Star Wars Episode 7: The Force Awakens (2015)

[cezero]

One thing I will say: Harrison Ford really stole every scene he was in. He was definitely Mr Big Deal when it came to this movie.

I disagree. All of his scenes felt forced to me. It was still fun, and I would never want them removed from the film...but it was very artificial and campy to me, and I totally understand that camp is unavoidable in the Star Wars universe.

I liked the new characters a lot more, and I think this film set us up for some really nice character arcs over the next 3 years of sequels.

 

[cezero]

i thought it was a little silly that Finn was able to last that long with a lightsaber vs Ren without any training or anything,

Ren was hurt pretty badly.

it also explains why Rey was able to compete with him with no training. Even if she's twice as powerful in the force as him (which is probably the case), without that injury, he probably would've defeated her.

 

[Clayton]

I was fine with Rey's acceleration into her force abilities.

From the get go, Kasdan and Abrams made it clear that Rey was using the force A LOT by instinct. Just like Luke (and even Anakin), she was way beyond the age of padawan, but was still powerful enough in the force to resist Kylo Ren who was trained by Luke himself.

She's an extremely powerful wielder of the force even without any proper training is what I take away form it.

How did she hear BB-8 even though he was a football field away and over a dune of sand? The force. How was she so great with piloting and engineering even though she had flown and engineered nothing in her time on Jakku? The force. She had a crazy force vision just touching a lighsabre for fuck's sake.

I love that it took the CGI candyland nightmare of horse shit that was eps 1-3, and pretended they didn't exist.

Thats weird because I have the opposite reaction. Reys accelerated progress and lack of character development are really big flaws and just seem lazy.

 

[Monte Carlo Wildcat]

Thats weird because I have the opposite reaction. Reys accelerated progress and lack of character development are really big flaws and just seem lazy.

Agreed Clayton. It just doesn't make sense. She obviously is strong in the force but she had no idea that she had force powers. All Abrams had to do was add a scene that quickly told Rey that she had special powers or something like that. But For her all of a sudden start usuing Jedi mind tricks and over power Kylo Ren just doesn't make sense.

Either Rylo are is a complete dud or Rey HAS had some training in her past that she can't remember. Abrams seems like a smart dude. I'd like to think that Rey usuing the force without training (in this movie) was not by mistake. We'll have to wait till the next movie to get more in depth analysis On Rey and her upbringing.

 

[jeffro151]

Star Wars: The Force Awakens Blasts Off with a Record $120.5 Million
$120.5 million in US.
$129.5 million internationally.

$250 million on just Thursday and Friday night worldwide.

 

[calsnowskier]

Star Wars: The Force Awakens Blasts Off with a Record $120.5 Million
$120.5 million in US.
$129.5 million internationally.

$250 million on just Thursday and Friday night worldwide.

So Disney has recoup'd 1/16 of the purchase price in just the first 2 days of the first movie.

Good acquisition?

 

[Edonidd]

So Disney has recoup'd 1/16 of the purchase price in just the first 2 days of the first movie.

Good acquisition?

Based on the commercials I have seen, they have licensed this shit out for another 3-4 trillion already. But spent almost that much advertising too.

 

[calsnowskier]

Based on the commercials I have seen, they have licensed this shit out for another 3-4 trillion already. But spent almost that much advertising too.

I assume the whole budget for this film (marketing included) was approx 250M (WAG). So in reallity, they have likely just broke even on the movie itself at this point. But today and tomorrow should bring close to the same numbers, and this week and next weekend should double that whole number again. By next Monday, I would expect the gross to be somewhere around 600-700M.

 

[Edonidd]

I assume the whole budget for this film (marketing included) was approx 250M (WAG). So in reallity, they have likely just broke even on the movie itself at this point. But today and tomorrow should bring close to the same numbers, and this week and next weekend should double that whole number again. By next Monday, I would expect the gross to be somewhere around 600-700M.

Yeah, I'm sure they didn't spend any more money directly promoting this movie than any other blockbuster. In fact judging by actual star wars the force awakens commercials I'm willing to bet they spent less than most. But they have Ford cars and trucks paying them money to advertise their movie. And McDonald's, and L'Oreal makeup, General Mills dereal, kraft mac n cheese, campvells soup, and who even knows how many others. The branding tie-ins and the toys, and the 3-4 cartoon shows on Disney Channel, and the new Star Wars area at Disney World... They already probably made their money back from buying the whole franchise without selling one more ticket.

In the end Disney could end up making 10x their investment back in just the first 10 years or so. And probably 4.05 billion dollars from the 3 movies alone.

 

[cezero]

I like that the writers were subtle and knew the audience was smart enough to understand the subtext.

Not sure how anybody who was paying a little attention wasn't fully aware that she understood about halfway through the movie that she had indeed been using the force for a long time.

It's funny seeing what people complain about, though.

