I like it, certainly more than TPM or AotC, but it did feel a bit "Star Wars by numbers" and was loaded with so many obvious fanboy nods that felt unnecessary. And the main villain was rather disappointing overall, didn't seem a worthy adversary, it's a shame he got so much screen time when Darth Maul (who was far more threatening a character) was so woefully underused in the prequels.
All in all it reminded a bit of the way I felt about Spectre. Nothing actually "bad" about it, but not quite the sum of all its parts.
Perhaps I've been spoiled by re-watching The Clone Wars cartoons recently, which just do an infinitely better job of telling interesting stories set in the Star Wars universe.
I agree, especially with the Clone Wars part, I was thinking myself that maybe Star Wars really has set out its universe and lends itself to episodic stories more now than cinematic epics, plus
Spoiler:
if they made the follow ons to the original trilogy an animated series in the vein of the Clone Wars, they could get around Harrison Ford's insistence on killing Han Solo and have a much better plot because of it... :|
I went to see it yesterday. Thought it was allright, not quite as good as what the trailers lead you to believe. But why did they decide to make luke skywalker look like Jim royal
@BruceNorton - think you need to spoilertag your comment, but
Spoiler:
personally, I thought he looked more like Kenny Rogers
also (don't read this if you haven't seen the film)
Spoiler:
I thought it was pretty good - my wife thought "amazing", but I wouldn't go that far. Kylo Ren seems like a spoiled brat - I get that he's conflicted, but he keeps chucking a radjie and breaking things whenever things don't go his way, which is annoying.. I wanted Rey to kill him rather than having to go through the inevitable fall from grace / return to the light parallel that they seem to be shooting for and that we already went through with Vader.
I also got the hint that Finn might be a Jedi when he asks for a weapon and (I think it was) Mozz says "you already have one" when he's carrying the lightsaber. (Although General Grievous used a bunch in Episode 3 and he wasn't a Jedi)
Lots of Nazi Symbolism linked to the First Order troops. When the General addresses the squadrons aboard the weapon before they fire it at the Republic, they were all lined up in squads with their standards - which was very Nuremberg Rally - and they all gave a Nazi-esque salute at the end when the General finished speaking.
Also - Kylo Ren's helmet looks like a German SS officer's from the back, and his character itself looks very much like the regular troops from the game 'Wolfenstein - The New Order'.
The Han Solo thing was probably a good idea. Harrison Ford obviously doesn't have the same love for the character that everyone else does, and he's getting on a bit, so it's probably best that they tied up that loose end now, rather than hoping that he's still going to be around for another 6 years while they shoot the next two movies. (Assuming that they stick to the traditional 'one movie every three years' shooting schedule that everyone's used to).
While I wasn't desperate to see this movie, (as many people I know were), I'm glad that I did and I'm pretty sure I'll watch the others as and when they come out.
Episodes 8 and 9 are scheduled to come out in 2017 and 2019.
2016, 2018 and 2020 have other Star Wars movies planned that aren't the main trilogy series, starting with Rogue One, which is apparently the tale of the rebels nicking Death Star plans.
Episodes 8 and 9 are scheduled to come out in 2017 and 2019.
2016, 2018 and 2020 have other Star Wars movies planned that aren't the main trilogy series, starting with Rogue One, which is apparently the tale of the rebels nicking Death Star plans.
yeah they have the money to do em certainly BUT im scared the films will be overloaded, currently like this one they are an event in themselves but getting one every year we're gonna get overloaded with em :(
Professional Mel-the-Bell Simulator................"So realistic, I found myself reaching for the Kleenex King-Size!" - Richard Darling
It hasn't hurt the Marvel movies, and you don't have to watch them all. Stick to the trilogies if you're feeling burnt out, venture into the others if not. It won't overload me, I've been watching the TV series for years and still can't get enough of this stuff.
I've watched a few early trailers so I had a rough idea of the film but managed to keep away from the idiot friends that would spoil a film - except one that has kept quiet about it even though he's seen the film 4 times.
Ventured to the local flea pit today hoping it would be almost empty, but it was half full, kids and adults moving around, eating, drinking, loudly rustling bags of popcorn/sweets and **** around with their phones during the film....
As the words scrolled up the screen I ignored them, then remembered that I'd not read them before, so I made the effort to do so.
Spoiler:
It soon fell into the predictable Star Wars universe, person A crash lands on planet - in the exact region where person B needs to be found. Then linking up to person C and so on. Dug out a few fossils, light sabre duels, dumb stormtroopers.
Enjoyable to watch, with the new guys learning things about the old technology.
