Star Wars: The Spoilers Awaken

[Grimmie]

Star Wars: The horse Awakens
Fantastic return to form, a few mis-delivered lines between Ford and Fisher, but otherwise everything I could've expected and more.

(It may have helped that I've avoided all trailers and teasers other than the initial release teaser and the Comicon behind-the-scenes short.)

MOD EDIT: Split from the mini-reviews thread because it's getting waaay too big for that (and I want to catty on discussing it)

[Grimmie]

Damn word felcher. NEEEIIIGH.

[buzzmong]

I actually disagree with that, and not because I want to be cool. I'll clarify that it is a decent film, one worth watching and that I did enjoy it and it IS better than I, II and III. Grimmie is correct in that on the whole it is just what a Star Wars film should be and definitely a return to being much closer to IV, V and VI, albeit a bit more gritty and darker in places.

You really should go watch it as you will most definitely enjoy it.

No spoilers, but my other thoughts below should be read after seeing it so as to not colour your opinion:

Spoiler:

It's got a couple of big flaws which stop it from being an amazing movie, not so much with the themes and action as JJ Abrams fucking nailed Star Wars, he really has, but my criticism for it is as a film with regards to pacing and how it delivers the passable but derivative plot. Basically, for some of the big plot points, it gave away far too much too early which diluted the "revelation" scenes and it really could have done with being about 20-30 minutes longer, with some more time devoted to retrospection and applying weighting to what was happening and being its own thing rather than just dashing from scene to scene which is what pretty much happened after the half way point, which to me actually meant parts of it felt a bit superficial and lightweight. Felt like it lacked gravitas because it was rushing too much. A directors cut/special edition in the future might actually rectify a lot of that.

Plotwise, some of the setup of the film didn't quite make sense, but that's straying into spoiler territory and can be discussed later. I suspect quite a bit of that might be resolved in VIII and IX though as this film felt like a bit of a boombastic showpiece to kick off the new trilogy which is expected to be watched as a whole, rather than as individual films.

It's good though, go watch.

[Roman Totale]

A Public Service Announcement before I review: if you're going to sit in a cinema for 3 hours next to lots of other people, have a fucking shower first you filthy, stinking animal. I had the great misfortune to be sat next to someone whose odour is still pervading my nostrils several hours later. He only sat down just as it was starting and didn't get his breath back for about 20 minutes.

Anyway...

I loved it. As with Grimmie I'd deliberately avoided everything bar the trailer.

Big spoilers below.

Spoiler:

Initially I was sceptical about the return of Harrison Ford as Han Solo - I was worried he'd just end up playing himself. As it happens he was actually a joy to watch, and seeing him and Chewie together again brought back the charm from the original films. I just wish he hadn't delivered the "I have a bad feeling about this" line. Felt twee. Personally I thought the scenes between Han and Leia were very well done, and a good way to expand on their relationship after all this time.

As much as I've enthused about Han, he's not the best or most prominent character in this. That accolade is jointly awarded to Finn and Rey - great characters and fantastic performances. They work well together and I look forwards to seeing more of them. In their first 10 minutes on screen together they showed more chemistry and character development than we had between Obi Wan and Annakin in all of episodes II and III.

I've seen a few people mention it being darker and grittier, but I completely disagree. There may be a couple of scenes like that, but overall this film had a lot of laughs and amusing parts - many of them coming from scenes with BB-8 or Chewie. For the record, BB-8 is fucking ace. C3-PO's entrance was also bang on the nail for him.

I also disagree about the "revelations" being given away early. Thinking of the significant events, we have Finn being a horse user (he's wielding a lighsaber in all the posters, don't think it was much of a surprise to anyone), Rey being a horse user (honestly didn't expect that, thought it would just be Finn, not hinted at at all until she touched the lightsaber), Ren being Han and Leia's son (it's mentioned at the beginning he used to have another name, but nothing at all to suggest who he was), the big, big, big significant thing which I'm not even going to mention here (I knew it was coming, but only because of story dynamics, nothing else to suggest it was going to happen).

