Star Wars: The Force Awakens (Post-release)

So, i re watched this movie in 3d again.


The first hour or so is pretty darn good.

Even the last hour or so is pretty darn good.

The only part where it becomes a bit goofy is where rey, who has to be reminded of the force at all later in the movie when she is having her battle, suddenly becomes the master of it all of a sudden, with no explanation.

Maz is pretty cool, if a yoda clone. Han is having the most fun we see him have in any of these movies. BB8 is a great addition. Finn is fun to watch. Poe is OK . Chewbacca is apparently a player with all the women on the base.

if they had just cut down on the 'rey is a force master' stuff, and didn't copy episode 4 so much, it could have been an excellent addition to the saga.

Keep the First Order, keep the basic plot. Get rid of the desert planet. get rid of the star killer base. and you might have something...

oh and the music. movies need better music. period. one or two memorable attempts at themes.. but none of them really feel like they get going.

The Terminator said:

Case in point:
SUPER 8
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bqt9L4fIExA

:lol

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Oddly enough, I think that's an excellent movie. He was really great at emulating someone else' style here. So much so that I had more hope for The force Awakens.

But then as soon as I saw the falcon in the treaser, I was like, "uh oh"

I re-watched it recently and while I still think the movie takes much needed steps in moving the Star Wars franchise forward. First by literally moving the story forward and letting a character like Rey be a hero on a journey than the 'bada** female character* who doesn't go through any development.

Still, there are areas where the movie feels like it doesn't know how things work. Take the First Order and the Resistance for example. Why is the Resistance treated as a separate entity from the New Republic when they should be one and the same? It's like the only grudge the First Order has against the New Republic is that they secretly support the Resistance. If the First Order is aiming for galactic conquest, than why does it matter who the New Republic supports? Or is this film trying to say that if Leia hadn't created the Resistance and left the First Order alone that they wouldn't be space conquerers? It just feels like a convoluted mess.

Yup. Needed to be two films. Basically, Catalyst then TFA. Needed to show -- at least in broad strokes -- how galactic politics had changed since we last visited in ROTJ. There's a New Republic, with a rotating capitol. There is a de-fanged Imperial Remnant, that still holds staunchly Imperialist systems like Coruscant. There is a new player in the game, comprised of Imperial hardliners who refused to sign the surrender, preferring to flee to the Unknown Regions. And there is the Resistance, formed when the New Republic dismissed Leia's concerns and warning about the First Order as trying to be like her bio-dad, moving the Republic to a militarized stance in a prelude to seizing power.

"Who are these institutions and what are their motivations?" is kinda important. It's okay to drop us into the middle of it in the original film. There's an evil Galactic Empire, and there's a rebellion against it. Now there are seven films of backstory (in-universe chronology) showing the evolution of the setting. TFA doesn't exist in the vacuum Star Wars did in '77. If the las tthing the audience saw was the Rebels destroying the second Death Star and the Emperor and Vader dead, there needs to be some slight attention given to conveying the transition from that to the state of affairs the new film finds us in thirty years on. But as it is, he have people shocked and horrified that the bad guys blew up Coruscant (they didn't), don't understand the relationship between the Republic and the Resistance, think the First Order are the Empire, etc.

--Jonah

astroboy said:

Oddly enough, I think that's an excellent movie. He was really great at emulating someone else' style here. So much so that I had more hope for The force Awakens.

But then as soon as I saw the falcon in the treaser, I was like, "uh oh"

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I too liked Super 8

I also liked TFA :angel

Jeyl said:

I re-watched it recently and while I still think the movie takes much needed steps in moving the Star Wars franchise forward. First by literally moving the story forward and letting a character like Rey be a hero on a journey than the 'bada** female character* who doesn't go through any development.

Still, there are areas where the movie feels like it doesn't know how things work. Take the First Order and the Resistance for example. Why is the Resistance treated as a separate entity from the New Republic when they should be one and the same? It's like the only grudge the First Order has against the New Republic is that they secretly support the Resistance. If the First Order is aiming for galactic conquest, than why does it matter who the New Republic supports? Or is this film trying to say that if Leia hadn't created the Resistance and left the First Order alone that they wouldn't be space conquerers? It just feels like a convoluted mess.

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It doesn't help when you need info from a couple books for everything to make sense. The First Order is what they are, and while maybe an odd name you don't need to know too much. The republic side is what needs the explanation. The First Order came out so to speak and was/were on the fringe of the outer rim i believe and started taking some territory there. Some in the republic wanted to stop them but the Senate en masse basically opted for appeasement (we all know that works) and let them be and after the clone wars and the OT weren't big on having a centralized military. Leia, amongst others, saw the danger and kinda withdrew from the senate and helped form the resistance, a psuedo republic military group focused on fighting the First Order and not letting them re-establish the imperial ways.

THAT needed to be in there somewhere. Whether the scrawl or some throwaway lines up front....something. But no, you had to get it from a book.

