Post by gmandam on Jan 1, 2016 13:57:50 GMT -5
Well, I can peek in here now having seen it. I've got quibbles and I've got praises.
Let's start with the good.
* The Action was amazing. The fights were well directed, I never had a problem figuring out what was going on and where and there seemed to be tighter focus compared to the prequals (none of this splitting between four battles nonsense. They mostly kept it to a single battle and showcased two fronts (Ground and Air).
* The new characters, Finn especially, are looking really good. I think Finn shines the best playing a sort of everyman with a heart of gold (as opposed to Han's Jerkass with Morals). I especially liked the intro for him, setting Po free (Who was somewhat criminally underused I'd say) and stepping up to hold off Kylo Ren.
* The Plot was competent, I enjoyed watching it.
* It harked back to New Hope.
And the bad
* Kylo Ren, intentional or not, comes across as Anakin 2.0. Ideally he should have kept taking the helmet off for when he faces Han (and the Son reveal as well), it would have made him seem more intimidating than the face he has (Which essentially reminds me of one of my cousins, not terrifying at all). That said, it's only one film, it's hard to say where exactly they plan to take him at the moment, so with a little work it'd be easy to make him more villainous.
* Rey, I could buy her being competent at repairs (she's a junker from the looks of it, and lives alone and self sufficiently), I can buy her being capable of piloting (Force reflexes coupled with familiarity with other craft and the bouncing around all go to suggest someone who can pilot but maybe not this specific unit) but what gets me is the force mind control and the ability to essentially hold off Kylo Ren to a stand still.
Ren was trained by one of, if not the last, Jedi Masters in blade combat. And has experience working for the First Order in using it. He should be wiping the floor with Rey, though less so than Finn, and it just didn't come across. And the mind control skill is something that feels like it should take time to master, not something that any old untrained force strong person can use. It feels like someone just made her far too OP for the level of knowledge and training we currently think she has. This also further goes onto make the Big Baddy of the film look like a putz if he can be beat/held off by an untrained force user. Which further undercuts the threat that Kylo Ren had.
* I feel like I'm missing context as to why there's a resistance in the first place if the First Order is quite clearly gunning for the New Republic. I feel confused as to if the planet that was destroyed was Coruscant or not (I assumed so, and have been told it's not, so it's up in the air). I feel confused as to why the resistance only had something like 4 or 5 wings of x-wing fighters when they just only came out of a galaxy spanning rebellion 20-30 years or so ago. I feel confused as to why the republic can't just storm the First Order when they either destroyed Coruscant or some other City-Planet-Hiveworld and instead leave it to the resistance.
In short, I feel there's at least two to five minutes of context cut from the film that would have made the whole Resistance, New Republic, First Order deal much cleaer.
* SMS or Supplementary Material Syndrome, I'm told that some or most of this is resolved in the materials surrounding the film. And I hated that with Halo 4 (Despite having RTFM), I shouldn't have to RTFM with Star Wars when you've essentially nuked the EU canon into the ground.
All this said, compared to JJ Abram's fare in Star Trek, I found this to be more suiting of his movie style as Star Wars always could handle the nonsensical blockbuster action Rule of Cool stuff more effectively than Star Trek could.
Let's start with the good.
* The Action was amazing. The fights were well directed, I never had a problem figuring out what was going on and where and there seemed to be tighter focus compared to the prequals (none of this splitting between four battles nonsense. They mostly kept it to a single battle and showcased two fronts (Ground and Air).
* The new characters, Finn especially, are looking really good. I think Finn shines the best playing a sort of everyman with a heart of gold (as opposed to Han's Jerkass with Morals). I especially liked the intro for him, setting Po free (Who was somewhat criminally underused I'd say) and stepping up to hold off Kylo Ren.
* The Plot was competent, I enjoyed watching it.
* It harked back to New Hope.
And the bad
* Kylo Ren, intentional or not, comes across as Anakin 2.0. Ideally he should have kept taking the helmet off for when he faces Han (and the Son reveal as well), it would have made him seem more intimidating than the face he has (Which essentially reminds me of one of my cousins, not terrifying at all). That said, it's only one film, it's hard to say where exactly they plan to take him at the moment, so with a little work it'd be easy to make him more villainous.
* Rey, I could buy her being competent at repairs (she's a junker from the looks of it, and lives alone and self sufficiently), I can buy her being capable of piloting (Force reflexes coupled with familiarity with other craft and the bouncing around all go to suggest someone who can pilot but maybe not this specific unit) but what gets me is the force mind control and the ability to essentially hold off Kylo Ren to a stand still.
Ren was trained by one of, if not the last, Jedi Masters in blade combat. And has experience working for the First Order in using it. He should be wiping the floor with Rey, though less so than Finn, and it just didn't come across. And the mind control skill is something that feels like it should take time to master, not something that any old untrained force strong person can use. It feels like someone just made her far too OP for the level of knowledge and training we currently think she has. This also further goes onto make the Big Baddy of the film look like a putz if he can be beat/held off by an untrained force user. Which further undercuts the threat that Kylo Ren had.
* I feel like I'm missing context as to why there's a resistance in the first place if the First Order is quite clearly gunning for the New Republic. I feel confused as to if the planet that was destroyed was Coruscant or not (I assumed so, and have been told it's not, so it's up in the air). I feel confused as to why the resistance only had something like 4 or 5 wings of x-wing fighters when they just only came out of a galaxy spanning rebellion 20-30 years or so ago. I feel confused as to why the republic can't just storm the First Order when they either destroyed Coruscant or some other City-Planet-Hiveworld and instead leave it to the resistance.
In short, I feel there's at least two to five minutes of context cut from the film that would have made the whole Resistance, New Republic, First Order deal much cleaer.
* SMS or Supplementary Material Syndrome, I'm told that some or most of this is resolved in the materials surrounding the film. And I hated that with Halo 4 (Despite having RTFM), I shouldn't have to RTFM with Star Wars when you've essentially nuked the EU canon into the ground.
All this said, compared to JJ Abram's fare in Star Trek, I found this to be more suiting of his movie style as Star Wars always could handle the nonsensical blockbuster action Rule of Cool stuff more effectively than Star Trek could.