[Spoilers] Star Wars Episode VII The Force Awakens Spoiler Thread

[Landlord]

The sense of taking it personally, at least for me, is that I really enjoy JJ Abrams and that's half because I think he's incredibly talented but half because I know quite a bit about the person behind the work; his motivations, passions, goals, etc.

 

 

 

It's one thing to criticize and dislike the borrowed/recycled elements from Ep IV. Obviously those are there, and you can either like or dislike them. But it's a whole other thing to claim that they, "simply mailed in the storyline", or that this was, "simply a regurgitation of prior work." That implies laziness, a bigger interest in dollar signs, or intentionally compromising the film, and I don't think any of those things are fair accusations or true about Abrams. I think he made the decisions he made with the utmost respect and appreciation and love for Star Wars; I'd go so far as to say that no other director would have approached the project with the same devotion. That's why he starts so many projects and rarely stays around or finishes them - he exhausts himself by diving in.

[Mavric]

The sense of taking it personally, at least for me, is that I really enjoy JJ Abrams and that's half because I think he's incredibly talented but half because I know quite a bit about the person behind the work; his motivations, passions, goals, etc.

 

 

 

It's one thing to criticize and dislike the borrowed/recycled elements from Ep IV. Obviously those are there, and you can either like or dislike them. But it's a whole other thing to claim that they, "simply mailed in the storyline", or that this was, "simply a regurgitation of prior work." That implies laziness, a bigger interest in dollar signs, or intentionally compromising the film, and I don't think any of those things are fair accusations or true about Abrams. I think he made the decisions he made with the utmost respect and appreciation and love for Star Wars; I'd go so far as to say that no other director would have approached the project with the same devotion. That's why he starts so many projects and rarely stays around or finishes them - he exhausts himself by diving in.

I like Abrams' movies but this isn't the first time he's recycled a plot. Star Trek: Into Darkness borrowed significantly from The Wrath of Kahn. I think it's fair to question why he did that again. I haven't seen anyone accuse him of being lazy and I'm not either. But it's curious.

[Landlord]

In response to that, there's not really any such thing as NOT recycling when it comes to media. It's only a matter of how zoomed in your lens is.

[zoogs]

Adam Driver is terrific. Villains often show up as cartoonishly diabolical monsters. Here's one who has all makings of a hero, but wants something very different. He's the kid that grew up American but ends up worshipping Osama bin Laden and joining ISIS. It's very chilling.

 

Ren starts with plenty of innocence in him, wearing a mask to buff himself up into a menace he wants to be, but is not. By the end, he has neither his innocence nor his mask. There's no hint of Ben Solo on his face left to hide.

 

--

 

A New Hope is a movie about a hero's destruction of the enemy superweapon. The Force Awakens is most decidedly not. The power of either the Resistance or the First Order is incidental to Rey's journey, which is the star of the show. It's liner to the awakening stories of an excellent set of characters:

 

- Rey, a scavenger clinging hard to the only past she knows. Her embrace of a new belonging is reluctant, and realized only in the climactic final confrontation of the film (against which Poe's X-wing wizardry is only background action). The moment to which the entire film is building up -- where Rey steps to the fore and takes command of Luke's lightsaber -- man, goosebumps. It's the Sword in the Stone, finding Arthur.

 

- Kylo, a tortured soul who'd been promised greatness by competing sides for all his life, embraces his own new belonging. This is everything he wanted. Right? Right? ...Well. There's no turning back now.

 

- Finn, a stormtrooper with heart, making a crazy leap and taking that escape ticket. He was only going to be a runner, but discovers a lot more caring within himself than he'd bargained for. He ends up having something to fight for -- his friends. A conscious choice for perhaps the first time in his life. He can hardly avoid taking up the Light Side's mantle now in a battle he didn't even want to recognize.

 

- Hux, a young general whose position was never that secure Supreme Leader's petulant prodigy hanging around. His Stormtroopers are under scrutiny and he's desperate for the success of what seems to be his pet project, Starkiller. And oh, man, he really did that, too. I don't get the sense that, as politically ruthless as he is, he'd ever murdered before. Well, now he's got billions of lives taken to his name, and a lot of glory earned for his cause. That's got to change anyone. And now he's made it.

 

- Han. I guess you always wondered how a guy like him was going to settle into the married hero's life. I suppose the answer is it didn't fit him that well -- too much space cowboy in him. So Hans stays true to his roots, although even he can see his luck's run up by the end. And so finally, resignedly, he turns back to face the music, knowing what was likely in store. It might've been the first heroic thing he'd done in a decade (or three). But as much as Han would begrudge it, coming back for his loved ones and doing what's right are also in his DNA.

 

--

 

Also, I think what's happened with Luke frames the OT very well, and with gravitas -- much more so than would any tales of Next Great Jedi Master leading elite magic warriors in further, bigger galaxy-saving conquests.

