Discussion [Spoiler Alerts]: Star Wars Episode VII

So after you have seen it let's hear your opinions.

I personally found it to be the second worst Star Wars film to date. Just behind Episode II: Attack of the Clones.

Pros:
Amazing Special Effects

Kylo Ren's Suit (If it wasn't for Darth Maul this guy would easily have the award for most bad-*** look.)

Humor (while I have this as a con since it was over done at least when it was done it was funny.)

Hans Solo died (If Kylo wouldn't have killed him in that moment on the bridge I would have got up and walked out.)

Cons:
Far to much humor (it was well done but I just felt like they put way to much in.)

Weak Plot (It's almost like they weren't sure how to get the movie going so they just have a random Storm Trooper decide to go against all his brain washing with no real explanation.)

Felt very repetitive story wise (almost like it was a remake of episode IV.)

Kylo Ren was a whiny little b***h (seriously...when he lost his temper he destroyed a bunch of computers like a little 12 year old. When Anakin lost his temper he slaughtered an entire village. I can't stand a weak villain and Kylo came across as extremely weak.)

The final light saber fight scenes (so Rey has never touched a light saber in her life, picks it up, and goes toe-to-toe with the main villain. Even the force doesn't grant you unbelievable light saber skills, you have to have training.)

The final scene between Luke and Rey was just down right awkward as hell. *Pulls light saber out of pouch, sticks hand out, Luke looks at her for like 30 seconds plus as the camera pans around them with a look of "What the hell do you want me to do with that?". lol.)

I liked it. Good movie overall, better than the 1 and 2, but not so bad that 4-6 eclipse it.

Even though Kylo came across as whiny, I liked that he wasn't nearly as badass as grandpa. He doesn't have the backstory build-up that made Vader such a beast. So he gets pissed that he will likely never ascend that far, which leads us to believe that Snoke will make some major changes to him.

I liked the humor, especially the thumbs-up between Finn and BB-8.

Leia looked terrible, I would have rather seen her get the saber, but that's just me.

Rey turning badass lends me to believe she is some relation to the Skywalkers*, which wouldn't surprise me. But yeah, the fight was not believable with Kylo (she did have experience fighting, although it was with a staff). And Finn just going good for no reason but "it felt like the right thing" was odd, but I have a theory for his and Rey's changes....Luke reached thru the force to find kindred spirits to rise up and find him to bring about the next wave? (Just a theory, we will see in the years to come if I'm a genius or nub.)

Even though the EU "doesn't exist", they made sure to take ideas from it, which made me happy. *Mara and Luke are Rey's parents?

Who the hell is Mara?

Luke's baby's mama.

Great movie.

Did Luke ever use the Jedi mind trick on Mara?? ...for fun, now and then?

Rey has the force it was evident when her and storm trooper, she knew had it. Many questions were left open. Leia imo looked terrible because she has the force and was dealing with main plot line of kylo gone bad and the epic ending between kylo n father. She felt the force and knew what was to come. In viii we receive explanations how rey knew she had the force? and why kylo went bad? Why luke was away?

I liked it. I liked how for advertising they made everyone think Finn would be the Jedi, but the plot twist was real.

It wasn't bad.

It was better then the prequils but had a really weird feeling to it with the complete new characters and special effects improvements. I agree the plot was abit cliche, but it was overall good. Kylo I agree was to much of a whiner and he was so weak. The Luke seen was like " Um ok...?"

There weren't many planets that were explored, all were new, no original ones which made the movie feel excluded.

Aliens felt so excluded in allot of parts, examples I like the rebel base and the first orders head quarters, all were 99% humans, no aliens that were in allegiance.

I also found it very weird of the complete new creation of the characters and story compared to the comics.

Why didn't they go with the original Jacen Solo, Darth Caedus....?

I'll be waiting to see what episode 8 is like.

Finally a thread, saw it 3 days ago and I've been itching to talk to people about it.

Oh and EU isn't canon anymore, so no more Jacen, Jaina, Ben and Mara.

My guess is Kylo went bad because Luke couldn't train him correctly just as Obi-Wan didn't train Anakin correctly as to learn how to stay at peace and not let the Dark Side swell within him and take over.
I would say Han and Leia's breakup caused Kylo to go towards the Dark Side letting anger and fear grow within him as it did with Anakin when his mother was killed.
Big difference between watching your mother die and slaughtering those who killed her to avenge her death and why Kylo turned.
Kylo seems very mentally weak and borderline childish, whiny brat that couldn't handle mommy and daddy splitting up...lol

Just my guess...I'm very pissed off at Kylo and can't wait to watch him die a most gruesome death...

I know, but as you can see they borrowed ideas...Han and Leia had a son, and he turned bad. Someone named their kid Ben. So its not completely impossible for a "Mara" to exist.

Follow the link.

Both being force sensitive makes some interesting roleplay scenarios, don't you think?

Does anyone else thing the actor that plays the sniffling, wuss, cry baby Kylo Ren looks like John Travolta ??

