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

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.)

Instead of addressing the valid points made in the post which have been made by many others too, your response like many other defenders is 'its entertaining' ?! Really?

Stupid comedy movies like 'The Grown Ups' are also entertaining I suppose. This is Star Wars we're talking about, thats the standard now?
 
Boring? I was never bored with a single episode of Voyager. I watched all of DS9, and so many episodes in it were boring. The love nonsense kept dragging out, and it wasn't very creative or intelligent at all.

Voyager had a lot of recurring antagonists because they flew through different sections of space. They didn't need to invent something new all the time. Jesus, they had to deal with the Borg, Kazan, species 8472, and more. What more did you want? Someone new every show? Yes, their ship was repaired at the beginning of every episode just like every other Star Trek. However, there was the YEAR OF HELL they went through where they were constantly under attack, and this was not the case.

In general, they were able to repair the ship by finding resources and making the crew work on it. Did you not see the episodes where they showed crewmen walking on the outside of the ship repairing it? Also, they'd dock at space stations and other planets along the way. Pretty sure they had plenty of opportunities to repair the ship. Also, several days for Voyager probably passed between episodes. The producers are not going to dedicate an entire episode showing the repair process for the ship. That would be boring to viewers.

Voyager was well done. Each episode had a story to tell, and oftentimes, each episode examined moral issues spending time on each point of view. For example, when Nelix and Tuvok were mixed in a teleporter accident to create Tuvix, they had a tough choice to make. Should they destroy one life to restore the previous two, or should they benefit from the mixture of Tuvok and Nelix? Ultimately, the captain decided like she normally did, but most of the time, she took the correct action in my opinion.

I'm guessing you're probably not interested in examining how humans in general think. The show played with several different morals and ethics, examined sociopaths, and showed just how powerful and necessary emotions can be when channeled correctly. Maybe it was just too over your head. I don't know. I really enjoyed it and found it to be quite the intelligent show. I wish they'd make more.

By the way, the new Enterprise was really good too. Granted, the first two seasons had their bad moments, but I wish it had continued. DS9 is probably the worst Star Trek.

My list from best to worst goes like this:

Star Trek Voyager (watched the entire thing several times and each time loved it!)
New Enterprise
Next Generation
Original Series (so corny in this day and age... seriously, it was just Kirk playing women and tricking them into doing anything, as if women are that stupid... that or a random gas cloud entity)
DS9 (watched the entire thing once... don't need to ever again)

I think Dan D covered this better than I ever could, but I can see we'll never be anywhere close to agreement on this whole thing. Crying while watching voyager? Yep, me too.

O'Brian was one of my favorites, a blue collar guy making his way through life. You always got to see the officers, but never the enlisted men that were clearly a part of star fleet. The bits with his wife, sure they could be boring.

In the end, I think that expecting a syndicated episodic show to be perfect is a flawed position. The reason TnG could be bad at times is that they had to neatly wrap things up in each episode. 45min, open to close. Once attention turned to voyager, the writers at DS9 were free to explore a universe where every species show's its baser side, except the humans in starfleet.

Voyager tried to strike a balance, but never succeeded. The characters were bland and unlikable, and the integration between maqui and starfleet went too well. There was nothing more than token resistance.

So. Back to star wars?
 
I think Dan D covered this better than I ever could, but I can see we'll never be anywhere close to agreement on this whole thing. Crying while watching voyager? Yep, me too.

O'Brian was one of my favorites, a blue collar guy making his way through life. You always got to see the officers, but never the enlisted men that were clearly a part of star fleet. The bits with his wife, sure they could be boring.

In the end, I think that expecting a syndicated episodic show to be perfect is a flawed position. The reason TnG could be bad at times is that they had to neatly wrap things up in each episode. 45min, open to close. Once attention turned to voyager, the writers at DS9 were free to explore a universe where every species show's its baser side, except the humans in starfleet.

Voyager tried to strike a balance, but never succeeded. The characters were bland and unlikable, and the integration between maqui and starfleet went too well. There was nothing more than token resistance.

So. Back to star wars?

Well said. Yes, back to Star wars. ;)
 
Well, I ended up walking out on it.
It really seemed there was no new story line whatsoever. Just a bunch segments borrowed from the other films.
 
Vader had over 40 years of training with the Saber. In the comics, books, and games he routinely went up against dozens of assassin droids at one time for practice.

Luke had nothing more than a cursory introduction to the Saber by Obi-Wan and again a few days or weeks with Yoda. Any of Luke's training cane through the force. So yes while Vader kicked his ass in episode V, Luke did manage to strike Vader and and put him on the defensive for a bit. So that feat alone was pretty impressive with the limited training he had. In episode VI Luke managed to keep Vader at bay and was going toe to toe with him.

