Star Wars Episode VIII: The Force Rolls out of Bed and Stretches [Ep VII Spoilers]

[DunderMifflin]

Let's see

Let's start off on some desert planet where nothing cool ever happens.

Then a cantina scene

Then let's go to the good guy base and find out about this new inconceivably powerful superweapon that the bad guys have.

Infiltrate bad guy place, save the day.

 

Which movie was that?

[Corvinus85]

2 minutes ago, DunderMifflin said:

Let's see

Let's start off on some desert planet where nothing cool ever happens.

Then a cantina scene

Then let's go to the good guy base and find out about this new inconceivably powerful superweapon that the bad guys have.

Infiltrate bad guy place, save the day.

 

Which movie was that?

The Force Awakens. In a New Hope they find out about the powerful weapon by going to it first, doing the infiltration and the rescue, then they go to the good guy base.

[DunderMifflin]

1 minute ago, Corvinus said:

The Force Awakens. In a New Hope they find out about the powerful weapon by going to it first, doing the infiltration and the rescue, then they go to the good guy base.

Well I guess I'm semantically proven wrong. 

Also you go see the old hermit Jedi before the second movie this time.

Totally different stuff there.

 

[denstorebog]

39 minutes ago, DunderMifflin said:

Let's see

Let's start off on some desert planet where nothing cool ever happens.

Then a cantina scene

Then let's go to the good guy base and find out about this new inconceivably powerful superweapon that the bad guys have.

Infiltrate bad guy place, save the day.

 

Which movie was that?

Return of the Jedi.

Starts off on desert planet, check. (Same planet as ANH, even).

Cantina scene, check. (Jabba's palace with aliens, music, not technically a cantina, but neither is it in TFA)

Then they go to the good guy base (the Alliance fleet) and find out about the new Death Star. Then they infiltrate the bad guy place and save the day.

Yup, almost certain it was Return of the Jedi. Or maybe it's hard to tell because formulaic storytelling is part and parcel of the SW experience.

[HairBearHero]

I enjoyed TFA, but it treads a very, very narrow path between callbacks/homages and outright carbon copies of story beats and scenes from ANH. 

Which, overall, I'm not too upset about. The most important thing to me was that they nailed the film's tone, the sensation of wonder and joy that the original trilogy evoked so brilliantly and the prequels...did not. It just seems a bit weird to deny that TFA was distinctly similar to ANH.

 

Denstorebog, if you want a more film-specific breakdown of similarities, consider the opening half hour:

Open with a scene of conflict involving bad guys searching for sensitive information, which has been smuggled away on board a droid. Cut to a desert planet where a mysteriously-abandoned orphan meets the funky droid carrying secret information by coincidence. Evil guys pursue the information and shoot up the special orphan's home. Orphan escapes on Millenium Falcon.

 

It's completely understandable - they wanted a film that evoked the original trilogy and the easiest way to do that is load it with callbacks and moments where fans can lose their shit BECAUSE HOLY SHIT HAN AND CHEWIE RIDE ONCE AGAIN etc. They've established the tone of the new trilogy and distanced themselves from the prequels. I expect Ep VIII will be distinctly more original and probably a better film.

[Kalbear]

16 hours ago, DunderMifflin said:

So Coruscant is First Order territory?

Or nobody knows or what?

Coruscant is still Republic territory, but they have moved the seat of power and do so regularly. In TFA, they've moved it to the Hosnian system - the system that is destroyed by Starkiller base. 

[red snow]

can't recall if i posted this or not. Watched the film for the second time at the weekend and still found it really enjoyable. The silly elements turn out to be simply nitpicking for me. The other thing that stood out was how a large chunk of the film was spent on establishing just how powerful chewie's gun is, which goes some way of explaining how Kylo wasn't bringing his "A" game to the final fights. Not that I ever had an issue with those final fights. I still like the idea that Kylo was also weakend by being unbalanced in the Force (killing his dad made him too dark side).

The BB8 extra was also great fun.

[ab aeterno]

5 hours ago, red snow said:

can't recall if i posted this or not. Watched the film for the second time at the weekend and still found it really enjoyable. The silly elements turn out to be simply nitpicking for me. The other thing that stood out was how a large chunk of the film was spent on establishing just how powerful chewie's gun is, which goes some way of explaining how Kylo wasn't bringing his "A" game to the final fights. Not that I ever had an issue with those final fights. I still like the idea that Kylo was also weakend by being unbalanced in the Force (killing his dad made him too dark side).

The BB8 extra was also great fun.

I will say, the one thing that does continue to bother me (a little) about the bowcaster thing is that apparently this is the first time Han has used this gun in like 35 years + with Chewie. Or even seen Chewie fire it. Granted, it might be a newer and more powerful version, but still. 

[Myrddin]

I found the same thing puzzling, ab aeterno. It has to be a newer bowcaster. The old one didn't hurl back stormtroopers.

[Astromech]

I'm trying to find the exact quote but, paraphrasing, Pablo Hidalgo said Chewie is using more powerful bolts with his bowcaster in TFA.

