Before I post replies, here's my thoughts...
Saw it on Tuesday, theater has $6 Tuesdays for regular, and discounts on larger-format, 3D, and Dbox moving seats (
). It's "fine", not as bad as Abrams' Star Trek movies, not as insulting to the canon, likable new characters for the most part, but still plenty of script issues and a few glaring technical ones, it doesn't feel inspired by anything other than previous Star Wars films, and it has a twinge of being a Hollywood sequel to an anti-Hollywood series. My take was 7/10. I will say that it didn't have much in the way that excited me, mostly it was Poe's material being brash and flying the X-wing. But it wasn't bad.
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Slash-Film has the following notes from the Ep 7 script:
http://www.slashfilm.com/star-wars-the- ... ns-ending/
as well as deleted scenes:
http://www.slashfilm.com/star-wars-the- ... ed-scenes/
The stuff explaining the Republic's relationship to the Resistance comes off as very prequel-like, and further deconstructs the ROTJ victory.
Maz having Force powers would have been too much, had the prequels not happened I would have been ok with this, but now it's too late to just add random Force-adept non-Jedi who aren't with the Dark Side.
Chewie would finally have ripped someone's arm off.
If you think about it, it's really George Lucas' Happily Ever After which Ep 7 kills, that is the death Lucas' argument for a fairy tale feeling not killing main heroes comments upon to me. In fact, Ep 7 unintentionally argues in favor of the Prequels' interpretations of the Republic, going back to that system post-ROTJ leads to corrupt senators not acting against the First Order so Leia creates the Resistance (taken from script, deleted scene). The movie takes place 30 years after ROTJ, the timeline for the First Order has Finn being taken from his parents 24 years prior, which means that only 6 years after ROTJ the galaxy was already worse off, and it doesn't sound like Finn was only one. We are told the First Order isn't the Empire, so these aren't the same exact resources being extended. The undertaking of the Starkiller weapon alone is on a scale unimaginable by even Star Wars' standards, so it and the First Order forces seem to have been doing their thing efficiently since essentially Lando and Wedge were dancing with Ewoks.
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Speculation on Rey...
The movie tries to suggest that she's a hero's daughter pretty hard, likely Luke's. Some of these moments are red herrings, such as the Rebel pilot helmet she picks up outside the AT-AT looks very much like Luke's but has slightly different markings.
I would prefer her not to be related to any heroes, it's too much and it makes whomever her parents are out to be awful people, abandoning her to the harshest life imaginable for a tiny child.
But she's also so ridiculously skilled in the Force without even a hint of training that either she's crossing beyond Mary Suedom into downright incompetent character writing, or this next theory...
Perhaps Rey is another student of Luke Skywalker's. He recognizes her because she was one of the survivor's of Ben's destruction of the new Jedi temple (Luke recognizing Rey and seeing the destruction of the temple are in the film's script). Rey, a small child, could have been early in training and orphaned by the act, Kylo Ben having killed her parents during his turn to the dark side. Perhaps she wasn't given saber training yet, but she had connections to the Force which had been honed just enough that the trauma hid those memories but the skills are in her.
This doesn't justify why she's so good at repairs, piloting, survival, speaking astromech droid language, or hyperdrive engineering; but it would explain why she can tap into the Force without seemingly any training and use it so well. Kylo Ben might not recognize her because he himself was a kid (albeit an older one) and not that connected to her during the training.
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The Force Awakens Story issues, Technical issues, and Nitpicks
Keep in mind, these aren't meant to invalidate the film, they aren't crushing blows, the movie holds around 7/10, but these are part of why that grade isn't higher.
Story Issues
- BB-8 is a Mary Sue.
- Rey is a bit of a Mary Sue as well, she is automatically good at: repairing things, speaking astromech droid language, surviving in a harsh environment, piloting, interstellar travel, hyperdrive engineering, hand to hand fighting, pistol use, connecting to the Force, using the Force without one iota of training, and lightsaber combat; she's basically Lil Annie x3.
- Story moments feel inorganic, every event and character is driven by the script alone, everything is set to a series of whopping conveniences.
- Finn is somehow in sanitation then moves up the ranks to Stormtrooper and Phasma's elite squad pretty easily, yet either this is his first mission (the movie suggests as much) or this is the most brutal action he's encountered; Finn being a lowly trooper somehow also knows a lot about everything important in the First Order.
- Rey suffers ridiculously over the top levels of mistreatment, and scavanges just for food rations which feels overly narrow in focus.
- The end battle focus is drawn away from where it should be, no story beat really feels important except Kylo Ren's, including Poe Dameron's X-wing battle which should be a big deal, they may as well not have destroyed the Starkiller at all, just crippled it.
- The movie feels like 5 set pieces, even using real locales they don't feel like a rich world.
- There's no weight given to the destruction of an entire system, a system that appears to be Coruscant and the New Republic's capitol and senate.
- The Rebel base is totally exposed at the end, the villains are still well-armed and nearby.
- The end battle on the planet splits our heroes apart so perfectly that it's an eyeroll of a contrived plot device even in a film made entirely of contrived plot devices.
- R2 wakes up for no reason.
- Finn seems to have little compunction about killing so soon after being horrified by abject killing, these fellow troopers were the only people he knew and they were conscripts like him, he kills dozens of them in the first moments of his turn from the First Order.