So Rey having zero training but direct contact with the force against a wounded and emotionally confused apprentice is 100% believable.
There are years between the movies where he could have self-trained or received training. Its a stretch but the suspension of disbelief between Luke & Rey aren't even in the same realm.

About the 40 years, at some point he peaked and went into maintenance training. What's the typical age of an Olympic Athlete? OTOH, How many of those peaked in 5 minutes?


Sorry it takes more to be a skilled fighter or skilled anything, than the willingness to become one.
 
There are years between the movies where he could have self-trained or received training. Its a stretch but the suspension of disbelief between Luke & Rey aren't even in the same realm.

About the 40 years, at some point he peaked and went into maintenance training. What's the typical age of an Olympic Athlete? OTOH, How many of those peaked in 5 minutes?


Sorry it takes more to be a skilled fighter or skilled anything, than the willingness to become one.

I'm fairly certain she's been trained to an extent.
 
There are years between the movies where he could have self-trained or received training. Its a stretch but the suspension of disbelief between Luke & Rey aren't even in the same realm.
Self training is in now way comparable to proper mentor training. Sure you can learn balance and stance, but try to learn Katas without a mentor, or how to parry, thrust, or any other complex form without someone. Sure, I guess it is plausible Obi-Wan mentored him through being a force ghost so I won't dismiss that. But it is never suggested or hinted at.
About the 40 years, at some point he peaked and went into maintenance training. What's the typical age of an Olympic Athlete? OTOH, How many of those peaked in 5 minutes?

We're talking a force sensitive being in a sci-fi universe. Yoda had zero problems using a Saber at his age of 800+

Sorry it takes more to be a skilled fighter or skilled anything, than the willingness to become one.

Apparently you think Luke's willingness to train himself makes him a skilled fighter. I guarantee you Rey has more martial arts training than Luke did considering her background and her weapon of choice.
 
In the end, I think that expecting a syndicated episodic show to be perfect is a flawed position. The reason TnG could be bad at times is that they had to neatly wrap things up in each episode. 45min, open to close. Once attention turned to voyager, the writers at DS9 were free to explore a universe where every species show's its baser side, except the humans in starfleet.

Voyager tried to strike a balance, but never succeeded. The characters were bland and unlikable, and the integration between maqui and starfleet went too well. There was nothing more than token resistance.

I disagree. Voyager was balanced and fun to watch the whole way through. There were very few episodes that disappointed. I was disappointed with a ton of DS9 episodes. Sure, it had its good moments too, but ultimately, Voyager was far superior.

Let's think of it another way:

DS9 is a space station that hardly moves. Wow, that is totally interesting! It orbits a completely worthless planet with worthless people (Bajor). Again, super interesting! Not much you can do with a space station except for waste time creating a bunch of episodes with superficial and fake love stories. Everyone has their day in DS9. One episode Major Kira is like AH I NEED SOME LOVIN. She gets it like next episode... everyone does. Sorry, but life does not work that way. Every love story was completely unbelievable except for Sisko's dead wife...

Episodes mainly centered around Bajoran customs & religion, Quark doing illegal things, Gul Dukat (usually pretty good episodes), wars, and anything else I'm missing? Oh yeah, those crappy episodes with Nog and Jake. Wow... yeah, it was a fun ride watching DS9. I have no idea how you guys can hold it in such high regard.

Each Star Trek has its problems, but come on now, DS9 being good? I don't see it.
 
lol @ people arguing this crappy movie's minor plot points way seriously. It sucked because the characters were cardboard cutouts with daddy issues who were jumping over themselves to gtfo out of it, not because the girl played laser swords good...
She was also a 7 at best....
 
I'm reluctant to get mired in this debate, but into the breach, dear friends....

I would like to point out that, starting with Empire and into Jedi, Luke underwent fairly intense training after escaping Hoth, partially with Yoda on Dagobah, but also partially on his own. He also still "communed" on occasion with Kenobi and probably had an off-screen convo or two with Yoda, as well. He was, of course, also a direct descendant of one of the most powerful Force manipulators in the entire Star Wars universe.

So, Luke going head-to-head with Vader at the end of Jedi is a BIT of a stretch, but is mitigated somewhat by Vader's own mounting inner war with his conscience and increasing dissatisfaction with Palpatine. Luke also went momentarily insane when he was unable to shield his thoughts from Vader regarding Leia.

As far as the Rey+Finn/Ren fight, I think it stretches disbelief to a taut degree that either Rey or Finn could put up much of a fight against Ren, wounded or not. Remember that this guy was so attuned with the The Force that he could stop an energy tendril from a blaster mid flight and hold it there for a minute or two all the while interrogating possible Resistance members before finally releasing it. Not even Vader is presented as having that sort of mastery and he was a Sith Lord. It is obvious that Ren has tremendous advantages in both lineage, youth, drive, and some manner of fierce Jedi-like training, some of which occurred under Luke himself.

