The Force Awakens: Official Review Thread - ** SPOILERS ** — Page 97

Nothing is funnier than a callback to the good old days when racism was acceptable and the PC police hadn’t stamped it out.

Trooperman37 said:

DominicCobb said:

Honestly have no idea which side people are on with this hand holding thing but I’d like to just mention something people tend to forget which is Rey’s a loner, or at least fancies herself one. I figure that has more to do with the “don’t hold my hand” than anything else.

Watching J.J.'s film my interpretation was that this was funny that a white girl wouldn’t want a black guy to keep bugging her. It was a throwback. Not PC. I thought it was hilarious.

uh, no. i think you must be trolling. it was quite simply a running joke about how Finn has a savior complex and thinks he is helping Rey, when really she is the one helping him. they picked it up again in the rathtar scene where she shut the door on the rathar, saving finn. Finn didn’t know this, and Rey didn’t tell him either, “That was lucky”. there is nothing in the film to suggest anything about race being involved in their interactions.

That documentary while too short gave me a new appreciation of a movie I’m already very fond of. A lot of people act as if the ST’s existence is just for money and that none of the people involved cares about Star Wars and telling great stories but this documentary proves other wise. You can feel the enthusiasm and thw ambition of all those who worked on this film.

Lord Haseo said:
Is that some sort of half assed way of endorsing that terrible joke?

No, I thought Silver was responding to me. I’m definitely not going to wade in on any bigoted nonsense. I was just in a bad mood yesterday upon hearing Lucasfilm has no plans to restore the OOT, and felt the appropriate response was to bash the rubbish films they continue to make.

Alderaan said:

Lord Haseo said:
Is that some sort of half assed way of endorsing that terrible joke?

No, I thought Silver was responding to me. I’m definitely not going to wade in on any bigoted nonsense. I was just in a bad mood yesterday upon hearing Lucasfilm has no plans to restore the OOT, and felt the appropriate response was to bash the rubbish films they continue to make.

Doesn’t Fox still have the rights to the OT until like 2020?

Alderaan said:

Lord Haseo said:
Is that some sort of half assed way of endorsing that terrible joke?

No, I thought Silver was responding to me. I’m definitely not going to wade in on any bigoted nonsense. I was just in a bad mood yesterday upon hearing Lucasfilm has no plans to restore the OOT, and felt the appropriate response was to bash the rubbish films they continue to make.

The “statement” means nothing.

Yeah but making a movie to retain the rights is different. If they didn’t make a fantastic four movie, then ALL of the rights would revert to marvel and fox would never make another penny off of that property. Fox would never strike a deal like Sony did to share the rights to a property, because they want to retain as much of the profits as they can. In this instance, the rights are already shared. Disney/Lucasfilm holds the rights to the property, and Fox the distribution rights. Both studios stand to make money off of a release, so it’s a much more feasable deal to be made. I doubt fox would pass up an opportunity to make money off of these films, especially when their time for owning the distribution rights to ESB and ROTJ are so limited. They’d want to cash in on those films ASAP.

JediExile said:

Didn’t like The Force Awakens at all.

Finn was a ridiculous character. Raised from birth as a Stormtrooper, “programmed” to be obedient (General Hux’s words), and he absolutely loses it on his first mission. I wouldn’t have a problem with this if he wasn’t programmed from birth and the First Order recruited like the Empire did, but it is an issue and leads to his character feeling forced. I would have greatly preferred if Finn slowly broke his brainwashing over the course of the movie instead of at the beginning. It would have led to a much more believable character.
Finn also has a kind of odd personality for a Stormtrooper. He’s pretty much the comic relief of the movie which was really confusing to me as I don’t really see that going well with the First Order.

Rey was just poorly developed. She’s the only Force user that I’ve really seen in the canon series that picks up her Force abilities that fast with absolutely zero training. Aside from that, I found her hard to relate to because I didn’t really get a sense of who she was throughout the movie. Luke in ANH was a good-hearted kid who wants to get off Tatooine and live his life. Anakin in TPM was also a good-hearted little boy who wanted to become a Jedi and strived to help others. I don’t really know who Rey is. She misses her parents and wants to get off Jakku, but she acts like an ass to Finn when she meets him and to BB-8 when all he wants to do is really stick around her. She doesn’t seem very social and appears to have no friends at all and I’m just not sure about her though. This is mostly how I feel about her subjectively though, she just kind of bored me.