Inquisitor Peregrinus said:

Yup. Needed to be two films. Basically, Catalyst then TFA. Needed to show -- at least in broad strokes -- how galactic politics had changed since we last visited in ROTJ. There's a New Republic, with a rotating capitol. There is a de-fanged Imperial Remnant, that still holds staunchly Imperialist systems like Coruscant. There is a new player in the game, comprised of Imperial hardliners who refused to sign the surrender, preferring to flee to the Unknown Regions. And there is the Resistance, formed when the New Republic dismissed Leia's concerns and warning about the First Order as trying to be like her bio-dad, moving the Republic to a militarized stance in a prelude to seizing power.

"Who are these institutions and what are their motivations?" is kinda important. It's okay to drop us into the middle of it in the original film. There's an evil Galactic Empire, and there's a rebellion against it. Now there are seven films of backstory (in-universe chronology) showing the evolution of the setting. TFA doesn't exist in the vacuum Star Wars did in '77. If the las tthing the audience saw was the Rebels destroying the second Death Star and the Emperor and Vader dead, there needs to be some slight attention given to conveying the transition from that to the state of affairs the new film finds us in thirty years on. But as it is, he have people shocked and horrified that the bad guys blew up Coruscant (they didn't), don't understand the relationship between the Republic and the Resistance, think the First Order are the Empire, etc.

--Jonah

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So, the first order isn't the Empire/Remnant? or just a splinter group?

since they republic wasn't on coruscant.. i assumed the empire still is and the never retook it for some reason.

KrangPrime said:

So, the first order isn't the Empire/Remnant? or just a splinter group?

since they republic wasn't on coruscant.. i assumed the empire still is and the never retook it for some reason.

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That would be a prime example of stuff that needed to be at least sligntly more spelled out. The Rebellion had the momentum after Endor. By about a year later, they had the Empire on the ropes. The Imperial fleet's last stand was at Jakku, where there was a secret Imperial research facility. The now-New Republic forces were winning, and the Imperial forces surrendered. Some hardline loyalists refused the surrender order, stripped everything out of the research facility, and fled. They hooked up with other Imperial assets secretly in the Unknown Regions, finished the Starkiller, and rebranded themselves as the First Order. The defeated Empire, meanwhile, had been forced to disarm and was hit with crushing reparations, a la post-WWI, but they were permitted to retain those systems that were staunchly pro-Imperial. We do not yet have any indication of how they're doing.

All of that is in Battlefront, the new Marvel comics, Aftermath, Bloodlines, the TFA novelization, etc. But not on the screen, where it needed to be...

--Jonah

There was not much exposition of how galactic politics worked during the OT - and I don't think the new trilogy needs it, either. We have the info we need and LFL's marketing will make sure there's enough supplemental info out there to fill in whatever blanks some need to be filled in.

Too much political nonsense will remind folks of the prequels. It's not an easy fit in sci-fi/fantasy film. While I would've loved more of an in depth political thriller in PT, it just doesn't fit the Star Wars mold.

JD said:

There was not much exposition of how galactic politics worked during the OT - and I don't think the new trilogy needs it, either. We have the info we need and LFL's marketing will make sure there's enough supplemental info out there to fill in whatever blanks some need to be filled in.

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Disagree. In the OT we had an Empire that everyone apparently hated, and Our Hero was fighting against it. There were plot points in the original film referring to an Old Republic, and an Imperial Senate that was probably around in an earlier form during said Republic. Anyone with a passing knowledge of Classical history will hear echos of Roman history there. But yes, it was all we needed, as an audience. But if things have changed since we last left that state of affairs (which they have), we need more than what we got. Otherwise, audiences wouldn't be so confused. A lot of people think the First Order is the Empire -- not just "rose from the ashes" of it, as the opening crawl vaguely states. The fact that there's an Imperial remnant separate from the First Order is a fairly important detail, especially considering they still hold what we last knew as the capitol world. Yes, we astute fan-viewers mostly caught that the New Republic capitol was called Hosnian Prime, but many, many others missed that.

I'm not saying it needed to be dumbed down, spoon fed to us, or bogged down in excruciating political detail like the Prequels. Just a slightly different wording in the opening crawl (needed for other reasons, too), and/or just a couple seconds more dialogue, like...

SOMEONE ON JAKKU: Imperial fighters? Here?
SOMEONE ELSE: No -- the Republic forced them to disarm when they surrendered. I bet this is that "First Order" group I've been hearing about recently.

...or...

LEIA: I sent my aide to try one more time to try to convince the Senate to speak out against the First Order. Appeasement has never worked.
HAN: Where's the capitol this week?
LEIA (glaring sidelong): I know you think the idea of a rotating capitol is ridiculous, but the very fact that we had to leave the Imperial Remnant in control of Corsucant should prove the point. It got so corrupt as a concentration of power during the collapse of the Old Republic, we can't afford to have that happen again to some other world.

Not exactly that, but "ish". That wasn't even trying -- just off the top of my head. It can be done. Briefly, naturally, clearly... Almost subliminally. How many people caught as kids the all the implications of the political talk in the original film? I sure didn't. But it lodged in my subconscious as information that helped make the larger, surface story require less thought to follow. Same here.