The strange bit was when they landed on the green planet (the one with the orange alien bar/canteen owner with glasses) was the unmistaken sounds of pigeons coo-ing. It happened whenever the sound went quiet. Therefore, there's pigeons nesting
somewhere within the cinema!
Found it easy to spot where the deleted scenes could've been (how did they get from A to B in the snow without being seen?) and noticed that there were a few edited moments that just didn't match up - especially between Han and Leia.
Han had CCTV, but the New Empire? C'mon guys, beef up your security systems and purchase a few handrails for your bridges.
Many many plot holes... yeah, just switch it off, remove the data drive, insert it into a new unit and read the data. Bingo!
Stayed for the entire credits (along with a couple of others) to get my four pounds worth.
Will watch it again on DVD when the family buys it.
Overall: 6/10
Would've been 7 but there was a few uses of spot zooming the camera, pull/push focus, blurring the backgrounds and shaking the camera - is this thing working? - hate hate hate it.
Better than Episodes I,II,III though.
Wonder if there will be a Lego StarWars for these 3 new films though.
Watched it today. As many people here, I think it's better than any of the prequel films but I'm afraid that the story through the new trilogy (VII, VIII & IX) won't be as good as the first trilogy. I wish I were wrong.
The film is full of good action scenes and enough special effects (not the sfx abuse in the prequels films!) but lacks of 'sexual tension' among the main characters (unlike in the Empire Strikes Back, where it was one of its best points): it's the first Disney film, obviously! :-)
Saw it again yesterday, in 3D this time. Can't say the 3D was overly impressive, a few good scenes but then as always it comes with drawbacks of darker scenes overall and slight blurring when there's lots going on.
Enjoyed it very much, pleased to find it stands up to repeated viewing. Mrs Ant thought she might get bored but didn't find that at all.
I think having seen it once, I was able to take in more and relate actions/dialogue to things that happen later in the movie, so I can see me repeat viewing this one quite a bit.
The Scots gang is still awful though. Its not the accent, its the delivery, very unnatural reading of lines. Hopefully that'll be fixed with a new dub in a future release.
The Scots gang is still awful though. Its not the accent, its the delivery, very unnatural reading of lines. Hopefully that'll be fixed with a new dub in a future release.
The Scots gang is still awful though. Its not the accent, its the delivery, very unnatural reading of lines. Hopefully that'll be fixed with a new dub in a future release.
Ah the famous Culture Club gang....
No, they were the subtitled guys. Stupid name, but they worked ok with the foreign language.
The weegies were apparently the Guavian Death Gang. I dread to think how they kill you with a guava.
Just seen it and thoroughly enjoyed it. The big talking point I pretty much guessed would happen although I wish it hadn't. Kylo Ren was awesome at the start but seemed to get feebler as the movie went on, but I guess that was the light/dark dichotomy. All in all a cracking film.
Finally I got to see it. We went in style by going to an Everyman cinema which meant less people and noise, oh and sofas.
I did enjoy it, it kind of felt like 'A new hope' as if written in a parallel universe. All the bits were there but in a slightly different order or in a slightly different way, but an enjoyable film overall.
Spoiler:
As for Fin, I think everyone wants him to have powers and so expect it / would like to predict it. I'm all for him to not have powers and not to be related to anybody. Keeping him as just a hero would be better.
In my view the episode 3 is great, if they would have made one only film with material of the three episodes with a bit of more adult tone and some elongated rhythm typical of John Boorman for the Anakin / Palpatin drama that film coul have been a f*ing master piece. But this one, it feels to me like a parody.. C'mon the same story and sceneries with different characters, some old guys putting sad faces without saying a word, lots of telly closeups, a cold carbon copy of the original narration, lack of aliens, wtf is the cgi gollum lol is this what people like?? Meh muahaha I may be just a cranky c*nt
Episodes 8 and 9 are scheduled to come out in 2017 and 2019.
2016, 2018 and 2020 have other Star Wars movies planned that aren't the main trilogy series, starting with Rogue One, which is apparently the tale of the rebels nicking Death Star plans.
As far as I know, apart from rogue one, another film not included in the trilogy series is one featuring the adventures of a young Han Solo, how he became a smuggler, etc.
The third standalone SW story movie, is titled Red Five - but nothing more is known about it (other than it was the call sign Luke had during the Trench Run in ANH).
Finally saw it today, in 3D, on the biggest screen in the country. Quite chuffed I managed to last this long without catching a single spoiler. Really enjoyed it. :)
I enjoyed it, but it felt like a "best of" compilation of Star Wars scenes bunged together...remember this scene from ANH? Well it's back with new characters! Remember this scene from ESB? Well it's back with new AND old characters! Really hope you liked ANH coz there's lots of ANH scenes remixed with new characters!
