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Oh man, I just thought of the best It Rhymes for Rey's parents. Her dad wasn't Luke, but one of the disciples who joined Kylo and was killed by Luke in the battle. So instead of the twist being that he is her father, its that Luke killed her father. Also, if I has the tech and resources to build a weapon capable of destroying a planet, you sure as hell bet I would keep making them. They said it clearly in ANH, that they will keep the locals in check woth fear of their battle station. Things capable of blowing planets, now remotely, would do a very good job of instilling fear. The Glumslinger fucked around with this message at 07:06 on Dec 19, 2015 |
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Dec 19, 2015 07:02
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Zombies' Downfall posted:I certainly see them as more ambitious films than Episode VII, which deliberately plays it safe and formulaic, but I think they fail at most of their ambitions and are ultimately sloppy, jarring films as a result. The romantic stuff in Episode II in particular is one of the most catastrophic examples, and features some of the worst dialogue and inexplicable plotting I've ever seen in its released form. There is absolutely no reason other than "destiny" and the necessities of plot for someone like Padme to be attracted to Anakin, a virginal creep she used to babysit who talks about how much easier everything would be if he had absolute power and slaughtering people like animals. Having the young Darth Vader be a repulsive, childish, selfish character is fine, but renders the love story unbelievable and makes Obi Wan's fond rapport in the prequels and memories in the OT confusing. Haha, yeah, there's almost an argument to be made that Hayden Christensen was too good an actor. Movie psychopathic scumbags are much more roguish and charming whereas in real life they're just creepy shitheads.
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Dec 19, 2015 07:03
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The Glumslinger posted:Oh man, I just thought of the best It Rhymes for Rey's parents. Her dad wasn't Luke, but one of the disciples who joined Kylo and was killed by Luke in the battle. So instead of the twist being that he is her father, its that Luke killed her father. This is the one that seems likeliest to me. Just imagine: "A young Jedi named Kylo Ren, who was a pupil of mine before he turned to evil, helped the First Order wipe out the last of the Jedi. He betrayed and murdered your father."
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Dec 19, 2015 07:04
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Mahoning posted:I THINK she remembered something maybe from her childhood pre-Jakku. Maybe she was being trained as a Jedi or about the Force before being abandoned. She then closes her eyes and concentrates and is basically able to gently caress him up after that, hitting him in his shoulder (that's 3 pretty bad wounds). Even after all that, he still puts up a pretty good fight before she finally gets the winning blow in. So all things considered, it's pretty admirable that he put up that good of a fight against someone so strong with the Force. Na, overthinking it....it was what Maz said to Rey after Rey touched the lightsaber and mentioned the force to Rey. Rey was recalling Maz telling her to close her eyes and feel it. Somebody fucked around with this message at 07:11 on Dec 19, 2015 |
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Dec 19, 2015 07:05
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Lord Krangdar posted:It wasn't that far from imagery in the previous movies. Just bigger, like the bigger death star. It was more evocative and intense than anything from the OT, I'd say.
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Dec 19, 2015 07:07
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Bongo Bill posted:This is the one that seems likeliest to me. Just imagine: "A young Jedi named Kylo Ren, who was a pupil of mine before he turned to evil, helped the First Order wipe out the last of the Jedi. He betrayed and murdered your father." My buddy pointed it out that Kylo Ren looks to finish what his grandfather started, which was to exterminate the Jedi. It's a throwback to the prequels that goes understated because its derivative, but Anakin killed the entirety of the Jedi order with few exceptions. Kylo Ren killed the entirety of the New Jedi Order with few exceptions. Rageaholic Monkey posted:I mean, yeah, but General Hux giving a very Hitler-esque rallying speech, the tons of Stormtroopers basically giving the Sieg Heil, citizens of that one planet watching in horror as their planet was about to be completely destroyed, etc. In ANH it was done in cold calculation with little sense of impassioned feeling behind it. Here, it was a matter of course. Boon fucked around with this message at 07:14 on Dec 19, 2015 |
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Dec 19, 2015 07:11
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You guys are really loving bad at typing [spoiler].
