Star Wars: The Force Awakens

Guess simplest way of putting it...first film in my life I'm planning to see again at the cinema.

 

It was fantastic. I got an early viewing as part of a networking event. The audience was fired up and pretty much everyone at the end wanted them to hit play again and show it again. It erased the "stink" of the three prequels.

 

Well, let's see:

• Boring rehashed story.
• Virtually no character growth or development.
• Uninspired action sequences.
• Forced PC characters for larger appeal.
• Corruption of the established setting rules.
• Cheap humor, often out-of-place.

And that's just the rough overview. "Erased the stink"? I don't think so.

Don't get me wrong, the last 6 films were hardly consistent or perfect in any way, but this was yet another letdown for me.

 

Corruption of setting rules?

Which one?

 

LOL, who pissed in your cheerios?

 

Jedi novices being able to use mind tricks without any real training, non-jedi characters being able to take on a Sith lord in a lightsaber fight, Sith lords being completely useless or operating in plain view, Sith being drawn to light side instead of the other way around, force users being able to sense non-force users at great distances and yet not being able to sense other force users 10 feet away, etc.

Like I said, it's not like the old movies were horribly consistent either. But there's just so much bad writing in this movie that I can't help but notice stupid things. It felt like I was watching bad fanfic.

Lucas and Abrams and whoever it was that said, "Hey, look, we gotta please all those angry feminists and minorities, so let's just make the main two characters a woman and a black dude."

I'm not really mad about it, I don't even like the movies (including the original trilogy), but I am a fan of the setting nevertheless, and I was expecting more after the previous trilogy.

 

Don´t you know that the original was the "Lando&Leia" trilogy?

 

This will be "mildly" spoilery:

I saw it on release day with my family. I definitely enjoyed it overall. I absolutely loved the visuals, and appreciated a more controlled approach toward CGI, compared to the prequels. I also appreciated that the acting was so much better than the acting from the prequels (I still cringe over the Anakin/Padme "romance" - WTH was Lucas thinking?). Here we have actors that are actually believable.

It was easy to watch due to the heavy focus on nostalgia, but for me, this was also a weakness. I felt like I knew what was going to happen before it did, because the movie was largely a repackaged version of Episode IV - A New Hope. Really, Episode VII had essentially the same plot! I was also bothered by how inconsequential the new Republic proved to be. It felt like everything accomplished in Episodes IV - VI was all for naught. We still have a way too powerful "First Order" (i.e. the Empire) that is pulverizing the so-called rebels while the Republic apparently sits back powerless to prevent its downfall. This was all done, as far as I can tell, to avoid the risk of telling a new story, that might alienate fans of the original 3 movies.

I hope future installments will go a different direction, and take some additional risks - and manage to do so more successfully than the prequels did. Is that too much to ask?

 

A few tears, but for the most part deja vu. a 2015 remake from part 4. I hope that empire... new order strikes back will add to the plot.

after reading so many books, especially the ones by Timothy Zahn, I am still biased.

The franchise has new life to it, so retailers will drive you insane with useless stuff. all the movies are dusted off an re raised in price.

 

I think this quote puts its finger on it: "It is Star Wars Jim, but not as we know it."

 

It's good, I just don't think it's as good as most people are saying. I really hate the overall story plus a few inconsistencies (for all their supposed wisdom, the Jedi seem to have a knack for repeating past mistakes over and over and over again), but I enjoyed most of everything else.

 

But I like musicals

Heh, though Disney could be edgy if people stopped trying to boycott every non-family friendly movie they tried to release. Like Kevin Smith's Dogma, iirc.

 

Honestly, musical scenes would have been an improvement.

 

It was kind of painful to watch at times. Still, the characters are much more engaging than any of the people we saw in the first three prequels. I've always said that you can't lay all the blame on the little Lloyd kid or Hadyn, but whoever was to blame, they just sucked hardcore.

 

Meh. The characters themselves are pretty flat and uninspired. If anything, it's the actors that did a decent job breathing some life into them. Some of them anyway. But it's not like the prequels didn't have a handful of strong characters too.

Also, in case you haven't seen it yet:

 

Still unbelievable they did it Disney's way.