Star Wars Post-Watching Thread

Duckwarrior · Post by **Duckwarrior** » Mon Dec 21, 2015 7:09 pm

I am really looking forward to buying this in the three for ten DVD bin in about 2018.

(Jar Jar

)

lexaal · Post by **lexaal** » Mon Dec 21, 2015 9:11 pm

Partially spoilered:

Just like anakin episode 7 is between the light side (4-6) and the dark side (1-3) of star wars episodes. It was definitly better than the new ones, but there are some reasons of the story line why it isn't as good as the old episodes.
The technical quality was extremely high. Imho all important roles where played by good actors. Even if it was 3D the movie did feel like it was based on a solid ground of "real" acting and "real" landscape and didn't gave me the CGI/bluescreen feeling from ep 1-3. Some actors need an explicit mention: the rebel pilo (oscar isaac probably), the did a very good job and also the female main actress daisy ridley. At the first moment she reminded me of the "standard female action girl which looks good and acts bad, mostly scarlett johansen, but also natalie portman. But after a few minutes it was clear that she was a real actress doing a damn good job. Also the robots, especially C3PO were not overacted.
The storyline on the other hands did suffer from three reasons: repeating old ideas, and a focus on merchandise instead of pushing the story and story-line "holes" bigger than outer rim.
Repeated ideas;
-Father/Son drama...
-ending on a bridge...
-in a closed room makeing no sense except for storyline reasons
-a dessert planet
-a death start/moon...
-having one specicfic weakness...
-which is protected by shields...
-which are deactivated by a ground attack...
-on a forrest-like planet (ewoks missing)
-flying inside the enemy base (either clone wars or ep 1-3, i'm unsure)
-someone having "a bad feeling about this"
Merchandise-oriented storyline:
-from a story view han was only a support character, except for dying he does nothing relevant. Yet he has the a very high screen time
-the ratio of story impact vs. screen time is even worse for chewbacca
-many sideroles where introduced for lego-sequels or video games.
-storyline-useless jokes by han solo
Story holes/logic failures
- the new darth vader can't decide between wearing a mask (tradition) or showing the face (probably part of the actor contract).
- new darth vader loosing a sword duell vs. newbies.
- darch vader loosing a "force" duell vs. newbies.
- why do the rebels send in an old man, chewbacca and two people they know for one day to do the most important mission of the attack
- why do the order troops recognize that one of their soldiers is not following their command and mostly ignore that.
- why is the tie fighter tied to the mothership?
- I thought rebels won in ep 6. Still it seems they are the weak force fighting in the underground.

I believe good acting and good producing resulted in a good movie but it but it also could have been much better.

Deathrender · Post by **Deathrender** » Tue Dec 22, 2015 5:23 am

I firmly believe that Abrams will do his own thing in the following movies. This movie had to succeed in the box office and it did. JJ is the man for the job if we're going to see good Star Wars movies.

Post by **zombywoof** » Tue Dec 22, 2015 5:16 pm

No, JJ Abrams is going to make flashy money-making Star Wars movies.

"Good" is an entirely different plane. If anything, this movie made me think that it might not be possible for Holly wood to actually put out a "good" movie anymore.

Also Lexaal, you raise some good points but I have actual answers for a couple:

"- why is the tie fighter tied to the mothership?" It's being refueled, I think. I think that was a fuel line. I thought it was kind of a nice touch that Finn didn't notice tbh... though Bo really should have caught that.

"- I thought rebels won in ep 6. Still it seems they are the weak force fighting in the underground." Because the Rebels grew up to become the Republic which is its own interplanetary government. These people are the "Resistance." Granted, what they're resisting and why they're not allied with the Republic are both open-ended questions with no real answers as JJ Abrams and co. manage to make an even LESS politically realistic universe than the one which existed in the "We don't have an army despite being a pan-galactic government also we're a one-party system and at least one of the corporations in our government has a military but they haven't acted a coup until this moment for reasons" prequels.

So in short: objection 1 I noted: kind of makes sense

Objection 2: it's not as bad as you think it is: it's much, much dumber than that.

HSharp · Post by **HSharp** » Wed Dec 23, 2015 12:01 am

This felt like the original trilogy combined with Indiana Jones and the Crystal Skull($#@!).

