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This thread is for those of us who have seen it.
Nevertheless, I'll try to keep my remarks spoiler-free... or at least spoiler-lite. ;)
1. Who made that map... and FFS why??
2. I wonder how long it took Mark Hamil to learn his lines.
3. Ben, huh? I was hoping against hope for something more in line with the EU... ah well.
4. Carrie Fisher doesn't resemble Leia anymore. :(
5. Last, but not least..... :'(
EDIT: Oh yeah, my rating... 9/10. Would watch again. :nod: Thank you, JJ et al!
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The final fight scene irked me so much.
"Every time I battled someone in the movie I used force paralysis. But for the final battle against those two, even thought I did the force push on her at the very beginning, I think I'll restrain myself.
Also, even though I probably have more training than both of them combined using a light saber, I think I'll get wounded against both of them and lose against the one with probably no combat training."
Gah...
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Star Wars: The Force Awakens opens today here in Malaysia, my country, have anyone there seen it?
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Having slept on it, here are some of the cinematic parts I liked most:
- Frozen blaster bolt (and eventual release)
- X-wing cockpit views, both from right outside looking in, and especially from the pilot's POV during crazy maneuvering
- Shots that convey the planetary scale of Star Killer base
- Millennium Falcon maneuvering
Was it just me, or were there no downed SSDs shown on Jakku, only ISDs? I know there is definitely a promo shot of the Falcon being chased by a TIE Fighter into the engines of an SSD, but I never saw that in the movie.
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I'm the opposite. While I agree it is well done, looks sharp, sounds even better. I can't stomach watching it again, not for a few weeks until the family wants to see it, and even then I'm pushing it.
- New Hope Clone
- Storyline felt obvious. Rey walks into a room and there is a chest there. (I think, Lightsaber) boom. Done. Han walks out, he'll die. Boom, he dies. (I would not have expected them both to walk off, not converted to the light-side though, still in conflict. But that would have been a twist)
- Surely the Galactic Economy can't keep churning out superweapons a dime a dozen, it would be nice to see a weapon actually survive more than one movie. That entire attack sequence is more unbelievable than the original DS. Not to mention it is basically carried out in the same fashion.
- Either lightsabers have become incredibly easy for anybody to use or Kylo Ren is completely and utterly incompetent. I would imagine some sword/melee skills translate a little, but not to being that decent with them in respect to Rey and Finn.
- FO Officers appear more human, more emotion within them. A friend said weak as characters but you can take that as good or bad. They appear more human to me by being 'weak' and showing 'emotion'
- Superweapon firing. Unlike a New Hope, we aren't given any reason to care about these 'Republic' planets blowing up. The Resistance doesn't have much connection for us to care. Alderaan was a 'peaceful' world with no 'weapons', the home to Leia. It was in the story, this is just. We have power and shot at the 'enemy'. Yea, cool. No investment to us as viewers.
I'll shut up now..
What I did like?
- FO Pilots appear to have been given solid training. Overall they seem more level-headed and capable in the cockpit.
- TIE variants. Interesting that they have a gunner position and the overall craft performance seems vastly enhanced.
- Alternate story options. Why was the Falcon there? (briefly touched upon), why are there so many remains of Imperial Equipment on Jakku (Star Destroyers, AT-ATs etc)?, are there other worlds and locations with such abandoned/destroyed equipment as well?, Why?
Edit: That Frozen blaster bolt was cool.
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But Mat Kaplan of The Planetary Society have yet to air a significant audio treat of Star Wars The Force Awakens on Planetary Radio (http://www.planetary.org/radio), possibly its aspect of Star Wars science, which has become plausible thanks to circumbinary exoplanets (http://www.hard-light.net/forums/index.php?topic=91107.0) and the viewing of likeness of Star Wars in space by NASA (http://www.hard-light.net/forums/index.php?topic=91211.0). If he doesn't really air next week, then I bet I could let it be and hope that Mat Kaplan would try another next year.
BTW, in the future, Mat will likely interview one of our own at HLP, as one of them may have a unique perspective on humanity's quest of knowledge about the Solar System and Beyond.
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The (what is arguably a retcon) change from flashy, jumpy, acrobatic, superbeing bull**** Jedi lightsaber battles in the prequels to the broadsword slugging matches in this movie is a very good change, thematically speaking. Not only does it give each swing meaningful weight, it also opens up the door to allowing things to threaten main characters. A Jedi character who actually got a name in the prequels was functionally immune to anything that didn't also have a lightsaber. They couldn't be surprised, they couldn't be outfought, they could deflect or block absolutely anything and respond with immediately lethal or neutralizing force (heh) with minimal effort.
Contrast with Kylo Ren, Finn, and Rey. Finn has some martial training, but has handled a lightsaber in exactly one fight before (that he lost). He manages to hold his own against Kylo Ren for a few minutes, and though he eventually loses he actually inflicts a hit, while the tension is still at a high level. Rey has never handled a lightsaber before, but with the (inferred, but obvious) guidance of the force, she defeats Ren after a fairly lengthy and weighty battle. What does that mean? It means that normal characters can threaten force users now. It means that Jedi are not all majestic, flawless gymnasts capable of reaching low orbit with a light hop.
It shifts the focus of a Jedi or other force user's strength from literal physical strength and agility, and turns it toward the mystical aspects of the force. Kylo Ren is at his most powerful, most intimidating, and most interesting when he's using the power of the force, not when he's swinging a lightsaber.
He's also pretty obviously and deliberately set up as a wanna-be Darth Vader, both in and out of setting. It'll be interesting to see him get some genuine character development as he, Finn, and Rey all come into their own as the up and coming major players of the setting.
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Did anyone else expect Luke to gently Force-pull (perhaps more like a Force-float) the lightsaber from Rey at the end there?
EDIT: Also, I kept on seeing Denzel Washington facial expressions in Boyega.
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I give it a solid MEH. It didn't feel like a Star Wars movie to me at all. More like a poor attempt at a gritty reboot, or a 2 hour character introduction for the following movies. Predictable plot and shoehorning of old elements to tie it together.
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I haven't seen the movie yet but something to keep in mind is the best swordsman isn't afraid of the second best, he's afraid of a complete amateur. When you face someone who is trained in a system you can expect certain behavior, all the pattern recognition and experience you have accrued can be leveraged against them. You can't do that with a rookie, heck they don't even know what they are doing.
We had a young lady in historic weapons class who had zero athletic ability and could not retain techniques as fast as you explained them. Still she could catch folks out sometimes because you could not predict what she would attempt and she often would do things that were not even ergonomically sound.
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Liked it. It's probably not very good, though.
Liked the primary characters and their interactions. Rolled my eyes at the plot elements shoehorned in just to tick a "star wars" box (oh look, another Bigger Badder death star, sigh). Annoyed at all the lazy convenient plot handwavium throughout (and the more you think about the movie, the more you see).
Death star aside, I like that the scope was kept relatively small and contained, and that we at least we were spared the "Epic super fleet battle of all time" drudgery. They're probably saving it for a sequel or two down the line though.
Still better than Episode 1 by a mile, though. And I don't remember any facepalm "now this is podracing!" or "I hate sand" dialogue.
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I'd basically second everything Scotty said about the fighting, and add that while Rey may not have any formal training, she obviously is athletic and knows how to fight. That's established earlier when two random thugs try to steal BB-8, and possibly elsewhere. Kylo Ren on the other hand is rapidly racking up wounds by that point in the movie.
My biggest irk is scale. The surface scenes on the starkiller were far too close together, and aside from a few pretty good CG enviroments the whole interior felt small and underpopulated. Due to the intercutting with the ticking clock of doom, three people manage to land outside of view, sneak into the interior, capture a high ranking officer, shut down the planet's shields, get to the weak point, plant a bunch of bombs, have an emotional moment and then the better part of a lightsaber duel in... twenty minutes? It's a freaking planet that eats stars. And I know it'll be called nitpicking nerdery but I can't help the fact that I know that a planet that eats whole stars and then turns into a stable star the same size as it when exploded is freaking insane talk, to say nothing of multiple places in the galaxy seeing the hyperspace deathray shot and hits at the same time. I can only suspend my disbelief so far here. Blowing up a bunch of planets we know nothing about and have no connection to is pretty gratuitous for sure, though some of the shots there were quite pretty.
Not a great movie, but one I thoroughly enjoyed. All the good guy characters are people I want to see more of, and all the returning cast seemed to nail their roles. Hamil perhaps the least for me, hopefully his role in the next movie will carry it through though.
Edit: Oh yeah, and Phasma was disappointingly pointless. Doesn't really live up to having a name and special armor. And getting her to shut down the shields was at least double stupid.
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My current working theory is that the galaxy as presented in Episode VII is significantly smaller than anything presented in the former EU. Down to a couple orders of magnitude smaller.
At least that would solve my legacy complaint about how few Star Destroyers the Empire has for something that's supposed to rule the galaxy, and also solve my complaint about how blowing up one system decapitated the entire Republic.
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Finn's fight against that stormtrooper was a pretty effective way of explaining why Finn could fight naturally with a lightsaber. Finn, being a former stormtrooper himself, was trained to fight with that same standard issue electrostaff his opponent used.
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Oh yeah, the electrostaffs - the one thing from the prequels they appear to have borrowed, and actually one of the only things from the prequels that didn't annoy everyone. :)
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I'm not sure I understood the galactic political situation.
If the Republic won the war in the OT and this First Order is supposed to be some uppity Imperial remnant...shouldn't the Republic fleet (Mon Cal cruisers, etc.) have sent some capital ships to be in the final attack?
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Was fun to watch and I liked the new characters (except Kylo Ren, who was completely not intimidating), but good grief, was there a single original thought anywhere in this entire movie? The whole thing was campy fan-service and rehashed plot. And why the heck, after the first two death stars were easily destroyed, would anyone think it was a good idea to build a third one (one that could, again, be easily destroyed from the surface by small craft)?
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I'm not sure I understood the galactic political situation.
If the Republic won the war in the OT and this First Order is supposed to be some uppity Imperial remnant...shouldn't the Republic fleet (Mon Cal cruisers, etc.) have sent some capital ships to be in the final attack?
There's a fleet that visibly explodes when Starkiller Base is used to destroy those planets. That's where a good chunk of it wen.t
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I'm not sure I understood the galactic political situation.
If the Republic won the war in the OT and this First Order is supposed to be some uppity Imperial remnant...shouldn't the Republic fleet (Mon Cal cruisers, etc.) have sent some capital ships to be in the final attack?
Part of the background is also that there was a major military drawdown after the Empire's last offensive failed at Jakku. After that people and planets just couldn't defect fast enough for awhile leaving the Imperial military with almost nothing, and the military the new owners of the galaxy chose to maintain was barely a tenth of the size the one the Empire kept at its height.
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How is the movie goer supposed to know any of that? The explanation of the galactic government consisted of the scrolling text mentioning that oh yeah, there's a republic again, and then later a silly scene of the apparently one system that makes it up getting exploded. If there's actually a government, why the hell does there need to be a resistance to the leftover imperials (which are themselves a resistance if there's a new government).
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How is the movie goer supposed to know any of that? The explanation of the galactic government consisted of the scrolling text mentioning that oh yeah, there's a republic again, and then later a silly scene of the apparently one system that makes it up getting exploded. If there's actually a government, why the hell does there need to be a resistance to the leftover imperials (which are themselves a resistance if there's a new government).
So it's not explained ... but one could easily guess that the official republic government wasn t ready to take military action, ... hence that splinter force under "General" Leia.
Satisfying explanation? Well no, since it was absent in the movie, but still kinda obvious imho /shrugs.
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My impression is that this issue is answered in the books. The Republic and First Order are in sort of a cold war scenario, with neither having the political will to fire the first shot. In the Republic's case, because they don't actually want to at all, and in the First Order's case because they want a decisive military advantage first.
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You guys have pretty much summed up my thoughts. I'd give it a B+. If anything, it's got nothing that's downright bad... which is just about all it takes to be better than the prequels. But I'd go so far as to say that it's at least entertaining with some good fun parts. But there were a LOT of plot conveniences...
(Many spoilers below! Even beyond the spoiler tags. I will not be held responsible at this point for you being spoiled by a marked post in a marked thread!)
- Map to Skywalker? What? Why?
- Millenium Falcon just sitting there ready to fly for the plot.
- Oh, good! Rey is a badass
pilot! everything with little-to-no training! - Sure am glad Han Solo just so happened to be putzing around Jakku at that exact moment with a ship big enough to capture the Falcon. Also am glad he was transporting some killer death alien monsters that chose to not immediately kill Fin unlike the other guys.
- Ok... where'd they get the blue Skywalker saber? Wasn't that lost on Bespin with Luke's hand? Someone (who wasn't Luke or Lando) actually recovered that? And then they just kinda held onto it, knowing exactly what it was? Let's just put it in a box for the plot... that juuuuust so happened to be near obvious skywalker daughter. (Not ready to say which skywalker parent, yet.)
- Pretty good timing that that silver stormtrooper commander was so close to Fin/Han/Chewie and was so easily subdued. Why was she even a commander if she so easily just does whatever a group of 3 crazy intruders want... like lowering the base's shield?
- Oh and Po Dameran got off Jakku somehow. Good thing, because he's clearly the best pilot ever.
- Ground shattering crack opens up directly between Rey and Ren. That's got to be a movie sin.
- Suddenly there's a whole big enough for an X-Wing to fly through and blow up the planet! Woulda lost the Resistance otherwise... so that's helpful!
- R2 suddenly waking up with the full Skywalker map just because the plot for Episode 8 needed it.
- Skywalker map leads directly to Luke standing on a cliff. That's a sci-fi sin for sure. Whole planets should stop being treated like small towns. I guess there was that dream stuff about the island Rey mentioned in passing. Glad she was able to find that specific island!
But don't get me wrong.. the movie is still worth seeing. It's got plenty of fun and entertaining qualities! Not to mentioned the fan service. OH LARD THE FAN SERVICE! I don't think JJ could have fit anymore of that in the movie even if he tried! Here's what I caught after one viewing. (I'm seeing it again Wednesday with my wife.. perhaps I'll catch more then.)
Intro pans down with very similar Ep4 music. Pans to a Star Destroyer.
Sandy planet intro. Jakku could have been ANYTHING! But it's basically a Tatooine clone.
Vader helmet. (Did he seriously go dig up burnt Vader's corpse on Endor for that?)
Skywalker saber being force pulled from snow.
Han/Chewie's bombs were basically the same shape and design as the Thermal Detonator in Ep6.
Basically everything done with/done in/said in/said about the Millenium Falcon.
Leia feeling that big spoiler from across the galaxy Yoda style.
Ren sensing Han.. Vader style.
Chewie crossbow gags.
AT-AT and other various Empire tech on Jakku.
Father/Son reveal.
Planet killer thing again.
I know there's more... I'm just blanking now.
Also did anyone catch the subtle/not so subtle killing of most things prequel related? Coruscant, Republic, etc. I guess Abrams never wanted the films to ever have to portray the city planet or the senate ever again. I half expected them to fire the damn star laser at Naboo, too.
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That wasn't Coruscant, hth.
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One thing I can't quite get is all the harping on Finn and Rey for being able to a) fight and b) defeat Kylo Ren. We know Finn has had combat training, we know Rey is able to handle herself, and (minor thing, really) nowhere in Star Wars film canon is it said that only Jedi can handle light sabers in combat. Plus, it's a very definite plot point that Ren enters that fight wounded and keeps collecting wounds over the course of it.
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I doubt many people realize it now, but TFA just killed the concept of the gravity well-based hyperspace interdictors common throughout the EU. Han and Rey jumping in towards Starkiller base and having to manually exit hyperspace at the right moment - beneath the planetary shields, nonetheless - means that gravity wells cannot interfere with or yank ships out of hyperspace. :(
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And yet, we have Interdictor cruisers in Rebels.
The Falcon is just special.
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One thing I can't quite get is all the harping on Finn and Rey for being able to a) fight and b) defeat Kylo Ren. We know Finn has had combat training, we know Rey is able to handle herself, and (minor thing, really) nowhere in Star Wars film canon is it said that only Jedi can handle light sabers in combat. Plus, it's a very definite plot point that Ren enters that fight wounded and keeps collecting wounds over the course of it.
To me it's weird because despite all that, there is still a massive implied power imbalance there. I mean, Finn is a stormtrooper... and not exactly an experienced one, either. And Ren was actually trying to kill them, not capture or see what they can do, and he was established as someone who can freeze laser bolts in the air and paralyze people with his mind without breaking a sweat.
I do appreciate that they were both clearly stumbling very badly and most of the time were struggling to just block, so it's not that bad, especially considering how Ren was very inexperienced as well (except for his rather excessive force powers) and badly wounded. But I feel like Rey's part went on a bit too long and she was basically getting too good at it in the end. Which is pretty much my only problem with Rey in general; she was instantly uncannily good at everything she ever did. She flew the Falcon like a pro, started pulling off mind tricks immediately after learning that she might have some force sensitivity, sneaked through a base undetected and won her first ever lightsaber fight, against a moderately trained opponent.
Is it more incredulous than Luke being able to instantly pilot an X-wing like a pro when he's presumably never even flown out of atmosphere, or being a much better shot than stormtroopers? I don't know, maybe not.
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That wasn't Coruscant, hth.
Hmm, seems you're right. Must be easy to miss dialogue, because I'm not the only one on the internet who thought that! I'm never read any EU stuff, so mentions of connected but not really star systems are lost on me. It looked a lot like coruscant and that's where I remember last seeing the Senate, so I just connected the dots.
Quite separately, I wanted to mention that I thought Mark Hammil really looked the part of the washed up Jedi legend with the highest kill count in the original trilogy. :p (Link coming when I'm not on my phone.)
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Good god, did he really only kill that one AT-AT in the entirety of Empire Strikes Back?
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It's possible that it's the only one he actually caused to explode. Didn't he tie one with a cable? Being that those just get knocked down, they might not have counted as deaths. I don't know what the rules were that they were following when they made that video.
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Watched it on 12/16, at 4pm. Far from being a bad movie, I'm pretty sure of this, but I will never, ever say it was a perfect one, sorry.
Also, and this may be a "feature" of my country's social media, there's a flood of articles whose authors have been criticizing the movie even before it came out. Another guy posted an article saying he's proud he can't distinguish between Star Wars and Star Trek, as he never watched any of these movies/sagas. People criticize left and right because doing so makes them believe they're cool, not because they do have a point.
The internet sucks as never before.
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While the story has potential, I was very disappointed by the very extensive usage of Deus Ex Machina.
Everything feels so impossible and pure luck.
And the actors could have more believable emotions, really.. I have no idea who is to blame between the actors and the realization.
That scene where Snare kills Han Solo.. He has no emotion at all. If it had triggered some kind of sadness within him to raise his power, I would have understood.. But he is not even sad. He is like a machine. This is just a free kill. Either the actor ****ed up in trying to show emotion, either this death has no sense at all.
I have found Snare to be played very badly generally speaking. Especially when angry. Yes, he was swinging his laser sabre, damaging the screens here and there. But was he actually feeling like being angry ? Not quite to me..
Same goes for the black Stormtrooper. His changes in emotions were too sudden to be actually believable.
Han Solo and the girl were playing good though.
But these amount of Deus Ex Machina.. The pilot, clearly assumed to be killed in the beginning (how could it possibly be otherwise ?), popping up after a while "Hey, you know what, I'm not dead actually ! I escaped !". The stormtrooper who apparently is an engineer as well ? Because how would he know the location of the thermo-thing room otherwise ?
Also, I did not get the part where they want to reach the Rebellion, then we see the DSPE (Death Star Planetary Edition) firing death ray at a planet (which I assumed was the planet they wanted to reach ?) In any case, since we actually see the explosion of that planet, it is in the same solar system as where is Han Solo during this scene. If the planet was that important, why didn't Han Solo land on it, since it was in the same solar system ? And if the planet was not important, then why did they shoot it ? Did Snare wake up one day "Hmm I would like to destroy a planet. That one. Yeah, it will be perfect" ?
So many details that have been left, hiding them with a pile of action.. The story has so much potential, but because of this lack of attention, i really did not enjoy the film :( And I do not even mention the questionnable physics behind the DSPE (holding a star within a planet, without any kind of heat effect on the surface ? There is even snow !), or the overall design "Ok guys, we know last time we built a death star it had a single point of failure. You know what ? Let's do the same ! The rebels will never expect us to leave such a design failure again !"
It was a good movie to watch. But it wasn't a good Star Wars (to me at least). Phantom Menace remains my favourite Star Wars film :)
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Some things:
I am properly convinced that it's an Abrams-ism to be able to "see" bad things happen to planets even though there's no physical way you would be able to. It happened in Nu Star Trek 1, and it happened here. I say it's just a metaphor, and move along, stormtrooper.
I really loved the way that blasters feel dangerous in this movie. In every single previous one, and especially in the prequels, blasters seem like they could have just been flashy, slow-moving projectiles. Here, they explode, burn, shatter trooper armor and other good stuff.
Kylo Ren in general seems a poor Sith. He's very strong in the force, but doesn't seem really able to harness his emotions in a beneficial way. Instead of focusing his rage on something productive, he just wrecks stuff with his laser sword. In his final saber fight of the film, instead of focusing and just force-choking Finn or Rey, he tries to slash them to death; in my opinion because of distraction from his wounds and also emotional distress from murdering his own father. /spoilers
Without Finn seeing his body in the TIE Fighter, I fully expected Po to survive, and was not surprised at all to see him again.
But I was kind of disappointed at the amount of plot convenience by sheer luck going on. And it definitely felt a whole lot like a set-up for more story/nostalgia trip than it did a full movie in its own right.
That said, I found it highly enjoyable, but flawed. Met expectations, would watch again.
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Everything feels so impossible and pure luck.
Honestly, this argument kind of feels like you've missed the underlying conceit of the movie; the Force is a thing. There is no coincidence, no luck, just the currents and eddies of the Force. Jedi and Sith are born able to manipulate/perceive those eddies even when untrained assuming they're not so powerful they literally warp chance around them by passively existing (Anakin was implied to do this, even as a child; Luke had a couple moments too), so the fact they have bull**** luck is not a bug. It's a feature.
Or as Qui-Gon explained it: Be mindful of the living Force, Padawan.
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I'm seeing people criticize it for being the same, but if they hadnt reused so much stuff then people would have said its not star wars. And SW has a pretty long histiry of doing this. Now that it has eatablished itself as a worthy successor, it can move on to new territory.
I'm intrigued at how much they drew from the books. Seems like 75-80% of everything in it was in the books. Yeah the names, places , and times were different. I don't know if that was intentional or coincidence.
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Great Movie, flawed with some plotting issues and too little self-confidence (Exhibited primarily by its obsessive desire to mirror ANH).
My main issue is Starkiller Base, unlike the Death Star it's entirely unrelated to the plot until literally the moment it fires, and it exists solely as a mirror of ANH. The plot and movie are hugely improved if it is excised completely and replaced with, say, a raid to retrieve the FO part of the Skywalker Map or a Star Destroyer/SSD leading the hunt for Skywalker or something similar.
While the plotting was less tight then ANH, ESB, or ROTJ the character work was very well done and the writing was arguably better than most of the other movies. It relied heavily on coincidence buuuut I'm OK with that and it doesn't meaningfully detract from the movie as none of the flaws are really 'the plot doesn't work'.
The bowcaster shot in the Kylo fight was a cool trick, and the character work/dramatic structure of the fight was excellent.
You can really see Abrams being Abrams all over the place.
The Hauler clearly picks up the Falcon nowhere near Jakku, as Han is surprised when he hears that it was found there and notes that he tracked their transponder somehow later.
Kylo is well done as someone visibly attempting to mirror Darth Vader, Rey and Finn are a great leading duo with excellent actors who carry the film. Poe is lovely and carries every second of screentime he has. Snoke is kinda meh. Hux is neat, both in the FO as a subpar mirror of the Empire and in his dynamic with Kylo as a political rival. The returning cast who actually get lines are very well done. Mark Hamill has greatly improved his health for this movie.
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I know we're all being hard on the Star Killer but remember, this thing has an entire ecosystem. My guess is that it's a Sith construct thousands of years old. We already know Ren has Vader's skull and shouts "That's MINE!" when he sees Anakin's lightsaber. I figure he's on some search for Dark Side artifacts.
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Ok, saw this yesterday. The following is my opinion:
This was not a good movie.
First off, this wasn't Episode VII. This was Episode IV mk2. Nothing of what happened in the original trilogy has an impact on the plot.
Empire's still around, but with a new name and the Nazi dialed up to 11 (lol Nuremberg Rally scene). Wouldn't want to be confused about who the villain is. Rebel Alliance still around, but with a different name and slightly different X-Wings. Yeah, they worked real hard on the premise, didn't they? And don't point me to books. Books aren't going to justify this film's fundamentally lazy premise.
Rey (and Finn) beating Kylo Ren didn't feel like a triumph, it felt contrived. There was no sense of accomplishment. At no point does it feel like the characters earned that victory (or any of their victories). Everything just felt like it was handed to them. Rey jumps in the Millennium Falcon and she can fly it well enough to outfly TIE fighters immediately. She can use the Force effortlessly 20 minutes after she learns she's Force-sensitive. She beats the film's main antagonist in a lightsaber duel the very first time she picks one up.
It took Luke three movies to beat Darth Vader in a duel. That scene had weight because of that. It had weight because the last time he fought Vader, he got his hand served to him on a platter. And that was after being trained by Yoda and Obi-Wan.
Rey? None of that. Here, have a lightsaber and a handful of midichlorians, should have no problem beating a dark Jedi. Yeah, he was shot by Chewie and stabbed by Finn first, but that's not the point. Making the villain weaker still doesn't make the victory feel earned. Same thing happened in Star Trek 2009 when Kirk gets command of the Enterprise despite not having graduated from the academy yet.
It feels like JJ just thinks up cool scenes without caring at all about how those scenes are supposed to tie together and progress in a satisfying manner, because the individual scenes in this movie are actually pretty good on their own.
Han Solo died. Okay, well, it's really obvious JJ wanted one of the original cast to die because that scene had no point and no emotional impact. You could remove it from the movie and say a stormtrooper shot him on the way here and I wouldn't really care less.
Starkiller base: Really couldn't try a new plot, could they? Constant ultimate superweapons was boring in the EU, it hasn't gotten less boring now. Oh yeah, it blew up a few planets we didn't care about. That happened but could have been faked for all the impact it had. Looked good visually though.
Tangentially related: if it sucks up a sun to power itself, why does it need to fire at all? Removing a star is going to **** up the planets in a system already.
Kinda related: there's no sense of distance or travel in this movie. Where was the Starkiller Base when it appeared? Where was it when it exploded? Where is the rebel base in relation to all the other locations in the movie? Are they all in different systems or did it move? What about those planets it killed?
This is a JJ thing because Into Darkness had the same exact issue. Everything feels right next to everything else.
Kylo Ren: so I'm guessing JJ was a fan of mopy, ansty prequel Anakin, because that's basically who this is. I completely understand him feeling inadequate compared to Vader because he's a worse character in every way. Summons none of the personality or sheer cool factor Vader did. Hell, none of the villains in this movie even manage to be as memorable as Grand Moff Tarkin.
Actually, this kinda reinforces that this is really episode IV mk2. I find Kylo Ren a much more obvious progression of prequel Anakin than original trilogy Darth Vader ever was. Replace Luke with Obi-Wan or Yoda, Snoke with Palpatine, and boom, episode IV completely replaced (with a worse movie).
I think this movie tried way to hard to echo ANH, and JJ abrams is a bad, bad director when it comes to plot.
Visually, it looked good. The dogfight scenes were solid, so was the lightsaber fight at the end. That frozen blaster bolt at the start looked cool as hell. I loved the graveyard of Imperial equipment on Jakku even if there's zero explanation for it in the movie, but I'm a sucker for ship graveyards.
Final verdict: worse than Revenge of the Sith. Possibly worse than Attack of the Clones. Still better than Jar-Jar. Immeasurably worse than the Thrawn Trilogy. I'm hoping it's made better by the next two movies. Which is entirely possible.
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Personally, I agree with many of your specific critiques, however in places you cite no emotional impact I mostly had the opposite reaction. For instance as obvious as Han's death was structurally, I cared in the moment. Provoking emotional responses is what JJ is good at, and that's why I was able to greatly enjoy it despite all it's flaws.
I'm quite glad he's not writing or directing 8 or 9 though.
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I think the biggest issue with the Han Solo death scene is that none of the characters get a chance to reflect on it. If it has an impact, it will be in the next movie. As it is, it feels like it's just an excuse for Chewie to shoot Ren so Rey can have her unsatisfying victory without stretching disbelief too much.
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Well, it also will undoubtedly serve as a pivotal character point for Ren later on. It's clear Snoke was pushing him to do it so he could be even closer to the dark side or something. Snoke calls it a super difficult test and shows doubt that Ren will pass. Given Ren's character as a Vader wanna-be, that's kinda a big deal.
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Ren's gonna turn like Vader did in the first one. I'll bet a spaceship model.
Of course it's so easy to see I feel like everyone already knows this, and I'm not being very specific, but still. I would be seriously surprised if his character actually followed through on his total path to the dark side.
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Having Kylo Ren not turn good in the end would not be a very Disney thing to do, IMO.
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Having Kylo Ren not turn good in the end would not be a very Disney thing to do, IMO.
The Disney thing to do is to have him try to stab the protagonist in the back, and slip and fall to his death by pointy rocks, improbable hanging, or possibly stabbed with the prow of a sailing ship.
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I think the most interesting thing Disney could do with it is to have Rey (who is, unsurprisingly, related to Luke) rebel against Luke's way of teaching and confront Kylo Ren again to avenge Han Solo, drawing on the Dark Side to do it. Snoke, seeing Rey's potential and Ren's weakness, immediately casts him aside in favor of Rey, who welcomes a teacher that aligns more closely with her experiences with the Force. Ren, disillusioned, falls into a despair until Finn runs into him, who needs help redeeming Rey. Under Snoke's influence, Rey desires no such redemption. In IX, Ren and Finn confront Rey, and Finn is gravely wounded (likely on accident) in the ensuing struggle before Rey strikes Ren down (again). Seeing her her anger and attempts at vengeance hurt her friend and her hated rival defeated at her own hands, Rey realizes she feels no sense of fulfillment, satisfaction, or salved grief. Faced with the same choice Anakin was faced in Revenge of the Sith (favored mentor against what's Right), and simultaneously the same choice Luke faced in Return of the Jedi (anger and fear against family; Ren is her cousin) she renounces her allegiance to Snoke and destroys him.
Symmetry and homage without retreading.
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That. Sounds. AWESOME.
But unlikely. Disney would never have the guts to do that to a female role model.
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Just got back from seeing it, and goddamn I am pumped. Put everything else aside, that movie was just fun. I think I had a smile unavoidably plastered across my face for most of it. Yes, there were a bunch of events that were probably far too convenient if I stop and think about them, and the whole Republic/Resistance/First Order dynamic wasn't properly explained, and when you step back and take a look it was nearly a shot-for-shot homage of A New Hope, but all of that fades into the background compared to how damn fun it was. This was the first movie in 32 years that actually feels like Star Wars, and that's no small thing. It's amazing how much you wind up missing well-written characters and dialog, not to mention honest-to-God physical sets and effects. And yes, it was a sun-eating Death Star 3 for who knows what reason, but it looked really badass doing its thing, so I'm good.
It's a funny thing, though. I was born several years after the OT premiered, and while I don't even specifically remember the first time I saw the films, I know they were a big part of my childhood. Hell, I will forever carry the shame of having seen Episode I three times in theaters (I was an idiot tween then, so cut past me some slack). But none of that shiny over-produced mess came anywhere close to producing the feelings of nostalgia that this did. The thing about the prequels is that the more you think about them, the worse you realize they were, until you inevitably wind up with a list of critiques like the Plinkett reviews. But this film produced the exact opposite reaction in me. Yes, I recognize the flaws, but I'll gladly forgive them because of its underlying strength. I'd go back out and see this movie again tomorrow, and it's going to be an agonizingly long two years until we get its sequel.
And I know why they felt like they had to do it, and they honestly probably did have to do it, and it'll probably be for the best...but why did they do it? :(
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I think the most interesting thing Disney could do with it is to have Rey (who is, unsurprisingly, related to Luke) rebel against Luke's way of teaching and confront Kylo Ren again to avenge Han Solo, drawing on the Dark Side to do it. Snoke, seeing Rey's potential and Ren's weakness, immediately casts him aside in favor of Rey, who welcomes a teacher that aligns more closely with her experiences with the Force. Ren, disillusioned, falls into a despair until Finn runs into him, who needs help redeeming Rey. Under Snoke's influence, Rey desires no such redemption. In IX, Ren and Finn confront Rey, and Finn is gravely wounded (likely on accident) in the ensuing struggle before Rey strikes Ren down (again). Seeing her her anger and attempts at vengeance hurt her friend and her hated rival defeated at her own hands, Rey realizes she feels no sense of fulfillment, satisfaction, or salved grief. Faced with the same choice Anakin was faced in Revenge of the Sith (favored mentor against what's Right), and simultaneously the same choice Luke faced in Return of the Jedi (anger and fear against family; Ren is her cousin) she renounces her allegiance to Snoke and destroys him.
Sick Pllot.
Although honestly I really wasnt invested that much in her character that much until much later into the movie. Deep down I wanted Finn's character to be the one who fights with a lightsaber and be a jedi but that can still happen later in the series perhaps. Even if he isnt it would be pretty cool for a non force user to be the wielder of a light saber and be the main character. Another reason why I didnt care for her is that somehow she learns to hypnotise people just outta the blue.
Captain Phantasma was a literal joke. Seriously. Like the fact she doesnt barely anything for most of the film even though she was hyped up as hell as being a female role model she certainly dies a really anti climactic and hilarious death. Also "Her Armour looks like something from a cosplay convention" Quoted straight from my friend who watched it with me.
Han Solo just finding the Falcon out of the blue was really goddamn annoying as was all those real convenient events. Plus they really really should have waited for the Han Solo confrontation to reveal his face.
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I seem to be having the exact opposite reaction to this movie as the rest of the planet. It felt far LESS like Star Wars to me than even the prequels. I really got the feeling of watching some B-movie director who got permission to use Star Wars assets make a poor attempt at writing a story to justify as many cool space battle scenes as possible. No matter how good the space battles are (and they were), it's just too damn distracting how bad the basic storytelling elements were.
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It seems to me that JJ's work has always relied on having strong antagonists to carry things... Mission: Impossible 3 had the incredible Philip Seymour Hoffman, Lost had those crazy Others, etc. His Star Trek movies were mediocre precisely because the bad guys therein were also mediocre: Eric Bana as Nero was meh. Benedict Cumberbatch as Khan was slightly better as an opponent, but his persona was still meh.
And now we have the honestly laughable bad guys in The Force Awakens: Kylo Ren? Meh. General Hux?? Gleeson did as good as he could, and it was the most believable of the baddies, but he can't escape the fact that he still (somehow!) looks like a teenager. Supreme Leader Snoke? He was fine - aside from the name. >.< Captain Phasma? Another silly name, and was made to look like a weak fool in the face of opposition.
And it's not just JJ's work that benefits from well-executed baddies - other great works are great mainly due to their antagonists. Star Wars IV-VI were great because of James Earl Frikkin' Jones and his Darth Vader voice. Batman - The Dark Knight was great because of Heath Ledger and his incredible, unnerving Joker. The Lord of the Rings films were great because Sauron and the Nazgul were fearsome opponents. The Matrix was great because of Agent Smithy-pooh. Star Trek: First Contact was great because of the Borg. Jurassic Park was great because of the velociraptors. And of course, FreeSpace 1 & 2 are great because of the Shivans.
Without an opponent worthy of the position, movies only manage to be mediocre at best.
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Thank God for Wookiepedia. Captain Phasma is not dead. If she were, that would have been a huge waste of a character.
Lots of people said what I wanted to say. The movie is fun with flaws that I can overlook because for the first time in a long time, we finally have a proper Star Wars movie.
I'm so glad the lightsaber scenes were nothing like what we've seen in the prequels. Whoever mentioned that the swings felt weighty is right.
Star Killer was definite lame, though. Pretty! But lame.
4/5 - would watch again and looking forward to Star Wars VIII
e: And I loved how they had newer iterations of the TIE and X-Wings. Felt like a parallel to reality; after 30 years, we've gone from F-15s to retrofitted, upgraded, and more modern F-15s
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e: And I loved how they had newer iterations of the TIE and X-Wings. Felt like a parallel to reality; after 30 years, we've gone from F-15s to retrofitted, upgraded, and more modern F-15s
I hadn't thought about it like that, but you're absolutely right. Granted in the real world we went from wooden-frame biplanes to jet fighters in almost the same time period, but that was while air technology was far from mature. By all accounts the Star Wars universe has been using blasters and hyperdrives and the like for who knows how many years, so at some point there's probably not a huge need to reinvent the wheel. The alternative is what I can comfortably call FreeSpace Syndrome, where you replace just about the whole damn fleet for no apparent reason. :p
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Needed more TIE Interceptors.
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Needed more TIE Interceptors.
It was kind of sorely lacking in fighter variation in general. Where are my bloody A-Wings?
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e: And I loved how they had newer iterations of the TIE and X-Wings. Felt like a parallel to reality; after 30 years, we've gone from F-15s to retrofitted, upgraded, and more modern F-15s
Would have rather seen the B-Wing in action.
After the initial break off from the Death Star in RotJ we never saw it again. Could have had the X-Wings covering for B-Wings during the attack the attack on the planet.
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Weren't X and Y wings the only ones in the original theatrical trilogy? I certainly didn't know of any others until I played Rogue Squadron (which now I have a hankering for).
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A Wings and B Wings I think may have appeared at the end of The Empire Strikes Back and were featured more prominently in the Rotj. An A Wing crashes into a Star Destroyers bridge on screen. It happens just after the classic line "Intensify forward firepower", I remember laughing my ass off.
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TOO LATE!!!
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AUUUGHHHH!
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This article (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/seth-abramson/40-unforgivable-plot-holes-in-star-wars-the-force-awakens_b_8850324.html) sums up my thoughts on what was wrong with The Force Awakens pretty well. Albeit more nitpicky and nerd-ragey than I would have been. One giant thing that's missing from the list is the shoe-horning in of famous lines from the old movies in what I assume was an attempt at 'tribute' but really just ended up cheesy. That sorta goes along with the carbon copy plot elements I suppose. For an example of how to nod to previous movies in a series correctly, refer to Skyfall.
I pretty much lost it when they brought back the "parsecs" nonsense. I did a movie bad and talked out loud after that line, saying "It's just as stupid the second time." Everyone nearby who heard me laughed. Hard. We missed the next line or two.
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Weren't X and Y wings the only ones in the original theatrical trilogy? I certainly didn't know of any others until I played Rogue Squadron (which now I have a hankering for).
A-Wings and B-Wings don't show up until Return of the Jedi.
In RotJ A-Wings can be seen in the hangar and are present throughout the battle showing up many times. One as they say crashes into the Executor's bridge, another one goes down the Death star Shaft with the Falcon but splits off to draw off some of their pursuit force, another is near the medical frigate or near the falcon when it attacks the SDs. But generally they're all over the place. Their most prominent place is with the Executor of course where aside from the collision, two A-Wings also implied to have destroyed the shield generator.
B-Wings are present at the start of the battle but once they avoid the shield they're not seen again. They're seen most prominently during in the staging area, immediately following the Falcon X-Wings in a closed-wing formation. They later open up prior to jump. They're distinctive because their engine glow is a different colour (orange I think rather than yellow)
Also I'm pretty sure Green Leader is in an A-wing and is the one in the death star whereas the B-Wing is Grey Leader.
This is special edition footage but I think most of the elements were present in the old version as well.
But yeah. Seeing as how much X-Wings, Y-Wings and A-wings are seen in the battle I'm baffled why we don't even see one combat shot with the B-Wing. Maybe someone dropped their two models or misplaced them in a box or something. Who knows
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IIRC they had trouble filming the B-wings on blue-screen because their thin profile.
EDIT:
Some further info from a die-hard fan - http://originaltrilogy.com/topic/B-Wings-in-ROTJ-editing-epiphany/id/12866
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I liked it. A bit too much emphasis on "destiny" and contrivances due to The Force, but overall, I think it worked. First Order managed to be a lot "eviler" than Empire seemed to be, while at the same time being more human. Stormtroopers were handled really well. Kylo Ren was quite well done, IMO. A Vader wannabe, but clearly a rather lousy darksider, with a tendency to explode into raging fits instead of using that anger for something productive. I think that made his defeat by Rei believable. She didn't have lightsaber training (though she was handy with the quaterstaff), but he probably didn't have all that much, either. Not to mention he seemed to be only able to control his powers when relatively collected (as that's when he used them), which wasn't all that often.
The Starkiller base was a bit silly, though. Not only was the scene when it destroyed those planets ridiculously short, the victims were almost throwaway. We don't even know what these planets were called. Not to mention using a star that way involves some really dodgy physics. It probably would've been better off without that sub-plot, or with some less ridiculous superweapon.
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This article (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/seth-abramson/40-unforgivable-plot-holes-in-star-wars-the-force-awakens_b_8850324.html) sums up my thoughts on what was wrong with The Force Awakens pretty well. Albeit more nitpicky and nerd-ragey than I would have been. One giant thing that's missing from the list is the shoe-horning in of famous lines from the old movies in what I assume was an attempt at 'tribute' but really just ended up cheesy. That sorta goes along with the carbon copy plot elements I suppose. For an example of how to nod to previous movies in a series correctly, refer to Skyfall.
I pretty much lost it when they brought back the "parsecs" nonsense. I did a movie bad and talked out loud after that line, saying "It's just as stupid the second time." Everyone nearby who heard me laughed. Hard. We missed the next line or two.
While some of those points mentioned are valid, as the comments point out a big chunk of them are either blatantly explained in the film itself, or cease to become issues if you take a moment to think about them. Were there plenty of plot contrivances? Most definitely. Was the end result still ridiculously fun? Also most definitely.
And see, I legitimately lol'd at the parsecs scene, because it was pretty damn obvious that the writers were hanging a lampshade on how stupid the original wording was. :D
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Saw it pretty much blind, having only read a small summary of some of the novels/background materials. I went with my dad, who saw A New Hope in theatres on release as well. I have thoughts:
-I really enjoyed it.
-As a bridge from the original trilogy, spanning the gap into a new era of Star Wars, and redeeming the ****show that was the prequel trilogy, it was perfect.
-I didn't find the nods to A New Hope jarring or aggravating; in general I thought the homage paid was well done and was in fact a very good way of saying "yes, this is Star Wars again."
-Harrison Ford could have been along for the ride; instead, he acted; his presence was a pivotal element in making the audience care about what was going on. Truthfully, HE was the bridge in this film, and the continued use of the same humour by Solo was perfect.
-The film was rollicking and fun; I was never bored, and it's a testament to how entertaining it was that the nitpicks below did not really detract from it.
Some thoughts on things I thought could have been done better:
- The political situation explanation. As I said, I read some summary material and I was still lost. This was a bridge movie, so they could've taken five goddamned minutes and explained how the Imperial forces got decimated, then rebuilt, and then the Republic sat on its thumbs while Leia formed a "Resistance" to the "First Order." Furthermore...
- How the hell does a relatively small First Order who appear to be universally hated build a PLANET SIZED SUPERWEAPON THAT IS VISIBLE FROM SPACE without anyone noticing. Anyone? Bueller? Is the Resistance still busy partying with the Ewoks or what?
-Planet sized superweapons are stupid. Yes, I know this is Star Wars, but when I heard it was called "Starkiller" I went "YOU COULD HAVE DRAWN ON KOTOR 1/2, WHY THE HELL DIDN'T YOU?!" Seriously. So many more interesting directions to go; instead we put a big gun in a planet that eats suns. Say that out loud and tell me it's not stupid.
-Umm, why does the First Order manage so much carnage before the Resistance wakes up, exactly? It takes the death of a planetary system to break up the Ewok orgy?
Some thoughts on Kylo (Ben), Finn, and Rey:
-I feel like the writers played KOTOR and I am desperately hoping they steal some ideas from it for Ep8/9.
-The criticism that Kylo/Ben has his ass kicked is off-base; Kylo is a ragged, half-trained, Dark Side-seduced Force user who is used to being completely opposed; he's not embracing his emotions, he's embracing raw anger while undergoing massive internal struggle (and he's wounded to begin with). It's made clear from the start of the film that Finn and Rey are both Force-capable (my Dad disagreed, but I'm adamant that Finn is force-capable); Finn slightly, while Rey has clearly had considerable practice without realizing it. She's powerful, mad, unconflicted, and focused in their duel; Kylo is afraid of her from early on for this very reason.
-I suspect Rey could end up swayed to Dark side use, while Finn is pretty much immune; I suspect we'll see him used as her anchor. Kylo, on the other hand, is struggling to retain the Dark side power, unlike Vader. I'm very curious if we'll see a reversal of heroes and villains. Killing his father hasn't set Kylo permanently on a Dark path.
-Rey is not a Skywalker. Nope nope.
I will be seeing it again this week with some friends; I'll watch for anything I missed.
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Somehow, I don't think they built the Starkiller Base without anyone noticing. I don't remember it being said to be a secret installation. They might have done it so that nobody had any way of doing anything about it. Except maybe the New Republic, which might have been lacking political will to do so. The shield was only penetrated by an utterly insane maneuver courtesy of Han Solo, so if that was in place during most of the construction (and it would be if they learned anything from Death Star II), I don't think anyone could touch that thing.
Also, you should note that Finn didn't have to be force-capable. Finn was a Stormtrooper, and thus probably well trained with that electrostaff we see. He might have been taught something about lightsabers as well (though likely centered on how to fight someone with a lightsaber). Though knowing SW, he'll be either a Jedi or dead by the end of the trilogy (possibly both :) ). Anyway, I like the idea of a normal person using a lightsaber competently and holding off against a force user, even a lousy, poorly trained one like Kylo.
