[MatthTheGeek]

The similarity was probably just insurance to send the message "this is still star wars, chill out fans". I expect the future episodes to be less constrained on that point now that the ground work has been laid.

[Crashdown117]

The similarity was probably just insurance to send the message "this is still star wars, chill out fans". I expect the future episodes to be less constrained on that point now that the ground work has been laid.

Amen.

[MatthTheGeek]

I'd agree they overdid it though, and that it diminishes the overall quality of the movie compared to what it could have been without that as constraints, but better safe than sorry. It's a little too bad but I very much understand why they decided to push it that far.

[Crashdown117]

But then again not sticking to the OT (and the old EU) close enough was something, that quite some people criticised about the prequels. Guess you can never make everyone happy...
The first half, especially the scenes on Jakku and the big battle on the other planet (forgot how that second one was called) did show, what I guess is to be the style of this new trilogy, and I like that. I think, that this movie might be the one, that will later be considered the weakest of the trilogy, much like some said about Episode V (or VI respectively, depends on whom you ask).
Maybe I'm just one of many fans, that need to get used to this new style of Star Wars. But hey, we've learned to live with the prequels, right?

[Aesaar]

Repost of what I posted in the GenDisc thread:

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.

[Crashdown117]

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.

Guess that sums everything up, that's to be said on the negative side.
Disney made a fatal mistake in declaring the old EU non-canon and then coming up with something, that's not even on par with Episode III (the only prequel I kinda liked), so now fans are disappointed. As you mentioned, the story set around Thrawn would have been way better and so would have other storylines from the EU.
But we shouldn't forget, that the EU had decades to develop and that many different authors contributed to its canon, whereas Episode VII was put together in the relatively short time of a year or two and had to convince the audiences, that it's not another piece of junk but something, that wants to follow the "tradition" of classical Star Wars.
As for it being Ep.IV Mk.II: This movie is a bit similar to Into Darkness, where Abrams also mixed some new stuff with a bunch of elements that seem familiar, especially from Wrath of Khan. The only difference is, that STID actually mentioned the whole Khan vs. Enterprise thing from TOS and Star Trek II.
In my opinion, the problem is that TFA seemed to be something actually new and then gradually became a remake of what's already been there.

[The E]

Guess that sums everything up, that's to be said on the negative side.
Disney made a fatal mistake in declaring the old EU non-canon and then coming up with something, that's not even on par with Episode III (the only prequel I kinda liked), so now fans are disappointed. As you mentioned, the story set around Thrawn would have been way better and so would have other storylines from the EU.

Pleeeeeaaaasseeee do not generalize all of Star Wars fandom that way. I'm a fan. I've read a good portion of the EU. I'm not disappointed in TFA, and am not even slightly sad they're ignoring the EU. "Fans" aren't disappointed. You are.

[MatthTheGeek]

Agreed. If anything getting rid of the EU was the best decision they made. There was just too much junk and noise in the EU, and it leaves them room to do something new and different. I'm not an optimistic person but I have reasonably good hopes for this new continuity.

Ep7 has issues, everyone agrees with that, a number of them are typical JJ ( remember he won't write or direct the next episodes), and a number could just be potentially foreshadowing plot twists in the next episodes, but overall there's too much good in it imo to just dismiss it because of a few defects and too much nostalgia. As far as I'm concerned, they have the benefit of doubt, for now.

[Crashdown117]

Whoa, sorry guys. Let me get this straight.
I'm talking about the "fans" I know and these represent a good average of fandom (ranging from "I'd buy me a stormtrooper outfit, if I had the money" to "I'm just here to complain about everything"), at least of fandom in Germany, giving me some insight into fandom in general (in Germany and maybe central Europe). I'm sorry, if you feel put in a category you don't belong to by me or if it seemed like I claimed to be the voice of all Star Wars fans, because I'm most definitely not. What I intended to say is that a bunch of fans of the old EU are disappointed by the movie comparing it to ANH, the OT and the EU. (You could debate, if the mistake isn't in this comparison already)
All I'm saying is that I miss the old EU a bit and that, despite the junk, the apocryphal comics and stories and the contradictions within itself, it felt more consistent and "Star Wars-like" than the new Disney-stuff to me and, again, the fans that I know. But that might just change as soon as the next movie is out.
I agree that getting rid of all of that was the only possible way of bringing in that new storyline that they wanted to establish here and I definitely can see the potential for something great here.
So again: Sorry for overgeneralizing all of fandom a bit here, no offense intended.
Maybe we (and especially I) should wait until Ep.8 before judging the new trilogy.
But we agree, that in general it's "better" (more like the OT and less of that annoying stuff, I-III had) than the prequels, right?
TFA is some great piece of Sci-Fi with awesome parts but also some flaws, that's all I'm gonna say for now.

