cks you designed to be ~exotic~ or whatever, and those rabid jerks at Disney can only grit their teeth now!
My Thoughts: Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (No spoilers) · 11:21pm Dec 27th, 2015
It was...
OK.
You know that type of fan-fiction? That's actually decently good on its own merits, the author quite clearly has a lot of love for the material, but s/he just~ can't seem to nail the original tone?
Well, give it a Hollywood budget, a script solid enough to get some of the big name stars to come work with you, and that's about it, really.
And I don't mean that negatively. I'm a rather casual Star Wars fan since the force and its destiny bullshit has always both bored and creeped me out and this franchise always goes on and on about those boring space wizards, but this was a very pretty and fun ride.
Still, there was a rather palatable feel that the 'vibe' was just slightly off. New people clearly at the rudder George Lucas had all but nailed himself to. Very few quiet and introspective moments or the hit-miss comedy bits Lucas seemed to like, for example, and far more action and explosions.
So not bad at all, but I have a feeling that Abrams have done exactly the same thing as he did for Star Trek: A pretty and decent movie the public will gobble up, and large swatches of the fandom it's based on will hate with all their little hearts.
So... not exactly a movie I'd go so far as to recommend, but nowhere near bad enough to ward you guys away from either. It was good, but not great. Use your own judgement if you feel you need to see the latest Star Wars in theaters or not.
Abrams was a Star Wars fan.
Abrams litterly said he hated star trek and said he wanted to make it more like star wars.
As a fan of both.... he was much, much, much kinder to the Star Wars fans.
"
Lets use practical effects! Good actors! Have a plot that doesn't destroy all the lore! " 
Star Trek "Kill the cannon! Melt it down! I want to make a Star Wars film!
Star Wars "Yes!
The plot could of used work, but overall was decent. (Which is more than you could say about the previous 3 movies)
I thought it came very close to the original films in terms of general 'feel'. The only thing missing was a verbal sparring match while they were having a lightsaber duel.
Hell, you're the first person I've heard of who didn't come out of the theater saying 'star wars is back baby!'
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That explains a lot, actually. I did get this strangely bitter feel from the Abrams Star Trek movies, as if the director wanted to drop the 'nerd crap' and do his own take on sci-fi but the studio simply wouldn't allow it due to the expenses.
Can't believe I was giving too much credit with that summation.
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Eh, there was just too strong a 'fan project with a budget' feel for me.
Here's the death star, but ten times bigger! And with multi-lock on! It eats entire suns to recharge!
Like it was trying to 'top' the old movies without actually thinking up anything new and exciting. It just took old ground, turned it up to eleven, and expected that alone to be exciting.
And... to be frank, I wanted and expected a new Star Wars movie. Not a multi-million fan movie re-cut of the old ones with new, sillier names for everything, some newer effects, and characters we learn next to nothing about.
I mean, say what you want about the prequels, but they at least established the Trade Federation as short-sighted cutthroats in it for the profit right out of the gate. A stupid and destructive, but credible threat needing to be dealt with.
The New Whatever, the Empire remnants or whatever they actually are, left so little an impression on me that two hours later I can't even remember their name, let alone goals or ambitions. Not even the new Starkiller wannabe, or Snorez-something, the giant emperor rip-off wanted to actually stick with me.
Again, it was just... OK. No other movie in a long time has made me feel this lukewarm about it. Probably won't even go watch the next one, truth be told.
I thought it was a nice 8-8.5 which is disappointing something as massive as the Star Wars franchise both deserved and needed a 10. My brother and sister loved it, thought went all the way up to 11, so I'm glad I'm not the only one who thought it was alittle empty.
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Yeah... the super death star was a bit much.
"Should we make a death star?"
"No! We need to make a super death star! "
"What will it be able to do that a regular... much cheaper death star can't?"
....
....
"It can fire 6 beams at a planet... each containing enough power to destroy the planet!"
Yeah.... it was serious overkill and over the top.
3647009 So... those points are actually why I liked it. There was a second death star in the originals after all, and super weapons have always been the goto master plan for whatever big bad rears their ugly head in the old EU.
I guess I understand all your points, but I feel the opposite about them. I liked that they had some retarded super weapon, I liked that the villains had very little motivation other than 'I'm evil for the lulz'. After all, those were the things I liked about the original star wars, and in my opinion, this one delivered.
3647090 Bring in the Sun killer from the expanded universe. It makes the super death star look like an insecure teenager with daddy issues.
Just saw it today and...
I loved it.
Not that it was perfect or anything many of your points have merit, but it has the distinction of being 'not quite as good as any of the original trilogy but quite far above average for modern Sci Fi.'
It was very different in tone, more witty 'Joss Whedonesque' repartee, without many of the excellent slower moments from the original trilogy. But the characters are excellent, Harrison Ford gave his best performance in years, and It felt like it was less than an hour long (Despite being 2 hours.)
It is many fathoms better then J.J. Abrams Star Trek reboot.
Ok I'll grant you that was a little dumb, why not just use those resources and the time it must have taken to build 50 death stars? Because then it couldn't be destroyed by shooting the weak spot.
Got to disagree with you on that one, ordinary religion creeps me the hell out. But if devotion to a non theistic religion centered around suppressing negative emotions provably gave you the ability to see the future, survive dying (sort of,) and telekinesis? Sign me up. Besides, the original trilogy had very little destiny/accurate precog bullshit. It was very focused on freedom to choose the light or the dark. It wasn't until George Lucas apparently started mixing copious amounts of drugs and made the prequels that we suddenly had midichlorians and prophecies with perfect accuracy (and the weird 'jedi can't have sex' thing.)
While not the 'best' movie made this year (The Martian or Inside Out,) I think it was my favorite movie this year.
(...Fury Road, Ex Machina, Ant-man and Kingsmen were all great too of course.)
3648834 Originally, back when the Order was at full strength, around the Mandalorian Wars and the first Sith Empire war, all strong emotions were suppresed. Jedi were unallowed to love, hate, and generally feel strong emotions. This was in fear of any of them leading to the darker emotions. Revan, who fell to the Dark side and came back, arguably the most powerful Jedi ever, discovered how to strengthen the Force with emotions, but was largly ignored. Since most of the Order was killed off by the Mandalor and Sith wars, the relativly few, young Jedi were left to their own devices, though several old traditions, such as celibancy and forbiding of marriage endured. Should Luke find the ancient Jedi archives he was looking for, the Old guard's ideals would preserve. So yeah, no go on the Jedi for me. I'm with Dresden anyway; anger= passion or hate, not just hate.
3648900 ... but my point was just that none of that was in the original trilogy. I know that weirdness was eventually introduced into the expanded universe/prequels/video games/etc.
(Though if those plot points were in the expanded universe pre-prequels, then you have a point that my timeline of when they were introduced was off.)
3648966 Yeah, Revan prequal stuff. I wasn't saying that you were wrong about the original trilogy Jedi and the message there, just pointing out that according to the EU, the Jedi of the Clone Wars and and the Rebellion were far more flexible.
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For the record and this discussion, the entire Extended Universe was rendered non-cannon in time for this movie. Nash made a very good movie explaining both the extended universe itself, and why it got cut.
Caused a LOT of stink, but personally I get the desision. Trying to crowbar your story into thirty odd years of continuity and make it understandable to 'laymen' that barely remember the original movies as a few hours of fun would have been no easy task, so it's a move that made quite a lot of sense.
...Although I have to admit, Jar-Jar now being more 'real' then the entirety of the old republic time-line is rather painful to think about.
3649763 Yeah, I know. I heard, and chose to ignore it. The EU stuff is honestly better.