Personally, I don't much care for what happens with Star Wars at this point. SW, for me, peaked at Empire, as RotJ was all but ruined with the introduction of the Ewoks. Regarding TFA, IMHO, it was far too much of a rehash of ANH, but with Mary Sues and other bad stereotypes thrown into the mix. There was no scope or weight to the universe and the idea that the remnants of The Empire could re-coalesce into something as stupidly powerful and amoral as The First Order is absurd. The end of Jedi clearly intimated that The Empire was, for all intents and purposes, defeated. Coruscant was liberated, there were massive parties going on throughout the Republic, and the story was resolved with a neat bow on top. I don't know how the EU continued events from there, nor do I know how Aftermath reads (I hear it's pretty bad, though [Lost Stars is suppose to be much better]), but I couldn't identify anything in TFA that had any endemic validity given what occurred in Episodes IV thru VI.

For TFA to have any credibility whatsoever, there needs to be a bridging movie or series of movies that depicts what in blazes went wrong after RotJ, not just a throwaway title crawl. What happened in TFA is akin to saying that, even though the Nazis were presumably defeated in 1945, they were still tearing up the planet in 1975 AND had the Tsar Bomba while The Allies were reduced to a scattershot resistance movement. It just doesn't jive.
 
I'm reluctant to get mired in this debate, but into the breach, dear friends....

I would like to point out that, starting with Empire and into Jedi, Luke underwent fairly intense training after escaping Hoth, partially with Yoda on Dagobah, but also partially on his own. He also still "communed" on occasion with Kenobi and probably had an off-screen convo or two with Yoda, as well. He was, of course, also a direct descendant of one of the most powerful Force manipulators in the entire Star Wars universe.

So, Luke going head-to-head with Vader at the end of Jedi is a BIT of a stretch, but is mitigated somewhat by Vader's own mounting inner war with his conscience and increasing dissatisfaction with Palpatine. Luke also went momentarily insane when he was unable to shield his thoughts from Vader regarding Leia.

As far as the Rey+Finn/Ren fight, I think it stretches disbelief to a taut degree that either Rey or Finn could put up much of a fight against Ren, wounded or not. Remember that this guy was so attuned with the The Force that he could stop an energy tendril from a blaster mid flight and hold it there for a minute or two all the while interrogating possible Resistance members before finally releasing it. Not even Vader is presented as having that sort of mastery and he was a Sith Lord. It is obvious that Ren has tremendous advantages in both lineage, youth, drive, and some manner of fierce Jedi-like training, some of which occurred under Luke himself.

Personally, I don't much care for what happens with Star Wars at this point. SW, for me, peaked at Empire, as RotJ was all but ruined with the introduction of the Ewoks. Regarding TFA, IMHO, it was far too much of a rehash of ANH, but with Mary Sues and other bad stereotypes thrown into the mix. There was no scope or weight to the universe and the idea that the remnants of The Empire could re-coalesce into something as stupidly powerful and amoral as The First Order is absurd. The end of Jedi clearly intimated that The Empire was, for all intents and purposes, defeated. Coruscant was liberated, there were massive parties going on throughout the Republic, and the story was resolved with a neat bow on top. I don't know how the EU continued events from there, nor do I know how Aftermath reads (I hear it's pretty bad, though [Lost Stars is suppose to be much better]), but I couldn't identify anything in TFA that had any endemic validity given what occurred in Episodes IV thru VI.

For TFA to have any credibility whatsoever, there needs to be a bridging movie or series of movies that depicts what in blazes went wrong after RotJ, not just a throwaway title crawl. What happened in TFA is akin to saying that, even though the Nazis were presumably defeated in 1945, they were still tearing up the planet in 1975 AND had the Tsar Bomba while The Allies were reduced to a scattershot resistance movement. It just doesn't jive.

I was with you for most of that until you mentioned the Empire not being able to coalesce into something as powerful as the First Order. I completely disagree with that point. The Empire has been depicted as being vast enough to even blanket the outer rim territories with Imperial Star Destroyers which are massively expensive to construct and maintain. In fact, military spending after the Clone Wars continued at a frightening pace allowing for huge projects like the Executor and two Death Stars to be built. There is even evidence to suggest a second Super Star Destroyer was built at least. Han Solo mentions: "Don't get jittery Luke, there are a lot of command ships." in Episode VI. This indicates that while we only saw the Executor, the Super Star Destroyers may not be all that uncommon. There is further evidence of Imperial military might and spending in Star Wars Rebels. It takes no time for the Empire to blockade an individual world and subjugate it, even if remote with multiple Star Destroyers and ground forces.

