Star Wars Episode VII THE SPOILERS AWAKEN

[ab aeterno]

Makes since Kira and Kylo would be to obvious and Kylo was his changed name so it would be a continuity glitch. It would be really obvious if it was Kira Rey and Kylo Ren, gosh who are her parents?

True. I'm just not a great fan of the name Rey in general to be honest. Makes me think of an overweight mechanic.

[Ser Creighton]

Maybe his secret to conquering death was in becoming a force ghost, like when Obi-Wan tells Vader that he will become more powerful than he can possibly imagine.

Maybe Palpatine actually helped Plagueis achieve his master plan by killing him.

I was wondering about that, but you can go the way of the Ghosts and it is explainable and you can go the way of the clones as in he may have made clones of himself, the clones and the rumor of how Anakin was conceived or somehow one being a derivative of the other or somehow interwoven, who knows? Could be some sort of ancient artifact, part of the story is Luke looking for an ancient Jedi temple? What is he looking for? Why go into hiding? Why was Rey hidden? I think most of those are good questions the movie creates and not plot holes. Why would Luke who has faced Palpatine and Vader back down from Snoke and Kylo?

I would like a scene of Snoke telling an admiral, "That's it no more giant space cannons, we spend all our money on space cannons and they always get destroyed when they are brand new. No more space cannons, by lots of ships, we could have thousands and thousands of ships, we could all have nice houses with pools and hover cars, and big screens, and still have thousands of new ships for what it costs to build these giant fucking wastes of money. I am going to go find a super awesome Sith artifact that is super powerful, and it will just cost us some travel expenses and we don't have to build it, and we don't have to worry about Indian Jones getting their first and taking it. So new ships, new houses with pool's big screens and hover cars. Do you know what that will do for recruitment? Hey come work for us it's like winning the lottery, or join the rebels and live at their shitty bases. Plus why do they have better fighters than us, can we build some better fighters so we can shoot down the things that keep blowing up our giant super expesive space guns? WTF people we win the battle of who can blow the most money on shit that does not work every year. Lets get some nice stuff this time around. We just blew up republic central and they were like hmmm lets blow that thing up, quick send a handful of fighters, boom it's gone. 3 times people, 3 times? Are we not getting the message? We blow up republic central and the blow up imperial central, it cost them like 10 fighters, and we blew 30 years and everything we had on that thing.

[Derfel Cadarn]

Liked it, on par with the original film.  Even down to the dodgy science. 

 

I'd like more info on the Republic.  Was that them destroyed, or just the fleet/planets nearest the First Order? 

 

Not sure why Rey thrust Luke's old lightsaber at him.  The saber his father use to murder kids, that he used when Obi-Wan dismembered him, that Luke used when Vader beat him and cut off his hand.  "No thanks, kid. I'll stick with my trusty green one."

 

Got a chill when Han yelled "Ben." 

 

Was interesting to see Ackbar.  A general and two admirals  - seems top heavy for a fleet consisting of a bunch of fighters.  Wedge would have been there too, but the actor turned it down.  The x-wing attack was a bit underwhelming - basically shoot a big metal plate until it broke. 

 

Wonder if Luke's planet is Tython?  If they borrow the Kotor-era Jedi origin stuff, then it should be.

[Kalbear]

I think my biggest complaint other than a neutered leia is the too concise editing. What happened to phasma? To maz? Where was the "hope is not lost" line?

I feel like an 8 second clip of kylo getting picked up by Hux and phasma would have helped. Or seeing maz greet leia.

[Talleyrand]

Phasma is apparently back for the sequel so she somehow got out of the rubbish bin and made it to a ship in time for the explosion.

I like the Hux/Kylo relationship though. Where Tarkin/Vader seemed to have more of a mutual respect fitting their age Hux/Kylo seem to have a childish spat going on

[Kalbear]

I know she is back, but boy was that not clear.

[Talleyrand]

Yeah I wouldn't be surprised if a fair amount of the audience would be a bit shocked to see her back. They did give off a "she's dead" vibe. Especially since she was in a room filled with other dead stormtroopers I'm not sure why they'd let her live.

[Martell Spy]

Only read up to page 6 of this thread so far. I'm gonna post now, because I may never get to it otherwise.

