Spoiler Thread for Force Awakens [SPOILERS!]

I wanna talk about this movie. Because it's REALLY good. But this thread is gonna contain SPOILERS. SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS YOU WERE WARNED THERE ARE SPOILERS HERE.

Anyway, here are my thoughts:

Totally surprised me that Finn isn't the badass Jedi force-user. Rey totally stole the show.

The fact that BB8 can give a thumbs-up might be the greatest thing ever.

Harrison Ford did an excellent job. Han Solo was charming and hilarious as always,

When Kylo Ren stabs Han, I felt it. I just about cried. Oh my god I need therapy.

When Supreme Leader Snoke showed up I was all like "oh my god, that's CGI. Wait... Is... pleasebeahologrampleasebeahologrampleasebeahologrampleasebeahologram YES IT'S A HOLOGRAM!"

Captain Phasma really is the new Boba Fett. Looks badass, gives off a badass vibe, does nothing, disappears to an ambiguous possible death.

JJ still has a bit of an issue of cutting just a bit too quickly in some places. I just wish he'd let some scenes linger a bit more, like that one with TIE fighters coming in with the sunset in the background.

That scene where Rey is running in the forest and Kylo is chasing her, and all you hear are lightsaber noises as he gets closer is tense and terrifying. That was EXCELLENT.

The Death Star Mk. III Starkiller Base is cool, but it's not set up that well. It looks cool, and its scary powerful, but it needed more and if I see ANOTHER spherical planet-killer where you have to fly X-Wings in to attack it and someone has to bring the shields down first in VIII or IX I'm going to be really annoyed. But probably love the movies anyway.

I thought he was a ducking giant haha. XD

Yeah I was kinda worried until he turned out to be a hologram.

Also Kylo Ren caught a blaster bolt with the Force.

THAT.

IS.

FLUPPING.

AWESOME.

Something about the guy feels ancient and, well, weird. Almost as if the guy is a thousand-year-old ressurected body. The hologram moment was a big "holy ****" that i liked.

That has got to be the most awesome moment in the entire movie. Just the implications of that power gave me chills, and seeing it hover throughout the scene truly, truly just kept the "dark side cred" counter ticking higher and higher.

Kylo's lightsaber really works well with his suit. When he chased Rey he truly felt like a Knight of King Arthur kind of guy, and the way he handled it like a real sword made it feel good. It felt good. I know it's been thoroughly ridiculed, but the unstable nature of the weapon and it's crossguard design make it a really cool weapon and it truly fits and reflects Kylo's personality, as it should.

Yea i would expect the Dark Side to know by now that building BFO's only makes it a bigger target, not a better weapon. This time, however, it destroyed planets of significance. Destroying a sun to power it has got to be the most awesome way of recharging, and the visuals of desperately trying to hit the gimmick in dying light was really cool.

By the way, is Corusant destroyed? I couldn't really tell which worlds exactly were hit by the weapon, but JJ destroying Corusant would be a giant middlefinger to the Prequels (as it essentially symbolizes them).

Lastly, my only real problems are with the weapon anyway (why can everyone see the planets being destroyed across the galaxy? is it because it's a hyperspace weapon? When the weapon fires, why doesn't it rip off Starkiller's atmosphere?). The destruction of Starkiller however, has got to be the coolest Death Star destruction ever, with the Sun popping into it's place.

I'm pretty sure the only viewpoints shown were just other planets in the system before they were destroyed themselves. I'll check when I go see it again on Boxing Day.

Cuz STAR WARS.

An enjoyable movie, as long as you don't overthink it .
That bb8 thumbs up was awesome. xD xD

<3

get ready for a fukin wall of text :

yeah I laughed way too hard at this.

I personally would have loved for him to be this actual size. not enough alien siths and jedis that are Actually different from typical 2-meter tall bipedals.

captain phasma only has an attitude.
the rest is just ........weird bling. why chrome ?

yuuuuuuuuup.

I've come up with a new branding slogan that i'll go pitch to the empire :

The Empire : we NEVER learn.


Okay my turn.

First off I went in having planned this viewing somewhat.


I had restrained myself from checking out ANY episode seven related media ANYWHERE. no trailers no reviews no gossip no nada.

