New "Star Wars" Movie

[Karl Henning]

Watching it on the 26th with wife and two adult kids, and looking forward to it.

You'll have a blast!

[The new erato]

You'll have a blast!

We need 4 blasters!

[Rinaldo]

Saw it today, loved most of it. The first half is almost flawless, the second feels rushed at times. My only real complaint goes to the music, unfortunately - not a memorable theme to be heard, aside from the good old tunes. There was not a single moment heightened by the music itself, which, compared to the originals, was a HUGE letdown.

[ComposerOfAvantGarde]

I actually prefer a film score to not have memorable themes. It then truly becomes inseparable from the visuals and adds more to the overall atmosphere.

[Rinaldo]

I actually prefer a film score to not have memorable themes. It then truly becomes inseparable from the visuals and adds more to the overall atmosphere.

You think the originals would've fared better if there was no Force theme or The Imperial March?

I prefer the film score to elevate the movie by whichever means suits the moving pictures. Williams' Force Awakens does nothing in that respect.

[lisa needs braces]

nvm

[jochanaan]

I saw it today with a friend.  Very enjoyable, but it seemed to cover little new territory; mostly a "next generation" carrying on the mythology that began in 1977.  I was most interested in Carrie Fisher's presence and performance.  On the one hand, she seems to have let herself age naturally, not a bad thing at all; but she can still dominate the screen, and her deep contralto voice still gives me shivers! And Harrison Ford is still Han Solo as he was.

[ComposerOfAvantGarde]

You think the originals would've fared better if there was no Force theme or The Imperial March?

I prefer the film score to elevate the movie by whichever means suits the moving pictures. Williams' Force Awakens does nothing in that respect.

Different tastes then.

I was speaking of film scores in general: the moments I like better are when the music is almost unnoticed as a separate layer because of how well it effectively becomes part of what is seen on screen. Tbh, themes like the Imperial March in the original trilogy were my least favourite moments in the music when I first saw the films.

[Scion7]

[Bogey]

My thoughts after seeing it and stay away for possible spoilers:




Loved the two new main characters, Finn and Rae.  I thought their story was engaging and interesting.  I wished they would have followed them more and spent less time creating moments for the "family reunions" that made the film stall or seemed contrived just to get old characters screen time to appease those more interested in nostalgia.  Hopefully, they will be used more in upcoming episodes.

As for the rest of the movie, it seemed just like a reboot plot wise from the previous runs.  Add to this the likes of Carrie Fischer who's acting skills were painful at best to take in when she had screen time....and Ford's work was not much better, IMO>

However, probably the weakest component was whole villain thing at the micro and macro level.  Just a total rehash, but without the fizz of the previous 4-6 films. 

Better than 1-3, but I was not overly impressed.  Hopefully the nostalgic reunion moments and references carry the film for you.   They did not for me.  There have been a lot of "new" Star Wars stories written over the years and even some decent ones with the old characters.  Too bad they opted for a script that did not take a risk and took the series take a new exciting direction.   Maybe it eventually will (with fingers crossed).

[Karl Henning]

"Star Wars: The Force Awakens" brought in a galactic $238 million over the weekend, making it the biggest North American debut of all time according to studio estimates on Sunday.

[Rinaldo]

Loved the two new main characters, Finn and Rae.  I thought their story was engaging and interesting.

Yes, both of them make for great new heroes.

As for the rest of the movie, it seemed just like a reboot plot wise from the previous runs.  Add to this the likes of Carrie Fischer who's acting skills were painful at best to take in when she had screen time....and Ford's work was not much better, IMO>

Leia was absolutely useless and Carrie's bland performance didn't help either. But Ford surprised me and I thought his 'good old old' Han worked really well.

As for the bad guy, I think the stage is set for the sequels to take a more daring direction.

[Jaakko Keskinen]

Leia was absolutely useless and Carrie's bland performance didn't help either. But Ford surprised me and I thought his 'good old old' Han worked really well.

My opinion exactly.


Spoilers!!!!!!!!!!!












Mostly loved the movie, although it had couple of bad things. The first half was clearly better than the second. I loved Kylo Ren's rages but only when he had his mask on, especially when he starts slashing that control panel. When he didn't have his mask on it reminded me of Hayden Christensen's performance. But I suppose the whole point of the character was to show how insecure he was. Carrie, as has been said, was bland. What the hell happened to her. At first I wasn't impressed by the new Emperor figure (Snoke, I think his name was), it was bit corny and reminded me of Halo in a bad way. But later scenes made him appear much more imposing. And yes, not a really memorable score from John Williams. One character I really didn't like was Maz Kanata. Pretty annoying, although not on Jar Jar Binks-level of annoying. The closing scene was bit clumsily filmed. But this is nitpicking, easily the best Star Wars movie in 30 years.


