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Star Wars Episode VII THE SPOILERS Strike Back


Martell Spy

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You can easily replace scary by other adjectives like 'intimidating' or 'memorable' or indeed 'compelling.' The point still remains the same. Kylo Ren wasn't any of those things imo.  

Well, I thought he was pretty memorable so far, and the fact that we're debating his character and motivations indicates that he's fairly compelling. 

 

I took the scene the same in a similar way as you. Kylo Ren wants to purge his light side and he can't think of a better way of doing it than killing someone he lovers dearly. It's not about how hard it is to physically kill him, it's about Ren being able to commit the act. Han helps him merely by allowing himself to be killed. I think it maybe was a little harder for him than you think.

" I'm being torn apart. I want to be free of this pain. I know what I have to do but I don't know if I have the strength to do it. Will you help me? "

That's certainly about killing his dad and being rid of the light side although it's a nice bit of writing to allow people to think he's maybe asking for help to redeem himself and go back to his family.

 

I loved how they set the scene up as well. The thin walkway over the giant chasm that's so characteristic of Star Wars, and a nice ESB callback, and then, when Ren finally finds the strength to embrace the Dark Side, the light from the sun vanishes outside plunging the planet into darkness just as killing Han plunges Ren into the darkness.

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I took the scene the same in a similar way as you. Kylo Ren wants to purge his light side and he can't think of a better way of doing it than killing someone he lovers dearly.

Then, as I said earlier, just kill him.  There is no impediment to this.  Han walks out there; he goes to his son, not waiving a weapon or anything.  They are very close BEFORE the emo whining began.  If Ren wanted to kill Han, he could have just done it without engaging in "PSYCHE!  Still evil!"  

If Ren wanted to kill Han, he could have just done it.  He didn't need to engage in fake-emo.  Hence, the more likely scenario is that it was real emo.  Why engage in that scene of "I'm conflicted" if it were not true?  

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So, I am just going to drop this next part in now.

Its my theory on who is Rey's father.  Its Luke. No, wait, sorry, its not Luke.  But it is.  

My theory is that Luke Skywalker was cloned after his battle with Darth Vader on Cloud City.  Here is how I arrived at that.

Because simply making Rey Luke's daughter is fucking stupid. And lame. 

Basically, it goes something like this: after Vader defeats Luke, he reports this back to Palpatine.  Palpatine sends his minions to Cloud City as part of the hostile takeover.  There they discover the lightsaber.  And, of course, the severed hand.  Because gross.  

Palpatine knows a thing or two about cloning.  He also knows now that Vader is still a bad-ass, and that Luke may try another pass at his father and, well, Vader could kill him.  Palpatine knows he would need an "ace-in-the-hole" to, eventually defeat Vader before Vader defeats Palpatine.  So he stores the saber off someplace and starts cloning "Luuke (wee what I did there?)." Luuke "grows up" as a child, and Palpatine starts doing mean, evil, shitty things to him and maybe gives him to the care of this guy, named Snoke.  Snoke starts creating a dark-side asshole; maybe the aging process is spead up as it was in Attack of the Clones, so Luuke is actually Luke's age or around that.  But then the Emperor is defeated, and Luuke is not any good at this.  He's SUPER conflicted, and not really Dark-side material.  

He eventually escapes.  He seeks out Luke.  They talk.  And he starts training Luuke.  Or something, but something happens and Luuke gets a woman pregnant right around the time Kylo Ren goes Dark-Side Assassin.  Knowing Rey would be in danger from Ren, they hide Rey on Jakku, much in the same way they hid Luke and Leia. 

But then... Luuke is recaptured by Snoke.  Why? Well, Snoke DOES say Ren had to continue his training; this could be because Luuke is going to train Ren in Dark side stuff.  

We do know that cloning was a thing and it is mentioned in TFA.  Further, Luke being the father isn't quite right; in TFA, Maz says to Rey, after she found the lightsaber, “Dear child, I see it in your eyes. You already know the truth … Whoever you were waiting for on Jakku, they’re never coming back. But there’s someone who still can: Luke.”  TO ME, that means the person who stashed Rey is not Luke, but maybe somebody else lile... Luuke. 

Here's hoping its not something lame like Luke is Rey's father.  

