"The Force Awakens" (with SPOILERS)

One more thought: Did anyone catch who played the other Vader-esque but gold-masked protégé of Snoke? He didn't get a lot of screen time, but the one close-up which looked into his eye, frankly, made me think that Mark Hamill was under there.

OK, make it two more thoughts: I also have never liked how they turned Leia from Princess Leia to General Leia. I know she held the title in the last movie, as well, but she still seems much more a Princess Leia than General Leia, and for continuity's sake as well as for that reason, she should have remained Princess Leia.

It was the tribute in the final credits roll that reminded me and made me think of that: something along the lines of "To our princess, Carrie Fisher."

 

Didn't love Rose as a character, but let's not play the Jar Jar card!

I think someone like her had to be there to reinforce the "little guy can do anything" narrative. She came out of obscurity to play an important role, etc.

Agree on Driver. He's a talented guy and gives a pretty layered performance.

 

At least Jar Jar commanded an army.
Maybe Rose would have been a better character if better drawn.
I don't like slagging these movies even a little - I just like a little more subtlety. The romance with Finn was really forced.

 

Yep. Any criticism by me is pretty minor, too. Overall, I really enjoyed it. Looking forward to seeing it again when I come up for air after the holidays.

The whole B plot with Finn and Rose could have been trimmed down and not lost the point.

 

I didn't think it was intended to be a romance, exactly...yet. Rose showed she cared for Finn, pretty deeply, perhaps a bit one-sidedly for now, while Finn realized he was starting to care for her, more deeply, perhaps, than he thought. And the fact that this could have happened, given what they did/went through together, was at all not out of the realm of possibility for me.

I'm with others in that I loved Adam Driver in this film, even though I didn't really care for him or his performance too much in the last one. He was really given room to grow and show in this installment, and it made a difference. I really think his relationship with Rey, and his sparing of his mother when he was about to kill her has to mean something, and that he will, eventually, come back over to the light side of the Force.

This movie left me most interested in seeing what ends up happening with him. The loss/end of Luke was the most disappointing thing for me. I just didn't feel like he was really done.

 

"Kill the past."

That is literally what Disney is striving to do, but not in any sort of malicious sense.
The franchise doesn't need to be all about the Skywalker lineage.
And these movies are not meant to be magical anymore. This is product.

I was watching Moana the other night with the kids and realized how pigeonholed its princess heroines are.
They all seem to lead some deeply dissatisfying life in places that are not at all the shitholes they would have you believe they are, and either need a man or another adventure to transcend their purpose.
They're all running from something.
I see that a little with Rose and don't like it, don't like the message it sends.

 

She. That was Gwendoline Christie (of Game of Thrones). The character was introduced in The Force Awakens.

 

I was wondering what the heck Write was talking about. I didn't realize she meant Captain Phasma.

 

This is pretty damn good.

 

That’s well done.

 

I took the padawan to see it yesterday, and we thought it was great.

If the geeks aren’t happy with that, they’ll never be happy.

Spoiler

The only dumb part was Leia floating in space. That was the perfect opportunity to kill her off with only a minor rewrite. The rest of the movie would’ve been fine without her.

 

Spoiler

I don't disagree it would have been a good place to kill her given the Carrie Fisher situation, but she was very important to the second half of the film for a couple of reasons.
We didn't get a Luke-Han scene in The Force Awakens. If we made it through The Last Jedi without a Luke-Leia scene, it would've been very problematic.
I think it also would have messed up Poe's arc. His mutiny only ends because Leia returns to put him in his place. I don't know another character who would have been able to pull that off and have it make sense. We're following that plot thread through Poe's eyes and thinking he's right and Holdo is either ignorant to reality or even a traitor. Only Leia has the gravitas to show up, shoot him, and make both the character and the audience realize that it really was Poe who was being a reckless asshole.