# Star Wars: The Force Awakens review thread (Spoilers)



## Gaspard de la Nuit (Oct 20, 2014)

I saw it. Did you? What do you think?

I'll be honest. My expectations were not high, because I had a feeling that it would be made to resemble your typical gimmicky, fan-pleasing sci-if franchise. Just the name of the title, "the force awakens" made me think......wait, the force can be dormant? Asleep? Drugged? It seems kind of antithetical to the idea of the Force.

Anyway, I was already inclined to go easy on it by way of low expectations.....but even these were not met. I was rolling my eyes, felt like cringing or shrinking at certain moments...I was prepared for a disappointment and it was a disappointment even so.

But it gets rave reviews, obviously. Most fans seem to love it. I've read what has been written online about why people like it, as well as what they dislike about the prequels and George Lucas, and I can't help but think that they seem exceedingly simplistic and pedestrian.

The best summation of these opinions, I think, would be to say that George Lucas created the OT, which had characters and themes which were very appealing. Then he went and made the prequels, which, like anything, have strengths (imaginative, novel, abundant world-creation, cohesive drama), and weaknesses (somewhat weaker characters, poor dialogue, wooden acting), but the main issue to fans is simply that they are different from the OT. They wanted a clear, uncomplicated representation of good and evil, minimal exposition of circumstance, and characters that were superficially memorable enough to demand very little of the audience, which is what they perceive to have been given with A New Hope and/ or the OT. Instead, they were given something that was more complicated, that was individual, quirky, unexpected and imperfect, but by no means short on imagination or thoughtfulness. And they hated it.

Disney realized these things and made exactly what fans seem to have wanted with the prequels, but did not get. The problem is that it has absolutely zero novelty, having already been done before. The arc of the plot is identical to a new hope, the characters, if not being replicas of earlier ones, are given very little in the way of explanation about why they came to be what they have, and the cinematography seemed to consist of things that have been done a hundred or so times before in recent 'adventure' films. It honestly seems like the most calculated, risk-averse piece of corporate cookie-cutter fan-pleasing cynicism that I have ever seen, and I think because that's exactly what it is. Disney wanted to, if not make money, at least not lose money, which they knew something as idiosyncratic as the prequels might do. So they stuck very closely to a formula that has worked once and worked again.

It seems like the product of a very sterile system whose primary goal is to safely and predictably capitalize by pandering to conventional sentiment, which is for something incredibly bland and lacking in even a scintilla of creativity. Novelty is just as important as familiarity, every great composer has known that in some sense, but obviously people did not want greatness, they wanted something that would satisfy their most juvenile sensibility.

I feel as though the fans are as culpable as Disney, because ultimately what this movie showed me is the nature of the system that it was created in, which aims to profit through crowd-pleasing at the expense of extinguishing the new, unexpected, novel and creative.


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## Chronochromie (May 17, 2014)

It was boring. Way too safe and derivative of the original films. The Republic gets destroyed and now the situation is the same as that of A New Hope. Kylo Ren and Snoke are obviously wannabes Darth Vader and Emperor Palpatine.
And another Death Star? Seriously? Bigger and more powerful than the previous ones and yet it gets destroyed just as easily and with a carbon copy scene of the one in A New Hope.
Meh.


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## Huilunsoittaja (Apr 6, 2010)

lol....

You guys hit the nail on the head. I was really looking forward to some change to the whole "Us vs. Them" polarity thing, that maybe the bad guys would be running instead or something. But still, I didn't really see it as shallow though. I'm interested in seeing character development, and it hinted that we have things to come. I definitely want to see more about Finn, as well as Rey.

Because these are films and not books or tv series, it was good enough for me. 

Oh! One thing you all didn't mention was the avoidance of the cliche about chopping off limbs. I was waiting for something to happen and laugh at it, but it didn't. I also liked the fact Kylo Ren is not disfigured. He doesn't seem very complex though, yes, a wannabe.


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## Chronochromie (May 17, 2014)

Huilunsoittaja said:


> Because these are films and not books or tv series, it was good enough for me.


Didn't really understand this. 
But yeah, mostly agree with what you said.


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## SeptimalTritone (Jul 7, 2014)

I really liked the black guy. A lot. I also liked the hot chick. As Huilu said, I'm hoping we get to learn a lot more about them in the next movie.

I liked the bad guy a whole lot. He reminded me of myself, a bit too much. 

However, I deeply missed the biblical simplicity and urgency of the older movies. I.e., see the below:










The acting isn't exactly perfect, but the crushing weight and importance of it all is so powerful.


