JediExile

Lord Haseo said:

JediExile said:
My point is brainwashing doesn’t break in a day.

In certain cases it does. Most notably in people who were wanna be Satanists who witnessed an actual sacrifice and were overwherlemed by it

Wanting to be a Satanist doesn’t sound like being forced to fight for the First Order. Also most Satanists don’t tend to do animal sacrifices, at least LaVey Satanists don’t. They just like to act edgy.

I just Googled “Finn” to find out his age and guess what I found: that Stormtrooper that Poe (the man Finn saved from certain death) killed was actually another of Finn’s squadmates and friends. Another detail The Force Awakens decided to omit from the actual movie and shove in another book, but I digress.

Did you not notice the significance of this person wiping their blood on Finn’s helmet and then Finn becoming panicked right after the death of this trooper? Not everything needs to explicitly stated for the audience.

No because the death of the trooper was a very short moment that was never mentioned again and Finn later grouped up with his killer so I assumed that it was a random Stormtrooper. Usually you don’t become friends with your friend’s killer.

I have no idea how old Finn is, but I’m going to assume he’s around 23-25. So for 23-25 years he’s slept, ate, drank, trained, and worked for the First Order. His friends were his squad mates. He was brainwashed by the First Order and watched by them for 23-25 years. Then one day he’s ordered to execute civilians and he betrays them for the guy who shot his friend.

Maybe aside from that one trooper or some other trooper/s somewhere else he deems them all as evil.

Really just pure speculation right there. Nothing in the movie to suggest that he feels that way and if it’s in a novelization or something it’s irrelevant to the movie.

Yes, but regardless of what the audience does know running after someone, beating them, and shocking them is generally not nice. He didn’t deserve that because Rey didn’t know what Finn had gone through or where he got the jacket. She assumed he stole it and proceeded to get violent.

Well she did start after him but Finn running made him look look guilty and how exactly could she even anticipate that this guy was a helped the jacket’s owner escape from a Star Destroyer via TIE Fighter and then the owner presumably died in the escape?

She immediately started running after him, yes. I don’t know about you, but if I saw a woman that just kicked serious ass and then responded to a droid furiously beeping at me by running after me, I’d get the fuck out of that place.

If BB-8 hadn’t been there, Rey wouldn’t have gone after Finn and she wouldn’t be marked. You can run the blame right back to the little round guy. If she was marked by association, then that’s more her fault and BB-8’s fault than Finn’s.

BB-8 could never do anything wrong. Thinking otherwise is blasphemous

Also how can it be Rey’s fault if she knows nothing about BB-8’s mission or Finn being a defecting Storm Trooper? That’s really unfair.

Well to be perfectly fair, if I heard that someone just died escaping from the First Order and their “partner” just happened to be that someone, I might reconsider being around them. Also I might reconsider letting BB-8 around me.
Also she put herself in that situation, some responsibility lies on her. She chose to chase Finn down, it’s not like BB-8 zapped her until she ran.

Finn doesn’t even deserve a sarcastic remark for her being marked because it’s not his fault at all.

On the wide spectrum of ways Rey could have reacted a sarcastic remark is one of the more tame options she could have chosen.

I agree, she’s not a bitch. She was bitch-y though.

If I’m a wanted man and someone makes the conscious choice to chase after me with a stick, beat me to the ground, question me about a jacket, then talk to me about the Resistance I’m a part of that’s enemies with the First Order, I’m not responsible for getting that person into trouble.

And how exactly would the thugs that alerted the First Order know about them speaking about The Resistance?

I’m a little confused. I’m talking about Rey chasing after Finn and interacting with him after based on her own choice. Not the thugs.

“what if” is not the point. If someone is about to kill you, you don’t stand around and ponder how you should treat the person who is unaware of the present danger. You take action. He noticed the Stormtroopers nearby and got the fuck out of there. There was no other chance to warn Rey.

I’m not saying what he did was wrong (at least in the first case) but he should have let go after he knew of the danger. Also he could have definitely said “RUN” when he her the TIEs especially since he knew she wasn’t fond of having her hand taken like some damsel or a child.

I count two.

And he did let go. And he could have said run, but honestly Rey was acting a little bit ridiculous in the hut checking on the droid that was virtually spotless after being shot at. She clearly didn’t recognize the sound of TIE fighters so I think grabbing her hand and dragging her out of the hut was better than saying “Run”. Her gender has nothing to do with Finn grabbing her hand too. I’m sure he realizes she’s a big girl after seeing her beat 4 guys up, but she still hasn’t dealt with the First Order and she didn’t exactly seem to be aware of what was going on. (And to be fair, she was kind of acting like a child in that scene.)

