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pigdog posted:Do you want to explain what dynamic personality means? She's portrayed as a capable person, which is great, and I concur she's actually pretty well acted too, but... there's just nothing about her. How is she any better developed than Ep I-III characters for example? For what its worth, I agree with you, but I don't think you are going to convince any of the people in this thread lol.
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Dec 21, 2015 18:36
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pigdog posted:Do you want to explain what dynamic personality means? She's portrayed as a capable person, which is great, and I concur she's actually pretty well acted too, but... there's just nothing about her. How is she any better developed than Ep I-III characters for example? Rey's personality is fairly firmly defined. She is a character defined by her extremely strong will. Once she sets her mind on something she does it regardless of what that thing is. The problem (and this is absolutely portrayed as a flaw) is that strong will goes in all directions. Once she set her mind on waiting for a family she kept to it even in the wake of significant temptation. Once she was forced to confront she was on the wrong path she had a minor mental breakdown and rejected a new path open to her. She is not just capable she is arguably pigheaded and strong-willed to an absurd degree. Every choice she makes is defined by her willingness to make a decision and stick with it come hell or high water. This is interesting because it actually does call to mind someone like Anakin who was quite similar in that regard. It's also not portrayed as entirely a positive trait. She will follow her path to the end but we already know from Anakin (who defines a lot of the film) that following your path to the end once you've made a decision is not inherently a positive trait. This is contrasted by Finn who is the exact opposite. He is shown to constantly change his mind, want to do things differently, and alter his path until he finds the one he likes. That is why his encounter with Rey is so important. Rey encourages him to stick to a path while he encourages her to leave her path. Their two personalities are the opposite in the exact way that is necessary to foster their personal growth.
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Dec 21, 2015 18:40
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pigdog posted:Did we ever learn what was Rey's problem that she couldn't get over leaving her shithole planet? Yes. Remember those marks on her wall? She's waiting for her family to come back for her after they dropped her off on the planet when she was young. She's afraid they'll come back for her while she's gone. That's why Maz tells her after she found the lightsaber that "You know the truth. Nobody is coming back."
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Dec 21, 2015 18:43
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This film was even better the second time around, the initial excitement at new Star Wars had subsided so I could drink the film in properly, I'd initially thought the pace of the movie was a bit to quick, and didn't leave room for major events like the Starkiller base firing it's weapon and Han's death to sink in but it works quite well watching it back. The movie certainly isn't slow at any point that's for certain but it does give enough breathing room to major events. One thing I would have liked to have seen more of was chewie wrecking motherfuckers after Han was killed, I wanted to see that Wookie tear stormtroopers apart
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Dec 21, 2015 18:43
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Carrier posted:Although I liked Fin, I thought it was slightly ridiculous that a "trained from birth" stormtrooper showed no signs of indoctrination or even military discipline from the moment he switched sides. Like, I get that it makes the plot work, but I find it pretty hard to believe that he was a completely unnoticed standard brainwashed stormtrooper (at least in the eyes of his superiors) for years and easily could have passed for a random dude pulled off the street immediately afterwards. It's because Fin has the power of super friendship. I'm not even kidding. Most Star Wars characters' super powers are actually normal powers. Vader has super fear and it makes him so super angry that he super destroys all of his relationships. Yoda has super wisdom that lets him super move events that are larger than himself. Obi-Wan has super loyalty that makes him super good at fighting but also super blind. Darth Sidious is super sneaky. Luke super believes in himself and his friends. Kylo has super insecurity that makes him super angry like his idol. Rey I'm not sure about yet. She seems to super believe in the legends about the Jedi and Star Wars. She lives in the ruins of the OT, literally. Star Wars is just a movie and the force is just a metaphor after all.
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Dec 21, 2015 18:46
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Nah, actually it's a pretty fun thought experiment. Yeah, let's compare Star Lord and Finn:
e: ImpAtom's post up there on this page is a delicious pairing with this one. f#a# fucked around with this message at 18:52 on Dec 21, 2015 |
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Dec 21, 2015 18:46
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The MSJ posted:It's pretty cool that you can hear Sir Alec Guiness saying "Rey" as well. Nah, that was Ewan MacGregor.
