It depends on how deep the pockets of the first order are or how wide their influence is. From what Finn indicated they were reduced to kidnapping children at birth and training them. Considering that Finn was a former waste disposal worker who was seeing combat for the first time yet was still selected to be part of this particular mission (and ushered by Kylo Ren), seems to suggest that they are having a bit of a recruiting issue. They may have the numbers now, but clearly they can't sustain the losses that the former Empire would inspire.
But, honestly if only from a story telling perspective, I imagine that episode 8 will have to be bigger and generally more action packed than episode 7, so I suspect you are right about the direction it will go.
This is the point. Kylo Ren is to "weak" in the Dark Side to simply murder people, so he takes his anger out on the furniture instead.
I don't see that. There might be any number of reasons why he doesn't go around indiscriminately killing the minions. And in fact in several scenes it is clear that he has a reputation for being quite lethal with the help. It's just that he doesn't reach that point where he feels it is necessary or warranted when there are nice consoles in evidence.
Destruction of furniture is a sign of impotance.
The strong bottle up thier anger to use later.
Or, the destruction of property is much more easily replaced than personnel.
The intelligent only kill when it serves a purpose.
Property might be more easily be replaced, but it still needs to be replaced. Destroying it serves no purpose, and is, therefore, the action of the weak or stupid.
Killing personnel can at least serve as an object lesson. Destroying a computer screen isn't going to make all the other computer screens try harder.
Officially the All-time domestic box office champion at 764 million. And it really took almost no time at all. Add in a pretty much guaranteed 40-50 million more over the weekend and you're well north of 800 million in just 5 weeks. There was every reason to think this would be a massive success, but it just busted onto the scene and demolished every single monetary record standing in it's path. And what's gonna beat it anytime soon?? The sequel won't have the pent up frustration of a decade of lamenting the prequels. Avatar benefited from a few things, #1 having a ton of staying power over a matter of months, and #2 possibly being one of 2 or 3 movies released since 3D came back into fashion that was actually worth seeing in that format (and all the extra ticket prices that entailed). I don't see any way Avatar 2 has the impact of the first movie.
Or, the destruction of property is much more easily replaced than personnel.
The intelligent only kill when it serves a purpose.
Property might be more easily be replaced, but it still needs to be replaced. Destroying it serves no purpose, and is, therefore, the action of the weak or stupid.
Killing personnel can at least serve as an object lesson. Destroying a computer screen isn't going to make all the other computer screens try harder.
In the scenes depicted any potential 'Victim' did nothing actually wrong to warrant the "object lesson" in question. Therefore it is wanton destruction in exactly the same way as destroying the console.
And again, if The First Order is not as robust in numbers as the once populous Empire (something that is hinted at STRONGLY in 'Aftermath' and is at least speculated about in TFA) technology is MUCH less valuable than people to run it. We are no longer talking about a galaxy spanning dominant and oppressive regime. We are talking about a much reduced effectively minor power attempting to grab back the glory that it once had.
So destroying something that may take a few hours or days to replace is much more intelligent than destroying something that could potentially take years or decades to replace.
Looks good. George should have other movies branch off the main story/characters a long time ago. This is one thing Disney is doing right, not to mention put more money in their pockets.
My connection to the force is telling me that Obi van Kenobi could have a role in the movie.
It shouldn't do unless they want to mess with established story. Obi wan was on Tatooine as a hermet for many years prior to the events of A New Hope. This movie should take place in the months just prior, ultimately ending with a certain blockade Runner running afoul of a Certain star Destroyer.
I just got the bluray for a birthday gift . Can't wait to rewatch.
I very much enjoyed Kylo Ren as a villain. He is the Dark Side for a modern audience, and someone that is actually scary to Millenials in a "depressed, deranged teen who might explode at any minute" way.
He is like if a school shooter who trained to become a Sith Lord... a very scary proposition.
that was my first time watching that trailer and it gave me chills...the actress they picked for Mon Mothma looks exactly like Mon Mothma but younger than the original trilogy like HOW?!
that was my first time watching that trailer and it gave me chills...the actress they picked for Mon Mothma looks exactly like Mon Mothma but younger than the original trilogy like HOW?!
I agree. I was impressed by how close they got. The only thing more surprising would be if she looked more like Mon Mothma than the original, haha.
Just getting around to watching it now after getting the Blu-Ray as a birthday gift (and I sat in line for Episodes 1 and 2, my how times change). Anyway, this is LIGHT YEARS better than any of the prequels. Whatever you think of JJ Abrams, he has a knack for space spectacle, and he's taken the two greatest science fiction franchises and reinvigorated them for a new generation (you could argue he actually made Star Trek more like Star Wars, which isn't bad imo). All in all, I say let him control the reins to both franchises on the big screen until he doesn't want to do it anymore. At worst, you're gonna get a highly entertaining film that is well worth your time.
That said, I can see why Lucas didn't like it, not like that means anything after the performance he turned in on the prequels. Most of this stuff is really out of left-field. I get a kick out of the fact that Han Solo and Chewie were essentially capturing Beholders. And apparently there is a whole other planet that is exactly like Tatooine. The girl who plays Rey is fantastic and immensely likable. As others have said, Kylo Ren is an adolescent who has been given dangerous power. The droid is almost Wall-E-like in showing off his personality. Other than that, it just has heart and the writing isn't as stiff as a 2x4, which is enough to elevate it.
The Nuremburg rally of Stormtroopers was a bit too on-point for a Star Wars movie possibly, and as someone who read ALOT of Expanded Universe when I was younger, it was very difficult to get my head around Han and Leia not being married, but most normal people don't have a couple dozen books of New Republic story-lines dancing around in their head.
I can appreciate the complaints that I've seen about the movie without necessarily agreeing with them.
They say it is to much like the originals. Well, considering that 1-3 were such a departure and people kept on clamoring about wanting to get back to basics? that seemed like a no-brainer.
Kylo Ren was a bit adolescent in presentation, I agree. However, given his adolescence versus Anikin's? I know which I would prefer to watch. And we have two more movies for him to grow on us.
Same could be said about the "Cuteness" of BB-8. He was an attempt to capture the wonder that was R2 in the originals. In that I think he did a fair job. And again, let's compare him to Jar-Jar. Is there a contest?
I do wonder if half of Lucas' issue with the movie was that people don't sit around and disparage about it the way they do with 1-3. Or maybe he actually thinks that they were good but misunderstood movies?
Missed it in the theatre, finally caught it on DVD. Was my first time seeing anything because I hadn't looked at the trailer. (me = huuuuge Star Wars fan, obviously)
It was... okay. Not really any better than the prequels (well, probably better than Attack of the Clones), but I am unusual in that I neither lionise the original movies nor despise the prequels. People seem happy about it, so hooray for Disney?
Generally speaking it looked pretty, though I thought it utterly ridiculous that 30 years on the Empire and Rebellion First Order and Resistance were still using TIE Fighters and X-Wings. A-Wings and B-Wings showed up in the original movies; even they were less willing to rest on their laurels.
I suppose I can't blame them given the fandom's reaction to the prequels, but the whole movie's most worrisome characteristic is how willing it was to play it safe. They even cloned Tattooine and the Death Star (somehow now even less realistic), for pity's sake. Same old, same old - if Star Wars isn't going to be imaginative, then what, honestly, is the point?
Darth Justin Trudeau Kylo Ren was an interesting take on a villain, and probably the most original thing in the movie. He's really, really not very good at the whole Force and lightsaber-ing thing, given he was held off and even tagged by a completely non-Force-using dude with a lightsaber. Also got shot by Chewbacca (why has he not even aged?), but I'll give him a pass on that one given the circumstances. But I guess that's what the promised training is for. Still, it's a new thing for the series, to have the villain be growing along with the heroes. Could go somewhere interesting.