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I didn't have a problem with Starkiller, but I have an admitted bias towards strapping giant engines on a planet and using it as a mobile superweapons platform. And, in fairness, its stupidity was its downfall; if they had just slapped a few Death Star superlasers on instead it would be nearly impossible for the Resistance/Republic to destroy.
The parsecs scene was fine too since I'm accustomed to all the EU explanations about it being a black hole and the run being defined by how close you can get to the black hole and escape.
I think the most jarring thing in the movie for me is Finn. He has his initial freakout when one of his squadmates dies, but for the rest of the movie doesn't seem to hesitate when gunning down dozens of his former comrades himself.
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I think the most jarring thing in the movie for me is Finn. He has his initial freakout when one of his squadmates dies, but for the rest of the movie doesn't seem to hesitate when gunning down dozens of his former comrades himself.
If by "dozens" you mean six. Go back and count 'em. Two TIE pilots in the Falcon (one of whom may have survived the crash), one with a lightsaber, two with a blaster in the rubble, and one with a blaster after Han gets stabbed. That is the sum total of his confirmed bodycount in the entire movie. He never actually hits anyone while firing the TIE's with the possible exception of the officers in the control tower. He doesn't actually use a weapon at any other point (besides the fight with Ren, in which he kills no one).
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Plus when someone is actively trying to kill you, that tends to make it a hell of a lot easier to shoot back at them.
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I think the most jarring thing in the movie for me is Finn. He has his initial freakout when one of his squadmates dies, but for the rest of the movie doesn't seem to hesitate when gunning down dozens of his former comrades himself.
The important part of that scene isn't him freaking out. What's important is that he gets blood on his helmet and becomes distinguishable from the other stormtroopers.
That is the sum total of his confirmed bodycount in the entire movie. He never actually hits anyone while firing the TIE's with the possible exception of the officers in the control tower. He doesn't actually use a weapon at any other point (besides the fight with Ren, in which he kills no one).
Probably killed a dozen in the bay alone.
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He was quite panicked in the bay, however, not to mention he was hardly aiming at those troopers (or anything else, for that matter). He probably did worry about what he did once it had a chance to set in, but between the frantic rush of the battle and nearly dying in the desert, the first time he had the time to reflect on anything was on the Falcon. Besides, all of the fighting he did after his defection was in self defense.
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That is the sum total of his confirmed bodycount in the entire movie. He never actually hits anyone while firing the TIE's with the possible exception of the officers in the control tower. He doesn't actually use a weapon at any other point (besides the fight with Ren, in which he kills no one).
Probably killed a dozen in the bay alone.
I would be most interested if you go watch it again and point out to me which ones and when, because he never actually hit any of them and their deaths nearly by definition cannot be confirmed.
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That is the sum total of his confirmed bodycount in the entire movie. He never actually hits anyone while firing the TIE's with the possible exception of the officers in the control tower. He doesn't actually use a weapon at any other point (besides the fight with Ren, in which he kills no one).
Probably killed a dozen in the bay alone.
I would be most interested if you go watch it again and point out to me which ones and when, because he never actually hit any of them and their deaths nearly by definition cannot be confirmed.
If a guy goes flying 10 feet into the by an explosion he's implied to be dead. I don't need to go to the movie for that; it's in the trailer.
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I don't need to go to the movie for that; it's in the trailer.
There are multiple scenes from multiple trailers that didn't end up in the actual movie, you know.
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A TIE with a GUNNER SEAT?! You're kidnapping babies for your elite units and you want to put TWO PEOPLE in one of those deathtraps?! They should have gone for TIE/d's
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Like most of the galaxy's problems this one can be solved with a couple squadrons of Snubbies.
I just saw it, I found it most enjoyable and it hit all the right beats for the most part. There are a few plot issues I found a little vexing but the acting, dialog and cinematography where all very good. The prodigious use of practical effects and real sets leads me to think it will age pretty well to boot. I liked the new main leads and Harrison Ford really managed to get back into Han Solo again, which made it really sad that he won't be along for any of the following films. I'm not terribly miffed about Rey and Finn beating Kylo, he certainly wasn't the second coming Hans Talhoffer in terms of swordplay, he had just taken a bowcaster shot to the flank and was kinda of an angsty rage machine on top of it all. Anger is a useful tool in a physical confrontation, but it needs to be harnessed properly, if you let it get out of control you get stupid and screw up. I like that lightsaber fights have returned to the more impactful emotional experience than the flailing light show as well. The way the light from the blades cast on the characters was very nice touch, the blue and the red in the snow in the darkness; very cool. The combat scenes struck the right balance of being busy enough to be visually interesting but focused so you could follow what is going on. While the NuEmpire might not have solved the snubfighter problem they seem to have gotten their ground forces squared away which was nice, though not providing crash seats and making your stormies stand for the whole ride in the space LCVPs was a bit of a dick move by whoever built them.
A little better setup of the Galactic situation would have been appreciated but I can buy that the Imperial remnants reformed into some Boys from Brazil/DPRK State and the Republic was too milk toast to confront them. The Resistance seems to be running on a shoestring budget and a wing of snubbies that got misplaced by the Republic Navy. I see them as more of a state sponsored pain in the ass than a legitimate counter to the First Order. If the First Order actually was holding on to enough systems for a decent industrial base and was the closed indoctrinated society they appear I'll even buy them building the Superweapon in secret, especially as it seemed they dug the thing into some remote planet.
I'm guessing even with the pseudo sun magnifying glass blown up they hit enough governmental infrastructure and fleet assets to have given them a conventional forces advantage against whats left. I get the feel the Snoke fellow is more concerned about winning the "Force" than simply ruling the galaxy like Palpatine. Though with his penchant for giant holograms I wonder if he's like three feet tall or something :P
Anyway, overall it was a solid jump off point to a new trilogy and I look forward to the subsequent episodes.
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It occurs to me I haven't given my thoughts.
This movie needed to overcome the prequels. That's kind of why it mixes up the elements of ANH so strongly...but it does mix them up. Except for one major misstep, which I'll get to, I think it manages to be a homage and yet not derivative. The whole thing seems to hinge on a fighter attack; but the fighters don't actually have the firepower for it and are really a sideshow for the end in terms of screen time. The only reason you can even call it the "I am your father" scene is it's on a catwalk and inside a structure. Rey has grown up on legends of the Force and Jedi, so she kind of Corran Horns her way through it, knowing that she can do certain things but not knowing how to do them. Speaking of which, I get the feeling that despite not making it blatant, they did nod towards the EU a few times. Rey's mind-tricking a stormtrooper felt, in its way, a nod to The Bacta War as I commented. Luke's hideaway, with the islands, the Falcon's landing spot, the stairs, and just the air of it, had me say "this is Jomark" out loud. (Here's hoping that's not Luuke Skywalker.)
Harrison Ford could have turned up to this movie drunk and phoned it in, and I think most people would have been happy. He didn't. He got up there and acted his heart out. He's not carrying this movie on his shoulders, exactly, Daisy Ridley knocked it out of the park too and I don't think anyone actually did badly (the weakest performance, I think, was Finn, but in purely relative terms; he was still solid), but this movie would have been very different and worse without his performance. They kept the kind of light dialogue the original trilogy did so well, and set the tone with setting.
The lighting in this movie was a thing of beauty and I will stab anyone who disagrees.
The only foot I think it put wrong was when they called back to the cantina scene. You open the door, the characters look in, and then suddenly the camera detaches from them and goes walkabout, then hops between shots. The moment they did that was pretty much the only time I think they crossed the line between "homage" and "derivative". If we'd just had the characters walk past all this sort of stuff, I think we could have sustained it in homage, but...
I also think that a lot of people have interpreted the fight between Ren and Rey wrong. She does win, yes, but when she attacks Ren in anger...she's not winning the fight. We watch her struggle and be constantly driven back. It's only there, on the edge, closing her eyes, clearing her mind, reaching for the Force as a Jedi would do, that she takes control of the fight. She won as Obi-Wan would have approved of, not as Vader would have.
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I think the most jarring thing in the movie for me is Finn. He has his initial freakout when one of his squadmates dies, but for the rest of the movie doesn't seem to hesitate when gunning down dozens of his former comrades himself.
If by "dozens" you mean six. Go back and count 'em. Two TIE pilots in the Falcon (one of whom may have survived the crash), one with a lightsaber, two with a blaster in the rubble, and one with a blaster after Han gets stabbed. That is the sum total of his confirmed bodycount in the entire movie. He never actually hits anyone while firing the TIE's with the possible exception of the officers in the control tower. He doesn't actually use a weapon at any other point (besides the fight with Ren, in which he kills no one).
To be fair, I'd count the officers since they grew up in propagandaville as well. But to be more fair, I didn't literally count. :p
A TIE with a GUNNER SEAT?! You're kidnapping babies for your elite units and you want to put TWO PEOPLE in one of those deathtraps?! They should have gone for TIE/d's
I dunno, Dameron seemed to really like how it flew. Maybe not so much a death trap in new canon. At least the Order version of it, anyway.
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A TIE with a GUNNER SEAT?! You're kidnapping babies for your elite units and you want to put TWO PEOPLE in one of those deathtraps?! They should have gone for TIE/d's
The X-Wings in this movie don't seem to have much better survivability, though. Maybe the TIEs actually have shields now, and we just don't notice because a single penetrating shot means death anyway.
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It's only there, on the edge, closing her eyes, clearing her mind, reaching for the Force as a Jedi would do, that she takes control of the fight. She won as Obi-Wan would have approved of, not as Vader would have.
You sure about that? I think her sudden fury and turnaround had a lot of "Luke finally loses his cool against Vader" in it. She was definitely harnessing the force, but I'm not convinced it was the light side.
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(the weakest performance, I think, was Finn, but in purely relative terms; he was still solid)
I actually liked him, I'm not sure if I'm reading too much into the performance but I attributed much of his behavior to essentially being raised as a serial number his whole life and now being loose in the wide world. I'd expect a little awkwardness and tendency towards ham, the fact that Han even calls him on it got a laugh out of me. I also thought he meshed pretty well with Ridley and Oscar Isaac which is obviously the most important.
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A TIE with a GUNNER SEAT?! You're kidnapping babies for your elite units and you want to put TWO PEOPLE in one of those deathtraps?! They should have gone for TIE/d's
The X-Wings in this movie don't seem to have much better survivability, though. Maybe the TIEs actually have shields now, and we just don't notice because a single penetrating shot means death anyway.
I'm pretty sure I saw X-Wings taking multiple hits and having a shield effect. Maybe I was mis-seeing things, but if it did happen, then that's +1 to X-Wings.
I think it's more fair to say that these two fighters now possess distinct advantages rather than one being so much better than the other. Well, it was kinda like that for the older era, but I think they're more or less equal.
e: Of course, I could be completely wrong. Needs more movies and official media to dissect.
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You sure about that? I think her sudden fury and turnaround had a lot of "Luke finally loses his cool against Vader" in it. She was definitely harnessing the force, but I'm not convinced it was the light side.
Where's the fury? She came at him with fury because Finn was hurt, but when we get here we stop. She closes her eyes. We are obviously meant to interpret things as changing at this point. Her expression, when she opens her eyes, isn't furious. It's actually hard to read it, I grant, but I see determination and focus, not anger. The way she attacks him could be described as "furious" but that's not a description of her emotional state.
Luke lost his cool against Vader because Vader provoked him. The provocation in this scene has come and gone already. This doesn't make sense based on its presentation or writing.
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She defeats Ren after the provocation has passed, but her expression as the gulf opened up between them made it pretty clear what the outcome would have been. I'm hoping she felt the touch of the dark side, because it'd result in the most interesting thematic route the story could take.
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To be honest, I don't doubt she did feel it in that scene, but I think it was the first phase and Ren's just a better darksider then she is. He's trained for it an all.
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Okay, so the film has finally been released in China! Time for opinions.
Firstly, I did enjoy the film in the cinema. Whether it will degrade on repeated viewings like the prequels is another matter. I don't think it will ever degrade as much as even Revenge of the Sith did though, let alone the other two prequels.
Lightsabre fights are good again rather than simply looking good. The emphasis was definitely on the characters fighting rather than flashy acrobatics.
On the other hand, I hated Han Solo's final scene. Han is a badass and deserved a good death. Not going out like an idiot who couldn't see that his son would obviously kill him. What really pisses me off about it, is how simple it would have been to make that scene better. A minor change like having the explosives on a timer and Han trying to distract Ren would have give the scene more impact. Yeah, he's still trying to turn his son, but something else is going on too and Han knows that it could cost him his life.
1. Who made that map... and FFS why??
Very much this. The map was basically the central mcguffin of the entire first 2/3s on the film. That means that at some point we need to know why the **** it exists, who created it, why they didn't just give it to Leia, why R2D2 has most of it, and why R2D2 is powered down. NOT ONE of those questions was addressed in the film. This is pretty much Phantom Menace level scriptwriting where the prophecy surrounding Luke was always stated but never explained, or why we never heard a single good reason why the Trade Federation kept throwing in with Palpatine despite it never getting them anything other than expensive droid replacement bills.
But I feel like Rey's part went on a bit too long and she was basically getting too good at it in the end. Which is pretty much my only problem with Rey in general; she was instantly uncannily good at everything she ever did.
As opposed to Luke who after a few hours on the Millennium Falcon and a few days with Yoda is suddenly up to a lightsabre battle with the fully trained Darth Vader? Or who can pilot an X-wing better than anyone the first time he ever sits in one? Or who suddenly realises he can send telepathic messages to Leia when he doesn't want to fall off of cloud city?
Let's face it, the original trilogy established that it doesn't take much work to turn someone into a passable Jedi. Yes, it takes a lot of work to become a great one, but basic training is pretty easy and we really don't know how much Kylo Ren got. Yeah, he's powerful, but probably almost completely untrained.
Honestly, this argument kind of feels like you've missed the underlying conceit of the movie; the Force is a thing. There is no coincidence, no luck, just the currents and eddies of the Force. Jedi and Sith are born able to manipulate/perceive those eddies even when untrained assuming they're not so powerful they literally warp chance around them by passively existing (Anakin was implied to do this, even as a child; Luke had a couple moments too), so the fact they have bull**** luck is not a bug. It's a feature.
1. It's a ****ty lazy feature.
2. Most of the ridiculous coincidences could have been explained away with even some basic thought.
3. We saw exactly the same kind of laziness in Trek, so it's not like this is something they can claim to have thought up for this particular film.
4. Luke didn't really have much in the way of amazing luck at all. Pretty much everything that happened to him flowed organically from the fact that Leia had deliberately set out to find Obi-Wan. The whole "The force makes amazing coincidences happen" thing was much more of a prequel thing, and it should have died there and been buried with a stake through its heart.
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the map actually bugged the hell out of me. who the hell needs a map? you have the galaxy, and a line running through it, and at the end of that line is luke. you only need one part of that line, that last part, the end point, where luke is. three numbers, angle around the galaxy along it's disk, angle perpendicular to it's disk, distance from center. or rectangular or cylindrical coordinates. you don't need every star in the galaxy.
the only thing I can think of is it's a log from his ship or something.
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4. Luke didn't really have much in the way of amazing luck at all. Pretty much everything that happened to him flowed organically from the fact that Leia had deliberately set out to find Obi-Wan. The whole "The force makes amazing coincidences happen" thing was much more of a prequel thing, and it should have died there and been buried with a stake through its heart.
Let's look at this through the lens of the story as it was presented (i.e. before the Prequels). Two droids escape from a captured ship because a pair of gunnery officers decide not to waste space bullets on their pod. The droids are captured on entirely different parts of the planet by the same group of scavengers, brought to the same place, and sold to their owner's long lost twin brother. The group (now plus the person the droids were sent to find, whom they found with little difficulty) heads to town, where they contract the pilot of the only ship in the system capable of outrunning the Imperial ships (we're explicitly informed of the ship's speed with regards to big government ships) who conveniently happens to be between jobs and looking for work at that exact moment. They don't arrive where they're going until after it's exploded by a giant space laser, after which they're 'captured' and manage to rescue the person who originally sent the droids after the person they're looking for. They escape (albeit that one isn't luck, thanks Vader) and return to the rebel base, where Luke is one of their best pilots, vouched for by his childhood friend who just happens to be there too and is also a pilot. Luke ends up being the only one who can destroy the giant space laser with his magic telekinetic powers that he discovered literally three hours ago.
And that's not a giant mess of coincidence to you? :P
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But I feel like Rey's part went on a bit too long and she was basically getting too good at it in the end. Which is pretty much my only problem with Rey in general; she was instantly uncannily good at everything she ever did.
As opposed to Luke who after a few hours on the Millennium Falcon and a few days with Yoda is suddenly up to a lightsabre battle with the fully trained Darth Vader? Or who can pilot an X-wing better than anyone the first time he ever sits in one? Or who suddenly realises he can send telepathic messages to Leia when he doesn't want to fall off of cloud city?
Yeah, I do think those are much more believable, especially when he isn't actually shown doing anything amazing with the X-wing in ANH. To me, the major difference between Rey's and Luke's development is that in Luke's case, a lot of time kept passing. Of course he was training on his own between ANH and ESB, and between ESB and RotJ, with at the very least months having passed between both; he might have only gotten an hour with Obi-wan and a week with Yoda, but I don't feel like there's anything weird about him getting better between movies even if he's not at the dojo.
In Rey's case, there was no such off time at all. If the movie had ended after she learnt she can use the Force and there was a time gap between it and the next movie which would then show her doing all that stuff, then I don't think that would have been a problem, because that would be time we'd assume she's spent figuring things out on her own.
Also, I think it's clear that he survived fighting Vader in ESB only because Vader wanted to see what he can do and not kill him, and the telepathic call to Leia just... doesn't strike me as odd at all, really.
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I won't deny that she did seem to learn pretty quickly, but Luke also learned fairly fast. Maybe not quite as quickly but fast enough to not make it hard to believe for me. I will agree that the film would have been better if she had either some time or training. It's not like Han Solo hasn't been around Jedi enough to have been able to give her some tips, but since Luke was never put in a position where he had to learn to fight that quickly, we don't know how quickly a Jedi can pick up on things.
And that's not a giant mess of coincidence to you? :P
You missed my point about not explaining the coincidences within the film itself. Coincidence is a mainstay of storywriting. You are allowed to have them in a story because they do also happen in real life and often make up the basis of interesting stories. What is bad storywriting is wild coincidence. Stories where coincidence upon coincidence happen for no explainable reason stretch your credibility. Even a throwaway line can prevent that.
Let's look at this through the lens of the story as it was presented (i.e. before the Prequels). Two droids escape from a captured ship because a pair of gunnery officers decide not to waste space bullets on their pod. The droids are captured on entirely different parts of the planet by the same group of scavengers, brought to the same place, and sold to their owner's long lost twin brother.
I'll give you the gunnery officer not shooting the pod. However, let's posit that this is the coincidence that results in there actually being a Star Wars. A New Hope is the first film in the franchise, so it's allowed one as a central conceit. What follows though is not wild coincidence. R2D2 was looking for Ben. He would have tried to put the pod down somewhere near where he'd expect Ben to be. It's not a coincidence that Ben would be living near Luke. And the desert of Tattooine is probably like the Australian outback. There probably isn't another settlement within 20 or 30 miles of where Luke lives, hardly surprising that they happen to bump into him.
The group (now plus the person the droids were sent to find, whom they found with little difficulty) heads to town, where they contract the pilot of the only ship in the system capable of outrunning the Imperial ships (we're explicitly informed of the ship's speed with regards to big government ships) who conveniently happens to be between jobs and looking for work at that exact moment.
We have no idea how many other ships there were that could have avoided the blockade. Mos Eisley is supposedly a hive of scum and villainy. It's not the least bit surprising they find a good smuggler there, especially since they found Han specifically because they were looking for someone like him. They didn't just bump into him in the bar and knock his drink over. Ben specifically goes looking for someone. That he turns out to be such a good choice is not a coincidence but part of the story. Interesting things should happen in a story or there is no point in watching it. But it's not a coincidence. The EU probably has a book that mentions the back story every single person in the cantina by now :p I'll bet that there were other people in there who would have been suitable.
They don't arrive where they're going until after it's exploded by a giant space laser, after which they're 'captured' and manage to rescue the person who originally sent the droids after the person they're looking for.
Once again, coincidence isn't an issue, it's wild coincidence that is the problem. Leia, Vader and the Death Star all have very good reasons to be there which are explained as part of the plot. It's not like they stumbled upon the Death Star en route to deliver the droids. Given how big the empire is supposed to be, that would be a wild coincidence.
They escape (albeit that one isn't luck, thanks Vader) and return to the rebel base, where Luke is one of their best pilots, vouched for by his childhood friend who just happens to be there too and is also a pilot. Luke ends up being the only one who can destroy the giant space laser with his magic telekinetic powers that he discovered literally three hours ago.
Okay, I'll give you Wedge as a wild coincidence. So that's one. And it's not exactly one that drives the plot anywhere really. Nor is it completely beyond belief that someone who grew up with Luke would end up in the same place. Had Luke's uncle and aunt allowed him to go, he probably still would have ended up seeking out the rebels with Wedge. But fair point, I'll give you Wedge.
I'm not going to give you Luke being a great pilot, we've established that he is by that point. We've also established that Luke could hit a target that size and has been doing so for years. The telekinetic powers aren't something new so much as something he is told to use again rather than the new technology he has been given.
The hero being in the right place at the right time is something that is the central point of almost every action film. The hero being the only person who could do something is a major part of many fantasy and sci-fi films too. But we don't watch films about the also-rans. We watch films about the hero.
And that's not a giant mess of coincidence to you? :P
As I've pointed out, the only wild coincidence is Wedge. And that's not a big one. There are other coincidences but they are explained in the film. Now compare The Force Awakens. How many wild coincidences are we asked to swallow? And what really galls is how many could have been explained away.
For instance, we can explain Han Solo turning up pretty easily. There's no reason Poe and Han can't be acquainted, so there's no reason Poe wouldn't know that Han is looking for the Falcon. If Poe spotted the Falcon earlier while on his secret mission, he might have sent word to Han. A couple of lines from Han about how he'd heard the Falcon was in the area and maybe a nice bit of banter between the two once at the rebel base could have cleared that up. And that's just off the top of my head. What upsets me is that the scriptwriters are lazy enough to stretch credulity beyond belief without even the slightest attempt to explain the coincidences.
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...Biggs. Not Wedge. Luke met Wedge for the first time at Yavin.
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But I feel like Rey's part went on a bit too long and she was basically getting too good at it in the end. Which is pretty much my only problem with Rey in general; she was instantly uncannily good at everything she ever did.
As opposed to Luke who after a few hours on the Millennium Falcon and a few days with Yoda is suddenly up to a lightsabre battle with the fully trained Darth Vader? Or who can pilot an X-wing better than anyone the first time he ever sits in one? Or who suddenly realises he can send telepathic messages to Leia when he doesn't want to fall off of cloud city?
Yeah, I do think those are much more believable, especially when he isn't actually shown doing anything amazing with the X-wing in ANH. To me, the major difference between Rey's and Luke's development is that in Luke's case, a lot of time kept passing. Of course he was training on his own between ANH and ESB, and between ESB and RotJ, with at the very least months having passed between both; he might have only gotten an hour with Obi-wan and a week with Yoda, but I don't feel like there's anything weird about him getting better between movies even if he's not at the dojo.
In Rey's case, there was no such off time at all. If the movie had ended after she learnt she can use the Force and there was a time gap between it and the next movie which would then show her doing all that stuff, then I don't think that would have been a problem, because that would be time we'd assume she's spent figuring things out on her own.
Also, I think it's clear that he survived fighting Vader in ESB only because Vader wanted to see what he can do and not kill him, and the telepathic call to Leia just... doesn't strike me as odd at all, really.
I mentioned the whole Finn and Ray lasting so long against Ren with my dad who I watched it with and he brought up the point that Ren had been shot with Chewie's bowcaster which in previous shots has been seen throwing storm troopers like matchsticks which would have been both extremely painful and numbing as evident by his need to keep striking his leg, so I am guessing that the wound was beyond his ability to manage with the force meaning that he didnt have much left to fight our two upstarts
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They don't arrive where they're going until after it's exploded by a giant space laser, after which they're 'captured' and manage to rescue the person who originally sent the droids after the person they're looking for.
Once again, coincidence isn't an issue, it's wild coincidence that is the problem. Leia, Vader and the Death Star all have very good reasons to be there which are explained as part of the plot. It's not like they stumbled upon the Death Star en route to deliver the droids. Given how big the empire is supposed to be, that would be a wild coincidence.
Except this is exactly what happens. Luke and Ben via Han and Chewie are en route to deliver the droids when the stumble upon the Death Star (and the remains of Alderaan).
Something being plot justified doesn't make it not a coincidence. Luke and Ben arriving at Alderaan moments after its destruction (and not, for example, minutes before and getting caught in the explosion) is a coincidence. It wasn't planned, they had no way of knowing to modify their arrival time, Vader and Tarkin had no way of knowing that if they'd just waited for ten minutes they'd have ended the only threat to the Empire that currently existed or they would have.
You could argue (probably successfully) that the coincidences in The Force Awakens are a deliberate plot point. A New Hope wasn't originally intended to be a part of a trilogy (and premiered in theaters simply as "Star Wars" with no subtitle or episode number (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UKRIUiyF0N4)) at its release. There's there's a necessarily different lens to be examined through with the knowledge that TFA is the first part of a trilogy.
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The only thing that isn't a coincidence in TFA is that it's a sloppy, rehashed story and the director is JJ abrams
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Except this is exactly what happens. Luke and Ben via Han and Chewie are en route to deliver the droids when the stumble upon the Death Star (and the remains of Alderaan).
Nope. The Death Star has a very good reason to actually be there. It's not in some random part of space and they happen to fly by it.
Something being plot justified doesn't make it not a coincidence. Luke and Ben arriving at Alderaan moments after its destruction (and not, for example, minutes before and getting caught in the explosion) is a coincidence. It wasn't planned, they had no way of knowing to modify their arrival time, Vader and Tarkin had no way of knowing that if they'd just waited for ten minutes they'd have ended the only threat to the Empire that currently existed or they would have.
I spent a lot of effort explaining the difference between coincidence and wild coincidence. You quoted me saying that and then argued that I don't think it's a coincidence. I've already said it is. And I've already said I have no issue with coincidence in a plot line as long as you're not lazy about it.
You could argue (probably successfully) that the coincidences in The Force Awakens are a deliberate plot point.
Maybe you could. Fine, let's go with that instead. I was prepared to go with JJ Abrams simply overusing coincidence because he is lazy (Which he is. Star Trek already proved that), but fine, you want to claim he did it deliberately? Okay, then it's a really, really ****ty plot device and I'll tell you why. If the force can make things happen by coincidence because it wants them to happen then you've now created a universe where no one has free will. Han states that he's been looking for the Falcon for years. That means that the force made 3 people steal the Falcon just so that it could turn up on Jakku. The last one then abandons it on Jakku and sells it to someone who decides to leave it sitting on the planet for years rather than flying it around like the awesome ship it is. Why? Because the force wants a ****ty contrived story. For the Force to be responsible for the Falcon being on Jakku at the same time as Han arrives requires not only that the Force can control people but that it can also plan. At which point you've made the Force into God. And a god who likes ****ty stories at that.
If you're going to argue that the force makes coincidences happen, where does this end? Are you claiming that Tarkin's decision to blow up Alderaan was simply him being controlled to do so by the force? What about Han Solo's decision to return to help Luke against the Death Star at the exact moment needed to save him from being shot by Vader? If you're saying that coincidence is also the force then either the Force made Han go away or kept him from changing his mind until the exact moment needed to make him arrive at the time Vader locks up Luke. So where is Han's free will in the matter of whether to help Luke or not? Either the force suppressed his ability to be a good friend and help Luke right from the start because it wanted a moment of awesome or it forces him to come back when he didn't want to.
And if the force can make things like that happen, you've made the worst change to the force since midi-chlorians.
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If you're already firmly convinced that it's a ****ty thing there's not much that discussing it will do except piss everyone involved off. I have absolutely no doubt that JJ doesn't give much thought to scale (this one might as well be emphatically proven) or contrivance, but just because he didn't give much thought to it doesn't mean it's inherently non-sensical.
I'm not on the level of saying "The Force Awakens happens exactly the way it does because the Force is pulling the strings". That would absolutely be a ****ty plot device. However, we've been shown explicitly that the Force is an instrument and an actor that influences intuition. In The Force Awakens were explicitly told (and not-so-explicitly told on several other occasions) that there are both a Light and a Dark side that are both projecting their influence and working at cross purposes. It's the difference between "I'm here for no real reason looking for my ship and you happened to be right here!" and "I knew we should have double-checked the Western Reaches!"
"I have a bad feeling about this."
"Vader's on that ship."
"I'm endangering the mission I shouldn't have come."
"I sense something. A presence I have not felt since..."
"You want this, don't you?"
This is something we're exposed to, repeatedly, for the entire length of six different movies. It's not always something that our characters act on, but it is something that affects their judgment and experiences. It's more blatant in The Force Awakens than any movie before it, but the reason for that is literally the title of the movie! :P
And if the force can make things like that happen, you've made the worst change to the force since midi-chlorians.
I'd appreciate, if you actually want to discuss this critically as a piece of entertainment and without turning it into a shouting match, if you wouldn't put words in my mouth.
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Seriously though, read my edit. If you're going to argue that the force made those coincidences happen then you're arguing that you're okay with JJ Abrams turning the Force into a god.
It's the difference between "I'm here for no real reason looking for my ship and you happened to be right here!" and "I knew we should have double-checked the Western Reaches!"
Even if I accept Han having a hunch, (and that's not a bad explanation for it). That still doesn't explain the Falcon being there in the first place. Cause that is a pretty huge coincidence.
This is something we're exposed to, repeatedly, for the entire length of six different movies. It's not always something that our characters act on, but it is something that affects their judgment and experiences. It's more blatant in The Force Awakens than any movie before it, but the reason for that is literally the title of the movie! :P
A more simple explanation is that force users can detect each other though. There's no need for it to be the influence of the force. And personally I've always preferred the explanation that the Force is a single galaxy spanning entity than two sides which are battling each other through deliberate actions.
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And if that's the argument you think I'm making here then we're talking past each other. I haven't once suggested that the Force made the Falcon show up on Jakku. I have suggested that the force influences intuition and decision making, which it plainly does (and has for six movies before this one).
I genuinely want to have a discussion about this, but you keep bringing reducto ad absurdum to stop that from happening while dismissing what I'm actually saying.
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And if that's the argument you think I'm making here then we're talking past each other. I haven't once suggested that the Force made the Falcon show up on Jakku. I have suggested that the force influences intuition and decision making, which it plainly does (and has for six movies before this one).
I genuinely want to have a discussion about this, but you keep bringing reducto ad absurdum to stop that from happening while dismissing what I'm actually saying.
Okay then, how DO you explain the Falcon being on Jakku?
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Amusingly enough, that one is actually one of the coincidences you mentioned that's actually explained. :lol:
HAN (CONT'D)
Where'd you get this ship?
REY
Niima Outpost.
HAN
Jakku?! That junkyard?
FINN
Thank you! Junkyard!
HAN
(TO CHEWIE)
Told ya we should've double-checked
the Western Reaches!
(TO REY)
Who had it, Ducain?
REY
I stole it from Unkar Plutt. He
stole it from the Irving Boys, who
stole it from Ducain.
HAN
Who stole it from me! Well, you
tell him Han Solo just stole back
the Millennium Falcon for good.
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No. That's not an explanation. Why that planet out of every planet in the galaxy? Why the same planet that Rey just so happens to be on. Why so close to her that she has actually been on board and knows what modifcations have been made? Why is such a massive coincidence not explained?
If we're talking about talking past each other, you just did it to me.
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So why can't I say the same about Ben Kenobi in A New Hope? Why the same planet that Luke just so happens to be on. Why so close to him that he actually knows by reputation, and where he lives?
These are things we can answer based on information provided in other movies. The Empire is supposed to be such a huge place, after all. These are things we cannot answer with just the information provided in A New Hope. Luke and Leia's familial ties were not even hinted at in A New Hope for its original release. There is no connection anywhere in the script for Episode IV between Leia's father (whom Ben served in the Clone Wars) and Luke's father (who was a Jedi like Ben).
These are not unforgivable coincidences even in a movie that never even pretends to be part one of three and never even tries to explain it. Yet they are in a movie that actively embraces that it is part of a trilogy, and that there's still more story to tell?
No. That's not an explanation. Why that planet out of every planet in the galaxy? Why the same planet that Rey just so happens to be on. Why so close to her that she has actually been on board and knows what modifcations have been made? Why is such a massive coincidence not explained?
If we're talking about talking past each other, you just did it to me.
You asked Okay then, how DO you explain the Falcon being on Jakku?
The answer I provided was factually accurate. :P The Falcon ended up on Jakku after changing hands several times after being stolen from Han Solo.
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And you knew I was complaining about the massive coincidence of it being there. Your factual answer doesn't satisfy as an answer to that problem.
So why can't I say the same about Ben Kenobi in A New Hope? Why the same planet that Luke just so happens to be on. Why so close to him that he actually knows by reputation, and where he lives?
We don't need the other films to explain that. Ben states that Luke is Anakin's son. It's not the slightest bit surprising he'd want to keep an eye on Luke in the hope he might become a Jedi, especially if Ben is the last remaining Jedi. He even kept Anakin's lightsabre to give to him! Hell, even if Ben flat out knew Luke wouldn't be a Jedi, it wouldn't be surprising that he decided on a hiding place that allowed him to keep an eye on his friend's son.
For all we know from A New Hope, Ben might even come from that planet. In fact, you could even take Ben's comment that Luke uncle fears he might follow Obi-Wan on some idealistic crusade as an indication that Obi-Wan was the one who tempted Anakin to leave the planet. The problem in a New Hope is not establishing a sensible reason why they are on the same planet but picking from a large number of choices which is the correct one.
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So why can't I say the same about Ben Kenobi in A New Hope? Why the same planet that Luke just so happens to be on. Why so close to him that he actually knows by reputation, and where he lives?
We don't need the other films to explain that. Ben states that Luke is Anakin's son. It's not the slightest bit surprising he'd want to keep an eye on Luke in the hope he might become a Jedi, especially if Ben is the last remaining Jedi. Hell, even if Ben flat out knew Luke wouldn't be a Jedi, it wouldn't be surprising that he decided on a hiding place that allowed him to keep an eye on his friend's son.
The wild coincidence here is that the Obi-Wan Kenobi that served Leia's father during the Clone Wars is actually the same person as the Ben Kenobi that was a Jedi with Luke's father.
Regardless, we're getting bogged down in minutiae here (the death of internet conversations everywhere).
My point being:
1) We have been explicitly told that there are two sides to the Force: good and evil, the dark side and the light.
a) These two sides work at cross-purposes
b) Neither side is infallible (Anakin falling from light to dark, Darth Vader's redemption, Luke's brush with the dark side in his fight with Vader, Kylo Ren's entire existence)
2) That the Force has consistently through every Star Wars movie influenced intuition and decision making for a number of characters in varied and diverse situations.
a) Intuition isn't always followed
3) The title of Episode VII being "The Force Awakens"
a) This strongly implies that the Force (or it's light/dark components) are actors, not merely tools. See 1b) for why this isn't "Force as a God" territory.
Leading to the hypothesis: The Force's component parts actively work to influence what would normally be seen as coincidence. Fortunately, this is a falsifiable hypothesis! We'll be able to conclusively rule in one direction or the other as we see the trilogy unfold.
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The wild coincidence here is that the Obi-Wan Kenobi that served Leia's father during the Clone Wars is actually the same person as the Ben Kenobi that was a Jedi with Luke's father.
What the **** are you on about? :confused: I see absolute no coincidence there, let alone an unexplained one.
Regardless, we're getting bogged down in minutiae here (the death of internet conversations everywhere).
My point being:
1) We have been explicitly told that there are two sides to the Force: good and evil, the dark side and the light.
a) These two sides work at cross-purposes
b) Neither side is infallible (Anakin falling from light to dark, Darth Vader's redemption, Luke's brush with the dark side in his fight with Vader, Kylo Ren's entire existence)
2) That the Force has consistently through every Star Wars movie influenced intuition and decision making for a number of characters in varied and diverse situations.
a) Intuition isn't always followed
3) The title of Episode VII being "The Force Awakens"
a) This strongly implies that the Force (or it's light/dark components) are actors, not merely tools. See 1b) for why this isn't "Force as a God" territory.
Leading to the hypothesis: The Force's component parts actively work to influence what would normally be seen as coincidence. Fortunately, this is a falsifiable hypothesis! We'll be able to conclusively rule in one direction or the other as we see the trilogy unfold.
I'm sure we will see. My point is that it's not necessarily a good idea to take the Force in that direction.
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There are more factors we still don't know, too. Unkar Plutt was Simon Pegg, and there's no goddamn way they'll pay him what they had to have paid him and only have him for less than a full minute of screen time. He'll show up again. Whether we get a better explanation of why the Falcon was right there or not obviously I can't say but it's certainly not out of the question.
If JJ Abrams were directing Episodes VIII or IX I'd probably hate the idea on principle. But he's not. Rian Johnson is. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rian_Johnson) Given Johnson's previous work (including arguably the single finest hour of television ever produced, Breaking Bad's "Ozymandias; and though I admit I haven't seen it I also haven't heard anything bad about Looper) does not disappoint, I'm more than willing to wait and see.
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My problem is that the each of the first three films (I couldn't give a **** about the prequels) were consistent on their own. They didn't need other films to explain mysteries. If you're going to introduce massive coincidences you really should explain them OR have the characters actually look surprised by them. Instead we have no surprise that Han Solo turns up out of the blue to find his old ship which just happened to be sitting on the same planet as Rey. We have no surprise that Luke's old lightsabre is sitting in the basement of a bar that the heroes just happen to end up visiting.
This sort of thing breaks me out of the film because they are such massive coincidences. You can try to claim that this is cause of the Force but even if it is, this sort of thing requires planning. And that's why I think it's an even worse idea than lazy scriptwriting. I'll thank you for one thing though, I'll actually be very happy if the problems in the film were just lazy scriptwriting now. The alternative is much, much worse.
Oh and I still have no idea what you were on about earlier Re: Obi-wan and Ben Kenobi.
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Instead we have no surprise that Han Solo turns up out of the blue to find his old ship which just happened to be sitting on the same planet as Rey.
They don't exactly find it on the planet. :P I feel like this is partially another victim of JJ Abrams's utter lack of scale (or perhaps I should say I wouldn't be surprised if it was). Other than that, Rey was absolutely surprised that Han Solo turns up out of the blue, so I'm not entirely sure what you mean by that one. "You're Han Solo? This is the Millennium Falcon!?" Do you mean surprise by us, the audience?
We have no surprise that Luke's old lightsabre is sitting in the basement of a bar that the heroes just happen to end up visiting.
This one I'll freely admit you've got a point, and in the same thought remark that this is par for the course for Disney in general. There's no way we don't get a movie or short film or TV series that explains that one, especially considering it's flat out lampshaded in the dialogue.
Oh and I still have no idea what you were on about earlier Re: Obi-wan and Ben Kenobi.
I'm not trying to 'win' an internet argument, so I dropped it.
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I couldn't even figure out what it meant, which is why I asked again. I literally spent 3-4 minutes trying to figure out what point you could be trying to make cause the sentence made no sense at all. I'm not asking so I can win, I'm asking cause I think I've already made it clear I don't like mysteries which are never solved. I don't think any explanation you give now needs an reply from me why you're wrong, but I would like to know what on earth you meant.
Instead we have no surprise that Han Solo turns up out of the blue to find his old ship which just happened to be sitting on the same planet as Rey.
They don't exactly find it on the planet. :P
It was however on the same planet as Rey. And it had been sitting there for years. :p
I feel like this is partially another victim of JJ Abrams's utter lack of scale (or perhaps I should say I wouldn't be surprised if it was).
We're getting somewhere if you're going to say this was crappy scriptwriting rather than being deliberate. :D What amazes me is that Abrams would do it again after the amount of **** he's taken over the years about Spock sitting in a cave which Kirk just happens to end up in.
Other than that, Rey was absolutely surprised that Han Solo turns up out of the blue, so I'm not entirely sure what you mean by that one. "You're Han Solo? This is the Millennium Falcon!?" Do you mean surprise by us, the audience?
She's surprised that Han is there, she's not surprised by the amazing coincidence that he turned up at the same time as she stole the ship.
This one I'll freely admit you've got a point, and in the same thought remark that this is par for the course for Disney in general. There's no way we don't get a movie or short film or TV series that explains that one, especially considering it's flat out lampshaded in the dialogue.
This is JJ Abrams, the man never explains all the mysteries cause people let him get away with it. Hopefully you're right but if the explanation isn't in the films, **** it. I'm with Plinkett when he says "And don't tell me it's explained in some book or comic." If it's not in the film (or 8 or 9) it's bad scriptwriting.
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Its a JJ Abrams movie, go along for the ride you guys are taking it way too serious. If you are going to get over deep into it then Film 2 will have all the backstory in it which will hopefully handwave all the BS and number 3 will be the climactic conclusion of the story arc, ANH was supposed to be stand alone IIRC which is why it plot complete, every other film was designed to either follow on or start a trilogy so there are holes in them as stand alone.
Incidentally in 3D, freaking Star Destroyer nose inches from face is awesome.
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Its a JJ Abrams movie, go along for the ride you guys are taking it way too serious.
If JJ Abrams is arrogant enough to think he can carry on the Star Wars universe, he deserves every complain he gets for doing this bad of a job with the script. Yeah, it's a good film, but it easily could have been better. Films that are part of a trilogy should still be complete as films. The lightsabre thing is at least hinted as being something which will be covered at a later date but there's no signs that the other coincidences will be. Hell, there's no sign that they're even supposed to be considered as strange.
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I'm sorry but you seem to be treating the SW franchise like it is a cultural masterpiece which it is not, dont get me wrong, they are awesome Sci-Fi action/space opera films and the original trilogy has a competent though flawed plot. Ultimately though JJ Abrams in this case has managed something better than Lucas' own efforts in the prequals, which is visually engaging on a par with the originals for the era, has a number of memorable moments and generally enjoyable to watch, didnt drag out, left me looking forward to the next films, and there are certainly worse ways to spend £12.
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I'm sorry but you seem to be treating the SW franchise like it is a cultural masterpiece which it is not
Tap dancing on quicksand there my friend. That's a dangerous thing to say on any sci-fi board. Let alone one which actually hosts a Star Wars mod. :p
dont get me wrong, they are awesome Sci-Fi action/space opera films and the original trilogy has a competent though flawed plot. Ultimately though JJ Abrams in this case has managed something better than Lucas' own efforts in the prequals, which is visually engaging on a par with the originals for the era, has a number of memorable moments and generally enjoyable to watch, didnt drag out, left me looking forward to the next films, and there are certainly worse ways to spend £12.
Hey, I said it was a good film. The fact that it's better than the prequels doesn't count for much, pretty much anyone on this thread could have written a more interesting trilogy than the prequels. I'd give the film a solid 7.5 / 10. The direction was actually quite good, the characters generally interesting and it was definitely very beautiful. My issue with it is that it easily could have been 8.5 or 9 had they given enough of a **** to not rely on lazy coincidences like incredibly convenient chasms opening up in the ground and separating people to end a duel.
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ok, standing down
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On the other hand, I hated Han Solo's final scene. Han is a badass and deserved a good death. Not going out like an idiot who couldn't see that his son would obviously kill him. What really pisses me off about it, is how simple it would have been to make that scene better. A minor change like having the explosives on a timer and Han trying to distract Ren would have give the scene more impact. Yeah, he's still trying to turn his son, but something else is going on too and Han knows that it could cost him his life.
I need to disagree, while I was sad Han was killed(because Harrison Ford really nailed the role and I would have loved to get more him) it was probably the best possible close to his character. When we start ANH he's a drug running criminal that pretty much lived for himself, as the trilogy progressed he became better person and hero of the Rebellion. His character arc is going from the guy who shoots first to the the man who gives up his life to save his son.
He walked out on to that bridge even though it was probably going to end badly, because that is what a parent does. He was either going to be successful or failing that plant the seeds of his son's redemption. Do you think his sacrifice would have meant anything if he was holding a Thermal Detonator in his other hand? No, that would have reinforced Kylo's belief in love and family being a weakness and that after all his old man was a ****ter. Reaching out and holding his kid's face after being run through was the move that was needed to keep his son from fully committing to the Dark Side. A blaze of glory would not have accomplished that.
As for the whole coincidence/Force thing I'd like to open the possibility that much of it part of some Zanatos gambit by Luke. Yeah he could be just a depressed hermit that went to hide on Ireland, but its also likely he foresaw what the future held in store and took steps to set things up the way they are. Directly confronting the First Order and Snoke from the outset would not have panned out or at least been a temporary victory and instead decided to play the long game. Obi Wan and Yoda could have been actively fighting the Empire for the lead up to ANH but instead they realized that it was going to be up to Anakin's children to settle the issue and took steps to make sure that happened. As a Jedi Master it is certainly within Luke's capability to make sure the star chart, the Millennium Falcon and Rey are all on Jakku and triggered when they did. He could have located his father's saber and delivered it to Maz, programmed R2 to awaken at the right moment. It also fits with the fact that Snoke seems more preoccupied with "The Force" and Luke than simply galactic domination. He had to be convinced to nuke the Republic, not because it was the next step in setting up a new Empire but because it might have come into play in support of the Resistance. Lets face it Leia, a wing of X-Wings and some support staff should not be the priority threat to the First Order and Snoke unless he is convinced its an important piece in Luke's gambit.
