Author Topic: Star Wars Ep. VII: The Force Awakens - Trailer out now  (Read 22382 times)

Aya Reiko

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Re: Star Wars Ep. VII: The Force Awakens - Trailer out now
« Reply #60 on: November 09, 2015, 07:18:11 AM »

Re: Star Wars Ep. VII: The Force Awakens - Trailer out now
« Reply #61 on: December 17, 2015, 11:32:39 PM »
I used to think the prequels weren't all that bad... this new film showed me how truly abysmal they really were and how complete and utter awesome Star Wars could be again!

The hype is real. The curse of Lucas is lifted. The Force is Awake.

commandercool

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Re: Star Wars Ep. VII: The Force Awakens - Trailer out now
« Reply #62 on: December 18, 2015, 07:02:43 AM »
Just got back from the theater. There's good stuff and bad stuff, but the overall product is much more good than bad. See it if you like Star Wars, but you were probably going to anyway. If you don't already like Star Wars I can't imagine there's anything in this movie for you.

I'll put my review in spoiler tags in case you want to stay completely unspoiled, but spoilers are mild and mostly don't concern plot details.

Spoiler:
The good:
-This movie is pulpy as hell. It really feels like an adventure serial, but not necessarily in a throwback kind of way. It feels like a modern version of that. It's totally sincere and is self-aware on only the most minimal possible level. It does not have the tone problems that the prequels had.
-The fanservice is great. For my money it doesn't go too far. Some may find that it does, but it made me smile quite a few times.
-The old cast is wonderful. Mark Hamill is actually barely in it, he doesn't even have a single line, but Harrison Ford and especially Carrie Fisher were just perfect.
-The new cast is fine. The characters are likable enough, and the protagonist is a woman which is great for Star Wars.
-The new cast and the old cast mix very naturally. Neither one feels like it's taking a significant back seat to the other, although the movie definitely seems to be setting up sequels that focus much more on the new cast. Which is fair, it is their turn after all.
-Despite the fact that the whole movie is basically just setup for future movies I thought it was surprisingly satisfying in the way it wrapped up. There are tons of loose threads, but it leans more toward "This is intriguing, I wonder what will happen next" and less toward "This is an incomplete story".
-I have rarely given a shit about the Force, the Jedi, or the Sith in Star Wars. Stories can get terribly bogged down in the minutia of space wizardry and it makes me lose interest really quickly. That's why I find a lot of the expanded universe stuff to be unappealing. Despite the fact that there's a fair amount of Force shit in this movie it never becomes the focus. It feels like part of the plot, not the point of the plot.

The bad:
-The plot is basically entirely supported on a series of incredible coincidences, which makes it feel a lot less credible than I wish it did.
-They really missed an opportunity to shake up the dynamics of the different sides. Somehow the good guys are the underdog rebels again and the bad guys are the oppressive majority again. What the hell? The rebels won last time, why are they on the bottom again already?
-Some people will be bothered by how unbelievable the dialogue is. I'm not, I recognize that as being how Star Wars movies work, but that doesn't change the fact that a lot of it is ridiculous.
-It feels too long. A lot of different incidents happen and none of them are bad on their own, but there are just too many things. The movie is fairly long and you can feel the length, or at least I did.
Spoiler:
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Firestorm29

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Re: Star Wars Ep. VII: The Force Awakens - Trailer out now
« Reply #63 on: December 18, 2015, 05:15:07 PM »
Spoiler:
For me, I did like a few things about the movie, the way they managed to squeeze in the old cast by skipping ahead in the timeline was nice. Although the nerd in me felt like it would have been neat to see more kinds of startfighters, and I was alittle put-off by the "screw killer moon starstations, we're doing planets now". GG, Corrusant (felt WAY too easy).  It did seem a bit like cheese, plus the First Order didn't feel like the disbanded empire that it was supposed to be.

The lightsaber fights was pretty nice, and I was able to pickup on the idea that the new sith and jedi still both have lots to learn. The callbacks to the older movies like the run needed to knock out the station to blow up the planet was cool. Also, felt like it had a decent amount of action and story in it. Pretty cool, but I'd like it more if there isn't any more planet destruction for awhile, I have concerns it's going to turn into something really silly next time like imploding star systems.

