Star Wars: The Force Awakens Discussion *CONTAINS SPOILERS*

thekickingmule

Right, as a few of us have seen the film now, I figured I would start a thread where we can discuss it. I still can't as lazy twots in my office keep saying "I've still not seen it", which is damn annoying, so, here's your last and final chance to not have the film ruined for you.

LEAVE NOW UNLESS YOU WANT TO KNOW WHAT HAPPENS!!!

thekickingmule

Ok, so now the technicalities are out of the way, here's my opinion.

I love Star Wars, I really do. Even though I hated Jah Jah, I forgave Lucas as the rest of the storyline was great.

The trouble I have with The Force Awakens (TFA) is that it almost mirrors the plot line for A New Hope, where someone doesn't know who their father was, turns out it was a jedi, needs a bit of training/coaxing into the role and boom, they're off to meet someone for training.

So, my list of opinions:
1. There were too many jokes in the film. It felt like a comedy in the first half, a bad one.
2. Everything was predictable. Like, everything. I knew almost instantly that Ray was Lukes daughter, that Han and Leia's son was the bad guy, that he was going to kill Han. Nothing surprised me.
3. The new Lord Sith reminded me of this
4. It's so obvious that Darth Revan will be back in the future.
5. If Luke started a new Jedi School, where are all these other young Jedi's? (Were they all killed, I can't remember if that was said).

This sounds like I don't like the film, however, I actually didn't mind it at all. What I believe is needed is for the animators that made the Attack of the Clones cartoons (the manga ones made by the creators of Samurai Jack) to do something similar for the time between The Return of the Jedi and TFA. This would give us some explanation on what happened to the Millenium Falcon, why C3PO got a red arm, and what happened to the Jedi school.

Anywho, what's your opinion?

codfather

[url=http://www.bikeradar.com/forums/viewtopic.php?p=19765336#p19765336]thekickingmule[/url] wrote:

1. There were too many jokes in the film. It felt like a comedy in the first half, a bad one.

Yes. It put me in mind of the first Hobbit film, which irritated me more than slightly.

Did anyone else think Kylo Ren with mask sounded very similar to Raoul Silva (Javier Bardem) in Skyfall?

JGTR

First half like the old Star Wars, great! Second half just a rewritten Return of the Jedi but with a bigger Death Star - stupid to think 3 people could lower the shields that easy and considering it was the size of a planet they seem to be able to get around it with it too much hassle. Han Solos death very uninspiring, not sure why he was in the film in the first place if not to boost ratings. Loved the film, best of the new ones with a proper Star Wars feel in places but overall dissapointed.

Kylo Ren should have kept his mask on, ruined his mystery.

thekickingmule

I thought it was a bit lame the new Death Star. I can picture the board room meeting to think of it.

"Here's the idea guys, remember how the Death Star was amazing because people mistook it for a moon? Well how about... a PLANET!?"
*Tumble Weed*
"Well we've no better ideas. Let's go with it!"

Also, I got confused at one point. Were Ren and Ray fighting on this Death Star/Planet thing? If so, how could they breathe if they were outside, or did they manage to build a planet with a stable atmosphere that quickly? (as in less than a billion years)

thekickingmule

[url=http://www.bikeradar.com/forums/viewtopic.php?p=19765348#p19765348]JGTR[/url] wrote:

Kylo Ren should have kept his mask on, ruined his mystery.

Definitely! He took the mask off and all I could think was how he looked like a teenager that wants to be an emo.

Thewaylander

It was a fun film..

But it lacked story!

When the base fires up and takes out the new republic, it didn't effect anyone on screen like Alderaan did(Leia) so I felt no sympathy at all! wow the new republic are gone who are doing nothing to battle this horrible first order and leaving it to this new resistance thing? it made no sense and left me not caring about the base at all it had no personall threat, as what they were blowing up had no meaning or relevance to the characters on screen..

Finn was jar jar Mk2 for me with too much wooo I'm in star wars and making idiotic or comedy one liners.. I was praying Kylo had killed him so I didn't have to sit through his drivel again!

Ray was actually a fun character I cared about her and what was happening to her, but the learning to use the force in half hour where others take years of training just came across as unbelievable in the universe laid out in the previous films.

Then we had the bad guys Captain Phasma and the General Hux I was given no reason on screen to worry or be fearful of these characters, they were pretty much non personalities thrown in for me.

Which leads to my final issue, to much action not enough setting up a plot! it was just rush from one action sequence to another with hardly a premise for it...

On the whole I'd say not a great film, entertaining and fun but nothing like I hoped for at all.

thekickingmule

I agree with everything waylander! I really hoped Finn had been killed, it would have been much more interesting if he had!

The actress that plays Ray is a hot Keira Knightley, so I approve of this (she doesn't have the jaw of Keira!) Yes, learning the Force that quickly was ridiculous.

The other bad guys were lame and had no relevance to the film at all

Thewaylander

Yup she is very attractive!!! I would put her in a ditch once I was finished with her if I could..

