Alderaan

brash_stryker said:
Because Rey is only now fully “awakened” and letting in the force. She had her vision which ended with a voice saying “these are your first steps”.

So when she was “awakened” by the vision, how did Kylo freeze her in place and knock her unconscious with an effortless wave of his hand?

If she was “awakened” by the time of the final fight, how was Kylo able to throw her against a tree from 30 yards away?

Lord Haseo said:
Because just like Luke she’s discovering The Force and she’s bound to be inconsistent. Like how Luke was able to blow up the Death Star in ANH (which is pretty much impossible) but seemed to have a bit of trouble getting his lightsaber out of the snow in ESB.

I’m sure the comparison is lost on you, but this is like arguing with a prequel fan.

Lord Haseo said:

Which would have been way easier with both of the alternatives. Not as entertaining but more logical due to Vader’s monumental advantage in terms of his command of The Force. But that didn’t happen so the fight scene could take place and that Luke can have the bomb dropped on him. I repeat again WHO CARES?

Because the first two hours of Empire all built up to that moment. It’s not about “nitpicking” or “who cares?” or “it’s just a movie”. It’s about the first 2 hours MATCHING with the last 15 minutes.

MATCHING. CONSISTENT. MATCHING. CONSISTENT.

Everything in Empire Strikes Back built to that climax. There is no inconsistency. Whatever nitpicks you can find in that script (or any other good one, for example) are most likely irrelevant because of how harmoniously everything was designed to work together as a story.

Almost nothing in TFA, however, builds towards Rey beating Kylo’s ass. Even in the same final climactic scene, it is demonstrated that Kylo’s force powers are exponentially more powerful than Rey’s. Then suddenly, for no reason, he forgets he has those abilities.

brash_stryker said:
Let’s ignore the fact i said nothing about killing for a moment. Are you saying then that any dark Jedi who WANTS to kill another Jedi, could just do it? Choke em right there? Doesn’t that render the Jedi’s stance of using the force only for “knowledge or defence, never for attack”, kind of stupid?

OK, let’s say I agree with you on that point. Even if that is the case, in the EXACT SAME SCENE Kylo flings Rey against a tree and knocks her out without any effort. If she were able to shield him off with her force powers, then why didn’t she do it then? Because we needed to see Kylo and Finn fight 1 on 1 first?

The film just does whatever it wants on a minute by minute basis.

It is just a poorly written.

Did you guys not watch the fight? At what point did Vader express any desire to torture Luke or inflict pain on him? He started the fight by just standing there and blocking Luke’s attacks. His only desire was to put Luke in the freezing chamber and put him to sleep.

As the fight drags on, Vader flings objects at him and hurts him, but I wouldn’t call it sadistic.

Then he finally starts to get pissed off and wails at the kid. Still, even after all of that, he was just trying to corner Luke and make him an offer he couldn’t refuse.

It was only after Luke hurt him that Vader finally dispensed with all pretense and chopped his hand off in about 2 seconds. That will teach you son! Now listen to your papa and do as I say.

brash_stryker said:
Think about the OT. It was established early in ANH that Vader could choke people to death. And yet Vader never ONCE tried it against Luke. Would have ended the fight pretty quick wouldn’t it, if Vader had just choked him to the point of unconsciousness? Well it’s pretty obvious to me that Vader couldn’t because of how strong Luke was in the force. That’s what sets the Jedi apart from the normal people in this universe, otherwise the logic of it would all fall apart.

Vader never wanted to kill Luke because he was Vader’s son.

TV’s Frink said:

Alderaan said:

But then, at the end, he suddenly forgets he has these powers and gets his ass beat. Insecurity is not the reason for his loss, because he was just as insecure when he flung Rey through the air and knocked her out 2 minutes earlier IN THE EXACT SAME SCENE. The only explanation for Rey nearly killing Kylo is that someone wrote the script with one thing in mind, and someone else with more power decided they wanted a different ending with something else in mind.

The rest of the script and the ending do not match.

Yep, you definitely fell asleep during the movie. Multiple times.

I didn’t. I saw the film twice. As I pointed out in another post, look at Empire Strikes Back. The entire script is well orchestrated. Everything works in harmony. The meat and potatoes of the story builds towards and enhances the ending. Luke succeeds in many things, and yet each time he succeeds, the message being emphasized (the story within the story) is … HE … IS … NOT … READY.