I'd give a 8/5 out of 10. Perhaps 9 given the large role for Han Solo. Best parts for me were Han, Chewy, and Kylo Ren. I think Chewy could carry the humor for an entire movie himself. I laughed out loud about ten times, and 8 of them were due to him. I agree that Abrams both showed he was the person to do this film and also not the person to do the upcoming films. He did some heavy lifting for the future films and a good part of why this was a great movie is things were kept running quite smoothly. I saw no part that bored me at all, which is quite rare. Even the few slow parts, actually turned out quite well. Daisy's grueling lifestyle at the start was pretty awsome for me, gave me a good Fallout vibe.

Liked all the new 3 main characters and hope to see a lot more of them in the coming film. Fin was very important in that he's like the glue of the 3 characters, he bonded with both of the 2 other mains very well.

I thought Kylo Ren was better in the mask, but the entire thing worked well for me. The crisp and efficient manner he handled things in the first half of the film and his affect I think is what made it work. It was also a weakness, in that he could make mistakes by not thinking things out, but it also made him seem very dangerous, a villain that might actually win. Such as when he reacted quickly and kidnapped Daisy and pulled his troops immediately out. Can't wait to see what is coming next with this character.

In regards to Daisy and training. I don't think it's too unbelievable with one exception. Especially if you think of her as someone like Luke Skywalker in ability, related or not. Luke augmented his pilot skills with the Force, as did his father. The exception was the mind trick on the storm trooper. I think this was a huge error, if she is completely untrained. However, the mind wipe and previous training theory easily solves that. Without an explanation forthcoming, it does seem a step too far. How did she even know to start commanding this stormtrooper around in the first place? Much less try again when it fails the first time?

Also, irritated. I kind of hope Daisy isn't Luke's daughter, although all signs point that way. They should have just told us if that's the case, rather than strongly hinting. I wouldn't be as annoyed about it otherwise. It'd be nice to have a powerful force user who isn't a Skywalker for once.

I hadn't thought about the Force Awakening much beyond it being a catchy title. But it is exciting to think this means the Force and Force users may do some interesting new things in coming movies.

Liked all the aliens and cantina scene. Would have liked to see a bit more of that stuff.

I agree that the handling of the Republic Senate's destruction was an enormous mistake, probably the biggest in the movie. It wasn't Coruscant!?!! I thought it was! All part of it being so jumbled. It was the one thing I could really have used a tiny more explanation on. Also, the way the destruction of the planets was handled  I know they were making pains to keep the movie concise, and that's much of the movie's strength as well, but this is one time they should have added more, or found somewhere else to cut. Even though fictional, those billions of sentients deserved more respect. Hopefully the next movie addresses the aftermath. It should be truly horrific. It's much like if Washington DC were nuked tomorrow, but a million times more.

Anyway, it did serve one major purpose. It was an enormous weight lifted for the makers of upcoming films. The Republic and Senate is fully gone. Although it appeared the bad guys lost, actually they had a huge win, as they lost those other battles. The Resistance and the First Order are likely on an even basis sort of. There was a line in the movie about the Republic supporting the Resistance. I assume they lost monetary and other support, and also this will lead to all sorts of planets going independent or tyrants springing up. I don't know much about the First Order, but that was fine. I've read the Thrawn books, so I just assumed it was something like that without Thrawn. I didn't really need to know more. Much of the movie not knowing more made it better.

Briefly, the dog fights were a let down for me. I hope they're better in the coming films. It came off mostly as background. Perhaps due to not knowing any of the pilots except 1, and no focused goals in the fights. The Daisy and Fin fights were quite well done in contrast, because it was so well focused.

 

[alguien]

Anyway, it did serve one major purpose. It was an enormous weight lifted for the makers of upcoming films. The Republic and Senate is fully gone.

I don't think that's correct. The First Order blew up some planets, but the New Republic and the Senate are still around, as evidence by the fact that the Resistance claimed that there wasn't enough time to bring in the Republic's fleet--and this was after the first attack. 

Basically, the First Order did a terrorist attack, but didn't do away with the giant (and wide-spread) New Republic. 

