Star Wars Episode 7 and Disney buy Lucas Film

[Adrian Bamforth]

Those Force Awakens coincidences in full:

[spoiler]Just as the map is passed on to Poe the village is attacked by stormtroopers. Poe puts the map in the droid, which is found in the desert by Rey, the only Jedi we know of apart from the Jedi the map is to locate.

Poe escapes and crash-lands back on the planet's surface and immediately finds his droid, along with the Jedi. They escape another attack by finding the Falcon, the ship formerly owned by the brother-in-law of the Jedi to be located by the map.

The ship breaks down and is immediately picked up by the ship's previous owner and last Jedi's brother-in-law, and his co-pilot. Ren is told the time is right to kill Solo.

The bar where Rey, Solo and Finn go has Solo's brother-in-law's lightsabre which Fey finds and realises she might be a Jedi. It's on the planet with a clear view of all the planets the starkiller weapon is then used on for the first time, and is them fought over by The First Order and nearby rebels led by the rebel who helped Finn escape. Everyone goes back to the rebel base to meet Leia and the droids from years ago, one of which has the other half of the map.

Now it is operative, the time is right for the rebels destroy the starkiller. Solo infiltrates it and meets his son. Their sabotage leaves just enough time for Rey to win a fight and escape.
[/spoiler]

[radiator]

I say again: I would eat my hat if we don't find out sooner or later that in the original script, [spoiler]Rey was actually the daughter of Han/Leia and brother of Kylo Ren. This would go at least some way to explain some of those whopping coincidences we're supposed to swallow in the film as it is now. For example, Rey was sequestered on Jakku, Luke style, with Han watching over her in an Obi Wan style, to hide her from Kylo Ren and the First Order. That's why the Falcon is there. That's why Solo comes to find her so quickly.

As it stands, Rey's story as presented just doesn't add up. If it's that easy to escape, why bother staying on Jakku, ekeing out a miserable existence? There's a very flimsy reason of course - that she's 'waiting for her family to come back', but a pro-active, capable and self-determined woman like Rey would surely be off searching for her family rather than meekly waiting there.
[/spoiler]

[Ancient Otter]

Adrian, slight editorial slip with the first line in the second spoiler, [spoiler]should be Finn instead of Poe[/spoiler]. Yeah, that's a lot when you sum them up like that!

Agreeing with a lot of the review posts, [spoiler]Alright to watch, but so much regurgitating of the previous films, a few problems with pacing. The final dogfight didn't feel as tense as A New Hope or Return of the Jedi for me.[/spoiler]

Radiator just pipped me [spoiler]in a post about Rey there, how is she so handy with a lightsaber unless she had some training under Luke? [/spoiler]

[JOE SOAP]

I'm just going to say that [spoiler]the notion didn't only come from Ford, and was famously part of the original 'dark' script treatment for RotJ, which featured Han dying halfway through and Luke walking off into the sunset at the end.[/spoiler]

It's unclear whether any of that ever really existed as something written on paper but it was all in Gary Kurtz's head before he was fired from Empire.

How convenient it would've been if, as per Kurtz/Lucas' confabs, [spoiler]the Emperor had lived and been in Snoke's place? All this First Order stuff wouldn't need any explainin' - but that's all hindsight now so fuck it.[/spoiler]

In terms of Senor Snoke - [spoiler]was he actually that size or had he just built himself a massive hologram projector to make him look imposing? Will he be revealed as Yoda sized in the sequels?
[/spoiler]

[Ancient Otter]

Snoake [spoiler]I couldn't take seriously, it was like something out a comedy sketch show.[/spoiler]

[Adrian Bamforth]

Adrian, slight editorial slip with the first line in the second spoiler, [spoiler]should be Finn instead of Poe[/spoiler]. Yeah, that's a lot when you sum them up like that!

Even more with the correction, as it's [spoiler]not Poe who finds the droid, but someone who has had the droid briefly described to him![/spoiler]

[radiator]

[spoiler]Snoke was a huge letdown. From the way they were talking him up I was expecting something really freaky looking, really alien. He just looked like the pale orc from The Hobbit films. I honestly don't know why such a humanoid looking character needed to be mo-capped.[/spoiler]

I was going to suggest a full spoilers thread, but wasn't sure if people would get annoyed with multiple threads?

[Adrian Bamforth]

Plus, [spoiler] assuming he's not a giant, why did he have to be projected so big that they need an enormous cavern to speak to him?[/spoiler]

[Ancient Otter]

Adrian [spoiler]just replace Snoake and Ren with Mitchell and Webb  [/spoiler]

The stormtrooper Captain, Phasma is her name I think? [spoiler]Looked good in the trailer but about useful as a chocolate teapot?[/spoiler]

[JOE SOAP]

Plus, [spoiler] assuming he's not a giant, why did he have to be projected so big that they need an enormous cavern to speak to him?[/spoiler]

It was a trend started by the Emperor in Empire - looks cool so they embiggened it.