 

 

Seems way to complicated really. Why not make her a direct clone of Luke, wipped up by Snoke, but then the Force did something weird and she was born a girl. Not saying that makes the cloning element okay, but that would take less steps I guess :dunno:

Well, I thought he was pretty memorable so far, and the fact that we're debating his character and motivations indicates that he's fairly compelling. 

Jar Jar was the hot topic back in the day... I don't see anyone calling his character or motivations "compelling" :dunno: It's a pretty odd stance to take imo. Just because the character is much debated that doesn't necessarily mean he's well-rounded. Not saying that the opposite is true of course (i.e. that only bad characters attract debate), but such a black-and-white stance seems off.

 

 

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Then, as I said earlier, just kill him.  There is no impediment to this.  Han walks out there; he goes to his son, not waiving a weapon or anything.  They are very close BEFORE the emo whining began.  If Ren wanted to kill Han, he could have just done it without engaging in "PSYCHE!  Still evil!"  

If Ren wanted to kill Han, he could have just done it.  He didn't need to engage in fake-emo.  Hence, the more likely scenario is that it was real emo.  Why engage in that scene of "I'm conflicted" if it were not true?  

See, I think he was conflicted, but in the opposite way to usual. Normally, we'd expect to see the person being conflicted by the temptation of the Dark Side, whereas Ren sees himself as being conflicted by the temptation of the Light. He's struggling to purge all influence of the Light Side and return to the Darkness, the opposite of say, Vader, who had to purge the influence of the Dark to return to the light.

As for the vatican- maybe the villian should have been a pedophile.

Wouldn't that make him the hero from the Vatican's point of view?

 

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Jar Jar was the hot topic back in the day... I don't see anyone calling his character or motivations "compelling" :dunno: It's a pretty odd stance to take imo. Just because the character is much debated that doesn't necessarily mean he's well-rounded. Not saying that the opposite is true of course (i.e. that only bad characters attract debate), but such a black-and-white stance seems off.

 

I never said he was well-rounded, to be fair, and no-one is debating Jar Jar. :lol:

Well, I'm calling his character compelling. He's an interesting character to me because he's so weak and conflicted, and because of the hints about his past, and his future. I'll definitely revisit this if he's not make into a firmer, more committed character in the next film, but for now, I think this lays the groundwork for a brilliant villain; the contrast against what he's like in TFA should really add to the character. To be honest, another committed, controlled Sith would be far less compelling, and far less interesting. 

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I find Kylo Ren scary. Scary in the way that I fear what he could do to the good guys. He killed Han this time around, and in the next film he will be better trained and super pissed at Rey. She's cut him up pretty badly, so now he's very motivated to dice her up in return.

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I don't really get all this ''emo'' talk, or whether it was real or fake emo, whatever the fuck that means.

Are you actually comparing a fictional evil force user to a clique adopted by High School kids? What do they actually have in common? Is it just because he has dark hair and pale skin? 

 

If you don't like Kylo Ren, that's fair enough. But a lot of his character quirks (i.e. inferiority complex, lust for power, daddy issues, obsession, anger issues) are all classic villain traits. 

I agree, although I think the "emo" label is more acceptable to throw at Anakin in AotC because he literally mopes around the room yelling that no-one trusts him and no-one recognises how strong he is. :lol:

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I think a lot of people need to bear this in mind:

“Everyone who has seen these movies thinks about ‘I am your father …’ and ‘There is another …’,” the director said. “But neither of those things were in [1977’s original] Star Wars. Star Wars didn’t say Luke was the son of Vader. Star Wars didn’t say Leia was the sister of Luke. You didn’t understand what these references were: the Empire, dark times, clone wars. There were these things that were discussed that don’t get explained. George [Lucas] dropped you into a story and respected you to infer everything necessary to understand what you need to know.”

In other words, we don't have the full story yet, and nor should we. A fair few of these criticisms seem to be setting the standard that would be expected of the completed trilogy in terms of resolutions/satisfactory explanations.

(This isn't particularly related to the last post I just made, more a general observation)

None of those things needed to be explained because Star Wars was just Star Wars. IIRC it wasn't even "A New Hope" until around the time of Empire. It wasn't the first of six or anything. That's all hindsight. 

