I've already rewatched the first act, as it's part of a big project I'll be posting next month to celebrate the end of the rewatch project, and I maintain that act one is still the peak of the sequel trilogy so far. Basically, everything from the first scene to just after Han and Chewie show up on the Millennium Falcon (right before the other two gangs come aboard) is damn near perfect. It's all so full of life, with just the right amount of allusions, and so perfectly paced. I love it so much. And while the sequence with the gangs is harmless, that's when the movie starts to unravel for me just a bit, as that sequence ultimately comes across as filler. Then everything with Maz's castle just feels off, and the whole thing starts to really lose the magic from there, at least until the final fight between Rey and Kylo, which is admittedly pretty awesome. Maybe I'll feel different once I finish the rest of the rewatch, but we'll see...

I went back and looked at all of our reactions from the time of the full trailer until after the movie was released. Anyone who now says they didn't like it is a liar.

My favorite SW movie besides the OT, yes even ahead of RO. Joyful, hilarious, tragic, a magnificent soundtrack, easily John Boyega's better performance of the 2 that have come out, the very essence of what SW is. I felt it dragged for about 2 minutes in Maz's castle, then roared to life when Rey touched Luke's lightsaber. The battle thereafter is fantastic, Poe's dazzling display in the sky, the recurring joke of Han using Chewie's bowcaster, and Finn becoming the first non-Jedi since Han Solo to use a lightsaber (don't tell me Grievous, **** that CGI crap).

Kylo Ren was everything Anakin Skywalker should have been - moody, destructive, and painfully conflicted. His scene with Han Solo is incredible acting on both sides. The fanboy in me wished Harrison Ford would have been nominated for best supporting actor based on that scene and his recounting of what happened to Luke.

I seldom find myself shocked by a SW movie (mostly cuz I read too many damn spoilers) - but TFA did that for me 3 times - Rey's vision, Rey's mental pushback on Kylo's mental assault (and her mention of Darth Vader, really buzzed the audience), and her calling of Luke's lightsaber.

Rey has become a hero to my twin girls, even the one who doesn't like Star Wars, and opened the gateway to them being interested and enthused by the likes of Princess Leia,, Padme, Jyn (only in small doses, still too violent for a full viewing), and Asokha, Hera, Sabine, and Enfys Nest.

I really enjoy this movie. Visually beautiful, great music as always, but most of all, it just "feels" like Star Wars.

The introduction of Rey is top notch filmmaking.

The shot of the X-Wings over the water is fantastic.

Starkiller Base feeling like a retread is basically my biggest complaint. Well, that and the lack of context regarding the New Republic.

But overall this is a solid entry in the franchise.

Edit: Forgot to mention that the ending sequence, from when Rey lands on Ach-To to the credits, is amazing. Chills every time. Epic Luke introduction, amazing music.

It's really too bad the ligbtsaber toss in TLJ totally ****s on that moment.

This is such a great Star Wars movie. The first act is top notch, some of the best stuff in the franchise. JJ doesn't get enough credit for his fantastic casting...all of the main new actors are outstanding for their roles.

Agree with TCTTS that it starts off great, then fades out. Kylo Ren was great until he took off the mask and he was just a Starbucks barista. This movie is on tv all the time but never feel any need to watch it. I place the sequel movies above the prequels, but behind RO and Solo.

While this was a refreshing and fun Star Wars movie, ultimately it is going to suffer due to it basically rehashing A New Hope and the quality of The Last Jedi. The Rise of Skywalker has a chance to elevate The Force Awakens if TROS lives up to its potential.

What I loved about TFA:
1. Rey - great character who's true nature was successfully hidden in trailers, etc, until the movie was actually released. The scene with Daniel Craig's stormtrooper was great. Her best moment was when she gets Luke/Anakin's light saber from Kylo. Fantastic across the board.
2. Han Solo - it was great to see him back on the big screen. His dialogue with the gangs was just so Han Solo like. His reunion with Leia was filled with solid dialogue (no, new jacket). The It's all true conversation with Rey and Finn revealed a growth in the character given how frequently he scoffed at notions of the Force during the OT. Han had so many great scenes in all of his appearances in this saga, but the sequence on the bridge with Kylo has to be among the very best. So much emotion in that sequence that even now I sometimes find it difficult to watch.
3. John Williams' score. He continues his best work on this saga with the introduction of many new themes, and by bringing in previously heard cues. He truly is the .
4. I loved the OT callbacks at the film's opening with the downed star destroyer and X-Wing, and with Rey using an AT-AT as a house.
5. Like the OT, this one used more real stuff rather than the PT's over-reliance on CGI. I'm not a CGI hater, but I really appreciate real backgrounds and sets over compute generated stuff.

