Alderaan

Possessed said:

And besides, that’s a visual cue, not a plot point. You can’t please everyone. Some people were determined to hate the movie no matter what.

So, In ESB, Han flies the falcon into an asteroid. That just so happens to be inhabited by a giant worm. (Which survived by eating…?) Which has such a huge mouth that they didn’t even notice it flying in. And it took it a good 45 seconds to close its mouth the first time while they were escaping, but only a couple seconds to try and bite after them once they had already exited.
Yeah, let’s talk some more about how TFA doesn’t make sense. :\

There are things like this in all of the movies, you’re right. In Empire, the asteroid field sequence is entirely unrealistic. But … it is cinematic. For one person they might love it, and another might find it offensive. I love it. In TFA, people on one planet can supposedly see other planets in other solar systems get blown up instantly. Some people might think that’s cinematic, someone else might find it annoying. I think it’s dumb, but out of all the things to complain about in this movie, it’s pretty far down the list for me.

Article on the Library of Congress now having a 2K scan of original 1977 35mm reels.

http://mashable.com/2015/12/17/star-wars-original-cut/#ex7yxtMg4iq5

Need to get Empire and Jedi saved fast!

Yoda Is Your Father said:
Go back and watch the rescue of Han from Jabba and tell me there’s anything even remotely strategically sound about that plan. It’s literally the worst rescue plan ever. And they had months to plan it, whereas Finn was acting on impulse.

Yeah and ROTJ is considered the worst of the originals for things like that and Ewoks killing stormtroopers with rocks and arrows.

Yoda Is Your Father said:>
This is Star Wars, people. It’s not Shakespeare

Well ****. Let’s just do whatever we want because this isn’t Shakespeare.

Yoda Is Your Father said:
and it’s certainly not a military documentary 😉 Just enjoy it.’

Yeah it’s not like they modeled the assault on the death star after WWII fighter movies or anything.

TV’s Frink said:

Loved it. I feel bad for those of you who didn’t.

Some of us feel equally bad for you.

ZkinandBonez said:

Well, Darth Vader used to murder generals for making fairly small mistakes (in the grander scope anyway). That could hardly have been beneficial for the Empire.

Haha, well I actually agree with you and Silver on this, I’m just trolling you a little bit.

But in the new film, they don’t punish Finn or kill him or anything. Phasma says he didn’t have any problems before so they didn’t discipline him. That’s not a sadistic life and death workplace environment like it seemed to be for officers within Vader’s reach. Seemed like another expedient cop-out to justify a narrative that was fundamentally flawed from the start.

DominicCobb said:

You’re honestly insane if you think people defending this film is “prequel-type apologia.”

Not to me it’s not. I feel the same as Jay, I shouldn’t have to wait for some other movie or book or spinoff to explain to me some esoteric, speciously thin reason of why B followed A. I’ve been listening to this same kind of far-stretched rationalizing for those garbage films for over 16 years.

TFA is much better than Episodes I-III. It is fun if you don’t take it seriously, and there’s a lot to like in the movie. But there’s also a lot not to like. Which is why I give it a “meh” rating and am left wondering what could have been.

SilverWook said:

Did you miss the part where Finn needed someone to fly the Tie Fighter? (Not having flight training is a good way to prevent defections.) And I doubt the New Order bothers treating troops who go mental in the hopes they return to duty. They probably just shoot them.

If he did so well in training that he was placed immediately into an elite unit (with no prior experience), would they really be so quick to kill such a valuable commodity? 😉

hydrospanner said:

Cut it all out and replaced it with what?

Anything. Writing a script is a long, difficult process. Hard to put me on the spot here, but the first idea I can think off the top of my head would go like this:

If the writer/studio decided Finn has to be in this movie and he has to be a stormtrooper who deserted, why not start the movie with him having already deserted? Do we really need to see him desert? How about we make it a mystery whether he’s bullshiting us or telling us the truth? Make it so Rey doesn’t know if she can really trust this guy or not. You know, kind of like how Han was in the original. Start the film with Rey’s story, which is by far more compelling, and perhaps Jakku is some outer planet, and that’s why Finn flees there and she eventually meets him.