Also, has there ever been a weaker main villain in any Sci Fi movie before ? I mean come on, to go from Darth Vader to this ??
I get it that there is not Sith Lord (that we know of yet) to train a new wielder of the Dark Side but come on !!!! LOL

I quite liked it, honestly. Saw it today with my family. I thought the humor was just right. I think a lot of how you take the story depends on what you expected going in. While I didn't know what was going to happen prior to seeing it, the way it played out made sense and was somewhat predictable. I can see why folks are complaining about the parallels between this and A New Hope. I look at it more as a nod to the old story to springboard into the new one.

Rey = Luke: Young force-sensitive individual with a mysterious history who seems to know she/he is meant for something more.

Kylo = Vader: I see this basically as what Vader would have become had he turned to the Dark Side at a much younger age. Add to that family turmoil and an incompletely trained Jedi master. I think Luke overestimated his ability to rekindle the Jedi Order. Another thing to consider is his connection to the Force. Recall that Anakin was essentially born from the Force. Luke and Leia are children of Anakin and Padme, who is not Force sensitive. Ben/Kylo is a child of Leia and Han, who is also not Force sensitive. Perhaps his strength in the Force is less as a result.

Luke = Obi-wan: In self-imposed exile, following his failure. Yoda, of course, similarly exiled himself after failing to defeat Palpatine. These guys can't take failure very well, can they?

BB-8 = R2-D2: Adorable droid holding information vital to the Rebellion/Resistance, except in this case, we know exactly what the information is and how it was acquired. BB-8 has no known connection to anyone other than Poe, unlike the wise and worldly R2-D2.

Supreme Leader Snoke = Emperor Palpatine: Assumed, based on his tutoring of Kylo Ren. He mentions completing Ren's training, so it's likely he's a master of the Dark Side, while not necessarily a Sith Lord.

General Hux = Grand Moff Tarkin: Commander of the First Order/Imperial planet-destroying battle fortress. Unlike Tarkin, we will presumably be seeing him again, as he was tasked with getting Kylo off Starkiller Base.

Those are the main ones. Even so, The First Order is really just taking what the Empire set in motion and running with it. Not surprised they are also trying to destroy planets and impose their will. It is a little bit of a different take, though. They seem more like they want to control and create order. They don't use clones. Instead, they raise conscripts and condition them for service.

As to why Finn suddenly abandoned The First Order, going against his "conditioning," I suspect that's something that will come out in the next movie(s). Personally, I suspect Finn is Force sensitive. The real Star Wars nerds out there will know that wielding a lightsaber isn't like just thrashing around with a sword. Perhaps this undiscovered connection to the Force is what kept Finn from being completely brainwashed.

Back to Rey. How was she able to acquire her abilities so easily? It makes me wonder about her origins. If, as I posited above, one's strength in the Force is related to lineage, you might expect both her parents to have been strong with it. Luke and someone else, perhaps? Maybe after his failure with Kylo, he was afraid of what his own child might become, so he left her on Jakku, in hopes she would grow up without knowing the Force, like he would have without Obi-wan's intervention.

What about Snoke? He's a race we haven't seen before. He appears fairly old. Is he a Sith Lord? Something else? Is there a connection between him and Palpatine? How did he end up as the leader? Maz Kanata is a pirate who has been alive for over 1000 years. You can't tell me she doesn't know more than she's letting on. How did she come by Luke's lightsaber? Last we saw, it was dropping into the bowels of Cloud City, along with Luke's severed right hand. That's not the only relic. Kylo somehow has Vader's head and cremains (he plopped his helmet onto a chest full of them when interrogating Rey). How did he come by those? Vader was placed on the funeral pyre on Endor. Did Luke keep the cremains long after? On his hearth at home? Vader's lightsaber presumably went up with the second Death Star, along with his severed right hand and Palpatine. Likewise, Luke should have the green lightsaber he crafted.

In sum, I think there was just enough similarity to bridge the 30 year gap, while setting up a different story. Let's face it, Star Wars was, is, and always will be about light vs dark. There are only so many ways to tell that story. I like the new characters, and I think they differentiate this new Star Wars enough to make the story worth watching.

-Rem

The way I see it, my theory is that Kylo Ren had several things working against him...
1.He was injured and slowly bleeding out during the whole fight(Because Chewie managed to catch him when he was off his guard.)
2.He was injured more while kicking Finns ***.(He probably would have done so with little to no effort if he wasn't loosing blood and unfocused due to the injury that Chewie inflicted.)
3.He's not a Darth in this movie...(Assuming that he is a Sith apprentice I would theorize that "Kylo" is probably the Sith equivalent of Padawan... As powerful as he is due to his linage he's still not fully trained in the ways of the force, and he already had 1 and 2 working against him while fighting an equally if not more powerful force user...
4.He was also too focused on the old lightsaber and allowed it to distract him from the task at hand.(Probably the only reason why he didn't kill Finn and Rey... Because he wasted time trying to pick it up with the force instead of using the perfectly good lightsaber that he had in his hand already.)

TLDR; They won not because the untrained soon to be Padawan was better with a light saber... They won because Chewie got off a lucky shot while Kylo was distracted and he was slowly loosing consciousness from blood-loss during the fight... That and he wasn't fully trained to begin with...