What I didn't love about TFA:
1. It felt like a retread of A New Hope.
2. Starkiller base. We really have seen way too many planet killing weapons systems in these movies.
3. Hux - could have been a more threatening character like Tarkin, but comes off far too cartoonish. And goesmoff the cartoonish deep end in TLJ.

What I found most gratifying about TFA:
1. This is really more of a reaction to what I see as the unhinged hatred of all things PT, on here and elsewhere, but when the Star Destroyer opens up on the fleeing TIE Fighter flown by Poe, they do so with prequel-era missiles rather than lasers.

One final thing - my dad basically had to convince me to go see Star Wars when I was 10 years old in 1977. I just thought the movie looked dumb and was truly not interested in seeing it. Well, I guess the joke was on him. I loved that original movie like none other that I had seen up to that point. What followed was a whole slew of action figures, the original LP score release, repeated trips to the theater to see this movie over and over again in 1977 and in the-releases in 78-79, and scale models of some of the things in the movie. Then came 1980, where I orchestrated events for us to be in the area of the Westchase 5 theater in Houston on the off-chance that we could see athe Empire Strikes Back, which as it turned out, we were able to do. Followed by more repeated theatrical viewings, action figures, and model kits, and driving him nuts listening to that LP. I got to see all of the Star Wars movies with my dad through TFA. He had moved into a retirement home at the time of Rogue One and we were unable to make it happen for that movie. By the time TLJ came out, his health had deteriorated so badly that there was no option. (I have a couple of regrets in that he hated the last movie we saw in the theater together, Dunkirk, and his last live game at Kyle Field was a loss to Auburn). He passed in February 2018.

Bri, I respect your opinion immensely but I felt differently on a few key points.

First, I agree with you that this movie feels like Star Wars. It's visually amazing, the score is spot on and the shots are pure Lucas '77.


But, for me, there was a reason for the familiarity. This is A New Hope minus sophisticated characters. I feel the script is like how I use to do term papers: copy and paste from the internet and then change it into your own words. And I didn't like Abrams' and Kasdan's word.


Rey is the most boring character since Jar Jar Binks. Even Haden Christianson's Aniken went through some sort of character evolution.


The idea that Masterless novice can somehow fight a Veteran Sith is just ****ing stupid; Mary Sue on steroids.


Fin, whose is an idiot (and beneath John Boyega) yet somehow can use a light saber as well as fighting off a baton with said light saber?! A baton?! Seriously?! They cut through steel!


Harrison Ford joined the project upon the agreement Solo would die, but come on; lazy writing. Han Solo doesn't die like a b____.


The true bench mark for a film is does it brings pleasure. So in your case (and many others) it is a success. For me it couldn't endure a third viewing and now collects dust on my shelf.

Cstrickland05 said:

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Agree with TCTTS that it starts off great, then fades out. Kylo Ren was great until he took off the mask and he was just a Starbucks barista. This movie is on tv all the time but never feel any need to watch it. I place the sequel movies above the prequels, but behind RO and Solo.

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what do you even mean

Instead of the novel I usually right for these, I'll keep this one brief because what I was going to say has pretty much been said from everybody here. TFA is basically the whataburger of Star Wars films-full empty calories, formulaic, impeccably advertised, but undeniably satisfying. It was simply what Star Wars needed at the time to recover from the prequels, even if it does rely too much on nostalgia and formula.

All of the characters are great, but it's Kylo Ren that really stands out here. I imagine Kylo Ren is basically what George Lucas probably imagined Anakin was going to be in the prequels, but done correctly this time. Instead of s frightening, over powering pretense like Vader, J.J. Abrams goes for something different. Kylo Rem is basically a school shooter in space- spoiled, entitled, but deadly and immature. His arc and compete rejection of redemption is still a breath of fresh air.

