Star Wars: The Force Awakens reviews *SPOILERS*

[sactoking]

So did anyone pick up on the fact the Luke was standing next to someones grave?

When Ren is interrogating Rey she mentions an island and an ocean, I think shes been training with Luke in the past and had her memory blocked.

I did not notice a grave. I assumed that Rey's talk of oceans and islands was something she saw in a force dream. I don't think she trained with Luke there at all. I don't know ages but I doubt that Luke would have trained Ren somewhere else, then he went bad, then Luke left for the island planet, THEN he trained Rey, then he dropped her off and then she grew up. Rey is quite young in the lightsaber flashback when she's left on the planet.

I don't recall, is the person who's hand she is holding (in the flashback) on the right or left of her? The hand is flesh, so if it's the person's left hand (Rey on the left) then it could be Luke abandoning her (perhaps he's ashamed of having a child as a Jedi) but if it's not then it seems like it has to be momma abandoning her.

 

[maddogchen]

Didn't like the movie, give it a 4/10. How does she pilot the millennium falcon on her first time flying it better than I've seen Han Solo fly it?

Also didn't have any epic starship battles. Wanted to see what new ships they had. And how does an escaping tie fighter knock out all the guns on a warship?

 

[Ferzerp]

That's exactly what I thought. R2 sensed a Skywalker...

Err... Because Leia just doesn't count?

 

[Ferzerp]

Didn't like the movie, give it a 4/10. How does she pilot the millennium falcon on her first time flying it better than I've seen Han Solo fly it?

Also didn't have any epic starship battles. Wanted to see what new ships they had. And how does an escaping tie fighter knock out all the guns on a warship?

Force sensitives being phenoms at certain things with little to no training is a common thing in the star wars universe.

 

[Slew Foot]

Force sensitives being phenoms at certain things with little to no training is a common thing in the star wars universe.

You saying Finn is a force sensitive too? Grandson of Windu perhaps?

I kinda hate how Kylo took off his mask. He looks like some dumb emo teen with long hair instead of a badass.

 

[Ferzerp]

I was replying to the bit about Rey flying the ship.

He kind of sucked at the lighsaber. I can only assume that whatever melee weapon training they get (obviously they do, the other storm trooper had the baton type thing to fight him with) didn't translate so well. He got beaten by a storm trooper with a shocky stick, and then got beaten by a semi trained force user who had been shot in the shoulder.

 

[Slew Foot]

I was replying to the bit about Rey flying the ship.

He kind of sucked at the lighsaber. I can only assume that whatever melee weapon training they get (obviously they do, the other storm trooper had the baton type thing to fight him with) didn't translate so well. He got beaten by a storm trooper with a shocky stick, and then got beaten by a semi trained force user who had been shot in the shoulder.

Gotcha. Im thinking the majority of his training was in cleaning toilets. How he got to be on an elite strike team with Kylo Ren is questionable.

Does anyone know who the old man in the beginning is who gives the map to Poe? He seems to know Leia.

 

[NAC4EV]

It's a f*ckin movie folks...

You people need to get a F*ckin life!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

[Ferzerp]

Lor San Tekka.

Apparent back story fodder for other content.

 

[dr150]

It's a f*ckin movie folks...

You people need to get a F*ckin life!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Preach it brotha!

I'll watch it when it comes out on Betamax. :thumbsup:

 

[TheSlamma]

Why do I feel I've seen that movie before?

Oh because I have. Jar Jar Abrams did the same thing with the second Star Trek movie, just rehashed old plots, but this time used a pantywaist for a villain. Why did Anakin need all those years of training? Apparently it takes no time at all to use the force in the Disney universe.

 

[Bird222]

Oh I wanted to add too that the humor in this one is just perfect.
Some really funny stuff tossed in there

C3PO: "You may not recognize me because of my red arm"
Chewie talking to the nurse about how "Scary it was" and how "Brave he must have been"
BB8's "thumbs up"
A TON of Fin's lines.
The list goes on and on.

Anyone else notice the dude from Heroes as the X-Wing pilot?

