Star Wars Episode 7 impressions (spoilers)

[Julius Seeker]

The only bad thing I can say is that there are a bunch of random coincidences, and some forced plot points like characters conveniently changing their minds and such.

Characters are a lot more enjoyable than past Star Wars movies,

1. Villain: Kylo Ren - I kept thinking they were calling the character "Kai Loren" like a Bajoran religious leader - is fairly cool, I like how the character is unbalanced unlike Darth Maul, Darth Vader, and Palpatine. I also like how he is jealous, and not completely confident, and not completely predictable; which made any moment not feel completely certain, it added good suspense; something other Star Wars films are very weak on.

2. Main characters - Rey and Fin are my two favourite characters in the franchise, they were much more human-seeming than any other character in the franchise. It's not explicitly stated, but it's implied that Rey is Luke's daughter - and I don't know if Fin has the force, but he hit Kylo Ren a few times.

3. Fighter Pilot Poe is supposed to be your typical badass, he didn't get enough development in the later portions of the film. I am guessing we'll see a lot more of him next time.

4. Han Solo & Leia - were in the movie, but I think Harrison Ford had much more screen time than he should have, he's good in small doses, but he dominated too much; I suppose it's more for the fans.

5. There was a giant sun eating planetary sized weapon that was like 90 times larger than the Death Star, and it could destroy multiple planets with a single blast. And it got destroyed... Those Dark Side leaders really love their giant guns - I think it is a hedonistic pleasure thing... Why else would dark siders, who are more about emotions and want a strong ordered Empire - that seems more like a Jedi wish... Dark side people just want big guns.

6. Luke has no lines, he just turns around at the end, and has a beard. That's about it.

7. The Rebels are now called the Resistance, and the Empire is now called the First Order. The leader of the First Order reminds me of Azog from the Hobbit films; I hope he dies next film and lets the General guy take over; the one who is Kylo Ren's rival, I think that would make for some really interesting dynamics.

8. The big story isn't really apparent yet, but as it stands, the Republic's planets have all been destroyed - or at least the ones in that region. The First Order has suffered a massive loss. It's uncertain what the political situation is, who controls what. So far the main franchise goal seems to be re-establishing the Jedi order while making sure the First Order weakens, and the dark side gets destroyed. It seems like they're preparing for a longer series than just 3 films like the originals and the prequels, it could be 4 or 5, or more.

This one is easily my favourite of the franchise.

[Eric]

I liked the movie overall. I do have issues with it though.

The Ending, I'm supposed to believe that a girl/scavenger who's never picked up a lightsaber a day in her life is somehow able to beat a Sith who's been trained in the way of the force since he was a kid? Wat? Doesn't matter that he was wounded, it should have been a one-sided slaughter. Luke challenged Vader after training with fucking Yoda for longer and still got bodied. It was way too Mary Sue/magical strong person for no reason. It was an interesting twist that the Sith Lord fucking lost, and only lived because the environment was blowing the fuck up, but still, kinda declaws your antagonist as something scary.

The film had no "Wow" action sequences, good action overall, but nothing that stands out or I wanted to watch over and over, say what you want about the prequels(Mainly that they're awful), but I walked out of Episode 1 saying "At least that Light Saber duel with Dark Maul was cool." That said, I really loved the location of the final action sequence. The Dark Forest after the sun had been drained looked damned awesome with the Light Sabers in the dark.

Kylo Ren taking off the helm, maybe it's just because of when they did the scene between Kylo and Rey, and they had to show the faces of the two actors struggling with the Force to get the point across, but it kinda lost some omph. I think there would have been more impact if he had saved it for when he met and murdered Han later. Also I personally find Kylo Ren totally unscary or menacing without his helm on, not enough Dark Side corruption yet, I hope it improves over these movies.

18 months, that's how long we have to wait for a sequel.

Overall I enjoyed the film though. It was campy when it needed to be, serious when it needed to be, and found a good balance that the prequels definitely failed at. The new characters are likable, and the old characters didn't distract from the film too much, and one of them died horribly so we don't have to see him again!

[Julius Seeker]

Convenience and granting unexplained success and victories seems to be a big theme in films this year. With her character, she appears to have lost memories, so there is that which they could use to explain her skills... Also, she seems to be far more powerful with the force than Kylo Ren.

[Shrinweck]

Kylo Ren taking off the helm, maybe it's just because of when they did the scene between Kylo and Rey, and they had to show the faces of the two actors struggling with the Force to get the point across, but it kinda lost some omph. I think there would have been more impact if he had saved it for when he met and murdered Han later. Also I personally find Kylo Ren totally unscary or menacing without his helm on, not enough Dark Side corruption yet, I hope it improves over these movies.

I think that was the point in taking off the helmet. Vader was this kind of unstoppable monster in his armor and helmet and in the first movies you never got the impression that he had any good left in him. By the third movie you got to see who he really was and how redemption was a possibility. The idea that Kylo is struggling with the light side is supposed to be apparent in him taking off the helmet at all. The scars and shit that he did end up getting will obviously lend a lot to his future intimidation factor. I also don't think he's a Sith Lord - he's just some shlub that cut out on his Jedi training and got seduced by Snoke to the dark side (presumably Ren is a title like 'Darth' and signifies he's part of the Knights of Ren). I think he's basically just some fucking idiot that got brain washed by a cult, son of a Skywalker dude just didn't have his heart in it.

