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[Editor's Note: By continuing to read this submission, you take full responsibility if the movie gets ruined for you. You were warned!]
Going against the tide of positive reviews for "The Force Awakens" the new Star Wars movie, L'Osservatore Romano, the Vatican's daily newspaper, found much to dislike. Most of the review seems to fault the movie for being more glitz than substance, "more reboot than sequel":
"Not a classy reboot however, like Nolan's Batman, but an update twisted to suit today's tastes and a public more accustomed to sitting in front of a computer than in a cinema."
The reviewer was not impressed with the depiction of the evil characters, particularly when compared to Vader and Palpatine:
"The counterpart of Darth Vader, Kylo Ren, wears a mask merely to emulate his predecessor, while the character who needs to substitute the emperor Palpatine as the incarnation of supreme evil represents the most serious defect of the film," it wrote. "Without revealing anything about the character, all we will say is that it is the clumsiest and tackiest result you can obtain from computer graphics."
In contrast, the newspaper was very impressed with such movies as the James Bond Skyfall, and described Mad Max, Fury Road as a "real, true masterpiece."
(Score: 4, Interesting) by ikanreed on Monday December 28 2015, @04:20PM
Spoilers
There's a lot of petty nerd objections to the movie that I felt were totally misplaced. Things like Rey being a inexplicably passable pilot (Skywalkers being miraculously good pilots has always been a thing) or Kylo Ren being a whiny incompetent(clearly intended).
But from a fundamentals-of-storytelling perspective, it slipped up a bit. We weren't given character arcs for the main protagonist.
Thank back to episode 4, the one this movie is an outright copy of. When we first meet luke, we get to learn about his wanderlust and desire to get away. His desire to go to the academy and follow biggs. His mysterious missing father(that'll surely never come up again later). His interesting the the rebellion, and his desire to meet leia. The scene with him staring off into the sunset gives that same impression with no words.
Then shit goes down. R2 Escapes and he meets Ben, and his family is slaughtered, pushing him on to do the things he wanted to do. It gives this investment that every plot development later pays off.
With Rey, we get her background(she's a scavenger) and her personality(she's super pragmatic), but no dreams, no goals, no set-up for later conclusions to settle.
Finn, on the other hand, gets a little. He hates killing and wants to get away from it. He sort of does, but sort of doesn't.
So, the Vatican is right, it's missing some essentials. It's not a bad star wars movie, but it's not a good adventure movie.
(Score: 2) by VLM on Monday December 28 2015, @04:53PM
I've heard the new movie compared to ST:TMP in that the editing feels weird, the fans will always be fans, the special effects are awesome for their time as a demo reel, and the non-fans are not terribly impressed WRT faithful following of classic cinematic formulas. Then again if they did follow the formulas closely, it would be boring and "just get the space stuff out of the way of the character drama" demands would mount.
I recently re-watched Ep4 the original. The editing is tight. Simplicate and add lightness. Can't cut a scene without messing up the rest of the movie. Can't add a scene without bloating or making the rest of it worst. The problem with trying to remake/copy one of the most popular movies of recent memory is its difficult to top, and inflation adjusted etc, the new movie looks like a colossal flop compared to Ep4, but almost all movies are colossal flops compared to Ep4.
So bringing up trek again, compared to a lower than average movies like ST:The Voyage Home or both recent JJ-reboot trek-themed action movies, I've heard its an OK star wars movie.
I believe they knew they did not have a winner, thus six months of intense merchandising before Christmas yet release a week before Christmas. This might not be good for the 2nd and 3rd movies, at least WRT merchandising. My son had no interest in the merchandising, having not seen the movie and having seen the merchandise for months before the movie comes out, and as a parent having suffered thru Eps 1-3 I know better than to invest before seeing it. So both the kids and parents are not interested in the merchandise. Hmm. We still haven't seen the movie. I'll probably wait till I can stream it. There's a belief everyone loved the original trilogy but I did not, I was never a soft sci fi guy, although its truly excellent soft sci fi movie so it grew on me over time. In that way I donno if my son would like it, despite being in the target demographic.
(Score: 2) by ikanreed on Monday December 28 2015, @05:03PM
You're right, also the editing is also an area where it failed to feel like star wars. We got hardly any wipes to big establishing shots of big vistas(another big point below). We got one good star warsy establishing shot, and it felt weird, because it was a walkthrough of an alien bar instead of a bunch of cuts like feels normal from Jabba's palace or Mos Eiseley Cantina.
That was an area that Lucas never messed up the prequels. The importance of having different ecologies for different planets helped set a very important tone. That we had not-tatooine was okay, but every single star wars movie before this had at least one completely new environment.
