Am I REALLY the only one disappointed with TFA?

Keith, I share your low opinion of the film. Just curious what you didn't like about it?

The Wook

Just about everything. 50% of it was a poor remake of ANH and the other 50% was like a bad fan boy film.
The falcon bouncing off the ground all the time, Chewbacca looked like he's had an eye job and his teeth sharpened, overacting from almost everyone, a bad guy who i would bitch slap rather than punch, Domhnall Gleeson's (i didn't know his name until i googled it) voice, the usual bulky and oversized look off most of the costumes and masks....just too much to list really. I didn't even like the wording in the opening crawl.
I liked seeing Luke at the end, but then i found myself thinking..."either take the saber or tell her you don't want it, as her arm must be aching. How did they find that saber anyway? Maybe that was what Luke was saying to Leia when he was lying on the bed in the falcon after they went back for him in ESB..."we have to go back again now for my lightsaber".

I really thought i would like this one and see it as a 4th star wars film, but i didn't.

Keith.
 
Just about everything. 50% of it was a poor remake of ANH and the other 50% was like a bad fanboy film.
The falcon bouncing off the ground all the time, Chewbacca looked like he's had an eye job and his teeth sharpened, overacting from almost everyone, a bad guy who i would bitch slap rather than punch, Domhnall Gleeson's (i didn't know his name until i googled it) voice, the usual bulky and oversized look off most of the costumes and masks....just too much to list really. I didn't even like the wording in the opening crawl.
I liked seeing Luke at the end, but then i found myself thinking..."either take the saber or tell her you don't want it, as her arm must be aching. How did they find that saber anyway? Maybe that was what Luke was saying to Leia when he was lying on the bed in the falcon after they went back for him in ESB..."we have to go back again now for my lightsaber".

I really thought i would like this one and see it as a 4th star wars film, but i didn't.

Keith.

You're right, Keith, there is too much to list. But everything you did list, was spot on.

The Wook
 
Sure. I like chocolate cake... Someone gives me a second chocolate cake that tastes as good as the first, I'm on board. But if someone gives me a chocolate cake made without sugar, butter, or chocolate, but instead made with, say, Trade disputes and Midiclorians?

No thanks... I'll take the cake with the same ingredients as the first.
 
In some franchises, 38 years is considered long enough to justify re-covering known ground again.


This is considered normal in, umm, well . . . every single other franchise on the planet besides this one.
 
Using classic iconography and designs from a film series last seen in 1983 is an important touch stone to the vast majority of the potential audience to ground it back in that universe. The PT designs were very different and somewhat hit or miss. Clearly based on toy sales they ships didn't resonate nearly as well and about .00000001% of people have ever seen any EU designs. If you want to create a sense of familiarity as part of a reintroduction, you use the classic looks. Just because Star Wars is a constant in many of our lives it's not for everyone else if you are hoping to address the largest audience possible you provide them with visual cue's they already know.
 
In some franchises, 38 years is considered long enough to justify re-covering known ground again.
The way that TFA mirrors the story from ANH plot-point by plot-point is not just re-covering or revisiting; It is ridiculous.

It is as if first you have a Batman movie with Batman's origin story: parents being murdered on a back street by who will later become his nemesis after they had seen a Zorro movie, trained in martial arts by a future villain in Tibet (or wherever), builds the batcave and comes back as Batman with the help of his butler and a secret department of his business empire.
... and then in a later movie you have Robin's origin story: parents being murdered on a back street by who will later become his nemesis after the family had seen a Zorro movie, trained in martial arts by a future villain in Tibet, builds the Robincave and appears as the crime-fighter Robin with the help of Robin's butler and a secret department of Robin's business empire.
No self-respecting Batman fan would accept that as a good story, writing long posts defending the filmmakers' decisions to "go back to the basics" and "re-cover known ground". Nobody would use "At least it is not campy Adam West-Batman" as an excuse to justify it. Seriously.
 