Being related to one of the few things I remember fondly about Game of Thrones, I hope Captain Phasma gets to do something cool next movie before her inevitable demise at Finn's hands.
I was pretty super happy that the main Jedi character ended up being female (and, people yelling on the internet inform me, so's the main character in the sidestory movie), so I guiltily wish I could say she was really great in the role, but honestly the only thing the actress did that positively stuck out in my mind a couple days afterward was the staff-fu at the beginning. Less positively, she was just kind of a little bit precious, especially when she was arguing (and winning!) with Han Solo about the Falcon, after noting she had never been off-planet before, particularly off-planet in this particular garbage. In her defence, Solo just kind of breezily took over the movie the moment he showed up, so maybe she'll have some breathing room to get character in the subsequent films. The shoehorned-in and chemistry-free romantic subplot didn't leave me with a lot of hope, though. Why did they have to be in love in the first movie anyway? There's three of them.
Oh well, worst comes to worst, it's not like Star Wars hasn't survived underwhelming protagonists before.
(I didn't have much to say about Finn. He was alright. At least he wasn't a Han Solo clone. Sorry, Finn! Also, Maz Kanata was probably my favourite part of the movie.)
Kylo Ren was a bit adolescent in presentation, I agree. However, given his adolescence versus Anikin's? I know which I would prefer to watch. And we have two more movies for him to grow on us.
I absolutely agree with this. Poor Ani, I first thought it must be his lines that are terrible but then I watched Hayden in other stuff and I really don't like his acting.
SPOILERS IN THIS THREAD, BUT EXTRA WARNING ON THIS POST JUST IN CASE!
@Ayiekie Technically the original trilogy did the "build a bigger, better Death Star" thing, so at least they're being unoriginal in line with the originals rather than the prequels. I think the first foray was a nod to the old fans before they do their Empire Strikes Back (i.e. the one where the heroes keep failing and the villains keep winning that ends with everyone beaten down and in rough shape) so they can do their own unique triumph against all odds kinda story for Episode IX, so with that in mind I actually like (a great deal, even) that they did the nod to IV and VI's repetition of the Doomsday Weapon thing, especially since it plays into Kylo Ren's Granddaddy Complex of needing to be the True Successor to Darth Vader...But Better!!!
As to his lightsaber battle, he's badly wounded there, probably more badly than we see because he's using anger-fueled Dark Sided Stuff to overcome his wounds and keep going. He keeps hitting his wound, and increasing the pain, and as we know from all 6 of the previous movies, suffering and pain, when reacted to in Dark Side kinda ways, fuel power...and after offing his dad I think he was very much pedal to the metal diving into the deep end of the Dark Side. So, to me, it speaks more to the internal bleeding that two Force-sensitive whippersnappers were able to beat him back, and Finn would've beefed it for sure if Rey hadn't been there.
Finn, by the way, is very obviously Force sensitive as well. There's hints that Finn and Rey both have immense potential despite being untrained and raw, Rey's hints just gave way to the full-on realization in this movie, while they're clearly waiting for VIII for Finn's cutely cheerful obliviousness to give way in a more major way. The biggest one for me someone else said better, I'll quote it here:
Finn IS force-sensitive. I’m watching TFA yet again, and it’s even clearer this time. After Starkiller fires, Finn and the smugglers are alone outside of Maz’s. He hears a crowd screaming and spins around. The smugglers continue loading the ship, having heard nothing. In the audio mix for the Blu-ray version, you can hear one particular man’s voice screaming among the crowd.
Then it cuts to the beams reaching the Hosnian system. On Hosnian Prime, people panic. The screams start again. The same man’s voice starts screaming again in a similar fashion–it’s one of the Senators.
Then it cuts back to Takodona. Han and Chewie are coming out of Maz’s. There’s no screaming. Everyone’s staring up in awe and horror. But the entire crowd is behind Han. Aside from Finn and the smugglers, no one was outside before the explosion.
Finn heard screams from another planet before they happened. That can only mean one thing. And if you don’t agree, clean your ears and watch it again.
So yeah, Finn doesn't know it yet, but he's definitely Force-sensitive, which also is the other half (after his military training) to explain why he took to saber-use like a duck to water, although his form in that fight with Kylo has him leaving himself wide open and I actually think those back-to-back fights with Kylo Ren are some of the best physical acting in the movie, Kylo is seething with frustration and as someone trained by whoever Snoke is and Luke in lightsaber combat and for lightsaber form nerds, it's pretty clear Kylo is a master of Djem So hampered by his wounds and blinded by his mounting rage and frustration, so he keeps going for the openings Finn is leaving that should be lethal, but then Finn can dodge and leap back faster than the wounded Kylo Ren can lurch and stumble with the wound. But it's almost like he gets a second wind (of super-rage) when HIS lightsaber that should be HIS is in Rey's hand (and it must also smart that her raw untrained Force powers could best his, but again he's badly wounded for one and for two I think we're supposed to understand that Rey is just naturally a lot better than Kylo's raw potential ever was, and he's had to train under Masters of both the Light and Dark just to almost match her level, something he realizes far more than she does in that fight, again fueling his anger).
Also wookies are ridiculously long-lived, they live like ewoks on Kashyyk, they're basically elves. That's why Chewie basically hasn't aged, we see him in Episode III as well, when Han would've been a baby, looking basically the same as when Han and him are pallin' around. That's just wookies.
That said, I disagree with your more subjective criticisms as well, I thought John Boyega did a fantastic job portraying someone whose training didn't prepare him for the real thing, who is now a ball of anxiety who finds himself (at first) compulsively lying with answers he thinks will please people around him, not maliciously but just as a survival thing, desperately, and he grows out of it over the course of the movie as he learns he can relax around and trust people instead of fearing an ever-present social hierarchy. It's classic symptoms of emotional abuse, which you'd expect from a 24/7/365 bootcamp as your parents, but he was too resilient, too full of the Light himself, to let any of that drag him down for long once he got the positive social interactions he needed. It's like how he keeps grabbing Rey's hand when they're in danger at first, it's more like security for HIM than it is him trying to be a secure, leading force for HER. It's also why he's instantly bubbling over with awe and joy at being named, since he was named by someone who responds to him warmly pretty much from the moment the incredibly socially aware/socially intelligent and charismatic Poe Dameron clues in that this guy is serious about turning traitor and getting the F out of dodge.
The movies don't go into this, but in the novelization it's explained that the "TRAITOR!" Storm Trooper with the force-field'd baton thing was one of Finn's immediate bunkmates, of whom there were I think 4 core ones. One of them, the kindest of them, was the one that Finn sees die in the opening minutes of their assault on Jakku, the moment that has him unable to fire on anyone or even do much but stumble around stunned (again, great physical acting there since we don't see his face but you can tell he's basically shell-shocked by this death for whatever reason). And basically, given the personalities in the novelization, I'd say "TRAITOR!" thinks that Finn responded to the "sacrifice" of the one they both looked up to by betraying everything he stood for, whereas Finn just couldn't take it anymore because his death hit him so hard (to say nothing of how he clearly had it dawning on him that all his buddies around him were doing was massacring fleeing civilians).
And just a side note, as a hardcore old school Star Wars fan, and an EU fan who had long since gotten tired of the way the EU has become top-heavy with really poorly written novels (not all of them, but there are some authors that just kept churning out SW novels for so long with such a lack of writing talent that their contribution to canon EU stuck out like a sore thumb, and was often referenced even by better writers...I'm sure there are EU fans on these boards who can think of a couple names that describe this lmao) and so I was actually quite glad when they announced they were sweeping away the EU so they could surprise us, despite being steeped in the lore myself, but that said they are putting a lot of little hints here and there that they're drawing on EU lore and sort of "re-canonizing" certain aspects of it to assauge the wounded egos of EU junkies lol and I do appreciate their little nods here and there even if they've mostly scrapped stuff and started from scratch (and even Rey and Kylo read like a cousin version of where the Solo twins ended up without all the buildup, in a roundabout sense).
