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Mahoning posted:He also has a bunch of moments in the movie where he struggles with doing the thing he's been trained to do his whole life, feels anger and loss at potentially losing perhaps the only friend he's ever had in his entire life, reluctance to continue on with his new friends after the shame of lying about who he was, and the courage to stand toe to toe with a really bad dude. This along with a lot of other feelings of adventure and joy. I would never say that I'm not bad at watching movies, but I can't remember anything comedy happening with Rey and it seemed like every time Finn was on screen there was something to chuckle about.
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Dec 23, 2015 21:34
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spacetoaster posted:I would never say that I'm not bad at watching movies, but I can't remember anything comedy happening with Rey and it seemed like every time Finn was on screen there was something to chuckle about. He can be a main character and be funny at the same time.
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Dec 23, 2015 21:36
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Dr Christmas posted:Was the move the Falcon pulled leaving hyperspace right by Starkiller Base's surface possible according to the rules, mostly in the EU, about not being able to enter hyperspace by a planet due to the mass shadows they project in hyperspace? Traveling through hyperspace ain't like dusting crops, boy! Without precise calculations we could fly right through a star, or bounce too close to a supernova and that'd end your trip real quick, wouldn't it.
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Dec 23, 2015 21:37
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Dr Christmas posted:Was the move the Falcon pulled leaving hyperspace right by Starkiller Base's surface possible according to the rules, mostly in the EU, about not being able to enter hyperspace by a planet due to the mass shadows they project in hyperspace? Who the hell cares, it happened in a movie
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Dec 23, 2015 21:38
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Dr Christmas posted:one was introduced in a recent episode of Star Wars: Rebels so now they are canon I guess?
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Dec 23, 2015 21:39
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Steve2911 posted:He can be a main character and be funny at the same time. I never said he wasn't a main character. But all the funny moments I can think of involved him.
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Dec 23, 2015 21:39
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spacetoaster posted:I never said he wasn't a main character. But all the funny moments I can think of involved him. Han has plenty of funny moments for one. There is in fact an extended joke where Han tries to swindle two gangs at once.
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Dec 23, 2015 21:41
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ImpAtom posted:Han has plenty of funny moments for one. There is in fact an extended joke where Han tries to swindle two gangs at once. As do Chewie, BB-8, C3PO and Maz off the top of my head.
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Dec 23, 2015 21:43
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spacetoaster posted:I never said he wasn't a main character. But all the funny moments I can think of involved him. poe was all sassy to kylo the stormtroopers being like nope gently caress that, not going to deal with a sith baby tantrum were funny chewbacca was funny
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Dec 23, 2015 21:43
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Yea he does have comedic moments, but he also has a lot of non-comedic moments. Without those his character would be pretty severe, as everything involving him would be pretty dark, and his character interactions would feel really off. With them you get a sort of feeling that despite all the poo poo he is still a nice person in a fairly happy state of mind. His gleeful exuberance celebrating with the other people when they pull crazy poo poo off doesn't seem out of character, but if Hux (hitler jr) reacted like that it'd be super weird. Contrast to someone like c3p0, who is a comedic relief pretty much purely.
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Dec 23, 2015 21:44
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ZypherIM posted:Hux (hitler jr) Speaking of: why the gently caress do you need to hold a grand speech to an army of brainwashed soldiers?
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Dec 23, 2015 21:45
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ImpAtom posted:Han has plenty of funny moments for one. There is in fact an extended joke where Han tries to swindle two gangs at once. niethan posted:poe was all sassy to kylo Steve2911 posted:As do Chewie, BB-8, C3PO and Maz off the top of my head. Yeah, I forgot those. I can't wait til this thing comes out on blue ray so I can watch it more. In my defense I saw it at 2AM opening night which was 5 days ago. But I'm not willing to cede defeat about Finn providing most of the comedy in this movie.
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Dec 23, 2015 21:46
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niethan posted:Speaking of: why the gently caress do you need to hold a grand speech to an army of brainwashed soldiers? The soldiers are conditioned, not brainwashed. As we see with Finn and with other soldiers they are not automatons. A speech that hypes them up and boosts their moral is totally something expected.
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Dec 23, 2015 21:47
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Well brainwashing is an on-going process, it isn't exactly a one-and-done. Just look at various cults and poo poo in the real world. I think the interesting take away from that was showing they're pretty hard-line, and I don't think he mentioned Snoke at all during it. Which feels like Snoke is a much more of the man behind the curtain figure that the mass soldiers don't actually know about.
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Dec 23, 2015 21:48
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The funniest bit was, clearly, how the first thing r2 does when he wakes up is insults 3po.