[DunderMifflin]

I vaguely remember some old EU stuff where Chewie had a lot of bowcasters and was always trying to upgrade them and whatnot

[red snow]

2 hours ago, ab aeterno said:

I will say, the one thing that does continue to bother me (a little) about the bowcaster thing is that apparently this is the first time Han has used this gun in like 35 years + with Chewie. Or even seen Chewie fire it. Granted, it might be a newer and more powerful version, but still. 

Yeah, I had the same issue with Han saying that out loud. I mean surely there'd be a time he'd have used it beforehand? Just as well the EU isn't canon anymore!

1 hour ago, DunderMifflin said:

I vaguely remember some old EU stuff where Chewie had a lot of bowcasters and was always trying to upgrade them and whatnot

He sounds like a true RPGer

[The BlackBear]

1 hour ago, red snow said:

He sounds like a true RPGer

In true gaming style he'll find the parts to upgrade his modern gun in an old tomb.

[TheKitttenGuard]

 

[Myrddin]

On 4/28/2016 at 6:31 PM, The BlackBear said:

In true gaming style he'll find the parts to upgrade his modern gun in an old tomb.

That's why he always wears a satchel. It's for looting the bad guys so he can trade in for upgrades at the nearest vendor.

[Davrum]

On 4/27/2016 at 9:23 AM, HairBearHero said:

I enjoyed TFA, but it treads a very, very narrow path between callbacks/homages and outright carbon copies of story beats and scenes from ANH. 

Which, overall, I'm not too upset about. The most important thing to me was that they nailed the film's tone, the sensation of wonder and joy that the original trilogy evoked so brilliantly and the prequels...did not. It just seems a bit weird to deny that TFA was distinctly similar to ANH.

Not to ANH, but to the entire OT. The Han/Ben father/son confrontation on a catwalk with one character falling is pure ESB, as is the cliffhanger ending. Han leading a ground mission to take out shields is pure ROTJ.

[Slurktan]

3 hours ago, Davrum said:

Not to ANH, but to the entire OT. The Han/Ben father/son confrontation on a catwalk with one character falling is pure ESB, as is the cliffhanger ending. Han leading a ground mission to take out shields is pure ROTJ.

You mean the Ben/Han conversation between a bad guy and his father figure on a Death star where Stormtroopers are inexplicably paying attention only to it thus allowing the other good guys to get away isn't a carbon copy of Obi Wan/Vader?

[Davrum]

2 hours ago, Slurktan said:

You mean the Ben/Han conversation between a bad guy and his father figure on a Death star where Stormtroopers are inexplicably paying attention only to it thus allowing the other good guys to get away isn't a carbon copy of Obi Wan/Vader?

Welp, Obi-Wan was never Anakin's father figure, they were pals, so not really comparable, no. And Han's not Kylo Ren's "father figure", he's his actual father, so on that count again it's far more ESB than ANH. Also, Obi-Wan and Vader are evenly matched. Luke/Vader and Han/Ben are mismatches. So again, much more ESB than ANH. Also, Obi-Wan just vanishes on the floor with no danger of descending into oblivion, whereas both Luke and Han fall off of catwalks. So once again, that scene has ESB smeared all over it and not really ANH.

[felice]

34 minutes ago, Davrum said:

Welp, Obi-Wan was never Anakin's father figure, they were pals

By the time of the second movie, you could perhaps call them pals, but Anakin was nine years old when he met Obi-wan and became his Padawan. Kenobi is by far the closest thing Anakin has to a father figure; certainly more so than Watto! And Vader doesn't actually kill Luke in ESB, and has no fatherly relationship with him; both the relationship between the pair and the outcome of their confrontation is much more similar in ANH. And crucially both Force Awakens and ANH have the mentor confronting and being killed by the villain while the hero looks on, rather than involving the hero directly. Also, it's highly unlikely but not biologically impossible that Kylo Ren is Rey's father.

[Davrum]

1 hour ago, felice said:

By the time of the second movie, you could perhaps call them pals, but Anakin was nine years old when he met Obi-wan and became his Padawan. Kenobi is by far the closest thing Anakin has to a father figure; certainly more so than Watto! And Vader doesn't actually kill Luke in ESB, and has no fatherly relationship with him; both the relationship between the pair and the outcome of their confrontation is much more similar in ANH. And crucially both Force Awakens and ANH have the mentor confronting and being killed by the villain while the hero looks on, rather than involving the hero directly. Also, it's highly unlikely but not biologically impossible that Kylo Ren is Rey's father.

For sure you could call them pals by the second movie, and that's the first movie their relationship starts to matter and play out since in the first movie it's Qui Gon who's Anakin's mentor/father figure. Their little crew is father/older bro/younger bro/hot-princess-pretending-to-be-a-hot-handmaiden. Little bro is 9 and older bro is early 20s. I mean, "You were my brother Anakin!" does all it needs to do in spelling out the relationship between Obi Wan and Anakin.

So in ESB we have an actual son denying a relationship with his actual father, not some metaphorical malarkey. In TFA we have exactly the same. Literally the same. Plus the catwalk thing and the power imbalance thing and yada yada yada.