In Return of the Jedi, the Emperor and Darth Vader are killed and the Rebel Alliance and multiple worlds celebrate the "fall of the Empire." In reality, this celebration might have been premature to an extent. The Empire's command structure would still have largely been intact with troops and ships all over the Galaxy. The Rebel Alliance threw everything they had at the Battle of Endor, but there is no evidence to suggest that the Empire did the same. If anything, the Rebel Alliance didn't believe the Empire had much in the area save for the Death Star itself. When the Executor and it's fleet closed in after the Rebels arrived, they were taken off guard and were still vastly outnumbered. At a minimum the Empire would have still had hundreds, if not thousands of ships all across the galaxy. The Empire would have had to allocate a small portion of it's forces to Endor while leaving almost everything in place where it was to prevent the Rebels from learning of the impending trap. There is no getting around that.

What occurs in Return of the Jedi is little more than the head being caught off of the snake. While the adage of the body withering and dying without a head would seem to be a logical conclusion, I don't think it is in this case. Admirals in the Empire, regional governors and other officials wouldn't want to give up power too easily. The Empire would almost certainly have fractured with groups in-fighting until someone emerged and took control over the remaining organization. Sure many troops would have left due to the bulk of them being conscripts anyway, but not all of them. Eventually a dominant faction would have emerged and consolidated the Empire. Even with in-fighting, the massive might of the Empire could have left room for a remaining organization the size of the First Order. It all depends on how quickly the consolidation happened.

The Rebel Alliance becoming the new defacto government would have made things easier. Finding a full accounting of Imperial assets and accounting for everything would have been difficult and probably not even a priority. Things like Starkiller Base and even Kylo Ren's flagship could easily be the result of ongoing developments and projects beginning during Palpatine's reign. The Imperial Remnant could have easily consolidated around the Empire's remaining powerful assets and secured them.

Keep in mind, the First Order isn't the Empire. It doesn't fight like the Empire did. At no point did they blanket planets in Star Destroyers and drop thousands of troops and throw out hundreds of TIE fighters. It seems like the organization is still relatively small given that they would invest in reconditioning for Stormtroopers showing aberrant behavior. They aren't wasted lightly either. They seem to hit a planet, complete their objective and then pull out. Even TIE fighters are two manned craft with far more comprehensive subsystems, tools and weapons. So the First Order's philosophy isn't to just throw numbers at their enemy's the way the old Empire did. This indicates to me that they can't do that. We only ever saw Kylo Ren's ship, so we have no idea how large the first Order's Fleet is. In the original trilogy, excluding Episode IV you rarely saw a single Star Destroyer at any point. Even then you only did in remote regions of space, such as Tatooine.

Given that Episode VII seems to draw a lot on the EU, it doesn't seem to difficult to theorize what's going on with the New Republic to some extent. Many systems would probably wish to be independent if its feasible to do so given that the last few decades were lived under oppression, but in otherwise strong economic times. The prior Republic saw periods of turmoil, financial crisis and war due to the Separatists. Given bad experiences from centralized governments I could see many systems remaining independent or at least weary of a New Republic which is ultimately comprised more of resistance fighters and idealists than government officials and leaders. Though, the Rebel Alliance did bring some of that to the table.

In the books, many worlds avoided joining the Republic and as a result the New Republic never attained the sizes of the two previous governing bodies. Most likely any worlds joining the Republic would have wanted to do so only if tax rates were at pre-Imperial rates. This would potentially leave the new government cash strapped as they had to spend money to reorganize and rebuild the government as well as rebuild any infrastructure destroyed or damaged as a result of the war, or rioting and civil unrest which may have occurred in the aftermath. Hurricane Katrina basically showed us what happens when people are left to their own devices without police or government oversight keeping them in check during a disaster. Local law enforcement is usually depicted as non-existent during the Galactic Empire as Stormtroopers were spread out all over the galaxy to be the arm of the Empire. Planets wishing to be independent would have faced challenges which would have become the Republics problem if admitted into it. Many of these planets hadn't seen independence in thousands of years and even if they had, the last two decades or more prior to the Republic's founding was spent under Imperial rule.

New governments are fragile, and they face unique challenges. We've seen this in the news whenever some ackistan or ickistan suffers a coup and goes through a regime change. There is always fighting and resistance, damage to infrastructure and loss of life. The New Republic wouldn't be immune to that. Militarily they would have been stretched too thin. Consolidation of remaining Imperial Forces could have been difficult. Large capital ships may have been too expensive to crew and run as people don't work for free. As I've said, it's possible that for purely political reasons strikes against the First Order may not have been possible. Either due to lack of funding or lack of governing support.

If the Empire primarily stayed out of New Republic space, what reason would the New Republic have for military spending? If anything not doing anything to protect worlds being attacked by the First Order would only help as a recruitment tool. Join the Republic, get protected. I could see Leia saying "screw the politics, let's stop the First Order", then taking loyal troops and going off the reservation to do so. The New Republic seems to support them somewhat at least financially but probably not in any official capacity. This is the same thing the US has done numerous times with other countries to protect its interests. It's nearly the same thing as having military advisors and privately financing and supplying insurgents in their goals. We did it with Afghanistan in the 1980's. The US still does that sort of thing in the region.