I was able to buy her standing on semi-equal footing with Kylo Ren (the force deciding someone magically gets to be OP as fuck doesn't bother me, also he was gut shot by a weapon that literally blew people away, and he was probably struggling with the idea that he killed his father - I think this was evident in him having to beat his wound in order to keep himself revved up), but I was pretty surprised Finn just didn't get cut down immediately. I'm looking forward to what happens with his character since he's basically still a blank slate of a protagonist.

The idea that characters don't necessarily need to be force sensitive in order to use it to be really awesome at things (ie they're acting as a proxy for destiny) may explain Finn not just dying . It is after all a setting where destiny is basically greater than anything else. I don't think it's going to be in the cards for Finn to be force sensitive. They kind of played with the roles a lot, but his closest comparison to the original trilogy's cast is probably Han Solo. Storm Troopers, as god awful as they're portrayed as fodder, presumably get SOME training in melee combat. Maybe even enough that with some destiny on his side he's able to fight someone trained in the force and wounded for, y'know, like 30 seconds.

I wasn't crazy about how much Harrison Ford there was either. In fact there could have been much MORE Carrie Fisher lol. As blue ballsy as it is, I ended up liking what they did with Luke. Leaving the audience wanting more is acceptable and I thought that it was acceptably satisfying to see the look on his face. Presumably he's going to be the Yoda of the next movie, teaching her and whatnot. It's worrying that they'll do something similar to Obi-Wan Kenobi with his potential death. There always seems to be another hidden evil dark side user, but Lucas AND Abrams kind of give you the impression that Luke is basically the only way to balance the force. Presumably that could just be by teaching Rey and then getting killed... hopefully they come up with something more interesting than that.

So in general this was a really, really great movie. Objectively I could easily see why someone would think that this is the best one so far. As it stands, this is how I'd rank them and I completely accept the idea that someone would want to shout at me about it:

#1 Phantom Menace

Haha okay just kidding

#1 A New Hope
#2 Return of the Jedi
#3 Force Awakens
#4 Empire Strikes Back
#5 Revenge of the Sith

And I'm not even going to bother thinking back on the other two to decide which one I dislike least (okay it was probably the second one).

Edit: One of the things Zeus and I went on about in one of the other threads with Michael Arndt's screenplay getting partially (wholly? Arndt still got credited) tossed out in favor of Abrams/Kasdan. Arndt apparently had a bigger role for Luke and Han Solo didn't die. I don't think that would have been as good of a movie. While it's hard to conceive of a Star Wars movie where Luke isn't featured more I think that it came out wonderfully. And you probably did need to overuse Han Solo in order to get some impact with his death. For people without a connection to the series you needed to show how he was a lovable scoundrel but they also needed to establish that he was loving and tortured father.

Still don't care for Arndt's writing but he has a good quote on what was wrong with his script - mainly the idea that if Rey met Luke in the movie suddenly it isn't a story establishing Rey any more it would just be Luke's movie. Now Luke (who is confirmed in episode 8... obviously) is set up to, at the very least, teach her and now that she's established Luke won't steal the movie from her.

[Julius Seeker]

I've been reading a ton about how the following scene may connect to Episode 8. Whether or not you liked Revenge of the Sith, there were some very interesting moments in it.



Just some thoughts:
1. Is Snoke Darth Plaguis still alive after millenia (or however long)? This is the common theory.
2. Will Darth Vader/Anakin be resurrected some how?
3. Rey is demonstrated to be extremely powerful, it is implied she is Luke's daughter; but she actually seems more powerful than that. What if she is actually some sort of second coming of Anakin?
4. The above scene, about creating life in an unnatural fashion, gives the possibility that Anakin Skywalker's conception could have been the result of dark side manipulation.
5. Could it be that Rey is the actual chosen one of the legend in Phantom Menace, and Anakin was rather an unnatural creation?

[Shrinweck]

I'm not totally convinced Rey is his daughter. It's left open - I don't even think the writers have properly decided yet and left it open to test the waters of where it could go to either surprise or delight the audience the most.

I liked the theory I read that she could be a Kenobi but there really wasn't a lot to support it. There's also the idea that there's another Skywalker out there but that's a little too "pulled out of their ass" to seem like it could fly, even if the grammar in the opening crawl (VERY) lightly implies there's possibly another sibling.

I honestly think the best explanation for why she has all this power and can use abilities more like she's remembering them is that she was being trained by Luke before he gave up and went away. It's possible he saw her potential but suppressed her memory and deposited her on Jekoo so that she could grow up in hiding. It also seems like she was programmed to stay there somehow. In this scenario she could also still be Luke's daughter, but I still think it's up in the air. She's clearly linked to Luke somehow and the lightsaber calling to her does imply it could be by blood, but I can't really make a conclusion either way.

Assuming she's Anakin reborn or that Anakin was manipulated into being by Plagueis is possible but probably jumping the gun in all sorts of ways. This is the same kind of theory that predicted Rey's staff was Plagueis' old staff, meaning that there's a lightsaber of some kind hidden in it (which is doubtful). Kasdan reportedly didn't even know who Plagueis was and Abrams kind of tried to cover it up as a joke, but eh, it's deep speculation into a story left open so that they could change at any point in the coming months/years.

I always just assumed Palpatine was telling a tall tale to "seduce" Anakin (god I wish they'd stop using that word)... and I'm probably going to stand by that idea unless the next movies prove me wrong.

I actually liked Revenge of the Sith for the most part... A strong 6 or a weak 7 out of ten. I think Ewan McGregor was amazing in it and I still love his fight with Grievous.

[Zeus]

Arndt would only have gotten credit because they used one word or more of his script in the film. After watching it, I'm not sure what's his and what's Kasdan and Abrahms'