I hadn't thought of it like that. I like what you're saying here.



That's Admiral Ackbar and Nien Nunb, you know?

I know. For the sake of that point I felt that info wasn't needed. With that said, I was hoping there would be a bit more Nunb than what we got, like maybe a shot of him in his cockpit.

Ugh, I also just noticed that misplaced apostrophe in what you quoted from me.

Jesus you guys are so predictable. That comment was thrown in to feed your preconceived notions of what I am. It would never occur to me to say that in real life in anyway other than to mock those that seriously use that sort of language. ****, man, John Boyega's my *****. I personally find it hilarious that all the racist stuff going on about his character and I thought he was one of the most redeeming parts of the film.

I feel like, taking this all together, the movie was less about "big reveals" and more about "putting old things to rest." Basically the movie was saying that times have changed and the Original Trilogy is now over. This can be seen thematically. Jakku is a graveyard of old Imperial era iconic ships and weapons. Han's and Luke's histories are essentially forgotten. The movie revisits the father-son set-up (alluding to Cloud City in the visions and in the catwalk of the scene itself), but this time an old, cherished OT character flat-out dies. Also, the Vader mask is seen (the BIG reveal of the OT) but Kylo removes his mask unceremoniously, purposely contrasting from that OT concluding event.

People wanted Star Wars to return to the basics. And now it has. People wanted another New Hope, so it's that while moving on.

I totally disagree. I'm more than ready for us to get past this era of blockbuster cinema where "reveals" are everything. I honestly felt relieved when Kylo Ren's status as Han's son was revealed early and with less directorial wanking. If the father/son relationship had been revealed at the same moment as Han's death, I would have rolled my eyes out of my skull. Would have been just one more example of hewing incredibly close to the template of the OT scripts.

Stuff I noticed when I rewatched the film over Xmas eve with my younger brother (first time I've seen it was 1 am in a Manhattan theatre with a mixed bunch of wierdos and financial-sector types):

-For some reason I didn't catch this before but Kylo said that Rey dreams of "oceans" to combat the loneliness of Jakku. In the end of the movie, she visits Luke surrounded by an expansive ocean. Now, I don't think the movie implies that Luke lives on this island and this place could be a meeting spot of sorts. If so, there's more at play than just coincidences if she is "seeing" where to go back on her days at Jakku.

-Looking back at that particular part, Rey has her "visions" not just because of the lightsaber's Force power or aura or whatever but because, it seems, Finn was leaving her as well. The very last scene before Rey starts hearing things, the shot is framed with Finn predominately turning his back at her (and us). Viewers stating the lightsaber was solely causing the visions misses a little character moment that plays into Rey's past and probably responsible for much of the following events in that basement.

-Going into what Antony been saying, when Kylo wears the masks, there are more camera angles that look at him from below making him appear more menacing. This is really seen from the brief scenes of him just powerwalking down the halls. When his mask is off, there aren't any such shots that I can remember. In a way, it's about image projection I feel.

-For someone completely inexperienced in infiltration of the First Order (and the Empire), Rey did really well going around the fully-staffed enemy base. Kylo states that her competence is derived from her powers. True, given her Jedi Mind Trick thing, but it is also because of her "training" on Jakku: she spent a lot of time spelunking in the Star Destroyer as seen in the first part of the movie. She obviously has no idea of Starkiller's true layout but she's aware of Imperial architecture in general. This further illustrates how Kylo Ren's been blindsided and lost the lightsaber duel: she is very pragmatic (she's also good at hand-to-hand combat) while he only has some training backing him up. You can see her climbing everywhere in Starkiller base.

1. The thing with him being shot from low angles is pretty normal when attempting to convey a menacing image. A good example of this would be the Terminator films directed by James Cameron. Arnold is almost always shot from low angles in the first two films, whereas none of the other characters are. It's a fairly common technique in cinematography. This sort of thing isn't very prevalent in the previous movies (with the exception of The Empire Strikes Back) because George Lucas' visual style as far as cinematography goes is that he has no visual style. He's extremely utilitarian with his shot selection, preferring to allow the material in the frame to tell the story as opposed to using the camerawork as a narrative device. You'll notice that all of the first six Star Wars films feature virtually zero camera movement whatsoever, and that they almost exclusively work with a fairly flat field of view at non-dynamic angles. This isn't really any kind of detriment to Lucas, and it's borne mostly from the implementation of the special effects. Having to match up blue screen footage with a moving background was nearly impossible at the time, and goddamn near 2/3 or so of the original trilogy is made up of composite shots of one sort or another. He really doesn't lack any kind of talent for visual flare, but the style of shooting the Star Wars films developed because it was the only way to shoot them. Empire has more dynamic cinematography mainly because Kershner was willing to forgo a lot of the "grand vista" type thing that Lucas loves, and kept the majority of the film in fairly small, intimate spaces. This also serves the content of the movie, as it's the film where all of the characters go through the most dramatic changes, and the most emotionally impacting moments take place in the film. None of this is happenstance. Abrams made the choice to utilize his own visual style in TFA, and I think this largely works and allows him to separate himself from the previous films. It would have been pretty lame if he had just shot it like George Lucas would have, and I'm pretty sure he learned his lesson about aping the style of a hero when he shot Super 8 as though it had been shot by Spielberg, as it was essentially an Abrams-directed tribute to Spielberg's films of the 80s. People gave him a lot of flak for it, and it's not unreasonable to think that part of his reasoning for attempting to emulate Spielberg (short of the film being a tribute to him, of course) stemmed from the complaints about his excessive visual flare (no pun intended) in Star Trek.

