The thing is, every time I hear someone try to tell me that it's "the exact same movie" or just a rehash, the most they can give me is the big details. Giant murder ball, desert planet, father/son relationship. And yes, absolutely that's all there, but everything that actually composes those large pieces is different. Fundamentally so. It's the same building blocks, but they're all made out of different materials, and painted pretty colours. The character dynamics are new, the story is different, we're accomplishing different things, we're talking about different things. So much so, that when the credits roll, you are left with something entirely different. I don't walk out of The Force Awakens feeling like I just watched A new Hope 2.0. I walk out feeling like I just watched something awesome and Star Wars-y and different.

Obviously your mileage may vary, but I just don't see the arguments for it being "just a rehash", there is too much else going on that is fun and character driven, and funny, and interesting.

If that's not enough for you, fine, that's you. But you cannot deny what this movie is, that A New Hope isn't.

I see what you mean, and I would agree with you if anyone said it's JUST a rehash.

But for me, the parts that aren't a rehash (which are LOADS of fun and great character stuff) are significantly hamstrung BY the rehashed bits.

Specifically the third act. All the character stuff was completely undercut (IMO) because the great, awesome, epic battle was almost the same damn thing as a New Hope and Jedi. While the character stuff was good, the movie kept cutting back to a battle that we've seen before--pulling me out of the movie and refusing to let me stay involved with the good parts.

All the cuts to "five minutes to firing!" "two minutes to firing!" "thirty seconds to firing!" were ridiculous and lacked any tension. Seriously. THERE WAS NO TENSION in the battle scenes because we knew what was going to happen. I would almost have preferred they just have the battle entirely in the background and stayed on the character stuff.
The only way to subvert that would be to have the good guys fail to destroy Death Star 3 (which I maintain would have been amazing).

So the fact that the bad guys learned nothing from the other stories makes them idiots. Idiot bad guys=no tension.
The rehash of the death star battles means we knew all the "almost firing!" cuts were useless. This=no tension.

TLDR
There were great, original things about this movie and I would never say it's "just" a rehash, but the rehash rising action and climax robbed the good parts of their impact. This movie is like a zombie toddler gumming you; It's adorable and interesting, but there's no doubt about how it's going to end.

Last edited by Writhyn (2016-01-05 15:40:37)

So I'm having a discussion on FaceBook about plot holes.  Is a plot hole something that can not be explained or is it something that doesn't make sense in the movie?  I personally think it's the later.  I think Star wars Episode 7 has a lot of plot holes with regards to Rey and her force abilities.  She seems to be able to do things without it being established that she had training and what not.

Last edited by switch (2016-01-06 01:54:54)

Yeah, that's more in line with what I was thinking.  I can buy that Rey can understand Droid Speech and Wookie.  I can buy that she can fix different mechanical things and that she can fly almost any type of ship.  I just thought that the force Mastery in her was too rushed.  There seems to be some lazy writing in TFA.  And Poe getting off Jakku wasn't one of them.

That wasn't established in the movie though dude.

Rey being powerful too quickly really comes down to differences in perception of the Force. TFA is a successor to ANH and ESB, where the Force was about feelings and instincts, not training and experience (which seemed to dominate the PT, the books, and the TV series). It ties into what Trey talked about as his main criticism on the ANH commentary way back when. In the original, you had Luke learning to use the Force very quickly and with actually very little in the way of training. He goes from knowing nothing about the Force to blocking blaster bolts blindfolded (in just two attempts) and using it to make a one in a million shot with torpedoes. Why? Because he reached out with his feelings and let the Force flow through him. Obi Wan and Yoda are not seen actually instructing him to do anything in a specific way. Yoda doesn't tell Luke the button combination to lift the X-wing. He just says to do it (and Luke fails not because he doesn't have x hours in jedi lifting but because he believes it's too heavy.)

Rey does the same. She lets the Force take over. So yeah, not a plot hole when Luke did it and not a plot hole now that Rey is doing it.

As for the rehash argument, it only really works when you distill a plot element to its most basic level. The ordering of the reused elements from ANH, for instance, occur in a different order and resolve under different circumstances. There's a 'lowering the shields of the enemy base' situation in TFA for instance, but it's not in any way similar to ROTJ. Vital information gets loaded into a droid and that droid does get captured by a desert dweller, but the manner in which that droid both gets captured and released are completely different. Their escape from the desert planet is also completely different.

It seems that many forget that TFA is a sequel, and sequels always rehash previously used elements. I just don't see why TFA is being held to a different standard. Why is Terminator 2, practically a remake of Terminator, not given this same criticism for example? I even see talk about how for all their craptasticness the prequels at least introduced new things, which is completely at odds with how they recycled planets, dialogue, shots, situations, characters and designs to the same degree. It's like a sudden collective amnesia has happened.

As for the film's success being due mostly to nostalgia? That's rubbish. The film is introducing a whole new generation to Star Wars (some of whom wouldn't even know who Han Solo is) and has broad appeal which is bringing in people of all ages, colours and sex. It's also a very entertaining, crowd-pleaser with lots of laughs and surprises with characters that you enjoy watching. People are not going back for multiple viewings because they want to see that moment when the holo-chess turns on again.

If Starkiller were the focus of the climax I'd be more inclined to agree, but it's not. It's the characters we're concerned about, and that forest duel is incredibly tense for that reason. The climax is about Ren, Finn and Rey and where they're going as characters, Starkiller is just an excuse to get them to that point.