And I saw that one character's death coming. Not to brag or anything, probably 95 % of the audience guessed it beforehand.


How much was Hamill paid for the great effort of showing his face in the film for a grand total of twenty seconds?

[Karl Henning]

Thanks for the Spoilers warnings, gents!

[Jaakko Keskinen]

Did you know Daniel Craig had a cameo in this movie?

[Karl Henning]

Did you know Daniel Craig had a cameo in this movie?

He was the original Jabba the Hutt.

[Jaakko Keskinen]

He was the original Jabba the Hutt.

Post of the year

[Dancing Divertimentian]

[Cato]

Apparently assorted "Feminist" writers never really watched the original movies:

...I like Rey. Daisy Ridley brings the right amount of joy and wonder to the character, cutting force-empowered hyper-competence with the right hint of surprised determination. But the fact that feminists are hailing her (and a couple of other bit-part characters) as some sort of ideological revelation shows how little they know about modern science fiction, including Star Wars itself. Perhaps my favorite piece in this nonsensical vein was Jezebel's "Finally, Women Do More than Give Birth and Die in Star Wars: The Force Awakens." But writing in more sober tones, columnists at The Atlantic and Slate couldn't help but declare basically the same thing: that the new movie is distinctively different and more feminist than every other entry in the franchise. "Rey . . . is Star Wars's first feminist protagonist," gushed The Atlantic's Megan Garber. "No distressing damsel, she's instead a fighter and a survivor and a nurturer and an all-around badass...

...Carrie Fisher's character blasted stormtroopers, resisted torture, gave up her home planet for obliteration, mocked her "rescuers," blasted more stormtroopers, and helped plan the attack on the Death Star, all in the trilogy's first two hours. Subsequent installments saw her do even more blasting and play an even bigger role in the military affairs of the Rebel Alliance...

Leia paved the way for the legions of butt-kicking females that dominate modern sci-fi/fantasy films. From Sigourney Weaver to Angelina Jolie to Mila Jovovich to Scarlet Johansson to Jennifer Lawrence, the empowered woman is everywhere. She outfights men, outthinks men, and displays physical prowess that the mind can scarcely comprehend. Does anyone remember Serenity? At the climax of the movie, River, a young girl who looks like she weighs 100 pounds soaking wet, takes down dozens of rabid, howling "reavers" in hand-to-hand combat. It's a gripping scene, and not atypical for the genre.

See:

http://www.nationalreview.com/article/428858/stars-wars-clueless-feminist-fans

[Cato]

Thanks to Karl Henning for the link:

...J.J. Abrams's baldfaced rip-off of the original Star Wars is, by far, the most innovative thing about The Force Awakens. What he's done is found a way to take the most important innovation of comic books — the one that has led to their total dominance of contemporary cinema — and apply it to the Star Wars franchise....

...In the Marvel and DC universes, the franchises are rebooted again and again, with the origin story changing a bit in each run. Peter Parker has been bitten by that radioactive spider dozens of times by now...

...Sometimes these origin stories exist parallel to, but separate from, the original story (the Ultimate comics, for instance, began in a different universe from the main arcs). Sometimes they write over the original story, a process known as "retconning." Sometimes the relationship is never explained at all. It's all a bit weird. But no one really cared how weird comics were, because the broader culture didn't really care about comics.

But it turned out that this strange rulebook was a huge advantage when comics came to cinema. Batman has been launched and relaunched on the silver screen, with his origin stories setting up different tales with different moods fit for different audiences. The only reason Batman Begins could exist was that it was permitted, under the weird rules of comic books, for Christopher Nolan to simply overwrite Tim Burton's work....

...Abrams is doing something that you could previously only do in comics — clearly retell the origin story, but change crucial facts and faces so the series can go in a new direction. His innovation is to tell what is putatively a new story but make it so clearly the old story that no one misses the point, and to bring in the old characters so the film feels like it's honoring, rather than betraying, its past....

See:

http://www.vox.com/2015/12/22/10649574/star-wars-force-awakens-comic-books

What say ye who have seen the movie? 

And CAUTION: the link provided in the article takes you to the previous essay, which contains some huge spoilers!