ST Has your opinion of The Force Awakens changed with the ST finished?

When JJ Abrams was announced as director, I had that sinking feeling. I have to admit, I wasn’t as excited about the sequel trilogy as many people were, but the reviews at the time it came out were overwhelming positive. So going into see it, my expectations were high. After leaving the theater, I was thinking… “that’s it? That was just a worse copy of A New Hope!” I didn’t want to say I didn’t like it, but I had no motivation to see it again at the theater. I was floored to see so many OT fans online praise the film after desecrating the legacy of the OT characters. It was almost as if the anti-Lucas sentiment was so strong at the time that fans were pleased just seeing X-Wings and Tie Fighters and Kessel Run mentions as opposed to an actual continuation to the story. Even to this day, with the sequel trilogy losing it’s good will with most fans after TLJ and TROS, TFA gets defended by some as a decent foundation. I disagree. Even as a “safe” rehash, TFA nukes the entire OT from the opening crawl. Everything Luke, Leia, Han, and so many others fought for in the original films was for nothing- the galaxy was back to Empire-lite vs Rebels-lite. At that point I basically knew I couldn’t accept it as Episode 7, but I at least gave it a fair shot as its own little soft reboot. And even then does this film have a lot of problems:

1. Luke, Han, and Leia all end up as failures.
2. Han Solo is back to smuggling, having broken up with Leia OFFSCREEN.
3. No reunion of the OT3, which is unforgivable.
4. Heavy over reliance on OT imagery.
5. Luke’s NJO wiped out off screen so we can have our Darth Vader clone.
6. Leia is a poor politician and is back to leading the Rebels because her son is a madman.
7. R2D2 is under a tarp. Are you freaking kidding me? Oh right, Disney needs their own little R2 clone, BB8.
8. Marvel humor: “You talk first, I talk first?”
9. Finn leaves the FO because he doesn’t want to kill for them, then gleefully kills all of his former comrades who were presumably also kidnapped as child soldiers.
10. Poe seemingly dies but reappears with basically no explanation given.
11. Rey instantly pilots the Millennium Falcon better than anyone despite never leaving not-Tatooine.
12. Rey doesn’t believe in the Force but then knows how to use a Jedi Mind Trick, something she definitely shouldn’t know how to do.
13. Kylo Ren straps Rey to a table and this scene is just wrong on so many levels
14. Kylo throws a temper tantrum that would make AOTC Anakin blush
15. Starkiller Base. Just a bigger, better Death Star that can destroy multiple planets, not just one. Thank you JJ for your brilliant imagination.
16. Maz Kanata has Anakin’s lightsaber with no explanation.
17. The lightsaber “calls” to Rey. Why? When do lightsabers do this? Why would the youngling slayer 9000 show Rey visions of her past that JJ Abrams clearly had no intention of resolving?(because he thought it looked cool)
18. How do they see Starkiller Base blow up all the planets from the planet they’re on?
19. The New Republic is destroyed with no explanation of pretty much everything to do with it. Once again the movie treats any sense of world building or politics like the plague.
20. Snoke (dumb name), a worse Palpatine rip-off instead of a fresh and interesting villian.
21. “Your father, Han Solo.” Yeah, thanks Snoke, I think Han’s son knows what his father’s name is. Another example of poor meta writing.
22. Kylo murders Han Solo in a dismal send off to one of the most beloved characters in cinema. Yes, he was killed by his own emo son.
23. Let’s not forget Leia sent Han to his death.
24. Tarkin-lite and his ridiculous in your face, over the top speech.
25. Leia ignores Chewbacca and hugs Rey.
26. Rey, who the Resistance have known for like a day, is sent to find Luke, who they’ve been looking for for a long time.
27. Luke is on an island doing nothing while the galaxy is crumbling around him. Remember, TFA did this, not TLJ.
28. The aliens in this movie look really bad.

This is why I think TFA is at the level of, if not worse than, TLJ and TROS. While those two films were laughable farces, TFA was just as bad, and it also managed to destroy the entire saga in the opening crawl.

 

Mine has changed for the worse- but if it was the beginning of a new saga with no precedent I would probably like it more. Of course its sequels would have to change too for a coherent story.