 

[Duffman]

My only complaint is that if people thought Anakin was a whiny little bitch then I don't know what to say about Ren because he was worse. Every other scene was him throwing a temper tantrum because something didn't go his way or his "I'm a 17 year old emo kid face" when he took off his helmet.

He was easily the weakest part of an otherwise great movie.

 

[Duffman]

I heard Lucas wanted him to live. His idea was that Han would get lost from the rest of the group. Then just the planet was about to blow he'd find a fridge to hide in. When the planet blew up the fridge would get launched into space and get picked up by the Millennium Falcon.

I also heard that JJ Abrams had to be physically restrained because he was attempting to push the "activate lens flares button" 1000 times.

 

[OutlawImmortal]

My biggest complaint would be it felt a bit repetitive of the very first Star Wars....re-telling the same story over with the next generation.

It wasn't exactly the same though, it just felt similar. "There's still light in him' came from the Mother instead of the wife for instance. Nothing was exactly the same. I actually considered it pretty artistic and felt like a real way something like this would repeat itself in another generation. It's a lot like life in the way that history seems to repeat itself.

I can see why you disliked it but I loved it. I don't think I've ever felt this good walking out of the movie theatre. This must be how all the older Star Wars fans felt after walking out of A New Hope. I doubt the next 2 episodes will be anything like Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi in terms of plot points.

I really liked the movie, but ill have to see it again to really get a feel for it

right now id say it fits somewhere like 3rd out of the 7 movies so far, 3rd or 4th

as someone stated above, i thought it was a little silly that Finn was able to last that long with a lightsaber vs Ren without any training or anything, but i can live with that because.....

as Snoke mentioned, Ren still has training himself left. Im glad they didnt show off any force lightning or anything like that yet. I'd like to think Ren is about as powerful as maybe Anakin was inbetween AOTC and revenge of sith. But they were a little inconsistent with his power. at times he looks unbelievably badass with the force freezing, force pushing, force choking of brain or whatever it was, but then he isn't that very skilled with his own lightsaber it seems. But fits with story as Rey mentions Ren is afraid that he isn't nearly as powerful as Vader was......yet

Im all for a kickass lightsaber battle though, so if that meant they scripted Finn to be able to last a little longer than should have thats fine by me in the end.

Not to mention the fact that Chewie injured Ren before his battle against Finn. Finn and Chewie chipped away at him and Rey finished the fight.

 

[OutlawImmortal]

The main issue I have with the movie is that they really made two movies and crammed them together. As such, they rushed through important character building with Rey. Rey in general seems like a huge problem - 90%+ of the theater I was in was white and male and were there because they grew up with Luke and Han and slave Leia. Next gen is growing up with interracial relationship that the movie was scared to take all of the way. Rey being on a desert planet as a white person in general is bizarre so they had an easy write off if they were going for realism. They clearly just wanted a desert planet. Rey because an invincible sword princess, master of the force, survival expert, expert pilot and expert computer whiz? GTFO. Why do we need Luke? What are her flaws? Bad social skills? Da fuq? Nobody buying her action figure.

I think they should've tried harder to make this movie more unique. It felt like a Star Wars movie and it looked and sounded incredible. Pretty much every scene with Finn and Han was incredible though like everyone else was probably thinking - why was Finn using a Lightsaber and not something he'd be more familiar with? The Finn Lightsaber/Stormtrooper battle was cool. Darth Emo worked...good villain but I feel like they wanted to make him weak which is cool. Just make the big threat something other than Death Star blowing up again. A weapon absorbing a sun and destroying planets seems a bit silly/redundant, too. Why not just harness the power of the sun because everything around it is going to die anyways?

Its Star Wars for the next generation but its not going to resonate like Star Wars. Itll be the biggest movie ever financially...until the next big thing comes out. I think its merchandise will flop, though, outside of the robot that looks like a soccer ball and Finn.

Uh, she is the daughter of Luke and granddaughter of Anakin, pretty much piloting prodigies and general badasses, it makes sense that she was a badass too. The first thing "Slave Leia" did was save Luke and Han's ass.

The next threat will probably be how powerful Ren becomes after he finishes his training. If Snoke is indeed Palpatine's former master then it's going to be insane how much more powerful he becomes, and Rey will become an actual jedi instead of just a prodigy. These two characters were not even close to being as powerful as they will be in the next 2 movies. Don't forget, there was more than 1 knight of ren in Rey's vision.

You might be trying to hard to be critical, just enjoy the ride man. It's Star Wars done right.

 

[juliansteed]

Go back and look at Han's reaction to Rey telling him her name combined with the fact that they cut off the conversation between Han and the CGI/glasses lady right when she asks who Rey is combined with CGI/glasses lady going down to Rey right when she's drawn to Luke's light sabre, and I think there's a lot there.

The reaction Rey has when offering Luke the light sabre is what makes me think it's almost a lock that she's his kid. Which means she probably has a twin out there that we'll find out about in upcoming films. It makes sense that Kylo would be significantly weaker in the force than Luke's offspring, right?

