|
Post by Canuovea on Dec 31, 2015 17:29:21 GMT
Yes. That one.
|
|
|
Post by Harkovast on Dec 31, 2015 19:55:02 GMT
Oh yeah that was good. I liked when Finn was trying to pretend to be in the resistance, and he was trying to get the robot to lie for him and the robot was looking back and forth and getting all nervous. That was awesome. I love that kind of funny awkward interraction based comedy with people giving funny looks. That's basically teh entire gag of the last Harkovast page!
|
|
|
Post by Canuovea on Dec 31, 2015 21:10:11 GMT
Basically, yeah.
Also, the robot thumbs up was cool.
And that end scene was something straight out of Arthurian myth.
|
|
|
Post by StyxD on Jan 1, 2016 20:57:10 GMT
I also never thought Poe was dead. Let's face it, a mainstream movie made by Disney would not do something like sudden-death a character that seemed sympathetic and important. I think it'd be more interesting if they did that (as a symbolic passing of the torch to Finn), but alas.
Also, who would the 99% of the audience, comprising of white, straight males, identify with then? The ball-robot?
I did like Poe, to be sure, but... his role in the first part of the film was complete. In the final part, he's tacked on and winds up doing jack shit as a character. It's doing him as disservice.
I had a much bigger problem with borrowing from New Hope. "A giant superweapon with an obvious weak point destroyed by X-Wings" has kind of shattered the suspension of disbelief. At least they could have sticked to destroying it with bombs, to keep things "fresh".
Also, the background was so poorly set up, it felt like nothing has changed since the original trilogy!
I've read, that First Order is supposed to be a remnant, that tries to aggressively resurrect the Empire from its ashes, which is what I'd expect the villains of the movie to be, but... that's not what you'll learn from the film itself.
First Order is supposed to be a terrorist organization / rouge state (according to novels, so I've heard), but it's shown to be stupidly powerful, with its starfleet and Even Bigger Death Star, that it feels like the Rebels barely made a dent in the Empire's might, and the Empire suddenly rebranded for no reason.
Compounding this is the Resistance.
Excuse me? Aren't the Rebels supposed to have won the original war? It the galactic Empire is no more, then what are they resisting against? A meager terrorist organization? Shouldn't they be called something like Anti-Imperialist Coalition, or something?
It all could have been fixed with a name change and an offhand comment like "We've been ignoring the First Order for too long, and now it seems they've grown so powerful they actually can threaten the galaxy like their Empire did before!", but the authors insist on retaining the original's atmosphere to the degree that it makes the universe make no sense. And, even worse, the original trilogy to not matter.
Because if everything is the same, what was the point of Luke and co's adventures?
|
|
|
Post by Canuovea on Jan 1, 2016 21:25:16 GMT
Well, my understanding of the political situation is that the galaxy is kind of divided in half between the Republic and the Empire Remnants, who are in a cold war with the Republic while also fighting each other. The First Order is a smaller one, and seem to have put most of their resources into building the big death laser thing. They've got, like, one other capital ship.
Also, building another giant super weapon didn't break any immersion for me. The Empire and their imitators seem to like that kind of thing. It just seems so much their style that I wasn't bothered at all.
|
|
|
Post by Horsie on Jan 1, 2016 21:26:32 GMT
Kind of a one trick pony, aren't they?
|
|
|
Post by Canuovea on Jan 1, 2016 21:30:40 GMT
Well, that and their huge fleet, a la Empire Strikes Back. But even that fleet suffers from "Superweapon Syndrome", since it was all about just throwing overwhelming force at an enemy.
|
|
|
Post by StyxD on Jan 1, 2016 22:22:13 GMT
Where does this even come from?
Also, the Republic is also a problem. I can understand them taking a neutral stance, while a more proactive force takes the fight to the First Order. But their territory consisting of a single star system?
Who exactly is the remnant, again?
It didn't for me, either. It was when they showed the hologram with The Single Weak Point We Have To Destroy I thought to myself "Are they doing this again? The are doing this again!"
|
|
|
Post by Canuovea on Jan 1, 2016 23:21:24 GMT
I remember reading it somewhere. Same place I got the information about the Republic from, probably some kind of summary of the recent books. The Republic is, actually, larger than a single system (they just lost Chandrilla, their capital, and Mon Mothma's homeworld). However, Mon Mothma had actually massively decreased the Republic's military and instead spread it out to the other worlds in it. That is, the entire political system is more decentralized. So ironically, despite losing their capital and a large chunk of their navy, the Republic is not exactly defenseless, just in a really really bad spot. Given that information, I should have seen the destruction of the capital coming, actually.
And the Imperial Remnant is, I think, a bunch of other Imperial Factions that kind of pulled together after the death of the Emperor and the Battle of Jakku. They are not the same as the First Order.
As for the single weakness thing, well, that was a lot of power to be collecting. It was a structurally different kind of weakness, at least, (from both an exhaust port or a massive hole). It was also much more well defended and armoured, as it took an explosion from inside to actually make it vulnerable. It appeared that an aerial attack was just not going to work until Chewie set off the explosives, since the original plan of just bombing it was having very little effect.
So sure, the idea was reused, but the idea was also more sensibly executed than the other star wars films. In the first film, the structural weakness was an exhaust port... meant to expel stuff from itself. Okay. And they had to fly along a trench, along the surface of the Death Star, to fire a missile to the inside of the Death Star so it traveled down to the core? In the third film... do I really have to explain what was wrong with that thing? In this movie, they were containing all the plasma from a Star inside a planet, and somehow the weakest point of the whole operation was so heavily armoured (and even shielded, even if bringing the shields down was way too easy) that an aerial assault was doomed to failure.
|
|
|
Post by Horsie on Jan 2, 2016 1:22:30 GMT
What I'm gathering from this is that a lot of the problems with the background that StyxD is bringing up are only adequately explained if you've read about this "extended universe" stuff.
|
|
|
Post by Canuovea on Jan 2, 2016 1:37:09 GMT
I didn't read the actual books, just overviews...
But yeah, that is definitely one of the problems with the film. The context is rather ignored to focus on the characters, but there should be a way to do both!
Also, one of the things that people complained about for the prequels was too much politics and boring stuff. I think those complaints backfired a little for this movie.
I think I'd still give it an A, but an A-.
|
|
|
Post by Harkovast on Jan 2, 2016 2:26:53 GMT
StyxD Poe isn't a white guy.
|
|
|
Post by Canuovea on Jan 2, 2016 2:31:57 GMT
Oh yeah, the actor is Guatemalan.
|
|
|
Post by Harkovast on Jan 2, 2016 2:33:25 GMT
Canuovea you make a good point about over compensating for the prequals with regard to the politics. I had that thought. They went a little too far the other way and didn't really explain much of hte back ground at all!
I'm hoping we get more explanation in the next film.
|
|
|
Post by Canuovea on Jan 2, 2016 2:35:26 GMT
I loved The Force Awakens.
But more context and a larger scope is now needed for the next movie to match up. They could get away with it this time because of the character focus, but you can't just keep doing that.
|
|