Star Wars: The Force Awakens....

[Wade]

So because I could only stomach about 30 minutes combined viewing time for the prequels, what was the deal with Darth Maul? Was it supposed to be makeup on his face? Or is that how he was born? Hard to think that someone is born with black & red face in a tribal pattern with horns (even in the Star Wars world). Was there more of his type of "person"? Or is he the only one that looks like that within the movie? Does he speak? Just curious. Thanks

This may help

Darth Maul

 

[Spectre73]

At least Lucas had an original idea regarding TPM unlike TFA (although I did enjoy it) Darth Maul was a great character although under used

 

[Wade]

At least Lucas had an original idea regarding TPM unlike TFA (although I did enjoy it) Darth Maul was a great character although under used

i sort of disagree with that staement about an original idea in that i still think there was something more involved with the carbon copy plot of the Force Awakens than being unoriginal or being safe...although the latter was a consideration i'm sure...but i always thought the prequels were unfairly slammed from a certain point of view.

other than the questionable character and/or vocal charcateristics and the dialogue which was uninspiring there was a lot of flack because there was little action and it was all some big political drama. That was the damn point. Even when George was making the original three i heard him discuss his vision of showing how things got that way and what would happen with the dust settles. But he knew he wasn't going to start a suceesful series franchise with movies about undermining the democratic political process so he started off with the middle three (the wars part) he knew wars were sexy. voting about things was not, and it was a logical move and turn of events. Why do wars start?, because the political process fails.

 

[Heisenberg]

So my son, Grayson, came home from Madrid for a couple of weeks. On Monday, he splurged and took his dad to the movies to see the new "Star Wars" flick.

With all the hype, I suppose the tremendous box office receipts were inevitable. But this film is as much marketing as film craft. It's slick, entertaining, with good performances from all involved. We picked the 3D screen mostly because we didn't want to wait another 40 minutes for the next show at a regular screen, but it was shot in a way that enhanced the effect, rather than overwhelm the viewer.

Despite its charms, it also retreads "Episode IV" in some respects, which may be useful for nostalgia's sake, but is hardly a reflection of originality. That said, there's both a resolution and a cliffhanger that will keep you guessing to some degree until the next film that will debut in two years.

That said, it appears J.J. Abrams is showing a penchant for retreads once again, witness what he did with "Star Trek into Darkness."

Watch the Revenent, I promise. Movie blew starwars outta the water, The revenent for me 9.5/10, starwars i rate 7/10 and being generous with that. There were times where starwars felt like a 3 but chewie saved the damn show...

 

[Wade]

And oh that Bowcaster of his.

 

[Creepy Green Light]

Finally saw TFA's today. IMO, it was pretty good. Definitely some moments that made the hair on my neck stand up (in mostly the moments when I saw the old characters for the first time & the M.F.). I think if the prequels didn't exist and TFA's was the 4th film, everyone would just say what I said, "it was pretty good." I think a lot of the "10" ratings & rave reviews on IMDB are from loyal fans that pretty much severed their ties with the franchise due to the lameness of the prequels. I think they gave up all hope and as stated before, TFA's was to win the hearts back of these people. And TFA's did that with great success. Now that I've gotten it out of my system, how long until we see the first trailer for Episode VIII? I hope when we do see the trailer, the release date isn't 12 months later but probably will.

[EDIT] This has nothing to do with The Force Awakens but....I also saw Mad Max Fury Road today. I'm pretty sure it is the corniest, dumbest movie I've seen in my 44 years. 15 minutes in and I was like "is this a joke? It was cringe worthy embarrassing. There were parts where if I was in the movie theater, I would have been embarrassed to see everyones reaction (like the "metal" guitar bungy jumping wall of guitar cabinets rocking out during a death road chase). Just sayin.

***** S P O I L E R A L E R T *****
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I know this is 99.9% impossible but.......Disney; can you please figure out a way to bring Han Solo back? It was super lame that he got what he got. And I was pretty much spot on with my only prediction. After seeing a lack of Skywalker in the trailers and poster - I said I bet you're not going to see him until the very end of the film. I did think though that he was going to at least have some dialogue.