[Corvinus85]

I don't think that's correct. The First Order blew up some planets, but the New Republic and the Senate are still around, as evidence by the fact that the Resistance claimed that there wasn't enough time to bring in the Republic's fleet--and this was after the first attack. 

Basically, the First Order did a terrorist attack, but didn't do away with the giant (and wide-spread) New Republic. 

No, I think the government did get wiped out. Hux in his speech said that they were going after the Senate. But veterans like Leia should be capable of picking up the pieces, provided that the First Order doesn't launch other military strikes.

[ab aeterno]

I don't think that's correct. The First Order blew up some planets, but the New Republic and the Senate are still around, as evidence by the fact that the Resistance claimed that there wasn't enough time to bring in the Republic's fleet--and this was after the first attack. 

Basically, the First Order did a terrorist attack, but didn't do away with the giant (and wide-spread) New Republic. 

No, I think the government did get wiped out. Hux in his speech said that they were going after the Senate. But veterans like Leia should be capable of picking up the pieces, provided that the First Order doesn't launch other military strikes.

I'd also add that I think the implication is that the Republic was covertly funding the Resistance to fight against the First Order, so (ignoring the proportionality of the response) the First Order were probably somewhat justified in attacking. It's not a terrorist attack (aside from the fact their targets were largely civilian,) but a first strike.

More generally though, I think the implication for Episode VIII is that either the Republic has to entirely capitulate or there's going to be open warfare.

[DaveSumm]

Really, really enjoyed it. I think objectively, if you took nostalgia completely out of the picture, it's the best Star Wars movie. Or at least on par with Empire. I sort of agree with some points here: I didn't think the planets being destroyed were very clear, I didn't know who they were, or where they were in relation to the Starkiller or the planet our protagonists were on. 

 

I can see why people might think it leans too heavily on the OT, although I don't think calling it a rip off is fair; it was very clearly an intentional decision to hark back to those films. The scene with the rebellion gathered round discussing the old 'get shields down, hit weak spot' plan particularly, there was a very easy option to not reference the earlier films. They needed to rescue Rey anyway so there was no plot need to lower the shields, and Poe Dameron seemed to be flying around quite happily inside Death Star 3 blowing up a variety of targets, so there was no plot need for a weak spot either. 

 

With regard to the relationship between First Order, Republic and Rebellion: I agree it wasn't clear, but I would lay that more at the feet of Return of the Jedi; the ending is pretty ridiculous to suggest that an entire galactic republic would topple instantaneously just because the Emperor died. This film needed to have a serious, threatening and organised Dark Side but it also couldn't imply that the ending of RotJ was for nothing, so I don't see it had much choice but to split the difference and leave things hazy.

 

I'm a bit troubled by how sure everyone here is that Rey is someone's daughter ...... I'm personally praying that she's simply a gifted girl. Seems lazy to have everything trace back to Anakin, and repeat the 'surprise family relation' twist for the third time. Although I confess, her vague abandonment on Jakku and her rather immediate grasp of Jedi stuff (I can handle her naturally defending against Kylo Ren's attempt to get information, and I can handle her wielding a lightsabre, but Jedi mind tricks? Surely there's more to those than simply saying the words?) would seem to point to something fishy.

 

I also can't believe we waited 32 years for a good Star Wars film, only to have me think 'ah, but Episode VIII! That's gonna be the one!', much as I loved this film I can't wait to be dropped back onto Rey's training .....would it be too much to travel to Dagobah for said training? Yes, probably. But part of me would love to see it.

[Martell Spy]

No, I think the government did get wiped out. Hux in his speech said that they were going after the Senate. But veterans like Leia should be capable of picking up the pieces, provided that the First Order doesn't launch other military strikes.

 

Yeah looks that way. I looked the Hosnian star system up on Wookipedia. One thing though is it seems there are now rotating host planets for the Senate, decided by elections. So this isn't quite as severe a destruction it would be if the Senate was in one city for ages like it used to be. It's still pretty damn serious though. It likely means all the main politicians and bureaucrats of the Republic were wiped out.

 

http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Hosnian_Prime

[felice]

I think objectively, if you took nostalgia completely out of the picture, it's the best Star Wars movie. Or at least on par with Empire.