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Dec 21, 2015 18:46
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Bongo Bill posted:Nah, that was Ewan MacGregor. No, actually JJ has confirmed that they used Alec Guinness, in addition to Ewan McGregor.
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Dec 21, 2015 18:49
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Mahoning posted:No, actually JJ has confirmed that they used Alec Guinness, in addition to Ewan McGregor. I guess my information is out of date.
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Dec 21, 2015 18:50
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ImpAtom posted:She is not just capable she is arguably pigheaded and strong-willed to an absurd degree. Every choice she makes is defined by her willingness to make a decision and stick with it come hell or high water. This is interesting because it actually does call to mind someone like Anakin who was quite similar in that regard. It's also not portrayed as entirely a positive trait. She will follow her path to the end but we already know from Anakin (who defines a lot of the film) that following your path to the end once you've made a decision is not inherently a positive trait. This really goes with one of the things I noticed- that when BB8 tells Rey that Finn stole a coat, she flips the gently caress out and goes sprinting after Finn then violently attacks him. It seemed really jarring on my watch but it does make a little more sense when thinking about the above quote.
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Dec 21, 2015 18:50
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Bongo Bill posted:Nah, that was Ewan MacGregor. Mahoning posted:No, actually JJ has confirmed that they used Alec Guinness, in addition to Ewan McGregor. Yep, and to expand on this, Alec Guinness said "Rey" and Ewan said "These are your first steps." Edit: and to expand some more, it was originally recorded by the voice actor who played Obi-Wan in The Clone Wars, but he was replaced when they were able to get Ewan to do it.
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Dec 21, 2015 18:51
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Mahoning posted:No, actually JJ has confirmed that they used Alec Guinness, in addition to Ewan McGregor. Yeah, JJ was so psyched that the inflection of the tone on 'afraid' was perfect for what he wanted, and wasn't just jamming it in for the sake of it.
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Dec 21, 2015 18:52
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Come to think of it, the talk about Rey's parents is regarding an ambiguity, of which there really weren't too many of in the movie. That might be one of the reasons why it felt weak. Everything in the movie is presented on a silver platter. Except for the main plot device, there is no ambiguity about anything. No choices for characters where you might empathize with them and wonder which paths would they take. The villains are all in the open, too. Wouldn't have it been cooler if Finn never took off his helmet, and spent most or all of his movie in a rad blood-stained stormtrooper outfit, so that everyone would have had reasons to question his motivations?
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Dec 21, 2015 18:55
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Carrier posted:Although I liked Fin, I thought it was slightly ridiculous that a "trained from birth" stormtrooper showed no signs of indoctrination or even military discipline from the moment he switched sides. Like, I get that it makes the plot work, but I find it pretty hard to believe that he was a completely unnoticed standard brainwashed stormtrooper (at least in the eyes of his superiors) for years and easily could have passed for a random dude pulled off the street immediately afterwards. Im with you dude.
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Dec 21, 2015 19:00
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pigdog posted:Wouldn't have it been cooler if Finn never took off his helmet, and spent most or all of his movie in a rad blood-stained stormtrooper outfit, so that everyone would have had reasons to question his motivations? No that would be dumb.
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Dec 21, 2015 19:02
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hemale in pain posted:No that would be dumb. Hey, what if an extremely charismatic and charming character whose entire arc is defined by his decision to reject the conformity of being a Stormtrooper spent the entire movie wearing a bloodstained Stormtrooper mask? Pretty cool, huh?
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Dec 21, 2015 19:05
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I misunderstood some visual clues and thought the movie took a much darker tone at one point. Overall I thought it had a great mix of tragic events and inspiring moments. Makes me think the rest of the series will be a great rollercoaster like the original 3. When Chewie blew the explosives, I thought he had ran right next to one and became a suicide bomber. Something about how that scene was edited confused me.
