[SPOILER] I saw the new Star Wars movie...

[Etherealicer]

So apparently I missed:
Episode 6B: We lost the Jedi again
Episode 6C: The rebels destroyed two Death Stars and all they got was a T-Shirt
Episode 6D: The rebellion was for nothing

I for one was hugely disappointed by E7.
- Apparently the Jedi solution to problems is to run from them, makes me wonder if Han didn't have some Jedi training too.
- Mid movie they realized that the search for Luke, the guy that abandoned everyone, does not make such a good plot (not enough room for FX), so they destroyed a planet in a completely unmotivated and un-emotional scene.
- Why would anyone fear the First Order? I mean they lost every single military engagement. All they can do is kill unarmed civilians.

And these are just the small problems, the really big one is Finn.
Finns story is that he was kidnapped as child then abused into becoming a Storm-trooper. Obviously, he is a victim. Good guys would have made it their mission to save the Storm-troopers, or at least to prevent more victims (e.g. destroy the training facility).
It also makes Rye a psycho. Her only friend is a Storm-trooper, she knows that Storm-troopers did not choose their career, that they are victims. Yet, she kills them without any emotion, no regret, no hesitation... a psycho!

[Etherealicer]

Here is the story retold by Ben's diary:

Scene 1:
Today we had to stop the rebellion from getting a map to Luke Skywalker. 'Cause if they get that map, they may get hope and decide to do something daring and then they will find out how much we smurf.
But I'm great at squashing hope, look at how hopless I'm as a villain.

That was pretty easy, caught the rebell next to his X-wing, noticed that the repair droid was missing; man that did put me back, like in the story where my mommy sent a message to Obi. Still, I decided to bring the prisoner to my ship and not leave any ground troops, we also destroyed the X-wing without checking for the map.
Stern words and my scariest stare did not make the prisoner talk, why does he not talk. I think I will cry myself to sleep tonight.

Today, I used the force to interrogate the prisoner, should have thought of that yesterday on the ground, because it revealed that the map is in the bloody repair droid, now the wind will have blown away the large trail the rolling robot left.

Life is so unfair, first one of my Stormtrooper helped the prisoner escape (I told Snooki that using slaves as soldiers did not work for Rome, yet he insists) and then a girl helped the droid escape. I think she must be new to this planet, her flawless skin cannot have seen much sun. I also hope they didn't realize how few ships we have left and that is why we could neither stop nor pursue them.

[Etherealicer]

Scene 2:
We destroyed a planet and it's 4 moons, can't have been important or anything, no-one seemed very upset. It's good to see we have that many soldiers. However, three troopers (one at the door and two in the control room) should be enough to guard the shield generator protecting Death Star 3, right?

[Etherealicer]

Scene 3:
Some shady characters found the droid before us, thankfully information can be bought (I hope the cheque does not bounce). We did real good killing unarmed civilians. I caught the pretty girl, she has seen the map so I took her with me. God, she is so pretty I forgot the objective was to retrieve the map and, if not possible, to destroy it.
The rebel scum also showed up and kicked our butt, we decided to retreat before we loose all our Tie-Paperplanes.

[Etherealicer]

Scene 4:
Tried to interrogate the girl. She is so pretty and has lots of force in her, better leave a single Trooper with her, I mean what could go wrong, right?
Oh, no she escaped we should send 20 of our 10'000'000'000 soldiers to search for her...
I'm starting to question the stormtrooper armor, I mean it offers 0 protection but apparently impairs their vision quite a bit, they can't find the girl.

[Etherealicer]

Scene 5:
I had warned Snooki that destroying a planet would provoke the rebels and now they are attacking us, maybe we should not have our troops standing around but guard the shield generator, maybe we should also reboot the shields or whatever.
It hurt a bit when the general said "dispatch all squadrons" and only twenty or so TIE-Fighters took off, we used to have loads of 'em. I sorta wonder if we should have invested in next-generation fighter planes instead of this ridiculously large DS3, after all 1 & 2 were a total failure.

Went to that total weakness of DS3 to help protect it. I should probably consult with the engineers to see if such important systems could be built redundantly.
There are silver spheres that have a glaring bright red display, I don't like them, so I will ignore them.

Killed my dad, got shot and the DS3 is going kablooie so I better chase after the pretty girl.

Darn, almost lost a lightsaber duell to a former stormtrooper, now I wished I had not skipped fencing lessons and watched Jersey Shore instead. But it's with Snooki before he got all dark... amazing how much you can achieve from being a reality TV "star".
Caught up with the pretty girl, a bit more shoveling and she would have fallen down into that firey pit, kinda like Vader... Coundn't risk that, what if she became evil, she would immediately replace me being much more awesome than me... Started to flirt with her, girls love the whiny bad boys: "Use the force babe!"...

So, I lost against an untrained girl, there is no shame in it, I wanted to loose... yes, I did! Got saved by an opening chasm, too bad I didn't fall in it, maybe I would have become a bit more of a bad-smurfer!

[Chako]

I gather you didn't much care for the plot? 

I wasn't all that enthralled with it either. I think most folks were thankful that Jar Jar Binks wasn't in it and thus gave it glowing reviews.

