Star Wars, The Force Awakens -- *SPOILERS*

[Implode]

Another thing I remembered struck me was how forgettable the soundtrack is. This is the first Star Wars movie without a new memorable theme. While watching, I recognized that Kylo had a theme, but it was like a three note motif. It's kindof disappointing; even the prequels had that.

[BlackInk]

After listening through John William's score twice on Spotify, I'd say that the score is really good. Kylo's theme is pretty badass (and it's 5 (arguably 6) notes). And there are a few rather memorable themes, especially those connected to Rey. So I kinda disagree with you there, just give it more time.

Although, the one thing about the score I miss is a choir. There are some really epic bits in the prequels' scores where the choir really makes it seem so grand.

[jammindude]

I ADORED IT!!

I have to say that Rey is one of the best characters in the Star Wars universe...maybe giving Yoda a run for his money.    With the possible exception of Katniss from The Hunger Games, sci-fi/fantasy is grossly lacking in strong female characters.   As much as I think that most "feminists" come across as bitter (or worse yet, as vegans), I often think they have some valid points about the lack of strong, independent female characters...and even Katniss, for all her strength, has a tendency to rely on a male counterpart as some sort of emotional rescue.   Unlike Rey's character which immediately set the tone with "WHY ARE YOU TRYING TO TAKE MY HAND??"   This has totally broken the mold and set a brand new standard for strong female leads in an sci-fi/fantasy/action environment.

Loved everyone's thoughts about Kylo...  The unmasking was quite shocking at first, because I was expecting someone who was older, and possibly deformed or scarred.  Instead, it was, "Oh, he's just a nice Jewish boy..."        But I'm totally on board with what everyone is saying about his character only proving that Anakin could have been *FAR* better written.     He is what Anakin should have been.   They left in all the teenage rebellion, insecurities, temper tantrums, and anger about things that don't make any sense...and took out all the whining.        Also, it was a very good call about his light saber being not well defined and all static-y and stuff.   

And guys....guys....guys...   Doesn't this make the hilt make so much more sense?     Everyone was right!   The hilt WAS stupid and meaningless.   But who else would do that except a dumb kid who was just trying to look cool?   It's like he put that in there to over-compensate for other things.   How many kids build things more out of "it looks cool" rather than practicality.   It TOTALLY fit the character. 

I'm more in the very old school crowd (saw ANH in theaters when I was 8yrs old) but I'm thinking that this is equal to, and possibly even surpasses the OT.   Jury is still out, but it's in the ball park. 

[Mister Gold]

I doubt Rey is Luke's daughter. Jedi are supposed to be unmarried and childless, right?

Only if you give a shit about the prequels.

But in all seriousness, I think Luke's vision of a Jedi Order would be pretty different from the ones shown in the prequels anyway. Part of the point of his victory in RotJ is that he tossed aside what Yoda and Obi-Wan wanted him to do (dispassionately kill Vader and Palpatine) and instead reached out to his father with love. Anakin's "attachment" (as the PT Jedi would call it) to his son was what saved the galaxy.

I ADORED IT!!

I have to say that Rey is one of the best characters in the Star Wars universe...maybe giving Yoda a run for his money.    With the possible exception of Katniss from The Hunger Games, sci-fi/fantasy is grossly lacking in strong female characters.   As much as I think that most "feminists" come across as bitter (or worse yet, as vegans), I often think they have some valid points about the lack of strong, independent female characters...and even Katniss, for all her strength, has a tendency to rely on a male counterpart as some sort of emotional rescue.   Unlike Rey's character which immediately set the tone with "WHY ARE YOU TRYING TO TAKE MY HAND??"   This has totally broken the mold and set a brand new standard for strong female leads in an sci-fi/fantasy/action environment.

Loved everyone's thoughts about Kylo...  The unmasking was quite shocking at first, because I was expecting someone who was older, and possibly deformed or scarred.  Instead, it was, "Oh, he's just a nice Jewish boy..."        But I'm totally on board with what everyone is saying about his character only proving that Anakin could have been *FAR* better written.     He is what Anakin should have been.   They left in all the teenage rebellion, insecurities, temper tantrums, and anger about things that don't make any sense...and took out all the whining.        Also, it was a very good call about his light saber being not well defined and all static-y and stuff.   

And guys....guys....guys...   Doesn't this make the hilt make so much more sense?     Everyone was right!   The hilt WAS stupid and meaningless.   But who else would do that except a dumb kid who was just trying to look cool?   It's like he put that in there to over-compensate for other things.   How many kids build things more out of "it looks cool" rather than practicality.   It TOTALLY fit the character. 