Really, really not. To be objective, you need to take "new Star Wars movie!" hype out of the picture as well. It has a lot of great elements, but they're strung together pretty badly, and very little of what's good is particularly original. It's better than the prequels in some respects.

Poe Dameron seemed to be flying around quite happily inside Death Star 3 blowing up a variety of targets, so there was no plot need for a weak spot either. 

The weak spot was pretty essential, since a few X-wings hardly had the firepower to destroy an entire planet in the absence of such a weak spot.

Although I confess, her vague abandonment on Jakku and her rather immediate grasp of Jedi stuff (I can handle her naturally defending against Kylo Ren's attempt to get information, and I can handle her wielding a lightsabre, but Jedi mind tricks? Surely there's more to those than simply saying the words?) would seem to point to something fishy.

Also the mind trick being outright mind control didn't feel right at all. In A New Hope, it's just a gentle nudge in a direction that comes naturally to the victim; the stormtroopers would have spent all day telling people to move along after concluding they're not the ones they're looking for. Whereas releasing prisoners, dropping their guns, and leaving their posts is highly out of character.

[TheRevanchist]

No, I think the government did get wiped out. Hux in his speech said that they were going after the Senate. But veterans like Leia should be capable of picking up the pieces, provided that the First Order doesn't launch other military strikes.

The Republic's current capital got wiped out. But unlike before when Corruscant was the center of Republic, now they were rotating the capital, which means that the damage wouldn't be near as big as it would have been before.

So, I guess that the Republic is still alive but weakened.

My impression - and really everything was left ambiguous - is that the Galaxy is divided in a type of cold war between The New Republic and the First Order. The Resistance are pretty much guerrila fighters in New Order's territory who are supported by the Republic.

Of course, I might be wrong.

[ab aeterno]

Also the mind trick being outright mind control didn't feel right at all. In A New Hope, it's just a gentle nudge in a direction that comes naturally to the victim; the stormtroopers would have spent all day telling people to move along after concluding they're not the ones they're looking for. Whereas releasing prisoners, dropping their guns, and leaving their posts is highly out of character.

I thought it was pretty much in-line with what we've seen in the rest of the movies and in the series, to be honest.

In RotJ Luke orders Bib Fortuna to take him directly to Jabba, despite Jabba explicitly telling him not to, ("I told you not to admit him,") for example; in AotC, Obi-Wan orders a random guy to go home and completely change his life; Obi-Wan essentially tricks the Stormtroopers into ignoring their orders and moving on from their patrol.

All she does is trick him into releasing her, walking away and dropping his gun. I don't see why that is more out of character than ordering Stormtroopers to ignore their duties in ANH, ordering Boss Nass to give them a submarine, ordering Fortuna to ignore a direct order from his master, or any of the examples from Rebels or The Clone Wars.

 

ETA: It's definitely not as controlling as many of the examples from the EU material and things like KotoR.

[Ser Creighton]

Really, really enjoyed it. I think objectively, if you took nostalgia completely out of the picture, it's the best Star Wars movie. Or at least on par with Empire. I sort of agree with some points here: I didn't think the planets being destroyed were very clear, I didn't know who they were, or where they were in relation to the Starkiller or the planet our protagonists were on. 

 

I can see why people might think it leans too heavily on the OT, although I don't think calling it a rip off is fair; it was very clearly an intentional decision to hark back to those films. The scene with the rebellion gathered round discussing the old 'get shields down, hit weak spot' plan particularly, there was a very easy option to not reference the earlier films. They needed to rescue Rey anyway so there was no plot need to lower the shields, and Poe Dameron seemed to be flying around quite happily inside Death Star 3 blowing up a variety of targets, so there was no plot need for a weak spot either. 

 

With regard to the relationship between First Order, Republic and Rebellion: I agree it wasn't clear, but I would lay that more at the feet of Return of the Jedi; the ending is pretty ridiculous to suggest that an entire galactic republic would topple instantaneously just because the Emperor died. This film needed to have a serious, threatening and organised Dark Side but it also couldn't imply that the ending of RotJ was for nothing, so I don't see it had much choice but to split the difference and leave things hazy.

