STAR WARS Episode 7 *Spoiler alert*

Arts & Sciences Arts & Entertainment
141

I saw it twice on opening day. Once with a friend around noon and once with my son after he got out of school. Was just as excited to see it the second time as I was the first. Very, very entertaining film and absolutely satisfying. Not perfect, by any means, but not at all disappointing.

[spoiler]Things I didn’t like:

  • Didn’t really feel anything about the Death Star (oh, I mean Starkiller…) plot. I wasn’t feeling any tension on that point.
  • Didn’t like R2-D2 supposedly being “depressed” about Luke not being there…and then suddenly having the resolution of the plot of the movie on him when he woke up out of nowhere. I’m hoping that this is maybe explained in Episode VIII as perhaps Luke gave him the map and then asked him to power down until he was given some signal.
  • Did not like the stupid squiddy alien chase in the freighter after Han and Chewbacca meet up with Finn and Rey. I thought the animation felt out of place (a bit prequel-ish) and the entire sequence had nothing at all to do with the rest of the movie.
  • I thought Snoke also looked a bit too CGI-ish. I hope that is due to being a hologram.

Things I did like:
Practically everything else

  • Although I wasn’t feeling anything with the Starkiller Base, I absolutely was feeling the tension with Han’s death scene and the completely amazing light saber duel after it. That light saber battle was so much better than the highly choreographed bullcrap of the prequels. It was raw and powerful.
  • The dialogue was superb. The jokes were funny and felt consistent with the way people talk in the Star Wars universe.
  • The new cast was perfect. The chemistry worked. They melded well with the old cast as well.
  • Kylo Ren was a great villain. He was developed way better than Darth Vader was in Episode IV. He came off as somewhat of an impostor. He stomped around intimidating everyone with his big scary mask and deep robotic voice, but inside he was just a novice prone to baby-ish temper tantrums. When he takes off his mask, his intimidation factor drops significantly. Though powerful, he seems like somewhat of a poser.

Theories:

  • I see people above talking about how an untrained Rey could have beaten a villain trained in the Dark Side. I think that 1- Ren isn’t quite as trained as he tries to make people think and 2- I believe that Rey has been trained. There’s still a possibility that she ends up being Luke’s daughter (though I kind of think they wont go that route…AGAIN), but I think it is pretty clear that she is a force sensitive person who has trained with Luke in the past, probably before Ren’s betrayal and turn to the Dark Side.[/spoiler]
142

[quote=“lostinasia”]Isn’t it nice how this film has opened fun doors for speculation? None of this “Mitichlorians? You’ve got to be f’n kidding me!”, or “Only two Sith, never more, never less”, and how the f*** does that even make sense?! Who instantly became a Sith as soon as Darth Maul got cut in two?!

On Rey:

[spoiler]I hope she’s nobody. It’s a giant galaxy and the fact that the force seems stuck with this one family is rather annoying. But yes, there’s definitely more to be revealed about her story. In the film, both Han and Leia were giving looks that made me think “Oh, now’s when they reveal that she’s their daughter, put on that planet to protect her from Ben’s fate”, but that never happened - and if that’s what’s eventually revealed, I’ll be annoyed. That’d be too much of a retread.

I’m having trouble figuring out where the line is between clever recurring patterns and annoying recycling: I didn’t mind the echoes of past films in The Force Awakens, whereas they ruined Star Trek II Into Darkness for me.[/spoiler][/quote]

That would be awesome if…

…she was nobody. This would give us a fresh story line. I mean, re-occuring themes have to occur in such a story like Star Wars, but I think if she were Kylo Ren’s twin sister or Luke’s daughter, I’m pretty sure it’s just recycling and geeks all around the world will revolt.

Whether you hate recycling themes or not,

someone is going to get a limb chopped off via lightsaber and given a mechanical one in this trilogy.

This is also the most times I’ve ever used the “preview” button to make sure spoilers are not posted.

143

[quote=“Taiwanguy”][spoiler]Theories:

  • I see people above talking about how an untrained Rey could have beaten a villain trained in the Dark Side. I think that 1- Ren isn’t quite as trained as he tries to make people think and 2- I believe that Rey has been trained. There’s still a possibility that she ends up being Luke’s daughter (though I kind of think they wont go that route…AGAIN), but I think it is pretty clear that she is a force sensitive person who has trained with Luke in the past, probably before Ren’s betrayal and turn to the Dark Side.[/spoiler][/quote]

[spoiler]I think the whole Ren isn’t trained thing also wouldn’t fly. Yes, Ren is not “fully trained”, but the only way for him to be a threat and the First Order to become as powerful as they are in Episode VII, Ren’s betrayal should have been a turning point.