Even if a lot of the plot coincidences are going to Luke's design we may not have it revealed till the last installment, I wouldn't be surprised if he plays the grumpy failure role in the next film. Personally I am hoping this trilogy brings balance to the Force rather than a simple light side victory. One of the major complaints I have with the universe is its a constant seesaw between light and dark.
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As for the whole coincidence/Force thing I'd like to open the possibility that much of it part of some Zanatos gambit by Luke.
Yeah, I considered that. But it's still lazy on the scriptwriters part to have everyone act like this sort of thing is normal even if that is the case.
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Hey, I said it was a good film. The fact that it's better than the prequels doesn't count for much, pretty much anyone on this thread could have written a more interesting trilogy than the prequels. I'd give the film a solid 7.5 / 10. The direction was actually quite good, the characters generally interesting and it was definitely very beautiful. My issue with it is that it easily could have been 8.5 or 9 had they given enough of a **** to not rely on lazy coincidences like incredibly convenient chasms opening up in the ground and separating people to end a duel.
Actually saying "It's better than the prequels" counts for a lot, at least in the eyes of those who like it. It's the justification for them enjoying a comparatively poorly-thought out movie. There's such a backlash against prequels that almost anything could succeed.
I'm sorry but you seem to be treating the SW franchise like it is a cultural masterpiece which it is not
Not sure what world you live in but like it or not, Star Wars is a culture icon. It is one of the most identifiable pieces of media out there and has permeated every aspect of western consumer culture.
Instead we have no surprise that Han Solo turns up out of the blue to find his old ship which just happened to be sitting on the same planet as Rey.
They don't exactly find it on the planet. :P I feel like this is partially another victim of JJ Abrams's utter lack of scale (or perhaps I should say I wouldn't be surprised if it was).
What Abrams lacks is not scale, it's world building. He can't create a convincing world because he can't create a story where characters actually think. Without characters who think, it's just full of actors and not alive, just people on a set. Characters know and do things without information, then they fail to do things without reason, from start to finish the movie is rife with these sorts of problems. The movie is all flash with very little substance.
People are surprised that Han found the Falcon? What about being surprised that the Empire wasn't lying in orbit with a Star Destroyer? They're looking for the droid. They dispatched fighters and troops to the surface to find them and had two of their fighters chase the falcon for 5 minutes and yet when the Falcon hits orbit they're no where to be found. Why? Because the bad guys had to go pretend they were Hitler and let the audience know "we really are the bad guys".
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I'm sorry but you seem to be treating the SW franchise like it is a cultural masterpiece which it is not
Not sure what world you live in but like it or not, Star Wars is a culture icon. It is one of the most identifiable pieces of media out there and has permeated every aspect of western consumer culture.
Read the words, I said cultural Masterpiece, not cultural Icon, I chose masterpiece because as a long running SW fan I am well aware of it's iconic status which has transcended decades, it however has the plot depth of a teacup recycling the same backwater kid turns superhero plot 3 times now.
Dosnt stop the films being enjoyable to watch though
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I don't think it's fair to complain about the original film because the prequels and new film copied it.
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I don't think it's fair to complain about the original film because the prequels and new film copied it.
Just because it wasn't copying itself doesn't mean it wasn't heavily derivative.
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all* of shakespeare's plays were derivative
*except the tempest and love's labours lost
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And we're all on a board based on a very heavily derivative game. Freespace 1 especially probably didn't have a single original idea in it. And yet quite a large percentage of the board still consider it to be the better game.
It's not what ingredients you have, it's how you mix them that makes you a master chef.
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What about being surprised that the Empire wasn't lying in orbit with a Star Destroyer?
Frankly this is the least-objectionable thing about that scene when we've long since established that fighter-sized ships can be capable of FTL travel. Despite Scotty's comment about a lack of scale, the lack of scale here is in the objection you're making; near-orbit space is incredibly huge, even if a Star Destroyer was in orbit that doesn't mean it's going to be right on top of anybody who exits the atmosphere. Its chances are actually well under half.
(And don't nobody say TIEs can't hyperspace , during the movie Poe's objection to leaving the system during the escape is "we need to get the droid" not "this ship can't hyperspace". The TIEs and Space LCVPs are shown operating apparently independent of a capital ship during the attack on the cantina place as well; otherwise they would have presumably had more warning about the incoming X-Wings.)
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(And don't nobody say TIEs can't hyperspace , during the movie Poe's objection to leaving the system during the escape is "we need to get the droid" not "this ship can't hyperspace". The TIEs and Space LCVPs are shown operating apparently independent of a capital ship during the attack on the cantina place as well; otherwise they would have presumably had more warning about the incoming X-Wings.)
So what about the scene in ANH, where they state that the TIE was too far out to be alone just before the discover the Deathstar for the first time? ("That's no moon!")
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The First Order TIEs are obviously a different model; the cockpit views in the OT make it clear there's no co-pilot.
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Cause that's a roughly 30 year newer model built by a military that no longer holds a overwhelming quantitative advantage?
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also didnt someone mention that the stolen one was a spec ops version, which given the weapons options would probably need a co-pilot to manage
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I'm sorry but you seem to be treating the SW franchise like it is a cultural masterpiece which it is not
Not sure what world you live in but like it or not, Star Wars is a culture icon. It is one of the most identifiable pieces of media out there and has permeated every aspect of western consumer culture.
Read the words, I said cultural Masterpiece, not cultural Icon, I chose masterpiece because as a long running SW fan I am well aware of it's iconic status which has transcended decades, it however has the plot depth of a teacup recycling the same backwater kid turns superhero plot 3 times now.
Then you chose poorly. "Masterpiece" can be an artist's greatest work, which given that Lucas had more control over a New Hope than Empire & Jedi makes sense. Even in other connotations, it's still a film which has both inspired audiences and influenced an entire genre if not a culture.
I would also be curious what movie you actually consider a "cultural masterpiece".
What about being surprised that the Empire wasn't lying in orbit with a Star Destroyer?
Frankly this is the least-objectionable thing about that scene when we've long since established that fighter-sized ships can be capable of FTL travel. Despite Scotty's comment about a lack of scale, the lack of scale here is in the objection you're making; near-orbit space is incredibly huge, even if a Star Destroyer was in orbit that doesn't mean it's going to be right on top of anybody who exits the atmosphere. Its chances are actually well under half.
It's established that Poe and Finn escape from the ship while it was orbiting Jakku. What reason did the ship have to leave if their primary concern is the recovery of the droid? Whether TIEs are hyper-capable or not is irrelevant, what matters is what was the empire's mission if not to recover the map?
Plus if the fighters are transmitting to the Star Destroyer during the attack then they'd be able to track the ship and manoeuvre accordingly.
In New Hope the Falcon had not one but two ships on its tail almost immediately.
I don't think it's fair to complain about the original film because the prequels and new film copied it.
Just because it wasn't copying itself doesn't mean it wasn't heavily derivative.
Watch some old movies. Everything is derivative. People probably recreate the scenes of movies of their childhoods because that's the experience they have to draw upon.
Today it's just more blatant with hard and soft reboots, Star Wars TFA being among the latter.
also didnt someone mention that the stolen one was a spec ops version, which given the weapons options would probably need a co-pilot to manage
Not in the movie.
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It's established that Poe and Finn escape from the ship while it was orbiting Jakku. What reason did the ship have to leave if their primary concern is the recovery of the droid? Whether TIEs are hyper-capable or not is irrelevant, what matters is what was the empire's mission if not to recover the map?
Plus if the fighters are transmitting to the Star Destroyer during the attack then they'd be able to track the ship and manoeuvre accordingly.
It's not established at all, actually; the ship appears to be relatively quite far from Jakku compared to the similar scenes in ANH or the shuttle infiltration in Jedi. Given Jakku's actually a nominally Republic-held planet (it was the site of the Empire's ill-fated last counterattack according to what is now canon) it's quite likely that the Star Destroyer is leery of approaching too closely, either because they're afraid of being caught by a Republic patrol or because being seen breaking treaty and causing the Republic to launch a full-scale attack while they still can would be a rather dumb thing to do considering how close the First Order is to superweaponing everything. A few TIEs and stormies are denialable. A Star Destroyer is not.
Similarly, there are any number of possible reasons, related to those above and otherwise. Star Destroyers are powerful assets; the First Order is not huge, judging from their little "our victory is imminent" speech; immobilizing one in what is technically enemy-held space does not make much sense on several levels. Even if it's not needed elsewhere, simply retreating to interstellar space 20 light-minutes out and shuttling in troops and fighters gives you a much greater margin of safety in both the physical and political sense. Without any significant force defending against your infiltrating, infiltration of small forces makes sense for this situation.
Even if it is relatively close, it's one ship. Vader's personal squadron doubtless had several ships. They could blanket space over Tatooine. If the one ship on the other side the planet during the fighter chase, then it could take them 7 minutes to get to where the Falcon reaches orbit, and that's assuming they're in a very low orbit. At higher orbits, the numbers grow quickly. Play some KSP; orbital mechanics doesn't respond to increased engine power the way it works for ground vehicles.
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It's established that Poe and Finn escape from the ship while it was orbiting Jakku. What reason did the ship have to leave if their primary concern is the recovery of the droid? Whether TIEs are hyper-capable or not is irrelevant, what matters is what was the empire's mission if not to recover the map?
Plus if the fighters are transmitting to the Star Destroyer during the attack then they'd be able to track the ship and manoeuvre accordingly.
It's not established at all, actually; the ship appears to be relatively quite far from Jakku compared to the similar scenes in ANH or the shuttle infiltration in Jedi. Given Jakku's actually a nominally Republic-held planet (it was the site of the Empire's ill-fated last counterattack according to what is now canon) it's quite likely that the Star Destroyer is leery of approaching too closely, either because they're afraid of being caught by a Republic patrol or because being seen breaking treaty and causing the Republic to launch a full-scale attack while they still can would be a rather dumb thing to do considering how close the First Order is to superweaponing everything. A few TIEs and stormies are denialable. A Star Destroyer is not.
Granted with JJ Abrams quality story-telling the Star Destroyer could be in another solar system, with the missiles tracking the Tie Fighter and crashing into the planet all in a few seconds. After all in Star Trek the Enterprise goes from Klingon territory to Federation territory in about three seconds, and a battle in deep space becomes a battle above in low orbit instantly and for no reason.
As for imperial counter attacks. Don't know anything about that because it's not in the movie and have no real interest throwing good money after bad wtih some supplementary material in an effort to try to make a poor story passable.
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This was asked several times, but the reason Solo immediately found the Falcon was because it could be tracked as soon as it was activated, at least by our favorite smugglers. He'd been looking for the Falcon for years, He also mentioned that the First Order would probably be able to track it in the same scene.
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It would have had to have been activated to get to where it was.
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This was asked several times, but the reason Solo immediately found the Falcon was because it could be tracked as soon as it was activated, at least by our favorite smugglers. He'd been looking for the Falcon for years, He also mentioned that the First Order would probably be able to track it in the same scene.
When? The only comment I remember is one about how if Han can find it on his scanners the First Order can't be far behind. There's no mention of them being able to track it, especially if they are halfway across the galaxy.
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An explanation I heard somewhere (don't remember where exactly, but it was cut from the movie, IIRC) was that Falcon, after all these years, still had the tracking beacon the Empire planted on it way back in ANH. Of course, that would cause its own set of problems, but I think that was, at one point, the intended explanation (also including why the First Order could easily follow them as well). The most likely way this could work would be that Han modified the beacon (instead of outright removing it) to be remotely activated after he found it, "just in case". He could have activated it after losing the Falcon, but was in no position to follow it (having just been robbed of his ship) and lost the signal afterwards.
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Here is something that anyone seeing this film missed on Planetary Radio, The Planetary Society's radio show. This is from the previous Trivia Contest (http://www.planetary.org/multimedia/planetary-radio/show/2015/1228-2015_review.html) on Bruce Betts' What's Up segment at the end of last year.
Question from the week before:
What are the four worlds in our solar system that sand dunes have been discovered on?
Answer:
The four worlds in our solar system known to have dunes are Venus, Earth, Mars and Titan. Arrakis and Jakku are not in our solar system.
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And that is relevant because...?
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The mention "Jakku" is something that Bruce Betts has taken from Star Wars The Force Awakens, I think. He must have seen it.
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And that is relevant because...?
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The mention "Jakku" is something that Bruce Betts has taken from Star Wars The Force Awakens, I think. He must have seen it.
Yeah and Arrakis is taken from Frank Herbert's Dune. He's making a joke, whoever he is.
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Oscar Nominations are up and thankfully the best sci-fi movie of the year is in the running for best picture: Mad Max Fury Road
In other news, star Wars is up for sound, visuals & editing.
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Oscar Nominations are up and thankfully the best sci-fi movie of the year is in the running for best picture: Mad Max Fury Road
In other news, star Wars is up for sound, visuals & editing.
Martian. I will cut you.
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Agreed. Not sure I would really classify Mad Max as sci-fi anyway.
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Well, Mad Max was the best movie full stop. If it does not win at least cinematography, the Oscars have officially become useless.
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As though they were ever worth anything?
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The Oscars aren't really that good a judge of film quality really. Certainly not long term. Take a look here (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Academy_Award_for_Best_Picture). Apart from a good run in the 70's where pretty much every film they gave it to is still regarded as a good film they have had some seriously odd choices. The further back it goes the stranger it becomes too. By the time you reach the 40's you get a few real classics like Casablanca winning but the number of films that are still well known, let alone regarded as being the best films of that year become few and far between.
Not to mention absolute bizarreness like what is regarded as the greatest film ever made losing out to How Green Was My Valley. Now it's not in itself a bad film but no one is ever going to hold it up as the yardstick all films should be measured against! And that's not cause of the passing of time either. Even in 1941 it was believed to be a fix.
Oh and it's not just Best Picture either. Best Director (the other big Oscar) is equally bizarre (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Academy_Award_for_Best_Director). When you have a best director award that was never won by Hitchcock you've got a big problem. When you realise they didn't give it to Orson Welles either you might as well ****ing give up paying any attention to it.
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The Oscars certainly pay favor to politics and societal feelings on occasion. One easy example is how the Lord of the Rings won so many awards with Return of the King but not with the other two movies, it was if the third movie was being rewarded in part for the previous two. Which is fine except that every other movie nominated that year suffered because of it.
Another more contentious example is when Denzel Washington and Halle Barry both won best actor awards, coincidentally on the very same night that Sidney Poiter was recognized with a lifetime achievement award. Not that black actors aren't deserving of awards, but even to my young self it was fairly apparent that it was a politics-driven night. They shouldn't reward black actors with an exceptional Oscar night, rather they should award exceptional performances by black actors on any night.
Or more debateable, a movie like the Hurt Locker winning Best Picture because it's topical despite frankly not being a very good movie. It's basically a vignette of cliche war situations.
All that said, I would still think that these represent the exceptions not the norm.
As though they were ever worth anything?
The actors certainly think so, given that say Bill Murray cried his eyes out the year he lost to Johnny Depp Sean Penn.
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That's telling in and of itself. For the most part, the only people who care about oscars are the ones involved with them. Decided on by a small, exclusive club of rich people that as kara already pointed out are almost never in line with what the rest of the world considers a good movie.
So back to Star Wars,
http://www.cracked.com/blog/if-the-force-awakens-was-way-shorter-more-honest/ (http://www.cracked.com/blog/if-the-force-awakens-was-way-shorter-more-honest/)
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Of course, this information is basically useless, since the map isn't really in the droid as much as it's on the small, portable device located in the droid's storage bay. As such, nobody would be stupid enough to leave it there and carry the droid from place to place across the galaxy, especially once they are aware that we're looking for it.
"How has neither side developed email attachments or cloud drives yet? Seriously, like half our major issues- eh, forget it."
I kinda lost it at this point.
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That's telling in and of itself. For the most part, the only people who care about oscars are the ones involved with them. Decided on by a small, exclusive club of rich people that as kara already pointed out are almost never in line with what the rest of the world considers a good movie.
What, so you've never watched a film because it won or was nominated for Best Picture?
The King’s Speech was initially projected to gross $30 million worldwide. After receiving 12 Academy Award nominations, the revised estimate was over $200 million. After winning the Oscar for best picture, its worldwide box office surpassed $427 million with domestic DVD sales adding nearly another $32 million.
According to Reuters, an Academy Award nomination can boost ticket sales by one-third and cause a jump in the DVD sales of movies no longer in theaters. When you add downloads, streaming and cable TV revenues, the monetary rewards from receiving a nomination can be substantial.
http://www.businessinsider.com/oscarnomics-2013-how-much-is-oscar-really-worth-2013-2
For the most part, many people do care about the oscars as evidenced by increased interest in the film.
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So I finally went to see the movie on IMAX 3D with my kid (his first movie with me, quite impressionable) and a few friends. Had never gone to IMAX (kinda new around here, more or less), it was amazing.
So I haven't read the comments for all this time for spoilers reasons and I'm definitely not going to read all the nitpicking of all the obvious plot holes and incoherences that any movie that has the baggage that SW has would inevitably have and that this forum has all the tradition of going right into those quite as fast as possible (and thus questioning the validity of the movies themselves, etc., etc.)
Rather, just to point out that Star Wars is finally back, I loved it and I want more of it, period! I love Rey already more than I ever did Luke, Han's death was flawlessly written, beautiful and sad (yeah it "rhymes" with Qui Jong and Obi Wan's deaths, but hey, it's still Star Wars and we all know how it "rhymes"... :D). I really loved Kylo Ren. He's struggling to go full dark side, and he's still a poor Sith master. I get the feel these guys would have written a really good Anakin downfall (but let's forget the prequels). Harrison was great, he was really into the part (which is something lacking in his latest movies). I liked Boyega and his pal "best pilot of the Resistance".
I didn't like a few things, and I could write a TL DR about them, but overall, they are mostly nitpickings. I think the next movie is well set up and has a good potential. I also look forward for the baddies to learn their lessons once and for all and stop building planet-sized monstrosities.
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What, so you've never watched a film because it won or was nominated for Best Picture?
I think the first and last time I did that was with Birdman. :doubt: I wouldn't say I had ever cared or followed which films win, but I had at least assumed that only good films do.
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I also look forward for the baddies to learn their lessons once and for all and stop building planet-sized monstrosities.
"Can it be destroyed by snubbies?" Will never be added to the Flow Charts in Imperial Design Studies. Most technical subjects are open to debate in the Star Wars Universe but the above it pretty much Scientific Law.
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So, my wife and I are watching the Original Trilogy, because *gasp* she has actually never seen it.
It's been about 10 years since I last watched any of the original films, and this had led to some startling revelations for me.
1. The plot of the original three films is pretty damned narrow; little time elapses between the three films, and in themselves they're pretty tightly-timelined. Contrast to the prequels, which span an enormous amount of time and are worse off for it. The Force Awakens learned this lesson and arguably did it even better, though it's nearly a sequence-clone of A New Hope.
2. The Force Awakens is an objectively better film and possibly even an objectively better *Star Wars film* than any of the original trilogy, if compared today without the benefit of nostalgic reminiscings. Yeah, I said it, and that's after literally just finishing The Empire Strikes Back.
3. Rey, Finn, and Kylo Ren are much better-developed and more interesting characters in one film than Luke, Han, and Leia were by the end of A New Hope.
4. Bringing back Solo for episode 7 was brilliant, much-deserved, and a very fitting transition.
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2. The Force Awakens is an objectively better film and possibly even an objectively better *Star Wars film* than any of the original trilogy, if compared today without the benefit of nostalgic reminiscings. Yeah, I said it, and that's after literally just finishing The Empire Strikes Back.
:lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol:
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I wholeheartedly agree with MP Ryan on that one. I think ESB was amazingly good for its time, and TFA is merely "Good" for this time, but if we are to analyse them without any concern for the time when it was released, TFA is a lot better than the other.
Which just means that, when Hollywood doesn't **** around, they actually iterate and learn from their mistakes and sucesses. And in this case, 35 years did well for this movie.
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I don't wanna get into the whole "objectively better" thing, but I will say that my enjoyment of TFA is far more dependent on nostalgia than my enjoyment of the OT is. TFA is a movie that positively glides on a cushion of nods, winks, and sometimes direct shout outs to the audience in reference to stuff they've internalized from the OT.
You might think that it's a cynical way of papering over the movie's weaknesses or you might think that it's a completely legit device for saving time and giving the audience a good feeling, but either way, I think you would be hard pressed to argue that the OT gets a bigger boost from nostalgia than TFA does. TFA is a clinically precise Disney-tuned nostalgia exploiting machine. It is a fan service movie. The telltale sign is Harrison Ford doing literally anything and you grinning like an idiot. Anyway, just something to consider.
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An English lesson for everyone:
Objectively - "not influenced by personal feelings, interpretations, or prejudice; based on facts; unbiased"
So unless someone is prepared to do a cold analysis of the structure of each movie, the word you want is "subjectively" or "in my opinion".
Which just means that, when Hollywood doesn't **** around, they actually iterate and learn from their mistakes and sucesses. And in this case, 35 years did well for this movie.
TFA isn't an iteration. It's a regurgitation.
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I have never really liked Star Wars, didn't like the original. Thought that Luke was whiney. Han Solo was alright but pretty much just Indiana Jones. Throughout the trilogy the acting was cheesy and by the end none of the characters ever seemed to have legitimately changed. (At least in a progressive and believable way)
I loved tfa.
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So unless someone is prepared to do a cold analysis of the structure of each movie, the word you want is "subjectively" or "in my opinion".
This MP-Ryan, known for crushingly long and precisely reasoned arguments that have silenced all comers in debate in GenDisc and a grasp of English that exceeds any poster save perhaps Battuta when Battuta is actually trying to English.
If he says objectively, he means objectively. If you don't like it, that's too bad, but your hatred for this movie is well-established in its immunity to reason by now, so maybe you should just stop talking about it if it's all you've got to contribute.
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...and yet, it's NOT objectively better, or there wouldn't be a massive debate all over the interwebz about whether it's good or not.
What, so you've never watched a film because it won or was nominated for Best Picture?
Absolutely never. I wouldn't even know if it got one. Also have never and will never see a movie because of a director or actors. My sole criteria for watching movies is "is there a good chance I will enjoy watching this?" A question usually answered by trailers, or the fact it's a sequel to a movie I enjoyed.
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...and yet, it's NOT objectively better, or there wouldn't be a massive debate
If you think objective fact can't be widely disputed, you must be living in some other dimension.
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If you think objective fact can't be widely disputed, you must be living in some other dimension.
This.
To briefly break it down:
-Acting: Light-years better.
-Character Development: There's more development and 3-dimensional characterization of Rey, Finn, Poe, and Kylo/Ben in one movie than Luke/Han/Leia/Vader in three.
-Set design and effects: A New Hope has the edge in terms of cutting-edge tech; TFA managed to more seamlessly blend the tech with real sets. It's pretty incredible that nothing in TFA is obviously/blatantly/painfully CG (granted, saw it twice). ANH was the same. I might be willing to call a tie on this.
-Writing: Plot holes and missing exposition I lamented earlier in the thread aside, the writing itself was much better. You care about these people, what happens to them, and what is happening in the galaxy. I never got that feeling in ANH. It terms of the story, its much tighter in relevance than both TESB and ROTJ, and still marginally better from the perspective of entertainment than ANH. I could take my wife to this film, and she'd enjoy it. She's tolerated through the OT thus far.
-Cinematography: Abrams is a much better director than Lucas, and the way this was filmed shows it. To be fair, the tech limitations on Lucas were greater, but this is comparing the four films today without being fair to tech advances, so TFA wins.
The only reason anyone would view any of the OT films as being objectively better films overall than TFA is nostalgic preference. As a stand-alone entity, TFA is the better film. Doesn't mean I don't still love the OT. And you all can thank my wife as the reason I pegged onto this :)
At any rate, I have neither the time nor the inclination to engage in a line-by-line argumentation of this point, it was more an observation than anything. People can feel free to disagree if they want, but if they'd like vindication, track down someone who's never seen anything Star Wars, sit them through TFA (no nostalgic advantage), then the OT, and ask them which is the best overall film. I think TFA will win out every time.
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Writing: Plot holes and missing exposition I lamented earlier in the thread aside, the writing itself was much better.
"The food at the second restaurant was so much better than the food at the first one, if you ignore the turd in the side salad."
Yeah, the food might have been objectively better but you're not going to enjoy it as much now. You're going to keep looking for other turds and regardless of whether or not you find them, your enjoyment of the meal is ruined. I guess your objectiveness depends on how much the massive plot holes pull you out of the film. And this isn't just based on nostalgia. I said to the friends that I watched the film with that I'd say it was better than A New Hope if it weren't for the lazy plot line.
It's still a good film. But nostalgia works both ways. If this wasn't a Star Wars movie people would be ripping the **** out of it over the plot line. But it's got Han Solo and all the people we loved in it so we give it a lot more credit.
All I can say is that I can't wait for the Plinkett review.
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All I can say is that I can't wait for the Plinkett review.
As you pointed out it was overall a good film, with a few tweaks it could have been a better one. TFA doesn't strike me as potentially great fodder for our favorite critical homicidal basement dweller. I felt his perspective was more from a filming expert than a Star Wars technical geek. The prequels had a treasure trove of issues to examine both fundamental all the way down to the minutiae. The overall plot, the pacing, cinematography, directing, casting, character development all had problems that were apparent to the layman and even more so to a film expert. These issues were the ones that formed the core block of his review, not not nerding out that hyperspace can't do this according to this bit in some tech manual. There are certainly some legit plot hole gripes to be had with TFA but a by and large most of the stuff Plinkett pointed out in the prequels were rectified with this one. I can for example certainly describe all the characters without resorting to physical appearance or occupation.
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He has reviewed the Star Trek films too though. And a lot of his complaints about the Abrams Trek apply here too.
Yeah, a lot of the biggest complaints were resolved but I'd love to see him tear holes into the new ones that appeared in their place.
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People can feel free to disagree if they want, but if they'd like vindication, track down someone who's never seen anything Star Wars, sit them through TFA (no nostalgic advantage), then the OT, and ask them which is the best overall film. I think TFA will win out every time.
Well, those peoples' impression isn't objective either. They still look at and rate the film through a lens, it's just a lens formed solely by non-SW films. Sure, your point isn't that not seeing the OT makes one an objective movie critic but (presumably) only that you'd call their ranking of the two films objective because it's not affected by prior experience, and if that's the correct understanding then I'm sure you can appreciate how one can reasonably disagree on whether that's an appropriate use of the word "objective" or not.
I don't think anyone would object if you said that "the vast majority of people today who haven't seen any SW before will like TFA much more than ANH", but that's a very different thing to suggest than "...and that means TFA is objectively better than ANH".
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Now ask the same question of people in the 70s.
The Force Awakens is a modern film. Of course it is going to be more appreciated now. The question is whether it will be equally appreciated in 30-40 years when both films would be considered old.
You would hear that the modern film is the better one of the two if you took people who had never seen Trek and made them watch JJ Abrams Trek vs Wrath of Khan. If you're going to tell me Nu-Trek is objectively better than Wrath of Khan I'm..... well ****, I have nothing I can say to anyone that idiotic.
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Han Solo was alright but pretty much just Indiana Jones.
The funny bit comes when you learn that Harrison Ford was cast for Indy precisely because of his Han Solo character, so....
All I can say is that I can't wait for the Plinkett review.
Red Letter Media gave it thumbs up. Their "Half in the Bag" episode was pretty spot on on both the good bits and the bad bits, and they also have a funny video from before the release trying to pin down and guess the entire plot. It's amazing how many things they got it right.
If you're going to tell me Nu-Trek is objectively better than Wrath of Khan I'm..... well ****, I have nothing I can say to anyone that idiotic.
Don't go there, I don't want MP Ryan coming along and reporting you for name-calling him :D.
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Even Plinkett has admitted that no one cares about Half in the Bag. :p
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Some call the writing objectively good, I call it objectively bad. See how easy that is? You don't get to simply declare your own opinion the objective one.
The writing to me was awful. The ONLY reason I thought the movie was even as good as b-level was the cinematics. I could give a **** about character development (which I don't even agree was anything particularly noteworthy) if the characters exist in a stupid story. But really, my reason for thinking the writing to be awful rests on one major failing - explaining the damn plot. Having a reason for literally ANYTHING in the movie to happen. Space Nazis. Because we said so. New Republic. It's there, didn't you hear us mention it once, and read the opening crawl? The resistance. Because we need some good guys and can't be bothered to explain why we're ignoring the supposed new government. I could go on, but I really don't want to.
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You're judging a movie based on what you wanted it to be and not on what it really is, that's your problem. The "Republic" is a republic. We all understand what a Republic means and we definitely do not need a 7th movie explaining what a republic means in a Star Wars movie. The Empire is gone and is now the "First Order". Reasons for its existence are just hinted at, but so was the case in ANH (wherein it's thrown somewhere in the middle that the emperor has just got rid of the cumbersome senate and so on).
The movie is focused not on these big political and technological backdrops but in the characters and in bringing about a new generation of heroes and villains into the story in an emotionally satisfying level.
It acomplished that perfectly. That they skipped a few minutes explaining better how the galactopolitics were at the time is a small sin. Star Wars for me was never a story about politics, but about family, love, camaraderie, between choosing good or evil, idealism on the brink of technological terror (shadows of a nuclear cold war past), and adventure. From all those points, it scored great. And that's all I can ask about a movie made in Hollywood.
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I don't know. I think it suffered a lot compared to ANH because it was quite obviously the first part of a trilogy. Compare it against something like Fellowship of the Ring and you might see my issue. Too much of the film was almost 4th wall breaking "We'll explain this in a later film." It's one thing when the audience are expected to wait for the next film for answers, it's another when even the characters seem willing to do the same.
At no point in FotR did I feel like the characters were being told "Do this and we'll explain why in The Two Towers." Everything the characters did had an explanation that felt logically consistent at the time. But in TFA no one seems to question why R2 is powered down, or why Luke went away. Sure the question is answered at a very superficial level, a bunch of his apprentices died and he blamed himself. But why would anyone have faith in Luke to put the universe right when he'd already walked away from the whole thing at one point? Why would you trust him? Why would you expect him to come back? Sure Han and Chewie know him, but everyone else seems to have a lot of faith in him for absolutely no reason. This sort of thing does pull me out of the film. Not just when I'm discussing it on the internet, but when I was in the cinema watching it for the first time. It didn't feel like something the Luke who went to Cloud City just to rescue his friends would do. Certainly not without a hell of a lot more explanation.
In the original trilogy these sorts of questions never really arose. Even when Luke says that he feels there is good in Vader, or Vader reveals that he is Luke's father, there's no reason to question it, even though we've always previously believed that Vader was simply an admiral choking bad guy.
As a trilogy these sort of questions may or may not be answered. Or maybe we can make up our own explanations for them. But each film in a trilogy should stand on its own. The actions of the characters should make sense based on the information they have available (once again, cf FotR), and in that respect I tend to feel that TFA had some real issues.
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Throughout the trilogy ... none of the characters ever seemed to have legitimately changed. (At least in a progressive and believable way)
Luke went from frustrated and naive, to impatient but loyal, and finally to courageous and serene. That's a phenomenal character arc.
Han went from callous and self-serving to a leadership role. Vader went from brutal and self-loathing to self-sacrificing and loving. Even smaller roles like Lando saw development over the course of a single film.
Yes, there was character development in TFA, but the internal struggles of the OT cast were hardly insignificant.
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You're judging a movie based on what you wanted it to be and not on what it really is, that's your problem. The "Republic" is a republic. We all understand what a Republic means and we definitely do not need a 7th movie explaining what a republic means in a Star Wars movie. The Empire is gone and is now the "First Order". Reasons for its existence are just hinted at, but so was the case in ANH (wherein it's thrown somewhere in the middle that the emperor has just got rid of the cumbersome senate and so on).
The problem is that TFA establishes that there is a Republic and a Resistance, and that they are separate entities, and then spends the rest of the film conflating them.
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This.
To briefly break it down:
-Acting: Light-years better.
-Character Development: There's more development and 3-dimensional characterization of Rey, Finn, Poe, and Kylo/Ben in one movie than Luke/Han/Leia/Vader in three.
3-dimensional characterization? Yeah Finn REALLY seems like someone who has been raised since childhood to be a soldier. Just like Gamora in Guardians of the Galaxy really seems like someone who has been raised since childhood to be an assassin. Both isolated from society and likely taught to dehumanize the "enemy" and yet both are quickly shown as caring, selfless well-adjusted and sociable individuals. Thus both hollow, meaningless backstories with no impact on how the character operates.
Finn - The guy raised since birth to be a janitor soldier, assigned to the one of their most important retrieval missions. Traumatized by death and terrified of the empire but runs headlong into battle, killing his former comrades both on the hangar, the deathstar, the falcon escape, and on the smuggler world, coming to Rey's aid in the market, getting his jollies off on threatening chrome dome for having the audacity to tell him to keep his helmet on ("my word! what a heinous villian")
Rey - Girl who has lived her life being independent and dealing with people constantly screwing her over, almost instantly trusts a completely stranger, running away with him and pleading with him to stay. Kind-hearted except when she's bullying and stealing valuable droids from other scavengers.
Yeah real believable characters there. har har
-Set design and effects: A New Hope has the edge in terms of cutting-edge tech; TFA managed to more seamlessly blend the tech with real sets. It's pretty incredible that nothing in TFA is obviously/blatantly/painfully CG (granted, saw it twice). ANH was the same. I might be willing to call a tie on this.
-Writing: Plot holes and missing exposition I lamented earlier in the thread aside, the writing itself was much better. You care about these people, what happens to them, and what is happening in the galaxy. I never got that feeling in ANH. It terms of the story, its much tighter in relevance than both TESB and ROTJ, and still marginally better from the perspective of entertainment than ANH. I could take my wife to this film, and she'd enjoy it. She's tolerated through the OT thus far.
Much tighter in relevance? What does that even mean. Other than the fact it's an evasion of simply saying it's a much tighter story, which it isn't.
Again a simple question, what is the story of Force Awakens? The answer is that it doesn't have one. It has two stories, completely unrelated, one of which is solved deus ex machina @ the end.
And as for the Galaxy, what's happening in it? Who are the First Order? What is the Republic? Who are the resistance? The movie doesn't establish any of this.
The only reason anyone would view any of the OT films as being objectively better films overall than TFA is nostalgic preference. As a stand-alone entity, TFA is the better film. Doesn't mean I don't still love the OT. And you all can thank my wife as the reason I pegged onto this :)
My wife prefers the Prequel Trilogy to all of them. Complained that despite great characters and acting the Force Awakens is just the same story, again. Anecdotal opinion doesn't count for much in an objective discussion. The reason your wife prefers TFA likely isn't because it' s a better film. It's because the central protagonist is female. Ask her what she likes best about the movie and odds are she'll say Rey.
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akalabeth how do you find so much effort to devote to disagreeing with people on forums
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akalabeth how do you find so much effort to devote to disagreeing with people on forums
How do I find so much energy? They sell it at starbucks by the pound. Dark Roast Coffee. Komodo Dragon Blend. Served over Ice and copiously consumed.
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You're judging a movie based on what you wanted it to be and not on what it really is, that's your problem. The "Republic" is a republic. We all understand what a Republic means and we definitely do not need a 7th movie explaining what a republic means in a Star Wars movie. The Empire is gone and is now the "First Order". Reasons for its existence are just hinted at, but so was the case in ANH (wherein it's thrown somewhere in the middle that the emperor has just got rid of the cumbersome senate and so on).
The problem is that TFA establishes that there is a Republic and a Resistance, and that they are separate entities, and then spends the rest of the film conflating them.
Incorrect. The distinction exists clearly. The Republic is the regime that the Resistance as a movement fought for it to survive the empire.
But in TFA no one seems to question why R2 is powered down, or why Luke went away. Sure the question is answered at a very superficial level, a bunch of his apprentices died and he blamed himself. But why would anyone have faith in Luke to put the universe right when he'd already walked away from the whole thing at one point?
If by "superficial" you mean "glaringly at your face", then I could agree with you. Hell, it's right there in the crawling introduction saying how Leia is trying to track down Luke, and you only have to watch Kylo Ren to know why would she do such a thing. And R2's explanation is flat out told within seconds. I'm really not getting these things. I'd love to go around poking fun and joking about what I truly found lacking in these movies, but you guys seem interested in such irrelevant nitpickings.
Yeah Finn REALLY seems like someone who has been raised since childhood to be a soldier. Just like Gamora in Guardians of the Galaxy really seems like someone who has been raised since childhood to be an assassin. A hollow, meaningless backstory with no impact on how the character operates.
His first mission was to kill the village he was born (AFAI could listen), and he just couldn't cope with it. It's not that hard of a concept. Within an army of thousands or millions, you'll have "defects" like this one. His character "arc" is what he does next, when he realises he has to do something different to what he has done so far. And he *does* have a character arc. From borrowing a new fake identity to cover his ass, to befriend new people, to try to save them, to snap off and try to flee the whole ordeal and finally coming back to do the right thing. He's fumbling all the way through, which feels right and believable.
Denying he has a decently written character is silly. Drop it.
Finn - The soldier raised since birth to be a janitor soldier, assigned to the one of their most important retrieval missions. Traumatized by death and terrified of the empire but runs headlong into battle, killing his former soldiers both on the hangar, the deathstar, the falcon escape, and on the smuggler world, coming to Rey's aid in the market, getting his jollies off on threatening chrome dome.
He wasn't traumatized by death, he was traumatized by the slaughter.
Rey - Girl who has lived her life being independent and dealing with people constantly screwing her over, almost instantly trusts a completely stranger, running away with him and pleading with him to stay. Kind-hearted except when she's bullying and stealing valuable droids from other scavengers.
"stealing valuable droids", ok that's a sign you're just trolling now. He saved that droid's ass and you called that "stealing". Come on, shame on you. He doesn't "trust" a complete stranger. She has good reasons to believe he's from the Resistance: he knows what happened to the owner of the droid (jacket, etc.), and he saves her ass by pushing her from Tie bombers' ordinance. You don't have to trust a "complete stranger" to realise this guy is on your side and if you want to live with such low odds, you'll take whatever help you got, questions later.
And if you don't even realise that fighting wars together has a unique quality to bring people into skyrocketing trust levels, then I guess you never have had family people fighting wars and telling you stories about it. Good for you.
Much tighter in relevance? What does that even mean. Other than the fact it's an evasion of simply saying it's a much tighter story, which it isn't.
Again a simple question, what is the story of Force Awakens? The answer is that it doesn't have one. It has two stories, completely unrelated, one of which is solved deus ex machina @ the end.
Name the Deus Ex Machina. Name it, and god forbid you **** up what "deus ex machina" means.
And as for the Galaxy, what's happening in it? Who are the First Order? What is the Republic? Who are the resistance? The movie doesn't establish any of this.
Where's Coruscant? Where's Jar Jar? What about the economic trade markets that are operating within the galaxy? More importantly than anything else, whatever the **** happened with the Ewoks? I mean, this movie should have had established EVERYTHING that happened beforehand! We know this is what should have happened because it's right there in the Manual of Excellent Movie Writing, written by none other than God himself!
NEVERMIND that in ANH the only piece of news we get from how the politics works in this whole new world is that the "senate" was dismantled in the middle of two other sentences. And that there's an "emperor". Somehow, this seems enough. In TFW, similar hints on how things are now operating are just too little for all these new generation of brains to fill in the blanks. It must ALL be laid out plainly or else it's "bad writing".
I respectfully disagree*.
My wife prefers the Prequel Trilogy to all of them. Complained that despite great characters and acting the Force Awakens is just the same story, again. Anecdotal opinion doesn't count for much in an objective discussion. The reason your wife prefer TFA isn't because it' s a better film. It's because the central protagonist is female. Ask her what she likes best about the movie and odds are she'll say Rey.
Now that was just plain rude and unbecoming. Please learn to have a "asshole detector" and have it scan your words before hitting Post.
*rewritten in order to abide to a very questionable reading of the third commandment of the Bible :D
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Don't bother, he did the same thing at the thread in FoTG board. That's why it's closed now (it was a bit redundant, TBH, so it isn't a big loss, but still). If you waste your time on trying to explain every little detail to him, he'll either ignore or don't understand you. He's just a troll who couldn't care less about having fun from the new Star Wars movie, instead derailing threads about it with arguing over minutae (while never picking on any actual issues the movie had, like everything with Starkiller base's physics).
Oh, and my parents like the prequels, too. I liked them too when I was a kid, precisely for the reasons many people dislike them (Anakin was a kid my age doing badass stuff. Nuff said). You just need not to take them too seriously, especially episode I (which is pretty decent if you think of it as "Star Wars for kids"). I still think they aren't as bad as people make them out to be, though not particularly good, either.
Back on topic, I kind of feel that truly answering the question whether TFA is better or worse than the OT movies would be better left until after the next two episodes come out. It is a very good movie, but it does suffer by too blatantly being the first part of a trilogy. ANH was a "complete" movie with a few sequel hooks, while TFA leaves so much hanging that if taken alone, it'd be enough to take it down a few pegs. The character development we do get in TFA might be a bit larger in scope than what happened to the original "Power Trio", but I felt it kind of lead nowhere when the movie ended. It's up to the next two movies to bring about a satisfying conclusion.
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My wife prefers the Prequel Trilogy to all of them. Complained that despite great characters and acting the Force Awakens is just the same story, again. Anecdotal opinion doesn't count for much in an objective discussion. The reason your wife prefers TFA likely isn't because it' s a better film. It's because the central protagonist is female. Ask her what she likes best about the movie and odds are she'll say Rey.
Now that was just plain rude and unbecoming. Please learn to have a "asshole detector" and have it scan your words before hitting Post.
I concur. Akalabeth, take a few days off.
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Yeah Finn REALLY seems like someone who has been raised since childhood to be a soldier. Just like Gamora in Guardians of the Galaxy really seems like someone who has been raised since childhood to be an assassin. A hollow, meaningless backstory with no impact on how the character operates.
His first mission was to kill the village he was born (AFAI could listen), and he just couldn't cope with it.
The moment he couldn't cope with it was the moment that his soldier friend got killed by Poe.
Rey - Girl who has lived her life being independent and dealing with people constantly screwing her over, almost instantly trusts a completely stranger, running away with him and pleading with him to stay. Kind-hearted except when she's bullying and stealing valuable droids from other scavengers.
"stealing valuable droids", ok that's a sign you're just trolling now. He saved that droid's ass and you called that "stealing". Come on, shame on you. He doesn't "trust" a complete stranger. She has good reasons to believe he's from the Resistance: he knows what happened to the owner of the droid (jacket, etc.), and he saves her ass by pushing her from Tie bombers' ordinance. You don't have to trust a "complete stranger" to realise this guy is on your side and if you want to live with such low odds, you'll take whatever help you got, questions later.
The other dude found the droid first. What right does she have to take it from him? Especially on a world where people are struggling to survive. Finders Keepers.
She's depicted living a life where no one is on her side. You don't get over that in a day. How long does it take you to trust someone?
Much tighter in relevance? What does that even mean. Other than the fact it's an evasion of simply saying it's a much tighter story, which it isn't.
Again a simple question, what is the story of Force Awakens? The answer is that it doesn't have one. It has two stories, completely unrelated, one of which is solved deus ex machina @ the end.
Name the Deus Ex Machina. Name it, and god forbid you **** up what "deus ex machina" means.
an unexpected power or event saving a seemingly hopeless situation, especially as a contrived plot device in a play or novel.
Event: R2D2 activating
Hopeless situation: Finding Luke
NEVERMIND that in ANH the only piece of news we get from how the politics works in this whole new world is that the "senate" was dismantled in the middle of two other sentences. And that there's an "emperor". Somehow, this seems enough. In TFW, similar hints on how things are now operating are just too little for all these new generation of brains to fill in the blanks. It must ALL be laid out plainly or else it's "bad writing".
Expecting an audience to care about something they have no connection to is bad writing, such as the destruction of the republic worlds. Worlds which had zero relevance in the story except an attempt to draw some emotion from the audience. The only mention is some fleet has been destroyed, a fleet which we never see and whose usefulness is never explained. Han looks up the sky and feels real sad and because he looks sad and some hot chick was screaming we're supposed to feel sad too. Why does Han care about that world? Does he care about some random world in the same way that Leia cared about Alderan? Does the destruction of that world impact that story in the same way that it did in ANH? No of course not.
As far as the story is concerned the republic and that world cut have been cut completely and it wouldn't have made a damn bit of difference. Want to demonstrate the power of the station? Have it target some place the characters have actually been.
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Side note, the thing I liked most about TFA was also Rey. Don't really see why that would be a problem.
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Liking Rey isn't a problem.
The problem was that Akalabeth felt compelled to state that the only reason MP-Ryan's wife liked TFA more than the original trilogy is because she is a woman, with the implicit assertion that it was both incorrect and the wrong reason to have that opinion.
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Liking Rey isn't a problem.
The problem was that Akalabeth felt compelled to state that the only reason MP-Ryan's wife liked TFA more than the original trilogy is because she is a woman, with the implicit assertion that it was both incorrect and the wrong reason to have that opinion.
No, I meant... I was saying I don't know why Akalabeth would say that, not that I don't know why his post was a problem.
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Whoops. Carry on.
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But in TFA no one seems to question why R2 is powered down, or why Luke went away. Sure the question is answered at a very superficial level, a bunch of his apprentices died and he blamed himself. But why would anyone have faith in Luke to put the universe right when he'd already walked away from the whole thing at one point?
If by "superficial" you mean "glaringly at your face", then I could agree with you. Hell, it's right there in the crawling introduction saying how Leia is trying to track down Luke, and you only have to watch Kylo Ren to know why would she do such a thing. And R2's explanation is flat out told within seconds. I'm really not getting these things. I'd love to go around poking fun and joking about what I truly found lacking in these movies, but you guys seem interested in such irrelevant nitpickings.
Oh come on. This is a massively dishonest answer to my questions. You answered the preamble (not particularly well either. Poe could have simply destroyed the map if keeping Luke safe was what was of importance.) and ignored the meat of the question.