Finn and Rey also lack chemistry despite caring about each other(???). They’ve known each other for such a small amount of time, yet Finn seems to really be attracted and attached to her in the Cantina scene. Why ask this girl you just met to come with you? Why bother asking this guy you met to stick with you? Why does Finn even care that he lied to her? Just very confusing match.

Kylo Ren is just confusing to me. He worships Vader, a Sith Lord who turned to the light. Not only that, he prays(?) to Vader’s helmet (how did he get that?) to help him stay on the dark side? Is the First Order unaware of Vader turning back to the light and redeeming himself? Kylo was a student of Luke right, shouldn’t he know this too? Does the First Order not acknowledge this happened?

Speaking of Return of the Jedi, this movie is a horrible continuation of the OT. Return of the Jedi has Vader redeem himself, Leia is revealed to be Force sensitive like her brother, the Empire is in shambles, the New Republic is probably going to rule over the galaxy, and Luke is going to rebuild the Jedi Order. So why is there a resistance group in TFA instead of a formal army? Why is Vader being worshipped as a Sith instead of a redeemed Jedi? How did Kylo Ren manage to kill all of Luke’s students? Why did Luke run away from his friends and duty as a Jedi? Why didn’t Luke tell Leia where he was? What is the state of the Republic right now? I did some googling on the state of the Republic and why it had no military and you know what I found? They fucking disarmed 90% of their military in a treaty with (if I can remember properly) the remnants of the Empire. For what purpose? Why wasn’t this in the movie? Why drop the audience back inside Star Wars 30 years after RotJ and not explain ANYTHING?

Then there’s Starkiller. Another Death Star really bothered me, especially the way Starkiller was designed. What’s the point of the huge recharging planet instead of just 5 Death Stars 2.0s? Can Starkiller move? How does one aim a planet? Why waste resources on making a planet into a superweapon? I thought the First Order was a remnants group of the Empire, how did they get these resources? Wouldn’t sucking out all the energy from the Sun literally kill everyone on Starkiller? I’m not a scientist and I don’t know much about our own Sun, but I can’t imagine something like that going out and being good.

The final fight annoyed me a little too. Kylo Ren quite literally teleports from the inside of Starkiller, far away from Rey and Finn right to the middle of the forest where Rey and Finn ran to. Ahead of them. Kylo slams Rey against a tree and knocks her unconscious for a while and Finn picks up Anakin/Luke’s lightsaber to defend himself and Rey. Now I’d like to point out that in a previous scene, Finn got his ass completely demolished by a random Stormtrooper. He was almost killed until Han saved him. In this scene, Finn is suddenly a lot more skilled with the lightsaber despite never using it again after getting his ass kicked. He does a decent job of holding off Ren and even manages to land a hit on him (had a chuckle when this happened, can’t imagine any other Sith getting hit by a lowly Stormtrooper). Kylo gets pissed and disarms Finn and slices his back open after this. Now Kylo’s arm should probably be disabled from Finn’s hit and Finn should probably be dead from Ren’s hit, but the fight must go on so whatever. So Ren suddenly turns his attention to the lightsaber stuck in the snow and struggles to Force Pull it from the ground. I’d like to take a moment to remind you that Ren not even 5-6 minutes ago lifted a ~100 pound girl into the air and sent her flying and dragged a much heavier man towards him in an earlier scene where he throws a temper tantrum. So he obviously fails and Rey proves to be more skilled in pulling small objects with the Force than Kylo. They fight and Rey understandably holds up better than Finn. It’s easy to assume she’s trained with melee weapons before as seen when she beats those thugs on Jakku to a pulp. But Kylo is more skilled with the Force than Rey and more skilled with a lightsaber too, so the tides start turning towards him. Once again, makes sense. And here’s where the final scene really bothers me. Ren mentions taking her as his apprentice and training her in the ways of the Force. She suddenly remembers she has the Force, mentions the Force OUT LOUD in front of Kylo, and closes her eyes. Kylo stares at her like a dumb brick, completely unaware that Rey is trying to use the Force to support her. Rey then suddenly turns the battle and whoops the trained Sith’s ass hard. Somehow. Then the grounds splits and Kylo is left in the middle of nowhere on a dying planet (He’ll be back in the sequel though somehow just because).

So my ranking of SW movies after seeing TFA three times is 4 > 5 > 6 = 1 > 3 > 7 > 2. Just a pretty mediocre movie that I didn’t really have fun watching at all.
Apologize if this is too long and poorly formatted, but I’m not used to this bare bones kind of forum.

