Star Wars: The Force Awakens (Post-release)

Re: Star Wars TFA. Warning spoilers and I hate it!!! Haters and Lovers Welcome

I had mentioned previously that I feel that this movie diminished the OT but not addressing any successes that may have come from it. I don't see any real evidence that the story of the OT really mattered.

They're all back where they started when ANH began: Luke's isolated, Han's smuggling, Leia's leading the rebellion, there's another evil henchman with familial ties to the heroes, and there's another planet destroying weapon.

What did the OT matter? I've heard: life's cyclical, history repeats itself. Not a good enough answer for me. I'm sure that part of why we fell in love with the OT is because of our heroes triumph. If I was able to ask you at the moment you first finished ROTJ to predict what happened next, I am confident that those predictions wouldn't have included failed Jedi, divorced Solos, the Empire hanging around with another Vader and Emperor.

I liked TFA very much but would have liked to see some acknowledgement that there was tangible good that came from the movies we loved. I think a simple tweak of the crawl would have actually done that for me. On a much smaller note, I've seen people express confusion over the Republic and the Resistance. Was that difference even necesarry? I tweaked that too:

Luke Skywalker has vanished. In his absence, after 30 years of peace and thriving freedom, the sinister FIRST ORDER has risen from the ashes of the Empire to challenge the order of the Republic. They will not rest until Skywalker, the last Jedi, has been destroyed.

General Leia Organa leads an elite detail of Republic fighters specializing in high-risk missions. 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…
 
Re: Star Wars TFA. Warning spoilers and I hate it!!! Haters and Lovers Welcome

I've tried to read the other responses (there's a ton) so hopefully this isn't redundant, but my number one "rewrite" would be to have Starkiller base built up to be some ancient Sith artifact lost on the edge of space that Kylo Ren discovered via holocron or ancient manuscript. Its existence would be what inspired the construction of the first Death Star, as Sideous wasn't in position to search for the original, or didn't believe it existed.

Ren and the First Order would then find it in a semi operational state, but starving for energy as all of the local suns have been drained. That way we can have tension as the Resistance races to sabotage Starkiller before it gets a chance to eat any suns and destroy a system. I would still have it begin to drain a sun, as the imagery of the light fading during that whole battle was cool, but seeing those planets get destroyed and having absolutely no idea who anyone on them was just didn't have that great of an impact. If Starkiller came to the Republic's planet, or Maz's planet and began to eat the sun then it would have been higher stakes IMO.

I personally like Kylo just being a wannabe, it shows how powerful fanaticism can be paired with a bit of raw ability and an unsound mind. Not to get political, but it seems to be a similar mentality to a lot of young men who leave their "western" lives and join terrorist cells. They are hurting for belonging and empowerment, which they are given without the knowledge to back it up. I don't think we'll ever see him redeemed, because how could they forgive him, but at the very least he may serve as a strained ally towards the end of the movies and assumedly his life, because I believe he absolutely needs to die helping people if they are going for a "redemption" arc.


When it comes to Rey and her immediate abilities: She has lived an empty life, scratched out from a harsh world, with no attachments beyond the idea that her family will come, which she even admits she has let go of. That to me says that she is the perfect conduit for the Force and its will to flow through. A natural survivor and fighter, all it took was a little nudge and the entirety of the Force and its strength was able to express itself through her. I still think she has much to learn, as it seems the Force ebbs and flows when drawn upon, but I have no gripes about her facing off against a very injured Kylo and walking away from it. Even Finn's brief battle wasn't too unbelievable as he was a trained soldier, and it was a VERY brief fight on his part.


Other things that bothered me was the lack of focus on a main character early on, it reminded me of the PT. I thought we shouldn't have met Poe before the landing party attacks the village, and just have Kylo ask for him (he's not there) and then slaughter the village. I know we would miss the blaster bolt and it would leave BB8 unexplained, but it was just a jarring way to open the film IMO. After the night massacre (no Poe) cut straight to Rey scavenging, maybe even have her notice the fire from the massacre, and have her find BB-8 trapped in the scavenger's net because he was hiding nearby waiting for Poe to return.