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Dec 19, 2015 07:12
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teagone posted:It may have super heavy-handed, but I thought the moment just before Kylo Ren kills Han, where the lighting on Kylo's face is split between shades of blue and red during their exchange, and then it immediately changes to full on red the moment the Starkiller base completes its charge, extinguishing any semblance of light (both literal and metaphorical), was a nice visual cue. What a pretty movie The best part about this is Han tries to use fear to get Kylo back to the light and his face is in red light when he does that since succumbing to fear is a dark side thing
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Dec 19, 2015 07:13
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I didn't like this movie very much  The characters were incredibly charming and I loved them all, even Kylo, and the first act's really strong, but I don't think the movie's structure worked for me past the midpoint — the visit to Kanata and the perfunctory breakup/reunion of the characters throws off the pace, and the final action scenes around Starkiller Base don't really build any tension in the sky or on the ground.If we're going to get a loving homage to ANH, I wish we'd gotten a movie focused on stealing ANH's storytelling and editing, not its plot. Everything's too perfunctory: we have the exploding planet without Tarkin's 'where is the rebel base?' buildup or Leia's despair, we get the X-Wing attack without the superbly edited fly-in and 'Red Five standing by' sequence or the sense of dwindling numbers and desperation, the Death Star infiltration without any exciting complications like wearing disguises or getting pinned in the detention block. It's all a bit...easy. None of which is to say I want more homage to ANH — if anything less! — but I don't think this story's as skillfully told. The scale's bigger but the stakes feel smaller. And who the heck was Max von Sydow's character supposed to be? I'm really curious why he had the map, although it's not something I felt like I needed the movie to tell me.
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Dec 19, 2015 07:13
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First impressions before I have a chance to sleep on this: The word "safe" is starting to feel like a cliche to describe this movie, but it's the most fitting. It doesn't take risks and very consciously models itself after the OT (and ANH in particular), and definitely feels like JJ reassuring people who really like the OT that they'll be getting more of what they loved. And that's not inherently bad, because it sounds like I'm damning with faint praise. But it means that the movie fits into a very comfortable niche, rather than trying for something ambitious and new like the PT did. The flip side is, everything that was new was fantastic. The new characters, including the villains, were the highlight - they were fun to watch, charismatic, well-acted, and I want to see more of them. And that helped paper over a lot of the originality problems elsewhere, because at the very worst, it was still tremendously entertaining. Overall, I enjoyed it, and would probably give it a B+/A-. In that same vein, everything up to the flight from Jakku was top-notch; it invoked the Tatooine parts of ANH without being a carbon copy, the action sequences were exciting, and the various dynamics of Finn/Rey and Finn/Poe were great in these parts. Easily my favorite section of the film. And not to diminish the acting of anyone here - they were all fantastic - but Boyega is the highlight. Kylo Ren is not a villain I was expecting to like as much as I did. I think people in this thread have sufficiently covered the reasons why he makes for an interesting villain. I enjoy that he's trying really hard to prove that he's evil enough to himself and/or Snoke; it's an interesting sort of conflict and makes for a different type of villain. It's the kind of originality that's missing from other parts of the film. Also, [EU trigger warning], I think it's kind of interesting that the exact plot of Han and Leia's son going evil was done in the EU, but to much worse effect, so I like that this is a chance to do it right. Now, negativity. The two biggest problems I had were: A) The third act centered around the not-Death-Star. There's invoking the other movies, and then there's just straight up redoing the climax of ANH, right down the single spot that blows up everything. The fact that they did the cute "Didn't we do this before?" thing in the briefing kind of made it worse when the rest was played completely straight. And while I liked Poe a lot at the beginning and after his return, he doesn't get to do a lot in these scenes other than " B) The whole mystery-box/sequel-hook plotting. Kylo Ren/Ben Solo's fall seems to be one of the major runners throughout the sequel trilogy, so I'm okay with keeping that mysterious. But then in addition we have the mystery of Luke's backstory, and the mystery of Rey's backstory, and the mystery of Snoke, and the mystery of Maz Kanata and Luke's lightsaber, and even Max von Sydow was hinted at having a mysterious past. And none of that gets answered this movie, leaving it all just kind of hanging there. And then