Mеа

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Re: Star Wars Ep. VII: The Force Awakens - Trailer out now
« Reply #64 on: December 18, 2015, 10:15:02 PM »
Spoiler:
I felt a little underwhelmed at the end for some reason. I think it might be because I didn't feel any build of tension even though there was a 'climax', so to speak. Things built up and up, but I didn't feel any tension. I dunno.
But overall, I was pretty satisfied, I felt like it was a good movie. The quality was good all throughout, there was always something interesting, unlike EP I. And besides, who likes EP I or EP IV the best out of their respective trilogies? Even the people who loathe the prequels have to agree that II or III were better than I. So I'm convinced it'll get better.
I suppose there were a lot of threads left to be tied, but none of them really stuck out to me by the end, everything felt resolved. None of them were really pressing or really craving answers. Only that it makes me mildly curious about their answers.
The movie seemed to have a lot more comedic moments in it than I remember any other episode having. Like for example, that scene where Kylo Ren is in an outrage in the prison cell room after Ray escapes, George Lucas would have cut the scene there. But in this one, we have another shot of two stormtroopers marching towards the general direction and then turning around. And then there was that other scene with Kylo Ren, being reported to that BB-8 had escaped and he slashes away at the stuff in front of him, intimidating the officer. Felt more like it was trying to get a laugh out of the audience, rather than actually fitting the tone of the series. Which isn't all a bad thing, it's new, but feels more like in the vain of the recent Marvel-esque style of movies of mixing comedy and serious. And a lot more banter too, like the ones between Anakin and Obi wan in EP III. I feel like it fit there because it showed their bond, but here they've only just met and they're already exchanging banter and it felt a little off. Which again isn't terrible, but is a little bit ridiculous.
Kylo Ren. I was expecting a main villain, but he seems more like a sympathetic character. I remember the audience chuckling when he first took off his mask, I don't think anyone was expecting him to take it off, just like that. He actually used the cross hilt thing in his 'duel' with Fn which I remember with amusement, justifying the design a little.
And speaking of lightsabers, I'm glad they brought back Anakin's blue lightsaber, it was nice to see it again as much as I don't really care for Anakin himself. Weird that the lightsaber would call to Ray though, why would it? Unless... she's related to the Skywalkers? Maybe Kylo Ren's sister? That would be odd. But then Star Wars has always been about family troubles, more or less. She did mention waiting for her family that left. It would be unthinkable the she changed her name, so it doesn't seem like it's Han and Lea's daughter. I wonder what her final lightsaber color is going to be. I somehow doubt that they would recycle green or blue, and it can't be red, so yellow maybe?
I hope the Yoda, Ben, and 'Vader' force ghosts make it back in the sequels, would be interesting to have Kylo Ren face the actual 'Darth Vader'.
I have a bunch of other random thoughts, as I'm sure everyone does, but it's not coherent or organized so I think I'll leave it at this. Overall impression, positive. Definitely not disappointed, but perhaps a little underwhelmed.
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Re: Star Wars Ep. VII: The Force Awakens - Trailer out now
« Reply #65 on: December 19, 2015, 01:38:50 AM »
The whole
Spoiler:
evil bad guy pewpew weapon
smacks of the playground banter of 10 year olds and it amused me to no end.

Spoiler:
yeah well I'm going to build a giant space laser that's gonna be 100 times bigger than the Death Star and and it can shoot from a million billion miles away and also it can shoot five planets at once and it's so powerful its battery is the size of a planet and it is a planet and it drains power from the sun as well and and and also it's called STARKILLER

power creep where

commandercool

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Re: Star Wars Ep. VII: The Force Awakens - Trailer out now
« Reply #66 on: December 19, 2015, 04:32:10 AM »
Spoiler:
Even the people who loathe the prequels have to agree that II or III were better than I. So I'm convinced it'll get better.

Spoiler:
Isn't Attack Of The Clones widely regarded as being the worst Bad Star Wars? I, at least, absolutely do not agree that Episode II is better than Episode I. It may not have Jake Loyd or Jar Jar, but it does have the worst scene in any movie ever.

Spoiler:
Kylo Ren. I was expecting a main villain, but he seems more like a sympathetic character. I remember the audience chuckling when he first took off his mask, I don't think anyone was expecting him to take it off, just like that.