1. Luke summons his lightsaber and escapes the Wampa cave. This scene shows remarkable growth in his force abilities compared to the last time we saw him. And yet what happens? He wanders out into a blizzard and collapses. He would have died if Han had not saved him. HE … IS … NOT … READY.

2. Luke blows up the AT-AT. Again, look how capable he is in this scene. He’s no longer this young desert farm boy, he actually looks like a mature freedom fighter. And yet what happens? The rebels get massacred, it’s not even a fair fight. Luke has to run away. HE … IS … NOT … READY … to defeat Vader and the Empire.

3. Luke trains with Yoda on Dagobah. He appears to be a good student and learning. Then he goes into the cave and fails Yoda’s test. He (and the audience) are subconsciously reminded … HE … IS … NOT … READY … to face Darth Vader.

4. Luke continues his training. Again, he progresses and impresses Yoda, but then he fails to lift the X-wing. Yoda calls him a failure. The reminder? HE … IS … NOT … READY.

Finally, at the end of Act 2, Luke is faced with a crisis decision. He has to decide if he will stay on Dagobah and finish his training, or if he will prematurely confront Vader on Bespin in an attempt to save his friends. Yoda and Obi-Wan plead with him to stay and complete his training. Their message to him is that … HE … IS … NOT … READY. And yet Luke chooses to leave anyway. He wants to save his friends. He confronts Vader in their battle at the end of the film.

And what happens in the ending?

We find out that Luke is not ready. He gets his ass beat. The entire story built up to that ending and they matched.

In TFA, the rest of the story and the ending do not match. There is no skillfully executed buildup toward an ending that should see Rey defeat Kylo. We are already well into Act 3 before Rey breaks loose on Starkiller and we hear the line “she’s just beginning to test her abilities”. She cannot possibly defeat him based on the rest of the story.

It’s even dumber because this would have been very easy to fix. All they had to do was cutout the last 20 seconds of the fight when Rey beats his ass. As soon as Rey channels the force and fights off Kylo for just and instant, to momentarily save herself, the planet could have collapsed and separated the two of them, saving Rey and her companions in the process.

Lord Haseo said:

Alderaan said:
I wouldn’t have a problem with it as long as it wasn’t boring

This one doesn’t want to be saved.

TV’s Frink said:

I think whomever is doing those parody Twitter accounts is also writing Alderaan’s posts.

You only quoted half of a conditional statement, and deleted the other half because it didn’t conform to your view. Intellectually dishonest, which calls into question the intent behind your posts. Maybe you should re-examine your posting behavior.

TV’s Frink said:

Alderaan said:

TV’s Frink said:
I’m not sure if you stayed awake during the whole film, or you just willfully ignore things that don’t support your positions. Are you claiming that Ren’s interrogation of Rey showed his virtually unlimited power?

His physical power ldo.

Not sure what “ldo” means, but he uses the Force. How is “physical power” relevant?

I’m honestly confused what you are trying to say.

Rey stood up to him mentally, and that’s fine. I actually liked that scene quite a bit in the film.

But physically, Kylo trashed her and everyone else he encountered despite whatever insecurities he might have been fostering. He froze Rey and knocked her out with an effortless wave of his hand. He telekinetically picked her up and flung her through the air into a tree. He froze Poe Dameron in place and had him arrested. He stopped blaster bolts in mid air. He was not physically threatened in the entire film.

But then, at the end, he suddenly forgets he has these powers and gets his ass beat. Insecurity is not the reason for his loss, because he was just as insecure when he flung Rey through the air and knocked her out 2 minutes earlier IN THE EXACT SAME SCENE. The only explanation for Rey nearly killing Kylo is that someone wrote the script with one thing in mind, and someone else with more power decided they wanted a different ending with something else in mind.

The rest of the script and the ending do not match.

brash_stryker said:

If it wasn’t for Death Star 3, these reboot complaints would largely disappear I think. It’s the one extraneous plot element that spoils it for many (and takes the shine off it for me a bit too). As Lord Haseo said, many of the other similarities have been remixed enough that they feel sufficiently different, and others can be chalked down to it following the classic ‘Hero’s Journey’ formula.

Films “borrow” from each other all the time.

Good hypothetical: film XYZ has a vision for an original or at least fresh take on a story it wants to tell. It may borrow some ideas from other films, but at the same time it is understood that those creative ideas had dramatic intent behind them and they are used in the new film for the same express purposes.

