Ep7 Reviews (Spoilers)

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Andy Wylde
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Re: Ep7 Reviews (Spoilers)

Post by Andy Wylde »

K. A. Pital wrote:
Channel72 wrote:It's trivial to make a "competent" "powered up" villain. I just invented one. His name is Darth Motherfucker and he can destroy the entire galaxy by snapping his fingers. Nobody cares.
That sounds so cool.
Channel72 wrote:Dooku could have amounted to something - Christopher Lee is great, and the idea of an aristocratic ex-Jedi gone bad is cool. It's just that Dooku had like no scenes - and he also had no personal connection to the main characters. Anakin and Obi Wan just chase after him and then fight him... but they like literally just met him two seconds ago.
Does not seem to be true: Dooku has quite a bit of screen time in AotC, and I feel that movie gets too much hate for Anakin so that people actually forget Lee's great performance. He talks to Obi-Wan, very convincingly, about how Sith control the Senate, and he seems to have some concept of honour, even as he fights the Jedi in the arena, Obi-Wan and Anakin and finally Yoda - who is revealed to be his teacher, exposing the Jedi "Masters" as crappy teachers whose pupils fall to the Dark Side, btw. :)
Channel72 wrote:Compared to these idiots, Ren may as well have been written by Shakespeare.
Darth Emo gets more screen time than Dooku, who has zero relationship to the main characters and is only tangentially related to Yoda (his apprentice). And yet... Dooku's death in RotS is an emotional moment, while it was hard for me to care for Darth Emo's internal suffering even one little bit. The revelation that he was Han Solo's son somehow made him even more loathesome and silly. It didn't make me care more about his fate - or that of his new "master", heh.
You make some excellent points. Also if anyone was paying attention that Dooku also was the head of the separatist movement which caused the deaths of many Jedi, clones and Republic citizens during a 3 year span. And by the time of ROTS, I believe there were a lot of people that had an extreme "personal connection" to Count Dooku. So I believe that Dooku had a pretty big role in the unfolding of events during the clone wars which caused many problems for the people and the galaxy. And as you pointed out he was Yoda's padawan as well as Qui Gon was his padawan.


As for Darth Emo, him being a Solo/Skywalker didn't really mean much to me. I thought I would feel different, but I don't. It sucks that Han died. But they way the did it had no impact for me. And he gets his ass kicked by 2 novices. 1 that is untrained and the other may or may not have training. For the latter, I am sure there will be some hand wave bullshit about how she was trained and Luke "wiped" her mind and stuck on some planet for her safety. And Luke will somehow restore her memory and she will be a lean mean emo ass kicking machine!
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Re: Ep7 Reviews (Spoilers)

Post by Jub »

I just saw it last night and after giving it a day to digest here are my ramblings about the movie.

First of all, I really liked it. I thought that it actually felt like Star Wars again which is something that RotS, may favourite of the prequel movies, couldn't really lay claim to. Everything from the practical effects, the settings, and the characters managed to feel well worn and lived in. Even the not cantina scene felt like something that belonged in that universe.

As far as the plot goes it was really all that the movie needed to get us where we were going. Sure, I'd have liked to find out a bit more about what happened between the battle of Endor and now, but this gave us enough detail to speculate on while still laying out who some of the major players are. I would have liked to see a few more capital ships, and something besides X-Wings in the Resistance fleet, but I get that this was a setup movie. It played its cards close to its vest with the aim of making us speculate and wonder what was left unshown.

For the characters, I liked most of them and felt that they were handled pretty well.

Finn was a genuinely good guy. His backstory could use some work, but if you're not looking to nitpick it can all be made to work. He also gets to do some cool things while being left a lot of room to grow into the hero that his moral compass says he should be. I think he'll probably grow in skills over the next couple of movies.

Rey was also fine. I know that some people have complained about her being too skilled at everything, but I think that makes sense. Anakin and Rey were both happy-go-lucky sorts who could easily believe in and open themselves to the force. Thus, the force was more easily able to guide them than it could a more jaded and skeptical Luke.

I also think that there was some knowledge of the force transferred between her and Kylo Ren during that interogation. She may have gotten more than a glimpse into his mind once she caught him off balance with the bit about him never being as good as Vader. If his emotions slipped and he lost control, something well within character for him, she could have easily used the link in a way he couldn't have anticipated. That explains her trying the mind trick, knowing how to use TK, and some of her other feats after that point in the movie.

