The Pitters' Place

Thought I'd post a new thread since we have a general Star Wars thread, and another about a specific question. Anyway, I just saw it. It was good. Basically what I was expecting; good but nothing to go crazy over.

I thought by far the worst part was what they did with Kylo Ren.

For the beginning, I thought he was amazing. A perfect Vader replacement. Intimidating, evil, uncaring. This is what made Darth Vader such a great villain. And his voice... perfect. At least as good as Vader's. Vader had good character development eventually, but not in Episode IV. In Episode IV he was simply an evil villain, and a great one. Ren started out the same. And then he took his helmet off and started whining about how being evil is hard and sometimes he wants to go back to being good. Man can you imagine if Vader had done that in Episode IV?

When Vader killed Obi Wan, he didn't hesitate. He didn't care that it was his former friend and mentor. He saw an opening and took it. Sure, father-son is a closer relationship, but even so I think it would have been much better if Ren had just killed Han without second thought. Not doing so while crying about it and second guessing himself. Basically, I felt like Ren suddenly went from being Vader from Episode IV to being Anakin from the prequels.

So as a whole I liked the movie a lot, but I thought Ren (after the beginning) was the worst part of it.

Agreed.

I also didn't like how Ren, who has supposedly been trained in the force by Luke/Snoke since childhood, had some trouble besting Finn in a lightsaber duel, and then got his ass handed to him by Rey.

I disagree some on Kylo. What you're arguing for is a carbon copy of Vader. Kylo is still just a conflicted kid. Sure he killed a bunch of padawans similar to Anakin slaughtering younglings, but at least Anakin had more comlete training from more complete Jedi. This villain on the other hand couldn't handle training from a guy who never completed his own.

The Skywalker men have a streak of impatience and/or a history of bad decisions. Kylo, who does have Skywalker blood, is clearly no exception. But they also needed differentiate him somehow, and a villain who is clearly powerful but cannot harness his emotions effectively because his training in the dark side is also incomplete I thought was a good way to show that. Now with him killing Han, he has done something not even Vader could do and that was kill family.

Boomer wrote:Agreed.

I also didn't like how Ren, who has supposedly been trained in the force by Luke/Snoke since childhood, had some trouble besting Finn in a lightsaber duel, and then got his ass handed to him by Rey.

At first I thought this, but then I realized that he was pretty badly wounded from the blaster shot, so I thought it was fine.

Gendo wrote:

Boomer wrote:Agreed.

I also didn't like how Ren, who has supposedly been trained in the force by Luke/Snoke since childhood, had some trouble besting Finn in a lightsaber duel, and then got his ass handed to him by Rey.

At first I thought this, but then I realized that he was pretty badly wounded from the blaster shot, so I thought it was fine.

That's a fair point.

Pacing was much quicker in this movie compared with previous ones. Rey goes from having no inkling of even being force sensitive, to using abilities and more than holding her own in a lightsaber duel, all in one movie.

I understand they needed to get her to Luke before the end credits, but I thought it would have been more sensible to have her defeated but saved by the opening crevasse rather than Kylo Ren. Then she goes to find Luke for further training.

EmoKyloRen ("ren's rights activist") https://twitter.com/KyloR3n

"dad the wookiee used all my garnier fructis"

"heritage not hate"

Emo Kylo Ren ‏@KyloR3n
just once i wish my dad would respond to "I love you" with "I love you too"
mom too for that matter

So I re-watched it again. Snoke mentions an awakening, which I think is Rey's dormant force-sensitivity.

I predict in episide VIII, it will be revealed that Luke is her father and that he used the force to suppress her powers temporarily as well as her memory (if you can pull memories & bend someones will, memory suppression doesn't seem like a stretch). The stress from escaping Jakku is what awakened them and allowed her to pilot the millennium falcon as well as Anakin or Luke probably could if they tried.

Once it became clear Rey wasn't Han and Leia's kid, the next obvious assumption is she's Luke's.

I agree with Gendo, in that the movie was alright, but didn't live up to the hype. Kylo Ren's conflicted emotions didn't bother me - I actually kinda liked that he felt the pull of the light side, instead of the dark side always trying to seduce good people - but he turned out to be a weak bitch. In the beginning he freezes a laser from a blaster without even looking at it, and holds it there while he interrogates this other idiot, but that crazy power mysteriously vanishes later.

I also didn't like how Rey became a self-taught Jedi master in about 15 minutes. What's the point of training? And they stole a few too many plot lines from the original trilogy. How about leaving out the whole, "we gotta destroy the Death Star again by targeting its weakness again after someone goes in and shuts down the shields again," and just focusing on the hunt for Luke?

