OKAY SO
I really wanted to love this movie. I really did. But, well... unfortunately what I had gathered from the minimal amount of promo stuff I had exposed myself to was basically right.
I'll admit that I was pleasantly surprised in some areas. Most notably, I was expecting Kylo Ren to be an awful villain, basically the Vader to Phasma's Fett. But I actually think they managed to avoid that pitfall. It's just a pity that they ignored that insight for basically every other part of the movie. But more on Kylo later.
If I had to summarise the biggest problem of the movie in a few sentences it would be this: the movie practically screams out "Hey, remember the Original Trilogy? That was cool right?" And all I can do is respond, "Yes I do remember the Original Trilogy. It was cool. And you don't measure up."
Aping the original trilogy is an understandable decision, especially from a big company like Disney. People didn't like the prequels, it taps into the nostalgia, and hey, it's a good chance to have a passing of the reins story.
But you will never be as good at being a movie as the movies themselves. And while they did shuffle around a few tropes in inspired ways, by and large, it was a soulless rehash. As I thought it would, it got the surface right but it seemed to miss the spirit.
And no amount of going from Not!Tattooine to Not!Yavin IV to Not!Hoth could change that
One thing they did absolutely right was the opening scene. That honestly got my hopes up, because for a second I thought they were just going to do a pan and that they didn't realise what had made the sheer sense of size in the first scene so iconic. But they delivered there. It got my hopes up that they'd understand the spirit too.
But beyond that, well.
It gets to the point where in aping the original trilogy it seems to fail to take into account its own context.
Why does the resistance only take twenty damn X-wings for their assault on Starkiller Station. This makes sense in ANH because it is deliberately small to avoid detection and the plan only works with a small task force. No such justification here. Why does the republic do nothing when they have just been the equivalent of nuked, essentially breaking the cold war.
Why does the First Order suck so much at defending their things. Again, in the original movies there are justifications, none here. But that's okay apparently because hey look, it's sort of like the trench run!
And yet they try to outdo it with stuff like "the death star but BIGGER" too
Another big problem I found was something I will call "Why should I care"?
When Starkiller base fires, we are told it is a bad thing. But there is no personal connection. It's bad, but in a distant, detached way. The planets weren't even named.
Compare with Alderaan, as the movie clearly wants us to be reminded of. There is a personal connection to one of the first characters we see in the movie, it is introduced before it is blown up, and the speed at which it's annihilated only serves to highlight the brutality of the action.
Starkiller base is bigger than both Death Stars, but it certainly isn't better.
Why should I care about Snoke? They try to make him the Emperor, but they play their hand far too early. Palpatine had buildup, we saw a character we already respected clearly subservient to him, he carried presence. Whereas Snoke... we're just told that he's bad. He's dumb, and he's not the Emperor, as much as he wants to be.
Why should I care about Captain Phasma, and Flinn being in charge now? There was perhaps five seconds where I guess you thought you were hinting at this "in charge" complex?
Why should I care about the Republic at all? All you do is talk about it, it has zero presence and all of the main characters are seemingly divorced from it. People say it's giving the Resistance supplies, but given how the resistance apparently exists of solely twenty X-wings, that can't be right.
You get the idea.
Another major problem was respect. I might be alone in this, but despite the aping of the surface elements of the OT, I think there were only two characters from it that I can comfortably say were handled with respect: Han and Leia.
For one example, let's take a look at a fairly minor character.
They turned Admiral Ackbar into a joke character. No, it's worse than that. They turned him into a fucking meme character. "Hey, remember that Fish Guy! And all the jokes he spawned! Yeah, remember the original trilogy when he talked about magnitude of shields and traps!
Good times, we should definitely channel that as his entire character, get some laughs
."
"Remember the Original Trilogy?"
Let's look at a major character now: Chewbacca.
Name one moment apart from firefights where he's used as something other than a joke. The jokes work for the most part, and Chewie was used for a lot of jokes in the OT, but... he wasn't just jokes, was he?
Now. The big one. Luke Skywalker. I'm willing to be charitable here. The backstory sounds like some seriously traumatic events and who knows? He may have good reasons for leaving apart from emotional trauma. I am definitely willing to change my opinion here.
But to have him literally fuck off because of said trauma just feels like a slap in the face to his development in the Original Trilogy. This event was traumatic sure, and he would have felt responsible. But he went through some pretty traumatic stuff in the Original Trilogy too, and by the end of the trilogy, he's grown.
It just doesn't feel like something Luke would do, and unlike the death of Han, which was very respectful of his character, and absolutely his growth, it feels like a contrivance.
Miscellaneous problems follow
Jam's right, the movie tries to do too much to the point where I honestly was thinking for several minutes that there was another hour to go after the destruction of Starkiller Station.
Even beyond that it just feels... incomplete. Even beyond sequel hooks. As if what we got was not the full thing. That's not you want to feel after watching a movie.
To the point where R2 literally wakes up just to solve the rest of the plot because "oh right this movie's supposed to be about finding Luke"
"The light side of the force". Here's a fun game. Count how many times the words "light side" are said in both the OT and the prequels. It's zero, because while it is intuitive to think there is a light side and dark side, that is never actually stated in the movies. Earlier this year I took part in a really interesting discussion on another forum this year talking about three different approaches to the force. So maybe that annoyed me more than it should. But the OT in particular approaches the force as good. There is no light side. Just the force, and the dark side which is a cancer caused by evil people. Bringing balance to the force is taking out the dark side, not "both Jedi and Sith have to die". And generally I find it a more interesting approach.
