A/V THE FORCE AWAKENS - The Official Movie Discussion Thread

Just got back and it was a great and extremely fun film to watch. It had the humor that hasn't been there for a long long time and I thought the new characters were excellent and felt I cared for them by the end of the movie.

I can't wait to see what happens to Rey, Finn, and Poe next.

 

I am curious how much was Ardnts script and what was JJ and Kasadan ?
As the first part of the film is very different from the second part I'm gonna guess and say I think that was Ardnts

 

I'm enjoying the book so far, I'm on chapter nine already, but I'm annoyed by having ANH dialogue thrown at me all the time. Kylo Ren feels very generic but I like Finn and Rey so far, needs more Poe!

 

I disagree I think Sith was a better film which despite its problems at least was trying to tell a story. While TFA is certainly not a bad film per say and is enjoyable and it's better than Clones (which was just boring and the worst) and TPM

Steve the difference with Fett was that he was basically just a plot device in ESB to get Han out of the way and at least did something. Lucas killed him off in RTJ like a punk purposely at the time, to say look he's not important. Of course things have changed since then but at least there was a logic to Fett as opposed to this situation.

 

I think Poe Dameron is my new favorite character.

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Oh my goodness why did Kylo's name have to be Ben?! I mean it makes sense in-universe, but out of universe it's bugging the heck outta me!

I loved the movie though. Loved it. I have issues with it, but overall I thought it was great. I just felt a little too much like a remake of A New Hope...

EDIT: One question...

Spoiler

Did they ever actually refer to it as "Starkiller Base" in the movie? I never heard the word "Starkiller" but I might have missed it. I'm not debating whether or not it's actually called that, because the name "Starkiller" makes so much more sense than I ever expected it would in this case.

 

Spoiler: Novel has an explanation

Traveling faster than anything ever generated by artificial means, through a torn portion of space-time whose properties were not fully understood, the concentrated glowing ball of energy lit the night sky above Republic City. Leia’s envoy Korr Sella was among those who gazed uncomprehendingly at the inexplicable phenomenon. Disturbed space was energized and lit up by its passage. It was as if a minuscule sun had suddenly appeared from nowhere, heading directly for the world on which she stood.

It struck with enough force to penetrate the crust and the mantle. Stunned scientists assumed the globe had been hit by an asteroid. The reality was worse, much worse. So powerful was the orb of phantom energy that as it dissipated within the planetary core, it blocked the free flow of elysium. Gravitons that normally moved freely and harmlessly through the planet suddenly were blocked from doing so. Almost immediately, the resulting graviton flux released enough heat to ignite the core…

Turning the planet into what astrophysicists called a pocket nova.

Expanding outward from the explosion, a tremendous burst of heat tore through the Hosnian system’s other worlds, searing their surfaces clean of life and incidentally obliterating all settlements, installations, and outposts, as well as the hundreds of ships belonging to the Republic fleet. In its wake, the detonation left behind a blazing, spherical mass. The home of the Republic had become a new binary system: one utterly devoid of life.

....

The crowd of visitors who had filed out of the old castle had turned their eyes to the sky. A light had appeared there, a new star bright enough to be visible in the daytime. There was much speculation as to its cause. Someone suggested that a star had gone nova, but there were no nearby white dwarfs in the section of sky in question. The stellar apparition was inexplicable, which in turn led to fear and uncertaintyamong those gazing upward.

From a pouch, Chewbacca withdrew a ponipin and handed it to Han. Activating the compact device, Han aimed it at the light in the sky. Automatically, it linked to the much more powerful stellar navigation instrumentation on board theMillennium Falcon, providing a real-time reading of the bit of starfield under scrutiny. Within the ponipin’s lens, statistics and readoutscombined to create a picture of what was happening in the chosen corner of the cosmos.

 

.

 

I agree that it was for the most part a remake of Ep. IV. However it was beatifully done and introduced some great new characters and it's really what this franchise needed. They are going to be coming out with a new movie virtually every year for who knows how long so they have plenty of time to move the plot forward with future stories. Star Wars is exciting again which was the main goal of this movie. Bring the excitement back and make people forget how much they disliked the prequels.

 

Spoiler

Does it? The reason it bothers me so much is because it doesn't seem to make much sense, IU. Lando would have made more sense. Or Bail. Or Han Jr.

I'd have been particularly partial to the latter as it would have contributed to the narrative of Kylo wanting forge a new identity for himself, independent of his "disappointing" father.

Still, I imagine we'll get a decent justification, eventually.

It just seems really daft for it to be a name that rhymes with "Ren". But, then, I guess we had Alek and Malak, before.

 

The most shocking moment.....Kylo Ren removes his mask, and it is......Neil Gaiman!


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Spoiler

Okay, you're right, it actually doesn't make much sense, and that's why it bothers me too. It really only makes sense for Luke to name his son Ben in my opinion. Leia didn't even know Obi-wan as "Ben." She knew him by his real name. Han might have known him as Ben but I have a hard time believing that Han would name his son after that crazy old man he knew for like six hours.