 

[Mr. Fibuli]

I'm just surprised that Mace Windu is not Lando's father. Once I swallowed the putrified notion that Little Lord Anykin created 3PO..that bothered me way more than any Jarjombi could. That and the redo on the ending of Special Ed Return of the Jedi. My two least favorite Star Wars things.
PS still haven't seen the new movie yet lol

 

[Spectre73]

LOL - I agree Mr Fibuli - what was that all about - "Annie" and 3PO!!

 

[Creepy Green Light]

I wanted to punch myself in the face every time I heard them call Anakin as "Annie". Because of my age, no matter how many times I hear it, I would picture

 

[mike]

I havent seen it
And i have a full sized stormtrooper in my library (every library should have a suit of armour)
I have models from 1977 and all sorts of other really old star wars stuff
I have 60 plus of the novels the comic adaptions and the making of novels

I couldnt go see this because i was looking after my 94 year old mother in law, and then 2 days before she was due to go home, i broke my heel in a gazillion places.

So i will miss out.

But i am philosophical about it, i have a 3D TV and blue ray player so i can watch it at home eventually though i would have prefered to see it at the cinema like i did the original in 1977.

But im too steeped in the canon, too much of a neckbeard to enjoy it i just know it.

 

[mike]

Life is just not fair

 

[mike]

Before it was even a thing damnit......................... and i have two copies

 

[Wade]

The thing that is bothering me is I think J.J. may be taking this series in a certain direction that Star Wars fans may find outside their comfort zone.

first of all i've heard some sound bites about a big reveal down the line and obviously this could be just rumor and inuendo.

A certain character has been slated to appear in the two follow up episodes and i don't think they would pay all that money just to play mr. hologram or flashback (but i could be wrong)

Captn. Phasma's apparent fate could have been a nudge nudge wink wink to fans BUT what if it wasn't ? Considering what happened in a new hope i don't doubt we'll be seeing her again

there are what seems to be a few scenes of irregulaities as if someone got sloppy in the editing room. One scene in particular i caught immediately and had me wondering if i missed something earlier it was so blantant ( i felt) and the film makers are way too smart to let something so obvious get by them. in case you're wondering and you aren't afraid to be spoiled it's that scene with Leia, Rey and Chewbacca...google all those three characters, i'm not the only person (didn't expect to be) that is curious about this.

J J has a thing about irregularities in the time stream, playing around with time travel and deja vu, it seems to be in his milieu. His first Star Trek movie hinged on this and so did the series Lost and if there was one thing i learned about Lost, at least in the early going was that nothing that happened on the screen was supposed to be overlooked, everything shown had potential to be integral to the big picture reveal and you had to pay attention. in other words he kind of hinted at it...even if was fleshed out awkwardly (my opinion)

Remember that initial reunion scene between Poe and Finn ? Not the after the mission one where they embraced but the one where Finn saw him for the first time since the crash, that was less a scene about " Hey ! You Made it ! I thought you were dead !" and more about a man who thought he saw a ghost. that reaction by Finn which J.J. stayed on and focused on was supposed to convey something greater I felt. Finn's face looked like he was trying very hard to reconcile something that couldn't possibly be true, that something was off.

and for whatever reason i can't help but feel why after four movies Chewie's bowcaster is getting front page? it's probably nothing though. And why was Rylo almost flagellating himself at his wound from the Bowcaster ? it's almost like he needed to draw blood in order to psyche himself up, to find the initative to go on. all in all as i watched this movie i wondered to myself why didn't the characters involved display a sense of deja vu...and i'm not being snarky, this was my takeaway...that some kind of cyclical thing was being represented here.

 

[Goggs Mackay]

I havent seen it
And i have a full sized stormtrooper in my library (every library should have a suit of armour)
I have models from 1977 and all sorts of other really old star wars stuff
I have 60 plus of the novels the comic adaptions and the making of novels

I couldnt go see this because i was looking after my 94 year old mother in law, and then 2 days before she was due to go home, i broke my heel in a gazillion places.

So i will miss out.