IV: Desert
V: Ice and Swamp
VI: Jungle
I: Planet-wide city and underwater
II: Ocean Planet and barren rocky land
III: Volcanic Lava World
VII: Snow, but this time there's trees?
These are subtle things, and less important than good character plotting.
(Score: 2) by spxero on Monday December 28 2015, @05:57PM
IMO, I thought the worlds were just fine, with the exception of the super death star. I might have missed something, but it didn't seem to explain why there were trees and snow growing on it- did it become big enough to be a planet, so it now has an atmosphere and ecosystem?
I've only seen TFA once, but I recall:
- Desert (Jakku)
- Mountain-ish, lakes, forest, etc. (Takodana)
- Hills and regular vegetation (D'Qar - Resistance base)
- Show world (Super star destroyer)
- Water world (Only 5 minutes at the end, but it's different)
Maybe Rey has heard of such worlds, but coming from a planet of mostly dust with limited water and vegetation, I didn't think she was surprised enough.
What other worlds can they do, without making it look like Star Wars flies to middle earth?
(Score: 2) by ikanreed on Monday December 28 2015, @06:25PM
I'm pretty sure this one was a modified planet rather than an assembled space station.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Monday December 28 2015, @06:33PM
You can thank George's ex-wife Marcia Lucas. She was the editor of the first 3 films plus helping him.
When they seperated, so did the tightness of the his work.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Username on Monday December 28 2015, @06:24PM
My biggest beef is with rey’s abilities. She can fly any ship, fix any ship, mindfuck a sith lord, and fight on par in a saber battle. All without training, but she can’t figure out a blaster. IDK I’m just a girl, guns are complicated.
(Score: 4, Informative) by ikanreed on Monday December 28 2015, @07:33PM
These would be the nerd objections; many just gloss over what we were given.
Most of those concerns are answered by the fact that, as a Jedi, Kylo Ren is just straight up incompetent. And he's intended to be. He's not powerful. He goes out of his way to overcompensate, with big dramatic gestures. He barely beats a pacifist stormtrooper in a lightsaber duel, before getting beaten by a novice.
So anything to do with her beating him comes from her being a natural, and him being a showy incompetent.
And fixing ships also makes sense, she carefully disassembled them for scrap for years, identifying key components and what they do is also part of her backstory. As a reminder, her (probable) grandfather built a droid and a racing pod with no experience at age 8. Unreasonable mechanical skill for Jedi seems to be an in-universe thing.
I'll grant you that that doesn't align very nicely with her not getting the basics of blasters.
(Score: 2) by Non Sequor on Monday December 28 2015, @10:21PM
The way I parse it is that the Force is actually revealing these techniques to Rey. Perhaps its intended to parallel the origins of the Jedi order. Perhaps in the absence of trained Force sensitives, the techniques reveal themselves to key individuals.
Kylo Ren on the other hand, is trying to seize control of the Force and he's failing. He might actually have been stronger as a Jedi than he is now. He hasn't been trained to the extent that a typical Sith apprentice would be trained. My expectation is that Snoke knows more about what's going on with the Force than anybody else and he's manipulating Kylo Ren to set him up to take advantage of some kind of opportunity later.
I thought it was a great movie. I liked it better than what I've seen of the expanded universe material.
Write your congressman. Tell him he sucks.
(Score: 2) by SubiculumHammer on Tuesday December 29 2015, @05:55AM
Reys vision seems to reveal that she was present at Luke's Jedi school. As such she may have been trained in the force as a child and either forgot, repressed or had her mind force wiped of the memory.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Username on Tuesday December 29 2015, @04:07AM
Not sure how he made it to sith lord being such a pansy, you would think another sith would have beat him out for the title if he was that bad. Him almost getting beaten by a storm trooper makes sense. They are highly trained, pacifist or not. Luke almost got his ass kicked several times if he didn’t run away. It’s just too much to instantly know how to use the force. Anakin and Luke even had to be trained before they could be useful.
One thing about her story, is if she is so mechanically inclined, why didn’t she just refurbish a tie fighter, or troop transport off one of the wrecked destroyers? Then use that to stop off at Space-Mart for groceries instead of scavenging for parts to trade for food rations locally. Sure, she’s waiting for daddy like a good little girl, but she could just leave a note on her imperial walker house, saying she’s off trading and would be back in an hour in case he does show up.
Another thing, how did she not notice that ship was the millennial falcon? She was all impressed meeting Han Solo, saying she knew it ran the kessle run in 14 parsecs and all. How did she not put two and two together. I’m sure the guy who owned it would have been bragging left and right he got Solos ship. I would have.
