ZkinandBonez

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.”

Alderaan said:

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 said detention center? 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 its uneven. There were plenty of good things to like in this movie, but the stuff before we met Rey is not among them.

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

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ztSV-FDqN0k

SilverWook said:

Jay said:

hydrospanner said:

It appeared that Kylo sensed something wrong with him during and after the battle? He maybe did some quick intel on that trooper upon their return?

I don’t get this either. Ren obviously senses something is off with this dude. Wouldn’t someone like Ren immediately place him in custody and have him interrogated?

SilverWook said:

Finn’s ability with a lightsaber also might be a massive hint about something. 😉

This is a spoiler-laden thread. You’re free to expound upon your theories 😃

I don’t think every potential Jedi is born with Force abilities fully “switched on”. Ren is sensing something from Finn, but he’s too pissed off and distracted by not getting the map to really ponder if it’s more than fear.

Depends on what you mean by him “sensing” something. Finn was kind of staring at him. He didn’t necessarily sense anything.

hydrospanner said:

ZkinandBonez said:

Jay said:

hydrospanner said:

It appeared that Kylo sensed something wrong with him during and after the battle? He maybe did some quick intel on that trooper upon their return?

I don’t get this either. Ren obviously senses something is off with this dude. Wouldn’t someone like Ren immediately place him in custody and have him interrogated?

Didn’t Phasma order Finn to go and get re-evaluated or something? Or, maybe it was just about his blaster? I can’t remember.

It was to submit his blaster for inspection, but I got the feeling that was more just standard post-battle protocol. I guess a good question would be why he was put in charge of escorting Poe away if Ren sensed something off about him and Phasma could see he was visibly shaken.

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

Alderaan said:

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.

I was more questioning why those trooper were posted on the Death Star to begin with. Not exactly the best guys to guard the biggest, most important weapon in the possession of the Empire. It was plot convenience back then, and I think it’s just the same today that Finn was in the right place at the wrong time. Maybe I’m wrong, but I feel like we’re praising one film, and condemning another for essentially doing the same things. TFA kind of makes bad habit of it, but they’re still kind of the same things.

Jay said:

hydrospanner said:

It appeared that Kylo sensed something wrong with him during and after the battle? He maybe did some quick intel on that trooper upon their return?

I don’t get this either. Ren obviously senses something is off with this dude. Wouldn’t someone like Ren immediately place him in custody and have him interrogated?

Didn’t Phasma order Finn to go and get re-evaluated or something? Or, maybe it was just about his blaster? I can’t remember.

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.

Alderaan said:

[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.

Well, another Stormtrooper stood his ground against Finn with a lightsaber as well. Clearly these guys have some fencing/sparring training. He also shouted “traitor!” at him so he might have been someone who knew him. And if he knew him then they might have been in the same squadron (or whatever it’s called). That scene, despite clearly being an actions scene made for the sake of action, could have been a way to hint at why Finn managed to use the lightsaber so well.

It could be that he was just on duty at the wrong time and on the wrong Star Destroyer.

Then again, Kylo did remember his serial number.

Alderaan said:

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.

Then again he did manage to stand his ground against Kylo Ren in a lightsaber duel so clearly he’s not without combat skills. His courage also seems to come and go a lot in the film. I think his defection was meant to be more of a moral and ideological one. I can’t remember if it’s in the actual film, but the trailers put emphasis on him having lost the will to fight for the First Order. He’s essentially just fed up with it. Also his taunting of Phasma at Starkiller Base kind of suggest that he’s tired of being order about as well. But all in all the film is partially about him finding something worth fighting for.

There really is far to much information to process in this film. I really feel like a lot of important stuff was cut out. I wish we could have seen the 4 hour version they talked a few months ago.

I feel like we’re really rationalizing this film in both directions. We’re either making out to be far better than it actually is, or we’re making it far worse.

Alderaan said:

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?

He might have been in battle before. But the early events of TFA may have been the first time he’s been ordered to massacre innocents. For all we know he’s killed plenty of Resistance soldiers before.
But either way we can’t really make assumptions about these things before we have all the facts in.

I’m also curious as to how long Starkiller Base have been under construction. Like many here have pointed out, it’s strange how a remnant can make an even bigger Death Star, even if the technology have evolved in the last thirty years. Of course we don’t really know how powerful they really are, but it’s possible that they’ve been building it for many years. The second Death Star was made in under two years, so maybe they’ve spent the better part of a decade on Starkiller? That might explain why Finn was there as a janitor. It might have been several years ago while they were still building it. Someone should read the novelization, I feel like there might be a lot of answers there. Until then it’s just guessing, and making excuses.

Well, this is a new, modern fascist regime, or rather wannabe-regime. It makes sense that they’be be a mixed bag, unlike the old Empire, since these a more of an ideological off-shoot of the old Empire. The Empire was Palpatine’s New Order, these are fascist rebelling against the New Republic, modelling themselves after the Empire. Also, it’s been 30 years, so it’s hard to tell what their view of the old Empire actually is.
Until the EU, or the new films explain these details we can only make guesses. Also, it’s not like fascism is immediately based on racism. The OT Empire was kind of mirroring the Nazi’s, as well as British colonialism, because that was still somewhat relevant back in the 70’s. This is 30 years later, both in the real world and in the SW universe, and a lot have clearly changed in both during those three decades.

TheWanderingNomad said:

SilverWook said:

TheWanderingNomad said:

The Resistance base looked far too much like a set than a real world location, especially compared to Hoth or Yavin.

You do know they used a real RAF military base for that, right?

Yes. & it doesn’t alter the fact it looked like a set. When I say ‘real world’ I mean within the context of the Star Wars universe. It was one step up from Dr Who using English quarries for alien planets in the 70s. The rather pedestrian way those scenes were shot didn’t help either.