I enjoyed it, but it felt like a "best of" compilation of Star Wars scenes bunged together...remember this scene from ANH? Well it's back with new characters! Remember this scene from ESB? Well it's back with new AND old characters! Really hope you liked ANH coz there's lots of ANH scenes remixed with new characters!
I was just saying to my mates earlier that for some reason it felt a bit like a remake of ANH at times (to me at least). I watched episodes 1-6 over the Christmas holidays, so it was all probably still a little too fresh in my mind. Still thoroughly enjoyable though, and I definitely wasn't saying that after watching episode 1 for the first time, so that's good. :)
e.g... why did the technology of space ships etc look so more advanced...in the past?
That is explained somewhere though I can't recall at this point in time. At the time of the prequels the Galaxy was going through a "golden" age of riches and indulgence, hence why all the technology is sleek and more advanced looking and shiny and new. When the Empire comes along, all that is taken away and those riches are used by the Empire. Everyone else then has to use what was left to fix what was there which leads to the patchwork technology of the original and subsequent films.
I watched it on Jan 1, along with wife and friends. Wife hadn't seen any Star Wars film prior to this, so I was a bit worried. But apparently she did some reading up on the backstory before we went in so the only thing that could have spoiled it all would have been the movie. Thankfully, that wasn't the case and The Force Awakens is a decent Star Wars movie although I dare say it lacks the epic-ness of the previous movies. Speaking of which, am I the only one who doesn't mind the prequels (except for Jar-Jar Binks)? The prequels were going to be handicapped a bit anyway because they were trying to explain characters and events prior to the Big Three, which was always going to be a tall order. So in that sense, I think Lucas did OK.
Anyway back to the movie:
Spoiler:
BB8 was one of the stars of the movie, hands down. Funny and a lot more functional than the hapless C3P0. I hope BB8 and R2D2 will form a partnership in later movies and maybe even have kids. ;)
The villain of the piece was the weak bit in the entire movie, IMO. Neither as memorable as Vader or as intimidating as Darth Maul. And the moment they took off his mask to show the "human" side of him, his character became even more diluted. Now he is just another regular guy working for the dark side. I wonder if they should have kept his mask on till just before he takes out Han Solo ("Surprise! Father!").
I really liked Rey's character as played by the actress. Beautiful, strong, courageous and skilled but not emotion-less (a bit like Sigourney Weaver in Alien, I dare say). I look forward to the upcoming Star Wars movies.
BTW, regarding Finn's use of the light saber: My friend says only Jedi's (or rather those who can use the force) can use the lightsaber. If that's true, it would mean that Finn is a Force user himself - as others have pointed out. But is this theory a part of the Star Wars cannon?
BB8 was one of the stars of the movie, hands down. Funny and a lot more functional than the hapless C3P0. I hope BB8 and R2D2 will form a partnership in later movies and maybe even have kids. ;)
The villain of the piece was the weak bit in the entire movie, IMO. Neither as memorable as Vader or as intimidating as Darth Maul. And the moment they took off his mask to show the "human" side of him, his character became even more diluted. Now he is just another regular guy working for the dark side. I wonder if they should have kept his mask on till just before he takes out Han Solo ("Surprise! Father!").
I really liked Rey's character as played by the actress. Beautiful, strong, courageous and skilled but not emotion-less (a bit like Sigourney Weaver in Alien, I dare say). I look forward to the upcoming Star Wars movies.
BTW, regarding Finn's use of the light saber: My friend says only Jedi's (or rather those who can use the force) can use the lightsaber. If that's true, it would mean that Finn is a Force user himself - as others have pointed out. But is this theory a part of the Star Wars cannon?
Spoiler:
When the film finished, I vowed to my mates that if BB8 and R2D2 "fall in love" in the next film, I'll walk out of the cinema. ;)
My views on the villain and heroine are the opposite of yours though I think. I thought the villain was great. A little less powerful than I would've liked, but I suppose he is still an apprentice himself, and we had to sit through two and a half films of Anakin's "human side" before he suddenly turned from whinging, whiny padawan to our favourite childhood villain. I found the actress who played Rey a bit irritating at first, almost as if she only had a few different facial expressions for the first half of the film. I'd warmed to her by the end of it though.
About Finn and the lightsaber; Didn't Han use Luke's lightsaber to slice open the belly of that creature at the start of Empire Strikes Back?