Spoiler:
I relate to him on some level. My first name is Ben and I'm named after Ben Kenobi, and his first name is Ben and he's also named after Ben Kenobi.

Also I'm pretty sure my brother has a crush on him. I can see that. He's a weird looking dude, but he's not un-sexy.

Spoiler:
He actually used the cross hilt thing in his 'duel' with Fn which I remember with amusement, justifying the design a little.

Spoiler:
I like how fucked up the blade on his lightsaber looked. Like he obviously cobbled it together without anybody really teaching him how it was supposed to work. I don't remember that from the trailer, but it's a cool effect.

Spoiler:
...would be interesting to have Kylo Ren face the actual 'Darth Vader'.

Spoiler:
Oh yeah, that would be great. That would be a really cool way for him to eventually be defeated. He ends up being too strong for anybody to beat in battle to Ghost Anikin has to come talk him down. Also, does anybody else think he's going to scar up his face to try to be more like Vader? When he took his helmet off the second time I was really expecting him to have done that already.
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Stuffman

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Re: Star Wars Ep. VII: The Force Awakens - Trailer out now
« Reply #67 on: December 19, 2015, 05:38:24 AM »
IMO the first half of the movie is perfect. Love the characters.

Not sure how to pinpoint the problems of the second half, things kind of move too slow and too fast at the same time. The problem with guaranteed sequels is the obligation to leave character arcs unfinished, so a satisfying conclusion is almost impossible.

Agree that there are a few too many helpful coincidences, at least. They obviously wanted to keep the story moving as fast as possible, so I guess I prefer that to boring padding.

Contrary to a lot of other people's opinions I actually think the approach to Kylo Ren's character is
Spoiler:
really interesting. He's played off as a true Vader-esque big bad at first, but then it's revealed he's just a dopey kid with no experience like our new protagonists, which I think is interesting because his character will develop just as much as theirs over the course of the trilogy. That's a much different approach to constantly being on the run from an already-established bad guy and I think it has real potential.

Spoiler:
Oh, and the Death Star ante-up really was kind of eye-rolling...they should have saved destroying that for the third movie.
« Last Edit: December 19, 2015, 05:41:43 AM by Stuffman »

commandercool

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Re: Star Wars Ep. VII: The Force Awakens - Trailer out now
« Reply #68 on: December 19, 2015, 02:17:45 PM »
Contrary to a lot of other people's opinions I actually think the approach to Kylo Ren's character is
Spoiler:
really interesting. He's played off as a true Vader-esque big bad at first, but then it's revealed he's just a dopey kid with no experience like our new protagonists, which I think is interesting because his character will develop just as much as theirs over the course of the trilogy. That's a much different approach to constantly being on the run from an already-established bad guy and I think it has real potential.

Spoiler:
That's a good point, and a solid counterexample to my complaint that the First Order is too similar to the empire. It's one of the few counterexamples, aside from the fact that all of their Grand Moff administrative types were also much younger than the gray-haired old British men that the empire employed, but it is a solid one.
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Mеа

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Re: Star Wars Ep. VII: The Force Awakens - Trailer out now
« Reply #69 on: December 21, 2015, 03:15:33 AM »
Spoiler:
Also I'm pretty sure my brother has a crush on him. I can see that. He's a weird looking dude, but he's not un-sexy.
Spoiler:
He doesn't look like the villain people were expecting, which like Stuffman says works great, he'll develop lots. My thing is that he doesn't look like a child of Han and Lea. Hell, of Anakin, Padme, Luke, Lea, and Han, none of them have black hair, where is this kid getting his genes?

Contrary to a lot of other people's opinions I actually think the approach to Kylo Ren's character is
Spoiler:
really interesting. He's played off as a true Vader-esque big bad at first, but then it's revealed he's just a dopey kid with no experience like our new protagonists, which I think is interesting because his character will develop just as much as theirs over the course of the trilogy. That's a much different approach to constantly being on the run from an already-established bad guy and I think it has real potential.
Spoiler:
That's a great point you bring up which I hadn't thought of. And it might be a strength to guaranteed sequels too, that the writers get to develop the villain of all characters from scratch. How often do you get to do that in the villains-act-heroes-react paradigm? Though in the case of this first movie, I feel like it was a weakness since there wasn't really any central harbinger of tension that I could point to and say 'that's what they were fighting against', unlike the original or prequel trilogies. No face of evil, I guess you could say, though there were a lot of bad guys and the death planet which fulfilled the big villain role temporarily.
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Re: Star Wars Ep. VII: The Force Awakens - Trailer out now
« Reply #70 on: December 22, 2015, 01:27:01 AM »
Spoiler:
The Starkiller destruction was a little underwhelming. No fancy explosion, just the sun moving into the planet, then out to where the planet imploded.

