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Star Wars Episode 7. Major spoilers if you haven't seen it.

25 Dec 2015 06:09 #45804 by jimbob
So here I was expecting it to suck like the prequel trilogy did, and my pleasant surprise it was actually really good.

But that wasn't the surprising part. The biggest surprise was that the trailers and ads were misleading. Finn, the ex stormtrooper who's shown to be the main character and wielding a lightsaber, making him the obvious new Jedi Jesus of the trilogy. It wasn't him.

It was Rey. The girl. After spending most of the film endearing her to the audience as a tech and pilot type character it's suddenly revealed in a surprising scene she has strong Force potential, when the villain, Kylo Ren tries to psychicly probe her for info and she not only resists she ends up probing his mind instead. And soon after mentally controlls the trooper guard (a hilarious cameo by Daniel Craig by the way) to let her out. All of this while the male heroes are on their way to rescue her only to find she's saved herself instead.

And then in the climax the male hero was almost instantly defeated by Kylo, only for the lightsaber he used to be taken up by Rey, who proceeds to crush him in combat, wounding him and giving him a scar (Although to make it fair since Rey is a rookie Kylo was injured previously). She even overpowers him physically at the, grabbing his sword arm with her free hand and forcing it to the ground giving her the hold she needs to break his saber. It ends with Rey going off to meet the legend Luke Skywalker himself to be trained as a Jedi. The Jedi hero of this trilogy will be a heroine instead.

And the crowd loved it. The whole room erupted into cheers at the scene where Kylo goes to take Finn's saber as a trophy only for it to suddenly fly to Rey. Forget WW or Captain Marvel, Star Wars might have beaten them both to selling a heroine to people first.

Now obviously Jedi powers aren't quite the uber ones people around here are used to. But if you're looking for some action girl power definitely check out Force Awakens and the sequels coming out in the next few years.
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25 Dec 2015 12:20 - 25 Dec 2015 12:23 #45806 by kikass2014
Totally agree :) I too was pleasantly surprised by how good the film was, and am REALLY looking forward to where they take this.

All the new characters and cast were FANTASTIC in it. But for me, Daisy Ridley stole the show. Imo her performance was brilliant, bringing a vulnerability, impishness and strength to Rey that was mesmerizing to watch. And that fight with Ren in the final act is just awesome. From the moment the sabre flies into her hand and you hear Luke's theme play as she takes hold of it, it was beautiful to watch. And I have to admit, it brought a tear to my eye :) I could wax lyrical about the whole film, and that scene in particular for hours lol :D

Thoroughly looking forward to her development, and also to all the new characters and the adventures that await. I'm actually even looking forward to Rogue One, and I didn't particularly have much interest in the spin-offs.

Well done J.J. and Lucasfilm (in particular Kathleen Kennedy who is said to be the driving force behind the new trilogy) for pulling off a MAMMOTH task :)

Peace and Merry Xmas to all :)

/K
Last edit: 25 Dec 2015 12:23 by kikass2014. Reason: Typo
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26 Dec 2015 02:46 #45809 by castor
I had problems with the movie- The Almost Remake Like plot, Lots of things under explained(not Reys Parents but hey whats the rebelion the republic and First Orders Relationship), Special Effects that where good but didn't produce anything really new) and some clumsy Action bits(they just didn't care about the X Wing stuff in the climax)

But one thing i really like was Rey. She was an excelent character, well crafted and devoloped for a female action lead of a movie and was not victim to the tropes we keep seeing like, uberbadass, hot mess, or that much of a mope. She was Competent, cared for the people and things around her, and did her best at every stage to do the right thing-she was a classic hero...

And thats kinda refreshing. one of the complaints i have heard is "Well shes a Mary Sue" or "Not a lot of personality"...but one of the bueaties is she is kinda underplayed. She doesn't really shout or yell and while you can see what shes feeling, she doesn't sell it to the mars. Shes not quippy or jazzy(though other characters are) but she holds your attention.


he is kinda playing what you think of the steroype of a jedi-and some Oscar Winning actors like Lian Nieson and Samuel L Jackson have proved thats very hard to do-and she certainly did it better. You cared her about her even when, and almost especially at the end when she started using her powers. It helps that the scripts lets her be vulnerable, both emotionally and physically in the story without overdoing it, and let her kinda Rommance with Finn be cute, and letting us see even in star wars real humanity. It worked pretty well for what you could think was the chick.