[Akalabeth Angel]

Wasn't a big fan.
JJ Abrams needs to quit ****ing up Star Trek and Star Wars and go reboot Felicity.  I liked the first Star Trek but after seeing this Abrams is clearly a one-note director where logic goes out the window and he doesn't have the balls to slow down the pace.

I more/less liked the three new characters but needed a better movie

[CountBuggula]

It's been interesting reading people's responses and reactions here.  After giving it some time and much more thought, I have to stand by my first impression that I really liked it.  I'd like to give that some caveats to help explain what might differ between myself and many of the fans here who don't see it favorably.

I haven't liked just about anything official Star Wars related since about the mid-90's.  I grew up in a strange in-between time where I was too young to have seen the OT movies the first time around, but became a huge fan in that dark void of the late 80's into the 90's, when it was decidedly uncool to like Star Wars and there wasn't any Star Wars related merchandise to be had anywhere outside of ridiculously overpriced fare through the Fan Club catalog.  I played X-Wing in DOS on the original floppy disks, squealed with glee when the B-Wing expansion came out, and broke several joysticks just playing the Tie Fighter demo.  I played the 2nd edition West End Star Wars RPG.  When official novels started to come out, fleshing out the EU, I devoured them.

Things started to change around the time I realized the X-Wing novel series wasn't going to be just a trilogy but was going on and on...and it wasn't even very good.  For the first time I started looking with a critical eye at some of the things I had been taking for granted as awesome just because it was Star Wars, and found that a lot of it was really dumb.  I didn't like the Assault Gunboat at all, and the Missile Boat and TIE Defender were even worse.  Almost all of the details in Kevin J Anderson's Jedi Academy trilogy were really ridiculous in hindsight, despite that series being my gateway into finding much better Star Wars novels.  Then came the Special Edition release, which brought some good but an awful lot of bad.  And the prequel movies are so bad that I can't find enough good content in the three of them to warrant not just completely wiping them from canon in my mind and pretending they don't exist.  By then I found that I liked less and less of what I saw in the EU, and so when Disney got hold of the franchise and announced they were effectively wiping the entire sum of existing content out there, I didn't shed many tears.

I can't speak for the entire FotG team, but that perspective does align well with our overall philosophy of basing our mod entirely on the OT movies, with anything and everything from the prequel or EU being fair game for a complete re-imagining or exclusion.  That's the Star Wars that I've chosen to embrace, and so it's with that particular eye and point of view that I judge any new Star Wars content that emerges.  And from that eye, I think JJ did a pretty darn good job.  He stripped away a ton of the crap that's out there and tried to find the core of what makes Star Wars great, and focused on that.  While that means it didn't score high on originality and maybe seemed more like a reboot, it felt distinctly right to me.  JJ ran the risk of further alienating Star Wars fans by going off the rails, and had to establish that this was first and foremost the Star Wars of the OT and not the Prequel Star Wars.  I feel like they've done that, and the overall majority of moviegoers have rated it FAR higher than they did Episodes 1-3.  Personally, I can't see how anyone would rate any of that trilogy higher than this movie, but again, I really disliked those movies and felt like the Star Wars franchise had been heading in the wrong direction entirely during that whole time.

The prequel movies were bad because they were just poorly acted, poorly written, poorly paced, and felt artificial because of the dependence on CGI.  All that had nothing to do with how "Star Wars" they were.  Just from a cinematic perspective, TFA blows them away by not falling into any of those traps.  We can argue or disagree on whether we feel like this is the Star Wars we wanted to see, but at least JJ Abrams made a good and enjoyable movie.  Acting, visuals, and pacing were all solid.  There wasn't anything that made me cringe like I did so often through the entire prequel trilogy.  That's a giant step in the right direction for me.

[The E]

Yeah, the interesting perspective here isn't ours, to be honest; We're invested into this franchise and have seen its highs and lows. The interesting perspective here is that of someone for whom TFA is the entry point into Star Wars and I'd wager that on that front, this film is a rousing success. TFA, for all its faults, is above all way more inspiring than Episode 1 was, and at least as able to sink its hooks into the imagination as ANH was. People come out of TFA wanting to hear more stories about its characters, or wanting to tell their own stories about them, and I think that's absolutely amazing.

[Galemp]

The prequel movies were bad because they were just poorly acted, poorly written, poorly paced, and felt artificial because of the dependence on CGI.  All that had nothing to do with how "Star Wars" they were.  Just from a cinematic perspective, TFA blows them away by not falling into any of those traps.  We can argue or disagree on whether we feel like this is the Star Wars we wanted to see, but at least JJ Abrams made a good and enjoyable movie.  Acting, visuals, and pacing were all solid.  There wasn't anything that made me cringe like I did so often through the entire prequel trilogy.  That's a giant step in the right direction for me.

