr. Neil DeGrasse Tyson was asked to choose between the Enterprise and the Millennium Falcon. He chose the Enterprise, but it’s an apples and oranges comparison. To use a present day analogy, the Enterprise is the aircraft carrier; the Falcon is the captain’s personal speed boat.
Also, both ships can do the impossible. The Enterprise can slingshot around the sun to travel in time; the Falcon can ignore the correct definition of “parsec.”
Back to the film. I’m still intrigued by Ren’s “what girl?” comment, since it seemed to me from the way he said it that he’d expected her to be a particular girl. Which was the primary reason I thought Rey would turn out to be his sister.
If they are cousins, I suppose Ren could know he has a female cousin, but possibly believe she looks quite different, so he didn’t realize Rey was her (and/or Luke put some sort of Jedi “perception filter” (to use a Doctor Who term) on her, so that Ren wouldn’t recognize her for who she really was. That might also be part of the reason he couldn’t read her thoughts).
Han should have shot first.
While I enjoyed the movie, I admit having a “bad feeling” that it was going to pull an Empire and end on a cliffhanger, that the end credits would roll when Rey and Chewie set off in search of Luke (and that we wouldn’t actually see him until the second film). I’m not sure why.
It would have been nice if Luke had at least gotten a single line of dialogue.
Finally, with respect to parallels between the original trilogy and this new trilogy, I point out this exchange:
“together again, huh?”
“Wouldn’t miss it.”
“How’re we doing?”
“Same as always.”
“That bad, huh?”
Of the characters we’ve met so far, I think Finn and Rey are the most likely to have a conversation along those lines (with Finn and Poe a possible close second) I think they’re the ones who’ll get into a lot of Han and Luke- style scrapes.
Rick.
I liked The Force Awakens. It was certainly fun. But it did fall short of being great for me. The film did exactly what it needed to do; it brought back the tone, magic and wonder of the original films for people who remember them fondly but haven’t invested time in all the material since then (like me), and it introduced an exciting new world of characters to those who have never seen Star Wars. But the producers definitely played it safe and used Episode IV as a crutch to get it done. That lack of originality left me with a huge feeling of disappointment. My wife, who had only seen the original films felt exactly the same way, so I know the let down isn’t just a fanboy opinion. Another desert planet? Another Death Star with an Achilles heel? Come on.
Personally I would have liked to see Luke more involved. I was hoping we’d see him wield force powers like no one else ever has (maybe with Rey by his side) and take down a starship with just his abilities. I wanted to see the force actually awaken in a new and exciting way at the end of the film. Instead, we got 5 X-Wings shooting into a hole. Again.
I’m not a nimrod and I also felt Rey defeated Kylo Ren too easily. Sure he was shot, but he was trained by Luke and could stop blaster blasts in mid-air, and Rey just started tapping into her powers. I’m gonna assume that was also the first time she ever picked up a lightsaber. Yes, she did demonstrate considerable skill with a staff earlier and her show of “force” against Kylo’s mind invasion indicated her abilities were unusually strong, but I still felt the fight didn’t play well. Maybe I just expected Kylo to be more badass after seeing his power in action at the beginning of the film. And after he killed his Dad I expected him to be stronger.
However, all that said, the new characters in the film were fantastic, the dialogue was really good and I am very interested in finding out what happens next. I just hope the next chapter will stand more on it’s own. If a galaxy-sized Death Star shows up in VIII I will not be happy.
Some additional thoughts. I wanted to say about the film is to comment on how refreshing it is that I actually LIKE the main characters. After spending years hating the very sight of Anakin Skywalker, it’s so refreshing. I even find Kylo Ren interesting. He strikes me as the type of tragic character that fell to darkness that Lucas was trying to make Anakin into, but couldn’t because that wasn’t where his talents lie.
The biggest problem, story wise, with the prequel trilogy is that we knew going in how it was going to end. Everyone had preconceptions of how arguably the biggest film villain since the Wicked Witch got to where he was, so did it really need to be shown?
We didn’t go in knowing what was going to happen with this movie. My wife and I came out and she declared we have to see it again, only this time maybe in 3D. She HATES 3D. She spent the whole movie asking me, “Who’s that girl?” because traditionally I know everything. I was tempted at one point to say, “Madonna, now shut up.”
> If anything, there are far more parallel story beats to “A New Hope” than there were between “Star Trek: Into Darkness” and “The Wrath of Khan,” and people decried the resemblances relentlessly.
At the risk of de-railing…
THANK YOU.
Five minutes of ham-fisted homage and a few broad plot points do not a rip-off make.
If anything, you could make a much stronger case that it was ripping off the structure of “Space Seed”, but even that’s a pretty big stretch.