Poe felt and looked just like I expected a rebel resistance pilot to look. He would have been at home at the battle of Yavin. His skills might be a bit much for a non-force sensitive pilot, but it's Star Wars so of course it takes a fighter ace and turns things to 11.

Han and Chewie were themselves and I wasn't mad about how Han went out. I did expect that he would be the one to go, but it would have been hard to justify it being anybody else. Liea was a bit wooden, but I was still happy to see her. Luke was mysterious, and I'm excited to find out what his side of things is.

tldr; Good movie. People are over thinking it
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Re: Ep7 Reviews (Spoilers)

Post by Vympel »

BabelHuber wrote: We see visible and invisible shields in SW - why is this so? Are shields made visible on purpose (like when some odor is put into dangerous gases)? Or are there different kinds of shields?
I think there's different kinds. I would never recommend that someone should actually 'watch TPM', because its terrible, but if you see the battle scene with the Gungans and the battle droids, you can see when the tank blasts impact the shield, there's visible 'ripples' along the surface. No such thing is evident on other shields.
You can't fly through the shields, but you can walk through/ under them? is this not enough to proof that there are similarities? What else would be needed?
The issue with this is that walk through / walk under is two very different things. One means the shield is permeable to some objects, the other means it is not / does not need to be.
In every single specification? You can't fly through the shields, but you can walk through/ under them. One was visible, the other not, and we don't know why.

But what I do know is that the AT-ATs were landed beyond the shield, and had to walk through/ under it to get to the rebel's base. Otherwise using AT-ATs would be pointless.
True. Refer above though.
So it's either a theatre shield or an 'umbrella'-shield, but the latter begs the question why Vader didn't just use some low-flying Tie Fighters to destroy the shield generator...
Same issue as with a hypothetical battlefield missile. It wouldn't have fit the story, even though its technically possible and would have a battlefield use. Heck, why isn't there some sort of walker or other vehicle carrying TIEs which can walk through a shield and then launch them? You can go on with this stuff forever, really.
But perhaps small compared to the bigger shield? Otherwise Tie Fighters could be used, unless the umbrealla was just big enough to let the AT-ATs through...
That's a good idea, I agree. But see above re: the TIE Fighter issue.
Conceded. But still, the Hoth shield can only be an umbrella-type or a theatre-type shield. And since we never have seen an umbrella-type...
Yeah, its an open question.
But Starkiller Base had some shitty shield where this is possible? So they spent a huge amount of ressources to create the superweapon, but then saved money when installing the shield? Now this makes sense!
There's nothing shitty about it within the context of the setting. No ship can ordinarily penetrate the shield. This was a difficult maneuver that Han pulled, and it probably doesn't have a very high chance of success / isn't really repeatable. Just because the shield is hypothetically vulnerable to a really obscure tactic and hypothetical missiles that don't exist doesn't make it shitty, anymore than the Empire isn't incompetent because they don't have battlefield cruise missiles to take down shields or some sort of transporter to deploy aircraft under shields.
So it would have been impossible to make a good movie without a pathetic villain?
I defer to Channel72 in that regard. Speaking of:
K. A. Pital wrote: Does not seem to be true: Dooku has quite a bit of screen time in AotC, and I feel that movie gets too much hate for Anakin so that people actually forget Lee's great performance. He talks to Obi-Wan, very convincingly, about how Sith control the Senate, and he seems to have some concept of honour, even as he fights the Jedi in the arena, Obi-Wan and Anakin and finally Yoda - who is revealed to be his teacher, exposing the Jedi "Masters" as crappy teachers whose pupils fall to the Dark Side, btw. :)
He really doesn't. Heck, he first appears 1 hour and 16 minutes into AotC and only has a handful of scenes. Christopher Lee can elevate any shitty material, but Dooku is not a great character. And Dooku's not convincing at all. His overtures to Obi-Wan are completely fucking idiotic, actually:

- We first see him when Obi-Wan is eavesdropping on him and the Separatist leaders, talking about how:

*They must persuade the Commerce Guild and Corporate Alliance to sign the treaty, with Nute Gunray asking if Padme is dead yet, because he won't sign the treaty until that happens. Dooku says he is a 'man of his word'.
*Bizarrely, notwithstanding this comment, Dooku then asserts the Trade Federation has 'pledged their support'. Even though its leader just said he wouldn't sign the treaty until Padme is dead. Jesus Christ, this writing is awful.
*Dooku then clearly indicates they will have the largest army in the galaxy and will overwhelm the Jedi, and the Republic will agree to their demands.