I could take or leave Leia honestly, she wasn't bad, but I just wasn't exactly over the moon with her presence.

Han's death should have been in a more intimate location, and not over a big CGI hole. I think they should have all been a lot closer to each other, because as it is I feel like Rey, Finn, and Chewie could barely see Han and Kylo, so it lacked that emotion for me. If Han's body had just fallen to the ground instead and then the base started to crumble, leaving the others unable to retrieve it, we would have just as much finality without that bad shot of him falling into the light. I really didn't care for that scene.

Someone brought up (maybe here maybe not?) that the "traitor!" trooper should have been Phasma with a personal vendetta against one of her own soldiers who is now helping the enemy. That way she gets some "badass" cred during the fight while building a rivalry with Finn and gaining some development as well.


Overall I liked the new players much more than all of the ham handed OT callbacks, hopefully they can learn from the criticism and go a fresher direction for 8 and 9, and I also hope we will see a more "untethered" or spiritual Force in this series, vs the scientific "power levels, midichlorians" kind of junk.
 
I like the Kenobi idea. Now I have always joked that Luke & Leia are not vaders kids. I said that young Ben Kenobi is the real father since him and padme were so tight. A reason why Vader never could sense his own kid when he had Leia captured. He only found out about her from searching Luke's feelings in RotJ. He tells Luke he is father and search your feelings. Luke was told that Vader / ani was his father from birth. So of course he would always believe it / brain washed by Kenobi using the force to trick a young simple mind. Vader reads Luke mind and feelings in the empire strikes back. So he must be like sweet baby ***** it is truly my kid. Why wouldn't he be super geeked to jump at that thought as well. He loved Padme and felt so much anger for losing her and the baby ( no idea of twins). Kenobi stayed with Luke to watch over his son growing up. So Rey is really a Kenobi as her father Luke. Which makes Kylo Ren one too..which has his grandpa name of Ben.

just throwing it out. Would be a great shocker for the 8th movie.
 
And makes such a complete mockery of EVERYTHING about the Skywalker family from the prequels through to EP VII. If I could give this idea a rating it would be so far down towards the bottom of the measurable atomic scale you couldn't even see it with an electron microscope or even find it with the Hadron collider.


PS The big clue is even Han says "He has too much Vader in him." There are others in the OT if you pay attention.
 
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Ewan and Frank Oz are in the flashback sequence! So Yoda confirmed as being part of the flashback with Frank voicing.

http://www.ew.com/article/2015/12/20/jj-abrams-reveals-obi-wan-and-yoda-are-star-wars-force-awakens

excellent article, i am going monday night to see it again and trying to find all the easter eggs to catch. we dont know what yoda says exactly in the flash back? i am noticed at the bottom of the article JJ is going to explain R2 waking up!! that was my biggest problem, all of a sudden he wakes up? too coincidental, han finding the falcon on the other hand i came up with a fan theory and it doesn't bother me much, but r2 waking up...

does luke have a old apple II computer in his cave and sent r2 a email?

dying to see that article
 
Not if this film it their ANH. I think it is. Rey could be a Kenobi but not necessarily a Ben Kenobi.

My 12 and 14 year old boys already liked SW well enough. THIS blew their little minds. They're smart enough to see it was a rehash, and they didn't care (hey, TPM hit a lot of the same ANH beats too). This is now THEIR SW. They're so crazy energized. My 14 year old is designing his own saber in CAD to make on the school's 3D printer/mill/lathe. As a parent, that excites me. Not because he's making a SW prop, but because SW is fueling his creativity.

If the next movie is good, and the new trilogy holds up, I think kids of today will be geeking out about this 30-40 year later the same way I am.