I'm more in the very old school crowd (saw ANH in theaters when I was 8yrs old) but I'm thinking that this is equal to, and possibly even surpasses the OT.   Jury is still out, but it's in the ball park. 

Rey is amazing. What I loved about her is that she's essentially a Miyazaki female protagonist brought to life. Very reminiscent of Nausicaa and Sheeta, with just a dash or two of San or Kiki. I think she and Kylo Ren are both likely to become my two favorite SW characters ever.

Honestly, the film is currently second to only Empire- but I'm so damn tempted to call it a tie or put TFA past it. I will say that I think the ST is going to be the Star Wars equivalent of The Next Generation.

[jammindude]

Oh yeah.   What's up with C3PO's red arm?   That was completely non-sequitur to me.  Did I miss something?

[BlackInk]

Pretty sure that didn't have any meaning, just a fun detail.

[Zantera]

I thought it was a nod to the fact that in pretty much every movie, in one way or another C3PO is either taken apart or loses a limb or two. Even in this film when he isn't in an accident, he still has a comical red arm that has replaced his original, which probably went missing in some similar weird accident. 

[gmillerdrake]

Something to consider (some of you might have already) is that it wasn't so much that Rey suddenly had all this massive power of the force. Clearly she was just in the infancy of discovery and all....but we really don't know just how powerful Ren is?

We don't know when he left Luke? Sure, he's displayed that he has knowledge of the force and can certainly use it to his advantage....but he's been using it on and in front of people who have no power at all....so of course to them he's going to 'appear' like this all powerful being of sorts.

But when facing Rey, who the force flows through and she doesn't even 'realize' it.....he couldn't penetrate her mind despite his best efforts and even though she didn't recognize she was using the force she knew intuitively 'how' to use it in that occasion....and the saber duel. Speaking of which...we saw with the saber duel with Finn...Ren was still a tad rough around the edges and not polished at all in his dueling. Sure, he defeated Finn but it did take him a bit and Finn did score a good shot on him.

So I don't see it as Rey just suddenly caught up to this 'big bad' Kylo Ren in Force powers....I see it more as Ren although imposing on the outside....is maybe a notch higher than a beginner at this point in his force knowledge and ability. Certainly confident....a little too confident in his abilities as we saw.....and as Snoke saw.

[BlobVanDam]

Oh yeah.   What's up with C3PO's red arm?   That was completely non-sequitur to me.  Did I miss something?

It's apparently explained in some prequel comic or something, but otherwise it's just a red arm. I guess they wanted to do something to show these weren't the same characters as they were in the OT.

[TheOutlawXanadu]

Just got back from seeing this. I loved it to death. Won't be able to sleep for a bit because I'm still wired. Looking forward to seeing it a second time.

The only other thing I feel like saying is that, while there was a ton of fan service to A New Hope, I didn't feel the movie was "half reboot, half remake" as I saw one reviewer put it. I totally felt like TFA had it's own identify.

[bosk1]

Saw it. Loved it. The nostalgia was overpowering, in a good way, and in sometimes unexpected ways. 

One thing that was cool was that, at the theater where I saw it, they had characters from all three movies hanging around in various places outside the theater.  There was Kylo Ren and a First Order Stormtrooper taking pics with kids over by the steakhouse next to the theater.  There were a couple of speederbike stormtroopers on motorcycles over by the parking lot.  And lots of other scattered  around.  It just set the tone before even getting into the theater. 

After we got in early and got our seats, I got up to go get our popcorn, and passed a young girl on crutches with a leg cast.  What does that have to do with anything?  Just a completely unrelated personal nostalgia moment for me.  The only other time in my life when I saw a Star Wars movie on release weekend was Return of the Jedi.  Like this girl, I had to fight my way through a huge sea of people using crutches because I had broken my leg and had a leg cast.  Just an interesting coicidence.  Anyway...

Lots of other nostalgia as well.  A lot of the big ones have either been mentioned or are so obvious that they don't need mentioning.  But there were so many callbacks, and so many of them are so subtle.  One that hit me that was so subtle that it could easily be missed is Han's body language when sneaking around in the First Order base almost exactly mirroring Obi Wan's when he was sneaking around the tractor beam control at the death star.  Lots of little cool nuggets like that, and I am looking forward to finding all the ones I missed the first time around.

A few minor critiques.  One, there really was too much crammed into one movie, and that made for a lot of things happening by sheer coincidence that could have been done better.  It also led to some characters getting short shrift.  For example, Captain whatshername.  Maybe assuming she would have a more major role was my fault.  But a woman in a silver stormtrooper suit seems to scream out that there is going to be something interesting there.  There wasn't.  Anyhow, minor flaws.  I still loved it. 

