Why I'm mad about Star Wars: The Force Awakens *SPOILERS*

[Elite Engineer]

Ok, so I saw the new Star Wars the other day, and I'm so disappointed. The movie had SO MUCH potential to be great. I would think after episodes 1,2, and 3, they would carefully tailor this film to be not only better. Instead, it seems like they wrote the whole movie over a single weekend, and didn't take a step back to think about it.

 

By far the biggest disappointment was the characters, their abilities and personality:

 

Fin- A storm trooper deserter who, in summary, appeared as a cowardice, whiny, unskilled boy. We barely see Fin fight, and when he does, he's a scared nanny. He's been trained as a storm trooper his whole life, and he lacks fighting tactics. Not only that, but he's the kind of character you really can't get behind and "like". In contrast, look at Han Solo in A New Hope. When he shot down Greedo, and walked out of the bar like nothing happened, you were instantly into Han, and could get behind him.

 

Rey- I didn't find anything wrong with this character's personality, but her immediate Jedi skill when fighting Kylo Ren, was so cliche and more reminiscent of episodes 1-3.

 

Kylo Ren- This character was probably the most disappointing. He's like what, 20 yrs old? He's a brat, who can't hold a fight against an untrained Jedi (Rey). His "force" power is easily compromised by Kylo Ren... What kind of dark side sith is he? When he took off his helmet, he had no scars or mark of experience.

Edited December 29, 2015 by Elite Engineer

[ajb]

Maybe this is what happens when you let Mr Mouse direct.

[swansont]

I liked Fin, and your point about Kylo Ren being young and having no scars is perfectly consistent. He can't hold his own because he has no real experience other than bullying the weak. He's never had to go against anyone with any real power of the force.

[playground]

True - absolutely I must admit, keen on that and damn I got to read the spoilers now, well but thats ok. Bullying the weak - made him that harder? Or was t just a means of not being able to get out with the rage.

[Greg H.]

Rey's raw talent with the Force (as well as her other abilities) dove tail nicely with my theory about her being Luke's daughter. Whether that turns out be correct or not, only time (and two more movies) will tell.

 

As for Fin, stormtroopers are not known for their advanced tactics. it's mostly overwhelm them with sheer numbers - I mean, in most of the movies they can't even hit what they shoot at. In the end, he does stand up to Kylo Ren, with a weapon that he's totally unfamiliar with - so like the Cowardly Lion, he eventually finds his courage.

 

As for Kylo himself, he's Anakin all over again. Teenage angst with unlimited power - not terribly new, but I'm willing to reserve judgement until I see the next movie, at least. As far as his wearing a mask, I think he does that more in tribute to his grandfather, than out of any necessity. As for the Sith having scars, not all of them did. Dooku was clean, as far as I remember, until he died.

[Elite Engineer]

Rey's raw talent with the Force (as well as her other abilities) dove tail nicely with my theory about her being Luke's daughter. Whether that turns out be correct or not, only time (and two more movies) will tell.

 

I thought the same thing. But, she was able to use several aspects of the force right off the bat. I'm guessing either Disney and JJ Abrahams messed this up, or she is the STRONGEST Jedi ever. But lets be, if she was the STRONGEST Jedi, I think we'd see some of it when she was a scraper. Maybe it would manifest randomly and she didn't know what was going on.

 

 

As for Fin, stormtroopers are not known for their advanced tactics. it's mostly overwhelm them with sheer numbers - I mean, in most of the movies they can't even hit what they shoot at. In the end, he does stand up to Kylo Ren, with a weapon that he's totally unfamiliar with - so like the Cowardly Lion, he eventually finds his courage.

 

 

Ya, i guess the storm troopers are pretty bad. I figured they'd be more menacing in this film than the others..but it seems they just wanted to make them look like blundering fools, just like in episodes 1-6.

I liked Fin, and your point about Kylo Ren being young and having no scars is perfectly consistent. He can't hold his own because he has no real experience other than bullying the weak. He's never had to go against anyone with any real power of the force.

That's what my friend told me. I see that Kylo Ren is just a inflated brat, but the creators could have gone a number of different routes. They could have made Kylo Ren a bit more intimidating, and still let Rey live in a battle against him.

[dimreepr]

TBH the only real question I have is, since FTL travel is possible, how does the ‘falcon’ win any kind of race?

[Greg H.]

It's the ship that made the Kessel Run in 12 parsecs.

[Delta1212]

The other theory is that Rey started to receive some training at Luke's academy when she was very young and was either too young to remember but maybe has some residual "Force muscle" memory, or he her mind wiped somehow. This meshes well with her being Luke's daughter, but could also stand on it's own.

 

As far as being "the most powerful Jedi", well, maybe.

 

On the other hand, we only have one other instance of a person beginning on their path to learn to use the force as a young adult: Luke. (Even Anakin was only nine when he started).

 

Luke is constantly plagued by insecurity and self-doubt, and struggles with this for the duration of the original trilogy, especially in the first two movies. His greatest accomplishments using the Force always take place when he manages to calm those inner fears and focus on what he is doing. Yoda even strongly implies that one of the major components of using the Force is having confidence in what you are doing when he raises Luke's X-Wing out of the swamp.

