Star Wars: The Force Awakens (12/18/15)

[pixletwin]

Yes Rey grabbing the saber was great but I'm talking about all the new music too. Very nuanced in the dramatic moments (Kylo watching the Starkiller blast pass his ship/Rey climbing the steps at the end) and rousing during the excitement (X-Wings saving the day in Takodana.) There are many other examples. The score is getting big kudos elsewhere and deservedly so. It's okay jye, I'm sure you'll once again see that I am right on your next viewing.

For those who don't conciously realize why that moment resonated the way it did, is because they play the Skywalker theme with the Rey theme in counterpoint... It is the best musical moment in the whole movie (imo) and ironically it is a moment completely missing from the OST.

 

[Khev]

It is the best musical moment in the whole movie (imo) and ironically it is a moment completely missing from the OST.

No!

 

[Khev]

Awesome Riot Officer memes. Long live TR-8R!

https://www.slashfilm.com/tr-8r/

 

[pixletwin]

No!

I was pretty disappointed. What were they thinking?

 

[rushmore223]

Outside of this board, you know, the real world, I've only heard negative comments about this film from one person. And that person I overheard in conversation as he professed how much better the prequels were in every way than TFA.

There are a lot of SW fans out there, but that's not driving this film to 1.5 billion in 3 weeks. It's the average movie goer who, many of which have seen this movie multiple times. So saying only the hardcore fans and critics love it is a fallacy. Truth is, this movie is expanding the audience of SW, people that disregarded it in the past suddenly love this movie. For example, my wife, she tolerated star wars in the past, but really enjoyed this movie and (gasp!) wants to see it again.

 

[Mad Old Lu]

A valid point but damn does that lightning fast pace make for easy rewatching. It's damn near impossible to get bored watching this movie. But even amidst the action we get these great little moments with Rey living her life on Jakku or her pausing to let the breeze off the lake hit her face on Takodana, Han's cool Indy speech about the Force being real, etc. And that flashback vision Rey gets, such an awesome sequence. I love that it starts off with her in the Cloud City corridor, gives me chills every time.

On a side note it really hit me just how long Rey and Leia hug after Rey returns from Starkiller. On opening day my son and I were both really emotional about Han's death. Seeing those two hugging on screen drove home how the pain of that loss affected multiple generations. Just another one of those moments that makes me appreciate the film even more.

I'm thinking that will be the case--it will feel much better on repeated viewings. It's the first time I really want to go watch a movie again in the theater in a very long time!

I agree the hug and of course Chewie's and Rey and Finn's reaction to Han was very emotional.

I also liked how the movie left a lot of things open ended and unanswered. Sure it's a little manipulative to make you feel like you want a sequel, but hey! It works!

I don't doubt there will be backlash. It's inevitable. But I'm also thinking people will warm up to it a little more with repeat viewings or revisiting it down the line. Or even people who aren't bothering to go because they hate the hype, but will eventually watch it and think, "that was actually pretty good!"

 

[Khev]

There are a lot of SW fans out there, but that's not driving this film to 1.5 billion in 3 weeks. It's the average movie goer who, many of which have seen this movie multiple times. So saying only the hardcore fans and critics love it is a fallacy. Truth is, this movie is expanding the audience if SW, people that disregarded it in the past suddenly love this movie. For example, my wife, she tolerated star wars in the past, but really enjoyed this movie and (gasp!) wants to see it again.

Yep, my 9 year old daughter who deep down I think has really only tolerated SW because her dad is such a fan liked TFA so much she has already seen it twice with me and has asked if we can go see it again. For my third viewing I noticed a couple groups of girls in their 20's/30's watching the movie as a group (obviously not dragged by dates) who were genuinely laughing at all the Chewie/BB-8/Finn/Troopers-turning-the-other-direction-when-Kylo-was-flipping-out moments. People are just flat out enjoying this film.

 

[rushmore223]

Yep, my 9 year old daughter who deep down I think has really only tolerated SW because her dad is such a fan liked TFA so much she has already seen it twice with me and has asked if we can go see it again. For my third viewing I noticed a couple groups of girls in their 20's/30's watching the movie as a group (obviously not dragged by dates) who were genuinely laughing at all the Chewie/BB-8/Finn/Troopers-turning-the-other-direction-when-Kylo-was-flipping-out moments. People are just flat out enjoying this film.

I think it's funny how the success and quality of this film really gets under the skin of a few select people on this board.

 

[The Clown Prince of Crime]

I think it's funny how the success and quality of this film really gets under the skin of a few select people on this board.

The same can be said about any overrated film Most of you here want this film to beat Titanic and Avatar...because those films were so successful, both financially and critically... the irony

 

[RavenEye]

I guess people hated the PT that much.

PT wasn't put in 30 different commercials daily. Anyone else remember a dodge commercial for Charger because Anakin killed Younglings?