Also, too much random luck and improbable coincidences all over the damn place. Droid carrying a map to Luke happens to crash land on the same planet, in the same exact location, as Luke's daughter (presumably Luke's daughter). Pilot and copilot somehow survive the crash, and the pilot did it by disappearing from the ship while unconscious or some bullshit. Crazy bar owner happens to have Luke's light saber hidden away, waiting for Rey to come grab it. Finn gets grabbed by a horrible monster that immediately devours everyone, except him, and for some inexplicable reason it runs through the ship with him in its tentacles until he can be saved by pressing a button somewhere. Finn and Han and a giant furry creature walk into the base of the First Order's super weapon unnoticed, and immediately are able to apprehend the leader of all the Storm Troopers with a punch to the face, and again, no one notices. Then they find Rey, when guards and storm troopers everywhere can't see her.

Oh, and that rift that separated Rey and Kylo at the last second. Wtf?

BruceSmith78 wrote:Once it became clear Rey wasn't Han and Leia's kid, the next obvious assumption is she's Luke's.

I agree with Gendo, in that the movie was alright, but didn't live up to the hype. Kylo Ren's conflicted emotions didn't bother me - I actually kinda liked that he felt the pull of the light side, instead of the dark side always trying to seduce good people - but he turned out to be a weak bitch. In the beginning he freezes a laser from a blaster without even looking at it, and holds it there while he interrogates this other idiot, but that crazy power mysteriously vanishes later.

I also didn't like how Rey became a self-taught Jedi master in about 15 minutes. What's the point of training? And they stole a few too many plot lines from the original trilogy. How about leaving out the whole, "we gotta destroy the Death Star again by targeting its weakness again after someone goes in and shuts down the shields again," and just focusing on the hunt for Luke?

Also, too much random luck and improbable coincidences all over the damn place. Droid carrying a map to Luke happens to crash land on the same planet, in the same exact location, as Luke's daughter (presumably Luke's daughter). Pilot and copilot somehow survive the crash, and the pilot did it by disappearing from the ship while unconscious or some bullshit. Crazy bar owner happens to have Luke's light saber hidden away, waiting for Rey to come grab it. Finn gets grabbed by a horrible monster that immediately devours everyone, except him, and for some inexplicable reason it runs through the ship with him in its tentacles until he can be saved by pressing a button somewhere. Finn and Han and a giant furry creature walk into the base of the First Order's super weapon unnoticed, and immediately are able to apprehend the leader of all the Storm Troopers with a punch to the face, and again, no one notices. Then they find Rey, when guards and storm troopers everywhere can't see her.

Oh, and that rift that separated Rey and Kylo at the last second. Wtf?

He wasn't exactly focused when he got shot by the bowcaster, so not such a mysterious disappearance.

I liked the juxtaposition of the sun being completely drained and Kylo deciding to kill Han. The sun's light and Kylo's light got sucked out at the same instant. Not bad. It's like he was actually considering indulging in the light before that happened.

And I generally agree with the thought that Rey grasped that whole force concept a bit too quickly. Then again, if she is Luke's kid, then whatever, maybe it's destiny or some shit. I mean, she was already good at fighting and had an acute sense of longing for her family, who happen to be Jedis. Maybe she was always sort of connected to the force that laid dormant in her.

too much random luck and improbable coincidences all over the damn place

The Force works in mysterious ways.

There are still people theorizing that Rey is Han and Leia's kid whom they hid on Jakku and cut all ties with in order to protect her from Kylo - similar to how Obi Wan told Luke that his father was dead, and Luke never knew that Leia was his sister until much later. (Keeping family relationships secret seems to be a motif.)

Kylo Ren isn't supposed to be as powerful or as badass as Vader. JJ Abrams made a point that he wanted to show the development of a Sith Lord from novice to full-on badass, something we haven't really seen before in the way we've seen the development of the Jedi. We've only seen Anakin, who was trained as a Jedi but then turned to the dark side. As it is, Kylo so far has been woefully under-trained. It's also not clear when he started his training. It sounds like Han and Leia sent Kylo to be trained by Luke when he was on the older side, as they commented that it's when they sent him away to be trained by Luke that they truly lost their son.