I think that a lot of the questions are probably explained in the novelization. The First Order believes Darth Vader slaying the emperor was a moment of weakness and did not diminish his legacy.

I now believe Luke trained Rey before Kylo saved her from the knights of Ren, wiped her memory, and set her on Jakku. That would explain why she subconsciously knows how to perform a Jedi mind trick.

I agree with you on Finn. The idea of a black stormtrooper was cool. John Boyega was a good actor, but J. J. Abrams made Finn too likeable to seem like an authentic renegade stormtrooper. Others may disagree with me on this, but that is just my opinion.

I am surprised you would rate Episode I over Episode III.

Well Finn’s story arc isn’t really about him leaving the first order, that’s the inciting incident that puts him on his journey, so there’s not a much need to overly explain and delve into what causes him to leave. I like it the way it is. Short, sweet, we understand his motivation, now we can go on our journey. His story is about finding a path and a purpose, not about his leaving his old path behind.

It’s like, we didn’t need to overly explain why Luke wanted to leave tatooine. By all accounts, he had a pretty good life there and just “longing for adventure” doesn’t really cut it for an analytical mind of just why he wants so badly to leave. But we don’t need a whole ten scenes explaining his his uncle is abusive and his aunt is a heavy drinker and he never got picked for the basketball team. One scene of minor exposition in the dinner scene and him staring at the twin Suns longingly. Boom. Now we can start our journey. Because Luke’s journey isn’t about him leaving tatooine. His family dies and now he has no reason to stay.

Similarly, Finn’s journey isn’t about him leaving the first order, that’s just where his journey begins, so we don’t need to overly explain it. I think we can assume he’s been uncomfortable there for some time, then one scene of him reacting to the atrocities of the first order then boom: we understand why he wants to leave. No need to drag the narrative along to better explain something that is only there to be the beginning of a character’s journey and arc.

Yup.

Scott109 said:

I think that a lot of the questions are probably explained in the novelization. The First Order believes Darth Vader slaying the emperor was a moment of weakness and did not diminish his legacy.

This honestly frustrates me more than anything. I really don’t like it when things are explained in novels or comics or other media that should be in the movie. The reason why Episode IV is my all time favorite Star Wars movie is because every small detail comes together perfectly when I watch it.
I didn’t have to read a book to find out Luke is an excellent pilot and that Luke is able to fly an X-Wing because of his experience with a T-16. It’s right in the movie, fit naturally into scenes so everything comes together.
I apparently do have to read a book to find out details like why the Republic is incapable of defending itself, how the First Order feels about Darth Vader, and other details like that. It’s just lazy world building. What makes me more frustrated though, is apparently there was a deleted scene with Snoke that talked about how the First Order feels about Vader. Why was this removed? It makes sense to add depth to your villains and help the audience understand them more.

I now believe Luke trained Rey before Kylo saved her from the knights of Ren, wiped her memory, and set her on Jakku. That would explain why she subconsciously knows how to perform a Jedi mind trick.

If they can explain Rey’s abilities in the next film, I’ll be happier with her character. I don’t know if I’ll be happier with the film or the idea of a mind wipe. Rey was dropped off on Jakku at what, age 9? So I’m assuming she trained 5 years as a Jedi which makes her Force use a lot more believable in some scenes (Mind Trick), but still somewhat wonky in others (fight with Kylo, grabbing lightsaber before Kylo).

I agree with you on Finn. The idea of a black stormtrooper was cool. John Boyega was a good actor, but J. J. Abrams made Finn too likeable to seem like an authentic renegade stormtrooper. Others may disagree with me on this, but that is just my opinion.

I agree. I had hopes for a much more morally grey character that dealt with the struggles of going traitor. It would have been great for Finn to mellow up over the course of the film instead of entirely at once.

I am surprised you would rate Episode I over Episode III.

I like the political intrigue in it, don’t mind Jar Jar, could care less about Midi-chlorians (never understood the outrage about them), and it has some of the best music in the entire series.
I also get a little nostalgic about TPM. I have a lot of fond memories watching it with my parents and friends when I was younger and the first video game I’ve ever played was the PC version of TPM.
The nostalgia really puts it just a hair above RotS. I guess a more accurate way of ranking the films for me if I put nostalgia aside would be 4 >> 5 > 6 >= 1 = 3 >> 7 > shit > 2.

Stuff like how Kylo feels about Vader’s turn and the relationship between the Resistence and Republic is in the film. It’s just not spoonfed to the audience though things like R2 waking should have been fully explained because it was a giant plot convenience.