Bad hypothetical: film CYA doesn’t have a clear vision for an original or at least fresh take on a story that it wants to tell. It borrows a lot from other films, or another film specifically, because that’s kind of the whole idea for making film CYA. The creative ideas that are copied and pasted from the original film were constructed in such a way that they have attached to them clear and defined dramatic intent – but in the new film CYA, they are used without regard for their original purpose. Picture a perfectly beautiful and elaborate snowman, without a flaw to it, sitting on a beach in Hawaii and not melting. They are out of place.

And to me, that’s the problem with the story in TFA. It’s not that it borrowed things from ANH. As long as it did so in moderation, I wouldn’t have a problem with it as long as it wasn’t boring and the story were well constructed. But it’s not. There’s no vision for this film, no story under the story that it wants to tell. It’s just a Star Wars ripoff. A $350 million fan film. Highly professional looking and fun, it has some life, but like it was written by amateurs.

TV’s Frink said:
I’m not sure if you stayed awake during the whole film, or you just willfully ignore things that don’t support your positions. Are you claiming that Ren’s interrogation of Rey showed his virtually unlimited power?

His physical power ldo.

In my opinion, the prequel scripts and characters had no life. They were boring, stiff, terrible. The Force Awakens script and characters do have life, but none of it means anything. There is no cohesion. No harmony. Nothing works together in sync in order to tell the same story. It’s a ****ing mess.

I wonder if there is too much television influence infiltrating itself into Star Wars. I hate most television series because they don’t have a ****ing story to tell. They create some interesting tagline idea, some in-story world, some interesting characters – but then it’s just mindless week to week, what kind of plot twist can we think up next? The writers have no clue where the story is going beyond the immediate future. If you look at the story from beginning to the end, you could summarize most series by saying stuff happened. The end.

Creating a coherent story for a feature film is a completely different animal, on the other hand. Maybe the sloppy mess of TFA was forced by the studio and too many unintelligible rewrites, I don’t know, but the script is so bad that this film isn’t sitting well with me.

darth_ender said:
I seem to recall a great deal of Star Wars lore indicating that the dark side is the quick and easy path, wherein its weilders often learn powerful tricks swiftly, but at the cost of other skills, particularly with self mastery. I could easily see a Dark user like Kylo Ren, who is clearly powerful and talented, but also immature and lacking in self control, performing such a potent move, but in a rage motivated battle losing to someone inherently stronger.

Ren wasn’t characterized as a pretender in the rest of the film though. That’s the problem. He wasn’t consistently portrayed as some weak wannabe. His power was virtually unlimited until the ending, and then at the end, it’s suddenly not. The excuse “well he wasn’t fully trained yet” is just dumb. It’s like retconning within the same film.

Look at Luke in Empire Strikes Back. He’s not fully trained, but was he badass Return of the Jedi Luke throughout the movie? No! Luke grows throughout the entire film, and yet he’s still always portrayed as not good enough. Luke succeeds in doing this. He succeeds in doing that. And yet, from the beginning of the film all the way until the climax, the message is always present that HE … IS … NOT … READY.

Lord Haseo said:
You’re missing the point. Luke blowing up the Death Star shouldn’t have happened. Rey beating Kylo Ren probably shouldn’t have happened too BUT there are at least two reasons which at least partially explain why she was even able to survive. Luke blowing up the Death Star happens just because he’s special just like Rey beat Kylo Ren because she’s special.

With all due respect, I think you are the one missing the point. Luke didn’t beat Vader–he beat the Death Star. He blew up Tarkin.

Sure they built Luke’s character up a bit but there as nothing that was shown in the film that showed he had the kind of potential to blow up the Death Star which was established to be a shot so hard targeting computers in a Universe where interstellar travel is possible wasn’t even accurate enough to blow the thing up.

“Use the Force Luke”. It didn’t come out of nowhere. If he had suddenly gained so much power at the end of the film for no reason, it would have been a bad script. It wasn’t. Luke’s character wanted to go with Obi-Wan and learn the ways of the Force. That was a theme from the very beginning of the film. Not just with the good guys, but with Vader on the Death Star too. “The Force” is repeated over and over again.

You guys seriously underestimate how good the original Star Wars script is, how carefully thought out it was, and how well it was executed on screen. The Force Awakens script does not even compare. You can feel the movie was fun anyways, and yeah I agree with you to some extent. But I think the story itself was lazy and poorly executed. You can’t have a lazy and poorly executed story and then just say “it’s a movie, have fun!” The original Star Wars didn’t do that. No other great film does that.

