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The Force Awakens: Official Review Thread - ** SPOILERS ** — Page 73

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DominicCobb said:

Films are not shot in chronological order. She was great throughout.

Well, duh!

She did a good job largely carrying a massive film with little acting experience. Her inexperience did show. Fortunately she comes across as very personable and her enthusiasm shines through.

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 (Edited)

I can’t say if her acting was good because I saw it in Italian and… I hate to say this, but after 6 dubbings directed by great professionals, this is the first Star Wars movie with a pretty flat dubbing in both acting and translation.

Bingowings said:

I am getting a bit tired of this thread being more about bashing the people commenting on it than about the films and the comments themselves.
Some people hold opinions about the film that some people don’t share.
Get over it.

I couldn’t agree with you more. We should all be discussing each other’s point of view, possibly trying to make a point, but nobody should force anybody to either agree or “leave”.

The Original Trilogy’s Timeline Reconstruction: http://originaltrilogy.com/forum/topic.cfm/Implied-starting-date-of-the-Empire-from-OT-dialogue/post/786201/#TopicPost786201

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John Doom said:

I can’t say if her acting was good because I saw it in Italian and… I hate so say this, but after 6 dubbings directed by great professionals, this is the first Star Wars movie with a pretty mediocre dubbing in both acting and translation.

Bingowings said:

I am getting a bit tired of this thread being more about bashing the people commenting on it than about the films and the comments themselves.
Some people hold opinions about the film that some people don’t share.
Get over it.

but nobody should force anybody to either agree or “leave”.

I don’t remember anyone telling anyone else to leave or anything alluding to that.

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That’s why I put it into quotes. I should’ve been less “abstract”, I guess 😄
I was referring to those who keep saying that loving this or hating that is wrong, incomprehensible, absurd, and so on. This way they make discussing about actually something very hard, at the point that some, tired of this, would rather leave the thread.

The Original Trilogy’s Timeline Reconstruction: http://originaltrilogy.com/forum/topic.cfm/Implied-starting-date-of-the-Empire-from-OT-dialogue/post/786201/#TopicPost786201

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John Doom said:
I was referring to those who keep saying that loving this or hating that is wrong, incomprehensible, absurd, and so on. This way they make discussing about actually something very hard, at the point that some, tired of this, would rather leave the thread.

If I told you that Jake Lloyd was the best part of the Saga how are you supposed to argue against that? There’s not much you can say to someone who holds such an obscure opinion.

Plus in this day and age it’s VERY hard to differentiate trolling from someone’s actual opinion.

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John Doom said:

I was referring to those who keep saying that loving this or hating that is wrong, incomprehensible, absurd, and so on.

Has anyone said these things?

I have said many times that hating this movie is fine. There’s no reason anyone has to love this movie, like it, or even feel meh about it. What I can’t stand are the specific hyperbolic complaints, the ones that don’t make any sense, and the ones that are inconsistent in comparing TFA to the OT. This movie was not as bad (or worse!) as the prequels. Daisy was not as bad or worse as Natalie (not Natalie’s fault, btw). Daisy and John were not put in the movie for a damn political agenda. Han did not “suddenly” start believing in the Force. BB-8 was not doing coke.

I think my position sounds reasonable.

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John Doom said:

If you feel it’s trolling, just ignore it, what else? O.o

It’s hard to ignore it when you can’t discern whether it is trolling or a genuine opinion. It’s hard to ignore when people blur the lines between trolling and facts such as the fact that millions of people think Kylo Ren was a whiner just because of the meme culture.

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 (Edited)

btw do you guys think that there should’ve been more scenes involving the Republic? I know there was one with Leia, but it was cut. Do you think more scenes would’ve improved TFA, adding to the background and making the Republic’s planet’s destruction more moving?

The Original Trilogy’s Timeline Reconstruction: http://originaltrilogy.com/forum/topic.cfm/Implied-starting-date-of-the-Empire-from-OT-dialogue/post/786201/#TopicPost786201

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I haven’t seen the movie again since posting about it, but I thought I’d share some other thoughts. I’m warning you now that this post is probably not going to be written very well (much like the sentence preceding this one).