 

Luke's restless youth was distracted early on by great adventures, great friends, and a beautiful princess. His journey towards maturity, though, sees him learn to recede and let go. No, this was never leading to Luke, Leia, and the Galactic SuperFriends teaming up and saving day after day. War glory and smuggler's thrills may have been the continuing pursuits of Leia and Han, but not Luke. His ascendance meant an intractable distance even to the ones who knew him best.

 

And so the real victory in the OT does not belong to the Rebels for trouncing the Empire and its Emperor. It belongs to Luke, for triumphing over the dark side within both himself and his father. Sidious? Merely the vehicle for Vader's redemption. In a millenia-old battle between Light and Dark -- the only battle, to use Maz Kanata's words -- Luke had saved the Light in a moment where it could have extinguished. And now, the task of fostering it anew is his alone. In success, he had freely chosen to consign himself to a long, quiet journey he had only just begun. His victory has become legend, its significance truly appreciated only by a few.

 

Pretty good way to go about it

 

--

 

Lastly, in terms of recycling, human beings have been telling the same stories to ourselves for as long as we've been around. Of course, what you find compelling or not is really up to you. It's fine if this one doesn't work for you. If you're in seek of the truly avant garde, though, perhaps children/family coming-of-age stories such as Star Wars, Lord of the Rings, Harry Potter, etc, is just not the place to look. You'll surely not find it in the OT.

[Redux]

^ WELL said

[QMany]

I like Abrams' movies but this isn't the first time he's recycled a plot. Star Trek: Into Darkness borrowed significantly from The Wrath of Kahn. I think it's fair to question why he did that again. I haven't seen anyone accuse him of being lazy and I'm not either. But it's curious.

I hope I don't get stoned for this, but I was never a huge fan of the original Star Wars. It was before my time, and I just never got into them when I was a kid. I would watch them here and there when they were on TV, but that is it.I don't have a great emotional attachment to them and couldn't really go through the plot intricacies of each movies. I would say the same thing about Star Trek. With Into Darkness and now The Force Awakens, the reboots and/or recycled plots actually brought me on board as a fan. If they would have just continued stories (that I might not have been fully caught up with), I probably wouldn't have been as excited to go see them. By recycling and rebooting, I think it brings in new fans like me, while still appeasing most of the the die-hards that grew up on the franchises.

[Mavric]

 

I like Abrams' movies but this isn't the first time he's recycled a plot. Star Trek: Into Darkness borrowed significantly from The Wrath of Kahn. I think it's fair to question why he did that again. I haven't seen anyone accuse him of being lazy and I'm not either. But it's curious.

I hope I don't get stoned for this, but I was never a huge fan of the original Star Wars. It was before my time, and I just never got into them when I was a kid. I would watch them here and there when they were on TV, but that is it.I don't have a great emotional attachment to them and couldn't really go through the plot intricacies of each movies. I would say the same thing about Star Trek. With Into Darkness and now The Force Awakens, the reboots and/or recycled plots actually brought me on board as a fan. If they would have just continued stories (that I might not have been fully caught up with), I probably wouldn't have been as excited to go see them. By recycling and rebooting, I think it brings in new fans like me, while still appeasing most of the the die-hards that grew up on the franchises.

 

That's a fair point. And I can definitely see it being less of a "problem" to a younger generation who isn't AS familiar with the original movies.

 

But that's not to say that a different story line for TFA wouldn't have drawn you in as well. Impossible to say if it would be more, less or the same.

[QMany]

I'll say this, I didn't buy a single movie ticket to any of the prequel trilogy. Maybe it was lack of familiarity with characters; I can't really say, but I'm on board now when I wasn't before.

[Mavric]

In response to that, there's not really any such thing as NOT recycling when it comes to media. It's only a matter of how zoomed in your lens is.

 

That's pretty much a cop out answer.

 

Movies that borrow as heavily from previous stories as TFA and ST:ID do are usually remakes, not supposedly totally different story-lines. In ST:ID, he even gave himself the pass to do whatever he wanted with the wormhole-changed-the-timeline from Star Trek (which I have no problem with - it almost had to be something like that). But then he still went back and told largely the same story again. Which other movies would fall into the same category as those two?

 

Abrams has been director or producer on five big-budget movies. Star Trek, Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol, Star Trek Into Darkness, Mission: Impossible - Rogue Nation, Star Wars: The Force Awakens. All five are sequels, reboots or some combination thereof. His upcoming projects include another Mission Impossible, another Star Treak, another Star Wars and a sequel to his Cloverfield project. More of the same. Not that he hasn't done anything else, but that's a lot of big project that are borrowing off previous work to a fairly large extent.

 

I think at this point it's disingenuous to try to argue that he doesn't like taking existing work and adapting it to his vision. Not that there's anything necessarily wrong with that. But to try to down-play it really isn't being honest about it. And I don't think it should be surprising that some people would be less than thrilled with it.

[QMany]

Abrams has been director or producer on five big-budget movies. Star Trek, Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol, Star Trek Into Darkness, Mission: Impossible - Rogue Nation, Star Wars: The Force Awakens. All five are sequels, reboots or some combination thereof. His upcoming projects include another Mission Impossible, another Star Treak, another Star Wars ...