The whole change in visual style also works in a thematic sense, because this is the first Star Wars movie where the galaxy isn't firmly held in order. It's chaotic. The story is chaotic. The film is shot in a chaotic way, and it really helps the movie fit into the modern film landscape. It actually has a visual personality, which is something a Star Wars movie hasn't had in 35 years.

2. The image projection thing is spot-on, as far as I am concerned. There are two really key parts of the film that address the idea that Ren more or less just desperately wants to be not only feared, but taken seriously, which is the reason for adopting a similar visage to the most terrifying man in the history of the galaxy. When Han confronts him on the bridge, he tells him words to the effect of "Take off the mask. You don't need it to breathe." This line is really telling about him as a character, because even his dad can see that he's just trying to look like a badass. Vader's suit and helmet were terrifying, but he had to wear them to even survive. Ren is just wearing it because he knows that otherwise he isn't as threatening. He takes the helmet off without thinking twice about it, simply because he's been challenged to do so. The guy is more worried about what everyone else thinks of him than anything else. I mean, jesus. After Rey tells him that he'll "never be Vader," he gets annoyed and storms off, telling her how he'll be back later. Why leave? He's not really gaining anything by leaving her tied to the damned torture rack thing she's on. It takes about 30 seconds of knowing Rey to understand that this girl isn't going to break, and Ren knows that. He leaves not to let her sit there and stew, but because he's intimidated by her. This girl is strapped down and locked in place, and she's still not afraid of him. I mean, even once he's standing there on the bridge, talking to his dad, he's getting degraded. Han tells him basically to knock it off and come home. "No one believes you're really an evil guy, son. Cut the crap and come home. Your mom misses you, and you know you're not fooling anyone."

It honestly kind of reminds me of people in the real world like George Zimmerman. Clearly we're not dealing with a tough guy here, but a guy who desperately wants to appear tough. I think it's in the movie Shoot 'Em Up where a character says that "America is great because even a pussy can be a tough guy as long as he's got a gun in his hand." Well, the First Order is great, because even a pussy can be a badass with a ****ed up lightsaber and a ****ty Darth Vader cosplay suit.

3. I kind of felt like it was somewhat implied that Rey had been unknowingly using the force to a minor degree for some time now. And it's great that she essentially hands Kylo Ren's ass to him in a fight. Rey actually is tough. She's not pretending. She is tough because she had to be tough to survive. Ren is the way he is because he's an impatient, insolent, bratty spoiled kid. He's the biggest badass in the room as long as he's the only one with a lightsaber.

But none of that detracts from the fact that a guy who desperately wants everyone to think he's a badass is way more dangerous than someone who actually is one. If you're constantly feeling like you have something to prove to the world, you're gonna do a lot more **** than someone who is just confident in who they are. Vader wasn't out there trying to impress anyone. He knew he was the most vile thing in the galaxy, and he carried that distinction with confidence. You were really only in danger with Vader if you screwed up, which was pretty easy to do when you're chasing down a guy whose M.O. is constantly straddling a fine line between gross incompetence and certifiable genius. Vader wasn't really even killing his subordinates because they were screwups. He spent half his time killing them just because Han Solo was better than they were. Eventually, if you replace enough people, you'll find one that can actually do the job. It's just pretty hard to go collect unemployment when you're released from your contract in Vader's preferred method. The thing about Ren is that he's different from all of the other bad guys we've seen. Darth Maul was essentially a brutal weapon. He was highly skilled, deadly efficient, and relentless in his pursuit. Count Dooku was a brilliant politician and a wise former Jedi. Vader is the most powerful Jedi in history, and what made him different is that his anger and hate were focused inward. Vader didn't hate the world. He hated himself, and when you're constantly in the presence of the thing you hate most, you become calm in your anger. It's just how you normally feel now. You come at it with a degree of rationality. You're a *******, so you might as well act like one.

