ST Better the second time?

Out of 4 viewings I liked it the least the first time, maybe seeing it in 3d contributed to that. I enjoyed it the most the 3rd time.

First time I was pretty critical of the reboot like storyline and how there was so much of Harrison Ford and so little of Luke and Leia. That eased a lot for the 2nd and 3rd viewings when I started to appreciate how good Rey was but the critical complaints were back again by the 4th.

For the 3rd viewing I went with my sister and upon leaving she said she finally saw why I loved Star Wars so much and I suddenly realised what it means to have a strong female lead role in SW.

 

I had all but given up on Star Wars after the Revenge of the Sith, apart from the depressing nature of the film, female characters don't even get to talk to each other. So I expected The Force Awakens to be more of the same, about a group of men in space, my expectations were pretty low even after I saw that black and white photo of them doing a script read through.

On my first viewing, it was like a breath of fresh air, for me the magic had returned to Star Wars. I ended up seeing it five more times in the cinema and loved it just as much if not more.

 

I loved it the first viewing, but really, REALLY loved it on subsequent viewings. My first viewing was slightly fraught with the worry that I wouldn't like it. Once that worry was over, I was able to just indulge on subsequent viewings.

I went in pretty spoiled. I find that for movies I really care about, being spoiled is often better for me. If there is something I have to come to terms with, I can do that BEFORE the movie and try to enjoy it. But after my PT disappointments, I was still a little nervous. Also, I liked the Abrams Trek movies, but did not love them, and was a bit afraid I would feel the same way about TFA. But for me, JJ and Co. really nailed it.

 

Me too, the 3rd time was the best.

On my 7th viewing now, probably my last before the Blu-ray, i caught myself checking my phone or thinking about work on my 7th viewing, so that's probably where you have to draw the line.

But do yourself a favor and see this movie twice at least, i think 3 times is ideal.

 

Watched it the first time, liked it, but was overwhelmed and shocked at certain expectations not being met. Watched a second time, and loved it. Watched it a third time, and rated it up there with ESB and ANH. So yeah. It improved with each viewing.

 

Pretty close to my own experience, but out of curiosity, what expectations were not met for you personally?

 

The 1st viewing is the most important one to love or hate a film. If you go spoiled, this will affect your score, no matter what.

So it is fundamental to go watch it as soon as possible to avoid spoilers and to be part of the most hardcore public, which is always more fun.
Use headphones to avoid last minute spoilers, as before the movie starts is the worst time to be spoiled.
Go with someone that you like, people with positive attitude.

The 2nd viewing is needed to assimilate all details. TFA has so much new information, we NEED to watch it at least 2 times.

Especially after Kylo vs Han, my mind was so overwhelmed that I had to watch it again to absorb the end of the film.

When I went for my 2nd and 3rd viewings, I was afraid that I would start to not enjoy the movie. But I was wrong, the movie stood strong. TFA is just like that, very rewatchable.

 

Mostly related to being a spoiler hound. Because of my knowledge on what had been shot, I felt that the Maz sequence was cut down to near incoherence (as I was expecting both more interaction with the locals in the cantina, a longer flashback, and for Maz to not disappear after the FO attack), and I was a bit in shock about how little of the galactic political situation we got, and how perfunctory the introduction of and dispatchment of the SKB felt. But on second and third viewings, I saw how all these pieces and choices built the narrative of TFA in a unique way (particularly with the SKB, which ultimately was not an important part of the narrative), and that made me watch the film in a very different way.

And I've seen it more than three times now. Gotten better each time, though I suspect there's a "plateau" on the horizon.

 

5 for me. To be honest, I had a bit of a "s#%* the bed reaction" on my first viewing, trying to adjust to the speed of the pacing, and, like you, wanting more exposition re the state of the Galaxy. That said, I never had so big a problem with Starkiller or the Hosnian destruction. I did think it was effective and quite moving in showing us the inhabitants before they got vaporised. The score was very effective/powerful too, and the reactions from Han et al actually made MORE sense than Leia's in ANH to me. Because they've been here before (excluding Finn of course). But the Galaxy has been here before. So it's sort of like, "right, this is horrific, but we know this. We understand the gravity of this situation, we know we have to do something." I should also point out that only 1 inhabited planet is destroyed, whose population I'm unaware of.

Oh, and yes I'd also scanned the MSW shooting script, and sort of expected Maz's scenes to be longer. But I'm glad she didn't come across as TOO portentous or overly serious, as Lupita's "know your eyes" line in that tv spot suggested. I thought they got her characterisation right in the end.

 

Mostly agreed. And yeah, the pacing did take getting used to for me. Particularly as my taste leans towards films with a more leisurely pace (Lean, Coppola, Malick, Anderson, Cuaron, etc). But Star Wars is something different for me. The OT was, for the most part, a perfect example of economical and fun storytelling at its best. And I think TFA comes very close to meeting that standard.

ETA: Oh, and I'm embarrassed to say that I've watched this film seven times. But it's been a lot of fun to see it with different people each time (except for the last time, when I stopped in to see it by myself while on a business trip).

 

Yeah...and bear in mind that my love of TFA is coming from someone who worships Blade Runner! But I suppose that's why I like the fact that it has visual/thematic depth, as well as these great little ambiguities that crop up from time to time.

 

I've seen the movie 5x and it's just not enough.

