Agree with this. It was a little difficult watching old man Han run around with a blaster. I'd even argue that killing off Han was more impactful than killing off Luke would have been because Han's always been the relatable SW character. We can't be Luke Skywalker, but hell, we all probably think we could be Han Solo if we were dumped into that universe.

Here's a thought though. Because they are all getting old and the backstory needs to be told, I wonder if JJ has secretly already shot flashback scenes that will appear in the next movie.

This wasn't the Rebellion against the Empire. It's a different war. Although, I can see how many people might not realize that.

I think Finn was terribly overacted and Kylo was terribly underacted.


Rey was quite good.

Just saw Force Awakens. As a reference point, I have seen every Star Wars movie in a large screen theater within 3 days of opening. I hate to say it but JJ's version of Star Wars totally sucked.

1. There is nothing new in this movie, everything is a rehash, reminder or quasi - reboot of A New Hope.
2. Nothing in the plot brings any real excitement, emotion or suspense at all.
3. The villains are a joke - Empire - lite. Vader wannabe.
4. When your cant think of anything else - build a bigger death star? WTF JJ?
5. 2 Rookies (with the force of course) pick up a light saber with no training and engage in combat?

It seems JJ wrote this movie for new Star Wars fans who never saw A New Hope in theaters and to appeal to Star Wars nostalgia geeks who love seeing older characters. I know its popular to hate on Lucas but he had a real story. Lucas' Star Wars vision was really about the rise and fall of Anakin Skywalker as the central theme. I have no idea where JJ's story is going.

When JJ rebooted Star Trek he gave the characters new depth and emotions - he actually made Star Trek better. In Force Awakens, he jammed so many characters into the plot (old and new) it waters down the entire plot. In my opinion, it's the worst Star Wars movie of the group.

Or you could just replace the Night at the Museum scene with some kind of narrative where Rey's insta-Jedi makes sense? We've already seen our hero's bond by escaping from a perilous situation by working together in half of act 1. We didn't need to see it again.

It should have built the villain. Instead, it make him look weaker. Now, that might have been the point, but Snoke already told him he would get stronger by killing Han. Now ok, if the idea is to have him come towards the light then fine, but don't have him as an even stronger "Sith" in the next film. The point is, that from either perspective, the narrative didn't work.

sigh, agree with all of this

the plot was just so disappointing. even more so because all of the other components were there - characters, dialogue, visuals, mood were all generally excellent.

hadn't thought of the Luke thing... agree that Luke should have been doing the finding. the whole plot was just bad. the Lightsaber battle was poorly thought out. the attack on the planet weapon was garbage.

fortunately a lot of potential for ep 8


edit: this really killed me. just a huge and obvious oversight. it was so easy to get right.....

Here are my two cents:

The good: Looks great, they obviously spent a lot of time and effort to get the "feel" of the original trilogy and not the overly polished CGI look of the prequels. I also think that Rey is a terrific new Star Wars character and hopefully as her story plays out in full it becomes even better. No one introduced in the prequel trilogy was even remotely as interesting.

The bad: The writing is just too lazy. The plot needed something more than another death star. I appreciate the desire echo the original but this was too much. Also too many "reveals" - cut to Millennium Falcon! Surprise, it's Han and Chewy! Who's that, oh it's Leia! No wait, it's C3PO! What's under that blanket? Oh it's R2D2! There's only so many "impactful" reveals that can be crammed into a movie before the audience starts rolling their eyes, especially when the end of the movie is ... wait for it ... a Luke reveal!

The disgraceful: What the **** Carrie Fisher. She was reading her lines like an actor in a high school play. Jesus.

As I reflect further on Awakens, I'm beginning to think that this episode was Disney-fied to fit into the grand Star Wars scheme of theme parks, video games and other movies. Awakens wasn't written to be special, its was written to be a promotional piece for Disney's $4 billion Lucas Film investment.

Yeah it was painful to watch - she's had so much botox it made her expressionless face look like a bad prosthetic.

the more I think about this the more it annoys me. it was such a moviemaking layup to have her somehow/heroically fight an injured Ren to a temporary draw, then split the ground, end the battle. that's a fantastic scene and an amazing setup for their relationship. instead they did what they did and now there's just some weird dynamic ofnher not finishing him off by choice, except that was never really acknowledged by either party so if it gets brought up again it's going to spund weird and forced.

Seemed really weird at the time that two random people ended up being quite good with a lightsaber.

once the hype and excitement dies down people will see this movie for what it is

Well that's obvious, and not necessarily a bad thing. They intend to have several movies and it makes perfect sense to have a tone setting movie.

I saw the Cantina and thought "hey, that's cool. It's like the original" but it stopped being cool when so many other things are just like the original.


IT'S NOT A DEATH STAR CAUSE IT'S BIGGER!!! made me think of the Scorcher trailer before Tropic Thunder.