Kylo is extremely conflicted, and that alone caused much of his downfall during this movie. The saber represented much more than a prize, but also a symbol of someone stronger than him, much like the mask of Vader. Unlike many who fall to the Dark Side, Kylo shows no sign of physical corruption. Which also points to his conflict, he hasn't fully given over yet. Maybe the murder of his father will give him the much needed push to finally become a true villain. His lack of training and self control are very apparent, but Snoke appears to have final touches to put on his tool. I say tool, because he appears to favor Hux more, so Kylo might just be a means to an end. Remember, the Emperor always seemed to be 2 steps ahead with his devious plans. Looking forward to the tale unfolding....

They actually spend quite a few scenes building up Chewbacca's Bowcaster with Han Solo's admiration for it's potency, so Kylo Ren's injuries shouldn't be taken lightly during the final fights.

Finn didn't suddenly turn "good", he just realized that combat was not for him and he needed a pilot that would get him out, which Poe figures out a moment later. Even though Finn was taken as a child and conditioned to be a Storm Trooper, it doesn't appear like he's had actual combat experience before... Unless you count sanitation as combat. He's "flight" when it comes to the "fight or flight" response, until he finds something to fight for. I think that makes Finn immensely relatable.

I liked Kylo Ren, he has personality, but he's ultimately probably just a pawn like was stated in the movie.

The rumors about Snoke = Plagueis remains to be seen...
Hmm... This figure is based on the Expanded Universe take on the character before The Force Awakens.


But...

Rey: I found a staff. It's a piece of junk.



Supreme Leader Snoke: My precious!


Edit: Note that the "staff" Andy Serkis is holding could be anything or nothing at all after the cgi-effects are done. It's just conjecture for fun. I also want to mention that the scene with Finn nearly unconscious and the first thing he does when Rey checks on him is to ask if she's okay is not only a funny scene, but shows there's more to him...

I liked it. And yes, some aspects of the premise is similar to Episode IV with the Starkiller Base and the Death Star but if you think about, it's the empire we're talking about (though the First Order are the remains of the former Empire) and they even reference it in the movie.

As for Finn, I liked him, albeit his sudden growth in conscious compared to other Stormtroopers, but I thought similar to what someone earlier stated, it was maybe because he was force sensitive (remember he mentions that the new Stormtroopers aren't clones but reprogrammed men & women who are taken at birth/early age and bred to follow the First Order) and the first scene he is in (his first time in battle), he is repulsed by the cruelty of the First Order which Kylo Ren senses and looks at him but dismisses it because his ability with the force is weak but still there.

As for Rey, the mysterious scavenger, who was waiting in Jakku for her family to return, I absolutely adored her character. And for those wondering how she is strong with the force, the hints are there.
1. Han's explanation on how Luke created a jedi academy which Ben/Kylo was a part of but was later seduced by the dark side which connects to Rey's mysterious vision where she is surrounded by bodies (perhaps the fall of Luke's jedi academy by the hands of the Knights of Ren) and then her being left in Jakku as a child (perhaps by Luke) since she's the only survivor

2. Her being much stronger with the Force than Kylo (in the beginning not so much but with her confrontations with Kylo, enabled her to tap into the Force as seen during her interrogation by Kylo where she was able to repel him and even read his mind and even use the Jedi mind trick on a stormtrooper)

And since she is capable with a staff, I am hoping she wields a double blade lightsaber


Also, does anyone else think the growing relationship between Finn and Rey will be similar to Satele Shan and Jace Malcom's from SW The Old Republic

Rey in my opinion is without a doubt the daughter of Luke and Mara and I'm sure she was left on Jakku in hiding for her own protection when Mara goes bad ..(sound familiar lol ) and that was probably the main reason Luke went into exile/hiding because he couldn't bare the loss/seperation of his daughter, losing Mara and not to mention failing to train a new order of Jedi

I agree with a couple of your points. I actually liked Attack of the Clones better. I put this just ahead of Phantom Menace. But man... there are a couple major plot holes if you ask me.

Your right on the Fin situation. Here is a storm trooper that decides to go good. And hey we'll just trust him with the plans to where Luke is that everyone is fighting over. No one questions whether or not he is actually good or not, or a spy even.

And Han and Chewy are just magically sitting in space to pick up the Falcon? I get that the force might be at play here a bit. But that was a little to much if you ask me.

And then the Rey situation. What took Luke, and many other Jedi, years of training to learn the ways of the force, moving objects, mind control, and the use of a lightsaber, only took Rey a few hours to learn.

Also the end when Snoke asks for Kylo Ren to return to him to complete his training. Why would you send this guy out to control your army if his training want complete? This movie just seemed a little rushed if you ask me.

It did have some good points. I liked how they mixed some of the nostalgia from the old movies with the new one. I liked how the action just took right off with this one, (although a little more plot development might of actually helped this one).

Lucas should never of given up complete control. I think he needed help, after the last three movies. But you can tell there is a piece of him missing from this latest installment.