[Scotty]

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.

[Akalabeth Angel]

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.

[AdmiralRalwood]

Side note, the thing I liked most about TFA was also Rey. Don't really see why that would be a problem.

[Scotty]

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.

[AdmiralRalwood]

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.

[Scotty]

Whoops.  Carry on.

[karajorma]

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.

[StarSlayer]

The same reason Ben and Yoda went away and left the universe in peril?

[Scotty]

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.   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.

[karajorma]

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?

[Phantom Hoover]

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.

[Scotty]

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.

[Phantom Hoover]

That'd almost work if Leia wasn't identified as being a general for the Republic right in the opening crawl.

[StarSlayer]

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?

[Mongoose]

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.

[karajorma]

And yet we're expected to believe he'd leave a map behind to where he is?

[swashmebuckle]

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.

[Dragon]

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.").

[Luis Dias]

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 , 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.

[Mars]

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.