PS: I know a lot of kids that age get over excited and love EVERY movie they see. Mine typically aren't like that. They loved Fury Road, were totally ambivalent about AoU, and generally can take or leave the Marvel universe. They liked Transformers as small kids but now mock them as awful films. So they have a little more discernment than the average middle schoolers :lol
 
Re: Star Wars TFA. Warning spoilers and I hate it!!! Haters and Lovers Welcome

....
Oh another thing, as I am really in to Star Wars Models and stuff I was really disappointed in the general Ship/Vehicle Design as they where to Generic and lacked the Character of those original designs.....

Absolutely. The designer of those ships needs to get fired on the spot and to never work in movies again, even on the first trailer when I saw the ugly shuttle and landing craft, I knew on the spot I would be disappointed with the art design. Because for a good % of people, the magic of Star Wars was about the ship designs and all the great machinery.

Grrrrr! The landing crafts were just a simple copy of WWII landing craft boat, a box with a cockpit extrusion on top, no originality.
Example here: http://www.3000toys.com/images/FORCES_OF_VALOR/85242.jpg

I can't wait to get my hand on the (making of) art book, to know the name of the ship designer, he should get a kick in the butt, or a slap behind the head, like in cartoons.:D
 
Han saying there is too much Vader in him is just cause he is mean like Vader. The only force people Han knew are bright eye wet behind the ear good guy Luke and big mean plant blowing up Vader. Vader didn't like me and froze in carbonite. Now my kid hates me too..boo hoo he is too much like Vader.

it still be would be a great shocker. Like I said I always joked about it. Disney nor anyone else has the balls to do it. It would likely ruin everyone's childhood or daddy jokes with their kids.
 
Re: Easter Eggs, Mirroring of the OT in The Force Awakens (SPOILERS INSIDE)

im lost between threads. I'm going to see it again monday night and trying to memorize all the easter eggs to look for. one i remember reading was seeing the death star plans when R2 shows the map...but i can't seem to find it on here. do u believe i had a dream last night about finding damn easter eggs, i just want to confirm the DS plans are shown and its not something i dreamed of last night so far i have

- jedi training probe (check, saw it)
- chess board (check)
- 2 broken r2 units being pulled by big alien with yellow arms at jakku rations station (check)
- rey mentioning the "kelvin" ravine
- gold dice in falcon
- obiwan/yoda voice in flash back
- R2KT (check only saw her the first time, rumor is you see her at the good bye scene when the falcon flys off)

is there anything else? while they were running through the jakku tents i was looking at the floor for fetts helmet we saw years ago JJ in a teaser and on the ground you could see fetts helmet
 
Re: "I loved or mostly loved TFA" - people only thread

i really enjoyed the entire thing, i get where allot of people are coming from though. but i also understand that even in the world we live in history repeats itself... the human race is out for one thing... destruction. we ourselves are always building mega weapons, our nukes have gotten stronger and stronger since the beginning... i dont see a reason why building bigger and badder death stars is not believable? and unrealistic? (story wise! lol) the human race has been doing this for decades... so that has never bother me


daisy ridley is a beautiful woman!! to be honest i never found her attractive when watching interviews. idk if it was her hair pull back or the non-lipstick on film but she is a gorgeous woman. john boyega did a awesome job! idk how he can hide his accent so well, i loved his character. I'm so glad he hit the ball out of the park with it, after all the racial heat he's gotten.

i love the chemistry between all the characters, ford did a AMAZING job! this is HIS movie, i loved his broke role model figure. him and chewie i loved. favorite part

when they land on star killer base and han finn and chewie are talking about how they are going to get in, chewie talks and han says "really?! your cold!!!??" i loved it lol

i had 2 small gripes with the film, and its not even worth complaining about. but I'm going too lol.

han finding the falcon seemed too coincidental. now thinking, all planes have a register identification number, and when they are up in the air are tracked. what if han and chewie had some kind of scanner always scanning for possible ships in space, not only could they find the falcon when its in space, but it could also avoid any pirates they are running from.. so thats what i made myself believe. han has a navi computer scanning for the ship 24/7

the other thing, and i just read a article and i guess JJ is going to answer it very soon
why did R2 suddenly wake up? again a little too coincidental for me. I'm wondering if luke has a old dharma apple II computer in his cave and sent r2 a email

again those aren't really worth complaining about because i loved the entire thing! is it a remake? heeeehhhhh kinda? but doesn't human history completely repeat itself over and over and over? war, assassination attempts, terrorist attacks... it doesn't bother me at all.

i loved everything about it, and going to see it again monday night
 
Re: "All I wanna do is complain about TFA" - only thread

Poe is really the YouTube magic guy Zach King. Only he could pop out of his jacket when the tie fighter crashed and be somewhere else.
 