As to Daisy Ridley, I think she did a great job, but I think Poe and Finn came to life for me a lot more for some reason. I don't think anyone gave a weak performance, even Harrison Ford, who seemed like he was phoning it in for 25% of his scenes, wasn't giving a "weak" performance, he just channeled how bad he wanted to phone the whole thing in into his scenes where he had to depict being fed up and "too old for this", so it was actually helping his performance that some scenes he looked like he really didn't want to get out of his trailer that day lmao, but of the performances, all very good, I think Daisy Ridley's was the weakest. And I found out after I saw the movie that a young actress I love, Devery Jacobs, who was the star of Rhymes For Young Ghouls (a super depressing movie, but she's superb in it and I highly recommend people watch it, then cleanse themselves with A Tribe Called Red's music video for Sisters since she's in that too and that is the furthest thing from depressing) was actually shortlisted (along with Ridley and a few others) to play Rey...and like...Devery Jacobs would have knocked it out of the park! It made me so mad when I found that out, but I've calmed down now and honestly Ridley did a great job. But when everyone around you is doing AMAZING jobs, your great sometimes needs to level up a bit or it doesn't look so great. Otherwise tho, the casting was superb, everyone was really great! Lupita as Maz was such a great casting choice her voice is so perfect for wizened, seen-it-all Star Wars alien, she nailed it (even tho when I heard they were casting her I was crossing my fingers and hoping she'd be playing Asajj Ventress)
Basically, I love Episode VII, I'm super pumped for Episode VIII, and despite a few things here and there I thought they could have improved on (some scenes ended a bit abruptly, or were edited kinda choppy, for example, but I bet we'll see better pacing and editing on the inevitable extended edition), and a choice of actress that I wish had been different (otherwise the casting was flawless IMHO, and even then I'm basically fine with it and I'm sure she'll get even better as the trilogy goes on, this isn't Hayden Christiansen territory or anything she's a very good actress), I still think despite those few tiny things this was a triumph of a movie, and a lot better than Episode VI. RotJ was the weakest of the original trilogy, with its plushie alien teddy bear kumbaya BBQ party ending (not that it was a bad film, this is the original trilogy we're talking about, but it was far and away weaker than A New Hope and Empire blew A New Hope out of the water), and part of what made it weak was Lucas' head beginning to swell in precisely the way it went on swelling until the prequels, and the early signs of what made the prequels bad were already lurking in VI (but tempered by voices Lucas actually listened to a little bit at the time, compared to My Voice Is God stage with the prequels). The best one, V, was written and directed by other people. IV was great too, but Empire Strikes Back was other people taking Lucas' formula and doing what Lucas couldn't possibly hope to on his own with it, they broke past his creative limits with one of the finest creative things he ever did as their material. When he took back over, he was all about toy sales and the brand image (this is true, there are great articles and interviews with key players in the original trilogy about this, how he was adding stuff for marketing reasons and toy sales and people kept having to fight him over really bad decisions), and I think because of that, even though VI is better than every prequel movie by a long shot, VII has dethroned it's third place ranking for me.
tl;dr me it goes: V, IV, VII, VI, III, II, I (some days it goes II, III, I, it depends what excruciating scene is most prevalent in my mind, but I think overall III is a better film than II...which isn't saying much, but there ya go) and my reasons are rooted in both the bigger, sweeping broad strokes of The Force Awakens as well as the subtle details. Finn hearing a planet dying really floored me (I had to go back and check again after reading that post and like...I got so excited experiencing it for myself my eyes were watering, I'm so ready for Finn to get his Force groove on)
@Ayiekie Technically the original trilogy did the "build a bigger, better Death Star" thing, so at least they're being unoriginal in line with the originals rather than the prequels.
Sure, but as I hold no particular reverence for them, that lends it no virtue in my eyes. Also, it's even sillier than the Death Star (the energy of an entire star is grotesquely more than needed to vapourise a few planets, I know Star Wars and scientific accuracy have never been on speaking terms but c'mon), and there's no compelling explanation in the movie as to how they could possibly have built it.
As to his lightsaber battle, he's badly wounded there, probably more badly than we see because he's using anger-fueled Dark Sided Stuff to overcome his wounds and keep going. He keeps hitting his wound, and increasing the pain, and as we know from all 6 of the previous movies, suffering and pain, when reacted to in Dark Side kinda ways, fuel power...and after offing his dad I think he was very much pedal to the metal diving into the deep end of the Dark Side. So, to me, it speaks more to the internal bleeding that two Force-sensitive whippersnappers were able to beat him back, and Finn would've beefed it for sure if Rey hadn't been there.
And vice-versa. I took his wound into account, of course, but it's unprecedented for significant Force users in the series to be successfully hit by a "snipe" from a ranged weapon, or to be tagged by total amateurs in melee. Plus, he got beat by two complete neophytes (even with an injury). It's hard to argue he really looked strong compared to previous Dark Side villains.
Also wookies are ridiculously long-lived, they live like ewoks on Kashyyk, they're basically elves. That's why Chewie basically hasn't aged, we see him in Episode III as well, when Han would've been a baby, looking basically the same as when Han and him are pallin' around. That's just wookies.
Hokay, I'm just going by the movies and KOTOR there, I think. I think there was a grey-haired wookie in KOTOR 1, maybe? Or maybe I'm misremembering, it's been awhile.
That said, I disagree with your more subjective criticisms as well, I thought John Boyega did a fantastic job portraying someone whose training didn't prepare him for the real thing, who is now a ball of anxiety who finds himself (at first) compulsively lying with answers he thinks will please people around him, not maliciously but just as a survival thing, desperately, and he grows out of it over the course of the movie as he learns he can relax around and trust people instead of fearing an ever-present social hierarchy.
You are of course wholly entitled to disagree with my subjective criticisms.
Ultimately the problem with Finn wasn't the actor, but the character. To me, he had no coherent arc. We're told stormtroopers have massive brainwashing to bring them in line but he just randomly defects in the very first scene he appears. He shows no signs of being a sheltered person who has never dealt with the real world and knows only violence and military discipline - which is what I'd expect of a brainwashed, literally nameless soldier. He's clumsy and a bit of a coward - why? How did he get past the supposedly rigorous training? He's a terrible soldier. Yes, he was on latrine duty, but you'd kind of expect the C- trainees of First Order U to be probably more lethally treated - and in any case, he's on live fire duty when we first see him.
Then, at the cantina, suddenly he's willing to leave Rey because the FO is unstoppable and all that, presumably due to their superweapon. He asks her to come with him. They're barely met. If there'd been immediate signs of hot and steamy romance, fine, but that isn't the vibe their partnership really had up until that point. Her reaction, too, is in line with a dear old friend who shockingly is betraying her trust, not so much with a guy she met, like, yesterday.
(And, again, I didn't feel the actors had any on-screen romantic chemistry, but that might've been due to how rushed and nonsensical the romantic part was.)
10 minutes after walking away from Rey forever, suddenly Finn wants to take on the FO singlehandedly to rescue her. Why? I realise she might be the first woman he's met other than Phasma, but the mortal terror of his entire life shouldn't so easily be brushed aside for a girl he just met, especially when he was just leaving the selfsame girl.
