Critics Of “Star Wars: The Force Awakens” Blast New Film

[longblock454]

I would watch the warp 10 episode on repeat for the length of time it takes to watch episode 1 and 2 over watching episode 1 and 2 again

I would rather watch meatspin.com for for the entire length of EP1-2 than watch EP1-2.

 

[Climber]

Personally I loved the character development in the film. If you think Kylo Ren is the villain then you're completely missing where the story is going, at least IMO. There is no way that Ren continues down the path that we are meant to believe he is being led down. If JJ tries to stay somewhat true to the originals then he is following Kurosawa's story telling MO. That is where Lucas went wrong with episodes 1-3 since he deviated from his original source material.

From my understanding regarding Leia in the movie, apparently she is lit the majority of the time and is almost stupidly dysfunctional, kinda like Liv Tyler from LoTR as they had a ton of scenes and dialogue but she couldn't carry it.

The movie was great, I understand that a lot of people won't like it but some of the complaints regarding it are borderline asinine, It's SW or It's JJ so just going to hate on it.

 

[dugn]

3 NON-SPOILER reasons the latest installment fell flat:

The musical score beyond the Main Title fell flat. The original Star Wars score had the lilt of sand whisping through the air on Tatooine, the lumbering sound of the Jawa Crawler, the whimsy and strength of Leia in Leia's Theme not to mention the tractor beam 'march' and the introduction of a distinct score of the bad guys. Mr. Williams kicked it up a notch for Empire and set a permanent place in all our minds the unmistakable Empire/Vadar Theme that's as well known (or moreso) than the Jaws theme.

One of the main characters broke the 4th wall a few times. Whether he was trying to be funny or he was pushing his lines a little too far, he broke me out of the galaxy far far away one too many times. Too many earthy colloquialisms for my Star Wars universe.

Nothing New Added to the Star Wars Universe. Remember that Star Wars introduced us to droids, floating speeders, aliens and their economies, rag-tag rebel spaceships and crisp, clean shiny evil ships. It brought us an alien-filled cantina, The Force, illuminated swords called lightsabers and all kinds of great, new things taken from the best of science fiction that preceded it. While there's no way The Force Awakens could recreate that level of magic, the fact it brought absolutely nothing new to the table was downright disappointing.

That said, of all the ways JJ Abrams could have completely blown it, he didn't. He didn't ruin the universe. He didn't ruin the legacy. He didn't take anything so completely off-track as to ruin the future of the franchise. And that, in itself, is a marvelous feat.

 

[Droc]

Take out the falcon scenes and its a direct to redbox product. I enjoyed parts, the rest was absolutly terrible.

 

[qbanb8582]

I liked the movie. I don't bother looking reviews much anymore. When countless places are giving it praise and saying its great. Then you have the few that say its terrible, I find those are just the places that are making clickbait articles to try and get the extra traffic. You see this shit with game sites too.

 

[Droc]

3 NON-SPOILER reasons the latest installment fell flat:

The musical score beyond the Main Title fell flat. The original Star Wars score had the lilt of sand whisping through the air on Tatooine, the lumbering sound of the Jawa Crawler, the whimsy and strength of Leia in Leia's Theme not to mention the tractor beam 'march' and the introduction of a distinct score of the bad guys. Mr. Williams kicked it up a notch for Empire and set a permanent place in all our minds the unmistakable Empire/Vadar Theme that's as well known (or moreso) than the Jaws theme.

One of the main characters broke the 4th wall a few times. Whether he was trying to be funny or he was pushing his lines a little too far, he broke me out of the galaxy far far away one too many times. Too many earthy colloquialisms for my Star Wars universe.

Nothing New Added to the Star Wars Universe. Remember that Star Wars introduced us to droids, floating speeders, aliens and their economies, rag-tag rebel spaceships and crisp, clean shiny evil ships. It brought us an alien-filled cantina, The Force, illuminated swords called lightsabers and all kinds of great, new things taken from the best of science fiction that preceded it. While there's no way The Force Awakens could recreate that level of magic, the fact it brought absolutely nothing new to the table was downright disappointing.

That said, of all the ways JJ Abrams could have completely blown it, he didn't. He didn't ruin the universe. He didn't ruin the legacy. He didn't take anything so completely off-track as to ruin the future of the franchise. And that, in itself, is a marvelous feat.

Star wars without any space battles....

 

[Dan_D]

I completely agree. I love DS9 and TNG because of how their main characters and even some side characters carried the show through a wide variety of scenarios, ranging from serious, to very dangerous to emotional and joyful moments. All of that helps to make these characters into human beings you can relate to. Even the 'bad guys' are made to look sympathetic at times, like Gul Dukat. You both hate and like the guy.

Star Trek Nemesis is this uneasy blur in the back of my mind which I never hope to revisit. Similar to the travesty that was JJ "I hate Star Trek" Abram's Star Trek reboot =/

I share this opinion. Although, taken purely as an action film Nemesis isn't horrid and the visuals are superb. Sadly it's my second favorite TNG film after First Contact. Generations and Insurrection suck.

How did this become a Star Trek thread?

Someone made the mistake of nearly attempting to defend the Warp 10 episode of Voyager. A response was required.

I'd still watch that Warp 10 episode over watching Star Wars episode 1.

No, just no. Not only is "Threshold" a steaming pile of shit for a Star Trek episode, it's shit as far as science fiction is concerned. Evolving into salamanders, lore breaking left and right, ridiculous physics and overall bad writing. Its indefensible.