But why would anyone have faith in Luke to put the universe right when he'd already walked away from the whole thing at one point? Why would you trust him? Why would you expect him to come back? Sure Han and Chewie know him, but everyone else seems to have a lot of faith in him for absolutely no reason.
You just simply decided to ignore those questions. And they are valid questions. Why would Rey and Finn, who have never met Luke, suddenly believe he is the second coming of space Jesus? More importantly, why are you so accepting of Luke doing such an unlike Luke thing as going away and leaving the universe in peril?
If you're going to say that the characterisation of the films is really good, it's not nitpicking to point out example of how it wasn't. It not nitpicking to show real example of how the characters don't seem to be acting like real people would. You're basically taking the point of view that you liked the film and therefore everyone else should or they are nitpicking. In general I found the characters in TFA to be reasonably good, but if people are going to start elevating them over those in ANH or claiming that it was perfect, I'm going to take issue with that, there is a lot they did wrong.
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The same reason Ben and Yoda went away and left the universe in peril?
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You just simply decided to ignore those questions. And they are valid questions. Why would Rey and Finn, who have never met Luke, suddenly believe he is the second coming of space Jesus? More importantly, why are you so accepting of Luke doing such an unlike Luke thing as going away and leaving the universe in peril?
To the first, we're explicitly informed that "the stories are true", which is pretty indicative of a mythological status for Luke. Potentially literally the second coming of space Jesus, considering who his father was. :P Not sitting the audience down to rehash the events of the original trilogy for five minutes, or spending time exhaustively describing folk lore and legend in the Star Wars universe is probably A Good Thing. If I suddenly pulled a sword that looked suspiciously like Excaliber out of a stone, and an old man with magic powers named Merlin wandered by, do you think we'd sit down and chat about King Arthur for a few minutes before I freaked out?
Show, don't tell. Luke Skywalker is mentioned, Rey and Finn react with surprise and awe when they learn the stories are true from one of the central characters in those stories. That's showing. We're not 'treated' to five minutes of Rey and Finn explaining why they're surprised and awed that the stories are true. Say what you will about JJ, he's not Christopher Nolan.
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It's not show don't tell. It's hint vaguely at don't tell. If Merlin then asked you to do something, you'd ask why. You wouldn't just do it cause he's Merlin.
The same reason Ben and Yoda went away and left the universe in peril?
Not even remotely good enough. In both cases they made sense, they're hiding from the empire. Ben and Yoda were waiting for Luke (or Leia) to grow up. That much is obvious even in ANH and is hinted at all the way through the films. Hell, it's even the title of the first film! Luke on the other hand seems to have gone off in a strop when things didn't go his way. Going on what Scotty is saying about the legends that have grown up around Luke that should provoke MORE questions not less. If I heard that King Arthur decided he couldn't be arsed to turn up for Camlann, I'd want to know why! I wouldn't just shrug my shoulders and think 'Well, I'm sure he had his reasons."
While there might be a similarly good reason explained in the later films, that just further underscores my issue that the characters in this film seem to ignoring basic questions people really would ask. Don't you think it odd that neither Finn nor Rey question where the map came from? Don't you think it's odd that when the First Order finally are on the verge of getting back the map they've been searching for they decide to send the janitorial staff along?
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Incorrect. The distinction exists clearly. The Republic is the regime that the Resistance as a movement fought for it to survive the empire.
I mean that did come across, but then why have the distinction in the first place? If the First Order are openly trying to destroy the Republic then why do we need a Resistance to fight them when the Republic explicitly has its own army? If you went through the film and uniformly replaced every instance of the word 'Resistance' with 'Republic' it'd be much less distracting and, as far as I can tell, would mean losing nothing of value from the narrative.
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Incorrect. The distinction exists clearly. The Republic is the regime that the Resistance as a movement fought for it to survive the empire.
I mean that did come across, but then why have the distinction in the first place? If the First Order are openly trying to destroy the Republic then why do we need a Resistance to fight them when the Republic explicitly has its own army? If you went through the film and uniformly replaced every instance of the word 'Resistance' with 'Republic' it'd be much less distracting and, as far as I can tell, would mean losing nothing of value from the narrative.
I think this is a consequence of Disney tying the new novel line more directly into the main story for the movies. The novels set (or are about to set, since I gather a couple of them aren't out yet?) the stage for the political balance and it supposedly makes sense there? For the purposes of the movie I agree with you.
EDIT: as I finish typing that, it may be that they wanted something distinct from the term "Republic" because it'd be thematically less interesting to have a sitting government fighting the enemy resistance. And to avoid linking the protagonists from TFA to the protagonists from the prequels.
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That'd almost work if Leia wasn't identified as being a general for the Republic right in the opening crawl.
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Incorrect. The distinction exists clearly. The Republic is the regime that the Resistance as a movement fought for it to survive the empire.
I mean that did come across, but then why have the distinction in the first place? If the First Order are openly trying to destroy the Republic then why do we need a Resistance to fight them when the Republic explicitly has its own army? If you went through the film and uniformly replaced every instance of the word 'Resistance' with 'Republic' it'd be much less distracting and, as far as I can tell, would mean losing nothing of value from the narrative.
General Hux probably provides the most information on the political situation in his arguments before Snoke and his "IMMA FIRIN' MAH LAZAH" speech. His mini Hitler Rant certainly felt like the kind of condemnation the USSR would have leveled about US support for the Mujaheddin. If the Republic and First Order are in a Detente, its certainly plausible that elements of the Republic would have created a proxy force to keep the FO off balance.
It's not show don't tell. It's hint vaguely at don't tell. If Merlin then asked you to do something, you'd ask why. You wouldn't just do it cause he's Merlin.
The same reason Ben and Yoda went away and left the universe in peril?
Not even remotely good enough. In both cases they made sense. Ben and Yoda were waiting for Luke (or Leia) to grow up. That much is obvious even in ANH and is hinted at all the way through the films. Hell, it's even the title of the first film!
While there might be a similarly good reason explained in the later films, that just further underscores my issue that the characters in this film seem to ignoring basic questions people really would ask. Don't you think it odd that neither Finn nor Rey question where the map came from? Don't you think it's odd that when the First Order finally are on the verge of getting back the map they've been searching for they decide to send the janitorial staff along?
ANH had the benefit/constraint that George Lucas had no idea it would actually be a hit. The film had to be fairly self contained, because it could have completely tanked and been a "one and done." The new trilogy was very likely plotted out as a complete series and revealing everything in the first film wasn't a requirement.
Heck, if the Empire didn't arrive on Tatooine hot to trot for the Death Star Plans and burninate Uncle Owen and Aunt Baru was Kenobi just going to live out his days in his hut and Luke be a moisture farmer? Both he and Yoda had to have some foreknowledge that the the proper triggers would occur to spring Luke onto the galactic stage. Luke very well might be in a similar situation, needing for events to unfold before he could act. Max von Sydow could have been sitting on the map for years waiting for the appropriate time to reveal it. I don't know why Finn and Rey need to be asking twenty questions either. Finn's busy trying to be a "Resistance" operative, he can't ask about were the map came from. Rey puts on Rebel Pilot helmets and plays "Imma Snubbie Jock" in her spare time, I think she's been waiting for greater events to sweep her away for a while. Neither of them have much time for critical thinking until they get to Maz's anyway at which point Finn's priority shifts to GTFO.
If they don't address any of the plot holes in the subsequent films, then yeah they were lazy but I'm not sure why it seems like everything needs to be explicitly nailed down with brass tacks in the first film?
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Not even remotely good enough. In both cases they made sense, they're hiding from the empire. Ben and Yoda were waiting for Luke (or Leia) to grow up. That much is obvious even in ANH and is hinted at all the way through the films. Hell, it's even the title of the first film! Luke on the other hand seems to have gone off in a strop when things didn't go his way. Going on what Scotty is saying about the legends that have grown up around Luke that should provoke MORE questions not less. If I heard that King Arthur decided he couldn't be arsed to turn up for Camlann, I'd want to know why! I wouldn't just shrug my shoulders and think 'Well, I'm sure he had his reasons.
"Gone off in a strop"? The guy undoubtedly spent a huge mental and emotional effort establishing a new Jedi academy, something he would see as a sign of hope for the future, and even takes on his own nephew as an apprentice to carry on his family's legacy. Said nephew then proceeds to go full emo and brutally murder all of his pupils. Are you trying to tell me that this wouldn't send Luke into a deep depression? His entire raison d'etre just got obliterated right in front of him. Why is he going to give two ****s about Resistances and First Orders and whatever the hell else is going on? He failed Obi-wan, failed Yoda, failed himself. Game over, man.
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And yet we're expected to believe he'd leave a map behind to where he is?
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The movie would be significantly improved by just replacing the Luke map McGuffin with Star Killer plans or really anything concrete that actually tied in to the other things that happen in the story. Even if you buy into it that it's something that Luke would do and you are willing to just go along with all the characters saying "this is really important," it's still a significant structural liability for the movie to have to shelve the #1 plot driver halfway through and then pull it back out after the rest of the story is over and then still not resolve it in any meaningful way TO BE CONTINUED
RotJ had awkward structural issues too but at least it had the excuse of having multiple unrelated hanging plot threads to resolve. This one just feels like Disney wanting to have their cake and eat it too. If they needed him not to be in the movie but didn't want him dead, they could have at least had him be in a coma or something and need a powerful force user to wake him. Then it would have had a bit of a mythological touch too, and the title of the movie would have made more sense. I blame Obama.
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And yet we're expected to believe he'd leave a map behind to where he is?
I think that it's actually quite plausible. He could have done that in order to avoid completely burning bridges behind him. I think that even if he was depressed, leaving the galaxy (and all his friends!) to fend for itself was not an easy decision. The map could have very well been for his own psychological comfort ("I'm leaving, but that's OK, they have a map, they can put it together and find me if they really want to. I hope they don't, but they can totally do it.").
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A few quick points here and there regarding most comments after my last one.
Akalaabeth's deus ex machina is not a correct example. The desperate situation was to destroy the Starkiller base and the map that allowed Rey to find Luke had nothing to do with that. It was structured as an epilogue, not as a deus ex machina. Insufficiently explained why R2 would turn on at that point? Perhaps. Still more than 14 parsecs away from any reasonable interpretation of what "deus ex machina" means. The crawling paragraphs were on how Leia was trying to find Luke and little BB droid had the last parts of the map to do so. My guesstimate is that R2 was "off" until Starkiller was destroyed in order to smooth out the script. First, destroy Starkiller, then find Luke. Easier on the audience.
I agree with Akalabeth that the point when Finn went bananas was when the blood of his comrade went into his helmet. This is known to happen to humans, it felt real to me. And then he witnessed his teammates massacring a whole unarmed village. I interpreted it as a "Lacanian moment" of truth slapping on his face, and he went straight into panic mode, eventually decided he couldn't do this anymore, and so on and so on. We could endlessly argue if this is good or terrible writing, I feel that Boyega delivered it so well that I was sold on it.
Regarding why should we care about those planets and so on, I also agree this is the part that was lacking. And it wouldn't take that long. I could easily picture one or two extra minutes in the movie right before these planets were being destroyed where they would show a bit of life, of military analysis within these planets concerning the danger of StarKiller, a few scenes spanning a huge Republic fleet hovering over the planet, and then we see the beams destroying everything with these generals or politicians amazed that this thing was already "fully operational". I don't know how tight that idea would be, but it would also explain why the Resistance had to plan an attack on StarKiller base with just a few X-Wings, with a one-liner like "This is all we got within distance now".
Oh come on. This is a massively dishonest answer to my questions. You answered the preamble (not particularly well either. Poe could have simply destroyed the map if keeping Luke safe was what was of importance.) and ignored the meat of the question.
Keeping Luke safe wasn't the plan, finding him was.
But why would anyone have faith in Luke to put the universe right when he'd already walked away from the whole thing at one point? Why would you trust him? Why would you expect him to come back? Sure Han and Chewie know him, but everyone else seems to have a lot of faith in him for absolutely no reason.
I didn't see it that way at all. Leia wants to find Luke, Han also seemed to think that was perhaps a good idea. Finn and Rey are just trying to survive in this mess they find themselves in. Eventually, two things happen. It becomes abhorrently clear that this StarKiller base is something they should destroy, and Rey is "called" by Luke's lightsaber. She's drawn to the force and by Luke's lightsaber. That seems enough motive for someone to track him down and ask him some really hard questions.
Regarding "the second coming of Christ", well we could have a good laugh here because given how he's the son of someone who didn't even had a father that's probably more literally true than what you wished for :D, but more importantly, in ESB the emperor tells Vader that the "son of Anakin" was the most dangerous thing out there against the empire. So it's quite canon this idea that a single Jedi could be really bad for any wannabe empire to take hold of the galaxy.
More importantly, why are you so accepting of Luke doing such an unlike Luke thing as going away and leaving the universe in peril?
It has been correctly replied before. He's depressed that he utterly failed to recreate a Jedi academy, being betrayed by Han's son. He perhaps even thought that the world would be now a better place without all these Jedis and Siths going at each other. I think we'll know more in the second movie, but I didn't find it weird. Yes, it was a bad judgement on Luke's part, which only makes him human. Which is not bad writing.
If you're going to say that the characterisation of the films is really good, it's not nitpicking to point out example of how it wasn't. It not nitpicking to show real example of how the characters don't seem to be acting like real people would. You're basically taking the point of view that you liked the film and therefore everyone else should or they are nitpicking. In general I found the characters in TFA to be reasonably good, but if people are going to start elevating them over those in ANH or claiming that it was perfect, I'm going to take issue with that, there is a lot they did wrong.
Nah, I found many flaws as well, but I also found many weird and irrelevant nitpickings in here. I think the movie was generally good, and I had a blast of an experience because it was the first time I took my eldest to a non-animated movie cinema, and it was IMAX 3D and so on. My expectations were between low and reasonable, given JJ Abrams. And they were surpassed, becuase I really enjoyed the characters and Rey especially. It definitely won't be the best movie I'll see in 2016, nor was that the point. It was, however, a blast of a spectacle.
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Throughout the trilogy ... none of the characters ever seemed to have legitimately changed. (At least in a progressive and believable way)
Luke went from frustrated and naive, to impatient but loyal, and finally to courageous and serene. That's a phenomenal character arc.
Han went from callous and self-serving to a leadership role. Vader went from brutal and self-loathing to self-sacrificing and loving. Even smaller roles like Lando saw development over the course of a single film.
Yes, there was character development in TFA, but the internal struggles of the OT cast were hardly insignificant.
Maybe in terms of actions, but he still just whines. When he trains with Yoda, he complains about it being impossible. When he fights Vader he whines for his father.
Han acts exactly the same - until the moment he doesn't (on Hoth). Vader similarly doesn't transform so much as snap to a different pattern of behavior. It may be foreshadowed in terms of story, but the acting doesn't show a pending transformation.
This comes down once again to the acting being weak.
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It's harder to give a "proper acting" when you have a helmet hiding your subtle eye movements. But the character arc is there if you pay attention. Vader comes from finding his son is alive and just blew the Death Star, then proceeds to find him and try to make an ally out of him against the Emperor. Right here, he's already trying to screw over Palpatine (the emperor orders Vader to kill him, Vader convinces him he would be a "great asset" to the Dark Force). In retrospect we get that Vader was trying to ally with Luke to destroy the Emperor and rule the galaxy, while Palpatine was trying to arrange a fight between those two and he would stay with whomever would win.
In ESB, Vader is pursuing Luke like a madman. He sacrifices Star Destroyers within an asteroid field just to get his friends to build a trap for Luke. He confides his fatherhood. But at that last moment, before Luke escapes, you do see a psychological back and forth between them. There's a connection between them. That builds Vader's character much further than anything done in ANH. When Luke escapes, he manages to not choke anyone, or being angry. He just appears sad to see his son going away. And you get that despite his helmet. I think that's actually not bad acting.
In RoTJ we see the conflict within Vader. When Luke surrenders to him and talks to him, you do see him wrestling with himself. Again, all within the helmet. "It is too late for me", that's quite the sentence he gives, quite the hint that he is not just this evil beast. Then he gets his feet on the ground again and tells him the emperor will show him the true meaning of the force. Luke tells then that Ben was right after all, his father is dead. And Vader just wrestles again, silently, after he's gone up. That's character development.
While fighting Luke, Vader seems more in control with himself, but that's just because the emperor is looking. Yes, it only comes to the surface and to the action right at the last minute, but the conflict was there and was acted. It showed. If you didn't see it, I recommend you watch the movies again.
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Yeah, David Prowse and James Earl Jones, assisted by the Directors and DoPs, were able to put a lot of things into Vader. They managed to convey a lot just through motion, gestures, and lighting changes, and that's a bit of an achievement.
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A few quick points here and there regarding most comments after my last one.
Akalaabeth's deus ex machina is not a correct example. The desperate situation was to destroy the Starkiller base and the map that allowed Rey to find Luke had nothing to do with that. It was structured as an epilogue, not as a deus ex machina. Insufficiently explained why R2 would turn on at that point? Perhaps. Still more than 14 parsecs away from any reasonable interpretation of what "deus ex machina" means. The crawling paragraphs were on how Leia was trying to find Luke and little BB droid had the last parts of the map to do so.
#1 "Desperate" is not a requirement for Deus Ex Machina. Your understanding of the definition is wrong.
#2 Even if desperate were a requirement, The Star Wars universe disagrees in the opening title crawl:
General Leia Organa leads a brave RESISTANCE.. She is desperate to find her brother Luke
Now if you want to disagree with something written in plain english and 10 feet high on a theatre screen go ahead, but you'd be wrong.
My guesstimate is that R2 was "off" until Starkiller was destroyed in order to smooth out the script. First, destroy Starkiller, then find Luke. Easier on the audience.
Smooth out the script? You mean introducing a contrived plot point out of nowhere is meant to smooth out the script?
R2D2's turning on wasn't even foreshadowed, one of the most basic devices of literature and movie making. C3PO says he would turn on when Luke was near. That just was just a red herring in a disjointed story. He literally turns on for no reason present in the story, this is the very definition of deus ex machina, and event that comes out of no where.
The story as presented in the crawl and in the first half of the movie is finding Luke. This problem, is solved not by any of the characters in the movie but by a trashcan coming to life.
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. . .
For the record, you actually convinced me to watch the movies again. Some of the stuff your describing I guess I didn't have the attention for.
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Fun fact: My wife hasn't actually seen TFA, nor did I say anywhere that she had. Points deducted for reading comprehension failures.
@karajorma:
What you and I consider to be plot holes in this film obviously differ. Pretty much all the plot holes I readily come up with are only plot holes in the context of the SW universe, and not the plot of the film.
-Starkiller base origins? Only relevant if you consider the OT.
-Republic and its fleet? Ditto.
-Distinction between Rebels vs Republic vs Resistance? Yup, that too.
-Origin of the First Order? I see a continuing theme...
I challenge anyone here to identify a plot hole that exists solely within the context of the TFA script. Again, I've only seen it twice, but none spring to mind. The entire basis for criticism of the plot derives from the previous films. While I would have also preferred they clear some of those items up, it really isn't that important to the story TFA is telling - as Luis pointed out.
Disney could have made a direct-continuation-30-years-later-that-neatly-explains-all-the-backstory. They didn't. That's an artistic choice, and considering the way Han was used I think it was actually likely the appropriate one; TFA is very clearly the first of a trilogy about new characters in a universe that is substantially different from the one we left at the end of ROTJ, and filling in all those blanks in TFA wasn't necessary, or likely even desirable, in the context of its story. Rey and Finn are surrogates for a new generation of fans unfamiliar with the previous films; Han and crew were for the rest of us.
EDIT:
Deus ex machina is literally "god in the machine," or a supernatural or deific solution that occurs as a matter of happenstance in the mechanics of the world. "The Force" and all its miraculous qualities are quite LITERALLY the definition of this concept, to the point that Star Wars is laced with deus ex machina pieces from start to finish. If you're going to criticize these elements in the film, you might as well throw all seven of them out and go watch Babylon 5. This is one franchise where DEM invocation is not only permissible, it's appropriate.
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I challenge anyone here to identify a plot hole that exists solely within the context of the TFA script. Again, I've only seen it twice, but none spring to mind. The entire basis for criticism of the plot derives from the previous films. While I would have also preferred they clear some of those items up, it really isn't that important to the story TFA is telling - as Luis pointed out.
I've already pointed to the ridiculous coincidences multiple times.
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Coincidences abound in SW from the very beggining. Leia's ship is captured while trying to go to Alderaan, and the droids contanining important info just happen to fall down into Tatoine, mere miles from Luke's uncle who buys them. Luke, Darth Vader's son. "Nothing coincidental to see here, move along". And Ben Kenobi is just another few miles away from that point.
Leia Organa just happens to also be Luke's sister. It's all very natural these circumstances you see. A galaxy with an economy size that is able to build death stars is just filled with brothers and sisters who have meetups like these. Jango Fett, the guy who finds the Millenium Falcon after its cunning disguise as garbage just happens to be the son of the guy who was porsuing Ben Kenobi some 20 years ago.
Ridiculous coincidences are a Star Wars theme. Just have fun with them.
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I challenge anyone here to identify a plot hole that exists solely within the context of the TFA script. Again, I've only seen it twice, but none spring to mind. The entire basis for criticism of the plot derives from the previous films. While I would have also preferred they clear some of those items up, it really isn't that important to the story TFA is telling - as Luis pointed out.
I've already pointed to the ridiculous coincidences multiple times.
TBH if leaning on coincidence to heavily is a film's worse aspect then it is way ahead of the curve on the story quality curve than most electronic format entertainment
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I've already said it's a good film. I'm pissed off cause it could easily have been better if it wasn't for the lazy scriptwriting.
Coincidences abound in SW from the very beggining. Leia's ship is captured while trying to go to Alderaan, and the droids contanining important info just happen to fall down into Tatoine, mere miles from Luke's uncle who buys them. Luke, Darth Vader's son. "Nothing coincidental to see here, move along". And Ben Kenobi is just another few miles away from that point.
General Kenobi, years ago you served my father in the Clone Wars. Now he begs you to help him in his struggle against the Empire. I regret that I am unable to present my father's request to you in person, but my ship has fallen under attack and I'm afraid my mission to bring you to Alderaan has failed. I have placed information vital to the survival of the Rebellion into the memory systems of this R2 unit. My father will know how to retrieve it. You must see this droid safely delivered to him on Alderaan. This is our most desperate hour. Help me, Obi-Wan Kenobi, you're my only hope.
Yeah. It's a enormous ****ing coincidence! :rolleyes:
Leia Organa just happens to also be Luke's sister.
You think that it's possible that Leia's father who knows that she is Vader's daughter might have sent her to Obi-wan deliberately? Cause I don't find that to be an enormous stretch at all.
Jango Fett, the guy who finds the Millenium Falcon after its cunning disguise as garbage just happens to be the son of the guy who was porsuing Ben Kenobi some 20 years ago.
I think we all agree that the prequels were badly written. This kind of idiotic shoehorning in of earlier characters is a major part of the reason they were so bad. Plinkett even points out that the best thing about the prequels is that they didn't do this kind of idiocy to Han Solo too.
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Yeah you're right about the Leia / Ben Kenobi stuff.
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I challenge anyone here to identify a plot hole that exists solely within the context of the TFA script. Again, I've only seen it twice, but none spring to mind. The entire basis for criticism of the plot derives from the previous films. While I would have also preferred they clear some of those items up, it really isn't that important to the story TFA is telling - as Luis pointed out.
I've already pointed to the ridiculous coincidences multiple times.
1. Coincidences are not plot "holes." Plot holes are unacknowledged and unexplained; coincidences are acknowledged and carry minimal explanation. Coincidences are also acceptable in some circumstances as they do readily occur in real life as well.
2. Most, if not all, of those coincidences also refer back to the OT.
3. See point about "The Force" and DEM, above.
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Rey (and Finn) beating Kylo Ren didn't feel like a triumph, it felt contrived. There was no sense of accomplishment. At no point does it feel like the characters earned that victory (or any of their victories). Everything just felt like it was handed to them. Rey jumps in the Millennium Falcon and she can fly it well enough to outfly TIE fighters immediately. She can use the Force effortlessly 20 minutes after she learns she's Force-sensitive. She beats the film's main antagonist in a lightsaber duel the very first time she picks one up.
It took Luke three movies to beat Darth Vader in a duel. That scene had weight because of that. It had weight because the last time he fought Vader, he got his hand served to him on a platter. And that was after being trained by Yoda and Obi-Wan.
Forget ~plot holes~, this is the real problem with the film.
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She's a tad of a Mary Sue, but she sold it well. Regarding her defeating Kylo Ren, it stands to reason that Kylo is also a newbie regarding the force. His lightsaber is badly constructed, and although he knows a few tricks, it's not ridiculous the notion that he could be defeated by a female noob who perhaps has more natural talent than him.
The real test for Kylo was to confront his father and kill him (mirroring Luke's test), and he couldn't do it quite well. The Sith hologram says he has to complete this guy's training. His rash emotions when someone gives him bad news indicates he doesn't control the Force.
My guess is that both were written as "force newbs", one more natural talented, the other trying too much and in conflict with himself. In the second movie these two will have been trained. And I think Kylo will kick Rey's ass. I think it's a very easy guess, because frankly I don't see in all this story a huge amount of originality. Both the First Order and the Republic are now at open war and both have been dealt heavy blows. A huge investment of the First Order is destroyed, while several Republic planets are gone (Coruscant?). They will try to paint the second movie as "the darker one" (sigh), with the First Order fleet harrassing everyone and invading the Republic's territories all over. As I said, this will also be expressed by Kylo kicking Rey's ass.
In the third movie they will have to rally what's left of the Republic and try to defeat the Order. Rey will try to get Kylo back to the Light. If the writing is bad enough, she will be able to do this and we will realise they are brothers. I hope I'm wrong on that one.
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1. Coincidences are not plot "holes." Plot holes are unacknowledged and unexplained; coincidences are acknowledged and carry minimal explanation. Coincidences are also acceptable in some circumstances as they do readily occur in real life as well.
I've already been over that too. You want to say they aren't plot holes, fine. They're are still far too many of them and they're still proof of the lazy writing that runs throughout the film. If you didn't mind them good for you. But there are a lot of people who hated them.
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I challenge anyone here to identify a plot hole that exists solely within the context of the TFA script. Again, I've only seen it twice, but none spring to mind.
R2D2 activating at the end.
Kylo Ren knowing where to find Rey on both the smuggler world and Starkiller's forest.
The alien monsters capturing Finn when they've killed everyone else on sight.
And no, none of these are "coincidences".
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She's a tad of a Mary Sue, but she sold it well. Regarding her defeating Kylo Ren, it stands to reason that Kylo is also a newbie regarding the force. His lightsaber is badly constructed, and although he knows a few tricks, it's not ridiculous the notion that he could be defeated by a female noob who perhaps has more natural talent than him.
The real test for Kylo was to confront his father and kill him (mirroring Luke's test), and he couldn't do it quite well. The Sith hologram says he has to complete this guy's training. His rash emotions when someone gives him bad news indicates he doesn't control the Force.
My guess is that both were written as "force newbs", one more natural talented, the other trying too much and in conflict with himself. In the second movie these two will have been trained. And I think Kylo will kick Rey's ass. I think it's a very easy guess, because frankly I don't see in all this story a huge amount of originality. Both the First Order and the Republic are now at open war and both have been dealt heavy blows. A huge investment of the First Order is destroyed, while several Republic planets are gone (Coruscant?). They will try to paint the second movie as "the darker one" (sigh), with the First Order fleet harrassing everyone and invading the Republic's territories all over. As I said, this will also be expressed by Kylo kicking Rey's ass.
In the third movie they will have to rally what's left of the Republic and try to defeat the Order. Rey will try to get Kylo back to the Light. If the writing is bad enough, she will be able to do this and we will realise they are brothers. I hope I'm wrong on that one.
There is also the fact that Kylo had recently been hit in the leg by a boltcaster which has been shown multiple times to launch stormtroopers at will, so Kylo taking that hit with an outward response along the lines of "bugger, that is going to be a problem" I would suggest is causing him more problem than he is letting on
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Rey (and Finn) beating Kylo Ren didn't feel like a triumph, it felt contrived. There was no sense of accomplishment. At no point does it feel like the characters earned that victory (or any of their victories). Everything just felt like it was handed to them. Rey jumps in the Millennium Falcon and she can fly it well enough to outfly TIE fighters immediately. She can use the Force effortlessly 20 minutes after she learns she's Force-sensitive. She beats the film's main antagonist in a lightsaber duel the very first time she picks one up.
It took Luke three movies to beat Darth Vader in a duel. That scene had weight because of that. It had weight because the last time he fought Vader, he got his hand served to him on a platter. And that was after being trained by Yoda and Obi-Wan.
Forget ~plot holes~, this is the real problem with the film.
Obligatory reminder that Ren had not five minutes prior been shot in the hip with a Bowcaster, which had immediately obliterated whoever was on the receiving end through the entire movie, to the point of shattering entire plates of armor and sending the target flying twenty feet through the air. Repeatedly.
EDIT: or I could be beaten severely to the punch. Oh well.
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Those posts made me do a double-take. Nicely done, people!
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Rey (and Finn) beating Kylo Ren didn't feel like a triumph, it felt contrived. There was no sense of accomplishment. At no point does it feel like the characters earned that victory (or any of their victories). Everything just felt like it was handed to them. Rey jumps in the Millennium Falcon and she can fly it well enough to outfly TIE fighters immediately. She can use the Force effortlessly 20 minutes after she learns she's Force-sensitive. She beats the film's main antagonist in a lightsaber duel the very first time she picks one up.
It took Luke three movies to beat Darth Vader in a duel. That scene had weight because of that. It had weight because the last time he fought Vader, he got his hand served to him on a platter. And that was after being trained by Yoda and Obi-Wan.
Forget ~plot holes~, this is the real problem with the film.
Obligatory reminder that Ren had not five minutes prior been shot in the hip with a Bowcaster, which had immediately obliterated whoever was on the receiving end through the entire movie, to the point of shattering entire plates of armor and sending the target flying twenty feet through the air. Repeatedly.
Well yeah, the film did a decent job of explaining why Kylo lost the fight. That's not the issue. If Chewie had aimed a metre higher and blown his brains out that wouldn't have been a 'plot hole' but it'd have been a terrible narrative move.
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Rey is still somewhat of a Mary-Sue even if you don't count the lightsabre battle. She's certainly not the worst one I've ever seen but it is a little bit hard to buy that she's so good so quickly. Funnily enough though I never really had that much of a problem with that aspect of it.
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Yeah. TBH, I've had a feeling that we were, at some point, going to get a huge reveal that she is somehow related to the Luke, Leia or someone else that we know. Of course, the movie leaves us hanging, but that's not the only plot point with which it's done. I think she's only a Mary Sue if she doesn't have a good reason to be this powerful. I hope this does come up in the later movies, because it really seems like it should.
As for the lightsaber fight, not only was Kylo Ren shot (this probably interfered with his Force powers more than with fencing skill), but he was obviously a crappy fencer with a weapon unsuited for him. If you look at the scene, he's swinging that lightsaber like a club, trying to get Rey through brute force (something he's lacking at the moment). His weapon resembles a claymore, which can be fenced with, but this requires skill that he obviously doesn't have.
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The reason why Rey being a Mary Sue isn't a bothersome problem in the movie is because she isn't arrogant about it and hovering above everyone else around her. She's just trying to cope with whatever nightmare is befalling her and her acting is sufficiently good to put ourselves in her place of terror, despite her qualities.
For contrast, watch first episodes of Voyager and shriek in disgust on captain Janeway's version of what "Mary Sue" can imply.
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There is also the fact that Kylo had recently been hit in the leg by a boltcaster which has been shown multiple times to launch stormtroopers at will, so Kylo taking that hit with an outward response along the lines of "bugger, that is going to be a problem" I would suggest is causing him more problem than he is letting on
If it's not in the film, it didn't happen.
Could be mistaken but I don't recall any moment where his injury really inhibits his ability to fight. The direction instead is to portray him as a psychopath as he repeatedly punches his own blaster wound.
Yeah. TBH, I've had a feeling that we were, at some point, going to get a huge reveal that she is somehow related to the Luke, Leia or someone else that we know. Of course, the movie leaves us hanging, but that's not the only plot point with which it's done. I think she's only a Mary Sue if she doesn't have a good reason to be this powerful. I hope this does come up in the later movies, because it really seems like it should.
Rey is most likely either Luke or Leia's daughter. What would be the point of hiding who her parents are if they're not someone already in the film?
Though knowing JJ Abrams, it's not unlikely that he'll try a "clever twist"/feint of hand which turns out to be actually pretty stupid. Like trying to fool the audience into believing Benedict Cumberbatch is Gary Mitchell when in fact he was just stupid Khan. "The clever twist is that I'm really doing the dumb, low hanging fruit thing that everyone thought I'd do"
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Rey is most likely either Luke or Leia's daughter. What would be the point of hiding who her parents are if they're not someone already in the film?
Though knowing JJ Abrams, it's not unlikely that he'll try a "clever twist"/feint of hand which turns out to be actually pretty stupid. Like trying to fool the audience into believing Benedict Cumberbatch is Gary Mitchell when in fact he was just stupid Khan. "The clever twist is that I'm really doing the dumb, low hanging fruit thing that everyone thought I'd do"
If Ray isnt Luke's daughter.... Lets just say I will be extremely supprised
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Though knowing JJ Abrams, it's not unlikely that he'll try a "clever twist"/feint of hand which turns out to be actually pretty stupid. Like trying to fool the audience into believing Benedict Cumberbatch is Gary Mitchell when in fact he was just stupid Khan. "The clever twist is that I'm really doing the dumb, low hanging fruit thing that everyone thought I'd do"
If JJ Abrams was directing the next movie you could have a point. He isn't, though. Someone else will take over for the next one (forgot the name, but it's known already).
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Though knowing JJ Abrams, it's not unlikely that he'll try a "clever twist"/feint of hand which turns out to be actually pretty stupid. Like trying to fool the audience into believing Benedict Cumberbatch is Gary Mitchell when in fact he was just stupid Khan. "The clever twist is that I'm really doing the dumb, low hanging fruit thing that everyone thought I'd do"
If JJ Abrams was directing the next movie you could have a point. He isn't, though. Someone else will take over for the next one (forgot the name, but it's known already).
He's executive producer and is likely still involved in the creative process to some degree, or the second film may be following his initial story outline. He brought on Rian Johnson, during Episode VII to ensure a "smooth transition". And given the success of Episode VII, if Abrams did put down a roadmap, is Disney likely to abandon it?
I hope they at least get rid of Greg Grunberg for Episode VIII, don't need Abram's cronyism marring another film with that out-of-place goofball.
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Sidenote, point nobody's made yet: This movie makes its energy weapons feel surprisingly powerful. When we see blaster fire hit things, the results are usually more impressive than if we were watching an equivalently sized modern weapon at work. Chewie's bowcaster is an obvious example but even basic blasters show surprising destructive potential; Poe's X-wing being grounded by a hit on exposed machinery, the hits on the Falcon's hide producing surprisingly significant blasts though they don't penetrate, the firing of the TIE's cannons in the hanger and the X-Wing's cannons in CAS making big messes of things.
Blasters feel like more dangerous weapons now, and less like kid-friendly versions of firearms.
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Yes and no.
A blast from an X-wing's cannon only made some stormtroopers fall down with a little mark on their chest whereas a proper shot from a fighter should probably dismember a guy like C3PO was in Empire.
And while blaster bolts made quick work of Poe's X-Wing, they were also remarkably ineffective against the Tie Fighter in the hangar just a few minutes later when a dozen guys were shooting at Finn and Poe.
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And while blaster bolts made quick work of Poe's X-Wing, they were also remarkably ineffective against the Tie Fighter in the hangar just a few minutes later when a dozen guys were shooting at Finn and Poe.
You have trouble with concepts like exposed machinery, I see.
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Or shields. Poe was still bringing them up, the TIE was already shielded.
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And while blaster bolts made quick work of Poe's X-Wing, they were also remarkably ineffective against the Tie Fighter in the hangar just a few minutes later when a dozen guys were shooting at Finn and Poe.
You have trouble with concepts like exposed machinery, I see.
No, just faulty arguments.
Or shields. Poe was still bringing them up, the TIE was already shielded.
What evidence is there that the TIE was shielded?
In aerial combat over the smuggler world Poe was able to destroy 5-6 TIE fighters in quick succession. The rapidity at which he took them down suggests they don't have shields. This also occurred early in the fight when the TIE Fighters would have been fresh and undamaged.
JJ Abrams world of Star Wars is entirely inconsistent.
Hand guns destroy X-Wings in a couple of shots, but don't do the same with TIE Fighters. X-Wings blaster bolts tear apart TIE Fighters in one or two hits but do minimal (albeit lethal) damage against Stormtroopers, stormtroopers which are thrown by Bowcaster shots, a weapon which later causes only a small wound and no knockback against Kylo Ren (especially at a time when any knockback would be lethal).
Basically all weapons are powered by plot. They behave differently in various situations as the plot demands. And this lack of consistency lends itself to a less believable world.
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And while blaster bolts made quick work of Poe's X-Wing, they were also remarkably ineffective against the Tie Fighter in the hangar just a few minutes later when a dozen guys were shooting at Finn and Poe.
You have trouble with concepts like exposed machinery, I see.
No, just faulty arguments.
Or shields. Poe was still bringing them up, the TIE was already shielded.
What evidence is there that the TIE was shielded?
In aerial combat over the smuggler world Poe was able to destroy 5-6 TIE fighters in quick succession.
JJ Abrams world of Star Wars is entirely inconsistent.
Hand guns destroy X-Wings in a couple of shots, but don't do the same with TIE Fighters. X-Wings blaster bolts tear apart TIE Fighters in one or two hits but do minimal (albeit lethal) damage against Stormtroopers, stormtroopers which are thrown by Boltcaster (or whatever its called) shots, a weapon which later only cause a small wound against Kylo Ren.
Basically all weapons are powered by plot. They behave differently in various situations as the plot demands. And this lack of consistency lends itself to a less believable world.
You have it backwards. Poe's X-wing is not in flight, and is still unpowered when it is struck and disabled by a direct hit to the rear of the ship. The TIE Fighter was already up and flying by the time anything was even remotely close to shooting at it. We're told that these shields exist later in the movie, and that it took a bit for the shields to go up on the Falcon during Rey and Finn's escape. Why wouldn't the TIE have shields?
(and this is leaving aside that TIE/fo fighters have shields in the X-wing miniatures game and in the Episode VII visual dictionary, so in this case I'm arguing from a position of definitive fact, just backing it up with evidence you can pick up from the movie and only the movie)
The bowcaster doesn't launch Kylo Ren from the catwalk because that'd be a really ****ty way to end the movie, and then we'd be hearing you complain about that instead. It's established deliberately and repeatedly that it packs a serious punch, and your immediate interpretation when the big bad is shot and keeps going is that it's wildly inconsistent? Not that "wow, he took a hell of a shot and kept going!" or "Damn, that had to ****ing hurt, no wonder he lost the fight after."?
If you don't like it, that's too bad, but your hatred for this movie is well-established in its immunity to reason by now, so maybe you should just stop talking about it if it's all you've got to contribute.
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No, just faulty arguments.
It's literally shot in the only place where there's exposed machinery on the fighter, the rear center. Poe actually goes back and looks at the damage to confirm this.
The only faulty argument here is yours. Physician, heal thyself.
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What evidence is there that the TIE was shielded?
In aerial combat over the smuggler world Poe was able to destroy 5-6 TIE fighters in quick succession.
JJ Abrams world of Star Wars is entirely inconsistent.
Hand guns destroy X-Wings in a couple of shots, but don't do the same with TIE Fighters. X-Wings blaster bolts tear apart TIE Fighters in one or two hits but do minimal (albeit lethal) damage against Stormtroopers, stormtroopers which are thrown by Boltcaster (or whatever its called) shots, a weapon which later only cause a small wound against Kylo Ren.
Basically all weapons are powered by plot. They behave differently in various situations as the plot demands. And this lack of consistency lends itself to a less believable world.
You have it backwards. Poe's X-wing is not in flight, and is still unpowered when it is struck and disabled by a direct hit to the rear of the ship. The TIE Fighter was already up and flying by the time anything was even remotely close to shooting at it. We're told that these shields exist later in the movie, and that it took a bit for the shields to go up on the Falcon during Rey and Finn's escape. Why wouldn't the TIE have shields
I'm not arguing that the X-Wing isn't vulnerable.
Rather I'm examining the strength of the TIE Fighter throughout the movie. It's shown to be vulnerable to only one or two hits from an X-Wing. This very same X-wing is shown to have lethal, but otherwise minimal impact against ground-based targets. The damage that Po's fighter does to a stormtrooper is comparable in strength and impact to your regular blaster. So if only one or two shots from an X-Wing are able to disintegrate a fully operational Tie Fighter, why then can a Tie Fighter which is suspended in mid-air (ie a sitting duck) survive the attacks of a dozen or more stormtroopers?
The bowcaster doesn't launch Kylo Ren from the catwalk because that'd be a really ****ty way to end the movie, and then we'd be hearing you complain about that instead. It's established deliberately and repeatedly that it packs a serious punch, and your immediate interpretation when the big bad is shot and keeps going is that it's wildly inconsistent? Not that "wow, he took a hell of a shot and kept going!" or "Damn, that had to ****ing hurt, no wonder he lost the fight after."?
Actually I didn't care about that incident at all. It's an example you've offered earlier in the thread that I'm using to further illustrate a core failing of inconsistency in the movie. Thank you for drawing my attention to it.
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The TIE was not a sitting duck, it wasn't "suspended in mid air" by any measure. It was flailing around wildly attached to a mooring cable. You try to hit something like that with any degree of accuracy (even in a regular unrealistic FPS, enemies which do that tend to be really frustrating to hit). IRL, it's quite plausible that if you fired a machine gun at something moving that fast and randomly, you wouldn't score a single hit. Besides, didn't Poe say he was bringing up the shields when trying to take off in it?
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I like Alakabeth's contributions. They are hilarious, besides of anything else! :D
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The reason why Rey being a Mary Sue isn't a bothersome problem in the movie is because she isn't arrogant about it and hovering above everyone else around her. She's just trying to cope with whatever nightmare is befalling her and her acting is sufficiently good to put ourselves in her place of terror, despite her qualities.
Yep, that mostly covers why I wasn't too upset with her in this film. Of course that does mean that she's rather vulnerable to becoming annoying in the second film by which point she probably will have had some training and might not just be reacting. It will take a lot of skill to write her character in the next film given what we've already established she's capable of. Or at least to do it without making her suddenly seem to have powered down.
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The TIE was not a sitting duck, it wasn't "suspended in mid air" by any measure. It was flailing around wildly attached to a mooring cable. You try to hit something like that with any degree of accuracy (even in a regular unrealistic FPS, enemies which do that tend to be really frustrating to hit). IRL, it's quite plausible that if you fired a machine gun at something moving that fast and randomly, you wouldn't score a single hit. Besides, didn't Poe say he was bringing up the shields when trying to take off in it?
If Poe says he's bringing up the shields while still attached to the umbilical and before they leave the hangar great, if not, there's no rational in the movie for that ship not getting blown to pieces. A Tie Fighter is about 300m3 in volume and the troopers are about 30m away, the solar foils being about 48m2 each, it's irrational to assume that they couldn't land at least a couple of hits. And if Po doesn't specifically mention bringing up shields or if a diagram on his console doesn't convey the same information then there's no factual basis within the movie to assume it's any more durable than Po's Xwing beyond being a different make of craft. In that case, we examine other instances of the ship being destroyed in the movie and it proves in combat to be just as vulnerable to destruction as X-Wings are.
Don't forget that while the X-Wing was disabled by a couple of hits, it was also a few minutes later destroyed by only a couple more, which expresses the vulnerability of the craft as a whole not just the 'exposed wiring'.
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Mr. Angel,
While we respect your right to dislike the movie and disagree with people here, I can safely say this conversation is going nowhere. Regardless of the validity of your arguments, you will not convince anyone else here to dislike Ep. VII as much as you do.
There must be some more positive and productive use of your time.
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In other news, I liked the movie overall. I did feel it could've taken more time to slow down and breathe, rather than hurtling us from action sequence to action sequence, but it certainly kept a good clip. Definitely gave me that Star Wars feeling.
Finn was entertainingly adorkable, feeling the pressure of the situation he'd been thrust into. His character flaw of fear of the FO made sense, given that he was a janitor on their super superweapon, and he got over it without spending too much time angsting about it.
I'd like to see where Kylo Ren's arc will go in the next two films. Yeah, he's angsty, but he made a competent Dark Side villain. It was nice seeing him go from the menacing Darth Vader expy that he was at the beginning, to the conflicted young man he really was inside.
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Mr. Angel,
While we respect your right to dislike the movie and disagree with people here, I can safely say this conversation is going nowhere. Regardless of the validity of your arguments, you will not convince anyone else here to dislike Ep. VII as much as you do.
There must be some more positive and productive use of your time.
Analyzing and discussing the quality of a complex piece of media IS a productive use of time. And like Karajorma, Aesar and others who were similarly disappointed with the film I choose to discuss its merits here. But I appreciate that your concerned, it's very altruistic of you.
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everything you have said in this thread, akalabeth, is ****ing useless
you are pathologically incapable of holding a discussion without deciding that this hill, this hill of star wars episode seven being an unredeemable piece of ****, is the hill that you want to die on
you resort to the worst kind of pedantic drivel to flagellate a film which, at its worst, was 'okay'
will you please just shut up, this thread was worthwhile while you were banned
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Even if that's what you think, PH, you need to phrase it a lot better to not get a warning for it.
Anyone who responds in kind (even you, Akalabeth) will also receive a warning.
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It would have been better if they had setup an e-web to disable the T70. That said its the kind of issue most people who haven't memorized who Taim & Bak are will fret over.
