Author Topic: Force Awakens. (Possible spoilers)  (Read 46966 times)

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Re: Force Awakens. (Possible spoilers)
« Reply #15 on: December 18, 2015, 01:26:45 PM »

Offline Rondo9

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Force Awakens < Phantom Menace.



I enjoyed it as a really fun sci-fantasy adventure and it starkly illustrates how bad Lucas was with elementary filmmaking/storytelling in the prequels.



I strongly disagree with that statement

Re: Force Awakens. (Possible spoilers)
« Reply #16 on: December 18, 2015, 01:27:57 PM »

Offline Rondo9

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I have liked every single Star Wars film I ever saw and I liked every Star Wars Tv show I ever saw, and every video game and every book and comic.

I am not a Star Wars complainer. I am not a Star Wars snob.   And I hated this movie. Hated. Like watching Rick Pitino or something.
PM me with your thoughts.  I saw it... everyone I saw it with loved it.  The movie got glowing reviews.  It's being unanimously praised by fans for "bringing back Star Wars".  You might be the first person I've seen with a negative reivew.   I'm not sure what kind of standard you were holding it to or what kind of expectations you may have had, but it was classic Star Wars.  I'm curious to find out what you hated about it.   It was a super enjoyable movie.  Significantly better than the prequels.  Worthy of all the love it's getting.  I highly recommend it.   

It wasn't without faults, but neither were the original movies.  It captured the tone/vibe of the originals wonderfully.  The action was fantastic.  Unlike the prequels, it had a much needed dose of humor.   I thought Kylo Ren was great.  It's the first movie I've seen Harrison Ford NOT mail in for several years... I was worried about his performance and I thought he was classic Han Solo.  I had tiny gripes, but so many moments that got me hyped up.  I'm looking forward to the sequels.  I think Episode 8 might even be better... I think Rian Johnson is a better director than JJ Abrams.  But what JJ Abrams pulled off here was great.  This was a worthy addition to the Star Wars saga.
[/quote


Universal praise? I've heard mixed results from fans




Re: Force Awakens. (Possible spoilers)
« Reply #17 on: December 18, 2015, 02:01:33 PM »

Offline Eja117

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As far as I can tell it's like 85% positive and for the few that didn't like it I don't think they're haters. I think they have legit reasons.

Things to really like about.

The world looks pretty cool and interesting.
All the new characters (mostly) seem pretty good
Decent to great action scenes
The funniest one to date but in a real way with real personality
A lot of good questions to answer later
Excellent Han Solo and Chewie

But overall did not like.

Re: Force Awakens. (Possible spoilers)
« Reply #18 on: December 18, 2015, 02:12:54 PM »

Offline MBunge

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Force Awakens < Phantom Menace.



I enjoyed it as a really fun sci-fantasy adventure and it starkly illustrates how bad Lucas was with elementary filmmaking/storytelling in the prequels.



I strongly disagree with that statement

I could understand why someone wouldn't like TFA but I don't think there's any argument that it makes the prequels look even worse.  There's been some contrarian bull from millennial hipsters about how the prequels really weren't that bad.  They were.  Badly plotted.  Badly paced.  Badly acted.  Badly conceived.  Badly executed.  Take away the goodwill of Star Wars and they'd be universally considered disasters on the order of Jupiter Rising or the Matrix sequels.

Mike

Re: Force Awakens. (Possible spoilers)
« Reply #19 on: December 18, 2015, 02:22:08 PM »

Offline Rondo9

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Force Awakens < Phantom Menace.



I enjoyed it as a really fun sci-fantasy adventure and it starkly illustrates how bad Lucas was with elementary filmmaking/storytelling in the prequels.



I strongly disagree with that statement

I could understand why someone wouldn't like TFA but I don't think there's any argument that it makes the prequels look even worse.  There's been some contrarian bull from millennial hipsters about how the prequels really weren't that bad.  They were.  Badly plotted.  Badly paced.  Badly acted.  Badly conceived.  Badly executed.  Take away the goodwill of Star Wars and they'd be universally considered disasters on the order of Jupiter Rising or the Matrix sequels.