I would watch the warp 10 episode on repeat for the length of time it takes to watch episode 1 and 2 over watching episode 1 and 2 again

I'd rather repeat all the Padme and Anakin relationship scenes for the full length of "Threshold" and the Finale of Enterprise than watch either of those episodes. Next to "Threshold", Episodes 1 & II are cinematic masterpieces.

 

[Neurofreeze]

I'm just a sucker for the PEW PEW PEW ZAP BOOOM

Me too... me too....

It's like some people forgot to have fun.

 

[sleepeeg3]

And on the flip side, a lot of people rated this highly because they WANTED it to be a good film and were dying for anything Star Wars. Box office figures are meaningless for this movie. It might blow your mind, but it's entirely possible some people simply didn't like the film.

I'm a huge Star Wars fan. Watched the originals since I was a little kid, played the games. When Episode 1 came out, I tried so hard to like it. It sucked, so did 2. Episode 3 was not bad. I know a lot of fans who won't admit the first two were terrible.

As for this movie, I found the storyline to be a bit wanting. The villain was ok, but not as sinister or as intimidating as Darth Vader was. Rey's force abilities despite the lack of training isn't consistent with anything else in the Star Wars universe. I found Leia to be comparatively subdued in this film, unlike the original three where she was a firecracker. That said, I did enjoy the movie. They did some things really well. I'll applaud the return to guys in costumes instead of CGI everything like they did in the prequels. In terms of entertainment value, it delivered, but it was far from perfect and it didn't blow me away like The Empire Strikes Back did. That's part of the challenge though. The original three films were a mastery of film-making, a bar that's almost impossible to surpass.

Also, was I the only one expecting guys like Grand Admiral Thrawn to show up?

Damn, you pretty much nailed everything I was thinking.

Movie would have been brilliant if they had just made the Thrawn trilogy. Instead, they decided to remake ANH. Eye candy, but pretty hollow.

 

[sleepeeg3]

3 sucked too, though.

 

[Factum]

Me too... me too....

It's like some people forgot to have fun.

The definition of "fun" varies.
Mindless PEW-PEW bores me ultra fast.

 

[Darunion]

Damn, you pretty much nailed everything I was thinking.

Movie would have been brilliant if they had just made the Thrawn trilogy. Instead, they decided to remake ANH. Eye candy, but pretty hollow.

We would have been having arguments about how disney was super lazy and using premade material to cash in on the franchise they bought. Although I would have loved that lol.

 

[Deleted member 93354]

Warp 10 is also described as a transwarp barrier in the same show which makes no fucking sense. Voyager had traveled at transwarp velocities several times in the series which is clearly different than warp 10. This is the problem with Voyager. It was inconsistent at best in terms of writing quality. It doesn't always follow it's own rules.

That was the problem with Voyager. They made up too much science bs to dig themselves out of a plot-hole that wasn't reliant enough on actual science.

Even Q or "The Traveler" couldn't do warp 10 with the enterprise. But they got awefully darn close.

But in Voyagers defense, I think Tom didn't established a warp bubble to reach Warp 10. He was using some new technology he was tinkering with. (Which I highly doubt is reasonable given their limited resources.)

BTW: Morn from DS9 is here. He would like to talk about his kids.

 

[Elledan]

I share this opinion. Although, taken purely as an action film Nemesis isn't horrid and the visuals are superb. Sadly it's my second favorite TNG film after First Contact. Generations and Insurrection suck.

Nemesis could be a lot worse, yes. Like JJ Abrams 'Red Deus Ex Machina Matter' bad

First Contact is the uncontested best Star Trek movie as far as I'm concerned. Insurrection was... passable, but kinda predictable. Generations was unforgivable even when it could have been a cool idea.

"This is no time to be arguing about the time line. We don't have the time!"

 

[Dan_D]

Damn, you pretty much nailed everything I was thinking.

Movie would have been brilliant if they had just made the Thrawn trilogy. Instead, they decided to remake ANH. Eye candy, but pretty hollow.

I know people tend to put Heir to the Empire on a pedestal but it's got issues. Jorus C'Baoth is a lame two dimensional villain and the Last Command's climax is well, anti-climactic. The battle with the Luuke clone had no feeling of jeopardy. The fight scene with Jorus was basically a bad copy of the RoTJ throne room scene.

Nemesis could be a lot worse, yes. Like JJ Abrams 'Red Deus Ex Machina Matter' bad

First Contact is the uncontested best Star Trek movie as far as I'm concerned. Insurrection was... passable, but kinda predictable. Generations was unforgivable even when it could have been a cool idea.

"This is no time to be arguing about the time line. We don't have the time!"

First Contact is the best of the TNG movies, I'll agree. Star Trek II or VI beat it easily. The problem with First Contact is it's utter predictability. Time travel in Star Trek annoys me as it's overused and was even by that point. It also rarely has consequences as they seem to always wrap it up in a bow when the story concludes. Lastly, I dislike the idea of a Borg Queen at all. Especially since she supposedly existed before the Borg decided to create Locutus out of Picard. The downfall of the Borg as villains started with First Contact and sadly, ended on Enterprise. They became less scary, easier to relate to and far too common an enemy.

