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

[Khev]

@kara (saw you editing and didn't care to quote)



Even taking prequel Annie and the baby killer Anakin into account, Vader as a whole six movie character is better than Kylo Ren.

Yeah, yeah, we know you're big on the prequels. Now you and WWEJedi go run off and play with your little pod racer toys.

 

[jye4ever]

khev whipping out the cannons now.

 

[Khev]

khev whipping out the cannons now.

 

[stshammgod]

Gotta shake my head at all the millennials here who can't handle characters having emotions. If First Blood, ALIENS, Lethal Weapon or Die Hard came out today then Rambo, Ripley, Riggs and McClane would all be dismissed as whiny emo crybabies because every single one of them wept on screen.

Well said sir!

 

[YoNoSe]

Absolutely. Listen to his dialogue: "I've been thinking about taking on a second mate who can keep up with me and Chewie and who appreciates the Falcon." He's been "thinking about that" for the five minutes he's owned the ship again after so many years of possibly being resigned to never seeing it again? That was totally his excuse to keep her under his wing.

Makes me wonder if we are seeing a Reverse Vader with Kylo. Maybe he just started out bad and they turned to Luke in desperation. Curious for them to elaborate on the breadcrumbs in TFA.

 

[The Clown Prince of Crime]

Once you crack open that villain's helmet, the mystique is lost. Kylo Ren is nothing more than little Ben, crying out for attention because his mommy and daddy didn't spend enough time with him, seduced by a crusty old CGI man who killed his harmless pop. You don't come back from that.

 

[DiFabio]

The funny thing is, Khev's current gushing ironically comes off as a millennial who's first Star Wars movie experience was Force Awakens. Those teenagers and 20 something's eat up characters like the Heath Ledger Joker, Loki or Kylo Ren. My little brothers love Kylo Ren because he's "edgy". Emo tumblr high school girls are eating up "the conflicted character" and making whimsical art of their boy Kylo. The Hot Toys thread is the epitome of this mentality. But there we go with the crazy 80s comparisons again too! Riggs lost his wife and baby and had bouts with alcohol. Kylo Ren? He wants to be like his grand daddy that everyone hated to get back at his mom and dad who weren't good parents to him or something. Boo hoo!


I don't think the prequels are great or anywhere near Star Wars and the Empire Strikes Back, but if you're going to see brilliance in a needlessly troubled character like Kylo Ren, then Anakin Skywalker shouldn't be looked down upon as anything less.

 

[guyver1]

Absolutely. Listen to his dialogue: "I've been thinking about taking on a second mate who can keep up with me and Chewie and who appreciates the Falcon." He's been "thinking about that" for the five minutes he's owned the ship again after so many years of possibly being resigned to never seeing it again? That was totally his excuse to keep her under his wing.

It's also symbolic if you think about it. He mentioned Chewy and " appreciates the Falcon ". Now it was a passing of the torch or in this case the Falcon is hers now along with befreinding Chewy as we clearly saw her and Chewy together in the end.

She could have chosen a rebel cruiser or X Wing fighter to go find Luke, but she went with Chewy and the Falcon instead.

 

[morphosis]

The only part of that article that I disagreed with was "Kylo is better than Vader" because to me Vader exists ONLY in the OT and that version of him is better than pretty much any villain in film history. But I know the writer was rating Vader as a Lloyd/Christensen/Prowse character who spans six films and I would agree that if you look at him that way then the PT does diminish him lower than Kylo. But Kylo is great, already one of the top SW characters. He's no OT Vader but Abrams, Kasdan and even Kylo himself knows this, and it's part of his appeal.

Yes, that would be the one thing I wouldnt agree with. Although Kylo has the potential to be far more evil than Vader ever was but he still has a long way to go to master the Force. He may never be able to. As Rey said Kylo's biggest fear is he will never be as strong as Vader. And that may be true. I can't picture Kylo being able to balance the Force. Which means he potentially will just become far more evil than Vader ever was. He's technically already has by killing Han.

 

[Khev]

The funny thing is, Khev's current gushing

See that's the thing, ANY intense emotion, whether it be anger, heartbreak or excitement, is dismissable to many too-cool-for-school millennials. So of course my enthusiasm is seen as some kind of silly gushing. But that's okay, you can sit back in your chair, doing your little Zoolander smolder, liking things but only so much. Meanwhile us old timers are gonna continue to hug and high five each other as the blaring Top Gun anthem plays every time something awesome comes along.

 

[guyver1]

The funny thing is, Khev's current gushing ironically comes off as a millennial who's first Star Wars movie experience was Force Awakens. Those teenagers and 20 something's eat up characters like the Heath Ledger Joker, Loki or Kylo Ren. My little brothers love Kylo Ren because he's "edgy". Emo tumblr high school girls are eating up "the conflicted character" and making whimsical art of their boy Kylo. The Hot Toys thread is the epitome of this mentality. But there we go with the crazy 80s comparisons again too! Riggs lost his wife and baby and had bouts with alcohol. Kylo Ren? He wants to be like his grand daddy that everyone hated to get back at his mom and dad who weren't good parents to him or something. Boo hoo!