Ren is just lashing out at everything because he doesn't fit in anywhere. He wants to be completely evil, but he's still conflicted. Why does he want to be evil to begin with? Probably something along the lines of being impatient or upset that he couldn't learn dark side powers to be more powerful. He's insecure, so it makes sense that he'd want the "badass" powers. But no matter how hard he tries, he can't be that evil badass, because he doesn't see himself that way. The mask is just as much for his reflection as it is to intimidate other people. The mask gives him confidence, because no one can see him. They just see the scary mask.

It just remains to be seen what it does to his self-image now that he has killed his father. Will that promote guilt, or self-hatred? He already loathes himself to the point of lashing out when things don't go his way, because it just reinforces his feelings of being inadequate, but I have to wonder if he'll really start to hate the man behind the mask to the point where the lines between him and what he wants to be are erased completely.

In a weird way, this concept actually reminds me of the (first) Die Hard, and why people tend to remember the hero AND the bad guy of that movie. I know one is a Sci-FI and the other an 80s-action movie, but there's a cool element they share I think.

McClane wasn't a highly trained agent but used his street-smarts as a cop to take over the situation. Hans Gruber at first comes across as an ruthless East-German terrorist but, in the end, is nothing more than a robber. He hides behind hired muscle and projects this big-guy terrorist image (making those silly terrorist demands and such). He anticipates the LAPD response but has a blindspot towards a lone threat McClane, probably directly because of his ego. In the end, he dies like a b**** and that's great.

There is something effective about a hero not only beating the villain but dismantling his facade as well.

That's an incredibly astute observation, Echoman.

I always did enjoy that the terrorist ruse in Die Hard was essentially to keep the authorities busy while they were cracking the vault. But what you're saying about Gruber is really pretty spot-on. I do like that he doesn't turn out to be some magical badass in the third act. His strengths as a villain are limited to his intellect (despite being repeatedly outsmarted by a random dude with a **** you attitude) and his cronies. He's prepared for every possible scenario except a guy that doesn't follow any kind of set procedure, and honestly seems to have fairly little regard to his own safety or the consequences of his actions. You could say this is because Gruber is used to being in charge, and his orders are always followed verbatim. He doesn't consider the notion of the unexpected, because he's used to being in control. All the logic, reasoning and posturing in the world can't help you predict the next move of a guy who seems to be just as interesting in trolling people as he is in fighting bad guys. It's easy for Gruber to shoot Takagi or Ellis, because he doesn't need them anyway. He knows they can get into the safe without Takagi's password (which he doesn't even have), and he knows that Ellis isn't going to accomplish a thing trying to negotiate with McClane. He just humors him because not only is Ellis annoying, but he's also clearly a sociopath like Gruber, and that bugs him. He kills him because, dammit, Hans Gruber is running this show, you cocky prick.

But McClane doesn't give a damn about Gruber's authority, or his perceived control over the situation. Ellis isn't threatened by Gruber because he's around terrible rich people all day, every day. Gruber doesn't scare him, just like he doesn't scare McClane. The difference is that McClane has a different kind of idgaf attitude. He has nothing but open contempt for any and all authority figures, especially ones that he doesn't have to answer to.

Back on the topic of Star Wars, though...

Kylo Ren goes around talking tough, killing unarmed senior citizens, and just generally not giving a damn. What are you going to do? Shoot him? Good luck with that. Dude doesn't even block blaster bolts with his lightsaber. He just freezes the goddamn things in midair. Poe doesn't threaten him at all. He just assures him that he'll get the info out of him sooner or later. Kylo Ren isn't afraid of anyone until he meets Rey, because up until that point, he's under the impression that he's the only person around that can do these things, with the exception of Luke Skywalker (who he has set out to presumably kill). All the rest of it just bores him. He'll go around wiping out villages, choking people, and breaking things when he gets mad until he realizes he isn't the only one. He isn't afraid of anyone because he has magical superpowers and they don't. But Rey does, and he gets immediately flustered when he realizes it. Then when he comes back and sees that she's gone, it pushes him closer to the edge. He turned to the dark side because he wanted power; more power than anyone else, and here's this goddamn girl who can push him back out of her mind. This ordinary girl stared him in the face and gave him her best "ain't care" in response to his threats.