Getting the droid involved and designing a reason to get Rey off Jakku would be another problem for another day.

ZkinandBonez said:

According to Micheal Arndt it was something BB-8 said to R2 that woke him up.

http://www.starwarsnewsnet.com/2015/12/j-j-abrams-lawrence-kasdan-and-michael-arndt-reveal-new-secrets-about-the-force-awakens.html

“…but the idea was that in that scene where R2 plugged in, he downloaded the archives of the Empire, which was referenced by Kylo Ren,” Abrams said. Thirty-eight years later, in both our own and galactic time, that data becomes useful in The Force Awakens when a new droid approaches the dormant R2.

“BB-8 comes up and says something to him, which is basically, ‘I’ve got this piece of a map, do you happen to have the rest?’” Abrams said. “The idea was, R2 who has been all over the galaxy, is still in his coma, but he hears this. And it triggers something that would ultimately wake him up.”

Darn. I was hoping it was Luke using the Force and telling R2 it was time to wake up. Really would like to have seen Luke decide on his own when to return. I just hate the idea of these people looking for him on a map. Which sounds more interesting, chasing a McGuffin in order to locate the Ark of Covenant, or fighting a battle and trying to hold out long enough in hopes that the savior might make his appearance?

ZkinandBonez said:

Finn postponing his desertion for shore-leave isn’t exactly the best basis for an exiting movie.

True, but that’s why they should have just cut, cut, cut, and cut this whole part of the story out. Then there would have been plenty of time to give the film moments to breathe later on.

Also seems like a terrible strategy for Finn. Would have been better to fake mental illness, or wait for leave to desert. Even while on a mission on some planet. Deciding to bust into the detention block to rescue someone he’s never met before and then blast his way out of a military ship? Just dumb.

Just stuff like this could have and should have all been cut from the movie. The script is not a good one, or at least it’s uneven. There were plenty of good things to like in this movie, but the stuff before we met Rey is not among them.

ZkinandBonez said:

Was he told to escort Poe? I thought that was just something he did without authorization to help him escape?

Yeah unauthorized. Phasma ordered him to submit his blaster for inspection, but it was a veiled threat. He was already suspected of disobeying orders, and assuming his blaster hadn’t malfunctioned, he would be held accountable. At that point, he just decided to run.

Finn didn’t shoot anyone, and that’s why Phasma went up to him and ordered him to submit his blaster for inspection. The implication being he was under suspicion for not carrying out orders.

ZkinandBonez said:

Star Wars is full of incompetent Stormtroopers though. I mean the Death Star was the most important piece of tech in the entire galaxy, and the troopers aboard it couldn’t kill a farmer, a diplomat and two smugglers. An old man in a robe also managed to walk around completely unnoticed by security.

Yeah but now we’re talking about two different things. Bad guys having bad aim when they shoot at good guys is standard. Having a military think and act like they are on the set of Spaceballs is just something else entirely.

SpilkaBilka said:
And what makes you think Ren’s troops are “elite”?

Well, consider the mission they were on. Supposedly getting the McGuffin was the most important thing the First Order could be doing, and the leader had his right hand man personally go and get it. Seems like a major military flaw to take some guys fresh out of basic and say “go get 'em” huh?

[ZkinandBonez said:]
Then again he did manage to stand his ground against Kylo Ren in a lightsaber duel so clearly he’s not without combat skills.

That was also one of the dumbest parts of the whole movie. Doesn’t work to use one terrible flaw to justify another terrible flaw.

SilverWook said:

I thought he said he started out in sanitation?

And someone can do lots of training simulations, pass with flying colors, and still choke when confronted with the real deal. Remember Lt. Gorman in Aliens?

They weren’t on some top secret government mission in Aliens. I could totally buy a random stormtrooper deserting in most settings. I’m sure they have some tangible desertion rate. It defies all credulity though that someone like Finn would be involved with Kylo’s mission on Jakku.