And on and on it goes. He just wasn't a coherent or well-developed character IMO; it is actually some testament to Boyega's performance trying to tease out a whole from these disparate and contradictory bits that I regard him as "neutral" rather than a serious flaw in the movie. (It is also a testament to how both real protagonists got tossed into the background once Han showed up.)
And why does he even pick up and use the lightsaber? He should be trained in standard stormtrooper weaponry - the sort that was in easy supply everywhere around him at the time. Even saying the Force made him do it makes no sense to me: Leia never whipped out a lightsaber. And the "Traitor!" stormtrooper may indeed have been explained in some supplementary materials, but I'm judging the movie as a singular whole, and as a whole that fight scene was kind of cool but nonsensical - a literally nameless, faceless villain that takes up screentime using weaponry and tactics no other stormtrooper has ever used on-screen and being far more effective with them - and then beating the protagonist just to be effortlessly killed by a secondary character. Also, his melee weapon blocked a lightsaber. The things that casually go through pretty much every other non-lightsaber material at every other point in the series. Why did any of that happen? What was the point? The movie has no answers.
And just a side note, as a hardcore old school Star Wars fan, and an EU fan who had long since gotten tired of the way the EU has become top-heavy with really poorly written novels (not all of them, but there are some authors that just kept churning out SW novels for so long with such a lack of writing talent that their contribution to canon EU stuck out like a sore thumb, and was often referenced even by better writers...I'm sure there are EU fans on these boards who can think of a couple names that describe this lmao)
Ah, good old Admiral Daala. And Darksaber. And that stupid skeletal Death Star in the middle of the black holes. And... actually, I'd prefer not to go on.
Lupita as Maz was such a great casting choice her voice is so perfect for wizened, seen-it-all Star Wars alien, she nailed it (even tho when I heard they were casting her I was crossing my fingers and hoping she'd be playing Asajj Ventress)
We agree on something! Although I'm honestly surprised Ventress is still alive. I was about to add "and canonical", but then I remembered she appeared in the CG Clone Wars cartoon, which I think is canonical? But her origin is the animated Clone Wars cartoon, which... isn't? Or maybe it is, since it was supposed to explain General Grievous and give us a reason to care for his short-term appearence in episode III. I could check but it's easier to type, I guess.
tl;dr me it goes: V, IV, VII, VI, III, II, I (some days it goes II, III, I, it depends what excruciating scene is most prevalent in my mind, but I think overall III is a better film than II...which isn't saying much, but there ya go)
For me it's the super-heretical Phantom Menace > Everything Else > Attack of the Clones. Although maybe I'm being unfair to AotC there, which I only saw once when it came out. Looking back, it had Christopher Lee in it, plus like the only scene where Padme got to be badass, and that's got to at least somewhat compensate for her mooning around Anakin in a leather bustier.
Though really, while TPM is my favourite of the movies, it's a relative thing. The only Star Wars stuff I'm really a fan of is some of the ancilliary material. TIE Fighter, old-school, carpal-tunnel-inducing mouse control! And KOTOR and especially KOTOR II. Kreia is probably the best video game character ever written.
and my reasons are rooted in both the bigger, sweeping broad strokes of The Force Awakens as well as the subtle details. Finn hearing a planet dying really floored me (I had to go back and check again after reading that post and like...I got so excited experiencing it for myself my eyes were watering, I'm so ready for Finn to get his Force groove on)
I've often wondered why I'm seemingly the only person of several generations to not have a deep, emotional connection to the Star Wars movies. I'm not looking down on you, I hasten to clarify. I can and have gotten like that with other stuff (Dragon Age 2 and Revolutionary Girl Utena represent!), just not these movies: they're "just" movies to me, fun silly space laser fights but nothing special except for how everyone else treats them. Maybe because I didn't watch them as a kid? Or I'm just weird. That is always possible.
And vice-versa. I took his wound into account, of course, but it's unprecedented for significant Force users in the series to be successfully hit by a "snipe" from a ranged weapon, or to be tagged by total amateurs in melee. Plus, he got beat by two complete neophytes (even with an injury). It's hard to argue he really looked strong compared to previous Dark Side villains.
I think this is actually just to show he's still a neophyte too, as you pointed out in your first post he's growing as a villain alongside the heroes' growth. This is all despite his extensive training, but it's worthwhile to note that he's quite young and Clearly Not Ready (like, psychologically) in ways that it seems he was pretty blind to before Rey resisted him and probed back, and now he's got a lot of Fear as his awareness of where he is weak deepens...and Fear, as we know, leads somewhere that Yoda warned us about...but I can't remember where...maybe Snoke can tell him during Special Training
but with regard to Finn, I think that fragmented nature is actually a strength of his character, and the factor which explains his character! It's exactly because he was raised the way he was with the sensitive soul he has! like, he gets janitorial duties because he consistently shows himself to be too soft, and so he has to project a cover of being proficient enough, and then he's on a shuttle heading toward Jakku and stuff hits the fan pretty quick because he's only been faking whatever factors got him put on that mission to Jakku, it unravels super quickly as a result, but all he knows how to do as a kid raised by an organization who thinks emotional abuse and fear tactics is good parenting is to lie, lie and lie some more...which is why even when he's free of that and in a relatively good place, he keeps doing it! it's ALSO why he attaches himself immediately to sources of genuine warmth, kindness and mutually respectful support like Poe and Rey, which I think explains it outside the context of a romance.
honestly, I don't see the chemistry there either, but I didn't think for a second that his reasoning as someone who has never known anyone else as simultaneously capable and good-hearted as Rey was about romance, it read very much as someone who is talking to their only friend in the galaxy, especially with Poe "dead" in his mind, and desperately trying to cling to her presence...which is also why he's ultimately willing to cave to both Poe and Rey's suggestions to go back to Jakku when he REALLY doesn't want to either time and thinks it's a horrible idea! he's going to go with them wherever they go, he's just HOPING they'll share in his fear and run with him away from the source of it. Instead, both of them force him to take steps towards confronting that fear which ultimately leads to his growth and development of legit courage by the end of The Force Awakens. I think his character, and the way he interacts with others, make perfect sense, but I agree with you that it's fragmented...but that's the point. He is recovering from a LIFETIME of emotional abuse! And The Force is with him, because he finds just the right friends to help coax him out of his shell and turn him into the hero the First Order never could have shaped him into. They had one of the most powerful Force-users of the near-future right under their noses, but it was impossible to train him like their training does it, impossible for the FO to discover he was anything more than a latrine-scrubbing f**k-up because their standards couldn't recognize the kind of power he could wield, could only suppress and fragment what is powerful in him: his kindness, his joyful exuberance, his compassion, his willingness to befriend and to trust and to do anything for people who respond in kind. But I think VIII and IX will reveal that all of those traits they buried under fear will emerge into power they're going to regret not noticing in someone they raised and treated less than human in order to be fodder for their machine. He'll be the cog that slips its mooring and brings the whole thing grinding to a halt (and Rey and Poe'll help bring it crashing down).