I found it pretty hard to “geek out” about the movie after seeing it, and I still can’t geek out about it now. I’m pretty laid back about the whole thing. “It’s good! I’m sure the next one will be fun too!” I don’t really care about any more than that. At first I thought it was because I was getting older (34), but I think it’s just because the movie focused more on being fun than original (not a bad thing (well, I wish it was more original, but I’m not gonna cry about it)). There doesn’t seem to be a whole lot to talk about. Like…I can’t get into the “mythology” of the story. Does that make sense? I dunno…I thought I was going somewhere with this. 😛

Lord Haseo said:
In her defense has anyone been able to do that convincingly? Because whenever someone does that in a game/movie/show it always takes me out of the experience.

Regardless of what people think of the films, I thought Martin Freeman pulled it off reasonably well in the second Hobbit movie.

DuracellEnergizer said:

I wouldn’t take IMDb ratings all that seriously, either. They rate The Fly II 4.9/10 for crying out loud.

I like The Fly II. It’s nothing great, but it’s quite ambitious for a sequel nobody was asking for.

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John Doom said:

btw do you guys think that there should’ve been more scenes involving the Republic? I know there was one with Leia, but it was cut. Do you think more scenes would’ve improved TFA, adding to the background and making the Republic’s planet’s destruction more moving?

Absolutely. It would have been nice to The Republic’s initial response to the destruction of the Hosnian system . Perhaps The Republic could have in turn authorized the deployment of the Republic Fleet. We could have also been introduced to a character/s who are going to be clamoring over each other for power.

Also the lack of The Knights of Ren bugged me too.

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John Doom said:

btw do you guys think that there should’ve been more scenes involving the Republic? I know there was one with Leia, but it was cut. Do you think more scenes would’ve improved TFA, adding to the background and making the Republic’s planet’s destruction more moving?

The planet’s destruction is problematic, though I don’t know if I’d add more scenes of the Republic. There’s two ways they could have done it, I guess. They could have had more scenes of the Republic which would have invested us more in its destruction(as the novelization does and an early cut possibly did), but it likely would have ruined the structure and pacing (not meeting Leia and the Resistance until after the battle on Takodana is perfect). However, taking those scenes out does make the destruction of the Hosnian system lose its power, certainly. They could have just done it like ANH. We don’t need the destruction of the planet to be emotionally moving, we need it to see the evil of the First Order and set up their threat. But the film tries to have it both ways, preserving the leaner structure while trying for that emotional power. What they should have done is removed the shots on the surface of Hosnian Prime and eased it on the tragic music (it’s probably the one spot in the score where Williams is compensating for what’s not in the film[like in the PT] rather than supporting what is).

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I suggested in the fan edit thread that the Republic could broadcast propaganda into First Order territory.
The Resistance could boost the signal past any jammers that First Order have.
We could hear it in the background on Jakku and in Maz’s bar.
General Hux’s speech on the base could be a response to troopers hearing those messages and spinning them as lies.
That way when the planet is dead, the signal dies too cutting off a direct and constant connection with the Republic without all those Senate scenes we had in the prequels.

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Bingowings said:

I suggested in the fan edit thread that the Republic could broadcast propaganda into First Order territory.
The Resistance could boost the signal past any jammers that First Order have.
We could hear it in the background on Jakku and in Maz’s bar.
General Hux’s speech on the base could be a response to troopers hearing those messages and spinning them as lies.
That way when the planet is dead, the signal dies too cutting off a direct and constant connection with the Republic without all those Senate scenes we had in the prequels.

That’s actually a pretty cool idea, Bingo. Very “Tokyo Rose.”

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joefavs said:

I feel like those who are being super critical of the score either haven’t experienced as many repeat viewings as we who really dug the movie or else weren’t interested enough to really live with the soundtrack for a while after Disney put it on YouTube. Now that I’m very familiar with it, I realize there’s so much more going on than one viewing can convey. There are at least five new themes that I couldn’t get out of my head if I wanted to. It’s definitely a score that rewards continued listening.

Well I only saw the film once and the only music I could remember was the original Star Wars Fanfare at the Start on the opening crawl.

Good Music just does not work in the way that you need to continually listen to something to have to appreciate it.

If it is very good you will get the hook put in to you. You’ll be hooked on it.