In that moment when Rey and Kylo lock light sabres, she has a powerful force vision where she becomes aware of her relationships with Leia, Luke, Han, and by default Kylo. She could have easily killed Kylo, but she ends up just slashing his face. There has to be something to that, right?

The reaction Rey had with Leia (who she had never met before, remember), was more like an aunt/niece hug to me. Rey obviously has force visions...powefully so. And Luke is an incredibly powerful Jedi now that he's had all of these years of solitude to gain power. His visions are probably at least as strong as Palpatine's were.

And the fact that Leia sent Rey to Luke when they figured out the map made it kind of a no-brainer that she was sending daughter to father.

Kasdan and Abrams did a great job in what they implied rather than explicitly said, IMO.



I don't care how cynical anybody is out there, but Abrams is a pretty good story teller, and Kasdan wrote Empire, which was spectacular.

I wasn't sure but I kind of got the sense that Kylo Ren was someone familiar with Rey as well, making me think they were siblings, half-siblings, or cousins that hadn't seen each other in a very long time and maybe he was old enough to remember her but she wasn't old enough to remember him. His reaction when he was told a girl had the droid is mostly what made me think this. Could have been nothing though.

 

[Cave_Johnson]

Just saw it earlier today. Seems like most of you are echoing my thoughts. It was good, just not great. Plot was a bit too similar to a lot of stuff from the original trilogy. Lots of stuff got a little goofy and just didn't add up.

 

[GNG]

The audience for my show was probably 40% women. I was quite surprised by that. Had a group of 3 women sit right in front of us. A woman who was there all by herself next to me. She even had a toy Yoda from the original Episode IV with her. Doubt that was typical of most theaters though.

I'm not surprised that females would love Star Wars. There were lots of old folks there too.

 

[cezero]

Not to mention the fact that Chewie injured Ren before his battle against Finn. Finn and Chewie chipped away at him and Rey finished the fight.

Yeah.

A few people are just being silly.

Chewie hit him in the side with a crossbow laser hit, and then Fin slashed him across his sword arm in their fight. He was significantly weakened by the time Rey started fight him, and it wasn't exactly subtle.

In ep 4, Luke was a farmer with zero training in hand weapons, and after an extremely limited time with Kenobi, he was able to use a lightsaber to hit laser shots while blindfolded, and a short time later, aim and/or guide missiles down a shoot to destroy the Deathstar.

Then we have Rey who had already shown she was using the force through instinct with these:
1) her instant understanding of languages
2) untrained flying prowess
3) untrained engineering prowess
4) powerful force visions
5) fighting off Ren's mind assault

Combine that with her high skill in using a hand weapon.

And somehow it's inconceivable that she can do some exploring of her powers on her own, and then hold her own against a highly weakened Ren? Really?

 

[Duffman]

Yeah.

A few people are just being silly.

Chewie hit him in the side with a crossbow laser hit, and then Fin slashed him across his sword arm in their fight. He was significantly weakened by the time Rey started fight him, and it wasn't exactly subtle.

In ep 4, Luke was a farmer with zero training in hand weapons, and after an extremely limited time with Kenobi, he was able to use a lightsaber to hit laser shots while blindfolded, and a short time later, aim and/or guide missiles down a shoot to destroy the Deathstar.

Then we have Rey who had already shown she was using the force through instinct with these:
1) her instant understanding of languages
2) untrained flying prowess
3) untrained engineering prowess
4) powerful force visions
5) fighting off Ren's mind assault

Combine that with her high skill in using a hand weapon.

And somehow it's inconceivable that she can do some exploring of her powers on her own, and then hold her own against a highly weakened Ren? Really?

Speaking of Finn I found it a little ridiculous that a stormtrooper who spent the majority of his time in sanitation and 0 real world experience was able to go toe to toe with a Jedi trained by Luke Skywalker and Supreme Leader Snoak.

I get that Ren was shot by Chewie but even then he should've been able to mop the floor with a guy who earlier we saw couldn't even beat a fellow Stormtrooper in hand to hand combat with a lightsaber. Weakened or not Finn shouldn't have even lasted half as long as he did in that fight.

 

[cezero]

Speaking of Finn I found it a little ridiculous that a stormtrooper who spent the majority of his time in sanitation and 0 real world experience was able to go toe to toe with a Jedi trained by Luke Skywalker and Supreme Leader Snoak.

I get that Ren was shot by Chewie but even then he should've been able to mop the floor with a guy who earlier we saw couldn't even beat a fellow Stormtrooper in hand to hand combat with a lightsaber. Weakened or not Finn shouldn't have even lasted half as long as he did in that fight.

He went toe to toe?

Even though he was obviously having a hard time standing up straight, I thought I saw Ren as kind of toying with Fin for most of it...arrogantly so. When Fin hit him on the arm, he got serious again, and took care of him in short order.