This exchange ends at approximately 1 hour 18 minutes, by the way.

We return to Dooku, talking to Obi-Wan, at 1 hour 31 minutes.

Dooku immediately insults Obi-Wan's intelligence - and the audience - by saying that 'its a terrible mistake' and is 'madness'. The notion that anything about his schtick to Obi-Wan is "convincing" is, I'm sorry, utterly ridiculous - we just saw him plotting with the would be Separatist leaders and promising a fucking murder. Again - awful writing. It makes Dooku look like a oblivious chump when he makes his proposal for Obi-Wan to join him, because Obi-Wan has no reason to join someone who is so obviously (to him, and to the audience) ethically compromised.

Oh, and Ewan McGregor's glued on, fake beard in that scene is definitely not helping matters.

That scene is over at 1 hour 33 minutes.

So far he's had four minutes of screen time.

He appears again in the arean at 1 hour 45 minutes. His screentime between then and the duel with Obi-Wan, Anakin and Yoda is negligible. A few lines here and there. Barely worth noting.
Darth Emo gets more screen time than Dooku, who has zero relationship to the main characters and is only tangentially related to Yoda (his apprentice). And yet... Dooku's death in RotS is an emotional moment, while it was hard for me to care for Darth Emo's internal suffering even one little bit. The revelation that he was Han Solo's son somehow made him even more loathesome and silly. It didn't make me care more about his fate - or that of his new "master", heh.
I can't imagine why his death would be an emotional moment. Who would care that he's dead, or why? He's just not an interesting - or even intelligent - villain. Unlike Darth Vader or Kylo Ren, we never see him in his element doing villainous or interesting things - he exists merely to foil the heroes at the end of AotC and to die unceremoniously at the beginning of RotS. There are no equivalent to the scenes of Vader dealing with his Imperial detractors, or disciplining the failures of his subordinates, or plotting against the heroes, or doing anything particularly villainous whatsoever. He's a villain because we're told he's a villain. Oh well. Whatever. A waste of a good actor.
Andy Wylde wrote: You make some excellent points. Also if anyone was paying attention that Dooku also was the head of the separatist movement which caused the deaths of many Jedi, clones and Republic citizens during a 3 year span.
I didn't see any of that, so I have no idea why I should care. Did he do it himself? I certainly never saw it.
And by the time of ROTS, I believe there were a lot of people that had an extreme "personal connection" to Count Dooku.
I can assume things that we never saw in any movie too. Its not valid.
So I believe that Dooku had a pretty big role in the unfolding of events during the clone wars which caused many problems for the people and the galaxy. And as you pointed out he was Yoda's padawan as well as Qui Gon was his padawan.
Informed attributes don't make good characters or good writing, sorry.
As for Darth Emo, him being a Solo/Skywalker didn't really mean much to me. I thought I would feel different, but I don't. It sucks that Han died. But they way the did it had no impact for me. And he gets his ass kicked by 2 novices. 1 that is untrained and the other may or may not have training. For the latter, I am sure there will be some hand wave bullshit about how she was trained and Luke "wiped" her mind and stuck on some planet for her safety. And Luke will somehow restore her memory and she will be a lean mean emo ass kicking machine!
This is a completely idiotic argument - the kind of wilfully obtuse, dishonest bullshit that's trotted out by people who don't like a movie for subjective reasons but will hide their subjective dislike behind poor, easily dismissed arguments. Kylo Ren didn't 'get his ass kicked by two novices'. He was shot in the fucking gut by Chewie's bowcaster, an absurdly powerful weapon, as the movie goes out of its way to show us multiple times. When he confronts Finn and Rey, he is visibly sweating even though its in the fucking cold. He beats his wound and we see his blood in the snow. He then proceeds to dominate Finn until Finn scores a single lucky strike - which leads to Ren immediately ending the fight by disarming him and slashing him on the back.

He then proceeds to dominate Rey and tries to convince her to join him (in typical dark side fashion) - leading her to draw upon her new found abilities (and a little dark side as well, as the movie implies and the recently released script confirms) to overcome a wounded, bleeding Kylo Ren. A 'memory wipe' or whatever isn't necessary. Its called 'the Force Awakens' for a blindingly obvious reason.