the film just straight up ends on a cliffhanger, rather than have any sense of closure. As nice as it was to see Mark Hamill again, the ending was probably one of my least favorite parts, because it just leaves a big "To Be Continued...?" hanging over the whole thing. And the thing is, I want to see Episode VIII, I just don't really want chunks of this movie to be held back to get me to see it. Random thoughts: - My favorite return from the OT was, oddly enough, Threepio. I like that with everyone else old and grizzled and suffering from their various demons (even R2!), Goldenrod is exactly the same as we left him in ROTJ, give or take a red arm. - I'm gathering they didn't blow up Coruscant, but some other planet that the New Republic was based on. I was actually really bummed at the thought of Coruscant getting Starkilled, it was probably a bigger shock than Han. Also Abrams has a thing for people watching the destruction of a planet in the sky at an improbably close distance. - Han's death scene was just really well done overall. For some reason I love Han's shout of "Ben!" at the start of that - not only is it an OT callback that really works, but Ford somehow acts the hell out of that one word. - I'm excited to see what Rian Johnson will do, and expect that he'll be better in the originality department than Abrams. - BB-8 is awesome, and was easily the favorite of the theater I was in. And he somehow has an entirely different personality from R2, even with both of them just being bleeping tin cans, which is some really good direction/sound effects/robot acting. - I'm disappointed that Snoke (probably) isn't a giant. I don't think even the EU had a giant-sized humanoid species, that would have been a cool design. - My current probably-totally-wrong theory is that Rey is Luke's daughter, and after Ben fell he freaked out and hid her. - I know I've been complaining about originality, but I really want to see some Hutts in a future episode. Or maybe the Han movie. I love those guys. I think I'll like this a lot more on second viewing, now that I won't be unpleasantly surprised at certain plot choices, and can just enjoy the parts I do enjoy for themselves. Lord Hydronium fucked around with this message at 07:16 on Dec 19, 2015 |
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Dec 19, 2015 07:13
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Frank Oz, unprompted, espouses his undying love for Jar Jar Binks at The Force Awakens premiere: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PXh47Z_iYlU
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Dec 19, 2015 07:15
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I think people need to look at this movie not through the lens of ANH but the ENTIRE original trilogy. To me it's all there.
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Dec 19, 2015 07:19
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Boon posted:I think people need to look at this movie not through the lens of ANH but the ENTIRE original trilogy. To me it's all there. And the prequels! I keep saying it because the thread goes so fast. Kylo Ren's backstory being a remix of Anakin's backstory is the most obvious one. There's others, of course.
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Dec 19, 2015 07:23
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General Battuta posted:The characters were incredibly charming and I loved them all, even Kylo, and the first act's really strong, but I don't think the movie's structure worked for me past the midpoint — the visit to Kanata and the perfunctory breakup/reunion of the characters throws off the pace, and the final action scenes around Starkiller Base don't really build any tension in the sky or on the ground. Starkiller Base, in comparison, just sort of pops into existence mid-movie, the characters come up with its weakness and a plan to blow it up right after they've heard of it, and scenes where it's about to blow up the Resistance planet are curiously tension-free. It's just kind of...there as a MacGuffin for the good guys to blow up so they have something to do in the last third of the movie.
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Dec 19, 2015 07:23
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Cnut the Great posted:Frank Oz, unprompted, espouses his undying love for Jar Jar Binks at The Force Awakens premiere: That was fairly interesting, since he said it reminded him of Abbot and Costello. He worked on Star Wars as an adult and connects with the one part of it that likely reminds him of his own childhood.
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Dec 19, 2015 07:29
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Boon posted:I think people need to look at this movie not through the lens of ANH but the ENTIRE original trilogy. To me it's all there. I agree. And it really doesn't leave a ton to be copied in 8 & 9. Which is a good thing. JJ used a lot of familiar imagery, situations, places, etc from all 3 films. Some he really put interesting twists on, others were a bit more lazy. But it's over with now and Rian Johnson now has a ton of freedom to take these interesting characters and the state of the galaxy and just run with it, taking it to new and interesting places without having to remind everyone about the OT.