 

By contrast, Rey, while having her own issues and psychological scars, is one of the most confident and resourceful characters in the movie. Once Kylo Ren woke up whatever was inside her, whether it was a suppressed level of basic training or simply a latent connection with the Force, I can absolutely her reaching out to push the boundaries of what she can do in a way that Luke simply didn't, and progressing much more quickly than him as a result, with or without a teacher.

 

And on the whole, she didn't even do anything particularly outrageous. She bent the mind of one Stormtrooper after making multiple false starts (something we've seen other Jedi do almost as an afterthought), and manage to fight off a youthful, untested, badly wounded and clearly unstable Sith/Dark Jedi. The most impressive thing she did was accomplishing anything without a teacher, but I put that down more to personality than just raw ability at this point.

 

Also, I think Adam Driver's character isn't simply a retread of Anakin, but more of what Anakin should have been. I already think he's a more interesting example of a Force user torn between the Dark and the Light than anything they did with Vader's backstory in the prequels.

[Keen]

The most disappointing thing about new Star Wars to me was the villain. I understand what they were going for: a great build up only to make you realize then that he's nothing but a brat, but I just think they went way too far with this. If the villain isn't a least bit scary (and he stopped to be as soon as he took off his mask and made a ton of serious mistakes), then how can the story be interesting?

They also recycled quite a lot of things from the original series: like father and son conflict, destroying a giant machine of doom, stormtroopers that never hit anything, secret plans sent by a droid. The worst part is that not only they basically recycled what we have already seen, but somehow managed to make it worse in some cases.

 

Take for example the scene where Kylo Ren kills his father. It is reminiscent of the scene from the episode 5, so I will make a comparison. In episode 5, you had Luke totally beaten and Vader tries to persuade him to join the dark side. Then you get the shocking reveal that Vader is Luke's father. Not only it is quite a shock, but also it puts Luke into a very desperate situation. That is an example of what I would consider a good writing.

On the other hand in the scene where Solo tries to persuade Ren to join the light side, we already know he's his father, so no big reveal. Also being the only notable villain in the movie it was quite predictable what he was going to do. He either had to kill Solo or suddenly become a good guy out of nowhere and the movie would be suddenly without a villain therefore it was obvious he was going to kill Solo, therefore all the build up they made in this scene felt kind of wasted and the resulting drama much more inefficient. Also in my opinion the actor could also have done a better job portraying his inner conflict. I didn't feel very convinced by his acting.

 

Considering all the hype I really hoped we would get a far better movie than we got. In the end for me it turned out to be an "OK" movie. There were two things that saved it for me.

-Scenery:

I really loved the wreckages of the Imperial machines in the desert: those scenes always felt majestic. It also felt good to see the imperial warmachines like TIEs or star destroyers with that old nostalgic feel and yet quite polished with new effects.

-Cast from the original series:

I think that Carrie Fisher and Harrison Ford made a good job. I could still see Han Solo and princess Leia in them. Older and with new experiences, but I did not have any doubts that those two are Solo and Leia. Their acting to me was the most believable thing in this movie. Maybe it's simply because those two are such iconic characters, but those two performances were my favorite.

[Endy0816]

Some of Rey's skill could be due to force learning or memory imbued objects(Luke's lightsaber).

 

Conversely you could ascribe Fin's lack of skill as being due to a lack of familiarity with the weapon's system on the ship.

 

On the cowardliness front, he just lost the closest thing he had to a friend(dying storm trooper who bloodied his helmet) and thinks he lost Poe(for most of the action).

 

I felt like they did a good job overall recapturing the magic of the first three. Reminiscent of the first without being a retread. Only thing that bugged me was the divergence from "cannon". Bad guy felt like a mix of Jacen Solo and Ben Skywalker. I'm sure it kept the costs down, but felt it could have been handled better.

[Lightmeow]

Hmm. I agree that the movie was Meh. Honestly, I feel that they were trying to make it for the younger audience(who would buy the Star Wars toys). The plot wasn't complicated at all, and it seemed that it was lighter overall...(I mean compared to the evil in the Revenge of the Sith).

 

Ren, compared to Anakin, is like comparing a psychopath to a little child who is mad at their parents because didn't get what they wanted. You can't even compare them.

 

I kind of expected more... We'll see what the later movies are like.

[kisai]

Just came back from my second viewing.

 

I'm all right with the film. It seems that Abrams was going for a chance to remain true to the material with his own twists, and it seems successful as an introductory film. If the others are just like this one though, I'll be sorely disappointed. I'm not sure why the Dark Side users are so weak, consisting of an emo stripling and an ancient hologram, but then there isn't a powerful Jedi around except for an exiled Luke, so I guess the title is apt. I'm more of a fan of times where there's multiple Jedi and Sith (Old Republic and Clone Wars....yes I like the prequels!) rather than one or two, and it looks like this trilogy won't be catering to my tastes, but oh well.