Criticisms. Andy Serkis' character was almost identical to Gollum. Really took me out of the film whenever his face was on screen. Very disappointing that. I also felt it was too short (which is surprising these days) - I could feel when it was drawing to an end and desperately wanting it to keep going. I suppose that's a good thing now it actually comes to typing it out. A part of me is sad and angry that episodes I - III couldn't have been done like this, instead of the shitshow they are. The character of Dameron Po (Po Dameron?) felt underused. I've seen a number of reviews saying he was great, but he didn't have that much of an impact on me.

Overall, great stuff.

[buzzmong]

Roman:
(also, big spoilers)

Spoiler:

Interesing that you think Finn was a horse user, I didn't get that from the film at all. Rey definitely, but I didn't see anything for Finn about him using the horse in the firm. Rey was the one who had the vision, did the mind trick and did the pull. Finn didn't do any of that, all he did was swing the lightsaber around and that was because he had it at hand when he was given instructions by Maz to get it to Rey. I too thought he'd be the one using the horse due to the posters, so it did surprise me when it was Rey instead.

As for Kylo Ren, did you miss the first or second meeting with Snoke? Where he actually said that Han Solo was involved and that Ren's biggest test thus far will be to confront his father? It was very clear at that point that Ren was his son, it couldn't have been any clearer unless he'd said "Han Solo is your father" and whipped out a drawing of the family tree. Those couple of lines I thought were the ones that probably shouldn't have been said the way they were as they gave too much away, it would have been far more interesting to have the family link revealed with the "grandfather" scene, and then later on have the reveal, as it would have left you guessing for much longer just whose son he was. Would have also made the other scene you mention far more surprising, rather than something that was set up early and could be seen a mile off.

Also, Poe Dameron

[Dog Pants]

I thought that was fucking awesome.

Spoiler:

The first thing that struck me was that it was very Star Wars. That was a lot easier here than in eps I-III because the established stuff from eps IV-VI was still relevant technology and known (and loved) characters. Everything in I-III had to be completely unseen. Then I noticed how much it took from the plots and characters of IV-VI. Rey felt like a female Luke, Fin was something of a Han Solo. They were even delivering a message in a droid. It didn't bother me much though.

I agree with Buzz about the reveal about Ren coming too early. Someone had suggested a theory that he was actually Luke turned to the dark side, and I had that in my head until Snoke said Han was his father. I also wondered if Rey was Ren's sister, but there would have been some indication of that if it was the case. There's a reveal there for a later film. I didn't ever think Fin was a horse user, nor do I now. He just picked up a lightsabre and waved it about. Because I was thinking of Luke so much I was completely blind-sided by the big surprise and it left me utterly gobsmacked. Not to mention a bit teary.

I hated the 'bad feeling about this' line, but loved the comedy Chewie moments. He stole the film for me. And finally, I loved nods to the extended universe. The incidental guys like the criminals on Han's freighter, the various alien X-Wing pilots, the little parts that are never explained. It's hooks like that which make the universe seem so much deeper than the film immediately portrays, and something I think I-III really suffered with.

[Roman Totale]

Spoiler:

Re Fin: Ren identifies him as being a horse user

Re Ren: the bit your talking about is the bit I'm talking about - pretty much flat out says "Han Solo is your dad".

[buzzmong]

Spoiler:

Re: Big twist: Like I said, I saw the event coming, but I'm not going to lie and say I was totally sure of the outcome, I was actually 50/50 as to whether they'd go through with it.
Although I was quite suprised afterwards that aside from a couple of tiny sequences nothing was really done about it and the film moved on pretty quickly into the R2D2 bit and the trip to visit Luke (in Ireland ). Think that's the place where a scene or two may have been cut.

[Dog Pants]

Just read an interesting piece on Kylo Ren and the First Order's peculiar youth. It did strike me as odd that Ren was so young without really anyone to guide him. Well, more of an anticlimax - "oh, an emo. How daring." When I noticed how young the First Order officers were I just thought it was a weird casting choice designed to appeal to a younger audience. However...

The article points out that Ren is more menacing for being young and troubled. He's clearly nervous about his predicament, lacks confidence. I can relate to that idea, and furthermore it gives him something of a 'high-school killing spree' vibe. He's directionless in the Dark Side, all the Sith who would have trained him are dead and so he idolises his long-dead predecessor. Just like a troubled teenager who wants to burn the world might do. He's Dylan Klebold to Vader's Stalin.