If she thought she would be able to run better without her hand being held, fair enough

“I know how to run without you holding my hand!”

I meant if she was having more trouble running with her hand being held. Throughout the movie, Finn and Rey ran at about the same pace as each other and in that scene specifically she was dragging behind a little so I don’t see the issue with him holding on a little longer.

Fair enough, but there was no moment before Han confronted him about his lie that even suggested he was bothered by it. He actually seemed to be enjoying pretending to be a Resistance fighter before.

Actually when they come into contact with Han and Rey says he’s with the Resistance he looks remorseful when Han takes a glare at him. Furthermore we can surmise that Finn might have told Rey that he defected from the First Order before that problem with the Falcon started which interrupted him.

I don’t remember the scene you’re talking about so I’ll take your word for it and give up on that point.

TV’s Frink said:

He’s all like, “hey, I’m gonna ignore the first thing you said to focus on the second.”

Or something.

No I just thought you were annoyed by the long posts. I just mentioned I’d like to make them shorter because I also don’t like how our back and forth is taking up a lot of the page.

TV’s Frink said:

With the brief exception of two Darth Lucas posts breaking things up…

Scrollin’ scrollin’ scrollin’…

Hey, someone else posted and broke things up a little.
If there’s a way I can shorten my post lengths by adding spoilers or what not like some forums allow, I’d love to make my posts a little smaller.

Lord Haseo said:

JediExile said:
Once again, the First Order should train their soldiers for this. They are an evil organization, they are going to kill innocents. For this to come as a surprise to Finn is a little odd, it should be normalized to him. It makes no sense for Finn to suddenly get cold feet like he did. I’d like to make a correction though, he didn’t get cold feet when executing the villagers. You see him start to have issues when a random Stormtrooper dies and reaches for him. Which is even more weird in my opinion. Finn doesn’t even have a name at this point, is he unaware that he’s just another expendable soldier? Did the First Order not prepare him for people on his side dying?

Even if they trained Finn to be an evil prick it probably wouldn’t have done much good in the long run. Though if they had his turn would have probably been over the course of the film. But then again we’re just speculating; for all we know they could have trained him to kill civilians and Finn being who he is was revolted by the idea.

If they trained Finn to be an evil prick, he would have killed those soldiers. My point is brainwashing doesn’t break in a day. I just Googled “Finn” to find out his age and guess what I found: that Stormtrooper that Poe (the man Finn saved from certain death) killed was actually another of Finn’s squadmates and friends. Another detail The Force Awakens decided to omit from the actual movie and shove in another book, but I digress. I have no idea how old Finn is, but I’m going to assume he’s around 23-25. So for 23-25 years he’s slept, ate, drank, trained, and worked for the First Order. His friends were his squad mates. He was brainwashed by the First Order and watched by them for 23-25 years. Then one day he’s ordered to execute civilians and he betrays them for the guy who shot his friend.

“Thief” may be understating the situation. BB-8 saw Poe’s X-Wing explode, he knew that his master was probably either dead, captured, or miraculously escaped. Now here’s this random dude coming along wearing your master’s jacket. The first thought that would come to mind isn’t “steal”, it’s “murder”

“What’s your hurry thief?”- Rey

I’m speaking from BB-8’s perspective not Rey’s. But if a random droid I just met told me someone had his master’s jacket, I wouldn’t attack him. She could have easily walked up to him to ask him about his jacket and THEN chase him down and beat him if he resisted. (Man, that’s starting to become an odd issue in TFA. People trusting each other right after meeting.)

I’m not saying she was totally in the wrong here, but approaching him to talk to him before beating him might have worked too. What I meant by “got in his way” was chasing him down and beating him. He did nothing to deserve that.

That’s only because we know Finn didn’t do anything wrong. If he had stolen Poe’s jacket (and presumably killed Poe) he would have deserved that and more.

Yes, but regardless of what the audience does know running after someone, beating them, and shocking them is generally not nice. He didn’t deserve that because Rey didn’t know what Finn had gone through or where he got the jacket. She assumed he stole it and proceeded to get violent.

Also, being a scavenger and saving a droid comes off as very weird to me. What’s a little more odd is Teedo actually let her take the droid, something which would have been worth a lot of meals.

