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I was just thinking about that. How ridiculous is it for people to demand that more story be fleshed out in these movies? Did they not see and enjoy A New Hope? I mean we didn't really know jack about Obi-Wan or Yoda's backstories, and no one cared.

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I think a major flaw with the prequels is that they were all about explaining things rather than telling a story.


Hey, remember that awesome cool mysterious Force that penetrates and binds us? Midichlorians. Not luminous beings anymore, that's straight biology, yo.

You guys know how there was the awesome twist, one of the greatest in movie history? Lets explain the SH** out of that! Three movies oughtta do it. And when it's over, you're going to have a harder time believing it than when we started!

Dark, mysterious emperor? We're taking his clothes off. Parliamentary procedure is popular with all ages, that's why CSPAN gets all the ratings. Trade disputes, votes of no confidence, and carefully constructing a support block, that's what the kids want to see.

It's impossible for me to review this movie as a non Star Wars fan. I can try, but the truth is I am a fan and that's the only way I can view this... And I had a really fantastic time watching it!

Oh goodness, that would have been cinematic gold watching Jar-Jar see the sky turn red and melt away!

I know this has been mentioned a little bit, but I understand that most people's main problem with the movie was the First Order's "Death Star" and it being so similar to A New Hope, but the way to explain it is Kylo's obsession with being as powerful as his grandpa, Darth Vader, which would make Kylo want to build a Death Star for himself

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I know this has been mentioned a little bit, but I understand that most people's main problem with the movie was the First Order's "Death Star" and it being so similar to A New Hope, but the way to explain it is Kylo's obsession with being as powerful as his grandpa, Darth Vader, which would make Kylo want to build a Death Star for himself

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I got the feeling that the Death Star in this movie was a product of the First Order army, not Kylo.

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And I agree that Carrie Fisher was weak

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Carrie Fisher has extreme bi-polar disease. She did great for what she was asked to do.

I didn't personally read anything into stopping the blaster shot. It felt like it was just a really bad ass thing to put in the movie.

I think we can confirm that Maz is not the mom......

Alright... after getting home from the movie super late on Thursday, getting to bed around 2 AM that night, having to get up three hours later for a flight home, probably overreacting a bit too much Friday morning to the staff drama in the main SW Discussion thread, and then doing an early Texas Christmas with my mom's side of the family, I finally had the time today to try and organize my initial thoughts on the movie, as jumbled as they may be.

Out of the gate, I want to make it as clear as possible that, despite my many issues with The Force Awakens, I thought it was a blast overall. I loved the spirit of the movie. Most importantly, the new cast is absolutely nails. Especially Daisy Ridley. She's going to be a bonafide movie star, and discovering her here as Rey was a fantastic experience. I'm all in on her journey going forward.

Still, despite its charm, I found The Force Awakens to be an incredibly flawed movie, one that I felt could have easily been so much more, with issues that go beyond, "It's Star Wars! What were you expecting, Citizen Kane???!" - the go-to TexAgs quip when someone dare ask for just a bit more than turn-your-brain-off entertainment...


THE CONTRIVANCES AWAKEN

If I had to point to one, glaring, overarching issue that kept me from truly enjoying the experience, it would be the series of massive, ridiculously convenient coincidences Abrams masquerades as "plot." The first 20 or so minutes had me hooked. The opening village raid (Kylo stopping that laser was one of the coolest moments of the movie), all the way through Rey and Finn meeting at the depot in Jakku, was just pitch-perfect blockbuster filmmaking. That was a nearly flawless first act. For me, though, the first signs of unraveling were when Rey and Finn just so happened upon the Millennium Falcon. Ten minutes earlier (in the film), Finn had just been told by Poe that he needed to get back to his droid on Jakku, a droid who had a map to the whereabouts of the mythical Luke Skywalker. And then soon after, on that same planet, Finn and Rey just so happen upon the very ship that began Luke Skywalker's journey all those years ago.

Still, I can buy that series of events. In terms of whimsical action-adventure epics, I can absolutely let that kind of stuff slide. It's when, only hours later for the characters, and literally minutes later in the movie, Han Solo - the former owner of that ship - just so happens to be the first person Rey and Finn happen to come in contact with. We're talking about a massive galaxy, and Han and Chewie just happen to be casually looking for the Falcon in that exact location. After a Force-sensitive girl and kid who worked for Han's son just happened to randomly steal the Falcon. After a pilot sent by Han's ex just happened to mention to that same kid the name Luke Skywalker, who Han just happened to know better than just about anyone else alive.