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## Huilunsoittaja (Apr 6, 2010)

Chronochromie said:


> Didn't really understand this.
> But yeah, mostly agree with what you said.


Well, since films are limited in scope, plot progression, and details, we can't expect as much as we would from a longer-scale work. It was succinct but detailed enough for its genre.


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## Guest (Jan 7, 2016)

Gaspard de la Nuit said:


> I saw it. Did you? What do you think?


I thought the same as this reviewer...

http://www.theguardian.com/film/2015/dec/20/star-wars-the-force-awakens-observer-review-mark-kermode

And not the same as this one...

http://www.latimes.com/entertainmen...ars-force-awakens-review-20151217-column.html

For example, Turan says "Boyega frankly seems out of his depth" but Kermode says "Plaudits, too, to John Boyega, who brings credibility and humour to the almost accidentally heroic role of Finn"

I thoroughly enjoyed the movie. It more or less exactly met my expectations (which did not include that it was going to be an important work of art or oscar-winner).


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## Nereffid (Feb 6, 2013)

The movie was a joy.

The responses to it do nothing to change my theory that our responses to a piece of art are highly dependent on our frame of mind and not very much on the actual content of the art.


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## Gaspard de la Nuit (Oct 20, 2014)

I think this piece hit the nail on the head for me:

http://www.newyorker.com/culture/cultural-comment/the-george-awakens

Yup. Wish George Lucas had done it.


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## isorhythm (Jan 2, 2015)

I too am surprised by how easy many critics are going on this movie. I'm by no means a Star Wars super fan, but I liked the original trilogy growing up well enough and was looking forward to this.

It's a mildly entertaining action movie, but the decision to essentially remake the original Star Wars was a fatal mistake.

In fact the inexplicable urge to recreate the original movie almost scene for scene in many cases overrides the dramatic needs of the new characters and results in a deeply incoherent plot with no real tension.


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## isorhythm (Jan 2, 2015)

I also thought an opportunity was missed for a more interesting story about the return of the Dark Side after the fall of the Empire. You could show how the new Republic is still beset by lots of problems and political squabbling, people are dissatisfied, etc.

If the original trilogy is WWII, in which fascism was soundly defeated, then it would have been...well, modern-day Europe, in which fascism is resurgent. The historical parallels are obvious. I know Star Wars is not supposed to be a sophisticated political commentary, but it could have provided the seed of an actually new story.

Instead they just returned with no explanation to the status quo at the beginning of the original Star Wars. So I guess all those epic struggles Luke and Leia and Han went through were kinda pointless, huh?


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## mountmccabe (May 1, 2013)

I thought there was sufficient explanation of the situation at the start of the film. The New Republic does not have the support of the military, so they're forced to fund the resistance, led be General Leia. The military has mostly joined the First Order, which is trying to gain power, without being in open revolt against the New Republic because they still need the resources and shipyards of the powerful systems. They could have spent half the film in board rooms, showing meetings and political debates, but that's much of what bogged down the prequel trilogy.

The characters and plot points certainly echo A New Hope, but I do appreciate how significantly they were transformed.

I found Kylo Ren to be a fascinating villain; he's whiny, immature, and obsessed with his grandfather and how things used to be. The first time one of the officers brought him bad news I braced for the officer to be force choked; but no, Kylo threw a tantrum and destroyed their computer equipment instead. He looks similar to Darth Vader - because he really wants to be Vader - but he is no Darth Vader.

Han sort of played the Obi-Wan role in this film, but again the contrasts are overwhelming. And yes, we have an orphan on a desert planet that grows to use the force, but Rey's story is different from that of both Anakin and Luke. Finn's is an entirely new story - though I do seem to recall a now-abandoned backstory for Han that involved him working for/as part of the Empire until he broke away to save Chewbacca - and it was fun to watch him grow from being comically terrified with being found by the First Order to having greater concerns.

My biggest problem with the film was how underdeveloped the character of Poe was, and how forced his friendship with Finn was. The Starkiller Base was also underdeveloped; we didn't know it existed and then shortly after it was destroyed.

I mostly enjoyed the film, though it never fully enchanted me. I wish it was more satisfying as stand-alone film, but I am looking forward to the next chapter.


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## ArtMusic (Jan 5, 2013)

Best movie I watched in 2015, and outstanding composed music for the movie by the great John Williams.


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## Guest (Jan 8, 2016)

Gaspard de la Nuit said:


> I think this piece hit the nail on the head for me:
> 
> http://www.newyorker.com/culture/cultural-comment/the-george-awakens
> 
> Yup. Wish George Lucas had done it.