 

[Deleted member 93354]

The new super death star weapon is pure BS. It shows weak creativity to solve the problem of how to deal with the Galatic Senate. Have they never heard of a war through attrition, espionage, assasinations, and gorilla tactics? That would have been a much more interesting and believable plot. Yes that is closely related to episode I, but they could have redone episode I's plot correctly instead of creating this steaming pile of dung heap.

Building a super star destroyer would require a massive resource pool that would be hard to acquire secretly. And lets face it, what's left of the empire doesn't really have much in resources. They were losing everything they had.

The fact the rebels were still rebels and not integrated as protectors of the new Senate is just BS. They were still poorly armed and scattered.

The fact that all the capital ships the rebels had in VI just magically disappeared. You would think their resources would have gone up a bit since the end of the empire.

The fact they couldn't evacuate the base when they realized the rebel planet was going to be blasted to bits with plenty of warning, but still had time to launch all their x wings and get them into hyper space to attack without planning.

The fact they had to stick a f'n kid into an x-wing. Come on.

The fact the Falcon instantly jumped to hyper-space without waiting for the Nav Computer to figure out where it was going and how. (Episode IV-"Jumping around in hyper space isn't like dusting crops boy. Jump too close to a meteor, planet or star and that will end your trip real quick now wouldn't it?")

The fact the Rey was this soft loveable kitten that trust everybody when her parents were taken from her when she was about 8? She had to fend for herself in a world that is ruthless, and live in the harshest of environments. She should have been harder personality wise than Leia.

The fact the Rey instantly learned how to use the force and do battle with sabers with absolutely NO training.


The fact that half the rebel attack wing was destroyed in one battle. Seriously?!?

The fact Rey could fly the Falcon with absolutely no flight experience in the Falcon...or any ship from what I can tell. (Imagine putting a B52 navigator into a JSF and asking him to fly it to it's best abilities...)

The fact that the Falcon could take that much physical abuse yet everyone inside is okay from being thrown around hard. If you ever even slightly clipped something in a car at speed, you know how much that hurts.

The fact that there appears to be no gravity control inside the Falcon. We know there are artificial gravity plates which should overcome any planet based gravity.

The fact no Sith lord has ever lost his cool. When you lose your cool, you lose focus which is necessary for the force, lightside or darkside. Kylo Ren is just an emo mess. He should have never have removed his mask either. The best villians are those that you can not make out as human.

At the very least Kylo should been scarred AND bald. I'm not talking darth vader, or senator palpatine ugly here. But Kylo should show some life tramatic event that might have led to his downfall. Here's a good scenario: During training, Kylo gets hit with a saber which scars him. He gets angry and strikes back accidently striking down another padwan: his best friend/brother/sister. Kylo runs off and finds the dark side thinking he is nothing but evil.

I could easily name another 10 points of how this steaming pile of dung heap should be burried and redone.

There's just an epic ton of BS here of weak plot & character development, and just poor writing. Like I said, JJ just sucks epic donkey...

 

[Deleted member 96510]

We all know how this goes. We all know going in it's a trilogy, so look at this as scene 1. The purpose is to introduce new characters, a new location and set the foundation for a greater story. Those three things it did well. This film was doomed to criticism, but JJ Abrams did a great job with it. No, it wasn't a timeless classic, but It think that's the problem. Expectations were too high. The original was groundbreaking, nothing is going to compare to that, but all the elements that make Star Wars what it is were there.

I have to admit, I think Kylo Ren is too flawed as a villain. That is the big issue. Darth Vader has a mystique that no other villain has had. He was presented as an unstoppable force that you did not know how he would be defeated. It wasn't until Return of the Jedi near the end where you saw vader's vulnerability. Kylo Ren's vulnerability was shown to soon.

 

[ManofGod]

The new super death star weapon is pure BS. It shows weak creativity to solve the problem of how to deal with the Galatic Senate. Have they never heard of a war through attrition, espionage, assasinations, and gorilla tactics? That would have been a much more interesting and believable plot. Yes that is closely related to episode I, but they could have redone episode I's plot correctly instead of creating this steaming pile of dung heap.

Building a super star destroyer would require a massive resource pool that would be hard to acquire secretly. And lets face it, what's left of the empire doesn't really have much in resources. They were losing everything they had.

The fact the rebels were still rebels and not integrated as protectors of the new Senate is just BS. They were still poorly armed and scattered.

The fact that all the capital ships the rebels had in VI just magically disappeared. You would think their resources would have gone up a bit since the end of the empire.

The fact they couldn't evacuate the base when they realized the rebel planet was going to be blasted to bits with plenty of warning, but still had time to launch all their x wings and get them into hyper space to attack without planning.

The fact they had to stick a f'n kid into an x-wing. Come on.

The fact the Falcon instantly jumped to hyper-space without waiting for the Nav Computer to figure out where it was going and how. (Episode IV-"Jumping around in hyper space isn't like dusting crops boy. Jump too close to a meteor, planet or star and that will end your trip real quick now wouldn't it?")

The fact the Rey was this soft loveable kitten that trust everybody when her parents were taken from her when she was about 8? She had to fend for herself in a world that is ruthless, and live in the harshest of environments. She should have been harder personality wise than Leia.

The fact the Rey instantly learned how to use the force and do battle with sabers with absolutely NO training.


The fact that half the rebel attack wing was destroyed in one battle. Seriously?!?

The fact Rey could fly the Falcon with absolutely no flight experience in the Falcon...or any ship from what I can tell. (Imagine putting a B52 navigator into a JSF and asking him to fly it to it's best abilities...)