Yep! :thumbsup:

 

[jackstar7]

Does anyone know who the old man in the beginning is who gives the map to Poe? He seems to know Leia.

I wanted it to be Wedge, but I don't think that was the actual character.

 

[Newbian]

interesting perspective from a hard-core SW nerd who actually liked the prequels

Do you know how big a star is? You can't fit one inside a planet. And the star coming back when it blew up...just no. This is not Star Wars.

If you liked them then you are not a star wars fan.

Also they don't fit the star inside the planet but instead some of it's energy otherwise it would only had been a one time use weapon.

 

[Skel]

<snip>

I had no problem with Finn bugging out. As a sanitation worker it would seem to make sense that he would panic on his first real action, especially given they were essentially slaughtering innocents. Did it seem a bit weird at first having it not explained until 3/4 of the way through the movie? Yes, but do we need every plot point spoon-fed to us?

I'm not saying they need every plot point fed to us, but some kind of understanding would be nice. Like why a garbage man would be in the frontal assault in the first place. You'd think they'd have it full of people that had experience in fighting. I'd say tell me it was a milk run of trainees, but then you wouldn't be able to have him explain all the ways to take out the Death Planet. It's just an odd point.. nothing for me to loose that much sleep over, but I do prefer they would have done explained a few points.

No problem with Finn in the lightsaber fight. He was a trained stormtrooper. Leading up to the movie people were speculating that Kylo Ren was a just a normal guy obsessed with Vader and were wondering how he'd do with a lightsaber. We saw that in the Finn fight, with Finn losing until Han came along.

The only thing that bothered me was the question of if Finn was Force sensitive or not. I couldn't really tell one way or the other. Ren stared right at him, so I thought he was. That would work better for me than Stormtrooper Garbage man picks up a lightsaber and doesn't cut his leg off. I'm guessing we'll see more in the next movies. For a moment there I thought he was the new Solo, but then Rey took that spot too.

No problem with Rey during the Kylo Ren fight. Leia was less force-powerful than Luke, so it makes sense that her son is less powerful than his daughter even though she isn't trained. After all, isn't the true power of the force apparent when someone taps their emotions? She seemed to be raging all over him so that seemed somewhat appropriate. Also, seems like Ren isn't really fully trained, since Snoke pretty much said as much. So it's not like Rey turned the tables on a Jedi/Sith master or anything.

I thought they said he was able to destory Luke's temple(? not sure what it was) that would require him to be better with his lightsaber. Of course we're also talking about the guy who grabbed a blaster bolt out of the air and held it there. You'd think he'd at least be much more powerful (and trained in) the Force. I'm not saying that killing Solo didn't take it's toll, but it doesn't really click with Rey beating him. I can only hope they'll explain it later, like she channeled dead Jedi.

Interesting to see that Ren is obsessed with Vader and he kinda got Vader'ed at the end, being slashed in the leg and side, stabbed through the shoulder and disfigured.

Did I miss something? I thought the only thing we knew about that was what Rey said.. maybe what Leia/Solo mentioned when talking about him. I also thought his robes were like his sword, part of this new OMG so evil, so cool Sith 2.0.

You saying Finn is a force sensitive too? Grandson of Windu perhaps?<snip>

I thought Jedi were not allowed to have kids.. or any kind of love outside the order. I thought that was the whole point of Vader's fall. I could be wrong, but I thought I remembered they got kids from those out in the wild being force sensitive. Vader being the first to have kids.. at least in the order that spawned Vader. If that's not the case someone needs to remind me wtf Vader was so cranky about.. other than being a N'Sync reject.

If you liked them then you are not a star wars fan.

Also they don't fit the star inside the planet but instead some of it's energy otherwise it would only had been a one time use weapon.

Why did it (re?) create the sun when they blew up the planet? It really doesn't hold up well as a concept when you really (over?)think about it.

 

[Newbian]

Why did it (re?) create the sun when they blew up the planet? It really doesn't hold up well as a concept when you really (over?)think about it.

