I don't crave/want to relive 4/5/6 but I think that Disney paid $4 billion to buy Star Wars and then subsequently threw the biggest hero into the garbage.

Could have just started brand new with different characters at any point in time they wanted within the Star Wars Universe without involving the original trilogy characters if they wanted a fresh start.

What was the purpose of the Rey illusion/mirror scene?

Allegorical thing to indicate to the audience that (presumably) Rey's parents are nobodies, gone, forgotten, just silhouttes at this point. She can't recover their memories. Her thoughts and focus on her parents are empty and circular, are really about herself, and that she IS alone in the universe.

I'm guessing the scene did go over the heads of people, which is why I think this film fails in a bunch of ways. When people say this is pulp popcorn film fun but then point to what I see as the main plot, the thing going on her, the contradiction becomes clear. This scene isn't really for kids and casuals who don't understand. But it's this part (and the continual interplay between her and Ren, and their relationship, and how Luke is potentially ambiguous as well) that I really liked. As I wrote earlier, Johnson is trying to do this deep moral probing of the Force and the Jedi, how they are morally ambiguous. It's a psychological noir.

This *is* in my mind the sort of gutsy, non-derivative, 'new' thing that critics, film snobs, maybe some fanbois, etc. demanded and wanted of Star Wars.

Too bad Johnson cluttered it up with CGI llamas, a different morally ambiguous sideplot about Haldo/Poe, another story arc about Finn/Rose, a thrilling chase movie that removes the thrill by going in slow motion and centers around running of out gas, etc.

There was a good movie in here that either Johnson or the Lucasfilm/Disney Film by Committee bloated out trying to check every box or that they didn't have the guts to edit down to something more tolerable. My initial post said there's a great 90 minute movie in here but instead it's a 150 minute long slog and I stand by that. The mirror scene and Rey's evolution and her contrast with Kylo Ren and how they interpret and relate to Luke is a great movie for adults and critics. I suppose the Canto Bright casino scenes and Finn/Rose/BB-8 charging through the First Order's ship on an AT-ST to escape just in the nick of time or whatever --that was is a great movie for kids. I'm guessing casuals just want to see light saber fights and stuff blow up.

Put it all together and you get dreck imo, but I can see perceptions are going to vary wildly here.

The first thing I thought when finishing the movie is that this is a movie you need to see more than once.

The negative points are clear:
*The middle definetely dragged
*There are way too many characters
*There were a few obvious issues (casino plot dragged, Leia having 2 perfect moments to be killed off but surviving both, Snoke story line not being explored at all).
*The way this movie was marketed was completely different from the actual movie.


But I think apart from those this was a solid movie. I might change my opinion on rewatch though.

My initial reaction:

5>6>7~R1>4~8>3>2>1

Yea, I'm getting a lot of

Episode 7- This movie sucks! It's too much like Star Wars!

Episode 8- This movie sucks! It's nothing like Star Wars!

Make up your ****ing minds people.

Yeah I'm seeing a lot of this sentiment on /r/starwars and stuff too, it's like none of them are even listening to the criticisms.

I didn't hate the movie because it was "too original". I hated it because of Superman Leia, and bland Rose, and nonsense space version of OJ's Ford Bronco chase, and coin-spittin' AT-ST-drivin' X-wing-fixin-by-smashing-his-head-into-a-bunch-of-resistors BB-8, and about a hundred other ideas that were hot garbage.

I mean if you dug those things, more power to ya, I'm pretty sure you have at least four more movies worth of that **** to enjoy. But FFS people, don't insult our intelligence even more than Johnson/Disney already did by telling us that we must want more mindless blasting and slashing and that's why this movie isn't for us.

I agree that the movie needed more editing to eliminate some of the unneeded fluff.

I hated the side plot lines and thought the middle third of the movie was painful, but I really thought it found its stride in the final third and I really liked the main jedi plot lines.

I think the movie will grow on me over time.

Random thoughts :
Leia in space was the single worst scene in Star Wars History.

They should have found Lando on that casino planet instead of Benicio. At least, then, there would have been a reason to go there which would appeal to original trilogy fans.

Luke being a disillusioned Jedi is fine by me. It makes sense with all they have suffered over the years. The force has always been a double edged sword, and sadly the dark side of it is much more enticing to most than the light. I think that "giving up" is something we all want to do on occasion when faced with the horrors of the world (or universe).

I loved the reveal on the Luke battle.

I don't believe for a second that her parents were nobody. Why should we? Because Ky Lo Ren said so?

I see a jump in time coming for the next one.... It's almost needed for the spark of the new rebellion to grow. Flashback scenes of Luke ghost mentoring and a new generation of Jedi rising for the final battle for the universe amidst a final epic Rey/Kylo battle which may or may not mirror the Darth Vader conversion on Jedi. (I'm thinking not though)

Overall, slightly disappointed but stoked for episode IX.

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A Lando cameo would have been kinda cool, but unfortunately I think Billy Dee's in a wheelchair these days and not in great shape. If he was up to it, I think having him instead of Maz on the holo-comm thingy would have been great though, I imagine they could have made that work.

Or it's just a ****ing bad movie.

The movie has problems but I thought they got the important things right. Adam Driver is killing it in this role and his character is working great, I didn't expect either.

I could easily nitpick and point out lots of problems, for example it definitely borrows too much from previous movies (even though not quite as badly as TFA did). Too many characters. The Finn subplot.