 

I've got it!

Spoiler

THERE IS ANOTHER.

Ben turns out to be young Han Solo's best buddy who dies tragically in the spin-off movie..

 

Was I just looking at it wrong or did I see Aphra in TFA. It was only for a second but in the background when they were showing the resistance getting things ready for the attack I thought I saw someone dressed just like Aphra in the background. I'm going to the movie again tomorrow so I'll have to see if I notice it again.

Aphra would be in her sixties by the time of TFA though so possibly not. I'll have to remember to have my eyes glued to the screen during that scene at my next viewing though.

 

Spoiler

So much to take in. Whoo boy. Random notes in approximate viewing order:

Did they have the Lucasfilm fanfare from the digital releases? If so, I missed it.

That opening crawl was so perfect. Felt absolutely Star Warsy.

Luke went in search of the first Jedi Temple after a teaching failure? Is this The Heart of the Jedi? Maybe I should have read all of the manuscript, but the last scene definitely seemed to foreshadow this plotline better than anything else...no wonder they couldn't publish it in 1993. Or Joe slip a reference to Episode VII spoilers in the editing process?

"Balance of the Force" mentioned in the first few minutes--did all those obnoxious commentators claiming Episode VII was wiping the slate clean of the prequel trilogy miss this?

Watching the Empire--ah, First Order--land on Jakku reminded me of my earliest memories of the Star Wars novelization--I tried to read it before I'd seen the movies, and for some reason pictured Vader's capture of the Leia taking place planetside.

Oh man, that frozen blaster bolt was awesome.

Loved pretty much everything about Finn--unlike Luke, he doesn't have a built-in destiny, he just really wants a new life and to impress a girl, in that order.

Loved pretty much everything about Rey. Skimming down sand dunes, repelling in Star Destroyer wrecks, her insta-bread...

Speaking of insta-bread, Abrams has a strange fascination with the minutiae of the Star Wars universe that doesn't really fit the style of the other saga films. We saw blue milk, but only in passing

The escape from Jakku is my favorite sequence in the film, possibly one of the best in any of them. Re-introducing the Falcon the way they did was brilliant.

Here's something Captains Jack Sparrow and Han Solo have in common: you never want to sign onto their crew. If you're not the trusty first mate you're risking a horrible death (probably tentacle related) due to their innate incompetence.

Another sad-but-realistic thing we learn about Solo: it didn't really matter that he was rescued from Jabba; it's just inevitable that he'll end up in debt to someone else in the criminal underworld. Our hero.

I do not for a second believe that the elderly Solo could outrun the space squid, sorry. (Oh I'll learn the name, just give me a day or so.).

Seriously though, I don't want to seem like I'm ragging on Han too much; Ford's on top form here.

Jumping back to the First Order, I too thought that Snoke was some kind of giant. So disappointed that may have been just a hologram. (I guess now we'll never see Secret Star Wars, where Snoke and Thanos just glare at each other from giant space chairs.)

Well, they dropped the Kylo-is-Han's-son bomb pretty quickly, didn't they? Would have preferred it to come out during the Han/Leia scenes.

How exactly does Starkiller Base work? Does the laser fire through hyperspace? And does it destroy stars, or just planets? I really wish someone would explain this.

I love that Finn genuinely does not understand droidspeak or Wookiee.

A little underwhelmed at the JJ/Miranda cantina tunes. A shame, I liked both of Abrams' Star Trek bar tunes and Hamilton. Oh well.

You can't really do a repeat of the cantina scene; it goes on just a little too long here.

Also underwhelming: Maz Kanata, the pirate Yoda.

That's okay, though, because Rey's vision is pretty darn cool. I was left thinking that Kylo/Ben had left her on Jakku, but others are theorizing Luke. I like the idea that he couldn't bring himself to go full Vader and kill younglings, but we'll see where this leads.

LOL @ Maz's non-explanation of why she has Luke's saber. I'd really like to know how she got it, but there isn't an explanation that isn't preposterous. (So we really are accepting that was junk metal falling underneath Cloud City in Empire?)

The battle between Finn and that one stormtrooper was pretty awesome. But is he Force-sensitive? Is that why he can use a lightsaber? Or did he get fencing in stormtrooper training, like the Katarn of Legends?

Leia arrives to save the day. And the reintroduction of Threepio was just great. Too bad they go on to not use him much for the rest of the movie.

Man, the chemistry between Ford and Fisher is just great, even all these years on. I love that Han and Leia can't even fake not liking each other at this point, even after everything that's happened. I like this a lot better than "Han and Leia never could have had a relationship that lasted" or "Han and Leia lived happily ever after."

That said, it looks like they laid Fisher's makeup on with a trowel. What's up with that?

This stare-off between Kylo and Rey is not working for me at all. I wonder if this is how people who were bored in the prequels felt.