The only bit that makes sense in an article written for an audience that understands the parochial references (Warby Parker?) is this:



> "The Force Awakens" isn't a bad attempt at resurrecting the old "Star Wars." But it proves once and for all the folly of this kind of nostalgia. The thrill that cannot be recovered-by Lucas or Abrams or Rian Johnson-is the thrill of discovering the "Star Wars" universe for the first time. "


Star Wars means different things to different people, depending on the age when you first encountered it and the critical milieu in which you watched it. The fact that TFA is a remake of SW does not trouble me; the fact that it didn't dwell on SW galaxy politics doesn't either. JJ Abrams was the perfect director to make it, because it was only ever going to be a reverential homage, and he's proved his credentials on that. But these things obviously matter to some people because, contrary to what is implied by critics and the box-office figures, we don't all think the same thing about the movies we watch; the movies we go to see don't all mean the same thing either. I paid to see SW 6 times in 1977 (I was 18) not because I thought it was a 'great' movie borrowing cheekily from the great directors, but because I enjoyed it. The combination of the plot, characters, technology, story-telling, humour, excitement added up for me - it provided the buzz I was looking for at the time. Not one of the sequels/prequels satisfied in the same way, though the battle on Hoth was very good. I wasn't interested in the minutiae of the politics, or the soap-opera, or the creation of a detailed world/universe. Looking back, I can see that whatever claims were made for ("Star Wars...was at least an inspired act of cultural appropriation,") it was nothing more than a movie for its time, that did little to reflect on the human condition, but plenty to make you forget it.

My older son, however, who was 9 when I introduced him to SW when the revisions emerged in 1997 saw something different, and he loves all six - and TFA. Perhaps it's because I'm looking through bi-focals and he's looking through Warby Parkers?


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## Gaspard de la Nuit (Oct 20, 2014)

MacLeod said:


> The only bit that makes sense in an article written for an audience that understands the parochial references (Warby Parker?) is this:
> 
> Star Wars means different things to different people, depending on the age when you first encountered it and the critical milieu in which you watched it. The fact that TFA is a remake of SW does not trouble me; the fact that it didn't dwell on SW galaxy politics doesn't either. JJ Abrams was the perfect director to make it, because it was only ever going to be a reverential homage, and he's proved his credentials on that. But these things obviously matter to some people because, contrary to what is implied by critics and the box-office figures, we don't all think the same thing about the movies we watch; the movies we go to see don't all mean the same thing either. I paid to see SW 6 times in 1977 (I was 18) not because I thought it was a 'great' movie borrowing cheekily from the great directors, but because I enjoyed it. The combination of the plot, characters, technology, story-telling, humour, excitement added up for me - it provided the buzz I was looking for at the time. Not one of the sequels/prequels satisfied in the same way, though the battle on Hoth was very good. I wasn't interested in the minutiae of the politics, or the soap-opera, or the creation of a detailed world/universe. Looking back, I can see that whatever claims were made for ("Star Wars...was at least an inspired act of cultural appropriation,") it was nothing more than a movie for its time, that did little to reflect on the human condition, but plenty to make you forget it.
> 
> My older son, however, who was 9 when I introduced him to SW when the revisions emerged in 1997 saw something different, and he loves all six - and TFA. Perhaps it's because I'm looking through bi-focals and he's looking through Warby Parkers?


To me, it doesn't make sense to you because you're exactly the kind of fan who I think the new Star Wars is pandering to, who sees Star Wars as mere entertainment and/or just another sci-fi franchise, if not a uniquely entertaining one.

It is actually meant to reflect on the human condition (though I guess how well it does this is very debatable), being essentially a soap opera (to use Lucas' words) before TFA. As he said in his recent interview with Charlie Rose, other people went out and made space movies after the success of A New Hope that didn't manage to succeed, because Star Wars is much more than a space/ adventure film, because a lot of its draw comes from the drama cultivated by the circumstances the characters' face, not just how iconic or lovable the characters are and not just the fact that there's space ships and aliens.

At least that's what I thought the draw was (and so did Lucas). It turns out most Star Wars fans just want a few memorable characters galavanting through the galaxy.


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## Gaspard de la Nuit (Oct 20, 2014)

ArtMusic said:


> Best movie I watched in 2015, and outstanding composed music for the movie by the great John Williams.