[BlobVanDam]

Captain Phasma apparently has a larger role in the next film. A lot of people expected her to be a more important character based on the merchandise and the awesome outfit, but I don't think the character was originally intended to be that important a role at all. Given how people took to the character before the movie, and the desire for more strong female characters, I think that will definitely be rectified in Ep VIII.
Poe Dameron was also supposed to be a much larger role, but it got scaled back when they rewrote the script for Han to play a bigger part, so he'll also be a much larger role in the next film.

Given how much they crammed into the 2 hours and 15 minutes run time, it's understandable not everything had time to get featured, but that's ok. Just look at how many of the big characters of the OT didn't even appear in ANH. Yoda, Boba Fett, Jabba (I'm not counting the SE), Lando, The Emperor, probably more (hopefully that list is right, as I haven't watched the originals in forever, and watched them all together). There are supposed to be a lot of new characters in Ep VIII too, so I expect it to be a lot less derivative, and start establishing its own world more.

[Zantera]

Regarding the Ren/Rey discussion, I've seen several people complain that she could match him already. As I see it:

For starters, Ren was injured. He took a pretty bad hit from Chewie and you could see he was bleeding all over the place, which is arguably why he didn't beat down Finn in 2 seconds, but Finn managed to get a few swings before being defeated. But my main thought in all of this was, Ren is not a full on Sith like Vader was in A New Hope. He's an apprentice of the dark side who was on his way to becoming a Jedi and then turned, but if you stop and think for a second, a lot of the criticism about Ren being defeated by Rey comes from assuming that he's a powerful Sith that is unmatched in a lightsaber duel. What we know is that Luke was training a group of Jedi, who turned on him, and Kylo Ren was the main guy in this group. But how far into training was he?

If Luke was training new Jedi, it's not crazy to assume that he would use a lot of the same teachings that he got himself from Yoda, and as we all know, Yoda never trained Luke with a saber. To Yoda, becoming a Jedi and learning about the force was a whole thing on its own, and that the saber was just a tool. He probably had basic training, but then we get to the fact that Luke is described as the LAST Jedi, and he vanished after the Knights of Ren turned on him. So over the last 15 (?) years since Luke has vanished, Kylo Ren has basically been the Vader of the First Order, going in missions, storming into villages and flashing his lightsaber, but before he ended up in the duel with Finn and Rey, it's not far fetched to assume that Kylo Ren might not have been in a lightsaber duel since turning on Luke all those years ago, because Luke was the last Jedi and it's not like the galaxy was filled with Sith lords which he traveled around fighting either.

That leads into my final thought which is underestimating his opponent. Rey was not a worthy adversary in Ren's eyes, and so when they engaged in battle, he was taken off guard by her power. She may not have fought with a lightsaber before, but she was handling her staff really well, so she definitely had the moves learned fairly well. Also, with Kylo Ren mainly going around the galaxy and cutting down innocent civilians in villages they raided, it's not like he met any real opponent. When he stood against Rey, she was also strong with the force and he didn't expect it. So with Ren, this could very well have been his first "real" lightsaber duel (because of the lack of Jedi and Sith, and the lightsaber being a very rare weapon) since his training at least, and if you compare that to someone like Vader who was in the Clone Wars, who fought big opponents like Dooku and Obi-Wan, he definitely had the training and lightsaber skill down, and was therefor a much harder opponent for someone like Luke, who had zero experience in Empire Strikes Back.

[BlackInk]

Yeah, Kylo definetely had the physical force thing down, but wasn't nearly as skilled with the lightsaber. If he had faced Luke he would have gotten a good laser spanking.

[lordxizor]

Saw this Friday night and love it. My feelings pretty much echo everyone else's. It was awesome, with a few minor nitpicky things I didn't like. It definitely left me wanting more, which I guess is a good thing.

[gmillerdrake]

Zantera.....your comments and sentiment about the Rey/Ren dichotomy is exactly how I feel as well. there's no questions on Ren's talent and ability....but just how advanced (or not advanced) he is was exposed when Rey showed up with the Force on her side as well.

[T-ski]

Guess we know why Han was promoted so much. 

And yes, there was way too much crammed into the movie and it moved through it all too fast.  That being said, I loved it.

JJ's love of the franchise shown through throughout the film and it made me feel like a kid again.

Can't wait for the next one. 

[MrBoom_shack-a-lack]

Oh yeah.   What's up with C3PO's red arm?   That was completely non-sequitur to me.  Did I miss something?

It's apparently explained in some prequel comic or something, but otherwise it's just a red arm. I guess they wanted to do something to show these weren't the same characters as they were in the OT.

My first thought: "Luke took C3POs arm  , yea that seems unlikely, just something I thought.