--Jonah

There supposedly was an early scene with Leia sending her aide to the capital where some exposition could have been made but it was cut, I guess JJ thought it was too boring or too long or something. But hey that Rathar scene sure was cool huh?

We pretty much got what we need in the first seconds of the movie.

Luke Skywalker has vanished. In his absence, the sinister FIRST ORDER has risen from the ashes of the Empire and will not rest until Skywalker, the last Jedi, has been destroyed.


With the support of the REPUBLIC, General Leia Organa leads a brave RESISTANCE. She is desperate to find her brother Luke and gain his help in restoring peace and justice to the galaxy.


Leia has sent her most daring pilot on a secret mission to Jakku, where an old ally has discovered a clue to Luke’s whereabouts….

robn1 said:

There supposedly was an early scene with Leia sending her aide to the capital where some exposition could have been made but it was cut, I guess JJ thought it was too boring or too long or something. But hey that Rathar scene sure was cool huh?

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Of all the sequences in TFA, the one I most wish had been cut was the Rathtar scene, if only to give the film another 5-10 minutes to breathe and give just a little more exposition.

You should not have to refer to comicbooks, novels, or video games to understand the state of affairs in a film. This, by the way, is one of the reasons I think Dune is largely unfilmable. So much of what makes that universe work is in the original book's appendices and chapter openings.

Solo4114 said:

Of all the sequences in TFA, the one I most wish had been cut was the Rathtar scene, if only to give the film another 5-10 minutes to breathe and give just a little more exposition.

You should not have to refer to comicbooks, novels, or video games to understand the state of affairs in a film. This, by the way, is one of the reasons I think Dune is largely unfilmable. So much of what makes that universe work is in the original book's appendices and chapter openings.

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You know what would have been WAY better than the rathars?

Imagine if the freighter was picked up by the first order Star destroyer? And just as the freighter is about to be pulled in by the tractor beam, Kylo witness the falcon tear out of the freighter.

And that is the moment he realizes that Han is involved.

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Disney probably got plenty of comments about "too much political exposition all the time!" when they looked at prequel gripes. They probably erred way low on it in TFA for that reason - and I don't blame them.

That whole movie was a 2-hour public apology/atonement for the prequels. The public lost sight of that very quickly once it came out.

batguy said:

Disney probably got plenty of comments about "too much political exposition all the time!" when they looked at prequel gripes. They probably erred way low on it in TFA for that reason - and I don't blame them.

That whole movie was a 2-hour public apology/atonement for the prequels. The public lost sight of that very quickly once it came out.

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Absolutely. I just think that they could've handled explaining who was who a bit better. I was confused as to the nature of the Resistance and the Republic. I had a sort of instinctual understanding of the First Order, and basically just figured "Ok, they're the Imperial Remnant." I didn't really consider that there was another Imperial Remnant, mostly because I didn't think it'd matter to the film or in a political sense.

Solo4114 said:

Of all the sequences in TFA, the one I most wish had been cut was the Rathtar scene, if only to give the film another 5-10 minutes to breathe and give just a little more exposition.

You should not have to refer to comicbooks, novels, or video games to understand the state of affairs in a film. This, by the way, is one of the reasons I think Dune is largely unfilmable. So much of what makes that universe work is in the original book's appendices and chapter openings.

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I agree that a lot more exposition was needed, and the Rathars scene dragged as far as action sequences go, but to be fair, SW has always used comics, books, games, and other media for fill in expository gaps that the films leave.

I'm perfectly fine with vague politics in my Star Wars movies.
I know who the good guys are, and I know who the bad guys are.
There was a brief moment when I was younger when I wondered what Leia meant by "Imperial Senate".
Kind of an oxymoron, if you think about it - but I didn't spend too much time thinking about it.
Star Wars wasn't about the politics*, it was about the journey of a farm boy forging his destiny and finding the strength and courage to do what's right.
If I want sci-fi about politics there's plenty of other stuff to watch**.
I watch Star Wars to see rag-tag underdogs stick it to the man in spectacular fashion.

*The prequels are not Star Wars. Not to me.
** Those lousy prequels, for example.

Axlotl said:

I'm perfectly fine with vague politics in my Star Wars movies.
I know who the good guys are, and I know who the bad guys are.
There was a brief moment when I was younger when I wondered what Leia meant by "Imperial Senate".
Kind of an oxymoron, if you think about it - but I didn't spend too much time thinking about it.
Star Wars wasn't about the politics*, it was about the journey of a farm boy forging his destiny and finding the strength and courage to do what's right.
If I want sci-fi about politics there's plenty of other stuff to watch**.
I watch Star Wars to see rag-tag underdogs stick it to the man in spectacular fashion.

*The prequels are not Star Wars. Not to me.
** Those lousy prequels, for example.

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With Jedi/Sith involved. I just wanted to add to that because thats exactly how I feel. I mean cmon, the First Order is the Empire. The resistance is the Alliance. Its the same thing but with different names.

I agree. I liked the movie just the way it was. I didn't need to know all the hows or whys of how the First Order came about. I was satisfied with what was in the opening crawl. That's all I needed.