(12-30-2015 06:12 PM)Luckyshot Wrote:  Saw the movie yesterday. I didn't like that they had what was basically a third Death Star, but otherwise enjoyed the similarities to the first three (by release). I took the title of the movie to be the explanation to why Finn broke his conditioning and why both he and Rhea could fight with a lightsaber. I think the mental attack Rylo used on Rhea (along with the Force reaching out to Rhea) gave her the basis for the Jedi Mind Trick. She was carrying around a staff for the first part of the movie, so I assumed she already had weapons experience that helped with the lightsaber fight, along with Rylo being hurt and emotionally wrecked.

The overall story of he Force has always been that there must be a balance. Vader was supposed to bring balance to the Force (the legend from Ep1), but instead wiped out all of the Jedi. Then Luke wipes out the Sith and starts training Jedi, so naturally someone is pulled to the dark. What happened to the other Jedi trainees?

I think Luke will form a new Order, that accepts both Light and Dark in moderation. The Light says you can't love or feel any strong emotions and the Dark says you must obey your emotions and put yourself #1 in all things. Neither is a useful philosophy.

...and youre cut off

Just saw it, ******* awesome

Just saw it finally this evening (well, last night evening...whatever.) So now I can join the conversation.

When I started this thread, my intention was to avoid seeing the spoilers myself until I saw the film, but I couldn't resist posting some nostalgia stuff while I waited, and I accidentally saw a post that said Han was killed, but I thought I also read Chewie died, and of course, he did not.

Now, first, I must say that they did an excellent job with this film from many perspectives:

I saw the original SW-IV A New Hope back in the day, and saw it four times when it first came out in the theatres. I still have my original collector's program, where Lucas describes the 'trilogy of trilogies' he planned on: IV-VI, then go back to I-III and finally doing VII-IX when the characters had aged 20 to 30 years. Therefore, it was no real surprise that Lucas found a way to make all of them as he had a pretty good perspective/idea of it from the beginning.

Also, remember, the Star Wars saga as conceived by Lucas was/is a combination of old Flash Gordan serials (where he stole the opening text crawl directly from) and Akiro Kurosawa stories, where he stole many of his plot and character ideas. As Bono said "every artist is a cannibal, every poet is a thief," so no big news there.

Before going to see this film in the theatre, I had re-watched the original trilogy (special edition ones, without all the added cgi and then with it) and also the I-III which I still consider garbage (even III was excruciatingly painful to watch with all the interminably dumb dialogue during the saber battle between Obi-wan and Anakin.)

The film itself was just well-made all around from a filmmaking perspective. It makes even the second, 'original' trilogy (IV-VI) look like campy amateur film-school drivel by comparison. I'm talking about the actual execution of the film here, not the story.

JJ Abrams didn't write this script by himself. Lawrence Kasden (Empire) helped co-write it. So it's naturally a hybrid of old and new, and that worked well to set up the story. They had a tremendous task to get a lot in for the new setup, retain the old while disassociating themselves from the 'prequels' which almost everyone agreed were terrible, terrible movies that hurt the franchise, although they made lots of money.

This is a more mature Star Wars, yet still accessible by newbies and younger fans. A great job balancing everything, with only a few nit-pics.

The cgi character in the bar (a second, more realistic 'cantina") that knew Han Solo was actually quite well done. The cgi character that annoyed me was the one on Jakku buying the scraps from Rey. But since he was brief, no big whoop.

I can't believe no one here gets the screamingly obvious plot point that Rey could very well be Ren's sister and Han and Leia's daughter. As Luke and Leia both were Anakin's kids. When "Ben Solo" and Rey are fighting and he is trying to extract the map from her, it is just like brother and sister sparring and resisting each other. Also explains why Rey both has the force abilities and can deal with the Falcon as she and Han Solo finish each other's sentences. Just a bit too obvious for me.

Luke is likely Rey's uncle, not her father. Separating Rey and putting her on a desert planet after the twins were born is what Obi-wan did to protect Luke and Leia, and it did work, so natural that Leia, Han and Luke would follow suit with Rey and Ben (Kylo Ren).

I agree Snoke may well be small in reality--perhaps kind of like a Dark Yoda? He may well be Plageius--we'll see.