Mike

Thanks for calling people who felt the prequels great hipsters just because they like something you don't

Re: Force Awakens. (Possible spoilers)
« Reply #20 on: December 18, 2015, 02:41:27 PM »

Offline LarBrd33

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I have liked every single Star Wars film I ever saw and I liked every Star Wars Tv show I ever saw, and every video game and every book and comic.

I am not a Star Wars complainer. I am not a Star Wars snob.   And I hated this movie. Hated. Like watching Rick Pitino or something.
PM me with your thoughts.  I saw it... everyone I saw it with loved it.  The movie got glowing reviews.  It's being unanimously praised by fans for "bringing back Star Wars".  You might be the first person I've seen with a negative reivew.   I'm not sure what kind of standard you were holding it to or what kind of expectations you may have had, but it was classic Star Wars.  I'm curious to find out what you hated about it.   It was a super enjoyable movie.  Significantly better than the prequels.  Worthy of all the love it's getting.  I highly recommend it.   

It wasn't without faults, but neither were the original movies.  It captured the tone/vibe of the originals wonderfully.  The action was fantastic.  Unlike the prequels, it had a much needed dose of humor.   I thought Kylo Ren was great.  It's the first movie I've seen Harrison Ford NOT mail in for several years... I was worried about his performance and I thought he was classic Han Solo.  I had tiny gripes, but so many moments that got me hyped up.  I'm looking forward to the sequels.  I think Episode 8 might even be better... I think Rian Johnson is a better director than JJ Abrams.  But what JJ Abrams pulled off here was great.  This was a worthy addition to the Star Wars saga.


Universal praise? I've heard mixed results from fans
It's got an 81/100 on Metacritic and 95% Fresh on Rotten Tomatoes.  It's a significantly higher rated film than any of the prequels.

Look, neck-beards will find anything to criticize.   But it's received universal praise.  Notoriously critical celebrity fans like Patton Oswalt and Kevin Smith have given glowing reviews of it as well. 

It's not without faults.   "Star Trek" from 2009 was a darn fun movie, but Star Trek fans criticized it for being "too star-warsy"   ... With this one, the main bit of criticism seems to be that it's "too similar to the original movie". 

I don't want to spoil anything.  Eja, I'll reach out to you with my response to your valid criticisms, but let's first acknowledge that there's a chance you might be in the minority here.  You had Mace WIndu as your avatar for several years.  Did you like the prequels more than the original movies?  That would presumably slant your view of the new ones.  In fact, has anyone ever seen Eja and George Lucas together at the same time?  Hmmm... makes you think.  Heh. 

I'm actually fine with the prequels for what they were, but I can easily sum up the reasons the prequels were not as beloved as the originals.   There's three very simple reasons. 

#1 - Overly complicated - the prequels got muddled in a bunch of political nonsense... the battles didn't make much sense... there was nobody to really root for... clones vs droids and they were both in the pocket of the emperor.   

#2 - No sense of humor - The prequels seemed like they were written by someone with autism or something.  No sense of humor at all.  In the original, they were able to improvise slightly.  Han had swagger.  It was light hearted and fun. 

#3 - Impossible to capture the awe of seeing cutting edge visuals in the late 70s.  -  This is pretty impossible to replicate.  Once a decade a movie comes out that's success is greatly impacted by having cutting edge visual technology.  Star Wars was at the forefront when it came out.  Another great example is Jurrassic Park... minds were blown when people so CGI dinosaurs.   Most recently, "Avatar" was greatly impacted by the visual spectacle.   In general, we're pretty jaded to visuals at this point, unfortunately.   


At best, this latest Star Wars could fix two of those 3... and it does.  Boy does it.  They simplify the story.  It's filled with character and humor.  They did a good job of reintroducing a scarred audience to the Star Wars universe.   The magic was back.  There were genuine moments of glee.  Genuine moments where I got excited.    Unlike the prequels, the actors weren't stiff and the dialogue wasn't stunted.   All four of the new leads shined.   I want to see more of them.   Does it borrow too much from the original? Sure... but I think they had to do that.  It's a love letter to the original Star Wars while at the same time setting things up for future installments.   