The fact that the Falcon could take that much physical abuse yet everyone inside is okay from being thrown around hard. If you ever even slightly clipped something in a car at speed, you know how much that hurts.

The fact that there appears to be no gravity control inside the Falcon. We know there are artificial gravity plates which should overcome any planet based gravity.

The fact no Sith lord has ever lost his cool. When you lose your cool, you lose focus which is necessary for the force, lightside or darkside. Kylo Ren is just an emo mess. He should have never have removed his mask either. The best villians are those that you can not make out as human.

At the very least Kylo should been scarred AND bald. I'm not talking darth vader, or senator palpatine ugly here. But Kylo should show some life tramatic event that might have led to his downfall. Here's a good scenario: During training, Kylo gets hit with a saber which scars him. He gets angry and strikes back accidently striking down another padwan: his best friend/brother/sister. Kylo runs off and finds the dark side thinking he is nothing but evil.

I could easily name another 10 points of how this steaming pile of dung heap should be burried and redone.

There's just an epic ton of BS here of weak plot & character development, and just poor writing. Like I said, JJ just sucks epic donkey...

The fact that this is fiction and highly entertaining at that is what matters. Your opinion is just that, your opinion and also, it would be nice if you had warned people of the spoilers in this post. (I have seen the movie and loved it but, some have not yet seen it.)

 

[Ur_Mom]

That said, of all the ways JJ Abrams could have completely blown it, he didn't. He didn't ruin the universe. He didn't ruin the legacy. He didn't take anything so completely off-track as to ruin the future of the franchise. And that, in itself, is a marvelous feat.

From your description, he played it safe. He didn't add to the universe (George Lucas tried that in 1-3, didn't go over so well), didn't take away. He didn't kill it, didn't go off track. Sounds like that's part of the complaints. He didn't take the big risks that MIGHT alienate some fans, but he also didn't trash the universe.

It's a good and bad thing...

Some love the new movie, some hate it. Some of the complaints are very fanboy style complaints (the droid in the background wasn't a true R2 unit, but a bad reproduction of a similar unit from Tatooine) or some other thing that no one else would really notice. You didn't have those problems in the originals. They were the ones that started it all, there were no mistakes - it was all made up. The new ones have to conform to the universe that was created previously. That's going to be very difficult to get perfect.

 

[Deleted member 93354]

The fact that this is fiction and highly entertaining at that is what matters. Your opinion is just that, your opinion and also, it would be nice if you had warned people of the spoilers in this post. (I have seen the movie and loved it but, some have not yet seen it.)

Not highly entertaining. Just steaming bull-crap. Still better than Episode I's bad acting and plot sidelines, but still steaming dung heap just the same.

You sir, just have bad taste in movies.

I slammed episode I when everyone was raving about it...and with time it was realized how bad episode I was.

 

[ManofGod]

Not highly entertaining. Just steaming bull-crap. Still better than Episode I's bad acting and plot sidelines, but still steaming dung heap just the same.

You sir, just have bad taste in movies.

I slammed episode I when everyone was raving about it...and with time it was realized how bad episode I was.

Once again, your opinion but hey, enjoy it. I suppose you think the Lego Movie was bad as well? Good thing I do not have to be entertained by your perspective on movies.

 

[Dan_D]

The new super death star weapon is pure BS. It shows weak creativity to solve the problem of how to deal with the Galatic Senate. Have they never heard of a war through attrition, espionage, assasinations, and gorilla tactics? That would have been a much more interesting and believable plot. Yes that is closely related to episode I, but they could have redone episode I's plot correctly instead of creating this steaming pile of dung heap.

You completely miss the point of a super weapon. It's not about tactical superiority, although that's part of it. It isn't about "dealing with the senate." It's about fear. That's what the Death Star before it was. A device that provokes fear. Until they used it, no one would have truly feared it.

Building a super star destroyer would require a massive resource pool that would be hard to acquire secretly. And lets face it, what's left of the empire doesn't really have much in resources. They were losing everything they had.

The ship your talking about isn't as large as an Executor Class Super Star Destroyer. It's roughly double the size of an Imperial Star Destroyer. You do bring up a valid point about the resources, but let's face it. We lack information. These could easily have been the left over projects, and equipment from Palpatine's era. There are a lot of parallels with the Nazi SS and a faction like that which was either self-sufficient, or prepared to break away. At the very least it seemed organized enough to survive the collapse of the Galactic Empire.

The fact the rebels were still rebels and not integrated as protectors of the new Senate is just BS. They were still poorly armed and scattered.

You like to make assumptions don't you? We don't know anything about the political nature of the New Republic. Dialog specifically mentions a Republic Fleet, so I can only guess that this separation was done for political reasons rather than military or budgetary constraints. I do hope subsequent films clarify this relationship.

The fact that all the capital ships the rebels had in VI just magically disappeared. You would think their resources would have gone up a bit since the end of the empire.

Most likely, capital ships from the Rebel Alliance days were absorbed into the New Republic military, or returned to the governments they originated from. Don't forget, Leia was in charge and assaulting something like Starkiller base with a fleet of Capital ships would only have amounted to losses. Fighters, surgically attacking targets is a far better plan when you can't have a bigger or more well equipped army in a fight.

