Star Wars: The Force Awakens (Post-release)

[kristen jones]

Finally saw it!!

wow. Amazing.

I'll try to read the previous posts but my only issues were

(1) if they wanted to keep it like the original I think they could have used less aliens.
(2) General Hu should have been older like Grand Moff Tarkin

thats really it.

(1) Less aliens? Is this meant to be a joke? Did you see how many aliens were in the Mos Eisley Cantina scene? :facepalm
(2) I think the general goal was to show that the First Order is made up of remnants from the Empire... it isn't an organization that has existed and thrived for generations like the Empire did, and so they've used very young officers to show that the ranks have been filled with whomever dared, I suppose. I thought it was a good move, since they are implying that Snoke is the master manipulator, and he has likely chosen young underlings because of their passion and ease of manipulation.

 

[Father]

(1) Less aliens? Is this meant to be a joke? Did you see how many aliens were in the Mos Eisley Cantina scene? :facepalm

Yeah... and this is something tha's bugged me since the prequels.
In the OT, we had (ANH) Mos Eisley (on Tattoine), and that was pretty much the only place with aliens.
ESB, aside from Yoda and the Ugnaughts on Cloud City, not a lot of aliens.
RotJ, Jabbas Palace (again on Tattoine), Ewoks, Admiral Akbar and Lando's copilot.

The prequels... I felt like they just threw in new aliens at every opportunity just for the sake of doing it. The galactic senate place with countless delegate pods where it seems more like they're representing every race of alien versus just every planet in the system.
In places/scenes when it could just as easily have been a human character, you end up getting aliens. The scene where Obi wan takes that Camino dart to the fat thing in the 1950's robot diner always comes to mind.
Whether it's driven by the wow factor of "let's see what else we can come up with" or for the sake of merchandising and having something more than just humanoid character action figured on the shelves of Wal-Mart... I feel like they've overdone it with no real reason.

Not to mention they're all CG. Part of what made it cool in the OT was they were Muppets. It's like CG just makes it easier to just arbitrarily create new races of aliens just to plug them into a scene.

The fact that we're seeing new aliens in every movie, begs the question, where were they in all the other movies?

(2) I think the general goal was to show that the First Order is made up of remnants from the Empire... it isn't an organization that has existed and thrived for generations like the Empire did, and so they've used very young officers to show that the ranks have been filled with whomever dared, I suppose. I thought it was a good move, since they are implying that Snoke is the master manipulator, and he has likely chosen young underlings because of their passion and ease of manipulation.

I get that but I still feel like there should have been at least a few of the older, seasoned Empire guys left. Kind of like how there are still old Cold War-era officers in the Russian military. Even if it was one or two old dudes as the Generals... with Hux trying to weasel his way up the ladder by killing the old guys off... that might have worked better for developing his character a bit.

Not knocking the movie... it was great. These were just little things that bugged me, but not enough to ruin the overall experience.

 

[Bryancd]

Yeah... and this is something tha's bugged me since the prequels.
In the OT, we had (ANH) Mos Eisley (on Tattoine), and that was pretty much the only place with aliens.
ESB, aside from Yoda and the Ugnaughts on Cloud City, not a lot of aliens.
RotJ, Jabbas Palace (again on Tattoine), Ewoks, Admiral Akbar and Lando's copilot.

The prequels... I felt like they just threw in new aliens at every opportunity just for the sake of doing it. The galactic senate place with countless delegate pods where it seems more like they're representing every race of alien versus just every planet in the system.
In places/scenes when it could just as easily have been a human character, you end up getting aliens. The scene where Obi wan takes that Camino dart to the fat thing in the 1950's robot diner always comes to mind.
Whether it's driven by the wow factor of "let's see what else we can come up with" or for the sake of merchandising and having something more than just humanoid character action figured on the shelves of Wal-Mart... I feel like they've overdone it with no real reason.

Not to mention they're all CG. Part of what made it cool in the OT was they were Muppets. It's like CG just makes it easier to just arbitrarily create new races of aliens just to plug them into a scene.