Mastering the force, in most circumstances, requires years of training, particularly for the Jedi since it requires a lot of meditation and tranquility. The dark side is far easier to utilize due to its reliance on strong emotions. It still takes years to master, but a Dark Jedi can mask his/her shortcomings to an outsider. Kylo's shortcomings become much more apparent when he faces Rey in battle. He's had little in the way of training in dueling with a lightsaber, which is apparent even with his injury. You can also see his inexperience based on his lightsaber, as shown by its unstable and serrated appearance. I think this indicates that Snoke has also spent little to no time in actually training him either, perhaps indicating that Snoke only uses him as a tool rather than training him as an actual apprentice.

Anakin and Monk, your posts both make sense, except I think saying "the force works in mysterious ways" is a cop-out.

BruceSmith78 wrote:Once it became clear Rey wasn't Han and Leia's kid, the next obvious assumption is she's Luke's.

Also, too much random luck and improbable coincidences all over the damn place. Droid carrying a map to Luke happens to crash land on the same planet, in the same exact location, as Luke's daughter (presumably Luke's daughter). Pilot and copilot somehow survive the crash, and the pilot did it by disappearing from the ship while unconscious or some bullshit. Crazy bar owner happens to have Luke's light saber hidden away, waiting for Rey to come grab it. Finn gets grabbed by a horrible monster that immediately devours everyone, except him, and for some inexplicable reason it runs through the ship with him in its tentacles until he can be saved by pressing a button somewhere. Finn and Han and a giant furry creature walk into the base of the First Order's super weapon unnoticed, and immediately are able to apprehend the leader of all the Storm Troopers with a punch to the face, and again, no one notices. Then they find Rey, when guards and storm troopers everywhere can't see her.

Oh, and that rift that separated Rey and Kylo at the last second. Wtf?

As Anakin mentioned, this is Star Wars. I think the implication here is that the Force is behind a lot of what's happening, with the goal to bring both Luke and Rey into the fight against the Sith.

Sorry, but that seems like lazy writing to me.

I understand, though, that it's Star Wars, and some suspension of disbelief is necessary, they just went a little too far with it here.

I mean, I guess. It's been heavily used in the other movies too though. E.g. R2 and 3PO just by chance run into Luke on Tatooine is very reminiscent of the bb-8 plot. Luke, Han, and Obi Wan were able to walk around the Death Star unnoticed until they started shooting up the cell block. Etc etc

Yeah the chasm things didn't bother me; I didn't even think about it until I saw everyone complaining about it. The thing is, that's the sort of thing that happens in most movies. I think of it like this... Many events in many movies are the types of things that would only happen one out of a million times. And that's fine; they just only make a movie about that one in a million times. All the other possible outcomes aren't interesting enough to make a movie about.

There can be one or two coincidences like that, and I'm cool with it, but when the movie is basically a string of one improbable bit of luck after another, and the heroes continuously succeed thanks to good fortune/the force instead of their own merits, it becomes distracting and breaks immersion for me.

Maybe it was just as prominent in the original Star Wars movies and I just didn't notice it cuz I was a kid when first saw those films.

^The Force hadn't awakened yet, back then.

I think our first indication that Kylo is a newbie with shit training is when the general of the death star was totally not intimidated by Kylo. I liked that quite a bit actually because it indicated that I was not going to be subjected to an all powerful Sith Lord that bullies everyone around him.

I kind of liked the petulant baby sith.

Finally saw it..

I was hoping for a 10/10...I knew realistically it probably wouldn't live up to my expectations and hype, and expected an 8.5/10...but it ended being more like a 7.5/10 for me. Still a very enjoyable movie. Some things just didn't feel right. Felt a bit too whimsical at times(too much John Williams)...needs more gravitas. And it felt a little rushed(like, slow down a little folks...there's two more movies coming). And maybe they tried a little too hard to please fans of the originals.

Will be watching again.

Ren was also holding back in the fight against Rey because he wants to train her.

And I'm glad he isn't exactly like Vader. Though he does seem to be a mix of the Vader from the originals and Anakin from the prequels. The fact that he has that much power but is deeply unstable/can't quite control it is a different kind of intimidating.

My friends & I were discussing this movie snd coming up with some fun what ifs like...

What if Finn's conditioning didn't break & he was meant to infiltrate the Republic/resistance?

What if Rey was the one that actually destroyed the school?

Finn theory is too unbelievable, but I have a feeling that Rey has dark side ancestry(not from Anakin Skywalker).

If she is a Skywalker, she's not Luke or Leia's kid. She could also be Ben Kenobi's granddaughter or something.

Cassius Clay wrote:Finn theory is too unbelievable, but I have a feeling that Rey has dark side ancestry(not from Anakin Skywalker).