This proved real rewarding as I'm sure you'll agree. Some of my friends testified to me the way they went in already knowing about ...the death (do we even have to hush-hush in this thread?) and they said they still enjoyed it but would have loved the surprise.

as a result of my hard avoidance I had a great freakin time watching this (almost undeterred by rediscovering the joys of what makes the comfort of your own home a much better cinema than any theater in the world can ever hope to attain such as : shitty mandatory polarized 3-D, the bastardized son of stereoscopic 3D that murdered it's father even though it was only a pale image, not being able to pause and go to piss and my body deciding the urge must somehow be made strong enough to make me seriously consider getting up to go piss in the middle of the fuccking premiere of star wars, loud constant commentary from a gang for whom star wars was clearly just another dumb movie seeing as making the best joke about whatever was going on on the screen was clearly better fun than watching the movie, accompanied by the *palpable* disgruntlement of the guy next to me who kept having to turn around to tell them to shut the **** up and turned around again at the end of the movie to tell them they had lacked respect only to have this situation nearly break down into a fist fight with me standing right in between and still gathering my stuff and not wanting to be a part of this. I dunno. I have a 1080p screen. A home theater DOLBY and DTS 1000W 5.1 sound system. all to myself. fucck this, y'know?)


KYLO REN :
I instantly took kylo ren for a badass that didn't need to proove himself to his new audience. I felt like I did when I discovered Asajj Ventress.

I found the new "misunderstandings" on how the force works such as him stopping an ion bolt midair even though the force had always seemed to be a constant effort and this was shown nowhere in the rest of the saga (my friends argued that darth vader had done something similar by deflecting Han's lasers with his hand), the object force-infusion that even have wills of their own (which this time my friends defended with the comics which did it alot) and the force mindreading which is legitimately not part of the lore to be completely forgivable because : A). of Kylo's exterior charisma and B). because of the ballsy new direction the director took with that de-dramatizing line from the captured flamboyant ace pilot Poe Dameron : "so who speaks first? Do I or do you ?". It really took me aback as a mood-breaker and a trespass on the star wars universe but I get that it allows us to know almost all we need to know about this character in an instant. and the fact Kylo doesn't flinch at this and keeps his badass untouched, I really liked.

It all started to fall apart for me for this character when ....he took off his mask xD
it's crazy but even if he wears this mask out off utter fanboyism and nothing else it does a tremendous amount for his presence witch goes from mood-defining and terror inducing to wimpy teenage caught running away with his tail between his legs as soon as he takes it off.

And common : Are we not going to address the elephant in the room : the fact that the whole reason he has a mask, the whole "why" is just : "too look cool like the big kids!"

not only that the movie actually manages to make us rather he wear his mask despite that poor reason because of how depressingly underwhelming and under-powered he suddenly is anytime he's not wearing it.

It's not the actor's very young-teen face (I was legitimately expecting acne and crooked teeth with how young he looked) it's just look :

• force-freezes plasma bolt
• force-mindreads (whoa! this guys sooo powerful!)
• induces terrible terrible fear in officer (and audience) reporting back to him his failure
• force freezes an entire person and seems underanged by the effort as he walks around and even faces opposite.
• force-sleeps a person (holy shiiiiiieeeeeeeeeeeeeeet Kylo Ren team #1 woooooooooooooo!)
• (accessorily force-wakes up a person.)
• Is scary everytime he's angry

All while wearing the mask.

• (very wimpily) gets beat at his own mind reading talent (I'll get to this)
• reports about failing to prevent the droid from returning to the rebels to his master
• his force-sense fails him and he doesn't notice an impending danger and gets shot (okay I'll knock that one off because we'd love to attribute some humanity to him and he would have been in shock)
• does not force-jump at this point (I'll get to this)
• looses in lightsaber duel to absolute morons (I'll get to this)

All without the mask.

I dunno about you guys but I think Disney's trying to use visual aid to the rises and falls of it's anti-hero.

Actually Disney overdoes this. You'll notice the heavy-handed "dark side" = sun being sucked until no light by the planet-weapon and "light side" = planet-weapon blowing up into a new sun and new source of light.

I dunno. Personally I don't like things being so "telegraphed" to me. Take those goddamn trainer wheels off my bicycle! I didn't need them before and you screwing them on now is slightly insulting.