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Finn was entertainingly adorkable, feeling the pressure of the situation he'd been thrust into. His character flaw of fear of the FO made sense, given that he was a janitor on their super superweapon, and he got over it without spending too much time angsting about it.
It always does make me wonder why on Earth the First Order would send a janitor on what is possibly their most important mission to date. My feeling is that someone misread Captain Phasma's mission briefing. They noticed that the briefing said that after they had regained the map they would sanitise the area and so they sent Finn along with a mop and bottle of Dettol. :p
It certainly would explain why he freaked the **** out so quickly the second he was in battle. He was expecting to do some cleaning and suddenly someone handed him a blaster and people started shooting at him. :D
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He was a sanitation worker when he worked at Starkiller Base; he's obviously not by the time the movie starts.
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He was a sanitation worker when he worked at Starkiller Base; he's obviously not by the time the movie starts.
He's obviously not battle-tested either if he cracked at the first sign of combat.
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He was a sanitation worker when he worked at Starkiller Base; he's obviously not by the time the movie starts.
He's obviously not battle-tested either if he cracked at the first sign of combat.
He literally says that to Rey, later in the movie.
Which is a non-issue, since real life is full of people breaking in their first combat. Even in elite units.
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He was a sanitation worker when he worked at Starkiller Base; he's obviously not by the time the movie starts.
He's obviously not battle-tested either if he cracked at the first sign of combat.
He literally says that to Rey, later in the movie.
Which is a non-issue, since real life is full of people breaking in their first combat. Even in elite units.
It's an issue so far as "elite units" typically means "battle-tested".
Units gain elite status through successes and measurable results, not through battlefield training. Veterans by definition are those that have seen combat, and typically the elite are the best of those veterans. And I don't believe there's anything in the dialogue to suggest that Finn is a war-weary veteran.
That said I don't believe it's ever stated that the troops on the mission were actually elite. KR and his cylon XO may have simply grabbed whoever was around. they're assaulting a defenseless village not a republic stronghold.
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It's an issue so far as "elite units" typically means "battle-tested".
Units gain elite status through successes and measurable results, not through battlefield training. Veterans by definition are those that have seen combat, and typically the elite are the best of those veterans.
Are you sure about that ? It was my understanding that elite units just meant the best, regardless of actual combat experience. For instance, the Foreign Legion has a reputation for being an elite unit in part due to the harshness of its training, but not every legionnaire has had actual combat experience.
Elite police units also spring to mind, I expect them to be selected, among other criteria, for being exceptionally good at their current job, but they won't have any field experience doing whatever the unit they get enrolled into typically does.
Some wiki links:
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/elite
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military_elite
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It's an issue so far as "elite units" typically means "battle-tested".
Units gain elite status through successes and measurable results, not through battlefield training. Veterans by definition are those that have seen combat, and typically the elite are the best of those veterans.
Are you sure about that ? It was my understanding that elite units just meant the best, regardless of actual combat experience. For instance, the Foreign Legion has a reputation for being an elite unit in part due to the harshness of its training, but not every legionnaire has had actual combat experience.
Elite police units also spring to mind, I expect them to be selected, among other criteria, for being exceptionally good at their current job, but they won't have any field experience doing whatever the unit they get enrolled into typically does.
Some wiki links:
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/elite
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military_elite
As the link describes, throughout history different units have been called elite for different reasons. Some politically and some based on merit. Sometime a person is recruited from training and sometimes they are recruited from existing units. Without knowing the political situation of either the galaxy or the First Order as a whole, it's unclear on what lines an elite First Order unit would be built.
In general however, I would suggest that the reason a unit is called elite is entirely dependent upon the political climate. If a unit for example gains the reputation of elite during wartime, it is likely due to success in combat. If a unit gains the reputation of elite in peace time, it's for political reasons or for 'in theory, on paper' reasons. Similarly in the British navy at the turn of last century, officers advanced in rank during peace time for political connections but in wartime officers more likely advanced in rank due to their combat record.
However if the First Order unit was indeed "elite" then it must be drawn on political lines, there would be no other rational explanation for its inclusion of a janitor. Though the exact method of assignment is unknown, the fact that Finn was assigned to sanitation makes it very likely that his combat or mental scores were too poor to be recruited by an elite unit based on merit. This is exacerbated by the fact he almost instantly broke in combat and subsequently disobeyed orders. Even in peacetime, the link you've provided describes for example the US military recruiting people based on mental toughness.
Though personally, despite the Emperor's claims to the contrary, I think there's only one classification of imperial trooper: fodder.
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He was a sanitation worker when he worked at Starkiller Base; he's obviously not by the time the movie starts.
I was being sarcastic in case you hadn't noticed. :p
Whoever decided to transfer him from sanitation duty probably had a really harsh quarterly review (assuming they didn't blow up with the base). :p As with A New Hope, some peon makes a tiny mistake (not shooting an escape pod / transferring someone from sanitation duty) and the result is a blown up Death Star.
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R2D2 activating at the end.
You mean R2D2 coincidentally coming back online after shutting down for a memory search (which is mentioned earlier), after the major events of the film are resolved? While it's a pretty big coincidence, it's not an actual hole in the plot. It happens; we don't actually require a technical explanation as to the why. Is it the best writing in the film? No; of course, neither is a rapidly-done technical analysis of a death star finding one little exhaust port in the span of a few hours in ANH. If we're going to call every convenient happening in the films a plot hole, again, the entire series is laced with them.
Kylo Ren knowing where to find Rey on both the smuggler world and Starkiller's forest.
TESB: Vader knows for a fact the crew of the Millenium Falcon is still alive and orders the fleet to continue searching, despite the damage sustained to the Imperial Ships.
The Force is used rampantly as a means of locating people throughout the series. Criticizing it here is just silly.
The alien monsters capturing Finn when they've killed everyone else on sight.
I'll give you that one; I'd forgotten about it. Yes, I recall thinking that they'd have to explain that away somehow but they never did.
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R2D2 activating at the end.
You mean R2D2 coincidentally coming back online after shutting down for a memory search (which is mentioned earlier), after the major events of the film are resolved?
Is finding luke a major event? It was after all presented as the driving force of events in the opening titles and drove the action for the first half of the movie.
Is it the best writing in the film? No; of course, neither is a rapidly-done technical analysis of a death star finding one little exhaust port in the span of a few hours in ANH. If we're going to call every convenient happening in the films a plot hole, again, the entire series is laced with them.
If the condition of your challenge to find plot holes is to examine the film on its own, apart from the other movies, don't you think that defending this movie using events from the others is a double standard?
Kylo Ren knowing where to find Rey on both the smuggler world and Starkiller's forest.
TESB: Vader knows for a fact the crew of the Millenium Falcon is still alive and orders the fleet to continue searching, despite the damage sustained to the Imperial Ships.
The Force is used rampantly as a means of locating people throughout the series. Criticizing it here is just silly.
Vader went to hoth to find luke.
Luke was on hoth when the Falcon left.
If Vader could find luke the way kylo finds rey, why didn't he capture him on the hoth Battlefield instead of searching the base?
The alien monsters capturing Finn when they've killed everyone else on sight.
I'll give you that one; I'd forgotten about it. Yes, I recall thinking that they'd have to explain that away somehow but they never did.
Cool thanks
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Vader went to hoth to find luke.
Luke was on hoth when the Falcon left.
If Vader could find luke the way kylo finds rey, why didn't he capture him on the hoth Battlefield instead of searching the base?
Maybe because it was, well, a battlefield? Sure, Vader was no slouch in combat, but strolling around (he couldn't run) with a lightsaber among heavy gunfire, speeders and all that might have seemed like a bad idea to him. He was nowhere near as agile as either Luke or Clone Wars-era Jedi who participated in battles. Hoth base was confined quarters, exactly the place where he had an advantage, as opposed to the very open battlefield.
The alien monsters capturing Finn when they've killed everyone else on sight.
I'll give you that one; I'd forgotten about it. Yes, I recall thinking that they'd have to explain that away somehow but they never did.
Someone on TVTropes figured it out: they weren't hungry anymore. We do see them stuff themselves on two pirate gangs before they grab hold of Finn. Not the best explanation, but one I'd have easily accepted had they referred to it in the movie (really, I can think of so many quips Han could deliver on that...). Plot armor is nothing new in SW movies, but leaving this hanging was a bit jarring.
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Honestly I didn't even bat an eye at the monster scene. It's the sort of tongue-in-cheek plot-armor moment that's occurred in countless works of all genres. Just laugh at it and move on.
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Why is anyone arguing the whole "How did Kylo Ren find Rey" instead of the much larger question of "How the hell did Hux find Kylo Ren and get him off the planet before it blew up"
This is going to be another one of those "JJ Abrams doesn't understand scale" excuses again. As if not understanding the size of a planet ISN'T a plot hole.
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Vader went to hoth to find luke.
Luke was on hoth when the Falcon left.
If Vader could find luke the way kylo finds rey, why didn't he capture him on the hoth Battlefield instead of searching the base?
Maybe because it was, well, a battlefield? Sure, Vader was no slouch in combat, but strolling around (he couldn't run) with a lightsaber among heavy gunfire, speeders and all that might have seemed like a bad idea to him. He was nowhere near as agile as either Luke or Clone Wars-era Jedi who participated in battles. Hoth base was confined quarters, exactly the place where he had an advantage, as opposed to the very open battlefield.
The Imperial General called for Vader on the verge of their victory.
When Luke was chasing down an AT-AT to throw a thermal detonator inside, the rebel defense was already in full retreat. He was essentially alone, behind enemy lines with little more than a few die-hard snow speeders opposing them.
So would it be safer for Vader to assault a Rebel base? Or safer to pick up Luke behind Imperial lines?
Why is anyone arguing the whole "How did Kylo Ren find Rey" instead of the much larger question of "How the hell did Hux find Kylo Ren and get him off the planet before it blew up"
And he's not the only one who got saved either if rumors are to be believed.
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Hell, why don't we just mention the map and be done with it. The map is a massive plot hole in that nothing about it is explained in the film at any point. Hell, they don't even bother to lampshade that there should be an explanation like they do with the lightsabre.
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Hell, why don't we just mention the map and be done with it. The map is a massive plot hole in that nothing about it is explained in the film at any point. Hell, they don't even bother to lampshade that there should be an explanation like they do with the lightsabre.
This sentence makes me doubt you're using the phrase "plot hole" correctly. It's explicitly stated several times that the map is to the location of Luke Skywalker. Poe is trying to get the previously missing piece to a place it can be put together. What else needs to be explained? Do you want them to name random planets that are marked on the map? Name the planet Luke is on for no other reason than to have a name for it? Have characters point out familiar landmarks for the viewer?
Doing a keyword search on the script for "Luke" reveals that the purpose of the map is explained five times by main characters during the movie. Come on, Kara.
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Why does the empire have the map with the same missing piece? Why does some guy on that planet have the missing piece, where did he get it from? Why does R2D2 also have the rest of the map? What the **** were the resistance going to do if it didn't turn out that R2D2 had the rest of the map? Most importantly, who made the map in the first place?
Seriously, if you can't understand that these are questions a viewer might have, perhaps you should can the sarcasm.
Poe is trying to get the previously missing piece to a place it can be put together.
Completely and utterly wrong. The resistance DO NOT have the rest of the map. R2D2 has it and no one is aware of that fact. C-3PO even has a go at BB-8 for believing that R2 might have the rest. The resistance believed the map was complete.
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Why is anyone arguing the whole "How did Kylo Ren find Rey" instead of the much larger question of "How the hell did Hux find Kylo Ren and get him off the planet before it blew up"
yeah, because nobody's ever heard of a tracking device in this universe
oh wait
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What? You think Kylo Ren has a GPS tracker on him?
Well it's possible, but it's still pretty odd that he would consent to it. And it's really bad writing to pull that out of your arse when it was never mentioned in the film. Plot holes aren't necessarily unexplainable, they are unexplained. Kylo Ren getting picked is definitely a plot hole.
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This is going to be another one of those "JJ Abrams doesn't understand scale" excuses again. As if not understanding the size of a planet ISN'T a plot hole.
That's not an excuse in my eyes, it's a very poignant accusation. Quite accurate, IMHO.
Then again, in ESB the Falcon goes straight into an impossible asteroid field cluelessly just after leaving Hoth a few km/s tops. Ah, fantasy science fiction, how does it work?
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Why is anyone arguing the whole "How did Kylo Ren find Rey" instead of the much larger question of "How the hell did Hux find Kylo Ren and get him off the planet before it blew up"
yeah, because nobody's ever heard of a tracking device in this universe
Was one mentioned? The audience should not need to make excuses to cover up a hole in the story.
Here's a better way to tell the story, a way that takes as much time but actually makes sense:
<In the Forest>
Kylo Ren takes out a communicator: "I need help, help me . . . "
<At the Base>
Imperial Leader: "We're evacuating"
Comms Officer: "I've got a signal from Lord Ren, he's requesting help. Signal's coming from outside the base."
Imperial Leader: "Get a retrieval shuttle out there. Track his signal!"
Done. Makes sense. No plot hole. Gives Kylo Ren some character/weakness.
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This is going to be another one of those "JJ Abrams doesn't understand scale" excuses again. As if not understanding the size of a planet ISN'T a plot hole.
That's not an excuse in my eyes, it's a very poignant accusation. Quite accurate, IMHO.
Then again, in ESB the Falcon goes straight into an impossible asteroid field cluelessly just after leaving Hoth a few km/s tops. Ah, fantasy science fiction, how does it work?
1) We don't actually know how much time passes between the Falcon taking off and them flying into the asteroid. Enough time for Hoth to not be visible in a single shot, certainly.
2) I was challenged to find a plot hole which didn't depend on the old films. I found one. If Empire Strikes Back has a similar flaw it would still be okay because Empire didn't have tonnes of other plot holes too.
3) I've always had less of a problem with errors in science (that only someone with specialised knowledge would see) than I have with errors in basic common sense. If instead of happening on a starkiller the same issue had happened in a small city with General Hux driving a car people would find it equally stupid even though scale wouldn't change one iota.
Here's a better way to tell the story, a way that takes as much time but actually makes sense:
<In the Forest>
Kylo Ren takes out a communicator: "I need help, help me . . . "
<At the Base>
Imperial Leader: "We're evacuating"
Comms Officer: "I've got a signal from Lord Ren, he's requesting help. Signal's coming from outside the base."
Imperial Leader: "Get a retrieval shuttle out there. Track his signal!"
Done. Makes sense. No plot hole. Gives Kylo Ren some character/weakness.
You've basically summed up my entire problem with the films. They took lazy shortcuts when they didn't have to. Plinkett gives high praise to the scene in Empire where Vader is given information about the hunt for the Falcon, and rightly so. They took the chance to give us a whole bunch more exposition than was said in words. A lot of the arguments by people who didn't mind the plot holes is that the film wouldn't be as good if they'd tried to explain things. As you've pointed out, you could have used a scene filling in the plot hole to give us EXTRA information about the characters.
It's just the sheer laziness of the film that annoys me. Sometimes it doesn't even make sense. The scene where Finn battles with a random stormtrooper the first time he uses a lightsabre. Not only does it seem to make little sense that the stormtrooper would drop his weapons to fight Finn (yeah, maybe he has some motivation but we're never told what it is!) but they actually HAVE a character who does have a motivation to have that battle with Finn and yet for some reason I can't fathom that battle ISN'T with Captain Phasma.
Seriously, why? :confused:
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1) We don't actually know how much time passes between the Falcon taking off and them flying into the asteroid. Enough time for Hoth to not be visible in a single shot, certainly.
It was previously established that a ship would meet a destroyer once it got out of the planet. Once the Falcon goes to space, the next scene we have is itself being porsued by some meters by a destroyer. Yes, they didn't show Hoth, because they were in "space" now (scale problems again). Curiously they failed to do this error in ANH's escape from Tatooine. Nevertheless they go from "we gotta fix this hyperdrive ****" to "Go up here Han", wow suddenly we are in this massive asteroid field that they somehow missed in their scanners right until they got there.
You can't go from "do these guys even understand the scale of a planet" to "I don't really care about scientific innacuracies" that fast man. You know, 14 parsecs' time. Or was it 12?
You also accuse the movie of being lazy, and I kinda see your point. Things just "seem to happen". I think you're overcriticizing it, but it's not an unfair analysis. They went from boring exposition in the prequels into NO EXPOSITION, ACTION ACTION ACTION. I do hope they reach a better harmony between the two of those next time.
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When I am king the phrase 'plot hole' will be subject to a blanket ban.
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You can't go from "do these guys even understand the scale of a planet" to "I don't really care about scientific innacuracies" that fast man.
Yeah I can. In Empire Strikes Back the scientific errors never really got anywhere as stupid or as common as they were in TFA. Hell, you've forgiven all of them in TFA. Why? Cause they didn't spoil your enjoyment of the film. And that's the ONLY criteria that matters. In the original trilogy the errors basically fit into rule of cool. In TFA it's more like rule of lazy scriptwriting.
You also accuse the movie of being lazy, and I kinda see your point. Things just "seem to happen". I think you're overcriticizing it, but it's not an unfair analysis. They went from boring exposition in the prequels into NO EXPOSITION, ACTION ACTION ACTION. I do hope they reach a better harmony between the two of those next time.
I've said I liked the film. I'm just pissed off that the laziness involved made it a worse film than it needed to be. This is a film that could have been great but instead it was rushed and turned out merely good. Worse it did so cause of the same mistakes that the director has been criticised for before, so it's not like nothing could have been done to solve them. Surely JJ Abrams could have spared a few thousand out the the multimillion dollar budget to have hired a guy to slap his face whenever he forgot about scale again! Hell, I'd do it for free. :p
As I've pointed out, nothing in the original trilogy annoys me enough that it pulls me out of the film. None of the nitpicks that people keep mentioning in this thread slap you across the face and say "This was lazy scriptwriting." In TFA I saw tonnes of examples. And the problem is that most of them were completely unnecessary.
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1) Why does the empire have the map with the same missing piece? 2) Why does some guy on that planet have the missing piece, where did he get it from? 3) Why does R2D2 also have the rest of the map? 4) What the **** were the resistance going to do if it didn't turn out that R2D2 had the rest of the map? 5) Most importantly, who made the map in the first place?
Seriously, if you can't understand that these are questions a viewer might have, perhaps you should can the sarcasm.
Poe is trying to get the previously missing piece to a place it can be put together.
Completely and utterly wrong. The resistance DO NOT have the rest of the map. R2D2 has it and no one is aware of that fact. C-3PO even has a go at BB-8 for believing that R2 might have the rest. The resistance believed the map was complete.
As I suspected, you are in fact using the phrase "plot hole" incorrectly. A plot hole is not something which leaves the viewer with a question, a plot hole is a logical inconsistency within a story. If the answer to the question "why" is not explicitly stated in the movie, that does not make it a plot hole. If something happens that logically could not happen based on other events in the story, that's a plot hole.
I've numbered your questions so I don't have to quote chain battle you here.
1) A direct quote from the movie.
He's carrying a section of a
navigational chart. We have the
rest, recovered from archives of the
Empire. We need the last piece.
If your question is "why is the Empire's copy incomplete, too", that's not a plot hole for the reasons I mention above. There could be any number of reasons, from R2 accessing the archives and deleting it, to something happening to it during another battle, to it being corrupted when the Death Star exploded. If someone can explain it without contradicting something else in the movie it is not a plot hole.
2)
"The General." To me, she's royalty.
Well, she certainly is that.
Clearly he knows Leia already. It's not a stretch to assume that Luke also knows him, and would trust him with the bit of the map. "Why would Luke trust the old guy?" Not a plothole, see above.
3) See the answer to question #1. Additionally:
The story group’s thinking went back to the 1977 original movie, when R2-D2 accessed the Empire’s mainframe as the heroes searched for the captured Princess Leia. “We had the idea about R2 plugging into the information base of the Death Star, and that’s how he was able to get the full map and find where the Jedi temples are,” Arndt said.
Abrams says he chose to spell this out indirectly in the movie because he didn’t want the story to get bogged down in “how **** happened 30 years ago.”
A shame that Mr. Abrams didn't understand how anal Star Wars fans are about everything. :P
4) Probably not find Luke! That seems like a reasonable outcome based on the starting point and possible events. How is this a plot hole, again? The protagonists basing their hopes and futures on one plan with no backups is not only a regular occurrence in Star Wars, but a goddamn theme unto itself.
5) See #3. Also, see #1 for why this isn't a plot hole.
In summary: Questions aren't plot holes. If you're unsatisfied with something, that doesn't make it a plot hole. You are allowed to be personally unsatisfied with the movie. This does not make it a movie full of plot holes.
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Is finding luke a major event? It was after all presented as the driving force of events in the opening titles and drove the action for the first half of the movie.
And? The fact that R2D2 has the map (which is incidentally explained in TFA by exposition [C3P0 interpreting for R2, I believe], reminding the audience that R2 accessed the Imperial network in the previous films) is not itself a plot hole, and his timely reactivation is a convenient coincidence but not actually a hole either.
If the condition of your challenge to find plot holes is to examine the film on its own, apart from the other movies, don't you think that defending this movie using events from the others is a double standard?
Not when you're relying on facts that are identical to those in the previous films to claim holes in the latest one.
Vader went to hoth to find luke.
Luke was on hoth when the Falcon left.
If Vader could find luke the way kylo finds rey, why didn't he capture him on the hoth Battlefield instead of searching the base?
Great question! On the other hand, how does Vader know Leia/Han are headed to Bespin? How does Vader know Luke is on one tiny shuttle flying down to Endor? How does Luke see a "city in the clouds" when Yoda is literally instructing him in Force Sight? How does the Emperor know Luke will come to Vader?
The Force is rampantly used without apology throughout all seven films. Like I said, you can't be claiming that it's not a problem in the earlier films and it IS a problem in the latest one. From the first third of A New Hope, Star Wars audiences have been asked to accept implausible knowledge and implausible coincidences in the name of the Force. How is this new in TFA?
As I've pointed out, nothing in the original trilogy annoys me enough that it pulls me out of the film. None of the nitpicks that people keep mentioning in this thread slap you across the face and say "This was lazy scriptwriting." In TFA I saw tonnes of examples. And the problem is that most of them were completely unnecessary.
Watch them again on Blu-ray. You'll probably change your mind. There's a ridiculous number of things I'm noticing now that irk me just as much as anything in TFA.
One point I mentioned earlier in the thread and kind of got left hanging was plot-line relevance. ANH isn't bad, and ROTJ is pretty solid as well, but TESB has a solid half-hour of Vader pursuing the Falcon and Han and Leia that is totally irrelevant to the overall story. From the moment they left Hoth to the moment they arrive in Bespin is a foray that is supposed to flesh out their "love story" but really doesn't.
I guess the reason I really don't understand the hate some people are throwing at TFA is that the OT is by no means a masterpiece of tight writing, character development, or acting. They are good, entertaining movies that occupy a warm place in my thoughts, but the more criticism I read of TFA, the more I think it's driven half by rose-coloured-nostalgic glasses and half by a dislike of Abrams in general (who I actually don't mind at all).
Much like the Star Trek reboots (which I've also enjoyed), he added a distinct pacing change and general-audience entertainment to the Star Wars universe, and my personal suspicion is a lot of fan-boys (not you, kara, to be clear) are whining because they see it as an assault on the purity of their domains. To which my general reaction is.... "d'aaaaawwwww, princess."
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tbf to Abrams, I liked his first Star Trek and his second will probably be miles better than the third one, which could have been written by some Fast and the Furious script writers (they got the director, so it's almost there).
I think TFA was exactly what I expected from Abrams: a fast pacing movie without hiccups, immensely entertaining, funny and joyful, with good acting and a satisfying arc of a story. Filled with a lack of concern for details and one or two Joss Whedon-like one-liners (Han Solo's "It's bigger so what" ).
Now that the movie didn't suck and actually lived on those expectations, people ask, "why couldn't it be a better movie, I'm angry at that!", well, masterpieces are extremely rare and immensely hard to build. I feel exactly zero entitlenessness to have these movies be crazy good.
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Is finding luke a major event? It was after all presented as the driving force of events in the opening titles and drove the action for the first half of the movie.
And? The fact that R2D2 has the map (which is incidentally explained in TFA by exposition [C3P0 interpreting for R2, I believe], reminding the audience that R2 accessed the Imperial network in the previous films) is not itself a plot hole, and his timely reactivation is a convenient coincidence but not actually a hole either.
You claimed it was not a big deal because all of the major events of the film had already ended. I'm saying finding Luke is a major event, so it is a big deal.
It's Deus Ex Machina is what it is. An unforeseen event solving an impossible problem.
A solution to a problem which references no specific event or film but rather on the general idea that R2D2 once plugged into the Death Star so he downloaded all their emails.
This is also taking place in a universe where the Millenium Falcon's star charts are detailed enough to have information on meteor showers in the Alderan system. But where allegedly half the universe has lost the map of hundreds or thousands of stars easily observable by telescope.
Vader went to hoth to find luke.
Luke was on hoth when the Falcon left.
If Vader could find luke the way kylo finds rey, why didn't he capture him on the hoth Battlefield instead of searching the base?
Great question! On the other hand, how does Vader know Leia/Han are headed to Bespin?
Boba Fett.
It's the only thing of value he does.
How does Vader know Luke is on one tiny shuttle flying down to Endor?
Because he's met him before and has a connection to him.
That's the one consistency in TFA as well. People strong in the force can get an idea of where someone they've already met is, or at least where someone who is also strong in the force is when nearby. It's used three to four times. Vader when he feels Obi Wan in ANH. Vader when he sense Luke in ESB, AFTER they've met face to face. Vader/Luke in RoTJ After they've met face to face in ESB, Leia sensing roughly where longtime friend Luke is and in TFA for Kylo Ren who senses his Dad.
There's never been a time where a force user has been shown to sense and know where a stranger is.
Vader couldn't sense the location of the Falcon in the asteroids.
He couldn't sense that it was attached to the Avenger.
I would even argue that his claim they were still alive in the asteroid field was a hunch, not a force-based premonition. Or maybe at best he can sense they're alive but not when a non-force user is nearby. This would incidentally make its use in TFA inconsistent as well since Han Solo is not someone strong in the force and should arguably not be able to be sensed. But this is not fully established. It's simply the pattern that every previous instance follows.
How does Luke see a "city in the clouds" when Yoda is literally instructing him in Force Sight? How does the Emperor know Luke will come to Vader?
Because that's called premonition.
Not omniscience.
They have a vision of the future not absolute knowledge of the present.
Yoda even defines such premonitions as based on feelings.
Further, Vader's ultimate betrayal of the Emperor demonstrates that their these premonitions are at best rough ideas and not reliable.
The Force is rampantly used without apology throughout all seven films. Like I said, you can't be claiming that it's not a problem in the earlier films and it IS a problem in the latest one. From the first third of A New Hope, Star Wars audiences have been asked to accept implausible knowledge and implausible coincidences in the name of the Force. How is this new in TFA?
When is Kylo Ren shown using the force to find Rey? Did I miss a scene where he says "I sense someone strong in the force, this way!" Instead just shows up out of the blue. Twice. In fact he finds her in two strange forests that he's probably never been to before but he can't find her on his own base when he knows she's escaped.
In any case, back to my original example, on Hoth the force didn't help Vader, because he didn't know Luke at the time. So it should not help Kylo Ren find Rey on the smuggler world. It's a plothole even if you view it in light of the other movies. The only time a person tracks down another person using the force is when Vader confronts Obi Wan on the Death star.
But as for Rey, finding her could be as easy as two lines of dialogue.
"Lord Ren, troopers have sighted a woman in the outlying forest who matches the description."
"Tell them to hang back, I will confront her myself."
Bam. Done. Plot hole filled.
tbf to Abrams, I liked his first Star Trek and his second will probably be miles better than the third one, which could have been written by some Fast and the Furious script writers (they got the director, so it's almost there).
I think TFA was exactly what I expected from Abrams: a fast pacing movie without hiccups, immensely entertaining, funny and joyful, with good acting and a satisfying arc of a story. Filled with a lack of concern for details and one or two Joss Whedon-like one-liners (Han Solo's "It's bigger so what" ).
Now that the movie didn't suck and actually lived on those expectations, people ask, "why couldn't it be a better movie, I'm angry at that!", well, masterpieces are extremely rare and immensely hard to build. I feel exactly zero entitlenessness to have these movies be crazy good.
Excellence was never achieved by rewarding mediocrity.
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Vader didn't capture Luke on Hoth because that wasn't his plan. He did meet his "Force signature" before, in ANH's endgame. His plan was to destroy the rebellion for good. That's why he chased Leia. Then both he and the emperor figure out (somehow, by intel? by reasoning? by sensing?) that the "son" of Anakin Skywalker is alive and with the rebellion. So after getting the rebellion boss (Leia), he uses her as bait for Luke, who now seems to be even more important than Leia herself.
ESB's plot is tight. Very tight. It has some problems (and some I have already mentioned), but obviously TFA will lose a battle against ESB in writing tightness and consistency.
Although there is a huge plot hole in ESB. We never get why Vader simply goes away when Luke lets himself fall down. Vader is a corpse in motion, he should know that the Force is something that keeps you alive. He already sensed Luke's presence very well. Why did he waste time to get to his SuperStarDestroyer instead of making a search for the body himself? I never fully swallowed that part.
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Excellence was never achieved by rewarding mediocrity.
I haven't realised someone here had awarded TFA with a... how did you put it, "reward", or something, so... kindly take your advises elsewhere? SIGH.
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Vader didn't capture Luke on Hoth because that wasn't his plan.
(https://i.ytimg.com/vi/fm_4WaPbbK0/hqdefault.jpg)
Excellence was never achieved by rewarding mediocrity.
I haven't realised someone here had awarded TFA with a... how did you put it, "reward", or something, so... kindly take your advises elsewhere? SIGH.
It's been "rewarded" with 1.93 Billion dollars as well as glowingly positive reviews. 1.93 Billion which has in part come from multiple viewings by single individuals. That and an RT score of 93%.
There's zero incentive for Disney to do anything different in the next few movies. In fact there's strong incentive to do a movie which has exactly the same elements on the assumption that the same formula will yield the same profit the same way the other studio keeps churning out Transformers movies which are at best mediocre but make a ton of cash. For anyone thinking "this one did okay, but I hope the next one will be better" I suspect you'll be disappointed. Because why would they? There's zero incentive to make a movie any smarter or tighter when they receive universal praise and they've made more money than any movie in history (inflation aside).
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It's just the sheer laziness of the film that annoys me. Sometimes it doesn't even make sense. The scene where Finn battles with a random stormtrooper the first time he uses a lightsabre... they actually HAVE a character who does have a motivation to have that battle with Finn and yet for some reason I can't fathom that battle ISN'T with Captain Phasma.
Seriously, why? :confused:
This bugged the crap out of me too. Seeing all the attention memetic stormtrooper "TR-8R" is getting just makes me more upset at the lost potential here.
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Of course, as per the opening crawl, Vader knew who Luke was. His little chat with the Emperor isn't about anyone having just found out Luke exists, but about "a great disturbance in the Force", which is logical to assume to refer to Luke meeting Yoda.
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Damn I hadn't noticed that, and I saw that **** just a few weeks ago :D.
Well, Luke did flee before Vader arrived. So I think that's enough excuse.
Regarding billions. Who ****ing cares about billions of dollars in movies except the companies themselves? I really couldn't give a damn, especially since Trasnsformers.
ANH did *amazingly well* for the time (hell, it changed the entire movie industry), and still we got ourselves a better sequel. So I might be disappointed, but then again I might not. Bonus points: Abrams won't direct it.
I could have thought of zillions of ways this movie could have just gone off the rails, and the fact that it didn't pleases me enough. You, OTOH, are the perfectionist we are all acquainted by now, it doesn't surprise me that you rant about it. However, expecting something "smart" to come out of a Star Wars movie... I mean, come on man. If you want something smart there's tons of smarter ****s in the world. Really. Star Wars is a spectacle, not a "smart" movie. For something smart, go see something smaller like Ex Machina or Children of Men.
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Damn I hadn't noticed that, and I saw that **** just a few weeks ago :D.
Well, Luke did flee before Vader arrived. So I think that's enough excuse.
Luke is literally walking through the snow to a rebel staging area at the exact moment the Millenium Falcon flies skyward, he turns and watches it go, this is the same Falcon which just a moment ago left Darth Vader in the hangar of the rebel base with a squad of stormtropers. Luke was still on Hoth. He was destroying an AT-AT on foot when the rebels were already running from the trenches
@ https://youtu.be/HgY3rOOascY?t=7m15s The Imperial Troops enter the base. Leia calls the retreat. The battle is lost.
Darth Vader is in the base, while Luke skywalker is still on thbattlefield. When the rebels are running for the hills he's still among their forces, vulnerable to capture, destroying an AT-AT.
@ https://youtu.be/HgY3rOOascY?t=10m48s Vader is in the base, watching the ship fly away. Luke is walking through the snow, turns to see it go.
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Yeah, he's not in the base. He's well outside of it going into his XWing.
Which, in turn, can be turned into quite the PLOT HOLE in ESB. If the WHOLE point of Vader going to Hoth was to "capture Luke", why did he pursue the Millenium Falcon in the first place? Why didn't he sense he was not there? Why did he even go down there and not wait in orbit now that the ion cannons were disabled (due to the power plant being destroyed)? Why wasn't Luke's XWing bothered by anyone at all? Why wasn't his XWing giving cover to other transports exactly like how Leia commanded them (there was only "two" per transport, remember?).
No, he's all by himself and no one bothers him and he couldn't give a damn about the other transports. We just assume they are all ok, despite them fleeing mostly at the same time that the Falcon did and the Falcon had lots of troubles getting the empire off its tail.
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Yeah, he's not in the base. He's well outside of it going into his XWing.
Yeah the point is, that despite the full resources of the Empire and being a force user, Vader cannot find Luke. He is only able to confront Luke when Luke chooses to seek him out. Both in ESB and RotJ. The best he can do is bait him with his friends.
This is a dynamic which is gone in the new movie. The First Order knows where everything is, almost all the time.
They have the original maps. They know the resistance base. They know the key republic worlds and fleet location. They know about the secret map Po wants. They have spies on the smuggler world. They have Informers on Jakku. Kylo can find Rey on the smuggler world, on Starkiller, can find his father on Starkiller, can sense doubt in Finn, can sense Po in the hills. Random troopers know exactly who Finn is (which is doubly funny given they don't seem to often remove their helmets.). Finn, a janitor, even knows everything there is to know about Starkiller base (except the shield controls, but he knows where to instantly find Captain Phasma). And once he mentions it, the Resistance instantly has scouts there and knows about whether their shield is up or not which they can communicate to Po in hyperspace. The First Order also knows where to find Kylo Ren when he's wounded. Etcetera
People know everything. Nobody has to think.
And as an animator, I can tell that one of the key aspects of making a character seem alive, is giving them time to think.
Having characters know everything also eliminates another factor: suspense. When the Avenger loses the Falcon, we the audience can wonder what happened to it the same way that Vader and its Captain wonder. And when we are shown, we receive some delight at the surprise. Delight which is undercut by the revelation that a bounty hunter is just as smart and is following him. Then the suspense again. "What is happening? Who shot C3PO? Leia's worried. Oh ****, it's Vader, etcetera."
So instead of the question, can Rey evade the Empire on the smuggler world. Can she hide? We just cut right to "oh ****, there's Kylo out of nowhere, who's going to win the fight?". Let's have action.
Instead of the question, "both the resistance and empire were informed, what will happen?" The Imperials just come and trash the place. And then the resistance trashes the imperials. Until its time for the Imperials to leave at which point the Resistance will completely ignore them and let them get away. Basically just action, a big battle! "wowsers! So cool". Howabout instead a moment where the resistance pilots say "That's Kylo Ren's ship, he's getting away! Let's take it down". We think can Po save the day, kill the bad guy? Will he accidently kill Rey? Will Finn look up, and watch helplessly as the resistance indirectly tries to kill this girl he likes when they attack the Imperial evacuation? No Po's not even going to try. He's had enough showing off for one day and is content with just shooting some soldiers and TIE Fighters. It allows Han and them to have some more action, but at no point will the audience get the chance to worry about what's going on. To feel suspense.
That's the core complaint. A complain which manifests itself in many different ways and many different forms throughout the film. It boils down to a lack of intelligence in the film and a movie, which has great characters and great star wars elements but which as a story is a failure.
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Which, in turn, can be turned into quite the PLOT HOLE in ESB. If the WHOLE point of Vader going to Hoth was to "capture Luke", why did he pursue the Millenium Falcon in the first place? Why didn't he sense he was not there?
I've always assumed he specifically wanted the Falcon because he knew it was the very recognizable ship used by Luke's friends, who he wanted to use as bait in case Luke would slip away. Also the Falcon really ruined his day in ANH, so he could have marked the ship as a priority target simply because of that.
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Oh sure, I'm just using Alakabeth's style of hyperskepticism and hypercriticism to ESB rather than in TFA, which I disagree with, even though I do admit that the imperfections he points to are mostly there in the movie.
Remember, Vader can't run, so why the hell did he go down there? The objective was established, to destroy the energy generator that was creating the deflector shield. Heavy bombardment from space of all the transports that were in PLAIN SIGHT should have followed. Vader should be in space waiting for all the fleeing ships, if Luke's "powerful" he should be able to flee. Check every ship that flees and trace their path.
Instead the only thing he manages to do is losing time by landing and watching one of the last ships going away, and now he has to lose more time getting into a shuttle to board the SSD.
And, as I said, Luke couldn't care **** about that last transport's safety now that the planets' shield is down and there are no Ion cannons to paralize the SDs, and just uses his XWing to go about his own way, unbothered by the imperial fleet upstairs.
Cinematically it works beautifully. The scene where we see the MF getting shot by stormtroopers and Han machinegunning them, finally being able to flee, followed by Vader walking through the rubble which signals the Empire's total victory on this battle, but is just able to watch the MF flee away. Then we see Luke watching it go, it's all very beautiful.
But if you analyse it like I did above, it makes no sense whatsoever.
Let me give you another example. The Millenium Falcon was being searched by a whole fleet. Super Star Destroyers, Destroyers, Tie Fighters, all the shebangs. And yet, Darth Vader finds the time to call half a dozen bounty hunters to track it down. It makes zero sense. And boy were they quick to reach for Vader. More to the point, half a dozen smart pants are not comparable to a whole super fleet by several orders of magnitude. From a storytelling perspective, it makes perfect sense though: it prepares us for the moment when Fett finds the MF because he does not think like the Empire, and his thinking process is much more like Han's, and that's what the filmmaker wanted to relay to the audience: Han Solo tricked the empire but didn't trick a third party (because he wasn't counting on him). But the sequence of events make little sense. And contrast Vader's micro-management with these four or eight bounty hunters with the total carelessness that he watches one of his captains die in front of him (holographically) when one meteor destroys a whole Destroyer.
I could go on. Luke's XWing falls down on Degobah, right? 100 meters or so from Yoda's house. BUT HEY, that was the "Force", right? Or was that JJ Abram's "lack of understanding scale"?
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Oh sure, I'm just using Alakabeth's style of hyperskepticism and hypercriticism to ESB rather than in TFA, which I disagree with, even though I do admit that the imperfections he points to are mostly there in the movie.
<snip>
Except almost all of your complaints are about character motivation, a topic which is only really used when a character does something outside of what they normally do. When they break character.
Incidentally, no one is complaining about character motivation with The Force Awakens, but rather about character knowledge, or lack of information conveyed to the audience, etcetera.
Why did Vader go to Hoth? Because he chose to. It's what he does. It only doesn't make sense if it's out of character, which it isn't as ANH demonstrates.
Why did he ask for Bounty Hunters? Because he's shown to believes his officers are incompetent and they're not producing results, so he felt it necessary to bring in additional help.
As for movie making.
Movies rely upon the scenes to set things up.
One example, the fleet over Hoth.
We know an Imperial Fleet is in the area of Hoth and wants to attack the Rebels.
This is reinforced by a ship threatening a fleeing transport and previous to that, the rebel pilot briefing.
Then we see the Ion Cannon defeat the Imperial Threat and allow a transport to escape.
At this point, the threat of the Imperial fleet is defeated. We don't need to see this happen again to keep believing they can get away.
The Imperial Fleet remains a non-threat until such time that the movie RE-ESTABLISHES it as a threat.
This threat is re-established when the Falcon is being chased.
You say roughly 'why didn't they blast the transports'? And I say 'show me a star destroy that hasn't been ionized'. Show me that the Ion Cannon is disabled? You can't, that's why the transports not being blasted makes sense, because there's nothing in the movie to re-establish the threat. Incidentally the Falcon being chased not only re-stablishes the threat but also re-focuses it. The threat is no longer against Hoth but instead against the Falcon.
Similarly with the ground assault. The Imperial AT-ATs were to assault the base, and destroy the generator.
Luke and his X-Wing are not at the base. So while his attitude might be a bit too casual, there still is no threat established against that area. We don't hear an Imperial say "sweep the area" or "there's a transport over there, send troops!" etcetera.
The movie tells the story. It establishes antagonists. It establishes means to nullify them, etcetera.
In TFA, in the battle over the smuggler world. The Imperials leave the world completely unmolested by the Resistance X-wings.
This is a problem because it's never established why the Resistance doesn't attack.
The X-wings are a threat to the Imperials, Kylo's ship is an Imperial, therefore the X-wings should remain a threat to him.
All it takes is one line, Po saying "The Imperials are retreating, let them go. Let's secure the area for arrival". and the movie will make sense. But because they're too lazy, or too incompetent to do that, the Resistance threat is unresolved and the scene doesn't fully make sense. The audience instead has to create reasons for why they're not being attacked or they lose their suspension of disbelief.
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I'm sorry that you lack the imagination to come up with that on your own, Akalabeth.
I wonder, if we looked through every "if they had just added one or two lines!" complaint, how many dozens of lines would we have to add?
I am happier with a line unspoken than the death of imagination. Take a look at the end of Interstellar for what happens when you explain everything to the audience, just in case.
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I'm sorry that you lack the imagination to come up with that on your own, Akalabeth.
I lacked the imagination to imagine the line I just wrote? Nice logic.
The problem is not that I can't imagine excuses for things not making sense, the problem is that I shouldn't have to.
I'm there to be absorbed by a movie, not to write it.
I wonder, if we looked through every "if they had just added one or two lines!" complaint, how many dozens of lines would we have to add?
It's good to know that you believe the movie has story problems in "dozens" of places, but it is curious that you remain such a staunch defender of a movie which requires pages of audience imagination to make sense.
The problem with the movie is that it's doing too much. There are too many ideas. And as a result those ideas are not adequately explained. Because you're right there isn't time. There isn't time to put in another 15 minutes of movie. What they need to do instead is have a tighter story, overall. This movie basically have ideas from both ANH and RoTJ crammed into two movies plus whatever new they added. There's not enough time for things to make sense because they're trying to two main stories, several subplots, etcetera all at once without even establishing a lot of the backstory.
I am happier with a line unspoken than the death of imagination.
And I'm happier with better movies.
Take a look at the end of Interstellar for what happens when you explain everything to the audience, just in case.
That isn't one of them.
Furthermore, there is a ton of crap not explained in that movie.
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Why did Vader go to Hoth? Because he chose to. It's what he does. It only doesn't make sense if it's out of character, which it isn't as ANH demonstrates.
Vader is the most efficient and pragmatic antagonist in ANH so I don't understand your reference there. There was no escape from the ambassador ship, so he boarded to find the "ambassador" that happened to be Leia.
Why did he ask for Bounty Hunters? Because he's shown to believes his officers are incompetent and they're not producing results, so he felt it necessary to bring in additional help.
You're making the same scale errors that Abrams did. You shouldn't be able to hide from a whole fleet and lo and behold a lone smuggler does find you no biggie. Nevermind that just after Vader hires these dudes, they do find the MF.
At this point, the threat of the Imperial fleet is defeated. We don't need to see this happen again to keep believing they can get away.
The Imperial Fleet remains a non-threat until such time that the movie RE-ESTABLISHES it as a threat.
This threat is re-established when the Falcon is being chased.
Yes, that is true, cinematically, that is, outside of some critical thought analysis. But if you THINK a little, that idea crashes completely. The Imperial Walkers go to Hoth and their primary target are the power generators, so the "ships can descend". Thus, they should descend. And bombard every single transport there. Ion Cannons of that size are no good without power, which has been shut down. Even if they are not, Tie Bombers would lay the whole field in ruins. Don't tell me a SSD of that size isn't harboring thousands of Tie Bombers.
You say roughly 'why didn't they blast the transports'? And I say 'show me a star destroy that hasn't been ionized'. Show me that the Ion Cannon is disabled? You can't, that's why the transports not being blasted makes sense, because there's nothing in the movie to re-establish the threat. Incidentally the Falcon being chased not only re-stablishes the threat but also re-focuses it. The threat is no longer against Hoth but instead against the Falcon.
Wrong. The point of the Walkers was to destroy the power generator so the fleet could bombard the installation. This is established rightly prior to the murder of Ozzers who foolishly took the fleet out of lightspeed "too close of the system". They take out the generators and now no bombardment occurs, despite their ability to do so.
In TFA, in the battle over the smuggler world. The Imperials leave the world completely unmolested by the Resistance X-wings.
This is a problem because it's never established why the Resistance doesn't attack.
The X-wings are a threat to the Imperials, Kylo's ship is an Imperial, therefore the X-wings should remain a threat to him.
All it takes is one line, Po saying "The Imperials are retreating, let them go. Let's secure the area for arrival". and the movie will make sense. But because they're too lazy, or too incompetent to do that, the Resistance threat is unresolved and the scene doesn't fully make sense. The audience instead has to create reasons for why they're not being attacked or they lose their suspension of disbelief.
WTF are you on about, now? It was glaringly obvious they got what they felt they needed, they were in danger so they flew away. "Flying away" from a battlefield isn't a plot hole. Being able to flee XWings who are still engaging other Tie Fighters and so on is not supernatural. This isn't hard to understand.