Star Wars did everything it needed to do to justify the plot in that movie  because it wasn't expecting to tell audiences "oh, just wait, you'll get a spinoff next year and a sequel the year after that!". 

That said, besides the annoying Republic/Resistance divide the much maligned derivative nature of TFA means that the handling of plots is closer to  the original Star Wars than not.

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I'm fine with having revelations in future movies if we know we are going to get them. That doesn't make it bad storytelling. It makes me worried because JJ has a habit of dropping things in and then giving them shit explanations later, but it isn't by itself bad.

We don't need to know who reys parents are. We don't need to know why luke left. We don't need to know why r2 woke up at that moment. We don't need to know who snoke is or why ren turned to him.

At least not in the first episode.

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I would have liked him to be menacing here, after which he evolved into supermenacing over the course of the next (two) film(s) :) 

The part where he stops a laser blast in mid-air, and the part where he captures Rey in the forest were menacing enough for me.

And hey, at least all of his menace was on display, it was not phantom. ;)

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Are you actually comparing a fictional evil force user to a clique adopted by High School kids? What do they actually have in common? Is it just because he has dark hair and pale skin? 

Nah, I think most of us are comparing him to the cliches about that particular clique of High School kids (as a way to mock the character). A cursory search on Urban Dictionary gives us the following gems :lol::

A group of white, mostly middle-class well-off kids who find imperfections in there life and create a ridiculous, depressing melodrama around each one. They often take anti-depressants, even though the majority don't need them. They need to wake up and deal with life like everyone else instead of wallowing in their imaginary quagmire of torment. 

The Difference between Emo And Goth:
Emos Hate themselves 
Goths hate Everyone 
Emos Want to Kill themselves 
Goths Want to kill Everyone

An entire subculture of people (usually angsty teens) with a fake personality. The concept of Emo is actually a vicious cycle that never ends, to the utter failing of humanity, and it goes something like this: 

1. Girls say they like "sensitive guys" (lie) 
2. Guy finds out, so he listens to faggy emo music and dresses like a dork so chicks will see that he is sensitive and not afraid to express himself (lie). He dyes his hair black, wraps himself in a stupid looking scarf, develops an eating disorder, and rants about how "nobody understands". 
3. Now an emo guy, he meets Emo chick and they start dating, talking about how their well-off suburban lifestyles are terrible and depressing (lie) 
4. Emo guy is just too much of a pussy. His penis is too small, he's too depressed to bathe, and has more mood swings than emo chick, and he doesn't even have a menstrual cycle. Emo chick dumps him, saying "It's not you, it's me." (lie) as she drives off with Wayne, the school jock and captain of the football team. 
5. Emo guy goes home and cries, proceeds to write a weak song and strum a single string on his acoustic guitar. Another emo chick sees how he is so in touch with his feelings, and the cycle continues. 

 

If you scroll back a bit and read my previous posts, you will find that I have stated multiple times that the ideas behind Kylo Ren's character are sound (You don't have to look very far even, remember my comparison of Kylo to Tommy DeVito). It's just that the execution is so bad we get something bland and yes, emo :P instead of a well-rounded character.

 

How can a character be compelling without being well-rounded :P 

 

Hmm, the bolded makes me think that you're not really getting my point I'm afraid. You can have a villain who is deeply unhinged and conflicted. Those traits can certainly make for an interesting, memorable and intimidating villain (again think about someone like Joe Pesci in Goodfellas). It's just the execution here that isn't very good.

He's more whiney than anything else. A bit like a deranged, villainous equivalent to Jon Snow's pathetic heroism in GoT (strange really, since they also look so much alike physically). A villain who snaps and starts thrashing his lightsaber around shouldn't be so unthreatening.

 

Wow wow, I don't think we need to go that far :P Emo's, after all, are people too :P 

Yes, that was really good! I didn't like the opening scene overall (felt cluncky), but that was by far the best thing about it. I wish we could have gotten more of those moments. They made such a good start with setting up Kylo, but they squandered it after that.

 

Nicely shot, but the damage was already done by that time. Plus, I can't help but feel like they took his helmet of to fast.