As far as I can tell it just uses some energy from the sun to be used as the energy beam and didn't destroy the sun otherwise they wouldn't had been able to use it after the first time they shot with it.

Granted not much has been posted about it for the tech junkies like you see about a lot of the ships and such but that's what it looked like in the film.

 

[Skel]

As far as I can tell it just uses some energy from the sun to be used as the energy beam and didn't destroy the sun otherwise they wouldn't had been able to use it after the first time they shot with it.

Granted not much has been posted about it for the tech junkies like you see about a lot of the ships and such but that's what it looked like in the film.

I also thought it would use some energy from the sun then blast it out, but then they went on about it taking out the sun, which I think was mostly so they could use the whole "As long as there's light there's hope" thing. Of course when it blew up and a new sun was there I couldn't help but wonder how bad that was going to fuck things up for that system. It'll be bad no matter how it goes.. the sun moved or they have two. That'll screw things up.

 

[Newbian]

I also thought it would use some energy from the sun then blast it out, but then they went on about it taking out the sun, which I think was mostly so they could use the whole "As long as there's light there's hope" thing. Of course when it blew up and a new sun was there I couldn't help but wonder how bad that was going to fuck things up for that system. It'll be bad no matter how it goes.. the sun moved or they have two. That'll screw things up.

The light thing they were talking about was how much energy they needed and when the sun went dark it meant they had enough power to shoot the weapon.

Over time the sun recovers you have to assume unless they somehow used it to zap energy from distant stars but the movie made it look like it was a lot closer.

We will see if they ever place out more info on it

 

[ctark]

Total stream of conciousness after I just saw it.

Overall I liked it miles better than the prequels and probably about on par with episode 4. Granted, it seemed like a lot of the story was borrowed from there.

Agree with someone above that there seems to be a lot of missing content and a lot of story lines to make for "prequels". Its almost like this was enough for two or three movies and a bunch of stuff was cut out which makes the pace seem hurried. It probably could have ended when she and chewie left in the falcon to make for an easy transition to 8.

Poe is a total badass

Rey is a badass as well, I get the feeling that she has been force trained in the past but her memory was blocked (a la Darth Revan) which explains why she picks up on force concepts so fast.

A lot of the trailers have lines and concepts that were not in the movie. Maz Kanata asking Rey "who she is", Luke telling someone (most likely Rey) about the force running in his family.

So why did R2 suddenly wake up? Do he and bb8 have some sort of common connection? Im assuming he knows exactly where Luke is since Luke is seen with his hand on R2, why is he hiding the info from everyone?

Sad to see Han go, but I think he wanted out.

I think BB8 knew R2D2 was part of the key to finding skywalker and I think R2D2 woke up because Rey showed up with the skywalker lightsaber which was essentially the "cipher" to the puzzle. Its not explain and I think it will be later because Maz said "thats another story for another time". I'm guessing Luke is in hiding for 2 reasons, one because he failed and he's brooding. But another reason is because he was the last of the Jedi once again and Snoke wants to destroy him, thereby destroying the official Jedi line forever. So I believe he is trying to protect the order and I think it will be revealed to us later on that all of this was planned with Rey, she was the key. Whether she is a Skywalker or a Solo, I dont know. But I do think she was training to be a Jedi at one point and for whatever reason she can't remember (ala Darth Revin). As for other things that aren't explained, I think our generation forgets the different between movies and tv shows. You only have a limited amount of time in a movie to explain things, and they really want to get their novel franchise off the ground and this would be a great place to start.

 

[ctark]

Didn't like the movie, give it a 4/10. How does she pilot the millennium falcon on her first time flying it better than I've seen Han Solo fly it?

Also didn't have any epic starship battles. Wanted to see what new ships they had. And how does an escaping tie fighter knock out all the guns on a warship?

How does Anakin Skywalker destroy the federation ship in Episode I even though he never flew a ship.

The Force Awakens... think about the title and think of Rey and you have most of your answers as to why she's able to do everything well. Plus its obvious she has some repressed memories. It will all be explained... so dont be millennial and demand to have all answered revealed to you at the outset.