If I were to compare to to recent movies and set some expectations, I would say it's successful because it has the best elements of three recently successful films. 

#1 - "Guardians of the Galaxy" - Guardians was the best sci fi movie in years.  Episode 7 is right up there in terms of swashbuckling Star battling fun.  The characters have swagger and humor. 

#2 - "Jurassic World" -  The main reason Jurassic World was so successful was because of the nostalgia of going back to a familiar world.  Episode 7 has that in spades. 

#3 - "Creed" -  If you haven't seen it yet, go see Creed.  It's awesome.  It's basically a remake of "Rocky" while pushing the "Rocky" story forward.   Fans were skeptical after a couple misfires in the Rocky franchise ("rocky 5" comes to mind), but "Creed" is wonderful.  We get to see old man Rocky Balboa and the torch is passed along to a worthy new actor.   "Episode 7" is very similar in that regard.   They cover familiar ground, you get to see old versions of your favorite characters, and the torch is passed on to characters you immediately are fond of. 

Go see it.   It's worth it.

Re: Force Awakens. (Possible spoilers)
« Reply #21 on: December 18, 2015, 10:12:23 PM »

Offline Rondo9

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I have liked every single Star Wars film I ever saw and I liked every Star Wars Tv show I ever saw, and every video game and every book and comic.

I am not a Star Wars complainer. I am not a Star Wars snob.   And I hated this movie. Hated. Like watching Rick Pitino or something.
PM me with your thoughts.  I saw it... everyone I saw it with loved it.  The movie got glowing reviews.  It's being unanimously praised by fans for "bringing back Star Wars".  You might be the first person I've seen with a negative reivew.   I'm not sure what kind of standard you were holding it to or what kind of expectations you may have had, but it was classic Star Wars.  I'm curious to find out what you hated about it.   It was a super enjoyable movie.  Significantly better than the prequels.  Worthy of all the love it's getting.  I highly recommend it.   

It wasn't without faults, but neither were the original movies.  It captured the tone/vibe of the originals wonderfully.  The action was fantastic.  Unlike the prequels, it had a much needed dose of humor.   I thought Kylo Ren was great.  It's the first movie I've seen Harrison Ford NOT mail in for several years... I was worried about his performance and I thought he was classic Han Solo.  I had tiny gripes, but so many moments that got me hyped up.  I'm looking forward to the sequels.  I think Episode 8 might even be better... I think Rian Johnson is a better director than JJ Abrams.  But what JJ Abrams pulled off here was great.  This was a worthy addition to the Star Wars saga.


Universal praise? I've heard mixed results from fans
It's got an 81/100 on Metacritic and 95% Fresh on Rotten Tomatoes.  It's a significantly higher rated film than any of the prequels.

Look, neck-beards will find anything to criticize.   But it's received universal praise.  Notoriously critical celebrity fans like Patton Oswalt and Kevin Smith have given glowing reviews of it as well. 

It's not without faults.   "Star Trek" from 2009 was a darn fun movie, but Star Trek fans criticized it for being "too star-warsy"   ... With this one, the main bit of criticism seems to be that it's "too similar to the original movie". 

I don't want to spoil anything.  Eja, I'll reach out to you with my response to your valid criticisms, but let's first acknowledge that there's a chance you might be in the minority here.  You had Mace WIndu as your avatar for several years.  Did you like the prequels more than the original movies?  That would presumably slant your view of the new ones.  In fact, has anyone ever seen Eja and George Lucas together at the same time?  Hmmm... makes you think.  Heh. 

I'm actually fine with the prequels for what they were, but I can easily sum up the reasons the prequels were not as beloved as the originals.   There's three very simple reasons. 

#1 - Overly complicated - the prequels got muddled in a bunch of political nonsense... the battles didn't make much sense... there was nobody to really root for... clones vs droids and they were both in the pocket of the emperor.   

#2 - No sense of humor - The prequels seemed like they were written by someone with autism or something.  No sense of humor at all.  In the original, they were able to improvise slightly.  Han had swagger.  It was light hearted and fun. 