Teedo would have had his ass handed to him had he tried to engage Rey in combat. He’s about 2…maybe 3 feet tall and Rey had her staff on her.

Kind of odd he didn’t have any protection himself. I’d assume scavenging is an extremely competitive job, especially when your entire wellbeing pretty much depends on your hauls.

No, her complaint wasn’t justified. Finn did nothing to make her a target. She chased after him, attacked him, and then stood around to talk to him. Once again, the droid deserves the blame for not warning her he was on a dangerous mission.

It was certainly by association that she was marked. Also even if BB-8 hadn’t been there Kylo Ren had deduced that FN-2187 was the one who defected so it wouldn’t have mattered.

Also all she said was “Thanks for that” and doesn’t bring up he fact she was marked for death unjustly for the rest of the film.

If BB-8 hadn’t been there, Rey wouldn’t have gone after Finn and she wouldn’t be marked. You can run the blame right back to the little round guy. If she was marked by association, then that’s more her fault and BB-8’s fault than Finn’s.
Finn doesn’t even deserve a sarcastic remark for her being marked because it’s not his fault at all. If I’m a wanted man and someone makes the conscious choice to chase after me with a stick, beat me to the ground, question me about a jacket, then talk to me about the Resistance I’m a part of that’s enemies with the First Order, I’m not responsible for getting that person into trouble.

Yes, he could have said run and hoped she’d react fast enough to not be blown to bits in both situations. “What if” isn’t the point though, he saved her life twice while she was clearly unaware of the danger she was in for both situations. He was protecting her and holding her hand wasn’t hurting her so there’s no reason to yell at the person trying to save you.

It should be the point because he had two chances to alert her to danger otherwise. Not saying him taking her hand was a bad thing inherently but there were alternatives. And holding her hand for the length of time he did the first time was borderline insulting even though his intentions were pure. It’s almost as if he didn’t thing she was capable of running without his assistance.

And once again, “what if” is not the point. If someone is about to kill you, you don’t stand around and ponder how you should treat the person who is unaware of the present danger. You take action. He noticed the Stormtroopers nearby and got the fuck out of there. There was no other chance to warn Rey.
And I don’t see how holding someone’s hand is insulting. It might impair their movement if they’re faster than you, yes. But I would never feel insulted for someone guiding me away from danger and being worried about my life. If she thought she would be able to run better without her hand being held, fair enough

My point on his feelings about him lying is a small one anyways, but even if his reason for lying to her was because he was ashamed of the First Order there’s no reason for him to actually feel bad about lying to her. It’s not like he told her something outrageous like “Ah yes Kylo Ren killed your father, From a Certain Point of View!”
He just met her and their chemistry on screen was really weak.

Some people don’t like lying. It’s as simple as that. Even smaller lies about nonessential things can irk people. I’m not entirely sure why simple decensy is being called into question

Fair enough, but there was no moment before Han confronted him about his lie that even suggested he was bothered by it. He actually seemed to be enjoying pretending to be a Resistance fighter before.
Either way, it’s odd for someone who has no problem gunning down his former companions, watching his former squadmate die, and helping the man who killed his friend to care about a tiny lie he made. Finn’s moral compass is just completely fucked if he cared that much.

Lord Haseo said:

JediExile said:
This isn’t an issue with Finn being a good person or not. It’s an issue with the First Order. Imagine you’re a rising evil Empire. Now you’re abducting babies and preparing them to fight for you. You want to do evil things because you’re evil so you want your soldiers to carry out those evil things. You’d obviously prepare them for combat, but you’d also prepare them for following orders like “kill these innocent people” or “steal candy from this child”. If they fail to follow out those orders, reprogram them (the First Order is able to do that after all, they say it in the movie) or kill them and move on. If Finn is just a good guy, how did he even get through training? Do they not prepare their evil soldiers to be evil?

I’m sure there would be many more defectors had they been taught at a young age that slaughtering an entire village is something that they’d be required to do from time to time.

Also the way that Finn puts up his blaster when the order to kill the villagers is given suggests he didn’t see it coming.

Once again, the First Order should train their soldiers for this. They are an evil organization, they are going to kill innocents. For this to come as a surprise to Finn is a little odd, it should be normalized to him. It makes no sense for Finn to suddenly get cold feet like he did. I’d like to make a correction though, he didn’t get cold feet when executing the villagers. You see him start to have issues when a random Stormtrooper dies and reaches for him. Which is even more weird in my opinion. Finn doesn’t even have a name at this point, is he unaware that he’s just another expendable soldier? Did the First Order not prepare him for people on his side dying?

