Star Wars: The Force Awakens (2015)

Carrie Fisher probably had enough botox injected into her face for the movie to paralyze a small horse.

That shit was pretty good.

Yep, definitely an amazing fan film. It picked some ideas from Old Republic cinematics, which is a very good idea that translates well into this style of fighting. So much better than the prequels. I hope we'll see some badass multiple-people-fights in future movies, with the Knights of Ren, etc..

Yeah it was really well done, but it was basically just a bunch of fucking LARP'ing. Some of the saber fighting had that gay prequel dancing shit going on too, but it IS about Maul so I guess that fits. They did nail Maul pretty well, even his moves and stuff from the prequel fights.

Gotta love all the edgelords in the comments saying it was better than anything in Ep 7 and shit. /yawn

So you go to all this trouble of making this awesome looking fan film, and you can't trouble yourself to cast a woman who doesn't swing a lightsaber about as smoothly as Laurel flails around with a tonfa in Arrow? She didn't look like 'oh im just an apprentice' bad, she just looked terrible. Even pre-epiphany Rey looked better with a lightsaber. I mean, I don't expect them to be able to match what a professional animator can do, but Ahsoka 14 when the Clone Wars started. Even if we assume Ahsoka was well above average for a padawan, any apprentice old enough to be taken out on field missions like that should at least be comfortable with a lightsaber.

That Togruta costume looked really good though.

Costume and CGI were awesome. Rest was ok. Perm jedi and Iwanna-Be Kanobi were a little over the top.

Drakain_sl said:

Perm jedi and Iwanna-Be Kanobi

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Heh, I was like what's up with Pauly Shore here?

Wanna-Be dude seemed like he channeled the dark side to match up with Maul there at one point. And where were they going with Maul's hesitation to kill the girl? Can't anyone just be full fucking dark side except the emp?

Famm_sl said:

And where were they going with Maul's hesitation to kill the girl? Can't anyone just be full fucking dark side except the emp?

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His training wasn't complete? There's a big difference between killing someone in combat and executing a beaten and defenseless 14 year old girl. Or maybe since he knew Sidious was watching the whole time, he waited to make sure he had his complete attention before he killed her. Maybe he sensed that kill was of profound importance and wanted to consider his decision even if killing her was inevitable.

She was at least sixteen.

I meant the character, not the actress.

Maybe he was thinking that if was to have his own apprentice he could at least make it one that was totally bangable.

Royal_sl said:

Maybe he was thinking that if was to have his own apprentice he could at least make it one that was totally bangable.

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Yeah, she was showing some dark-side potential, I thought, with the whole Fear -> Anger -> Hate transition she went through. Maybe it was supposed to be a moment of compassion, but I was hoping for the apprentice angle while I was watching it. Then he saw Palpatine watching and realized he couldn't overthrow him. It was probably supposed to just be a "moment of weakness" but I like my idea better.

Djay_sl said:

Yeah, she was showing some dark-side potential, I thought, with the whole Fear -> Anger -> Hate transition she went through. Maybe it was supposed to be a moment of compassion, but I was hoping for the apprentice angle while I was watching it. Then he saw Palpatine watching and realized he couldn't overthrow him. It was probably supposed to just be a "moment of weakness" but I like my idea better.

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That's a lot better than "she was like 14 and shit bro", thanks. Not sure why I didn't think of it that way.

I originally thought the apprentice thing too but I dismissed it because this would have taken place so early in Maul's training that I doubt he'd even started to think about killing Sidious yet. And I never insisted that it was a moment of compassion, rather that the pause was set up to give the moment gravitas. Not that he was hesitant to kill her, but that killing her was of particular significance to his apprenticeship.

It felt like he was seeing himself to a degree in the chick about to die. I'm not a film school douche, but it stands to reason that he'd have to progress beyond himself in order to be a darth in the SW mythos. Which is of course totally trampled in the clone wars series.

Either way, that was a fun watch. Very KOTOResque without being silly.

Gavinmad_sl said:

I originally thought the apprentice thing too but I dismissed it because this would have taken place so early in Maul's training that I doubt he'd even started to think about killing Sidious yet.

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Kylo Ren was also not yet fully trained and not even a Sith and yet he tried to take on Rey as his apprentice.

Royal_sl said:

not even a Sith

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Which is why him taking an apprentice is wildly different from Maul taking an apprentice. By the rule of two, the apprentice can't have an apprentice of their own. They're allowed to train force sensitive underlings but if that underling becomes too powerful the master will step in to prevent his apprentice from becoming too powerful, such as when Sidious ordered Tyranous to kill Ventress in Clone Wars. Whatever dark side tradition Snoke and the Knights of Ren follow, it clearly isn't Sith and so isn't bound by the rule of two.

I think the movie theme will start to explore the strength of using both sides of the force. The Sith uses the Dark side, and it's powerful, but they were eventually beaten. Jedi use the light side, but prove ineffective.