[Mardroid]

I was at Leicester Square today, and we were seriously considering catching the film. (£17 though? Wow.)

A 7pm showing only had seats left on the front row, and a later showing (at a different cinema) was a bit too late for my friend. She wasn't feeling that great either so we gave it a miss this time.

We did, however, see chaps dressed as stormtroopers and Alliance (or whatever the new rebels are called) pilots at the Odeon. Members of the general public had their picture taken. Not unlike what happened with a couple of other helmeted chaps in the same neighbourhood during the premier of a film concerning a future lawman.

It occurred to me that I go to church at a cinema (in this case The Vue in the O2 Arena) so I'm hoping to catch the film after the service.

[spoiler]I'm wondering if Kylo Wren turns out to be a clone grown from the severed hand of Luke Skywalker.[/spoiler]. If I turn out to be right, let me say I have not read that as a spoiler.

[JOE SOAP]

The sticky-out bits are obvious and been hashed/re-hashed here and elsewhere on the web but to be honest watching it on first viewing I didn't care too much about those things. The film's clearly finished in a way that you're not supposed to care too much about the stuff that's iffy as it's either treated as background noise or swept quickly under something funny or emotional/sentimental - call it distraction/bad pacing/time-wasting if you wish, it is what it is. This film is all about the feels. It probably won't work as well on repeat viewings but the great stuff I think will remain great - mainly the stand-out performances that are stronger here than in any other Star Wars episode.

[spoiler]I'm not dwelling too much on the holes or coincidences/conveniences which sometimes work and at times stick in your arse like a dodgy bed-spring but it seems intentional that the Death Star(killer) is so undeveloped and underplayed as an obvious throwback that it runs as a superfluous sub-plot against the greater drama, like it's a placeholder for something else. Its superficiality creates cognitive dissonance when spliced in parallel with the phenomenal drama and acting of the 'real' story. The endings of A New Hope and Empire work better than Jedi because there's less cutting between elements that are unevenly balanced in their worth.

We all ready know the 'Death Star' story - we don't need it again. If it was portrayed as just another weapon in the arsenal and had about as much importance to the story as a Star-Destroyer, it would be fine, but it's noted as a key plot-point/McGuffin and climax in every Star Wars film it's in. I'm not against another Death Star just like I'm not against TIE fighters and X-Wings but it might've been better served as an inverted storyline where either the Resistance own it or they capture it. Not have it tied-in as an explosive/dramatic climax.

We've seen how bad these 'rhyme' or mirroring things can be from the Prequels. Lucas wasn't much of a poet when it came to his rhymes - you can type them in a script but you can't film them - and it's a little unfortunate in the case of the Starkiller considering how cleverly executed many other OT throwbacks are weaved into TFA.

As one example: Kylo Ren - a masterstroke as inverse Vader. From the outset it seems either madness or bravery in the shape of brass-balls that they'd attempt to re-do Vader, nevertheless, it took decent writing and top-notch performances to sell it. If this character didn't work I think the whole story and its lineage/legacy theme would've crumbled. The layered details of Ren's low-rent wannabe Vader (which he still fails at) work towards creating a fully-formed, compelling character: the epic tantrums, the rawness of his garage-made lightsaber, the crappy sound of his voice-amplifier while full and loud breaks-up in higher frequencies distorting like an old transistor radio under-cutting his shapes. Everything about him feels desperate. If his unhinged confusion wasn't convincing Han Solo's death would've fallen flat. It's close to what Anakin should've been. This coupled with Rey's 'Force Awakening', while seemingly convenient but played very well, sold me on this whole lineage thing that thematically I never embraced as an idea - the EU didn't do it well because it's hard but they'vee done it phenomenally here.[/spoiler]

There's tons that can be parsed from what feels like 2-films-for-1 and now that so much has been laid on the table it can spread itself out in subsequent episodes. There are so many plusses amongst the facile impatient rush to please that I can't really complain. As a Star Wars film I like it - loved it more times than I didn't and sometimes more than the OT - and I'm thankful it didn't leave me with a feeling of total waste that the 3 Prequels did every time. I'll take a cluttered beauty over a congested bore any day.

And that last scene is d'bollix.

[COMMANDO FORCES]

By last scene, do you mean the one that's lifted straight from a Rock video. I was expecting a certain character to turn around with an electric guitar in his hands.

[JOE SOAP]

I was thinking more Songs of Praise, Secombe's Highway or The Sound of Music.

[PsychoGoatee]

Just got back from the movie, groovy stuff! I am pleased. Definitely a throwback in a very good way, playing around with all the classic SW stuff. And I dig the new characters too. Can't wait for Ep 8! Plus Rogue One should be fun next year, Donnie Yen kicking ass!

On the coincidences stuff listed above, I didn't mind that. But when watching I did think to myself, ah here we have some fun characters on a very unlikely space adventure, but still plausible enough for me to stay with it. All the coincidences are unlikely sure, but it works for me, and felt in line with the kind of pulpy adventure story vibe of the original.

Thumbs up!