If she is a Skywalker, she's not Luke or Leia's kid. She could also be Ben Kenobi's granddaughter or something.

I thought about Ben's granddaughter too. Only problem is that the prequels went and gave that crap about Jedi being forbidden to marry. Nothing about Ben's character would imply that he'd ever break that rule. Unless it was a brief period after he failed Anakin where he was too upset about that to care.

Gendo wrote:

Cassius Clay wrote:Finn theory is too unbelievable, but I have a feeling that Rey has dark side ancestry(not from Anakin Skywalker).

If she is a Skywalker, she's not Luke or Leia's kid. She could also be Ben Kenobi's granddaughter or something.

I bought about Ben's granddaughter too. Only problem is that the prequels went and gave that crap about Jedi being forbidden to marry. Nothing about Ben's character would imply that he'd ever break that rule. Unless it was a brief period after he failed Anakin where he was too upset about that to care.

I encourage you to watch the clone wars cartoon (season 3 on). There's a couple of episodes that hint at a possible romantic interest.

[edit]nvm. Something happened in that series that would make that an impossibility

On another note, one of the downsides to this movie was the saber fight was just terrible and even this has a better one than what we got in the movie:

I thought the saber fight was one of the highlights. The way it showed actual wounding and such.

Gendo wrote:I thought the saber fight was one of the highlights. The way it showed actual wounding and such.

I'm referring to the choreography (or lack thereof).

I enjoyed the saber fight too because it had real tension...because I actually cared about the characters. As opposed to a fight that looks cool for the sake of looking cool, between characters you don't really care about.

Just learned the Daniel Craig was the stormtrooper that Rey used mind control on. Dafuq?

Yeah. Also, Alec Guinness had an audio cameo.

I guess a bunch of famous peeps were allowed to be storm troopers.

Bill Hader was a voice consultant for BB8.

I know Maz Kanata is supposed to be a Yoda-type character, but I think she was slightly mishandled. The trailers gave a different impression than what I saw.

The tone of the "I see your eyes. I know your eyes." speech(which was directed at Fin) wasn't quite as epic as the trailer/spot made it sound.



In the trailer her speech, combined with classic John Williams music, gave me chills/goosebumps.

Then there was the "who are you?"...."I'm no one"....and "the force...it's calling to you...just let it in"..from the final trailer:



I hear there were quite a few things from the trailers that weren't in the movie.

Then there's this teaser too:



The extended shot of the desert before Fin pops into frame is not in the film. This is why the pacing feels a bit off. Leaving it in would add a little more gravity. Also the shot at 0:49 that follows Kylo Ren as he stumbles in the snow with a bit of a swagger(with the contrast between his black cloak and the white snow), before pulling out his lightsaber. It's shots like these that got people interested. I don't know why they cut them out. It was probably Disney trying to make the movie shorter so they could show more screenings. But, the movie might have been better if it was 3 hours long(though, still an awesome movie. I mean...star wars is definitely back). Now, I'm really curious to see the director's cut.

One of my first thoughts walking out of the theater was that the director's cut must be long af.

Monk wrote:I mean, I guess. It's been heavily used in the other movies too though. E.g. R2 and 3PO just by chance run into Luke on Tatooine is very reminiscent of the bb-8 plot. Luke, Han, and Obi Wan were able to walk around the Death Star unnoticed until they started shooting up the cell block. Etc etc

I thought about this last night, and wasn't R2 sent to Tatooine intentionally, because Leia was reaching out to OB1, who was also on Tatooine with Luke because he wanted to make sure he could protect him from Vader? They were in close proximity to each other for good reason, so that wasnt really much of a coincidence.

The reasons for BB8 ending up in the same solar system, on the same planet, in the same desert, at the same camp, as Rey, were never explained.

As far as remaining concealed on the death star, Han and Luke did have a Jedi master with them who could easily manipulate the minds of the storm troopers, unlike old-man Han and Finn, and they didn't have a massive wookie stomping around with them either.

*edited because I called the storm troopers storm cloaks, because I've been playing entirely too much Skjyrim*

So, I'm hearing some people claiming that the movie was bad because the characters were one-dimensional. Which is something that has also been said about the originals. These people don't know what they're talking about.

Firstly, when you're dealing with a fast-paced adventure story, the characters only need to be fleshed out enough to give the action/adventure around them meaning. And it's more compelling when it's done in fun/subtle ways...like the interactions between the characters.