(one of the spare observations. Oscar Issacs was basically playing Princess Leia in this movie. Finn was C-3P0))

And as i observed like 2 years ago-now Easily the most successful movie of the year, and good chance of the most sucsefull movie ever-is well a Female Superhero movie.

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26 Dec 2015 07:25 #45810 by jdrock24
I saw it with the family last weekend and loved it, especially the Rey character.

The only minor issue I had with the movie is that they didn't explain well enough what exactly happened between ROTJ and this movie. I'm not talking on a personal level, I mean a galactic level. For example: Where did the First Order come from? Who is Snoke? If the old Galactic Empire went back to being The Republic, they why is their military called The Resistance? Wouldn't they be much better equipped than The First Order since I presume they have more resources and hence, be the overwhelming military force? I think they could have explained some of this in the opening "crawl" but they chose to focus on Luke's disappearance.

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26 Dec 2015 11:45 #45812 by kikass2014
Quite a few people were a little annoyed (for point of a better word) about the lack of explanation/clarity of the events between ROTJ and Force Awakens. Myself included.

However, having thought about it, I've come to the conclusion that a) it will be explained as the new trilogy unfolds, and more likely b) spin-off movies (KERCHING!) :)

Peace.

/K

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26 Dec 2015 16:03 #45814 by Woodclaw
I still have very mixed feelings about this not-so-quite-remake of Star Wars, on one hand it's a movie that work in and of itself, with some rather enjoyable characters, decent storytelling and I was plesantly surprised that they kept it within the two and something hours benchmark, but I think there are a few flaws that needs to be addressed.
The most glarring problem for me is the feeling that I wasn't getting anything new out of it. Abrahams is a confessed fanboy of the original trilogy and it shows in full force here. The general feeling I got is that the writers chopped the original trilogy (mostly "A New Hope") and glued together the pieces. Many shots and details, I felt, were taken verbatim from the old movies -- the Resistance base looked quite similar to the Hoth base in "Empire Strikes Back", for example -- which is a very on the fence point, I like that the authors knew their sources, but I felt that they didn't dare to move beyond them. In general the feeling was that the crew favored recycling over reimagining. This, I think, was especially true for the main characters, Rey, Finn and Poe pretty much played like they had be put together using lines from the basic characterization of Luke, Leia and Han -- with a bit of spice from others -- but in a very uneven way. I'm not sure if this is because the original trio was made of very archetypal characters or what, but it felt very prominent to me.

On the subject of Rey being a Mary-Sue ... I'd say that it's not fully baseless and it would be a very valid complain, if this wasn't Star Wars. I think that the big issue about this is that Rey pulled some stunts with the Force that were perceived as part of the arsenal of a trained Force-user -- i.e. using a lightsaber, mind trick and so on -- without any apparent training. Now I'd like to point out that in the original movie Luke was able to block the remote shot with his eyes closed having less than a day of training behind him, hence the real extent of how much one should be able to use the Force without proper training is up to debate. I think that the big issue with Rey is that she never looked out of her depths in any moment of the movie, which felt odd having Finn next to her most of the time, meaning that the, apparently, better trained character was the one that acted with less apparent skill and competence.
Don't get me wrong I like how the played Finn. He's the only one who has seen the First Order from the inside, so for him it's not just a name, he knows how far they can go because they tried to program him to do so and he pretty much got away by dumb luck. Unfortunately this all goes to highlight how ubercompetent Rey is thanks to the Force. Going back to the original trio, Han was arguably the guy who took the short stick in many ways, but between his charm and wits this aspect was heavily downplayed, here Finn has no such trick up his sleeve.

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26 Dec 2015 16:45 #45815 by shadar
I saw it as a nostalgic (for me anyway) redo drawn from the original trilogy, with the exception of an exceptionally competent female lead, but that was just fine for me.

I would much, MUCH rather have that than the horrors that JJ Abrams inflicted on Star Trek. In Star Trek, his young remakes of the original characters were simply irritating and obnoxious, and had even worse flaws when it came to "over competency". At least with Star Wars, I liked the new, young characters and their interaction with the original, older characters. Part of that was that they weren't trying to redo the exact characters as was the case in Star Trek.

Rey isn't attempting to be a redo of Luke Skywalker, although there are obvious parallels with the Force.