See why I love Finn so much?
as to the detail about the lightsaber, I would say yeah it's the Force arranging for that to go down, he clearly has a powerful level of Force Prescience just waiting to be unlocked and developed, I'm sure absent a lightsaber he would have been in fear mode scrambling around hunting for a blaster to get in his hands and start having PTSD flashbacks with...but instead the Force was with him, and he picked up a weapon that he doesn't associate with all that traumatic training or the battle he snapped during, and that he could actually block the baton of his old bunkmate with (and yeah, I know it's not in the film and I consider it a weakness of the film too that they don't explain his connection to the "TRAITOR!" guy and the one who goes down in the opening minutes) but also the development of a melee weapon that uses a force-field to keep it from being cleaved in half by a lightsaber seems like SUCH a Kylo Ren overcompensation that I think it makes total sense that he has some troopers using them (like "Grandfather, you were defeated by a lone Jedi...I will not make the same mistake...BUILD THE BATONS AND TRAIN THE TROOPS IN THEIR USE!" "...but...but sir, that seems like overkill, if just one Jedi comes through couldn't we just have like...one guy in every thousand have one of these things? I don't think we need to train everyone in how to use th-GCK! HHKKK! HHhhh..." "ANY MORE QUESTIONS?")
as to TPM...it's the most hokey of all of them to me, so in a sense it could potentially have charm? It just doesn't have that charm to me at all tho...it's just so bad, both actors they get in the prequels to play the focal character in the prequels can't act their way out of a paper bag and so in a sense that forgettable kid's acting was actually kind of a prescient leadup to his teen/young adult self (but only in a verisimilitude shattering meta sense), "midichlorians" was some "bad EU writing" level bad writing and it became canon because of Episode I, the CG was the most overboard in Episode I, they used CG where practical effects could have been used at every possible turn (Lucas toned it down only ever so slightly in II and III, but it was still excessive even then in a way it's not in VII, lots more practically achieved aliens and effects give it an OT feel) and yeah, if you don't think Empire is the best one I dunno what to tell ya, it's got the best lines, the best writing, the best mood, the best theme (Episode II, as the middle film of the prequels, was sort of an photo negative of the OT's middle film themes, intentionally so, where the good guys seem to be doing better and better before their inevitable defeat in the conclusion rather than worse and worse before their triumph against all odds, and it really really didn't work at all to flip that script in the way Lucas chose to even if the idea of mirroring each film might've been a good one on paper)
honestly if that fan theory about Jar Jar Binks being an inverse Yoda meant to be behind everything as a secret Sith Lord, possibly as Palpatine's Master's soul jar (jar), given that Darth Plagueis was all about extending his life through whatever means necessary and so on...if that's true I will reassess Episode I as the best of the prequels, and I'll still think it's a really poor example of a movie generally, an even poorer example of a sci fi film specifically, and if we REALLY drill down I'll say it remains the worst example of a Star Wars film that exists, period, I find the Christmas Special more watchable because the hokeyness is sort of played up intentionally at least instead of a byproduct of bad filmmaking on Lucas' part in TPM
Darth Maul was cool tho, and that fight was pretty epic, I rewatch starting from just before that scene in lieu of watching the whole thing before launching into the Machete Order when I watch the movies now.
yeah I just can't stand TPM, it's super terrible lmao
but that said, I actually am more of a Trekkie than a Star Wars nerd, I think both are deeply flawed pieces of sci fi that take themselves too seriously, but Star Wars takes itself slightly less seriously and is more willing to be Big and Hollywood, which I actually do consider to be a bit of a flaw but it means I forgive its flaws much more readily than Star Trek's, so in a sense even tho I'm a bigger Star Trek fan I'm also way more forgiving of SW flaws in the Original Trilogy, and always had been before TPM came out...but TPM managed to underwhelm in a way I didn't expect, I watched it expecting it to probably not measure up and it didn't measure up to my internal model of the worst it could possibly be, which was kinda shocking to me at the time (altho as I found out more about Lucas it surprised me less and less)
and I also like the KOTOR games more than any of the films except Empire tbqh
I seriously just adore everything about Episode V, like if you watch Robocop 2 knowing that the same director made it, and watch it be just this cascade of really bleak dark humour about heroes failing and things taking turns for the worse inside of turns for the worse (and it's that way from the start, there's even that chain of "Robocop Mark II"s that keep committing suicide immediately upon being activated in that one scene which is like a meta statement about doing a sequel as dark as he was doing) and then go back and re-watch Empire, it puts Episode V in an interesting contrast as Irvin Kershner's attempt to do a dramatic, rather than comedic, utter and complete tragedy with no redeeming qualities or victories, but it also highlights where his sense of humour was still there lurking in the background. Robocop II, to me, felt like kind of a jokey love letter he wrote to himself (and movie audiences) about him doing the sequel to Star Wars in such a depressing way...but it's what made that movie WORK, and made it a truly great film that stands out from the rest in such a big way to me. The rest are joyfests by the end, aside from Episode III which managed to fail because Lucas doesn't know how to write a tragedy (and there were even moments to assure the audience that certain things were gonna be ok near the end even as the tragedies piled up, and a lot of the tragedies happened without much tension and certainly without the quips and jokes that were in Episode V...III took itself too seriously and so it didn't strike an appropriate balance to bring contrast to the tragedy like V did)
like basically the only SW film I have a deep, emotional connection to is Episode V, but it's sort of like a connection to watching IV and V together and then getting a silly release valve of all the depressing content of V at the end of VI when I inevitably burst out laughing at the ewok party following so close on the heels of Vader's helment starting to melt
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But, honestly if only from a story telling perspective, I imagine that episode 8 will have to be bigger and generally more action packed than episode 7, so I suspect you are right about the direction it will go.
Killing personnel can at least serve as an object lesson. Destroying a computer screen isn't going to make all the other computer screens try harder.
Killing personnel can at least serve as an object lesson. Destroying a computer screen isn't going to make all the other computer screens try harder.
In the scenes depicted any potential 'Victim' did nothing actually wrong to warrant the "object lesson" in question. Therefore it is wanton destruction in exactly the same way as destroying the console.
And again, if The First Order is not as robust in numbers as the once populous Empire (something that is hinted at STRONGLY in 'Aftermath' and is at least speculated about in TFA) technology is MUCH less valuable than people to run it. We are no longer talking about a galaxy spanning dominant and oppressive regime. We are talking about a much reduced effectively minor power attempting to grab back the glory that it once had.
So destroying something that may take a few hours or days to replace is much more intelligent than destroying something that could potentially take years or decades to replace.
So, is that Vader we see in the one scene with his back to us and the column of light in the background? Or is that wishful thinking on my part?
http://www.cnet.com/news/rogue-one-will-be-the-best-star-wars-movie-of-the-year-podcast/
(Just ignore the fact that it is the years only Star Wars movie and just go with it)
Unless Vader has changed his outfit and started wearing a hood instead of a helmet, that aint him.
Smart money is it's Palpatine bowing (ironically) before Darth Plagueis (AKA Snoke) in a cryotube.
Vader is in the trailer though - we hear his breath in the final shot.
I very much enjoyed Kylo Ren as a villain. He is the Dark Side for a modern audience, and someone that is actually scary to Millenials in a "depressed, deranged teen who might explode at any minute" way.
He is like if a school shooter who trained to become a Sith Lord... a very scary proposition.
I am so so SO going to see that in IMAX 3D
The Nuremburg rally of Stormtroopers was a bit too on-point for a Star Wars movie possibly, and as someone who read ALOT of Expanded Universe when I was younger, it was very difficult to get my head around Han and Leia not being married, but most normal people don't have a couple dozen books of New Republic story-lines dancing around in their head.
They say it is to much like the originals. Well, considering that 1-3 were such a departure and people kept on clamoring about wanting to get back to basics? that seemed like a no-brainer.
Kylo Ren was a bit adolescent in presentation, I agree. However, given his adolescence versus Anikin's? I know which I would prefer to watch. And we have two more movies for him to grow on us.
Same could be said about the "Cuteness" of BB-8. He was an attempt to capture the wonder that was R2 in the originals. In that I think he did a fair job. And again, let's compare him to Jar-Jar. Is there a contest?
I do wonder if half of Lucas' issue with the movie was that people don't sit around and disparage about it the way they do with 1-3. Or maybe he actually thinks that they were good but misunderstood movies?
It was... okay. Not really any better than the prequels (well, probably better than Attack of the Clones), but I am unusual in that I neither lionise the original movies nor despise the prequels. People seem happy about it, so hooray for Disney?