I think Ren should be as powerful as Luke, or at least powerful enough that Luke couldn’t apprehend him without killing him (like the end of Episode III). That’s the only explanation for Luke going away with guilt. He feels like he has failed his friend and his sister, and doesn’t have the heart to kill his nephew.

So if we are just going to say Ren isn’t as powerful as he’s made out to be, then it’s going to be a stretch to explain him driving out Luke, and potentially taking down other trainees under Luke, and for Luke to have done nothing about it. I mean Luke could have chopped off both of Ben’s hands then put him somewhere safe until Ben comes to his senses if Ben is so untrained. Remember how Vader was toying with Luke in Empire Strikes Back? That’s what Luke could have done to an untrained Kylo Ren.

If there’s any part of Kylo Ren’s training that’s incomplete, it would be his commitment to the dark side, instead of his skills with the force.

That leaves why Rey is so strong with the force and her familiarity with the Jedi ways. Maybe she is the child of Luke’s other former trainees, who are killed by Kylo Ren?[/spoiler]

144

[quote=“hansioux”][quote=“Taiwanguy”][spoiler]Theories:

  • I see people above talking about how an untrained Rey could have beaten a villain trained in the Dark Side. I think that 1- Ren isn’t quite as trained as he tries to make people think and 2- I believe that Rey has been trained. There’s still a possibility that she ends up being Luke’s daughter (though I kind of think they wont go that route…AGAIN), but I think it is pretty clear that she is a force sensitive person who has trained with Luke in the past, probably before Ren’s betrayal and turn to the Dark Side.[/spoiler][/quote]

[spoiler]I think the whole Ren isn’t trained thing also wouldn’t fly. Yes, Ren is not “fully trained”, but the only way for him to be a threat and the First Order to become as powerful as they are in Episode VII, Ren’s betrayal should have been a turning point.

I think Ren should be as powerful as Luke, or at least powerful enough that Luke couldn’t apprehend him without killing him (like the end of Episode III). That’s the only explanation for Luke going away with guilt. He feels like he has failed his friend and his sister, and doesn’t have the heart to kill his nephew.

So if we are just going to say Ren isn’t as powerful as he’s made out to be, then it’s going to be a stretch to explain him driving out Luke, and potentially taking down other trainees under Luke, and for Luke to have done nothing about it. I mean Luke could have chopped off both of Ben’s hands then put him somewhere safe until Ben comes to his senses if Ben is so untrained. Remember how Vader was toying with Luke in Empire Strikes Back? That’s what Luke could have done to an untrained Kylo Ren.

If there’s any part of Kylo Ren’s training that’s incomplete, it would be his commitment to the dark side, instead of his skills with the force.

That leaves why Rey is so strong with the force and her familiarity with the Jedi ways. Maybe she is the child of Luke’s other former trainees, who are killed by Kylo Ren?[/spoiler][/quote]

[spoiler]If you go with the theory that Rey has already been trained in the Jedi arts, you have to play in that she’s lost her memory or part of her memory has been wiped by a Jedi (Luke?). It’s so clear that she and Finn have no clue wtf the force is at the beginning of the movie. Otherwise, why would Han say, “the Jedi, stories, the force, they’re all true”?

Han Solo is clever, but I’m sure he would not play mind games with Rey and make her blind to the fact that she’s possibly some kind of bad ass Jedi. For example, I don’t think Han would deliberately tell a true lie to Rey like Obi Wan did with Luke when saying that, “your father was seduced and destroyed by a Sith Lord named Darth Vadar”, when Darth Vadar is Luke’s father.

As for Kylo Ren being untrained and losing to Rey, I don’t think there’s enough information to theorize something. Aside from the fact that good vs evil and good always wins? My thoughts are along the lines of what Rey said as a prisoner, “You’re afraid of not being stronger than Darth Vadar”. However, fear is a one of the credentials of turning to the dark side, can dark Jedi still feel fear after they have turned or do they hone their power from what they fear? :ponder: :ponder:[/spoiler]

145

On … well, on a bunch of stuff:

[spoiler]I don’t think Kylo Ren needs to be stronger than Luke. It’s plausible to me that Ren’s betrayal was enough to make Luke depart - if he killed his student/nephew, that could be seen as another way to let the Dark Side triumph, and just would have made a bad situation worse. Inaction, abandoning the situation out of fear that anything he does will make things worse, is understandable.