 

I thought The Force Awakens was a really bad Star Wars film when I first saw it... it was hugely derivative, it lacked imagination and creative intelligence. The characters were dull (apart from Finn), and were thinly drawn. It leaned far too heavily into the nostalgia factor, it fundamentally undermined the narrative of the Lucas films and effectively painted itself into a corner which the ST struggled to extricate itself from.

I admit that I seemed to be in the minority when the film first came out... However, several years on, the consensus now seems to be that The Force Awakens (whilst arguably the best of the ST), didn't do what was necessary to give the ST the foundations it needed. It was the root cause of some of the more fundamental issues with the ST. And whilst TLJ and TROS could have been better films, it's what's established/what's broken in TFA that defines the ST as a whole.

 

I agree with every word. I'd seen JJ's Trek abominations previously so I knew exactly what was going to happen and the exact same thing.
@Darth PJ
We know how George felt
https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/m...cas-felt-betrayed-by-star-wars-plans-1242953/

 

No. Certainly not for the better anyway.
I was actually excited by the announcement of JJ. I was excited by the announcement of Rian.
Very disappointed by TFA, but willing to give it a pass as it was just 1/3 of the whole.
Extremely disappointed with TLJ. Wondered what the hell I was watching.
Was it TFA or TLJ that put Luke sulking on an island? I thought there was a line in TFA where people thought he was looking for the first Jedi temple, maybe looking for something to help the galaxy?
Saw Solo and thought it was a good Star Wars film.
TRoS was just meh, but I had to see it just to finish the trilogy.

With that being said though, haven't we been through all of this soooo many times before?

 

It was TFA that firmly put Luke on the island and had him not helping Leia/Han and the Republic. That he was on a "mission" or looking for "help" etc. is how some fans expected/assumed the next film would have to fix/retro fit it etc.

 

I could be wrong, I haven't watched in so long, but doesn't Han say "some people thought he went looking for the first Jedi Temple."? Sulking is the key word on my previous post. To me, as bad as it is that they had Luke disappear, TFA didn't outright have him abandon everyone, but TLJ confirmed it.

EDIT: Also take into account that JJ had him in full Jedi garb and wanted him to be levitating rocks, which tells me that JJ didn't have him cut off from the Force (but does tell me JJ's understanding of the Force ).

 

Without wanting to derail the thread (as I know some don't like talking about this), Han does mention the first temple, but he never states why... he doesn't ever suggest a righteous/noble reason... he does say however, that "Luke felt responsible" (for what happened with Ben and the Jedi being murdered).... and that "He (Luke) walked away from everything". So that clearly doesn't put Luke in a good emotional place.

 

No arguments there. You may have missed my edit above, but yeah, let's stop now so as not to derail.

 

I thought it was the worst upon release and I still think that today.

 

I thought it was mediocre on release, but it looks good in comparison to TLJ and ROS.

 

Not by much. I was more antagonistic at the time, maybe a bit of contrarianism in me, and reaction to the bashing of the PT to, to me, prop it up. I may have a more nicer view of it now, in connection to what came after, but also upon further evaluation nowadays, I do think it's a worse movie than I saw it as before, but also not as annoying as I found it before. Though I haven't watched it in a bit so that may change if I watch it again, depending on my mood, but last time I did I still found it entertaining and still find the heroic characters likable for the most part, with their characters actions mostly making sense with their characters heroic pursuits.

 

2015 was a weird time. Anti-Lucas fervor was at an all time high and while it existed in 2016 and the lead-up to TLJ, I think this year was when anti-prequel sentiment reached its absolute peak. Like there were actual discussions/hopes across the internet that the PT needed to be wiped from canon and rebooted completely with a new cast, new story, new characters.

TFA is a weird culmination of all that sentiment packed into one nostalgia trip that always felt hollow and empty. Everything from the characters, story, to even the special effects, felt so low key and impressive. Like the movie was aiming to shoot as low as possible. It really feels like a weird AU timeline where some dude’s “prequel rewrite” script on Fanfic.net is canon instead of feeling like a spiritual successor to ROTS and the actual sequel to ROTJ. Plus the complete absence of politics, worldbuilding, the New Republic, New Jedi Order and an Empire 2.0. faction with generic Tatooine knockoff planet and 3 different knockoff Yavins just really made the whole thing a chore to sit through.

