The Force Awakens: Official Review Thread - ** SPOILERS ** — Page 79

The ENTIRE crawl is about finding Luke. The ENTIRE thing.

The difference is Yoda is not established in ANH’s crawl and has nothing to do with that story. Luke is not a new character at the end of TFA (not just because we’ve seen him before). He’s the first two words of the crawl and the thing that drives the plot (and he’s name dropped at least eight times throughout the film). If you want to compare this to ANH, that movie, by your logic, should have ended when the X-Wing squadron left Yavin’s atmosphere.

I wouldn’t say that scene is primarily a moment of suspense. Obviously there are a lot of unanswered questions, but the suspense mainly comes from the state of the galaxy in general and whether or not Luke will actually succeed in teaching Rey where he failed with Ben. That doesn’t make it a cliffhanger. There’s not really suspense as to whether or not Luke will accept Rey as a student, as some have said. Sure, it’s possible this will be a matter of contention in the next film, but as far as the context of this film, the implication is this scene is Rey meeting her new master and finally finding the galaxy’s only hope.

That we know bounty hunters are after Han simply sets up the sub plot wherein he gets captured. He does not get captured in the first 5 minutes. By that analogy, in the first 5 minutes of TFA we would have learned that Luke plans on vanishing, then in the third act he’d vanish, and then in the final scene Rey would fly off from the Resistance base.

Hardcore Legend said:

Having watched the film again today, I still am struck by how the biggest event that felt out of place was the reveal of Luke. The film would have been much better if they had cut to credits as Rey makes the jump to lightspeed.

Disagree. There was definitely an element of cliffhanger ending, but at the same time something about it was just so satisfying. I thought the end was very well balanced in that regard

DominicCobb said:

The ENTIRE crawl is about finding Luke. The ENTIRE thing.

And most things people do in this film revolves around finding the map to Luke.

Hardcore Legend said:
5 minutes into ESB, Han says he must leave because Bounty Hunters are after him.

and it isn’t brought up again until Vader hires a gang of them later in the film. That’s because it was a side story initially but it ended up effecting the main story line of the film.

Hardcore Legend said:

DominicCobb said:

The promise of Luke Skywalker being in the film is more than just the 32 year gap between ROTJ and TFA, it is the promise of the opening line of the crawl. Luke Skywalker is a through line in the film from the VERY start. It’s funny how people say TFA has a cliffhanger, which simply isn’t true. If we DIDN’T see Luke it would have been a cliffhanger. But seeing him is the resolution to the story outlined from the very start, very first line of the crawl. The fact that we know Kylo and the First Order are still out there and Rey has training to do is simply a sequel hook, NOT a cliffhanger.

Han’s capture is an element introduced in the second half of ESB and resolving it in that film would have felt out of place because it wasn’t an integral part of that film’s story from the start. The cliffhanger is justified because it is a plot thread that is introduced near the end of the film and, unlike a plot thread introduced at the very start, wouldn’t reasonably require a resolution at the end of the film.

The promise is that Luke has vanished, which is that you shouldn’t expect to see him anytime soon. The end of TFA is literally a cliffhanger, it is 100 percent true. Firstly, they are literally standing on a cliff. Second, they introduce a revelation (Luke and Rey meeting) in the final moment of the film and frame their reactions to each other in a suspenseful manner. That’s a cliffhanger.

You are technically correct by the dictionary definition of “cliffhanger,” but you would then have to apply that to any movie series, not to mention every single TV show ever.

And standing on a cliff literally makes it a cliffstander. At best, it’s literally a cliffhangingout.

ray_afraid said:

I didn’t mind the movie ending with finding Luke, but I really hated the scene. I suddenly felt like I was watching a Nat Geo documentary. Skellig Michael and the cinematography just pulled me right out of the film.
It was good to see Luke though.

I felt the opposite. I really liked the scene but hated it ending with Luke like that. I’ll play devil’s advocate and take the unpopular opinion here. I agree that it should have ended when she flies away and the resistance is all standing there watching her go.

If they were just upfront with us from the get go and said “Luke skywalker is not in episode 7, but he will be in episode 8” I don’t think people would have minded his absence.

The end of the film perfectly sets up that you’re gonna see Luke in the next film. You didn’t need the tacked on cliffhanger ending. It did feel to me like the end of a tv show episode where they feel the need to tag on an unnecessary teaser at the end to get you to watch next week.

I don’t hate the ending, but I think it would have been better in the long run if it had ended there. Felt like the logical place to end it.

Plus then they aren’t obligated to start episode 8 directly where episode 7 ends. There could be some passage of time in between the films.

