The Official Star Wars Episode VII Thread

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Re: The Official Star Wars Episode VII Thread

Post by alpha »

I can't take anyone serious if they say they like the prequels more.

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Re: The Official Star Wars Episode VII Thread

Post by EMCEE DARTH MALEK »

^overall prequels aren't better, but the stories are more interesting and the fights are better choreographed & filmed.
Philaflava wrote:ewan is cool and all but there is only one obi and thats alec guinness. stop the madness.
he looks like such a dork with his pointy hood. his lightsabre battle is ridiculously wack. it's all about the scottish dreamboat.
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Re: The Official Star Wars Episode VII Thread

Post by Versive »

Everybody's bigging up the characters in this, and though I think they've the potential to be great, I thought Boyega in particular really dropped the ball when it came to portraying the complexity of his character. He, with the help of Abrams and co. obviously, managed to make a stormtrooper deserter who refused to take part in killing of innocents into some kind of half-assed Han Solo. Could've been so much cooler of a story arc, but was Disney-fied beyond the pale, trading inner turmoil for horribly acted romance that was nothing more than a poor reiteration of stories already done better by the previous movies.

As for ranking this below the prequels, I can't really defend my enjoyment of episodes 2 and 3 other than to say that they're fucking great and I'm a big proponent of watching in Machete order. I'd rank the series: 5, 4, 6, 2, 3 & 7 very close, 1 (dead last, need not be watched unless Jar Jar turns out to be Snoke -- Darth Maul light sabre battle notwithstanding).

As for Snoke,

Image

he looks like some kind of decrepit amphibian motherfucker.

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Re: The Official Star Wars Episode VII Thread

Post by drizzle »

Don't see Finn as a Han Solo type. Han is all ego, Finn literally has none. He lies and blusters his way through things because of fear and (probably) new emotions he can't really understand, not because he's cocksure. Poe is the one playing off the Han archetype imo.

As far as the complexity, they definitely could've done more setting up the through process that leads him to defect, but spending significant time on dramatic inner turmoil about being a storm trooper would make this a very very different movie, one that probably wouldn't actually feel like Star Wars.
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Re: The Official Star Wars Episode VII Thread

Post by Versive »

I would've appreciated something different. My main problem is that it was just the same plot with different characters. Finn, like Han, puffs out his chest in order to get the girl. And like Han, his interests evolve from saving his own ass to allying with the good guys in order to defeat the forces of evil.

Also, something I didn't mention, the fact that this dude was able to pick up a lightsabre and stick it out, even if only for a few minutes, with a dude who's training to become the next dark lord really pissed me off.

Obviously, I didn't expect Disney and Abrams to put out a fucking think-piece about a troubled stormtrooper, but they could have spent more than a few minutes on this aspect of his character, and could've had all their characters act a little bit out-of-type with past SW characters. It was if they thought making one hero a woman and another black would be enough to differentiate ep7 from everything up until this point.

Even Kylo Ren was just an emo Vader, like Anakin tempted in the opposite direction. Sadly, this might've been the most interesting/unique character in the whole film.

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Re: The Official Star Wars Episode VII Thread

Post by Versive »

Oh, and how about the last 5 minutes of the movie.

Rey says goodbye to all her friends. Rey boards the Falcon. Rey flies in the Falcon to the mountain planet where Luke's hiding. Rey gets out of Falcon. Rey climbs the mountain. Rey finds Luke. Luke has a beard, says nothing. Roll credits.

After all the twists and turns that the Star Wars franchise has taken over the years, we conclude the new film that's supposed to revitalize the series with 10 minutes of gratuitous, poorly conceived, linear bullshit punctuated by a huge anti-climax.

The more I talk about this movie, the less I like it. Might have to go see it again (in 3D) just to remind myself what I did enjoy, because like I said, I was entertained.

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Re: The Official Star Wars Episode VII Thread

Post by drizzle »

Versive wrote:And like Han, his interests evolve from saving his own ass to allying with the good guys in order to defeat the forces of evil.
I think his motivation is much more direct, even after what happens at Maz' place and sitting through the motivational FUCK YEA LETS GET THIS 'DEF NOT DEATHSTAR3' TED talk his main aim is saving Rey, not defeating some nefarious evil (incidentally it would make much more sense for him to generically joint the fight against evil than it did for Han). But whatever, me typing paragraphs about character motivations won't change your mind anyway.
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Re: The Official Star Wars Episode VII Thread

Post by drizzle »

BTW, shit really settles well after you watch it again. I had a ton of nitpicks after the first viewing, and many of them are/were legit as fuck and are echoed in the public consensus, but after the second time I just stopped caring. It's far from perfect but it's still a fun movie that sets a good future direction for the franchise, I'm ok with leaving it at that.
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Re: The Official Star Wars Episode VII Thread

Post by ChaMerZ »