Again, give me one or two of those coincidences, and I'm fine. But when an entire 40-50 minute sequence is built like Jenga blocks purely on improbable coincidence after coincidence after coincidence, and the story rendered non-existent if even one of those things doesn't magically happen, it's incredibly hard for me to go along on that particular ride. I get that it's essentially a fairy tale, and that fairy tales are rooted in fantasy. But fantasy, in turn, doesn't have to be rooted in coincidence and contrivances. They can be independent of each other. And please don't say it was because "the Force" was willing it all to happen. Once we began to have an inclination from the trailers and commercials that TFA would be echoing quite a few elements from A New Hope (orphan on a desert planet, Vader-esque villain, Star Destroyer 3.0, etc.), I theorized in the other thread how cool it would be if, for whatever reason, the Force was essentially... forcing... the events of A New Hope to echo across time, with whatever characters it could call to action, in order to save Luke Skywalker in some way. And while that may very well still be the case, it wasn't alluded to in any way, shape, or form in the final product. In fact, nothing was. Instead, every last contrivance literally had to be explained away after the fact by expository dialogue...

- Just after Han finds the Falcon, he has to ask Rey who now owned it, and then quickly has to explain (to the audience, basically) how it got to be on Jakku.

- As Han is about to fend off the bounty hunters from his freighter, he then has to explain that he and Chewie had been casually looking for the Falcon for years.

- Finally, hours later (for them), when Rey randomly-and-out-of-no-where finds Luke's long lost lightsaber in a random treasure chest in the basement of a random castle, Abrams doesn't even have a reason why, and actually had a character basically say, "We'll explain it in the next movie!" That one was the icing on the cake for me, and maybe the most egregious. I still cannot believe that is how Luke's lightsaber was inserted into the plot of this movie. After all the speculation, that element is such a let down.

Point is, all of this info should be made obvious through ACTION and PLOT, not explained after the fact in dialogue. As is, it's just so insanely lazy. With a little more reverence and effort, there was a better way to string these scenes together. I loved what they were going for. I was so on board with the very basic flow of that series of events. But why not connect the dots just a bit better, especially when it would have done wonders for the overall narrative?


WHAT WERE THEY SNOKING?

I found the design, effects work, and execution of both Snoke and Maz to be incredibly disappointing. First of all, this is ILM; the greatest effects guys in the game, and, because of Star Wars, the very guys who created the game in the first place. Yet, both Snoke and Maz looked, to me (and my visual artist friend) like Harry Potter characters circa 2005; all gummy and poorly lit. They weren't terrible, but I expected A LOT more from ILM tackling one of the most anticipated movies of all time.

Still, why someone as beautiful as Lupita Nyang'o was relegated to voicing a half-realized, Yoda-esque stand-in is beyond me. There was absolutely no reason the character couldn't have been human. She had no alien-specific power, and her goggles basically did nothing (which was especially confusing since Abrams himself was quoted as saying "her eyes have special meaning and power"). Why not just have Lupita Nyong'o basically be Lupita Nyong'o? That would have been so much more tangible and interesting. Granted, live action or CGI, the character was still nothing more than a plot device, but I would have felt much more of a connection had she been human, or at least a human playing an alien in minimal prosthetics. As is, Maz was such an inconsequential, wet fart of a character.

As for Snoke, I don't even know where to begin. Half the audience still has no idea that was a hologram. I can't tell you how many people I've talked to who were shocked to discover that fact. They just think he was a giant, humanoid alien; a lack of clarity that is completely on Abrams. And, despite his perceived size, he was yet another character that would have had so much more of a presence had he been live-action. I really, really don't want to watch this character going forward if he's just going to be yet another boringly/poorly-designed CGI monster. Please, when we finally see him in the flesh, at least let him be just that.