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ANH will always be my favorite too. It's where it all started and I just love the first Death Star environment and the Stormtroopers. I can just put ANH on my Tv and just do stuff around the house while it's on in the background. Same with all the OT movies I guess. I rarely watch the PT though. :)


Ben

ANH in the background as I do stuff- love this. I'm that comfortable with it. Like a warm blanket. It's so familiar, almost soothing. The sounds, the music, the dialogue. I probably know it better than anything else in my life. And that's either sad, or beautiful. Let's go with beautiful.
 
The way that TFA mirrors the story from ANH plot-point by plot-point is not just re-covering or revisiting; It is ridiculous.

It is as if first you have a Batman movie with Batman's origin story: parents being murdered on a back street by who will later become his nemesis after they had seen a Zorro movie, trained in martial arts by a future villain in Tibet (or wherever), builds the batcave and comes back as Batman with the help of his butler and a secret department of his business empire.
... and then in a later movie you have Robin's origin story: parents being murdered on a back street by who will later become his nemesis after the family had seen a Zorro movie, trained in martial arts by a future villain in Tibet, builds the Robincave and appears as the crime-fighter Robin with the help of Robin's butler and a secret department of Robin's business empire.
No self-respecting Batman fan would accept that as a good story, writing long posts defending the filmmakers' decisions to "go back to the basics" and "re-cover known ground". Nobody would use "At least it is not campy Adam West-Batman" as an excuse to justify it. Seriously.



Okay, so call TFA a "soft remake" of ANH. But ANH is still pushing 40 years old.

Seriously, how many years is enough to make that okay? Give me a number. If ANH was only 20 years old right now then would you really have said 40 was not enough?



I can agree that the similarity of TFA and ANH is closer than it should have been. I guess I'm just more willing to forgive it.

There was a huge amount of planning & effort going into this movie (and the future of the franchise as a whole) once Disney took over. If TFA is too similar to ANH it's not because they didn't bother to consider any other ideas. They chose to make it that close consciously. I would call it a creative mistake or risk-avoidance but I would not call it lack of effort in TFA's case. It would have cost them nothing (proportionally) to branch the storyline away from the ANH pattern.



Look at it this way:

When a no-budget movie from the 1970s gets a no-budget DVD release and the image still has crappy grainy film, it's because of cheapness.

But I don't call it cheapness when Quentin Tarantino's Death Proof movie has grainy film. It was shot in modern times for like $60 million bucks. If it looks cheap then that was an artistic decision and i don't think cheapness was a major motivator for it. Same grainy film look as the reissued 1970s DVD, different circumstances of the project surrounding it.
 
So I watched TFA again this weekend, this time keeping in mind that everyone's big complaint is it's the same friggin movie as ANH.

So yeah, there's a death star, and a desert planet, but really, how close is it? I watched the flick, assigning the characters from ANH to the movie I was watching just to try it out.

I just don't see it.

But maybe I'm wrong. Maybe they are the same movie... so here it is.... TFA starring all the matching Characters from ANH....


"A long time ago in a galaxy far far away...."

We open on a shot of a Star Destroyer. Assault landers launch from it, heading to the planet Tattoine below.

On Tattoine, Princess Leia is at a small village where she receives a piece of a missing map from an old friend, Captain Antilles, which could lead to finding the Jedi master Yoda

The Assault landers arrive. Princess Leia grabs her droid, R2, and runs for her X-wing, but it’s disabled. She puts the map in R2 and tells him to run. She’ll come back for him.

Darth Vader’s ship arrives, and he confronts Antilles. Antilles won’t give up his info, and taunts Vader about his family. Vader slices Antilles in two.

Princess Leia shoots at Vader, but Vader stops her blast mid-air. She’s captured, searched, and brought aboard. While all this is happening, a young Stormtrooper, Han Solo, is shell shocked after witnessing a friend die during their taking of the village. Vader orders everyone in the village killed, but Han just stands there unable to pull the trigger.

-------

On another part of Tattoine, young Luke Skywalker is scavenging around a crashed Star Destroyer. He takes all of his found parts back to a junkyard where he attempts to sell them to Owen Lars. Owen rips him off, and so Luke takes his tiny portion of food payment and heads home, which is a destroyed At-At, where he lives by himself.

While eating his payment, he hears an R2 unit. He runs over to find a Jawa trying to capture R2. Luke frees R2 and tells him to leave. R2 begs to stay, so Luke agrees, but only til morning.