 

[RavenEye]

The same can be said about any overrated film Most of you here want this film to beat Titanic and Avatar...because those films were so successful, both financially and critically... the irony

K Titanic, T*ts, Avatar, Alien T*ts, Star Wars... No T*ts guess the Asians will skip. lol

 

[GasparZizou]

Why would anyone have anything personal against this movie? yeah "fans" of anything can be obnoxious, but I've survived several fandoms before, I can ignore them just fine, they don't affect my feels towards this movie.

I think it's great this is taking over the BO, it's preferable to the likes of Jurassic World or Transformers, this is better made than those, while this movie may have problems, they're mostly superficial and mostly in execution, nothing that breaks the movie, imo.

Prince is right, this will get the PT treatment but not as bad, right now everybody is still wet, but in time they'll see the movie for what it is, like with the PT, which years later people saw it was crap, with this, people will see it's just an ok movie, not the greatest thing ever.

I think this movie tried to be a universal pleaser, I hope now that it's done with its checklist of nostalgia bait, they can go in a different direction, I have the feeling EP8 will be better than this one.

 

[Khev]

There will always be people that ride the coattails of a successful movie and troll for attention online, then when someone takes issue with the trolling they say "oh what, you can't handle an opposing opinion? I thought this was a discussion forum! Bla, bla, bla." Anything to keep their name in the conversation. Nothing new. You just have to ignore the trolls.

That doesn't mean that sensible and respectful folks can't bring up valid observations or criticisms, a fair amount have been raised (and for the most part agreed upon by both sides) with regard to TFA like any other film. But yeah, you've just got to roll eyes at the trolls, let them have whatever fun they get out of repeating the same complaints 50,000 times and focus on the sensible posts instead.

Even with the few complainers this movie really is quite universally loved (even on this board which blows my mind) and this thread is nothing on the level of the dark times of the TDKR days. There's actually been a lot of good discussion going back and forth about this movie.

 

[The Ween]

The same can be said about any overrated film Most of you here want this film to beat Titanic and Avatar...because those films were so successful, both financially and critically... the irony

I liked both those films, but I'd like to see them beat out simply because of Cameron.

 

[The Clown Prince of Crime]

Why would anyone have anything personal against this movie? yeah "fans" of anything can be obnoxious, but I've survived several fandoms before, I can ignore them just fine, they don't affect my feels towards this movie.

I think it's great this is taking over the BO, it's preferable to the likes of Jurassic World or Transformers, this is better made than those, while this movie may have problems, they're mostly superficial and mostly in execution, nothing that breaks the movie, imo.

Prince is right, this will get the PT treatment but not as bad, right now everybody is still wet, but in time they'll see the movie for what it is, like with the PT, which years later people saw it was crap, with this, people will see it's just an ok movie, not the greatest thing ever.

I think this movie tried to be a universal pleaser, I hope now that it's done with its checklist of nostalgia bait, they can go in a different direction, I have the feeling EP8 will be better than this one.

It's not just fans though, it's the critics. I expected super fans to creamed their pants as well as most critics, but it's just annoying how so many film critics ignored the flaws...something they would never do with other films. It's their job as "professional" critics to be objective, not fanboys. I expect fanboys to be blinded by nostalgia, but critics should be above that. Is there any other film franchise that would be permitted by critics to recycle so many plot points? No, not really. It devalues their profession and any future criticism of other films. That's the worst part, imo...

 

[Khev]

My minor quibbles were that I thought Poe was pretty one-dimensional

Going back to this comment one thought that I have (which doesn't necessarily speak for you) is that Poe *might* come across as a bit one-dimensional due to the marketing. He was pretty prominent in those early teasers and front and center in magazine spreads, trading cards, etc. Kind of the Resistance version of Phasma. I fully expected Rey, Poe and Finn to be the "Luke, Han, and Leia" of this trilogy, probably with both guys in love with Rey. And if he *was* the Han of the group then yeah, he didn't have much depth.

But after seeing the movie I'd now pretty much call him the SW equivalent of Legolas. Basically just a likable and badass killing machine who often takes out dozens of bad guys when he shows up and has a tendency to single-handedly take out the biggest bad guys himself (Cave Troll/Mumakil/Starkiller Base.) And I thought he made a pretty good Space Legolas.

For those of you familiar with Macross/Robotech I saw Poe as the "Max Sterling" of the group.

 

[GasparZizou]

I expected super fans to creamed their pants as well as well as most critics, but it's just annoying how so many critics ignored the flaws...something they would never do with other films. It's their job as "professional" critics to be objective, not fanboys. I expect fanboys to be blinded by nostalgia, but critics should be above that. Is there any other film franchise that would be permitted by critics to recycle so many plot points? No, not really. It devalues their profession and any future criticism of other films. That's the worst part, imo...

