This is the best complaint I've seen so far, and I agree. I wonder if there was a deleted scene to do with this, as one of the people killed in the blast has a name, Korr Sella. I expected her to have an actual part, but she was just blown up, so I think maybe they originally did try to give the viewer some connection to these planets.

Edit: this chick...looks like there definitely was stuff cut, given the picture of her here.

I did love the movie though, and I'll just post what I wrote up for Facebook rather than re-articulating my thoughts.

Edit:

He's confirmed as 7ft+ tall.

 

These new actors really shames the ones in the prequel trilogy. Daisy Ridley's acting was believable, you really can see her development and acceptance of the force from the start to the climax.

Favorite scene: The Millennium Falcon scenes made my jaw drop. Unbelievable!

 

I'll jump on the Ren wagon and say he kind of disappointed me as well with his sadsack scenes, though the rage ones were fantastic. The ligthsaber with the hilt still annoyed me, but at least it was utilized in the film and not 100% cosmetic.

I am disappointed Han Solo is gone, but not disappointed Ford is. Honesty I feel the movies will be better without Ford in them, too much catering for fans sake. R.I.P Solo, close the door on the way out Ford, you've been good but it's time to move on. Hindsight is 20-20 and I bet Lucas wished he listened to Ford and killed him off in the 6th episode.

Overall I felt it was a great comeback release, but now they got a lot of the introductions out of the way I feel like the next installment will be all the more stronger for it.

 

I'm hoping for a stronger showing from Phasma next episode, but there's not much you can realistically do when you get bumrushed by a Wookie.

Also had to lol at Finn's assignment before his first battle.

 

Had the pleasure of seeing he movie late last night. It was Star Wars the entire time and it was great how the movie kept that feeling going. The whole movie kept reminding me if different parts of the original trilogy, naturally the three main planets with desert, forest, and snow but there were other references that got me to. That death planet/star forge weapon was fun along with the obscure droid reference made about R2D2 that has a parallel to the droid in kotor 2 that the main character has fix to figure out why Revan left and how to get to him. I'm sure there were more that bigger fans of the expanded universe noticed.

Will watch again, but after actual sleep.

And whenever someone said Snoke all i could think of was snuke.

 

Watched it earlier. I felt like it was a pretty great movie. Ren felt a bit... odd. Like he was a child desperately playing at being Sith, really - the EU really stressed how Sith channel their rage and not let it control them, in contrast to how he acted. Felt the start could have used a little more to make Finn's panic attack more impactful. Maybe a 30 second scene where another trooper tells the rookie that it's just another milk run, nothing to worry about.

It kept very strongly to the cinematography and style of the previous films.

Ray (Rey?)'s character was great, could really feel development, though her facial expressions leave something to be desired. Her sudden ability to utilise the force was ridiculous, though. Thought Finn came across as a stereotypical black guy. Snoke had zero impact. The superweapon felt contrived and too much like fanservice instead of something rational.

Liked how Ren's hilt-saber was actually used for something. Did not like untrained people using lightsabers and actually managing to not kill themselves. Did not like how Ren, as someone who seems to have a lot of control issues, uses an extremely defensive lightsaber style which looks based off Soseru.

Seem to be throwing out a lot of criticism, but I liked it on the whole. Just felt like it was missing a bit of polish, or something? Could just be trilogy-isms and fan service showing, though. It certainly wouldn't survive as a standalone movie today.

 

I'm pretty sure thst's what they were going for with Ren. He doesn't have a true sith Lord to train him just this Snoke dude.

I'm guessing that Snoke is extremely ancient, possibly dormant and only awoken by the lack of a dark side power in the galaxy.

He must have been the one to instruct Ren on how to build a lightsaber. Im guessing he's ancient because its established that Ren's lightsaber design is archaic and that the crossguards are actually plasma vents because its an unstable design, unlike Luke's more modern design.

 

Daisy Ridley is the most pleasant surprise in a long time. My daughters are both already planning Rey cosplay for Emerald City this coming year, and that's so cool to me as a nerdy parent. Glad they made a character that younger girls can relate to.

Ren... I like the initial feel he has. Kind of reminds me of that kid that's freakishly athletic but has no idea how to use it, so he's just wild - but in a force-using way. Without Vader to compare him to, we'd probably all like him a lot more, but we're all so used to the menacing emotionlessness of the big guy that Kylo seems just a bit too unhinged for our tastes. Can't wait to see what he's like with some training.

BB-8 is the best droid ever, in any world. I was so WTF initially when I saw the original designs, but holy crap was he great.

Really hoping Maz Kanata isn't dead. She was hilarious, I about lost it at her deadpan "I like that wookiee" bit. Needs a lot more back story there.



I really, really want JJ Abrams to make an Old Republic movie now. If they have the ability to make stand-alone stuff, there's no reason not to. Unless someone gets the balls and the funding to make a Netflix series of it that is.

 

Well. I enjoyed it, but I did not leave the cinema without a few peeves.

The two most significant issues I see is that space is simply too small and everything happens too fast.