They are great for a reason, and TFA is mediocre for that same reason.

Yoda Is Your Father said:

This argument can (and should) be applied to TFA (and most works of fiction).

It wasn’t necessary to advance the plot though. Any story can have superfluous touches for added effect, and that’s OK. One or two little coincidences are acceptable, because hey, life is full of them.

When the plot cannot advance though without coincidence A, and then coincidence B, and then coincidence C, and then coincidence #57 … the audience gets the feeling they are no longer watching a believable story, but rather a string of poorly written contrived coincidences.

Yoda Is Your Father said:
Chewie’s reaction got me right in the gut. I really felt for the guy.

But I would have liked to see him go more Wookiee, rip some arms out of their sockets and shit.

Yeah, Chewie’s reaction was the most powerful. But then he disappeared and the next time we see him he’s just a bellhop for Finn’s almost dead body. Couldn’t even get a hug from Leia at the end. Poor bastard.

Lord Haseo said:
All Luke did with the exception of shooting a few Storm Troopers and blowing up Tie Fighters was a brief practice session with that droid. Going from that to blowing up the Death Star is pretty jarring.

But he didn’t kick Vader’s ass. He didn’t overcome Vader’s force powers. There was nothing inconsistent in the original Star Wars film as far as the ending goes.

90% of the story was spent building up Luke’s character. He was just a farm boy nobody. He gets thrown into a wall in the Cantina. He gets blasted by the bot over and over again. He’s a whiner.

Then suddenly, he uses The Force for the first time, and he blocks the blaster bolts. Then he’s daring and brave and courageous rescuing Leia in the Death Star. Then he’s shooting down storm troopers. Then he’s blowing up TIE fighters aboard the Falcon.

Finally, at the end, he pilots his X-wing into the Death Star trench. He would have been killed by Vader had Han not come back and saved him. That bought Luke just enough time to get off his shot.

I already told you.

1. You can go back and make Kylo’s character weak, and have him masquerade and pretend to be stronger than he really is, and that’s fine. Rey can beat him that way because he’s just a wannabe.

2. You can make Kylo’s character strong, but then Rey can’t beat him at the end because she’s not strong enough herself. She needs to be saved somehow.

3. You can make the story self-contained, and have Rey’s character grow in a believable manner, to the point she is strong enough to beat an already strong Kylo at the end of the movie.

The original Star Wars was a combination of #2 and #3. Our perception of Luke’s strength and abilities grew over the course of the film, to the point where he was able to pilot his X-wing down the trench and fire the shot that blew up the Death Star. But he was also saved by Han, otherwise Vader would have killed him.

What you cannot do is have an inconsistent story and ending. You can’t have Kylo be a badass, and Rey is untrained, and then she wins at the end for no reason other than someone decided “welp, it would be better if the good guys win”. The good guys winning is fine, but you have to go back and do the hard work in the other 90% of the story to make it believable. You need Story A to go with ending A. You can’t put story B and Ending A together and make it work.

Wexter said:
No, that is the unlikely happy ending for the main character. It happens in movies (the original Star Wars for example). Star Wars is and always has been best enjoyed if you suspend your disbelief as much as possible. Implausibilities and strokes of luck have always been a huge part of this franchise. To me, it makes no sense to criticize a Star Wars film for having implausible plot.

Implausible. Complex. These are not the words you are looking for.

The word is inconsistent. The story is not consistent with its own internal logic. That is the problem.

TV’s Frink said:
There is not a single thing that would have made him happier.

That’s not true. That would imply the film was terrible and irredeemable and I just wanted it to end.

There was enough to like in TFA that it could have been so much better. It’s too bad the story was this lazy and apparently had no vision.

Wexter said:

Alderaan said:

Wexter said:
I personally love stuff like the freezing of the laser bolt.

I don’t have a problem with it. I thought it looked good on the screen. The problem many of us had was that Kylo suddenly doesn’t have any of these abilities in the last fight.

That kinda supports the point I made in the rest of my post. It’s one thing to show off with stopping laser bolts and whatnot, but in a one-on-one fight when you’re bleeding, running out of time before the world blows up and have just murdered your own father, you might just not be in your prime fighting condition. Therefore I don’t see this outcome of the fight as implausible at all. If Kylo was as powerful at that moment as he appeared to be in the opening scene, there really wouldn’t be much of a fight – he’d probably just grab Rey and Finn by the collar with the Force and throw them in the trunk. This character is not a badass, he is just posing as one. A dark lord of the Sith wannabe.