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Dec 23, 2015 21:49
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ImpAtom posted:The soldiers are conditioned, not brainwashed. As we see with Finn and with other soldiers they are not automatons. A speech that hypes them up and boosts their moral is totally something expected. ZypherIM posted:Well brainwashing is an on-going process, it isn't exactly a one-and-done. Just look at various cults and poo poo in the real world. I think the interesting take away from that was showing they're pretty hard-line, and I don't think he mentioned Snoke at all during it. Which feels like Snoke is a much more of the man behind the curtain figure that the mass soldiers don't actually know about. Tru. Tru.
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Dec 23, 2015 21:50
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niethan posted:Speaking of: why the gently caress do you need to hold a grand speech to an army of brainwashed soldiers? Others have already responded with good reasons, but also consider the propaganda angle. It's hard to say they're trying to win hearts & minds but it might be the kind of thing used to bully other systems into compliance.
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Dec 23, 2015 21:52
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Steve2911 posted:No. That does not make it canon. We've covered this already.
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Dec 23, 2015 21:59
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I'd love to see them showing the First Order winning the hearts and minds war, because all the terrible poo poo keeps being in out-of-the-way places or only shown to the main characters. They signed a peace treaty and then started a terrorist group, we had no choice but to retaliate!
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Dec 23, 2015 22:01
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ZypherIM posted:I'd love to see them showing the First Order winning the hearts and minds war, because all the terrible poo poo keeps being in out-of-the-way places or only shown to the main characters. They signed a peace treaty and then started a terrorist group, we had no choice but to retaliate! I think blowing up planets is kind of the "Nuke Mecca" of the Star Wars universe though.
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Dec 23, 2015 22:03
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They did a good job of making Poe's sexuality ambiguous. The whole time I was in the theater, all I could think was "drat, that boy is putting out vibes to all the men around him!!" and I was totally sure he was gay IRL. But I've done a lot of googling and there don't seem to be any pictures of him kissing men. Do you think there's any funny joke stories about him and Finn being boyfriends haha? I want to read them as a joke
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Dec 23, 2015 22:12
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Wow sleep for a while and four more pages are born Firstly, Rey doesn't seem to actually learn anything - her character growth in this movie can be summarized as "wanted to go back to Jakku" and then "no longer wants to go back to Jakku." Family concerns are there, I get it, but in service to the point about The Force Awakens being utterly afraid to take any risks, the place they seemed the most risk-averse was in their depiction of their new protagonist. To suggest that people behind the movie/franchise are unjustified in thinking neckbeards might knee-jerk into disliking Rey simply because she's a girl (woman I guess? if we're getting into a battle about nomenclature, I'm a neanderthal when it comes to this stuff) is wrongheaded - if you have the stomach, look at /tv/, where most of the criticism about Rey and Finn is that one is female and one is black. I don't necessarily think that making a girl your protagonist is a big risk in 2015, but making your space wizard knight protagonist in a genre that seems to be pretty steeped in weird, male-driven subcultures a girl - that's riskier at least, we can agree on that, right? The reason, in the main, why I didn't like Rey as much as I liked Finn or Poe - she doesn't really ever lose or even struggle or, hell, accept help (however misguided it may be) before the narrative just gives her a new power to solve that problem on her own. Finn grabbing her hand repeatedly while Rey keeps insisting that he stop doing that is cute, and I like that Rey has agency and power, because it makes her feel suitably heroic. I liked A New Hope Leia for a lot of the same reasons when I was growing up - she was capable and competent in her own right, showed initiative, was an important figure in the Rebellion. That said, here is a quick-hits version of Rey's trials in TFA: - Accosted by jerks. She whoops their asses with her staff. - Settlement she is in gets blown up by TIE fighters. She displays incredible flying prowess, enough to compensate for Finn's struggles with the shooting, and manages to escape and destroy the pursuing TIEs. - Watches Finn get dragged off by a Cthulu. She uses a door to save him. - Gets captured by Kylo Ren. She beats his Force powers with her own (?) and then Jedi mind-tricks her way out of captivity. - Duels Kylo Ren. She wins. In their effort to sell us on the new protagonist, and to quickly illustrate that she's not "just a girl" for whatever value you assign to that given the sci-fi fandom or whatever, they seemed terrified of having Rey lose at anything, or even struggle. Forget the contrasts to Luke, because that point's been made ad nauseam; TFA is a movie that has a strong undercurrent of failure riding through the whole film, and your central character essentially never fails. Luke failed to become Professor Jedi, and vanishes. Han failed to redeem his son, paying for it with his life. The New Republic failed to stamp out the Empire and gets destroyed. Poe fails to hold up under Ren's mind probe, divulging secrets that could have been catastrophic. Finn spends the entire movie losing battles and being thoroughly tested, requiring saves from Rey and Han just to survive the movie. Leia fails to emote effectively because her face appears to have been frozen in time by whatever dark space magic Kylo Ren knows. Rey just... never fails. She never even really needs help, which makes her feel like less of a member of the team; because (unlike Luke) she isn't in the starfighter battle, we don't get to see Rey being part of a collaborative effort and needing a wingman or an assist. I mean, assuming Chewie didn't show up in the Falcon at the end, she probably would have just found her way off the Starkiller base on her own anyway, because the movie is afraid to let her fail at anything. The closest thing we have to Rey losing is a grasp-at-straws "she was shooting at Kylo Ren with a blaster, and he didn't immediately die!" point people seem to want to make, and I just think that's dumb. I loved The Force Awakens. I like Rey. I'm excited that we get to have a lady doing the cool space wizardry, actually, and I went into this movie wanting to like Rey even more than I actually did. But the narrative oversells her to us pretty hard, which periodically sucked me back out of the movie.