 

I'm not sure my memory is that accurate but I don't think I ever liked TFA (no Luke, no Jedi, pretty much no New Republic, sure seems like Leia's just been living on jungle bases since RotJ, Han didn't even get to have the Falcon for the last years of his life), but at the time didn't regard it as really really bad (unlike Into Darkness). Even now, I still regard it as the least worst sequel, but that's mainly due to TLJ being far more cynical and spiteful towards the OT (compared to TFA's laziness) and TRoS was a mess rushed out to meet the holiday deadline. Not that I'm saying its anywhere near good, just the other sequels felt more frustrating then TFA's mostly generic nature.

Back then I still had hope that even after how derivative TFA was there was still time for the other movies to explore the rest of the sequel era galaxy, that after how much Clone Wars stuff we got I figured Disney would go full blast on that too, but instead, well, look at how many arcs we got in that time period.

By now I view TFA as the biggest wasted opportunity, not only to establish a new era and new characters but also to build on the OT instead of just tearing it down.

 

It wasn't so much tearing it down but simply reselling it, like a used car. It's why JJ was brought in
They had no interest in telling new stories. Hell they even brought Lucas Treatments so he couldn't then film them himself
Disney were trying to Marvelise Starwars.
If you've seen 1 Marvel you've pretty much seen them all but it was a successful formula and Disney were trying to copy that for Starwars. TFA was a check list of all that they wanted. While any plot or character inconsistencies were simply hand waved away "A Good question for another time"
Only problem was, it didn't and doesn't work for Starwars.
They know that now but don't know what to do. It's why they are trying for another Rey Movie and giving the keys to Dave Filoni whose self marketing has been an act of genius, even if the reality is very different . It's all just hit and hope on Disney part.

 

It’s worse now.

 

Me too. I hated Trek 09 and I didn't have positive feelings for JJ to begin with, after his TV career. But I knew he didn't know anything about Trek and loved Star Wars, so I was going to give it a chance. I distinctly remember when the movie was announced back with the sale in 2012 thinking, "Mark, Carrie and Harrison will be cameos so why am I getting excited?" IF ONLY.

I was going along sort of okay with the movie up until they found the Falcon and then it started careening downhill. I walked out of it feeling like I'd been punched in the face (I never have been, but I can extrapolate). I am a Han Solo fan (cue Cpt Renault being shocked) and that was the worst ending I could imagine. It didn't even hit me until after the movie ended that they had never reunited Luke, Han and Leia and for that ALONE they should have been pilloried from here to the end of time. But I got home and started looking for online reaction and finding all the positive people and it only made it worse. It was very hard to find people who were even lukewarm about it. But I soon discovered them...

So agree with your list and the rest of your post. My opinion of it has gotten even worse over the years, just because I'm tired of "oh, it would have been fan service to reunite Luke, Han and Leia, and you never expected Han and Leia to last and OF COURSE that's what Luke would have done" and I want to scream. The lightsaber calling, that map - I can never look at that map again because of one person on a comment thread somewhere noting that...why do you need a map? All you need are the coordinates - it's space. Han losing the Falcon and turning into a terrible smuggler, Luke just gone, Artoo under a tarp, Rey who can do anything. Plus everyone telling me it's "fun." No, it's not fun to see characters you love trashed and if one more fan tells me "oh, but that's what happens in real life," I will burn the Internet down (I realize that I cannot do this because it is not a place. Just go with it.). Reading those "critics" after TLJ going on about how it humanized Luke and burned Star Wars to the ground and isn't that excellent. Silly Star Wars, with its notions about love, friendship, and good triumphing over evil. Yeah, we really needed that burned down, didn't we?

But let's not forget the black hole in the middle - Kylo Ren. Who looks nothing and acts nothing like his parents but I'm supposed to care about his redemption? Especially after he murdered Han? And the subset cult of fans around him, who spent years on social media screaming about his redemption and how there wouldn't be a happy ending for Luke, Han and Leia unless he lived. Y'know, even though he murdered them.