So Star Wars VII works, while Star Trek (whatever) didn't under JJ's guidance. I was grinning most of the way through it.

Next week I get to take my 7 year old grandson, who is living and breathing Star Wars. That will be even more fun, watching it through his eyes.

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26 Dec 2015 17:06 #45816 by castor
Well the mistake of Star Wars the reboot is it made Kirk Hyper Competent and smarily overconfidant
(and to be fair some of the 80s movies did this as well)...so what you tended to come across as just pure ashole.

the trick with this movie is...Finn is over confident-he constantly tries to push himself up to other people and make plans . But hes kinda dumb, and while for a storm trooper he gets a few shots in, hes in no way a good combatant or much skill. people say "But he took on the darth vader character"...but we previously establish he looses to a guy with a stun baton. he is not good at his job.

and that is kinda of endeering. Becuse he is a hero and he is trying to do the right thing...just he has no idea what he is talking about.

Rey is Hyper Competent. But Quiet about it. She just does her shit through the movie helping people as she goes, but never brags about it.

So its kinda both the qualities of an Abhrams hero-but there seperated so it kinda works that way.

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26 Dec 2015 20:43 #45817 by Markiehoe
I really like this movie.
I felt like I was 13 again.
I've already watched it three times, last friday, sunday night and monday night.
In a couple of weeks i'll probably take the trip to King of Prussia mall to see it in IMAX.

Rey reminded me a lot of Goku from Dragonball.
All she needed was to see a technique one time and then she could duplicate it.
I thought that was pretty cool.

I also like Finn as the bumbling hero.
I think the force is in him also.
That's how he broke his conditioning and was able to fight as well as he did.
He is not as powerful as Rey but we did see a lot of "average" Jedi in the prequels.
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26 Dec 2015 23:39 #45821 by pansardum

castor wrote: the trick with this movie is...Finn is over confident-he constantly tries to push himself up to other people and make plans . But hes kinda dumb, and while for a storm trooper he gets a few shots in, hes in no way a good combatant or much skill. people say "But he took on the darth vader character"...but we previously establish he looses to a guy with a stun baton. he is not good at his job.

and that is kinda of endeering. Becuse he is a hero and he is trying to do the right thing...just he has no idea what he is talking about.

Rey is Hyper Competent. But Quiet about it. She just does her shit through the movie helping people as she goes, but never brags about it.

So its kinda both the qualities of an Abhrams hero-but there seperated so it kinda works that way.


Did we really see the same film? I think there is quite a stretch to call Finn over confident.
At the start when he rescues Poe he seems everything but confident.
Later in the film he wants to flee to the outer rims instead of fighting the first order.
He managed to find some courage at the end when he helped with a plan to attack the planet, but that wasn't to take on the first order. He only wanted to save Rey.
Same when he attacks Kylo in the forrest it is only to save Rey, I highly doubt he felt confident doing that. That was also to save Rey from a certain death, so while she kicks some ass through the movie she couldn't have done it alone.

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27 Dec 2015 04:51 #45822 by castor
You have a point. But he never confident


....-but well he always acts confident. He tells poe that he knows how to get them off get them a tie fighter, use a gun etc, and says outloud that they can do this-you know for himself. He grabs reys hand to guide her around cause hes a man. hes a big member of the rebelion and important person.

This is all bullshit. Transparent bullshit... Hes a storm trooper...but well he says it in part to convince himself.

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28 Dec 2015 13:08 - 28 Dec 2015 13:10 #45842 by Markiehoe


After months of build up Captain Phasma was a complete let down.
She was quite the push over.

Lets hope she comes back stronger in the next movie or dosen't show up at all.

Why hire such a striking actress then cover her in armor from head to toe?
Could have been anybody under all that armor.

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28 Dec 2015 13:22 #45844 by fats
I'm just going to throw these images out there of little Gwendoline Christie



My favourite is the second image.

Fats

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28 Dec 2015 13:29 - 28 Dec 2015 13:32 #45846 by jimbob
The thing with practical effects I guess. They want all the actors actually in the costumes instead of a CGI or a stuntman with an actor VO. Same reason Daniel Craig spent his whole cameo in a costume where you can't see him.

Of course they could have done Phasma much better, but let's face it, was she gonna win in a shootout alone against Chewbacca and Han Solo? No she was not.