The fact they couldn't evacuate the base when they realized the rebel planet was going to be blasted to bits with plenty of warning, but still had time to launch all their x wings and get them into hyper space to attack without planning.

Well, it seems that the existence of the Starkiller base and weapon was unknown to the Resistance at the time. Without the capital ships you mentioned an evacuation wouldn't be possible. The X-Wings were dispatched to deal with the base, but that's a separate issue from evacuation.

The fact they had to stick a f'n kid into an x-wing. Come on.

I am not sure what you are talking about here.

The fact the Falcon instantly jumped to hyper-space without waiting for the Nav Computer to figure out where it was going and how. (Episode IV-"Jumping around in hyper space isn't like dusting crops boy. Jump too close to a meteor, planet or star and that will end your trip real quick now wouldn't it?")

Many times in the EU blind jumps have been done for varying reasons. Also, coordinates could have already been plotted prior to the ship being picked up. It also stands to reason that Han may have replaced the nav computer with a much faster and more powerful one. Keep in mind more than 30 years passed since RoTJ. Also keep in mind that Episode VII draws heavily on the EU for inspiration.

The fact the Rey was this soft loveable kitten that trust everybody when her parents were taken from her when she was about 8? She had to fend for herself in a world that is ruthless, and live in the harshest of environments. She should have been harder personality wise than Leia.

This is a wild assumption. I can see why you made this generalization but people don't always react the way you think they would. We know little about her past. We don't even know how long she's truly been alone. We saw her being taken somewhere, but that doesn't mean she was left alone for all that time.

The fact the Rey instantly learned how to use the force and do battle with sabers with absolutely NO training.

There you go again. You make a lot of assumptions. There is evidence to suggest she's had training. The source of this training, the extent of it and why she may not be fully aware of it are at this point unknown.

The fact that half the rebel attack wing was destroyed in one battle. Seriously?!?

They may have only been referring to what they had on mission, not the totality of the Resistance Forces.

The fact Rey could fly the Falcon with absolutely no flight experience in the Falcon...or any ship from what I can tell. (Imagine putting a B52 navigator into a JSF and asking him to fly it to it's best abilities...)

Actually there is dialog from Rey in the film where she and Finn are talking separately, and over each other and she mentions having studied flying. So she lacked practical experience, but that doesn't mean she had no idea how to fly a ship. Evidently there is a tie in book which is canon, and explains she had flight simulator training at the very least. In the EU and in Episode I, it's explained that Force users, even untrained ones often unknowingly use their abilities as they can see things just slightly before they happen. This is how they can react so fast. It stands to reason that this is why she was so "natural" at it. This augmented the skills she already most likely possesses.

The fact that the Falcon could take that much physical abuse yet everyone inside is okay from being thrown around hard. If you ever even slightly clipped something in a car at speed, you know how much that hurts.

Jesus, are you totally new to science fiction? Inertial dampening would be required for any ship capable of FTL or near FTL speeds. It stands to reason that these work at low speeds too. Also, the ship is tough. It's crashed multiple times and its been shot at a lot over the years. The Falcon is also not the only ship in Star Wars depicted as being that rugged.

The fact that there appears to be no gravity control inside the Falcon. We know there are artificial gravity plates which should overcome any planet based gravity.

How did you reach this conclusion? You obviously haven't paid attention to the different gravitational orientation of the gun wells themselves. There is artificial gravity in there and this combined with inertial dampening is why the occupants aren't street pizza when they crash the ship into crap.

The fact no Sith lord has ever lost his cool. When you lose your cool, you lose focus which is necessary for the force, lightside or darkside. Kylo Ren is just an emo mess. He should have never have removed his mask either. The best villians are those that you can not make out as human.

Your knowledge of Star Wars is limited. Plenty of dark side force users, light side force users, and even Anakin Skywalker have lost their cool. Dark side force users embrace their passions which makes them more likely to vent and throw tantrums. Keep in mind once again that while the EU isn't canon, it was clearly drawn on as inspiration for the film. The character Kylo Ren resembles has thrown tantrums. Taking off the mask served multiple purposes in the story. One, it was needed to establish his identity. This proved to audiences that Kylo wasn't Luke gone dark. It also was necessary for his other more character oriented scenes. The best villains are the ones that don't need masks to be scary. I am not saying they succeeded with Kylo Ren, but I think the point stands.

At the very least Kylo should been scarred AND bald. I'm not talking darth vader, or senator palpatine ugly here. But Kylo should show some life tramatic event that might have led to his downfall. Here's a good scenario: During training, Kylo gets hit with a saber which scars him. He gets angry and strikes back accidently striking down another padwan: his best friend/brother/sister. Kylo runs off and finds the dark side thinking he is nothing but evil.

Sometimes people are just bad. He doesn't need to be scarred or suffer physical trauma to have snapped. That's ridiculous.

I could easily name another 10 points of how this steaming pile of dung heap should be burried and redone.

Most of them can probably picked apart and disregarded as bullshit.

There's just an epic ton of BS here of weak plot & character development, and just poor writing. Like I said, JJ just sucks epic donkey...

As I said in some other threads, Episode IV suffered from the same problems. We didn't have character development until Episode V and the totality of the story needed to be considered from Episode IV to VI. I suspect that will be the case here.