Somebody made a pardoy kylo ren account. Some gems here:

https://twitter.com/kylor3n" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
http://cognitiv3dissident.wordpress.com/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

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Re: The Official Star Wars Episode VII Thread

Post by ChaMerZ »

Versive wrote:The more I talk about this movie, the less I like it. Might have to go see it again (in 3D) just to remind myself what I did enjoy, because like I said, I was entertained.
Same here. I will try watching it again tomorrow or next week Tuesday. I had a shitty seat at the theatre first time round, and apparently the cineplex at yonge and dundas doesn't offer real IMAX (more like Lie-MAX) so I'm gonna watch it again at scotiabank theatre.
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Re: The Official Star Wars Episode VII Thread

Post by Tweak Da Leak »

It's somewhere between Revenge of the Sith and Return of the Jedi, high and low points of each trilogy.
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Re: The Official Star Wars Episode VII Thread

Post by Tommy Bunz »

EMCEE DARTH MALEK wrote:^overall prequels aren't better, but the stories are more interesting and the fights are better choreographed & filmed.
That's a pretty ridiculous comment. The prequels were filmed in the infancy of digital filmmaking and are largely responsible for the move from film.
But because of that, they were almost entirely filmed in front of green screens and without any practical effects or sets and had to be filmed with mostly static cameras, as they were figuring out the majority of the action/staging/camerawork/etc in post production. Thats part of the reason the prequels are so boring, because an absurd amount of scenes are just people standing or sitting in a room without moving. They tried to hide this by making things move around in the background of almost every scene. It's laughable if you watch them knowing this.

Nowadays the technology has advanced so far that they can do insane digital camerawork in combination with CGI filmmaking (the space station explosion in Gravity is a great example of this).
Episode VII is vastly superior film from a filmmaking standpoint on every level, comparing it to the prequels its like comparing silent films to the dawn of Technicolor.

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Re: The Official Star Wars Episode VII Thread

Post by Versive »

drizzle wrote:
Versive wrote:And like Han, his interests evolve from saving his own ass to allying with the good guys in order to defeat the forces of evil.
I think his motivation is much more direct, even after what happens at Maz' place and sitting through the motivational FUCK YEA LETS GET THIS 'DEF NOT DEATHSTAR3' TED talk his main aim is saving Rey, not defeating some nefarious evil (incidentally it would make much more sense for him to generically joint the fight against evil than it did for Han). But whatever, me typing paragraphs about character motivations won't change your mind anyway.
meh, stranger things have happened.

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Re: The Official Star Wars Episode VII Thread

Post by EMCEE DARTH MALEK »

Tommy Bunz wrote:The prequels [...] were almost entirely filmed in front of green screens and without any practical effects or sets and had to be filmed with mostly static cameras, as they were figuring out the majority of the action/staging/camerawork/etc in post production.
not that i noticed when i was 11, but the green screens are real obvious now. they're ridiculously poorly done, even for important scenes, even in epIII. takes you out of the action, story. pretty much the opposite of the practical effects from the first 3.

a silver lining is that the fights are nicely choreographed. there are few camera cuts so you get to appreciate the action. you can actually see what's going on, and the sabre battles are very showy and high intensity. darth maul especially is a dope acrobat.

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Re: The Official Star Wars Episode VII Thread

Post by perlman »

This movie was garbajio.
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Re: The Official Star Wars Episode VII Thread

Post by Tweak Da Leak »

i hate the high flying prequel saber battles besides Maul's and some in revenge of the sith. I'm glad JJ got rid of that garbage. I'm in the minority that actually liked Kylo's conflicted and emo side, gives another dimension to the character(without being overly whiny like Anakin in the prequels), Finn hanging with him for more than 5 seconds even with his wound was ridiculous though.
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Re: The Official Star Wars Episode VII Thread

Post by Philaflava »

If you picked up a light saber you'd know at least how to swing it. It's like holding a baseball bat and hitting someone with it. I don't think the Finn saber shit is too far fetched. BTW, upon the 2nd viewing this film is better than you thought.

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Re: The Official Star Wars Episode VII Thread

Post by perlman »

Actually its far worse. This film was made for six year olds with autism.
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Re: The Official Star Wars Episode VII Thread

Post by drizzle »

perlman wrote:This film was made for six year olds with autism.
so was the original trilogy

re Finn vs Kylo - Finn, presumably fueled by anger and adrenaline after going through all the shit that happened and then watching his friend get tossed like a ragdoll against a tree, is able to mostly defend himself for all of 2 minutes against a guy who was just shot in the stomach and then still gets thoroughly trounced. It's really not that much of a reach.
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Re: The Official Star Wars Episode VII Thread

Post by EMCEE DARTH MALEK »

^there's plenty of room to rationalize and i'm not disagreeing with that. but despite any excuse we can come up with, it removes the air of invincibility around him. vader never got defeated in epIV (or V for that matter). we're going into the next movie seeing kylo ren as someone who can be beat.