To be honest, I'm a little disappointed. The music started off as a presence in the early part of the film, but was much less abundant from thereon in, other than a few passages that, like the rest of the movie, were ripped from A New Hope's score (specifically from the Burning Homestead). The orchestra was not as present as it was in the past. The new theme introduced (Rey's theme), had a really good moment where the climax of the score was synchronized with a dramatic shot of the dunes, but didn't have the same kind of unique voice as other Star Wars themes.


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## clavichorder (May 2, 2011)

I don't know Gaspard. I respect your feelings but I went without expectations and quite enjoyed it. I'm not prepared to explain exactly why, but it felt considerably better to me than the new Star Treks do, for example.


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## isorhythm (Jan 2, 2015)

ArtMusic said:


> *Best movie I watched in 2015*, and outstanding composed music for the movie by the great John Williams.


Yikes. You need to see more movies!


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## clavichorder (May 2, 2011)

SeptimalTritone said:


> I liked the bad guy a whole lot. He reminded me of myself, a bit too much.
> .


Don't let him do that! Silly septimal...


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## Guest (Jan 8, 2016)

Gaspard de la Nuit said:


> To me, it doesn't make sense to you


It didn't make sense to me because it had too many parochial references that I didn't understand (hence my reference to Warby Parkers).



Gaspard de la Nuit said:


> because you're exactly the kind of fan who I think the new Star Wars is pandering to, who sees Star Wars as mere entertainment and/or just another sci-fi franchise, if not a uniquely entertaining one.


First, for me, it _was _mere entertainment - nothing more - both SW(ANH) and SW(TFA). Neither spoke to me about the human condition in anything more than stereotypical or melodramatic ways. I don't doubt that it did speak to other viewers, so of course, my opinion is of no greater significance than anyone else's.

Second, I'm sure JJ Abrams was well aware of the difficulty of having to "pander to" the over 60s, the over 50s, the over 40s, the over 30s, the over 20s...who would all have had slightly different expectations...as well as the current over 12s! Tough job. Alternatively, he just made the movie he wanted to make and never mind the pandering.



Gaspard de la Nuit said:


> As he said in his recent interview with Charlie Rose, other people went out and made space movies after the success of A New Hope that didn't manage to succeed


Interesting. I wonder if he had some particular movies in mind.



Gaspard de la Nuit said:


> It turns out most Star Wars fans just want a few memorable characters galavanting through the galaxy.


You have no way of knowing what "Star Wars fans" want as they are not a homogeneous group. There are the over 60s, the over...you get the idea.


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## isorhythm (Jan 2, 2015)

MacLeod said:


> First, for me, it _was _mere entertainment - nothing more - both SW(ANH) and SW(TFA). Neither spoke to me about the human condition in anything more than stereotypical or melodramatic ways.


I think many people would agree with this, including me.

Star Wars is best described as "pop art." It's not high art, but it's not _Transformers IV_ either. There is a real artistry and creative impulse there. What bugged me about TFA was that it was so transparently cynical.


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## Cheyenne (Aug 6, 2012)

As a critic pointed out, the original trilogy had some sense of symbolic significance:


> The "Luke, I am your father" revelation resonated because it expressed how George Lucas, like his movie-brat peers (Coppola, Bogdanovich, Scorsese, Spielberg, De Palma) struggled with Sixties generational ambivalence. A father-son antagonism resounds through all their films as a reflection of Vietnam-era student protests and the privilege of those draft-dodging filmmaker progeny. Even Lucas, in his escapist outer-space mode, iterated the era's unease, culminating in Luke's fear and symbolic castration.


I couldn't find anything like that in _The Force Awakens_. It seemed like a long advertisement, and bored me.


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## Gaspard de la Nuit (Oct 20, 2014)

MacLeod said:


> Second, I'm sure JJ Abrams was well aware of the difficulty of having to "pander to" the over 60s, the over 50s, the over 40s, the over 30s, the over 20s...who would all have had slightly different expectations...as well as the current over 12s! Tough job. Alternatively, he just made the movie he wanted to make and never mind the pandering.


I don't know that much about the film industry, but it's an interesting question how much of the film was J.J. Abrams and how much was Disney. In his interview, Lucas suggested that there was a lot of Disney.



> You have no way of knowing what "Star Wars fans" want as they are not a homogeneous group. There are the over 60s, the over...you get the idea.


A little bit ironic, because Disney's stated desire was to make a movie 'for the fans' (at least, this is Lucas' account of his interaction with them). So apparently, someone thinks of Star Wars fans as homogenous enough to be able to make a movie for them.


