Star Wars Episode VII (allowing for spoilers)

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Re: Star Wars Episode VII (allowing for spoilers)

Post by Onslaught Six »

Honestly, they should keep all of the SW releases in the winter. The summer competition is crowded enough between Marvel and DC, plus whatever other franchises and NEW movies are coming out. Star Wars will make a billeventy dollars no matter when you release it, so put it in a spot where there's fucking NOTHING.
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Re: Star Wars Episode VII (allowing for spoilers)

Post by Shockwave »

Well nothing except for the usual end of year glut of Oscar bait.
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Re: Star Wars Episode VII (allowing for spoilers)

Post by andersonh1 »

I just got back from finally going to see "The Force Awakens", and honestly... I liked the prequels better. Out of the seven movies, I'd put this one at the bottom.

- I liked most of the new characters, on the good side anyway. I didn't think much of any of the new villains.
- I knew going in, based on discussion here, that this pretty much ruined any happy ending after Return of the Jedi. It was still unpleasant to watch it confirmed that Han and Leia's relationship was rocky, and that their son went bad, and that Luke just gave up and walked away from it all. The prequels altered nothing that we saw in Star Wars, Empire and Jedi, but The Force Awakens does affect those three. It honestly almost ruins the movie for me.
- Yeah, Harrison Ford probably wanted it this way, and I knew it was coming, but killing off Han Solo was a deeply unpleasant and cynical moment.
- Could this movie be any more derivative? How many plot elements did they lift directly from IV, V and VI? The whole thing felt like a retread of old ideas, not like a new story at all. They even make the Death Star comparison in one scene, as if making the Starkiller base bigger somehow makes the whole thing more impressive. This is the third Star Wars movie featuring the threat of a planet destroying weapon... enough. Come up with something new for next time.
- My reaction to Phantom Menace: "that was awesome, when's the next one?" My reaction to Revenge of the Sith: "Okay, that explains a lot." My reaction to the Force Awakens: "The next one better make all of this worth it."

Honestly, the whole thing was nowhere near as enjoyable as I'd hoped. A real letdown. I don't want to say that I didn't enjoy it, but it would be accurate to say that I enjoyed parts of it. As a whole, it was disappointing.
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Re: Star Wars Episode VII (allowing for spoilers)

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Onslaught Six wrote:Honestly, they should keep all of the SW releases in the winter. The summer competition is crowded enough between Marvel and DC, plus whatever other franchises and NEW movies are coming out. Star Wars will make a billeventy dollars no matter when you release it, so put it in a spot where there's fucking NOTHING.
You know what's funny about that? Star Wars A New Hope was going to launch in December 1976 because back then the holidays were when big movies were released, but effects and reshoots caused the film to get pushed into the Memorial Day release date. Its success is ultimately what re-weighted summer as the big movie season. It's like poetry, it rhymes.

andersonh1 wrote:I just got back from finally going to see "The Force Awakens", and honestly... I liked the prequels better. Out of the seven movies, I'd put this one at the bottom.
:? :shock: :o
- I knew going in, based on discussion here, that this pretty much ruined any happy ending after Return of the Jedi. It was still unpleasant to watch it confirmed that Han and Leia's relationship was rocky, and that their son went bad, and that Luke just gave up and walked away from it all. The prequels altered nothing that we saw in Star Wars, Empire and Jedi, but The Force Awakens does affect those three. It honestly almost ruins the movie for me.
I do see your point, but an argument can be made that the prequels reframed the path of the droids, R2 and 3PO, as well as the Jedi and the Old Republic, and narrowed the journey that Anakin took.
- Yeah, Harrison Ford probably wanted it this way, and I knew it was coming, but killing off Han Solo was a deeply unpleasant and cynical moment.
Cynical? Do you mean from a meta perspective or in-universe?
Honestly, the whole thing was nowhere near as enjoyable as I'd hoped. A real letdown. I don't want to say that I didn't enjoy it, but it would be accurate to say that I enjoyed parts of it. As a whole, it was disappointing.
Sorry to hear that. Yours is easily the most negative response I've seen of folks I know, so that makes it the new benchmark.

What would you be looking for in a sequel to help mitigate what you didn't like here?


BTW, Star Wars Rebels returned this Wednesday and it was a really good one. A young Leia was delivering our rebel friends a trio of large ships to replace the ones lost in the midseason finale without letting the Empire know that Alderaan was helping the Rebellion right under their noses. The actress they got was pretty good, she had some of the Carrie Fisher mannerisms, a lot of spunk, and smarts.
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Re: Star Wars Episode VII (allowing for spoilers)

Post by andersonh1 »

