Star Wars: The Force Awakens (2015)

etchazz_sl said:

Kylo and Rey are siblings, or cousins (one of them Luke's kid, the other Han's/Leia's kid).

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She is Luke's child, however I do not think they will make a huge deal of it. It's going to be an act 1 reveal exposition dump in the next movie.

Time-wise I'm thinking she was left there by her parent(s) who went off to train with Luke, but that opens up Luke or any of the apprentices being the parent. Ben/Kylo learned during the training that one of them had a kid which he later recognizes as Rey and that's where the "itisyou" comes from. He doesn't personally know her but he did know the parent.

edit: on second thought... I'm considering if we should assume the dream sequence is going past -> future chronologically, but that would imply that the apprentice killing and Luke's disappearance happened 15 years ago. 15 years is enough time to build the starkiller and long enough since it happened to explain Han/Leia's reactions.

1) Creepy corridor on a ship/base that gets attacked
2) Luke putting his robotic hand on R2
3) Kylo killing an apprentice then walking towards 'her'
4) Rey as a kid screaming as a ship takes off
5) Kylo in the snowy forest on Starkiller planet before the end battle

Rey is 19-20 years old according to Wookiepedia. Born ~11 years after Battle of Endor, left on Jakku at 5, TFA happens 30 years after Endor. Ben/Kylo is 29-30 years old, born ~1 year after Endor, they made him look way too young.

Saw it for a second time last night with the gf. This was her first viewing since I went with a friend Saturday. She liked it. Audience was oddly quiet throughout. Sunday night at 8pm, but still, opening weekend. I think I might drop it from an 8/10 to 7/10. It's just "good." My biggest impression second time around was that it's extremely SAFE, by the books, and shallow. I'm not sure there's much value in additional viewings.

Neph_sl said:

Another general Star Wars question. I was under the impression that you had to be a force user to ignite a lightsaber. Is that true or is that just a point I'm remembering from Spaceballs (I see your Schwartz is as big as mine...)?

Just wondering if Finn has the potential to follow after Rey and become a Jedi or he's just a brave / stupidly courageous guy for taking on Kylo.

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Nope, you just turn it on. Han used one in ESB. Grievous used 4 in RotS.

I'm glad that Half In The Bag review mentioned it, but that final camera shot from a helicopter was jarring. It was almost anachronistic in a way in that it obviously taken from a helicopter...which don't exist in this fictional universe.

Not really a gripe, just seems like an odd editing choice to have that be the final shot.

The Edge_sl said:

Nope, you just turn it on. Han used one in ESB. Grievous used 4 in RotS.

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In some of the EU they indicated when you build your LS you put the button on the inside thus you had to know where it was and use the force to push it. Clearly this is not canon.

Really enjoyed the movie 8/10, sure there were holes, but the OT had them too, just enjoy it and be thankful they did not screw it up.

Tantrik_sl said:

I'm glad that Half In The Bag review mentioned it, but that final camera shot from a helicopter was jarring. It was almost anachronistic in a way in that it obviously taken from a helicopter...which don't exist in this fictional universe.

Not really a gripe, just seems like an odd editing choice to have that be the final shot.

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In a world where bikes don't need kickstands because they have antigrav and just hover, your "non gripe" is due to a perceived use of a helicopter?

They don't even fill this shit with helicopters anymore, its 2015 bro they use drones....but wait they don't have drones in Starwars !!

Make a drone that looks like a probe droid.

Nester_sl said:

In a world where bikes don't need kickstands because they have antigrav and just hover, your "non gripe" is due to a perceived use of a helicopter?

They don't even fill this shit with helicopters anymore, its 2015 bro they use drones....but wait they don't have drones in Starwars !!

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Easy there Trigger, i was just making a comment about how the shot felt a bit out of place, and that I wasn't the only one.

Cad_sl said:

What'd Luke ever lose at besides the fight with Vader in Cloud City (2nd movie) and against the Emperor in Jedi? He facestomped everything else in his path.

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Haven't seen the original trilogy in a long ass time so some of this shit might be wrong. Luke gets his asskicked by the sand people, needs to be saved by Obi Wan. I think he fucks up by letting R2 D2 run off too. He needs to be saved again in the Cantina cause he acts like a naive idiot. Needs to be saved from the trash compactor. Obi Wan sacrifices himself so Luke can get off the Death Star. Saved by Han during his trench run before finally having moment of triumph with a little help from a ghost. That's just ep4. What else, he got fucked up by the yeti thing, fucked up a lot in the in Jabba's palace, was a whiny bitch while training with Yoda, his dad kicked his ass and cut off his arm. Emperor fucked him up so bad he needed to be saved by his dad. It took him like 3 movies to get good, and even then he fails more than he succeeds.