Harrison Ford was so eager to come back and do this because he was promised Han would die, and he could finally get away from "Han shot first" (he really did--sorry George Lucas). This was Han Solo's movie, which is also why Luke was barely in it. Good idea not to try to explain everything at once. I was actually disappointed they went to go let us see Luke at the end--could have saved it for the start of the next film, but too hard for Disney to resist putting the teaser in there while we wait a year and a half.

The next film (next December) is Rogue One, about the stealing of the original Death Star plans by Leia and the rebels. Then VIII comes the next may, then two and a half years until the Han Solo origin story film, which Ford has said he will not be having anything to do with.

I thought they did a great job of believable inclusiveness in this movie. It was less a white people's Star Wars, and was pretty fairly balanced in mixing male/female, black/white,etc... in a believable way that did not seem as forced as those things usually do.

I think the Finn could be related to Lando theory might have legs, as we did not see Lando here, but saw several of his 'mates from Empire and Jedi in this film. Finn said he was captured as an older kid and that the Jakku landing was his first action--he was a sanitation guy job-wise. Hey, maybe he's even related to Mace Windu??? Nah, Jedi aren't supposed to get busy (What about Leia?? Well she never really studied the force, she just has it.)

I had a much easier time believing in Rey's fighting and flying skills than I did with Finn, who they made a little too unsure of himself.

Also, things moved just a bit too fast for me, until I remembered that we are watching a modern Flash Gordon series here, so then it makes a bit more sense. As far as Poe not saying he looked for Finn, well, that kind of thing was done in Flash Gordon all the time. We don't need to see every last breath of each character, after all.

It was difficult watching Han Solo die. I knew it was going to come when it did by the way the scene set up (why no railings on those catwalks all the time?) I first though Kylo was just going to push him, but it was a hell of a moment the way they did the scene. Ford was looking too old to play the action hero. He needed to go, and he really wanted to. maybe he'll come to regret it, but he's not gonna live forever anyway in real life. I thought they did about as good a job with it as they could. Also, it's nice to actually see a series brave enough to kill off a main character instead of always having everyone on the "A team'" survive every major disaster, which is just too unrealistic.

I loved, loved, loved BB-8. I didn't think I was going to (shades of I-III's over-merchandising worried me). BB-8 made R2-D2 look like a relic from I-III. I actually am growing tired of C-3PO as well. I guess we'll hear about his red arm in VIII, but I honestly don't really care much at this point.

The space battles were cut very, very fast and a tad too impossible looking, but that's what the kiddos are used to these days. No more 8-bit speed, and stop-motion for them, so I'll live with it. I'd like a bit more character development and a bit less action in the next one. Keep the politics to a minimum.

I liked Poe Dameron as a character and look forward to seeing him and Finn's stories develop. I actually wonder if there will be another love triangle with those two and Rey? we'll see what develops. I though Finn and Rey became a little too quickly connected too fast, and that seemed a bit less than believable, but again, this is Flash Gordon, so those quickie bondings do happen in that kind of a series.

Captain Phasma was kind of a dumb idea, but it was probably a politically-correct type of market inclusiveness decision. I think the female X-wing pilot was way more believable and acceptable than Phasma.

Finally, it was great and difficult seeing General Leia. I'm glad they kept her to a minimum here, but no one looks the way they did at 19 years old, and then again at 23 (gold bikini) some it's kind of unfair to hold Carrie Fisher to that standard, but it is sad to see how the years of drugs and partying aged her more than might have been necessary. Her real-life daughter appeared in a scene in the movie, and I don't know if they have any plans for her in the series or not. I can see where Carrie Fisher is coming from when she defends how she looks in the movie in the press, but she also has to realize she did kind of let herself go more than she had to.

Overall, I find I wish this team had been there to help Lucas with all six of the previous Star Wars movies. I really think using film instead of digital, and practical effects supported by, not supplanted by cgi is the best way to go on these films. They showed several movie previews which were way too cgi-intensive and it showed how bad that garbage looks compared to the real thing.

The team assembled for this film did a fantastic job of taking Lucas's basic ideas and making a much, much better film than any of the previous ones. As to those who complain about the story not being original, well, I liked this one way, way more than the first three and wish those could be remade in the style of this film. The future bodes well for Star Wars.

Please keep to the practical effects and focus on story and character development, and limit the explosions and too much cgi stuff. Less battles and more personality makes a better film. May the Focre be with You!

Good guys win...Han and Leia have twins...no threats from the evil empire but they abandon their daughter just in case? I don't think so.