I echo what most have said, this was a christmas present to all SW fans over the world. Yea it pretty much was ANH but damn did it feel good seeing Han and Chewie and everybody else again.

Lots of goosebumps through the movie. Will see it again for sure!

[MetalJunkie]

Fun theory: Rey was a student of Luke and hand her mind wiped like Revan in KotOR.

[Zantera]

Fun theory: Rey was a student of Luke and hand her mind wiped like Revan in KotOR.

Replace student with daughter and that's my thoughts. I think he trained his daughter (though not in the group that betrayed him) and once they turned on him, he left his daughter in a safe place with a mind wipe and went on his mission.

[TioJorge]

I personally think that the entire SW universe is inbred and everyone is each others dad/mom/son/daughter. 

[Destiny Of Chaos]

Just saw the film. Way better than OT..... not as good at the PT (in my often beaten down opinion).

[King Postwhore]

Just got back. I loved the cinematography of this film. Kylo Ren I liked a lot. You can see him wavering about ghetto dark and light side that I liked.   Rey is a powerful female character.  I love that and a great way to connect to the original series.

[jingle.boy]

Just got back myself.  Thought it was excellent, but I'm going to hold the opinion of being all gaga over it for time to allow me to help digest it.  We all thought Ep 1 was great, because we had been starved for 15 years.  Well, here we are again, 10 years starved, so let's not start suckin each others' dick's just yet, ok?  It's only been 3 days - we're all still in the post "O" afterglow.

I'll be really shocked if Rey ISN'T Luke's daughter.
I was really shocked (and disappointed) Luke only had 30 seconds of screen time.
Ford did a TREMENDOUS job at rekindling Han Solo.  He pulled it off perfectly.
They set Rey up as a competent hand-to-hand fighter early in the movie, so I'm not sure why people are having trouble buying into how - force assisted - she fought as well as she did against Ren
Rey is clearly quite powerful, to have the visions that she did in the dungeon at Maz's place just from touching the saber.
Ren is like the equivalent of a Sith-Padawan.  Still so much to learn.  Love all the comments so far about him; hated his voice.  Considering how iconic James Earl-Jones made Darth Vader, Kylo's was a disappointment (imo).  I'm also still not a big fan of Driver cast in that role.
The comedic elements were perfect... just perfect.

So much anticipation for Ep 8.

[jammindude]

Just saw the film. Way better than OT..... not as good at the PT (in my often beaten down opinion).

I think you just hate Star Wars... 

[Zantera]

Opinions are opinions and so on, but whenever I see someone liking the prequels more than the OT I lose hope in humanity, just like when you read about civilians being killed in stupid terrorist bombings and so on.

[King Postwhore]

That last comment is a little strong Jimmy. 

I agree with what you are saying but damn son, that last part.

[Destiny Of Chaos]

That last comment is a little strong Jimmy. 

I agree with what you are saying but damn son, that last part.

Silly words on silly internets. It is what it is.

[Tom Bombadil]

Did they ever explain why the Tie fighter got swallowed up by the sand? That was the only part that made no sense to me.

[King Postwhore]

If I remember correctly,  Rey said not to go a certain way to the bot, when traveling on that planet.  "The sand will suck you in" or something like that.

[Zantera]

Did they ever explain why the Tie fighter got swallowed up by the sand? That was the only part that made no sense to me.

When Rey gave instructions to BB-8 on how to find the village, she said something like "avoid X because you will sink in the sand there", so I assume that's where Finn/Poe crashed.

[Tom Bombadil]

Yeah I remember that vaguely, but even if the sand will "suck you in", it probably wouldn't be super still for a minute and then two seconds later it's gone.

Very minor nitpick, but that was one of the few parts that annoyed me.

[BlobVanDam]

It was a little weird that it was sitting there fine while Finn walked up to it and grabbed the jacket, but then it just sunk in quickly and he was completely safe. It was well enough explained, it was just kinda poorly executed for dramatic effect.

[jammindude]

Yeah I remember that vaguely, but even if the sand will "suck you in", it probably wouldn't be super still for a minute and then two seconds later it's gone.

Very minor nitpick, but that was one of the few parts that annoyed me.

But it's an alien world.  Things don't work the same way.   

[gmillerdrake]

so let's not start suckin each others' dick's just yet, ok?  It's only been 3 days - we're all still in the post "O" afterglow.

Ehh....this film was head and shoulders above better than any of the prequels....like....this exposed the prequels for just how poor an effort of storytelling, writing....cinematography...acting....characters....EVERY aspect of film.....this sequel destroys those prequels in every film making aspect and verifies what the majority of humanity has known. The prequels sucked massive baboon balls. I say it's fine to begin the sucking.....