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Dec 23, 2015 22:24
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GoGoGadgetChris posted:They did a good job of making Poe's sexuality ambiguous. The whole time I was in the theater, all I could think was "drat, that boy is putting out vibes to all the men around him!!" and I was totally sure he was gay IRL. But I've done a lot of googling and there don't seem to be any pictures of him kissing men. It seems to be the most popular ship already. And yeah, I had basically headcanoned Poe as pansexual from just my first viewing alone. I don't know that they'll actually go anywhere with it though, because Disney.
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Dec 23, 2015 22:28
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It's a little weird to say "Rey never fails or needs help" and then list a bunch of times she fails or needs help but say they don't count for whatever reason. Rey is absolutely the most bland of the three protagonists but she absolutely has moments of weakness or failure or where she needs help. Finn absolutely comes across as less capable than she does and needs to be rescued more often but that is because of a difference in their character arcs. ImpAtom fucked around with this message at 22:32 on Dec 23, 2015 |
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Dec 23, 2015 22:29
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ImpAtom posted:It's a little weird to say "Rey never fails or needs help" and then list a bunch of times she fails or needs help but say they don't count for whatever reason. DId you read my post? Rey doesn't really fail, and she requires zero help - she just has her problems solved for her by mysteriously getting new powers/fixing things on her own.
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Dec 23, 2015 22:33
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guts and bolts posted:DId you read my post? Rey doesn't really fail, and she requires zero help - she just has her problems solved for her by mysteriously getting new powers/fixing things on her own. Yes I did. I also ready the point where you go "Well Chewbacca rescued her but that doesn't count because she would have gotten off by herself anyway!" That seems to be how you sum up all of those things. Any time she gets help from Han or Finn or Chewbacca it's "well, she probably would have done it herself anyway." Kylo Ren slams her against a tree and knocks her out and Finn rushes to protect her doesn't count because later she returns the favor and so-on. She absolutely has a big giant failure moment where she runs away and gets kidnapped but that doesn't count because she doesn't get explicitly rescued without also helping herself.
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Dec 23, 2015 22:38
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euphronius posted:One of his functions is to show how loving racist and horrid the Jedi and republic (and the audience) are. Since you know there aren't "black people" in Star Wars, GL had to get to that point through even more explicitly. See also the treatment of droids and aliens. I think you're really, really reaching here. From all the behind-the-scenes stuff I've seen, Lucas put Jar Jar in because he wanted a funny CGI comic relief character. His idea of comic relief is literally a shucking and jiving minstrel show because he's a tone-deaf idiot. I've never seen any evidence to suggest that it's some greater exploration of racial tension in the Republic. Moreover, he also tossed in Nute Gunray the ching chong chinaman and Watto the hook-nosed jewish slaver. How the do you justify that?
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Dec 23, 2015 22:38
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The entire point of the Starkiller base collapsing is that Rey discovered that her friends came back for her to save her. Even fighting Ren, she didn't do so until Finn defended her (where earlier he said he would never go back to face them). Rey using the force is a lame nitpick that misreads the metaphor of the force. Rey can use the Force because Darth Vader died for her sins.
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Dec 23, 2015 22:38
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guts and bolts posted:DId you read my post? Rey doesn't really fail, and she requires zero help - she just has her problems solved for her by mysteriously getting new powers/fixing things on her own. I forgot about how Rey can fire the Falcon's quadlasers on her own. And Luke is so OP - he didn't need anyone to tell him that he could just magic his lightsaber to himself in that ice cave!
