[SPOILERS] Star Wars Episode 7: Ticking All The Wrong Boxes [SPOILERS]

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Spoiler warning (if you care)

Forgot to mention Rey... How could I...

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Blatant feminist girl-power strawberries where they waste several lines of dialogue beating you over the head that Rey is a girl but doesn't need help or saving.

They repeat that strawberries multiple times throughout the movie, all the way up until the "rescue" team is again not "allowed" to rescue the girl, because she got out of it on her own.
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I remember the specific part you mention here, but other than that I didn't find the movie blatantly feminist friendly. Sure, Rey was kind of a mary sue character, but I didn't get the "I'm-strong-because-I'm-female-and-don't-need-any-help" vibe from the movie. I think you specifically have to look for it to see it. But, hey, maybe I'll see it too if I see it again with my googles adjusted accordingly lol. I did find it annoying how she just knew how to do everything, but her being a female had nothing to do with it in my case.

In the start of the movie I had no problem with her. Sure, I'll buy that she survives as a scavenger, and is good at it, no problem. Ok, she knows how to fight with that stick, that's cool. After that it just got in your face more and more. Sigh, ok, she knows how to handle the falcon, that's borderline acceptable, but then she knows how to fix it too?? Come on!! And, off course, she's a natural blaster expert after a minimal amount of time. Why isn't she the president of space again?!?

Maybe her backstory will explain why she is such a wonder woman. Until then I have the right to call bullstrawberries on her "perfection".
 
I have edited the topic with SPOILER tags since we've gotten to that level of discussion now. Please continue marking your posts with SPOILER warnings as well.

I agree, we need spoiler tags on these forums. The best I've seen is highlighting your text in the color white.
 
I enjoyed it, I felt the parallels to the original weren't too distracting. Outside of how consuming enough media all plots will seem rehashed to some extent the movie felt largely like a prelude. "Here are new characters in a familiar setting with a familiar plot line. The Empire is still building doomsday devices, the Rebels are still fighting back in their X-Wings, the Jedi are still in hiding."

After the backlash the prequels got, perhaps it's not surprising they took a safer route. I imagine the future movies will deviate much more greatly and perhaps it's best to remember the stories are part of a greater whole. As an introduction to new characters and the dispatching of old ones, I felt like it did its job though it's by no means a stand-alone movie.

Funny to still see so many old faces hanging around this forum, almost a decade later.

EDIT: Can you believe it? My Avater finally expired off Mirex's trashbin.
 
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Managed to avoid all spoilers and saw it earlier tonight.

Really fun movie. I thoroughly enjoyed all the nods to the original trilogy. Easily better than the prequels. You can tell Abrams wanted to make it more like the original movies, but it's just not as good. The wow factor and feeling of being involved in an epic story are almost there, just not quite. That being said, I would see it in theaters again and am very excited to see what the next movie has in store
 
You can tell Abrams wanted to make it more like the original movies, but it's just not as good.
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This, but it's trying too hard to ultimately be as good. There was something threatening about the Death Star because there wasn't anything like that in cinema before. This....thing that they make into the next super weapon is just strange. The concept makes no sense and the rules of its operation change mid-movie.

There's a HUGE list of what I liked and disliked about the movie overall. I'll eventually finish typing it and post it here. I keep starting it and getting interrupted because it takes so long to write up. :P
 
The wow factor and feeling of being involved in an epic story are almost there, just not quite.
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I kind of agree here. I think all of the previous star wars movies were around 3 hours long, but this new one felt a lot shorter to me for some reason. This film definitely provided a lot of setup for the next one.
 
This, but it's trying too hard to ultimately be as good. There was something threatening about the Death Star because there wasn't anything like that in cinema before. This....thing that they make into the next super weapon is just strange. The concept makes no sense and the rules of its operation change mid-movie.

There's a HUGE list of what I liked and disliked about the movie overall. I'll eventually finish typing it and post it here. I keep starting it and getting interrupted because it takes so long to write up. :P
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Exactly.  To be fair, I think I read that the process of absorbing a sun as a weapon is actually used in the Extended Universe, so it could have been a nod to that
I kind of agree here. I think all of the previous star wars movies were around 3 hours long, but this new one felt a lot shorter to me for some reason. This film definitely provided a lot of setup for the next one.
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I actually looked it up right after watching it because I thought it felt shorter, too.  Turns out A New Hope, Phantom Menace, and Force Awakens are all 2h 16m.  I think it's because Force Awakens seems to have more action in it than the others, so it goes by faster.
 
That kind of thing is precisely why I don't like films like this. The very idea of "absorbing the sun" is completely impossible and totally lame brained.  It destroys all suspension of disbelief for a cheap gimmick.  And it's also not remotely clever or good sci-fi.  If someone wanted to destroy life on a planet, all they'd need to do is use a mass driver (like in Babylon 5) to catapult large rocks.  That's a practical weapon that may even one day be possible. 