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## Guest (Jan 9, 2016)

Gaspard de la Nuit said:


> I don't know that much about the film industry, but it's an interesting question how much of the film was J.J. Abrams and how much was Disney.


You're quite right. But film-making is a giant cooperative venture, and it's only over time that we can tell whether what we see is the director's presence or absence. The auteur theory seems to be taken for granted for so many directors these days, but I wonder if we can really spot what it is that makes a movie an 'Abrams' movie?

As for "Disney"...who or what is that, exactly? Does it just mean "studio control" or, given that Disney studios makes a number of well-regarded movies that reflect the skills of the writers, producers and directors, is it actually a transparent influence?



Gaspard de la Nuit said:


> A little bit ironic, because Disney's stated desire was to make a movie 'for the fans' (at least, this is Lucas' account of his interaction with them). So apparently, someone thinks of Star Wars fans as homogenous enough to be able to make a movie for them.


Of course. But since we're getting comment from 'fans' who don't like TFA and 'fans' who do...when is a fan not a fan?


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## mountmccabe (May 1, 2013)

Cheyenne said:


> As a critic pointed out, the original trilogy had some sense of symbolic significance:
> 
> I couldn't find anything like that in _The Force Awakens_. It seemed like a long advertisement, and bored me.


I know I wanted to be Han Solo when I was a nerdy child, when I could be deluded into thinking Star Wars was my own geeky interest. It was and pretty much has always been part of the mainstream. But now the emotionally distant, reluctant accidental hero Han has failed at parenting and reverted to his scoundrel ways. His son is the the main on-screen villain. Kylo Ren is an adult but he acts the temperamental, entitled teenager, throwing tantrums. He's full of himself and lashes out at everyone, and is largely dismissed and disrespected by the First Order personnel he's supposed to be working with.

I think that really captures the zeitgeist. We had similar immature men calling for a boycott of _The Force Awakens_ because the three resistance leads were going to be a woman, a black man, and a Guatamalan-American man.

Kylo Ren killing off and replacing Han is just as full of resonance.


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## mountmccabe (May 1, 2013)

Put a slightly different way: Adam Driver (Kylo Ren) and Domhnall Gleeson (General Hux) are obsessed with all the worst parts of the past, specifically Palpatine's brief reign with Darth Vader. They refuse to let the dark Jedis and Imperial army go.

As a child I thought of Han as suave and cool, but it's really that he was emotionally distant. And the result was the awkward, immature Ben Solo, who became Kylo Ren through his obsession with his grandfather, Anakin, who also went through an extended awkward, immature, murderous period.

The heros for the resistance are a defector from the First Order, a resourceful orphan who starts out doubting her (considerable) powers (in a large part because the Empire ruined everything for her, something the First Order is trying to continue), and a hot shot pilot (that we barely get to know).

This all seems perfect as a story of our time. How much of this was the design of writers Lawrence Kasdan, J.J. Abrams, and Michael Arndt, I don't know. But I am hoping that Rian Johnson further develops it in the sequels.


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## ArtMusic (Jan 5, 2013)

isorhythm said:


> Yikes. You need to see more movies!


I have and none measured up in greatness to Episode 7.


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## Machiavel (Apr 12, 2010)

Rehash and remake. Rey is Luke on another sand planet, she encounters another robot to replace r2d2. Kylo is Vader wannabe. Maz replace yoda. Another Death Star that destroys solar system to destroys solar system( so intelligent and logical), it's destroy the same way and so easily. The empire is the first order, the rebellion is now the resistance. Did they have 1 new idea at all . Then Rey who is living by herself since what age 6 and she can do anything you throw at her that be fighting, piloting, languages , mechanics all at the same time with her nice make-up ready to go to the Oscar .


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## Guest (Feb 3, 2016)

Machiavel said:


> Rehash and remake. Rey is Luke on another sand planet, she encounters another robot to replace r2d2. Kylo is Vader wannabe. Maz replace yoda. Another Death Star that destroys solar system to destroys solar system( so intelligent and logical), it's destroy the same way and so easily. The empire is the first order, the rebellion is now the resistance. Did they have 1 new idea at all . Then Rey who is living by herself since what age 6 and she can do anything you throw at her that be fighting, piloting, languages , mechanics all at the same time with her nice make-up ready to go to the Oscar .


Yes, that's about right, though 'rehash' is overstating.

As for 1 new idea, it depends what you see as "new" - Skywalker as a woman, for example?

Of course, the whole of the Star Wars saga was arguably a rehash of Lord of the Rings, (Death Star = Barad Dur; Luke = Frodo; Obi Wan = Gandalf etc).


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