This wouldn't have been an issue but the scene where the Starkiller fires and blows up some planets really shoved it in my face. Han and the gang were on a planet looking for a ship to get BB-8 to the resistance and they could actually see the planets getting blown up? The people on Jakku could see the beam shoot across the sky?

Then they start charging the laser again and in like ten minutes, and it feels like ten minutes in story too, the resistance mounts an attack on it.

Then there's the treatment of the Force. More specifically, what is even the point of Jedi training? I mean Ren was trained by Luke for however long and Rey is able to beat him at a lightsaber duel when all of her training is beating up the occasional handsy bloke back on Jakku? Fine, he was shot by Chewie's big gun shortly beforehand but I still didn't buy it.

I still haven't worked out why 'The Resistance' still exists when the Republic looks like it's getting on fine. Well, until those planets got summarily blown up. At least there was no-one important on them, no one seemed to care, anyway.

Oh, and Snooki, or whatever the Big Bad's name is, didn't quite work for me.

That said, the acting was, in general, extremely good. They managed to make Carrie Fisher look like a human rather than the alien reptile she's started to take after in recent years. Rey was a great character, and in general it was just enjoyable. There were some good laughs and it definitely managed to avoid feeling like a cynical cash-in.

The overthinker in me wonders how on earth it can be turned into an internally consistent world though. Maybe I need to sleep on it. Or see it again. Or both.

 

The whole thing with Rey was that she needed to let the Force in. And the Force controls your actions as well as obeys your commands.

 

I'm hoping it's case of we have no basis for comparison, and when a real force user comes along they all look amateur hour.

Kinda hoping Ray starting the movie with a staff means she'll build herself a saberstaff... That... Would be fucking awesome.

 

i sorta read a 'primer' in the star wars Aftermath novel and such, so the dissonance between New Republic, First Order and Resistance didn't bug me as much.

things i didn't like most people have said already so i'll skip.

things that i LOVED were all the spaceship scenes. i will admit the RotJ was actually my favourite original trilogy film simply because of the scale of the spacebattles, cuz spaceships are cool. (i are very simple to please)

the dogfights here were much smaller in scope but i liked how fast paced it all seemed. especially when you compare it to original trilogy (original edition) with their very smooth, very slow and graceful banking, diving, climbing, etc (aside from the fiery death spins), the scenes here felt chaotic and you could FEEL how fast they were flying around, especially with some of the in-cockpit shots.

i especially loved how Rey had trouble piloting the Falcon at first, for me that was a (possible unintentional?) nod to the EU lore where the Falcon is an extremely DIFFICULT ship to fly, and more than one person/droid who tries to take the helm in Han's place had problems sometimes getting it off the ground without smacking into crap... like Rey did!

all in all, like most ppl i rate it well over any of the prequels, but it does fall second to my personal favourite RotJ.

and yes, we could prolly done without Death Star Mk3, but minitrench run! squee!

 

He probably wasn't at the stage of training where it was focused on lightsaber fighting, if that even is a stage in the new interpretation.

Luke was trained by Yoda who believed that mastery of the force was spiritual and once that clicks for you all manner of things are possible.

The whole notion of going through 'forms' and spending time in the training yard is pretty off the mark imo.

 

saw it today.

I loved it, though one of the guys i saw it with made a good point- it was basically ANH 2.0

I loved the nostalgia feel, though, and really enjoyed Finn and Rey. The only Finn complaint is that his behavior doesn't quite feel like "Child Soldier who has only ever known the empire and training for war", which is what he's supposed to be, but I enjoyed him as he was.

 

I absolutely loved it.

The main thing I took from it was that it looked absolutely beautiful. Almost every shot was great. I thought the call backs to A New Hope were great but there were one or two too many in there. I liked that they didn't over rely on the old characters to carry the story and really let the new guys get established.

I actually thought Ren was a really good villain. He's not Darth Vader level, but that's kinda the point. He's trying so hard to be Vader but doesn't quite know how, so he gets angry and makes mistakes. Also that scene with Han was amazing.

 

Loved it. Especially the new characters. Finn was a cheeky mofo bro, Rey's actress was perfect and I want more of her. She looked like Bastila Shan, though.
Finally, there's Kylo Ren. Hmm, he's interesting. I am actually impressed by him. He's everything young Anakin Skywalker should have been. His inferiority complex, the pull of the Light Side, the rage he feels, even his daddy issues (as much as I love Han, I actually CAN imagine him being a bad father) are much more convincing than what we've seen in parts I-III.
As for Snoke, I don't know. He's probably some disgustingly powerful Dark Side cultist, since he and Kylo Ren are no Sith.

 

Maybe i misheard this cause they only mentioned it, but Han said Luke is searching for the first Jedi temple? If i heard that right my personal pet theory it's that Snoke is one of the first Jedi and maybe even the first Jedi to fall to the dark side.

 

He did say that, yeah. I don't think the early Jedi have been mentioned much in the new canon yet.

 

All i could think when i heard that was "please be tython please be tython"