"The Force Awakens" (with SPOILERS)

These are kinda shitty spoilers, guys. Let's pick it up.

 

A lot of great lines.

• "Yep, this is what we look like."

• "Who talks first? Do I talk first? Do you talk first?"

 

Who wins?

 

• Adam Driver's Kylo Ren character is the best thing in the movie, I think. And it was a terrific choice to have him basically lose the mask for the second half of the movie, so it wasn' t just Vadar redux for an entire trilogy. He's a relatable human being. And the actor absolutely kills the role. Since George Lucas didn't know he'd have a trilogy to work with, we didn't get a conflicted Darth Vader until the second film. This time, Ren is explicitly conflicted. Maybe even too explicitly. He might as well have said, "I'm conflicted." In fact, he might have.
• Since we're missing 30 years of history, the Solo death didn't resonate as much as it could have. It was unearned, because it's not like we saw the series of events that led up to Ben turning to the Dark Side. That's all delivered through exposition, and that's not quite enough. I'm sure Abrams realizes this - he did what he could. And I think the real payoff will come down the road. Obviously Kylo/Ben killed Han because Han was selling him on returning to the Light Side of the Force, and he was resisting that. For now. He won't go on Anakin's precise journey, but there's a mother-son moment waiting at the climax of this trilogy. Han's death wasn't the emotional climax. It was a plot point on the journey to the emotional climax.
• Some of Mark Hamill's best acting in the series in his 30 seconds of screen time. He conveyed so much with a look.
• Critics were off base to call this a derivative plot simply because of the new Death Star contraption. That wasn't the engine here. In fact, I'm not exactly sure why it was even included. I'll have to watch it again to get my head around it. This was a battle for the map to Luke Skywalker, and the Death Star subplot, which was just tossed in there in the third act, kind of mucked that up. The plot could have been a little cleaner, I think, because clearly people are losing sight of it as the movie hums along.
• Another course correction is that we get to know Supreme Leader Snoke from this movie on. I think everyone was kind of surprised that Vader answered to someone, which wasn't evident in the first "Star Wars."
• We know almost nothing about Rey and why she is strong with the Force. I hope it's interesting. I don't want "Star Wars" to devolve into a series of Guess the Family Connection plotlines.
• Luke wants to establish a new Jedi Order, and failed in his first attempt. I assume that Episode IX ends up with this finally happening, probably under Rey's direction. It's a good idea, if that's the case. It's unfinished business that Luke had after the first trilogy, and an obvious place to take his character.

 

So is Rey Luke's daughter or another Han-Leia progeny - the memory of which was Force erased from everybody's mind because Luke worried she and Kylo together would be unstoppable?

 

She's Luke's, I think. Han and Leia would be a huge cheat, since it was never remotely hinted at that they had a daughter or recognized her.

 

The history of Snoke intrigues me. It seems like han and leia knew him before their son went bad/first order was formed.

 

One more random thought:

Chewbacca is given much more personality in this film than any of the others, by far.

I wonder if Lando will make an appearance in Episode VIII. He wasn't even mentioned in VII.

 

In a span of 30 years, the Empire/First Order has now built and had destroyed three planet-sized battle stations.
I realize they have an entire galaxy from which to siphon resources and slave labor, but how do they keep affording these things? And when does someone say, "Yeah, maybe those aren't such a good idea?"

 

This movie is Episode IV with Rey as the new Luke, Finn as the new Han, Han as the new Obi-Wan, Luke as the new Yoda, Ren as the new Vader, Starkiller base as the new Death Star, and a flipped script on who's in power. Can't wait to see how the recycle Episode V and VI storylines through the next two films. Is there any doubt Ren will kill Snoke in Episode 9? Hopefully they will at least have some originality and not make Rey related to anyone.

Movie gets a solid "meh" by me. You fanbois can gush about it and trash on the prequels all you want, but I rank it below Revenge of the Sith and all originals. This did not get me excited.

 

That's an excellent point.

The mechanics of the planet killer also had me confused. It could destroy multiple planets with one shot but it used a star to do so.

Does it move around and if not where did the second star come from?

Maybe they had a shot of it being a multiple sun system but if it can't move around, then if it used the star for fuel, wouldn't that mean everything on the planet would die?

There's also a question of the loss of a star would do to gravity and such.

 

This is a hilarious post. No one's "fawning" on anything. You made the point you have been itching to make, without regard for what's actually being discussed.