ps @perlman i'm tellin ya buddy u gotta take shrooms first, edibles, or at least burn a savage joint. break your mind down to the level of a 6yo autistic and you might actually have some fun!
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Re: The Official Star Wars Episode VII Thread

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EMCEE DARTH MALEK wrote:^there's plenty of room to rationalize and i'm not disagreeing with that. but despite any excuse we can come up with, it removes the air of invincibility around him. vader never got defeated in epIV (or V for that matter). we're going into the next movie seeing kylo ren as someone who can be beat.
that's literally the whole point of the character, he's not supposed to be the invincible villain, he's a try-hard emo wannabe. he's like a Dark Side sophomore trying to front like he's a senior
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Re: The Official Star Wars Episode VII Thread

Post by Philaflava »

drizzle wrote:
EMCEE DARTH MALEK wrote:^there's plenty of room to rationalize and i'm not disagreeing with that. but despite any excuse we can come up with, it removes the air of invincibility around him. vader never got defeated in epIV (or V for that matter). we're going into the next movie seeing kylo ren as someone who can be beat.
that's literally the whole point of the character, he's not supposed to be the invincible villain, he's a try-hard emo wannabe. he's like a Dark Side sophomore trying to front like he's a senior
As he will continue to grow stronger and better, much like Luke did.

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Re: The Official Star Wars Episode VII Thread

Post by Tweak Da Leak »

Only problem being the Kylo we were first introduced to would have trounced any Vader we've ever seen, nobody has had that type of force control to stop a laser blaster mid flight. Also Finn could barely beat a StormTrooper 1v1 in his previous fight(with the lightsaber mind you and this wasn't a Captain Phasma special trooper), you really think even an injured Kylo would have trouble with a goddamn Storm Trooper?
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Re: The Official Star Wars Episode VII Thread

Post by EMCEE DARTH MALEK »

^yeah he starts off godlike. i don't rly get it. i like the idea of a vulnerable/emo underachieving villain who turned to the dark side for power -- because he was weak. it's a fresh concept, but you can see from all the complaints in the thread that the mixed messages threw people off.

first viewing it didn't occur to me that kylo should have beat finn quicker. sometimes scenes are drawn out for dramatic effect rather than to represent the real passage of time (i don't think a 10 second fight between them would satisfy viewers).
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Re: The Official Star Wars Episode VII Thread

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EMCEE DARTH MALEK wrote: first viewing it didn't occur to me that kylo should have beat finn quicker. sometimes scenes are drawn out for dramatic effect rather than to represent the real passage of time (i don't think a 10 second fight between them would satisfy viewers).
this is a very good point, but dramatic effect is also why Kylo isn't shown as a bitch right off the bat. Our first impression of him is the impression that he is trying to produce on others. But then as you see more his facade slowly unravels and you realize he's weaker than he wants you to believe. I don't think the character could've been dramatically viable at all if he is immediately shown to be lesser than he appears, he would play like comic relief for the rest of the movie.
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Re: The Official Star Wars Episode VII Thread

Post by EMCEE DARTH MALEK »

werd i feel that. like tweak says, stopping the blaster is god body force usage, so that plus mind reading (which even vader couldn't do -- remember the whole interrogation deal in epIV) makes him super intimidating. then we see the bitch in him. but i still think he's cool, would totally go to his poetry reading.
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Re: The Official Star Wars Episode VII Thread

Post by Tweak Da Leak »

Yeah I actually really like Kylo as a character, I just thought they over/under powered him for scenes based on who he was interacting with like they would Superman, I didn't really have a problem with the chick beating him as he just had killed his pops and was injured(although in my mind she was trained by Luke as a child and was in the same jedi class as Kylo which is why i fan waved it), I couldn't do the same with Finn as he had just gotten beat up by a stormtrooper.
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Re: The Official Star Wars Episode VII Thread

Post by EMCEE DARTH MALEK »

^yeah i don't think kylo recognized rey tho.

also, finn's duel with the stormtrooper gave him a lil practice before fighting kylo.
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Re: The Official Star Wars Episode VII Thread

Post by Tweak Da Leak »

EMCEE DARTH MALEK wrote:^yeah i don't think kylo recognized rey tho.

also, finn's duel with the stormtrooper gave him a lil practice before fighting kylo.
I don't think so either, also didn't seem like Leia or Han recognized her if she is in fact Luke's kid. lol at the practice, would be akin to getting beat up by a foot soldier to prep for Shredder.
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Re: The Official Star Wars Episode VII Thread

Post by ric »

movie ought not to stray into that level of introspection. that's one of the things that sucked about the prequels. the og star wars were better because it's not character focused except in broad strokes. it's a story of good evil and some personal journeying to realize potential. but they never really went microscopic with motivations etc. focusing on that shit is a poor decision. the personal is minor.

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