Basically yeah I will watch it again at some point but not in the cinema. Home viewing to absorb the film better perhaps but I honestly can’t remember any music from the film at all.

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Ronster said:
Good Music just does not work in the way that you need to continually listen to something to have to appreciate it.

If it is very good you will get the hook put in to you. You’ll be hooked on it.

Most of my favorite albums were ones that took time to grow on me (and my all time favorite was one I outright hated the first time I heard it). The stuff I immediately like are usually shallower experiences that lack staying power over the years.

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I’m not ruling out that the music in the film will not grow on me music has a tendancy to do that too as you quite rightly have stated, but I can say without any shadow of doubt in my mind that nothing about the music apart from the opening fanfare I could remember.

I remember there being music but I can’t recall how it went. Actually coming to think of it I liked the reggae tune in Maz Katana Bar… That I do remember vaguely.

But I can’t remember any of the orchestrals at all. I wish I could but I can’t.

But with that said there are many films that you can watch and immediately you will be struck with the thought “That sounds Amazing!!” that did not happen for me at all and I was really hoping for that and it just did not happen.

I watched “the Shining” the other day and whilst watching it I felt totally overcome in awe of the music and sound that I was being presented with.

I could probably mention also another film such as “The Mission” and the theme in that when it breaks namely gabriel and his obe or the falls. I am talking about powerful themes that can move you in an instant.

And I personally feel the Original Star Wars films and even the prequels did a better job. So to expect the same when it came to going to TFA was ultimately a let down for me and I’ll stand by my opinion that I thought it is weaker than previous efforts or perhaps different and it did not work as well as previous efforts.

Basically the music in TFA for me is honestly nowhere near the top of my list of what I look for in so far as music that really has an affect and thus I think it is unfortunately a weakness that I feel the film suffered. The music did not drive the film forward it just was there in the background.

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i’ve seen this a lot recently, where people are saying that the soundtrack wasn’t good because they “weren’t humming any of the new themes when they came out of the cinema”. But are you really sure that you remembered the older themes just from viewing the movie once? Probably not.

Previous promotional material, prior to the films releases, featured themes from these movies. The music video for Duel of the Fates was played on TV all the time before TPM came out. Battle of the heroes was used before ROTS came out. We had the soundtrack albums out there before the films. How many of us had the OT albums before getting to see the films? And how many times did we play them? Yet, with TFA, the only music that would be featured in the film that was used for any pre release promotion was the jedi Steps and that was just for the International trailer. Oh, and guess what, this one seems to be the one that most people seem to remember when coming out of the film. The soundtrack didn’t come out until after the films release. So we had no pre-conditioning towards the music.

ANH:REVISITED
ESB:REVISITED

DONATIONS TOWARDS MATERIALS FOR THE REVISITED SAGA

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I remembered the Prequel themes and was humming those once I stopped hitting my head on the car door on the way home.

I have a memory of humming the Imperial march and the Battle in the Forest but I was 10 and 13 so my memory might be playing tricks.

I have been listening to the soundtrack since seeing the film and I’m still not remembering the themes.

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Ronster said:

joefavs said:

I feel like those who are being super critical of the score either haven’t experienced as many repeat viewings as we who really dug the movie or else weren’t interested enough to really live with the soundtrack for a while after Disney put it on YouTube. Now that I’m very familiar with it, I realize there’s so much more going on than one viewing can convey. There are at least five new themes that I couldn’t get out of my head if I wanted to. It’s definitely a score that rewards continued listening.

Well I only saw the film once and the only music I could remember was the original Star Wars Fanfare at the Start on the opening crawl.

Good Music just does not work in the way that you need to continually listen to something to have to appreciate it.

If it is very good you will get the hook put in to you. You’ll be hooked on it.

Basically yeah I will watch it again at some point but not in the cinema. Home viewing to absorb the film better perhaps but I honestly can’t remember any music from the film at all.

Immediately catchy music can be good music but not all good music is immediately catchy. Film scores, much like other aspects of filmmaking (lighting, editing, etc.) work to improve the film primarily on a more subconscious. It is typically not until we see the film again (and we can pay less attention to what’s happening) that we appreciate these aspects more. The score to TFA certainly supports repeat viewings and there’s a rewarding complexity to it that wasn’t there in the PT.

