The Force Awakens Discussion -There Be Spoilers Here

Be warned, there will be spoilers for The Force Awakens in this thread!

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Usually discussion not having to do with writing and/or fanfic belongs in the social thread. But due everyone seeing The Force Awakens at different times and we don't want the social thread to be mostly spoiler tags for the next few weeks, we've made this thread for discussion on the movie while the spoiler period is still in effect.

No need to use spoiler tags in this thread. There are plenty of warnings, if someone who hasn't seen the movie doesn't want to be spoiled, it's clear they should avoid this thread.

The fanfic spoiler period is two weeks from the official US release date of December 18th. So this thread will remain open until at least January 1st.



This thread is for The Force Awakens discussion only, all other social discussion should remain in the social thread (Including discussion on when you are seeing it, if you are dressing up, etc.).

 

So, is anybody going to go first?

 

I've only read spoilers and I'm pretty sure my opinions on those would make me a heretic in the fandom.

 

I looked at spoilers today and I am not impressed, but didn't have any hopes to begin with so not much of a loss.
But I am curious where do people rank this film among the others?

 

This means I can spoil all I like? I tagged the mods in the other thread and asked if I need to use spoiler tags or just assume people are responsible for their actions...you know, juuust in case.

I'd rank it third out of seven, ROTJ and ROTS are still my favourites. My mom agrees, with one difference, she puts ROTS ahead of ROTJ.

What got me is the moment that matches something in one of my main fics and it's a pretty bizarre one. And now I'll go and be extremely happy with how the said fic matches the feeling of this film, since my characters have no idea what they're doing and neither do the newcomers in this film.

 

Double-posting, because I had a like on my previous post and I don't think the fellow user will like what I'm about to add.

OK, so...whatever is blown up by the new superweapon looks like Coruscant. And that freaked me out more than Han's death. Everybody was acting as if nothing happened.

Kylo Ren/Ben Solo is an entitled spoiled brat villain, which would be hilarious if he did not end up killing his father in an extremely cowardly manner.

There was a point where I was 100% sure that Chewie was no more, but he made it.

Maz Kanata is the most impressive character in this, followed by Rey.

 

Okay, my morning-after reaction. Edit: I put it all behind a spoiler tag in case someone wanders in here inadvertently.

Spoiler

First of all, JJ Abrams is a first-class troll. My prediction going into the film was that we wouldn't find out explicitly about Rey's parentage and that Luke would appear only in the last few minutes of the film. We get some very strong hints, but still only hints, about Rey's parentage, and when Luke finally turns up he doesn't utter a single line...

Also, I loooooved how the trailers were deliciously misleading about so many things.

Things I didn't like:

Giant holographic Gollum-like Snoke. I found it a cheap childish trick.

Phasma didn't live up to the over-hyped hype. She could just be any background character, it wouldn't matter. I just hope they were setting things up so she comes back with a vengeance in Episode 8.

Some shortcuts in the scenario needed extra fleshing out IMO (e.g. how Poe escapes from Jakku) while other bits could have been skipped (e.g. the whole thing with the two pirate gangs was unnecessarily drawn out).

Things I liked:

Rey, Finn, Poe and Kylo Ren are cool new characters played by great young actors.

Lots!!! of Han Solo. And I think he got an end that was worthy of the character.

Enough winks and nods to the Legends EU to make me happy, but few enough for this to be an entirely new story.

Maz and her glasses!

And of course: Catatonic!Artoo, Artoo/BB-8 interaction and BB-8 himself

 

Agree with all of the above, especially how trailers had lead us to believe a lot of stuff that made no sense.

Edit, in case anybody is interested: Phasma being shoved down the chute is the moment I referred to in my first post in this thread.

 

I already knew about the one spoiler. That, along with how the major characters from the OT are handled, are why I'm not very hyped to see this movie. (See, spoilers *can* be educational).

 

The whole film is a huge cliffhanger and, ironically, trolling own readers used to be my fanfic pet peeve...now we all got trolled by a film. Like, there is no clue so as to where the Supreme Leader came from? Sure, he could not have been a random anonymous who decided to rule the Galaxy one morning.

There are good things in it, but the 97% rating is a bit too much, IMHO.

 

That's why I'm not buying a ticket on the hype train. It was one thing to have ESB as a kid end in a cliffhanger...but from what I've read about this movie, it runs like most films nowadays...edgier and darker plot for the sake of being edgier and darker, characters and storylines that are poorly developed in favor of action. I would have thought fanboy Abrams would have been a little kinder to a series he claimed to love. But apparently this movie is already striking some people as being too similar in tone to Star Trek: Into Darkness. Abrams managed to wreck one franchise in two films...maybe he did the same thing to Star Wars with only one movie?