I really liked Kylo Ren’s temper. It showed the weakness of the dark side in a way that the other films never have: although Yoda et al. have always said the light side is stronger, the films themselves have always presented the light/dark sides as more equal/Manichean.

Plus Ren’s temper led to the the moment those two storm troopers looked at each other and turned around, which was brilliant. More characterization for storm troopers in that moment than in all previous movies!

I didn’t realize I disliked the prequel lightsaber fights until I saw this film. I guess those duels looked cool (unless it involved Yoda … OK, maybe now that I think about it, I only liked the Darth Maul one), but man, the fights in this film were so much more visceral.

Getting [strike]Brienne of Tarth[/strike] Captain Phasma to lower the shields was way too easy. Didn’t make sense to me. But the trash compactor line that wrapped up the scene was fun, as was Han telling Finn to turn it down.

I assumed that something with Rey was what woke R2D2 up. Luke set it up so he couldn’t be found until/unless the time was right - and something triggered that time. (Never mind that the map + insert made no sense at all! “Oh, this map of the roads doesn’t match any roads in our giant database - but wait, now that we know it’s in Taiwan, we’ve got it!”).

I’m amazed that the pandering cuteness of BB-8 didn’t annoy me. But I liked it.

It also amuses me that I had no idea the pilot guy (Po?) was one of the main stars! I totally assumed he was dead, because I’d figured him as a red shirt to get the story going. I guess that’s because the only new faces I’d registered from the trailers were Rey and Finn.

As someone said above (I’m not going to go through and figure out the spoiler tags), the destruction of Death Star Mark III was underplayed and didn’t register as much as it should have - I cared so little about that compared to the other stories. And I sure wish I understood which planets were destroyed, and why. They didn’t blow up Coruscant, did they?[/spoiler]

146

[quote=“hansioux”][quote=“lostinasia”]
I don’t think using a lightsaber requires the force - doesn’t
General Grievous from the movies that shall not be named
wield a bunch of lightsabers? I head-canoned Finn’s use of a lightsaber by assuming he’d had earlier general weapons training - not necessarily in lightsabers, but, well, sticks/staffs.[/quote]

Grievous has mechanical arms which he doesn’t particularly mind getting cut off. You don’t need the force to turn a lightsaber on, but I thought the point is it is really difficult to even swing it around without the force.

I remember building mine in KoTR I and II. Fun times. I had a black saber.

[quote=“lostinasia”]

On Finn and the force: he was awfully good with the guns too. I think we’re supposed to be wondering if he’s force-sensitive - perhaps that’s one of the reasons Kylo Ren (sp?) noticed him on the planet surface. I’m also guessing that, as per the title, the force is more powerful than we’ve ever seen it before - remember back in the prequels the Jedi talked about how they weren’t able to use the force as well as they had previously. And again, I’m using that as head canon to justify Kylo Ren’s blaster-freeze (boy THAT would have been useful when the Jedi were wiped out!), and especially the way Rey progresses, with no training, from not particularly believing in the force to proving about as adept as Luke was at the end of Jedi. And that’s in 30 minutes or so.

Maybe the force is like cable internet. The more users means worse performance.

[quote=“ranlee”]And so the discussion begins. I love it!

Ah, this is something that I also questioned, however if you think back

Poe took off his jacket when he entered the TIE fighter and BEFORE the TIE fighter lifted off. I think he sat down in the pilot seat and immediately took it off. I think the real question/plot hole is, how did the jacket not burn when much of the parts of the TIE were on fire. Another question worth asking is how the f did Poe get off the planet and not go looking for BB8 or Finn?!

Didn’t notice that. It would make sense if that’s the case.

Then again, didn’t know he had that much time during all that ruckus. Isn’t a flight jacket meant to be worn during flying anyway? Why take it off when you are about to fly? I think by the time Poe didn’t return with the map, the rebels came to search for him. By that time the First Order has been tracking the millennium falcon else where, leaving Poe’s rescue less dangerous.

[quote=“ranlee”]
I think one of the biggest questions (imo) everyone should be asking is who is Rey and

[spoiler]how did a trained jedi of Kylo Ren get defeated by someone that supposedly has never touched a light saber in her life. You can say that she’s pretty handy with a staff, but last time I checked, staff and a sword/lightsaber are pretty different. How did she block out Kylo Ren trying to read her mind? How did she use jedi mind tricks with zero training?

