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The Force Awakens: Official Review Thread - ** SPOILERS ** — Page 76

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SilverWook said:

There are real graves and tombstones on the island, so they may used something that was already there.

Han said Luke went in search of the first Jedi temple. I’m pretty sure he found it.

On that note, it was very strange seeing a stone crucifix in one of the shots leading up to the reveal of Luke. I get that they wanted to portray the island as accurately as possible, but that was one thing that screamed ‘Earth History’ to me.

You probably don’t recognize me because of the red arm.
Episode 9 Rewrite, The Starlight Project (Released!) and ANH Technicolor Project (Released!)

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That I didn’t see.

Forum Moderator

Where were you in '77?

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NeverarGreat said:

SilverWook said:

There are real graves and tombstones on the island, so they may used something that was already there.

Han said Luke went in search of the first Jedi temple. I’m pretty sure he found it.

On that note, it was very strange seeing a stone crucifix in one of the shots leading up to the reveal of Luke. I get that they wanted to portray the island as accurately as possible, but that was one thing that screamed ‘Earth History’ to me.

And people wouldn’t listen to me when I said the humans of the SW Galaxy were the descendants of Earthlings.

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I must have missed out on all the kooky OT theories back in the day, because I can’t remember any.

Forum Moderator

Where were you in '77?

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The obvious one was that Ben was not the original Kenobi but a clone and another was that he didn’t die on the Death Star but ascended to another level of existence from whence he may return (George nearly went with that by having Ben and Yoda come back from the dead to fight the Emperor).
Honestly Rey being Anakin isn’t that weird.
The Force is essentially Daoism and depending on which form you look at there are versions that include reincarnation of The Po or vital soul energy.
So Anakin’s spirit may have left to join Ben and Yoda but his soul energy may be reborn.
We were warned that Episode VIII might be a bit weird. I wouldn’t rule out a change like this.

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I was thinking weird along the lines of Maz and Chewie making out though. 😉

Forum Moderator

Where were you in '77?

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Interestingly in Daoism the two halves of the spirit/soul are called Hun and Po which sounds a bit like Han and Poe… okay so it wasn’t that interesting :-p

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As I said before, I don’t like that TFA has so much OT’s references and recycled events. Now, I’m not questioning whether this is good or not, but do you think they’ll keep going in this direction for the next episodes too? Should they keep going, to you?
I suspect they will, anyway: if you think about it, this is a trend lots of franchises follow nowdays and, in the worst case, it’s just “more of the same”. If true, why? Is it easier then doing something new? Or does people actually like it? In general, I’d rather watch the same movie again and again, than a sequel that feels the same.

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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To be honest I don’t know what they’re going to do because Star Wars Fans are the most indecisive people of any fandom. If the events that take place are completely foreign a lot of people instead of the hyperbolic nonsense that was “TFA is a complete remake of ANH” claim will say the film doesn’t feel enough like Star Wars. Even if the film is on par with ESB naysayers will say something like “Well it was a good movie but it wasn’t a good Star Wars movie.”

Same thing goes for Kylo Ren. He was a layered character but people were expecting Vader 2.0 whilst simultaneously not wanting Kylo to be Vader 2.0…I fear they’re going to take away his depth because people don’t entirely know what they want and people too impatient to understand that Kylo is going to have an arc and part of the arc being that he just a villain in training.

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Star Wars is popular so there will be a broad sweep of opinion.
My opinion stands. The characters are fresh and interesting the situations are old and done (sometimes more than once in the films).
Hopefully the next films will develop the great characters by taking them into interesting new situations.

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Bingowings said:
Hopefully the next films will develop the great characters by taking them into interesting new situations.

Here’s to hoping. To HECK with the people who are going to say “It doesn’t feel like Star Wars” because those people were probably going to say that anyway. We need new things so that the Saga doesn’t stagnate. Callbacks to the OT are fine if done right but we need a mostly original plot this time.

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Lord Haseo said:

To Hell with the people who are going to say “It doesn’t feel like Star Wars”

Since my opinions seem to get lumped in with yours, could you tone it down a bit?

I think it feels like Star Wars but I can understand why some people disagree.

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TV’s Frink said:

Lord Haseo said:

To Hell with the people who are going to say “It doesn’t feel like Star Wars”

Since my opinions seem to get lumped in with yours, could you tone it down a bit?