Given the size of the Galactic Empire and the apparent size or lack of size the First Order has, I don't think anything we saw from a military perspective is too unreasonable. You also have to consider, there are a lot of gaps in the information we have about the order. I'll reserve final judgment of the puzzle until its complete. If there are still gaps when all is said and done that will be a different issue.

(BTW, Dan_D, I'm in complete agreement with you that JJ has ruined Trek.)

Even as pure action movies, they aren't all that good. What they've done with Captain Kirk alone as a character basically breaks the suspension of disbelief and ruins it. He's a Captain right out of the Academy and clearly isn't good at it. He makes too many mistakes, isn't even on the ship when the fighting has to be done and he's been responsible for the ship getting trashed at least twice. He's violated the Prime Directive, without reason etc. In the series he had justifiable reasons in many cases and had earned some of the slack he was given by Starfleet brass.

I disagree. Voyager was balanced and fun to watch the whole way through. There were very few episodes that disappointed. I was disappointed with a ton of DS9 episodes. Sure, it had its good moments too, but ultimately, Voyager was far superior.

Let's think of it another way:

DS9 is a space station that hardly moves. Wow, that is totally interesting! It orbits a completely worthless planet with worthless people (Bajor). Again, super interesting! Not much you can do with a space station except for waste time creating a bunch of episodes with superficial and fake love stories. Everyone has their day in DS9. One episode Major Kira is like AH I NEED SOME LOVIN. She gets it like next episode... everyone does. Sorry, but life does not work that way. Every love story was completely unbelievable except for Sisko's dead wife...

Episodes mainly centered around Bajoran customs & religion, Quark doing illegal things, Gul Dukat (usually pretty good episodes), wars, and anything else I'm missing? Oh yeah, those crappy episodes with Nog and Jake. Wow... yeah, it was a fun ride watching DS9. I have no idea how you guys can hold it in such high regard.

Each Star Trek has its problems, but come on now, DS9 being good? I don't see it.

Star Trek Voyager isn't necessarily as bad as I make it out to be. Some episodes I think of specifically while I blast it, such as Threshold are, but overall I felt the series was more mediocre than anything. The show didn't really break any ground and it could have. The concept for it would have allowed it to be the "Un'Trek" in a way DS9 never was but ultimately it was kind of like a diet version of TNG which was slightly less episodic. Many villains were laughably bad, non-threatening or made less scary due to overuse.

The Kazon weren't threatening and the Borg were turned into wimps. Voyager itself was shown inconsistently from week to week. One minute it's the most capable military vessel in the quadrant, and the next week it's barely able to survive attacks from enemies it previously vanquished easily. The Kazon vs. Voyager match ups were often like that. The hunter species, I can't remember what they were called "weakened" over time without Voyager getting any upgrades. Knowing your enemy helps, but that can't cover all of it. The Borg are the most egregious example of inconsistent portrayal of the ship. When the TNG crew encountered the Borg they had to pull out all the stops and usually suffered more than a bloody nose when dealing with them. When the crew of Voyager shows up in a ship half as capable, they whip the shit out of them. It makes no sense.

Again I'll grant you that Voyager was more consistent than Deep Space Nine was, but DS9's high points made up for the bad in my opinion. And DS9 wouldn't have ranked so highly with me had it not had the Dominion War story arc. That story had intrigue, action, and just about everything else. The series also had fantastic character driven stories like In the Pale Moonlight. Voyager's high points on the other hand don't make up for the steady stream of mediocrity that it enjoyed. I simply saw too much rehashing of the same stuff previous series had done. Time travel being the worst offense. Again I don't have problems with time travel stories necessarily, shit Doctor Who is one of my favorite shows and it's all about time travel. But Voyager's was done in the usual "wrapped up in a bow" style of time travel Star Trek unfortunately does way too often. Having said that, some of them were enjoyable. I liked the one where Voyager was buried in the ice on a remote world it crashed on. I liked the one where Voyager had multiple time frames existing on the ship at once and the Year of Hell was particularly good. The ones that took place on Earth were shit.

Brannon Braga was just a one trick pony and time travel is all that motherfucker seemed to want to do.

As for DS9 being a space station, your argument doesn't hold much weight. It's a static object yes, but it's right near a wormhole and is a major port of call near hostile territory. Things came to them and for believable reasons. When they wanted to move the action away, they got the U.S.S. Defiant to take out. They had that starting in Season 3, so that was fairly early on. It was a good enough idea that Babylon 5 copied it with the Whitestar. For all it's faults DS9 was the most different of the Star Trek series and I think that's in large part why it stands out. Certain aspects of it, and episodes weren't great but the ones that were elevate the show to a level above Voyager for some of us. Voyager was the margarine or Diet Coke version of The Next Generation. (Just one calorie, not Next Generation enough.)
 