Regardless, I actually think this movie gets a little better on re watches. . Sure the plot relays on coincidence and the Death Star part 3 was never going to win any originality metals, but everything just FEELS like Star Wars.

A couple more random thoughts...

- The story of a stormtrooper who defects should have been its own movie or series. It's a fun little side note here and perfectly fine as is, but any deeper thought than surface-level and it just doesn't make a whole lot of sense, at least in the way it's presented. If it was that easy for stormtroopers to suddenly grow a conscious, this seems like something that would happen nearly every day. Instead, I would have preferred this be explored in a six-episode series or something, where it could be its own thing, and we could really get a sense of a stormtrooper's training and day-to-day, and then get into how, over a period of time, just the right circumstances could finally turn one of them to the point of escape. It could have been such a cool character study / man-on-the-run kind of thing.

- Regardless, Finn and Poe should have been one character. Yes, a decent amount of plot mechanics would have to change, but both stories vying for essentially the same screen time were simply too thin to translate to anything worth exploring in the follow-up. I didn't care about either of their arcs going into TLJ. Personally, I would have lost the defecting stormtrooper angle, saved it for its own Disney+ series, and kept the Poe character (who you could cast with either Boyega or Isaac). Have Poe get caught same as before, but then just have him escape on his own, crash, and have HIM find his way to Rey/BB-8. It was so weird as-is with him just disappearing and then - surprise, "I lived!" - showing up way later. And yes, I realize Poe was originally supposed to die in the crash until Oscar Isaac was cast and he convinced Abrams to keep him around - which is part of the problem - but that whole aspect should have been conceived differently from the get-go.

TFA was a lesson in human psychology for me. I learned that I could actually convince myself that something that was mediocre at best was actually really good. That the connection to my childhood was so strong that it could allow an emotionally based perspective to override intellect, which is not something I would have ever thought cinema could do for me. And I learned you can never really see anything again through the eyes of your childhood self.

A mediocre re-telling of A New Hope with an absolutely outstanding performance by Harrison Ford, the opportunity to see some old friends, and a new cast of uninteresting characters I probably couldn't care less about.

i saw it again recently, it really doesnt hold up.

it had promise, Rey's introduction was great, loved the scenery and music (loved the good bad and ugly reboot), Rey had lots of promise. bv8 is a good r2 retread. their escape in the falcon was a great scene, though a lot of odd questions are raised.

the mystery of luke and the map was sort of interesting.

waste of max von sydow's character, but the opening scenes were ok... but then it all just fizzled out.

finn is an absolute **** character.

the rathtar distraction is just a pathetic, waste of time scene overall - like something from one of the worst star trek movies.

the snoke guy was cool but went... nowhere

solo's death was predictable and lame

the whole first order retread and spittle saruman hate speech scene was just sophomoric

the retreaded death star with retreaded 'only fighters can kill it' etc., was just a little too ******edly retreaded.

honestly, it was just a movie made for 8 year old girls that never saw the original.

The Internet was truly made for people like you.

TCTTS said:

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I realize Poe was originally supposed to die in the crash until Oscar Isaac was cast and he convinced Abrams to keep him around - which is part of the problem - but that whole aspect should have been conceived differently from the get-go.

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I had never heard that before and man, I wish they'd stuck with Poe dying. I really enjoyed his wise guy character at the start of the movie, but thought he was just *too good* of a pilot when reintroduced later. (He flew better than any of the Jedi did.) It also would have spared us his terrrrrible arc in TLJ. They haven't had any idea what to do with him after act 1 of TFA.

Aggie_Journalist said:

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TCTTS said:

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I realize Poe was originally supposed to die in the crash until Oscar Isaac was cast and he convinced Abrams to keep him around - which is part of the problem - but that whole aspect should have been conceived differently from the get-go.

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I had never heard that before and man, I wish they'd stuck with Poe dying. I really enjoyed his wise guy character at the start of the movie, but thought he was just *too good* of a pilot when reintroduced later. (He flew better than any of the Jedi did.) It also would have spared us his terrrrrible arc in TLJ. They haven't had any idea what to do with him after act 1 of TFA.

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They tried to have three Han Solos in TFA: Finn the reluctant rebel and imperial deserter, Poe the wisecracking ace pilot, and... Han Solo. Instead of one great new character, we got two pretty good characters, who proceeded to be terrible in TLJ.