We all know how this goes. We all know going in it's a trilogy, so look at this as scene 1. The purpose is to introduce new characters, a new location and set the foundation for a greater story. Those three things it did well. This film was doomed to criticism, but JJ Abrams did a great job with it. No, it wasn't a timeless classic, but It think that's the problem. Expectations were too high. The original was groundbreaking, nothing is going to compare to that, but all the elements that make Star Wars what it is were there.

I have to admit, I think Kylo Ren is too flawed as a villain. That is the big issue. Darth Vader has a mystique that no other villain has had. He was presented as an unstoppable force that you did not know how he would be defeated. It wasn't until Return of the Jedi near the end where you saw vader's vulnerability. Kylo Ren's vulnerability was shown to soon.

I agree that Kylo Ren could have been handled better. My guess is, that we'll see a darker and more menacing version of him in the next film.

From your description, he played it safe. He didn't add to the universe (George Lucas tried that in 1-3, didn't go over so well), didn't take away. He didn't kill it, didn't go off track. Sounds like that's part of the complaints. He didn't take the big risks that MIGHT alienate some fans, but he also didn't trash the universe.

It's a good and bad thing...

This I also agree with. I've said as much in other posts. He did play it safe which I think was the right call for the first series in the trilogy.

Some love the new movie, some hate it. Some of the complaints are very fanboy style complaints (the droid in the background wasn't a true R2 unit, but a bad reproduction of a similar unit from Tatooine) or some other thing that no one else would really notice. You didn't have those problems in the originals. They were the ones that started it all, there were no mistakes - it was all made up. The new ones have to conform to the universe that was created previously. That's going to be very difficult to get perfect.

Shit like that isn't necessarily relevant. There are errors and issues like that which will pop up given the vast universe that's been created. Even without the EU there is enough canon material to make getting things like that right more difficult.

Not highly entertaining. Just steaming bull-crap. Still better than Episode I's bad acting and plot sidelines, but still steaming dung heap just the same.

You sir, just have bad taste in movies.

I slammed episode I when everyone was raving about it...and with time it was realized how bad episode I was.

That's your opinion. The film isn't perfect but I found it entertaining. You can say that's bad taste, but chances are I think the movies you find "entertaining" are crap. It's all subjective so who gives a shit?

 

[earnolmartin]

The real Star Trek ended with Deep Space Nine. Voyager was a fucking travesty and a total clusterfuck of cliché's, over-used plotlines, continuity errors, inconsistent story telling and lame duck characters. Most of Voyager's characters were either developmentally challenged or suffered from development that was hyper accelerated too fast. Most often either direction had negative results. It was a piece of shit for a lot of the reasons why Enterprise was. That's not to say they don't have some occasionally good episodes or story arcs, but the overall series is mediocre to bad just like the episodes that comprise it.

The Warp 10 episode stands tall as the single worst episode of Star Trek, spanning it's 48 year history. I believe that episode to be the single worst live-action example of Star Trek material, including the horrible fan fictions and crossovers to be found in the darkest reaches of the internet's anus. Even the horrible Enterprise series finale doesn't compare to this utter trashing of the in-universe mythology. At least the finale to Enterprise wasn't based on a totally bad premise which shattered the show's 40 years of mythology. Don't get me wrong, it was bad, easily the second worst Star Trek offense of all time. The Warp 10 episode however stands alone in its badness. It's worse than the Star Wars Holiday Special, Spock's Brain and the worst direct to DVD atrocities given to us by aging 1980's action stars combined.

Seriously? Voyager was the best thing that ever happened to Star Trek. Deep Space 9 was just a soap opera with idiot characters taking turns falling in love. They couldn't come up with many good episode stories, so they just recycled the "oh I want to fall in love too and finally do" theme. Also, the Bajoran messiah person was a sociopath who was annoying and believed in their stupid religion.

Sorry, but Deep Space 9 was probably the lamest Star Trek ever created.

Also, I don't know what you have against the warp 10 episode. It was OK in my opinion. Not the best episode ever but certainly not the worst.

 

[earnolmartin]

Sorry to derail this thread, but as a Star Trek fan, I just had to comment!

On topic: I was disappointed with the new Star Wars. The acting wasn't very good at all. I really wanted to get into it, but I just couldn't. The story was episode 4 all over again with only a few things changed. I was really hoping the story wouldn't be a rehash of what happened before with minor twists (evil son, good father instead of evil father, good son). Hoping the next ones will be better, but I won't be wasting $11.50 for a movie ticket ever again. I'll wait for library DVD to be disappointed.

 

[Dan_D]

Seriously? Voyager was the best thing that ever happened to Star Trek. Deep Space 9 was just a soap opera with idiot characters taking turns falling in love. They couldn't come up with many good episode stories, so they just recycled the "oh I want to fall in love too and finally do" theme. Also, the Bajoran messiah person was a sociopath who was annoying and believed in their stupid religion.

Sorry, but Deep Space 9 was probably the lamest Star Trek ever created.

Also, I don't know what you have against the warp 10 episode. It was OK in my opinion. Not the best episode ever but certainly not the worst.

Voyager is one of the worst offenses in Star Trek history. As a series, it suffered from bad pacing of character development, inconsistent quality, inconsistent story telling, continuity and technical errors given the established lore, and a host of lame characters. The Doctor was badly done as he hit the wall in terms of character development far too quickly. I can't blame the actor for that, as its the fault of the writers. In two seasons he showed far more progression than Data did in 15 years of TV and films. It just didn't seem right. 7 of 9 was handled in similarly bad ways. She was put on the show because she had giant tits and the ratings were falling. BTW, the ratings pretty much speak for themselves as Voyager at the time did worse than either TNG or DS9 ever did. At one point it was in danger of cancellation until they put 7 of 9 on there.