Dan_D, while everything you wrote could be fantastic universe building, culminating in what was depicted in TFA, it is entirely conjecture, with only the barest supporting evidence presented in the opening title crawl.

You surely can't deny that TFA completely whitewashes the climax and denouement of RotJ, goes against the clear intent of Lucas and the filmmakers of the original trilogy, and requires a migraine-inducing series of mental gymnastics for the film to find a credible, solid footing. I could just as easily script an entirely different timeline and one that would far more closely align with Lucas' intention to put the capstone on the Empire/Rebellion conflict; one in which The New Republic enjoyed a long and fruitful life under the watchful (and hopefully more proactive) eye of the Skywalkers and a new Jedi Order. It would be far more digestible plus be supported by what we know of real-world history (i.e., my Nazi comparison). And, IMO, such a series of much more logical events would also pass Occam's Razor.

What you're proposing needs to be shown, not merely typed out in a few lines of text exposition. Some evidence is badly required, otherwise it just paints the non-Empire entities of SW as ASTOUNDINGLY incompetent and an utter failure at capitalizing on their own, hard-won success. It's a mind-atomizingly series of "BUT WAIT!"s that crashes and burns squarely in the middle of lazy writing land, requiring the audience to completely discount and outright dismiss the final moments of RotJ.

I'm sorry, but I can't buy what JJ is selling in this regard. And even if I did, that still doesn't address how Godawful the movie is in terms of tired tropes, rehashed story elements, plot inconsistencies, and JJ's Wham-Bam-Thank-You-Ma'am style of directing. There's no introspection, no gravitas, and JJ gives the audience no room to breathe, much less reflect. After about midway through, I was squirming in my seat just waiting for the thing to mercifully end.

And since I'm taking shots at the film, John Williams delivered a heartbreakingly mediocre soundtrack. There was not one new melody I could remember, much less hum thereafter. I'm a bit of a score fanboy and these past fifteen or so years have seen the decimation of thematic film scoring. I'm sorry to see a maestro such as Williams succumb to this terrible trend.

Regarding Trek, ST:B looks even worse than ID, which I didn't think was possible. I'm probably in a shrinking minority at this point, but Kirk as expressed by Shatner, Spock as depicted by Nimoy, and McCoy as conveyed by Kelley are my "golden actors". No one has, as yet, come even remotely close to matching them in terms of thespian ability. And don't get me started as to how light-speed superior Montalban was when compared to Cumberbatch.

JJ has shredded Trek into an utterly unrecognizable amalgamation of ACTION ACTION ACTION sequences with zero thought given to story development and actor presence and delivery. It's a particular sorrow for those of us who consider TOS a show that transcended the production trappings of its time and became an evergreen classic SF series.

Ugh.
 
it was ok, but i had a distinct feeling of deja vu. like we've seen this story before in previous star wars, and all they did was slap a fresh coat of paint on it and called it a day.
 
I liked Voyager, did not like DS9, like JJ's Trek movies, think the TFA is ANH except Luke is a chick and Han is black, and will do absolutely nothing to support any of these opinions.
 
Fleggett, read the books. The rebellion wasn't about starting a new government, Leia goes as far as to allow the Empire's politicians and soldiers to walk free. The Empire had massive resources throughout the outer rim and beyond. Those resources just don't dry up overnight and Palpatine had massive resources devoted to Sith exploration beyond the outer rim many of which were operating directly under his direction and are still following their last orders.

Many of your points are valid but I honestly feel your nitpicking and to argue would be trying to change your opinion. There were a lot of minor things but your major points are easily explained in the new novels.
 
Dan_D, while everything you wrote could be fantastic universe building, culminating in what was depicted in TFA, it is entirely conjecture, with only the barest supporting evidence presented in the opening title crawl.

It's conjecture on my part, I thought that was obvious.

You surely can't deny that TFA completely whitewashes the climax and denouement of RotJ, goes against the clear intent of Lucas and the filmmakers of the original trilogy, and requires a migraine-inducing series of mental gymnastics for the film to find a credible, solid footing.

Well, I don't think I can totally agree with you. The intent of the original filmmakers isn't a precisely known quantity. We know it's a merchandising juggernaut and Lucas made changes to Return of the Jedi's script with regard to the Ewoks replacing Wookies to make that happen. As for the original filmmakers outside of George Lucas, this film was written by Lawrence Kasdan who co-wrote Return of the Jedi and The Empire Strikes back. We don't have the full picture of what transpired between Episodes VI and VII, so it's hard to say that the story goes against the intent of the filmmakers when we don't know what their intent for future chapters was, if any. That goes for credible, solid footing. We just don't have enough information to understand how the Galaxy is where it is, and understand why things are in their current state.