Also, it looked like that the star became the same sizes as the planet after the Starkiller imploded.

Those are my only two gripes about the movie. I loved everything else, even more so since this is the first Star Wars movie I've ever seen in a theater.
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Re: Star Wars Ep. VII: The Force Awakens - Trailer out now
« Reply #71 on: December 23, 2015, 09:31:00 AM »
Augh, I can finally read this thread again.

Spoiler:
I was rather bugged by a number of things which soured my whole feelings about this movie. I know most of that is on me not being able to fully immerse myself into this telling of Star Wars because I read much of the Expanded Universe (EU) and I know a huge premise of the movie is to make new characters the mains because of the time gap in age of the Original Trilogy characters. Regardless:

It's really hard to pinpoint in the movie the relative power between the First Order and the Republic/Resistance. If the Empire is defeated, the Republic won, hence the name change to the First Order and lack of mention of the Empire. Now you're telling me the First Order are powerhouses of the galaxy again? It doesn't quite make complete sense because the Republic has planets with populations completely in support of them, something the Rebel Alliance could only dream of. And their fighting group is called the Resistance? There's a serious disconnect as to how strong either of these factions are on the galactic scale.

Also, the entire movie has everyone grasping for straws because nobody knows Luke's motivations. It feels like cheap storytelling to try to string the audience along that way. Maybe because I'm afraid the answer Luke gives is going to be cheap and somewhat predictable as well, but the characters buy into it because "the ways of the Jedi are mysterious and that's just how they are."

The name Ben for Han and Leia's son actually bugged me a lot. First of all, in the EU, Luke's son is named Ben obviously after Ben Kenobi. But I don't feel like Han and Leia would appreciate the use of that name for their first son. Leia doesn't actually meet Obi-Wan because he dies during her rescue. And Han shouldn't feel that kind of attachment to Ben Kenobi at all. I mean, they obviously chose the name Ben for that reason, but ugh. I got excited when Han Solo was walking to the long catwalk because I knew he was going to call out his son's name and when I heard it, I felt the biggest disappointment in the entire movie. Maybe because I was thinking at that moment "please don't be Ben". I don't actually know if I would have been pleased or mad if they named him Jacen given Jacen's impact in the EU. I think I'm objecting to Ben being his name because of all of the above. And yet, whatever name that was chosen was going to have detractors anyways. And the fact that if Luke was training Ben Solo and Ben/Kylo Ren killed most of his apprentices, that's just gotta suck for Luke that it's a guy named after his first mentor. Ok, at least they didn't name him Anakin, that would be the worst on all levels.

I think I'm most excited about Finn. We don't know what his motivations are going to be once Episode 8 starts. He'll wake up, find out Rey left to find Luke, and we will see what exactly he chooses to do. He's a character that had no actual ties to any of the major plot movers of the past 6 movies (this is an assumption of course) so to see him develop more as a hero and a person should be a fun ride. His teamwork with Poe was my favorite part of the movie. And the starfighter battles. It's always the starfighter battles for me although I wish we saw more capital ships as once again, the Resistance don't have any capital ship support.

Maybe I'll gripe less after I've slept on this.

aListers

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Re: Star Wars Ep. VII: The Force Awakens - Trailer out now
« Reply #72 on: January 05, 2016, 12:42:05 AM »
I was very disappointed in the movie.

Spoiler:
It's the same movie as the 4th one. I thought they we're just playing at nostalgia at the start but things got more and more similar until I noticed that this was just a complete remake of episode 4. I knew everything that was going to happen. I paid money to see a movie that I already have on DVD. I wanted a new star wars movie not a remake of the old one.

