Star Wars - with spoilers

[€uroMeinke]

I know nobody posts here anymore, but the current Facebook Message thread seems unwieldy to me for a conversation that really belongs in an old school message board. So let the comments ( or crickets) begin.

[SzczerbiakManiac]

On a whole, I loved it and will go see it again.

The plot was kind of a rehash of A New Hope and that was unfortunate, but not a deal-breaker for me.

I'm bummed Had died, but not at all surprised. Frankly, I'm amazed Harrison Ford agreed to make one more SW movie, so I'm thankful we got him in this one.

[Moonliner]

Back from viewing #4, Here are my thoughts:

Ray was not learning the ways of the force.
She was REMEMBERING them.

Ray was a youngling being trained at Luke's academy when Kylo went to the dark side. Luke managed to save her and hid her away on a desert planet because well that's what he would do.

Why would he hide her?


Ray is Han and Leia's daughter, Ben's younger sister. Luke told Han and Leia that Ray died with everyone else because he knew Kylo would hunt Ray down to either kill or turn her. Luke knows Kylo can Force read minds and could not risk Kylo learning about Ray still being alive as Vader learned about Leia from him. So he hid her, from Leia and Han.

After Han's death, We see Leia goes to comfort Ray not Chewie despite not really knowing Ray at all. Leia is staring to sense the truth. As Episode VII ends we have Ray as Captain of the Falcon with Chewie at her side. How much more of a hint could there be?

[€uroMeinke]

I've started rewatching the series - Episode IV last night, catching all the rhyming scenes. This was also the first time I've seen the "enhancements" - wow those are awful. But what struck me at the ending is everybody gets a medal except the Wookie, if I were Chewie, I'd be pissed.

[Moonliner]

Variation #1 on my Ray is a Solo theory:

Why would Luke leave little Ray in the hands of a scumbag like Unkar Plutt?

A Junk dealer on a desert planet.

Wait, a Junk dealer on a desert planet.... That sounds a lot like Watto and Anakin. Is someone trying to grow themselves a new Anakin/Vader by exposing Ray to the same environment? Did Kylo take her from Luke's academy and drop her with Plutt? Planting the seed of abandonment with a story of a family that's never coming for her?

Is that why Kylo goes all force choking when he learns "A girl" helped BB-8 escape the planet? Why else would he know/care that some random girl was involved?

[RStar]

I like the Star Wars movies. But I just can't get into it that deep because I just can't keep track of those billions of bits of information. My brain just isn't wired for it. I can enjoy it for the main plot points and action, acting and special effects, and the pageantry of it all. But beyond that, I'm lost....

[Alex]

I liked it while watching it. But it was a horribly stupid movie both story wise and basic world building wise and is not aging well in my memory.

So I am trying very hard, and mostly failing, to avoid thinking about it so that I can continue having enjoyed it.

But fun to watch in the moment.

[Ghoulish Delight]

I liked it while watching it. But it was a horribly stupid movie both story wise and basic world building wise and is not aging well in my memory.Which makes it a perfect Star Wars movie.

[Alex]

Which makes it something the hagiographic appreciation of which I just don't understand.

I can understand why I liked it when I was 12. Not sure why 35 year olds like it so much (I understand liking stupid stuff, I love Jackie Chan movies; I just don't claim they're good movies). As sacrilege as it may be to say, The Force Awakens falls pretty squarely into the same category for me as the last Fast and the Furious movie. Surprisingly fun to watch, almost painfully stupid if you give it more than 2 seconds thought.

So worth seeing, not worth seeing a second time.

[Alex]

That said, I am very interested in the next one.

A) If it follows the template of Empire as faithfully as this one did Star Wars then it means it'll be the actual good movie in the trilogy and

B) Rian Johnson is a much more interesting director (I love Brick, The Brothers Bloom was a very fun movie that nobody saw, and Looper was way better than it should have been) to me than J.J. Abrams.

[RStar]

And that's why I will watch it. As long as J.J. doesn't put a bunch of that lens flare crap in it. :rolleyes:

[Strangler Lewis]

What Alex said. For me, this is the first enjoyable Star Wars movie since Empire, but once the rush was over, any number of things started to bother me. Still, I look forward to the next one.

Any bets on whether the General's threat to send in a clone army was the last reference we'll have to clone armies? I hope so.

[alphabassettgrrl]

I'm with you, RStar, in not tracking the jillions of things you're supposed to keep track of. And yeah, quit it with the lens flare.

Looking forward to seeing the new movie. Hoping we can get there soon.

[RStar]

Yeah, I don't want to have to work that hard when watching a movie! ;)

[alphabassettgrrl]

Saw the movie last night- wow! Sometimes they seem to have forgotten the laws of physics, but whatever. And Abrams was able to make a movie without that stupid lens flare or rotating-"camera" nonsense!!!

Didn't feel like a whole movie's worth of action, it was basically one battle, and it was kind of a redoing of the "New Hope" one, but hopefully the next one will be more storyline and this was the setup for it.

Predictably, I really liked Rey. I liked that she didn't have to have a romance storyline, and that she kicked some butt. All on her own.

I'm touch-and-go on Fin. Eh, maybe. He's believable, so that's good.

I really was glad Chewbacca was back. They seem to have made him easier to understand.

Leia seems to have lost a bit of the "steel" she had when she was younger. There was one line that demanded a command tone, and it wasn't quite there. She gave the order, but it didn't quite sound like she meant it.

Not surprised at the Han Solo storyline. Harrison Ford was *on his game* in this movie as an actor. He was fantastic.

[SzczerbiakManiac]

Sometimes they seem to have forgotten the laws of physics, but whatever.So true. I keep having to remind myself that the Star Wars Saga is science fantasy, not science fiction.

[alphabassettgrrl]

It was something I noticed, but it didn't bother me too much. I'm used to fiction doing odd things.

[Ghoulish Delight]

If ignoring physics bothers you*, then very very very little of Star Wars should be to your liking.


*General You

[RStar]

Yes, because as physics goes- Newton’s Third Law of Motion states, “For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction.” This would mean Yoda would be squashed when he lifted the X-wing fighter out of the swamp. But it's easy to dismiss this because the force is something that is not from this world and doesn't need to follow physics as we know it.

[SzczerbiakManiac]

Yoda would be squashed when he lifted the X-wing fighter out of the swamp.I've never thought of the Force as a fulcrum.

[alphabassettgrrl]

Not that I like ignoring physics, but just saying that I recognize that they bend things now and then, and it doesn't ruin the movie for me. Things like spaceships that fly in curved arcs, which would take a lot of power to do. Some of the falling things after explosions were a little odd.

[SzczerbiakManiac]

I saw this elsewhere and had to share it in this thread:
http://36.media.tumblr.com/9153c55c9ebc9565c9bbf83fb0aa60f1/tumblr_o03w871YjT1rckw3lo1_1280.jpg

[RStar]

Ha! I never though of that! You know he can't be comfortable in those desert or swamp environments! Is his home world cold?