I don't necessarily want to see it, so much as it feels like a dangling thread of detail that was missed. I don't want more political speak, but it just feels like the goal of the OT was just glossed over in its destruction.

Hopefully it will be discussed further in Ep. 8.

Got a heavily spoken-over re-watch this past weekend courtesty of Amazon streaming. The friends on my couch discussed and opined over the whole running time, but we never were able to nail down (or ret-con) how a stormtrooper could suddenly decide to, "do the right thing." What have you guys got for that?

Having seen most of the bonus disc, I'm sort of disappointed. Then again, TPM probably has the best bonus disc of all time, maybe tied with RvD2.

Yeah, I was a little surprised at how breakneck the pacing was because J.J. actually said he was taking inspiration from Terrence Malick in how he directed the film. If there's one thing Malick films aren't it's a race to the finish line. You can see glimpses of what J.J. is talking about in certain shots and moments, but I would've loved to see him try to go outside his (mystery, whackity-schmackity-doo) box and stretch more things out.

I noticed Donnie Yen is in Rogue One, cool.
Makes me wish Uwais and Ruhian hadn't been wasted in TFA. It would be awesome to see Star Wars: The Raid

Shoot, what if those guys ended up being a cult of rogue force users who eschewed weapons altogether? No lightsabers even. Just martial arts augmented by the Force, blocking blasters with their hands (a la Vader)................

Razoo Quin-Fee to be specific.

...yeah, I went there. Let's not all pretend we're too cool to know the names of minor Star Wars characters!

Yeah, I definitely remember Jakku being his first mission. It was a sink or swim moment, after which he would have been found to be successful or - after that performance - discharged at the very least. And he sank, hard, they just had no way of knowing he'd do what he did.

I don't care much for Finn. I can buy into his desertion as discussed above, but aside from that he's a generic whacky guy who makes boyfriend jokes. I really don't buy that someone who was indoctrinated and spent all his life in an imperial environment could be this way. I'm not feeling a tangible character when I see him on screen.

Huh.

Wow, seeing it side by side makes it work fairly well. And watching the fight with Finn broken down that way definitely shows that Kylo, despite his injury, was enjoying taking it to Finn over betraying the First Order.

As for Finn's turn, I personally found it very interesting, from a character point of view. Speaking to the psychology, there are many soldiers, doctors, and other professionals who demonstrate outstanding classroom skills, knowledge and proficiency and absolutely crumble in the face of the real thing.

I will agree on the pacing of the film though. I think that is a lot more of Abrams' style than anything else, though I see it more and more in line with contemporary film making style.  There are so many moments that I wish would just be given a few more beats for the emotions to come through.