There are several Kylo Ren & Stimpy t-shirts. Here are two:
https://www.teepublic.com/t-shirt/224584-kyloren-and-stimpy
http://www.theshirtlist.com/kylo-ren-stimpy-t-shirt/
My big problem with Snoke’s name was every time somebody said it, I heard “Snook”, and one of my friends has that surname, so I kept picturing him as Palpatine.
I quite enjoyed the movie. I think Chewie should’ve gone into more of a Wookiee rage and blasted Ren a few times to make Rey kicking his butt more believable, or I think he should’ve had the upper hand until the Chasm of Plot Convenience separated them. I mean, hëll, even Finn did surprisingly well against him.
As it is, any future meetings will be “She kicked his ášš when she had no clue WTF she was doing. Now she’s gotten training from the best Jedi in the galaxy – the only one who’s actually received Jedi training from true Jedi Masters. Sure, he was injured last time and isn’t now, but she’s so gonna wipe the floor with him.” If he’d been dominant despite his injury, this would’ve made the inevitable upcoming battle more tense. “OK, she’s had training… but he’s had *more* training, *and* is uninjured…”
I have some problems with Finn and how they used him. Is he a janitor, or a stormtrooper? I find it hard to believe that they’d grab a janitor, issue him armor and a blaster, and send him off to destroy a village on his first mission. Far more believable when he was just a toddler kidnapped, brainwashed, brought up, and trained by the First Order to be a stormtrooper, who then snapped his brainwashing on his first mission. But that “I was a janitor” line? Felt like it was just thrown in for a cheap laugh. “I was a trainee” would’ve worked just as well, IMHO.
I want to know how… er… alien lady with the funny goggles… got Luke’s lightsaber. Considering when he fell down the same shaft, he was dangling over Bespin with nothing between him and the gas giant, it’s dámņëd lucky that the lightsaber apparently got wedged somewhere along the way…
How the heck do you aim the Starkiller Base? “Destroy Acklandia.” “Yes, my master… in about 5 months when we’re roughly lined up with it… unfortunately, the sun is in the way now…”
Maybe the First Order uses Stormtroopers for all their support jobs. They’ll work for a period of time in sanitation, or as repairmen, or hauling supplies, or whatever, (while also doing regular drills and combat training), and then, after some time, they’ll get transferred over to the combat units for awhile. And at the same time, some of the combat troopers will be transferred over to the support work.
That way, they all get a break from combat periodically, which helps to minimize the psychological trauma that affects soldiers even when they’ve been trained from childhood.
Also, in the event that a base comes under massive attack, everybody, including the janitors, will have combat training and experience, and thus be able to help in the fight.
Kylo Ren : From what I have read , he is neither a Sith or Jedi, but was being trained as one by Luke. If he was a true Sith, would he have lashed out like a spoiled brat whenever something went wrong for him? If he wanted to be like Grandpa Darth, he should have Force choked someone to death, rather than just destroying whatever was in front of him. Now that he has literally cut the family ties, he is going to be more dangerous and less likely to be be redeemed by anyone, much like Jacen Solo was in the books.
Rey : Is she a Skywalker? That Rebel’s pilot helmet she had is just a war memento from an earlier battle on Jakku, according to the Force Awakens Visual Dictionary. Despite that, I feel she is Luke’s kid , due to the way she can fly , adjust equipment on the fly ( like Grandpa Darth/ Anakin ), and her use of the Force so quickly.
Snoke : I wonder if he was one of the 20 fallen Jedi who either left the order and / or went Dark, because when Finn said he had been raised to be a Stormtrooper from the time he was an infant, I immediately thought of how Jedi were found and raised. And since he is played by Andy Serkis, I hope he starts yelling about hobbits over and over …lol
Could have sworn I saw a lens flare or two during the opening troop transport sequence…
Strong parallels distracted me a little bit, but I enjoyed it. I’ve got another viewing coming up.
However, I appreciate why, dramatically, they did not include this line in the first movie, but I DEMAND they start the second movie with “Luke Skywalker?” “Now that’s a name I’ve not heard in a long time. A long time.”
And then maybe write something a little more original from there.
Rey’s butt-kicking: Yeah, she was clearly pretty able in the self-defense department, if a little raw, but there’s also the whole “May the Force be with you…” thing that doesn’t just appear to be a benediction of sorts. Ever since Luke aced the shot that took out the Death Star, the Force has occasionally been shown to “back someone up” with almost Longshot-level abilities to defy the odds and spin luck in their favor. No matter the levels of training, it’s appeared to boost abilities in favor of people in the right place, at the right time, doing the right thing. Given the rise of the Dark Side, it’s no stretch to think the light side of the Force would attempt to bring balance to the tables by flowing into a willing receptacle, an avatar if you will, at a crucial moment.