JediTricks wrote:Cynical? Do you mean from a meta perspective or in-universe?
At this point, I think taking a beloved old character and killing them off to wring some drama from a story requires a pretty cynical mindset on the part of the writer. It's possible that Han Solo's murder can still be made to serve the larger storyline that will presumably play out in episodes 8 and 9, but at the moment it feels gratuitous. Han's an old man now, but he's still smuggling and ripping off creditors? And his son's gone bad? And his relationship with Leia didn't work out well? All true, and now we'll kill him off. Enjoy his return, fanboy!!
Sorry to hear that. Yours is easily the most negative response I've seen of folks I know, so that makes it the new benchmark.
I think the thing that really disappointed me was just how unoriginal the whole thing was. Shockingly so. I can see lifting a few lines here and there ("I have a bad feeling about this!" from Han brought a big smile to my face), but when 80% of your plot is retread, it's hard to appreciate the new ideas that have been brought to the table.
What would you be looking for in a sequel to help mitigate what you didn't like here?
I'm going to have to give that some thought. I'm still mulling over the story and implications in my mind. Something fresh and original would be a good start though.
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Re: Star Wars Episode VII (allowing for spoilers)

Post by andersonh1 »

So, stuff from "The Force Awakens" that we've already seen:

- The old creepy guy "seduces" a Force-adept youth to the dark side. Snoke/Kylo Ren is just Palpatine/Anakin all over again
- The Starkiller Base is just a bigger Death Star, a comparison even made on screen
- There's a X-wing attack on the base at the end, with a countdown towards the destruction of the Rebel/Resistance base
- Using explosive charges to destroy the a key component that defends the Starkiller base is just like using charges to destroy the Endor shield generator
- the heroine comes from a desert planet. It's not Tatooine, but it might as well be.
- A droid carries a vital piece of information, and is hunted by the First Order - exactly like R2D2 and C3PO being hunted by the Empire

Shortcomings of the movie, in my opinion:
- One of the main flaws is the utter lack of any in-movie establishment of what the New Republic is like, and how it governs the galaxy. It's destruction by the Starkiller halfway through the movie carries zero emotional or dramatic heft, because other than a few lines of dialogue, we know almost nothing about it. In fact, more time should have been given to showing how the end of Return of the Jedi had affected the galaxy in general. It very much appears that apart from a name change, the new status quo is exactly like the old one... it's the Rebellion vs. the Empire.
- The canvas feels so small... with the prequels, we got a sense of a massive civilization. The world building was much broader. There was a real sense of a civilzation on the edge of collapse into decadence. In TFA, we have a series of set pieces.
- What planet was destroyed? Was that Coruscant?
- Too much of the emotional heft of the plot depends on events which happened in the thirty year interim between ROTJ and TFA... events which we have not seen. We don't see Ben Solo as a good person before he turns to the dark side, so despite the best efforts of Harrison Ford and Carrie Fisher to make us care about his plight, we really don't, because he's just a brat who wants to be Darth Vader. There's no tragedy in what he is, because we never see what he was. At least Anakin got to be a nice kid before he went bad.

The good stuff:
- All the new heroes are characters I can empathize with and root for, and that counts for a lot. Rey, Finn and Poe are all sympathetic and likeable.
- Despite what happens to him at the end, it's good to see Han Solo get so much screen time and at least an attempt at a weighty emotional plotline for the character, flawed though it is. We'd care more if we cared about Kylo Ren. As it is, the whole thing relies on the audience's emotional investment in Han Solo to make it work. That's not entirely successful.
- The unexpected cameos with Ackbar or Nien Nunb were fun. All this, but they couldn't work Lando in there somewhere?
- It's cool to see Anakin and Luke's blue lightsaber again, as long as they explain how it was recovered from Cloud City at some point. I thought including it in the story and having Rey return it to Luke at the end was a nice choice. I had thought Rey might keep it, but she ended up with Chewbacca on the Falcon, so I guess she can't inherit everything.

This isn't exhaustive by any means, and I'm curious to see if a second viewing would change my mind about any of it. The good stuff was good, but it was just outweighed by all the borrowed material from previous movies.
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Re: Star Wars Episode VII (allowing for spoilers)

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andersonh1 wrote:At this point, I think taking a beloved old character and killing them off to wring some drama from a story requires a pretty cynical mindset on the part of the writer. It's possible that Han Solo's murder can still be made to serve the larger storyline that will presumably play out in episodes 8 and 9, but at the moment it feels gratuitous. Han's an old man now, but he's still smuggling and ripping off creditors? And his son's gone bad? And his relationship with Leia didn't work out well? All true, and now we'll kill him off. Enjoy his return, fanboy!!
Ok, I see what you mean. While I would have liked more Han Solo in the sequels, I'm not sure if I discussed it in this thread, or on SSG, but Han's "happily ever after" was always the most challenging to return to. He's a scoundrel now living as a member of a rebellion, in a relationship with a princess who's a general and a statesman, it's an odd fit for him, it doesn't really seem like that's the freedom he'd be aiming for. If he goes back to running around with Rey and Finn, he's just "there" and it feels artificial.