The movie goes out of its way to indicate that Kylo Ren is nowhere near peak condition, and yet this bullshit argument is trotted out by imbeciles over and over again.

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Re: Ep7 Reviews (Spoilers)

Post by K. A. Pital »

Obi-Wan is a beloved character because he has a massive history in SW films without being a lame copy of some other character. And he was played by decent actors.

I don't think Darth Emo (otherwise known as Kylo Ren) is objectively a bad villain, too. He did seem menacing, but the ugly and non-imposing face after he took the mask off completely ruined his image. I am not saying this is just my personal opinion here: the entire hall was laughing like mad when it happened. And not just once. I've heard about a dozen shows from different people and they all mentioned the audience laughing when Kylo took that mask off.

I still consider Snoke an objectively bad idea.

AotC has terrible writing? I don't think the audience has any doubts in Dooku's evilness by the time he meets Obi-Wan. It is kind of like Saruman. They do not actually doubt he is evil. But he still manages to sound awesome. Waste of a good actor - I simply don't think so (and in any case, a good actor can sometimes offset bad writing, while a bad actor + bad writing just equals bad squared). The fact that Dooku tries to lure Obi-Wan into joining him despite Obi knowing that Dooku is planning to kill Amidala is actually not that relevant. Dooku might not have known that Obi-Wan overheard him.

Maybe I am just biased, but somehow I think TFA was a waste of time and money. Obviously not for Disney, but for me.
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Re: Ep7 Reviews (Spoilers)

Post by Channel72 »

K.A. Pital wrote:AotC has terrible writing? I don't think the audience has any doubts in Dooku's evilness by the time he meets Obi-Wan. It is kind of like Saruman. They do not actually doubt he is evil. But he still manages to sound awesome. Waste of a good actor - I simply don't think so (and in any case, a good actor can sometimes offset bad writing, while a bad actor + bad writing just equals bad squared). The fact that Dooku tries to lure Obi-Wan into joining him despite Obi knowing that Dooku is planning to kill Amidala is actually not that relevant. Dooku might not have known that Obi-Wan overheard him.
Yeah but Saruman actually does things. He drives the villainy and evil in the first half of the trilogy. He personally raises an army, defeats Gandalf in a wizard fight, sends his army to loot and plunder the world and attack the good guys (all of which is depicted on screen.) Dooku, on the other hand, is just evil because we're told he's evil, and he has a red lightsaber and dresses like Dracula - but we don't see him really do anything. Again, he just appears there at the tail end of the movie. And then he fights the good guys.
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Re: Ep7 Reviews (Spoilers)

Post by SCRawl »

Channel72 wrote: Yeah but Saruman actually does things. He drives the villainy and evil in the first half of the trilogy. He personally raises an army, defeats Gandalf in a wizard fight, sends his army to loot and plunder the world and attack the good guys (all of which is depicted on screen.) Dooku, on the other hand, is just evil because we're told he's evil, and he has a red lightsaber and dresses like Dracula - but we don't see him really do anything. Again, he just appears there at the tail end of the movie. And then he fights the good guys.
Dooku was also conspiring with the other bad guys -- some of whom we know to be bad guys, some of whom are new to the story. We are also told of how it was "Darth Tyranus" who had hired Jango Fett (who is another bad guy) and we are supposed to deduce that Dooku and Tyranus are the same man. (This is confirmed in one of the final scenes.)

This isn't a lot, mind you, but it's more than just being the guy with the red lightsabre.
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Re: Ep7 Reviews (Spoilers)

Post by Terralthra »

I have seen it multiple times now. No one laughed the the unmasking scene here.

My interpretation of Dooku trying to talk Kenobi into joining him was that he did not know Kenobi had overheard that conversation. He does do villainous things, though not as clearly villainous as Saruman, but that was kind of the point? Dooku was portrayed as a noble, aristocratic, "honorable" villain. If he kicks puppies and flips off babies, it ruins the image they're trying to achieve. It just raises all sorts of questions about why he turned, and what passions he's tapping into when he uses the Dark Side. I find it rather interesting.
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Re: Ep7 Reviews (Spoilers)

Post by Kojiro »

Vympel wrote:I think there's different kinds. I would never recommend that someone should actually 'watch TPM', because its terrible, but if you see the battle scene with the Gungans and the battle droids, you can see when the tank blasts impact the shield, there's visible 'ripples' along the surface. No such thing is evident on other shields.
There are several 'ripple' shields besides the Gungans. Droideka shields produce a very noticeable red ripple effect. The squad shield and personal shield from Star Wars Battlefront: Battle of Jakku* also produce ripples. The former is a small ripple (at least to small arms) while the personal shield mimics the colour and ripple of the droidekas. All of these shields can be walked through. Clone Wars makes a point of demonstrating that droideka shields can be penetrated by anything moving slow enough.