This then ties into my spin on the other part of the article. The author states that the First Order are a young state led by young people because the Imperial command structure was wiped out. The politics of it all is little more than playground tussling for superiority, as seen by Hux showing up Ren in front of Snoke*. My train of thought extended in a different direction though. The article reminded me that towards the end of the Second World War the Germans were deploying units of Hitler Youth to fight, because they were pretty much all that was left. Could it be that the Empire have suffered such attrition during the war with the Rebellion/Resistance that they're reduced to staffing their officer ranks with teenagers? Similarly, as the article also points out, even the Stormtroopers are green and falling apart. They aren't clones any more, or hardened soldiers, they're just people who were kidnapped and indoctrinated as children. The article points out, in a way that I can't improve on, "Phasma has to put her troops into reprogramming – she doesn’t seem surprised that Finn needs a top up – because for all the screaming rallies they have to stand through, the horror of actual war is breaking them."

Which in the end makes it all seem very tragic and wasteful. An entire generation destroyed by civil war. All the more so because of the Stormtrooper body count, which I thought was cruel even before I considered that they might all be terrified in their first taste of combat.

Original article here if anyone fancies a read of it. It's not much longer than my post.

*Is that name Lucas's final legacy? Sounds like a kind of slipper.

[buzzmong]

Hmm, I don't think Ren's without people to guide him. There were a number of pieces of dialogue about Snoke having trained him, and near the end Hux was ordered to get Ren and bring him to Snoke to complete his training.

I'm quite interested to see how he embraced the Dark Side is going to be explained. He was in training to be a Jedi under Luke, although based on the conversation where that was revealed between Han and Leia, it was mentioned that the training was supposed to help him, implying that he had problems beforehand.

Maybe an issue of trying to live up to the family reputation and expections foisted upon him?

Father is infamous as a smuggler and famous as a Rebellion general, Mother is a huge political figure and military leader and you have an Uncle who is the last Jedi who defeated two Sith and brought down the Empire, as well as being a hero pilot who blew up the first Death Star. Even if the knowledge that Darth Vader is his grandfather isn't public knowledge, that's a huge legacy to live up to. Still going to be interesting to see why he's so onboard with the idea of eliminating the Jedi though.

With regards to the First Order as a whole, of all the Stormtroopers it was only Finn who broke rank in the film, all the others seemed to be content to fight. It was mentioned by Ren at one point to Hux that maybe they should use clones, but Hux rebuffed him saying his current troops were competent and well trained, perhaps Finn was a rare case of needing reconditioning? There also did seem to be an element of surprise when they discovered it was a Stormtrooper who helped Poe Dameron escape.
As for clone usage, maybe they don't use clones because they don't have access to the aging technology the Kamino's had? I could see it being advantageous to take and train young children if the alternative involved devoting a few years to raising actual babies. Or perhaps it's because it's easier to move around batches of trainees and training camps than it is to move around a cloning facility? Aside from having Starkiller base, there's not much on how the First Order operates, they could normally be quite mobile.

[Roman Totale]

My thoughts on the First Order and clones are:

1) The First Order is some sort of new training program they're testing out to see if they can get better results than with clones. As pointed out, there's a line where Hux says something like "if your troops can't be trusted, we'll get some clones in". Suggests to me that the technology is still there, but either it's unreliable or the results just aren't that good.

2) The whole thing is a McGuffin to try and undo the whole "all Stormtroopers are clones" bollocks. There was no indication they were clones in the original trilogy, and this feels like a step to repair some of the daft story lines created in the prequels.

On a separate note, I noticed a couple of things about Rey on a second viewing. I her little hut thing on Jakkar, she has what looks like a crotcheted Alliance pilot (orange jumpsuit with white), and she also sits around with one of their helmets on during her alone time. At first I just thought the helmet was something she's found whilst scavenging, but it appears to have more sentimental value than that. I reckon one of her parents was a rebel pilot who probably went off to train with Luke having demonstrated some ability. There are lots of theories saying she's Luke's daughter, or Ren's sister, but neither of those seem to add up (especially the latter - they're practically the same age, and you would have thought Han or Leia would at some point have mentioned having a daughter). I'm hoping it's an original character, and not someone who has already been in the films.