It's really kind of an awesome switch on this sort of thing. Normally the hero is the one uncertain of their ability, and overcomes their fear to beat the bad guy. The instant that lightsaber passes him and goes into Rey's hands, Kylo Ren is terrified, and even less sure of himself. He couldn't even move the damned thing, and it practically chose her over him. You can have all the training you want, but when you realize this young girl is more powerful than you are, I feel like it's probably going to screw with your confidence more than a little bit. This guy has spent the entire movie failing. The Vicar wouldn't give him the info he wanted, Poe escaped from his custody, etc... No one respects him at all, and then there's this girl standing in the woods with a lightsaber saying "Come at me, bro" without a shred of fear. She's fighting for her survival, and the survival of her friends; the first ones she's ever had.

He wants to be the biggest badass in the galaxy, and he's not even the biggest badass in a 50 foot radius. He doesn't win the fight because he doesn't think he can.

I just realized that TFA not only uses the whole idea of a "missing map" similar to the Valley of the Jedi plot in JK, but that both TFA and JK have the antagonist mind read a minor character in the beginning of either game / film.

Also, in both TFA and JK we see a dead father's lightsaber being given to a blaster-wielding, but potentially future Jedi.

I thought it was a solid film. Its main weakness in my mind is that the destruction of the Republic planets seemed shoehorned in. Give me a reason to care! I cared at least a bit about Alderaan because Leia cared about it and Ben cared about it. Also, I didn't like the lack of starfighter diversity. Both the First Order and the Resistance made bombing runs in this movie, and you're telling me they can't muster a single TIE Bomber or Y-Wing? Come on.

Other than that, and its similarity to ANH, I can't complain. Rey is an absolutely fantastic character. I love everything about her. Oh, and a neat little detail I noticed on my second viewing that put a smile on my face: when black leader makes his final attack run on the oscillator, he closes his s-foils, maneuvers, opens them again, fires his weapons, and this repeats subtly a few more times throughout the scene.

The intro to Episode 8 leaked

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Awesome! I'm already pumped. First thing in the morning I will start the line to get tickets.

saw it for the third time... the things that bothered me this time are the same things that bothered me on the first viewing... movie is holding up to repeat viewings

and this time i noticed that Porkins Jr. survived the dea...starkiller base attack

I saw the film this afternoon & it was as mediocre as I expected. It wasn't terrible, like Star Trek (2009) wasn't terrible, but it wasn't that memorable either. I don't have time to read this entire thread but I did skim it & I'm honestly a bit surprised by how much some of you liked it. I suppose that I'll just point out some things that irked me & you can all tell me why I'm an idiot.

• The fighting choreography was terrible. Not as terrible as in the original trilogy, but certainly not as good as in the prequels. As much **** as the prequels get, no reasonable person can deny that the choreography, especially with Darth Maul, was pretty ****ing great in comparison to this crap. I understand that Kylo Ren hasn't completed his training & that Rey hasn't had any, but for ****'s sake, Ren went from being an intimidating badass at the beginning to a complete weakling by the end, who apparently hasn't even had enough lightsaber training to handily beat an ex-Stormtrooper (traditionally, these ****ers can't hit a ****ing barn with a goddamn sniper rifle) with 5 minutes of experience or a pre-Jedi with even less.
• Kylo Ren, without the intimidating mask & voice, is only slightly more frightening than Jar Jar Binks. Once he took off his mask in the film, he was no longer menacing. So, basically, after like halfway through the ****ing film, the only two villains worthy of mention were a snivelling teenager that makes Hayden Christensen seem macho, & Supreme Leader Snoke, who predictably can't be bothered to show his face outside of hologram form.
• The killing of Han Solo was too predictable (as was the entire film) & not nearly emotional enough. Granted, the guy next to me in the cinema was wiping tears from his eyes, but nowhere near as may as I witnessed with Gandalf falling off the Bridge of Khazad-dum in The Fellowship of the Ring. Come the **** on! Han Solo is one of the more beloved characters in the films, & his own son ****ing murders him, & you can't make me feel more than that? I have as much emotional attachment to these characters as anyone, so I'm going to make the claim that this is a failure on their part.
• What's the ****ing point of Jakku? It's just a ****ty version of Tatooine, no? Just ****ing use Tatooine. Someone literally just said, "let's make her live on a really ****ty & uninteresting version of Tatooine, but we'll call it something else." **** you. The ship graveyard stuff was enjoyable though.
• The storyline, so far at least, if you can even call it that, is complete & utter ****. Any reasonably intelligent person will likely feel insulted by the story. However, it works, much like Abram's Star Trek works, so maybe I'll watch it again & see if it grows on me--this is sometimes the case. Admittedly, this may all just be a nostalgia thing for me.

I may come back & post more things that annoyed me later but I have **** to do.