So how do you think Han should have been dealt with? Would you wipe out what we saw in TFA and do something different? Or would you simply have him not stand on that bridge and get impaled and tossed over the side? If the latter, where does Han go next in the main SW saga in your eyes?
I think the thing that really disappointed me was just how unoriginal the whole thing was. Shockingly so. I can see lifting a few lines here and there ("I have a bad feeling about this!" from Han brought a big smile to my face), but when 80% of your plot is retread, it's hard to appreciate the new ideas that have been brought to the table.
I can't argue with much of that, it was JJ Abrams taking a lot of Star Wars (mostly ANH) and reframing it through his lens (literally and proverbially).

- Using explosive charges to destroy the a key component that defends the Starkiller base is just like using charges to destroy the Endor shield generator
I liked that we actually saw them used, we saw the effect they had intended whereas in ROTJ it was just a big kaboom far away. I didn't like that the effect they had was nigh-pointless, just cutting a hole for Poe's X-wing to narrowly fly through, that they didn't do anything more effective on their own (that we saw, it's possible that once the weapon tried to fire the energy in the thermal oscillator would flood the compartment, hit the tear, and cascade a reaction, but that's wholly speculative on my part, the movie didn't do its job explaining it).
- One of the main flaws is the utter lack of any in-movie establishment of what the New Republic is like, and how it governs the galaxy. It's destruction by the Starkiller halfway through the movie carries zero emotional or dramatic heft, because other than a few lines of dialogue, we know almost nothing about it. In fact, more time should have been given to showing how the end of Return of the Jedi had affected the galaxy in general. It very much appears that apart from a name change, the new status quo is exactly like the old one... it's the Rebellion vs. the Empire.
Very true, only the Empire at least was shown having an effect on the movie's universe immediately, the relationship between the factions was well-defined in the crawl and in the movie's story as it unfolded. The First Order seems to exist only in a story vacuum to be a bad guy.
- The canvas feels so small... with the prequels, we got a sense of a massive civilization. The world building was much broader. There was a real sense of a civilzation on the edge of collapse into decadence. In TFA, we have a series of set pieces.
This is very true. I didn't enjoy much of the worldbuilding in the prequels, but TFA doesn't build worlds at all, it's all set pieces.

Kylo Ben is a tortured gifted child, angry at the limitations of his abilities, wanting to be seen as greatness without earning it, and stunted by being pulled in different directions. We don't know what Snoke did to turn him, but I kinda bought the character as presented.
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Re: Star Wars Episode VII (allowing for spoilers)

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JediTricks wrote:So how do you think Han should have been dealt with? Would you wipe out what we saw in TFA and do something different? Or would you simply have him not stand on that bridge and get impaled and tossed over the side? If the latter, where does Han go next in the main SW saga in your eyes?
Good question, and I'm not sure I have a good answer. They clearly want to use Chewbacca and the Falcon, and it wouldn't make sense for Han not to be with them, so if Harrison Ford isn't willing to reprise his role again, the writers took the easiest way of writing him out. I'm honestly not sure how else to handle it. I can't see Han Solo just striking out on his own and leaving all his friends behind. There could be some plot contrivance that would cause him to do that, but it's the old Jadzia Dax problem: if you know the actor/actress isn't coming back, can you really sustain the illusion that they're alive, just "out there" in space somewhere?

I can see the problem here, but it doesn't make me like the solution.
Kylo Ben is a tortured gifted child, angry at the limitations of his abilities, wanting to be seen as greatness without earning it, and stunted by being pulled in different directions. We don't know what Snoke did to turn him, but I kinda bought the character as presented.
I can see that, and I get what they were going for. I just have a hard time feeling the sympathy for him that we're clearly supposed to, based on how Han and Leia see him. We never get to see the good kid that Han and Leia care about.
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Re: Star Wars Episode VII (allowing for spoilers)

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From what I've read, Harrison Ford may yet still appear in Episode 8...
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Re: Star Wars Episode VII (allowing for spoilers)

Post by Onslaught Six »

Anderson, you make the argument that "at least we saw that Anakin was a good kid," but we didn't see that for 20 years after ROTJ. We know we'll see more Kylo Ren; the next movie is likely to focus hugely on his past. Wait a couple years!

Also, I don't like this idea that Han and Leia's breakup and Kylo Ren's heel turn are somehow separate events, it's very clear that Kylo's turn is the catalyst for that. The same with Luke. And Luke leaving I can completely believe--Yoda tells him he's the last of the Jedi and to pass on what he's learned; Luke spends the rest of the movie struggling not to give in to the dark side, and while he succeeds in that movie, the only thing he's seemed to pass on to Kylo Ren--his own flesh and blood--is his anger, his fear, his insecurity. Kylo kills all of Luke's students and possibly Luke's wife (speculation), he has definitively failed in being a good teacher. Who else fucked up their main student and had him become a masked black guy with a red lightsaber? Who is Luke's surrogate father and main influence? Obi-Wan. What did Obi-Wan do when that happened? He ran and hid and became Alec Guinness.

Plus, we don't even know exactly what Luke is doing. We know he ran, but Luke wasn't a General in the Republic; he was just some retired guy who happened to be a Jedi. Leia says he went looking for the first Jedi temple or something--why? Probably to make sense out of everything, find out where he fucked up.
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