[Gareth]

so, not a fan then, eh?

[Etherealicer]

so, not a fan then, eh?

I'm obviously a fan, why else would I take the time to write all that

[Etherealicer]

I gather you didn't much care for the plot? 

I wasn't all that enthralled with it either. I think most folks were thankful that Jar Jar Binks wasn't in it and thus gave it glowing reviews.

What plot?

The movie starts after a Jedi master (Obi/Luke) have failed to see the pull of the dark side on their pupils and once they turned they thought the best solution to that problem would be to run away!
Yet, despite that, the Jedi master is the resistances "only hope"!

That concludes the first half of Ep.7.

Then comes some monster interlude (why again did the criminals loan Han Solo money after he cheated them already twice?).

Second half of the movie.
Rebels have to disable the shield generator with ground troops to destroy the Death Star.

Anyone else notice that obviously the screenwriter was watching Ep 4-6 but fell asleep mid Ep 4 and then woke at the end of Ep 6. He obviously didn't like the Ewoks so he removed them but had no idea how to remove the obstacles the heroes had to face in Ep 6, so he removed those too. At this point the FX-budget was obviously gone and instead of a huge space battle it came down to 12 X-wings vs. 20 TIE-fighters

[Corwyn]

4/10 plot
8/10 action
8/10 characters
7/10 effects
8/10 humours
10/10 charm

Overall 8/10 but giving it 9/10 due to the throng of haters flooding it with bad marks...

And by the way Eth...

[Etherealicer]

4/10 plot
8/10 action
8/10 characters
7/10 effects
8/10 humours
10/10 charm

Overall 8/10 but giving it 9/10 due to the throng of haters flooding it with bad marks...

And by the way Eth...
(Image removed from quote.)

Standing alone this could be a quite different gesture

[temo]

Amount of light sabers in movie big was not.

[Chako]

Well I for one enjoyed the plot sarcasm. Can't wait to read more. 

[sLaughterMed]

So apparently I missed:
Episode 6B: We lost the Jedi again
Episode 6C: The rebels destroyed two Death Stars and all they got was a T-Shirt
Episode 6D: The rebellion was for nothing

I for one was hugely disappointed by E7.
- Apparently the Jedi solution to problems is to run from them, makes me wonder if Han didn't have some Jedi training too.
- Mid movie they realized that the search for Luke, the guy that abandoned everyone, does not make such a good plot (not enough room for FX), so they destroyed a planet in a completely unmotivated and un-emotional scene.
- Why would anyone fear the First Order? I mean they lost every single military engagement. All they can do is kill unarmed civilians.

And these are just the small problems, the really big one is Finn.
Finns story is that he was kidnapped as child then abused into becoming a Storm-trooper. Obviously, he is a victim. Good guys would have made it their mission to save the Storm-troopers, or at least to prevent more victims (e.g. destroy the training facility).
It also makes Rye a psycho. Her only friend is a Storm-trooper, she knows that Storm-troopers did not choose their career, that they are victims. Yet, she kills them without any emotion, no regret, no hesitation... a psycho!

I agree with everything you said. Everything in the movie seemed uninspired and unconvincing. The bad guy seemed more angsty teen than evil leader, and the only good part he gets (killing Han) was very predictable after Ben (his name is Ben! ) talked to burn victim Voldemort about how Han was going to be his biggest challenge (or something to that extent). Plus, he almost lost two lightsaber duels to two completly untrained characters (even injured, this feels off. Sword play is not easy to just pick up, and Ben should be very good, at worst).

[temo]

I did like the characters. Rey again was kind of street fighter. And again lines between good and evil were bent. Usually only dark side (and force..) has been felt but now also a good side had some pull. I thoughted that as biggest plus. And Rey did fight well with sticks from starters even there were no actual strories how she trained. Anyway scenes and characters were great from my opinion. Again from story there are just pieces as only some characters were mainly followed. So not so much high level story from good and bad but more like a story through characters who are part of the battle.

[Etherealicer]

Anyone else think that the resistance should change their approach, I mean destroying every Death Star did not change anything... here is what I would do if I were General Leia (apart from celebrating that I'm now a Disney princess ).

I would assign Poe his most important mission, having him join the ranks of the Stormtrooper. He is so good they wouldn't say no (they need better pilots). He would easily raise through the ranks and quickly become a big-shot (Except for TR8-OR all Stormtroopers are pretty useless). Once he is established I'd have him form an Union, fighting for better work place security and health benefits for Stormtroopers...
Voila, First Order permanently defeated

[magentus]

Anyone else think that the resistance should change their approach, I mean destroying every Death Star did not change anything... here is what I would do if I were General Leia (apart from celebrating that I'm now a Disney princess ).

I would assign Poe his most important mission, having him join the ranks of the Stormtrooper. He is so good they wouldn't say no (they need better pilots). He would easily raise through the ranks and quickly become a big-shot (Except for TR8-OR all Stormtroopers are pretty useless). Once he is established I'd have him form an Union, fighting for better work place security and health benefits for Stormtroopers...
Voila, First Order permanently defeated

Ethizzle, I have really enjoyed reading your critique while I eat my breakfast. While I had a great time watching the movie I can't disagree with anything you've said. Please write some more  - especially loved the union led downfall of the first order. 