Generally speaking it looked pretty, though I thought it utterly ridiculous that 30 years on the
Empire and RebellionFirst Order and Resistance were still using TIE Fighters and X-Wings. A-Wings and B-Wings showed up in the original movies; even they were less willing to rest on their laurels.I suppose I can't blame them given the fandom's reaction to the prequels, but the whole movie's most worrisome characteristic is how willing it was to play it safe. They even cloned Tattooine and the Death Star (somehow now even less realistic), for pity's sake. Same old, same old - if Star Wars isn't going to be imaginative, then what, honestly, is the point?
Darth Justin TrudeauKylo Ren was an interesting take on a villain, and probably the most original thing in the movie. He's really, really not very good at the whole Force and lightsaber-ing thing, given he was held off and even tagged by a completely non-Force-using dude with a lightsaber. Also got shot by Chewbacca (why has he not even aged?), but I'll give him a pass on that one given the circumstances. But I guess that's what the promised training is for. Still, it's a new thing for the series, to have the villain be growing along with the heroes. Could go somewhere interesting.Being related to one of the few things I remember fondly about Game of Thrones, I hope Captain Phasma gets to do something cool next movie before her inevitable demise at Finn's hands.
I was pretty super happy that the main Jedi character ended up being female (and, people yelling on the internet inform me, so's the main character in the sidestory movie), so I guiltily wish I could say she was really great in the role, but honestly the only thing the actress did that positively stuck out in my mind a couple days afterward was the staff-fu at the beginning. Less positively, she was just kind of a little bit precious, especially when she was arguing (and winning!) with Han Solo about the Falcon, after noting she had never been off-planet before, particularly off-planet in this particular garbage. In her defence, Solo just kind of breezily took over the movie the moment he showed up, so maybe she'll have some breathing room to get character in the subsequent films. The shoehorned-in and chemistry-free romantic subplot didn't leave me with a lot of hope, though. Why did they have to be in love in the first movie anyway? There's three of them.
Oh well, worst comes to worst, it's not like Star Wars hasn't survived underwhelming protagonists before.
(I didn't have much to say about Finn. He was alright. At least he wasn't a Han Solo clone. Sorry, Finn! Also, Maz Kanata was probably my favourite part of the movie.)
@Ayiekie Technically the original trilogy did the "build a bigger, better Death Star" thing, so at least they're being unoriginal in line with the originals rather than the prequels. I think the first foray was a nod to the old fans before they do their Empire Strikes Back (i.e. the one where the heroes keep failing and the villains keep winning that ends with everyone beaten down and in rough shape) so they can do their own unique triumph against all odds kinda story for Episode IX, so with that in mind I actually like (a great deal, even) that they did the nod to IV and VI's repetition of the Doomsday Weapon thing, especially since it plays into Kylo Ren's Granddaddy Complex of needing to be the True Successor to Darth Vader...But Better!!!
As to his lightsaber battle, he's badly wounded there, probably more badly than we see because he's using anger-fueled Dark Sided Stuff to overcome his wounds and keep going. He keeps hitting his wound, and increasing the pain, and as we know from all 6 of the previous movies, suffering and pain, when reacted to in Dark Side kinda ways, fuel power...and after offing his dad I think he was very much pedal to the metal diving into the deep end of the Dark Side. So, to me, it speaks more to the internal bleeding that two Force-sensitive whippersnappers were able to beat him back, and Finn would've beefed it for sure if Rey hadn't been there.
Finn, by the way, is very obviously Force sensitive as well. There's hints that Finn and Rey both have immense potential despite being untrained and raw, Rey's hints just gave way to the full-on realization in this movie, while they're clearly waiting for VIII for Finn's cutely cheerful obliviousness to give way in a more major way. The biggest one for me someone else said better, I'll quote it here: -http://steviemcfly.com/post/142618831093/finn-is-force-sensitive-im-watching-tfa-yet
So yeah, Finn doesn't know it yet, but he's definitely Force-sensitive, which also is the other half (after his military training) to explain why he took to saber-use like a duck to water, although his form in that fight with Kylo has him leaving himself wide open and I actually think those back-to-back fights with Kylo Ren are some of the best physical acting in the movie, Kylo is seething with frustration and as someone trained by whoever Snoke is and Luke in lightsaber combat and for lightsaber form nerds, it's pretty clear Kylo is a master of Djem So hampered by his wounds and blinded by his mounting rage and frustration, so he keeps going for the openings Finn is leaving that should be lethal, but then Finn can dodge and leap back faster than the wounded Kylo Ren can lurch and stumble with the wound. But it's almost like he gets a second wind (of super-rage) when HIS lightsaber that should be HIS is in Rey's hand (and it must also smart that her raw untrained Force powers could best his, but again he's badly wounded for one and for two I think we're supposed to understand that Rey is just naturally a lot better than Kylo's raw potential ever was, and he's had to train under Masters of both the Light and Dark just to almost match her level, something he realizes far more than she does in that fight, again fueling his anger).
Also wookies are ridiculously long-lived, they live like ewoks on Kashyyk, they're basically elves. That's why Chewie basically hasn't aged, we see him in Episode III as well, when Han would've been a baby, looking basically the same as when Han and him are pallin' around. That's just wookies.
That said, I disagree with your more subjective criticisms as well, I thought John Boyega did a fantastic job portraying someone whose training didn't prepare him for the real thing, who is now a ball of anxiety who finds himself (at first) compulsively lying with answers he thinks will please people around him, not maliciously but just as a survival thing, desperately, and he grows out of it over the course of the movie as he learns he can relax around and trust people instead of fearing an ever-present social hierarchy. It's classic symptoms of emotional abuse, which you'd expect from a 24/7/365 bootcamp as your parents, but he was too resilient, too full of the Light himself, to let any of that drag him down for long once he got the positive social interactions he needed. It's like how he keeps grabbing Rey's hand when they're in danger at first, it's more like security for HIM than it is him trying to be a secure, leading force for HER. It's also why he's instantly bubbling over with awe and joy at being named, since he was named by someone who responds to him warmly pretty much from the moment the incredibly socially aware/socially intelligent and charismatic Poe Dameron clues in that this guy is serious about turning traitor and getting the F out of dodge.
The movies don't go into this, but in the novelization it's explained that the "TRAITOR!" Storm Trooper with the force-field'd baton thing was one of Finn's immediate bunkmates, of whom there were I think 4 core ones. One of them, the kindest of them, was the one that Finn sees die in the opening minutes of their assault on Jakku, the moment that has him unable to fire on anyone or even do much but stumble around stunned (again, great physical acting there since we don't see his face but you can tell he's basically shell-shocked by this death for whatever reason). And basically, given the personalities in the novelization, I'd say "TRAITOR!" thinks that Finn responded to the "sacrifice" of the one they both looked up to by betraying everything he stood for, whereas Finn just couldn't take it anymore because his death hit him so hard (to say nothing of how he clearly had it dawning on him that all his buddies around him were doing was massacring fleeing civilians).
And just a side note, as a hardcore old school Star Wars fan, and an EU fan who had long since gotten tired of the way the EU has become top-heavy with really poorly written novels (not all of them, but there are some authors that just kept churning out SW novels for so long with such a lack of writing talent that their contribution to canon EU stuck out like a sore thumb, and was often referenced even by better writers...I'm sure there are EU fans on these boards who can think of a couple names that describe this lmao) and so I was actually quite glad when they announced they were sweeping away the EU so they could surprise us, despite being steeped in the lore myself, but that said they are putting a lot of little hints here and there that they're drawing on EU lore and sort of "re-canonizing" certain aspects of it to assauge the wounded egos of EU junkies lol and I do appreciate their little nods here and there even if they've mostly scrapped stuff and started from scratch (and even Rey and Kylo read like a cousin version of where the Solo twins ended up without all the buildup, in a roundabout sense).
