Finally got around to watching TFA and figured I'd post some musings before disappearing again until five months after the next one. All in all I found it enjoyable, despite being trite and occasionally hokey.
JJ certainly has a style. I'll give him that. With an existing franchise the actual story is irrelevant. It's familiarity and humor based on that familiarity that matters. That's what made the two ST movies bearable, and while this has more going for it than those two, it's still pretty damned important to TFA. While I'm sure it's been mentioned 1000 times over the last 112 pages, (I probably should have lobbied for the beginning of a new thread so I could get my deranged ramblings on page one) Han stole the show, and it's because he was the only character human enough to make all the throwbacks and sly humor work. Halfway through this I was thinking that the next one will suffer horribly in the absence of Han bringing home the nostalgia bacon. Luke, at this point as a character, doesn't have it in him.
I'm still not a fan of his cinematography, though this was an improvement over ST. He still wants to make the viewer feel like they're in the scene. While movies should feel immersive, it should be because the story draws you in, not because the world is exploding around you.
That said, the action sequences weren't all that bad, at least compared to ST. During a couple of the aerial fights you could actually get an idea of what was going on, rather than being a jumbled mess. The dogfighting low over the water was actually pretty nicely done. It was also refreshing to see people with light sabres doing their thing at normal speed, instead of 6FPS. It actually gives you the opportunity to sense what the hell is going through their head.
When you rely on throwbacks to make a movie, you often wind up with miraculous coincidences, and this is no exception. The Millennium Falcon lying around in the perfect spot (Oh, that thing hasn't flown for years) and then starting right the hell up. Han capturing them 5 minutes later. Heading straight to the magical Chinese woman who tells them all what they need to know, and also has Luke's lightsabre stashed in the basement for some odd reason. This is the sort of thing that just bugs me.
I actually didn't notice any scenes that were made specifically for video game tie-ins. That' refreshing. It does seem that JJ wants to do right by the franchise. It's not really what I want to see in a movie, but it's nevertheless entertaining. Part of the reason I didn't like the ST movies is because they're not ST in the slightest. Familiar characters but nothing else. This doesn't really feel much like SW to me, but it doesn't bother me nearly as much. I'm not enough of a SW fan to be offended by the change in direction. So to that end the familiarity and in-jokes are enough to make it alright in my book.
edit: Oh yeah, and how the hell did Leah and Han produce such an ugly child? That was really odd.
Topic: Star Wars Discussion Thread v. Rogue One (Read 455064 times)