- The political structure of the New Republic, Rebel Alliance, Resistance, the Senate, Empire, Old Republic, and First Order is muddled and confusing, and the scene cut from the film explaining more of it is very Prequel-esque.
- Major coincidences: Max von Sydow's throwaway character is in the exact same relative area as Rey, BB-8 has the entire planet from which to choose and finds Rey, Finn and Poe have the entire planet from which to crash and finds one closest to Rey and BB-8, the heroes are all in the same vicinity as the long-lost Millennium Falcon, Han finally tracks down the Falcon just as the heroes use it, Han's detour to Maz's castle just happens to be where Luke's lightsaber calls to Rey, Kylo Ren's decision not to keep hunting for BB-8 calling off the First Order strike, Finn knowing how to take down the shields of Starkiller base, Kylo Ren being in the same place as Han and company, Poe's X-wing success flying through the crack where nobody else could.
- BB-8 doesn't get humanized very well because his/her voice isn't properly defined by Rey acting as C-3PO, and there aren't many noble or brave actions on 8's part.
- There isn't a lot of emotional weight to Finn or Poe Dameron's characters as written on the page.
- Maz doesn't feel like a character that Han would know, and her style of having a statue of herself and a court of scumbags doesn't feel like a character that would have earned the wisdom she has.
- The denouement between Finn and Phasma lacked any edge or conversation worthy of the outcome, and there was enough supporting material suggesting it could have been a sharp, stinging duel of words.
- Finn was a conscript, but didn't feel converted-enough from that life, he stopped feeling like a fallen stormtrooper far too early.
- Kylo Ben calling out Finn as a traitor felt far-fetched, Finn was a conscript and a lowly stormtrooper, why would the First Order think twice about this guy at all, much less focus heavily on him when he's just another nameless number?
- Kylo Ben really doesn't feel weighted correctly, either he's fairly inept because he's angsty and in training, or he's a massive and powerful threat who sits near the top of the chain of command of the First Order, being both feels like a character conflict.
Technical Issues
- The sounds BB-8 makes are overly childlike and grating at times.
- CGI Snoke and Maz look very phony, CGI translucent skin and CGI mo-cap movement look very computerized, characters could have been played by humans or puppets quite easily.
- Some of the lens and angle choices are appallingly flat and plasticky, and the use of simple edits and fast wipes is disappointingly traditional much of the time.
- The score isn't particularly impressive.
- The Falcon and X-wing cameras moved too much sometimes to the point where it was overboard and the hyper editing was only making it worse.
- Phasma is photographed wrong, she's imposing and tall, yet never blocked or framed as such, never seen from low angles to suggest her intimidation factor.
Nitpicks
- The name "BB-8" is said by everybody, no shorthand like "Eight" or "you", only a constant stream of "buy products of this character" name-repetition a la Poochie.
- Rey constantly is emoting at maximum, this is on the direction rather than the actor.
- Han Solo's ranthtar adventure feels out of place and looks ridiculous, why didn't they eat Finn the way they did everyone else?
- Movie proves it's a reboot by calling this Episode 7, should really be called "Episode 8" as there are plenty of interrim story elements that would have been in its past between ROTJ and TFA which are crucial enough to justify story weight.
- Greg Grunberg is distracting here. Judah Friedlander's name in the credits is distracting. This movie is very Hollywood insider, the polar opposite of Star Wars' roots.
- The Starkiller Base never is seen moving, yet it appears to drain stars and fire a hyperspace-based weapon from system to system, it's kind of nonsensical even for Star Wars.
- Rey has Finn use the belly turret instead of the dorsal turret for no apparent reason.
- The Falcon takes a LOT of very serious hits without apparent damage.
- The First Order attacks on Jakku and Maz's compound all feel identical in the way they're presented - ground troops shooting random stuff, ground troops noticing heroes, TIE Fighters strafing.
- Elderly Ackbar looked bad with his muppet-mouth, and added nothing of consequence.
- The X-wing attack on the Starkiller felt too much like a video game.
- Jakku and D'Qar are far too similar to Tatooine and Yavin IV, respectively (Starkiller Base at least uses a different visual look from Hoth with its snowy setting sporting jutting rocks and plant life).
- Rey's fighting technique with a lightsaber doesn't use her skills fighting with her pike earlier, she mostly relies on thrusting rather than parrying and uses almost no slicing.
- The Resistence fleet is pretty meager.
- Doesn't feel like it's taking from anything other than Star Wars, nothing else really informs film.
- Blaster shots hit stormtroopers who react like they were hit by a truck.
- Using the Force to stop a blaster bolt in mid air seems way outside the previous abilities of the Force, or any abilities outside of The Matrix.
- Chewbacca looks too neat and clean, looks off.
- Han using Chewie's cocked bowcaster was fine, but when he kept using it he didn't pull the bow string, it seemed pretty silly he wouldn't have tried it before now.
- Poe's excuse about surviving the TIE crash is dumb and doesn't have to be. "I got thrown from the crash"? Did we see the actual pilot seat intact? That's the only reason not to say he ejected and blacked out the way Finn did, neither was wearing a pressure flight suit, so it would have made sense if he ejected and blacked out, but being "thrown" is asking way more.