 

I'm a bit troubled by how sure everyone here is that Rey is someone's daughter ...... I'm personally praying that she's simply a gifted girl. Seems lazy to have everything trace back to Anakin, and repeat the 'surprise family relation' twist for the third time. Although I confess, her vague abandonment on Jakku and her rather immediate grasp of Jedi stuff (I can handle her naturally defending against Kylo Ren's attempt to get information, and I can handle her wielding a lightsabre, but Jedi mind tricks? Surely there's more to those than simply saying the words?) would seem to point to something fishy.

 

I also can't believe we waited 32 years for a good Star Wars film, only to have me think 'ah, but Episode VIII! That's gonna be the one!', much as I loved this film I can't wait to be dropped back onto Rey's training .....would it be too much to travel to Dagobah for said training? Yes, probably. But part of me would love to see it.

 

Well  Rey has to be someones daughter she was born after all, and the whole random gifted person thing has been done, in fact you seem to want to replace one trope with an even bigger trope. I'm the mocking Jay, I am Divergent, I am Bella from Twilight welcome to the scorch trials Harry Potter because this is the Enders Game. Yeah can't get enough of that none lazy totally original formula. I would take Rey as the legacy of Solo and Skywalker any day how does it even matter if she is this Hollywood formula or that. Neither are original, At least Rey can continue on the name of the greatest Scruffy Scoundrel that ever lived which actually adds depth rather than Hi I am Bella Potter and I am the special, again. I have no problem with her continuing the legacy of those characters and continuing their names. How exactly does the totally random hero really change or make anything better? It's Original how exactly? Instead of Star Wars we can call it the Hunger Wars trials The Emo Awakens, because it is just so horrible having to be the child of Princess Leia and Han Solo? The Star Wars family legacy thing goes all the way back to the beginning, that is pretty much the main theme of the story. But the random special done in every other Hollywood teen movie is not lazy at all somehow to you? I got it how about we name Rey, Bella and we can call Kylo, Edward, he has Emo covered and she can be the oh so original random special. Then she can spend the next three movies being a mope while all the other characters talk about how great she is for basically being a selfish emo brat who thinks the universe revolves around her but she is also the key because of the random special which has not been beaten to death and is totally not lazy writing.

Rey is special, it's okay if it happens to run in her family. At least she is fun with a good personality, unlike some of the random heroes I know and you can see what she got from mom and dad and what she is doing that is all her. Yeah I have no problem with it, the fact you want to replace one trope with a far more common and over used trope and somehow think that it would be not lazy seems a bit strange to me. But hey don't worry you will probably get a random hero movie soon enough. Kung Fu Panda three is out in like a month. Fifty shades of Black, oh boy random S&M hero, and probably any teen emo action drama that is in the works.

Plus you got Finn who is a random hero and special in his own way. Han was not gifted but no less special to the series than Luke and far more loved.

[Stannis Eats No Peaches]

Finally seen it. It was good, very good. Simple plot, yes, but not blindingly stupid. John Boyega was great, and Daisy Ridley grew on me despite my initial misgivings.

Phew!  I am pleased.

ETA: I think I've seen a couple of people in this thread say the prequels are better in some respects.  No.

Gorgeous movie to look at, it must be said.

[HexMachina]

The more I think about the lightsaber fight in the snowstorm the more I realise how much I loved that scene. Lots of emotional impact, not overly choreographed like the prequels...just so much more meaningful and exciting in everyway. Plus, it was an absolutely gorgeous setting for it, and was beautifully shot.

 

eta: meant to ask if anyone here has read the canon novelisation. I am curious as to whether it fleshes out some of the plot points that the film skims over

[alguien]

No, I think the government did get wiped out. Hux in his speech said that they were going after the Senate. But veterans like Leia should be capable of picking up the pieces, provided that the First Order doesn't launch other military strikes.

I don't think so. Just because he said they were going after the Senate didn't mean they completely destroyed the New Republic. This was a first strike for them, not a game-changer. Certainly, the Resistance seemed to act like the Republic was still around. From what I've read in Chuck Wendig's books and other online materials, it was too widespread to be insta-killed in such a fashion. Certainly, the Resistance seemed to believe that if they had more time, the Republic could send in their fleet--and this was after the first strike and they already knew about it.