#3 - Impossible to capture the awe of seeing cutting edge visuals in the late 70s.  -  This is pretty impossible to replicate.  Once a decade a movie comes out that's success is greatly impacted by having cutting edge visual technology.  Star Wars was at the forefront when it came out.  Another great example is Jurrassic Park... minds were blown when people so CGI dinosaurs.   Most recently, "Avatar" was greatly impacted by the visual spectacle.   In general, we're pretty jaded to visuals at this point, unfortunately.   






Did you know that the Prequels used more pratical effects than the originals? Shocking I know and there was some humor in the prequels like Obi wan's constant snark. The story I felt was well done.

Re: Force Awakens. (Possible spoilers)
« Reply #22 on: December 18, 2015, 10:18:59 PM »

Offline Redz

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Re: Force Awakens. (Possible spoilers)
« Reply #23 on: December 18, 2015, 10:24:30 PM »

Offline Chief

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I loved it.
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Re: Force Awakens. (Possible spoilers)
« Reply #24 on: December 19, 2015, 11:18:40 AM »

Offline Eja117

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Force Awakens < Phantom Menace.



I enjoyed it as a really fun sci-fantasy adventure and it starkly illustrates how bad Lucas was with elementary filmmaking/storytelling in the prequels.



I strongly disagree with that statement

I could understand why someone wouldn't like TFA but I don't think there's any argument that it makes the prequels look even worse.  There's been some contrarian bull from millennial hipsters about how the prequels really weren't that bad.  They were.  Badly plotted.  Badly paced.  Badly acted.  Badly conceived.  Badly executed.  Take away the goodwill of Star Wars and they'd be universally considered disasters on the order of Jupiter Rising or the Matrix sequels.

Mike
Wait wait wait. How does this "new" movie make the prequels look worse?

Also the prequels absolutely stand up to the originals. And there are reasons why.

One....prequels have better bad guys. A lot better. The bad guys in the original trilogy are dumb and incompetent. They can be easily outwitted by a drunk smuggler with no plan. They get knocked into sarlacs by blind guys. They get killed by teddy bears with stone age tools.

Second....if you like lightsabers the prequels are way more for you.

Third ....if you like places the prequels are more for you, or at least more for you than TFA. I mean seriously? Another desert planet? Again? How many times are we going to go to a desert planet? I mean why do people even live there? Of all the places to go people decide to settle on a piece of crud planet like that?

Fourth....more mystery and intrigue. That's good

Re: Force Awakens. (Possible spoilers)
« Reply #25 on: December 19, 2015, 12:40:04 PM »

Offline LarBrd33

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Force Awakens < Phantom Menace.



I enjoyed it as a really fun sci-fantasy adventure and it starkly illustrates how bad Lucas was with elementary filmmaking/storytelling in the prequels.



I strongly disagree with that statement

I could understand why someone wouldn't like TFA but I don't think there's any argument that it makes the prequels look even worse.  There's been some contrarian bull from millennial hipsters about how the prequels really weren't that bad.  They were.  Badly plotted.  Badly paced.  Badly acted.  Badly conceived.  Badly executed.  Take away the goodwill of Star Wars and they'd be universally considered disasters on the order of Jupiter Rising or the Matrix sequels.

Mike
Wait wait wait. How does this "new" movie make the prequels look worse?

Also the prequels absolutely stand up to the originals. And there are reasons why.

One....prequels have better bad guys. A lot better. The bad guys in the original trilogy are dumb and incompetent. They can be easily outwitted by a drunk smuggler with no plan. They get knocked into sarlacs by blind guys. They get killed by teddy bears with stone age tools.

Second....if you like lightsabers the prequels are way more for you.

Third ....if you like places the prequels are more for you, or at least more for you than TFA. I mean seriously? Another desert planet? Again? How many times are we going to go to a desert planet? I mean why do people even live there? Of all the places to go people decide to settle on a piece of crud planet like that?

Fourth....more mystery and intrigue. That's good
i think kylo ren is 10 times more interesting than count dooku and general grievous combined.  Grievous was lame as hell in the prequels.  He just runs away and gets his butt handed to him by obi-wan.    I haven't seen the cartoons so I can only go on darth maul's one appearance.  The saber fights were admittedly cool, but he had like one line in the entire movie.  We knew nothing about him other than his fight style and face paint.   Maybe he was "cooler looking" but I wouldn't call him a better bad guy. 