*Yes, it's on the canon list.
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Re: Ep7 Reviews (Spoilers)

Post by Vympel »

Kojiro wrote: There are several 'ripple' shields besides the Gungans. Droideka shields produce a very noticeable red ripple effect. The squad shield and personal shield from Star Wars Battlefront: Battle of Jakku* also produce ripples. The former is a small ripple (at least to small arms) while the personal shield mimics the colour and ripple of the droidekas. All of these shields can be walked through. Clone Wars makes a point of demonstrating that droideka shields can be penetrated by anything moving slow enough.

*Yes, it's on the canon list.
There is an effect, but its not the same kind of ripple. The Gungan ripple effect are physical waves - with real "mass", propagating outward from the explosion. The Droideka shield impact effect is a coloured, insubstantial ripple, the colour depending on the blaster bolt that struck it - red for their own bolts, green for Naboo blaster bolts.

The squad shields I saw in the Battlefront cutscene looked like mini Gungan shield generators generally. I think we saw the Separatists use a version of that in TCW too.

That said, I'm pretty convinced that there's something to 'permeable' shields (including starship shields) in Star Wars generally. Its an elegant way to explain scenes in TCW, for example, especially the efficacy of fighters.
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Re: Ep7 Reviews (Spoilers)

Post by Themightytom »

SilverDragonRed wrote:After finally seeing the film I have to ask: Why the Starkiller was necessary for the story? It's just odd that the superweapon sub-plot derails and hijacks the 'Search for Luke'.
Rey getting kidnapped did that too, really, but it also balances the destruction of the Republic capitol, you can't just ignore that and do nothing, in favor of the treasure hunt, but without blowing up the Republic there would be either the sense that this is a small battle that doesn't matter, or that apparently no progress was made after ROTJ. You'd have to show the Republic restored, but then somehow neutralized I think to give the characters actions significance.

I'd love to believe a SW trilogy could run on small scale character driven plots, but I mean, the title is Star Wars.

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Re: Ep7 Reviews (Spoilers)

Post by fgalkin »

K. A. Pital wrote:I personally enjoyed a lot of TPM tracks - Duel of the Fates, The Droid Invasion, The Flag Parade, Anakin's theme, Shmi's theme, Qui-Gon's Funeral. AotC had the love theme, mentioned already, as well as nice development of some TPM themes, and RotS was simply quite on par with OT films themselves, I can name a lot of tracks without even looking - Battle of the Heroes, Grievous' theme, Palpatine's Teachings, Padme's Ruminations etc.

I saw this film and I went out completely blank. I did not whistle any theme to myself. Except the scroll theme. It felt wrong, but I doubt that was my fault. The rebel theme was the only thing that kind of stuck in my head, but the rest was so forgettable not even funny.

As an aside, tried to love the film, I really did. The first part was cool, I enjoyed the new heroes and even their meet-up with the old ones, but the fake Emperor plus fake Vader plus the attack on the Death Star mark III, plus the obviously lame scriptwriting ("there must be a flaw in this station", "lower the shields - sure, why not!" and finally R2 waking up right after the battle finishes - what, he couldn't come out of hibernation earlier? :lol:) just ruined it for me. I think there is still hope for the other films, somehow I feel JJ Abrams is to blame for this copy filming.
I liked Rey's theme and Jedi Steps. I think they were good enough to stand on their own in SW history.

As to R2, I thought it was pretty clear he woke up because Rey was there? There is a reason why she got sent to fetch Luke after all....