Sure, when you got out of a prequel you might be humming a Duel of the Fates or a Across the Stars or a Battle of the Heroes. But that’s because Williams had to compensate for what wasn’t there. Why is it that Williams most epic theme from the PT came from its most boring film? Why is it that one of the best love themes ever composed for screen came from one of film’s all time worst romances? Why does the Battle of the Heroes theme play only once in ROTS when that conflict should have been throughout the film (hint, not Williams’s fault). Williams is supporting what’s on screen in TFA and for the first time in a long time what’s on screen is simply more interesting.

But yeah, catchiness means very little to me. My favorite albums weren’t my favorite albums upon first listen. I could recognize the music was good, but I couldn’t necessarily recall the songs right away. Sometimes I listen to pop music but it doesn’t usually sustain too many repeat listens. Similarly, ROTS was probably my favorite soundtrack when I was a kid but now I realize it’s just a collection of unnecessarily “epic” cues without any sort of thematic coherence (not to mention a good 40% of the music in that movie is tracked from the TPM and AOTC scores).

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Perhaps there is a problem with the advertising as i just saw an advert on sky for the force awakens using the music from star wars.

I don’t think this helps the film at all. or perhaps it does…

it’s an actual shame that the marketing bods don’t trust the music for the film to actually sell it

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Lord Haseo said:
Come on now there has to be something wrong with them. I simply can’t believe they didn’t screw that up too. It’s easily the hardest part of the film to make

Whereas the previous six films’ starfield faded away prior to the scrolling portion of the end credits, this one carries it until the end.

My stance on revising fan edits.

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But seriously, I saw the film a third time this afternoon and finally feel ready to offer an informed opinion.
I really enjoyed it. The problems I had with it did not bother me upon repeat viewings. In this and other ways, it’s similar to Return of the Jedi. Both ape ANH somewhat, and I would have preferred them not to. But, TFA carries its flaws and holds up despite them, and its emotional beats resonated very well. Star Wars Episode VII is now a thing that exists, rather than a hypothetical full of infinite potential, and that reality bothered me a little at first. Seeing it for what it is, I think it’s a success. And more importantly, it’s executed well enough that it worked its way into my heart despite the direction being something I would have resisted on paper. JJ’s own style was apparent, but compared with his Trek films, I appreciate his perceived effort to reign in his own style and maintain visual continuity with the legacy left from the old films.
The film feels authentic. The humor had me lightly shaking my head at certain points, with a simultaneous smile I couldn’t suppress. The characters felt legitimate, and I found myself emoting and empathizing with them without knowing exactly why. I suppose a better way to say that was they felt three dimensional.
I feel like this is a bonafide continuation of the story we got from ANH, ESB, and ROTJ. Since I’ve done Star Wars edits over the years, I can’t help but pose the question to myself of working with this one. But the reality is that I don’t want to; it’s solid, and does not need fan help. Perhaps an extended edition could be fun, but it doesn’t need fan fixes IMHO. Once I was able to get the initial viewing out of the way, and all of my projected hopes with it, I was able to sincerely enjoy the film for what it is.

My stance on revising fan edits.

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Hal 9000 said:
I feel like this is a bonafide continuation of the story we got from ANH, ESB, and ROTJ. Since I’ve done Star Wars edits over the years, I can’t help but pose the question to myself of working with this one. But the reality is that I don’t want to; it’s solid, and does not need fan help. Perhaps an extended edition could be fun, but it doesn’t need fan fixes IMHO. Once I was able to get the initial viewing out of the way, and all of my projected hopes with it, I was able to sincerely enjoy the film for what it is.

Wow, is all I can say. In a good way I mean.

The Rise of Failures

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Hal 9000 said:

Lord Haseo said:
Come on now there has to be something wrong with them. I simply can’t believe they didn’t screw that up too. It’s easily the hardest part of the film to make

Whereas the previous six films’ starfield faded away prior to the scrolling portion of the end credits, this one carries it until the end.

JJ Abrams should really pull an Obi-Wan/Luke/Yoda and go into exile because he has utterly failed Star Wars. The end credit scene is crucial to the totality of the film and he failed to do that right…incompetent hack.