Fin's character is introduced while he is having a moral crisis and is kind of in despair...but in his first interaction with Poe Dameron, he's already being humorous. The contrast between his desperate situation and the sense of humor he seems to have about it already gives his character depth(and John Boyega's comedic timing is off the charts...his charisma is well over 9000)....it's so simple yet says so much. And the relationship he has with Rey adds even more depth. He mentions that he is drawn to her because no one ever looked at him like he was a good person before(or something like that)...though it would have been more compelling if they had shown us that, rather than explicitly tell us.

They make a point of showing us that Rey can handle herself. But, the fact that she is also lonely and vulnerable(instead of being this perfect person) gives her depth...it's humanizing. She might be able to handle herself...but a part of her appreciates that Fin grabs her hand when they're running from the TIE fighters...or that he comes for her when she was captured(though she ends up saving him). She is neither a damsel in distress nor some flawless heroine. It's similar to how the first Star Wars had elements of the damsel in distress trope("Help me Obi-Wan Kenobi, you're my only hope" and "we've got to save the princess"), but when they get to her she's assertive and takes charge. That is depth...for the purposes of a fast-paced adventure movie, that is bloody good depth. And the relationship between Rey and Fin is additionally compelling because they are both lonely and so are drawn to each other. There's a sad desperation in that, but also an innocence/sweetness about it. The fact that they could have either a brother/sister relationship or potentially a romantic relationship is also interesting. And you know George Lucas would have fucked all that up by somehow having it explicitly explained in the movie that Rey is tough, yet appreciates being cared for.

Kylo Ren needs no explanation. He's probably the most complex character(though complex does not necessarily mean the characters depth is displayed in a compelling way. Anakin in the prequels was "complex" on the page/in outline fore, but his character made very little sense on the screen(acting/dialogue was bad). Adam Driver did a good job with Kylo Ren).

And Poe Dameron might have the least depth of them all. They did some of the humor thing with it, but it didn't work quite as well as it did with Fin's character.

Poe should have died in the beginning, and actually stayed dead. I read that was how the script was originally written, but Abrams changed it.

Apparently in the shooting script (and the novelisation), when Kylo Ren confronts Rey in the lightsaber fight he says, "It is you."

BruceSmith78 wrote:

Monk wrote:I mean, I guess. It's been heavily used in the other movies too though. E.g. R2 and 3PO just by chance run into Luke on Tatooine is very reminiscent of the bb-8 plot. Luke, Han, and Obi Wan were able to walk around the Death Star unnoticed until they started shooting up the cell block. Etc etc

I thought about this last night, and wasn't R2 sent to Tatooine intentionally, because Leia was reaching out to OB1, who was also on Tatooine with Luke because he wanted to make sure he could protect him from Vader? They were in close proximity to each other for good reason, so that wasnt really much of a coincidence.

The reasons for BB8 ending up in the same solar system, on the same planet, in the same desert, at the same camp, as Rey, were never explained.

As far as remaining concealed on the death star, Han and Luke did have a Jedi master with them who could easily manipulate the minds of the storm troopers, unlike old-man Han and Finn, and they didn't have a massive wookie stomping around with them either.

*edited because I called the storm troopers storm cloaks, because I've been playing entirely too much

She only sent the droids to Tattooine after being caught and boarded by the empire. It was by chance that they were in its proximity, and she needed someone to deliver the Death Star plans after her capture

Obi Wan was split from the rest of the group, and so didn't or couldn't really help them evade detection while in the Death Star.

BruceSmith78 wrote:Poe should have died in the beginning, and actually stayed dead. I read that was how the script was originally written, but Abrams changed it.

His banter with Fin gave him a smidgen of depth, but it wasn't enough. I didn't care enough about him.

Nic Cage played a character named Cameron Poe in Con Air...if anyone is wondering why the name Poe Dameron sounds familiar.

A lot of people seem to have larched onto "Droid, please!", claiming it's the equivalent of the slang phrase "N***a, please". Re-watching the movie, both tone & context from Boyega show it was meant to be more like "Droid, please help."

That's weird.

On Rey being an excellent example of how to do female characters properly:

http://www.patheos.com/blogs/lovejoyfem ... ilers.html

The comments are actually great.

What's funny is how casually feminist it is. The movie doesn't really have any overt or intentional feminist themes...but it's crazy how radical it is to just simply have a female lead that isn't a trope.

I haven't read any of this thread and I know my SW opinions don't matter but I'll just say that I non-ironically enjoyed this one a lot more than I enjoyed any of the other six. So it's good.

lol