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Dec 21, 2015 19:08
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Unzip and Attack posted:This really goes with one of the things I noticed- that when BB8 tells Rey that Finn stole a coat, she flips the gently caress out and goes sprinting after Finn then violently attacks him. It seemed really jarring on my watch but it does make a little more sense when thinking about the above quote. It also contrasts her with Kylo Ren who is defined by his waivering and lack of confidence in his cause. He is constantly begging for someone to tell him he is right and for help to do what is necessary and flips the hell out when he's confronted with something that causes his trouble. The scene with him and Rey battling in their minds pretty much emphasizes that Ren is far weaker willed than she is. People go "she's stronger in the force" but that isn't really right. Kylo Ren is absurdly strong in the force. He's just weak willed. In comparison think about what we see Rey doing with the force. It is all things that require strength of will. She overpowers Ren's force grip on the lightsaber, she dominates the mind of the stormtrooper and so-on. Her gimmick isn't that she's the Strongest In The Force. It is that she has an unbreakable iron will. It also emphasizes the difference between Jedi and Sith. The Jedi we see being strong are strong because they are strong-willed. Rey can be compared with Luke but she also can be compared with Obi-Wan, the man who willingly spent two decades on a shithole desert planet instead of running off to join the rebellion or whatnot. And what is Obi-Wan's most iconic jedi trick? The same one Rey uses. ImpAtom fucked around with this message at 19:14 on Dec 21, 2015 |
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Dec 21, 2015 19:12
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Very Determined isnt an exciting character attribute. Rey isnt charismatic and her reactions to the events of the story are almost always exactly what you'd expect.. I just dont find her interesting at all.
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Dec 21, 2015 19:18
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Finn was jolted because his entire career he was a janitor and that was his 1st combat mission (he says this if I recall correctly) and he's broken immediately. I am sure the other stormtroopers are put through the reconditioning system if they display the same behavior. It's why Phasma knew what to do. But in this case before they could get him into the system he was escaping with Poe. Otherwise that plot wouldn't happen as he'd be a stone cold killer.
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Dec 21, 2015 19:19
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net cafe scandal posted:Very Determined isnt an exciting character attribute. Rey isnt charismatic and her reactions to the events of the story are almost always exactly what you'd expect.. I just dont find her interesting at all. You're right, Rey should have just gone "Woah, poo poo, I'm going to become a used car salesman" and left the story midway through. Being surprised is better than having a coherent character arc. If a character has a good arc it is at least somewhat predictable because character arcs make sense. Luke's character arc is predictable, Han's character arc is predictable, ect. A character arc should be what you'd expect not surprising for the sake of being surprising.
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Dec 21, 2015 19:20
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Vintersorg posted:Finn was jolted because his entire career he was a janitor and that was his 1st combat mission (he says this if I recall correctly) and he's broken immediately. I am sure the other stormtroopers are put through the reconditioning system if they display the same behavior. It's why Phasma knew what to do. But in this case before they could get him into the system he was escaping with Poe. He is a stone cold killer.
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Dec 21, 2015 19:27
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ImpAtom posted:You're right, Rey should have just gone "Woah, poo poo, I'm going to become a used car salesman" and left the story midway through. 
