ST The Official "List Your Complaints About TFA" Discussion Thread

That video is a huge fail. He talks about TFA making things right after the prequels but then suggests showing several things from the prequels like Jar Jar and the Jedi temple which would be massively off putting to prequel haters who want to forget those movies and move on from them. This guy is completely clueless here.

 

I disagree. Creating new planets does not make the galaxy feel bigger by default. TFA had technically eight or nine planets on screen and it still felt a smaller universe than the universe in the movie it was trying to emulate, ANH.

It’s a result of presentation. Too many coincidental meetings and random bumping into other characters’ possessions that just randomly happened to be there makes it look like everyone lives and everything happens nearby.

Too little characterization of worlds, or putting cantinas in insular forests, makes it look like the galaxy consists of only a few small settlements here and there each with a population of less than 100 and nothing else is going on outside of those settlements and isolated cantinas.

Lack of indication or a sense of time passing between travels makes it look like everything happens between neighboring planets.

Having a giant superweapon destroying five planets too closely placed in a spectacle that people from other planets can see clearly in real time while the sun is still up makes the GFFA feel ridiculously small.

And albeit I am an OT fan and a RO fan, I have no problem in admitting that, to me, the galaxy in the PT feels waayyy bigger than in any of those movies. The only problem in its presentation was the CGI, that made some scenarios look rather unconvincing. That and the random insertion of Boba Fett’s origin story. But in everything else, the PT characterized the planets, made them feel inhabited by wide populations of different cultures, and made also feel like they had wide areas of nothing too, like they actual had a diverse map that extended outside of small focused areas. It had wide, cinematic characterizations of everything – the Senate Chamber alone looks huge, almost as if you could fit the entire populations of TFA and the OT movies in that room alone. The field where Anakin runs his podrace feels bigger than the distance between the Jakku first village and the second village. There was also a sense of travelling taking some time, presented in the dialogue.

There is a sense of large scale in the PT that exists to a great extent in RO, a little less in the OT, and virtually does not exist in TFA. And that is, to me, what make some galaxies feel big and others feel small.

 

Yes. It's not any one thing but the whole mix of elements of time, space, designs, characters et all that present the extremely small galaxy that TFA has.

It should feel massive compared to ANH but since Maz, Leia and Luke's planet could all be the same planet and no one seems to actually live anywhere but simply be visiting. The Falcon barely leaves Jakku doesn't go to lightspeed and Han picks them up immediately when he is apparently pretty much right beside Jakku.

When you treat vast distances like they are nothing then they become nothing. In Star Trek JJ has people transporting from Earth to Kronos in seconds. Makes you wonder why they even bother with starships. Trips are almost instantaneous in starships as well. You need to give the illusion that some time had passed.

Lightspeed is made a joke in TFA undercutting it's importance. The getting through the shield at lightspeed is treated like a joke as opposed to something dangerous.

 

Its an interesting point about giving a sense of space to uninhabited areas Calavera. The OT obviously have a frontier western like feel to it with a lot of locations that don't have much settlement in them but I think it also clearly puts a lot more effort into selling this sense of space, characters on Tatooine, Hoth, Endor, etc do spend a lot of time moving around those environments. The end result I think is that the feeling of isolation helps sell a general grandness of setting much more than we see in TFA.

To me as well the OT and RO just have the feeling that the locations are designed to aid the story feeding in the correct atmosphere as in TFA it feels more like locations similar to the OT are being included for the sake of it. You look at Eadu for example and that's something very unlike any of the OT worlds but is obviously well suited to playing up the spy drama that's unfolding.

 

I've just been reading the Art of TFA .

the paintings are beautiful , but really most of it is all the same idea : ships from the OT crashed / graveyard etc.
There's a couple of new ship designs which actually looked interesting but of course they didn't make it into the film .
The whole ethos seems to have been : 'mimic the OT , remind them of the OT , keep doing scenes that are like the OT .'

It's such a shame , all that talent and imagination , why not use it ?

 

Definitely. I expected the jump from ROTJ to EpVII to be somewhat like the jump from ROTS to ANH, with similar yet greatly developed ship designs. We're talking thirty in-universe years of progress here, but it looks like seven, tops.

 

Considering how much the technological and martial aspects of this film are astonishingly underdeveloped, it makes me seriously doubt whether or not the people who made the film either watched and/or cared about the previous films at all.

The worst example of "What the hell happened?" from the creative process of this movie. You know, from all the praise citing "authenticity" and "versimilitude" that this film seems to receive, the end results of what could have been seem pretty plastic and artificial.