I do agree the saber fights in the prequels were neat, but even those have been heavily criticized for being overly choreographed and nonsensical.  Random flips and random twirls of the light sabers that were purely showy and deviated from the original ... The critics would say that a saber fight should be a power struggle vs good and evil.   The new one captures that.   

Eja, I think you're maybe younger and were a kid when the prequels came out so I don't hold it against you for loving them.  I know people who were children when phantom menace came out and adored jar jar.  But the prequels were so universally hated and seen "ruining" Star Wars.  An entire generation of fans felt like it ruined their childhood. Lol. I never was that overly hateful of them, but I totally understood the criticism.  They were bad for some of the same reasons the Matrix sequels were bad ... The creators fell in love with their own made up universe too much, tried to force so much extra crap into their movie... And failed to capture what made their original movie so beloved.   You are complaining about the planet being a desert again.  They HAD to do that.  This movie wasn't about pushing the Star Wars storyline forward as much as it was proving to audiences that Star Wars could still be great.  They had to cover familiar ground before they could move forward. It also stays true to George Lucas original vision that these trilogies should mirror one another.  So many people had felt burned by the prequels and felt Disney was going to ruin their childhood even further that they sort of had to use this movie to prove to everyone they "got it" and could bring back the magic.  They succeeded. It's wonderful.

« Last Edit: December 19, 2015, 12:54:06 PM by LarBrd33 »

Re: Force Awakens. (Possible spoilers)
« Reply #26 on: December 19, 2015, 12:53:12 PM »

Offline LarBrd33

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Double post

Re: Force Awakens. (Possible spoilers)
« Reply #27 on: December 19, 2015, 01:05:11 PM »

Offline Smartacus

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I'm not letting the film makers of off the hook. J J Abrams is too talented to recycle that many shots from A New Hope.

Same thing with Jurassic World last year, the constant feeling of deja vu from how the plot progresses and how it was shot really takes me out of the experience. It made an otherwise really enjoyable movie feel cheapaned.

The little details were awesome. The music and cinematography were top notch. I really hope the sequels will be more independent of the source material when they come out.

7.8/10


Re: Force Awakens. (Possible spoilers)
« Reply #28 on: December 19, 2015, 01:24:15 PM »

Offline Evantime34

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Thoughts after seeing it:
1. Fin has to be a jedi right? Wouldn't Han Solo's sun just cut him to ribbons immediately if he wasn't. I feel like in the old movies a jedi holding a light sabre would have destroyed a regular person
2. Thought the movie was great. It gave me a happy nostalgic feeling when I saw the old characters.
3. I thought the humor was really good in spots which is part of what was good about the last movies.
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Re: Force Awakens. (Possible spoilers)
« Reply #29 on: December 19, 2015, 01:33:18 PM »

Offline Eja117

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Kylo Ren is interesting? He's an emo kid.  Which is the same criticism people had of....young Anakin Skywalker. Only young Anakin had a billion times better skills...from the time he was 8.

Dooku had a phenomenal actor playing him. Grevious was awesome CGI.

They HAD to go back to a desert planet? To prove Star Wars can be good? So Star Wars can only be good on desert planets? The universe isn't good enough to go forwards so we have to go backwards?

And ultimately it's a plagiarism.  It's not an homage of any kind. If I make a movie next week about some little people that find a magic ring and they have to take a long dangerous journey where they meet monsters, but have several friends to help them....let's call it a "fellowship", and in the end they have to throw it in a volcano to destroy it, but not before a big battle at a castle, and in the mean time there's a creature trying to steal this ring......that's not an homage. That's plagiarism.

Princess Leia...yeah it's great to see her again and C3PO is annoying as ever, but they were forced into the film and serve no purpose that someone else couldn't have served.

Can we possibly find something new to fight? And can we possibly fight it differently?

Brien of Tarth could crush Cpt Phasma.

It's amazing to me that people say Lucas lost it and he shouldn't be writing any more, then they rip off his stuff and say it's good. How does that work?