All we can do is look at the evidence in the films so far, and base some of our understanding on likely scenarios on more popular works of the EU, which are clearly referenced as source material for this film. The evidence for that comes in many forms. Starkiller base is obviously named after Luke's original screen name as well as the EU character. Han and Leia splitting up is really for the same reasons as in the novels, and their chosen paths in the film are pretty much as they are in the novels. Luke's original saber being recovered was another part of the EU that's been brought into this film. So there is some evidence that with the EU being an inspiration for the film, we can make an educated guess as to what may be going on in the galaxy. The only purpose of doing so basically allows us to sort of rationalize where they are at in the film. If the actual series gives us different reasons, then so be it.

I would agree, and have stated that more needs to be explained about the First Order and the New Republic. Why there is a need for a separate resistance is also necessary. This is one reason why I say that our final judgment of this film may change when it's placed into its proper context. (The rest of the trilogy.)

I could just as easily script an entirely different timeline and one that would far more closely align with Lucas' intention to put the capstone on the Empire/Rebellion conflict; one in which The New Republic enjoyed a long and fruitful life under the watchful (and hopefully more proactive) eye of the Skywalkers and a new Jedi Order. It would be far more digestible plus be supported by what we know of real-world history (i.e., my Nazi comparison). And, IMO, such a series of much more logical events would also pass Occam's Razor.

We don't know the original filmmakers intent. I wish people would stop saying shit like that like we really know. Hell George Lucas might not and probably wouldn't give the same answer he would have in 1983. As for you doing it better? Go for it. I made comments about how the ending scenes of Episode III sucked ass and that anyone could write a better ending. Someone told me to put up or shut up so I did it. It was a rough outline, but I made my point in that thread. So outline what you would have done differently.

As for Occam's Razor, I don't know that I can agree with that either. I'm sure some things could be simplified of course, though that doesn't always make things better. As for this movie not passing that test, I think that remains to be seen in part. As I said we really don't know how the First Order and the current state of the Republic came to be. All we do know is that our history shows that founding new governments can be challenging and that most are doomed to fail, or at the very least struggle for a long period of time.

What you're proposing needs to be shown, not merely typed out in a few lines of text exposition. Some evidence is badly required, otherwise it just paints the non-Empire entities of SW as ASTOUNDINGLY incompetent and an utter failure at capitalizing on their own, hard-won success. It's a mind-atomizingly series of "BUT WAIT!"s that crashes and burns squarely in the middle of lazy writing land, requiring the audience to completely discount and outright dismiss the final moments of RotJ.

Well, I agree that evidence is sorely needed and already admitted that what I proposed is pure conjecture. It's conjecture with little to go on as well. Again, I haven't denied that. I hadn't talked about discounting your point of the film discounting Return of the Jedi's end, so I'll tackle that now. I do see your point. Luke utterly and completely failing to bring back the Jedi despite his own personal struggles and hard earned victory does cheapen the victory at the end of the film. The First Order being around against a floundering Republic echoes that sentiment. Even if Luke does resurrect the Jedi on a second attempt, even if the First Order is vanquished it does diminish the end to Return of the Jedi which, Ewoks aside was a strong film with some very good character driven moments in it and a satisfying conclusion to the original trilogy.

Though, this fact also tells me that the EU is being heavily pillaged from, albeit selectively.

I'm sorry, but I can't buy what JJ is selling in this regard. And even if I did, that still doesn't address how Godawful the movie is in terms of tired tropes, rehashed story elements, plot inconsistencies, and JJ's Wham-Bam-Thank-You-Ma'am style of directing. There's no introspection, no gravitas, and JJ gives the audience no room to breathe, much less reflect. After about midway through, I was squirming in my seat just waiting for the thing to mercifully end.

Fair enough, many of your complaints are valid. Despite my recognition of those things, I still enjoyed more about the movie than I hated. Though I am not sure about plot inconsistencies as many of the "inconsistencies" may be perceived differently when the next two movies come out. It's also possible that some of the spin off films will add more insight into what's going on here. The inconsistencies as I see them are generally with things not lining up with Return of the Jedi. Give the large gap in time, I'll give them some benefit of the doubt on that.

And since I'm taking shots at the film, John Williams delivered a heartbreakingly mediocre soundtrack. There was not one new melody I could remember, much less hum thereafter. I'm a bit of a score fanboy and these past fifteen or so years have seen the decimation of thematic film scoring. I'm sorry to see a maestro such as Williams succumb to this terrible trend.