Is she that much of a bad ass? Even Luke needed 2-3 years of training with the most bad-ass of Jedi’s, Yoda, to hone his Jedi skills.

My theory is she’s Luke’s daughter and does not remember her past because Luke erased her memories when being dropped off on Jakku.[/spoiler][/quote]

Or it could be the force is cable internet theory… Although Luke should have enjoyed about the same force bandwidth, given that most force users were gone by a New Hope.

[spoiler]Rey definitely is hiding something. She knows about the force and what it can do. She just never knew she could use it as well. There is no way she just suddenly goes for the mind trick if she never knew about it. Otherwise it should have just happened, and Rey realizing that it’s a power, instead of Rey going for it directly and failing two times. I think her past experience with the force is also why she refused to take Anakin and Luke’s saber.

If Rey is Luke’s child, that would make Rey and Ren cousins. I’ve heard of even more twisted theories, that Rey is the daughter of Luke and Leia, but that’s not gonna happen in a Disney property. As of Finn, twisted theories has it he is the daughter of Lando and Leia. If that’s the case, Finn would be Rey and Ren’s cousin. Again, highly unlikely.[/spoiler]

[quote=“ranlee”]

You make a good point. I think most of agree that it’s a very important step to becoming a Jedi, but how can it really be played into to the main plot? Unless the movie was kind of a Karate Kid like plot where it’s training, training, go to outer rim to find kyber crystal, build lightsaber, get arm/hand cut off by a brother from another mother/family member, training, wax on, wax off and then final battle(s).[/quote]

but that’s the basis of the original trilogy. Luke even practised deflecting blasters using that flying ball thing, before seeking more help. Since the new one is going to be another trilogy, there should be ample time to work that in.[/quote]

Sad news for us Kotor fans. Since Disney bought the rights to star wars, Kotor is no longer cannon.

147

I really want a movie about Qui gon to be honest. He was one of the most interesting characters that died to quickly. He has the most interesting back story of any star wars movie character. He was able to walk between the light and the dark side. But I guess luke is able to do this as well. since Theres no formal Jedi council now.

148

[quote=“lostinasia”]On … well, on a bunch of stuff:

[spoiler]I don’t think Kylo Ren needs to be stronger than Luke. It’s plausible to me that Ren’s betrayal was enough to make Luke depart - if he killed his student/nephew, that could be seen as another way to let the Dark Side triumph, and just would have made a bad situation worse. Inaction, abandoning the situation out of fear that anything he does will make things worse, is understandable.

I really liked Kylo Ren’s temper. It showed the weakness of the dark side in a way that the other films never have: although Yoda et al. have always said the light side is stronger, the films themselves have always presented the light/dark sides as more equal/Manichean.

Plus Ren’s temper led to the the moment those two storm troopers looked at each other and turned around, which was brilliant. More characterization for storm troopers in that moment than in all previous movies!

I didn’t realize I disliked the prequel lightsaber fights until I saw this film. I guess those duels looked cool (unless it involved Yoda … OK, maybe now that I think about it, I only liked the Darth Maul one), but man, the fights in this film were so much more visceral.

Getting [strike]Brienne of Tarth[/strike] Captain Phasma to lower the shields was way too easy. Didn’t make sense to me. But the trash compactor line that wrapped up the scene was fun, as was Han telling Finn to turn it down.

I assumed that something with Rey was what woke R2D2 up. Luke set it up so he couldn’t be found until/unless the time was right - and something triggered that time. (Never mind that the map + insert made no sense at all! “Oh, this map of the roads doesn’t match any roads in our giant database - but wait, now that we know it’s in Taiwan, we’ve got it!”).

I’m amazed that the pandering cuteness of BB-8 didn’t annoy me. But I liked it.

It also amuses me that I had no idea the pilot guy (Po?) was one of the main stars! I totally assumed he was dead, because I’d figured him as a red shirt to get the story going. I guess that’s because the only new faces I’d registered from the trailers were Rey and Finn.

As someone said above (I’m not going to go through and figure out the spoiler tags), the destruction of Death Star Mark III was underplayed and didn’t register as much as it should have - I cared so little about that compared to the other stories. And I sure wish I understood which planets were destroyed, and why. They didn’t blow up Coruscant, did they?[/spoiler][/quote]

Responding with spoilers is getting quite annoying, but we must continue to respond in secrecy!