In the very same fight, he threw Rey against a tree with the force and knocked her out. Then when she revived, he was easily beating her for most of the fight.

Then suddenly, for no reason other than the writer wanted Rey to win, she suddenly beats him. Kylo forgets all these other powers he has. He forgets that he could freeze her in place just as he had done to her earlier in the film. He forgets he could lift her into the air and fling her into a tree, just as he had done in the same scene even! He just loses because, welp, we want him to lose.

That’s as lazy and amateur as it gets.

hydrospanner said:

Would you have been happier if he just snapped Finn’s neck with the force and then proceeded to decapitate Rey with one swift swing of the blade? Powerful villian wins. Roll credits.

He should have done what he ended up doing to Finn anyway but without getting hit by him. I mean, imagine Han or Lando walking up to Vader with a lightsaber and actually getting in a shot.

I thought fight with Rey was handled pretty well until the end. He wasn’t trying to kill her, because he wanted to train her or he had a crush on her, whatever the reason he was just playing around and it worked. I thought it was going swell, and then Rey momentarily used The Force to fight him off, and that was great.

But that should have been it.

Her ability to fight him off – as dictated by the rest of the story – should have been very limited. There was a deus-ex-machina ending to the fight with the ground opening up and separating the two of them. But was it to save the weaker one, Rey? No…for no reason whatsoever she proceeds to kick his ass and then the deus-ex-machina saves HIM! Preposterous.

This ending was clearly dictated by the “we have to have the good guys win at the end” mantra rather than have it be dictated by the rest of the script. It’s just bad storytelling. If you want this ending to work, you need to go back and re-write Kylo’s character and make him not as strong in the rest of the film.

Weak cosplaying Kylo getting his butt kicked by Rey at the end – that works.

Strong Kylo beating Rey and her getting saved by fate – that works.

Strong Kylo getting beat by untrained Rey – doesn’t work.

adywan said:
The thing with Rey’s story is that she DIDN’T want to leave Jakku.

Yes, I know that she didn’t want to leave Jakku. But that’s what makes Han’s character useless to her.

He has nothing to give her.

Wexter said:
I personally love stuff like the freezing of the laser bolt.

I don’t have a problem with it. I thought it looked good on the screen. The problem many of us had was that Kylo suddenly doesn’t have any of these abilities in the last fight. The entire movie calls for him to kick Finn and Rey’s asses at the end, but you can see the story meetings from a couple years ago taking place on screen.

Producer: “Yeah, we’ve done some audience testing, and we think it’s really important to have the good guys win at the end of the movie.”

Some other asshole: “The good guys won at the end of the first Star Wars. And the bad guys won at the end of the second one. And the good guys won at the end of the third one. It would be like poetry and rhyme if the good guys win at the end of the TFA.”

Everyone else in the room: “Yeah!”

Skeptic: “But what about the rest of the story? How can Kylo possibly lose to these people?”

Writer/Director: “Hmm…I know, how about we injure him so he’s not as strong?”

(1 year later, still some issues with this rough cut)

Skeptic: “Still seems the ending is not quite right.”

Writer/Director: “Fuck it, we’ll just add in one more scene about Kylo’s training not being finished and be done with it.”

Lord Haseo said:
Han is kind of like Obi-Wan. He’s there to usher our heroes into this new world and to give us some backstory. Obi-Wan told us about how Vader and the Empire destroyed the Jedi Knights and Han told us about how Luke’s Academy ended up going to shit.

But he’s not like Obi-Wan. Obi-Wan was a mentor to Luke, who was often out of his element. Rey, on the other hand, was superior to Han at everything. She could fly Han’s ship better than he could. She could repair it faster and better than he could. Han didn’t mentor her in anything. There was no chemistry, because Han didn’t have a role in the film. He showed up so you could go “oh there’s Han Solo, I love that guy!” Then he just kind of takes the characters to this place, and then he just kind of takes them to this other place, and then he just happens to get killed. The end.

There was a moment where Han asked Rey to join his crew, and I thought that was a good scene between them, but it got squashed by her refusal. It would have been so much more effective if her character had wanted to get off Jakku, and a backstory of her loneliness had been played up leading to that moment, and then she accepted Han’s offer. That would have created a far more significant bond between the two of them.