Star Wars: The Force Awakens
Jan. 22nd, 2016 12:21 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
redfiona99Some more thoughts, some of which were brought up by talking to C at fencing.
To my great amusement, when the family came round on Boxing Day The Force Awakens was one of the topics of discussion. The Uncle who got me the Hexbug asked if I'd seen it and I said no, and he said 'how do you feel about JJ Abrams's films?' and I explained with my usual rant, he said I wouldn't like The Force Awakens. Girl cousin stood up for the film.
To everyone's great amusement, after I came back from the film the first thing I said to my uncle was 'you were right.' Girl cousin's response was 'yeah, but there wasn't any lens flare'. My family are my people ;)
And there wasn't any lens flare, and they did a very good job of mixing the visual and physical SFX to make things look a lot more real than the prequels did.
General note - I love the new kids, both the actors and the characters.
What is interesting is how much they're a remix of the original three.
Ray has Leia's spirit and Luke's mysticalness (and talent with bots).
Finn has Han's thing of 'let's do the thing and worry about a plan later' and Luke's 'must do good' thing.
Po (or possibly Poe, I still can't hear the difference) gets a really odd mix of Han's talent and Leia's sense of duty, which shouldn't work but does.
And it looks as though we're getting a version of the original 3 where Luke and Leia get together. Although, advanced warning, if they decide to turn anyone dark side because of a love triangle, I will be most aggrieved.
Of course, all that doesn't really help the feeling of deja vu with The Force Awakens. include I can't believe it's not Obi-Wan Kenobi (although casting Max von Sydow in things is always good), planets that apparently aren't Tatooine, similar robots (much though BB8 is my baby), mysterious dark Force vision tunnels and *surprisingly* similar plans of attack.
I'm actually completely cool with what they do with Han and Leia, You'd think Luke would have enough brains not to just go sulking when his apprentice goes bad. Where's Yoda with his stick when Luke needs some sense knocking in to him? Why are Chewie and Artoo not smacking him for being stupid?
I just can't believe that Luke would respond to an apprentice going bad like that.
The whole First Order thing makes George Lucas look restrained. Where are the First Order getting their money and resources from? You can buy the Empire building a planet-destroying superweapon, but that's because they're in charge and have lots of money. How do the Republic not notice the First Order growing and building the star-eater?
I did however like how much the New Order minions and Evil Gleeson (sorry, I'm bad at catching names) having no time for Kylo Ren and all his bullshit. Retreating Stormtroopers 1 and 2 are my favourites, but the guy that has to tell Ren bad news is also fun.
And now I bitch about the big end fight. I have two kinds objections,
So fighting with a lightsabre is supposed to be difficult. It takes Luke a film and a half to get good at it. Yet both Finn and Rey can pick it up like it's easy and nearly beat a guy who has allegedly had training in the damn thing. Luke, what have you been teaching your nephew?
More seriously, and they're both absolved of this by not knowing about it, but I'm not sure it was the light-side of the Force that either Ray or Finn were channelling and I'd be interested to see if that comes up in the future.
Partly this is covered by my objection about how quickly team good guy gets good at lightsabre fighting. I swordfight, badly, for fun. If I come up against a complete beginner, I should beat them, despite being a 5 foot 2 weakling. Now admittedly, with the slightest bit of training they then turn round and beat me, but that involves actual training. If Kylo Ren had had any training, he ought to be able to beat Ray and Finn, even if they hit him at the same time.
Now there's a perfectly good way round this - to say Ren was still shook up from what happened previously and injured. Which would be fine if JJ Abrams were willing for there to be a bit more blood in his film. His films all have far too bloodless violence. And I know the counter-argument is that lightsabres are cauterising weapons but that would just mean that there's fewer immediate problems.
The other problem is one whose cause wasn't clear until I found out that Adam Driver is ex-military. Part of the reason the fight doesn't look right is you've got someone (or someone and their stunt person) who holds himself like someone who knows what they're doing, while I don't think that Daisy Ridley has the same background (not her fault, she's an actress, I don't expect her to also be a martial artist unless that's something she does as a hobby) so she doesn't look like she knows what she's doing in the same way. And that's fine, because Ray doesn't. But it means when she over-powers Ren it feels off slightly.
The whole character of Kylo Ren doesn't quite work for me.
Not Adam Drivers's fault. No blame is to be attached to him.
And even some of the little details work, like wearing the voice box to be more like Granddaddy and his whole general emo kid-ness, that all actually works.
It's just that his dialogue is Lucas-bad and I think you could have done much more interesting things with 'tempted by the light'. I've seen it done well (Guy of Guisborne in the BBC Robin Hood is an example), and it's more interesting than what they did do with him. Because dear JJ, go see a therapist about about your Daddy issues. Even people who are not me are now complaining.
Because Darth Gollum, what have you been teaching your disciple because he's useless. I mean I know that Luke has been a fail-whale as well but you're supposed to be raising/training him too.
I don't like either of the obvious options for who Darth Gollum is (either Pelagius or a split personality of Luke's) but I'm not sure any new character option would work either, mostly because it would make Luke look even more like a giant fail-whale, and I don't want Luke to be a complete failure.