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Dec 19, 2015 07:29
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Bongo Bill posted:And the prequels! I keep saying it because the thread goes so fast. Kylo Ren's backstory being a remix of Anakin's backstory is the most obvious one. There's others, of course. Their backstories are completely different, but his petulant outbursts, and even the tone with which he addressed the new emperor without his mask were reminiscent of Anakin in Ep 2 and 3.
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Dec 19, 2015 07:32
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One little bit I found interesting, and hope to see more, was that Snoke's interactions with Kylo Ren, while limited, were almost paternal. His tone when informing Kylo about Han, for example, and telling whatshisface to get Kylo off the planet sounded more caring than scheming. It's a noted contrast to Palpatine's cackling. It makes sense for interactions with Daddyissues McGee (I mean that in the nicest possible way).
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Dec 19, 2015 07:42
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Oh yeah, one other thing I liked about Kylo and the movie in general: continuing the tradition of the major episodes being one big hosed up Skywalker family drama.
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Dec 19, 2015 07:44
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Oh and by the way, do you all think that Kylo Ren found the lost Manos: Hand of Fate film reel before or after finding Darth Vader's helmet?
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Dec 19, 2015 08:06
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Proposition Joe posted:Oh and by the way, do you all think that Kylo Ren found the lost Manos: Hand of Fate film reel before or after finding Darth Vader's helmet? 
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Dec 19, 2015 08:10
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Love Stole the Day posted:This was specifically explained in the movie: During the interrogation scene, Kylo Ren got Rey all mad because he said that Han is becoming like a father figure to her. Huh? That doesn't explain anything. I'm pointing out that it seemed like Rey and Leia already knew one another and am basing my speculation on that. teagone fucked around with this message at 08:15 on Dec 19, 2015 |
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Dec 19, 2015 08:12
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-Blackadder- posted:Haha, yeah, there's almost an argument to be made that Hayden Christensen was too good an actor. Movie psychopathic scumbags are much more roguish and charming whereas in real life they're just creepy shitheads. Kurzon fucked around with this message at 08:19 on Dec 19, 2015 |
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Dec 19, 2015 08:16
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Kurzon posted:You're talking out of your rear end. Psychopaths are emotionally flat and they are often very seductive and charming, basically the opposite of what Anakin is. And Anakin's mind was warped by this magic thingy called the Force which is capable of turning decent and congenial people into hosed-up monsters on a dime, so Anakin has no parallel in the real world. The force is the Internet
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Dec 19, 2015 08:20
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It was alright. I didn't like that this movie was so pandering and pretty much beat for beat a retread of A New Hope. I wish it had been its own movie instead of playing it so safe. Also Vader 2.0 is way too hard to take seriously.
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Dec 19, 2015 08:25
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Proposition Joe posted:Oh and by the way, do you all think that Kylo Ren found the lost Manos: Hand of Fate film reel before or after finding Darth Vader's helmet? Been a while since I saw that MST3k episode, help me out here. I remember the funny creepy guy in that movie, not much poppin' out in my memory. And hot drat do I need some Star Wars Episode 8! Watching 7 a couple more times will have to do!
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Dec 19, 2015 08:26
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Just saw it. It was great. One of the kids sitting behind me loudly asked "Why isn't Darth Vader in this one?" during a quiet scene.
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Dec 19, 2015 08:27
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man nurse posted:It was alright. I didn't like that this movie was so pandering and pretty much beat for beat a retread of A New Hope. I wish it had been its own movie instead of playing it so safe. Well good news. There's 2 more episodes, and since TFA is probably going to make like $3 billion dollars, you can really just go ahead and expect episodes 9 through 12 now too. Disney has plenty of chances for them to take narrative risks after this soft reboot laid the framework.