The villain of the piece was the weak bit in the entire movie, IMO. Neither as memorable as Vader or as intimidating as Darth Maul. And the moment they took off his mask to show the "human" side of him, his character became even more diluted. Now he is just another regular guy working for the dark side. I wonder if they should have kept his mask on till just before he takes out Han Solo ("Surprise! Father!").
Spoiler:
Totally agree. Saving the removal of the mask to right before the Han moment might have worked, giving the impression he was about to turn good again. As it stands though he's just an incredibly weak character and seems less "Dark Side" and more "Angsty Teenager"
BTW, regarding Finn's use of the light saber: My friend says only Jedi's (or rather those who can use the force) can use the lightsaber. If that's true, it would mean that Finn is a Force user himself - as others have pointed out. But is this theory a part of the Star Wars cannon?
Spoiler:
Nope. It requires Force ability to build a lightsaber, but anyone could wield one. Han does in ESB to cut open the Taun Taun and Luke suggests he use it in RotJ when they're trapped in the Ewok net (before R2 saws them free). Also Grievous uses them in the prequels and isn't force sensitive, he simply steals them from Jedi he's killed. I'm pretty sure there are a few more examples in the Clone Wars cartoon (which is still Canon), like when Ashoka loses hers, although I could be mistaken about that!
BB8 was one of the stars of the movie, hands down. Funny and a lot more functional than the hapless C3P0. I hope BB8 and R2D2 will form a partnership in later movies and maybe even have kids. ;)
Spoiler:
Unfortunately, I don't think that's gonna happen, as R2 is BB-8's dad :-D
This isn't really to do with TFA but has anyone else been monitoring the "Jar Jar is a Sith Lord" stuff that's been doing the rounds the last couple of months? I found out about it from a friend on Saturday, and probably like most of you have just done, scoffed at it, thought it ridiculous and dismissed it.
On Sunday, however, I decided to take a look. See for yourself from the initial reddit post and draw your own conclusions. Some of it really does seem to fit, particularly the CGI things which can only be deliberate - one in particular. Another; Darth Maul finding them on Tatooine, I could never see how they knew how to locate them and nothing I ever read online fit properly.
Anyway, have a look, view some of the YouTube videos to go with it and discuss...
I've read a fair bit of that, but I think most of the "deliberate" bits are really down to some of the desperate last minute editing to try and make the film workable. Either that or Lucas' rather poor attempts to write humour into the prequels. Makes for an entertaining "what if" though.
Comments
I agree, especially with the Clone Wars part, I was thinking myself that maybe Star Wars really has set out its universe and lends itself to episodic stories more now than cinematic epics, plus
also (don't read this if you haven't seen the film)
I also got the hint that Finn might be a Jedi when he asks for a weapon and (I think it was) Mozz says "you already have one" when he's carrying the lightsaber. (Although General Grievous used a bunch in Episode 3 and he wasn't a Jedi)
Lots of Nazi Symbolism linked to the First Order troops. When the General addresses the squadrons aboard the weapon before they fire it at the Republic, they were all lined up in squads with their standards - which was very Nuremberg Rally - and they all gave a Nazi-esque salute at the end when the General finished speaking.
Also - Kylo Ren's helmet looks like a German SS officer's from the back, and his character itself looks very much like the regular troops from the game 'Wolfenstein - The New Order'.
The Han Solo thing was probably a good idea. Harrison Ford obviously doesn't have the same love for the character that everyone else does, and he's getting on a bit, so it's probably best that they tied up that loose end now, rather than hoping that he's still going to be around for another 6 years while they shoot the next two movies. (Assuming that they stick to the traditional 'one movie every three years' shooting schedule that everyone's used to).
While I wasn't desperate to see this movie, (as many people I know were), I'm glad that I did and I'm pretty sure I'll watch the others as and when they come out.
2016, 2018 and 2020 have other Star Wars movies planned that aren't the main trilogy series, starting with Rogue One, which is apparently the tale of the rebels nicking Death Star plans.
yeah they have the money to do em certainly BUT im scared the films will be overloaded, currently like this one they are an event in themselves but getting one every year we're gonna get overloaded with em :(
Ventured to the local flea pit today hoping it would be almost empty, but it was half full, kids and adults moving around, eating, drinking, loudly rustling bags of popcorn/sweets and **** around with their phones during the film....
As the words scrolled up the screen I ignored them, then remembered that I'd not read them before, so I made the effort to do so.
It soon fell into the predictable Star Wars universe, person A crash lands on planet - in the exact region where person B needs to be found. Then linking up to person C and so on. Dug out a few fossils, light sabre duels, dumb stormtroopers.
Enjoyable to watch, with the new guys learning things about the old technology.