To my great amusement, when the family came round on Boxing Day The Force Awakens was one of the topics of discussion. The Uncle who got me the Hexbug asked if I'd seen it and I said no, and he said 'how do you feel about JJ Abrams's films?' and I explained with my usual rant, he said I wouldn't like The Force Awakens. Girl cousin stood up for the film.
To everyone's great amusement, after I came back from the film the first thing I said to my uncle was 'you were right.' Girl cousin's response was 'yeah, but there wasn't any lens flare'. My family are my people ;)
And there wasn't any lens flare, and they did a very good job of mixing the visual and physical SFX to make things look a lot more real than the prequels did.
General note - I love the new kids, both the actors and the characters.
What is interesting is how much they're a remix of the original three.
Ray has Leia's spirit and Luke's mysticalness (and talent with bots).
Finn has Han's thing of 'let's do the thing and worry about a plan later' and Luke's 'must do good' thing.
Po (or possibly Poe, I still can't hear the difference) gets a really odd mix of Han's talent and Leia's sense of duty, which shouldn't work but does.
And it looks as though we're getting a version of the original 3 where Luke and Leia get together. Although, advanced warning, if they decide to turn anyone dark side because of a love triangle, I will be most aggrieved.
Of course, all that doesn't really help the feeling of deja vu with The Force Awakens. include I can't believe it's not Obi-Wan Kenobi (although casting Max von Sydow in things is always good), planets that apparently aren't Tatooine, similar robots (much though BB8 is my baby), mysterious dark Force vision tunnels and *surprisingly* similar plans of attack.
I'm actually completely cool with what they do with Han and Leia, You'd think Luke would have enough brains not to just go sulking when his apprentice goes bad. Where's Yoda with his stick when Luke needs some sense knocking in to him? Why are Chewie and Artoo not smacking him for being stupid?
I just can't believe that Luke would respond to an apprentice going bad like that.
The whole First Order thing makes George Lucas look restrained. Where are the First Order getting their money and resources from? You can buy the Empire building a planet-destroying superweapon, but that's because they're in charge and have lots of money. How do the Republic not notice the First Order growing and building the star-eater?
I did however like how much the New Order minions and Evil Gleeson (sorry, I'm bad at catching names) having no time for Kylo Ren and all his bullshit. Retreating Stormtroopers 1 and 2 are my favourites, but the guy that has to tell Ren bad news is also fun.
And now I bitch about the big end fight. I have two kinds objections,
So fighting with a lightsabre is supposed to be difficult. It takes Luke a film and a half to get good at it. Yet both Finn and Rey can pick it up like it's easy and nearly beat a guy who has allegedly had training in the damn thing. Luke, what have you been teaching your nephew?
More seriously, and they're both absolved of this by not knowing about it, but I'm not sure it was the light-side of the Force that either Ray or Finn were channelling and I'd be interested to see if that comes up in the future.
Partly this is covered by my objection about how quickly team good guy gets good at lightsabre fighting. I swordfight, badly, for fun. If I come up against a complete beginner, I should beat them, despite being a 5 foot 2 weakling. Now admittedly, with the slightest bit of training they then turn round and beat me, but that involves actual training. If Kylo Ren had had any training, he ought to be able to beat Ray and Finn, even if they hit him at the same time.
Now there's a perfectly good way round this - to say Ren was still shook up from what happened previously and injured. Which would be fine if JJ Abrams were willing for there to be a bit more blood in his film. His films all have far too bloodless violence. And I know the counter-argument is that lightsabres are cauterising weapons but that would just mean that there's fewer immediate problems.
The other problem is one whose cause wasn't clear until I found out that Adam Driver is ex-military. Part of the reason the fight doesn't look right is you've got someone (or someone and their stunt person) who holds himself like someone who knows what they're doing, while I don't think that Daisy Ridley has the same background (not her fault, she's an actress, I don't expect her to also be a martial artist unless that's something she does as a hobby) so she doesn't look like she knows what she's doing in the same way. And that's fine, because Ray doesn't. But it means when she over-powers Ren it feels off slightly.
The whole character of Kylo Ren doesn't quite work for me.
Not Adam Drivers's fault. No blame is to be attached to him.
And even some of the little details work, like wearing the voice box to be more like Granddaddy and his whole general emo kid-ness, that all actually works.
It's just that his dialogue is Lucas-bad and I think you could have done much more interesting things with 'tempted by the light'. I've seen it done well (Guy of Guisborne in the BBC Robin Hood is an example), and it's more interesting than what they did do with him. Because dear JJ, go see a therapist about about your Daddy issues. Even people who are not me are now complaining.
Because Darth Gollum, what have you been teaching your disciple because he's useless. I mean I know that Luke has been a fail-whale as well but you're supposed to be raising/training him too.
I don't like either of the obvious options for who Darth Gollum is (either Pelagius or a split personality of Luke's) but I'm not sure any new character option would work either, mostly because it would make Luke look even more like a giant fail-whale, and I don't want Luke to be a complete failure.