I think it feels like Star Wars but I can understand why some people disagree.

I’m talking about a hypothetical but okay.

EDIT:

Lord Haseo said:
because those people were probably going to say that anyway

^ I also included this for a reason

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John Doom said:

do you think they’ll keep going in this direction for the next episodes too? Should they keep going, to you?

Do I think they will? No, going by Johnson’s record and Kasdan’s statements. Should they? No, because then you’d have two rehashes in a row, which would make eps. 7-9 “the remake trilogy.” There’s a big difference between a rehash after 38 years and a two rehashes in a row.

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DuracellEnergizer said:

NeverarGreat said:

SilverWook said:

There are real graves and tombstones on the island, so they may used something that was already there.

Han said Luke went in search of the first Jedi temple. I’m pretty sure he found it.

On that note, it was very strange seeing a stone crucifix in one of the shots leading up to the reveal of Luke. I get that they wanted to portray the island as accurately as possible, but that was one thing that screamed ‘Earth History’ to me.

And people wouldn’t listen to me when I said the humans of the SW Galaxy were the descendants of Earthlings.

No. We are the descendants. This was a long time ago.

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I wanted to say something about the composition of the movie again. I don’t want to read to see if it has already been mentioned, so bear with me, all you soldiers who’ve stuck with the thread all this time.

I keep coming back to the impression that with a very few (if significant) exceptions, TFA was a great story with great characters and great settings-

-but-

-the editing was wrong all over. I don’t mean the fades and transitions, as in they were awkward or jumpy, but the assembly of all the scenes as a whole. It felt like the team had created a whole lot of great individual components/parts, but then put them together in a way wherein the whole wasn’t balanced right. I can’t break it down scene by scene and say where each should rightly have gone to balance out better, I just have a really strong impression of this. The film felt kind of lumpy. Like, almost right, but then you look closer and the building has a door on the 5th floor exiting into open air with no balcony. Or you realize that person you’ve been talking to for ten minutes has no left ear.

Dialogue, costumes, characters, scenery, architecture, everything was accurate and great - in both form and spirit - just put together without a sense of cohesion. An alternative (and more generous) criticism might be to say that it was edited with a sense of composition that was abstract and unconventional, but even that wouldn’t serve, the scene ordering/structure just deviates from the wavelength of the OT. I think this is the real and only significant flaw in this entry in the series.

Does this assessment make sense for anyone else out there? I’m really struggling to articulate something that is elusive and subtle to me.

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Bingowings said:

Interestingly in Daoism the two halves of the spirit/soul are called Hun and Po which sounds a bit like Han and Poe… okay so it wasn’t that interesting :-p

No, that was interesting.

Except Han and Poe aren’t opposites or two halves of anything, unless young and old, but that’s a stretch.

SilverWook said:

I was thinking weird along the lines of Maz and Chewie making out though. 😉

THAT WOULD BE GREAT

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cyclista said:

I wanted to say something about the composition of the movie again. I don’t want to read to see if it has already been mentioned, so bear with me, all you soldiers who’ve stuck with the thread all this time.

I keep coming back to the impression that with a very few (if significant) exceptions, TFA was a great story with great characters and great settings-

-but-

-the editing was wrong all over. I don’t mean the fades and transitions, as in they were awkward or jumpy, but the assembly of all the scenes as a whole. It felt like the team had created a whole lot of great individual components/parts, but then put them together in a way wherein the whole wasn’t balanced right. I can’t break it down scene by scene and say where each should rightly have gone to balance out better, I just have a really strong impression of this. The film felt kind of lumpy. Like, almost right, but then you look closer and the building has a door on the 5th floor exiting into open air with no balcony. Or you realize that person you’ve been talking to for ten minutes has no left ear.

Dialogue, costumes, characters, scenery, architecture, everything was accurate and great - in both form and spirit - just put together without a sense of cohesion. An alternative (and more generous) criticism might be to say that it was edited with a sense of composition that was abstract and unconventional, but even that wouldn’t serve, the scene ordering/structure just deviates from the wavelength of the OT. I think this is the real and only significant flaw in this entry in the series.

Does this assessment make sense for anyone else out there? I’m really struggling to articulate something that is elusive and subtle to me.

I definitely understand what you’re trying to say. In particular, I felt like the planets weren’t shown in a way that suspends your disbelief and makes you care about them.