Why did Finn know so much about the schematics of Starkiller station if he was cleaning toilets
Sometimes it feels like there's not enough opera in this space opera. It's slightly too... modern self-referential in some lines, although this is minor nitpicking
Sure there's justification for it and I can blame what are clearly skywalker genes, but Kylo Ren apparently slaughtered his way though a temple of Jedi trainees. Being challenged by Finn and losing to Rey does damage his credibility somewhat, even with the gutshot. Again, it feels like playing their hand a little too early. It's as if Luke held off Vader for five seconds in A New Hope.
While Kylo holding off the light feels like a good inversion, something about the way it was portrayed really rubbed me the wrong way and felt dumb. Like, it didn't feel like he was haunted by his conscience, it felt like there was literally a little angel whispering in his ear "killing people is baaaaaaaaaaaad"
But enough bad, here's some of what I did like:
Kylo Ren is actually a good villain. They understood that trying to make another Vader would never work. He'd never be as good as Vader. So they took that and made it a part of his character. As some have noted, he's basically the Jedi version of a school shooter. He's not cool. He's not badass, as much as he wants to be. He's a fucking wreck playing dress ups, trying to be granddad. He doesn't kill people for failing him in threatening ways, he throws temper tantrums that make stormtroopers walk away as if "we'll just come back later".
Psyche, he's actually not cool at all and we understand that.
As mentioned above Han and Leia are treated well. I inferred Han's death from a post "so long space cowboy" and I was honestly worried it was going to be an example of a director wanting to "leave their mark" and raise stakes more than anything but... it was honestly pretty respectful.
I was surprised by how much I liked the new main three. Rey is honestly a bit too perfect, and I hope they can improve on that, but she's still likeable. I was really glad when she just picked up the lightsaber and went "nope" because that seemed like a reasonable action that was clearly a flawed approach to take and casued problems for people. Finn is cool, although I wish they had emphasised the social awkwardness they seemed to be going for at first more. Overall he was pretty great though. Poe is great for what little we saw of him, and his bro-friendship with Finn feels really believable despite them barely having met each other.
The romantic hints between Rey and Finn was less so though. I really want them to stay friends to be honest.
I deliberately left out EU comparisons because this is long enough already, but I will just say that it was a bold move ripping off drawing from legacy of the force given that it fucking sucked. Kylo Ren looks a lot better handled than Caedus (not that that's hard), although he'll have to impress me a lot to surpass Jacen when written by a good author like Stover. Still, it does make it pretty obvious to me that in future movies Rey is going to be either a Solo or a Skywalker, and I honestly want to call her Jaina.
In conclusion, unlike the prequels it's a competently made movie.
But it doesn't hold a candle to the OT and does itself a disservice by comparing itself to it.
this was honestly exhausting to write but I'm glad I did, it's a good reference or something
ran out of time a bit because lunch (also had a lunch break so it didn't take me as long as it seemed), so it's a little incomplete
sorry about that
I wrote probably too much anyway but I guess Star Wars is important to me
Overall I think I'd give the movie 6/10
edited 26th Dec '15 8:01:49 PM by ThanatoSeraph
I'm not really up for a big protracted discussion, but I'll say this.
I think you kinda.
Psyched yourself out of it.
You kept saying "man I hope it's gonna be good I don't think it will but I want it to be" and when you actually saw it.
Well.
Your fears were confirmed.
I don't think it's an amazing movie (I'd give it an 8/10, not a 10/10), but I don't think it's bad by any means at all.
Even though there's stupid shit like fucking Snoke who the hell are you
HEY GUYS
You know we have an entire forum that you can just make a thread on for this, right? And also Skype?
So that way I don't have to skim through pages and hope nobody forgets to use whitetext, which actually did happen so you're really kinda treading water here?
edited 26th Dec '15 8:19:21 PM by WonderSquid
@Space: thank
I'd be interested in hearing your thoughts too at some point
(also unrelated but because I saw you reblog a thing how are you going with nocturne, because I am interested in that too)
@Chris: bring it fuckmother
@Box: well, I wasn't saying "you should not enjoy this movie"
just explaining my own position in a very long way and why my opinion is correct
@Ram: I will just say that I would appreciate it if you gave me the benefit of the doubt after spending 45 minutes writing a post about my problems with the movie that I actually do have problems with the movie
Like, it would be super easy for me to dismiss people who like the movie with some line like "you're caught up in the hype, give it three to six months before you realise the major flaws" but I think it's fair to not do that in either direction
I also wasn't actually saying it was bad, like I said I think it was a... competently made movie, and 6/10 is still in the upper half, if narrowly. I just had pretty major issues.
@Duff: I don't know but I really hope it was TR-8R, the true hero of the Force Awakens
ooh, writing that made me remember one other minor gripe
As far as I can tell, the film's title has very little relevance and I still think the title itself is dumb why does the force need to wake up
@Hil: i am flattered
I get what they did with Ren. I thought it was clever but I just didn't like it. He's not threatening. And he has no presence at all. The one thing that would have saved him was if he actually beat Rey at the end to establish himself as a threat. But he didn't even do that
Still I mean. I'm glad the movie is Not Shit but I also like nitpicking.
PM box is Closed, Indefinitely Friend Code: 3368-4181-6850tbh if you click show spoilers you should be prepared for, like, seeing spoilers
as that's what the function is for
like you literally just gotta click on the spoiler-tagged stuff once and it shows, it's not tough
oh ok
edited 26th Dec '15 8:27:41 PM by thespacephantom
UN JOUR JE SERAI DE RETOUR PRÈS DE TOI

So he's a beefy weenie.
LOVE IS STORED IN THE AXOLOTL!