Back at the Resistance Base, we finally get an explanation for Starkiller base. And...I wish we hadn't. Who hired these guys, and why are they talking when Admiral Ackbar is right there?! None of the other rebels seem to grasp the concept of "space opera", they sound like they work in an Apple Store.

That said, I'm kind of digging the notion that the base destroys stars by using their power to hit planets across the galaxy, instead of just being a straight-up Death Star/Sun Crusher combo.

Oh my gosh. They destroyed Coruscant. This is huge. This is horrifying.

I somehow suspect that only the fact that wild fanboy cheers from the prequel haters would ruin the moment prevented them from putting Jar Jar on Coruscant in this scene.

Oh wait, that wasn't Coruscant at all? It's some random planet that we've never heard of? But it still looks just like Coruscant? Weak. And would have been nice to know beforehand. Ten credits says they changed the name in post because someone wanted the option of using Coruscant somewhere down the line. Commit with your shared universe, gosh darn it!

So as with Star Trek, we can still see planets being destroyed across the galaxy.

The confrontation between Han and Ren had me on the edge of my seat. I really thought he might go back with Han. Oddly, Jacen's Expanded Universe history gave their meeting more depth and upped the stakes for me, as I kept hoping that in this version of the story, things would be different. I'm still in shock over this. I might cry once it really starts to sink in.

Yeah, it's gonna take me awhile to start calling Jacen Ben. And why the name change? Was it so that we wouldn't be wondering if there was still a Jaina out there? Cause I'm still wondering that.

Seeing the sun go out just as Ben kills Han, though...that was powerful. I'm on board with this superweapon thematically.

Kylo thinks that Anakin's saber belongs to him. I can't help but think of the Tales comic where Ben Skywalker claims Anakin's saber from a bunch of aliens that are telling wild stories about how they came by it.

What is Kylo Ren's final training?!

I do really like Starkiller Base becoming a sun of its own. That was cool.

The ending goes on for. Ever. Lucas would have been fine with a cut as the Falcon takes off, cut to Chewie and Artoo dropping Rey off, then cut to her seeing Luke Skywalker.

I can't help but feel like we're on Planet England for everything besides Starkiller Base and Jakku. (Which looked just like Tatooine. ) It's probably all the classic Doctor Who I've been watching, but it makes this move seem a little cheaper than the other films. One of the fun things about Star Wars is that you can immediately tell what planet you're on--this movie doesn't have that.

That said, the final shot was brilliant and equal parts frustrating and satisfying. The real question is, just what was Hamil doing all those months we thought he was shooting?

So, all in all, I don't know what to think yet. When I first heard about Episode VII, I was hoping to see a little of what Lucas really had in mind for the characters, and that we'd see a really new take on the post ROTJ galaxy. Instead we've got a sort of EU Revue, with Leia getting sidelined from the Coruscant government, a Galaxy Gun style superweapon of the week, an Imperial remnant, a Dark Side Solo kid, and a Jedi Purge 2.0.

The first part of the movie was great fun, but it's the first time the finale of a Star Wars movie wasn't as good as its first act, at least to me. It's probably my seventh favorite Star Wars film as of right now, but I should probably see it a half dozen times just to make sure.

 

Spoiler

There was massive fan outrage when Chewbacca was killed off in a book. Somehow I don't see there being much outrage about Han Solo dying in a movie. And I'm not sure why that is. It seems like this would be by far the bigger offense.

For the record I'm okay with his death and I think it was handled very well. Though I'm pretty sad we won't get to see Luke and Han interact at all in this trilogy :'(

 

Spoiler

Or you know filming Ep 8

 

hey guys, Saw it yesterday on Imax. LOVED IT!

And i've gotta agree with everything Zor and Revanfan said from a couple pages back. There were times i thought that 6 year old me would go crazy if he saw that, 20 some years ago.

Loved the new cast all around, especially Adam Driver. And BB8! My god i want that little robot.

 

Spoiler

I am partial to the name Kylo itself. Why does he have to be Ben at all?

 

Still wondering how

Spoiler

Han and Leia together created something that looks like Adam Driver . . . I guess he kind of has a bit of an Anakin Skywalker AOTC/ROTS feel. Except that he can act

 

Spoiler

Fair point, yeah.

 

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I assume they were going to name him Luke only for Luke to say to honor Ben instead.

 

Spoiler

What is with the Ben name hate? He died to save all their lives on the Death Star, not just Luke.

 

Spoiler

See, Chuck, this is why I miss you when you're not around much. I'm sitting here thinking "THIS IS STUPID AND DOESN'T MAKE SENSE" and then you go and say something sensible and I'm like, "Yeah, that works."

Head canon confirmed.

Spoiler

Dude, it's like totally inconsiderate for Han and Leia to name their son Ben when they know that Luke would probably want to name any son he had Ben, too. C'mon.

For real though, while you're correct, does it really not seem like a weird decision to you? Not at all? Ben isn't a hugely important part of Han and Leia's own character arcs in the same way he is Luke's.