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Re: Ep7 Reviews (Spoilers)

Post by Mange »

fgalkin wrote:As to R2, I thought it was pretty clear he woke up because Rey was there? There is a reason why she got sent to fetch Luke after all....
No, according to Abrams, it's more convoluted than that. Arndt came up with the basic idea of having R2 in hibernation. According to Abrams, R2 downloaded the map of the Jedi Temples on the Death Star in ANH. Abrams says that when BB-8 rolled up to R2, R2 heard BB-8 had a piece of the map and it was that which "triggers something that would ultimately wake him up." It's certainly not clear from the movie, and it seems like just another one of those coincidences that riddles it (In another interview, Abrams said that Kasdan told him to trust the audience and not explain too much, but in a few places in this movie...): Entertainment Weekly
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Re: Ep7 Reviews (Spoilers)

Post by Channel72 »

Yeah, I mean a lot of shit that happens in these movies is done for storytelling reasons - to play with emotions, rather than any kind of attempt to construct a plausible framework of events. And yeah, that certainly can be distracting for those of us who like to actually think about the events depicted on screen.

Except... again, nothing in TFA is really any more contrived than what we routinely let the OT get away with without a second thought. I mean, so Luke is about to freeze to death on Hoth, and at that moment, Obi Wan conveniently appears in a vision and tells him to go to Dagobah? Why couldn't he just like, have appeared earlier while Luke was back at base, comfortably lounging around or whatever? Again, Obi Wan appears when he does because it's just more dramatic that way. But if TFA did that, I guarantee we'd all be complaining about it. Or Luke's X-Wing crash-lands randomly on Dagobah, and happens to land mere minutes away from Yoda's home? On a planet that must be of similar size to Earth? But again, we're all just like, whatever, something something "The FORCE WILLED IT!" etc. blah blah. Because those were old movies that we saw as children. As adults it's much harder to let this sort of thing go. When the OT does something nonsensical, we're willing to give in to the mysticism of the franchise... but when TFA does it, it's like seriously, fuck Abrams.

I mean, I didn't really like the idea of R2-D2 suddenly waking up, or really even of the whole "map to Luke Skywalker" thing. It really doesn't make that much sense - so I'm not really interested in trying to defend that particular plot point. I just don't care that much, for the same reason I don't really care that a lot of shit in the OT is sort of contrived/makes no sense.
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Re: Ep7 Reviews (Spoilers)

Post by Patroklos »

I agree the OT has coincidences but they don't work the same way. Your Obi vision example is not an appropriate comparison in this case as like you said it was for drama and not plot. It doesn't matter when it happens, only that it does. And both, unlike quite a few in TFA, are being actively driven by protagonists we know or are about to know (Yoda Obi) who have in story knowlege so again are not really coincidences. Obi wan visions are a cheap story ctutch, especially when repeated out of ANH, but not a coincidence.

The only true coincidence I can think of in ANH is that R2 and C3PO crash somewhere near Luke after just having escaped his father. Note however that they are not so close as to just stumble into Like, they have to be captured and actively brought there unawares by an intermediary. It's also not as jarring because Luke is not already a protagonist meeting another protagonist. The droids bring Luke into their story. There is a good 10-15 minutes of run time before the movie lets us know Luke is special plot wise (advertising and the music for him foreshadow of course). This movie shows us Rey before she has any reason to be in the movie. Not only that, but we don't know about Luke's relationship to Vader until a full movie run time and a few real time years later, so that spreads the reveal and again makes it less self serving and jarring in the moment,
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Re: Ep7 Reviews (Spoilers)

Post by Captain Seafort »

Patroklos wrote:The only true coincidence I can think of in ANH is that R2 and C3PO crash somewhere near Luke after just having escaped his father.
Even that isn't really a coincidence, as the droids were trying to get to Kenobi, and Kenobi was where he was in order to keep an eye on Luke. That much was clear even from ANH.
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Re: Ep7 Reviews (Spoilers)

Post by RogueIce »

Captain Seafort wrote:
Patroklos wrote:The only true coincidence I can think of in ANH is that R2 and C3PO crash somewhere near Luke after just having escaped his father.
Even that isn't really a coincidence, as the droids were trying to get to Kenobi, and Kenobi was where he was in order to keep an eye on Luke. That much was clear even from ANH.
And Luke finding them would have led to that...how? From the droids' perspective, not what we the audience know which comes later. But there's no way the droids would have known that Luke would know an Old Ben Kenobi, and had it not been for Kenobi finding Luke after he was attacked by Sand People they would have gotten their memories wiped. Even after R2 ran away. Because if that attack didn't happen, and Kenobi didn't intervene, there's no reason to believe Luke would have done anything than what his uncle told him to.
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Re: Ep7 Reviews (Spoilers)