The fact that we're seeing new aliens in every movie, begs the question, where were they in all the other movies?



I get that but I still feel like there should have been at least a few of the older, seasoned Empire guys left. Kind of like how there are still old Cold War-era officers in the Russian military. Even if it was one or two old dudes as the Generals... with Hux trying to weasel his way up the ladder by killing the old guys off... that might have worked better for developing his character a bit.

Not knocking the movie... it was great. These were just little things that bugged me, but not enough to ruin the overall experience.

perhaps we just haven't seen older members of the First Order who were part of the Empire yet besides Snoke, we know he was around and up to something. We have two more films to explore that more.

 

[Father]

perhaps we just haven't seen older members of the First Order who were part of the Empire yet besides Snoke, we know he was around and up to something. We have two more films to explore that more.

This movie was definitely setting up a lot of origin/background fleshing out in the next two.
Who is Snoke?
Who are Rey parents?
Who are Finn's parents (and what's his real name)?
Rey is a pretty fast learn with the force... way faster than Luke seemed to be. What's her deal?

 

[DINVADER]

Main thing you are totally neglecting and/or forgetting, the original trilogy and TFA did not really deal in showing largely populated metro areas or planets. And they still used tons of pullover masks for aliens in the prequels, Ithorians (Hammerheads) & Rodians, Twi'leks just to name a few. Truth told, if you did a headcount on all the sentient aliens in the prequels (as difficult as that would be.), a majority of them were done by pullover masks and/or make-up.
Oh and if Hux would have been older like Tarkin, it would have been considered even more of a Tarkin rip-off. Vader respected Tarkin. It's the opposite with Kylo and Hux. Hux is an heir to a high ranking Imperial and he thinks it's his rightful place.

Yeah... and this is something tha's bugged me since the prequels.
In the OT, we had (ANH) Mos Eisley (on Tattoine), and that was pretty much the only place with aliens.
ESB, aside from Yoda and the Ugnaughts on Cloud City, not a lot of aliens.
RotJ, Jabbas Palace (again on Tattoine), Ewoks, Admiral Akbar and Lando's copilot.

The prequels... I felt like they just threw in new aliens at every opportunity just for the sake of doing it. The galactic senate place with countless delegate pods where it seems more like they're representing every race of alien versus just every planet in the system.
In places/scenes when it could just as easily have been a human character, you end up getting aliens. The scene where Obi wan takes that Camino dart to the fat thing in the 1950's robot diner always comes to mind.
Whether it's driven by the wow factor of "let's see what else we can come up with" or for the sake of merchandising and having something more than just humanoid character action figured on the shelves of Wal-Mart... I feel like they've overdone it with no real reason.

Not to mention they're all CG. Part of what made it cool in the OT was they were Muppets. It's like CG just makes it easier to just arbitrarily create new races of aliens just to plug them into a scene.

The fact that we're seeing new aliens in every movie, begs the question, where were they in all the other movies?



I get that but I still feel like there should have been at least a few of the older, seasoned Empire guys left. Kind of like how there are still old Cold War-era officers in the Russian military. Even if it was one or two old dudes as the Generals... with Hux trying to weasel his way up the ladder by killing the old guys off... that might have worked better for developing his character a bit.

Not knocking the movie... it was great. These were just little things that bugged me, but not enough to ruin the overall experience.

 

[Edraven99]

So if anyone's still trying to figure out which version of the blu-ray that they want to buy, I just got back from the Disney Store and they're pre-selling the blu-ray as well. You get a set of four lithographs (they're actually quite nice) and $10 off an instore purchase...

Here's the link:

http://www.disneystore.com/live-act...ithograph-offer-pre-order/mp/1397199/1000318/

 

[karmajay]

The Force Awakens Portfolio by ILM

Man, it is pretty amazing how well they captured some of those shots!

 

[Jeyl]

The prequels... I felt like they just threw in new aliens at every opportunity just for the sake of doing it. The galactic senate place with countless delegate pods where it seems more like they're representing every race of alien versus just every planet in the system.