Kylo Ren’s temper

and how it shows the differences between light and dark side was portrayed in episode III by Anakin/Darth Vadar, but it was overclouded by bad acting :aiyo:

In response to lightsaber duels:

I definitely agree that they are much less flashy than the prequel trilogy’s duels. However, as an action flick junky, I still have to say I enjoyed the lightsaber duels in the prequels. However, I do agree that if the duel were anything like they were in the prequels (among Jedi knights/masters and Sith Lords) it would not make sense because neither duelist had those credentials in Force Awakens.

Getting Brienne of Tarth to:

lower the shields was definitely all too easy. However, I think many people can overlook it by the line Han gives. It was by far (IMO) the best line in the whole movie. No one in the theater laughed except me. It was a tough crowd.

In response to R2:

We can theorize all we want about R2 suddenly waking up, many will think it’s a huge plot hole. I agree with it has something to do with the “awakening” of the force in Rey. I mean, we all know Luke is bad ass and one with the force. So if there’s a disturbance or an awakening, he would know! Being the all powerful Jedi that he is, there’s no doubt in my mind that Luke can trigger R2 and wake him from low power mode. So, what we can take from this is, Luke wanted to be found.

149

[quote=“hansioux”][quote=“Taiwanguy”][spoiler]Theories:

  • I see people above talking about how an untrained Rey could have beaten a villain trained in the Dark Side. I think that 1- Ren isn’t quite as trained as he tries to make people think and 2- I believe that Rey has been trained. There’s still a possibility that she ends up being Luke’s daughter (though I kind of think they wont go that route…AGAIN), but I think it is pretty clear that she is a force sensitive person who has trained with Luke in the past, probably before Ren’s betrayal and turn to the Dark Side.[/spoiler][/quote]

[spoiler]I think the whole Ren isn’t trained thing also wouldn’t fly. Yes, Ren is not “fully trained”, but the only way for him to be a threat and the First Order to become as powerful as they are in Episode VII, Ren’s betrayal should have been a turning point.

I think Ren should be as powerful as Luke, or at least powerful enough that Luke couldn’t apprehend him without killing him (like the end of Episode III). That’s the only explanation for Luke going away with guilt. He feels like he has failed his friend and his sister, and doesn’t have the heart to kill his nephew.

So if we are just going to say Ren isn’t as powerful as he’s made out to be, then it’s going to be a stretch to explain him driving out Luke, and potentially taking down other trainees under Luke, and for Luke to have done nothing about it. I mean Luke could have chopped off both of Ben’s hands then put him somewhere safe until Ben comes to his senses if Ben is so untrained. Remember how Vader was toying with Luke in Empire Strikes Back? That’s what Luke could have done to an untrained Kylo Ren.

If there’s any part of Kylo Ren’s training that’s incomplete, it would be his commitment to the dark side, instead of his skills with the force.

That leaves why Rey is so strong with the force and her familiarity with the Jedi ways. Maybe she is the child of Luke’s other former trainees, who are killed by Kylo Ren?[/spoiler][/quote]

[spoiler]I don’t think that Ren being as powerful as Luke or fully trained in the Force is the only explanation as to why Luke didn’t defeat him or contain him. Maybe Han/Leia made Luke promise not to hurt their son. Maybe, although his powers are superior, Luke could not bring himself to fight against his nephew. Maybe Luke tried to stop Ren, but Snoke or some other powerful force user stood in Luke’s way prompting Luke to go into hiding much as Yoda did in ROTS.

Kylo Ren, although obviously pretty powerful, seems to me to be somewhat of a novice hotshot. He’s clearly gifted with amazing force powers (must have a high midichlorian count! lol…I’m so thankful they are completely ignoring that garbage), but doesn’t seem to have learned how to focus them. His anger manifests itself as temper tantrums rather than focused rage.[/spoiler]

150

[quote=“lostinasia”]On … well, on a bunch of stuff:

[spoiler]I don’t think Kylo Ren needs to be stronger than Luke. It’s plausible to me that Ren’s betrayal was enough to make Luke depart - if he killed his student/nephew, that could be seen as another way to let the Dark Side triumph, and just would have made a bad situation worse. Inaction, abandoning the situation out of fear that anything he does will make things worse, is understandable.

I really liked Kylo Ren’s temper. It showed the weakness of the dark side in a way that the other films never have: although Yoda et al. have always said the light side is stronger, the films themselves have always presented the light/dark sides as more equal/Manichean.

Plus Ren’s temper led to the the moment those two storm troopers looked at each other and turned around, which was brilliant. More characterization for storm troopers in that moment than in all previous movies!