I don't think the prequels are great or anywhere near Star Wars and the Empire Strikes Back, but if you're going to see brilliance in a needlessly troubled character like Kylo Ren, then Anakin Skywalker shouldn't be looked down upon as anything less.

Speaking of the prequels, it's odd that the PT after watching TFA seems like a totally different universe IMO.

The storylines, the acting, the characters, the direction, etc everything seems so different. Like it doesn't relate to the SW universe especially to TFA because there is no mention of any relation to the PT events and I know TFA is 30 yrs later after ROTJ and the OT, so why would it, but it's just a bizarre feeling to know that all 7 films were in the same universe.

 

[Darth Madden]

Yes, that would be the one thing I wouldnt agree with. Although Kylo has the potential to be far more evil than Vader ever was but he still has a long way to go to master the Force. He may never be able to. As Rey said Kylo's biggest fear is he will never be as strong as Vader. And that may be true. I can't picture Kylo being able to balance the Force. Which means he potentially will just become far more evil than Vader ever was. He's technically already has by killing Han.

Yeah, I agree. He knows he will never be on Vaders level (or thinks he will then when he doesn't) so he's going to be an "out of control" sith which could turn out to be MUCH worse than Vader.

 

[jye4ever]

Speaking of the prequels, it's odd that the PT after watching TFA seems like a totally different universe IMO.

The storylines, the acting, the characters, the direction, etc everything seems so different. Like it doesn't relate to the SW universe especially to TFA because there is no mention of any relation to the PT events and I know TFA is 30 yrs later after ROTJ and the OT, so why would it, but it's just a bizarre feeling to know that all 7 films were in the same universe.

I felt this way in 99.

But TFA does mention clones and you see those gay pride parade flags from the Pod Race hanging outside Maz's bar.

Some of the Naboo design elements are ok I guess.

 

[Khev]

Speaking of the prequels, it's odd that the PT after watching TFA seems like a totally different universe IMO.

Yeah. I see the prequels and OT+TFA as pretty much equivalent to the animated Hobbit/LOTR movies vs. the Peter Jackson ones. You can take the events of the animated Hobbit as being prior to the Jackson LOTR but they don't really work as a cohesive viewing experience. Nor would you want to watch the Jackson Hobbit trilogy and then follow it with the Bakshi LOTR film.

The PT is the "cartoon" version of SW that doesn't have a cartoon OT equivalent, and the OT+TFA is the "real" version of SW that doesn't have a real PT equivalent. That's my take, if you love all SW equally and think they all string together then by all means knock yourself out.

 

[Khev]

But TFA does mention clones

Only because they were mentioned in ANH.

The Pod Racer flags (which I have yet to notice in four viewings, yeah there's lots of flags but none that scream "pod racer" to me) are just little throw away easter eggs like E.T. in TPM or a Blade Runner spinner in Watto's junk piles. Doesn't mean the universes are really "connected."

 

[The Clown Prince of Crime]

Meanwhile us old timers are gonna continue to hug and high five each other as the blaring Top Gun anthem plays every time something awesome comes along.

Oh man, there's going to be a lot of shirtless high fiving around here for the next couple of years

 

[Khev]

Oh man, there's going to be a lot of shirtless high fiving around here for the next couple of years

I can only hope!

 

[jye4ever]

See that's the thing, ANY intense emotion, whether it be anger, heartbreak or excitement, is dismissable to many too-cool-for-school millennials. So of course my enthusiasm is seen as some kind of silly gushing. But that's okay, you can sit back in your chair, doing your little Zoolander smolder, liking things but only so much. Meanwhile us old timers are gonna continue to hug and high five each other as the blaring Top Gun anthem plays every time something awesome comes along.

Lets invite DiFabio to come chill out with us pioneers.

Going back to TFA, Maz's mentoring to Rey was so very truncated when compared to Yoda mentoring Luke.

Sad to see such quick shallow representations of previously glorious moments.

 

[guyver1]

Didn't Han mention the significance of the flags because Rey or Finn ask him about it, I thought he said it was holy ground

 

[Sweet Rabbit]

See that's the thing, ANY intense emotion, whether it be anger, heartbreak or excitement, is dismissable to many too-cool-for-school millennials. So of course my enthusiasm is seen as some kind of silly gushing. But that's okay, you can sit back in your chair, doing your little Zoolander smolder, liking things but only so much. Meanwhile us old timers are gonna continue to hug and high five each other as the blaring Top Gun anthem plays every time something awesome comes along.

Watched Top Gun a couple weeks ago. Still gives me the willies