Absorbing the sun isn't - even remotely.  It's just ridiculous, and a symptom of a rather VERY thick writer.

The original death star didn't go into the hows and whys of the science behind the super weapon.  It didn't need to because that wasn't important.  And it wasn't so ridiculous that I sat there thinking "lol".  You can believe that they had some form of fusion power to generate the enormous energy (although, that's also v unlikely), but the second you go too far, or start giving absurd reasoning, you lose the audience.  Or, at least, you lose me and many others.

I appreciate that not everyone thinks that way, but a good number of people do - but they aren't catered for. The people catered for massively are people who think "Biggerer Death Star = betterer Death Star"
 
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People using telekinesis and wielding swords made of solid light also requires suspension of disbelief. A weapon that harnesses the sun's nuclear power doesn't seem that outside the realm of possibility.

I have a much bigger gripe about a highly trained force user being bested by a force user who only started discovering her power an hour or two prior to their duel
 
Well the latter is another symptom of poor writing, but to me it's not in the same league has absorbing a whole star.  It's still piss poor, though.
 
From a scifi, pseudo science perspective, a sun is basically the most energy dense object in its solar system. It isn't completely unreasonable to assume that a space faring civilization would want to do something with the free energy. It's also star wars, it's never NOT been kind of outlandish. I don't know what you were expecting lol
 
From a scifi, pseudo science perspective, a sun is basically the most energy dense object in its solar system. It isn't completely unreasonable to assume that a space faring civilization would want to do something with the free energy. It's also star wars, it's never NOT been kind of outlandish. I don't know what you were expecting lol
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You've completely missed the point of my argument and are also trying to annoy me with "lol" childish comments.

I wasn't expecting anything that I would call decent or to my tastes, and indeed that proved to be the case.  Have you even read my first post here - or the title of this thread?

Furthermore, this isn't about harnessing the sun's power.  We do that all the time here on Earth...  Ever heard of solar power?  This is about absorbing an entire sun and completely severing the audience (many who will be sci-fi fans) from the fiction - all for a cheap gimmick.  Internal logic is important for a fiction.  Evidently, not for you - which is why you run away penning 10/10 reviews everywhere. Once your writing has degraded to the point that anything can happen for any reason, it is no longer real writing. It's sloppy, basic, brainless, and cheap. The exception to this is comedy, of course - like cartoons. But even that depends on the setting.  I wouldn't bat an eye lid at a sun being absorbed in a Looney Toons cartoon. But in a science fiction set mostly within the confines of our own physics- I expect, you know, some actual logic and science.

You are right that Star Wars has never been totally pure "sci-fi", but the original trilogy was a mostly solid piece of fiction. This is not. In fact, one of the major criticisms that the Prequels received is that they were way too cartoonish and wrecked tension in scenes. This film has the exact same problem in places, but seems to be getting a free pass compared.
 
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[...] and are also trying to annoy me with "lol" childish comments.
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I don't think so, no. To me, this look just like a way to relax the discussion and not make it feel like you're in a political debate. From my perspective, he was simply trying to ease the tone of his argument, not annoy or attack anyone.
 
I don't think so, no. To me, this look just like a way to relax the discussion and not make it feel like you're in a political debate. From my perspective, he was simply trying to ease the tone of his argument, not annoy or attack anyone.
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Haha. Bollocks.
 
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Bollocks. That whole post he made was lacking substance and clearly just trying to annoy.  But from now on I will respond to him with "lol". We'll see how long it is before I'm taking to task over it. Ok?
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Go back to my warning at the end of the previous page; I specifically say that anything that has previously happened is irrelevant from this point onwards. I gave everyone a second chance, it would be a bad idea to waste it.

To be clear, I am not taking any side. I'm being as objective as I can, but I'm still human. My interpretation and your interpretation are going to differ - of course they're going to differ. I could be wrong, but keep in mind that you could be, too. Please don't fall into provocation or arrogance :)
 
Star Wars: Episode VII was quite an achievement! Specifically, what it achieved was to make George Lucas retrospectively appear a competent and inventive steward of the series. It was not a sequel, it was a reboot in exactly the same manner as all the other franchise reboots from the last five years: a vampiric pastiche of everyone's treasured memories from the original series, leaping from scene to scene hell for leather, relying on the fans' memory of Ep. IV/V to give those scenes meaning and plot significance when the film itself can't be bothered to.

It is quite a cynical and lifeless film, and I'm left wondering if Star Wars is really a franchise trapped by its reputation, too expensive and too big to innovate further. What once seemed like intransigence on Lucas' part now seems quite wise - he never let fan expectation box in his vision, even if that meant taking a few missteps now and then. His films always tried to expand the universe and the franchise, and whilst aiming his films at kids alienated many fans, at least Lucas tried to grow the franchise, in that sense, not just sit on top of it like Disney and collect its annual Star Wars tithe. I think we will never see another truly exciting Star Wars film again.
 
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