-------

On the Star Destroyer, Han is still shaken, and is ordered by his commander, Boba Fett, to go for reconditioning.

Meanwhile, Vader is torturing Leia. Leia gives up the location of R2 after Vader uses the force to read her mind.

Back with Han - he’s not at all into getting reconditioned, and so breaks out Princess Leia, asking if she can fly a tie fighter. She can, and they both escape the Star Destroyer, but are shot down on their way back to Tattoine.

-------

On Tattoine, Owen Lars tries to buy R2 off of Luke, but Luke has grown to like him, and says no. Owen Lars orders two guys to steal it from him.

-------

Meanwhile, Han and Leia have crashed on Tattoine. Han looks desperately for Leia, but only finds her jacket. He puts it on (it’s snug), and walks across Tattoine, finally reaching the junkyard.

Just as Han reaches the junkyard, the two roughians try to steal R2 from Luke. Luke’s been fending for himself his whole life, so easily beats them down. Han runs over, but R2 tells Luke he’s wearing Leia’s jacket. Luke chases Han and beats him up. Han informs R2 that Leia is dead, and he’s from the rebellion… here to help R2 get back to the rebels.
Just then, Tie fighters attack. Luke drags Han aboard an old freighter, the Millennium Falcon, and escape.

--------

On the Star Destroyer, Vader is told R2 escaped. He meets with Lord Palpatine and Tarkin. Palaptine questions if he’s not being drawn toward the light by being the son of Obi Wan. Vader swears he’s not.

-------

On the Falcon, Luke runs around trying to hold the ship together when they are suddenly drawn into a tractor beam and loaded onto a bigger freighter. The door to the Falcon is opened and Obi Wan Kenobi and his Wookie friend, Chewy, race aboard, guns drawn.

Obi and Chewy find Han and Luke, questioning where they found Obi’s old ship. They tell them about R2 and the map to Yoda… Obi tells them all about Jedi’s being real blah blah blah.

Suddenly they are boarded by pirates…A bunch of boring stuff happens where Han and Luke are chased around by a trash compactor monster. After a bunch of stuff with CG monsters, the 4 of them, and R2 escape on the falcon.

Obi knows they need a clean ship, so he looks up an old friend at the Mos Eisley Space Port, Lando.

--------

On landing at Mos Eisley, Obi offers Luke a Job on the Falcon. Luke turns him down. Luke needs to go back to tattoine and wait for his family.

They meet with Lando, who gives Obi crap about responsibilities to the woman he left behind, Padme. Han wants to get the heck out of Mos Eisley and so hires some guys to fly him far away. Luke hears a strange call, and so follows some stairs down to where Lando is keeping Yoda’s tiny lightsaber. Luke touches it and has all kind’s of weird vision stuff.

Lando finds Luke and tells him he needs to help fight the evil Empire. Luke says no. He doesn’t want to get involved. Luke runs away.

-------

On board the Death Star, Tarkin gives a rousing speech, and then blows up Alderaan.

-------

Everyone at Mos Eisley is terrified at watching an entire planet blow up, but then even more terrified when tie fighters attack the space port.

Lando gives Han the lightsaber. Han fights a Stormtrooper (who is trained with a melee weapon) with another melee weapon (Yoda’s saber) – cuz Han would also have melee weapon training. Han wins! However, though Han, Obi and Chewy do their best to fight, they are captured. Vader lands and searches the woods for Luke.

Just as things look to be at their worst, here comes Princess Leia and her team of X-wings. They attack the Emperial troops, allowing Obi, Han and Chewy to escape.

Vader finds Luke in the bushes and knocks him out. He carries Luke back to his shuttle saying they don’t need R2 anymore. The Emperial troops leave Mos Eisley with Luke. Han is heartbroken.

General Padme arrives on Mos Eisley with her droid, threepio who keeps referring to her as Queen. Obi tells her that he saw their son, who they named after Obi’s mentor, Qui Gon.

------

Everyone heads to the rebel base on Yavin. Han and Leia are reunited! Leia gives Han her jacket. How sweet.

