The Force Awakens: Official Review Thread - ** SPOILERS ** — Page 6

^They cut a ton for time. I’m kind of hoping for a Lord of the Rings-style extended cut somewhere down the line.

I could also imagine there being a conscious decision late in the game to simplify and streamline the crawl.

Bit of a non sequitur, but does anyone have an idea of the scale of the new Star Destroyer in relation to the standard ones and the Executor from the OT?

SilverWook said:

Wasn’t Kenny Baker going to be in the movie too? Not that Artoo had much to do.

I wonder where Warwick Davis appears?

Kenny got the credit of R2D2 consultant.

Just got back from my second viewing, found it more enjoyable than the first.

As far as a possible in universe explanation on the Republic/Resistance/First Order situation… It could be that the New Republic, like the Old Republic prior to the Clone Wars felt that they shouldn’t have a standing army and the plan was to have Luke rebuild the Jedi order to once again be the guardians of peace and justice in the galaxy.

So due to past mistakes, the idea of raising an official military for the republic could just be something they see as politically unacceptable and hence we get the Resistance which rises up independently to the fight the First Order after a few initial terrorist type attacks on Republic systems. The Resistance effort would then be secretly supported by the Republic and as stated above it isn’t too hard for the First Order to connect the dots.

The Republic probably initially just didn’t think the First Order to be much of a threat with Vader and the Emperor gone. You’d think that once they destroyed the new Jedi order that should have changed… do we have any idea how long ago that happened and how long Luke has been missing?

No idea yet when Luke goes off the grid, but in Aftermath there’s talk of Mon Mothma wanting to demilitarize the New Republic, and at the end of Lost Stars the Imperial Remnant withdraws to the Unknown Regions to regroup and rebuild. Both of those are set decades before The Force Awakens, but they point towards the Resistance being a proxy force and the First Order not yet being well established like a lot of folks here have conjectured. The movie could have done a better job of explaining it, but the nuEU has set it up reasonably well.

Something I caught during Rey’s vision when she touched the saber this time was what sounded like old Ben Kenobi saying “Rey” anyone else hear that or did I just imagine it?

Nevermind looks like it is in there and it was Ewan McGregor who provided the voice apparently? It sounded more like Alec from what I recalled.

https://dorksideoftheforce.com/2015/12/19/ewan-mcgregor-as-obi-wan-was-in-star-wars-the-force-awakens/

joefavs said:

Just got back from my second viewing, and I actually think I liked it a lot more. The things that bothered me the first time bothered me less, and the overall rhythm felt a lot more natural now that I’m familiar with the entire thing. Bring on VIII, I’m fully on board.

Just saw it a 2nd time tonight too. I would say that it was easier to watch the 2nd time, not necessarily that I liked it more. For me, I knew to expect a movie with no plot and I wasn’t comparing it to the originals, so in that respect, it was more of a fun and relaxed viewing experience.

I will say though that I did notice even more flaws than I did at first glance. One is the cast is too young in this film. In the original, sure you had Luke and Leia in lead roles, but Harrison was in his 30s, most of the fighter pilots looked seasoned, you had Alec Guiness and Peter Cushing. But in TFA, the old people are either CGI or they die instantly. Everyone, and I mean every single one of the non-legacy characters looks like they are in their 20s. The film does suffer for it.

Another thing, did Poe say at the end of the film “my job is done?” Shouldn’t he be saying “our job is done”? I swear I heard him say “my” and what a terrible, terrible choice of words. Honestly can’t stand that dude’s character, just a paper cutout.

And who was saying Hux was well acted? I was even more convinced on 2nd viewing that he was one of the worst parts of the movie. This time I didn’t compare him to Tarkin, but I decided to compare him to Admiral Piett. This new guy was just a cartoon villain, whereas Piett had some nice depth despite his limited screen time. Hux and Phasma better have died off or I may not even see the next film.

Interesting how many people are watching it more than once. Is it because it’s Star Wars or because you think the movie was that good?

BTW I hope a home video release will have lots of deleted scenes.

ZkinandBonez said:

I think comparing any of the new “bad-guys” cast to the old one is a mistake.

Well, I wasn’t comparing for the sake of comparing. The goal of the new films shouldn’t be to “be like” the old films. The goal should be to make a great movie. In the respect of the acting of the villains, the OT had great acting and great characters. Admiral Piett played his role understated. He’s just a guy doing his job. He’s scared of Vader. Other times he’s expressing his disgust with bounty hunters. There’s just so much he does with so little, and he never comes across as a cartoon.

Hux on the other hand, the guy is a cartoon. All he does is twirl his figurative mustache. He sneers. He screams. He does bad guy things. Then he screams and shouts some more.

Edit: the rest of your post is no different than prequel apologia. I don’t mean that to be offensive, just stating a position that I think you are trying to defend something that cannot be defended.

It was a disappointment for me but for different reasons than the Prequels. Unlike Episodes I-III, it didn’t drag but while I wasn’t bored, TFA was a hollow and rather lifeless experience: unoriginal, paper-thin plot and characterisation, too much fan-service and too much of a pastiche of the Original Trilogy. It felt like flat-pack filmmaking – too self-conscious, lacking in vision or ambition – an update of Star Wars with bits of Empire and Jedi tacked on.