I didn’t realize I disliked the prequel lightsaber fights until I saw this film. I guess those duels looked cool (unless it involved Yoda … OK, maybe now that I think about it, I only liked the Darth Maul one), but man, the fights in this film were so much more visceral.

Getting [strike]Brienne of Tarth[/strike] Captain Phasma to lower the shields was way too easy. Didn’t make sense to me. But the trash compactor line that wrapped up the scene was fun, as was Han telling Finn to turn it down.

I assumed that something with Rey was what woke R2D2 up. Luke set it up so he couldn’t be found until/unless the time was right - and something triggered that time. (Never mind that the map + insert made no sense at all! “Oh, this map of the roads doesn’t match any roads in our giant database - but wait, now that we know it’s in Taiwan, we’ve got it!”).

I’m amazed that the pandering cuteness of BB-8 didn’t annoy me. But I liked it.

It also amuses me that I had no idea the pilot guy (Po?) was one of the main stars! I totally assumed he was dead, because I’d figured him as a red shirt to get the story going. I guess that’s because the only new faces I’d registered from the trailers were Rey and Finn.

As someone said above (I’m not going to go through and figure out the spoiler tags), the destruction of Death Star Mark III was underplayed and didn’t register as much as it should have - I cared so little about that compared to the other stories. And I sure wish I understood which planets were destroyed, and why. They didn’t blow up Coruscant, did they?[/spoiler][/quote]

[spoiler]When I saw the Starkiller Base blow up the planets, I thought it was obvious that they blew up Coruscant…but oddly enough, I haven’t seen a lot of people comment on that. Hux talked about destroying the Republic once and for all that day. I think he even mentioned eliminating the Senate. The short shots from the point of view of one of the planets looked a heck of a lot like Coruscant to me. I thought it was hilarious that they blew it up without ever even mentioning its name (take that, prequels!). But who knows, maybe it was something else. I just initially thought it was obviously the capital of the Galactic Republic.

EDIT: I just looked at Wookieepedia. Evidently, it wasn’t Coruscant. The New Republic’s headquarters and the new Galactic Senate were not located on Coruscant. They’re on a planet called Hosnian Prime. The other planets destroyed were other planets in the Hosnian System. Too bad. lol…[/spoiler]
I also liked how they characterized Ren’s tantrums. Correct me if I’m wrong, but I don’t think Yoda ever actually implies that the Light Side is stronger than the Dark Side. He merely says that the Dark Side is not stronger. It’s quicker, easier, and more seductive. My take is that the Dark Side allows one to tap into their force powers easier, but the Light Side offers one more control and focus.

151

[quote=“Taiwanguy”]

[spoiler]I don’t think that Ren being as powerful as Luke or fully trained in the Force is the only explanation as to why Luke didn’t defeat him or contain him. Maybe Han/Leia made Luke promise not to hurt their son. Maybe, although his powers are superior, Luke could not bring himself to fight against his nephew. Maybe Luke tried to stop Ren, but Snoke or some other powerful force user stood in Luke’s way prompting Luke to go into hiding much as Yoda did in ROTS.

Kylo Ren, although obviously pretty powerful, seems to me to be somewhat of a novice hotshot. He’s clearly gifted with amazing force powers (must have a high midichlorian count! lol…I’m so thankful they are completely ignoring that garbage), but doesn’t seem to have learned how to focus them. His anger manifests itself as temper tantrums rather than focused rage.[/spoiler][/quote]

Just thought of another reason why Ren is left to do what he do without interference:

Maybe Snoke knew that the only way to get Luke to turn to the darkside is for him to kill his own nephew. So Luke avoids doing that to at least maintain a balance in the force. However, that would still mean Luke figures the only way to stop Ren would be killing him, making Ren’s combat skills at least at a similar level with Luke. Anger is a part of using the dark side of the force. Vader himself throws tantrums whenever someone fails him, or even give a report on something that dismays him. So Ren throwing tantrums is not a good indicator for his inexperience. The more they can channel their negative feelings, the more powerful they actually are.

On a separate note, I hope they never try to explain why Kylo Ren went to the dark side. Remember how terrible that was when they tried to explain Vader’s fall from grace in the prequels. How it made Vader look like a whiny whimp and a gullible brat, falling for empty promises to save his secret wife’s life? Well, it’s gonna be that much worse to try to explain Kylo Ren’s fall.

Especially when his whiny whimp and gullible brat meter is already pretty high as it is…

Finally, they can disregard the EU, but since the midichlorian crap is in the prequels, that shit is here to stay. I hope though, the new explanation would be that these microbes are attracted by the force, and not the carrier of the force.

