New Star Wars films from Disney: SPOILERS WELCOME

[Alatar]

O.M.G.!!!!!!1111oneoneone!

Practical Effects. J.J. I love you.

[Voronwë the Faithful]

Says the man who got to go see Fleetwood Mac (and yes, I know that it s a complete non sequitur).

[River]

15 second tease released on Instagram of all places. Finn and Kylo Ren are having a fight! Someone with more time on their hands than I do today...how does this fit with PtB's synopsis?

[Passdagas the Brown]

15 second tease released on Instagram of all places. Finn and Kylo Ren are having a fight! Someone with more time on their hands than I do today...how does this fit with PtB's synopsis?

Quite well, I think. Major spoiler below from the synopsis:

Kylo Ren flees into the forest. It is night-time, and snowing. Finn and Rey follow him, while Chewbacca runs back to the Falcon. Finn confronts Kylo Ren, and seems to be bested. Rey arrives, and it seems that Finn tosses her the blue lightsaber, which she has been reluctant to accept up until this point. Rey and Finn confront Kylo Ren together, and it seems Kylo may get the best of them. But on a cliff edge, the ground falls away behind Rey. Rey and Finn find themselves hanging from a precipice. Kylo Ren exits the scene. Chewbacca arrives on the Millennium Falcon, and saves Rey and Finn from falling to their doom.
The First Order has been defeated, but Kylo Ren and Uber retreat to lick their wounds, and plot their next move.

[Beutlin]

The First Order has been defeated, but Kylo Ren and Uber retreat to lick their wounds, and plot their next move.

Did a disgruntled cab driver write the script? I was aware that the Dark Side has cookies, but a vehicles for hire service? Where can I sign up?

[Primula Baggins]

Bumping this to make it available for spoiler-filled discussion of the new film.

And that's the last you'll see of me here for seventy-two hours.

[Lalaith]

Well, what did you think, Al? And anyone else who went to see it? I just got home. (It's 12:30am here.)

I can say this. I've decided that I love, love, love LotR. I really love Star Trek (and I was very excited to see the trailer for the new movie! )! I like Star Wars. I don't know why this is because I loved it as a little girl. But I just do not have the same level of excitement over it as I do LotR or Star Trek.

That being said, I think J. J. Abrams did a terrific job with this! Thank goodness! It was infinitely better than the horrid last 3 movies we had to watch. (Do not defend them to me. They were terrible.) The first 3 (the originals, whatever, I know they're 4, 5, and 6 even though they are 1, 2, and 3) were very good. But Abrams redeemed the whole damn thing, so yay!

And, oh! Al! Was that Skellig Michael at the end?! I leaned over to Jenn and was like, "This is Ireland. I know this is Ireland!" And I'm thinking it was Skellig Michael??

Ber has a discussion group going on FB, and she asked a good question. What do you think woke R2-D2 up? I thought it was the death of Hans. Leia felt it, and, like Ber said, Luke would've felt it, too. Or was it that his lightsaber was being used in battle with his pupil?

[Alatar]

I loved it Lali, but it didn't move me emotionally like LotR did. That is Skellig Michael and I have to admit that to my shame I have never visited, and now its gonna be so riculously swamped by tourists I probably never will!

I'm assuming Artoo woke because Luke awakened him when he felt Han's death.

[Alatar]

Ok, so I'm really glad I didn't read this in advance. It right on the money in many respects, but not all. I really wonder why anyone would want to read that and still see the movie?

[River]

Because it's Star Wars, that's why. Sort of like how I still went to and enjoyed Les Mis even though I'd seen the musical live and read the book. Or still saw the Harry Potter movies even though I'd read the books. Knowing what happens next doesn't ruin the implementation for me.

[Voronwë the Faithful]

I'm reminded of the "Marty" threads at TORC for the LOTR films, particularly ROTK, and similar threads for the Hobbit films. But the difference is that we all already knew the basic story, and the point of reading spoilers was to prepare for deviations from that story. Here, we know the world, but without reading spoilers we don't know anything about the basic story, other than the little that can be gleaned from the trailers.

That having been said, I read PtB's stuff as soon as he posted it (I wonder where he is?), and while I will certainly see the film in the theaters, it will almost certainly not be until next year some time. What can I say? I'm weird. But then, y'all knew that already.

[Lalaith]

You know I like spoilers, usually. I tried not to get any for this movie, and I managed except for the one about Han. (Of course, that's a big one!)

[Túrin Turambar]

First impressions (without reading anyone else’s).

SPOILERS obviously - I only saw in retrospect that this was the first detailed review posted in this thread.