It makes the original trilogy seem pointless. They destroy the empire only for it to not matter in the slightest. The republic gets destroyed instantly and didn't even make much of a different other than funding the resistance. Things went right back to the start again and literally the same thing happened. They secure the information from a droid, leave planet on the millennium falcon, go to the death star/starkiller, guy from the previous trilogy dies in front of heroes and then a pilot destroys the death star/starkiller. They just remade the 4th movie. Why did people tell me this movie was good? I've already watched it!

I did like the lightsabre fights though. Kylo is a crap fighter though. He lost against a total noob and did a crap job against the other one. Stormtrooper TR-80R (the one who says "traitor" then twirls his tonfa/nightstick thing) was cool though. I want more of that. Having stormtroopers be more than mooks who instantly die by having badass moments like that is something I loved. I hope we see him again or at least more sabre fights with stormtroopers.

They've set the story but on it's own it's nothing that I haven't seen before. As interesting as they've made things I just hope that the next one isn't a copy of episode 5. Due to the lack of originality I can't say that this movie was good. 3/10 in my opinion (this based purely on enjoyment) which makes me feel even worse considering that I gave the anime GATE that score - one of the only 2 animes that I disliked watching. This being star wars makes me feel really bad - the series shouldn't be getting a score like that from me.
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Re: Star Wars Ep. VII: The Force Awakens - Trailer out now
« Reply #73 on: January 25, 2016, 05:33:39 AM »
I loved it. Just a few things, though, that I noticed in this thread.

Spoiler:
First, the Republic/First Order/Resistance thing: the Republic is a legitimate government of its own, and the First Order is as well, since it's the remnants of the Empire. The Resistance is less the Republic's military and more a localized counterforce against the First Order: think of it like a first world country funding a guerrilla military in a dictatorship. Also, Coruscant wasn't the place that got blown up, apparently.

Second, Ben's character is rather interesting because he's weaker and more flawed than you would think he would be. He idolizes Darth Vader, but he doesn't really seem to understand just who he was, and comes across as a wannabe. Someone criticized the "Kailo freaking out while an officer is intimidated scene" as being for comedic effect, but I think it was an important scene to show the difference between him and Vader. Vader would almost casually kill his subordinates for failures, but Kailo took it out on inanimate objects. At the time of the movie, Kailo wasn't ready to take the plunge into the Dark Side as deeply, and his mental state was unstable and prone to uncontrollable rages, which explains why two amateurs, one not even Force sensitive, were actually able to fight him decently well (albeit while he was injured).

I think his lightsaber is actually the perfect representation of this: when you see him crossing blades with Finn and Rey, their lightsaber is solid and perfect, but his is wild, fluctuating, and chaotic. His lightsaber is just as in control of itself as he is, that is to say, barely.

I think the character interactions are the best of the series, to be honest: it's happening fast and furious, but it's also believable, like how quickly Finn and Poe become bros - it's fast as hell, yes, but it's also in a high octane situation, and they're forced to work together and finding that they are a good team (they literally have each other's backs, since their seats are facing away from each other). BB8 was also excellently done, because you can nearly understand him despite not knowing what the hell he said (aside from more complex communication, which was handled easily through natural dialogue with other characters). Even in the context of the movie this was handled well: Finn couldn't understand a single word BB8 said, but they were able to communicate, and you can see BB8's hesitation before helping out Finn.

As for the humor and comedic elements, I thought they were well done and didn't detract from the story at all, because they felt natural and in context of what was happening, not ham handed like in the prequel trilogy or some parts of Return of the Jedi. Probably the most "out of place" comedic moment was the scene with the troopers nope'ing away from Kailo's rampage, but honestly, I thought it was pretty humanizing, like the bad guys are sometimes normal dudes that want no part of the business end of a lightsaber. It was like the scene in Episode IV where Obi-Wan is sneaking around deactivating the tractor beam, and two troopers are having a conversation that's like "well, do you have any idea what the fuck's going on" and the other trooper is like "fuck if I know, they don't tell us shit".

As an aside, the part that made me laugh the most was "That's not how the Force works!". Han gleefully asking about trash compactors was also great.

So, yeah, I might be overhyped on the thrill of seeing Episode VII for the first time (I came close to crying during the opening crawl), but I thought it was a great movie. aListers's point is an interesting one, but I think that it's still its own movie, and a great one at that. I'm looking forward to the upcoming movies, especially Rogue One (I am a HUGE X-Wing fan).