Yeah except he didn’t do anything. She attacked him and got in his way,

Yeah, because she thought he was a thief. She also scolds Teedo about him trying to steal BB-8 and claims he doesn’t have respect for anybody. She has an inherent sense of justice. I see nothing wrong with that. Also how did she get in his way?

“Thief” may be understating the situation. BB-8 saw Poe’s X-Wing explode, he knew that his master was probably either dead, captured, or miraculously escaped. Now here’s this random dude coming along wearing your master’s jacket. The first thought that would come to mind isn’t “steal”, it’s “murder”. I’m not saying she was totally in the wrong here, but approaching him to talk to him before beating him might have worked too. What I meant by “got in his way” was chasing him down and beating him. He did nothing to deserve that.
Also, being a scavenger and saving a droid comes off as very weird to me. What’s a little more odd is Teedo actually let her take the droid, something which would have been worth a lot of meals. If I lived in a junkyard, struggling to get by with crap hauls, I’d do my best to make sure I get good parts or even a working droid to bring in.

she would have been “marked for death” anyways if she was found with that droid

True but that’s now how it went down thus her complaint was justified. Also it wasn’t even her who said she was marked it was Finn.

No, her complaint wasn’t justified. Finn did nothing to make her a target. She chased after him, attacked him, and then stood around to talk to him. Once again, the droid deserves the blame for not warning her he was on a dangerous mission.
Regardless of who told who she was marked by the Order, that doesn’t mean Finn is the reason she’s in danger. All blame lies on the droid.

If Finn wasn’t there and didn’t drag her away from those First Order troops, (guy saves your life and the first thing that comes to mind is to complain about him dragging your ass from danger, good shit Rey) she would have been killed. If Finn didn’t drag her away AGAIN when the TIE Fighters were doing runs on the Junkyard, (again she complains about her hand being held, I just don’t understand Rey) she would have been blown to pieces. If there’s anyone to actually blame for putting Rey in danger, it’s BB-8.

Couldn’t Finn just say run? Also the first time he grabbed her he held on for a time in which the hand holding wouldn’t suit any of them.

The line: “I know how to run without you holding my hand!” fits the situation perfectly.

The second time he grabbed her hand he could have said/yelled “run” too but he didn’t.

Yes, he could have said run and hoped she’d react fast enough to not be blown to bits in both situations. “What if” isn’t the point though, he saved her life twice while she was clearly unaware of the danger she was in for both situations. Yes, he did hold onto her hand too long the first time and she could have ran on her own at that point, but once again that isn’t the point. He was protecting her and holding her hand wasn’t hurting her so there’s no reason to yell at the person trying to save you.

Rey just beat Finn to a pulp and BB-8 was clearly not happy with him for having Poe’s jacket. The last thing I’d want to tell a girl that seems to have respect for Resistance and a droid whose master was just supposedly killed by the First Order is “I’m a Stormtrooper, please help me”. Once again, they just met. Caring about telling a little white lie to someone you don’t even know isn’t something to care about.

He didn’t tell her because he was ashamed of The First Order as he said in his speech to her when he was trying to leave the fight. Being ashamed of being associated with such a group is a sign of someone being good or at least changing into a good person.

My point on his feelings about him lying is a small one anyways, but even if his reason for lying to her was because he was ashamed of the First Order there’s no reason for him to actually feel bad about lying to her. It’s not like he told her something outrageous like “Ah yes Kylo Ren killed your father, From a Certain Point of View!”
He just met her and their chemistry on screen was really weak.

one word isn’t enough to convince me of Kylo’s opinion on Vader. If he actually does believe Vader was seduced by the light, then why bother asking his mask for help when Kylo feels pulled by the light? If he wants to idolize Vader for his achievements as a Sith Lord, fair game. But literally asking him for help in THAT situation seems incredibly silly.
And how would Kylo even form the opinion that Vader was seduced by the light? He didn’t know Vader and we don’t even know how he began to worship him. We do know that Luke trained him and we can assume that Luke probably told him about his grandfather, but that doesn’t explain how Kylo came to the conclusion that Vader turning to the light was bad. Kylo didn’t know Vader and Luke was the only one to hear his final words when he died. What other living person could even have a valid opinion on Vader aside from Luke?