I couldn't agree more. The Force Awakens is a far better film than any of the prequels. The characters are so much better written, acted, and directed, and just watching the film was so much more fun than the flat "actors walk around in front of a green screen reciting their lines, punctuated by CGI set pieces" from the Prequels.

But as a sequel to Return of the Jedi and a continuation of the Star Wars saga, I was disappointed. It really does feel more like a reboot, as if JJ was doing the same thing here that he did with Star Trek '09. Within the old EU you had your choice of superweapons: the Eclipse, the Galaxy Gun, the Sun Crusher, the World Devastators... no need for another giant planet killer with another shield and another obvious weak point, they could have done something that felt like Star Wars without the note-by-note facsimile. New X-Wings and TIE Fighters, new Stormtroopers and Star Destroyers, new shadowy Sith lord, warmed over and rehashed. The Prequel trilogy was much more creative with their character, creature, and vehicle designs, even if it was overdone.

Then there wasn't any of the connectivity that tied A New Hope together; the Death Star, the plans in Artoo, and Alderaan were all closely related, while the Starkiller, the map to Luke, and... whatever planet that was destroyed, aren't related at all. Nor are we informed as to the relationship between the Republic, the First Order, and the Resistance. By contrast, what the Prequel trilogy did best was world-building and fleshing out the universe only hinted at in Ben Kenobi's reminiscence, showing the fall of the Jedi and rise of the Empire.

I'm looking forward to seeing more of Rey, Finn, Poe, and especially Kylo Ren in the next films. But I feel like they're not so much inheriting the Original Trilogy universe so much as they are rebooting it from Episode IV, like nothing that happened in Episodes I-VI had any consequence. May as well call this movie "Knights of the New Republic" for as much continuity it has with the rest of the series.

But, as The E said, maybe that's the point. This is a new point of entry for Disney's definitive Star Wars canon, and eventually the Lucas movies will be regarded as mere source material, standing apart from the rest as a curiosity and artifact of pioneering special effects.

[Crashdown117]

I agree on that. TFA provides an interesting and new entry point to the Star Wars universe and it makes all the things better that the prequels f***ed up. I'd really like to know, what the "new" generation of Star Wars fans think about that movie, those that have neither seen the OT nor the prequels before and therefore aren't biased in any way. And I mean both in terms of cinematics and "Star Wars"-likeness.
I think one of the reasons why I disliked this movie so much at first was how awful the prequels were and how...angry I got about them being the Star Wars of the 2000s. Ignoring that somewhat pessimistic view on TFA I have to say that, if well done cinematography gets combined with interesting new stories, I'm really looking forward to Episode VIII.

And "Knights of the New Republic" is a nice thought. If we ever get to know anything about the New Republic, that is.

[Cyker]

OMG, just seen it - Had quite low expectations so I was totally blown away! So goooood! ^_______^

The movie was perfect for what they needed to do; It was essentially the complete opposite of the prequels.

Where the prequels had a new plot but absolutely terrible execution, directing, acting, effects etc., TFA had the laziest plot of all of the Star Wars films (I mean c'mon, seriously, there's lazy and there's not even trying!) but the execution was absolutely incredible and back to the sort of level we want and expect. The actors were all great and everything flowed well and *felt* right. I liked that actions had consequences instead of being handwaved away; This gave me some preparation for the shock part later instead of assuming that some lame speech could change someone's mind just like that, like what happened in the prequels.

So now that we know they can get the execution right, hopefully they'll actually develop the plot a bit; For me the plot was only real weak point - In our group, we were split down the middle over that; One half was very disappointed at how formulaic it was and the total lack of any originality, whereas the other half enjoyed the ride - The got the feel of everything right, with characters that felt like they could have been real people rather than the stiff cardboard cutouts we had previously.

Aside from the plot, the only thing I was annoyed about were the fighter battles - It was great and a lot of fun and all, but X-Wings and TIE Fighters!? Where were the Y-Wings? A-Wings? B-Wings? The TIE Interceptors? TIE Bombers? The TIE Advanced???
I had to go fire up XvT:BoP once I got home (Oh my god I'm so bad at that game now)

I see there's a lot of opinion on Kylo Ren, but I thought it was quite clever - You're expecting some hideously deformed figure, but no, it's just a fairly plain ordinary looking guy. He is clearly nowhere near the same level as most of the protagonist or antagonist jedi that we've seen so far and that's clearly gnawing away at him. He's what I imagine they were trying to go for with Prequel Anakin, but done *right*, rather than an angsy whiny prat.


I think J.J. is a good fit for the Star Wars franchise; I absolutely hated what he did with Star Trek - Star Trek is supposed to be the more cerebral of the two, based around exploration, discovery, moral dilemmas and cool tech, but he turned it into a straight-up action flick. Star Wars OTOH is all about action and adventure, and his style just fits it so much better.