The Captain was the worst. That crazy bitch would call people into the conference room, ask their opinions and then do whatever the hell she wanted anyway. She was a know it all and her personality came across as schizophrenic because the writing was so shitty. The series also dumbed down the Borg by over using them and it had a formulaic approach that mimicked the Next Generation exactly. The show overused time travel after it had been abused by the previous three shows as a plot device.

I can go on and on about why that show blows, but I'll leave it at that for now. As for "Threshold", I covered that above. Those are all the reasons I need.

 

[earnolmartin]

Luckily, neither of our opinions count for much. I just re-watched all of Voyager a few months ago. I had a blast. I cried so many times. So many episodes touched me in a way that I can't explain thanks to good acting and story telling. The doctor is a great actor. Most of the characters acted well. 7 of 9 was a great addition, and it's not simply because she IS hot.

Deep Space 9 was just total boredom except for when they are at war with the Cardassians and Changelings. I'd rather watch the warp 10 episode 1000 times over before re-watching Deep Space 9.

 

[Climber]

The new super death star weapon is pure BS. It shows weak creativity to solve the problem of how to deal with the Galatic Senate. Have they never heard of a war through attrition, espionage, assasinations, and gorilla tactics? That would have been a much more interesting and believable plot. Yes that is closely related to episode I, but they could have redone episode I's plot correctly instead of creating this steaming pile of dung heap.

The Death Stars have been in building long before the movie came out. If you read the pos book Aftermath you would be introduced to Starkiller at the very end of the book.

Building a super star destroyer would require a massive resource pool that would be hard to acquire secretly. And lets face it, what's left of the empire doesn't really have much in resources. They were losing everything they had.

The fact the rebels were still rebels and not integrated as protectors of the new Senate is just BS. They were still poorly armed and scattered.

The fact that all the capital ships the rebels had in VI just magically disappeared. You would think their resources would have gone up a bit since the end of the empire.

Most of these points were addressed in the new books. The Empire still had massive resource funds as well as numerous projects the Emperor was working on past the outer rim.

The fact the Falcon instantly jumped to hyper-space without waiting for the Nav Computer to figure out where it was going and how. (Episode IV-"Jumping around in hyper space isn't like dusting crops boy. Jump too close to a meteor, planet or star and that will end your trip real quick now wouldn't it?")

Han had been working on the calculations during the dialogue, at least that is what I assume he was doing messing with the controls.

The fact the Rey was this soft loveable kitten that trust everybody when her parents were taken from her when she was about 8? She had to fend for herself in a world that is ruthless, and live in the harshest of environments. She should have been harder personality wise than Leia.

Not necessarily but I guess she could have been written either way. Many of the Star Wars characters Lucas wrote were based off of Kurosawa's characters and identities and the tragic character that remains at peace with the world around them despite their circumstances is one of the primary character builds of Kurosawa.

The fact the Rey instantly learned how to use the force and do battle with sabers with absolutely NO training.

Like Luke right? Or do you think that little hyperspace jump to Alderan was enough time for Obi-Wan to train Luke into a saber master able to go toe to toe with Darth Vader? Maz gives her just as much training as she needed when she told her that the force is there for her and she just had to feel it and let it guide her. Rey knew of the stories and feats of the Jedi and she was trying to emulate what she heard, especially when she mind tricks the stormtrooper, who just happened to be Daniel Craig. During the final saber duel, she does her best Qui-Gon impersonation and finds the force and lets it direct her, similar to Luke's training on the falcon when he put on the blast helmet.

The fact Rey could fly the Falcon with absolutely no flight experience in the Falcon...or any ship from what I can tell. (Imagine putting a B52 navigator into a JSF and asking him to fly it to it's best abilities...)

Considering she worked on it and was familiar with the ship makes it not that much of a jump and she hardly flew it to the "best of its abilities"

The fact no Sith lord has ever lost his cool. When you lose your cool, you lose focus which is necessary for the force, lightside or darkside. Kylo Ren is just an emo mess. He should have never have removed his mask either. The best villians are those that you can not make out as human.

Kylo is not a Sith Lord. He is barely an apprentice. His "emo mess" as you so eloquently put it is part of his character development. You can tell he is conflicted over the path he has chosen and it is eating him up inside. Yea, perhaps his tantrums are a little overboard but I think it shows just how conflicted he is. He idolizes Vader and Snoke is the quickest path to what Vader was; however, it goes against everything his parents, uncle, and even his conscience are screaming out to him.

Personally I think the best villains are those that are too human.

I could easily name another 10 points of how this steaming pile of dung heap should be burried and redone.

There's just an epic ton of BS here of weak plot & character development, and just poor writing. Like I said, JJ just sucks epic donkey...

You could, and you may even be right in some of them. I hate the fact that the final battle has zero depth to it. Where is the air cover, the capital ships, only 1 or 2 squadrons stationed on the base, etc...etc...The final battle lacked any sort of military strategy and I still can't believe they make these bases with such a fatal flaw.

Personally I found the writing to be above average for a sci-fi film and the character development is way better than I thought it was going to be. Yea, I wish they would have done a few things differently here or there but overall it was a great addition to the Star Wars Universe and was a much better movie than the last 3.