152

[quote=“hansioux”][quote=“Taiwanguy”]

[spoiler]I don’t think that Ren being as powerful as Luke or fully trained in the Force is the only explanation as to why Luke didn’t defeat him or contain him. Maybe Han/Leia made Luke promise not to hurt their son. Maybe, although his powers are superior, Luke could not bring himself to fight against his nephew. Maybe Luke tried to stop Ren, but Snoke or some other powerful force user stood in Luke’s way prompting Luke to go into hiding much as Yoda did in ROTS.

Kylo Ren, although obviously pretty powerful, seems to me to be somewhat of a novice hotshot. He’s clearly gifted with amazing force powers (must have a high midichlorian count! lol…I’m so thankful they are completely ignoring that garbage), but doesn’t seem to have learned how to focus them. His anger manifests itself as temper tantrums rather than focused rage.[/spoiler][/quote]

Just thought of another reason why Ren is left to do what he do without interference:

Anger is a part of using the dark side of the force. Vader himself throws tantrums whenever someone fails him, or even give a report on something that dismays him. So Ren throwing tantrums is not a good indicator for his inexperience.

Going to disagree here. Yeah, they both demonstrate anger when things don’t go their way, but Vader force choked people to death when they disappointed him. Ren just beats his lightsaber against a wall. It’s nothing more than noise. Vader’s anger always seemed calm and focused.

[quote]On a separate note, I hope they never try to explain why Kylo Ren went to the dark side. Remember how terrible that was when they tried to explain Vader’s fall from grace in the prequels. How it made Vader look like a whiny wimp and a gullible brat, falling for empty promises to save his secret wife’s life? Well, it’s gonna be that much worse to try to explain Kylo Ren’s fall.

Especially when his whiny wimp and gullible brat meter is already pretty high as it is…

[/quote]

Explaining is fine with me as long as they don’t act it out. I don’t really want a flashback or something. I’d like some well-done exposition that leaves room for imagination.

Yeah, I know it’s here to stay as far as canon goes, but I doubt they will ever mention it in a Star Wars movie again. Heck, they barely mentioned it in the prequels after TPM. Maz Kanata’s description of the force to Rey was the way it should be…and I’m pretty sure that’s the kind of stuff we’ll get in the future.

153

On the humour: although I saw the film in a moderately full theater, I sometimes felt alone in that not many people seemed to be familiar with the original material. There were a bunch of times that I laughed at call-backs, and no one else was laughing, I suspect because they didn’t catch the reference.

On the politics: Vox has an article (spoilers, obviously!) explaining what’s going on, but I still don’t know why that wasn’t explained at least a little in the film. It wouldn’t have taken much.

On planet identity:

Apparently there’s a line later in the film that specifies the planets that got blown up (with JJ Abrams once again having people on one planet clearly see what’s happening to another planet!), but I missed it. And yes, I also thought that blowing up Coruscant would have been a giant FU to the prequels - almost as sweet as someone saying “Oh, those Jedi were so dumb they spent their time looking at that stupid midichlorian theory!”

154

All your guys’ nerd talk is making me proud. I don’t really have extensive knowledge of the universe outside of the original trilogy and have only seen the films from the second trilogy once(ish), but I thoroughly enjoyed TFA. So good. And don’t judge me (neither do I care if you do) - Super stoked that I’m going to see it again tomorrow at disney’s main theater in Burbank.

Some other thoughts:

  • How cool is Poe Dameron? He’s like, da man. I like Finn, but Poe rocked that leather jacket.
  • Exciting Finn fight with the lightning-energy-shock baton! Though I don’t recall ever seeing it before. Star wars experts/fans: What the hell is that thing?
  • Finn is hilarious. Pair him with Chewie, laughs. Pair him with Maz, laughs. Pair him with Han, laughs. I’d love to share beers with that guy.
  • Who else wants a phone app-controlled BB-8? I wanted one but (of course) they’re all sold out.
  • Daisy Ridley. The casting directors deserve a bonus.
  • That final lightsaber showdown, dude. Such an amazing duel. I could buy it because (and I’m going to be vague to avoid spoiling): On one hand it shows just how gifted the person really is, on the other we also knew the opponent was shot and had been slowly bleeding out, plus we are told that that person’s training is incomplete.