 

[ctark]

I'm not saying they need every plot point fed to us, but some kind of understanding would be nice. Like why a garbage man would be in the frontal assault in the first place. You'd think they'd have it full of people that had experience in fighting. I'd say tell me it was a milk run of trainees, but then you wouldn't be able to have him explain all the ways to take out the Death Planet. It's just an odd point.. nothing for me to loose that much sleep over, but I do prefer they would have done explained a few points.

To me this is a non issue simply because its a none issue. There are 100's of logical explanations for this, and if you gave one it is really unimportant. We tend to over think things sometimes. First thing that comes to mind is Cuba Gooding Jr in the movie Pearl Harbor taking over the ships gun to gun down planes, wasn't he the ships cook? Or maybe you have to pay your dues. Maybe they were short handed. The explanations are endless and some of the ones I gave you don't add anything to this story they are trying to tell within "The Force Awakens". A Finn origin book is the proper place for that. It might have just been a plot device to make a joke with Han Solo when they go to blow up Starkiller, and I for one thought it was freakin hilarious the way Han looks at him. I didn't think any more about it because it does not matter.

The only thing that bothered me was the question of if Finn was Force sensitive or not. I couldn't really tell one way or the other. Ren stared right at him, so I thought he was. That would work better for me than Stormtrooper Garbage man picks up a lightsaber and doesn't cut his leg off. I'm guessing we'll see more in the next movies. For a moment there I thought he was the new Solo, but then Rey took that spot too.

I don't think Finn is force sensitive. People make the assumption that being force sensitive makes you the ultimate swordsman. Just like real people, jedi have to train all their lives at their craft to be a master at it, including battle with a lightsaber. I think Finn's biggest problem is fear and running away from things he fears. I think him fighting Kylo was showing he was no longer afraid, but at the same time he wasn't on Kylo's level and was ultimately defeated.

TI thought they said he was able to destory Luke's temple(? not sure what it was) that would require him to be better with his lightsaber. Of course we're also talking about the guy who grabbed a blaster bolt out of the air and held it there. You'd think he'd at least be much more powerful (and trained in) the Force. I'm not saying that killing Solo didn't take it's toll, but it doesn't really click with Rey beating him. I can only hope they'll explain it later, like she channeled dead Jedi.

He probably killed younger Jedi, and he did have the Knights of Ren with him. We have not seen that group as a whole in action yet. Kylo is powerful, but he is trying to use the Darkside and it appears he's not fully invested in it quite yet. It almost appears he's trying to fake it, he's not fully buying in. It looks like his conscious is very well alive and he knows what he's doing wrong, whereas Darth Vader was completely deluded and brainwashed by ole Sheev Palpatine

I thought Jedi were not allowed to have kids.. or any kind of love outside the order. I thought that was the whole point of Vader's fall. I could be wrong, but I thought I remembered they got kids from those out in the wild being force sensitive. Vader being the first to have kids.. at least in the order that spawned Vader. If that's not the case someone needs to remind me wtf Vader was so cranky about.. other than being a N'Sync reject.

The Jedi were not allowed to have attachment, that doesn't necessarily mean they can't have sex. However I dont think he is Windu's son, I think there's a better chance that he could be Calrissian's son, but that is probably not the case either. However during the preimer, Billy Williams was there with his real life grandson named "Finnegan", and I thought it was pretty ironic.

 

[Sho'Nuff]

I saw it. I liked it. Would see again :thumbsup:

Were there a few plot holes? Sure. But they were there in the original trilogy too. This is high fantasy folks. Not serious cinema.

Loved that the movie paid homage to a good deal of the original trilogy, though I could have done with a different ending other than blowing up yet another death star. But it was clear throughout that there was tremendous love and effort put into it - so much so that it had me smiling through pretty much the entire thing.

Only character that I thought was weak was Leia. Carrie Fisher was never a great actress, but her acting chops in the first trilogy were WORLDS better than her performance in this movie. Would not be disappointed if her character disappeared in future films.

