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sheenianni…that this movie might not be entirely great?
It wasn’t bad. It had some good moments and even a few great moments. It still feels like a bit of a letdown.
Things I liked:
- Rey. I was unsure about her character from the trailer, but she turned out to be an interesting, distinctive person that I could genuinely care about (even if she constantly repeated that she had to go back to Jakku). As someone mentioned, she wasn’t overly feminized; she was (mostly) smart, capable, curious and very realistic, even in the way that she slowly developed her powers (until the end… but we will come back to that later)
- absolutely everything about Han Solo’s return. His personality, his glee at finding the Falcon (and being annoyed at the adjustments), his budding relationship with Rey, him and Leia, his final scene with Kylo Ren. Also, Chewie is back. We missed him :)
- I really liked the hints of the whole Solo/Skywalker family history. So after Ben Solo turned to the dark side, Han went back to being a smuggler, Leia buried herself in politics and Luke left entirely, abandoning the galaxy in the middle of a mess. We wanted happier endings for them, but frankly it feels very human and absolutely believable. They were heroes, but even heroes aren’t perfect and shit happens.
- Jakku the desert planet
- BB-8
- new Resistance ships (or were it Republic ships? No idea); similar to the old ones but sleeker and prettier
Things that were so-so:
- Kylo Ren. I actually like the concept of a not entirely capable Dark Sider, who would want to be Vader but just isn’t good enough. And it sort of works… to a point. The problem starts when Kylo Ren goes from “decent but not great” to being blatantly incompetent… but more to that later.
- Finn, Poe. Despite getting quite a lot of space in the movie, it feels like there isn’t much to say about Finn’s character. I don’t yet have strong feelings about either of them. I liked their “buddy” hug towards the end (echoing the hug between Luke and Wedge, I think). Hopefully both will get more development in the following movies.
- the New Order. Well, I guess they’re okay as the bad guys…
- Maz (Han’s thousand years old friend); the “rediscovery” of Anakin/Luke’s lightsaber
- the Republic-Resistance-New Order setup. So I guess it means that the Republic rules a part of the galaxy, the New Order the other part and the Resistance are trying to mess up things in the New Order territories? Was there an explanation I missed somewhere? Well, we still have two more movies to clear that up
Things I disliked:
- Snoke. I was sort of disappointed that Kylo Ren wasn’t the head of the New Order… but, okay, let’s rehash the Vader-Emperor relationship just like other things. Except it doesn’t work, because so far, Snoke is just not believable in the role. With the Emperor, all it took was his presence… the way he walked, spoke, the music theme, the way everyone treated him – you knew right away that this guy was BAD NEWS, and really powerful, and possibly even worse than Vader. We had yet to get that feeling from Snoke (and BTW, couldn’t they have picked a better name? Ugh.)
Of course, this is where the sequels really come in handy, because they can yet give Snoke history and make him into that great antagonist. That would help a lot.
- the Starkiller base. Right, so it devours a star, and then it shoot these beams all across the galaxy, which then mysteriously split and destroy planets… WTF??? I mean, Star Wars was never realistic when it comes to physics, but this attempt at making “the most badass Death Star ever” was really, really terrible.
- The search for Luke and the map that mysteriously appears. It doesn’t really make much sense… So, did Luke give the old guy part of the map knowing that R2 had the rest of it, and then left for the planet to sit there… for twenty years? And the old guy was only supposed to tell if things in the galaxy became bad enough?
- I really wish there was a better plot than rehashing so many things from Episode IV (with a dash of epsV and VI). So, let’s start with hiding the map in a droid… and then the droid’s stroll across the desert… And once you know that, hey, they’re going to be destroying theSuper!Death Star Starkiller, there’s (shocking!) a timer with only ten minutes-three minutes-twenty seconds remaining; they need to sneak on the base to get the shield down, they’ll use one man starfighters to destroy the thing… Haven’t we watched that before? Only the first time it made more of a sense… Worse than that, the predictability makes parts of the movie boring (who honestly feared that Leia and the Resistance would be blown up? I know I didn’t.)
- Kylo Ren’s fight with Finn and Rey at the end. So, this guy is a skilled Darksider with Jedi practice, possibly years of training under Luke and later under Snoke. Yet he has problems dispatching of Finn and Rey, neither of whom have any experience with lightsabers? Then at the end, Rey suddenly realizes that she can use the Force. She takes a deep breath, focuses and instantly becomes a lightsaber prodigy. Forget the message that the previous six movies gave us (that you actually need training to be good at these Jedi things) – no, all you have to do is focus on the Force and suddenly you are an expert swordmaster. Shiny!
- So Phasma (the First Order soldier) is totally, blindly devoted to her cause… but when they aim a blaster at her head, she immediately lowers the shield that protects the First Order’s most powerful weapon??? …Right.
- At the beginning, Rey rescues BB-8 from a guy by arguing with him, then shows no interest in the droid… then suddenly refuses to sell him for sixty rations of food when she is clearly barely getting by? Huh.
- And last note on the subject ofDeath Star XXXL Starkiller Base – so it needs to devour a star to fire up. That itself is pretty messed up… but, okay. So since it has already devoured most of the star, why doesn’t it fire at the Resistance planet once it’s clear the Resistance is trying to destroy the Starkiller? I mean, with the original Death Star, they had the excuse of “being too far”, but that doesn’t hold anymore.
…and I’ll stop here since this is getting really long.