And yes, I completely get that the Emperor was given next to no backstory the first time we met him in Empire. But the mystery surrounding him almost aided in that instance, because that was a world that required no previous explanation. Lucas wasn't building on anything before it. There was no precedent. The difference here is that Snoke comes across as basically the exact same character as Palpatine, just slightly more deformed. So do all Sith Masters (or whatever he is) end up with white, old, deteriorating skin? I mean, that would make sense, I guess. But why not provide some kind of context? I don't need to know his history - I'm fine with that being something they're saving that for Episode VIII - but I at least needed to know why Palpatine 2.0? Why so derivative? If Snoke actually ends up being Plagueis, that's one thing - because then the Emperor will have been derivative of him, in a way - but that still doesn't help the way I felt about him walking out of this movie.


A NEW HOPE RETURNS TO STRIKE BACK

I touched on this earlier, but just to reiterate; the many, many homages to A New Hope (along with bits of Empire and Jedi) just didn't work for me. There's a difference between cute, self-referential one-liners here and there (which I thought became overkill, but were ultimately fine), and just straight up redoing the plot to A New Hope for no apparent reason. Again, give me explanation in-movie as to why, and I'll most likely buy in. But as is, I just can't understand why they chose to go the remake route, almost beat for beat. Hardly anything felt new. Hardly anything felt fresh. It was just the OT on steroids, except with different characters. By the end of movie, watching yet another X-Wing squadron take out an evil, planet-size weapon - after Han and co. disabled yet another shield on the ground - the remake nature of the whole ordeal had just wore me down so much. Do some of you really think that seeing that scenario again, for the THIRD time in FOUR movies, was invigorating? Sure, the action and dynamic between Rey, Kylo, Han and Finn being spliced in between that sequence was intriguing, but I felt absolutely nothing as Poe blasted his way through Starkiller Base, in what felt like a shot-for-shot amalgamation of the third acts of both A New Hope and Return of the Jedi.


OTHER ISSUES:

• I needed another line or two of context as to who Max von Sydow was playing. More importantly, why and how did he have a map to Luke Skywalker? And please, don't tell me, yet again, "They're saving that for Episode VIII!" A). Why did a map to Luke Skywalker even exist? Couldn't Sydow's Lor San Tekka have just written the name of the planet/system down on a piece of paper? B). Still, let's say it was in uncharted territory, requiring elaborate navigation... had Tekka been in contact with Luke? Did Luke share his own whereabouts? Or was Tekka backstabbing Luke by giving up his location? Honestly, I wanted to see that movie... one in which Tekka (or preferably Poe) personally discovered Luke's whereabouts, then had to desperately maneuver his way across the galaxy to tell the Resistance. I guess the argument could be made that Tekka knew the whereabouts of the Jedi Temple Luke was seeking, and the Resistance hoped Luke would be there, but I don't think that was ever made clear (though I could be wrong).

• Either way, I still have no clue what the hell all the other map stuff was with R2, why he woke up, and how he even had the remaining portion of the map in the first place. At that point, with all the explaining going on, I had completely given up trying to figure any of it out. Worse yet, I didn't really even care to anymore.

• It shouldn't take a series of supplementary books and comics being summarized via blog article to explain who or what, exactly, the Resistance was resisting. Reading that article now, it makes complete sense. But virtually none of that was apparent in the movie itself. I saw TFA with four other industry friends and, coming out of the theater, not a single one of us could explain the dynamic between the Republic, the Resistance, and the First Order. After the events of Return of the Jedi, 30 years later, everything is basically and curiously back to how it was during the OT, politically speaking, except with this added wrinkle. All it took was a single, extra line of dialogue to clue us in. Give us something.

• Giving Starkiller Base the ability to fire its weapon basically anywhere in the galaxy via hyperdrive is just asinine. Between this and Star Trek Into Darkness, what is it with Abrams and his complete disregard for distances across space and time? Yes, this is Star Wars. By no means do I need scientific accuracy. But with Into Darkness, Abrams rendered starships completely useless by giving a device that can fit in a duffle bag the ability to beam a human anywhere in the galaxy. Now, in TFA, the technology exists to kill anyone from anywhere in the galaxy. Again, that's not a scientific gripe on my part, it's a narrative, storytelling gripe. There's a line one shouldn't cross with some of this stuff, or else you risk going so big that the stakes simply don't matter any more. Abrams has yet to figure that out, hence Justin Lin publicly stating that they've basically had to completely disregard the events of Into Darkness for Star Trek Beyond, something Rian Johnson may end up having to do here.