Post by Rogue 9 »

RogueIce wrote:
Captain Seafort wrote:
Patroklos wrote:The only true coincidence I can think of in ANH is that R2 and C3PO crash somewhere near Luke after just having escaped his father.
Even that isn't really a coincidence, as the droids were trying to get to Kenobi, and Kenobi was where he was in order to keep an eye on Luke. That much was clear even from ANH.
And Luke finding them would have led to that...how? From the droids' perspective, not what we the audience know which comes later. But there's no way the droids would have known that Luke would know an Old Ben Kenobi, and had it not been for Kenobi finding Luke after he was attacked by Sand People they would have gotten their memories wiped. Even after R2 ran away. Because if that attack didn't happen, and Kenobi didn't intervene, there's no reason to believe Luke would have done anything than what his uncle told him to.
It wouldn't, but R2 brought the escape pod down where he did in an attempt to land near Obi-Wan; Luke's proximity was a result of that, not an attempt to get to Luke. Note that R2's plan clearly did not involve getting bought by Owen Lars, as demonstrated by the fact that he took his first opportunity to escape.
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Re: Ep7 Reviews (Spoilers)

Post by Patroklos »

Which should be obvious given the Jawa's attack. Obi Wan may have come and gotten Luke anyway. The only coincidence in that sequence is that it was Luke and Owen who bought the droids vice someone else, not that Luke was in the vicinity.
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Re: Ep7 Reviews (Spoilers)

Post by amigocabal »

Channel72 wrote:Yeah, I mean a lot of shit that happens in these movies is done for storytelling reasons - to play with emotions, rather than any kind of attempt to construct a plausible framework of events. And yeah, that certainly can be distracting for those of us who like to actually think about the events depicted on screen.

Except... again, nothing in TFA is really any more contrived than what we routinely let the OT get away with without a second thought. I mean, so Luke is about to freeze to death on Hoth, and at that moment, Obi Wan conveniently appears in a vision and tells him to go to Dagobah? Why couldn't he just like, have appeared earlier while Luke was back at base, comfortably lounging around or whatever? Again, Obi Wan appears when he does because it's just more dramatic that way. But if TFA did that, I guarantee we'd all be complaining about it. Or Luke's X-Wing crash-lands randomly on Dagobah, and happens to land mere minutes away from Yoda's home? On a planet that must be of similar size to Earth? But again, we're all just like, whatever, something something "The FORCE WILLED IT!" etc. blah blah. Because those were old movies that we saw as children. As adults it's much harder to let this sort of thing go. When the OT does something nonsensical, we're willing to give in to the mysticism of the franchise... but when TFA does it, it's like seriously, fuck Abrams.

I mean, I didn't really like the idea of R2-D2 suddenly waking up, or really even of the whole "map to Luke Skywalker" thing. It really doesn't make that much sense - so I'm not really interested in trying to defend that particular plot point. I just don't care that much, for the same reason I don't really care that a lot of shit in the OT is sort of contrived/makes no sense.
Yoda was strong in the Force. He knew of Luke's arrival and subtly affwected the X-Wing's navigation systems.
RogueIce wrote: Even after R2 ran away. Because if that attack didn't happen, and Kenobi didn't intervene, there's no reason to believe Luke would have done anything than what his uncle told him to.
I wonder if the emperor and Vader would have discovered Luke had those Jawas not captured R2D2 and C3PO. I mean, Luke was applying to the Academy. Had he been admitted, he would have undergone a physical which would have screamed "Very Force Sensitive" and even with the size of the Imperial Bureaucracy, Emperor Palpatine would have known about it the next day. (This assumes pre-admitted applicants only get a cursory background check, and unless Luke's file was handled by an overeager intern at ISB trying to impress his bosses, it is unlikely a connection would be made between a Luke Skywalker of Tattooine and a Jedi Knight who was reported to have died at the end of the Clone Wars.)
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Re: Ep7 Reviews (Spoilers)

Post by Batman »

amigocabal wrote:Yoda was strong in the Force. He knew of Luke's arrival and subtly affwected the X-Wing's navigation systems.
As evidenced by...nothing whatsoever in the movie. That's exactly what Channel72 was talking about. The OT does it, we accept as chance or the Force did it. TFA ? 'Waah this makes no sense terrible writing'.
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Re: Ep7 Reviews (Spoilers)

Post by ray245 »

The presence of the force is a lot more "in your face" than the prequels and the OT. Even Anakin who is the chosen one did not display his force ability as easily as Rey.