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Yes, that is true, cinematically, that is, outside of some critical thought analysis. But if you THINK a little, that idea crashes completely. The Imperial Walkers go to Hoth and their primary target are the power generators, so the "ships can descend". Thus, they should descend. And bombard every single transport there. Ion Cannons of that size are no good without power, which has been shut down. Even if they are not, Tie Bombers would lay the whole field in ruins. Don't tell me a SSD of that size isn't harboring thousands of Tie Bombers.
You're not analyzing. Analysis of a movie is studying what's IN a movie.
You're fabricating, imagining, introducing your own thoughts into a movie and searching for reason why it doesn't make sense.
If the movie is inconsistent with your ideas, it's your ideas that are the problem. Whether those are your ideas, or they're from some Star Wars RPG sourcebook or video game.
If the movie is inconsistent with its own internal ideas, or inconsistent with the ideas established in other movies, it's the movie's that's the problem.
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I'm sorry that you lack the imagination to come up with that on your own, Akalabeth.
I lacked the imagination to imagine the line I just wrote? Nice logic.
The problem is not that I can't imagine excuses for things not making sense, the problem is that I shouldn't have to.
I'm there to be absorbed by a movie, not to write it.
The thing is, any movie is going to have things left unexplained (at least explicitly). There is no movie out there which explains every single bit of itself. Some things make sense only within a wider context, which the movie can't always provide. With realistic settings, this isn't noticed, we (well, some of us...) know how our own world works. In fantasy, it's the whole point to let your imagination run rampant and fill in those gaps. Try watching, say, a romantic comedy while imagining (I know, not an easy task for you) that you're an alien from outer space and don't know how things work on Earth. Stop taking our world from granted and see how much you'll get from the movie. This is the "natural" level of explanation you get. Fantasy, of course, has to ramp that up somewhat (or we wouldn't know WTF is going on. There are movies like that), while genuine SF might need to work in an explicit explanation of the science being used (not unrealistic, this tends to happen IRL as soon as you have a scientist and a layperson in the same room with a device the latter doesn't understand), but this has to be limited, as explaining every departure, every detail that is different from our world would bog any movie down, especially as high fantasy (of which SW is a member) takes place in what is essentially a different universe.
"Standalone" fantasy movies simply require imagination from the viewer to fill in the gaps. Sometimes explanations are readily provided in supplementary material (with the old SW, you had heaps of the stuff), but I don't always like it since it may clash with my interpretation of events. Movies based on books almost always have things that one can only understand by reading the book (in which you can have more long-winded explanations, but even there it's possible to overdo). A novel can delve into explaining everything it needs (but in most cases leaves visuals to imagination), but a movie just isn't going to hand you everything on a silver platter.
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I'm sorry that you lack the imagination to come up with that on your own, Akalabeth.
I lacked the imagination to imagine the line I just wrote? Nice logic.
The problem is not that I can't imagine excuses for things not making sense, the problem is that I shouldn't have to.
I'm there to be absorbed by a movie, not to write it.
The thing is, any movie is going to have things left unexplained (at least explicitly). There is no movie out there which explains every single bit of itself. Some things make sense only within a wider context, which the movie can't always provide.
This argument is a fallacy and the premise is unprovable.
So why not discuss only the movie at hand, shall we?
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As I suspected, you are in fact using the phrase "plot hole" incorrectly. A plot hole is not something which leaves the viewer with a question, a plot hole is a logical inconsistency within a story. If the answer to the question "why" is not explicitly stated in the movie, that does not make it a plot hole. If something happens that logically could not happen based on other events in the story, that's a plot hole.
The problem is that no one asks these questions. That's the plot hole. You could literally remove the word map from the script and replace it with McGuffin. It makes no sense that not one single person in the film had any questions about the map! It is completely unbelievable that not one person in the film has questions about that map. THAT is the plot hole.
The story group’s thinking went back to the 1977 original movie, when R2-D2 accessed the Empire’s mainframe as the heroes searched for the captured Princess Leia. “We had the idea about R2 plugging into the information base of the Death Star, and that’s how he was able to get the full map and find where the Jedi temples are,” Arndt said.
Abrams says he chose to spell this out indirectly in the movie because he didn’t want the story to get bogged down in “how **** happened 30 years ago.”
If the Empire had a full map 30 years ago, why do the First Order now have a map with the exact same missing piece that the resistance have? Especially if we're claiming that the First Order found their copy by going through the Empire's records rather than some method where they got the map from R2D2's copy. The only explanation would be that BOTH copies had a missing section. In which case, the real question is where the **** did the missing piece come from?
Can't you see that this explanation actually explains nothing? Can't you see that this is yet more of the same kind of lazy scriptwriting I've been complaining about?
As I've pointed out, nothing in the original trilogy annoys me enough that it pulls me out of the film. None of the nitpicks that people keep mentioning in this thread slap you across the face and say "This was lazy scriptwriting." In TFA I saw tonnes of examples. And the problem is that most of them were completely unnecessary.
Watch them again on Blu-ray. You'll probably change your mind. There's a ridiculous number of things I'm noticing now that irk me just as much as anything in TFA.
Do you really think someone who would reference the original films the number of times I have in this thread wouldn't have watched the original trilogy recently? Seriously it just didn't happen. At no point in any of those films did I get annoyed by lazy scriptwriting. And I doubt I would have even if it was the first time I'd ever seen Star Wars.
Admittedly I'm watching the original theatrical release. I refuse to watch Special Edition ever again for the same reasons I probably won't ever watch the prequels again.
One point I mentioned earlier in the thread and kind of got left hanging was plot-line relevance. ANH isn't bad, and ROTJ is pretty solid as well, but TESB has a solid half-hour of Vader pursuing the Falcon and Han and Leia that is totally irrelevant to the overall story. From the moment they left Hoth to the moment they arrive in Bespin is a foray that is supposed to flesh out their "love story" but really doesn't.
And you're acting like I'm the one nitpicking? It's not just fleshing out the love story, it's giving Luke some time to do stuff with Yoda. If they'd arrived immediately on Bespin there wouldn't have been time for any of the great Yoda training scenes. We also get time for a whole bunch of Vader exposition. Besides, I don't agree with your interpretation that it goes nowhere. We get to see how conflicted Leia is about being with Han. We hadn't really seen that before.
And even if I did agree you're right and that it goes nowhere, so what? It was entertaining in its own right.
I guess the reason I really don't understand the hate some people are throwing at TFA is that the OT is by no means a masterpiece of tight writing, character development, or acting. They are good, entertaining movies that occupy a warm place in my thoughts, but the more criticism I read of TFA, the more I think it's driven half by rose-coloured-nostalgic glasses and half by a dislike of Abrams in general (who I actually don't mind at all).
And the more I read from people defending TFA the more I believe I'm hearing the opinions of abused children who are simply glad that their new step-dad doesn't beat them too. :p It's like everyone is so glad that TFA isn't a bad film that they don't want to allow it to be criticised.
Look, even if the OT were not great films, merely good, why does that preclude us from pointing out the rather large flaws in this film? Why is OT the only metre stick we are allowed to measure it against? After all, Abrams had the benefit of being able to watch the OT and not repeat their mistakes. Star Wars basically invented the blockbuster film and the concept was still new when Empire Strikes Back came out. But TFA has the benefit of more than 30 years of blockbusters to draw on and it is still making stupid rookie mistakes. Mistakes which I would STILL call it out on if it was the first film of its franchise. Why are you so determined to let it skate on them that you're willing to make (frankly unfair) comparisons to a film which is 30 years older?
You challenged people to find plot holes in the film which weren't based on the original trilogy but every reply to a criticism has been "But the OT did that too" So what? Why aren't you willing to judge TFA against modern films and see that in that respect its over-reliance on coincidence would still knock off a couple of marks?
Although there is a huge plot hole in ESB. We never get why Vader simply goes away when Luke lets himself fall down. Vader is a corpse in motion, he should know that the Force is something that keeps you alive. He already sensed Luke's presence very well. Why did he waste time to get to his SuperStarDestroyer instead of making a search for the body himself? I never fully swallowed that part.
I've always assumed that Luke's decision to fall showed Vader that he couldn't turn him the way he'd been attempting to do it. Had he gone after Luke, it would have resulted in Luke's death and he didn't want that. Luke had already chosen death over turning to the Dark Side. He'd survived the fall on bare luck. Had Vader gone after Luke, he'd simply have jumped off the antenna.
If he captures Luke's friends too though Luke won't simply commit suicide. Vader would have more of a chance to turn him.
It's just the sheer laziness of the film that annoys me. Sometimes it doesn't even make sense. The scene where Finn battles with a random stormtrooper the first time he uses a lightsabre... they actually HAVE a character who does have a motivation to have that battle with Finn and yet for some reason I can't fathom that battle ISN'T with Captain Phasma.
Seriously, why? :confused:
This bugged the crap out of me too. Seeing all the attention memetic stormtrooper "TR-8R" is getting just makes me more upset at the lost potential here.
I swear one day we're going to hear a story about how Gwendoline Christie was ill that day and said "Can't I just shoot him you just use a random stormtrooper instead?" :p
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I would say that one of the big reasons why people (some here) are so annoyed by the problems with the film is that we care about the SW universe a lot. And it's because we have been so deeply affected by the OT and by the prequels. Now hear me out!
"The Phantom Menace" was in 1999 the second highest grossing movie ever, not adjusted for inflation. It is still #7 (source (http://www.boxofficemojo.com/alltime/domestic.htm)); it just barely edged out the original "Star Wars". People, in general, expected amazing things from the movie. It was the expectation and excitement that we felt that drove it to make so much money. But after the newness wore off, we realized just how terrible it was, and it has since been rightly torn apart by reviewers of all sorts. It was a massive disappointment to fans of the original trilogy.
"The Force Awakens" is currently the highest grossing movie ever, and it's still playing in theaters. People, in general, expected TFA to be at least good. And it was good! But after that, we realized how close it was to being great, which just gave us flashbacks of the disappointment we felt at Ep1. The investment that we have in the universe, and the thrill that it was actually pretty good combine to make the disappointment just that much more bitter. And that's why we pick at the easily fixable problems that we see.
And on a side note: I saw "The 5th Wave", in theater, on Saturday. It was bad. There is not going to be a thread about it on this forum, because I doubt that anybody actually cares enough to debate anything about it. There are (probably) multiple extremely heated threads on whatever forum(s) is/are devoted to the book series it was based on, because those people definitely care very much about that universe.
tl;dr: We don't hate good things here, but the disappointment with something bad (or merely "good") is always stronger the more you care about it almost being good (or even great).
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As I suspected, you are in fact using the phrase "plot hole" incorrectly. A plot hole is not something which leaves the viewer with a question, a plot hole is a logical inconsistency within a story. If the answer to the question "why" is not explicitly stated in the movie, that does not make it a plot hole. If something happens that logically could not happen based on other events in the story, that's a plot hole.
The problem is that no one asks these questions. That's the plot hole. You could literally remove the word map from the script and replace it with McGuffin. It makes no sense that not one single person in the film had any questions about the map! It is completely unbelievable that not one person in the film has questions about that map. THAT is the plot hole.
What the hell kind of questions are they going to ask? "What's this map for?" is answered pretty readily by "it's a map to Luke Skywalker" which is explained
A) by Poe to Finn as they escape
POE
That droid's got a map that leads
straight to Luke Skywalker!
FINN
Oh, you gotta be kidding me! I--
B) by Finn to Rey
FINN
Apparently he's carrying a map that
leads to Luke Skywalker, and
everyone's after it.
She turns to him, concerned, curious. And asks:
REY
Luke Skywalker? I thought he was a
myth.
C) By Finn to Han
FINN
He's carrying a map to Luke Skywalker.
Yup: Han stops in his tracks.
FINN (CONT'D)
You are the Han Solo that fought
with the Rebellion. You knew him.
"Where's the rest of the map?" which is explained by
A)C-3P0 to Leia (this one neatly answers the "what did they plan to do if it failed" question again, in case you were keeping track.
C-3PO
General, I regret to inform you, but
this map recovered from BB-8 is only
partially complete. And even worse,
it matches no charted system on
record. We simply do not have enough
information to locate Master Luke.
LEIA
I can't believe I was so foolish to
think that I could just find Luke
and bring him home.
What other questions could you possibly have that you want them to bother answering? "Why is the First Order after the map?" Because they want to find Luke to and/or stop the Resistance from finding Luke. "Why is the map incomplete in the first place?" Who cares? Even if you do, Luke split it up in order to hide his tracks so not just anyone could follow him.
I continue to find your declaration of plot holes wanting.
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This argument is a fallacy and the premise is unprovable.
Bull****. He's describing one of the fundamentals of storytelling; conservation of detail.
The fact you would say this is one of those WTF moments on a par with Maslo declaring that releasing finished games on time is bad.
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I guess the reason I really don't understand the hate some people are throwing at TFA is that the OT is by no means a masterpiece of tight writing, character development, or acting. They are good, entertaining movies that occupy a warm place in my thoughts, but the more criticism I read of TFA, the more I think it's driven half by rose-coloured-nostalgic glasses and half by a dislike of Abrams in general (who I actually don't mind at all).
While the writing, character development, and acting of A New Hope are not virtuosic, they do all serve the movie as a whole (oftentimes by staying out of the way of other things), and I would certainly argue that ANH as a whole is a masterpiece.
The Force Awakens has lots of superficial and stylistic elements that have been picked apart and attacked here and which are not really that interesting to me, and it also has real structural weakness which I think is interesting and worth discussing, but I don't think either of those things are what really gets people worked up about it.
For me, the real issue is that ANH actually is a genuine masterpiece, a work of incredible imagination and auteurship, and above all an honest try at doing something new. TFA is a movie helmed by a hand-picked company guy who really loves the original and wants to do a kind of grand tribute using its intellectual property, but above all it's an exercise for the biggest studio in the world in wringing every cent out of their investment, with the promise of another one every year until we all die. The problem is that you can't get what made ANH special by trying to replicate it like this. ANH is filmmakers with crazy ideas and limited resources shooting the moon. TFA is filmmakers with no ideas and unlimited resources shooting fish in a barrel. The result is a movie that looks and tastes like the real thing, but underneath we know it's just going through the motions with no inspiration of its own.
If you don't recognize the excellence behind ANH, then it's easy to construct a viewing context in which TFA seems like the better of two silly adventure movies (though I would still argue against you based on the aforementioned structural problems). If you do appreciate what makes ANH special though, then it's equally easy to feel like we've all been completely duped by the impostor TFA. And holy crap, when you feel like you've been had, EVERYTHING gets interpreted through the lens of that feeling: all the little references to the originals feel like shameless pandering and fan service, all the contrivances and omissions that are normally not a problem in any movie become clear evidence of laziness or cynicism, and anyone who enjoyed the movie must have been dropped on their head or something.
I'm looking forward to seeing TFA again (in proper 2D this time) partly because it has generated such a variety of responses here. It will be interesting to see what sticks and what has just been knee jerk disdain or blind puppy love.
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What other questions could you possibly have that you want them to bother answering?
WHERE IS THE ****ING MAP FROM! It's the McGuffin of the entire film and that is neither answered NOR even questioned.
I've been asking that question over and over and you continue to repeat the same superficial answers from the film even though I've already explained why they don't actually explain anything. This is now the 2nd time you've danced around that question rather than answering it.
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Is the director that has been put in charge of the next movies any good? I haven't heard of him before. I hope that he learn's from the various flaws in this film and makes the next one it's own movie. Has he made any movies that I should have heard of?
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Is the director that has been put in charge of the next movies any good? I haven't heard of him before. I hope that he learn's from the various flaws in this film and makes the next one it's own movie. Has he made any movies that I should have heard of?
His biggest claim to fame is Looper. Which was decent if a bit overrated.
http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0426059/?ref_=tt_ov_dr
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Oh yeah I've seen that. It didn't mind that movie.
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Yes, that is true, cinematically, that is, outside of some critical thought analysis. But if you THINK a little, that idea crashes completely. The Imperial Walkers go to Hoth and their primary target are the power generators, so the "ships can descend". Thus, they should descend. And bombard every single transport there. Ion Cannons of that size are no good without power, which has been shut down. Even if they are not, Tie Bombers would lay the whole field in ruins. Don't tell me a SSD of that size isn't harboring thousands of Tie Bombers.
You're not analyzing. Analysis of a movie is studying what's IN a movie.
You're fabricating, imagining, introducing your own thoughts into a movie and searching for reason why it doesn't make sense.
If the movie is inconsistent with your ideas, it's your ideas that are the problem. Whether those are your ideas, or they're from some Star Wars RPG sourcebook or video game.
If the movie is inconsistent with its own internal ideas, or inconsistent with the ideas established in other movies, it's the movie's that's the problem.
I'm not fabricating anything. The empire's initial plan was to bombard the hell out of the Hoth's base, a plan curtailed by Ozzie's "clumsiness and stupidity":
Field captain destroys the power generators. Why? What is the point if they were already defeating ground troops? The whole point was basic: shield protects from "any heavy bombardment", therefore destroy shields. What should have followed was "heavy bombardment", and yet we see the last transport going away like's no biggie.
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This argument is a fallacy and the premise is unprovable.
Bull****. He's describing one of the fundamentals of storytelling; conservation of detail.
Conservation of detail is only telling the audience what they need to know.
A plot hole is FAILING to tell the audience what they need to know.
A presence of plot holes and gaps in a story is not the result of conservation of detail, it's the result of a bad story.
Thus his argument is fallacious as he's basically claiming that a lack of complete information in all movies is the same as a lack of necessary information in The Force Awakens.
The empire's initial plan was to bombard the hell out of the Hoth's base, a plan curtailed by Ozzie's "clumsiness and stupidity":
At no point in this clip does anyone discuss a plan involving orbital bombardment.
He's describing the shield's properties. Its properties rule out one course of action, but that does not mean that the potential course of action was the intended one.
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There were two options to fight in Hoth: By ground troops or by heavy bombardment. Vader kills his admiral because he was clumsy and stupid and proceeded to battle the rebellion by landing ground troops.
Guess what the **** he wanted to do in the first place. Wait, you don't need to guess, you just need to watch ANH again.
e: but at least I'm glad you admit by omission that the landing on Degobah was ludicrous.
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What other questions could you possibly have that you want them to bother answering?
WHERE IS THE ****ING MAP FROM! It's the McGuffin of the entire film and that is neither answered NOR even questioned.
I've been asking that question over and over and you continue to repeat the same superficial answers from the film even though I've already explained why they don't actually explain anything. This is now the 2nd time you've danced around that question rather than answering it.
I can't imagine this is going to be a satisfying answer to you, but I say without sarcasm that it doesn't matter. At all. It satisfies a minute curiosity. It doesn't advance the film. It's not necessary to the story. If the answer "I dunno" does not impact the motivations of the characters or their objectives it doesn't matter. Who made it is not important. Where it came from is not important. "This is a map to Luke Skywalker. We have to get it to the Resistance" is all that is necessary to convey the plot. "Who is Luke Skywalker?" must be answered later. "Where is he?" must be answered later. "Why did he vanish?" must be answered later. "Hey where did that map come from, anyway?" doesn't actually advance anything. It is a useless detail.
It is not a plothole.
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This is getting silly. You keep answering the wrong objections. If they don't answer the question, that's fine. But it is a plot hole that no one asks it!
Han Solo is a famously cynical guy. Put yourself in his place. You meet two people aboard a ship that was stolen from you. They recognise you as a famous rebel general and admit to having stolen it from the people who stole it from you. You tell them that you're going to stick them in an escape pod and jettison them on the nearest inhabited planet. And then they say that even though you met them completely by coincidence they tell you that they have a map leading to your long lost best friend. Of course you would ask them NO QUESTIONS about where they got it from, or how they they know it's genuine.
If you find that believable, that's fine. I absolutely don't. I don't think there are many humans who would do that, let alone one with Han's character. In fact, many people might assume that it was a lie made up so that they can steal the ship again.
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There were two options to fight in Hoth: By ground troops or by heavy bombardment. Vader kills his admiral because he was clumsy and stupid and proceeded to battle the rebellion by landing ground troops.
Only two option? Interesting. Where does it say this in the movie?
Fact is, you're looking at a piece of dialogue and in your head and with it creating another piece of dialogue which isn't actually spoken. Ruling out one plan doesn't mean that it was THE plan.
Is it unreasonable to think they would bombard Hoth from orbit? No. Is it stated in the movie that this is their intention? No. Darth Vader isn't specifically angry at the Admiral because the rebel shield is up, he's angry at the Admiral because the Rebels are "alerted to our presence".
In fact you're making two assumptions:
#1 That the Imperials were planning to bombard Hoth and would recommence this plan once the shield was done
#2 That the intent of the bombardment was annihilation, rather than say destruction of Hoth's defences and means of escape.
Remember what the captain of the Star Destroyer says upon seeing the Rebel Transport? "Good, our first catch of the day" (emphasis mine).
Now of course this is just an expression, but given that they're looking for Luke Skywalker and he could be on a rebel transport in the same way Leia and the plans were on the Blockade Runner, it's not unreasonable to assume they planned to disable and board it and this piece of dialogue supports that.
And if the intent of the bomardment is to cripple their defenses and destroy their transport before they can board them (so he can capture Luke), then starting the bombardment when the shield is down is both useless and redundant.
Guess what the **** he wanted to do in the first place. Wait, you don't need to guess, you just need to watch ANH again.
He wanted to capture Luke Skywalker. Capturing someone, precludes destroying a transport when he may potentially be onboard. Or destroying an entire base from orbit.
e: but at least I'm glad you admit by omission that the landing on Degobah was ludicrous.
I've never felt it was ludicrous. The only thing that's ever bugged me is that an apparently uncontrolled landing was survivable (and that I find Dagobah pretty boring). Though the fact that he loses control of his craft and lands near Yoda suggests that Yoda is guiding his craft in.
Incidentally in the Force Awakens, there's the incident of Finn coincidentally landing near Rey's settlement and running into her. This doesn't bug me. Nor does it bug me that Po apparently survived and got back somehow. The story about Po is a bit lazy and convenient but I give it a pass because it's secondary to the main story. But the thing with Rey and Finn meeting is essentially destined by the story. One can look at it another way, if Finn and Po landed in the middle of nowhere and died. They wouldn't be in the story in the first place. If they landed near another settlement, then the movie would have told the life of whoever they met there instead of Rey. So Finn crossing paths with the Jakku's resident whose life has been established is believable.
That said, C3PO and R2D2 being picked up in a transport makes more sense than Finn walking to Rey's marketplace.
And having ANH not show Luke until we meet him makes his meeting with C3PO less of an apparent coincidence than Finn meeting Rey does. In fact we're introduced to Rey before BB8 even meets her.
If anyone has a problem with it everyone running into Rey, it's because JJ Abrams put Rey in the movie before there was any reason to introduce her. He puts it in the movie, tells the audience on faith that she's important, care about what she's doing and then everyone finds her. This is a problem for some people, not for me. It's a storytelling choice which works, but is not necessarily the best. Clearly though the film wants to focus on Rey.
This is getting silly. You keep answering the wrong objections. If they don't answer the question, that's fine. But it is a plot hole that no one asks it!
Han Solo is a famously cynical guy. Put yourself in his place. You meet two people aboard a ship that was stolen from you. They recognise you as a famous rebel general and admit to having stolen it from the people who stole it from you. You tell them that you're going to stick them in an escape pod and jettison them on the nearest inhabited planet. And then they say that even though you met them completely by coincidence they tell you that they have a map leading to your long lost best friend. Of course you would ask them NO QUESTIONS about where they got it from, or how they they know it's genuine.
If you find that believable, that's fine. I absolutely don't. I don't think there are many humans who would do that, let alone one with Han's character. In fact, many people might assume that it was a lie made up so that they can steal the ship again.
Yeah that doesn't make much sense though watching the movie and thinking about it later, it didn't bother me. Perhaps because the map is ultimately so inconsequential to the story despite being presented as central to the plot. It of course bothers me when R2D2 turns on and solves the mystery for no problem, but that may be why it doesn't bother other people. The story doesn't talk about the map, so when it's solved for no reason why should the audience care?
It's also laughable than the movie wants to present Luke Skywalker as basically King Arthur, a hero who disappeared and will return at our time of greatest need. And yet the movie has no sense of mystery in it. It's too busy with gags and explosions to care about mystery
EDIT - Also the lack of questions is representative of the movie as a whole. The characters don't ask questions because the audience already knows the answer. And they know the answer because they've been introduced to everyone and everything from the start.
One of the problem's I've mentioned is that Rey trusts Finn too easily.
Imagine if the first 30 minutes of this movie focused solely on Rey. Imagine if Rey was having a fight then this dude shows up and pulls her away. We as the audience would wonder "what the hell is she following this guy for? Don't trust him" instead we think "oh finns a good guy, and rey's a good guy, so it makes sense they're instantly best buds" because the audiences knows them even if they don't know each other.
If this story were told like ANH was told, more people would have problems with it because the problems with character motivation would stand out for more people. Instead the movie treats the audience like a character or mediator who in their head reconciles all the problems of the movie with their own narrator-like knowledge of what's going on. This makes the movie "work" for most people in so far as it receives a passing grade.
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This is getting silly. You keep answering the wrong objections. If they don't answer the question, that's fine. But it is a plot hole that no one asks it!
Han Solo is a famously cynical guy. Put yourself in his place. You meet two people aboard a ship that was stolen from you. They recognise you as a famous rebel general and admit to having stolen it from the people who stole it from you. You tell them that you're going to stick them in an escape pod and jettison them on the nearest inhabited planet. And then they say that even though you met them completely by coincidence they tell you that they have a map leading to your long lost best friend. Of course you would ask them NO QUESTIONS about where they got it from, or how they they know it's genuine.
If you find that believable, that's fine. I absolutely don't. I don't think there are many humans who would do that, let alone one with Han's character. In fact, many people might assume that it was a lie made up so that they can steal the ship again.
You're right, this is silly. You're again using information from another movie (in this case, the original trilogy) to try and find a plot hole in this one. You don't think that stumbling across two people fleeing from a desert planet and the Imperial Navy in the Millennium Falcon with a droid that they need to get to the Resistance wouldn't resonate with him? That he's not too happy about getting the Falcon back to worry about it in that exact moment? That there's no time in between where a conversation along the lines of this:
Han: Hey, where'd you get that map, anyway?
BB-8: *Excited beeping*
Han: He sounds like a hell of a pilot. Reminds me of someone I knew, back in the day.
happens? I can think of no fewer than three times where that conversation could have taken place before they arrived at the Resistance Base.
It's wasted screen time and useless script space. The kind of thing that goes in the deleted scenes bin not just because of time but because it's boring and doesn't add anything to the story. If the viewer had a reason to doubt the veracity of the map, it would have a place. We don't. Using valuable screen time to explain that it's important again with different phrasing is bad cinematography.
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Han: Hey, where'd you get that map, anyway?
BB-8: *Excited beeping*
Han: He sounds like a hell of a pilot. Reminds me of someone I knew, back in the day.
happens? I can think of no fewer than three times where that conversation could have taken place before they arrived at the Resistance Base.
It's wasted screen time and useless script space. The kind of thing that goes in the deleted scenes bin not just because of time but because it's boring and doesn't add anything to the story. If the viewer had a reason to doubt the veracity of the map, it would have a place. We don't. Using valuable screen time to explain that it's important again with different phrasing is bad cinematography.
Yeah that screen time is a big commodity. If Han Solo asked questions they might not have time to fight the fleshy balls from the D&D Monster manual.
In either case, there's obvious a disconnect between your two points of view.
Karajorma is viewing the story from the point of view of its different characters.
You're viewing the story from the point of view of the audience.
And because the story says it's real, you believe it's real and assume that Han Solo should believe what you believe.
If the story had been told from another perspective, where the veracity of the map was not established, you would likely be asking the same questions that Karajorma is.
It's similar to player intent in a video game. When the goals of the game line up with what the player wants to do, the game works out.
Similarly when the actions of the characters in the film believe or don't contradict what the audience knows, it works for them. When Rey trusts Finn it's okay because the audience knows and trusts them both even though Rey a complete loner shouldn't easily trust anyone, and certainly not an deserter from the First Order. A organization that re-programs kids into unthinking killing machines.
But if the same story was told in a different perspective, it would fall apart because the characters in the movie do not have enough information to act as they do.
And that's why Karajorma and others like myself have a problems with the movie, because we're examining the motivations or actions of individual characters and realizing that looking at it on its own, it doesn't really make any sense. And because it doesn't makes sense, the world, its characters and the story are not believable.
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IDK, I still think you're over criticizing it. I'd have to watch it again by now to test your analysis again.
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IDK, I still think you're over criticizing it. I'd have to watch it again by now to test your analysis again.
I honestly think this is a movie which will age poorly, even for the people who like it. It certainly wont be as timeless as the OT.
Much of the movie relies upon the audience not having time to think, when they've seen it before and elements are more familiar people will inevitably think more about what's going on and things will began to make less sense.
Also with little to no quiet moments in the film, the lulls before the storm which precede the height of excitement anticipated in repeat viewings simply wont be there.
Does anyone remember the most iconic scene of A New Hope? Luke standing heartbroken on a sand dune, watching the setting of twin suns? The uplifting music? His tortured face beneath wind-swept hair?
That shot isn't in this movie. There's NOTHING like that in this movie. Rey can't eat her space porridge for 5 minutes before she has to save/steal BB8 from another scavenger.
Think of your favourite scenes in Star Wars and try to find their analogue in this movie. And if you do happen to find your favourite scene, think about what precede it in old movie and what precedes it in this one. I'd be curious what people came up with, if anything.
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Think of your favourite scenes in Star Wars and try to find their analogue in this movie. And if you do happen to find your favourite scene, think about what precede it in old movie and what precedes it in this one. I'd be curious what people came up with, if anything.
I am incredibly annoyed by this post because ten pages ago the favorite thing to rail on is how similar The Force Awakens was to A New Hope. Now you're saying it's not similar enough?
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I'm trying to avoid a line by line quotewar, but there's a few key things I want to address:
And even if I did agree you're right and that it goes nowhere, so what? It was entertaining in its own right.
Herein we arrive at the crux of the issue. I find TFA entertaining enough - due to the objectively better things like the acting, the character development, etc - that where there are certain plot coincidences and minor omissions (I maintain none of them are truly holes) I can quite easily look past them. I don't find any of the issues with it to be problematic for the film as a whole.
Look, even if the OT were not great films, merely good, why does that preclude us from pointing out the rather large flaws in this film? Why is OT the only metre stick we are allowed to measure it against? After all, Abrams had the benefit of being able to watch the OT and not repeat their mistakes. Star Wars basically invented the blockbuster film and the concept was still new when Empire Strikes Back came out. But TFA has the benefit of more than 30 years of blockbusters to draw on and it is still making stupid rookie mistakes. Mistakes which I would STILL call it out on if it was the first film of its franchise. Why are you so determined to let it skate on them that you're willing to make (frankly unfair) comparisons to a film which is 30 years older?
I'm not determined to let them skate by on correctable phenomena, I'm pointing out that none of the issues raised with the film are inherently problematic enough to label it bad as some (not you) are apparently wanting to do. Some corners of the Internet are treating Star Wars like a sacred inviolate masterpiece, while an objective assessment of any of the films lends their best a mere "good and entertaining." TFA is no different. Abrams allowed for less explanatory minutiae in the narrative - leading to what some people objective to as significant plot holes - while the acting/character development in the OT was never as well-developed in a single film. There've been tradeoffs.[/quote]
You challenged people to find plot holes in the film which weren't based on the original trilogy but every reply to a criticism has been "But the OT did that too" So what? Why aren't you willing to judge TFA against modern films and see that in that respect its over-reliance on coincidence would still knock off a couple of marks?
I've never claimed TFA was a perfect masterpiece, and never will. It has its flaws; the only reason for using the OT as rebuttal is it is unfair to criticize TFA for "plot holes" that the OT ran with in spades as well. Retconning in explanations does no service to anyone: see "Midichlorians." No one can claim that TFA is a poorer film than the OT for doing exactly the same plot contrivances the OT did and was in many cases actively praised for.
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I am incredibly annoyed by this post because ten pages ago the favorite thing to rail on is how similar The Force Awakens was to A New Hope. Now you're saying it's not similar enough?
The film takes a lot of plot elements directly from A New Hope but it leaves out a lot of the pacing and structure that made those plot elements work. There is nothing inconsistent in saying this.
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Think of your favourite scenes in Star Wars and try to find their analogue in this movie. And if you do happen to find your favourite scene, think about what precede it in old movie and what precedes it in this one. I'd be curious what people came up with, if anything.
I am incredibly annoyed by this post because ten pages ago the favorite thing to rail on is how similar The Force Awakens was to A New Hope. Now you're saying it's not similar enough?
The earlier criticism is that the story was derivative and recycled. I'm talking about scene structure, cinematography, story pacing. Not the story itself.
I'll give an example. One of my favourite sequences is on the Attack on the Second Death Star. When Lando and his co-pilot first arrive and they have a discussion about the shield.
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The fighters have all checked in, Admiral Ackbar has given the word, they're all set to attack when the Falcon's co-pilot, Nien Nub notices something.
Nien Nub: Alien Language
Lando: We've got to be able to get some kind of a reading on that shield, up or down.
Nien Nub: Alien Language
Lando: Well, how could they be jamming us if they don't know if we're . . . .coming.
Lando looks thinks about it, looking concerned. Switches on his comms
Lando: Break off the attack! The shield is still up.
Wedge: I get no reading. Are you sure?
Lando: Pull up! All craft pull up!
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This is a scene where two characters are faced with a problem and have a deadline. A deadline which if passes, will spell certain death. We the audience see them work through a problem, discuss it together and then come to a logical conclusion. We see Lando make a judgement call, makes it an order, and then the rebel fleet scatters.
Now, can anyone name a similar scene like that In the Force Awakens? A scene where the audience knows something that the characters don't, and then watch as the characters discuss it, figure it out logically and take appropriate action to avoid the problem? Or in short, a suspenseful scene with characters who think for themselves and ask questions?
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Now, can anyone name a similar scene like that In the Force Awakens? A scene where the audience knows something that the characters don't, and then watch as the characters discuss it, figure it out logically and take appropriate action to avoid the problem? Or in short, a suspenseful scene with characters who think for themselves and ask questions?
Rey's escape from Ren.
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Now, can anyone name a similar scene like that In the Force Awakens? A scene where the audience knows something that the characters don't, and then watch as the characters discuss it, figure it out logically and take appropriate action to avoid the problem? Or in short, a suspenseful scene with characters who think for themselves and ask questions?
Rey's escape from Ren.
Explain to me how it's the same.
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-The audience knows Ren is coming back to take Rey to Snoke. She does not; she can assume he is returning to torture or kill her eventually.
-The audience knows Finn/Han/Chewy are coming on a rescue. She does not.
-Instead of being a damsel, Rey begins exploring her abilities, testing how much control she has with the Force (remember, no one has told her she's a strong Force user), and successfully escapes through a fair bit of ingenuity on a timeline (Ren's impending return, which is an unknown deadline but must be treated as extremely short).
It's not "the same," but its definitely highly analogous.
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Now, can anyone name a similar scene like that In the Force Awakens? A scene where the audience knows something that the characters don't, and then watch as the characters discuss it, figure it out and take appropriate action to avoid the problem? Or in short, a suspenseful scene with characters who think for themselves and ask questions?
If you want beat for beat? No. If you want problem -> (potentially internal) discussion -> problem resolution we have:
A) Finn when Rey is attacked by the thugs. He has a clear and obvious internal discussion with himself over the problem and his appropriate action to fix it.
B) When the TIE Fighters are strafing Nima Outpost, Rey and Finn sprint toward the jump master, discussing the situation when Rey lays out the plan to take said jump master. Whether or not the plan is successful is irrelevant to your criteria.
C) Rey, when she's pushed to the edge of the chasm during the lightsaber fight with Kylo Ren. Hell, you could probably make this one beat for beat if the audience could hear Rey's thoughts on the issue. (Problem: Kylo Ren is better at this than me. Internal dialogue: What the hell should I do? Audience: already knows that she should use the Force, because this is a goddamn Star Wars movie. :P Solution: Uses the Force)
D) During the attack on the base, Poe begins to order Red and Blue squadrons off after the attack ostensibly fails. Blue leader sees the explosion on the surface blow, and alerts Poe, who decides to go for one more pass on the damaged portion of the structure. Because Han and Finn's mission on the base is 100% distinct from Poe's attack (they're there for Rey, and no other purpose), the audience is indeed aware of something that the characters do not (that the explosives are in place and will be able to open up a window to attack).
Are they identical in structure or pace? Of course not. Expecting them to be would be a different kind of annoying. The pacing on The Force Awakens is faster than in any of the original trilogy. That's absolutely not in question. I don't think that's a bad thing. Having seen this movie three times already, it was still just as good the second and third times. When I think harder about the events of the movie it still makes sense. Hell, I'd argue that we here on this thread have discussed the movie more in depth and with more rigor and vigor than 90% of the internet, and 95-98% of Star Wars viewers, and it's still a good movie.
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-The audience knows Ren is coming back to take Rey to Snoke. She does not; she can assume he is returning to torture or kill her eventually.
-The audience knows Finn/Han/Chewy are coming on a rescue. She does not.
-Instead of being a damsel, Rey begins exploring her abilities, testing how much control she has with the Force (remember, no one has told her she's a strong Force user), and successfully escapes through a fair bit of ingenuity on a timeline (Ren's impending return, which is an unknown deadline but must be treated as extremely short).
It's not "the same," but its definitely highly analogous.
How does Rey know that she can influence someone's mind? What information is she given that allows her to arrive at that conclusion?
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When Ren tried to reach into her mind, she reached back instinctively. She was able to feel his deepest emotions, why wouldn't she be able to feel what he was trying to do to her?
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When Ren tried to reach into her mind, she reached back instinctively. She was able to feel his deepest emotions, why wouldn't she be able to feel what he was trying to do to her?
If she learned from his actions, why is her method of application different?
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Because she's in a different situation, probably. She's strapped to a chair. She's also strong in the Force, instinctively. We see that in four or five different places during the movie. There's a very strong implication that she's the awakening in the Force that Snoke spoke of.
You know all of this, Akalabeth. Why is "instinct" an unacceptable answer? She could have heard it in a story when she was little. She could have felt it in the vision when she touched the lightsaber the first time. She could have gazed deeper into Ren's mind than we realize. Use your imagination, jesus.
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More to the point, we see - we're not told, we actually see - the mental battle between Rey and Ren where she puts all the earlier clues from the film together and it finally clicks for her that she's a Force user. Rey's character arc in TFA is literally the journey of self-discovery where she realizes that she has a strong affinity for the Force. She's given breadcrumbs the whole way, and the audience knows from the moment her and Finn hug after defeating the TIE fighters on Jakku, but she doesn't actually figure it out until that moment with Ren, and you see the realization in her face.
As an aside, this is also why I say the acting and character development in TFA is much better than the OT; in any of the OT films, that would have been explained to death via dialogue. In TFA, all of that consideration information and realization is conveyed by the body language and reactions of the characters themselves which evolve over the course of the film, which is infinitely more believable. Compare to Luke's "oh-I-can-use-the-Force moments, which are literally explained to death (Obi-Wan and Luke dialog on the Falcon, followed by Dead Obi-Wan in Luke's head when he's shooting at Storm Troopers during the escape from the Death Star, followed by Dead Obi-Wan in Luke's head during the trench run; there isn't a shred of character acting in the whole film as far as Luke's development goes).
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it's kind of annoying when you're not an idiotic broken record and the goodposters ignore you and reply to him anyway
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It's easier to respond to someone who is wrong than someone you merely disagree with.
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it's kind of annoying when you're not an idiotic broken record and the goodposters ignore you and reply to him anyway
There wasn't much to say. The statement was correct, but you didn't apply a value judgement by saying leaving those things out made TFA NOT work. If that's the implication then I do disagree; in general, and after watching it again, out of Episodes 4-7 I find ANH the least enjoyable of the bunch precisely because of its pacing and tendency to over-explanation.
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Because she's in a different situation, probably. She's strapped to a chair. She's also strong in the Force, instinctively. We see that in four or five different places during the movie. There's a very strong implication that she's the awakening in the Force that Snoke spoke of.
You know all of this, Akalabeth. Why is "instinct" an unacceptable answer? She could have heard it in a story when she was little. She could have felt it in the vision when she touched the lightsaber the first time. She could have gazed deeper into Ren's mind than we realize. Use your imagination, jesus.
Yes. I know this. She does not. That's the point.
Luke mimics Obi Wan because he learned from Obi Wan and Yoda.
Rey learned from Kylo Ren. She should be mimicking him.
Similarly when Rey "uses the force" during the light saber fight. How does she know to calm herself? Her only force teacher has been Kylo Ren. He's powerful and angry all the time, if she wants to be powerful she should likewise get angry.
Rey draws upon knowledge that she doesn't know and has no reason to know. You believe it because you know this knowledge yourself already. "She's good, so of course she acts like a good Jedi," even though the only "Jedi" she's met is a fallen one.
Rey doesn't think in either of those scenes because thinking would require her to draw upon information that she knows.
For example, if she had a glimpse of his mind like say Harry Potter gets a glimpse of Professor Snapes mind and we are shown images of Luke training Ben then what she does would make sense. We would be shown that she's seen proper training from a "real" Jedi and can act upon the information that Luke has told Ben but Ben has rejected. But this doesn't happen.
She essentially knows things for no reason. She doesn't think for herself and is thus not a believable character.
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It's easier to respond to someone who is wrong than someone you merely disagree with.
The amount of virtual ink that you have spilled in this thread to absolutely no effect leads me to think it would be easier still to ignore him entirely.
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She essentially knows things for no reason. She doesn't think for herself and is thus not a believable character.
aaaaaaand I'm done wasting my time.
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She essentially knows things for no reason. She doesn't think for herself and is thus not a believable character.
aaaaaaand I'm done wasting my time.
Again, explain to me why Rey would manipulate someone like a good Jedi, instead of manipulating someone like a fallen Jedi (Kylo Ren).
How does she know to do that? Imagine you're someone who's seeing a Star Wars movie for the first time. You've never heard the line "these aren't the droids you're looking for". Can you explain her behaviour in the context of this one film?
I've already asked Scotty. He didn't have a logical answer and instead offered up theories or became aggressive instead. Do you have an answer?
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Against my better judgment...
I should not have to and will not waste time and paragraphs explaining the just because one has seen psychopathic behaviour modelled does not mean one will emulate it. Rey is aware of the Jedi and Force mythos and what they were capable of ("I thought they were a myth!"), and in testing her powers it is plausible/reasonable/believable that she would opt to try an option that is minimally-violent, quiet, and allows multiple chances for success.
In fact, given all the character development devoted to Rey up until that point in the film, it would be ridiculously unbelievable for her to resort to powers of a Dark Jedi. She didn't learn anything from Ren and her mind other than that she could use the Force and had significant strength with it; it's not like she downloaded a "this is how I use the Force" manual (and even if she had, Ren was trained as a Jedi first).
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I gave you a number of possibilities that were internally consistent with both the story presented in TFA, and with Star Wars in general. I don't really give a **** whether they pass an arbitrary logic test administered by an obviously biased observer.
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Against my better judgment...
I should not have to and will not waste time and paragraphs explaining the just because one has seen psychopathic behaviour modelled does not mean one will emulate it. Rey is aware of the Jedi and Force mythos and what they were capable of ("I thought they were a myth!"), and in testing her powers it is plausible/reasonable/believable that she would opt to try an option that is minimally-violent, quiet, and allows multiple chances for success.
So basically, your theory is that because Rey knows OF the Jedi, she also knows extensively ABOUT the Jedi and what they were capable of and also how they fought. Knowledge which in the film is neither qualified in its extent or drawn upon during the times where Rey would have used it. For example before trying to influence the guard, she does not say to herself "In the old stories . . ." She just does it.
In fact, given all the character development devoted to Rey up until that point in the film, it would be ridiculously unbelievable for her to resort to powers of a Dark Jedi. She didn't learn anything from Ren and her mind other than that she could use the Force and had significant strength with it; it's not like she downloaded a "this is how I use the Force" manual (and even if she had, Ren was trained as a Jedi first).
People learn from experience and even good people do questionable things in desperate situations. Especially people who have been surviving by themselves.
Either way, like Scotty, your explanation is a theory. To an outsider, who hasn't seen the other films her actions would not make sense because unlike an experienced viewer, she would seem to be drawing upon previous experiences or examples not in the film. They would think that she invented what she does. That she came up with force persuasion in that manner all on her own. There's no information in the film to suggest that her knowledge of the Jedi is anything more than a name and further there's nothing to tell the audience what a Jedi actually is.
The film assumes that the audience knows and like the rest of the movie assumes that the characters know what the audience does even when they have no reason to.
I gave you a number of possibilities that were internally consistent with both the story presented in TFA, and with Star Wars in general. I don't really give a **** whether they pass an arbitrary logic test administered by an obviously biased observer.
I'm interested in facts not possibilities.
You began answering my questions with facts but when my questions asked for facts that you couldn't find, you created possibilities. This is the very definition of a plot hole. A failing of logic. The movie does not move logically, so you need to create reasons why that is.
Furthermore your theories are not consistent with Star Wars.
Luke learned force persuasion from Obi Wan's example, not instinctively.
Luke learned patience from Yoda, not instinctively.
Anakin learned the Jedi teachings from Obi Wan and Qui Gonn, not instinctively.
Every youngling in the temple learned to use a lightsaber by Yoda, not instinctively.
Luke knew how to fly an Xwing because he flew had a jet and is called a pilot, not because he's a mechanic and drove his hover vehicle around Tatooine.
In general, none of the exceptional things Rey does is drawn from her own experience except her mechanical prowess and her ability to climb and use a weapon.