Well, a lot of studio lots used to be aircraft hangars, so that does kind of makes sense. And a lot of studio lots are built on the same principle. But I think it would be more correct to say that sets look like hangars, rather than saying that the hangars look like sets.

Alderaan said:

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.

That was kind of my point though, that they haven’t just rehashed old character-clichès. Hux behaves differently because he has reason to. He screams and yell, because of the same reason that Kylo does. Because they’re both young fanatics, unlike the middle-ages generals of the OT. The power balance has turned up-side-down since the OT, so these characters have a reason to behave more frantically. I don’t get the idea that HUX is some cartoon villain (then again the OT bad guys weren’t to far from that either), he’s a young extremist. In his mind it’s probably him against the world. I also seem to recall an interview with Gleeson where he explained Hux’s motivations as a young general, pining for control and order in what he sees as an out of control galaxy. He want control, and he’s not getting it, hence his erratic behavior. Kylo does the same, he’s looking for control, fails to get it, and he looses control of his emotions. Despite looking very much like the OT Empire, these character’s have completely different motivations.

I think comparing any of the new “bad-guys” cast to the old one is a mistake. In the OT the Empire had been around for quite while, and they were the ones in charge. Even as far as the PT & EU goes, many of these people were in charge during the Clone Wars, so there’s a reason why these are all older more calm and in control characters. Tarkin is a war veteran, a governor (Moff), a general, he’s been a big shot in the ‘Galactic’ Empire for a fairly long time. Hux on the other hand is a young idealist trying to restore something which was destroyed when he was just barely born. It makes sense for him to have an impassioned, Hitler-esque, speech about destroying the enemy. This guy is fighting a much stronger political power and he knows that he’ll have to fight for what he believes in. Tarkin, Piett, Needa, etc. they were all calm and confident because they were already in charge of the world. The Rebels were just a nuisance that they underestimated. Hux, as well as Kylo, has a lot more weighing on their shoulders.

And if you think about it this way, you kind of get the impression that in TFA the First Order, although still very, very powerful, are kind of the underdogs this time around. And although the whole Starkiller Base thing is still kind of a cop-out, it makes a lot more sense how confidently, and efficiently it was taken down. The Resistance is now run by the more calm and in control veterans of the past, and they know what they’re doing this time around. The First Order are the ones trying to catch up in the new trilogy.

Mavimao said:

ZkinandBonez said:

Beatleboy99 said:

Just got back from the theater and I can honestly say I had a great time at the movie. The only things that I didn’t exactly care for were the look of Snoke, and the fact that the word “Sith” was used in the film.

When did Snoke use the word “Sith.” I remember him throwing out the “Knights of Ren” (which must have confused anyone who’s not been paying attention to spoilers these last few months), but I can’t recall him mentioning the Sith.
Can you remember what context Snoke used it in?

It wasn’t Snoke, it was Maz Kanata who said it when listing off the evils the galaxy had already faced (the Sith, the Empire).

Ah, right.

Beatleboy99 said:

Just got back from the theater and I can honestly say I had a great time at the movie. The only things that I didn’t exactly care for were the look of Snoke, and the fact that the word “Sith” was used in the film.

When did Snoke use the word “Sith.” I remember him throwing out the “Knights of Ren” (which must have confused anyone who’s not been paying attention to spoilers these last few months), but I can’t recall him mentioning the Sith.
Can you remember what context Snoke used it in?

Yoda Is Your Father said:

1. CGI characters. Maz, Snoke, that dude who gives Rey her rations… Prosthetics would have looked better in my humble opinion.

He was prosthetics though. He was actually Simon Pegg in a suit. The only time I think they used CGI on him was when he shouted at Rey as she took off with Falcon. His expression liked a bit phony in that shot. Other than that though it was definitely a practical effect.

hydrospanner said:

Anyone else catch the Bespin corridor shot during Rey’s vision?

Are you sure? I don’t remember that. I guess I’ll have to keep an eye our for that while re-watching it.
Can you describe it?

Not to be rude, but how did you manage to assume Chewie was CGI?
Have we really gotten so used to digital imagery in these last two decades that we’re starting to assume that everything had to be fake.
Will however admit that the new Chewie was much blonder than before. Maybe that’s just how Woolverstone age. He is after all well over 200 at this point.

I’m also curious to see what his roles in the future films will be now that Han is dead. Didn’t he stick with Han because of some debt, or is that just the EU explanation? Since he went with Rey to find Luke at the end it could be that he’ll be her copilot/sidekick in the next two films.
(I’m also assuming that he’ll play a big part in the upcoming young Han Solo film.)

Comparing anyone to an actor like Peter Cushing is practically a guarantee for disappointment.

Wow, people here are surprisingly nitpicky about acting all of a sudden.

I personally can’t say that I noticed anything wrong with anyone’s acting. At least no more than the original films, which, let’s be honest, also had their mediocre and even phoned in acting moments (and I’m not just talking about ROTJ).

All I can say is; watch the original trilogy first, ideally in an unaltered state, then once you’ve got the ground-works you can navigate the plethora of SE content based on your own judgment. Just don’t ruin your first impression of the franchise by not watching the originals first. Watching them in the new order will just be confusing. Start at the beginning (e.g. the first films made) and work your way ahead from there.

SilverWook said:

There were Tribbles in Star Trek III you know. 😉

Yeah, but ST III had an actual ST-plot. Similarly to how TFA had an actual SW-plot, hence little Easter-eggs are acceptable. ST 2009 was all Easter-eggs, cameos, references, throwbacks, rehashes, and name dropping. There was so much of it that it took over the plot, which wasn’t really an ST-story to begin with. I don’t mind Easter-eggs, but I need more than Easter-eggs to be convinced that I’m watching a new installment in a franchise.