Anyway, right now, I’m feeling somewhat down about it. It might change later though…
Honestly, the sequels might help a lot. Another viewing will definitely help (the WTF effect of Starkiller Base and Kylo Ren’s dueling incompetency won’t be so bad the second time). I’m looking forward to see how they flesh out these characters and this new era of the Star Wars universe. There’ve created lots of options and quite a bit of potential here; it really depends on what they do with it. I do hope we don’t get another rehash of the old trilogy and instead try out some new, more original plots.
Until then, may the Force be with you!
It wasn’t bad. It had some good moments and even a few great moments. It still feels like a bit of a letdown.
Things I liked:
- Rey. I was unsure about her character from the trailer, but she turned out to be an interesting, distinctive person that I could genuinely care about (even if she constantly repeated that she had to go back to Jakku). As someone mentioned, she wasn’t overly feminized; she was (mostly) smart, capable, curious and very realistic, even in the way that she slowly developed her powers (until the end… but we will come back to that later)
- absolutely everything about Han Solo’s return. His personality, his glee at finding the Falcon (and being annoyed at the adjustments), his budding relationship with Rey, him and Leia, his final scene with Kylo Ren. Also, Chewie is back. We missed him :)
- I really liked the hints of the whole Solo/Skywalker family history. So after Ben Solo turned to the dark side, Han went back to being a smuggler, Leia buried herself in politics and Luke left entirely, abandoning the galaxy in the middle of a mess. We wanted happier endings for them, but frankly it feels very human and absolutely believable. They were heroes, but even heroes aren’t perfect and shit happens.
- Jakku the desert planet
- BB-8
- new Resistance ships (or were it Republic ships? No idea); similar to the old ones but sleeker and prettier
Things that were so-so:
- Kylo Ren. I actually like the concept of a not entirely capable Dark Sider, who would want to be Vader but just isn’t good enough. And it sort of works… to a point. The problem starts when Kylo Ren goes from “decent but not great” to being blatantly incompetent… but more to that later.
- Finn, Poe. Despite getting quite a lot of space in the movie, it feels like there isn’t much to say about Finn’s character. I don’t yet have strong feelings about either of them. I liked their “buddy” hug towards the end (echoing the hug between Luke and Wedge, I think). Hopefully both will get more development in the following movies.
- the New Order. Well, I guess they’re okay as the bad guys…
- Maz (Han’s thousand years old friend); the “rediscovery” of Anakin/Luke’s lightsaber
- the Republic-Resistance-New Order setup. So I guess it means that the Republic rules a part of the galaxy, the New Order the other part and the Resistance are trying to mess up things in the New Order territories? Was there an explanation I missed somewhere? Well, we still have two more movies to clear that up
Things I disliked:
- Snoke. I was sort of disappointed that Kylo Ren wasn’t the head of the New Order… but, okay, let’s rehash the Vader-Emperor relationship just like other things. Except it doesn’t work, because so far, Snoke is just not believable in the role. With the Emperor, all it took was his presence… the way he walked, spoke, the music theme, the way everyone treated him – you knew right away that this guy was BAD NEWS, and really powerful, and possibly even worse than Vader. We had yet to get that feeling from Snoke (and BTW, couldn’t they have picked a better name? Ugh.)
Of course, this is where the sequels really come in handy, because they can yet give Snoke history and make him into that great antagonist. That would help a lot.
- the Starkiller base. Right, so it devours a star, and then it shoot these beams all across the galaxy, which then mysteriously split and destroy planets… WTF??? I mean, Star Wars was never realistic when it comes to physics, but this attempt at making “the most badass Death Star ever” was really, really terrible.
- The search for Luke and the map that mysteriously appears. It doesn’t really make much sense… So, did Luke give the old guy part of the map knowing that R2 had the rest of it, and then left for the planet to sit there… for twenty years? And the old guy was only supposed to tell if things in the galaxy became bad enough?
- I really wish there was a better plot than rehashing so many things from Episode IV (with a dash of epsV and VI). So, let’s start with hiding the map in a droid… and then the droid’s stroll across the desert… And once you know that, hey, they’re going to be destroying the
- Kylo Ren’s fight with Finn and Rey at the end. So, this guy is a skilled Darksider with Jedi practice, possibly years of training under Luke and later under Snoke. Yet he has problems dispatching of Finn and Rey, neither of whom have any experience with lightsabers? Then at the end, Rey suddenly realizes that she can use the Force. She takes a deep breath, focuses and instantly becomes a lightsaber prodigy. Forget the message that the previous six movies gave us (that you actually need training to be good at these Jedi things) – no, all you have to do is focus on the Force and suddenly you are an expert swordmaster. Shiny!
- So Phasma (the First Order soldier) is totally, blindly devoted to her cause… but when they aim a blaster at her head, she immediately lowers the shield that protects the First Order’s most powerful weapon??? …Right.
- At the beginning, Rey rescues BB-8 from a guy by arguing with him, then shows no interest in the droid… then suddenly refuses to sell him for sixty rations of food when she is clearly barely getting by? Huh.
- And last note on the subject of
…and I’ll stop here since this is getting really long.
Anyway, right now, I’m feeling somewhat down about it. It might change later though…
Honestly, the sequels might help a lot. Another viewing will definitely help (the WTF effect of Starkiller Base and Kylo Ren’s dueling incompetency won’t be so bad the second time). I’m looking forward to see how they flesh out these characters and this new era of the Star Wars universe. There’ve created lots of options and quite a bit of potential here; it really depends on what they do with it. I do hope we don’t get another rehash of the old trilogy and instead try out some new, more original plots.
Until then, may the Force be with you!
