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Star Wars - The Force Awakens
12-20-2015, 09:11 PM
Okay, I saw it with my nephew..who wasn't born when the movie came out. I'm not going to say much right now for those who haven't seen it. There are some issues I have with how Kasdan developed the world building.What you saw in the trailers is a bit of misdirection by J.J. Abrahms. But I wasn't bored watching it. But I have serious reservations about going back to the movie theater to watch it again.
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Seen it twice, gonna see it again. It's a good Star Wars movie.
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It wasn't a excellent movie by any means, but despite the underwhelming parts, the good parts I really enjoyed, and at the end I found myself thinking 'Ooh I wonder where they're going to go with this next time' - meaning they've secured my next movie ticket, making it a win.
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That rather concurs with my own opinion, the initial take of which was "everything that hard core fans hated about Abrams-Trek works FOR Abrams-wars"
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I went wearing a red shirt, and didn't die. Does that mean the Stormtroopers' aim is getting better? 
More to the point: I liked it, despite one or two serious gripes. But those gripes aren't about the characters, or the emotional beats, which is what SW is really about, in the end.
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Have stuck a spoiler on the boot-lid of my car to keep tailgaters at bay.
Sort of guessed halfway through, the big moment. The film does seems to be riffing off the original film in many places - while having a far larger scale.
Very strange to see a place I'm familiar with on the big screen.
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I saw it this morning and enjoyed it. I'd even go so far as to say it's my third favorite Star Wars film.
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Dartz: I noticed that once I did some reading.
Everyone: I watched it last night. Lots of fun. Seems to be in better hands now. And I can stop avoiding parts of the internet because of spoilers. And there was at least one moment of "OMG, the tropes say what has to happen here, all the signs and portents are there." And I was tragically, heartbrokenly not disappointed.
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I'm... oddly conflicted by it. One the one hand, all the stuff that works really works (mostly in the acting, the spoiler scene was excellent and whatever else comes I am interested in seeing the further adventures of the new generation) but on the other hand a lot of it feels oddly weightless and more like... I don't know, like it's overenthusiastic cosplay. Trying too hard to be ~*~STAR WARS~*~ and not enough it's own thing. I dunno. Probably going to have to see it once the hype machine's wound down a little further to make a better review.
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Like it's a filmed continuation fic?
I wouldn't disagree with that.
But then it'd be crucified for being something different, so there's a very fine balance to be struck.
I do like how it's not really about the old farts - but lets the newbies breath a little more and actually do something rather than support the fanservice. It humanises the Stormtroopers, for a start. And, well, *that* scene when a fair bit better than a similar moment in a similarly numbered Star Trek.
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The best summary of that I've heard is that they didn't want to try reinventing the wheel with their first movie. Love them or hate them, the Prequels tried that and we all saw how that ended up. Instead, they showed they understand why the wheel is round. The next movie will try tricking out the hubcaps or adjusting the tires, and I better stop before this gets too out of hand.
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I dunno, MD, you haven't driven it into the ground yet, although you may be double-clutching at straws in an attempt to avoid limited slippage in the transmission. I can see your brake lights, but it's too late to back up - you'd get severe tire damage. Although now it may be time to retard the spark, close the choke, and advance the throttle....
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Right; that does it; entirely too silly -- sack SkyeFire and replace him with the llamas....
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But ABSOLUTELY no Moose!
-- A moose once bit my sister, you see.
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I saw the film a couple of days ago and I found it decent, but nothing more. I understand the comment about keeping the wheel, but personally I just felt it was as much a remake as a sequel.
It didn't help that I've read some of the starwars continuation books (particularly the Heir to the Empire trilogy) so even though I knew the story would be different, I suppose I was still expecting that universe to be around.
I suspect this is one case where the less familiar you are with the original material (particularly the books and games), the more you will enjoy the film and to be fair, when I was leaving the cinema all the comments I heard were positive.
Mark
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I finally saw it yesterday, and I enjoyed it.
I can fully understand Disney chopping the EU. For every bit of Cool stuff in the EU, there was also a piece of Stupid stuff, and they were all interlinked like 7 Degrees of Kevin Bacon Anakin Skywalker. To reuse an example I posted on another forum:
SW-supernerd: You used element A from book V, which means element B from
Book W, and plotline C from book X must be true, and Element B ties in
Character D (who's so awesome, you have to use them!) from book Y, who
went to Planet E in book Z and got bullshit techno-McGuffin F. (and so on)
This they can still farm the EU for ideas while not having to use all the associated junk. And it's a lot easier to fit new stuff in when you don't have to work around decades of accumulated stuff (good , bad, and meh)
As for Han's death, which I assume is 'the scene' some of you have referred to, I wasn't surprised, since I had read months ago that Harrison Ford had (supposedly) wanted Han to die in Return of the Jedi, but Lucas had nixed the idea. That suggested a strong possibility of Han dying in The Force Awakens. ___________________________
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There is also that Harrison Ford is an old man now, and they no longer need to worry about what happens to Han Solo's character arc if mr. Ford dies.
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In a nutshell: Not Worthy of the name.
It's the worst kind of Mary Sue versus Severus Snape and Lord Voldemort, INNN SPAAAACE! Aside from teh obvious homage moments (including one I attributed to the non-SW Lucasfilm movie WIllow, of all things) it doesn't match up very well with the previous movies, and outright contradicts them in places.
Han is old enough to remember the Clone Wars for one thing, the most obvious of the lot. The destructive power of lightsabers is also suddenly and obviously nerfed for no reason except needing these characters alive and intact for more movies, to to point of not even being able to break skin on a direct hit.
The x-wing redesign is minor and nothing I can't live with, but most of the other new visuals - the new ships, especially - are generic at best, and while the Satellite of Love worked fine for MST3K that was because it was explicitly "just a show, I should really just relax," Star Wars has pretensions of being a functional IC universe, and the dogbone shape is just ridiculous in that kind of context.
Watching order remains 4, 5, 2, 3, 6, with TPM as a side story; TFA is bad fanfiction committed on film. Most of the SWEU was better than this, and coming from me that's saying a lot..
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