Also "Light" side was never meant to be understood as "it's actually luminous or has anything to do with generating light". it was more in the sense of "light as a feather" "light mood" / "dark mood" "dark thoughts" "dark side of the force". As a result this metaphor comes off as really really missing the point and thus, it's mark.

So
Kylo Ren's force-mind reading :
talent which btw, he must have been practicing nearly his whole life to be able to wield successfully and that suddenly a person who is "too old" as per the traditional jedi cannon, learns the existence of, learns to repel and masters (well yeah. she's doing it in restraints while at least one hand seems to be mandatory for Kylo and she's still doing it better) all simultaneously and within a couple seconds. HAH Kylo! you're actually lousy at the force!

part II :
Kylo Ren's lack of force jump on the platform after being shot :
I was really like "DAFUQ!" at this point in the movie. With how they had built him up thus far I was really expecting force-jumps and force-speed to be childsplay for him. Yet you'll notice that throughout the movie it is basically hammered that these are things he cannot do). I really think the problem here is Disney have failed to analyse that the force doesn't get measured by light shows but by how much "power", how much basically a person is able to make the energy around him his bitcch and how hard he can wring that energy. and the light shows make how much energy Kylo Ren is able to "wring" inconsistant throughout different parts of the movie.

Kylo Ren's lightsaber duel :
despite being wounded, he's a trained (and I'll therefore assume skilled) swordsmen/fencing man so fighting someone in a lightsaber when that someone is LITERALLY turning on a lightsaber for the first time in their life should be like clubbing a baby seal yet he somehow struggles and fails against a guy who had ONE other swordfight at which he was EQUALLY miraculously spared and against a woman who had some combat experience but basically the equivalent of what you learn out in the street fighting very occasionally and with a shaolin stick, a very different weapon that must be incredibly destabilizing and a bad habbit when switching to something of which you can only grab a tiny length and you must not touch the blade. but "Oooo she was being possesed by luke" - yeah bullshit. if the force is so freakin powerful that you can fight a fight LITERALLY HALF A UNIVERSE AWAY or only by infusing objects than I find it hard to believe that jedis ever found the motivation to get off their asses instead of managing the safekeeping of the galaxy in this way. "Oh but Luke is so much more powerfull then all the jedis from before..." -since WHEN? oh yeah lots of off-screen time since episode six but he still had mostly force-mentors the most of his training and no archives nor other people to turn to to learn new things. he was never more powerful than his dad. I also doubt he ever bypassed yoda. So yeah I'm not buying into the possession theory. the movie even seems to be rather on the "she did it herself" side of the fence.


So in the end I felt largely let down by Kylo and will find myself unable to feel my main characters are the least bit threatened by him in episode 8 even though he started out such a imposing and promising anti-hero (especially in the goodn'evil duality sense).
I think that about covers Kylo Ren.

just have a couple things to say about Finn.

Finn :

fun fact; as he and Poe Dameron are introducing. Poe starts thinking of a surname for his serial number and for an instant considers "FN" which got a good unintended french-only laugh out of the audience.

I felt him as acting a bit over the top and in the same time he was great at adding value to the ante of the characters; especially Poe for which his praise during his dogfight at the ruins really does alot to engage you in the moment.

overall he fits his character but I just wished they'd highlighted his being tasked to the manure department as punishment for his "WOOOOHHOOOOO!"-side which contrasted brutally with the empire trainee he was supposed to have been.

I mean when captain phasma sais "this was his first misalignment" or something I'm like "are you shitting me? ya'll are freaking blind, this guy's as possibly misaligned with the rest of the empire as is humanly possible to be!"

in fact I found the strict uncrossable line disney has with good and evil to have deterred to this character and thus to the story as well. Seriously he can never be "one of ours" he can never be one of the rebels, one of the good guys if he EVER fired ONE shot at an innocent during the time of his ENSLAVEMENT? fucck this shhit the good side needs to review it's goddamn draconian standards or it becomes the bad side as well in my books.

and it's ruler for measuring brownie points is all messed up to me. To me the whole run and hide even from the rebels fits well with the whole "I'm turning a new leaf" character but the movie removes twenty brownie points from Finn's bank for that.

I for one would have been FINE with him slaughtering the innocent in the village at least one or two shots before having a conscience swing.

but the polar opposite (him having a backstory of never firering a single shot in that invasion and) turning right on the spot to the good side makes it so that there is no "turning" to speak of and makes it incredibly hard to believe that he wouldn't be noticed or sanctioned to proportion during his time with the empire.