It felt like a JJ Abrams movie except with Star Trek he had more leeway as it was supposed to be the original crew etc... so references everywhere was fine, but in Star Wars it was too annoying of everything being a reference, and really @#(!ty writing and stuff which just throws nonsense at you.

"We need to destroy as many turrets as we can or we aren't going to get away"
*pew pew*
kills two out of fifty
"Nice shooting kid"
"Oh noes our turbolasers are down (except for the rest they didn't shoot)"

and other classics like
"the weapon is going for fire in fifteen minutes!!!!"
*20 minutes later*
"it's going for fire in 2 minutes!*
*10 minutes later*
"it's about to fire!!!*
*5 minutes later*
"Phew guys, we blew it up just in time...."

Also no introduction to anything. You can cut slack on Episode 4 because hey it's episode 4, not episode 1. Who are the first order? What happened to the Rebels? Stormtroopers are abducted from childhood then trained for the rest of their life (to aim poorly)?? Except they can also defect on their first battle so not really cost effective. Who the $#@! is Rey and why do we give a @#(!? How does this first order have Stormtroopers and Imperial equipment? If the empire is dead wouldn't most of that go to the new Republic???

And again, just $#@!ing references everywhere, why did they need to make the cantina again? And the battles weren't exciting at all. I don't even know if there is a reason for there to be a sequel because JJ is running out of stuff to reference, next episode will have a bounty hunter, a hutt, maybe ewoks and probably Lando. Very surprised the Calamari didn't go "It's a trap".

The start of the movie wasn't exciting at all, I was way more excited for Episode One and honestly I think Episode One was better than Episode Seven.

Also wtf is supposed to happen in Episode Eight? It looks like "First Order" got completely destroyed after their "not a deathstar" exploded. I mean it's similar to Episode 4 in that it looks like the Rebels won massively but it does explain that there is a war still to be won.

I think I have enjoyed ranting more about the movie then actually watching it, I can't believe there are people who want to watch it again already like two days after seeing it....

Probably didn't help that for some bizarre reason the screening I watched decided to have subtitles so has the typical stuff of *Rey pants* before you know her name and other @#(! like when she was having that @#(!-fit from Luke's Lightsaber it was Obi-Wan and Yoda talking. And the other resistance person who was Leia's assistant or w/e is called Sensotron or some @#(!. Thanks subtitles...

Vortrog · Post by **Vortrog** » Wed Dec 23, 2015 3:36 am

It sounds like hsharps favourite letter of the alphabet is 'R' because incidentally it is a pirates favourite letter too

Subtitles in a cinema eh? Cool story bro

I am hatin the more and more I think about the dislocated story

Adaven · Post by **Adaven** » Wed Dec 23, 2015 7:16 am

During my viewing, I was treated to a swearing match between patrons over proper phone etiquette inside the theater.

Post by **zombywoof** » Wed Dec 23, 2015 4:08 pm

HSharp wrote:QUOTE (HSharp @ Dec 22 2015, 04:01 PM) It felt like a JJ Abrams movie except with Star Trek he had more leeway as it was supposed to be the original crew etc... so references everywhere was fine, but in Star Wars it was too annoying of everything being a reference, and really @#(!ty writing and stuff which just throws nonsense at you.

No kidding. Everyone told me about how they liked to suck JJ Abrams' *#$@ and so I was like "well, I didn't really enjoy the Star Trek movies he did..." but gave him the benefit of the doubt.

QUOTE "We need to destroy as many turrets as we can or we aren't going to get away"
*pew pew*
kills two out of fifty
"Nice shooting kid"
"Oh noes our turbolasers are down (except for the rest they didn't shoot)"[/quote]
Then they fired four missiles which happened to only take one wing off an unshielded tie fighter. I'm trying to figure out what the explosive yield of those missiles was, but I'm pretty sure it's measured in kiloounces of TNT.