As for the bad guys being stupid: even ignoring the fact that superpowers in the real world enjoy doing the same thing over and over again and being surprised when it doesn't work, the First Order being stupid in this regard makes sense. They're slavishly imitating and idolizing the old Empire, flaws and all. Does that make the movie perfect or fix the fact that another giant ball is a dumb idea? No, but I just don't understand someone saying Starkiller ruins the entire movie for them when there's so much goodness in the rest of it.

I will point out that there is a difference between blocking blaster bolts after a couple hours training and mind controlling people with absolutely zero training. Being force sensitive naturally conveys enhanced reflexes and physical abilities, so being better at flying, fighting, blocking blaster bolts, etc. makes sense. My bullshit meter thinks mind controlling someone takes still, finesse and practice.

People keep jumping on the fact that they "rebuild the deathstar and got wrecked again." Starkiller base worked. It one-shot an entire major space government and it's whole fleet. Sure, it got blown up afterwards, but it was still almost certainly worth it.

Last edited by ShadowDuelist (2016-01-06 23:29:06)

I'm inclined to agree, though I have mixed feelings on it.

First of all, Starkiller base does bother me. Not in a moving ruining sort of way, but it bothers me.

However, the characters are great. I want to see them succeed, and win the day, and move towards their goals. I was upset that Poe ended up gone for one act of the film, because i honestly liked him. Finn is interesting in his rejection and trauma towards the First Order, rejecting everything it stands for. Rey is an enigma, and is so earnest in her desire to belong, and her reluctance to leave that is intriguing.

A lot of these are emotional connections to the character, so I understand that some people don't get on board with them. Rey, in particular, I understand a lot of the criticism about her Force powers. But, for me, there is a certain raw edge to her power discovery and Kylo Ren, like they are both unrefined and don't understand the full nature of the Force, but are growing in their awareness.

I think part of it is my willingness to fill in some gaps, which I am very much guilty of doing on a number of films. I think that Kylo Ren's mind probe of Rey revealed more of his knowledge of the Force than he meant to, kind of in a "a door open goes both ways" kind of thing. Rey seems to take away a lot of fundamentals of Force powers through his attempts to get inside her mind.

Also, with Kylo, he feels so unrefined in his power (I pity the repair crews in the First Order something awful) that is really a different take on a Force user. Again, like Rey, there is a raw sense to it that really intrigues me on a character level.

Is it overt in the film? No, but I like different takes on characters and that's what keeps me interested.

So, the story isn't that original but I love these characters.

I have a question...in regards to the whole using the force without training thing.

Why does no one ever question the fact that Luke can just up and do shit in Empire? It's been a couple years sure, but Obi Wan's dead, there's never any reference to him training with ghosty, we don't meet Yoda til after Hoth and as far as we know, every other Jedi in the galaxy is dead. Did he just try really really hard and started figuring shit out on his own?

Granted he can't do a lot, but it certainly leads credence to the idea that force users can just learn stuff on their own.

(That said, I personally ascribe to the whole "between whatever the fudge happened happened at Maz's and whatever happened between her and Kylo, some switches got flipped and jumped up that otherwise wouldn't have in Rey's head. Ren also seems to be pretty freaked out when he realizes what's happening "She's just starting to flex her powers, the longer it takes to find her, the powerful she'll become" or whatever the line was. He definitely seems to know something we don't.)

My bet is that a force sensitive person left alone goes sort of along the Harry Potter route, their powers are tied to their emotions, they have no control over it whatsoever. They are deeply tied to the force, but have no ability to control their own minds and channel it into something useful, they become a hurricane of force energy. If they are angry Aunts start blowing up, if they are happy confetti flies out of the nearest kitchen sink... or something *cough*. Hence why training is necessary. But someone tied to the force will always be close to the force. My guess is this is why the Jedi were always so insistent on getting them young. Their powers have less of a chance to be bound to their emotions.

Now all that said, that's just pure conjecture on my part, and for all I know has been intricately detailed out in the EU that I've never read.

Also...“Fear is the path to the dark side…fear leads to anger…anger leads to hate…hate leads to suffering.”

If looks could kill I believe they say.

Last edited by BigDamnArtist (2016-01-07 07:32:38)

True, it was just a thought I had.

The thing is though, it's not like she knew it was going to work, she didn't just stroll in there and go "You do this, you do that." it was a last ditch effort, a "fuck it, might as well give it a shot" move. She knows the force can do crazy things, she can probably feel it sitting there just on the edge of her vision ever since Maz pointed it out, that weird thing that was in the corner of her eye her entire life and only now is it actually named. She can feel it flowing in the room, as it flows everywhere... and so she gives it a shot. Aaaaand it doesn't work, she's tries again...the dude laughs at her and walks over. And stares her directly in the eye, she gets a connection, that real sudden human connection and boom, it all clicks into place. She can feel him there, feel his mind, and she plants a thought. The force flows, and it sticks. And she goes, holy shit, that was intense, and books it. In that moment that's what she needed to happen, so she focused and felt it, and it happened. Could she do it again right away...probably not. It's not like she immediately runs down the hall and starts mind controlling every soldier she sees.

I fully admit I probably have an entirely different perception of what the force is and how it acts than most people. But the way I've always viewed it is something primal, something living, something emotional. It's that sense of immediate connection when you look in someone's eye, it's deja vu, it's the tingle on the back of your neck when someone's starring at you from behind. It defies logic, it's not something you learn, it's something you feel. The training is only there to learn how to harness it and use it when you aren't under emotional duress.... and prevent it from over taking you.