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Dec 23, 2015 22:39
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guts and bolts posted:DId you read my post? Rey doesn't really fail, and she requires zero help - she just has her problems solved for her by mysteriously getting new powers/fixing things on her own. Without Finn, she gets shot down in the Falcon and it joins the wreckage heaps. Without Finn and BB-8 she doesn't manage to get the Falcon repaired and the First Order finds them and shoots them. Without Han and Chewie they drift in space for a long while, possibly forever. They might never find the Resistance base or more info on the Skywalker situation. Without the whole group coming for her, Rey gets loose, wanders around for a while, is eventually found by Kylo Ren and/or ends up at "I'm in a stolen spaceship alone in deep space" again. Without Chewie she faces Kylo at full power. Without Finn, she doesn't even have a lightsaber. Rey is specifically not cast as being unable to affect her situation around her - even when she is captured and interrogated, she is able to get loose from the immediate situation of being captured. (Indeed I think some of the heat is because Disney had to thread the needle between the Scylla of "damsel" and Charbydis of "parodically ultracompetent at all things.") But in none of these situations are her problems solved by "mysteriously getting new powers," which seems to happen all of once, twice if you want to include being able to fend off Kylo with the saber of destiny.
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Dec 23, 2015 22:41
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guts and bolts posted:DId you read my post? Rey doesn't really fail, and she requires zero help - she just has her problems solved for her by mysteriously getting new powers/fixing things on her own. Wasn't she on her knees as some point with Ren's saber at her neck?
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Dec 23, 2015 22:42
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One day, Rey woke up and decided to leave her desert planet. After hopping between the pilot and gunner's seats, her starship automatically flew itself to Maz Kanata's bar and grill where she found a lightsaber and pocketed it. After being captured, she released herself but was confronted by Kylo Ren. He flung her against a tree but gave her enough time to regain her footing. She fought him and prevailed even though Kylo had not been shot by anyone recently. Rey then found her way back to her stolen spaceship and flew it to Luke Skywalker's secret hideout that only she knew about. This has been Rey's Incredible Day With Zero Help Poe was unable to help her, possibly because he was giving kisses to a man somewhere
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Dec 23, 2015 22:45
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I really wish someone could explain to me why using the Force to manipulate someone's mind is somehow something that needs to be explained. Everyone treats The Force like a RPG leveling system where you need to hit Level 4 before you can use Mind Trick but that is not and has never been before how the Force is presented. Every lesson anyone gets about the Force is "open yourself up to it and you will feel what you have to do." The Jedi exhibit telekinesis and precognition without any training whatsoever. "This character mysteriously gained a new power" is entirely grounded in video game thought processes where magic has to be learned and leveled up before you can use higher level skills. Think back to Yoda's training in ESB. He never goes "Luke, to lift this rock, you must put extra points into your WIS modifier." He in fact explicitly points out that Luke's problem is entirely mental and him trying to approach it the wrong way, not that it is extremely hard to do. The Jedi don't have a magic book where they teach you spells. Luke learns to block a blaster bolt entirely by instinct. Ben Kenobi isn't training him to move fast enough to block bolts. He blindfolds him and tells him to open himself up to The Force and The Force will show him how.
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Dec 23, 2015 22:47
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ImpAtom posted:It's a little weird to say "Rey never fails or needs help" and then list a bunch of times she fails or needs help but say they don't count for whatever reason. Saves Finn from the Rathtar she herself unwittingly released. Gives away that she's seen the map after getting force stasis'd. Even unwittingly and unknowingly reveals to Kylo where Luke is! "I see it, the island in the ocean" But she never fails!
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Dec 23, 2015 22:47
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ImpAtom posted:I really wish someone could explain to me why using the Force to manipulate someone's mind is somehow something that needs to be explained. You can't use Jedi Mind Tricks until you've mastered the following advanced technique 
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Dec 23, 2015 22:50
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ImpAtom posted:I really wish someone could explain to me why using the Force to manipulate someone's mind is somehow something that needs to be explained. This is what I see people miss all the time. The Force is like enlightenment or theosis, and Jedi are space monks
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Dec 23, 2015 22:51
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euphronius posted:You keep skipping over it but equally important to female and black lead is the UNKNOWN part.
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Dec 23, 2015 22:53
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Rey has more Midichlorians than Ren. It's pretty simple people.
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Dec 23, 2015 22:55
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Yvonmukluk posted:I actually like how they are quite clearly laying the ground for Rey & Finn to get together in the next movie or the one after. They clearly had some chemistry, but they only knew each other, what, a few hours? I'm quite happy if they let that relationship develop over the course of the trilogy. I'm pretty sure the story for the next two movies is already done. Whatever it is.
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Dec 23, 2015 22:59
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GoGoGadgetChris posted:One day, Rey woke up and decided to leave her desert planet. After hopping between the pilot and gunner's seats, her starship automatically flew itself to Maz Kanata's bar and grill where she found a lightsaber and pocketed it. Also the universe wasn't destroyed and/or conquered by the First Order because the Starkiller base spontaneously blew up after she left.
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Dec 23, 2015 23:02
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