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Episode VII: The Force Awakens - Discussion * SPOILER THREAD * — Page 209

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hydrospanner said:

Anyone else catch the Bespin corridor shot during Rey’s vision?

Yep, they may have repurposed part of the cut Bespin dual force induced flashback that was going to explain how Maz got a hold of the lightsaber. Hence Maz’s line “but that is a story for another time.” where it originally was going to be.

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^What makes you think that? Did you read that somewhere?

I’m actually really glad that they didn’t explain how Maz has the lightsaber. No explanation would have been sufficient or necessary. Some rando EU book can do that.

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Are we allowed to post VIII info?

According to starwarsnewsnet…

Edit: removed. Will try to find the VIII thread later. It’s about the returning cast.

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DominicCobb said:

^What makes you think that? Did you read that somewhere?

I’m actually really glad that they didn’t explain how Maz has the lightsaber. No explanation would have been sufficient or necessary. Some rando EU book can do that.

There have been some people on reddit reorganizing various rumors and leaks which seem to be possible deleted material, Starwarsnewsnet had reported that there was some Cloud City flashback in the movie, which most likely was legit since they hadn’t been wrong before and even leaked Luke’s appearence.

MSW also described a different scene with Finn, Han, and Rey together seeing a longer version:
http://makingstarwars.net/2015/02/flashback-what-luke-rey-and-ren-appeared-to-be-up-to-before-star-wars-the-force-awakens/

I’ve been going pretty far, and it was surprising to find just how accurate most scene descriptions were back in January/February.

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Watching the scene again where Rey irrationally flees the bar after being offered the lightsabre made me think that an entirely different sequence might have played out.

Wasn’t there also a deleted scene where her former boss catches up from her - and perhaps that is why she fled originally? Wasn’t a younger guy/mark hamill lookalike cast for the flashbacks?

Assuming all this gets released as deleted scenes I can imagine it will make some great fan-edit-fodder

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I have a hard time believing there was ever actually plans for a legit flashback, but I can imagine there being more to the force vision sequence that was left out.

I’ve read a few old rumors and some of the stuff is right but a lot is bogus. I bet people heard bits and then filled in the blanks with their bs speculation.

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I hate the new forum.

The movie I didn’t care about all that much. Exactly what I expected, down to all the beats, copious amounts of flashy, pointless service, copying Star Wars way too much, Abrams being Abrams and all that. The old cast were a crutch at best.

It’s not bad overall, it has some much needed heart, there’s good characters in there (as mishandled as some of them are) etc, but I can’t praise a movie just for not sucking as hard as the PT / for being an actual movie as opposed to any of the PT abominations. That’s such a low bar it’s not even funny. I’ve seen it all done before, and done better. Do better, Rian Johnson. Or rather: let Rian Johnson do better, Disney.

Abrams played it extremely safe and that’s why they hired him. I kinda wish they got someone else.

I don’t even feel like seeing it again at this point, frankly.

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My take on the title music during the crawl was that it was too thin. The mid and low frequencies seemed absent or leveled down and almost missing. It didn’t have the umph it has had all these previous films. In fact, that might be why the music was so absent from everyone’s memories once the film is over. There were no moments that I recall where the music overpowered the visuals or even stood out. It was mixed differently or perhaps even recorded different, my guess is the prior.

And most all of the sound effects were new. Very little from what I could tell was migrated over from the previous films.

I was quite disappointed with the sound for sure. The effects were just too different and not grounded enough with the OT and the music just wasn’t noticeable enough. It’s sad that even before anything ever happened visually, I was already being disappointed by the title music’s lack of punch.

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m_s0 said:

I hate the new forum.

Please do not beat that horse again. And definitely don’t beat it in here. The situation has been explained elsewhere. And frankly, I’m sick of having to rehash it.

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Where were you in '77?

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I agree completely. The sound mix was flat and boring throughout. The music was completely lacking any low end or punch of any kind. The sound effects were dull and generic, aside from the ones that actually did manage to get re-used from the original films, which wasn’t all that many. The Millennium Falcon’s engine was authentic about 50% of the time, Han’s blaster was the right sound, and Ren doing his mind-reading thing sounded like when Vader chokes someone. Other than that, hardly anything sounded like itself. Whatever they’re doing to record and mix these tracks clearly isn’t working. It may be technically cleaner than the work from the 70’s and 80’s, but it isn’t nearly as interesting to listen to.

I’m inclined to blame Matthew Wood. Everything that guy touches turns to sh!t.

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I think seeing the movie at different venues is a must. I’ve been burned by poorly maintained sound systems before.