I will say that the special effects were great & that much of the acting was decent. However, most of the mediocre acting came from the veteran cast. Mark Hammil still has a bit of time to get in some more acting classes before the next film, in order to make up for the mediocre acting of his friends. Maybe it's rust but it just didn't seem like they were much into it.

except the whole thing about how every time they aren't being ordered to let someone escape or not to kill someone they tend to do pretty decently... nameless rebel scum and teddy bears are easily crushed under the marksmanship of the imperial stormtrooper

Wow, Mentat, Hell has frozen over.

That's because it's kendo. Real martial arts don't look as cool as twirly dippy bull**** does.

Yeah, the choreography was great in the prequels. Unfortunately I want to see a fight and not a silly dance routine. It looked pretty in the prequels but beyond that it was devoid of any emotion.

The Star Wars film with the best lightsaber duel is The Empire Strikes Back.

It is the best duel for the same reason everything else in The Empire Strikes Back is the best.

Hint: It is not because it is overcomplicated and trying way too hard.

Seriously.

I actually really liked that bit of that duel.

It shows how close the two of them were, and how closely Anakin had followed Obi Wan's tutelage. They're doing the exact same thing at the exact same time, and neither one lands or blocks an attack.

There's something to be said about a visual metaphor for the futility of their fight.

The first fight in ANH was pretty awkward, honestly. I feel like you can see from Alec Guinness' eyes a "...why am I doing this?" look. Vader didn't have much behind his character at that point, so the fight was about two old guys with some vague shared history together going after each other. It was the first battle of the series and it shows.

But I think what really helped that battle was the fact that it took place in a simple hallway, imo. All of the OT's saber fights were shot in simple(ish) rooms, hallways and structures with moments between characters sprinkled in. For me, my biggest issue with the Prequels saber battles was that they were showcases for the environments around them, especially in the RotS end battle. So much sh*t happening everywhere and goes on too long. I don't want to be an armchair director, but I preferred the intimacy of simpler sets (for lack of better words) or some sense of closeness.

In TFA, the battle was a cross between the OT and Prequels (with the planet breaking apart) but I appreciate that most of it was in a forest with just snow falling and trees. The battle in the air wasn't seen and there wasn't distracting crap going on in the background. I liked how Finn was clumsy and reckless with the saber and got his a** kicked too.

Well, it's not as though George Lucas has not established himself as a guy who likes to jam as much bull**** as possible into the frame whether it helps tell the story or not. They wanna see new spaceships and aliens and planets and stuff, remember?

Haha, fair enough. Kylo Ren intimidates stormtroopers throughout the film, & while that humorously (as seen in the scene with the two stormtroopers backing away after hearing one of his fits) & obviously has something to do with it, it also has to do with his supposed ability &/or prowess. In other words, his resume doesn't quite align with how much of a pussy he is. A Knight of Ren (apparently an honor as meaningless as a Cracker Jack prize), a Commander of the First Order, etc. He walks into his first scene looking like a total badass with a mastery of the force, but by the end of the film, he's so weak & vulnerable that leaves you questioning whether or not Supreme Leader Snoke is an imbecile for having confidence in him. I get that there's all sorts of Hollywood excuses for these things (he's injured, he's emotional vs. rational, etc.), but it doesn't seem to me like a Knight of Ren or a Commander of the First Order, would be so easily caught off guard. I guess I'll just chalk it all up to the First Order being far weaker than the Empire, & Supreme Leader Snoke being far dumber & weaker than the Emperor, which makes complete sense. I guess that dumber & weaker villains is the price that one must pay to have multi-dimensional characters.

i thought about this in the theater but it kept slipping my mind on later discussions and just popped back in there...

if the resistance is trying to wage a guerrilla war people are likely to get badly injured... why no bacta tank? you'd think along with those last year's model x-wings the republic might spring for at least one

Originally posted by Jon`C:

That's because it's kendo. Real martial arts don't look as cool as twirly dippy bull**** does.