 

The final Kylo Ren look is a far better design than earlier incarnations. It's menacing, sleek, has a historical analog (mix of early medieval knight and samurai), and perfectly Star Wars.

 

lol

When has anything in Star Wars required a historical analog? Just because there are historical analogs to many other designs in the franchise does not mean that any design that doesn't closely resemble something from history should be immediately scrapped. Besides, the former design looks far more menacing. Downright demonic, even. The red eyes, the rebreather that looks akin to the maw of a beast (which the masks of many samurai were designed to emulate), the actual armor plating on the chest, etc. Sure, he may not need the cybernetics but if intimidation is the goal here, then the former design is far superior.

 

I think it is what it's supposed to be. ie Anakin if he didn't have the armor.

Whether they meant this or not is irrelevant as that is the effect just as whether subconsciously or not they were drawn to a Maul-like feel for Kylo and of course Lucas himself had Anakin become Vader and have that Sith feel of Maul.

Everything in TFA was to make Snoke and Kylo Sith who are not Sith.

 

The design isn't too Anakin-like to me. It's more of a panther vibe mixed with a Templar knight. A mix of Vader, Maul and Anakin, perhaps.

But that's beside the point of the question "is it well-designed?" The answer is yes. It's almost perfect.

 

For what it wants to do I agree. That is being Anakin as Vader mixed with Maul and a medieval influenced Sith mixed with Jedi.

 

The former design is overwrought and a little He-Manish. It requires editing and refinement. Looks like exactly what it is: early concept art. What they arrived at in the end is a far better design. Edited down to basic essentials, and perfect for a character who's not supposed to just be "menacing." He's also supposed to be insecure - a bit of a young poseur/ imitator. The final mask and outfit get that across quite well. The former concept art, on the other hand, gives the impression of an ancient Sith Lord. In fact, it wouldn't have been a bad design for an overlord like Snoke. But it's all wrong for the character of Kylo. And a major part of a concept designer's job is to create a look that suits the character.

Doesn't get much more spot on than Kylo, in that regard.

 

I, too, thought that some of the Kylo concept art looked pretty interesting when it first leaked, and I agree that it would have made for a far better end result to stick to those designs more closely. Kylo's costume in the movie, like many of the other costumes, such as the hideously redesigned duckbill Stormtroopers, looks too clean and plastic. His mask looks like it's made of plastic and rubber. His whole costume looks like a neatly replicated cosplay costume, which I guess is quite fitting, since he literally is a fanboy trying to cosplay as his idol, Vader.

 

Very much agreed. I did think the ship graveyard was a cool concept, but even that idea lost its punch in the final product given that X-Wings and Star Destroyers are still in primary use throughout the galaxy. I think it would've been more impactful if the "bones of the OT" were just that, dead relics, fodder for vague dreams of a different time for Rey. Instead it all feels to me like sections of an amusement park.

 

Your last statement affirms why it's a great design. Fits his character like a glove.

 

From your point of view. I think the entire direction they took the character in was flawed. It was just an excuse to get a pseudo-Vader in the movie, since they couldn't get the real deal (except his mask and ashes, which along with Anakin's lightsaber was a ridiculously unnecessary and gratuitous cameo, not to mention completely non-sensical). This is supported by how eager and quick they were to shoehorn the actual Vader in Rogue One as glorified fan service, and how prominently he was featured in all of the promotional materials, like trailers, posters, etc., despite of his fairly modest screen time. He was clearly used as a big selling point, along with the Death Star. They also wanted to have the Death Star in TFA, so they cooked up Starkiller Base. Vader and the Death Star are admittedly two of the most iconic iconography from the OT, but rehashing them both in their first two movies is a pretty damn lazy move on Disney's part. TESB did just fine without a Death Star, so I don't really get this obsession with the tired old superweapon plot. Let's just hope a Starkiller Base II doesn't pop up in Colin Trevorrow's Episode IX. Just the thought makes me shiver.

 

I think there's a difference between tantrum prone cosplayer and a Sith obsessed collector of old relics. The latter sounded very intriguing. Unfortunately, Kylo stuck me as the former, and added to the overall cartoonish vibe I got from TFA.

 

Huh. That's interesting. I got an overall realistic vibe from it.

 

Kylo represents JJ himself and his overall ethic in making the movie. Dig up all the old crap from the originals, and reuse them for spare parts, even if it makes zero sense in the broader frame of the narrative. Kylo is a refurbished Vader, just as much as the entire movie is just a refurbished ANH.