Lucas is a more subtle writer/director than JJ when it comes to the force.
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Re: Ep7 Reviews (Spoilers)

Post by Patroklos »

In a way. In the OT when the force is used is used in the most important ways there is literally a ghost speaking to the user (and the audience) or an animation midget thing around. So I don't think subtle is the right word. Well. maybe subtle in scale rather than how its communicated to the audience.

The real difference is there is an arch to the force use we see in the films, spread out over three feature length movies and for the most part the force is used sparingly. The first time we see in used in the OT is when Vader chokes Motti, and then not again until Ben mind tricks the storm trooper. These are both small visual cues that get their power from what we don't see, what we as the audience start to realize the follow on consequences mean from the tip of the iceberg we view. The first time our main protagonist uses the force is at the end of the movie and, again, has to be told to do so.

In Empire it doesn't show up until Luke's Obi vision well into the movie (or Ozzels death also well into the movie), and then is absent until Degobah. In ROTJ there is no force use until Luke shows up in the palace. In both these instances its appearance is again relatively minor.

In TFA we see a damn blaster bolt stopped in mid air within minutes of the opening. Now some of that is because we are on the seventh movie of the series and the assumption is the force is a thing we all know about and want to see, but I think the prequels show us that more regarding the appearance of the force is not necessarily better. The force loses its mystique when its outright shown to us up front, and then we are supposed to believe it is the invisible hand guiding ever plot convenience in the movie. That's not special.
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Re: Ep7 Reviews (Spoilers)

Post by SCRawl »

Patroklos wrote:In Empire it doesn't show up until Luke's Obi vision well into the movie (or Ozzels death also well into the movie), and then is absent until Degobah.
Not quite. You're omitting Luke's telekinesis on his lightsabre.
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Re: Ep7 Reviews (Spoilers)

Post by Patroklos »

True, true. A bit sooner, but hardly up front.
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Re: Ep7 Reviews (Spoilers)

Post by ray245 »

Patroklos wrote:In a way. In the OT when the force is used is used in the most important ways there is literally a ghost speaking to the user (and the audience) or an animation midget thing around. So I don't think subtle is the right word. Well. maybe subtle in scale rather than how its communicated to the audience.

The real difference is there is an arch to the force use we see in the films, spread out over three feature length movies and for the most part the force is used sparingly. The first time we see in used in the OT is when Vader chokes Motti, and then not again until Ben mind tricks the storm trooper. These are both small visual cues that get their power from what we don't see, what we as the audience start to realize the follow on consequences mean from the tip of the iceberg we view. The first time our main protagonist uses the force is at the end of the movie and, again, has to be told to do so.

In Empire it doesn't show up until Luke's Obi vision well into the movie (or Ozzels death also well into the movie), and then is absent until Degobah. In ROTJ there is no force use until Luke shows up in the palace. In both these instances its appearance is again relatively minor.

In TFA we see a damn blaster bolt stopped in mid air within minutes of the opening. Now some of that is because we are on the seventh movie of the series and the assumption is the force is a thing we all know about and want to see, but I think the prequels show us that more regarding the appearance of the force is not necessarily better. The force loses its mystique when its outright shown to us up front, and then we are supposed to believe it is the invisible hand guiding ever plot convenience in the movie. That's not special.
No, but the force doesn't really give the user any free power-ups to defeat another person suddenly. Anakin still require a great deal of effort to win the podrace even if he was the chosen one. Luke did not gain ridiculous flying ability just because he had the force.

The force in all the previous 6 Star Wars movie has always been rather subtle in terms of how it helped the protagonist to get out of trouble. The force helped Luke in guiding the torpedos down the shaft when no computer targeting could accomplish the task. The force help Obi-Wan and Anakin survived harsh conditions right next to a lava.

The force has given its users abilities, but not skills. They don't become good with a lightsaber just because they trust in the force. Jedi still have to spend years learning how to use a lightsaber, with their skills being enhanced by the force.

By the end of TFA, Rey is so good with the force that it makes you wonder why did she need to find Luke for training?
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