Don't get the critique. There are more than enough primary characters to occupy the meat of the story. Isaac's journey isn't central. Why do we need more or less of him? He's peripheral, not his story. Thought he was in it an appropriate amount, and casting a "heavy" in that smaller role made it memorable. I think it was entirely strategic. Cool performance, too.
Really? I thought he was average at best, and the way the plot deals with him is super lazy
Poe doesn't have a journey. He's introduced at the start as if he's an important character and then disappears until the end. In between, nobody mentions him. The question of his survival is resolved with a line of dialogue. The only thing we know about him is that he is one of Leia's best soldiers, and we only know that because of, again, dialogue.
Isaac pulls it off because he's got charisma. Otherwise, given that the writing is so thin, it didn't seem necessary (or even interesting) to introduce him in the first film.
Isaac has boatloads of charisma. So good, that he got his role expanded beyond this movie. He was suppose to stay dead originally.Quote:
Originally Posted by Irish
See, I usually think he does have charisma, but not in this role. It was a complete blank.
Another morning, another viewing, this time in IMAX. (I didn't originally plan on seeing it twice, but snagged the IMAX tickets two months ago, only to more recently learn of a private screening organized by a family member taking place the morning before.)
It's very good, but I just really struggle to find it in me to call it great. Simply too much borrowed, not enough invented.
BUT, both times I saw it, the final half hour had me in a near constant state of being supremely choked up. The final scene is absolute perfection and I feel like it was the core image Abrams had flash into his head right before he finally agreed to sign on to write and direct it, and just worked backwards to structure the rest of the movie to lead up to that. Even just the simplest touches of bookending the sequence leading up to the meeting in a visually poetic contrast to the way we meet Rey (vast desert plains, defeated, literally physically descending) to where we leave her (gorgeous mountain ridges, determined, ascending endlessly to her destiny). It's just so simple and stunning, which is what the series is at its best, but very few times quite in such a moving way. No Star Wars film has ever ended on such a high for me, let alone tears.
Even just her battle with Ren (with my favourite touch of Driver's performance, the beating of his wounds to fuel him), in a saga that's known to hinge its emotions and distill big conflicts in lightsaber showdowns, it's such an unusually, extraordinarily powerful and revelatory sequence. The nuts and bolts of the action are fine enough I guess, but allowing it to function the way it does for Rey, with everything building to the initial avenging and then this beautiful moment of a hero connecting with The Force that I'm not sure there's been quite like Luke's "use the force" at the Death Star. And even then, this one has such a more seminal, primal and physical element to it than just a character in an X-Wing figuring out something he'd already been sorta working on. Again, both times I saw it, crippling chills and misty eyes.
Never been so happy to be a sobby mess in the theatre two mornings in a row. So in that sense I did love it as an experience (or two), even if I see it as a very imperfect film. (A post of complaints to follow when the general buzz it gave me dissipates and I more clearly see the holes again.)
Couple of more things I remembered I hated when I saw them.
1. The "trench" on Starkiller base
2. The lightsaber stuck in the snow throwback
Couple of things I liked when I saw them
1. Spaceport Cantina throwback
2. Chewie and Han, hands over head throwback
3. All of the banners hanging at Maz Kanata's palace (references to Pod Racer clans and other shit)
For the hell of it, here's a list of all the records broken by Star Wars
Biggest domestic debut with $238 million (Previous record: “Jurassic World” with $208.8 million)
Second-biggest global debut with $517 million (Record holder: “Jurassic World” with $524.9 million)
Biggest Thursday preview gross with $57 million (Previous record holder: “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows – Part 2” with $43.5 million)
First film to post single-day gross over $100 million
Fastest film to $100 million and $200 million (Previous record holder: “Jurassic World” on both counts)
Biggest December debut (Previous record: “The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey” with $84.6 million)
Highest per-theater average for a wide release with $57,568 (Previous record: “Jurassic World” with $48,855)
Biggest opening weekend of all time in U.K., Russia, Australia, Germany, Sweden, Norway, Finland, Austria, Denmark, Romania, Hungary, Bulgaria, Croatia, Ukraine, Iceland, Serbia and New Zealand
Biggest Imax debut with $48 million
Most pre-sales with over $100 million (Previous record: “The Dark Knight Rises” with $25 million)
Best Friday gross with $120.5 million (Previous record: “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows – Part 2” with $91.1 million)
Third best Saturday gross with $68.7 million
(Record holders: “Jurassic World” with $69.6 and “Marvel’s The Avengers” with $69.5 million)
Best opening for a “Star Wars” film (Previous record: “Revenge of the Sith” with $108.4 million)
Overheard a group of American boys coming out of this unanimously declare Rey their favourite character. Sort of heartening to hear.
Not his fault, but the character was a bit thin. Does it matter? Well, yes, if they make him out to be this amazingly gifted and heroic fighter pilot who then proceeds to partake in the easiest final assault the series has ever seen, even though the script makes it sound like they're headed for certain doom, then the plot has abandoned this particular character by denying him his true chance to earn his stripes.Quote:
Originally Posted by transmogrifier
This was meh.
http://kitbashed.com/blog/the-force-awakens
This review sums up my thoughts quite well.