I'll go with the Obi-Wan grand daughter idea. Rey's mother and father were killed shortly after leaving Jakku.

This pits Obi-Wan vs Skywalker yet again.

yep, Rey looks to be the grand daughter of old ben kenobi IMHO...the accent, the clothes, the cool/calm demeanor, fighting stance, Ewan Mcgregor saying "rey" in the flash back.

they want you to think she's a skywalker...just my guess

I'm glad the fan boys love it...cause I thought it was seriously lacking in original story and direction

watch "A New Hope" and you'll walk away a lot happier.

Disney sold us all the same movie we saw in 1977. It was A New Hope remake. They even had a trench run scene. Not impressed.

5 questions for anyone who calls 'Star Wars: The Force Awakens' a 'remake'

http://mashable.com/2015/12/23/force-awa...bAlbQ9Osq4

(12-31-2015 07:42 AM)SApuro Wrote:  Good guys win...Han and Leia have twins...no threats from the evil empire but they abandon their daughter just in case? I don't think so.

I'll go with the Obi-Wan grand daughter idea. Rey's mother and father were killed shortly after leaving Jakku.

This pits Obi-Wan vs Skywalker yet again.

No threats from the evil Empire???? So you are saying that the entire empire was killed at the battle of Endor? That is not only not plausible, it's extremely short-sighted. There were TONS of empire stormtroopers and officers left throughout the galaxy after Endor. They were hurt badly, yes, but hardly destroyed completely. The remnants of them seem to have re-coalesced into the First Order. So, in my theory, there would have still been a threat to any Skywalker children (Leia is a Skywalker) being the last remaining direct Jedi-potentials.

Since Han and Leia obviously had relationship issues, and Han went back to smuggling and lost the Falcon again (begs the question of where is/what happened to Lando?) it is plausible that as the rebels and new republic were forming with the remnants of the Empire on the run, but not wiped out by any means, that there was a decision made to separate the siblings Rey and Ren. The people Rey was ripped away from in the movie could well have been surrogates. Or maybe even Luke had something to do with it and that might also have played into his disappearance and estrangement from Han and Leia and the rest. I'm just bringing up possibilities here. One thing we know is that this saga loves to have twists and like to plant clues beforehand (Darth VADER (vader means father in german)). Plus, Lucas consistently lied about his ideas/intentions as a marketing/fan interest and mystique tool, and it worked pretty well, so Disney et al see that and use it themselves.)


Now, I can also buy the idea that Rey is somehow a Kenobi, and perhaps we will see even a Kenobi movie about the intervening years watching Luke on Tatooine. Maybe he got busy there, had Rey's parent and then Jabba enslaved them and separated them somehow? Only problem with that theory is that, again, Jedi aren't supposed to be getting down with anyone (that was why Anakin's relationship with Padme was verboten) and Kenobi was supposed to be very wise and disciplined among the Jedi. So harder to make that work and be consistent. But as with all things Star Wars, anything is possible.

If Rey is in fact Luke's daughter, it is the most simplistic version, and invites both interest in the story of how that happened, as well as why he left her alone without a clue. Since he had the same thing happen to him as a boy growing up, he'd know how bad that would feel. Although Leia did as well, she had a pretty comfortable gig growing up with Bail Organa on Alderaan.

(12-30-2015 11:34 PM)mturn017 Wrote:  Just saw it, ******* awesome

Congratulations for just watching and going along for the ride.

Chewy's medal--never heard of this before:

‘Chewbacca’ Comic Book Clears Up a Decades-Old Mystery About the End of ‘A New Hope’
Posted on Thursday, December 31st, 2015

(12-31-2015 10:03 AM)CincyDave Wrote:  5 questions for anyone who calls 'Star Wars: The Force Awakens' a 'remake'

http://mashable.com/2015/12/23/force-awa...bAlbQ9Osq4

That was a good effort at rationalizing the mess that is The Force Awakens.

(01-01-2016 11:03 AM)Funslinger Wrote:  

(12-31-2015 10:03 AM)CincyDave Wrote:  5 questions for anyone who calls 'Star Wars: The Force Awakens' a 'remake'

http://mashable.com/2015/12/23/force-awa...bAlbQ9Osq4

That was a good effort at rationalizing the mess that is The Force Awakens.

It's not a religion.....geez man, it's just a movie and a pretty good one at that.