All in all - I think the movie was great fun and a terrific set up for future films.

 

[ctark]

I saw it. I liked it. Would see again :thumbsup:

Were there a few plot holes? Sure. But they were there in the original trilogy too. This is high fantasy folks. Not serious cinema.

Loved that the movie paid homage to a good deal of the original trilogy, though I could have done with a different ending other than blowing up yet another death star. But it was clear throughout that there was tremendous love and effort put into it - so much so that it had me smiling through pretty much the entire thing.

Only character that I thought was weak was Leia. Carrie Fisher was never a great actress, but her acting chops in the first trilogy were WORLDS better than her performance in this movie. Would not be disappointed if her character disappeared in future films.

All in all - I think the movie was great fun and a terrific set up for future films.

I will agree on Leia, however go look at some recent interviews and listen to her voice. Past decisions along with medication have changed her voice and speech dramatically, and it was something I was seriously concerned with going into the new movie. She was on Ellen just the other day and she sounded terrible. Considering what they had to work with, she did great. Its not entirely her fault and she probably has more talent than you realize. She had a beautiful voice and that is what got her the part in the original trilogies. She had a certain beauty about her, but she wasn't your typical blueprint for a beautiful woman. What she does now is fix screen plays and apparently she's pretty damn good at it. So while she may not be the best actor, she has talent when it comes to performing arts. But do a quick youtube of her and see what she's dealing with and it may change your outlook on her performance somewhat.

 

[Capt Caveman]

Saw it tonight in 3D. I really liked it and will probably go see it without 3D. It definitely paid homage to Star Wars pretty much following the exact script but I'm fine with that.

Sad to see Han Solo die.

 

[Sho'Nuff]

I will agree on Leia, however go look at some recent interviews and listen to her voice. Past decisions along with medication have changed her voice and speech dramatically, and it was something I was seriously concerned with going into the new movie. She was on Ellen just the other day and she sounded terrible. Considering what they had to work with, she did great.

The fact that someone is dealing with an issue does not mean that their performance was good. It just means it might have been the best that could have been hoped for considering the issue they were dealing with.

What you are advocating for is akin to saying that because XYZ was a great hitter when he had two eyes, he is still a good hitter if he has lost an eye and now strikes 9 out of 10 times. The reality is he was a good hitter when he had two eyes, and now he is not. The fact that he is not is understandable, but it does not make him good now.

A more realistic example would be Diane Rehm. She is a wonderfully intelligent woman and a pretty good radio host. But her voice sounds like bones mashing around in a garbage disposal. The fact that she has spasmodic dysphonia makes it easy to understand why she has the voice that she does. But it does not make her voice beautiful or any easier to listen to on the radio.

Its not entirely her fault and she probably has more talent than you realize.

Whether it was "her fault" is irrelevant to her performance in the movie. As is whether she "has" talent.

She had a beautiful voice and that is what got her the part in the original trilogies. She had a certain beauty about her, but she wasn't your typical blueprint for a beautiful woman.

Agreed - but again - irrelevant to the performance in this movie. Also - Harrison Ford is a perfect rebuttal for this. He did a great job reprising a role as a swashbuckler despite looking like the old man he is. Han Solo lost his good looks, but not his charm.

What she does now is fix screen plays and apparently she's pretty damn good at it.

Again - irrelevant to her performance in this film.

So while she may not be the best actor, she has talent when it comes to performing arts.

I don't dispute this.

But do a quick youtube of her and see what she's dealing with and it may change your outlook on her performance somewhat.

Nope. Sorry to be a hardass on this stuff, but I grew up with a brother who was a child prodigy on the piano. He has more talent for playing the piano in one finger than most people have in their whole body, but he will be the first person to tell you that in the performing arts - the performance is everything. You can have all the talent in the world. You can practice all day and all night. You can do everything right. But if you flub the performance (for whatever reason) - the plain and simple truth is that it wasn't a good performance and you will have to deal with the fact that someone might not have liked it as a result.