Hmmm. This is a passage from that review:Quote:
Originally Posted by Milky Joe
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...and my response (where I speculate about his being incorrect on a major plot point; DO NOT READ if you don't want to see what I feel is the real truth)
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Yeah, I agree with almost everything there. And yet, it still managed to create something able to overwhelm me emotionally enough of the time to feel these issues were ultimately unfortunate, but not detrimental.Quote:
Originally Posted by Milky Joe
Other issues not mentioned in that article:
- The dudes from The Raid(!) walking onto Han's ship! Revving up for an all-hell-breaks-loose action scene! Aaaaaand they aren't given the chance do one discernible thing with their physical abilities they made their names with. :( (There was talk at one point that they helped choreograph some of the hand-to-hand / lightsaber stuff later on, which is cool if true, but there was still so much more potential for their onscreen involvement.)
- Aside from Williams' revisiting his classic themes, I don't know if after two viewings I can hum or remember any particular feelings the new material gave me. The whimsical and mysterious score we hear the first time we met Rey comes the closest, and his work in the last lightsaber battle and very final scene are extraordinary blendings of old and new musical ideas, but there's no exciting, newly iconic pieces. Disappointing.
- Did we really need a death fake-out for Poe? We knew he wasn't dead, and yet we still don't see him until the rest of our new main characters do (of whom it only really matters to Finn). It reminded me of Ben Affleck in Pearl Harbour, or any recent Marvel movie. Though at least with the latter we had more emotional attachment to them and the possibility they were actual goners.
- Snoke does not look good enough or menacing enough to warrant the effects used to create him. Not sure why they didn't just go the route of Two-Face in The Dark Knight or Arnold in Terminator movies to enhance and remove elements from Serkis' actual face. Same goes with Nyong'o to an extent, but at least she has interesting proportions and a look that would go beyond make-up, as much as it isn't the most exciting one. The mo-cap rendering just looks too weak and out of place against so many more idiosyncratic practical design to begin with.
- Having just watched A New Hope, everything that's already been said about the elements not only being mirrored but functioning in almost identical ways is very true and just as underwhelming. But even when it does new things with old idea, something like the aerial battles (outside of the Rey & Finn one with the Millenium Falcon), just moved too fast and uninterestingly to ever allow my brain to lock onto any sort of geography in my mind, causing me to daydream a bit.
- I wish Gwendoline Christie wasn't wasted so much, and that her character subbed in for Gleeson any time he emoted bigger than the typical nervous Vader bad-news-deliverer from the original trilogy. I love camp as much as anyone, but he went way too ridiculously cacklingly evil for the tone of everything else in this movie. Especially in the scene where he presents the destructions of five planets we have no connection to.
- Just like with both Abrams' Star Trek films, the best and worst thing I can say is that it left me wanting more in the sense that it leaves on such a momentum and emotional high as if it's building to another 20-minute epilogue, not just a whole other movie.
But it made my eyes water more than any movie this year outside of Inside Out (which I was in a much more exhausted, emotionally irrational, and slightly sicker state for), so that should speak to how much I did like this otherwise!
I stayed through the credits and they were credited for "Fight choreography on freighter sequence." So they didn't do the whole movie, just the scene they were in. I think what obviously happened was that the scene was originally an elaborate action sequence but got cut down significantly for time.Quote:
Originally Posted by Henry Gale
I'm fairly sure the same thing happened to Gwendoline Christie.
In what way for Phasma? That her trip down the chute got deleted, or some additional scenes? That's quite the buildup of a character that disappeared far too easily.Quote:
Originally Posted by number8
http://i193.photobucket.com/albums/z...pswiqhx8la.jpgA long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away, the biggest bromance of our lifetime.
Star Wars: The Force Awakens.
J. J. Abrams, 2015.
Synopsis: J. J. Abrams' tries to erase the bad taste of the prequels. Can he do it?
What did I like? []
What didn't I like? []
What did I truly hate? An asshole at Bleacher Report (sports page) spoiled...
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What am I wondering? []
Final thoughts: The force indeed has been awaken.
P.S. []
The opposite. I think we're missing the buildup. Her capture played like a payoff for something we never saw.Quote:
Originally Posted by Ezee E
I'm now making myself believe the whole 'everything old is new again' theme of this movie is one huge intentional troll job by JJ that will soon be revealed to blow us away in the 8th and 9th movies.
Hahaha, this is absolute nonsense, but all right then: http://www.ew.com/article/2015/12/20...-force-awakens
According to Abrams and Kasdan and Ardnt, R2-D2 waking up wasn't triggered by Rey, but by BB-8 in the middle of the movie. But because R2's been in a coma for a long time, the booting up process takes a while and is only complete at the end of the movie.
Yeah, and I don't like how she was so submissive. Seems like such a strong soldier wouldn't be afraid of Finn/Solo.Quote:
Originally Posted by number8
Seeing it again on Thursday. Company is taking all of us to a screening. There's over 50 of us in this studio.
I guess that's one way to deal with spoilers in the workplace. :D
I loved Rey, especially as the father of two young girls. I loved how, each time Finn, Solo, and the rest went in to try and save her, she pretty much saved herself before they got the chance. And the third time, she wound up saving her would be savior.
As far as role models go, Rey is a significant upgrade from Leia and Amidala.
Indeed. My girlfriend said it best - "You do realize that I'd have been totally beside myself as a ten year old girl if I had someone like Rey for a fictional role model?"
Right on. And of course, even so, my 7 year old's favorite character in the film was Chewie, and my 11 year old's favorite was Kylo Ren.