I thought they gave the other two scheduled Star Wars to be released in 2017 and 2019 to other directors? The dude that did Breaking Bad and other dude that did Jurassic World.

[ZRod]

 

Abrams has been director or producer on five big-budget movies. Star Trek, Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol, Star Trek Into Darkness, Mission: Impossible - Rogue Nation, Star Wars: The Force Awakens. All five are sequels, reboots or some combination thereof. His upcoming projects include another Mission Impossible, another Star Treak, another Star Wars ...

 

I thought they gave the other two scheduled Star Wars to be released in 2017 and 2019 to other directors? The dude that did Breaking Bad and other dude that did Jurassic World.

JJ is still a producer on the 2017 movie.

[QMany]

 

 

Abrams has been director or producer on five big-budget movies. Star Trek, Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol, Star Trek Into Darkness, Mission: Impossible - Rogue Nation, Star Wars: The Force Awakens. All five are sequels, reboots or some combination thereof. His upcoming projects include another Mission Impossible, another Star Treak, another Star Wars ...

I thought they gave the other two scheduled Star Wars to be released in 2017 and 2019 to other directors? The dude that did Breaking Bad and other dude that did Jurassic World.

JJ is still a producer on the 2017 movie.

Cool! I was going off of Wikipedia and didn't see his name.

[JJ Husker]

I am going to bow out of this discussion. It is apparent that many of you care about this way more than I do. I think my cursory comments are only antagonizing those of you who seem to be really invested in the Star Wars universe. It's just another movie to me.

[Landlord]

 

Abrams has been director or producer on five big-budget movies. Star Trek, Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol, Star Trek Into Darkness, Mission: Impossible - Rogue Nation, Star Wars: The Force Awakens. All five are sequels, reboots or some combination thereof.

 

 

 

You forgot Joy Ride, Cloverfield, Mission Impossible 3, and Super 8 if we're just talking films. But he also created and/or directed and/or produced Felicity, Alias, Lost, Fringe, Person of Interest, as well as co-writing a book. Maybe he likes using film specifically as a world to reimagine existing ideas or jump on board projects without all the leg work, but his career has tons and tons of original ideas.

[zoogs]

 

I like Abrams' movies but this isn't the first time he's recycled a plot. Star Trek: Into Darkness borrowed significantly from The Wrath of Kahn. I think it's fair to question why he did that again. I haven't seen anyone accuse him of being lazy and I'm not either. But it's curious.

I hope I don't get stoned for this, but I was never a huge fan of the original Star Wars. It was before my time, and I just never got into them when I was a kid. I would watch them here and there when they were on TV, but that is it.I don't have a great emotional attachment to them and couldn't really go through the plot intricacies of each movies. I would say the same thing about Star Trek. With Into Darkness and now The Force Awakens, the reboots and/or recycled plots actually brought me on board as a fan. If they would have just continued stories (that I might not have been fully caught up with), I probably wouldn't have been as excited to go see them. By recycling and rebooting, I think it brings in new fans like me, while still appeasing most of the the die-hards that grew up on the franchises.

 

Well said. I definitely feel the same way about Star Trek. I enjoyed the original Star Wars movies, maybe a bit less than the Star Wars universe itself, but TFA has elevated that.

 

Mavric is right about J.J. Abrams on the big screen, but I don't think it takes away:

 

Lets get verdicts out of the way: Star Wars: The Force Awakens is probably the best in the series since The Empire Strikes Back. It is first-rate entertainment, fast and funny, yet filled with the prickly, goosebump-inducing sense of fate a saga like this needs, and also surprisingly moving. Indeed, Abrams is pretty much peerless in channeling our collective warmth for past pop culture. He has made five films so far Mission Impossible 3, Star Trek, Star Trek 2: Into Darkness, Super 8 and now this two sequels, two reboots and one homage to his mentor, Steven Spielberg. His hit reel is a mass of other mens copyrights. Somewhere between a remixer and a cover artist, he is expert at smuggling his virtues into the pre-existing grooves of others formats and franchises.

 

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If we were five or ten years removed from A New Hope, this could not have been the next Star Wars movie. We're not anywhere close to that. We're almost four *decades* away. While the OT may feel like yesterday to the fans, the existence of a new trilogy isn't fanservice for past generations. It's not "picking up where we left off. You all remember, right? If not, rent it on youtube." It's re-establishing what Star Wars is all about and forging in new directions.

 

That's a heck of a task and I think you'll find that the consensus at least is they've pulled it off (albeit the work's not finished). It could have easily been too loosely related, or too much a sequel that requires prior knowledge. Instead, to me anyway, it's the perfect balance, and welcomes with open arms both fans familiar with the legend of Luke Skywalker or ones who've just heard about it over the years.

 

I just noticed by the way, that the Ep 9 director is the guy who did Jurassic World. That makes me nervous. I kind of hated JW.