As to Daisy Ridley, I think she did a great job, but I think Poe and Finn came to life for me a lot more for some reason. I don't think anyone gave a weak performance, even Harrison Ford, who seemed like he was phoning it in for 25% of his scenes, wasn't giving a "weak" performance, he just channeled how bad he wanted to phone the whole thing in into his scenes where he had to depict being fed up and "too old for this", so it was actually helping his performance that some scenes he looked like he really didn't want to get out of his trailer that day lmao, but of the performances, all very good, I think Daisy Ridley's was the weakest. And I found out after I saw the movie that a young actress I love, Devery Jacobs, who was the star of Rhymes For Young Ghouls (a super depressing movie, but she's superb in it and I highly recommend people watch it, then cleanse themselves with A Tribe Called Red's music video for Sisters since she's in that too and that is the furthest thing from depressing) was actually shortlisted (along with Ridley and a few others) to play Rey...and like...Devery Jacobs would have knocked it out of the park! It made me so mad when I found that out, but I've calmed down now and honestly Ridley did a great job. But when everyone around you is doing AMAZING jobs, your great sometimes needs to level up a bit or it doesn't look so great. Otherwise tho, the casting was superb, everyone was really great! Lupita as Maz was such a great casting choice her voice is so perfect for wizened, seen-it-all Star Wars alien, she nailed it (even tho when I heard they were casting her I was crossing my fingers and hoping she'd be playing Asajj Ventress)
Basically, I love Episode VII, I'm super pumped for Episode VIII, and despite a few things here and there I thought they could have improved on (some scenes ended a bit abruptly, or were edited kinda choppy, for example, but I bet we'll see better pacing and editing on the inevitable extended edition), and a choice of actress that I wish had been different (otherwise the casting was flawless IMHO, and even then I'm basically fine with it and I'm sure she'll get even better as the trilogy goes on, this isn't Hayden Christiansen territory or anything she's a very good actress), I still think despite those few tiny things this was a triumph of a movie, and a lot better than Episode VI. RotJ was the weakest of the original trilogy, with its plushie alien teddy bear kumbaya BBQ party ending (not that it was a bad film, this is the original trilogy we're talking about, but it was far and away weaker than A New Hope and Empire blew A New Hope out of the water), and part of what made it weak was Lucas' head beginning to swell in precisely the way it went on swelling until the prequels, and the early signs of what made the prequels bad were already lurking in VI (but tempered by voices Lucas actually listened to a little bit at the time, compared to My Voice Is God stage with the prequels). The best one, V, was written and directed by other people. IV was great too, but Empire Strikes Back was other people taking Lucas' formula and doing what Lucas couldn't possibly hope to on his own with it, they broke past his creative limits with one of the finest creative things he ever did as their material. When he took back over, he was all about toy sales and the brand image (this is true, there are great articles and interviews with key players in the original trilogy about this, how he was adding stuff for marketing reasons and toy sales and people kept having to fight him over really bad decisions), and I think because of that, even though VI is better than every prequel movie by a long shot, VII has dethroned it's third place ranking for me.
tl;dr me it goes: V, IV, VII, VI, III, II, I (some days it goes II, III, I, it depends what excruciating scene is most prevalent in my mind, but I think overall III is a better film than II...which isn't saying much, but there ya go) and my reasons are rooted in both the bigger, sweeping broad strokes of The Force Awakens as well as the subtle details. Finn hearing a planet dying really floored me (I had to go back and check again after reading that post and like...I got so excited experiencing it for myself my eyes were watering, I'm so ready for Finn to get his Force groove on)
It's kinda nice to see someone gets to be a Force user that isn't in the Sacred Bloodlines. Hokay, I'm just going by the movies and KOTOR there, I think. I think there was a grey-haired wookie in KOTOR 1, maybe? Or maybe I'm misremembering, it's been awhile. You are of course wholly entitled to disagree with my subjective criticisms.
Ultimately the problem with Finn wasn't the actor, but the character. To me, he had no coherent arc. We're told stormtroopers have massive brainwashing to bring them in line but he just randomly defects in the very first scene he appears. He shows no signs of being a sheltered person who has never dealt with the real world and knows only violence and military discipline - which is what I'd expect of a brainwashed, literally nameless soldier. He's clumsy and a bit of a coward - why? How did he get past the supposedly rigorous training? He's a terrible soldier. Yes, he was on latrine duty, but you'd kind of expect the C- trainees of First Order U to be probably more lethally treated - and in any case, he's on live fire duty when we first see him.
Then, at the cantina, suddenly he's willing to leave Rey because the FO is unstoppable and all that, presumably due to their superweapon. He asks her to come with him. They're barely met. If there'd been immediate signs of hot and steamy romance, fine, but that isn't the vibe their partnership really had up until that point. Her reaction, too, is in line with a dear old friend who shockingly is betraying her trust, not so much with a guy she met, like, yesterday.
(And, again, I didn't feel the actors had any on-screen romantic chemistry, but that might've been due to how rushed and nonsensical the romantic part was.)
10 minutes after walking away from Rey forever, suddenly Finn wants to take on the FO singlehandedly to rescue her. Why? I realise she might be the first woman he's met other than Phasma, but the mortal terror of his entire life shouldn't so easily be brushed aside for a girl he just met, especially when he was just leaving the selfsame girl.
And on and on it goes. He just wasn't a coherent or well-developed character IMO; it is actually some testament to Boyega's performance trying to tease out a whole from these disparate and contradictory bits that I regard him as "neutral" rather than a serious flaw in the movie. (It is also a testament to how both real protagonists got tossed into the background once Han showed up.)
And why does he even pick up and use the lightsaber? He should be trained in standard stormtrooper weaponry - the sort that was in easy supply everywhere around him at the time. Even saying the Force made him do it makes no sense to me: Leia never whipped out a lightsaber. And the "Traitor!" stormtrooper may indeed have been explained in some supplementary materials, but I'm judging the movie as a singular whole, and as a whole that fight scene was kind of cool but nonsensical - a literally nameless, faceless villain that takes up screentime using weaponry and tactics no other stormtrooper has ever used on-screen and being far more effective with them - and then beating the protagonist just to be effortlessly killed by a secondary character. Also, his melee weapon blocked a lightsaber. The things that casually go through pretty much every other non-lightsaber material at every other point in the series. Why did any of that happen? What was the point? The movie has no answers. Ah, good old Admiral Daala. And Darksaber. And that stupid skeletal Death Star in the middle of the black holes. And... actually, I'd prefer not to go on.