When I saw ROTS, the soundtrack was terrible and might have even been mono. Had it not required climbing over people at the time, I would have complained. When I saw it at a dollar theater at the end of summer, it was a different story.

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Where were you in '77?

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Just got back from the theater and I can honestly say I had a great time at the movie. The only things that I didn’t exactly care for were the look of Snoke, and the fact that the word “Sith” was used in the film.

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^I’m actually pretty glad they used Sith. Not just because I don’t mind the prequels as much as most, but more because the word Sith has been around since 1976 so its usage, in my mind, is just as much acknowledgement of the PT as it is acknowledgement of the unspoken backstory of the OT.

Random thought I had. I’ve read a few people complain about Rey beating Kylo Ren at the end. First of all, we have to remember that Ren was shot by a bowcaster, but I think people are also forgetting when they say Rey beating Ren is like ANH Luke beating Vader that Rey actually has a lot of combat experience with her staff which would translate pretty well to a lightsaber.

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By late 1977, every kid knew Vader was a Lord of The Sith, even though none of us knew what the heck it meant. 😉

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Where were you in '77?

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Something I just noticed is that for some reason the new ‘cantina’ song, that was written by JJ and Lin-Manuel Miranda, isn’t included in the soundtrack. Of course nowhere near as iconic as John Williams’ masterpiece, but I thought the song was fun and fitting for the scene and I was looking forward to listening to it again.

googling has turned up no answers for me as to why it’s not included, any chance someone here might have an idea? Maybe they only wanted John Williams’ score to be in the soundtrack?

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After watching the film at first I was pretty angry about it. However as I think more about it, the film had alot of great moments. I think any OT fan loved it when Rey ran to the falcon. I don’t think it’s as visually dynamic directing wise as the OT but overall it was fun. I think what they did with Luke I’m still not sure about.

I picked up the Art of book today from Amazon. I would recommend everyone check it out as there are tons and tons of unused concepts in it. Storywise this was going to be a much different film. Also it looks like the Art team had a huge influence on the story. Under Lucas that kind of freedom with story concepts just didn’t happen.

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Can definitely agree on the poor sound mix, though I think some of it had to do with my theatre, at least for the first showing that had the movie quieter than my home movie theatre. Even then music, fx, voices didn’t seem as spread out as they should be and lacked any low end sub.

The second showing I saw in 3D (gosh that was too dark, seeing it in 2D again next time) with a Dolby Atmos system which was definately louder this time but surprisingly had like zero effect on my experience of the movie. The sound mix still felt crunched with little punch or depth. I had seen Mockingjay part 2 a few weeks back, and even if that movie wasn’t the greatest, it certainly had an awesome atmospheric mix, and quite effectively used the extra height and higher precision of the atmos system.

Otherwise the soundtrack itself sounded wonderful on my Bose headphones with a nice spacious detailed mix that I could pick out the individual parts to. Wish the movie sounded like this too.

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I’m on the record as liking the “Burning Homestead” quote already, but I feel like saying a few words in its defense. If it had been any longer than the fifteen seconds or so that it lasted, I wouldn’t have been on board, but that snippet was just the right amount. I thought the soundtrack was pretty light on old themes; there were a couple hits of the Rebel fanfare in the Jakku Millennium Falcon chase, a single bar of the Imperial March when Kylo’s having his moment with Vader’s helmet, some “Princess Leia’s Theme” and “Han Solo and the Princess” after Leia showed up, a little bit of the main theme in “Scherzo for X-Wings”, and half a dozen Force themes sprinkled throughout, and that’s all I can remember. the “Burning Homestead” excerpt was the most intensely visceral, hair-on-the-back-of-your-neck-standing-up OT reference in the whole thing for me, without overstaying its welcome and without actually repeating anything in the narrative. I don’t think it was overdone when it could have been, and it was kind of a big moment for me.

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Just got back from seeing it in IMAX 3D, still trying to digest. Though to start with, I didn’t really care for the 3D and the IMAX-format sequence ended up being pretty short, when I see it again next week it will be in 2D for sure. I feel like the 3D picture wasn’t as crisp and my theater’s 3D glasses were super uncomfortable.

But I liked the movie itself a lot. I feel like Abrams really did a great job of capturing the essence of what made the original film so good. Yes, it was pretty derivative of SW/ANH, but I think he’s created some really interesting characters that I look forward to spending some more time with.

One thing I thought was interesting whereas the prequels went overboard with excessive and dull exposition, this movie went the complete opposite direction. So much was left unexplained. I feel like I left the theater with more questions that I went in with. I’m not sure yet if thats a pro or a con for me.

The lightsaber fight at the end was pretty awesome. Not as flashy as the prequel fights, but they had that same feeling of tenseness of the fights in Empire and Jedi.