Don't they know how to make anything other than ****ing Death Stars?

it will be interesting how this film is received in a year or so. Star Trek: Into Darkness was similarly well received by the critics but not by fans, and general opinion now is that it isn't viewed quite as favourably.

Jesus christ, you grinches are pissing me right off. This thread is just ridiculous to me.

Have a coke and a smile and shut the **** up.

2p2 always was filled with nits.
TFA was good fun and a great setup for more movies in the trilogy or side stories. I think new directors will continue to make the trilogy feel fresh each episode.

It's a great movie for kids but the adults got a Star Wars 30 year high school reunion with some youngsters crashing the party.

This movie would have been special if it was released in 1986.

In an alternate reality, a new Star Wars movie has been coming out every 2-3 years as Lucas originally intended. He had a crazy elaborate plan for over a dozen movies.

Ya geezus i guess the haters are gonna hate. I thought it was great, of course can nit pick anything if u want. I LOL at all the "it's not original" crying. It's a sequel, it's not supposed to be totally original. If u want something new that is old, go watch the "remake" of Point Break, a movie that has nothing to do with the original. Such a dumb concept.

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Agree people are way too nitty here. If the OT came out today we'd be criticizing all the plot holes, poor acting and pacing. Like I said, Luke goes from farm boy who has never heard of the Force, to Force evangelist, to outmaneuvering Vader in an X-wing within like a few days. With very little training. Vader is super force aware but can't recognize his own daughter at the start? The "light saber battle" between Obi Wan and Vader in Episode IV is a laughable farce, Guinness is just waving the thing around like a parking attendant waves in cars. It's a super technologically advanced society, I mean people can talk over distances, and for some reason Leia is distributing the plans to the ultimate weapon to Obi Wan in a droid? Luke couldn't have spent more than a few days with Yoda and he's a super Jedi by RotJ?

Episode 7 is derivative because of the ultimate-weapon-is-just-like-the-Death-Star-trope? RotJ brought back the Death Star, literally! Aldeeran blows up in front of Leia and she's just like oh ****, doesn't scream out, no depression, nothing? If Earth blew up before your eyes, would you just bow your head and give Vader a bad look? Luke is way more devastated when Obi Wan died and he knew him for like, a day. And he spent most of that day whining at him that they shouldn't be doing what they're doing. You guys think Carrie Fisher sucked in this one? She ****ing CHANGED HER ACCENT from British aristocracy to American tough girl chic in the middle of A New Hope.

The OT was poorly acted except for Alec Guiness and Harrison Ford and Peter Cushing and Ian McDiarmid, had just as many plot holes, they turned Vader into a meek subservient second-tier bad guy by RotJ, the Ewoks were a glorified toy commercial, the pacing in A New Hope is really uneven too (there we also go from escaping the Death Star with a full blown plan and campaign to blow it up in less than like 10 minutes of on-screen time).

And it was great.

Harsh critics ITT imo, Episode VII was really fun.

Everyone still basically using Napoleonic War tactics with super advanced weaponry. Just march straight at them and hope for the best. This was worst in Ep 1, but has appeared in multiple movies.

Biggs already qualified Luke as “the best bush pilot in the outer rim territories”, so that point is null. I mean, I haven’t heard anyone complain about Rey being able to pilot the Millenium Falcon and destroy two Tie Fighters, piloted by guys with years of combat training as there are certain things even “nits” can overlook in a sci-fi adventure. However in Star Wars, you at least expect them to be consistent with The Force, which is the context that underpins everything that happens in all the movies.

To give the force skills some context, on Hoth, Luke had been probably training in the force for at least a couple years and he struggled to pull his lightsabre out of the snow; Rey managed it np with a couple of hours self-training, and then proceeded to beat down a guy with 20 years training from Luke and Snoke. Injured or not, it was just eye-rolling.

FWIW I’m not keen on RotJ (the opening and final scenes are great, the middle sucks), and I didn’t hate the prequels either. And I don’t hate this movie- I just didn’t come out of the theatre smiling.

I thought Rey being able to pilot the Falcon was terrible. She was a scavenger, not a pilot. At least she had trouble with it.


But I did leave the theater smiling. It was a lot of fun even if there was a lot of stuff that didn't sit well upon reflection.

If you had told me this was a remake of A New Hope I would have believed it. They ran that whole plot back so faithfully that the idea the same characters might have been at both feels like it needs to be commented on.

I liked the first half a lot, very funny in a cheesy sort of way, kept it light without feeling like a parody. Reminded me a lot of firefly. Daisy Ridley was excellent throughout, and Isaac and Boyega had a fantastic bromance.

The second half dragged a bit, but I don't have all the complaints other people do. Agree that the fight with boyega and Adam Driver was fairly ridiculous.

Overall I'd say it was like a 3/5. Will the next one track TESB? Feels like that's the setup.