The Force Awakens - Thoughts and Reactions (SPOILERS WITHIN)

[Jira]

I never noticed Obi-Wan's voice. It'll be something to look forward to on my next viewing.

Also it's not hard to screw up after the prequels. The bar was low.

 

[Phil]

Weird how I didn't catch that, though there was a lot of voices going on. Pretty sure I heard Yoda in there.

I went to see this again with the family as originally planned, and a few things.

While it was hard to understand, I liked how not only does Kylo talk to Vader's mask, he addresses him as his Grandfather. It adds onto more on how and why he betrayed Luke.

I really like the diversity in The Resistance, with there being more aliens and females, especially for the pilots. It's what I suspected for The Rebellion. I also like that there is no forced romance in this, and as Rey simply put it, her and Finn are now good friends. I'm actually hoping that she won't have any romantic plot, since it's clear she is now set up to be the next Skywalker Hero of this saga.

As sad as it was seeing Han go, is anyone else happy it was him rather then Chewie? I think it really makes it more interesting too, since it was reversed in the now Legends books.

 

[Brandon Rhea]

Weird how I didn't catch that, though there was a lot of voices going on. Pretty sure I heard Yoda in there.

Yeah, it was his line "Its energy surrounds us and binds us" from Empire.

 

[Miz]

Just a few gripes

*Luke Skywalker is lame in this movie and has terrible fashion sense
*Rey is naturally good at everything because force
*R2-D2 and C3PO are still functioning. Give me knew droids/pets
*How old is Chewbacca?
*Finn gets overshadowed by Rey and will continue to be shafted
*Phasma gets the Boba Fett treatment
*The Republic consisting of three planets gets wasted by an army that loses to twelve x-wings and two young adults

 

[Oreus]

Just a few gripes

*Luke Skywalker is lame in this movie and has terrible fashion sense
*Rey is naturally good at everything because force
*R2-D2 and C3PO are still functioning. Give me knew droids/pets
*How old is Chewbacca?
*Finn gets overshadowed by Rey and will continue to be shafted
*Phasma gets the Boba Fett treatment
*The Republic consisting of three planets gets wasted by an army that loses to twelve x-wings and two young adults

Wookiees before were said to live a couple hundred years so this isn't really a stretch.
Droids don't really.. age.. and we had new droids and pets.
Luke looked a lot better than I expected, I mean have you seen Mark Hamil? They did good work.
Rey annoyed me too, but my theory is that Kylo never really was trained beyond teaching himself to fight with a Lightsaber. Luke learned just as fast in Empire.
I doubt it was the entire Republic, but just a few important planets.
lol poor Phasma was hyped up as a major character and was nothing. I agree..
Finn is pretty major still and is a good character IMO.

Great movie considering they had tons of fans who all wanted different things. EU was mostly bad IMHO and I'm glad they tossed it for their own story. Not trying to like, disrespect your opinion but most of those had answers/are understandable. If you want character growth and a slow grow, it has to be a novel to do it justice.

 

[Nor'baal]

FYI it wasn't the entire republic. It's confirmed by the resistance to be a star system within the republic. One of the generals says "They took out the [name] system".

 

[Green Ranger]

Yeah, the Hosnian System was destroyed - it was the capital of the new republic at the time of episode VII but the new republic has a rotating elected capital based on votes.

The attack did take out the Senate and the main fleet of the New Republic, so it's still a crippling blow, but it's only one system out of probably thousands.

 

[Nor'baal]

I think what Abrams was going for was a "Nuke Washington" style attack by a rogue nation. Crippling yes, showing the lengths to which the first order will go to get what they want, but not powerful enough to totally wioe out the republic.

Leaves lots of room for the next films to show what happens to the republic after this.

 

[Green Ranger]

I dunno if it's just me, but I got a bit of a North Korea vibe from the First Order.

 

[Nor'baal]

I dunno if it's just me, but I got a bit of a North Korea vibe from the First Order.

Yeah so did I. Very much so with their leader and the fanatical loyalty of troops. I really hope they are not a massive empire as well, but a splinter group, with Snoke being a member of the imperial remnant, who is secretly leading the First Order to get revenge on the republic.

 

[Andrewza]

Just a few gripes

*Luke Skywalker is lame in this movie and has terrible fashion sense
*Rey is naturally good at everything because force
*R2-D2 and C3PO are still functioning. Give me knew droids/pets
*How old is Chewbacca?
*Finn gets overshadowed by Rey and will continue to be shafted
*Phasma gets the Boba Fett treatment
*The Republic consisting of three planets gets wasted by an army that loses to twelve x-wings and two young adults

Luke is the new yoda and looks cool

Well Luke a farmer blind shoted a tiny exhaust port first time he flew a X-wing

There are droids over a thousand years of age in cannon

Probably 80 to 100

Fin is cool and got the most growth of the new trinity, From a cowardly fleeing the first order to going on a crazy rescue mission and standing up to a guy he knew he could never beat.

