4 days? It starts the 16th in most of Europe

More than twice.

But I'm watching it on Friday, chill out

Saw it at midnight and then immediately after. This film is like meeting up with some old friends who you haven't seen in a long time and finding out that you get on amazingly with their new friends.

7 hours 30minutes and counting down...

I also saw this at midnight last night and again today. I liked it more the second time actually, being less distracted by recognising trailer shots and oh yeah, the sound going out for several minutes at the beginning of a very significant Han scene.

All the actors are fantastic. There's not one dodgy person in the entire thing. The 4 young leads are amazing. I'm reminded a lot of Mad Max in terms of its relentless pace, marriage of old and new special effects techniques, and return to what worked best in establishing the franchise.

Also, fucking Luke Skywalker!

Nice, it was going by so fast I only had time to search out Weebs.

I was pleasantly surprised at how much of a main character BB-8 was. More than Poe was, definitely. I expected him to take up R2's sidekick status, but he definitely made a trio with Finn and Rey much the same as Han, Luke and Leia in ANH.

Really enjoyed it, but I'm not at all sure how I feel about the climax. I didn't feel Starkiller Base had enough buildup, and the tension of the third act suffers as a result--the final duel is intense as all hell, but the dogfight feels almost like an afterthought.

Also not sure how to feel about Han's death, I love what they've done with Kylo but I don't think they gave us enough of his and Han's relationship for it to truly feel meaningful.

That said, I absolutely loved a lot of the rest of it and will be enumerating how as we discuss, I'm sure. Just wanted to get my only big complaints out of the way up front.

Last edited by Abbie (2015-12-18 09:39:47)

One thing that the film absolutely nailed is exactly what Dorkman told Abrams to nail in his open letter--the characters. Finn and Poe are each such damn fun, and Rey is completely badass and endearing without being a Mary Sue. Kylo is such a compelling villain, he's completely different from a Vader clone and is in a lot of ways what Anakin should have been. That's true of all the new leads, none of them is a copy of an OT character, they're all completely new people. Even if I'd had a middling response to the film rather than the mostly-love that I did, I would still go back to VIII without hesitation for these characters.

Rey's got abandonment issues: the tally marks on her wall, the vision after touching the lightsaber, and so much hugs when Fin actually came back for her.

I may be way out of line here, but didn't the dialog mostly concern Fin and Rey introducing themselves to  people? Especially early in the thing, every word felt like an exposition dump. "The Falcon was stolen from whoever and sold to that other guy and then borrowed by Whathisnuts." I get it, there is a history here.

Apart from that, the visual story and action won me over when the kids blasted that second TIE fighter on Jakku, and the tentacle creatures are my favorite monsters yet. I did not retain their species name, in spite of the triple repetition... started with an R did it?

Fight choreo was superb, IMO. Untrained in style, even down to a few unnecessary twirl-flourished from Kylo Ren...just like we all do when there's nothing better to do while holding a lightsaber/stick. Lots of brutal non-lethal touches, even a chopped off hand!

Last edited by drewjmore (2015-12-18 15:15:22)

Rathtars.

Going off some of what has been said in offshoot material and my own speculation. After ROTJ, nobody in the Empire really knew who was in control and it was all a bit of a mess. Some Imperials went in to hiding, like Nazis heading to Argentina. I believe that the First Order is mostly comprised of the children who grew up around those who would say how great the Empire was. They're frustrated that the older generation seem unwilling to fight for what they believe is right and rise up.

On the other side, the full name for the Resistance is The Resistance Against The First Order. The Republic does not want to be seen as highly militarised as the Empire was, so the Resistance is formed as a splinter group, funded secretly by The Republic, to combat the rising threat of The First Order.

Last edited by Owen_Ward (2015-12-18 16:17:12)

Maybe I need to watch the movie again, or maybe I'm just an ashole, I honestly don't know. The movie just didn't hit for me as well as it did for other people. I loved about 75% of it but there were things that bugged me and didn't allow me to fully enjoy the movie.

One of the lesser talked about things (as far as I can tell) was Finn's motivation for leaving the First Order. Visually it looks like its the loss of life, which we see when the fallen storm stroopers blood is splattered on his armor. He seems remorseful at any loss of life. When he escapes with Poe he has no issue killing countless storm troopers though. Later he mentions he was a sanitation worker, so what was he even doing on Jakku as a front line soldier anyway?

Then we have the final battle with Kylo Ren... sure he's shot in the side by Chewie, but he held a blaster bolt in the air with the force. That was teh first time we've seen anyone hold a blaster bolt, surely that elevates him to bad ass of the month no? Yet he gets cut by Finn with a lightsaber. If Finn has the force he's still untrained hell, he picked up that light saber yesterday.

Besides those two things and the rehash of the old plot and the glut of characters I did like movie. There was a lot of stuff to like as well but everyone everywhere has talked about the pluses. The fight for one felt real, not overly choreographed. Daisy Ridley was a gem. BB-8 was hilarious and fit in well as a trio with Boyega and Ridley. The Luke reveal worked for me. The movie was again about an actual War among the stars and not just about the Jedi.

In any case I'm going to try to rewatch again this coming tuesday to see if I'm simply being harsh.

So the teddy bears victory in VI was rather modest. Not much really changed.

Yeah I also thought the untrained toilet cleaner matching it with a Major-League Sith Dude was a bit far fetched.

Any Chewie's gun can wipe out 3-4 armored storm troopers in one shot (which bizarrely surprises Han after all these years) and yet it only scratches Kylo.

Can't believe JJ tripled-down on Death Star 3.0 after people were complaining that VI was merely rehashing IV.

And a teenage scavenger who's never flown the Falcon before can suddenly manoeuvre it everywhere, dodging trained pilots. And the Falcon, even more of a rust-bucket, can warp, I mean, jump, so accurately now, it materializes right on the tree tops. It's basically become a teleportation device, not a transport.

Loved the crashed destroyer shots.

Yes, and all the call backs. Must have been dozens of them. I had a bad feeling about fan-service. We panned lazy nostalgia with Terminator Genisys (no new ideas!), don't know why it gets a free pass here.

In all, 95% is generous. I'd dial that down a few notches. It's hampered by having to be faithful to the old 1970s pantomine style which is itself a call-back to earlier movies. We're used to a more contemporary style (tone, scoring, editing, humour, etc).

Actors were fine. The round Wall-E-like robot was cute, but that left R2 with not much to do except mourn. Why did he wake up at the end again?

What do you guys think about the movie not being very self-contained? Han's son's backstory, Snoke, and the ending left you asking more questions.

Will see it again in 3D IMAX for a second look. Right now, I'm still leaning towards Fury Road as movie of the year.