Hopefully this puts this debate to rest:

“Kylo Ren, I watched the Galactic Empire rise, and then fall. The gullible prattle on about the triumph of truth and justice, of individualism and free will. As if such things were solid and real instead of simple subjective judgments. The historians have it all wrong. It was neither poor strategy nor arrogance that brought down the Empire. You know too well what did.” Ren nodded once. “Sentiment.” “Yes." “Such a simple thing. Such a foolish error of judgment. A momentary lapse in an otherwise exemplary life.” “Had Lord Vader not succumbed to emotion at the crucial moment—had the father killed the son—the Empire would have prevailed.” "And there would be no threat of Skywalker’s return today.” “I am immune to the light,” Ren assured him confidently. “By the grace of your training, I will not be seduced.”

^ from the TFA novelization.

No that doesn’t put any debate to rest because this is exactly what I should be finding out as I watch The Force Awakens, not when I go to Google information about the novelization. Just like I shouldn’t have to Google why there’s a Resistance and why the Republic has no military or find out from a random search of “TR-8R” that the nobody with the spinny baton was actually Finn’s squadmate and friend (Man Finn, your moral compass sure is on point. I wish I could casually watch my friends die, but break into a sweat over a random Stormtrooper dying and villagers I don’t know being shot).
If it’s not in the movie, it doesn’t work. If outside sources explain what the movie should explain to the audience that doesn’t mean the movie shouldn’t be criticized.
I didn’t need to Google anything for ANH to make sense or ESB or RotJ. I don’t remember being confused about character motives and personalities in any of the prequels enough to fill in the blanks with some book or a Wookiepedia page.

Lord Haseo said:

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.

No matter how much you try to brainwash certain people with poisonous ideologies some will still remain decent and Finn is such a person. Whether it be from Satanic Cults or the Nazis there have been multiple people throughout history that have seen the side they were fighting/siding with for what they really are and decided to split from them

This isn’t an issue with Finn being a good person or not. It’s an issue with the First Order. Imagine you’re a rising evil Empire. Now you’re abducting babies and preparing them to fight for you. You want to do evil things because you’re evil so you want your soldiers to carry out those evil things. You’d obviously prepare them for combat, but you’d also prepare them for following orders like “kill these innocent people” or “steal candy from this child”. If they fail to follow out those orders, reprogram them (the First Order is able to do that after all, they say it in the movie) or kill them and move on. If Finn is just a good guy, how did he even get through training? Do they not prepare their evil soldiers to be evil?

but she acts like an ass to Finn when she meets him

Yes because everyone would be ecstatic that they’re marked for death by the First Order when it’s another’s fault.

Yeah except he didn’t do anything. She attacked him and got in his way, she would have been “marked for death” anyways if she was found with that droid. If Finn wasn’t there and didn’t drag her away from those First Order troops, (guy saves your life and the first thing that comes to mind is to complain about him dragging your ass from danger, good shit Rey) she would have been killed. If Finn didn’t drag her away AGAIN when the TIE Fighters were doing runs on the Junkyard, (again she complains about her hand being held, I just don’t understand Rey) she would have been blown to pieces. If there’s anyone to actually blame for putting Rey in danger, it’s BB-8.

Why does Finn even care that he lied to her?

For the same reason he defected and it’s bec…ause he’s a good person. I don’t understand how such a simple concept is so jarring to you.

Being a good person has nothing to do with telling a white lie like that. Rey just beat Finn to a pulp and BB-8 was clearly not happy with him for having Poe’s jacket. The last thing I’d want to tell a girl that seems to have respect for Resistance and a droid whose master was just supposedly killed by the First Order is “I’m a Stormtrooper, please help me”. Once again, they just met. Caring about telling a little white lie to someone you don’t even know isn’t something to care about.

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?

"By the grace of your training I will not be seduced" - Kylo Ren

He knows Vader was redeemed but believes he was seduced by the enemy.

That one word isn’t enough to convince me of Kylo’s opinion on Vader. If he actually does believe Vader was seduced by the light, then why bother asking his mask for help when Kylo feels pulled by the light? If he wants to idolize Vader for his achievements as a Sith Lord, fair game. But literally asking him for help in THAT situation seems incredibly silly.
And how would Kylo even form the opinion that Vader was seduced by the light? He didn’t know Vader and we don’t even know how he began to worship him. We do know that Luke trained him and we can assume that Luke probably told him about his grandfather, but that doesn’t explain how Kylo came to the conclusion that Vader turning to the light was bad. Kylo didn’t know Vader and Luke was the only one to hear his final words when he died. What other living person could even have a valid opinion on Vader aside from Luke?

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.