Damned good! The return to more practical effects, miniatures, and location shooting made it feel more real than the prequels, despite some unavoidable CGI work.

I loved that none of the so-called Internet "spoilers" actually mattered. I'm thrilled that Rey turned out to be the real protagonist, the new Luke Skywalker (possibly in a more literal sense). Princess Leia was certainly ahead of her time as a strong female character in 1977, and Padmé to a similar degree in the prequels, but it's about time we get a female Jedi as the central character.

I appreciate the desire to pay homage to Episode IV, but the plot elements were a little too rehashed: Stormtroopers searching for a droid carrying secret information. Droid discovered by a local with latent Force powers. Heroes escape with droid in Millennium Falcon. Millennium Falcon captured by tractor beam. Cantina sequence. "This was your father's lightsaber." Two-pronged attack to destroy the Death Star / Starkiller Base. Young protagonists witness mentor's death at hands of antagonist.

I'm a pretty smart guy, but I didn't understand the political situation 30 years after the fall of the Empire. The First Order arose from the ashes of the Empire. I get that. What are they? Are they just terrorists at this point, or are they actually conquering systems and reestablishing the Empire? What of the Republic—and who exactly are the Resistance resisting? I would have liked more exposition to fill in those blanks. I also think it would have worked better to follow Episode I's template a bit more. Let us see the New Republic at peace, with a "phantom menace" growing just out of sight and revealing itself in the film. From the first scene, everyone knows Kylo Ren and the First Order, except us.

This is a small one (my 0.5 complaint), but end the film five minutes sooner. Starkiller Base is destroyed, principal villains escape, everyone mourns for Han, Rey says goodbye to Finn and goes off with Chewie to find Luke. Roll credits. The "reveal" at the end felt like a tacked-on cameo. Let Episode VIII open there instead.

We're going to go early 12/25 while the norms are still ankle-deep in wrapping paper.

Movie tickets have really gone up in price since Return of the Jedi.

So, I suppose I will be a dissenting voice. Although I didn't think it was horrible, I also didn't like it that much. I thought it was boring. Too studied, not very inspired. The set, costumes and special effects were all well done, but other elements I found too similar to the originals in all the wrong ways (and anything "new" lackluster). Also, some of the dialogue seemed disconnected and felt really out of place, even mocking, as if Mystery Science Theatre 3000 writers got ahold of the script at the last second. A little too "self-aware" in that modern style that I've come to dislike (very common in horror movies now - thanks Scream).

For me, it ultimately falls into same bucket as the Star Trek, Hobbit, The Hunger Games, Divergent and Maze Runner movies or pretty much any of the superheroes movies (except Guardians of the Galaxy): probably worth watching (on video), but easily forgettable. It's certainly not a cultural phenomenon like Episode IV (or even a special effects mind blast like the first Matrix). Nevertheless, I haven't given up hope Episodes VIII and IX or one of the spin-offs will be better.

In my opinion, Mad Max: Fury Road still takes the cake for heart pounding action movie of the year. I have watched it several times since the theatre and think it's actually gotten better with each viewing.

Blackadder23 wrote:

I don't really like comic books.

Hurry everyone, get your pitchforks!

I enjoyed it quite a bit! Star Wars is not intended to be high-brow material; in fact, that was one of the many failures of the prequels: The force got deep. Real deep. To me, SW is swashbuckling action that follows a sort of paint-by-numbers plot that has more holes than Swiss cheese -- but I don't care! But don't listen to me. My judgement is clouded by nostalgia. In contrast, when Star Trek is presented as an action film with lots of chases and explosions, I get annoyed. 

Handy Haversack wrote:

We watched the other two trilogies in the "Machete Order" (4, 5, 2, 3, 6) before seeing the new one. Seeing eps. 2 and 3 made me lower my expectations dramatically. The mists of time and whisky had dulled my memory of how truly awful those movies were, irrespective of their relation to my soft-focusedly nerd-misted childhood. So I expected very little from the new one and got a lot more than I expected. There were problems, sure, but it was a good time and had some great moments and did not make me feel like I had been cheated out of time or money. Which, according to *some* people, I complain about rather frequently.

Why did you skip 1 and then watch 2 and 3?  They're barely any better.  In fact (and based on his avatar, I'm probably going to cop flak from Dave for this ) I actually disliked 2 the most because I thought it was punishingly boring and because it featured the hideous "love" story between "Manakin" and Padme.  At least Jar-Jar and Baby Vader annoyed me enough in part 1 to keep me awake (barely).

Anyway, in relation to your larger point, the reviewer for the New Yorker compared the new Star Wars movie to getting edible food at a restaurant that gave you severe food poisoning the last three times you ate there.  I couldn't have put it better myself.

Last edited by Blackadder23 (12/30/2015 12:02 pm)

I enjoyed the film quite a bit and actually went for a second viewing over the weekend. I had a few quibbles the first time I watched, particularly the "training issue" that has been mentioned, but with the second viewing it didn't bother me at all.

I've seen a number of complaints about rehashed plot line, but like Kevin Smith said, I like pizza so I'll have more pizza. Same thing with Star Wars. The other complaint I've seen regularly is that "nothing was explained." To those people I ask - have they seen A New Hope? There wasn't much spelled out in the first film either. The state of the galaxy need not be explained because it has nothing to do with the story at hand. And like A New Hope - TFA leaves a ton of unanswered questions to keep us speculating for two more years.

Overall, I thought it was a very pulp-inspired film. Action from beginning to end, with a few breaks for exposition. Great new characters to carry the torch forward. Good stuff all around.

I might have to go see it again.

I am a believer in not explaining to much. Gives wiggle room for story and imagination. Someone strong in the Force can do s*** regardless of training. Also, it's a magic plot device, deal with it.

Scalydemon wrote:

I would rather watch The Golden Voyage of Sinbad than the new Star Wars as a small example.

That makes two of us!
My basic problem with the movie was not any of the things people have been complaining about.  It's just that I find it hard to care very much.  Since the fiasco of the prequels, Star Wars as a franchise is in the lowest possible repute in my mind.  I think of it as on the same level as Friday the 13th or Leprechaun* (except that I've never seen a movie in either of those franchises as badly written, directed, and acted as the Star Wars prequels**) and I'm not even kidding about that.  So even if this movie were the second coming of Citizen Kane... to me, it's still on the same level as Leprechaun XVII or something like that.  So they finally made a good Leprechaun movie - yay, I guess?  I just can't get worked up about it.
* - Warwick Davis is in Leprechaun and Return of the Jedi.  Coincidence?  I think not.
** - This is not exaggeration for effect.  I believe those movies are the toxic waste of cinema.

Last edited by Blackadder23 (1/06/2016 11:42 am)