QUOTE Also no introduction to anything. You can cut slack on Episode 4 because hey it's episode 4, not episode 1. Who are the first order? What happened to the Rebels? Stormtroopers are abducted from childhood then trained for the rest of their life (to aim poorly)?? Except they can also defect on their first battle so not really cost effective. Who the $#@! is Rey and why do we give a @#(!? How does this first order have Stormtroopers and Imperial equipment? If the empire is dead wouldn't most of that go to the new Republic???[/quote]

The thing of it is, they introduced EVERYTHING in Episode 4, but it was much easier because the names were descriptive. There's a "Galactic Empire." Everyone understands that: an Empire is a large-ass government typically run dictatorially by a monarch or emperor. It spans the Galaxy and galaxies are $#@!ing BIG. There's a rebellion against this Empire... again, everyone who's seen it understands what a "rebellion" is. They're the "Rebel Alliance" and most will know what an alliance is.

Oh, and the very opening scenes? There's a big scene between Leia and Vader to explain what's happening. First Leia talks about how she's got pull with the Senate and how she's on a diplomatic mission, and then Vader says, "You are part of the Rebel Alliance and a traitor. Take her away!" Then you get the computer voice saying "The Death Star plans are NOT in the main computer." Vader then chokes someone and throws him away saying "I want you to tear this ship apart until you find those plans, and bring me the passengers, I want them alive!" (I might be getting the order mixed up on those lines).

So basically the opening scenes of ANH establish the entire plot of not only this movie but the following movies:

1) there's a Galactic Empire that's not afraid to murder random doods to get what they want.
2) There's a rebellion against this empire that's very large and coordinated and has strong ties to the Senate
3) Whatever this "Death Star" is (note: ominous name helps convey that it's a weapon of some sort), the Rebel Alliance has the plans and wants the plans for some reason.

The opening scenes of FA establish:

1) There's some Vader ripoff in a Revan mask who's got some force abilities
2) The First Order is ruthless and will kill people.
3) We're... looking for a map? But it's just part of a map?

QUOTE And again, just $#@!ing references everywhere, why did they need to make the cantina again? And the battles weren't exciting at all. I don't even know if there is a reason for there to be a sequel because JJ is running out of stuff to reference, next episode will have a bounty hunter, a hutt, maybe ewoks and probably Lando. Very surprised the Calamari didn't go "It's a trap".[/quote]
They needed to make a cantina scene because they needed a cantina scene. There were far, far too many moments in the movie where the primary motivation for having the scene was "this is going to be AWESOME!"

QUOTE The start of the movie wasn't exciting at all, I was way more excited for Episode One and honestly I think Episode One was better than Episode Seven.[/quote]
I think the plot was far better in Ep 1, but I think overall Ep 7 was a better movie if just because the acting was (overall) better, the practical/CGI mix was better, and Ep 7 was just better executed overall (Jar Jar was too annoying and even though Finn is literally just Black Jar Jar (anyone notice that Jar Jar had a Jamaican accent and the next version of him was black?) he's far less annoying to listen to).

QUOTE I think I have enjoyed ranting more about the movie then actually watching it, I can't believe there are people who want to watch it again already like two days after seeing it....[/quote]
No kidding.

QUOTE Probably didn't help that for some bizarre reason the screening I watched decided to have subtitles so has the typical stuff of *Rey pants* before you know her name and other @#(! like when she was having that @#(!-fit from Luke's Lightsaber it was Obi-Wan and Yoda talking. And the other resistance person who was Leia's assistant or w/e is called Sensotron or some @#(!. Thanks subtitles...[/quote]
Heh. The technical aspects of my screening were awful as well, but in my case it was more like some kid had gone in and $#@!ed with the audio settings so everything was unusually tinny and way too $#@!ing loud so that every time a blaster was fired I found myself checking to see if there was blood coming out of my ears.

Adaven · Post by **Adaven** » Wed Dec 23, 2015 5:05 pm

Also, I wish the theater wouldn't have shown so many episode 7 commercials while I am waiting to watch episode 7.

Not to mention the ads for SW merchandise. Some of the related products I can understand from an advertiser's perspective, but seriously, don't try to sell me a game with "all my favorite scenes from episode 7".

Adaven · Post by **Adaven** » Wed Dec 23, 2015 5:28 pm

Lastly, in retrospect it shouldn't have been surprising that the original characters are largely irrelevant to the story. No one does brand management like Disney. I know ep 7-9 is all that's being made right now, but you know they are going to milk the franchise for as long as it can. They need to transfer to newer (younger) characters to keep rolling new content over the next 20 years.