[Mike Smith Cosmos]

I went with the Grandchildren, yesterday to Star wars. I bought a regular pot of Popcorn .. I could hardly carry it, it was so large , as was the coca cola . I was issued with 3D glasses. I sat in this gigantic viewing cinema .. Lights dimmed...

 

 

The first space ship came in from the side , our seats physically rumbled , they must have a sound system connected to a mechanical transducer, and quadraphonic sound . Then the 3 D caught the spaceship coming in through the cinema side wall! ( I guess somehow they made the 3d go much larger than the screen ) I was hooked .

 

I can't remember the story line , but ' by Heck ' ,

 

I sure enjoyed this ' Space based roller coaster 'experience '.

 

....... I came out of the cinema in a state of ' Shock and Awe ' , in fact ,my head and being , is still full of all the experiences of those hours of ' larger than life adventure ' ... Perhaps I am easily pleased, and just a Kid at heart.

 

Mike

Edited December 31, 2015 by Mike Smith Cosmos

[swansont]

Just came back from my second viewing.

 

I'm all right with the film. It seems that Abrams was going for a chance to remain true to the material with his own twists, and it seems successful as an introductory film. If the others are just like this one though, I'll be sorely disappointed. I'm not sure why the Dark Side users are so weak, consisting of an emo stripling and an ancient hologram, but then there isn't a powerful Jedi around except for an exiled Luke, so I guess the title is apt. I'm more of a fan of times where there's multiple Jedi and Sith (Old Republic and Clone Wars....yes I like the prequels!) rather than one or two, and it looks like this trilogy won't be catering to my tastes, but oh well.

 

The movie follows the trend established earlier, with the people able to effectively exploit the force dwindling in number. Ren was seemingly self-taught in terms of the dark side, which would be consistent with him being relatively weak. Snoke is his master, as supreme leader of the First Order, but was he trained?

[iNow]

I seem to remember Ren making a comment in response to Snoke about being thankful/fortunate to have had his training, but could be mistaken (and could only speculate how much training in total was shared if it happened at all).

 

That said, having direct access to Snoke in the first place and also having a section of the movie questioning whether he'd ever be as strong as Vader implied to me he was already extremely strong. For me, that strength and access to leadership didn't line up at all with how the character was actually acted/presented (like this whiny little brat about to cry every four seconds who could barely even beat a storm trooper that was using a light saber he'd never before held).

 

I found the visuals beautiful and feel the graphics team did fantastic work. It also felt true to the original narrative, though a bit too recycled like I'd already seen most of it... It's supposed to be a new episode, not a remake, after all. The story was also pretty dull. I never found myself on the edge of my seat or surprised in any way, even when Ren took out his father... They telegraphed the hell out of that and it was incredibly anti climatic.

 

Only saving grace for me was Rey. She did a great job and I like seeing strong female leads, but most of the rest was pretty meh on my side. Think I'll probably enjoy The Big Short more.

[swansont]

I seem to remember Ren making a comment in response to Snoke about being thankful/fortunate to have had his training, but could be mistaken (and could only speculate how much training in total was shared if it happened at all).

 

That said, having direct access to Snoke in the first place and also having a section of the movie questioning whether he'd ever be as strong as Vader implied to me he was already extremely strong. For me, that strength and access to leadership didn't line up at all with how the character was actually acted/presented (like this whiny little brat about to cry every four seconds who could barely even beat a storm trooper that was using a light saber he'd never before held).

 

 

That's still consistent with the force being strong but not having specific training by someone who knew what they were doing. Raw talent with amateur guidance vs proper coaching with an experienced professional. With no Jedi around, how much dueling would he have done with his lightsaber, so how much skill would he have? All we see him do is trash a room and impale an unarmed man. Not very much skill needed for that.

[iNow]

In many ways, that's what I'm struggling with most. Ren was clearly in a position of authority. He controlled large numbers of troops and was in direct command of specific attacks. He had direct access (alongside the highest general) to the Supreme Leader of the First Order. That all implies experience and training and strength to me and is why it doesn't IMO seem to square with the teenage angst, easily agitated, emotionally out of control, barely able to hold his own in a duel with Fin aspects of the storyline.

[dimreepr]

Snoke did say his training was to be completed.

[Moontanman]

I am almost afraid to go see it, J.J. Abrams killed Star Trek. I was so disappointed with those new Star Trek movies, building a Star Ship on the ground, a window on the bridge instead of a view screen, the set for the engineering space looked like an old abandoned chemical plant, and sex with twin girls with tails, sex with a green girl and the admirals daughter, no wait I liked the exotic women Lens flares!

 

I haven't seen the new Star Wars but I hope J.J. didn't completely ruin it,,,

[iNow]

This link hit my feed a few minutes ago and softens me a bit on my previous criticisms. Summary: Major big Chewbaca crossbow gun that obliterates all else in large numbers wounded Ren significantly more than was obvious visually when it hit him and this happened before the fight with Finn and Rey.

 

http://m.imgur.com/gallery/7EhqwbF