Point taken. However, if we're going to start trying to make lightsaber combat more down to earth, I think it'll render the accomplishments of past Jedi/Sith impossible, & it'll narrow the gap between the midichlorian haves & have-nots, making Jedi/Sith far less impressive & intimidating. The exaggerated choreography of TPM & to a larger extent, martial arts films, serves as a sort of simplistic method of showcasing the difference in aptitude between fighters, & I think it's far more entertaining, when done properly. The Force would obviously give the Jedi/Sith advantages in combat, even beyond the use of their lightsabers, so I really don’t think it’s unreasonable to expect them to be able to do some acrobatic & predictive things that are beyond what the average person can do. Granted, the prequels may have been overkill in many respects, but at least it was clear that the Jedi/Sith had capabilities far beyond the average person. I guess that I’m just saying that I don’t like too much realism in my wizards with laser-swords films.[/COLOR]

Down-to-earth I guess, but being more personal (like the father-son, emperor-servant element in the OT) and having weight to the combat are things that benefit any fight sequence. I think the worst lightsaber fight was in Attack of the Clones between Yoda and Dooku (and that was suppose to be the highlight of the movie). It's clear that the actor had no real idea of where CGI Yoda is, and, not to seem anti-CGI, Yoda felt really 'floaty' and seemed to belong to another, different plane of existence (unsurprisingly) to the guy with the glowstick.

No sure what you meant by the whole "render the accomplishments of past Jedi/Sith impossible" point and others. Elaborate? I'm not seeing how the ostentatious choreography plays into Jedi/Sith mythologies; I'm seeing these fights less effective than similar sort of close-quarters-combat battles in movies with 1/10000000000 the budget. And I like the exaggerated choreography of martial art films (including Jackie Chan comedy-action movies), but those films make the hits seem impactful and the fights themselves seem to occupy spaces. A movie fight doesn't have to be realistic, but it can do a lot to not feel fake. If that makes sense.

Well, that is the point of his character. He's trying so hard to be Darth Vader and that doesn't impress anyone - least of all General Hux.

Not to mention that Snoke hasn't finished his training. In fact, in the end of the film Snoke basically says "alright, this operation didn't work out, let's regroup" without the slightest hint of annoyance or even anger. The Emperor would probably have Force Lightninged someone (or his own dick) OR at the very least, said "YOU HAVE FAILED ME" and sneered for 12 hours straight.

But in any case, each to their own. I for one prefer Kylo Ren to his counterpart in the Legacy SW EU (Ben Solo or Darth Colonoscopy, whatever his name was) who was exactly the one-dimensional invincible Mary Sue guy, who even at one point went all "HA! ANAKIN LOEVD SOMEONE SO HE WAS WEAK!!!!!111111one I AM DARTH 1337 *fart* Please buy more New Jedi Order books for my backstory". (Paraphrased)

you mean Jacen Solo AKA Darth Cadsoftware

I suppose that I'm just coming at it all wrong, but my annoyance with how adept with the Force he seemed to be in the beginning, & how inept he seemed to be with it towards the end, remains. I get that his training is limited & that he's overcompensating, but despite General Hux not being impressed, his initial display was actually impressive.


I get that, but I find it annoying because that level of nonchalance seems incompatible with the level of force & organization the First Order exudes. I mean, there's clearly a Nazi comparison in the film, the technological terror they constructed is clearly far more impressive than the Death Star (despite there humorously being less time needed to find its flaws), but Snoke somehow comes off like The Dude from The Big Lebowski. Granted, he's the political leader & not necessarily the military leader, so I could chalk it up to that.

Anyways, you folks have given me some things to think about before I watch it again. Maybe it'll grow on me like so many films have before (including the initial trilogy, which I disliked as a child).

He prefers staying behind a snokescreen.

I guess it is some kind of a semi-fault for the movie to have some of these elements and mysteries just floating around because they will be explained in the further movies. Or - considering that J.J. Abrams' repertoire includes Lost - not necessarily.

I think that a more down-to-earth approach to the fighting choreography makes the Jedi/Sith seem more down-to-earth, thus rendering the feats (things we witnessed in the prequels, for instance) of past Jedi/Sith less plausible. However, I'm beginning to think that it makes sense, if you look at it from the the following perspective. The choreography in the prequels was inflated to demonstrate that this was during the height (or at least before the fall) of the Jedi Order, which was in stark contrast to the down-to-earth choreography (in reality, largely a "victim" of the times, when decent choreography was in its infancy) in the original trilogy when the Jedi were practically extinct, & The Force Awakens is more like the original, because the situation for the Jedi is maybe even more dire.

Anyways, whether these annoyances are in my mind alone or not, Star Wars has certainly changed, so there's going to be areas where the old & new contrast. I'll just have to stop being butt-hurt & get over it. I'd like to think that there will at least be some good games that come about because of this film, but I'm not holding my breath.

No way, man. The choreography in the prequels is inflated because it was possible to inflate it, and it was flashier and cooler, as they saw it. If the toned down choreography of the OT was because they didn't have the means, then the overblown choreography of the Prequels was because they did, not because of some nuanced implication about the height of the Jedi arts.

I'm just glad people aren't constantly turning their backs on each other to do elaborate spins while swordfighting in TFA.