[CountBuggula]

Aside from the plot, the only thing I was annoyed about were the fighter battles - It was great and a lot of fun and all, but X-Wings and TIE Fighters!? Where were the Y-Wings? A-Wings? B-Wings? The TIE Interceptors? TIE Bombers? The TIE Advanced???

My personal belief (and only time will tell) is that this was more of JJ clearly following the patterns set in the OT, where in episode 4 we had a more limited selection of ships shown.  And I think it works in the framework of the world we're shown - where the "resistance" is a smaller part or maybe subset or branch of what has become The Republic (New Republic?  Whatever).  The capital ships and more advanced fighters likely went into the Republic's fleets, while the Resistance is working with a single fighter type due to their limited resources.  It at least makes sense that way.

And I expect we'll be seeing many more of those other ship types in the next two movies.  Just like episode IV was more limited in scope in both planetary and battle size, we'll likely see things expand on a much more galactic scale in 8 and 9.  Because while many Republic planets and bureaucracy may have been destroyed, the fleets themselves must still exist somewhere.

So, that's my thought.  Or maybe my hope.

[Akalabeth Angel]

I think J.J. is a good fit for the Star Wars franchise; I absolutely hated what he did with Star Trek - Star Trek is supposed to be the more cerebral of the two, based around exploration, discovery, moral dilemmas and cool tech, but he turned it into a straight-up action flick. Star Wars OTOH is all about action and adventure, and his style just fits it so much better.

Except he can't even get Star Wars right.
Going to lightspeed inside a hangar?
Bypassing a shield by jumping out of lightspeed behind it?

"Traveling through hyperspace ain't like dusting crops, boy! Without precise calculations we could fly right through a star or bounce too close to a supernova, and that'd end your trip real quick, wouldn't it?"

**** it says Abrams
Now travelling through hyperspace you can go right through a wall. Too bad Han Solo didn't think of that in Return of the Jedi with the shuttle Tyderium. Codes? We don't need codes.
And he still thinks every planet is in sight of every other planet. Republic world no one knows the significance of, or cares about, gets destroyed and just like Spock, Han is close enough to see it.

Did Star Wars really need to be dumbed down? Are modern audience so shallow that they'll get bored if the next shot doesn't jump right into some other action sequence?

Mad Max Fury Road, still the best action/sci fi movie of 2015.

[The E]

Question, was it ever stated as an actual, hard, unbreakable rule that those things can't happen in any of the movies?

[Akalabeth Angel]

Question, was it ever stated as an actual, hard, unbreakable rule that those things can't happen in any of the movies?

Question, are you serious?
If the Millenium Falcon can go to light speed inside a hangar, let alone through a wall, then Episode IV would be an hour long because they could've just gone to lightspeed from inside the Death Star Hangar. Why worry about going to disable a tractor beam, rescuing the princess, escaping a trash compactor, etcetera. And don't tell me that technology has improved because they're using the same hunk of junk freighter.

Why not go to lightspeed inside the asteroid worm in Episode V? (They didn't test it until clear of the asteriod field)

And if you can bypass an energy shield by dropping out of lightspeed, why don't you just kamikaze a Correllian Corvette into the Power Regulator or whatever it is. Just Kamikaze ships into the regulator until it explodes and blows up the planet.  Doesn't make any sense at all.

If you think about things for two seconds the movie falls apart and it basically walks all over the originals.

JJ Abrams is an idiot quite frankly who doesn't give two ****s about the source material. In some ways he is arguably worse than Lucas because at least the Phantom Menace had some new material and wasn't a straight rehash of Epsiode IV.

The characters and effects were great and the dialogue was solid but the story is trash.


In fact can anyone tell me what the story of the movie actually is? Like what is the driving action?
If it's looking for Luke Skywalker, then it's a story which was dropped half-way through only to be magically resolved in the last five minutes.
If it's about Han and his Son, then why is it focused on Finn and Rey?
If it's about saving the Resistance, then why isn't the resistance defined? Why isn't the First Order defined? I don't have any clue what the political boundaries or situation of the movie is except that it's basically the same as Episode IV except vague.

[MatthTheGeek]

If you think about things for two seconds the movie falls apart and it basically walks all over the originals.

Well maybe if you think about things for more than two seconds, you'd realize that comparing the falcon's capabilities and han's piloting skills from ANH, to the gazillions of changes the falcon certainly undertook in 20 years and the vast experience han has gathered in that time, puts things in perspective.

But I guess perspective is not something you can appreciate when you think about things for two seconds.

Again, noone here is denying the movie has issues. We just acknowledge them and move on to appreciate the good things and the potential this movie has brought to the new continuity.