I still hate TFA worst of all. TLJ is a close second. TROS is at least funny, although not intentionally, and at least Lando, Wedge, Chewie and Threepio make it out alive.

 

As a cinephile and a big Star Trek fan, I could appreciate that Abrams made ST09 very accessible for general audiences... but as a fan, I thought it completely lacked the inteligence, the heart and soul found at the centre of the previous show/films (when at their best of course). ST09 just turned the franchise into an instantly forgettable and generic popcorn flick. And whilst some (if not most) are fine with that idea, I find the degredation of such great source material (simply for the requirement of instant gratification) to be hugely depressing and reflective of popular culture in general.

To give Abrams his credit, he's consistent. He did exactly the same with TFA as he did with ST09 i.e. he stripped it of any creative intelligence, imagination, thematic resonance and substance... and instead replaced it with derivative choices, stripped out any depth, and made it appealing to the most base of audiences to guarantee the most bums on seats.

The problem with Kylo Ren isn't necessarily Kylo Ren (although he's painfully written and developed), it's (IMO) Rey's relationship to him. In any good story, the antagonist and protagonist typically have some strong (and skilfully developed) emotional attachment (even if by proxy). In TFA, Kylo and Rey have none of that. It's a relationship based purely on the fact that one is supposed to be good and the other bad. And whilst it's of course possible for a villain to be a strong villain without clear 'motivation' (see Darth Vader ANH), it's usually fundamental for the protagonist to have clear and well defined motivation. Rey does not. She's an urchin, left on a planet as a child, with no motivation but to wait (for some unknown reason) for those whom left her there. She has no connection to Kylo Ren, Han Solo, Leia, the Republic/Resistance, the First Order or indeed, Luke Skywalker. Without that, there is no imperative that fuels Rey's utility (and the lack of utility is why the writers then have to later imbue her with superpowers), and there's certainly no reason as to why Kylo should be drawn to her. It's a relationship with pretty much zero substance in TFA.

 

Absolutely agree.

So I'm at the grocery store this AM, stop by the magazines, see Star Wars Insider, promising me an article on ROTJ going back into the theaters. I start thumbing through the article and the picture of Han and Leia is from TFA and the little caption talks about their relationships being destroyed prior to TFA and, right there, that encapsulates why TFA is such a problem. No, it was BECAUSE OF TFA that their relationship was destroyed because JJ hated ROTJ and Kasdan never liked Han and Leia together. I can't even go see ROTJ in piece. Every time I see the binary sunset scene now, I am thrown back to the ST where Luke is destroyed (and that piece of the score is overused).

I cannot with it.

 

To quote Ian Malcolm. The lack of humility before Star Wars staggers me.


They created scenes using mythical pieces of film history that are guaranteed to leave a lasting mark in our minds. And they either didn’t think at all about the message or thought their stupid commentary was genius. They can never go back and do it again after we’ve already seen it

 

The only thing he really has developed is his connection to the OT characters. Otherwise, I think he's not much more written than Rey is.

Not entirely, necessarily. Though the movie never really develops what it is, it does highlight a connection to Luke from Rey. Rey is called by the lightsaber that was Luke's, when she touches it, she sees visions of events that, mostly, pertain to Luke, and she is developed to dream about the island where it's suggested Luke is. It's half an idea, if there was even another half in the first place, but there's something happening, whether Abrams intended for it to mean much is another thing.

 

Luckily, when I watch the OT, I don’t think about the ST at all. That keeps me happy.

 

Yes that’s the point. Kylo Ren didn’t necessarily need to be written with any more substance than he is (in TFA). His motivations can be more rudimentary in the first act. It’s Rey’s lack of motivation and lack of connectivity to proceedings which is the root cause of this particular dynamic’s issue. It’s one of the major things TFA gets wrong. I.e. it’s more concerned with establishing the relationship/drama between Han Solo and Kylo than it is between Rey and Kylo. It’s a consequence of Abrams and Kasden being more interested in Han Solo.

That’s just a mystery box… it has absolutely no bearing on the interpersonal dynamics established between the characters… it could equally be a connection to Vader than Luke right (?) and it’s reflective of the kind of writing that denigrates the ST, and popular cinema generally.