On balance though I'd just prefer to just enjoy it as the best SW released in 30+ years and I think it will hold up fine.

I haven't seen it yet, and I'm debating if it's going to be worth it.

I was 12 when 4 came out, in college when the Ewok bull**** started (7). Ewoks were the beginning of the end.

RT negative reviews from viewers seem reasonable and in line with comments here.

Makes me sad that a good narrative couldn't have been developed.

The fact that in movies, Harry Potter universe crushes Star Wars universe is just wrong.

Star Wars as a series of movies could have been epic. Instead, Hollywood (and Lucas, with his merch rights) went for the easy buck.

Feels bad man

Super disappointed in no Lando. Billy Dee is fine and was up for the movie, they just didn't write him in. Would have been perfect for the casino planet, too.

Carrie Fisher scenes just make super sad. It's clear she was going to be a big part of 9 and now we will never see that. Thank goodness they at least gave her one last scene with Hamill.

I actually enjoyed the movie overall, but yeah, you could nit a lot of it (why did Laura Dern not just take out the big enemy ship immediately? Deus Ex BB-8 is getting a little old, etc.).

In a way I'm definitely bummed out that they're not going to get to write the narrative they wanted to with Leia. But am I the only one who found both her lines and her acting really weak in both eps 7 and 8? I hate to keep piling on and being negative, but Carrie Fischer and the character just did nothing for me in this one. Hamill, for all the hate he used to get for his acting chops in the OT, was 1000x more compelling for me.

You should go see it. The good stuff is some of the best Star Wars ever. It’s a lot better to have a movie that is a mix of lolterrible and really really good rather than all being meh.

This particular question is more than answered now, all Kylo Ren did was push her past the denial.

Which is a good thing because it doesn't make any difference. By that point it was clear that she's not Luke's, and we already know she wasn't Han & Leia's kid. Who else would it be that would matter, beyond creating a pointless distraction to her character and story? The fact that she's an orphan to a couple trailer trash degens who abandoned her works better.

Movie was just boring. Excruciatingly boring, it was an 80 minute movie stretched out to 160 for no reason.

Thought Snoke's useless backup dancers were the best part

Well, saw it last night. The good was really good and the bad was really bad. There were some great places they could have taken some risks and didn't. I'm probably going to see it again, I was so wrapped up in what they were going to do with Luke and leia I feel like I may not have paid attention to some parts.
I hated the initial space battle. They could have made that a cool scene with a full squadron of xwings taking out the turrets. Battlestar galactica had a combat air patrol when there is zero threat. The empire doesn't have tie fighters airborne mid battle??? Why do you drop bombs in zero grav??? There was real potential in this scene and it was awful.
Floating force Leia was awful.
The casino planet stuff was completely unnecessary. The hoth ground battle was significantly better than this ground battle.
The Luke Rey Kylo stuff was excellent. There was a point where I thought kylo was going to turn good and Rey turn bad, which I think would have been super interesting. But they played it straight forward. I actually thought they might kill off fen when he was heading at the cannon, and I thought it would be a good spot for his arc, but nope.
A lot of people hating on the slow motion car chase I didn't have an issue with it.
I heard this one had the best light saber battle yet. Assuming this was kylo and Rey in the throne room. I prefer the 1v1 or 2v1 battles to a 6v2, and it was good, but don't know if I'd say best.

Ya holy ****ing **** the Leia force thing made me want to snap leave the theater. Good ****ing lord that was bad. Tilted me way more than anything jarjar ever did.

the thought of someone being super mad about this is making me laugh

They should have let Leia die at some point

It's really interesting reading the positive reactions that acknowledge all the cringe stuff but feel like it's "nitpicking" or whatever to think it makes the movie bad. I guess it comes down to having a high tolerance for **** like that and letting it roll off you without feeling that it detracts from the good parts at all.

For me it would be like if I said "Hey, just watched The Godfather. It was amazing, although I thought that song and dance scene with Fredo in the middle was kind of weird, and I wasn't a big fan of the hour-long subplot where Michael has the affair with the girl from the circus and they release all the elephants back to Africa, and I thought it was kind of a odd choice for Vito to have that pet penguin that keeps waddling in and doing cute stuff in every other scene. But you know, whatever, the good parts were so good. Top ten movie of all time."

The weirdest part of the Leia floating through space thing was that she served literally no purpose for the rest of the film. I kept waiting for her o do something drastic since they didn’t obviously let her die.

I spent the whole movie thinking Ok when will they kill her off. Then afterward thinking why didn't they kill her off.

What happens now with her? Have Disney actually confirmed anything? Recast? quick death at start of 9?

The only thing they had been saying, at least shortly after her death, is that they won't CGI her. It feels like it'd be pretty underwhelming to just have her death mentioned in passing or in the opening crawl or something, but who knows. Maybe they held back some footage (maybe even unused stuff from TFA) that can be used strategically to give her a dramatic sendoff.

What turned out to be her Superman scene would have been a good opportunity to kill her off plotwise, but it wouldn't have been a particularly, like, significant way for her to go (with her son deciding to spare her and then one of his wingmen doing the deed). There also wouldn't have been an opportunity for the brief reunion (sorta) with Luke.

Me and gf saw ep 8 earlier today and haven't stopped talking **** about it since but there is no way it's as epically awful as ep 1 or 2. And honestly probably better than 3 as well.