Well she is not dead so there may be more to her story.

Republic is big, that one system had three plants. Republic consist of thousands of sytems

 

[Brandon Rhea]

"Rey is good at everything" / "Rey is a Mary Sue" is a complaint that would rarely if ever be lodged at a male character.

You know, like an inexperienced farmboy who outflies a Dark Lord of the Sith and destroys their battle station after 30 seconds of training.

 

[Andrewza]

You know, like an inexperienced farmboy who outflies a Dark Lord of the Sith and destroys their battle station after 30 seconds of training.

He got training?

 

[Gamov]

Except we know that Luke did have prior training/experience as a pilot.

"I used to hunt womp rats in my T-16 back home, they aren't much bigger than two meters."

I'm not sure how he "out piloted" Vader either. They were literally flying in a straight line and Vader had him dead to rights until Han showed up out of the blue and smoked the TIE fighters following Luke.

Also, even after receiving some training in the Force from Yoda himself, Luke still got his ass kicked in his first bout with Vader. So much so that he kinda, y'know... lost a hand. And he certainly didn't pull off any untrained mind tricks or escape Cloud City all on his lonesome using his scrapping good looks.

Luke's development throughout the trilogy was real and gritty. Rey just... is. Which is dull.

 

[Silverface]

TFA was good, I enjoyed it a lot. Pacing was a bit too fast, but I presume that's for the theatrical release and the DVD/Blu-Ray/Digital Download release will be the extended edition with a longer run time, since the impression I got was that they filmed a lot more than they showed. That's really my only critique of the film. Otherwise, fun movie, reminded me of when I saw Star Wars in the cinema for the first time.

 

[Braden]

Except we know that Luke did have prior training/experience as a pilot.

"I used to hunt womp rats in my T-16 back home, they aren't much bigger than two meters."

I'm not sure how he "out piloted" Vader either. They were literally flying in a straight line and Vader had him dead to rights until Han showed up out of the blue and smoked the TIE fighters following Luke.

Also, even after receiving some training in the Force from Yoda himself, Luke still got his ass kicked in his first bout with Vader. So much so that he kinda, y'know... lost a hand. And he certainly didn't pull off any untrained mind tricks or escape Cloud City all on his lonesome using his scrapping good looks.

Luke's development throughout the trilogy was real and gritty. Rey just... is. Which is dull.

But Vader was trained by the Jedi for years and was one of the greatest swordsman of the Order, he defeated Count Doku who was named as the only Jedi bar Yoda to beat mace windu. He also fought and defeated many other Jedi and Dark Jedi well before fighting Luke. Were as Kylo was trained by Luke for a short while and then probably hasn't used his lightsaber since.

 

[Richie B.]

The fight with Kylo is not what people are upset with, flying a ship really good and using the force untrained are very different things as a mind trick with no knowledge of even how to use the force is what upsets people.

Though that is really my only problem with it, which is kind of major but besides that everything else was good.
The fight with Kylo was great and realistic. This is just my two cents on the topic.

 

[Nor'baal]

I liked her, she was a good Star Wars character.
She is ''Mary Sue'' but that is sort of the point, she is the main character, she is the reason everyone is there. She is obviously related to Luke or maybe someone else (possible Snoke), and thus it kind of makes sense that she can magically use the force, and magically fly the Falcon.

 

[Livgardist]

I like Finn the best. His character going from a cowardly deserter who just wants to get away from the First Order, to risking his life in a fight he can't win to protect Rey, it's all kind of beautiful. And of course his friendship with Poe Dameron is awesome as well.

Edit: After the movie ended in the theatre, people actually started applauding. I've never had that happen in a theatre before. It was beautiful.

 

[Piri]

There's a lot that's already been said about it so I don't think I need to cover most of it. Some original trilogy story techniques were slightly disappointing but I'm hoping that was just a pet of symbolizing a transition to a new method for the series.
-New megastarofdeath. Really? Reeeaaalllyyy?
-Poe got back how? Lazy.
-Didn't show General Hux and Kylo Ren making it out, so that's something Abrams'll need to contend with in the next one. Place looked like it was going to hell in a hand basket pretty quick for Hux to speak w/ Snoke, and get Ren. We shall see!

Those are just a few that stuck in my mind. Others mentioned plot points that could've been done differently, or done at all! Nevertheless I cried like 4 times during the movie and I can't wait to see what happens next. I'm going to see it in theaters two more times at least, because I couldn't get enough. Also, Rey is perhaps he most interesting character to me, and represents some challenges to canonical beliefs about how force usery works. Something we should definitely talk about!

Also, since I don't think anyone's mentioned it yet: John Williams remains one of the original crew keeping the saga going strong with his music. I've bought and have been listening to the soundtrack and it doesn't disappoint. New arrangements with familiar tunes, showing a transition as he did in his other scores.