Kylo ren basically SEES him turn and he can read fuccking minds and latter on basically says when Poe escapes : "I Know who it is! I know who it is!" WELL TOO FUCCKING LATE BUKKO. there's no flippin way to present the fact that you had perfect control over preventing this situation and still goofed under a good light. Tsssk!! ....try to show off why don't you.... You had your chance you didn't even report him to let the administration take care of it themselves.

Captain Phasma seems more redeemable there when she notices him with helmet off and tells him to report for an evaluation that comes off to the audience as basically a death warrant (and that seemingly was to happen while Finn chose to escape and not before so we assume it didn't take place). But then she funks this impression all up again when she defends him as having this one act as his one single tresspass. One could argue she's covering her asss. I'd argue she's A). in a position of sufficient power to have qualified by extreme subservience, so honesty and B). likely to get better result at this point with the "I always had doubts about that A-hole!" angle.

I dunno the whole thing to me just seems so crazy.

Overall the movie was a success in my eyes though. And they did this despite marathoning the freaking mile-long list of fanservice they wanted to toss in there. (I mean come on. Is there a SINGLE character missing from the old movies? excluding sup-pars like greedo, bobba fett, sidious, lando and jabba the hutt they're basically all there. even R2-D2 bizarrely came off as tacked-on because he just popped in at the end of the movie and BB-8 is there anyways.

that's about it for me the rest was pure unadulterated bliss. They really did capture the star wars feel.


I'll close on my eternal appreciation of the scene where Ren is in a rage calling for the guards because Rey escaped and some stormtroopers coming down the hall revise their idea of coming to the rageous call..... laughed my freakin asss off!!

@tatsujb

Force mind-reading can be easily interpreted as a Dark Side extension of the Jedi mind trick.

If it makes you feel better Kylo's face will probably be really screwed up from the battle on Starkiller Base.

In the now non-canon EU, there were plenty of "force artifacts", so it makes sense for Rey, a Force-sensitive human, to have a vision when she touches Anakin's lightsaber. I mean, it's Anakin Skywalker's lightsaber.

Rey is pretty damn strong with the Force, and Kylo was emotionally compromised. He completed his path to the Dark Side by killing his father, failed his master by allowing the Resistance to destroy the thermal whatevermabob, and was watching his shiny new base crumble. Plus he had to deal with this no-name scavenger who thought she was hot stuff compared to him. KYLO. REN. Arrogance, fear, hate.

Lando is not sub-par. Lando is so smooth he could charm the panties off your entire bloodline in two minutes. Don't be dissing on Lando, ya pirate.

I'm pretty sure R2D2 reactivated because of Rey's discovery of her powers.

no because :

1. that's the opposite direction making it a completely different thing altogether
2. the rule with that is it works on the very very very weak minded. ruling out basically 99% of the galaxy as the 6 previous movies demonstrated well enough. the only time it ever worked was "these are not the droids you're looking for" and "you don't wanna sell me death sticks". not QUITE the same thing as "I read your whole goddamn mind no matter how strong-willed you are"

my thoughts exactly. at least now he has a legitimate reason to wear the mask.

I really don't buy much into public figure-driven ante.
but either way I liked the vision. Alot. I just don't like not building up how hard it is, what kinda brute skill you have to have to wield a saber and be able to make a swordfight last more then a second. these kids in episode 1 2 3 were trained from their youngest for a goddamn reason. and YES that involved the force and staying pure but not only. I mean this really helps put things into perspective. there's such a thing as different levels of skill. And Disney are terrible with that concept in this movie.

irrelevant. she's not built up and just not shown having been training at this point in the story.

Disney seems to understand that force = sword skill. also strangle. and maybe anything else actually.

in the end; the way the stage was set for the fight it should have unfolded no different than Anakin vs the hundreds of kids of the jedi temple.

I never mentioned his re-activation. I take no issue with it. what irks me is that he's for all intents and purposes useless to the plot. that extra map piece could have already been been found and in leia's safe possesion for all I care.

The point is they tried to make it seem like a big whoop and at that point you just don't fuckking care that it's R2-D2 your favorite robotic character that has it.

his on-screen time is so freaking small his uselessness weighs down on you like a freakin anvil. It's fanservice in the purest most toxic form. I'm having none of it.