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Dec 21, 2015 19:28
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I saw this movie last night and I definitely enjoyed parts of it. Harrison Ford is still awesome, the action scenes were well done, there were legitimately funny moments, and in just about every technical sense it was much better than the prequels in execution. The new characters were a bit thin, but I still liked Finn, and I think the actor did a good job, especially in the beginning when he had to act using just body language. But the movie as a whole just didn't click for me, and the more I think about it, the less I like it. One of the biggest problems is that there is very little to connect this movie with the end of RoTJ. Everyone rightly criticizes the prequels for having too much political exposition, but I think this movie goes too far in the opposite direction, to the point where I had a lot of trouble understanding what was going on. Why, exactly, can't the Republic directly respond to the First Order wreaking havoc across multiple systems with Star Destroyers and stormtrooper armies, instead of engaging in some kind of proxy war by "supporting" a rag tag group of rebels? It isn't too hard to come up with some kind of explanation for this situation. There are plenty of real-world examples of the fall of an evil dictator leading to political instability, endless civil wars, and the rise of cartoonishly evil terrorist groups. So why not toss in a few lines explaining the situation, so audience members like me won't spend much of their time wondering, "Wait, who are these people, why is this happening, and how does this matter to the galaxy that Luke and co. supposedly saved 30 years ago?" Yes, I'm sure that all of my questions are answered in the new Expanded Universe, but that excuse isn't valid now any more than it was with the prequels. More generally, I agree with the common sentiment that this movie tries way too hard to parallel the story of A New Hope. Redoing the Death Star plot was already a bit tiresome in Return of the Jedi. Now, after dozens of new superweapons introduced by various old EU works, a new Death Star plot is just plain boring. We get all these hand waves to put the characters and the galaxy in general back into basically the same situation they were at in ANH, and at some point you have to wonder what the point of the original trilogy was. Then there are all the little details: a droid with a secret message, the same lightsaber being passed down, Leia sitting around a rebel base monitoring the assault on the not!Death Star. This movie makes the prequel trilogy's "rhyming" pale in comparison. Say what you will about the prequels and the old EU, but at least they told new stories in the Star Wars universe. Also, the characters being able to see the superlaser being fired from one star system at another star system from the surface of a planet in a third star system, with their naked eyes, at the same time that it was fired? That is incredibly dumb even for a Star Wars movie, and it instantly took me out of the story. If I had to sum it up in one sentence, I'd say, "pretty and well-made, but uninspired." INH5 fucked around with this message at 19:35 on Dec 21, 2015 |
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Dec 21, 2015 19:30
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What precisely do you mean then? "It's exactly what you would have expected" is not a real criticism. If a character is sensible then their responses are going to be what you expect. If they're not then that is a problem unless their unexpected response is also a character point which would help define further responses which in turn become predictable because you understand why they're making those decisions. Unexpected is not inherently good.
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Dec 21, 2015 19:32
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I really like this new movie. But out of all the things that are cool, BB-8 was easily the thing I enjoyed the most. And it's just all the little things that are great. The part where Rey is heading downstairs in Maz's bar and things are all tense, and then in the background there's BB-8 coming down the stairs one step at a time, looking down before each one. It was so cute. Also the cigarette-lighter thumbs-up probably got the biggest reaction from the Thursday night crowd. Overall this felt way more in line with the OT, and I appreciated that they tried to keep the same aesthetic in the vehicle/environment design. Boyega and Ridley are awesome and have great chemistry with one another. I can't wait to see more of them in the future movies.
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Dec 21, 2015 19:33
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I was sold on Rey and basically understood her after her first scene with BB-8, which also helped to wake me up/remind me as to one of the central conceits of the series. My line of thought went "haha, wait, isn't she literally just robbing that dude" to "oh, wait, droids are people, not property, and she's one of the few to actually understand and act on this." In general I like that both our leads were immediately characterized by taking heroic risks of their own volition rather than getting swept up into the pkot by irresistible external pressures, even though those pressures did come eventually.
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Dec 21, 2015 19:37
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Ferrinus posted:At least one element will be right up your alley: Kylo Ren's struggle against the seductive voices of sentimentality and filial piety which tempt him away from full commitment to the radical, principled evil of Darth Vader. If anyone comes to me and does not hate father and mother... Frankly, that Kylo Ren is the misguided good guy seemed fairly obvious from the start. What interests me are those things that people aren't talking about : the film as myth. You know, that's the whole point of that Joseph Campbell horseshit. When I conclude people are being unfair to the film, it's because every single post is treating the mythological/fairy tale content as a mistake. They don't give you much information about the prince's kingdom in Snow White, so why is the absence of the Republic seen as a flaw? Why are people waiting til the next film to find out who these characters are *in detail*, when Tarkin and the Palpatine were only onscreen for like five minutes apiece? Again, the prince in Snow White doesn't have a complex backstory. It seems implicit that these characterizations failed.Did they? As per Star Wars tradition, the end of this film will undoubtedly be followed by a multi-year leap in time. Although the responses are almost unanimously like "this film was aight, but what happens next?" - you, in all likelihood, won't see what happens next. The previous films deliberately skipped over Luke's work in the rebellion, all the work leading up to Han's rescue, the entire clone war, Anakin's training... In a bizarre sort of way, the most direct 'sequel' is Episode 3's loop back into Episode 4.