 

I see the merit behind a lot of complaints about this movie, but the claim that it is just a refurbished ANH ignores a ton of links to the other episodes.
There are lots of similarities to ROTS, for instance. And ROTJ. And TESB. And AOTC. And yes, even TPM. I'm not talking about little winks here, but fundamental stuff, elements that are crucial to TFA.
I concede that there is a tangible ANH-esque atmosphere and that the overall structure of the film seems based on ANH, but it doesn't slavishly adhere to it.
To me, TFA looks like a thematic summary of the first two trilogies.

 

True, just a refurbished ANH might not be fair. Actually a refurbished ANH sounds pretty good to me. Problem is I think TFA tries its best to take primary inspiration from ANH but only manages a superficial emulation at best. With TFA I get none of the live-in framework that made me buy into Luke as a real person amidst the wacky sci-fi universe. Without that core it's hard for me to see "fundamental" links to the I-VI saga even if certain plot elements align with what came before (the aforementioned Kylo being a prime example--clearly he's an Anakin-like character, except without the organic focus and development that allowed me to buy into Anakin's arc).

 

Well formulated!
I do hear what you're saying, even though I don't feel the same way. Regardless of the actual process and intentions behind the film, I feel that TFA teases at a backstory that will undoubtedly be revealed, little by little, over the course of the trilogy (though I suspect that we'll know most of it by the end of TLJ). This is a new approach for the Star Wars Saga and I get that it turns some fans off, but I happen to like it! It's refreshing and keeps me excited to see more (which was probably JJ's intention). That's in large part thanks to the lead actors' performances, which have me totally convinced that these are real people in a real galaxy who struggle with real problems. I buy into it, one hundred percent.

By its very nature, TFA is a huge turning point. All of a sudden, half a trilogy's worth of drama has happened off screen and everything's gone to hell, more or less. Part of the journey is to find out how and why - and since we follow Rey, who seems to know nothing of these things, that's actually quite appropriate.

The lived-in framework, BTW, is very much present in my eyes. I mean, most of the environments and situations that we see aren't of the everyday kind, but what little there is feels real.

 

It also ignores a ton of other stuff too, but that never stops the asinine and mostly superficial line of criticism. There are things in TFA that are as far removed from ANH as any other Star Wars movie. The central character arc isn't even the same!

Oh hey, how did I end up in here again? TFA Defender 3 standing by.

 

I just watched the TFA equivalent of "The Beginning" documentary for the first time, and while I enjoyed some of the additional insight it gave into the backstory and character motivations not so well illuminated by the movie itself (the stuff that should matter, not the "Oh, kewl, that's that droid from the background of that one scene in Episode whatever), particularly Kylo Ren which was very well articulated by Adam Driver himself, a lot of it was just as bad and disheartening as I had imagined based on the behind-the-scenes materials published prior to the release of the movie, such as the now-infamous "real desert" clip. Doug Chiang outright grudgingly admits it was an order from J.J. to limit the concept artists' horizons by forcing them to work only in the narrow sandbox of designs Ralph McQuarrie created for the originals. Then there was a bunch of that non-sense of how the prequels didn't feel "tangible" enough and how the designs weren't even in the same "universe" that "Ralph McQuarrie created", apparently (that was a particularly distressing statement. Yes, he was one of the major players in crafting the universe, but it ultimately originated with Lucas). They had Doug Chiang and Ryan Church in the docu (looking not quite as excited as in the PT BTS footage. They gave a couple very distressing looks when faced with the "new" designs), while simultaneously verbally slapping them in the face and flipping them off. These were two of the most prominent concept artists in Eps. I-III, and they have the audacity to blatantly disrespect them and their work.
This Rick Carter guy who hasn't worked on any of the previous films spouts absolutely asinine sound bites like he knows Star Wars better than anyone (no wonder. He, after all, is the grown man who said "real desert"), including the creator they're constantly pushing to the side. He's telling the guys who've actually worked on them how they should do their job... No wonder Chiang and Church didn't look too happy. At least the former got a better gig doing Rogue One with a far superior director and overall crew.
There's also some guy I've never heard of and can't remember the name of even after having just watched the thing, who looks like he ate Jabba the Hutt (probably mistaking him for Pizza Hutt), prattling on about how you "can't" do a Star Wars movie without shooting it on film, except there already were two SW films done on digital by then (I know what he meant. He meant those two weren't SW at all), and another one on the way just after TFA, so not only did he take a pathetic and thinly veiled cheap shot at Lucas and his latter two prequels, he also (probably unknowingly) took a shot at Gareth Edwards and Disney's next new SW movie (Rogue One). I don't understand how they let these unprofessional clowns run their ignorant mouths in front of a camera.

In conclusion, the entire thing felt like twisted satire or some kind of a wacky parody sketch. No need for a Plinkett-style "review" when it's already funny enough.