Trolling sounds like the best description really.

 

Wow leiamoody that's a really harsh description of what you expect to see! But the good thing is that if you're going in with such low expectations, you can't be disappointed

I disagree with the description of the film as a giant cliffhanger, because it does have a self-contained story while at the same time positioning itself and the first film in a trilogy. That was one aspect I really liked, actually.

I also liked how the new characters borrow elements from the old characters, yet are characters in their own right, not just a redux of the OT big three and villains. In this film Han gets the most screentime, but my guess is that Leia and Luke will get their own homage in episodes 8 and 9 so that by the end of the ST they've "passed the torch" to the new generation.

[insert caveat here about me being an easy customer to satisfy] I thought this was a really, really good SW film. I'm not going to compare it with the OT because I saw the OT as a little kid and I know I can never relive the magic of that, and I'm not going to discuss if it deserves 97% or 95 or 82 on Rotten Tomatoes because I find it impossible to rate things that way, but to me it's a movie that covers pretty much all the bases of what I expect from a SW film. I also find that it fulfills the difficult (impossible?) contract of having stuff to satisfy old fans, less old fans, casual fans, hardcore fans and new fans alike.

At any rate, I hope you'll enjoy it (and honestly, I'd be surprised if you don't enjoy Han's entrance -- to me it's one of those super-duper cool SW moments )

 

I haven't seen it, but reading through the spoilers it seems like this is a rehash of things we've seen and read before. Especially Caedus, I mean Kylo, and his fully cementing his turn to the dark side by killing a family member and his duel with a female member of his own family (likely) that leads to his disfigurement.

 

I loved it. I've seen it twice already.

Yes there is a lot to nitpick - Ben Solo has to be the most ridiculous thing ever, but I want to see the positive and overall I thought it was great. Loved all of the characters, love the humor (even Kylo Ren has some pretty amusing deadpan lines!).

Of course I'm disappointed that Luke was only in it for a few seconds and had no lines, but I was completely spoiled for that so it didn't blindside me. And so much emotion in those last few looks between Luke and Rey!

I do believe that Rey is Luke's daughter and would be interested to hear what others think.

 

Regarding the last line: believed it before, now I believe it even more. Would be a great compromise, too.

 

I really enjoyed the film and it's a film that's just fun to watch. The highlight for me was the characters both old and new - I particularly thought the new cast was excellent and made me care about their characters, and I'm thoroughly hooked into finding out what happens to them next.

My only reservation is that it's not clear just from watching this film how well the plot hangs together. By which I mean that there are certain things about the plotting that are either a) weak and not properly fleshed out or b) are set ups for the future films and so will make better sense once we've seen them. But it's frustrating that it will be at least 18 months till we can know that.

My other minor quibble (and this is a spoiler but I can't get the spoiler thing to work on my phone) is as someone familiar with the EU: having Han & Leia's son revealed as being called Ben was jarring in light of that being Luke & Mara's son's name in the EU, and in the context of the scene it was in it left me feeling that Han had effectively taken Mara's place in a variation on the Darth Caedus plot line. The scene was still very powerful and effective, but I am left feeling very weird about it given all the insistence the EU was being completely discarded.

Despite all this, I'm very happy with the film - I provided a great time, absorbs you in the GFFA again and gives you characters to love. I couldn't ask for anything more.

 

(edit: Annia P replied while I was typing, so just to clarify in this 1st paragraph I'm talking about Rey being Luke's daughter) It's what I thought too, but there were some clues to tie her to Han as well in the very last scenes (exchanging her Jedi-style robes for a waist-length jacket, sitting in the Falcon's pilot seat, etc.) so I'm kinda wondering if JJA isn't deliberately misleading us again. *paranoid mode on*

Re: rehashing the Caedus principle, I'd just like to highlight that it was itself a rehash of "now kill your father and your turn to the dark side will be complete" (or whatever that was). Basically killing the father (figure) tends to be a recurring thing is SW.

 

How much of all this is based on unused concept and how much is the director's idea? As in, could there be an unused concept with a Ben being Han and Leia's son?

 

I don't know, but would bet that "Han is killed by his own son" was a concept in place from the very beginning if not as soon as Harrison agreed to come back (as long as he only had to do one!)

Also, I find the name Ben ridiculous because Leia never met Obi-Wan and Han knew him only for a few days. Yes, he is the "reason they met" but I can't see either of them jumping to a name that had so much significance to Luke. All I can imagine is that scene from friends where Rachel steals Monica's baby name

I can't see how Rey could be Han and Leia's - she and Han talk about losing Ben/Kylo, and if they lost a daughter as well surely that would have been mentioned.