It's a Star Wars thing

Going back to this comment one thought that I have (which doesn't necessarily speak for you) is that Poe *might* come across as a bit one-dimensional due to the marketing. He was pretty prominent in those early teasers and front and center in magazine spreads, trading cards, etc. Kind of the Resistance version of Phasma. I fully expected Rey, Poe and Finn to be the "Luke, Han, and Leia" of this trilogy, probably with both guys in love with Rey. And if he *was* the Han of the group then yeah, he didn't have much depth.

But after seeing the movie I'd now pretty much call him the SW equivalent of Legolas. Basically just a likable and badass killing machine who often takes out dozens of bad guys when he shows up and has a tendency to single-handedly take out the biggest bad guys himself (Cave Troll/Mumakil/Starkiller Base.) And I thought he made a pretty good Space Legolas.

I didn't think he was 1 dimensional, we saw so little of him, just enough to get a glimpse of his character, but not so little to become a Phasma.

I thought he was pretty cool, he was the charismatic type rebel, the one you get to recruit people for your cause, that's hard to pull off with so little screen time and without looking like a douche.

 

[morphosis]

Going back to this comment one thought that I have (which doesn't necessarily speak for you) is that Poe *might* come across as a bit one-dimensional due to the marketing. He was pretty prominent in those early teasers and front and center in magazine spreads, trading cards, etc. Kind of the Resistance version of Phasma. I fully expected Rey, Poe and Finn to be the "Luke, Han, and Leia" of this trilogy, probably with both guys in love with Rey. And if he *was* the Han of the group then yeah, he didn't have much depth.

But after seeing the movie I'd now pretty much call him the SW equivalent of Legolas. Basically just a likable and badass killing machine who often takes out dozens of bad guys when he shows up and has a tendency to single-handedly take out the biggest bad guys himself (Cave Troll/Mumakil/Starkiller Base.) And I thought he made a pretty good Space Legolas.

For those of you familiar with Macross/Robotech I saw Poe as the "Max Sterling" of the group.

Yah read his story from" Before The Awakening". He went on a pretty cool mission that sets up TFA. Plus they give tons of background on him like when he was growing up with his mother and father. I hope they give him more in the next films. Hes a great actor and i feel this character has a lot to give to the SW universe. He is someone you want to root for. They just need to get into his background a little more on screen instead of in the books, because he's got some pretty emotional stuff in his background.

But TFA was about Rey. And the focus really needed to be on her journey.

 

[karamazov80]

Poe was one of my favorite things about the film, but he was pretty 1-dimensional in this film IMO. Just a cool, likable guy.

It's not just fans though, it's the critics. I expected super fans to creamed their pants as well as most critics, but it's just annoying how so many film critics ignored the flaws...something they would never do with other films. It's their job as "professional" critics to be objective, not fanboys. I expect fanboys to be blinded by nostalgia, but critics should be above that. Is there any other film franchise that would be permitted by critics to recycle so many plot points? No, not really. It devalues their profession and any future criticism of other films. That's the worst part, imo...

You can be more or less objective but still assess the movie in context. And context matters. This is a Star Wars film, and should be analyzed as a part of the Star Wars film-verse. From that perspective, for many regular Joes/critics/super fans, it does get a boost because it brings the franchise back to a fun, rewarding place after decades of silence, disappointment, or mediocrity. If it wasn't associated with Star Wars, you're probably right in that it would be viewed as good, but not lavishly praised to the extent that it is. But I don't fault critics for that. You're never reviewing a film in a complete bubble. Every new Tarantino movie has to be understood in a post-Pulp Fiction world. Superman/Batman will be judged in relation to the Burton and Nolan films and Man of Steel. And all of these fall within a broader film-making paradigm that distinguishes movies now from movies 20 years ago, which themselves were very different than movies 40 years ago, etc.

Given that, of course opinions while a hyped up, beloved movie are playing aren't going to be held the same way 50 years from now. But I think historically this film will still be appreciated for all that things that it did right vs. all that could have (and in the past has) gone terribly wrong. My hope is that they innovate and try to improve moving forward, or I fear history may retroactively hurt Force Awakens more than it deserves, in the same way I was describing above. If Ep. 8 is Empire rehashed and Ep. 9 is Jedi rehashed (of course, accounting for several fan critiques levied against the original--Ewoks will be much more menacing the next time out! The Solo character will be a total ******* this time!), than that will make people spit on Force Awakens for what it brought in its wake.

 

[meanstreak]

Yah read his story from" Before The Awakening". He went on a pretty cool mission that sets up TFA. Plus they give tons of background on him like when he was growing up with his mother and father. I hope they give him more in the next films. Hes a great actor and i feel this character has a lot to give to the SW universe. He is someone you want to root for. They just need to get into his background a little more on screen instead of in the books, because he's got some pretty emotional stuff in his background.

But TFA was about Rey. And the focus really needed to be on her journey.

I think Poe will get more attention in the next films. Would be dumb to hire such an amazing actor and barely use him.

I agree though, TFA was Rey's story and it was better off focusing on her as the main character with Finn as the second lead.