She's gonna be in the next two films and hopefully she'll get more focus next time.

They're willing to actually do cool stuff with troopers now like the stun baton guy so maybe she'll get some cool weapons next time.

Alternatively they were hoping for the Boba Fett effect where just standing around in cool armor equals instant popularity and EU tales of badassry.

It's hard to remember giving all that's happened in other stories, but all Boba did in the original trilogy proper was track Han and then stand there looking tough in ESB and then get taken out by a blind Han with a stick after getting his gun instantly wrecked by Luke in RotJ.
Last edit: 28 Dec 2015 13:32 by jimbob.

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28 Dec 2015 14:42 - 28 Dec 2015 17:28 #45849 by castor
From what i have heard on the street and the internet is the last half of the movie went through fairly major rewrites After they had gone through the casting stages. This isn't necessairly a bad thing and happens all the time...

but...

Plasma feels like she was a character who in a previous draft had a lot more to do. As is she gets a lot of build up in the first act of the movie but does nothing in the second act, and feels like they remembered her from the begging of the script and decided to shoehorn her into the last act.

Its a disappointing touch, and yeah while she probabbly wouldn't have killed chewie or han, she could have been an interesting boss like character for the end or a contrast to Ren or something(maybe shes his lover[one of the problems i had was that in the Prequals they do build up the Dark Side as a little more dimensional then i want to be evil. Giving him someone he cares about in a twisted way would have helped that])

Christie gave a lot of girlpower "i get to play a powerful character" type interviews....but as is she just kinda stands there in cool armor...and gets thrown into a reference to the first movie.
Last edit: 28 Dec 2015 17:28 by castor.
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28 Dec 2015 15:27 - 28 Dec 2015 15:28 #45851 by kikass2014
I too was a bit disappointed in Captain "Toy", as I've heard the character refered to. I can totally understand what Castor says in that her charactor went through a change in the rewrite.

However, I'm personally guessing (and hoping) that she will feature more in the other movies. Her role in this film seemed to be to introduce her as a character, and establish that she has some problem/conflict with Finn. Yes, that is partially resolved, but I'm (again) guessing/hoping she will play a more active role in Finn's storyline in the next film.

Maybe she becomes obsessed with hunting him down - he is a traitor after all, and wants to redeem herself, as having one under her command be responsible for what happened looks pretty terrible lol :D That would be cool to see, but who knows what direction they go in. Perhaps we even get to see her out of her uniform and in one that reveals her face.

Would be a shame to hire such a distinctive voice and striking actress and not use her in a greater capacity.

Peace.

/K

P.S. And yes, I do find those images and Gwen amazing, especially how she is, in real life, a stark contrast to how she is shown as Brienne in Game of Thrones :D
Last edit: 28 Dec 2015 15:28 by kikass2014.
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28 Dec 2015 16:09 #45854 by jimbob
It's also possible she was supposed to have a big shootout action scene against the heroes that they had to cut out when Harrison Ford was injured.

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28 Dec 2015 17:08 #45855 by Markiehoe
David Prowse played Darth Vader in three movies with James Earl Jones voicing him to world wide superstardom.

Captain Phasma was just there.
Her big scene in the movie was dropping the shields on Starkiller when Finn pointed his blaster at her.
She caved pretty easy.

Once again lets hope we see her in action out of her armor in the next movie.
As suggested earlier maybe she goes rogue, holds a grudge and hunts Finn down.

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29 Dec 2015 00:44 #45862 by YAGS

jimbob wrote: It's hard to remember giving all that's happened in other stories, but all Boba did in the original trilogy proper was track Han and then stand there looking tough in ESB and then get taken out by a blind Han with a stick after getting his gun instantly wrecked by Luke in RotJ.

You're missing one of the main things that made Boba Fett so cool in his first appearance:

He WON!!!

Think about it. In his first movie, The Empire Strikes Back, he had two goals as a character: Deliver the Falcon and crew to Vader alive, and deliver Han Solo to Jabba alive. He succeeded in both of those goals. He didn't get a lot of action, but how often do you see a movie villain who actually does everything they set out to do in a movie, with no negative consequences? (until the next movie, of course)

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29 Dec 2015 23:28 - 29 Dec 2015 23:36 #45865 by Raa
Last edit: 29 Dec 2015 23:36 by Raa.

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