 

I adored the film the first time I saw it, but it was definitely better for me the second time around. While you don't have the impact of seeing things play out on screen for the first time, you're watching the film for what it is rather than what you expect or want it to be. You're taking the film on its own terms, rather than its terms and your own having a standoff as each new frame plays out on screen. The similarities between it and ANH also became less meaningful for me on the second viewing. None of them felt distracting the first time around, but watching it the second time made it pretty clear how superficial those similarities are. It's only the surface level stuff that's old, but the meat and potatoes are fresh.

You also catch more the second time around. The tracking shot through the main hall of Maz Kanata's castle is so fast and so full of things that there's really no way to absorb it the first time around. This also works in terms of filling up plot holes and contrivances; the movie moves pretty quickly, and it can by easy to miss some explanations on the first viewing, leading to the conclusion that those explanations aren't there.

 

This.

 

I loved it the first time (and went in very unspoiled). More stood out the second time, but I may have done too much thinking in the moment, because seeing it felt a little less enjoyable than thinking about it afterward. I also misremembered how the music lined up in the final scene, so there was less impact. The third time, I just gave myself Qui-Gon's advice: "Feel, don't think." Most satisfying viewing yet.

I didn't even realize it was a tracking shot until the third time.

 

yeah I liked it a little better the second time around.

 

While I liked it better the 2nd time and not so much on the 3rd I suspect that might be partially to do with the three viewings being too close together (Thu, Sat, Tue) so by the third time I'd kind of overindulged.

Especially since during the time between the viewings I was also listening to the TFA reviews on every SW podcast in the galaxy, so my brain was on TFA mode for many of my waking hours (and some of my sleeping ones). When I see it for a 4th time it'll be 6 weeks or so since I last saw it and I'm listening to far fewer SW podcasts lately so should be back to some degree of freshness.

 

Pretty much sums up my feelings. Knowing the spoilers actually helped because many of the spoilers sounded, well, kind of MEH to me. So down the wire my expectations were cautious. It TOTALLY exceeded my expectations and I was happy to see some of the things I very much disliked about the spoilers had changed (ehem-floating lightsaber-ehem). A couple of things were less than what I hoped (the whole Maz thing) but overall the hype was overshadowed by the actual event which is a rarity in entertainment these days.

 

I'm at three (I don't like going to the theater that much, period, so just seeing something there multiple times speaks for itself alone) and the movie did get better every time for me too. The first viewing was a complete surprise and I was blown away the whole time, the second was more analytical and focused and on the third I just enjoyed the ride. The third was the best experience, even though I found myself to be more perceptive of what I consider to be the movie's flaws (the frantic pace, frequent handwaving/shortcuts). But the great thing is that it didn't diminish my enjoyment of the work in any way. If anything, I'm even more happy about the movie than I was before. That's how you can tell a truly special film - when you see flaws, but they are so minuscule, so irrelevant for you, that they might not exist at all. No other brand new movie has left such an impression and excited me as much as TFA in almost ten years. I just can't stop gushing, it clicked perfectly with me.

As for spoilers, I went in spoiled too. I generally don't try to avoid them as they usually don't impact my enjoyment of any piece. And TFA also did the smart thing by being very casual about its big spoilers. Kylo's heritage is just dropped early on as a part of the exposition and Han's death is set up in a way that its emotional punch is in its execution, rather than the very fact that it happened.

 

I didn't love the film the first time. I was very tired from the Marathon and just couldn't take it all in. I probably honestly wouldn't have given it a very good review but luckily I just went to sleep and reserved judgment for later. Saw it the second time opening day and I loved it completely!

Trust me the 29th viewing is even better than the second 30th will be Tuesday.

 

I was on the fence the 1st time I saw it opening weekend, but loved it the 2nd and 3rd time I saw it. I think I figured out why the 1st viewing feels so disjointed to diehard fans like us. We build this movie up for 2 years through spoilers, trailers, interviews, and you just have so many things going through your mind when you walk into the theater that you don't have for a regular movie you normally see. Honestly, it's tough to enjoy the 1st viewing of any SW movie cause there is just so much to process because you keep thinking how you feel the movie will go. I know walking in I had loads of questions that I have been wondering for 2 years:

-How would the OT characters come off?
-Will I like the new ST characters?
-Will this Kylo Ren guy be a cool villain?
-Will the plot be interesting?
-How will they incorporate the movie to jive with the other 6 movies?
-How will the movie look, more like the OT or PT?
-Will it feel like SW without Lucas being involved?

So you have all of these things going through your mind for 2 hours on the 1st viewing. On the 2nd viewing all of those questions have been answered, so you can now sit back and enjoy the movie for what it was supposed to be and really take in all of the stuff that sort of skimmed by on the 1st viewing.

 

The first time I saw it the atmosphere in the cinema was great. But the sound quality was off- I'm pretty sure the back channels in the cinema were turned off and so the main theme sounded a bit empty, and it became clear that I was right as the film went on.

The second time I saw it was in IMAX 3D and was infinitely more enjoyable on a technical level, at least.

 

Second time was infinitely better for me. It might have something to do with the fact that on my first viewing (midnight release day), there was a drunken w@*ker just shouting randomness throughout the film. Why he was never flung out, I'll never know. It also helped that the 2nd time was in the IMAX.

 

We should be able to pay a bit extra with our tickets to guarantee that drunken w@*kers are forcibly removed from the cinema IMO. Either that, or there is a "pit" underneath each seat which people get dropped into when they mouth off.