Not sure how anyone can complain about spoilers. Much of the big surprises were pretty obvious as the film progressed. What Rey found? Duh, did anyone think it would be the skull of a Jedi Master? Or what her destiny turned out to be? Or what happened to Han? Or … well you get the picture.
One thing: anyone else flash the thought, upon being introduced to Maz Kanata “hey, it’s E (from THE INCREDIBLES) combined with Yoda?”
Actually, I thought “It’s Hetty from NCIS:LA!”
Two words:
“Leigh Brackett“
I, on the other hand, have always thought that John Williams’ scores are too bombastic and too derivative.
I remember seeing James Horner’s name on “Wrath of Khan” and being SO happy.
I said at more-or-less the time “See, John Williams only knows three tunes. It’s possible that Horner may only know two, but they’re different.
“Vangelis only knows one tune – but it’s really long.”
As always, Peter, I agree with about 99% of what you say. 🙂 One minor point: The flight helmet Rey is messing with after dinner isn’t Luke’s. The markings are different and the letters on the side spell out “RÆH” in one of the Star Wars alphabets. Which is probably where she took her name (I’m one of the ones who thinks Rey isn’t really her name, but what she calls herself because no one would tell her her name).
As far as the many callbacks… It was necessary. It’s been a decade since the last Star Wars film, and we’ve had Clone Wars and Rebels on TV in the meantime, but it’s been over thirty years since we left off with the in-universe timeline. The filmmakers HAD to re-establish the throughline with familiar touchstones before they can really move forward. Which also ties into the breakneck pacing of the film — they had too much they NEEDED to have in this first new film that anything extraneous kinda got squoze out. I wish it had been about a half-hour longer, or that they’d left the destruction of Starkiller Base for Episode VIII as a parallel mundane conflict going on at the same time as the spiritual conflict of the Force-users.
I only have two real quibbles.
1) The opening crawl. Thanks to Larry, they’ve gotten back to the proper terseness of the essential first line. But they used the wrong terse sentence. Most important to establish first is what’s changed since the end of the previous episode. That first line should be something like, “A generation has passed.” Then, in the model of Star Wars and Empire, the rest should go from the general to the specific, the big picture to the immediacy of what the opening shot will be. Like, even without the Emperor and Vader and their new Death Star, the Empire is established enough that actual victory took a while and it was a messy process, and meanwhile Luke started training a new Jedi Order. THEN that things went sideways — fallen apprentice, Luke disappears, and appearance of new Imperialist group. Then FINALLY that a clue has been found and both sides are racing for it. Cue opening scene.
2) As was the problem with Nero in Trek’09, there’s too much that isn’t in the film, but IS in ancillary material, that the audience needs to know. What’s the Hosnian system? Why is the capitol there? Why are the Republic and Resistance two different things? Why is the First Order using forty-year-old matériel (walkers, landing craft, TIEs), but have new armor and uniforms (and logo)? Having just picked up the Art of TFA book, I really like the concept art for new TIEs and wish they’d gone with that. I’m guessing the lack of Advanced/Avenger or Interceptor variants was to reinforce the look of the original film… :/ Even 3PO’s red arm — which he makes an unnecessary point of frikkin’ mentioning in the film — is part of a tie-in one-shot comic, and gone by the end of the movie without comment.
Coming in a bit late here — we were traveling.
Saw the film once, liked it a bunch, plan to see it again sometime soon.
Musically — I agree, in that I don’t recall anything really standing out other than the older themes, but I think a great deal of that has to do with time. I’ve heard the original soundtracks (especially the first film) so much that I can practically quote dialogue along with the music for a lot of the pieces (especially Ben’s death and the trench battle). This simply hasn’t had any time to sink in. Now, if a few viewings later I’m still not getting anything standing out, that’s an entirely different issue.
Dialogue: Generally fun, though I think Daisy Ridley sold her material better than John Boyega did. Ridley was great — and like PAD, I have a daughter who’s just the right age to be totally inspired here. She’s not talking about Rey as a Halloween choice yet, but we’ve been busy. 🙂
Callbacks to previous films: true, there were a bunch, but in general they weren’t especially intrusive. This one really felt more like the original trilogy and the original universe far more than any of the prequels did.
Last scene: loved, loved, loved it. So many questions left to answer.
On to Episode VIII!
Peter, if you don’t mind me asking, what’s your opinion on Han Solo’s death scene? Many of the fans seem to be split right down the middle about the way it was done, with some arguing that Han would NEVER lower his guard like that and go down with guns a-blazin’, while others feel trying to reach out to his son was one last act of optimism appropriate for the character.