Not to mention every Star Wars film prior has ended on a wide shot of a group of heroes standing, usually staring into the distance.

While the Luke/Rey shot could still fall under this criteria, the spinning helicopter shot felt weird to me.

Once again though, I don’t wanna sound like I hated it. It worked fine for me and I liked the execution of the scene, I would have just personally preferred it be saved for 8.

NeverarGreat said:

However, the end of TFA leaves the audience with no revelation, no clear problem.

There doesn’t need to be. She’s just there to get her training and that’s it.

ending of ESB tacked onto a softer than fuck reboot of ANH.

Haven’t we talked about this shit enough?

The scene with Luke is at the same time the logical conclusion to TFA: “Luke has vanished” now we found him, AND it is also a “cliffhanger” in the way that the audience does not know how Luke will react to Rey giving him the lightsaber.

Everyone assume that he will train Rey, but she just comes to give him the lightsaber and maybe ask him for help.
So, we have one character that is not really asking to be trained, IMO (and who does not even seem to be in need to be trained anyway! Maybe just to control her power better), and a character who have good reasons to not train anyone anymore…

TMBTM said:

it is also a “cliffhanger” in the way that the audience does not know how Luke will react to Rey giving him the lightsaber.

Such a great and thrilling ending…

TMBTM said:

and who does not even seem to be in need to be trained anyway!

It’s more logical to assume she’s going to train Luke. But she could at least get acting lessons.

MalàStrana said:
But she could at least get acting lessons.

If anyone needs it it’s Carrie Fisher, but I quite liked most of Daisy’s performance. Though there is always room for improvement.

Lord Haseo said:

MalàStrana said:
But she could at least get acting lessons.

If anyone needs it it’s Carrie Fisher, but I quite liked most of Daisy’s performance. Though there is always room for improvement.

Daisy Ridley’s performance was better in this film than Mark Hammil’s was in Star Wars to me.

Darth Lucas said:

Lord Haseo said:

MalàStrana said:
But she could at least get acting lessons.

If anyone needs it it’s Carrie Fisher, but I quite liked most of Daisy’s performance. Though there is always room for improvement.

Daisy Ridley’s performance was better in this film than Mark Hammil’s was in Star Wars to me.

I don’t think many people will disagree on that one. Mark’s performance in ESB and Daisy’s performance in TFA are on par though.

MalàStrana said:

But she could at least get acting lessons.

Sounds reasonable.

JawsTDS said:

I’m late to the game; I did see it opening night, and five subsequent times but I stayed offline to try and make my own opinion of what I saw.

My first “nitpick” during opening night was that the Star Wars theme sounded different. Of course, this is due to another orchestra taking over for the LSO. I was also surprised, yet not surprised, that they used the SE “A long time ago…” style and font. Additionally, Abrams broke the traditional “wide ending shot” rule, which was offsetting at first. Aaaaand I was disappointed that the iconic shot of Ren igniting his lightsabre was cut out. The off-screen version was very lame.

Besides those technical bits, it was truly something. I laughed, I cried (mainly during the opening crawl – how embarrassing!), I cheered. Being the first STAR WARS film I have even seen in theaters, I have never experienced anything like this before. I wish I could relive the opening night again. The crowd was so into it, especially when the Falcon was shown. I recall everyone going nuts over Leia and 3PO, rather than Han and Chewie – odd. Overall, it’s a competent film that has one-to-many callbacks for comfort, but has paved the way for something brilliant.

I walked out not digging it, came back loving it.

7/10 – not perfect, but is better than ROTJ, in my opinion.

Hey no shame. I cried during the opening crawl too. No idea why. I guess it just hit me for the first time that it was real and I was actually in the theater seeing a new Star Wars movie again and I was finally going to see old friends that I grew up with again (Han, Luke, and leia)

I cried too, but it was just because they got my dinner order wrong.

The Force Awakens never won any Oscars.

And I am also not surprised.

Mad Max Fury Road ?
Return of the King ?
The Matrix ?
Titanic ?
Star Wars ?
Ben-Hur ?

SilverWook said:

Star Wars did not win best picture, nor was Lucas nominated as best director. There are exceptions, but the academy tends to go for the prestige pictures, (which usually aren’t competing with a sf or fantasy film in the technical awards) over what is popular. E.T. lost out to Gandhi, but which film is better remembered today?

I totally agree, was just saying that popular movies still win some awards from time to time (Star Wars in 1978 and Fury Road in 2016 have both won the same oscars, technical ok). If you want an oscar for best picture, do a biopic, or a true story.