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Dec 19, 2015 08:28
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I just got back from watching this, and it seems like Abrams dropped the ball with this in exactly the same way as he has with the new Star Trek movies - laden with callbacks that fail to understand the original context, resulting in a pale facsimile that has some good moments, but poorly strung together. It wasn't Phantom Menace bad, but overall it was disappointing. Abrams has yet to make anything in his career I actually like though, something about his work just flat out does not work for me. Can they give the next few to some more talented directors?
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Dec 19, 2015 08:37
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Say what you want about the prequel trilogy, but George Lucas took Star Wars to new places. Abrams recycles, which is exactly what brought down his Trek films.
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Dec 19, 2015 08:40
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Kurzon posted:Say what you want about the prequel trilogy, but George Lucas took Star Wars to new places. Abrams recycles, which is exactly what brought down his Trek films. Those new places were bad places. I never want to return to those places. Abrams went back to places I liked.
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Dec 19, 2015 08:41
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I just saw an ad on TV for Star Wars themed razor blades, about how fathers pass their wisdom on to their sons. They, uh, obviously haven't ever seen a Star Wars movie. Especially not The Force Awakens
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Dec 19, 2015 08:42
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GonSmithe posted:You guys are really loving bad at typing [spoiler].
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Dec 19, 2015 08:45
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Kurzon posted:Maybe you should just declare this thread a spoiler thread, since it's almost a wall of black anyway. It's been out for a day. I'm just laughing because I've had to edit like 10 posts who did : instead of [ or spoilers instead of spoiler.
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Dec 19, 2015 08:46
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Also John Boyega has been going around to theaters in New York City all night to meet fans and thank them for seeing the movie. It's on his Instagram and snapchat, I'm sure it'll get covered on buzzfeed or something and compiled, eventually. It's really charming.
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Dec 19, 2015 08:49
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qbert posted:Those new places were bad places. I never want to return to those places. Abrams went back to places I liked. Two random forest planets I've already forgotten the name of, Tatooine without the charm, and the snowy death star?
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Dec 19, 2015 08:52
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qbert posted:Those new places were bad places. I never want to return to those places. Abrams went back to places I liked. You are the dead.
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Dec 19, 2015 08:53
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qbert posted:Those new places were bad places. I never want to return to those places. Abrams went back to places I liked. I walk through the valley of the shadow of death.
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Dec 19, 2015 09:03
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Thank the maker I can finally read this thread. Without a hint of irony I can say that I haven't felt this way about a Star Wars movie since I was kid and young enough to believe in actual Jedi. Stupid grognardy things that I loved and that you can feel free to ridicule me for feeling that way about : 1. Phasma never taking off her helmet for the sweaty Gwendoline Christie face reveal. I didn't need to know what she looked like, I have enough of an idea from Game of Thrones and I'm glad J.J Abrams agreed. 2. Serkis with the 50ft bad guy fake out. It was the first what the gently caress moment for me. I thought not only was he a CGI bad guy, but they also made him a giant? I think I sighed when it was revealed he was a hologram. 3. C3PO! Probably the first time I smiled at seeing loving C3PO. 4. That Leia and Han named their son Ben. 5. Final lightsaber fight between Kylo and Rey wasn't super choreographed. Strikes had emotion and impact.  poo poo pulled at my heartstrings when Han Solo went out to confront and possibly redeem his son in a way that reminded me of Luke's plea to Darth Vader. It physically pained me to watch Solo's CGI body fall into an empty white abyss. It hurt me to watch Harrison Ford walk up those steps to Cantina Royale. Dudes going to look real tired all the time when he's in Blade Runner 2. I suspected loving Ello Asty would die when I started to think how goofy of a background character he was. He added variety to the Resistance pilots. It should have been Greg Grunberg. We didn't get to see Phasma roll out of garbage chute covered in space trash. edit: Sorry about not spoilering. AndyElusive fucked around with this message at 09:13 on Dec 19, 2015 |
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Dec 19, 2015 09:05
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NTRabbit posted:Two random forest planets I've already forgotten the name of, Tatooine without the charm, and the snowy death star? Jakku was well done and they succeeded in making it feel like it's own thing.
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Dec 19, 2015 09:06
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