EDIT:

Luke using a T-16 doesn’t fully explain how he was so good in a space battle. Flying an X-Wing is one thing flying in a dog fight is another.

That’s true and it does diminish the implausibility of Luke surviving a space battle but it doesn’t negate it outright. And you could say the same for Rey and her flying ability even though she said in the film that she has flown ships before but never off world or that she also used a flight simulator coming up. The Force is what makes these feats possible.

Lord Haseo said:

Stuff like how Kylo feels about Vader’s turn and the relationship between the Resistence and Republic is in the film. It’s just not spoonfed to the audience though things like R2 waking should have been fully explained because it was a giant plot convenience.

Point to where it’s hinted about Kylo’s feelings towards Vader and the Republic disarming 90% of their military and leading Leia to form the Resistance please.

EDIT:

Luke using a T-16 doesn’t fully explain how he was so good in a space battle. Flying an X-Wing is one thing flying in a dog fight is another.

I never argued that it was explained how he performed so well in a space battle. I was talking about his ability to fly an X-Wing in the first place despite not being part of the Rebels before recently. But I’ll get into his performance too.
A short conversation with Obi-Wan leads to the audience knowing that Luke has become an excellent pilot and Luke’s remarks on the T-16 being similar to the X-Wings and being able to hit ~2 meter Womp Rats on Tatooine alleviates the issue of the audience’s suspension of disbelief being broken during the Trench run. And as SilverWook said, Luke was in real danger during parts of the Trench Run, especially during the end where Vader was about to shoot him down. The only reason Luke is alive is because Han and Chewie came back, something which doesn’t break suspension of disbelief because Han and Chewie are seen becoming attached to Luke/Leia over the course of the film, Han coming back to help save their asses is very in character. It also should be mentioned that Tarkin and Vader were extremely cocky about the Death Star as shown in a few scenes so they didn’t take the Rebel forces as seriously as they should have. All of this helps bit by bit to strengthen the audience’s suspension of disbelief and Luke’s survival in the end.

JediExile said:
Point to where it’s hinted about Kylo’s feelings towards Vader

So Kylo is about to undertake the task of killing his father which makes him reassure Supreme Leader Snoke as to the fact that with his training he will not be seduced. Who else do we know that was seduced by the enemy when placed in a life or death situation with a family member? The very person we discover shortly after that Kylo idolizes. Vader

the Republic disarming 90% of their military and leading Leia to form the Resistance please.

I never said anything about the New Republic disarming 90% of it’s military; I just said they supported the Resistance and that is what I’m going to prove

From the opening crawl:

With the support of the REPUBLIC, General Leia Organa leads a brave RESISTANCE. She is desperate to find her brother Luke and gain his help in restoring peace and justice to the galaxy.

and from Hux’s speech

At this very moment in a system far from here, the New Republic lies to the galaxy while secretly supporting the treachery of the loathsome Resistance!

I never argued that it was explained how he performed so well in a space battle. I was talking about his ability to fly an X-Wing in the first place despite not being part of the Rebels before recently. But I’ll get into his performance too.
A short conversation with Obi-Wan leads to the audience knowing that Luke has become an excellent pilot and Luke’s remarks on the T-16 being similar to the X-Wings and being able to hit ~2 meter Womp Rats on Tatooine alleviates the issue of the audience’s suspension of disbelief being broken during the Trench run. And as SilverWook said, Luke was in real danger during parts of the Trench Run, especially during the end where Vader was about to shoot him down. The only reason Luke is alive is because Han and Chewie came back, something which doesn’t break suspension of disbelief because Han and Chewie are seen becoming attached to Luke/Leia over the course of the film, Han coming back to help save their asses is very in character. It also should be mentioned that Tarkin and Vader were extremely cocky about the Death Star as shown in a few scenes so they didn’t take the Rebel forces as seriously as they should have. All of this helps bit by bit to strengthen the audience’s suspension of disbelief and Luke’s survival in the end.

Even with them saying things to shrink the disbelief factor it doesn’t dissipate it all. Womp rats can’t fire back and the T-16 did give him flying experience but it isn’t the same type of craft as an X-Wing and he didn’t have any difficulty flying. Call Rey a Mary Sue if you want but she at least struggled flying the Falcon and her overall performance was more realistic as she has never flown the Falcon before even though has flown other ships before. And even though he was in danger and was saved the likelihood of a pilot flying in such a circumstance without proper training would still be next to nil. But then again The Force…