Star Wars: The Force Awakens - Review and Discussion

[Damxge]

This is gonna be super casual since I'd rather jump straight into the discussion than write up a big review.

So let's start with the biggest thing, the CG. The CG was great. It had the classic Star Wars feel but with enough of a modern touch to not look like puppets and string-driven fighters. Not much to say on this, it was very well done, as it should have been.

The acting is also up to par. Though, as I'll say below, it felt a bit weird at times and I'm not sure if it was the writing or the actors.

Next, the writing. It was poorly done, in my opinion. This is my biggest complaint with the movie because both the CG and the acting were pretty good (Although the acting seemed a bit shoddy in places, but I'm not sure if that was because of the actors or the bad script.)
Let's start with the fact that they rehashed an old story. Say what you will about it, they ripped the whole deathstar bullshit. Was it different in any way? Sure, THEY MADE IT BIGGER! WOW! I don't count this as a spoiler since they pretty well scream it at you in the trailers. This one, big, glaring feature is what completely killed the story for me. With all of the credited lore in the SW universe, with all of the timelines, all of the dramatic happenings that the characters in the movies have talked about and the stuff talked about in the shows, they couldn't come up with something fresh? They HAD to use another death star? As if two weren't already enough? Lazy writing if you ask me. I don't care if they wanted to get a new generation into it or not, they could have done a lot better than another death star.

As for the characters themselves, I felt that they were very poorly done. Every relationship in the whole movie felt forced and unnatural. Specifically the ones between Finn, Rey, and Poe. I would say to an extent between Solo and Rey, although they did a better job with that one than the others. And I don't know if this was because of acting or writing or a combination. The relationship between Solo and Rey seemed slightly better, I feel, because of Ford's performance.
The whole thing just felt like a rush rather than giving the relationships time to develop and mature or doing it in a less spastic way. But I'll say this again, I'm not sure if I should be blaming actors or writers or both.
Not only were the relationships forced, but Rey's whole development (particularly at the end) felt forced as well. She goes from no knowledge of the force to being a force master. This simply feels like the writers had no respect for the lore of Star Wars and said, psh, f*** development. Those who have seen the movie know what I mean, but I'll leave it there for those who haven't.

In all, it feels like a poorly conducted Role Play where they just buff and debuff characters on a whim and rush the story along as fast as possible.

In all, it feels like it was written as if the developers and writers didn't think there would be a second one so they had to shove everything into one movie.

And yes, I do blame Disney. They own the rights, they hired the people to do it, and they could have, at any point, told them to stop and do something else. They were also the ones responsible for pulling the trigger on the film, deciding if it should be release or changed. So yes, it is Disney's fault.


Feel free to discuss, disagree with me, and let me know you guys' opinions.

[Chavvy]

I guess I'll follow with each point straight way then

I will agree, the CG was very well done, what I liked about it was that it was more natural (well as natural as a film about ancient space warriors with laser swords go), there was just enough to get the point across, but it didn't overbear everything.

The acting, admittedly cant comment too greatly on not really being able to detect the emotions and stuff, but the action sequences were well executed, and what I could grab from it, they interacted well (unlike natalie portman in the prequel trilogy... eugh.)

The writing is what let the whole film down. Though I do want to argue the whole starkiller base thing. From what I can gather from the limited lore there is between RotJ and Force Awakens, The First Order are essentially trying to carry on the legacy of the empire, so I guess it would be a natural choice to try and build a death star mkIII, being that the empire strive to bully the galaxy into submission. If you remember from the scene with Kylo and Vaders' mask, he says "I will finish what you started", which would imply that the first order are not aware of Vaders' redemption at the end of ep6, just believe that both he and the emperor were killed by Luke, so simply believe that the empire is still technically a thing. So in that, I can kinda defend Starkiller base.

Though I will agree with other aspects of this being a simple rehash. A young adult human is alone in the desert, and acquires a cute droid companion that wants said human to aid the rebellion somehow, despite having the means to do so. They somehow stumble their way to the millennium falcon, and get dragged in by some tractor beam. Shenanigans happen, and they get to the rebels at some point. The human gets given that cursed lightsaber by some old dude and gets told a load of wacky stories of some magic or some sh*t, and they reject it as bullshit at first, but later accept that they're a wizard harry. Then when they get to the rebels, they get chucked in the deep end needing to destroy the base before it does them without even getting so much as a shower or something in between (are there even toilets in star wars?) someone has to go in and deactivate the shields, and one of the old dudes die at the hands of the only other guy in the universe with a lightsaber. The shields are pooped, and then some guy has to do the trench run in an x-wing and blow the massive ball laser not-a-moon thing up with an impossible shot. they all go home to the rebels, and they have a bit of a knees up.

I do feel there could have been alot more character development, especially with rey towards the end. The first hour or so, the pace is perfect, but after that, it ramps up the pace in a perfect arc, ending in a zero to hero insta warp in the last twenty minutes. Hopefully, other sources will help with the character progression, like some side comics or something. The one thing that grinds me in the insta-bromance with Poe and Finn, im half expecting them to f*** by the end of episode 9 XD

As much as I enjoyed the film, that progression arc is just ridiculous, I'd have been happy if Rey and Finn had just escaped, and got a few lucky shots on Kylo.

So, other points I could raise for discussion:

- Whats everyones thoughts on that sexy chair/table thing Kylos got? Is it just me that kinda finds that a lil bit erotic?

- Was Luke really needed in the end of the film? Personally, I'd say no, Id have been quite happy to leave it where Rey is just leaving and just start the orchestra as the falcon zooms away at lightspeed. They could have made Episode 8 a focus on the journey to find him, and have a proper rip-off of Empire strikes back, and have rey give Luke piggybacks and stuff, until Kylo does stuff towards the end.