But i am philosophical about it, i have a 3D TV and blue ray player so i can watch it at home eventually though i would have prefered to see it at the cinema like i did the original in 1977.

But im too steeped in the canon, too much of a neckbeard to enjoy it i just know it.

I think many of us forget that to adults in 1977, virtually everything about SW seemed ridiculous; Lucas has said numerous times the movies are for kids first and foremost.
Most of us were kids when the original 3 came out but had we been 40 we might have viewed them very differently. Even Ep IV has plenty of pretty crap aliens etc, especially in the cantina. Greedo is pretty crap on his own but great cos of him being in an scene with Han.
I didn't find the prequels as bad as many other fans, though they were not as exciting to me as the first 3 movies.

I think people who were kids when The Phantom Menace came out just loved them and didn't even think JarJar was ridiculous. Those of us lucky enough to live through the experience of actually waiting for Empire and then Jedi to come out - well we were so, so lucky - nothing after that as an adult would ever compare, nothing.

By the way, despite any shortcomings of J.J Abrams, does anyone here think Lucas would have made a better episode VII? I doubt it, not if he couldn't make a decent prequel having a full 3 chances to do so!

I agree that J.J finds endings difficult, I was hugely into Lost but let down by last couple of seasons and certainly the actual ending. But to be fair to the production team, when the first season was commissioned, because nobody could have predicted its popularity, they obviously were not looking a full 5 more seasons ahead - maybe they were constantly forced to artificially continue and stretch out what might have been 3 acts only initially and ended up writing by the seat of their pants so to speak, being forced away from the original conceived ending?
I don't think there has been any issues with the endings of the Star Trek movies J.J has done IMO.

BTW folks, to date I have not yet seen The Force Awakens so please continue to respect the no-spoilers rule present in this thread thanks very much!

 

[Wade]

But to be fair to the production team, when the first season was commissioned, because nobody could have predicted its popularity, they obviously were not looking a full 5 more seasons ahead - maybe they were constantly forced to artificially continue and stretch out what might have been 3 acts only initially and ended up writing by the seat of their pants so to speak, being forced away from the original conceived ending?

A very good point and I've mentioned this too I think i could still see some "improv" in the story line and on top of that they could have been dropped (theoretically) at any time as the ratings dropped quite a bit after the first couple of seasons so they couldn't stray too far.

However I still think Super 8 and Cloverfield (two other bad robot projects) had very questionable endings.

Sort of reminded me of Stephen King's It. I loved it when It was portrayed as Pennywise the Clown or even those Deadlights but that spider appearing thing was just wrong.

 

[AlienHunter]

I seen the movie a couple of weeks ago. I did enjoy it, its good seeing star wars back on the big picture. You can certainly tell the difference in the shots and action sequences. I think Lucas brought good character development into star wars, where as JJ offers more fancy effects and intense action. It's still a great movie, but since its the first of 3, character development is limited I suppose. It's definitely off to a good start though.

 

[Randall]

Some of it was fantastic, better than the others. Then there were parts that deserve the face palm, like why not waste Kylo instead of just standing around watching Han get skewered? Then there's the puzzle problem, which almost any total moron could extrapolate from given either piece, at least down to a restively small part of a particular galaxy.

 

[Goggs Mackay]

Some of it was fantastic, better than the others. Then there were parts that deserve the face palm, like why not waste Kylo instead of just standing around watching Han get skewered? Then there's the puzzle problem, which almost any total moron could extrapolate from given either piece, at least down to a restively small part of a particular galaxy.

Oh come on Randall ! - no spoilers here please.

 

[mike]

Most of us were kids when the original 3 came out but had we been 40 we might have viewed them very differently

Thats very true, for example the clone army. How obscene is that concept, yet the "good" guys had no trouble using them.

From moral pov its better to use droids to fight your wars than sentient biologicals vat bred for the express purpose of being cannon fodder. And yet in the movies this is the reverse

 

[Spectre73]

I wanted to punch myself in the face every time I heard them call Anakin as "Annie". Because of my age, no matter how many times I hear it, I would picture

I completely agree CGL. this is what I thought of too.