On the humour: although I saw the film in a moderately full theater, I sometimes felt alone in that not many people seemed to be familiar with the original material. There were a bunch of times that I laughed at call-backs, and no one else was laughing, I suspect because they didn’t catch the reference.
[/spoiler][/quote]
That’s odd. When I saw it (near full house), there were plenty laughs, applauses, loud cheers. It was like some awesome communion.

Finally, two questions:

Are we 100% sure that Han is dead? Like there’s zero chance he could have been secretly saved. I might be in denial because it was just too sad.

Is it simply pure coincidence that for Rey, the filmmakers hired Daisy Ridley, who apparently hasn’t been shy about her annoyance in being constantly mistaken for Keira Knightley (who played the Queen/Senator’s decoy) and for that matter, Natalie Portman (who played Luke’s mom)?

155

On the humour: although I saw the film in a moderately full theater, I sometimes felt alone in that not many people seemed to be familiar with the original material. There were a bunch of times that I laughed at call-backs, and no one else was laughing, I suspect because they didn’t catch the reference.[/quote]
That’s odd. When I saw it (near full house), there were plenty laughs, applauses, loud cheers. It was like some awesome communion.[/quote]
I don’t think it’s so much that it was a tough crowd - it’s just that the Taiwanese audience wasn’t as immersed in the first films as this middle-aged North American male was. They simply didn’t get the call-back jokes, although they found other things amusing, but I may have been the only person who snickered at the iterations on “Why are you taking my hand?!”. (I’ve asked my university students about their familiarity with Star Wars, and one out of around 150 students has declared himself a fan. The others, before last week anyway, were at best vaguely aware of the franchise.)

On casting: the casting director was Nina Gold, the same person who does that for Game of Thrones. I’m starting to think she’s pretty damn amazing at her job.

156


real father son conversation…

157

[quote=“Rockefeller”]
Finally, two questions:

Are we 100% sure that Han is dead? Like there’s zero chance he could have been secretly saved. I might be in denial because it was just too sad.

Is it simply pure coincidence that for Rey, the filmmakers hired Daisy Ridley, who apparently hasn’t been shy about her annoyance in being constantly mistaken for Keira Knightley (who played the Queen/Senator’s decoy) and for that matter, Natalie Portman (Luke’s mom)?

For Han to still be alive, someone has to pick him up before the Starkiller explodes. The only one that can have done that is probably the same person who killed him in the first place. The dude is able to get ahead of the two protagonists even though he is wounded.

158

I don’t have much knowledge outside the previous two trilogies. Never got into the extended universe and never watched Clone Wars. I’m still a Padawan learner

I think I may have been one of the few people that didn’t like it very much. I agree that it’s got great dynamics because it was trained Jedi vs a noob Jedi. So that gives a little more meaning to the fight other than two people doing spins and unnecessary 360s

[quote=“Rockefeller”]
That’s odd. When I saw it (near full house), there were plenty laughs, applauses, loud cheers. It was like some awesome communion.[/quote]

I assume this was not in Taiwan. When I went to the theater, it was near empty and a lot of young kids going to see the movie with their parents. Also a very confused girlfriend to my left. Her refusal to see the original trilogy left her completely clueless in this one. She didn’t know the relationship between Han, Chewie, Leia and Luke :unamused: Took me awhile to explain everything and give descriptive names of all the characters. Hit a road block when explaining Darth Vadar and Kylo Ren’s relationship because I had already named Kylo Ren “面具” (mask guy).

[quote=“Rockefeller”]Finally, two questions:

Are we 100% sure that Han is dead? Like there’s zero chance he could have been secretly saved. I might be in denial because it was just too sad.

This isn’t the last episode of Game of Thrones with Jon Snow, it is what it is.

What makes you think Han isn’t dead though? Because the scene was very similar to Empire Strikes Back? But Luke got his hand cut off and Han got a saber to the gut. Both fell into an abyss, but Luke was hundreds of meters in the clouds and Han fell into the center of the Starkiller, which suffered an ill fate.

My gf mentioned the same thing. I hope it isn’t what we think it is. The plot needs a different twist.

159

I thought it was really well made and yes superior to the earlier films. The last 30 mins in particular started to capture the emotional story more. I like the little touches such as the light Sabres not being perfect my symmetrical but oscillating. The actors were well cast. The grandness of the landscapes was captured well. The only thing that was obvious was many of the plot lines seem to have been recycled from the earlier trilogy.

160

[quote=“ranlee”]

I Hit a road block when explaining Darth Vadar and Kylo Ren’s relationship because I had already named Kylo Ren “面具” (mask guy).[/quote]

Vader can be the 頭盔 guy.