• The 95% Rotten Tomatoes rating possibly led me to expect a flawless movie. Which it isn’t. That said, it’s very good both on its own merits as a film and as a Star Wars film in general.
• I have, and always will have, respect for George Lucas for driving his creation, and gratitude to him for the excitement he brought to my childhood. That said, TFA has shown us the potential the Star Wars universe has when it’s in the hands of people who can actually write natural dialogue in English.
• Nothing in cinema beats the opening sequence of a Star Wars movie.
• I have been sceptical of the idea of a Star Wars Episode VII since the 1990s. But this one gets the interplay between the old and new heroes just perfect. Credit also for not being afraid to kill the old heroes.
• Luke Skywalker’s disappearance and finding him being the central plot was, I thought, a good choice. It made sense in the circumstances, and allowed the film to end on a note that was both complete and a perfect slide into Episode VIII, for which I now can’t wait.
• I liked (contrary to the Prequels) the fact that the political situation was relevant but wasn’t the focus of the film. Indeed, with the Empire fallen it would be presumably pretty mundane. But I’m not sure why, if the Galaxy is again a Republic, why the organisation fighting the enemies of the Republic would be ‘the Resistance’.
• The First Order, as some sort of imperial remnant, made perfect sense as the antagonists. But having yet another massive superweapon with a video-game like weakness was, I thought, the biggest mistake the scriptwriters made. As much as I love the attack on the Death Star in ANH, the whole thing is a thin veneer over what’s basically nonsense. Having a second Death Star was a terrible choice that was, in my view, one of the many things that dragged down RotJ. Recycling the idea yet again is hard to forgive.
• The start of the movie, and, I would say, the first half-hour, is near-perfect. A great show of how less can be more in terms of plot elements.
• BB-8 is a truly wonderful creation.
• There’s a little too much getting captured and escaping in the film for my taste. Why don’t the Stormtroopers just kill Han, Chewie and Finn in the attack on the Cantina-tribute place?
• Stormtroopers still can’t shoot – they come across yet again as utterly hopeless soldiers whose fighting ability only improves when the plot requires it.
• I’m still undecided on Kylo Ren as a villain, or the Supreme Leader for that matter. Star Wars has always had an exceptionally strong and memorable rogues gallery, even the weaker films in the franchise, and I think it remains to be seen how the new trilogy will stack up.
• The lightsabre fight in the snow forest was very good, and having Ren wounded made it plausible. But the canyon of plot convenience was, well, convenient.
• I liked the nods to the old movies, but I think it went a bit too far, in some cases to the point of recycling plot ideas.
• Star Wars has always suffered a bit from chance encounters with implausible odds, which, I suppose, is ‘the will of the Force’. But the robot critical to finding Luke Skywalker crashing close to the place that the Millennium Falcon oddly seems to have ended up was really stretching the friendship. As does the way that the chief heroes and villains keep running into each other. This is one of the problems of a planet-sized base/weapon, btw - a smaller band of bad guys in a smaller hideout, and this would have all been much more believable.
• Just an aside, why has the Resistance stopped flying anything except X-Wings?
• Finally, when can we see the Prequels re-made by this new creative team?

[Alatar]

Just a flyby post on the Death Star thing. I guess the problem is that once you've built one working Death Star with an unfortunate weakness, the only logical thing to do is build a better one, which is what they did in RotJ and TFA. Jedi's one had to be flown right into the core to be destroyed and this most recent attack would have completely failed if not for Chewie blowing it up from the inside with thermal grenades (which was not the plan remember!).

[JewelSong]

Just saw it. I loved it; it was great fun and a real kick to see the old characters again. I was surprised by Han Solo's death, but not shocked. Great to see a light saber in the hands of a strong female character. Loved the little old woman character who had kept the light saber "all these years." Am wondering who Rey really is.


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[yovargas]

I've never been a Star Wars guy. I saw them all (except RotJ) once sometime back in the 90s, thought they were fine, and never saw them again. So these movies never "meant" anything to me. I wasn't really planning to see this one but some friends were going so I tagged along. So that's the perspective I'm coming from. My review:

It was good fun! Likeable characters, great visuals, exciting action, a not-dumb story (rare in "just for fun" action movies)...so yeah, all very pleasant. I am still far from loving this universe and I have a few quibbles here and there (mostly that IMO the main bad guys were all terribly miscast but I was also a bit eyerolly at the "let's blow up yet another death star" finale) but overall yes, a quite enjoyable experience.

I hope Disney enjoys its upcoming billions.

[kzer_za]

I liked it, but not quite as much as some people.

First the bad: it's really, really self-referential to the point of absurdity. Nostalgia and callbacks are all fine and good, but the third Death Star is where it crossed the line for me. At least the first two were built up over the course of the movies - this one is introduced fairly late and dispatched so quickly that it feels almost routine (if it weren't for Han's death it would be a complete farce how easily they take it out). The movie's plotline generally follows Episode IV too closely. To be fair, I can buy that 30 years is enough time for the Empire and their successors to forget the past and get stupid about superweapons again.

Still, there's a lot to like. The new heroes are likable and well-cast. I thought Kylo Ren was a nice change of pace from Vader, though not sold on Snoke or Mr. Fascist Redhead yet. The dialogue is great. I loved Poe, even with the little time he got. BB-8 is adorable of course. Han was fun and his death was handled well.

The action scenes are filmed and edited well and not ridiculously bloated as so many action movies are nowadays. Maybe the movie could have used a few more quiet moments in the second half, but that's a minor point and we still get some good ones. The snow fight at the end with Ren, Finn, and Rey is fantastic.

Despite my reservations, I enjoyed it and think it's better than most modern action blockbusters . But I hope now that Star Wars is reestablished, the next movies get more adventurous with their stories.

[Primula Baggins]

I suspect they will. This new entry has to bring in everyone, and so it has to be very detailed in the introduction and backstory, and I can see why they would want to touch reliably on familiar tropes from the earlier (IV, V, and VI) films. Future entries can build on this one.

. . . Yes, I saw it today and was deeply satisfied. Finn and Rey were wonderful—delightful performances from gifted actors in a spot-on script. Seeing Han Solo again, in a fine performance by Harrison Ford that overshadowed anything he was allowed to do in the first three films, was wonderful. The scene where he met Leia again after what must have been years of stubborn, acrimonious separation was so sweet.

I don't know. My critical faculties are weak. I am just happy. Something I love is alive again, after I thought its parent had killed it.

Though I know one thing. I will never tell my grandchildren about the prequel films, so we can all go on peacefully into the future.

. . . That said—theories on who Rey is?

[Alatar]

I'm thinking Han and Leia's daughter (Ben/Kylo's sister) hidden from him when he turned to the dark side. That or Luke's, but it feels more like she's Han and Leia's.

[yovargas]

I am just happy. Something I love is alive again, after I thought its parent had killed it.

Very dramatic. I like it.