I feel like the reasoning was that because lightsabers were 'flashy and cool' --> maximize their screen presence --> make the fighters do more broad movements and strokes --> the lightsaber swings don't really target anything. Or something like that.

Which is weird because I thought LucasFilm hired professionals/consultants who can coordinate these sort of combat movie action (in behind-the-scenes footage) to make them passable. Am I imagining this? Did they hire these folks and then disregard their input?

I think there's some truth to that but I don't think it's quite that simple. Yoda, for instance, who is 800+ years old at the time of the prequels, who was a Grand Master of the Jedi Order, who wasn't even of a known species, & who had a midi-chlorian count topped only by Darth Vader, would seem absolutely ridiculous if he couldn't do nearly everything better than the other Jedi/Sith. In fact, those that could go head to head with him were only able to do so because he trained them. How & why would you make what 800 years of training in the Jedi arts looks like, more down-to-earth? I guess I'm just saying that we don't know what 800 years of training by a member of an unknown alien species with magic powers would look like, because it's about 700 years more than our minds can comprehend, but it certainly shouldn't look exactly like what -100 years of training looks like. I get that the prequel choreography is likely much sillier & unreasonable than it needs to be, but the acrobatics & things are arguably more glamorous to look at, to the casual observer. Things like efficiency are much more difficult to make sexy. I certainly agree that the route they chose for choreography in the prequels was partly because it was "flashier & cooler" but I think it was also because they wanted to make the differences in skill between actual Jedi that trained with a Grand Master & his disciples for a lifetime vs. one that trained with him for 6 months, obvious. If my assumptions are incorrect & their decisions were 100% based upon bling-bling, then **** them for making it accidentally make sense to me.

They hired a stunt man (Nick Gillard) & a traditional martial artist (Ray Park), which are literally the two worst people to hire if realism is of any concern. Bob Anderson, the olympic fencer who choreographed the original trilogy wasn't consulted for either the prequels or the The Force Awakens.

Despite the lack of realism involved in the prequel choreography, I think it's important to recognize that they were attempting to show the Jedi/Sith as complete martial artists, not just sword-fighters, thus the spinning, which is found throughout traditional martial arts (with & without weapons). They're also obviously not sticking to kendo & fencing, stylistically (it's in many ways much more like a Kung Fu swordfighting style (Darth Maul is essentially using a bo (with "sharp" edges)), which is far more entertaining to watch). Have you ever watched an actual fencing or kendo match? Watching paint dry is like skydiving in comparison.

They were trying to mesmerize children with flashing lights. The spins and kicks you're describing have no place in practical martial arts, they're only done for show. The job of a combat-trained martial artist is to kill their opponent, not show off.

I get what you're saying: people in the 90s think martial arts, they think hyper-acrobatic creative hyeong, sure. But it looks ridiculous now.

Also, I don't know what style it is, but it's no kung fu that I know about. Practical "spinning" is done to trick the eye into misjudging where the sword is, right before getting the business (pointy) end. Star Wars has nothing like it. Nor would you expect it to, because it would be too confusing to watch. The more important part, though, is that prequel lightsaber fighting is still big swooshy lopping movements. Those don't work. Palpatine is the only guy in Star Wars who uses the stabby-stabby and at least (as he would in real life) he owned scrubs because of it, but the rest is closer to a spinnier, flippier kendo than anything invented in a country that has good steel.

It's probably mostly because George Lucas told Nick Gillard that he wanted lightsaber fights to come off as a sort of ballet.

And then it's probably also because JJ Abrams hired C.C. Smiff (currently most well known for being the swordmaster on Game of Thrones) to dictate the lightsaber fighting.

Don't get me wrong, Nick Gillard is pretty much a Hollywood legend when it comes to being a stuntman. His accomplishments speak for themselves, but prior to Star Wars he had never really done a whole hell of a lot in terms of swordplay. He was hired because he's an experienced 2nd unit director and Lucas was primarily concerned with essentially inventing a new style of fighting that would look cool on-screen. Congratulations, he did that very well. The problem with doing this sort of thing, however, is the same problem you run into when guys like Kurt Wimmer come up with stupid **** like "gun kata." Yeah, that looks really totally sweet and everything, but there's a really good reason you had to come up with it: It's idiotic and ineffective. There's ultimately a big problem with fighting styles that don't exist being portrayed in films and tv, and that problem amounts to common sense telling the viewer that what they're seeing is bull****. One of the most important aspects of filmmaking is getting your audience to suspend disbelief, which in the case of a story like Star Wars, is going to be walking a very fine line.