SilverWook said:
No, it’s people simply trying to making sense of what they just saw. (We discuss the OT too.) Some people here did miss bits of the plot, like the discussion of Finn’s defection explaining the stormtroopers are indoctrinated as children. Before the internet, we had discussions at school, or we wrote letters to Starlog magazine.

So about Finn. Supposedly he’s in an elite stormtrooper unit. You would assume they are elite since they are with Kylo on the First Order’s most important mission.

So why is this stormtrooper … who has never seen battle before … actually on this mission?

How does some random guy who has never seen combat and works as a janitor get called upon to do that job? Unless it’s all convenient for the plot of course?

Anchorhead said:

This is not the forum you are looking for. waves hand

I agree.

This also needs to be the end of that tangent to the reviews.

+1

Silver, I think there’s a lot of prequel-type apologia going on with this movie right now. Once again I don’t mean that as a put down or attack, I just think some of you are wanting to make more out of this movie than it is, tirelessly attempting to explain away such clear and obvious flaws. YMMV though.

Another post I made elsewhere:

One of my favorite scenes in the movie was when Rey was scrubbing some junk on Jakku, and she’s sitting across from this very old woman with tons of wrinkles all over her face. In contrast, Rey looks so fresh, young, and beautiful. But they are both doing the same job, and it might just cause the girl to ponder her future stuck on that planet doing the same thing for the rest of her life. Even better, someone jars her back to reality and I just loved the shot of her for the last two or three seconds of that scene. Putting her head down and scrubbing away, kind of an awkward looking facial expression. No pretentiousness whatsoever. Little things like that combined with the awesome Falcon pursuit off Jakku are what make a movie like this good.

In contrast, many other parts of the film were waaaaaay too self conscious. Poe Dameron flies his X-wing around the ruins of Maz’s castle, blows something up, and Finn looks up, and out of all the carnage going on around him and above him in the air, he happens to see it and exclaim “that’s one awesome pilot!” just because the two of them happened to have a couple of scenes together earlier in the movie. Even though he could never have possibly known who was in the X-wing.

I mean I guess they are supposed to be comrades, but instead of having them hang out during the entire movie and accomplish stuff together, we’ll just have one of them sit out 90% and then insert juvenile moments like this to try and convince you they are new best friends forever. **** off.

Like I said the movie is fun if you don’t take it seriously, but it’s not really a high quality Star Wars. Just too much bull**** it in for me.

Just compare the Rebel attack on the Death Star in the original film to TFA. In Star Wars it very much came across as a real military battle, albeit on a small scale. This film had nothing like that, it was just yippee pew-pew we did it. No tension. Nothing.

This film is about the quality that I would have expected out of some spin-off like Rogue 1. Not the main story.

6/10. TV guide 2.5 out of 4 stars. Take your pick.

Yes you have to watch Despecialized because they are as close to the originals as you can get.

The newer editions available on DVD and BluRay have been altered substantially, often to the point that the films become cringeworthy and unwatchable. That’s kind of what this whole forum is about – that Lucasfilm has never given us modern, high quality versions of the original films.

ZkinandBonez said:

I think comparing any of the new “bad-guys” cast to the old one is a mistake.

Well, I wasn’t comparing for the sake of comparing. The goal of the new films shouldn’t be to “be like” the old films. The goal should be to make a great movie. In the respect of the acting of the villains, the OT had great acting and great characters. Admiral Piett played his role understated. He’s just a guy doing his job. He’s scared of Vader. Other times he’s expressing his disgust with bounty hunters. There’s just so much he does with so little, and he never comes across as a cartoon.

Hux on the other hand, the guy is a cartoon. All he does is twirl his figurative mustache. He sneers. He screams. He does bad guy things. Then he screams and shouts some more.

Edit: the rest of your post is no different than prequel apologia. I don’t mean that to be offensive, just stating a position that I think you are trying to defend something that cannot be defended.