The strange bit was when they landed on the green planet (the one with the orange alien bar/canteen owner with glasses) was the unmistaken sounds of pigeons coo-ing. It happened whenever the sound went quiet. Therefore, there's pigeons nesting
somewhere within the cinema!
Found it easy to spot where the deleted scenes could've been (how did they get from A to B in the snow without being seen?) and noticed that there were a few edited moments that just didn't match up - especially between Han and Leia.
Han had CCTV, but the New Empire? C'mon guys, beef up your security systems and purchase a few handrails for your bridges.
Many many plot holes... yeah, just switch it off, remove the data drive, insert it into a new unit and read the data. Bingo!
Will watch it again on DVD when the family buys it.
Overall: 6/10
Would've been 7 but there was a few uses of spot zooming the camera, pull/push focus, blurring the backgrounds and shaking the camera - is this thing working? - hate hate hate it.
Better than Episodes I,II,III though.
Wonder if there will be a Lego StarWars for these 3 new films though.
Download the latest version of Bomb Munchies Ver2210 4th July 2020
The film is full of good action scenes and enough special effects (not the sfx abuse in the prequels films!) but lacks of 'sexual tension' among the main characters (unlike in the Empire Strikes Back, where it was one of its best points): it's the first Disney film, obviously! :-)
In general, is a good film to watch and enjoy.
Enjoyed it very much, pleased to find it stands up to repeated viewing. Mrs Ant thought she might get bored but didn't find that at all.
I think having seen it once, I was able to take in more and relate actions/dialogue to things that happen later in the movie, so I can see me repeat viewing this one quite a bit.
The Scots gang is still awful though. Its not the accent, its the delivery, very unnatural reading of lines. Hopefully that'll be fixed with a new dub in a future release.
Ah the famous Culture Club gang....
Download the latest version of Bomb Munchies Ver2210 4th July 2020
The weegies were apparently the Guavian Death Gang. I dread to think how they kill you with a guava.
I did enjoy it, it kind of felt like 'A new hope' as if written in a parallel universe. All the bits were there but in a slightly different order or in a slightly different way, but an enjoyable film overall.
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As far as I know, apart from rogue one, another film not included in the trilogy series is one featuring the adventures of a young Han Solo, how he became a smuggler, etc.
Both films look good.
The third standalone SW story movie, is titled Red Five - but nothing more is known about it (other than it was the call sign Luke had during the Trench Run in ANH).
I was just saying to my mates earlier that for some reason it felt a bit like a remake of ANH at times (to me at least). I watched episodes 1-6 over the Christmas holidays, so it was all probably still a little too fresh in my mind. Still thoroughly enjoyable though, and I definitely wasn't saying that after watching episode 1 for the first time, so that's good. :)
The prequels were during a time of prosperity then the Empire came along.
Anyway back to the movie:
The villain of the piece was the weak bit in the entire movie, IMO. Neither as memorable as Vader or as intimidating as Darth Maul. And the moment they took off his mask to show the "human" side of him, his character became even more diluted. Now he is just another regular guy working for the dark side. I wonder if they should have kept his mask on till just before he takes out Han Solo ("Surprise! Father!").
I really liked Rey's character as played by the actress. Beautiful, strong, courageous and skilled but not emotion-less (a bit like Sigourney Weaver in Alien, I dare say). I look forward to the upcoming Star Wars movies.
BTW, regarding Finn's use of the light saber: My friend says only Jedi's (or rather those who can use the force) can use the lightsaber. If that's true, it would mean that Finn is a Force user himself - as others have pointed out. But is this theory a part of the Star Wars cannon?
Bytes:Chuntey - Spectrum tech blog.
My views on the villain and heroine are the opposite of yours though I think. I thought the villain was great. A little less powerful than I would've liked, but I suppose he is still an apprentice himself, and we had to sit through two and a half films of Anakin's "human side" before he suddenly turned from whinging, whiny padawan to our favourite childhood villain. I found the actress who played Rey a bit irritating at first, almost as if she only had a few different facial expressions for the first half of the film. I'd warmed to her by the end of it though.
About Finn and the lightsaber; Didn't Han use Luke's lightsaber to slice open the belly of that creature at the start of Empire Strikes Back?
On Sunday, however, I decided to take a look. See for yourself from the initial reddit post and draw your own conclusions. Some of it really does seem to fit, particularly the CGI things which can only be deliberate - one in particular. Another; Darth Maul finding them on Tatooine, I could never see how they knew how to locate them and nothing I ever read online fit properly.
Anyway, have a look, view some of the YouTube videos to go with it and discuss...