 

:lol:  :cheers: I have been critical of the weaker elements of TFA, but yes it's definitely lightyears beyond the prequels in terms of quality. Thank God for that :)

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Has the board eaten all the post I quoted :( 

 

Yeah, one thing I'll definitely say regarding his helmet, it would have been a much stronger reveal (of his face, not his parentage) if he'd only taken it off when Han confronts him.

:agree: Heck, I would have liked it even better if after the moment with Han he put the helmet back on to chase Rey and Fin. It's part of his persona after all. And then Rey could have cut that helmet of his face. 

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I don't really understand the EMO tag for Kylo. I mean we are seeing him at basically at the same stage or just past where Darth Vader was in Revenge of the Sith. If you remember he too was emotional and conflicted and prone to rage. These are the reasons why they are vulnerable to the dark side. 

We have already seen several fully trained Darth characters, to me it is refreshing to see it evolving. 

And he is menacing and does have screen presence. When he stopped the laser blast it was like oh shit, someone learned a new trick. Who needs to use a light saber to block blasters when you can just Matrix them and stop them mid air.

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During the close-up of the surface of one of The Republic planets that got blown up, the camera focused on a woman in the middle of the crowd. I don't know who that actress was, but she looked really familiar. And with that camera focus, I assume she's someone who must have had other scenes that were cut during editing? The same way Matthew Fox is a bit character in World War Z because all his scenes but one were cut.

That was Freema Agyeman, aka Martha from Doctor Who.

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So, I am just going to drop this next part in now.

Its my theory on who is Rey's father.  Its Luke. No, wait, sorry, its not Luke.  But it is.  

My theory is that Luke Skywalker was cloned after his battle with Darth Vader on Cloud City.  Here is how I arrived at that.

Because simply making Rey Luke's daughter is fucking stupid. And lame. 

Basically, it goes something like this: after Vader defeats Luke, he reports this back to Palpatine.  Palpatine sends his minions to Cloud City as part of the hostile takeover.  There they discover the lightsaber.  And, of course, the severed hand.  Because gross.  

Palpatine knows a thing or two about cloning.  He also knows now that Vader is still a bad-ass, and that Luke may try another pass at his father and, well, Vader could kill him.  Palpatine knows he would need an "ace-in-the-hole" to, eventually defeat Vader before Vader defeats Palpatine.  So he stores the saber off someplace and starts cloning "Luuke (wee what I did there?)." Luuke "grows up" as a child, and Palpatine starts doing mean, evil, shitty things to him and maybe gives him to the care of this guy, named Snoke.  Snoke starts creating a dark-side asshole; maybe the aging process is spead up as it was in Attack of the Clones, so Luuke is actually Luke's age or around that.  But then the Emperor is defeated, and Luuke is not any good at this.  He's SUPER conflicted, and not really Dark-side material.  

He eventually escapes.  He seeks out Luke.  They talk.  And he starts training Luuke.  Or something, but something happens and Luuke gets a woman pregnant right around the time Kylo Ren goes Dark-Side Assassin.  Knowing Rey would be in danger from Ren, they hide Rey on Jakku, much in the same way they hid Luke and Leia. 

But then... Luuke is recaptured by Snoke.  Why? Well, Snoke DOES say Ren had to continue his training; this could be because Luuke is going to train Ren in Dark side stuff.  

We do know that cloning was a thing and it is mentioned in TFA.  Further, Luke being the father isn't quite right; in TFA, Maz says to Rey, after she found the lightsaber, “Dear child, I see it in your eyes. You already know the truth … Whoever you were waiting for on Jakku, they’re never coming back. But there’s someone who still can: Luke.”  TO ME, that means the person who stashed Rey is not Luke, but maybe somebody else lile... Luuke. 

Here's hoping its not something lame like Luke is Rey's father.  

 

 

Isn't this essentially the basic plot of the Dark Empire comic? 

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Regardless of JJ's motives, I think killing Han was the right move from a Star Wars point of view. Primarily because it's good for a Dark Sider to have that "point of no return" moment that Vader had when he killed Mace Windu, but also because I'm not 100% confident that Harrison Ford could have sustained such a brilliant performance over two more movies as he gets older. (To be clear, I love Ford, but he's only human.)

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