I have to admit to leaving a bit frustrated, they could of followed the story line a bit, gone back to when Luke was training Jedi and Kylo goes astray put some personal peril in rather than this oo blow up planets again...

Develop some people we care about in a situation that effects them personally, then you can have the big feck off base as the back drop to the last film where its all being sorted out!

I am fast losing all respect of JJ as a story teller! Joss whedon would have been better TBF

Thewaylander

Oo and the planning how to take the base down with a toilet cleaner....

A bunch of people come up with a plan to destroy this giant planet destroying weapon in 5 minutes.. short on details and that in itself took any fear away from the thing.. least with the death star you know there were spies dieing getting the plans and that it was a massive military operation to get there and do it.. this was scruffy people in a room saying oooo look a big weapon.. lets blow it up and they do! I wanted to go find JJ and punch in the nuts as hard as I could at that point!

JGTR

a bunch of people come up with a plan to destroy this giant planet destroying weapon in 5 minutes.. short on details and that in itself took any fear away from the thing.. least with the death star you know there wer spies diing getting plans and that it was a massive military operations to get there and do it.. this was scruffy people in a room saying oooo look a big weapon.. lets blow it up and they do! I wanted to go find JJ and punch in the nuts as hard as I could at that point!

Totally agree, ruined the film for me.

Although thinking about it Kylo Ren taking his mask off shows that he is still a young inexperienced Jedi, still a boy, hopefully he'll get his s**t together in the next film and man up to be more like Darth Vader.

I didn't mind the humour, cpuld have done with a little bit less but overall made up for the naff storyline.

Thewaylander

[url=http://www.bikeradar.com/forums/viewtopic.php?p=19765364#p19765364]thekickingmule[/url] wrote:

Also, I got confused at one point. Were Ren and Ray fighting on this Death Star/Planet thing? If so, how could they breathe if they were outside, or did they manage to build a planet with a stable atmosphere that quickly? (as in less than a billion years)

It was built out of an icy planet reading about it, so they didn't build the planet, just smashed up a lot to make it into a super weapon.

thekickingmule

They really didn't make that clear in the film, which basically reinforces your point that they just skipped over the details about this giant planet destroyer!

As I said, it needs an 'inbetween' film or set of cartoons to fill in the gaps that JJ seems to have missed.

Thewaylander

Yup, JJ stated he wanted to emulate a new hope where they mention history like the clone wars but it isn't hugely explained.. Implied history, sadly he did it poorly in comparison. But I think that's also because the character were built up better! 40+ minutes before we left tatoine no silly chases just characters developing!

JGTR

I thought it was obvious it was a planet???

Plus didn't they say it was a planet at the Rebel base, they compared it for size against the original Death Star??

Clockworkmark31

I am a massive geek by my own admission.

But I just don't get the whole Star Wars thing. Does it depend on the era you was born in? For me it is Terminator and I seen similar problems on reboots of the franchise.

All of them are available on Sky at the moment. Just can't bring myself to download them all. any convincing reasons to do so? The only thing I like are the spin offs like Green Peace and VW and spoof Star Wars series.

I know i am not talking about the new film, but it is everywhere in advertising and well just everywhere and I don't get it.

thekickingmule

It's not a generation thing as I know people in their 60's that love it, people my age and then children that all love it. Some don't like it as well; it's just a regular thing.

It's everywhere because it's massive. Have you seen the sale figures for the opening weekend? Those figures are set to rise A LOT! Disney aren't exactly new to advertising, so they'll drown us in it to make sales.

Thewaylander

I just think the original films has a universal appeal to adults and children.

For adults its the scope of the universe that your landed in, thousands of worlds and peoples with infinite possibilities.. and of course fricken lightsabres!!!

thekickingmule

Damn straight!

A lad in the office pointed something out about the film, that Stormtrooper that takes on Fin with his lightsabre, we thought that lightsabres cut through everything except other lightsabres. How did the Stormtrooper manage to fight then!? Hasn't he seen Indiana Jones? Guns beat swords.

I think I'll give it another view in a couple of weeks when the hype has died down. I really want to like it, and think I might second time round.

Thewaylander

cortosis it doesn't cut through and force pikes with have the energy things around them.. like the droids had in episode 3.

step83

Why does Kylo Ren look like Gary Linkiners secret love child?

OK it may not have been amazing but I think were placing the original trilogy on to high a pedestal, its better than the last three episodes. Though Mark Hamills role seems more a bit part at the moment.

Also whoever thought giving BB8 a blowtorch for thumbs up deserves a beer, silly but I liked it.

Thewaylander

To be honest though the prequels had awful dialogue and some shoddy as hell acting, I feel at least the second 2 tried to do something a bit different, show a larger universe? In terms of the galaxy on show I think we just took a huge step backwards not forwards. Dialogue and acting was massively improved though

Waiting for details of Rogue one now!!

Clockworkmark31

I still don't get it after watching my first one ever today. Whats with the order of the films?

Still think the spoofs and spin offs are great.

proof

Guess it isn't for me.