But yeah, I think there was a misdirect early on given Rey's knowledge about the Falcon but ultimately there are more clues pointing to her as Luke's daughter (she dreams of his location, the pilot's doll in her home and the X-Wing helmet she tries on, Maz telling her that Luke may come back for her, her reaction to the lightsaber etc)

And as for having fanfic vindication from the film, I was so happy to see the Skywalker lightsaber as a psychometric object

 

Oh yes, absolutely; it's just that the name Ben just had me sitting in the cinema thinking how ironic it was that this time it's Han getting sacrificed by someone with Mara's son's name, if you see what I mean? I will come to terms with it, I just find I'm initially weirded out by it. I don't think I would have been if it wasn't for the Ben thing.

And it is ultimately a very minor quibble, although it does make me *want* Rey to be Luke's even more to kinda balance it all out. Which means I don't feel in a good position to read the augurs on whether the film is saying Rey's a Skywalker - there's sure a lot of hints, but it's too loaded a question for me right now.

 

Overall so do I like TFA, the main characters feel new and different from the once we saw in PT & OT but I cannot say I love it.

Some points, will probably come up with some more later on.
* I like how unfocused Kylo Ren is when he fight with the dark side, unlike the sith we have seen is he just flaying around, unable to really fight with style or smarts. But that makes me wonder how the sith did he kill of Luke’s whole order?

* I liked Snoke but am a bit disappointed that he was not actually a giant but just a giant hologram.

* I would have liked to see more animals on the different planets and I am actually a bit disappointed how non different the three green planets we saw felt. Abrams’ have all modern movie technology at his hands and he don't give us something that don't feel like Earth. Why?

* unless it is meant as foreshadowing so do I think that Rey mastered Force powers way to easy and that without any training.

* I would have liked to see more non-humans from the previous movies appear and maybe one of the old planets, to show how it had changed. Think about it, if we saw Theed or a location on Endor turned into the Resistance's man military headquarter it would be an excellent way to show how things had changed.

* The destruction of th Republics core worlds and fleat don't feel like it was given enoght Wight, but maybe that's just me.

 

I agree the destruction of the Republic's capital went by too quickly (Ewok Poet, it's said to be the Hosnian system, so not Coruscant). The film was so fast paced there was little "breathing room" given - from what I've heard the original cut was about 3 hours so there were probably quite a few exposition scenes deleted.

While I love Rey, I do think they made her too powerful without much explanation. I can buy her lightsaber skills because she's been fighting with her staff, and she says she's "flown before" so didn't have a problem with that with her having amazing abilities which can be put down to natural Force abilities. But she speaks droid binary and Shyriiwook how exactly?

As for Kylo's fighting style, I liked the brutishness of it as well but I don't think he was fighting at his peak. He'd been pretty badly wounded from Chewie's crossbow laser, then is struck in the shoulder from Finn. So by the time he fights Rey I can see her gaining the upper hand in a surge of power when she lets the Force in properly for the first time.

 

I go through life with low expectations of everything. That way it's hard to be disappointed, and if I am ever pleasantly surprised, it's a miracle.

 

I got back from the film about twenty minutes ago and I am not sure how to react.

Some of it just might plain old be you think the experience will be one thing but it isn't.

At least I didn't feel like I wasted $10.50, $6.00 for ticket and $4.50 for popcorn, to see it in the theater.

Like others I am surprised by the choice of name foe Leia and Han's son. I was thinking of all sorts of names but none of them came out of anyone's mouth where he was concerned.

Everything seemed fairly fast paced; even the title crawl seemed to be in a rush to disappear into the depths of space; I think that would make for an amusing fan fic for someone(s) to stumble across the title crawl just floating in space.

I am disappointed that we only got hints to who Rey is and the ending . . . why???

Han's death was shocking but not surprising since Kylo/Ben was sort of babbling about becoming strong and purging the Light from himself and Han didn't talk too much about going home and being a family again.

What caught my attention is the usage of 'General Organa'. Did Leia and Han get married and divorced, did she keep her last name or did they never marry?

So many questions.


Sent from my iPadd from another galaxy using Tapatalk

 

There was some talk from JJ and Kasdan beforehand about mirroring the lack of information given in ANH - avoiding exposition dialogue where possible and trusting the audience to be smart enough to figure things out/draw their own conclusions.

Or they want the debate/discussion going on in the fandom for two years to keep the hype and expectation for Episode VIII alive. Or Rian Johnson wanted to handle the reveal in Episode VIII.

I'm pretty sure the last scene was always going to be wordless, but I do wonder if some of the more obvious hints were cut in earlier scenes, or maybe they filmed a few different versions of that final scene. I do think if Luke had taken the lightsaber and then embraced Rey it could have cleared up any ambiguity.