The rebels have a meeting where they reveal pics of the Death Star, taken by Porkins. Han promises he can get the shields down if they can get him on the surface.

------

Meanwhile, on the Death Star, Vader interrogates Luke. He takes off his mask to reveal a weird, but pretty young man. He tries to read Luke’s mind, but Luke senses him in his head and fights him off. He accuses Vader of trying to be as strong as Count Duku.

Vader tell the Emperor that Luke is stronger in the force than he knows.

Back in the interrogation room, Luke uses the same mind trick that Vader just tried to use on him, to get the Stormtrooper guarding him to let him go. It works and Luke escapes.

--------

Han Obi and Chewy land on the Deathstar. They find Boba Fett and make him turn off the shields. They then See Luke as he’s sneaking around the Death Star.

They reunite, Han and Luke embracing. The X-wings, led by Princess Leia, are attacking but making no damage, meanwhile, the Death Star is powering up the destroy Yavin.

Obi wan brought explosives with, so the 4 of them run around the Death Star exhaust port planting bombs. After the last bomb is planted, Obi sees his son, Vader walking along another bridge with no railing. He walks out after him “Qui Gon!”. Vader turns around and while pretending like he may go home with his father, he instead kills Obi wan, and throws his body off the bridge.

Chewy shoots Vader in the gut, then detonates the explosives while everyone makes a run for it.

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Seeing that there’s a new hole in the death star, Leia and Porkins attack again, this time destroying the exhaust port.

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Han and Luke run for the falcon and are met by an angry Vader. Vader fights a lightsaber wielding Han after knocking Luke out again. Han gets his ass handed to him, getting his back ripped open. Vader goes to grab Yoda’s lightsaber, but Luke grabs it first. They fight. Luke manages to get in a couple of hits before a very wounded Vader is worn down and Luke is able to break Vaders saber before the earth opens up between them.

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With the planet collapsing, Palpatine orders Tarkin to grab Vader and bring him to finish his training.

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Luke and Chewy take an injured Han into the falcon and head back with the rebels to Yavin just as the Death Star explodes on itself.

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Back on Yavin, Padme and Luke mourn Han while Chewy awkwardly faces the other way.

Then Yoda’s old Gonk droid turns on, and projects the map to Yoda, while R2 chimes in with the missing piece. They now know where Yoda may be!

------

Luke, chewy, R2 and Gonk, head to degobah where Luke travels through the swamp, finally finds an elderly Yoda, and holds out his saber.
Yoda turns with his mouth half open, and stares.

THE END.

*sarcasm* So yeah, completely the same movie. Everything is a carbon copy. Cut and paste. *sarcasm*

I dunno. Maybe I'm missing something.
 
ANH in the background as I do stuff- love this. I'm that comfortable with it. Like a warm blanket. It's so familiar, almost soothing. The sounds, the music, the dialogue. I probably know it better than anything else in my life. And that's either sad, or beautiful. Let's go with beautiful.

Exactly. And it's not sad if something that does no harm to others gives someone so much enjoyment. It IS a beautiful thing. :)


Ben

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Nice one NeoRutty. ;)


Ben
 
Just a casual observation, but some of the negative nellies is this thread are also huge EU fans and I think are still waiting for the Trawn trilogy...
 
"Vader finds Luke in the bushes and knocks him out". Lol, that's killer.

Saw a YouTube recently that highlighted the Star Wars "formula".

It compared each of the episodes to ANH using said formula.

Also included a side by side visual comparison of each episode to ANH, many shots and setups repeat across the entire saga. Strange how the PT gets a pass because it was "different".

I don't see TFA as being worse than any preceding episode in regards to the Star Wars "formula". It falls right in line.

However, I'm ready to mix it up now, which seems to the promise for VIII.



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I can't believe there is an argument to be had over whether you like a film or not.

Keith.

I think most people don't mind if you say you did not like the movie. When you try to say unequivocally that it is a BAD movie well that's different.

If you can't understand that "mirroring" ANH with TFA was part of the plan to show the audience "Hey, we know why you were upset with PT, we can make good SW movies, check this out and get on board" then I can't help ya :)
 
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