True to a point, but I would argue that JJ did that more excessively than Lucas did. When Lucas introduced a new species, he at least gave some semblence of backstory and how their society works. At least the prequels featured aliens we remember from the original trilogy. There were more twi'leks, wookies, tuskan raiders, Jabba the Hutt species, Rodians, the Gran and even a new character from Yoda's race. When I watched TFA with this point in mind, I discovered that any new character as well as all the aliens in the background were completely new aliens. The only returning aliens are the ones who actually had genuine screen from the original trilogy and you never see other members of their race anywhere else. Knowing this gave me the feeling that the alien characters from the original trilogy felt like they were alien to their own galaxy. Kind of disappointing.

 

[astroboy]

True to a point, but I would argue that JJ did that more excessively than Lucas did. When Lucas introduced a new species, he at least gave some semblence of backstory and how their society works. At least the prequels featured aliens we remember from the original trilogy. There were more twi'leks, wookies, tuskan raiders, Jabba the Hutt species, Rodians, the Gran and even a new character from Yoda's race. When I watched TFA with this point in mind, I discovered that any new character as well as all the aliens in the background were completely new aliens. The only returning aliens are the ones who actually had genuine screen from the original trilogy and you never see other members of their race anywhere else. Knowing this gave me the feeling that the alien characters from the original trilogy felt like they were alien to their own galaxy. Kind of disappointing.

A new character from Yoda's race?

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[Jaitea]

A new character from Yoda's race?

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Yaddle

J

 

[dascoyne]

post deleted

 

[matty matt]

Man, JJ just can't win. Not enough new stuff, too much new stuff...lol.

 

[Darth Lars]

Man, JJ just can't win. Not enough new stuff, too much new stuff...lol.

People want new story, familiar environment. Not the same thing.

 

[astroboy]

People want new story, familiar environment. Not the same thing.

They want a larger universe, not a different universe

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[Zombie_61]

People want new story, familiar environment. Not the same thing.

They want a larger universe, not a different universe

And this is why it's impossible for anyone to produce a Star Wars movie (or movie from any franchise, for that matter) that will please everyone. "We want new and larger, but familiar and not different from what we already know." And then they complain that it was too similar to a previous franchise movie. :confused

 

[matty matt]

And this is why it's impossible for anyone to produce a Star Wars movie (or movie from any franchise, for that matter) that will please everyone. "We want new and larger, but familiar and not different from what we already know." And then they complain that it was too similar to a previous franchise movie. :confused

Yes, exactly. I understand what you guys are saying, but it's a balancing act that no one is going to be able to pull off.

 

[Bryancd]

It's all academic at this point. TFA was a resounding success just as it was presented.

 

[Jaitea]

But as I said on the Ep8 thread,....the real matter is pleasing the general movie audience & putting asses on seats......the Star Wars fans are too hard to please

J

 

[Solo4114]

But as I said on the Ep8 thread,....the real matter is pleasing the general movie audience & putting asses on seats......the Star Wars fans are too hard to please

J

Too hard to universally please. That doesn't mean they should be ignored entirely, just that you should try to appeal to the broadest swath of them without simultaneously weakening the appeal of the film for general movie audiences. In this respect, TFA knocked it out of the park.

 

[kristen jones]

There were more twi'leks, wookies, tuskan raiders, Jabba the Hutt species, Rodians, the Gran and even a new character from Yoda's race.

yes... and it was exactly that which cheapened their appearance for me, at least. I had seen all of those before, and so--to me at least--it seemed like Lucas' fan service to just pile them in by the oodles in the PT. I would much rather see new aliens (like in TFA) so that I have something new to study and make into my own "classics" than just have the same old thing trotted out again and again because "hey...it's Star Wars. We GOTTA have Twi'leks and Tusken Raiders, or it won't *feel* like Star Wars". That line of thinking I simply don't subscribe to. I know some do...and that's fine for them. But all star Wars fans aren't the same...that's what makes it so special.

- - - Updated - - -

Man, JJ just can't win. Not enough new stuff, too much new stuff...lol.

In *some* people's mind he can't win. In my mind, he hit a home run.