• Rey doesn't really have to do anything "earn" her abilities in the Force. I felt that it all came a bit too easy for her. It needed to be more of a challenge than her having to simply concentrating really, really hard. I understand that there wasn't a mentor figure this go around to guide her - and I actually appreciated that; her having to go it alone - but there's a happy medium between gradually starting to sense that she's strong in the Force vs. somehow automatically knowing she can convince people to do things just by saying it (Luke, at least, had the opportunity to see Obi-Wan do that previously). Maybe, growing up, Rey had found that trick somehow magically worked from time to time, but as an audience, we didn't know or see that. It was basically like she had watched old VHS copies of the original trilogy in her downed AT-AT, and knew the cheat codes, which felt like such a weird way to play it. Considering the circumstances, she just knew a bit too much about how she was supposed to do it all.

• There wasn't one, truly original/innovative action set piece, nor were the lightsaber duels all that memorable, at least in terms of choreography. I understand that the latter has more to do with the novice nature of the characters, but still. Overall, the action was definitely fun at times, but nothing about it blew me away like, say, Mad Max: Fury Road or Mission: Impossible - Rogue Nation did this year. I needed a cooler stunt, or something I hadn't seen before. Instead, again, we were given 'roided up versions of action set pieces we've already seen dozens of times in these movies. (That said, the beat that ended the initial Millennium Falcon chase on Jakku was pretty great, and, for better or worse, what I thought was the highlight of the film, action-wise.)

• Captain Phasma is yet another non-character (though actually taking her helmet off and having something remotely interesting to do in the next episode could go a long way to make up for that this go-around).

• The brief moments Han and Leia had together were squandered by having them over-explain their feelings to each other, in service of the audience. In doing so, Han and Leia basically spit out what we missed of their history over the past 30 years, in order to catch us up, done in that same, after-the-matter, expository way Abrams constantly utilizes. I really can't stand it when characters rhetorically tell each other things they already know, simply for the sake of the audience, which is all their interactions boiled down to.

• I didn't need a long, drawn-out explanation of who the Knights of Ren are, but only a single, vague sentence about them wasn't enough. Again, saying, "They'll explain them in the next movie!" is a complete cop out. Leaving one or two threads dangling for a sequel is one thing, but literally leaving almost all context for this movie to be explained in the next one isn't good storytelling. I didn't need an encyclopedia entry, but I did need just a bit more color on who these guys were.

Look... in the end, I hate to be Debbie Downer. The last thing I wanted to do was sh*t on this movie. So I feel the need to reiterate that I did have a lot of fun. It's an enjoyable movie. It's just not a particularly great one.

For what was arguably the most anticipated movie of all time, one would think Abrams and Kasdan would have made the effort to connected the dots a bit better. That they could have come up with something a little more original. All things considered, it's just surprising that this is how Abrams chose to tell this story. Overall, I absolutely loved the trajectory of each individual character arc. It's like, yes, all the receivers had catches for touchdowns, and they won the game, but the plays called, and the balls that were thrown, were mostly duds and ducks. And what's frustrating is that all they had to was just take a little extra time to hone their passing. It really wouldn't have taken much to go from competent fun to truly amazing. That, and just because other movies in this series take shortcuts here and there, or don't feature the most airtight narratives, doesn't automatically mean this one doesn't have to either. (And yet, I'd still argue that the entire OT doesn't utilize as many astronomically coincidental contrivances as The Force Awakens does.)

But I am excited for the next round.

I'm so on board with where this story is going, especially with Rian Johnson at the helm. At the very least, the pieces have been left in very interesting places. Rey being trained by a reluctant Luke could be the stuff of dreams. And if Rey really does turn out to be a Kenobi, all the better (I'm sorry, but there's no way she's Luke's daughter). That's one mystery I'm glad they saved. As for Kylo, I don't even know if I want to see him redeemed after killing Han, but I'm definitely still interested to see where his story goes next. And Finn's storyline going forward feels like the one that could suffer the most, but the clean slate nature of it could absolutely lead to some awesome possibilities.

All I know is that while I'm disappointed in the sloppiness of TFA, Rian Johnson has the opportunity - and more important, the talent - to build on a first installment like few sequels can. Unfortunately for TFA, but lucky for him, all the juiciest parts are left for him to play with, and I'm beyond confident in his ability to capitalize on them all. Good thing is, the year-and-a-half wait is nothing compared to what we've already endured.