(On a side note, another widespread complaint is that Han’s murder could be seen coming from miles away. IMO, just because a death isn’t “shocking” doesn’t mean it lacks dramatic impact. Deaths are “shocking” all the time on GAME OF THRONES, but that’s already a world stuffed to the gills with misery and horror, so we’re just as desensitized to all the bloodletting as the characters. I think I’ll continue to fast-forward through Han’s death scene as soon as I can watch the movie at home. Not because it was terribly done, but because it HURTS in the same way Johnny 5’s beatdown scene in SHORT CIRCUIT 2 hurts.
Yeah, the death of Han was pretty telegraphed. When he got on the catwalk, I turned to my wife and said, “I’ve got a bad feeling about this.” I didn’t plan what I said or even realize what I had said until a moment after I said it. Didn’t matter. My wife, who has only seen IV, V, and VI one time each, (and even then, only when there were distractions around), didn’t get the unintentional reference.
I thought it was tragic because Leia was basically responsible. She urged Han to bring their son home. He was trying to give her what she wanted and died for it.
PAD
Worse, he knew it. I’m convinced Leia and Han’s scene together is Han thinking “It’s going to be him or me.” And then Leia says “please bring him home” and he knows he’s going to make the offer to Kyle, and Han will die.
Just a few random comments:
At first I wondered why Snoke never completed Kylo’s training. Then it occurred to me it was done deliberately out of a sense of self-preservation. Kylo clearly has a lot of raw power. The way he seemingly held a plasma bolt frozen in mid air fairly effortlessly would seemingly support that. Snoke may actually fear what a fully trained Kylo could do….
I heard someone make a point about the relative abilities of Kylo and Rey. Kylo has very little self control and discipline. He’s a total rage junkie. Rey, on the other hand, has the discipline, temperament, and patience of Jedi. Just note how long she has been patiently waiting for her family’s return. When the Force began to call to her, she was totally ready for it. Even Luke did not have that kind of patience when he began. No wonder she was able to accomplish so much so fast.
It didn’t really make sense for the First Order to actively search for Luke when Kylo can barely hold his own against people with no lightsaber experience, but then… at the time, they had a planet killer. Kylo didn’t have to duel him, they were just going to nuke him from orbit (it’s the only way to be sure).
My first thought on seeing Rey with the X-Wing pilot’s helmet was that she was the lost daughter of someone from the Rebel Alliance (Luke obviously came to mind), but it would make as much sense that it was something she scrounged from one of the wrecks on Jakku. Of course, it just as easily COULD connect her to Luke, Wedge, or someone else of note. If I saw the doll, I completely forgot about it.
I can’t really see her being Luke’s daughter, though, mostly cuz I can’t see him abandoning his daughter on a desert backwater (that’s what happened to HIM after all). Still, from her flashback she was obviously left in somebody’s care, somebody who is obviously out of the picture at this point. It does seem, though, that she was left with no clear memories of her family, and only the instruction to wait on Jakku until they came back. “Tarry ’til I come again” if you will…
Yep, yep and yep! My sentiments pretty much exactly — except I did like the admittedly Teflon-coated music score. At least I think I did. I can’t remember it.
In re: Rey
This theory is not original to me, but I like it a lot. So: Rey is not descended from either Luke or Leia. She’s a descendent of Obi-Wan Kenobi.
Primary evidence: When Rey has her vision/nightmare after touching Luke’s lightsaber, she hears a voice saying, “Rey, you’ve taken the first steps.” Actually, it’s two voices: Alec Guiness and Ewan McGregor. The syllable, “Rey” was snipped from Guiness saying “afraid”, and McGregor was brought in to speak the rest.
But, but, but…you say:
1) Why hear Obi-wan when she touches Luke/Anakin’s lightsaber? Well, old Ben held onto that saber for about 16 years – longer than either Anakin or Luke had it.
2) But Jedi are celibate! True, Obi-wan followed the old Jedi rule about emotional attachments back when the Jedi were active. However, the Jedi order had fallen. Obi-wan saw in the case of Anakin how stupid that rule was. It wasn’t the attachment to Padme that doomed him, it was trying to suppress it for so long. And finally, Ben was alone on Tatooine for some 16 years. Even a Jedi has needs!
3) If Ben had a kid, why didn’t he train him/her in the ways of the Force rather than waiting around for Luke to show some interest? Maybe Ben’s son/daughter showed no great aptitude. After all, Leia is Anakin’s child, too, but she’s never shown any great Force power other than a sensitivity to what happens to those close to her (Luke, Han), yet Ben Solo/Kylo Ren is pretty powerful in many respects. Clearly being strong in the Force can skip generations.
Presumably, if Rey is a descendent of Obi-wan, she’s a grandchild, in order to make the timeline work. Which means she could be BOTH a grandchild of Ben and a daughter of Luke if they wanted to do it, but that’s kind of overkill.