On the blaster issue, she would have found tons of those on the imperial ships. There’s no excuse.
(Score: 2) by CoolHand on Tuesday December 29 2015, @03:54PM
In the 2nd half of the movie he is largely incompetent, yet in the beginning, he is able to freeze a blaster pulse in mid-air, something we've seen from no other Sith.. So, the movie seemed inconsistent with itself. That is a problem for a lot of people. (and Kylo Ren wasn't the only example of that)
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(Score: 2) by jbWolf on Monday December 28 2015, @08:32PM
I just came back from seeing it. I think everyone's being a bit harsh.
If they take too much from the old movies, then people complain they're copying the old movies. If they don't take enough, then people will complain they aren't enough like the old movies. J.J. ran middle of the road and he's getting complaints from both sides.
Frankly, Kylo Ren is an interesting character because of his heritage, what he did to his father, and he is obviously not as strong as Vader nor Luke. But he wants to be. Adding the whiny component shows the characters motivation. The mask (both his and Vader's) shows how warped he is. I'm pretty sure J.J. isn't done with him yet.
As for Rey, she just wanted to be left alone and go back to Jakku, but the force is pushing her to do the things she didn't want to do. It's a twist. By the end, it's quite clear, she is ready to embrace her destiny. Because she was untrained and held her ground against a wounded, trained Jedi, it is quite clear she will become a very powerful Jedi. That got my interest. It also opens up the possibility of untrained force wielders. (a.k.a, witches)
I read a review a week ago where someone said J.J. played this film safe. I agree and disagree. J.J. pulled a lot from the other movies, but he can move in any direction he wants for the second and third films. It is an excellent setup. The first film showed us he has the know how to make an action film with subtle story points and good character development. And I am SO thankful for character development after Episodes I, II, and III. There was definitely character development in Kylo Ren, Rey, and Finn. And although we didn't see character development in the movie for Luke, Leia, and Han, it is quite obvious they had some things happen to them which changed their personalities. And they played it damn well.
(And for those who were complaining for months: no lens flares.)
My personal take? It's better than Return of the Jedi. It's the movie Episode I should have been. And the story arc has the potential to make a fantastic Episode VIII that could be on par with Empire Strikes Back. (I'm not saying it will be. Just that it could. Only time will tell, of course.) Is it perfect? Of course not. Not even Empire was perfect. (Far from it.) But for a Star Wars movie, it was pretty good.
If you want to enjoy a movie like this, you can't go in with expectations. I think that is the reason why so many people didn't like it.
www.jb-wolf.com [jb-wolf.com]
(Score: 2) by ikanreed on Monday December 28 2015, @08:47PM
But for a Star Wars movie, it was pretty good.
Like I said, not a bad star wars movie. But I think my point on missing some first act fundamentals was still relevant. A thought many people didn't even realize they had: the super-weapon felt like an afterthought because it wasn't even introduced until the second act. Captain Phasma was never properly given a chance to be a villain, and we never cared why they'd throw her in a garbage masher. She was just a costuming choice, rather than an antagonist. It's small bits and pieces that a good story-boarding review ahead of time should have caught.
(Score: 2) by jbWolf on Tuesday December 29 2015, @02:21AM
I was just kind of frustrated that nearly all comments for this article were simply saying what was wrong with the movie instead of giving both the pros and cons. (That's the reason I went pro heavy.) It's definitely not a perfect movie and it sounds like you can pick it apart better than I can.
I'm glad you're emphasizing with your last comment that it's not a bad Star Wars movie.
It's too bad we can't sit down over a beer and debate the finer points. In this comment [soylentnews.org], you say that every movie had a new outside environment and you thought it would be good to continue the trend. I think that was one of the weaknesses of all six movies. "Desert planet" "City Planet" "Ice Planet" Why can't a planet have all kinds of environments like Earth? And with as many movies as they want to release, they are going to run out of novel environments pretty quickly. I think J.J. made the right call on this one.
But you say that it's important to establish ecological niche. Totally agree. Although the outside environments may be limited, the character environments should be endless. Jakku and Tatooine had different feels despite both being a desert. Character plotting is important? Totally agree.
I'm not sure what to say with the editing to make it feel less like Star Wars. I liked a lot of the feel of this movie. On the other hand, I get what you're saying. It's not like the other six. Is this good or bad? I don't know yet. I think I need to watch it a couple of more times. It's also where sitting down with you would be interesting to hear a more detailed take on your opinion on the matter.
www.jb-wolf.com [jb-wolf.com]