 

[Bigbacon]

weird...at first Kylo didn't do it for me as a villian but the more and more I think about it (which is bad) he sort of grew on me and I actually think he was quite a good character, even in his look.

no matter what though...it IS better than the prequel junk...

 

[Deleted member 126051]

I look at it this way.

Did it "feel" like a Star Wars flick to me? Yes.
Was I entertained? Yes.

Mission accomplished.

Now, do I realize the film has problems in story/dialog/presentation/character development? Yes.
Do I realize the film has problems as a stand-alone film regardless of its affiliation with Star Wars? Yes.

Now, do I actually give enough of a shit to HATE the movie? Fuck no!

Honestly, ALL of the Star Wars movies had their problems. And so the fuck what?
If you were entertained, it did its job. If you weren't, it failed.

If you went into the film looking for some deeper criteria than that, whether you found it or not, YOU failed.

End of discussion.

 

[DeathFromBelow]

I slammed episode I when everyone was raving about it...and with time it was realized how bad episode I was.

I was 10 when Episode I came out and I had no trouble recognizing that it was a boring movie that made no sense.

I really enjoyed VII, and when I look at critiques like yours I'm not seeing any rational justifications for your argument. It's hard to take you seriously when you're asking questions like 'why didn't they use the rebel fleet they had back in Return of the Jedi?' The reason was shown and discussed on multiple occasions in the movie. I'm not even going to bother doing a point-by-point like Dan_D did when its clear you haven't actually seen the movie.

 

[ZodaEX]

End of discussion.

You wish it was the end of discussion but that's not your call to make, lol. Let's see how many more pages this discussion goes on for!

 

[Deleted member 126051]

You wish it was the end of discussion but that's not your call to make, lol. Let's see how many more pages this discussion goes on for!

I don't count "You're wrong, BECUZ FEELZ!!!" as discussion.

It's mostly just noise. Like belching and farting. Only less productive.

 

[StoleMyOwnCar]

I don't count "You're wrong, BECUZ FEELZ!!!" as discussion.

It's mostly just noise. Like belching and farting. Only less productive.

That's kind of arrogant, because you assume that this is the only possible type of counter to your arguments.


Frankly, most of these point by point debates don't really end up going anywhere, because at some point the arguments start going in circles because there are two valid, but irreconcilable opinions clashing with each other. Sometimes it isn't even obvious as to what the root of the opinion is, because it may be dressed up in other crap, though.

That's kind of why I'm purposely leaving my opinion relatively vague, because any more in depth and it leads to a drawn out, impassioned crapfest where nothing of value really goes on.

 

[Draax]

The movie did what it had to. It bridged the original generation to the new generation. The plot was recycled but the new characters were interesting enough and have good chemistry. It is the next movie that I am really looking forward to seeing. I recently read that J.J. Abrams said he wished he was directing the next one, after reading the script.

 

[5tharrow]

A lot of the negative reviews are probably created just to be contrarian; a lot of the positive reviews are probably from people who can't possibly dislike anything Star Wars. If I was in the 8-25 year old range, I probably would have liked it more than I did.

I did like the movie, but I was hoping for it to feel newer. As it was, it was more like walking through a Star Wars museum. It's also very linear and predictable, but as I get older I think I'm harder to please and surprise. That's just the way it is.

 

[fallguy]

Whoa,some people are way too invested into this. I grew up on them (born in 74) and enjoyed them. My wife had never seen any, so we watched all 6 in 2 weeks before we went to see it. We both enjoyed the new one. Was fairly funny, and very entertaining. Will see the next ones.

Take a chill pill.... geeez.

 

[ob1]

I thought it was a serviceable Star Wars movie and I will reserve its rating and judgement until after I see the complete picture, (next two movies), as certain things may come to light, (like Rey's force abilities), in future installments.

 

[4saken]

I thought I liked it a lot, but the more I've chewed on it, the less I think of it overall. It was nowhere as shitty as the prequels were for absolutely sure, but there really were some questionable decisions/characters/general complaints that I start to think about that most people have already brought up. I definitely need to watch it more than once.

 

[Climber]

I look at it this way.

Did it "feel" like a Star Wars flick to me? Yes.
Was I entertained? Yes.

Mission accomplished.

Now, do I realize the film has problems in story/dialog/presentation/character development? Yes.
Do I realize the film has problems as a stand-alone film regardless of its affiliation with Star Wars? Yes.

Now, do I actually give enough of a shit to HATE the movie? Fuck no!

Honestly, ALL of the Star Wars movies had their problems. And so the fuck what?
If you were entertained, it did its job. If you weren't, it failed.

If you went into the film looking for some deeper criteria than that, whether you found it or not, YOU failed.

End of discussion.

Bingo.

 

[Deleted member 126051]

That's kind of arrogant, because you assume that this is the only possible type of counter to your arguments.


Frankly, most of these point by point debates don't really end up going anywhere, because at some point the arguments start going in circles because there are two valid, but irreconcilable opinions clashing with each other. Sometimes it isn't even obvious as to what the root of the opinion is, because it may be dressed up in other crap, though.

That's kind of why I'm purposely leaving my opinion relatively vague, because any more in depth and it leads to a drawn out, impassioned crapfest where nothing of value really goes on.

I basically look at is as:

Were you entertained:

[ ] Yes?
[ ] No?

Anything beyond that is simply an exercise in dicksizing.