Even though Han’s death wasn’t surprising, I still found it very emotional. The moment in particular that was really moving for me was when Chewie yelled and shot Kylo in rage. Poor Chewie.

Also was that Coruscant that totally got blown away?

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joefavs said:

I’m on the record as liking the “Burning Homestead” quote already, but I feel like saying a few words in its defense. If it had been any longer than the fifteen seconds or so that it lasted, I wouldn’t have been on board, but that snippet was just the right amount. I thought the soundtrack was pretty light on old themes; there were a couple hits of the Rebel fanfare in the Jakku Millennium Falcon chase, a single bar of the Imperial March when Kylo’s having his moment with Vader’s helmet, some “Princess Leia’s Theme” and “Han Solo and the Princess” after Leia showed up, a little bit of the main theme in “Scherzo for X-Wings”, and half a dozen Force themes sprinkled throughout, and that’s all I can remember. the “Burning Homestead” excerpt was the most intensely visceral, hair-on-the-back-of-your-neck-standing-up OT reference in the whole thing for me, without overstaying its welcome and without actually repeating anything in the narrative. I don’t think it was overdone when it could have been, and it was kind of a big moment for me.

The more I think about it, the more I agree with you. I think the only reason why I was mixed at first was because it’s literally the same exact recording. But, of course, that’s the type of thing only someone who’s listened to the original soundtrack a million times would know.

Listening to the TFA OST, the bit that I think was supposed to be used for that moment just doesn’t have the same impact. I suppose in some ways you could say that “Burning Homestead” doesn’t fit just because in general the TFA score is less operatic, but who gives a shit. Major goosebumps.

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SilverWook said:

Artoo “waking up” when she’s nearby is also a subtle hint.

After my second viewing I have to say, that was a very clever thing to have noticed. Props.

It’s absolutely spot on.

“This will begin to make things right.” Lor San Tekka

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Beatleboy99 said:

Just got back from the theater and I can honestly say I had a great time at the movie. The only things that I didn’t exactly care for were the look of Snoke, and the fact that the word “Sith” was used in the film.

When did Snoke use the word “Sith.” I remember him throwing out the “Knights of Ren” (which must have confused anyone who’s not been paying attention to spoilers these last few months), but I can’t recall him mentioning the Sith.
Can you remember what context Snoke used it in?

Star Wars is Surrealism, not Science Fiction (essay)
Original Trilogy Documentaries/Making-Ofs (YouTube, Vimeo, etc. finds)
Beyond the OT Documentaries/Making-Ofs (YouTube, Vimeo, etc. finds)
Amazon link to my novel; Dawn of the Karabu.

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ZkinandBonez said:

Beatleboy99 said:

Just got back from the theater and I can honestly say I had a great time at the movie. The only things that I didn’t exactly care for were the look of Snoke, and the fact that the word “Sith” was used in the film.

When did Snoke use the word “Sith.” I remember him throwing out the “Knights of Ren” (which must have confused anyone who’s been paying attention to spoilers these last few months), but I can’t recall him mentioning the Sith.
Can you remember what context Snoke used it in?

It wasn’t Snoke, it was Maz Kanata who said it when listing off the evils the galaxy had already faced (the Sith, the Empire).

What’s the internal temperature of a TaunTaun? Luke warm.

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Mavimao said:

ZkinandBonez said:

Beatleboy99 said:

Just got back from the theater and I can honestly say I had a great time at the movie. The only things that I didn’t exactly care for were the look of Snoke, and the fact that the word “Sith” was used in the film.

When did Snoke use the word “Sith.” I remember him throwing out the “Knights of Ren” (which must have confused anyone who’s not been paying attention to spoilers these last few months), but I can’t recall him mentioning the Sith.
Can you remember what context Snoke used it in?

It wasn’t Snoke, it was Maz Kanata who said it when listing off the evils the galaxy had already faced (the Sith, the Empire).

Ah, right.

Star Wars is Surrealism, not Science Fiction (essay)
Original Trilogy Documentaries/Making-Ofs (YouTube, Vimeo, etc. finds)
Beyond the OT Documentaries/Making-Ofs (YouTube, Vimeo, etc. finds)
Amazon link to my novel; Dawn of the Karabu.

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SilverWook said:

m_s0 said:

I hate the new forum.

Please do not beat that horse again. And definitely don’t beat it in here. The situation has been explained elsewhere. And frankly, I’m sick of having to rehash it.

Don’t worry - it was just an off-hand comment after trying to post something for the first time. First time I’ve logged in since the move.

I wouldn’t mind a link with an explanation if there is one, though.