Abrams may have recognised what was wrong with the Prequels but he went from one extreme – dull, boring exposition, people standing and talking, sitting and talking, too much boring politics – to the other – everyone running around with little to no character or plot development.

The pacing of the film was one-note. There was no build-up, no tension, no suspense. Things just happened one after the other until it was over. The score was so forgettable and I barely noticed it. Compare that to how it piled on the tension in the original Death Star trench battle.

In Star Wars, we had a set up of how important the Death Star was – the stolen plans, the destruction of Alderaan – and the political state of the galaxy – Obi Wan talking about the destruction of the Jedi and the Imperial officers on the Death Star discussing the disbanding of the Imperial Senate. In contrast, the Starkiller base was just there – there was no sense that the Resistance was trying to find it. You cared about the destruction of Alderaan because it was Leia’s home planet. Why should we care about the never-before-mentioned Hosnian system? (And how did they see the destruction from Maz’s castle?)

Despite blowing up an entire solar system, the Starkiller base never felt like a threat. It seemed ridiculously easy to take out compared to the original Death Star. Compare with Jedi where it took time and effort to take out the shield generator, or with the first film where rescuing Leia and safely delivering the droids to the rebellion took up much of the film. In TFA, they basically walked into the Starkiller base, captured Phamsa (who seemed to serve no purpose other than selling action figures) and turned off the shield.

Similarly, the early reveal of Kylo’s parentage removed an opportunity for a tenser climax. I thought it would have been more effective if his fate had been unknown since the attack on the Jedi academy and his reveal being a shock. I think Snoke should have been kept out of this film, or his face been concealed – at least until they could make him look better than a crappy CGI Gollum/Voldermort hybrid.

Boyega and Driver seemed to make the best of the very limited hand they were dealt. Kylo came rather too close on occasions to bratty Anakin, though Driver is a far better actor than Hayden Christensen. Daisy Ridley’s acting was rather wooden at times but Rey was so much of a Mary Sue that there was little for her to work with. I wasn’t as bothered as others by her Force abilities, the ‘Force back’ implies she had some training and her memories were suppressed or, maybe, wiped, and Kylo was clearly injured before the lightsabre duels. But neither she nor the other leads felt like adequately fleshed out characters.

The original actors were poorly or under utilised. It felt like we needed an Obi Wan figure, given the title of the film, rather than Han. Carrie Fisher had no real purpose. There was none of the old spark between her and Ford. I’d have preferred some conflict on their reunion to suggest the depth of their loss/hurt but there was nothing. I don’t really want to talk about her appearance or her voice but I will say it might have been kinder to leave her out of the film.

The use of the original actors was made all the more problematic by the film seeming like a remake rather than a sequel. Their presence was rather jarring – like they’d wandered into a fanfic. If they wanted to do a reboot they should have gone all the way and started from scratch.

I can’t get over how the plot was so negligible. It sounds like they should have let Michael Arndt have another year, or two years, to craft something more original. (Presumably Disney couldn’t wait to cash in.) I’m not surprised Lawrence Kasdan is walking away from this.

The Prequels had jarring clashes of tone – awkwardly mixing comedy and tragedy – this just had one tone throughout. Where the Prequels were plodding, this was breathless – and didn’t give you room to get a feel for the new universe.

Finally, while the special effects were more convincing than the Prequels, some of them seemed pretty low-rent – like something I’d expect on Dr Who or Babylon 5 rather than a blockbuster film. The Resistance base looked far too much like a set than a real world location, especially compared to Hoth or Yavin. It could have done with a matt painting backdrop. Don’t see it in 3D, it’s far too dark and the action too fast for the format. It really took me out of the film.

In short, too much hype, not enough substance.

SilverWook said:

TheWanderingNomad said:

The Resistance base looked far too much like a set than a real world location, especially compared to Hoth or Yavin.

You do know they used a real RAF military base for that, right?

Yes. & it doesn’t alter the fact it looked like a set. When I say ‘real world’ I mean within the context of the Star Wars universe. It was one step up from Dr Who using English quarries for alien planets in the 70s. The rather pedestrian way those scenes were shot didn’t help either.

ZkinandBonez said:

TheWanderingNomad said:

SilverWook said:

TheWanderingNomad said:

The Resistance base looked far too much like a set than a real world location, especially compared to Hoth or Yavin.

You do know they used a real RAF military base for that, right?

Yes. & it doesn’t alter the fact it looked like a set. When I say ‘real world’ I mean within the context of the Star Wars universe. It was one step up from Dr Who using English quarries for alien planets in the 70s. The rather pedestrian way those scenes were shot didn’t help either.

Well, a lot of studio lots used to be aircraft hangars, so that does kind of makes sense. And a lot of studio lots are built on the same principle. But I think it would be more correct to say that sets look like hangars, rather than saying that the hangars look like sets.

I didn’t say that: those are your words. Compare Hoth and Yavin, they had a much different sense of scale and other-worldliness. I think the Resistance base could have done with some matt paintings or enhancement of the landscape.

Visually, it wasn’t very interesting. &, as I said, I think that’s partly how it’s shot. It had a very TV movie/series aesthetic.