Though really, while TPM is my favourite of the movies, it's a relative thing. The only Star Wars stuff I'm really a fan of is some of the ancilliary material. TIE Fighter, old-school, carpal-tunnel-inducing mouse control! And KOTOR and especially KOTOR II. Kreia is probably the best video game character ever written. I've often wondered why I'm seemingly the only person of several generations to not have a deep, emotional connection to the Star Wars movies. I'm not looking down on you, I hasten to clarify. I can and have gotten like that with other stuff (Dragon Age 2 and Revolutionary Girl Utena represent!), just not these movies: they're "just" movies to me, fun silly space laser fights but nothing special except for how everyone else treats them. Maybe because I didn't watch them as a kid? Or I'm just weird. That is always possible.
but with regard to Finn, I think that fragmented nature is actually a strength of his character, and the factor which explains his character! It's exactly because he was raised the way he was with the sensitive soul he has! like, he gets janitorial duties because he consistently shows himself to be too soft, and so he has to project a cover of being proficient enough, and then he's on a shuttle heading toward Jakku and stuff hits the fan pretty quick because he's only been faking whatever factors got him put on that mission to Jakku, it unravels super quickly as a result, but all he knows how to do as a kid raised by an organization who thinks emotional abuse and fear tactics is good parenting is to lie, lie and lie some more...which is why even when he's free of that and in a relatively good place, he keeps doing it! it's ALSO why he attaches himself immediately to sources of genuine warmth, kindness and mutually respectful support like Poe and Rey, which I think explains it outside the context of a romance.
honestly, I don't see the chemistry there either, but I didn't think for a second that his reasoning as someone who has never known anyone else as simultaneously capable and good-hearted as Rey was about romance, it read very much as someone who is talking to their only friend in the galaxy, especially with Poe "dead" in his mind, and desperately trying to cling to her presence...which is also why he's ultimately willing to cave to both Poe and Rey's suggestions to go back to Jakku when he REALLY doesn't want to either time and thinks it's a horrible idea! he's going to go with them wherever they go, he's just HOPING they'll share in his fear and run with him away from the source of it. Instead, both of them force him to take steps towards confronting that fear which ultimately leads to his growth and development of legit courage by the end of The Force Awakens. I think his character, and the way he interacts with others, make perfect sense, but I agree with you that it's fragmented...but that's the point. He is recovering from a LIFETIME of emotional abuse! And The Force is with him, because he finds just the right friends to help coax him out of his shell and turn him into the hero the First Order never could have shaped him into. They had one of the most powerful Force-users of the near-future right under their noses, but it was impossible to train him like their training does it, impossible for the FO to discover he was anything more than a latrine-scrubbing f**k-up because their standards couldn't recognize the kind of power he could wield, could only suppress and fragment what is powerful in him: his kindness, his joyful exuberance, his compassion, his willingness to befriend and to trust and to do anything for people who respond in kind. But I think VIII and IX will reveal that all of those traits they buried under fear will emerge into power they're going to regret not noticing in someone they raised and treated less than human in order to be fodder for their machine. He'll be the cog that slips its mooring and brings the whole thing grinding to a halt (and Rey and Poe'll help bring it crashing down).
See why I love Finn so much?
as to the detail about the lightsaber, I would say yeah it's the Force arranging for that to go down, he clearly has a powerful level of Force Prescience just waiting to be unlocked and developed, I'm sure absent a lightsaber he would have been in fear mode scrambling around hunting for a blaster to get in his hands and start having PTSD flashbacks with...but instead the Force was with him, and he picked up a weapon that he doesn't associate with all that traumatic training or the battle he snapped during, and that he could actually block the baton of his old bunkmate with (and yeah, I know it's not in the film and I consider it a weakness of the film too that they don't explain his connection to the "TRAITOR!" guy and the one who goes down in the opening minutes) but also the development of a melee weapon that uses a force-field to keep it from being cleaved in half by a lightsaber seems like SUCH a Kylo Ren overcompensation that I think it makes total sense that he has some troopers using them (like "Grandfather, you were defeated by a lone Jedi...I will not make the same mistake...BUILD THE BATONS AND TRAIN THE TROOPS IN THEIR USE!" "...but...but sir, that seems like overkill, if just one Jedi comes through couldn't we just have like...one guy in every thousand have one of these things? I don't think we need to train everyone in how to use th-GCK! HHKKK! HHhhh..." "ANY MORE QUESTIONS?")
as to TPM...it's the most hokey of all of them to me, so in a sense it could potentially have charm? It just doesn't have that charm to me at all tho...it's just so bad, both actors they get in the prequels to play the focal character in the prequels can't act their way out of a paper bag and so in a sense that forgettable kid's acting was actually kind of a prescient leadup to his teen/young adult self (but only in a verisimilitude shattering meta sense), "midichlorians" was some "bad EU writing" level bad writing and it became canon because of Episode I, the CG was the most overboard in Episode I, they used CG where practical effects could have been used at every possible turn (Lucas toned it down only ever so slightly in II and III, but it was still excessive even then in a way it's not in VII, lots more practically achieved aliens and effects give it an OT feel) and yeah, if you don't think Empire is the best one I dunno what to tell ya, it's got the best lines, the best writing, the best mood, the best theme (Episode II, as the middle film of the prequels, was sort of an photo negative of the OT's middle film themes, intentionally so, where the good guys seem to be doing better and better before their inevitable defeat in the conclusion rather than worse and worse before their triumph against all odds, and it really really didn't work at all to flip that script in the way Lucas chose to even if the idea of mirroring each film might've been a good one on paper)
honestly if that fan theory about Jar Jar Binks being an inverse Yoda meant to be behind everything as a secret Sith Lord, possibly as Palpatine's Master's soul jar (jar), given that Darth Plagueis was all about extending his life through whatever means necessary and so on...if that's true I will reassess Episode I as the best of the prequels, and I'll still think it's a really poor example of a movie generally, an even poorer example of a sci fi film specifically, and if we REALLY drill down I'll say it remains the worst example of a Star Wars film that exists, period, I find the Christmas Special more watchable because the hokeyness is sort of played up intentionally at least instead of a byproduct of bad filmmaking on Lucas' part in TPM
Darth Maul was cool tho, and that fight was pretty epic, I rewatch starting from just before that scene in lieu of watching the whole thing before launching into the Machete Order when I watch the movies now.
yeah I just can't stand TPM, it's super terrible lmao
but that said, I actually am more of a Trekkie than a Star Wars nerd, I think both are deeply flawed pieces of sci fi that take themselves too seriously, but Star Wars takes itself slightly less seriously and is more willing to be Big and Hollywood, which I actually do consider to be a bit of a flaw but it means I forgive its flaws much more readily than Star Trek's, so in a sense even tho I'm a bigger Star Trek fan I'm also way more forgiving of SW flaws in the Original Trilogy, and always had been before TPM came out...but TPM managed to underwhelm in a way I didn't expect, I watched it expecting it to probably not measure up and it didn't measure up to my internal model of the worst it could possibly be, which was kinda shocking to me at the time (altho as I found out more about Lucas it surprised me less and less)
and I also like the KOTOR games more than any of the films except Empire tbqh
I seriously just adore everything about Episode V, like if you watch Robocop 2 knowing that the same director made it, and watch it be just this cascade of really bleak dark humour about heroes failing and things taking turns for the worse inside of turns for the worse (and it's that way from the start, there's even that chain of "Robocop Mark II"s that keep committing suicide immediately upon being activated in that one scene which is like a meta statement about doing a sequel as dark as he was doing) and then go back and re-watch Empire, it puts Episode V in an interesting contrast as Irvin Kershner's attempt to do a dramatic, rather than comedic, utter and complete tragedy with no redeeming qualities or victories, but it also highlights where his sense of humour was still there lurking in the background. Robocop II, to me, felt like kind of a jokey love letter he wrote to himself (and movie audiences) about him doing the sequel to Star Wars in such a depressing way...but it's what made that movie WORK, and made it a truly great film that stands out from the rest in such a big way to me. The rest are joyfests by the end, aside from Episode III which managed to fail because Lucas doesn't know how to write a tragedy (and there were even moments to assure the audience that certain things were gonna be ok near the end even as the tragedies piled up, and a lot of the tragedies happened without much tension and certainly without the quips and jokes that were in Episode V...III took itself too seriously and so it didn't strike an appropriate balance to bring contrast to the tragedy like V did)
like basically the only SW film I have a deep, emotional connection to is Episode V, but it's sort of like a connection to watching IV and V together and then getting a silly release valve of all the depressing content of V at the end of VI when I inevitably burst out laughing at the ewok party following so close on the heels of Vader's helment starting to melt