Star Wars: The Force Awakens (2015)

I'll give it a 8.5/10

Morrow_sl said:

Spoiler

Also LOL at the size of Death Star 3.0. I saw a scale graph a few weeks ago of how big the original Death Star was compared to other Sci Fi ships/the moon/Earth etc and then they say Death Star 3.0 is like 10-100x larger. That's as big as Earth if not larger, iirc the graph correctly. I love how they can build these things so quickly and get them destroyed so fast and yet they keep doing it.

Ugh I'm making myself sad talking like this. I'm going to bed and maybe when I wake up tomorrow it will feel like a better movie. I should just ignore all the shit and bask in the Star Wars love. It wasn't bad overall I guess. My fault for having high expectations. Finn and Rey were superb, Kylo was good, Snoke was great, and that gives me a lot of hope. They are the future of the films.

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In 3 hours I'm going to be either .... MASSIVE BONER or FML...
I stopped reading this thread a few days ago Trying very hard not to get excited and be let down like with phantom etc

So spoilers in spoiler tags are ok then?

Im really curious about how this will be received over time, I cant believe Revenge of the Sith is highly rated somehow and at an 80% on RT. This will be above the prequels but around equal to RoTJ. Really odd that the critics reviews are so positive but most find the film to be around a 6.5. Multiple viewings will be interesting

I haven't seen it. To me, 6.5 means "not as good as the origs, better than the prequels, but overall kinda meh". Which is the low side of the target they had to hit, but it's still the target.

If they did that thing where they packed it full of nostalgia fan service grabs (which seems to be the primary strength and complaint) then yeah, it won't age well at all.

Like the Star Trek reboot. Except people actually care about this one. And there's a LOT more money at stake.

Iannis_sl said:

Like the Star Trek reboot. Except people actually care about this one. And there's a LOT more money at stake.

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I think its more like TDKR with the critics

Iannis_sl said:

Like the Star Trek reboot. Except people actually care about this one. And there's a LOT more money at stake.

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That's the big complaint in the negative reviews: it's too much like a "SOFT-REBOOT" driven by nostalgia like what Abrams did with Star Trek. But everyone knew that's why Disney hired him for the job. It's why they gave him carte blanche and wiped the EU just so he could effect a soft-reboot with "a New Generation" similar to what he did for Trek. They even mentioned the whole "every generation has its own" thing in the trailer.

Having seen the movie, I must say I actually do not feel at all that this movie was nothing but a nostalgia grab and a soft-reboot attempt.

THERE WILL BE NO SPOILERS IN THIS POST.

Obviously, we know that they're going in a direction that aims at replacing the old cast with new characters over the course of these movies, and yes there are many elements of this movie that could be compared to similar elements in ANH, but I thoughtmostof the old characters (mostly Han and Chewie) had their roles firmly rooted into the story and not just glorified cameos. There are homages, easter eggs and references and YES, there are some cameos that are more heavy-handed, but they do not detract from the story being told.

I think people are sometimes forgetting that this is the first of a new trilogy and as such it cannot explain everything neatly in its first installment or there will be nothing left to discover later down the road. Once we have seen all three, then maybe we'll realize this or that element was indeed underdevelopped or a plot hole, but this movie was good enough for me that I'm giving the story the benefit of the doubt for some of those less-developped elements and that we may learn more and have it make more sense later.

To me, this feels like Star Wars 7 (as much as I wish it was Star Wars 4, fuck those prequels), but definitely not like Star Wars : Next Generation.

It was NOT a perfect movie, there are things I imagined would be different, there are some things I would have done differently (armchair director ahoy) but those elements are nearly all nitpicks or small elements, and I think a lot of it comes from the weird feeling that this brings new things to the table and as a long time fan of the OLD movies, we have grown to be wary things that are new (I blame George Lucas for making me cautious about new things by including CGI cartoons and stupid ass holograms in the old movies seemingly every 2 weeks).

Zignor 3_sl said:

As to one of Morrow's main complaints...

Spoiler

I think it's pretty obvious that Rey had been a student of Luke in the past. Her memory was wiped somehow (perhaps diabolically by Ren or by Luke to try to protect her from being found). Triggered by the battle, her prior connection to the Force began to more fully "awaken" and hence she was Luke 2.0. I'm sure this will all be made clear in the subsequent movies. If not, well then yeah, it's pretty damn dumb, but I don't see how it won't be the case.

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Neki_sl said:

I'll give it a 8.5/10

Spoiler

Kylo Ren started off as an awesome villain. Very menacing and powerful. He then turned into a emo bitch and absolutely hated it when he took off his mask and showed his pasty face. I suppose it is to give him character and sets him up for the next film where he turns full on Sith but I felt a bit disappointed.

I agree that the film relied heavily on nostalgia and especially 'New Hope'. From the familiar hiding a map inside a droid to the ultimate planet destroying weapon and similar trench run to blow it up. It plays it very safe. I would say that if the story of Knights of the Old Republic or the The Old Republic got made instead, it could have been even better.

Han Solo stole the movie, he was awesome in every scene and still haven't lost his old charm and witty one liners. Kinda guessed halfway through that he would be killed off but kept wishing I was wrong. Was upset when he finally did die

Overall, it is still at least a million times better than the prequels and I would put it above ROTJ and maybe a sliver below NH and TESB. Very excited for the next chapter.

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Sylas_sl said:

what you just said was the exact same thing that was said after Phantom Menace too. Like fucking verbatim.

hype level decreasing

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Not at all.

TPM's chief complaints:

Wooden acting
Far too much plodding exposition
"Yippee!"
Jar Jar Binks
Sterile, non-Star Wars type feel

None of those apply here at all. I think the main problem is people are drawing a lot of comparisons with ANH, and fair enough; TFA borrows a lot of the look and feel (and yes, some of the plot elements) from that film. But ANH felt more complete and thus more satisfying because just about everything important was neatly tied up by the end. Lucas had no clue that he was going to be making more of these movies. Sure, he had an outline of a story for the sequels in-mind, but ANH needed to be completely its own movie to succeed.

Now we have what was locked in from the start as a new trilogy. Hence, one of the job's of this movie is to set up the overall arc of the following films, and that includes teasing a lot and answering little. Maybe it went just alittletoo far in that respect, and I won't disagree with that, but I'm confident that most of those complaints will be obsolete once we have the entire trilogy to ponder. That sure as shit can't be said of the prequels. This is through-and-through a Star Wars movie.

Sylas_sl said:

what you just said was the exact same thing that was said after Phantom Menace too. Like fucking verbatim.

hype level decreasing

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If anyone seriously thinks Phantom Menace was better, I'd be very surprised.

In my opinion it did everything better than a new hope, except for originality. If it had come out first, there would be no question it was better, but it was just too similar.

Overall - very good, but falls short of greatness due to slavish devotion to the original series.

Are there ANY references to the prequels? Anything from them i mean

ohkcrlho_sl said:

Are there ANY references to the prequels? Anything from them i mean

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Double post.

Zignor 3_sl said:

Spoiler

A quick comment was made regarding clone troopers. I think that the only direct reference.

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I thought they were going to disregard all that crap. Well.....at least is a minor thing imo
Thanks. Going to see it in 9 hours