[Joose]

I remember reading somewhere (and this may no longer be canon) that they stopped using clones not so much because the technology was fucked, but more because they were now cloning clones of clones, and they were basically getting transcription errors.

[Mr. Johnson]

Finally got round to watching it, and I know this will make me unpopular but I didn't really like it that much. I need to think it over some more for my final thoughts and I won't make it a secret that my interest in star wars greatly waned after the prequels so I might've been a bit prejudiced (it doesn't help that I don't like JJ Abrams' stuff and all the hype shot it in the foot) but I felt pretty disappointed coming out the cinema. A film about space wizards with laser swords is not meant to make me feel bad.

[TezzRexx]

Finally got round to watching it, and I know this will make me unpopular but I didn't really like it that much. I need to think it over some more for my final thoughts and I won't make it a secret that my interest in star wars greatly waned after the prequels so I might've been a bit prejudiced (it doesn't help that I don't like JJ Abrams' stuff and all the hype shot it in the foot) but I felt pretty disappointed coming out the cinema. A film about space wizards with laser swords is not meant to make me feel bad.

[FatherJack]

Saw this last night and rather liked it. It was fun and had the sort of actual laughs that the original trilogy had, not the groans or downright po-facedness of the second trilogy. Also as DP mentioned, far more spark on screen with the new characters, too.

Spoiler:

I liked that the guy who when he first appeared looked like he was some guy pretending to be Vader turned out to be a dorky-looking kid pretending to be Vader and that he was still treated like a peon by Ginger Moff Tarkin and the Voldemort projection.
I think that the Empire need to change more than just their name and think up some new tactics, not just keep building deathstars all the time, especially not ones with single, catastrophic points of failure that even the sanitation engineers are aware of.
Had some stuff that didn't add up - like the baddie being able to sense Hand Solo when he lands on the same planet, but not when standing right behind him. Why has Leia never shown any horse ability other than "knowing" about Hand Solo? Also, Poe: "Hi again, I wasn't killed in that crash BTW despite there being utterly no sign of me in a completely barren landcape and the only help for miles being the place you found which was subsequently destroyed. I'm fine." When each faced by setbacks Hand Solo, Luke and R2D2 all seem to have said "well fuck it all" and given up. Who was the mysterious gold robot with a red arm?
I kind of picked up pretty quick about him being Han and Leia's son, but that's probably because I'd heard things about the (now non-canon) extended universe where they have a couple of kids, one jedi master one sith lord.
I thought Rey, Finn and Poe were all horse-sensitive as soon as I saw them. Rey because she's basically wearing a jedi costume, ace mechanic and great at closing doors, Finn because resisting conditioning and empathic reaction when the planet gets blown up, Poe because ace pilot - all of those being things we've seen in other horse-users before.

[buzzmong]

So, someone has gone off an made a video showing just how much of a homage VII was to the original 3, enjoy:

https://vimeo.com/160504168
(I miss our old media tags!)

Altenatively, you could view it on just how much JJA nicked from the others and how it really wasn't its own film.

It's good video though.

[Dog Pants]

Agh, that table-flip gif pisses me off every time I see it. That fucker is doing it for effect because he's a dick who thinks he's an alpha-nerd. He's spitting his dummy, not dropping the mic.

[FatherJack]

So, someone has gone off an made a video showing just how much of a homage VII was to the original

But that's (I thought) entirely the point. The new film is a love letter to the original film, and pretty much the love letter that I would have written. Big smiles from the nostalgic old fuckers like me who got to feel the same feelings we felt in 1977, plus also see those same feelings reflected on the kid's faces we went to see it with.

[Grimmie]

Agh, that table-flip gif pisses me off every time I see it. That fucker is doing it for effect because he's a dick who thinks he's an alpha-nerd. He's spitting his dummy, not dropping the mic.

Apparently it's just a YouTube persona. The guy's actually really level-headed when he's not acting as that character.

[Grimmie]

Spoiler:

Who was the mysterious gold robot with a red arm?

You gotta buy the comic book and find out that way! Product tie-ins, woo!