I'll use an example that treads into absurdity, as that's one of the easier ways to make a point: Let's say you're making a network tv drama about politics in the vein of The West Wing or whatever. So you've got your characters. You have the president, chief of staff, maybe some senators, etc... You get the story laid out for the first season and you get everyone cast in their roles and so on. So now you're ready to shoot and you come up with the idea that you'd like the president to have green skin. Why? I don't know, I guess you just always thought it would be cool if the president had green skin. So you tell your makeup artist to make the actor's skin green. You don't rewrite any of the story or anything. Just a green president, because dammit you like green presidents. I don't know, maybe you watched Guardians of the Galaxy and thought it was sweet that Gamora was green, and you just really want a sweet green person in your story.

The audience is going to look at it and say "Wait, why the hell is the president green?" because there's no reason whatsoever given for it as a creative choice. It's arbitrary, and you decided to do it just because it's different and cool to you. Is it impossible? Hell, I don't know. Maybe. I don't know for sure that it's impossible for a human to be born with some weird genetic mutation that causes green skin, but you didn't even establish that as a reason. Skin is just green. You're being different just for the sake of being different, and because you think it's totally rad.

Well, you didn't establish anything at all to get the viewer to accept this. They're automatically going to be pulled out of immersion every time a green person comes on screen to address the nation. It's not that it's impossible, it's just that the human brain rejects it as such.

So you have your absurd fighting style that you made up, and maybe it looks really cool on screen. Okay, great, but what about the fact that it's hard to believe? Do you have a really good reason for why they're fighting this way? I mean, you can look at Equilibrium and just say "Okay, well what if there's a sniper?" Right. Suddenly Christian Bale is just dead, and his fighting style is stupid. You look at the fighting in the prequels, and you're given a facsimile of a real thing (swordfighting) in a way that is patently absurd, but you take it over the edge by making it flashy and superfluous. The problem with this is that any viewer can look at it and say "Okay, so they're magical space wizards with laser swords, but their style of fighting is so goddamn ridiculous that Michael Jai White with a kendo stick is going to kill absolutely any one of them in about 30 seconds." It's not real for a reason: Because it doesn't work. You don't have James Bond throwing bullets at bad guys, do you? Same thing, right? It's just a bullet flying through the air. No, because we give the audience a little more credit than to assume they'll accept that some stupid **** like that will work.

The idea of immersion is pretty much the most important aspect of being a good filmmaker. You're taking something that is inherently impossible or improbable (otherwise there's really no reason to make a movie about it, because it's something that could just happen) and making a viewer believe it onscreen despite knowing that everyone is just pretending. Everything about it, from set designs to costumes, editing, cinematography, etc... it's all about immersion. The vast majority of what happens to make a viewer actually enjoy a movie is more or less subconscious. It's the little differences in a person's performance, or the fact that the camerawork is seamless, or that the rhythm of a conversation never gets all wonky.

It's not that it's unrealistic. Of course it's all unrealistic, but there's a really big difference between being realistic and being believable. Space wizards and laser swords are unrealistic by default. They can, however, be portrayed in a way that the brain will accept, and that is the difference between a good director and a bad director. In the original trilogy you had the force. What is it? It's magic. How does it work? It just does. In the prequels they gave us midichlorians. Okay, so this is how the force works. Well, how do the midichlorians work? They just do. Well what the hell did you even include them for? What was the point of explaining how something works with an arbitrary thing if the thing you made up is never explained? There's no reason to add it other than it's a thing you thought of that you thought was neat. We threw that garbage in there as a way to establish that Anakin is just naturally stronger with the force than anyone else. You know what might have worked better? If we had just shown him being naturally stronger with the force than anyone else (which, btw, is something that never happens).

The fighting in the prequels is flashy and idiotic because George Lucas thinks that things that are flashy and idiotic are cool. This type of thinking gave us lightsabers. Unfortunately, this type of thinking also gave us a bunch of idiotic stick-spinning and chrome spaceships.

The fighting in TFA works because I can accept and believe that a guy with no self control whatsoever can get his ass handed to him by a girl who has had to fight to survive for every minute of her life. I can believe the way they swing their laser swords because the one guy was taught by a guy who taught himself, the other guy was using basic melee combat training, and the girl was doing the same thing she always does: giving it everything she's got just to wake up tomorrow. It's believable because the characters are believable, and the only thing that upsets people is that Kylo Ren isn't all totally woah badass, man. Yeah, Darth Maul is really cool with all of his sick moves and his crazy face tattoos. You know what else is really cool? Three-dimensional characters.

George Lucas understands the technical elements of filmmaking better than nearly any other person alive, but he doesn't understand the human element of it at all, and that's why he's a terrible filmmaker.