Re: "I loved or mostly loved TFA" - people only thread

I like pretzels with cheese dip I had at the theater...

ok ok I like the interaction of wall-E 1.2 had with Finn & Rey. It was pretty damn funny
 
After my billionth time watching this movie I think I've formulated my theory on Rey's lineage. I think she is the granddaughter of Obi-Wan. I think her parents went to train under Luke because they showed potential in the force. They left her under the supervision of max von sydow with the plans of coming back. After Kylo started going nuts it was decided it would be safer if she was solitary and hidden from the Knights. Kylo kills her parents and attempts to hunt down all of the Jedi. Max leaves her on her own in a scavenger village, and takes the map fragment to Luke off into a different part of Jakku. Han, leia, and Luke are all familiar with her lineage. And I think when she leaves to find Luke at the end of the movie that she has an idea of where she came from as well. Leia may have even completely spilled the beans.
 
Re: Star Wars TFA. Warning spoilers and I hate it!!! Haters and Lovers Welcome

"No, there is another." Who do you think Yoda was talkin bout
The story wasn't completely conceived by the end of ESB.
And it certainly wasn't established at the time who "the other" might be.
There were iterations of the story that had Luke ultimately fail and go to the dark side. Which makes sense given the ESB ended with Luke defying Yoda's advice.
Also Han was supposed to die in the first reel of ROTJ.

The fact that they kiss in ESB actually supports the notion that they weren't thinking brother-sister at the time. With Han dying heroically we resolve the love triangle (c.f. Wings (1927) and Pearl Harbor (2001)).

Harrison Ford himself complained the change was a marketing move since there was no business in selling "dead Han dolls." TFA fixed that.

ROTJ chickened out and engineered a hokey way to keep him alive as Leia's love interest. And they resolved the love triangle by doing the brother-sister thing.

I hate the brother-sister thing, too.

And ROTJ is to blame.

giphy.gif
 
Han saying there is too much Vader in him is just cause he is mean like Vader. The only force people Han knew are bright eye wet behind the ear good guy Luke and big mean plant blowing up Vader. Vader didn't like me and froze in carbonite. Now my kid hates me too..boo hoo he is too much like Vader.

it still be would be a great shocker. Like I said I always joked about it. Disney nor anyone else has the balls to do it. It would likely ruin everyone's childhood or daddy jokes with their kids.

Which plant did Vader blow up? I mean I saw Kylo Ren hack a few pines down in fury, but I didn't know Darth hated the green stuff overall. Its probably because he couldn't eat a decent salad without taking his face mask off. That dressing makes a real mess of things for sure and don't get me started on the spinach . I'd cut down as many vegetables as was possible with my trusty light sabre if that was the case, those leafy ,rooty , ba**teds !!!


Ah Alderaan fruit market capital of the galaxy no longer!!!!
 
Re: Star Wars TFA. Warning spoilers and I hate it!!! Haters and Lovers Welcome

Agreed. Vader can deflect blaster bolts so he could probably halt them in mid air too.

That was a very cool effect and I loved seeing that in TFA, I'm sure the only reason we never saw Vader doing it was that the idea never occurred to Lucas at the time. It would have looked very cool to see Han's red blaster bolt hovering over the table in the Bespin dining room!

I also loved this effect in TFA and Kylos force choke was very strong.:)

We must also see that Kylo has still his hands.So he also could shot force lightnings in the future.Because Vader lost a lot of his bodyparts he was still nomore so strong like Anakin was.
 
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