(01-01-2016 05:54 PM)SoMs Eagle Wrote:  

(01-01-2016 11:03 AM)Funslinger Wrote:  

(12-31-2015 10:03 AM)CincyDave Wrote:  5 questions for anyone who calls 'Star Wars: The Force Awakens' a 'remake'

http://mashable.com/2015/12/23/force-awa...bAlbQ9Osq4

That was a good effort at rationalizing the mess that is The Force Awakens.

It's not a religion.....geez man, it's just a movie and a pretty good one at that.

you only decide that for you...it's just a movie, and I found it only OK...it's derivative and unoriginal...it's enjoyable, i'll give you that (which is why I do say it's above average)...but I've seen that movie before.

I get that other folks like it...even love it...cool, and good for them...but don't act shocked when some don't like it, and express why.

Luke Skywalker Threw Back Some Guinness With These Very Surprised Irish Pub Patrons
Jordan Zakarin, Writer
September 17, 2015


Mark Hamill at Bridge Bar (Colm Flynn/Twitter)

Looks like Luke Skywalker is as handy with the beer tap as he is with a lightsaber.

Mark Hamill is currently in Ireland, shooting Star Wars: Episode VIII, which is exciting in its own right because it confirms that he appears in the Rian Johnson-directed sequel. (In what capacity, of course, we don’t know, but he does have a clean-shaven face compared to the bushy beard he was sporting during the Force Awakens shoot.) The 63-year-old actor’s presence on the Emerald Isle is especially thrilling for the residents of the small town of Portmagee, who on Wednesday night got to throw back a few brews with the Jedi Knight himself.

After a long day of shooting, Hamill stopped by the local pub, called Bridge Bar, to sip on some Guinness. He was immediately recognized by the other patrons, who found that Hamill was more than happy to take photos and even pour drinks for fans.

In a tiny pub in Portmagee…. And it’s only Luke Skywalker http://pic.twitter.com/eNwBehHOp1
— Colm Flynn (@ColmFlynn1) September 16, 2015

“There was a great atmosphere in the bar last night as Luke Skywalker got behind the bar to give the lads a hand,” Steve Lynott told the Irish Examiner. “He was very generous with his time. Despite getting off the shoot late in the day, he stood for pictures and signed autographs for children and still had to get up early this morning for more filming.”

Hamill has also been spending a lot of time on Twitter of late — and made sure to deny a report from The Daily Mail that he experienced a bad fall on the rocks of Skellig Michael, where the film was shooting last year.

Fabricated stories usually contain a seed of truth. Didn’t so much as stub a toe on Skellig Michael. But thanks for your concern! #FalseNews
— Mark Hamill (@HamillHimself) September 16, 2015

I think the theory that Rey is Obi-Wan's granddaughter are funny, especially since he looked like he knew his way around a sleazy bar in Coruscant in AoTC lol... Maybe ol' Kenobi picked up a few chicks along the way

(12-31-2015 08:49 AM)UofMemphis Wrote:  yep, Rey looks to be the grand daughter of old ben kenobi IMHO...the accent, the clothes, the cool/calm demeanor, fighting stance, Ewan Mcgregor saying "rey" in the flash back.

Heard that rumor yesterday. Since it's been mentioned that Disney considers the cartoon series as part of canon now, it's been noted in the cartoon series that Obi-Wan had a relationship with a young female (never watched the cartoons so I don't know) that was long-lasting.

(01-05-2016 08:48 AM)DaSaintFan Wrote:  

(12-31-2015 08:49 AM)UofMemphis Wrote:  yep, Rey looks to be the grand daughter of old ben kenobi IMHO...the accent, the clothes, the cool/calm demeanor, fighting stance, Ewan Mcgregor saying "rey" in the flash back.

Heard that rumor yesterday. Since it's been mentioned that Disney considers the cartoon series as part of canon now, it's been noted in the cartoon series that Obi-Wan had a relationship with a young female (never watched the cartoons so I don't know) that was long-lasting.

I'm not sure if the Jedi Apprentice books are canon anymore but wasn't this brought up in one of those as well? Or at least that he had feelings for another girl/female jedi... idk I was a child when I read the books it has been a while lol.

**Also, they sampled Sir Alec Guinness saying "afraid" and cut it so that it sounded like he said "Rey", but Ewan said the rest of the short dialogue **