Miguex_sl said:

This is, in my opinion, a massiv thing that will come up in the next movie or the final of the trilogy. I stumbled across this by running my mouth in a conversation with some workmates today. They were unclear on what Rey's flash/force backs were all about and I started going and in mid sentence I realized "holy shit, Kylo actually killed the guy that was attacking Rey" (assuming she was seeing it from the perspective of her younger 5 year old self at the academy). Kylo has some serious issues with toe-ing the line between light and dark. My theory is that Rey was the "one step too far" that Kylo stopped at, which is why its a shock to him when he finally recognizes who she is in the movie.

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Yeah I'm halfway through the novelization of the movie now, it's clear that Kylo saves young Ren from one of the more overzealous Knights of Ren. Here's the sequence in the movie:


In fact, it's actually one of several callbacks to Kylo's personality that we later learn when Rey reveals that his biggest gripe is that he's not as strong as Vader----that moment is basicallyKylo Ren failing at killing the jedi younglingslike his grandfather did before him.

Man, Hyperdrive is fast. I knew it was fast, but I didn't know know it was fast. When they say their goodbyes on the Rebel base, to turn up literally 3 seconds later at the planet with Luke on... it was jarring. In the other films they would use the hyperdrive then cut to another scene - which gave off the sense of a journey or at least time spent (even if not in their reality).

I hate gfycats on this forum. They break the fuck out of the formatting....

Well here's the youtube while it lasts. I dunno why the GFYCATs started getting jacked with all that whitespace beneath it... looks like the controls are stretching the container all the way down.



Now it seems clear that the guy she's handed off to---the who one says "Quiet, girl" shortly after that clip---is Lor San Tekka (Max von Sydow) in some kinda armored helmet.

But yeah, Kylo Ren whacks a couple overzealous Knights of Ren who start killing younglings.

Saw it yesterday. Waiting until late Sunday morning paid off. Between church and people not wanting to miss the first half of football games, the theater was only half full. I walked in, bought a ticket, and got my normal spot of choice in the middle top row. Didn't have anyone sitting immediately beside to either side. The crowd was mostly adult couples and a few families. Maybe 1/4 were kids in the 5-10 year old range and none were loud. No fanbois clapping and cheering it up every time a familiar face made their first appearance either.

Simply put, it's solid. Very much an Ep 4 updated for modern audiences which was about the top end of what I had allowed myself to hope for. One thing I wondered about immediately afterwards is if it would connect to younger viewers the same way the original did back in '77. I know there was a lot of nuance there that would have flown right over the head of my 8 year old self who saw ANH and was totally blown away. Those of you who took your kids seem to suggest it did, so good marks there.

I also walked out with lots of questions (some of which have been asked and chewed upon here) and the desire to watch again with an eye towards looking for hints as to the answers. So it connected. I never had many questions about anything from the prequels that I actually cared overly much what the answers might be because they didn't connect, with me at least.

One impression I had (that doesn't seem to be correct based on the excerpts from the books that have been posted but I'll share anyway) was that Snoke realizes that Ren is damaged goods as far as a dark side user/Sith is concerned because of that fragment of goodness in him that refuses to go away. That's why he immediately told him to bring Rey to him. He's already in the market for a replacement and this was echoed in what Han told him just before he killed him ("He's only using you."). That also mirrors the OT with the Emperor/Vader/Luke dynamic. When everything fell apart with the Starkiller base he just settled for what he already had.

One possible hint about Rey's parentage is that there was clearly an established relationship between Sydow's character and Leia. He said to him she was royalty. So he may have been keeping an eye on Rey out of service to her.

One thing I was a bit disappointed in was the music (and I can't believe I'm even saying that because John Fuckin' Williams). It wasn't bad by any stretch but none of the new stuff really jumped out or got stuck in my head like The Imperial March or Binary Sunset did way back when. Other than that all the rest of my criticisms would just be echoing other mentioned several times already and are relatively minor anyway. I give an 8/10 and plan to see it at least once more, probably next week with some friends.

Tantrik_sl said:

Easy there Trigger, i was just making a comment about how the shot felt a bit out of place, and that I wasn't the only one.

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I feel the same

Royal_sl said:

One possible hint about Rey's parentage is that there was clearly an established relationship between Sydow's character and Leia. He said to him she was royalty. So he may have been keeping an eye on Rey out of service to her.

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Yeah his brief exchange with his Prince Ben Solo, shortly before his lordship cut him down, shows that deferential but familiar tone even while expressing his disappointment at what Kylo Ren has turned into. Lor San Tekka actually lays it out in the first few minutes of the movie. Kylo greets him with "Look how OLD you've become" to which von Sydow responds "something far worse has happened to you." then eventually "you cannot deny the truth that is your family."

The thing that feels off to me about the dream is the scene with her as a kid, she's not replacing her younger self during that part it shows her an external observer. We can't assume she's replacing herself in any of the other scenes due to that part. Do we have a clip of when Kylo first appears in the forest for the end fight? Is Finn in front and encounters him like the vision or Rey?