TCTTS said:

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- Imagine if any single planet or environment in TFA actually felt like something we hadn't seen a dozen times before.

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Zombie Jon Snow said:

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for the love of God....QUIT BLOCK QUOTING THAT GARBAGE.


If you feel compelled to reply....cut out all but the relevant section,

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Zombie Jon Snow said:

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for the love of God....QUIT BLOCK QUOTING THAT GARBAGE.


If you feel compelled to reply....cut out all but the relevant section,

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TCTTS said:

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*A* shot in the arm, no doubt. "Exactly the shot in the arm" it needed? No way. Granted, it probably couldn't have made much more money than it did, regardless of the story, but in terms of quality and originality...

- Imagine if any single planet or environment in TFA actually felt like something we hadn't seen a dozen times before. Jakku = Tatooine, Takodana = Endor, Starkiller Base = Hoth. Imagine if just one of those new planets was instead a cool, new, original type of environment. How much more exciting and interesting would that have been?

- Imagine if Poe was more than a way to simply get Finn to Jakku, and was an actual character of substance we connected with? Granted, I understand the time constraints in not being able to spend more time with him, but he's such a nothing of a character for someone propped up the way he was in the marketing.

- Similarly, imagine if Captain Phasma had even 5% more of an arc, they didn't bury such a great/interesting actress, and they actually explored the female Stormtropper angle in any way, shape, or form (even just a simple helmet removal and surprised reaction from another character could have gone a long way).

- A pretty fantastic first act, all things considered, comes to a screeching halt at Maz's cantina; when it first hits you that, yeah, they're going all-in on this New Hope redux, aren't they? Imagine if Maz wasn't such a random dud of a character, and had even an ounce of context or substance beyond a cheap Yoda fill-in. Imagine if she actually impacted the story in a tangible way other than simply owning a club above an out-of-no-where McGuffin (Luke's lightsaber)?

- Speaking of, imagine if nearly every plot point didn't feel like giant coincidence after giant coincidence... Han just happening to find Rey, who just happened to have a droid with the whereabouts to his long lost Jedi friend, and then Han takes them to see his friend Maz, who just happens to have a treasure chest with said Jedi's long lost lightsaber... I mean, I get that all of that could be attributed to "The Force," but come on. At that point, "The Force" is just a stand-in for lazy, we-don't-know-how-to-connect-these-dots screenwriting.

- Imagine if R2-D2 wasn't blatantly shoe-horned into the story at the end, and didn't just happened to have the remaining section of the all-important map for any other reason than the writers needed him to? Imagine if retrieving the remaining part of the map was, you know, an actual plot point or mission for a character or two in the movie?

- Imagine if the blasts from The First Order's grand weapon didn't actually and ridiculously travel through hyperspace - or whatever the hell was happening there - to just wipe out planets any where in the galaxy. Imagine if any of that was even remotely explained. Seriously, was the Starkiller Base planet thing mobile? What happened when it used up its nearby sun? Why did the filmmakers decide to go with such a sh*tty, overly complicated version of yet ANOTHER Death Star? Why was that aspect so sloppily handled and brushed over in general?

- Imagine if really anything having to do with The First Order was explored/set-up beyond the opening crawl? How did they rise from the ashes? Why not treat them as an emerging/creeping mystery rather than an already-well-known quantity? What if we actually got to see our heroes surprised by their existence in a big reveal early on?

- Further, imagine if Abrams & co actually had the balls to have The First Order win in the end, setting up...

- Luke Skywalker actually feeling like "the galaxy's only hope" he was supposed be in that final scene (literally, according to the script)? Instead, The First Order is seemingly all but eviscerated - the good guys won - so what, exactly, do we need Luke for at this point other than to quell Rey's curiosity? Seriously, the entire New Hope redux angle would have been absolutely brilliant had they used it to actually subvert expectations and surprise the audience in the end by having the trench run fail this time. The Resistance would then be on their heels, and Rey & Kylo's fight still could have gone down almost exactly as it did, with the same basic result (Rey discovering her calling). Tell me that ending wouldn't have been so much better, with the Resistance regrouping back at their base, knowing The First Order was now on the offense, coming for them, and so Leia sends Rey to find the only person who can help them... Luke Skywalker. Tell me that final scene wouldn't have carried so much more weight and truly left you on the edge of your seat?

Overall, The Force Awakens gets by on its breathless pace and charm, but it's a typical Abrams experience in that it gets worse after each viewing, once you're able to truly process how nonsensical and derivative it all is. Monetarily and corporately, did it set out to do what it needed to do? Absolutely. But a year and a half later it already feels like a fart in the wind, save for Rey and Kylo Ren. And Kylo is really only "cool" because he's bad and emo, not because he's really all that interesting (though he could have been, had they actually explored his history with Luke or his parents even just a bit). Again, Rey is fantastic, and there's still obviously so much more potential there (same with Kylo), but had Abrams not gone uber Mystery Box with her to the detriment of her arc - or at least better-milked/set up the mystery - her story could have been phenomenal.

It's just that all these seem like blatant, obvious mistakes/fixes, and while, again, I love most of the cast and performances, and there are definitely some fun sequences/scenes that put a smile on my face, I simply can't call it a "good" movie for every reason I've listed above. It's just so damn uninspired, but with a few obvious tweaks, could have be an all-timer. The best word to describe it, really, is "frustrating."

That said, if Rain Johnson is able to somehow capitalize on a lot of these issues and repurpose them to his advantage, it will all have been worth it. Time will tell...

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• those tentacle monsters in Hans ship - what was the point of that sequence? It added nothing and on second viewing subtracted from the rest of the film.
• Why not have Poe and Finn stranded together on Tatooine, and escape together? You could still have them go to Maz after meeting Han by justification of his communications and navigation link to the resistance being lost when his X-wing was destroyed and therefore Finn knows that she is in contact with them.
• How can Rey be awesome at everything?
  
  • Rewiring circuitry and repairing the hyperdrive (because scrap scavengers know how to build stuff, right)
• Becoming a Jedi prodigy in less than 15 seconds (there was no set up for this - if Kylo unlocked something, at least show or explain it somewhere).
• Expertly flying a ship she's never flown before. I think this sequence would have made more sense if Oscar Isaacs character was flying the falcon because he was established in the opening credits as the rebellions best pilot and Rey and Finn were on the guns. For comparisons sake, in the original Star Wars multiple characters established that Luke was a fair pilot - but he still needed help to survive the death star battle.
• The all around silliness of sending a 75 year old man, Chewbacca, and a recent defector on an infiltration mission on a fortress world. How do they know that he isn't a plant? Even if Poe vouches for him, it is still a huge risk.

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- Further, imagine if Abrams & co actually had the balls to have The First Order win in the end, setting up...

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TCTTS said:

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...
- Imagine if any single planet...

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- Imagine...

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AgMarauder04 said:

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TCTTS said:

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Absolutely. It's still scheduled for May 23, 2019. And considering the Han Solo movie still hasn't moved from May '18 either, it's looking more and more like they're shifting back to the old May release slot for good.

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That's too bad. I liked the Christmas releases.

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AliasMan02 said:

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This idea that the First Order was defeated is crazy. Or at least the idea that the Resistance won is. Starkiller is gone, but the FO wiped out the entire Republic government. The Resistance is screwed and the galaxy just became basically lawless. The FO knows exactly where the Resistance is, and the Resistance lost most of its Starfighter fleet. As far as we know they have no capital ships.

At best, everything was just thrown into chaos.

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