Lando was not sup-par i agree. he just happened not to not make the list or refuse to act in his old age or just not make the "presentable" bar. you get the picture. every other character from star wars 6 is there.

I DON'T CARE IT WAS COOL.

Please remember that in the prequels, Yoda read Anakin like a book. All Kylo does is focus this on a single person. Considering that both OT and Prequel establish that the Force connects all, it makes perfect sense that such a mind reading would be possible. Especially since Yoda did it without any form of visible focus.

Rey already used the force before she knew it. She flew the Millenium Falcon like only a Jedi can. She uses the force as a Jedi needs training to do: not as a power, but as a sixth sense. Rey does that naturally. She also had weapons experience with her stick, unlike Finn who wielded it poorly and was fairly easily defeated by Ren.

Essentially, the difference between the Dark and Light side is that the Light uses the force as it is, as if it were a sixth sense, free of emotional context. The Dark Side attaches emotion to it, uses it to make the Force what they want it to be.

Also, note that Ren is not a Sith, the Knights of Ren may have different ideas about the Force and how its used. Force Lighting may be a Sith trick, these may be Ren tricks.

Friggin' John Williams.

He is a Mozart of our time.

substanciate that please. because he was the pinnacle of misjudgment when it came to how anakin would turn out. You'd have to turn to Mace Windu to see someone who didn't discredit his own capacity for presentiment.

what yoda did is basically what any fortune teller can do with the aid of the force to at least not be completely off.

he didn't "read anakin like a book" he knew his feelings. there's a difference.

sure yeah. how are you guys not noticing the discrepancy between force wielding and lightsaber wielding here.
And I think there's a point to knowing the force exists as the previous movies demonstrated. it seems like a catalyser for the people who are a valid force-user candidates but who were unkowing of the force's existence before.

take Luke. absolutely no remarkable or known force feats in his life prior to knowing about it. then he learns about it and that he has it and he starts wielding it by tits and tats. but he actually completely sucks at it until two full movies of training later.

same with anakin. who did use the force unknowingly in the races (but that's despite him, his tie with the force is unheard of) once he knows about the force he wields it ...but also with two long movies of training.

our heroine here learns of the existance of the jedi yes, but not that she's one of them. And her piloting the falcon like that happens before her learning this or touching the sword.

Plus it's not just the force providing good luck and guidance this time ...she actually is able to perform the lightsaber pulling trick flawlessly the first time she tries ... and without even have been told ever in her life that force users could do that even though when luke tries that at an arms reach distance on Hoth he barely manages it even though he's been training with Yoda.

Has she suddenly decided that she's a force user and without testing this anywhere doesn't surprise herself the least bit by flawlessly succeeding in resorting to it in the most crucial moment? seems like plan : "I'm going to spread wings and fart radioactive rainbows at this guy" is the kind of fantasy you don't take your brain seriously for in this kind of situation and prefer instead to stick to what you know.

I dunno. Just imagine how much she would have hated herself for getting sliced in two because she decided to stand still and hold out an arm while exactly nothing happened.

The episodes from before actually made the difficulty of wielding the force or a lightsaber carry their own weight.

episode seven basically says the only trick to doing both those things is being high-born. I'm kinda not liking this.

still doesn't explain why he can't force jump when Luke can and Luke was his master long enough for him to be strong enough to take out his entire student body so he probably learned most of what he knows about the force from him. the rest are indeed "tricks" taught hither and wither. I'm wagering Luke was his master for much longer as is the tradition amongst the sith to turn older jedi rather then train them from their youngest.

I have to agree with @tatsujb on the lightsaber bit.

Even wounded, Kylo should have won that easily. During the fight he didn't show any signs of injury besides some blood and "deliberately hammering his injury with his fist".

And Rey learned way too fast. I wouldn't have minded her not being readable because of her strength with the force, but countering it against somebody who is trained is wrong. That, and there's no way she should have been able to mind trick or move the lightsaber at that stage unless she had been practicing on her own for years.

Oh, and the next movie will be terrible. Star Wars cannot be good without Harrison Ford.

That last bit definitely isn't true... What about all of the clone wars TV show?

clone wars was fuccking awesome and deserves movie-interpretation.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Star_Wars:_The_Clone_Wars_(film)

He said more! =)

I've seen that movie.