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Yup, against better judgment confirmed. Have fun.
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I'm interested in facts not possibilities.
You began answering my questions with facts but when my questions asked for facts that you couldn't find, you created possibilities. This is the very definition of a plot hole. A failing of logic. The movie does not move logically, so you need to create reasons why that is.
:rolleyes: Right, because when something isn't explicitly defined, it therefore cannot be any of a number of reasonable possibilities.
Akalabeth, this attitude, right here, is why conservation of detail is a dying art. Use your ****ing imagination for once.
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I'm interested in facts not possibilities.
You began answering my questions with facts but when my questions asked for facts that you couldn't find, you created possibilities. This is the very definition of a plot hole. A failing of logic. The movie does not move logically, so you need to create reasons why that is.
:rolleyes: Right, because when something isn't explicitly defined, it therefore cannot be any of a number of reasonable possibilities.
Akalabeth, this attitude, right here, is why conservation of detail is a dying art. Use your ****ing imagination for once.
What do you do for a living? I work professionally in film and have a degree in literature. I have lived a life studying and telling stories. I make a living by using my imagination.
My competence in movie making and storytelling is objectively superior to anyone discussing the film in this thread who cannot demonstrate a similar background.
At the end of this discussion, everyone's answers to my criticism amounts to theories and fan fiction. You are not drawing your answers from the artwork itself but from your own experience or imagination. And that's what the movie is relying upon, it's relying upon your foreknowledge of Star Wars to make any sense and its relying upon your nostalgia of the property and your dissatisfaction with prequels to earn an irrational appreciation of it which is strong enough to override the rationally-demonstrated problems with plot. Even when Karajorma or I have asked people to place themselves in the shoes of a first-time viewer of star wars, you cannot do it, you're too tied to your experience with Star Wars, an experience which you inevitably fall back upon to justify problems withe movie. An experience which I've said time and again now that the movie is relying upon to make a modicum of sense.
So when I tell you that the movie has problems then listen, because you just might learn something new about story telling.
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So when I tell you that the movie has problems then listen, because you just might learn something new about story telling.
For the love of all that is good and right in the universe, shut the **** up.
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At the end of this discussion, everyone's answers to my criticism amounts to theories and fan fiction. You are not drawing your answers from the artwork itself but from your own experience or imagination.
This is literally the ****ing point of any form of escapist media. I find the idea that imagination should not be be involved in an audience's experience to be utterly abhorrent to the concept of actual entertainment. If that's what you actually think (and all signs in this thread point to that being true), then I submit that you are bad at your job.
None of what I've described in the entire last page (with the exception of rebutting Kara's points about Han) have included any mention of the original trilogy, the points therein, the characterizations therein, or referenced abilities revealed there in. Every single thing I have said in the last page of discussion has been rooted firmly in the movie at hand, and the conclusions I draw are drawn from the movie with no influence from the rest of Star Wars.
Now put your dick back in your pants, because none of us care what you do with it or how big you wish it was.
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To be honest, the moment Rey influenced the guard, you could clearly see the movie was going into comedy/parody territory.
Although it was kind of jarring depending on what you got from the movie until that point, it was not unique within the series as some, especially episode 1, had those kind of moments.
YMMV, but I'd rather not have it that way in the movie.
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Conservation of detail is only telling the audience what they need to know.
Nope. That's actually not what conservation of detail is about. You are allowed, and indeed in some cases encouraged, not to tell the audience things they arguably need to know to understand what's going on. This is because their understanding of such details is not required or even not sought. (c.f. Stanley Kubrick)
Conservation of detail is actually telling the audience what they need to care about. The distinction seems significantly more subtle than it actually is.
Take FreeSpace for an example. We have, over numerous discussions, inferred that there must be greater limitations on the use of subspace travel than we know; otherwise why so few people jump out to get away from us is hard to explain. However, while we are the beneficiaries of this, we never need to care about what exactly those rules are because they never become something that we as players can interact with, can use or avoid. We don't have to care about them. So we aren't told.
Or, take a Batman story. Sometimes, we're told about J. Random Street Thug before he gets taken down, sometimes not. This has nothing to do with needing to know; we're here for Batman beating this guy up, and he WILL get beat up. We're told him about him to make us care.
My personal favorite example of this is in the opening scenes of Dredd, where we're shown the title character pick up his Lawgiver pistol for the first time. The pistol checks his DNA and gives an all-clear. We're not told this because we need to know it. Why? In a later scene, someone steals Anderson's Lawgiver and tries to use it on her. We're given a very clear shot of the pistol's unauthorized user alarm going off before it literally blows up. So we didn't need to know that it had that function because we're shown that later when it's a need-to-know matter. We're shown it so that if we get to the later scene and remember, we care about it differently. So that we think "Oh, you stupid son a *****!" and not "Oh no!"
Your endless ranting about hyperspace in the FoTG thread indicated, of course, that you didn't understand this, so I perhaps shouldn't be surprised.
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Conservation of detail is only telling the audience what they need to know.
Nope. That's actually not what conservation of detail is about. You are allowed, and indeed in some cases encouraged, not to tell the audience things they arguably need to know to understand what's going on. This is because their understanding of such details is not required or even not sought. (c.f. Stanley Kubrick)
If 'their understanding of such details is not required', they don't need to know.
You're just repeating what I've already more succinctly stated and at the same time you are trying to present it as a different idea. It isn't.
My personal favorite example of this is in the opening scenes of Dredd, where we're shown the title character pick up his Lawgiver pistol for the first time. The pistol checks his DNA and gives an all-clear. We're not told this because we need to know it. Why? In a later scene, someone steals Anderson's Lawgiver and tries to use it on her. We're given a very clear shot of the pistol's unauthorized user alarm going off before it literally blows up. So we didn't need to know that it had that function because we're shown that later when it's a need-to-know matter. We're shown it so that if we get to the later scene and remember, we care about it differently. So that we think "Oh, you stupid son a *****!" and not "Oh no!"
Yeah, it's called foreshadowing.
It's information that the audience needs to know to justify the explosion of the gun later on. If the gun exploded without presenting that information earlier, they wouldn't buy it.
Similarly if Rey uses the force to persuade someone in a Jedi-like way without having been shown it earlier, or without it being presented in the film earlier, the audience won't believe it. Those that care about characters and their development don't believe it from the start. Those that cares less but have seen the earlier movies will reconcile it's use through the previous movies and justify her knowledge of it with the "the force".
Your endless ranting about hyperspace in the FoTG thread indicated, of course, that you didn't understand this, so I perhaps shouldn't be surprised.
Conservation of detail. Why does Han say "We need to go to hyperspace while inside the hangar!" (roughly)
If going to hyperspace while inside a hangar is normal, it wouldn't be necessary for him to say that he's in a hangar. He needs to say that to both create the idea that it's possible to the audience, and also to create the idea that it's 'newer and more exciting than anything seen before in Star Wars!' Wow. If he had just said "we need to go to hyperspace", and there wasn't an alien on the windshield blocking the view and the ship went through the hull of the ship during its acceleration the audience, even the die-hard Star Wars fans, wouldn't accept it.
So contrary to your claims. Abrams both needs to introduce a new idea, and needs to confuse the situation (with the D&D Monster) in order for the audience to buy into it. Despite the previous movies not spelling out the rules, the actions within those movies created an unspoken set of rules which needed to be re-written.
Similarly Han needs to justify the lightspeed through a planetary shield in order for it to be accepted. The information that it is dangerous is used specifically to placate star wars fans into believing it's possible.
Neither bit of information is necessary for the film's story. The fact that he almost crashes on Starkiller is ultimately irrelevant to any events before or after. The information is necessary to reconcile the film with a knowledgeable star wars audience. It's essentially a universe-hole band-aid. And it's also used to make lightspeed 'super exciting'. In fact every time we see Han enter lightspeed it's something super exciting, not the act of escaping a situation but the act of entering lightspeed itself. Lightspeed has both been under-minded in how it is used, and changed into something dangerous. And if you want to argue Conservation of Detail, there are whole swaths of this film which could be completely cut including the crash sequence.
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If 'their understanding of such details is not required', they don't need to know.
You're just repeating what I've already more succinctly stated and at the same time you are trying to present it as a different idea. It isn't.
What he is saying that you need to explain things needed to understand the plot at hand. You, on the other hand, seem to demand that the movie explain the universe, even when it isn't needed. Hyperspace is a good example. How does it work? What are the limits? The audience doesn't need to know. All that we do need to know is that it allows FTL travel. At one point, we also find out that a "motivator" is a vital part of getting a ship into hyperspace. Why? Because it just blew and needs to be fixed, explaining why they can't just go into hyperspace, but need to evade the bad guys.
Another good example is Luke's lightsaber. "This is a story for another time". We don't get to hear it (though we presumably will, either in the movies or in supplements), but we are told there is a reason it ended up where it is. We don't need to know the reason, but if this was not addressed in any way, this would have been a major inconsistency. There are times when all you need to do is to hint that the explanation exists and that it is just as extraordinary as what it has to explain (in this case, it's probably a darn good story, too). You can then let the viewer's imagination (or supplementary novel writers) fill it out.
You could go on a tangent at this point on how, say, the hyperspace motivator actually works (this sort of thing is what's usually called "technobabble"), but it's generally ill-advised, as it brings nothing to the plot and leaves you open to nitpicking physicists. In most cases it isn't very good for the pacing, either. In hard SF, a tangent about our universe (if done right) can be a nice touch and leave the viewer/reader a little more knowledgeable as a bonus, but in fantasy, you generally shouldn't set any rule that isn't going to come into play later, as it needlessly limits your options (you can always set it when it does become needed).
As far as I can see, TFA fails to explain something vital to the plot exactly once: When the monsters don't eat Finn. This is a plot hole, and a rather jarring one at that (mostly due to the situation being rather cliché). This should have been explained, maybe they even had a scene in which it was, but it got cut. Other times, we know exactly as much as we need to.
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If 'their understanding of such details is not required', they don't need to know.
You're just repeating what I've already more succinctly stated and at the same time you are trying to present it as a different idea. It isn't.
What he is saying that you need to explain things needed to understand the plot at hand. You, on the other hand, seem to demand that the movie explain the universe, even when it isn't needed. Hyperspace is a good example. How does it work? What are the limits? The audience doesn't need to know. All that we do need to know is that it allows FTL travel. At one point, we also find out that a "motivator" is a vital part of getting a ship into hyperspace. Why? Because it just blew and needs to be fixed, explaining why they can't just go into hyperspace, but need to evade the bad guys.
I've never needed hyperspace explained because its limits are evident by the manner and circumstances in which it is and is not used.
Meanwhile Force Awakens needed to explain that entering hyperspace in a certain circumstance was possible in order to validate its use. I just don't believe the dialogue. Because to believe it would create numerous plot-holes in the previous movies, not the least of which is why they didn't drop out of hyperspace inside of the Endor shield. The information and events in TFA conflict with established patterns, events and circumstances from previous movies and are consequently irreconcilable without also validating its use with respect to those previous events, which TFA does not do.
Another good example is Luke's lightsaber. "This is a story for another time". We don't get to hear it (though we presumably will, either in the movies or in supplements), but we are told there is a reason it ended up where it is. We don't need to know the reason, but if this was not addressed in any way, this would have been a major inconsistency. There are times when all you need to do is to hint that the explanation exists and that it is just as extraordinary as what it has to explain (in this case, it's probably a darn good story, too). You can then let the viewer's imagination (or supplementary novel writers) fill it out.
Never bothered me. He dropped it. Someone found it. Case closed.
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You're right, this is silly. You're again using information from another movie (in this case, the original trilogy) to try and find a plot hole in this one.
The film is using a character from another film. Why can't I point out that his actions in this film do not fit with his establish character?
To be honest, I'm done. You're so determined to give TFA a pass on its major problems that you're trying to come up with false limitations on what those flaws are allowed to be. You liked the film and won't hear a word against it. I liked it but thought it had major flaws. I see no point in continuing this. Let's leave it at that.
I'm not determined to let them skate by on correctable phenomena, I'm pointing out that none of the issues raised with the film are inherently problematic enough to label it bad as some (not you) are apparently wanting to do. Some corners of the Internet are treating Star Wars like a sacred inviolate masterpiece, while an objective assessment of any of the films lends their best a mere "good and entertaining."
Gonna have to disagree with you there. For its time Star Wars was a masterpiece. Yeah it was derivative, but then again, so was Freespace. And like Freespace it took a bunch of elements from other sources and blended them well. Even now I'd still say it's a great trilogy. If you don't think so, that's fine. But you don't get to claim your view is any more objective than mine just because you disagree. Even if you want to claim it's aged badly then that's pretty unfair cause TFA will age a lot more quickly than ANH did.
while the acting/character development in the OT was never as well-developed in a single film.
Nonsense. Firstly, the choice to have the characters as iconic heroes was deliberate, stemming from Star Wars roots in Flash Gordon and the like. That's why the characters don't spend as much time naval gazing as you'd get in a modern film with more nuanced characters.
But even with that, I still challenge your claim about character development, Compare General Hux vs Grand Moff Tarkin. Both hold the same position in the films yet Tarkin is infinitely better developed even though both have roughly the same amount of time on screen.
You also claimed earlier that Poe was a better developed character than in characters in the OT. Of course this is nonsense, we know virtually nothing about him and his character doesn't change at all during the film. He might evolve into a better character in the later films but right now he's just Han Solo Lite.
In fact the film fails almost all of the supporting cast in a big way. I've already complained numerous times about Captain Phasma being a complete waste of screen time from the way she was used. And I'm sure I'm not the only person to have a bad taste in my mouth from the way she meekly submitted to lower the shields and get stuffed in a trash compactor.
But on top of that, we have really strange things like the fact that while I like Finn immensely he doesn't fit his back story at all. I feel that Akalabeth makes too much of the fact that the back stories don't fit because I do like the characters. But if you're going to claim that the characters are better developed you have to include their back story and when it comes to Finn that's an especially strange fit because we never see him do anything other than shrug off years of indoctrination as a First Order foot soldier as if it's nothing. We never really see him struggle with anything from his past. All we see is him act like he scared of the First Order a bit (which goes away immediately the second Rey is captured).
Like I said, I like Finn. But if you're going to claim that this is a character who has seen better character development than anyone in the OT, it's not me who isn't being objective.
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I absolutely agree that the movie has flaws. The music was weak, and while I'm a greater fan of fast pacing throughout than slow pacing in places it was too fast. When Finn gets dragged away instead of immediately experiencing horrible things is a decent size plot hole. Poe's "How to Ace Pilot" expo was ridiculous.
I notably don't agree with the MASSIVE PLOT HOLE that Han Solo doesn't ask what's up with the map. I get the sense that a lot of our disagreements are magnified by the typical internet argument syndrome; even if we agree on most things, we're only talking about the things we don't. :P
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Okay, forget plot hole. Will you at least agree that having a McGuffin with as little exposition about it as in TFA isn't great scriptwriting?
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If 'their understanding of such details is not required', they don't need to know.
Nope.
You're going for the subtle distinction I warned you wasn't there. You don't grok storytelling; that's okay, I doubt anyone on this forum besides Battuta is as interested in the subject as I am. The general public is ****ing awful at understanding it as a rule; you can't really give them what they want, because they won't actually like it if you do.
You took the sentence in isolation, rather than as part of a paragraph, and proceeded to dramatically **** up the meaning as a result. It has nothing to do with what the audience needs to know in fact and everything to do with what the creator desires them to know. That sentence is a statement of intentions on the part of an author, as you might have noticed were you paying attention. We're talking about artistic vision and hijacking the audience's hermeneutics to replace them with your own by giving them no handholds but those you want them to use.
This isn't about what the audience actually needs to know. It's about what the author wants them to know. It's about only giving them the ideas that he wants them to care about. The rules are not elaborated on because the author doesn't want you to care about the rules, not because they don't exist. (c.f. FreeSpace and subspace.)
As such, the rest of your post is meaningless, less than wrong. You assumed the factual truth of the statement. There are some very good works out there that do not give you all the facts you need, because the author isn't here to make you understand something.
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If 'their understanding of such details is not required', they don't need to know.
Nope.
You're going for the subtle distinction I warned you wasn't there. You don't grok storytelling; that's okay, I doubt anyone on this forum besides Battuta is as interested in the subject as I am. The general public is ****ing awful at understanding it as a rule; you can't really give them what they want, because they won't actually like it if you do.
You took the sentence in isolation, rather than as part of a paragraph, and proceeded to dramatically **** up the meaning as a result. It has nothing to do with what the audience needs to know in fact and everything to do with what the creator desires them to know. That sentence is a statement of intentions on the part of an author, as you might have noticed were you paying attention. We're talking about artistic vision and hijacking the audience's hermeneutics to replace them with your own by giving them no handholds but those you want them to use.
Thanks for the lesson. Now for a look back:
Conservation of detail is only telling the audience what they need to know.
A plot hole is FAILING to tell the audience what they need to know.
Notice the phrasing of my statement "only telling the audience what they need to know"
Who is doing the telling, if not the author?
From that basic principle, would the author of a mystery movie need to tell the audience the same amount of information that a bio-pic would? Can it be assumed that what the audience needs to know in each situation is different? And that the person doing the 'telling' is the one to define it?
The principle that I've stated is sound and in line with everything you've presented. So I'm not really sure what distinction you're trying to make or what nuance you're trying to impose upon my definition.
And incidentally, as an aside, if you really want to experience conservation of detail I recommend you read Patrick O'Brian. Some of the best novels you may ever read.
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Does anyone remember the most iconic scene of A New Hope? Luke standing heartbroken on a sand dune, watching the setting of twin suns? The uplifting music? His tortured face beneath wind-swept hair?
That shot isn't in this movie. There's NOTHING like that in this movie. Rey can't eat her space porridge for 5 minutes before she has to save/steal BB8 from another scavenger.
Think of your favourite scenes in Star Wars and try to find their analogue in this movie. And if you do happen to find your favourite scene, think about what precede it in old movie and what precedes it in this one. I'd be curious what people came up with, if anything.
Leia to Han: "Bring back our son". Boom, mike drop.
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Gonna have to disagree with you there. For its time Star Wars was a masterpiece. Yeah it was derivative, but then again, so was Freespace. And like Freespace it took a bunch of elements from other sources and blended them well. Even now I'd still say it's a great trilogy. If you don't think so, that's fine. But you don't get to claim your view is any more objective than mine just because you disagree. Even if you want to claim it's aged badly then that's pretty unfair cause TFA will age a lot more quickly than ANH did.
I said that, as a film, TFA is objectively better than the OT films based on the sum of the constituent grounds by which films are ordinarily analyzed, and I'll point out that no one has actively demonstrated where any of the criteria I used were false or inappropriate.
character development stuff
A note: I should have said more development than each of their ANH analogues. Obviously Poe doesn't go through as much development as the main characters, but as compared to his analogue - Wedge, FTR - we learn much more about Poe than we do Wedge. But more importantly...
Luke goes from whiny, planet-bound kid to whiny space kid, but virtue of the death of his aunt and uncle who he spends all of a minute mourning despite the fact that they raised him from a child. Following that brief moment, nary a thought. The sum total of Luke's development is his discovery that he can use the Force and maybe be the hero he always wanted. Contrast to Rey: child abandoned on planet and who has stayed, despite awful conditions, waiting for her family to come back to her, is forced to leave planet when droid she rescues (against her better judgment) results in her being shot at, develops a bond with another character she meets in the process, flees the planet, discovers Skywalker's lightsaber, gets kidnapped by the First Order, discovers she's a Force user, self-rescues (despite her earlier panic), then engages in battle with a Dark Jedi after her mentor figure is murdered by him in cold blood.
Or Han vs Finn. Han is a sarcastic bounty hunter who discovers he has a heart, maybe. D'aaawww. (And don't get me wrong, Harrison Ford's acting is the strongest in ANH). Finn is a conditioned Stormtrooper whose conditioning breaks in the course of his first battle deployment (and given the later revelation that he worked in sanitation, this is actually unsurprising; high stress situations are commonly known in psychology to break even the best training/conditioning - a phenomenon I'm intimately familiar with in the law enf context). He finds his only opportunity to escape in a Resistance pilot who is captured by the First Order, whom he helps escape, in the process being willing to kill fellow First Order troops out of a combination of terror of recapture and self-preservation. His sole motivation from this point until Rey is taken is to escape the First Order (with Rey, after they form their bond), after which he is dedicated to getting his friend out of their clutches, being willing to go so far as to engage in battle with a Dark Jedi to do it. Much as I heart Han in the OT, his character development takes three movies for what Finn managed basically in one. That's not Harrison Ford's fault; it's a sign that much more thought was put into the characters of TFA than ANH or the arc of the other OT films individually.
But even with that, I still challenge your claim about character development, Compare General Hux vs Grand Moff Tarkin. Both hold the same position in the films yet Tarkin is infinitely better developed even though both have roughly the same amount of time on screen.
What? Both are clear mustache-twirling villains. There's virtually no distinction, other than Tarkin's performance is admittedly more subdued and terrifying than Hux's over-the-top bluster. Then again, Tarkin is a pragmatic Imperial officer, while Hux is a true believer zealot.
You also claimed earlier that Poe was a better developed character than in characters in the OT. Of course this is nonsense, we know virtually nothing about him and his character doesn't change at all during the film. He might evolve into a better character in the later films but right now he's just Han Solo Lite.
As above, Poe is Wedge's better-developed analogue. Finn is Solo's, and he IS much better developed. Finn is plausibly written from a psychology perspective (right down to the near-panic attacks at the prospect of the First Order showing up). Han is a cliche in the OT. A lovable cliche, to be sure, but still a cliche.
In fact the film fails almost all of the supporting cast in a big way. I've already complained numerous times about Captain Phasma being a complete waste of screen time from the way she was used. And I'm sure I'm not the only person to have a bad taste in my mouth from the way she meekly submitted to lower the shields and get stuffed in a trash compactor.
TFA has a bigger core cast to which more screen time is developed, a choice I agree with. ANH gave us cliched characters with a wider range of supporting cast. TFA focuses the story on a marginally bigger core cast, at the expense of the supporting roles. I agree Phasma was a wasted character; her inclusion in TFA was ultimately rather pointless and I'm not sure why they bothered with a named character in that role at all versus miscellaneous Stormtroopers.
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Luke goes from whiny, planet-bound kid to whiny space kid, but virtue of the death of his aunt and uncle who he spends all of a minute mourning despite the fact that they raised him from a child. Following that brief moment, nary a thought. The sum total of Luke's development is his discovery that he can use the Force and maybe be the hero he always wanted. Contrast to Rey: child abandoned on planet and who has stayed, despite awful conditions, waiting for her family to come back to her, is forced to leave planet when droid she rescues (against her better judgment) results in her being shot at, develops a bond with another character she meets in the process, flees the planet, discovers Skywalker's lightsaber, gets kidnapped by the First Order, discovers she's a Force user, self-rescues (despite her earlier panic), then engages in battle with a Dark Jedi after her mentor figure is murdered by him in cold blood.
Totally equally fair descriptions, eh?
Also, for Rey you mostly listed things which happen to her; stuff that happens to a character isn't character development. I've only seen TFA once so I'm probably forgetting a ton, but I don't really recall what Rey wants throughout the movie, except for her family to come back and to find Luke. She escaped with Finn because they were being shot at, fine. But even after they get to Takonada she's still just wanting to go back to Jakku to wait for her family, until she realizes they're really not coming back. Then she gets kidnapped, and is basically in escape mode for the rest of the film, until in the end she decides she wants to go look for Luke. That's not a lot of development.
Contrast to Luke: he's frustrated and wants to be someone but still feels like he can't leave his aunt and uncle, learns that his father was actually a sort of a legendary warrior, has his aunt and uncle killed by the Empire and as a result decides to go with Obi-wan after all, fight the Empire and follow in his father's steps and make a difference. Obi-wan dies but Luke still ends up pretty much where he always wanted to be. There's a simple but clear arc there and at every point we know what he wants to do and why, and most importantly those things actually drive part of the plot: he'd never have gotten off Tatooine, tried to save Leia or joined the rebels if not for things that are in his character. What of importance does Rey do in TFA that is driven by her as a character? She's mostly just running away from guys shooting at her, and in the end she goes to find Luke because like Luke, she (presumably) wants to be someone and make a difference.
If anything, I'd say that she has (a little bit) less character development than Luke, and her mindset and motivations are less clear. Based on what I recall, that is.
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Does anyone remember the most iconic scene of A New Hope? Luke standing heartbroken on a sand dune, watching the setting of twin suns? The uplifting music? His tortured face beneath wind-swept hair?
That shot isn't in this movie. There's NOTHING like that in this movie. Rey can't eat her space porridge for 5 minutes before she has to save/steal BB8 from another scavenger.
Think of your favourite scenes in Star Wars and try to find their analogue in this movie. And if you do happen to find your favourite scene, think about what precede it in old movie and what precedes it in this one. I'd be curious what people came up with, if anything.
Leia to Han: "Bring back our son". Boom, mike drop.
That's your favourite scene?
Personally the fact that Leia and Han haven't been together the whole movie and that beyond seeing his son 5 minutes earlier, their relationship or depth of pain with regards to Ben is not really established left that scene pretty flat for me And it was hard for me to care about their loss when the value of their relationship to him or each other is not really expressed.
But if it worked for you, awesome. I can see how you might connect that scene with say when Leia lost Han in ESB.
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Luke's cliched motivations are spoon-fed to us; Rey's are implied through her actions and acting. Both are legitimate storytelling devices, but Rey's encompasses a greater arc; she undergoes a tectonic shift from a girl who perceives herself as an independent nobody on a planet no one cares about waiting for the family that abandoned her with a veneer of self-assurance but in reality a great deal of insecurity, to an independent-minded girl who has discovered she is not only more powerful than she ever though, but that she can leverage those powers and develops a sense of self and belonging to a greater purpose in a reality she always thought to be a myth. She grows. At the start of the film, her self-assuredness is an illusory armour; by the end she's dropped the act and all the self-assurance we see is real.
Luke's discovery of the Force and his affinity is couched in a very formulaic "There's this thing called the Force, your dad was a wizard, you should try it too, your dead mentor can speak into your thoughts." His story isn't organically or believably developed as a three-dimensional character; he is a cliche from start to finish. Boy-orphan-mentored-criticalevents-HERO! Rey is most certainly not. Her arc doesn't even follow a predictable pattern; on first viewing there remains a great deal of uncertainty about Rey's development (particularly with the Force) despite the obvious indicators to the audience right up until she successfully repels Ren out of her mind, and by the end of the lightsaber duel with Ren we're left wondering if she's actually wandering a little closer to the Dark side than we first assumed. Rey faces genuine peril of the soul in the course of TFA; at no point in ANH can the same be said of Luke. Luke's most perilous moments come instead in ROTJ where the chances of him being pushed to the Dark become very real in the confrontation with Vader/Palpatine.
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It is my favorite emotional scene and it worked very well because it sold itself well. It didn't overexpressed itself. It was simple but a powerful sentiment that every father understands. My other favorite emotional scene was the confrontation between Han and Ren. Han is offering himself to his son. "Come back, we miss you". You see Ren's struggle. He asks his father to help him do something he can't on his own. That is, he is just unable to go to the dark side by himself. He needs help doing it. His father doesn't understand but of course he wants to help. Then he realises that what Ren needs is to kill him.
That moment "rhymes" (ahah) with Luke's moment in RoTJ when about to kill his father and deciding not to. If he did so, he would turn to the dark side. Ren "completes" his destiny and falls to the dark side by killing his father.
But even then, after realising what Ren had done, Han touches his son's face with love. You might find that "didn't work", but as a father, I tell you, it does. It resonates entirely. "Yes, you killed me, I don't care, I love you son".
Regarding Luke's "looking outside to the sun", with William's tune powefully making the point, well, I agree that's a good shot, but it kinda backfires when you realise this moment is given more importance than the one when his uncle and aunt are dead. Right at the next scene, he's all "well, I might as well become a Jedi". If THAT sequence was done in 2016, you'd be all over it criticizing it like a Hawk.
And I'm still baffled by your Degobah's handwavingness "Yoda used the Force, done". WTF. You were previously saying Ren couldn't detect **** with the force 100 meters away, but somehow Yoda makes an XWing fly over to the exact 1000 meter radius of his house on a whole planet? Now, the movie treats that plot hole brilliantly. First, because it communicates to the audience that Luke is just lost. His XWing is in bad shape. He's within a jungle. Yoda could be anywhere. And now this stupid little brat is pissing him off. Then the revelation comes that he's Yoda, he was just testing him. And before the audience goes "WTF, how did Luke reached Yoda within a planet so soon?", two more important emotions are expressed to the audience: the excitement of Luke of finding Yoda and Yoda's denying him any training. The question of "Where is Yoda" becomes irrelevant now because it was quickly substituted by "can Luke convince Yoda to teach him?"
That's good storytelling, but the plot hole exists and it is baffling once you think about it and go "wait a minute". (more subtle than Kirk finding Spock in a icy moon, but still) Then he has a vision of his friends suffering after a long training session.
Another plot hole: How the **** does Vader know that by making his friends suffering, he will make Luke see visions of this and thus prepare a trap for him? Did Vader also have a "vision" of his own? (Perhaps I've just probably answered my own question). Nevertheless, it's never even hinted at. We are left with "our imaginations" to "fill in the blanks". Which I have not a problem with, but apparently you do.
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But even then, after realising what Ren had done, Han touches his son's face with love. You might find that "didn't work", but as a father, I tell you, it does. It resonates entirely. "Yes, you killed me, I don't care, I love you son".
Agreed, that scene worked brilliantly. It's arguable that it only worked brilliantly because many of the fans of the OT grew up to become parents at the time when they saw TFA, but that's one moment that I really don't care if they exploited the crap out of us; the scene works and is extremely poignant. Though the whole catwalk thing annoyed me a wee bit.
it kinda backfires when you realise this moment is given more importance than the one when his uncle and aunt are dead. Right at the next scene, he's all "well, I might as well become a Jedi". If THAT sequence was done in 2016, you'd be all over it criticizing it like a Hawk.
EXACTLY. I don't find that scene iconic at all. The fact that Luke basically ignores the death of the only family he ever knew is jarring as hell.
And I'm still baffled by your Degobah's handwavingness / How the **** does Vader know
TESB is rife with timeline/spatial problems. TFA has them too - the scale complaint is one I genuinely do agree with - but the OT is no saint in this regard. Consider: in the span of time, that's presented as quite short, that Han/Leia/Chewy/droids escape from Hoth, land on an asteroid, fix the ship, fly to Bespin, and get captured, Luke manages to fly to the Degobah system, locate Yoda, begin Jedi training (which we've been led to believe is substantial and lengthy), made it what appears to be a considerable way through, then fly to Bespin to the "rescue." Then, in ROTJ, he goes back and Yoda says his training is basically complete except for Vader. Uh, really? At best, from the pacing and timeline it seems like he spent days to weeks (I'm being generous) on Dagobah, flies off to Bespin, loses a hand, tracks down Han, rescues everybody, flies back to Dagoba, and now he's a Jedi. Either Jedi training is the shortest elite training known to man, or there are some problems with the timeline.
It's what I was getting at earlier about plot point relevance; the OT has little timeline break between films, and it's shortened further by the little side-forays in which no time actually passes in the films and yet significant time is alluded to have passed based on the significance attributed later to those events. Next to Lucas' "remastering" in the Blu-ray editions I'm watching, timeline inconsistency is the one thing that's most annoying me in the entire rewatch.
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It is my favorite emotional scene and it worked very well because it sold itself well. It didn't overexpressed itself. It was simple but a powerful sentiment that every father understands. My other favorite emotional scene was the confrontation between Han and Ren. Han is offering himself to his son. "Come back, we miss you". You see Ren's struggle. He asks his father to help him do something he can't on his own. That is, he is just unable to go to the dark side by himself. He needs help doing it. His father doesn't understand but of course he wants to help. Then he realises that what Ren needs is to kill him.
That moment "rhymes" (ahah) with Luke's moment in RoTJ when about to kill his father and deciding not to. If he did so, he would turn to the dark side. Ren "completes" his destiny and falls to the dark side by killing his father.
But even then, after realising what Ren had done, Han touches his son's face with love. You might find that "didn't work", but as a father, I tell you, it does. It resonates entirely. "Yes, you killed me, I don't care, I love you son".
Cool. I'm not going to debate what should and should not resonate with you emotionally. I thought Ren had some decent acting in the patricide scene, but from the surroundings and the lack of compassion shown in Ren it was pretty clear that Solo was a goner so again, that's another scene that didn't resonate with me but I can see it resonating with some people.
Was just curious what scenes a person enjoyed in the old movies and what scene they appreciate in this one.
Regarding Luke's "looking outside to the sun", with William's tune powefully making the point, well, I agree that's a good shot, but it kinda backfires when you realise this moment is given more importance than the one when his uncle and aunt are dead. Right at the next scene, he's all "well, I might as well become a Jedi". If THAT sequence was done in 2016, you'd be all over it criticizing it like a Hawk.
Those scenes are treated roughly the same. Not sure what you found lacking from the latter one. Personally I like 'em both.
It's possible that the picture of two setting suns is more likely to be celebrated than two burnt skeletons in the smoking ruin of their house.
And I'm still baffled by your Degobah's handwavingness "Yoda used the Force, done". WTF. You were previously saying Ren couldn't detect **** with the force 100 meters away, but somehow Yoda makes an XWing fly over to the exact 1000 meter radius of his house on a whole planet? Now, the movie treats that plot hole brilliantly. First, because it communicates to the audience that Luke is just lost. His XWing is in bad shape. He's within a jungle. Yoda could be anywhere. And now this stupid little brat is pissing him off. Then the revelation comes that he's Yoda, he was just testing him. And before the audience goes "WTF, how did Luke reached Yoda within a planet so soon?", two more important emotions are expressed to the audience: the excitement of Luke of finding Yoda and Yoda's denying him any training. The question of "Where is Yoda" becomes irrelevant now because it was quickly substituted by "can Luke convince Yoda to teach him?"
Well unlike 99% of Star Wars fans, my favourite movie is not ESB so frankly I'm not that invested in it. I prefer Return of the Jedi, probably as a product of circumstance of when I saw it and because Luke going ape**** on Vader, fighting him across the room and onto his knees is probably the best 10 seconds of the entire saga.
Incidentally, the difference between Ren finding Rey and Luke finding Yoda is that Luke doesn't find Yoda. Yoda finds him.
How does Luke land near him? Who knows. Call it a plot hole or some contrived convenience. But once he's landed near Yoda, there's plenty of reason for Yoda to find him. Including the disturbance that his ship would cause and also the spiritual connection that Obi Wan has with both Yoda and Luke.
Vader never finds Luke. Luke always goes to him.
Luke doesn't find Yoda. Yoda comes to him. He doesn't find Ben in ANH either until Ben comes to him.
The only time a force user finds another person, beyond sensing that they're around, is when they are both consenting. Darth Vader finds Obi Wan, and Obi Wan knows it's going to happen and consents to the meeting, possibly even seeking Darth Vader out.
Another plot hole: How the **** does Vader know that by making his friends suffering, he will make Luke see visions of this and thus prepare a trap for him? Did Vader also have a "vision" of his own? (Perhaps I've just probably answered my own question). Nevertheless, it's never even hinted at. We are left with "our imaginations" to "fill in the blanks". Which I have not a problem with, but apparently you do.
Vader's established knowledge of the force led him to believe that Luke's connection with his friends would draw him out?
Yoda says the future visions are based on feeling. Vader tortures Han for no reason. Luke feels his pain and goes to him.
Similarly in ANH Obi Wan feels the emotion's of Alderan's people when it is destroyed and with that knowledge divines the fate of the planet before Solo or the others did.
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Yoda's house is absolutely near the XWing, they don't have to travel thousands of miles which would be the minimal "average" for any random planet crash. In ANH, the droids still do travel quite a lot before being found by Luke's uncle (which comprise probably the most boring scenes around the whole saga, including those three other movies).
"Call it a plot hole"? Aleluia, we have a concession. But since you prefer the one with the ewoks, I guess it's not a biggie.
For the record, I also do love those ten seconds of Luke's rage against his father in RToJ. You're basically watching the hero of the trilogy pwning the villain and yet your emotions are all like "NO, DON'T! DON'T DO THAT!", it's ****ing brilliant. Then it cuts to two Ewoks destroying an AT-AT with tree trunks. Yeaah... such perfect movies...
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Yoda's house is absolutely near the XWing, they don't have to travel thousands of miles which would be the minimal "average" for any random planet crash. In ANH, the droids still do travel quite a lot before being found by Luke's uncle (which comprise probably the most boring scenes around the whole saga, including those three other movies).
Yeah his house is near the place Luke's X-wing landed. Just like Rey's forest getaway is near the place Kylo Ren landed. But again Yoda finds Luke not the other way around.
It's just lazy storytelling that Ren finds Rey. It would matter less if it was the exception not the norm. But finding people out of the blue for little or no reason is exactly how everyone operates in TFA.
"Call it a plot hole"? Aleluia, we have a concession. But since you prefer the one with the ewoks, I guess it's not a biggie.
Nah I prefer the one with Mon Calamaris, B-Wings, Lando Calrissian, Luke vs Vader, etcetera.
The Ewoks don't bother me, it would be better if they had real weapons. At least composite short bows instead of bows made by 5th graders.
And in fact I prefer the Ewoks in RotJ to the Wookies in Revenge of the Sith. At least the Ewoks are cunning.
The wookies in AotC meanwhile are hiding behind 5 feet of steel on the beach and when the enemy finally attacks they all get out of cover and stomp up and down yelling on the beach. They should have all been mercilessly gunned down to a man. Far cry from the competence of the Hoth battle. That's the difference you get when you have the Norwegian army portray a land battle as compared to George Lucas and his Wookie VFX team.
Nevertheless, it's never even hinted at. We are left with "our imaginations" to "fill in the blanks". Which I have not a problem with, but apparently you do.
Incidentally, I want to call into question this prevailing defense tactic people are using to say "use your imagination". Contrary to what has been suggested by Scotty, imagination is not tied to all forms of escapism. If you're reading a book or a comic book/graphic novel, then yes imagination comes into play because the pace of reading is set by you the viewer and because your mind tries to recreate the description in your mind based on your pool of knowledge.
But in the space of a video game or a movie, imagination in general doesn't factor into it. If you're using your imagination while watching a movie, you are at that moment NOT watching the movie, and in fact the movie has lost you the viewer until this imagination everyone's touting has reconciled the problem in the viewer's mind. the viewer is fundamentally disconnected from the experience, probably because their suspension of disbelief has been broken or because the movie has simply failed to engage them. There are some exceptions, such as when a person is recounting an experience and their words are driving the narrative, or in a Hitchcock film for example where there's a murder happening and the camera shot is only a closed door. But in those cases, the movie essentially pauses and creates a pace where the audience can put their imagination into practice. It encourages and facilitates it through the use of static shots and other techniques. Once the movie re-establishes pacing, that moment is gone and the audience is back into simply viewing and experiencing the film.
Imagination thus, is fundamentally removed from experiencing a movie. As a general rule it is something that happens AFTERWARDS, when you try to recreate or expand the experience in your mind, or BEFORE a movie when you've seen only bits and pieces and try to put the pieces together and fill in the blanks. But only rarely DURING a movie and even then only with specific author intent.
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I said that, as a film, TFA is objectively better than the OT films based on the sum of the constituent grounds by which films are ordinarily analyzed, and I'll point out that no one has actively demonstrated where any of the criteria I used were false or inappropriate.
It's not that your criteria are false, they're just incomplete. Notably, you're omitting most of the things that are actually noteworthy if you want to analyze Star Wars: its imagination, ambition, the breadth of its inspiration, etc.
Of course it's fine that TFA is your favorite, but the things you are summing up to come to the conclusion that it is somehow objectively best are like...TFA's cheesy one liners are delivered in a less cheesy way! Or TFA's overwrought bad guy speeches seem slightly less overwrought! These aren't serious examples I'm giving, but the point is we aren't dealing with a serious character study or something. Granted the criteria you're focused on aren't straight up quibble territory like most of what this thread has been dedicated to, but they are relatively minor stylistic aspects when compared to the movie's lack of the aforementioned qualities like creativity and all that.
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ANH gave us cliched characters with a wider range of supporting cast.
You do realise that a major reason why the OT characters and plot seem so clichéd is cause everyone has been copying them for the last 35 years, right? :p
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ANH gave us cliched characters with a wider range of supporting cast.
You do realise that a major reason why the OT characters and plot seem so clichéd is cause everyone has been copying them for the last 35 years, right? :p
That reminds me of an old joke. A guy takes a recommendation from a friend and goes watch "Romeo and Juliet" by Shakespeare.
"So, whaddaya thought, good right?"
"Nah, it was fillled with clichés".
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You do realise that a major reason why the OT characters and plot seem so clichéd is cause everyone has been copying them for the last 35 years, right? :p
By those standards they should have been cliched at first blush, considering they were basically ripping 15 years of Japanese cinema.
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Romeo and Juliet was a direct adaptation of an existing poem and the archetypical myth is millennia old. A New Hope's characters aren't 'cliched' in the implied sense that they're lazy and uninteresting, they are explicit and deliberate invocations of archetypes. It was a better film than TFA, and both are far better than the prequels, because it played out the myth better: it made better use of those 'cliches' and the emotional hooks they represent.
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ANH is slow-paced. It suffers a first half an hour of boringnessness that we only get through because we still recall those first 30 seconds of the movie in our eyes and want to see more of that. Then it slowly picks up in Mos Eisley. The imperial dialogue (at the table) between the officers are great, they balance exposure of character, world building and intent with timing, and well paced. After the rescue of Leia, it's Yavin's battle, which was something never seen beforehand. So it's a slow-pacing crescendo. Great movie, no doubt. "Better" than TFA? Probably. It also has less threads to pick up, it builds upon a tabula rasa, so in the writing it was easier to do. TFA has to deal with a lot of baggage and get it right, while introducing new characters and their arcs. That's a lot harder.
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I dunno, I think the early part of ANH has some great scenes and serves an important purpose in the Hero's Journey (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monomyth)tm. For one thing Binary Sunset is one of the most iconic scenes in film, but even just the segment where the Jawas sell the droids is really well put together. The Jawas running around making last minute adjustments to the crap they've salvaged, coaxing the droids into line and haggling with Uncle Owen. It's a just a way to transition the droids to Luke but its so much more naturally shot and composed than most scenes in the prequels. None of "downtime" shots in the prequels did the same. Instead of taking the opportunity to let the viewer connect to the setting they just serve as CGI backdrop for walking and talking.
This segment of ANH establishes the "Ordinary World," the place where Luke starts his journey from, a living breathing world the viewer can connect to. I think it does a great job of it, and the film would have been lesser without, the prequels certainly were. I never gave a **** about the setting in them.
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I didn't say those scenes were unnecessary, only that they are boring, slow paced as hell. The slow-pacedness was even bigger before some scenes were cut (Luke hanging out with a friend of his who joins him later at Yavin), but even still we have to endure all these 30 minutes before anything exciting happens at all. When Lucas previewed his film to some of his colleagues, they pointed this as a major flaw of the movie and why it wouldn't fare well in the tickets. Spielberg had a different opinion, he thought this movie was going to rock the entire world, and he was right of course.
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And that latter fact should probably be a hint to you that you're missing the point by calling that material 'boring'.
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It would be if my "point" was that ANH was a "bad movie" that would fare badly at theaters. Where did I say that, Hoover? My point was merely to say that ANH is far from perfect and justify it with an example. That it still rocked the world despite its flaws is besides the point, or rather, it is my other point: Star Wars movies don't need to be perfect to be appreciated. Thus, TFA also does not need to be perfect in every sense to be perfect.
Do you understand?
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I didn't say those scenes were unnecessary, only that they are boring, slow paced as hell. The slow-pacedness was even bigger before some scenes were cut (Luke hanging out with a friend of his who joins him later at Yavin), but even still we have to endure all these 30 minutes before anything exciting happens at all. When Lucas previewed his film to some of his colleagues, they pointed this as a major flaw of the movie and why it wouldn't fare well in the tickets. Spielberg had a different opinion, he thought this movie was going to rock the entire world, and he was right of course.
Older movies were typically slower paced then the ADD-style media of today. I recall the plinkett reviews playing a documentary clip saying that the original Star Wars edit was a "disaster" and the movie was recut to the theatrical release. Maybe this is what you're thinking of when you say his colleagues didn't like it.
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The editing process was hellish, for sure. I was specifically talking about the "boringnessness" of the first act, which was even worse in the first few edits.
Lucas was terrible at many things. There's a Google Talk with someone who spoke about some peculiarities in the process of making ANH, and just the editing of the very first seconds (even the FOX fanfare), were themes of enormous discussion and rewriting.
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Mmmm. Well saying a movie is "boring" is ultimately subjective.
I've never found the first half of ANH boring. What I have found boring is the middle hour of TESB. But that movie is most people's favorite.
I think one's attachment to any particular movie is as much a result of when that person experienced it as it is the movie's quality.
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I certainly agree the original trilogy wasn't perfect, but I really never considered the the Tattoine arc boring or overlong. The starting point for Luke's journey was established and there was a lot of visual interest along the way, be it the world encompassing desert with its massive skeletons, the binary sunset, the sand people and the jawas. Tattoine felt like a real place because of the pacing.
They could have had the escape pod crashing in the middle of the moisture farm chased by Imperial dropships and Luke having some wild escape on his landspeeder but that would have been some Michael Bay ****. A film needs room to breathe, real life isn't one action set piece after another. Each world was given enough time to establish itself, Hoth would not have had the frigid impact it did if Luke and Han didn't have the Wompa Attack/Taun Taun Sleeping bag segment.
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I agree with that "room to breathe" comment. The movie paces itself in a crescendo. That's fine, it's an artistic choice. But what it means is that the first act is veery slow for a SPACE ADVENTURE! movie. You look at those droids going around in the desert and sighing... It wouldn't survive 2016's audiences.