I couldn't agree more. I remember only a couple seconds of music around the Starkiller base firing and the blast streaking in front of Kylo Ren's ship. That's it. The music from the rest of the films, shows and games, even when it's original was always a high point. That's even a strong point for Episodes I-III despite them being otherwise horrible.

Regarding Trek, ST:B looks even worse than ID, which I didn't think was possible. I'm probably in a shrinking minority at this point, but Kirk as expressed by Shatner, Spock as depicted by Nimoy, and McCoy as conveyed by Kelley are my "golden actors". No one has, as yet, come even remotely close to matching them in terms of thespian ability. And don't get me started as to how light-speed superior Montalban was when compared to Cumberbatch.

We are in complete agreement. Further expanding on that, there are differences in how the characters are written which bothers me. The relationship dynamics between the three are forced in these films which don't have the history (in universe or out) that the original cast / characters did. So much of what they've tried to recreate has fallen flat. Some characters like Kirk are so different they are barely recognizable. They play him up like a womanizer, even though the original character really wasn't one. This one doesn't really seem to want to be a starship Captain at all, much less show any real aptitude for it.

JJ has shredded Trek into an utterly unrecognizable amalgamation of ACTION ACTION ACTION sequences with zero thought given to story development and actor presence and delivery. It's a particular sorrow for those of us who consider TOS a show that transcended the production trappings of its time and became an evergreen classic SF series.

Ugh.

Well said.
 
Finally saw it yesterday. As a Star Wars fan it was okay. Compared to prequels it is a Citizen Kane or a damn Blade Runner but on its own... Its just okay and enjoyable. Which is kinda worrying to be honest, I dont want the serie to sink into mediocrity.

There Washington a lot to love in the movie. I liked Rey and Finn enough and even the humor was good to me. (Loved the guards turning around part) No piss and poo jokes of Ep 1 thank god. But there is also a lot to hate. The writing is shallow at best. They try to cover it under a lot of JJ flash as possible but fail at it. Stereotypes everywhere. IE The wise woman" alien. The new emperor guy is also a stereotype bad guy, nothing compared to what Palpatine who honestly was genuinely scary guy. And Kylo Ren is a whiny bitch who should drop his lightsaber and start a goth band. Hell after popping his father i half expected him to jump from joy screaming "yay i'm a bad guy afterall" and put on some black make up. But as long as he kept the mask on he was good so im still open for character developement.

And where the movie dropped the ball for me was the final fight with Ren and Rey. I dont care even if she is naturally gifted force sensitive and learned some combat on a street as a scavenger Ren is a bloody Jedi/Sith and gone through dedicated force and combat training. And Rey kicks his ass with ease? I know he was wounded but I'm sorry I thatl dont buy it. This scene bothers me to no end.

Regarding the earlier discussion how First Order exists, remember that the Empire was huge. Like galaxy wide huge. Even with the death of emperor and new worlds joining the rebellion they wont just dissappear overnight. They just are not an Empire any more but a single faction out of few power players in the galaxy currently. Conjecture or no you dont have to be genius to figure that out. I dont need a serie to explain that gap, i just want them to start write better for the episode 8.
 
Finally saw it yesterday. As a Star Wars fan it was okay. Compared to prequels it is a Citizen Kane or a damn Blade Runner but on its own... Its just okay and enjoyable. Which is kinda worrying to be honest, I dont want the serie to sink into mediocrity.

There Washington a lot to love in the movie. I liked Rey and Finn enough and even the humor was good to me. (Loved the guards turning around part) No piss and poo jokes of Ep 1 thank god. But there is also a lot to hate. The writing is shallow at best. They try to cover it under a lot of JJ flash as possible but fail at it. Stereotypes everywhere. IE The wise woman" alien. The new emperor guy is also a stereotype bad guy, nothing compared to what Palpatine who honestly was genuinely scary guy. And Kylo Ren is a whiny bitch who should drop his lightsaber and start a goth band. Hell after popping his father i half expected him to jump from joy screaming "yay i'm a bad guy afterall" and put on some black make up. But as long as he kept the mask on he was good so im still open for character developement.

And where the movie dropped the ball for me was the final fight with Ren and Rey. I dont care even if she is naturally gifted force sensitive and learned some combat on a street as a scavenger Ren is a bloody Jedi/Sith and gone through dedicated force and combat training. And Rey kicks his ass with ease? I know he was wounded but I'm sorry I thatl dont buy it. This scene bothers me to no end.

Regarding the earlier discussion how First Order exists, remember that the Empire was huge. Like galaxy wide huge. Even with the death of emperor and new worlds joining the rebellion they wont just dissappear overnight. They just are not an Empire any more but a single faction out of few power players in the galaxy currently. Conjecture or no you dont have to be genius to figure that out. I dont need a serie to explain that gap, i just want them to start write better for the episode 8.

God damn auto correct. Where that Washington came from? There WAS a lot to love i meant to write.
 
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