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Dec 21, 2015 19:37
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I liked Phasmas outfit. If you thought white was a great army color, just wait until you see what chrome can do!
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Dec 21, 2015 19:38
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And Im sure you could go on about blah blah not being realistic or so and so laser weapon wouldnt actually work that way about any movie, Star Wars especially, and certainly many people do, but Im looking forward to people examing the blu ray release or whatever and noting how sloppy this movie is edited and plotted. Characters seem to teleport constantly, there's no coherent sense of distance between planets and landmarks. The Resistance reaching Starkiller was a good example of that, where this gargantuan gaping technological maw in this planet, the epicenter of all evil in the galaxy, feels like its the same size as a small warehouse. That scene where the heroes signal Poe and the X-wings to come in for the attack.. what, they were just chilling in lightspeed mode until they got the thumbs up? I dont know dude.
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Dec 21, 2015 19:39
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Maybe they were circling the planet in lightspeed.. yeah I guess that makes sense.
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Dec 21, 2015 19:40
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net cafe scandal posted:Characters seem to teleport constantly, there's no coherent sense of distance between planets and landmarks. It's almost like this is entirely unimportant in a series where everyone has access to interstellar spacecrafts capable of faster than light travel and where most trips involve only a small surface of the planet. Which you can argue is a flaw but certainly one that applies to literally every film in the series. net cafe scandal posted:That scene where the heroes signal Poe and the X-wings to come in for the attack.. what, they were just chilling in lightspeed mode until they got the thumbs up? I dont know dude. Yes. This is also something that happens in the original trilogy.
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Dec 21, 2015 19:41
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ImpAtom posted:Yes. This is also something that happens in the original trilogy. Well thats a fuckin surprise.
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Dec 21, 2015 19:43
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net cafe scandal posted:That scene where the heroes signal Poe and the X-wings to come in for the attack.. what, they were just chilling in lightspeed mode until they got the thumbs up? I dont know dude. This is such a dumb nitpick. They were waiting somewhere.
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Dec 21, 2015 19:43
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Mr. Pumroy posted:i get what you're saying and that makes sense but gently caress anakin Right, he's a bad guy. He's the bad guy. You're right that Kylo Ren is cooler with the mask on. Vader couldn't take off the mask, but it was still a mask.
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Dec 21, 2015 19:44
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Arglebargle III posted:This is such a dumb nitpick. They were waiting somewhere. They were rocketing towards Starkiller at lightspeed, but sure, it is a dumb nitpick. Its just one sloppy moment that stood out to me in a pile.
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Dec 21, 2015 19:47
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net cafe scandal posted:They were rocketing towards Starkiller at lightspeed, but sure, it is a dumb nitpick. Its just one sloppy moment that stood out to me in a pile. It isn't a sloppy moment it is just literally how lightspeed works in Star Wars.
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Dec 21, 2015 19:52
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There isn't a single Star Wars film that isn't 100 kinds of sloppy. No one cares.
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Dec 21, 2015 19:52
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SuperMechagodzilla posted:Frankly, that Kylo Ren is the misguided good guy seemed fairly obvious from the start. You can count me among the people who'd have gladly replaced the end of movie superweapon/space battle with at least a slightly better-realized sketch of the (in-story) politics at work, but I'd have also been happy with like... one long, slow travel scene or something. The actual space battles felt like filler.
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Dec 21, 2015 19:53
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Darth TNT posted:I liked Phasmas outfit. If you thought white was a great army color, just wait until you see what chrome can do! 2015 was a good year for giving us things that are shiny and chrome I hope she escaped
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