[Etherealicer]

Thanks mag... no pressure now


Have you ever wondered how the meeting went down, where they decided on the BB-droid design?

CEO: Sales on the R2-units are down, we need a fresh design to re-vamp sales numbers!
Engineer: We could make it hover, that is low cost, low maintenance, very eco*
Accountant: And therein lies the problem, low maintanance means low revenue for us, don't we have a drive system that requires constant maintanance?
Engineer (jokingly): We could make a big ball and put a hamster in it. A hamster has a lifespan of about 2 years, so we would creat a constant demand of drive-hamsters.
CEO: That sounds like a brilliant plan, lets do that!
Marketing: We should build in some harpoons with cables, so the unit can stabilize itself during a rough flight. Let's call it hamster safety harness to keep the animal rightist away.
CEO: That will do...
Engineer: We had to recall all our R2 units and upgrade them with a profanity filter to beep out vulgar language, so we could simply record an old R2 unit and use this as it's language instead of the expensive, protocol-droid language and voice unit.
Marketing: Oh yeah, we could call it Repair Droid Language Protocoll and charge extra for it.
CEO: I like that, let's make it so!

*Authors note: This is projected from the fact that Rey has a hover bike, which hovers even when not used. If the bike would be valuable Rey would have pawned it, she could also not afford if it would use lots of energy.

[Etherealicer]

I probably should add that I loved BB-8. I mean he is a character without face, yet capable of expressing a great range of emotions. I think it deserves an Academy Award nomination for Best Actor in a Supporting Role 

[Kampfer]

I love the fragments of Kylo Ren's diary you recovered, shared them on FB.

[Etherealicer]

Thx guys, much appreciated! And thanks Kam for thinking it's good enough for sharing. As a fan of the movie Electra I feel that others and my taste rarely match... makes me feel weird

In that spirit
EPISODE VII - THE QUIZ
Can you figure out what is depicted below?

[Kampfer]

  they are great，，good work.
The diary is now shared between members of 501st legion.

[Etherealicer]

they are great，，good work.
The diary is now shared between members of 501st legion.

We have a fraction of 'em here in Switzerland, so maybe someone will send it back to me

[Whoey]

I've seen that dent somewhere before... 

[Whoey]

Ok since I've seen the movie and had some time to digest it, does it feel like to anyone else that we missed some good story line in between?

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My theory is that Rey is Luke's daughter given that she is force strong, since Luke left after failing during Jedi training of Ben and losing him to the Knights of Ren. I see that some people have suggested Han/Leia which to me doesn't add up as either Han or Leia would have said something to her, and there's a whole theory that she's actually Obiwan's Grand daughter (my issue with this is then why didn't we see his daughter...)

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It bugs me a lot that Chewie walked right by Leia after Hans death... given their history you'd think he'd go straight to her, after all in ESB Han told him to take care of her.

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Feels like the end bit was a bit tacked on even though it prepares for the next movie. I guess it made sense otherwise Luke wouldn't have been in the movie apart from the vision sequence.

Kylo Ren's audio presence throughout, I get that force push/holds, and lightsaber (is his actually a lightsaber or something different?) need audio enhancement to make them seem powerful, but his skinny little girlish figure walking around made more noise than Hellboy who is huge and actually has hooves... and come to mention it, was his modified helmet voice different than the trailers too?

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Most of the returning cast were barely in it apart from a few key scenes which makes sense, I did expect there to be more deaths as I expected more of a hand over to the new cast.

One of the things that pleases me most is the technology level. There isn't a huge leap between the original trilogy and this one although it would have been acceptable if there was in contrary to where in the prequels there was all kinds of far superior (IMHO) tech that suddenly is gone when you reach the original trilogy I get that making the prequels while waiting for the cast to age naturally makes sense as a interim solution to appease appetites for more, but I really think they continuity failed on it.

It appears that Disney's plan with trilogy with Universe one offs in between following the Marvel plan in a way is definitely on the right track. Rumour is now that the one off for 2020 is Boba Fett... fingers crossed!

[Whoey]

Oh and...

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Anyone else feel like Phasma was underused/underdeveloped?

[magentus]

Oh and...

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Anyone else feel like Phasma was underused/underdeveloped?

Totally agree with all you've said Whoey - especially Phasma. My daughter and I have had many (many) discussions about Rey and Phasma. We reckon she (Phasma) may play a larger role next time, or was there in the trailers as a diversion. Her feature in the trailers certainly didn't warrant the amount of screen time she had. Maybe she is related to Rey?

Update! Actually I think she might be Reys mum who was taken in the flashback! What a genius I am!

[Whoey]

So prior to my seeing the film, I got the who and how spoiler revealed to me, given that, this confuses me greatly

http://www.standard.co.uk/showbiz/celebrity-news/star-wars-producer-kathleen-kennedy-confirms-that-entire-cast-will-return-for-eighth-film-a3139911.html

 

[dks]

Well, we did not see a body.…