Mind you, I am judging "boringnessness" by the standards of the overall SW movies. I'm a big fan of other "boring" movies (like, ah, ST: The Motion Picture, 2001, etc.). I've also seen this comment about the second act of ESB also being "Boring". I have to review the movie again. I've seen the first one just two weeks ago to show it to my kid (who just had seen TFA on the theaters), so I could go like "This is the guy who appears at the very end", and "This is Han Solo" "Waaaaaa, that young man is Solo?", ahaha, that was hilarious. Now tomorrow night we'll do ESB and I'll test its boringness.
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It wouldn't survive 2016's audiences.
That's a problem with 2016 audiences, who are completely willing to stomach shoddy plot and pacing for MoreExplosions™.
If the only way to keep these audiences not-Bored is to not even tell a story and present an uninterrupted chain of pyrotechnics and special effects, does that actually make a good movie?
I posit it does not, from an artistic standpoint at least. It conveys no meaning, it becomes merely something to be consumed.
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That's more an indictment of 2016 audiences than a problem with A New Hope, as a kid I did not find the arc boring and heck I had ADHD at the time. I pop on ANH VHS format every summer at the cottage on a 40 year old CRT, I appreciate all the little nuances of the sets and how well it was put together even more as an adult. Really watch the whole Jawa sales scene; its better shot, composed and believable than the majority of the scenes in the prequels.
Besides Tatoonie isn't meant to be a rollicking fun place, its the start of the Hero's Journey. They farm moisture and Luke's big thrill is to go get power converters at Toshi Station. Its supposed to portray a desolate farmboy existence that gets swept up when greater events fall from orbit.
Plus Star Wars' roots are in older materiel now set in space ie Hidden Fortress.
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I agree with that "room to breathe" comment. The movie paces itself in a crescendo. That's fine, it's an artistic choice. But what it means is that the first act is veery slow for a SPACE ADVENTURE! movie. You look at those droids going around in the desert and sighing... It wouldn't survive 2016's audiences.
And as I pointed out earlier, TFA wouldn't survive a 1977 audience either. They'd find it horribly confusing because there's no exposition and the entire film moves at a breakneck speed that we can only stand because of decades of conditioning.
I've continually pointed out that comparing them in the way you are doing is horribly unfair and the only way to make a fair comparison on those grounds is to either look at them as products of their time or to wait another 30 years.
But in the end, I'm going to say that I've never once found the stuff with Luke on Tatooine boring. And if modern audiences do, I'm quite happy to retire to the rocking chair on my porch and complain about how kids today don't understand a good film.
You do realise that a major reason why the OT characters and plot seem so clichéd is cause everyone has been copying them for the last 35 years, right? :p
By those standards they should have been cliched at first blush, considering they were basically ripping 15 years of Japanese cinema.
Cause Japanese cinema was hugely popular and well known outside Japan at the time.
I'd actually love to know what percentage of people who have watched Hidden Fortress are actually Star Wars fans who only watched after hearing it's the film ANH is based on. I suspect it's actually a huge percentage of the non-Japanese viewers.
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I mean c'mon
Rey in her pilot helm was super cute but Luke's got double sunset all the way across the sky! So intense!
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Cause Japanese cinema was hugely popular and well known outside Japan at the time.
Kurosawa was actually pretty popular and well-known in America, considering everyone was knocking him off for eternity.
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Confusing a criticism of "boringnessness" with a push for Michael Bay's X-plosion "void horror" is a terrible strawman that I'm not chewing up, sorry. If you personally didn't mind it, fine. To say that a 5 second scene saves 20-30 minutes of slow-paced "where is this going" desert story is a damned stretch.
Of course I liked that scene. Another powerful musical scene that I happen to adore is the very last 20 seconds of ESB. Gives me goosegumps even today.
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It's at the stage where it seems like you're being almost wilfully ignorant of the monomyth structure that Star Wars was built around. How do you have the hero awakened from his mundane existence if your audience don't have the patience to watch thirty ****ing minutes depicting that process? I guess your ideal version of New Hope just has Luke find the droids and immediately start shooting?
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There goes the Michael Bay strawman I was complaining about. It's like I'm talking chinese.
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I'll just point out my bemusement that someone like you can't tell the difference between expressing the boredom of someone's (or some place's) existence within a movie universe and boring the audience with it. Cracks me up. Or saddens me? I don't care too much anymore.
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It's not a strawman when it's actually what you're saying.
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It's not a strawman when it's actually what you're saying.
This may be a radical concept to you but just because a scene is necessary does not make it entertaining.
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And just because a scene doesn't have lasers and explosions doesn't mean it's boring. Did you know that there are entire films in which people just walk around some planet and talk to each other and nothing explodes at all? I've even heard that some crazy ****ers watch those films!
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I think Luis made it pretty clear he doesn't want Michael Bay, that's a dead argument.
Perhaps the novelty of having such a well portrayed environment as opposed to Shatner chewing on styrofoam scenery in a studio also colors my appreciation of the Tatoonie segment. The Original Trilogy did a fantastic job of using shooting on location to sell the environment fully, Luke didn't have to whine about how course sand is we could draw our own conclusions. Still I cannot think of any redundant or wasted scenes (though it sounds like they hacked those out) and in comparison with Lucas' work on the prequels it was very well directed. They even had a couple scenes to liven it up with the Jawa Ion Blunderbuss ambush and Luke getting jumped by Sand people. I dunno, if you felt the arc was boring then I guess we will leave it at that.
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And just because a scene doesn't have lasers and explosions doesn't mean it's boring. Did you know that there are entire films in which people just walk around some planet and talk to each other and nothing explodes at all? I've even heard that some crazy ****ers watch those films!
Did you know that you're literally making **** up here?
I mean, we can do a movie where at half-hour intervals a bike with no rider goes past two people chatting over coffee and make it interesting, but that's irrelevant to the point I made, and that Luis made. Watching Luke mess with the droids and catch a part of the message to Obi-Wan is necessary to the myth arc. We have to see what he is; but the whole point of what he is that he's not the hero yet, and in fact, kind of annoying.
So he's not entertaining. Because he's not supposed to be does not mean that it is not true.
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If you just rathole down the definition of 'entertaining' to something so narrow and contextless then yes. If you do something crazy like look at films as a holistic story then it's completely asinine.
Are you claiming that Star Wars would be a more entertaining film if the Tatooine section was cut out?
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I think Luis made it pretty clear he doesn't want Michael Bay, that's a dead argument.
If Luis is going to criticise films for having a 30 minute span without a gunfight then people will point out that this is exactly what's provided by a shallow, paceless action flick. If he has a problem with that he can discuss it like a damn adult rather than ordering us not to bring it up.
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Considering that he has not articulated what he would prefer instead, continuing to infer that he means gunfights and explosions, especially when he denied wanting some Bayesq antics, does not make a valid argument.
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Now Phantom Hoover is entertaining himself saying I said **** that I never said.
Where did I say "no gunfights -> BOOOORING".
I'll say this for the last time: It is eminently possible to convey to the audience the emotion of a dead boring desert landscape without any future prospects without boring the audience. Just as you can portray death in movies without killing the audience. "Ceci nes't pas un pipe". Ok, now this is the part where I draw a map or what?
In fact, picking an unrelated movie, I think the best movie that has ever captured the essence of the atmosphere of the surroundings of the protagonists in the most dynamic, relentless, poignant and artful manner is undoubtedly Children of Men. And in that movie, the protagonist is boring as **** at least in the beggining. He even strides to be a boring no one. And the last thing I'd call that first arc is "boring".
If PH insists on his misinterpretations or whatever, I'll ignore him henceforth. There's a limit to sillyness that I'm willing to suffer.
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ANH gave us cliched characters with a wider range of supporting cast.
You do realise that a major reason why the OT characters and plot seem so clichéd is cause everyone has been copying them for the last 35 years, right? :p
ANH's cliches date at least back to the 19th century, and possibly much earlier. Many of its tropes come from classic literature, not least among it authors like Stevenson and Dumas, and later even Tolkein. Yes, they've been used heavily since but they were long-used cliches even when ANH was first released.
On the subject of boring/exciting: my wife has been very bored both by TESB after Hoth and the whole middle of ROTJ. There is a LOT in the OT about which a general audience simply will not care.
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So? As I pointed out, there are lots of people who wouldn't like Citizen Kane. You're making a classic appeal to popularity fallacy here.
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So? As I pointed out, there are lots of people who wouldn't like Citizen Kane. You're making a classic appeal to popularity fallacy here.
No I'm not; I'm pointing out that ONE PERSON happens to agree with Luis to illustrate a point that much of the love of the OT doesn't hold up to new viewers, just like much of TFA may not 30 years from today. TFA contains a lot of action; the OT films have a lot of boring interludes. The takeaway point is that none of these films are anywhere near perfect, and the OT films are no superior exercise in film-making. They have not-insubstantial flaws, too.
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You're pointing out that ONE PERSON doesn't like parts of the film and using that to claim that the film isn't liked by new fans. Fine, I picked the wrong logical fallacy but anecdotal evidence isn't proof either. There are plenty of new viewers who DO love the original trilogy too. Hell, if the problem is that OT has parts that are boring, why are there so many kids going to watch the new films who love OT? They should be the hardest audience of all to please in this day and age. I know plenty of kids who love OT. And if you can get them to sit through 30 minutes of "boring" instead of going off to play on a console then the film must be doing something right.
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The takeaway point is that none of these films are anywhere near perfect, and the OT films are no superior exercise in film-making. They have not-insubstantial flaws, too.
Liking TFA better in one thing, but I honestly don't see how you could argue that TFA represents film making on par with ANH. ANH was an unprecedented landmark achievement that profoundly influenced countless other movies and works in other media. TFA was a solid example of Disney's strategy of picking up and milking the biggest intellectual properties of the day. It seems like you would have to manicure some completely ahistorical viewpoint to hold them in equal regard.
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-snip-
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It is perfectly possible for ANH to be a superior exercise in film-making, and have TFA turn out to be the better overall film. Which was my original point way back there - that, compared apples-to-apples without room for nostalgia, worldbuilding, tech achievements, etc, TFA is the best / most entertaining Star Wars film to date.
Aside: I'm also NOW tempted to award it this title purely because I just finished the OT Blu-Ray release and **** GEORGE LUCAS. Seriously, injecting Hayden Christensen and changing the celebration music in RoTJ alone are grounds for taking away the crown. Jesus.
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That's exactly why I'm praying that Disney will throw its ample weight around at some point and finally get a properly-restored theatrical cut for all us bespectacled nerds to slobber over.
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Mongoose you may be interested in the "Despecialized Edition" of Star Wars, which I believe attempts to do exactly that. I understand there's also dozens of fan-edits with various mixes of original release and later edits but I haven't seen any of them and couldn't tell you which if any are worth watching.
It's annoying because the special editions *did* make some nice changes (e.g. the windows in cloud city are gorgeous) alongside the horrifyingly dumb ones. I'm still not sure which to show my kids.
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Yeah, I have heard about that, though I haven't endeavored to track it down yet. Something else of note is the Legacy Edition, which is one man's literal decade-plus quest to do amazing things to the original film.
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Seriously VHS on a 40 year old Sony CRT TV is best format.
(http://swhomevid.site40.net/vhs_anh3.jpg)
Embrace the scan lines. Search your feelings, you know it to be true.
Mixing CGI during a period where it was not mature and ages poorly with the original practical effects that hold up even today was a terrible idea. Granted some of the additions still look nice but others really depreciated immensely.
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Liking TFA better in one thing, but I honestly don't see how you could argue that TFA represents film making on par with ANH.
I hate to break this to you, but the state of the working art advances. Even allowing for whatever visionary qualities and "film making" (meaning what, exactly? "film making" was and is an ultimately technical process subject to technical improvements) references you want to make the fact remains; ANH is closing on 40 years old.
People do things, many things, all the things, better now. Every aspect of film-making has been refined and improved in that time. Yes, even the creative process that you will doubtless plead.
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That's actually one big problem I have with TFA. Given the fact that they have over 35 years of improvements in film making to draw upon, how did they manage to do so badly with the plot line?
It is perfectly possible for ANH to be a superior exercise in film-making, and have TFA turn out to be the better overall film. Which was my original point way back there - that, compared apples-to-apples without room for nostalgia, worldbuilding, tech achievements, etc, TFA is the best / most entertaining Star Wars film to date.
It's possible, but that doesn't mean it actually happened. If you liked it better, well that's fine. My problem is that you claimed that by some objective measure it was a better film and in that respect I'm still going to have to disagree with you.
Aside: I'm also NOW tempted to award it this title purely because I just finished the OT Blu-Ray release and **** GEORGE LUCAS. Seriously, injecting Hayden Christensen and changing the celebration music in RoTJ alone are grounds for taking away the crown. Jesus.
If we're going to go by the Special Edition, yeah, that's a master class in how not to make a director's cut of a film. But I don't think anyone here believes the Special Edition is better so we might as well ignore it and talk about the theatrical release.
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I hate to break this to you, but the state of the working art advances. Even allowing for whatever visionary qualities and "film making" (meaning what, exactly? "film making" was and is an ultimately technical process subject to technical improvements) references you want to make the fact remains; ANH is closing on 40 years old.
People do things, many things, all the things, better now. Every aspect of film-making has been refined and improved in that time. Yes, even the creative process that you will doubtless plead.
I'm not arguing that the average movie in 2015 was worse than the average movie in 1977. What I've been saying is that the steps forward that TFA took were in areas that are relatively unimportant to what made Star Wars special, while it took relatively major steps back in the areas of SW's strengths. The "film making" point was in response to MP Ryan bringing that term up, and referred to how understanding the context that the two movies were created in deepens my appreciation of ANH but reinforces the mediocrity of TFA, despite its objectively superior surround sound mix.
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Gotta love arguments over subjective sentiments
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That's actually one big problem I have with TFA. Given the fact that they have over 35 years of improvements in film making to draw upon, how did they manage to do so badly with the plot line?
You're assuming these 35 years have been spent mostly on "improving" film-making. In a way, yes, but solely from the capitalistic point of view. The invisible hand does not guarantee an evolution of the quality of the product, only of its profitability.
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I think we have long since reached and passed the point where we are just going in circles. Ultimately, I've argued TFA has several elements that are objectively superior to any prior SW film which makes it a superior film, but we keep wrapping back to people's (including my own) subjective belief on whether or not TFA is actually the superior film.
Since I don't have an infinite amount of time to argue pedantic silliness on the Internet, I'm cutting myself off here :)
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'I've argued that TFA [...] is the superior film but I won't talk about it any more because you keep making it about whether I think TFA is the superior film'
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Going in circles is clearly a much better option.
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Going in circles is clearly a much better option.
Exactly. (http://www.hard-light.net/forums/index.php?topic=91213.0) :D
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I think we have long since reached and passed the point where we are just going in circles. Ultimately, I've argued TFA has several elements that are objectively superior to any prior SW film which makes it a superior film, but we keep wrapping back to people's (including my own) subjective belief on whether or not TFA is actually the superior film.
How can TFA be better than ANH when as a film TFA simultaneously both relies upon and exists to serve other films? How can a film which is dependent upon other films to make sense be better than a film which is self-contained? You're viewing the film not on its own but with the benefit of nearly 40 years of history to prop it up.
And incidentally, moving forward that is exactly what Star Wars is going to become. Disney intends to release at least one new film every year for four years, and like Marvel they would like to release one film a year for as long as they can. Invariably some or most of those films will exist not to tell their own story but but exist to service stories both before and after their release. The individual movies will become less important than the overarching narratives, and those overarching narratives will likewise be secondary to the overall lore or general direction of the fiction. They will become pieces of a whole instead of a whole in and of themselves.
This is what TFA is to ANH.
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How can TFA be better than ANH when as a film TFA simultaneously both relies upon and exists to serve other films?
This is not a contradiction, you realize. ESB is usually considered the best original trilogy film and does exactly the same thing.
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How can TFA be better than ANH when as a film TFA simultaneously both relies upon and exists to serve other films?
This is not a contradiction, you realize. ESB is usually considered the best original trilogy film and does exactly the same thing.
Just because people consider it the best doesn't prevent it from being a contradiction. Nor are they "exactly" the same thing when comparing the different scopes of history before both ESB and TFA.
And who exactly considers it the best? ESB made half the money ANH did in theatres upon release in unadjusted sales. Adjusted for inflation ANH still made the most money out of any star wars film, it's made even more if you compare marketing and production budgets.
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How can TFA be better than ANH when as a film TFA simultaneously both relies upon and exists to serve other films?
This is not a contradiction, you realize. ESB is usually considered the best original trilogy film and does exactly the same thing.
Just because people consider it the best doesn't prevent it from being a contradiction. Nor are they "exactly" the same thing when comparing the different scopes of history before both ESB and TFA.
And who exactly considers it the best? ESB made half the money ANH did in theatres upon release in unadjusted sales. Adjusted for inflation ANH still made the most money out of any star wars film.
When your question is "how can it be the best when it's not self-contained" and the answer is to provide a movie that is the best while not being self-contained, it's a pretty clear demonstration that the contradiction you're trying to frame here does not exist.
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How can TFA be better than ANH when as a film TFA simultaneously both relies upon and exists to serve other films?
This is not a contradiction, you realize. ESB is usually considered the best original trilogy film and does exactly the same thing.
Just because people consider it the best doesn't prevent it from being a contradiction. Nor are they "exactly" the same thing when comparing the different scopes of history before both ESB and TFA.
And who exactly considers it the best? ESB made half the money ANH did in theatres upon release in unadjusted sales. Adjusted for inflation ANH still made the most money out of any star wars film.
When your question is "how can it be the best when it's not self-contained" and the answer is to provide a movie that is the best while not being self-contained, it's a pretty clear demonstration that the contradiction you're trying to frame here does not exist.
I don't think it's the best. Nor does the general public given it made half the ticket sales of the original movie. So why should I believe you or him when you say that it is?
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And who exactly considers it the best? ESB made half the money ANH did in theatres upon release in unadjusted sales.
Argmentum ad ticket sales? Really?
Any poll that's been conducted on the issue in my lifetime has come out with a ranking of ESB>ANH>ROTJ. They're remarkably consistant on that. It's also by far the most critically beloved of the three.
Hell, even in this thread it's come up before. I'm sorry your memory is that short.
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Disney intends to release at least one new film every year for four years, and like Marvel they would like to release one film a year for as long as they can.
For reference, Disney owns both Pixar (which used to deliver one movie per year) and Marvel (which is delivering 2 or more per year on average). If Bat vs Sup flops, Disney becomes pratically the only game in town and is fully intended to overfeed us with itself.
Any poll that's been conducted on the issue in my lifetime has come out with a ranking of ESB>ANH>ROTJ.
That ESB is the best, fine. That ANH > ROTJ is ridiculous. ANH has one or two memorable quotes, tops. The Luke - Vader confrontation at the end is just a movie in itself.
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And who exactly considers it the best? ESB made half the money ANH did in theatres upon release in unadjusted sales.
Argmentum ad ticket sales? Really?
Yeah because your anecdotal evidence is rock solid. Much more relevant than hard numbers.
It's also by far the most critically beloved of the three.
Prove it.
Star Wars received an Academy Nomination for Best Picture. Won SIX Oscars. Another 38 Wins and 27 Nominations for other Awards.
Empire Strikes won ONE Oscar, was not nominated for Best Picture. Another 15 wins & 17 nominations.
Critic Scores / Metacritic
Star Wars - 92%
Empire Strikes Back - 79%
Critic Scores / Rotten Tomatoes:
Star Wars 94 %
Empire 94 %
But feel free to create some more anecdotal evidence, pull some words from one critic, trying to discredit the various sources I've given and continue to ignore the facts
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IMDB:
A New Hope: 8.7/10
Empire Strikes Back: 8.8/10
I can use the internet to a ****ty "source" too. (http://www.imdb.com/poll/uLB4Ikfqs20/results) Unlike your hastily scrabbled rebuttal, however, I can also get a good one too. (http://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/the-empire-strikes-back-1997)
``The Empire Strikes Back'' is the best of three Star Wars films, and the most thought-provoking. After the space opera cheerfulness of the original film, this one plunges into darkness and even despair, and surrenders more completely to the underlying mystery of the story. It is because of the emotions stirred in ``Empire'' that the entire series takes on a mythic quality that resonates back to the first and ahead to the third. This is the heart.
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That ESB is the best, fine. That ANH > ROTJ is ridiculous. ANH has one or two memorable quotes, tops. The Luke - Vader confrontation at the end is just a movie in itself.
I personally think ROTJ was the best of them, but I'm a sucker for the fighter combat. I'm just reporting what I've seen.
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Similarly, I'm a sucker for the music. Empire Strikes Back wins the music contest hands down with the Imperial Death March, speeder battle, and asteroid chase pieces.
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IMDB:
A New Hope: 8.7/10
Empire Strikes Back: 8.8/10
I can use the internet to a ****ty "source" too. (http://www.imdb.com/poll/uLB4Ikfqs20/results) Unlike your hastily scrabbled rebuttal, however, I can also get a good one too. (http://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/the-empire-strikes-back-1997)
Academy Awards and their compatriots are a ****ty source for defining critical reception? Hahaha. Seeya later Alice.
That ESB is the best, fine. That ANH > ROTJ is ridiculous. ANH has one or two memorable quotes, tops. The Luke - Vader confrontation at the end is just a movie in itself.
I personally think ROTJ was the best of them, but I'm a sucker for the fighter combat. I'm just reporting what I've seen.
I prefer Return of the Jedi too.
It doesn't mean I think it's a better movie.
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It always amuses me when I see people who still have the word filter on. Considering we've had such awful Oscar awards as Shakespeare in Love taking Best Picture from Saving Private Ryan, Dances With Wolves beating Goodfellas. Citizen Kane didn't win Best Picture. It got beat by a movie I'd be willing to bet you've never even heard of in How Green Was My Valentine (because I sure as **** had never heard of it). Argo beat Zero Dark Thirty.
The Academy Awards, despite being hailed as the most prestigious, are by no means perfect (or even close, some years).
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The Academy Awards, despite being hailed as the most prestigious, are by no means perfect (or even close, some years).
Doesn't matter, they're the defining representation of critical reception until you produce something better (Also you're ignoring the numerous awards and nominated bestowed by other organizations).
And no, quoting a review written 17 years after Empire's release by a critic who gave 3 1/2 stars (out of 4) to the Phantom Menace and allegedly ranked Empire as #7 of the best films of 1980 doesn't qualify as "something better" than numerous organizations, both the Academy and others, which saw fit to give Star Wars (1977) more awards and nominations than Empire.
Also it's interesting to note a defining distinction between your examples and Empire. All of those losers you mention were at least nominated. Empire wasn't even that.
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The Academy Awards, despite being hailed as the most prestigious, are by no means perfect (or even close, some years).
Doesn't matter, they're the defining representation of critical reception until you produce something better (Also you're ignoring the numerous awards and nominated bestowed by other organizations).
And no, quoting a review written 17 years after Empire's release by a critic who gave 3 1/2 stars (out of 4) to the Phantom Menace and allegedly ranked Empire as #7 of the best films of 1980 doesn't qualify as "something better" than numerous organizations, both the Academy and others, which saw fit to give Star Wars (1977) more awards and nominations than Empire.
Aha, the vaunted "I got here first" defense. Using your logic, How Green Is My Valentine is one of the greatest movies of all time. If not the greatest, since it won Best Picture and beat out Citizen Kane in the process. :rolleyes:
The Oscars are not immune to politics. Rocky won Best Picture instead of A New Hope. Is it a better movie? Were the movies in 1980 better than the movies in 1977? Probably!
In the meantime, it would behoove you to educate yourself on who Roger Ebert is and his contributions to cinema.
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The Academy Awards are hilariously political and no one takes them as a serious source for critical reception of a film in any year moderately removed that which it was given. They're often a useful barometer for whether a film that might not be otherwise popular may be worth seeing; the further removed from the year of the award we are, the less relevant it is, for the reason of all the examples Scotty gave. (The 1999 and 2002 Best Picture's are also pretty good examples.)
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The Academy Awards are hilariously political and no one takes them as a serious source for critical reception of a film in any year moderately removed that which it was given. They're often a useful barometer for whether a film that might not be otherwise popular may be worth seeing; the further removed from the year of the award we are, the less relevant it is, for the reason of all the examples Scotty gave. (The 1999 and 2002 Best Picture's are also pretty good examples.)
but mp-ryan quote your sources and furthermore
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The Academy Awards, despite being hailed as the most prestigious, are by no means perfect (or even close, some years).
Doesn't matter, they're the defining representation of critical reception until you produce something better (Also you're ignoring the numerous awards and nominated bestowed by other organizations).
And no, quoting a review written 17 years after Empire's release by a critic who gave 3 1/2 stars (out of 4) to the Phantom Menace and allegedly ranked Empire as #7 of the best films of 1980 doesn't qualify as "something better" than numerous organizations, both the Academy and others, which saw fit to give Star Wars (1977) more awards and nominations than Empire.
Aha, the vaunted "I got here first" defense. Using your logic, How Green Is My Valentine is one of the greatest movies of all time. If not the greatest, since it won Best Picture and beat out Citizen Kane in the process. :rolleyes:
The Oscars are not immune to politics. Rocky won Best Picture instead of A New Hope. Is it a better movie? Were the movies in 1980 better than the movies in 1977? Probably!
Annie Hall won best picture you goofball.
A woody allen movie, one of the most celebrated and famous writer-directors in hollywood.
You can't even google **** right.
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Some other films never even nominated for Best Picture in the year they came out:
Spartacus
2001: A Space Odyssey
Blade Runner
The Usual Suspects
Toy Story
The Matrix
Cold Mountain
TESB is in good company, methinks.
Whether you agree with the "Should Have Won" or not, this list is really useful: http://www.filmsite.org/bestpics3.html
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The Academy Awards, despite being hailed as the most prestigious, are by no means perfect (or even close, some years).
Doesn't matter, they're the defining representation of critical reception until you produce something better (Also you're ignoring the numerous awards and nominated bestowed by other organizations).
And no, quoting a review written 17 years after Empire's release by a critic who gave 3 1/2 stars (out of 4) to the Phantom Menace and allegedly ranked Empire as #7 of the best films of 1980 doesn't qualify as "something better" than numerous organizations, both the Academy and others, which saw fit to give Star Wars (1977) more awards and nominations than Empire.
Aha, the vaunted "I got here first" defense. Using your logic, How Green Is My Valentine is one of the greatest movies of all time. If not the greatest, since it won Best Picture and beat out Citizen Kane in the process. :rolleyes:
The Oscars are not immune to politics. Rocky won Best Picture instead of A New Hope. Is it a better movie? Were the movies in 1980 better than the movies in 1977? Probably!
Annie Hall won best picture you goofball.
A woody allen movie, one of the most celebrated and famous writer-directors in hollywood.
You can't even google **** right.
I blame Google for this one. (http://lmgtfy.com/?q=Best+Picture+1977)
In my capacity as a mod, watch the ad homs.
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The Academy Awards, despite being hailed as the most prestigious, are by no means perfect (or even close, some years).
Doesn't matter, they're the defining representation of critical reception until you produce something better (Also you're ignoring the numerous awards and nominated bestowed by other organizations).
And no, quoting a review written 17 years after Empire's release by a critic who gave 3 1/2 stars (out of 4) to the Phantom Menace and allegedly ranked Empire as #7 of the best films of 1980 doesn't qualify as "something better" than numerous organizations, both the Academy and others, which saw fit to give Star Wars (1977) more awards and nominations than Empire.
Aha, the vaunted "I got here first" defense. Using your logic, How Green Is My Valentine is one of the greatest movies of all time. If not the greatest, since it won Best Picture and beat out Citizen Kane in the process. :rolleyes:
The Oscars are not immune to politics. Rocky won Best Picture instead of A New Hope. Is it a better movie? Were the movies in 1980 better than the movies in 1977? Probably!
Annie Hall won best picture you goofball.
A woody allen movie, one of the most celebrated and famous writer-directors in hollywood.
You can't even google **** right.
I blame Google for this one. (http://lmgtfy.com/?q=Best+Picture+1977)
In my capacity as a mod, watch the ad homs.
In my capacity as a user, you shouldn't be moderating your own discussions.
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Your post is noted. Now watch the ad homs.
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Doesn't matter, they're the defining representation of critical reception
Course, critics are humans, and as such, anything they say about a movie is ultimately still subjective
Sure, their opinion might be valued more than someone who doesn't do it for a living (course, value once again depends on another person valuing their opinion, which is subjective etc etc), but it's still ultimately their opinion, and thus subjective
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The Oscars are not immune to politics. Rocky won Best Picture instead of A New Hope. Is it a better movie? Were the movies in 1980 better than the movies in 1977? Probably!
In the meantime, it would behoove you to educate yourself on who Roger Ebert is and his contributions to cinema.
Incidentally. If you want to quote Roger Ebert and say he's a definitive source, you might want to dig a little deeper than google's front page
For 1977's review Roger Ebert ranked Star Wars #10 on his best movies list, well below Annie Hall.
For 1980 he put Empire Strikes back a bit higher at #7
A fellow critic, at one time equally renown, is Gene Siskel.
He put Star Wars at #7 in 1977 (and Annie Hall first)
In 1980, Empire Strikes back isn't even on his list.
Two renown critics. Two opinions. No consensus except so far as they both believe Annie Hall is the better movie and that Ordinary People (1980) is better than Empire.
http://www.innermind.com/misc/s_e_top.htm
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The Oscars are not immune to politics. Rocky won Best Picture instead of A New Hope. Is it a better movie? Were the movies in 1980 better than the movies in 1977? Probably!
In the meantime, it would behoove you to educate yourself on who Roger Ebert is and his contributions to cinema.
Incidentally. If you want to quote Roger Ebert and say he's a definitive source, you might want to dig a little deeper than google's front page
For 1977's review Roger Ebert ranked Star Wars #10 on his best movies list, well below Annie Hall.
For 1980 he put Empire Strikes back a bit higher at #7
A fellow critic, at one time equally renown, is Gene Siskel.
He put Star Wars at #7 in 1977 (and Annie Hall first)
In 1980, Empire Strikes back isn't even on his list.
Two renown critics. Two opinions. No consensus except so far as they both believe Annie Hall is the better movie and that Ordinary People (1980) is better than Empire.
http://www.innermind.com/misc/s_e_top.htm
I really fail to see your point here. Are you pointing out that two critics have different opinions? Fantastic, I didn't notice that. Is this designed to support your assertion that the Oscars are the definitive pick on what is and is not a quality film? I certainly hope not, because all you've done is demonstrate that opinions vary on good films which is actively detrimental to your point (especially considering that Empire Strikes Back's superiority to A New Hope is largely beyond the realm of opinion).
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The Oscars are not immune to politics. Rocky won Best Picture instead of A New Hope. Is it a better movie? Were the movies in 1980 better than the movies in 1977? Probably!
In the meantime, it would behoove you to educate yourself on who Roger Ebert is and his contributions to cinema.
Incidentally. If you want to quote Roger Ebert and say he's a definitive source, you might want to dig a little deeper than google's front page
For 1977's review Roger Ebert ranked Star Wars #10 on his best movies list, well below Annie Hall.
For 1980 he put Empire Strikes back a bit higher at #7
A fellow critic, at one time equally renown, is Gene Siskel.
He put Star Wars at #7 in 1977 (and Annie Hall first)
In 1980, Empire Strikes back isn't even on his list.
Two renown critics. Two opinions. No consensus except so far as they both believe Annie Hall is the better movie and that Ordinary People (1980) is better than Empire.
http://www.innermind.com/misc/s_e_top.htm
I really fail to see your point here. Are you pointing out that two critics have different opinions? Fantastic, I didn't notice that. Is this designed to support your assertion that the Oscars are the definitive pick on what is and is not a quality film? I certainly hope not, because all you've done is demonstrate that opinions vary on good films which is actively detrimental to your point (especially considering that Empire Strikes Back's superiority to A New Hope is largely beyond the realm of opinion).
Ah yeah it's "beyond the realm of opinion" yet not one hour ago you were quoting one man's opinion to try and prove that it was so.
Or perhaps we should divine the truth from the infallible nerd poll on imdb.com with the incredibly small sample size.
Fact is on your side there isn't an argument, just a desire to disagree. That's why your argument is inconsistent and reactionary with a line of reasoning which changes by the hour or is quietly dropped entirely when it proves a dead end.
My rebuttle to NGTMR1 has always been that critically, Star Wars was overall better received by Empire. I haven't heard anything that disproves that beyond people whining about their favourite movie not winning an award and quoting from websites which claim Star Trek 2009 should be nominated for best picture.
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I'd keep going with this, but you're an utterly infuriating person to try to talk to even when there's a point to agree on, and I have lost all respect for your opinions or your methods of expressing them.
Fact is on your side there isn't an argument, just a desire to disagree.
The complete and utter lack of self-awareness here is amusing.
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Fact is on your side there isn't an argument, just a desire to disagree.
The complete and utter lack of self-awareness here is amusing.
Indeed it is:
It's easier to respond to someone who is wrong than someone you merely disagree with.
As to this claim:
I'd keep going with this, but you're an utterly infuriating person to try to talk to even when there's a point to agree on, and I have lost all respect for your opinions or your methods of expressing them.
Don't feign open-mindedness when there wasn't any to begin with.
I don't really give a **** whether they pass an arbitrary logic test administered by an obviously biased observer.
I can use the internet to <get> a ****ty "source" too. (http://www.imdb.com/poll/uLB4Ikfqs20/results)
"****ty Source". Really, giving my points fair consideration huh?
Your points might have value if your own arguments relied on actual facts, but of course they rely more on fancy:
I'm sorry that you lack the imagination to come up with that on your own, Akalabeth.
Use your imagination, jesus.
Use your ****ing imagination for once.
That and trying to discredit sources, both myself as a source and those I've quoted while offering few if any consistent insights yourself.
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Don't feign open-mindedness when there wasn't any to begin with.
The lack of self-awareness again.
Honestly, given how much you've argued in bad faith, made an ass of yourself, and been remarkably and incredibly unpleasant across two threads on this subject I'm amazed you haven't been banned or told to get out of the topic. It's been downright Trashmanesque.
Your complaints that Scotty doesn't have an argument are, perforce, mere whining; you don't bother to illustrate this point in any meaningful way, instead reaching far back into the thread to complain about things from pages ago that are irrelevant to the issue at hand and ad hominem.
After being warned about that.
Jesus Christ, you just can't help yourself, can you?
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Don't feign open-mindedness when there wasn't any to begin with.
The lack of self-awareness again.
Yeah, lack of Self-awareness. Like your fool's Crusade to prove to me that I was wrong about Conservation of Detail.
Maybe you should've asked for clarification of my statement before spending so much energy to try and prove me wrong. But you were more interested in my being wrong than in the possibility that I was right.
Reason I don't get banned is probably because I don't do ad-hominen attacks:
but your hatred for this movie is well-established in its immunity to reason by now
Hell, even in this thread it's come up before. I'm sorry your memory is that short.
Your endless ranting . . . indicated, of course, that you didn't understand this, so I perhaps shouldn't be surprised.
You have trouble with concepts like exposed machinery . . .
This may be a radical concept to you . . .
If you think objective fact can't be widely disputed, you must be living in some other dimension.
Good for you though. You've got a free pass to act disrespectful and attack people almost ALL the time.
Remember when this was a rule:
- Any attempts to belittle other forum members for not agreeing with you will be treated in much the same way as a direct personal attack. Yes, you may find it annoying if someone is posting an argument that shows that they don't understand the topic under discussion as well as you do, but it's worth remembering that since you probably aren't a world renowned expert in the subject, there could be someone as annoyed at you. If someone is ignorant, it is your job to enlighten them, not make fun of their ignorance.
Lucky for you that someone championed to remove it:
You're looking for a codified version of the forum guidelines that you can quote and point fingers and say "this does not fit with this collection of words". . . . this is exactly the problem with the forum guidelines.
Soctty is a global mod, and has taken it upon himself to do something on his own that he feels is necessary to improve things.
"Lucky" for Scotty too:
I'm sorry that you lack the imagination to come up with that on your own, Akalabeth.
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If I remember correctly Empire actually had worse reviews (not "bad" but worse) than the first Star Wars on release because many didn't like the cliffhanger ending and the darker atmosphere and pointed out plot holes while ROTJ was hailed by many as a "return to form".
I'm talking about official critics of course, not necessarily the general public.
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Citizen Kane didn't win Best Picture. It got beat by a movie I'd be willing to bet you've never even heard of in How Green Was My Valentine (because I sure as **** had never heard of it).
It's actually How Green Was My Valley Although the fact that you're not saying it beat Citizen Kabel kinda shows that you're right about relative obsucrity. :D
To be fair to the film, it is actually supposed to be a very good film in its own right. Just unfortunate in having come up against something like Citizen Kane.
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[snip]
so, you're basically announcing to the world that you don't actually know what a personal attack is
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Simple fact is that we're are all arguing over which Star Wars film is the best one as if it's the 1990 and we're on usenet. :p Looks like both sides are getting rather heated to me as the discussion is now about who knows how to argue rather than the films. Guys, calm down.
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Rocky is better than any SW movie and he could beat up Woody Allen too idgaf
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To be fair to the film, it is actually supposed to be a very good film in its own right. Just unfortunate in having come up against something like Citizen Kane.
Gotta admit I'm inclined to give it the benefit of the doubt; Citizen Kane has always come across to me as The Jungle of movies. It was big because it took on the Hearsts and that was brave and bold at the time but when you got down to the nuts and bolts it's not that praiseworthy.
I did try to find it once. Was unsuccessful.
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My biggest gripe with ESB is that people took the wrong lessons from it. Nowadays, everyone doing a trilogy want an "ESB" in the middle section, a "darker" one, etc., etc. Instead of taking the correct lesson: surprise the audience, give something novel.
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To be fair to the film, it is actually supposed to be a very good film in its own right. Just unfortunate in having come up against something like Citizen Kane.
Gotta admit I'm inclined to give it the benefit of the doubt; Citizen Kane has always come across to me as The Jungle of movies. It was big because it took on the Hearsts and that was brave and bold at the time but when you got down to the nuts and bolts it's not that praiseworthy.
I did try to find it once. Was unsuccessful.
Citizen Kane is praiseworthy for its cinematography, editing, and special effects, which were nothing if not a marvel. I don't think any movie until (ironically, considering our conversation) A New Hope prompted such a revolution in the same fields.
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Citizen Kane is praiseworthy for its cinematography, editing, and special effects, which were nothing if not a marvel. I don't think any movie until (ironically, considering our conversation) A New Hope prompted such a revolution in the same fields.
There are a couple of problems with this view. The cinematography and editing are, by comparative with contemporaries, certainly more modern overall...but it's not that they're doing anything new, it's just all happening in one place. (This is dramatically less true of A New Hope.) This is over and above the problem with editing being the dismal art; very few people outside film understand it, and even fewer care about it, unless you do it badly. The special effects field, that I really cannot understand where you're coming from. There is nothing particularly innovative or even impressive going on there in comparison to other movies of the time.
Much of what was praiseworthy about the movie comes from its unusual narrative structure and its use of music; the former remains innovative even by comparison to many modern works and the latter was truly innovative for the time.
It must be remembered that Citizen Kane, unlike A New Hope, sank without a trace in the US' collective consciousness when released in 1941. It did not recoup its costs at the box office and it had little or no detectable influence on the course of filmmaking. Things continued as they were. Even in filmmaking Citizen Kane would now be obscure save for the 1958 revival, and that had a lot to do with Orson Welles' successful Touch of Evil from the same year.
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There are a couple of problems with this view. The cinematography and editing are, by comparative with contemporaries, certainly more modern overall...but it's not that they're doing anything new, it's just all happening in one place.
As I keep pointing out, we are talking about this on a board dedicated to a computer game that also did nothing new, but merely took the best of other games and combined them. One which also would have sank without a trace but for the fact that after its release people suddenly stopped making games in the genre.
Successfully combining the best from other sources is an art in itself. I don't think you can claim that FS2 shouldn't be regarded as the best flight sim ever just because it did nothing new.
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I wouldn't call FS2 the best flight sim ever by a long shot, but that's because I wouldn't call it a "flight sim" in a world where "Microsoft Flight Simulator" exists. :P
Citizen Kane is praiseworthy for its cinematography, editing, and special effects, which were nothing if not a marvel. I don't think any movie until (ironically, considering our conversation) A New Hope prompted such a revolution in the same fields.
There are a couple of problems with this view. The cinematography and editing are, by comparative with contemporaries, certainly more modern overall...but it's not that they're doing anything new, it's just all happening in one place. (This is dramatically less true of A New Hope.) This is over and above the problem with editing being the dismal art; very few people outside film understand it, and even fewer care about it, unless you do it badly. The special effects field, that I really cannot understand where you're coming from. There is nothing particularly innovative or even impressive going on there in comparison to other movies of the time.
Halo: Combat Evolved is a historically excellent game that did nothing new on its own. You could possibly argue the exact term "historically excellent" but considering how it re-shaped the entire First Person Shooter genre in its image I think it fits. :P
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As I keep pointing out, we are talking about this on a board dedicated to a computer game that also did nothing new, but merely took the best of other games and combined them.
I don't think you can sustain this contention in regards to FS2. I played a lot of Wing Commander, y'know? None of them ever managed to make their warships imposing or even really interactive the way FS2 does. Similarly, none of them manage to sustain FS2's level of writing, or have much of anything like its overall story. There's much more to this game than that.
Halo: Combat Evolved is a historically excellent game that did nothing new on its own. You could possibly argue the exact term "historically excellent" but considering how it re-shaped the entire First Person Shooter genre in its image I think it fits. :P
Which is exactly what Citizen Kane did not do. I already pointed that out. If you want to point to the movie that actually did that, it's Touch of Evil again. Citizen Kane did it first; but Citizen Kane didn't have any impact on anyone else.
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The revolutionary aspect of ANH is unbeatable by any other SW films for obvious reasons: whatever they might be, they'll be either sequels or prequels to a giant entrance to a whole new universe.
There are very few examples like that in the whole movie industry which simultaneously took the entire industry and culture by storm. Toy Story? I mean, not even Iron Man classifies here. If we are going to judge ANH including that aspect, well then, every SW film will obviously lose no matter how better it is against ANH.
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Probably The Lord of the Rings, despite it not being an original work, obviously.
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Yeah that's why I didn't pick it.
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I don't think you can sustain this contention in regards to FS2. I played a lot of Wing Commander, y'know? None of them ever managed to make their warships imposing or even really interactive the way FS2 does. Similarly, none of them manage to sustain FS2's level of writing, or have much of anything like its overall story. There's much more to this game than that.
If we're talking story, we don't need to restrict ourselves to space sims, meaning FS2 would have to go up against, for example, Marathon. FS2 primarily combined elements of other "space shooters", but it also had elements from games from other genres. X-Wing: Alliance also had respectable (if not as interactive) capships, though it had relatively few moments where they came into play.
As I keep pointing out, we are talking about this on a board dedicated to a computer game that also did nothing new, but merely took the best of other games and combined them. One which also would have sank without a trace but for the fact that after its release people suddenly stopped making games in the genre.
I think that it'd have sunk without a trace anyway if it wasn't for its modding scene keeping it alive. SCP probably did more to preserve FS2 than any of its own qualities did. It was certainly the best "space sim" (it's not a flightsim by any measure) when it was released, it probably still is if you consider "Elitelikes" to be a separate genre (which is probably a good idea, given the extensive differences). However, I feel that this is only because no solid attempt at beating it has yet been made. Even Chris Roberts is making the "next Freelancer" rather than the "next Wing Commander".
TBH, it wasn't even the end of all "space sim" type games, merely to the linear, story-driven kind. X series started out in the same year FS2 was released and has been going strong ever since (and that's without even mentioning the other, less known "Elitelikes"). Starshatter:TGS came out a few years later with a procedural campaign similar to what flight simulators had. Russians didn't get the memo, either, release Echelon in 2001 (I can't say for sure if it's any good, since I couldn't find the time to play it yet, but flying itself feels great).
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If we're talking story, we don't need to restrict ourselves to space sims,
This doesn't make much sense as an idea. We are talking about "best space sim" here, so we don't need to restrict ourselves to space sims in a certain category.
Uh...no?
meaning FS2 would have to go up against, for example, Marathon. FS2 primarily combined elements of other "space shooters", but it also had elements from games from other genres. X-Wing: Alliance also had respectable (if not as interactive) capships, though it had relatively few moments where they came into play.
Still no. And, honestly, no, XWA doesn't, just as XWvTF didn't. More goes into making a capship respectable than a lot of hitpoints or a lot of guns. In a real sense the X-Wing games couldn't have done that, because too many of their artistic decisions were hostage to what came previously. Making capships respectable and interactive is about more than just what they do. It goes to basic storytelling on textual and visual levels. TIE Fighter came closer than any of the other Star Wars games in this regard, unsurprisingly, but even it lacked the visuals to pull it off.
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Even Freespace barely had the visuals to pull it off, they just crossed the sufficient threshold on that point that enabled them to do it.
After it, I thought I would see much more 3D space like environments, like going through really big built space environments and the likes, but the genre at that point was dead. Today's hardware & software abilities are so sky high I think we could have amazing new spatial / narrative experiences on these things. We have the firepower to do so, so to speak. We just lost the tradition and the will to do these games, and even in attempts to revive these things, all people can come up with is "Elite" kind of games OR "Wing Commander with flashier graphics". It's terrible. For all the hatred people have towards the unimaginative territory that is Hollywood, just look at the dreaded landscapes of games development right now.
I do hope the few exceptions to this phenomenon kick off and sell well.
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In overall i liked this episode, the only thing i would liked to see is a First Order leader similar to the Grand Admiral Thrawn, personally i would like more the First Order if is more based in the intelligence rather than the brute force.
And sorry for my bad english (my first language is spanish).