STAR WARS: THE FORCE AWAKENS - Blu-Ray Thoughts

[Paul MacLean]

What are these people listening to? It's like they are struggling to convince themselves of the quality of the score. Or saying the music is better because the movie is better -- two people claimed that also!

That's kind of sad. Of course that is a message board where scores like Skyfall, Dawn of the Planet of the Apes and Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows are venerated as masterpieces!

[AndyDursin]

Great insight Paul.

The lack of a romantic element, a love story, I thought was unsurprising. I also wonder if there's any room for that in a Disney STAR WARS. The only thing is that in mimicing STAR WARS (1977), that movie really didn't have one either -- it was EMPIRE that did, so we'll see if there is a love story in the second film. I agree also that it's curious if they'll go down that road out of fear that Rey would be viewed by feminists as being "weaker" for wanting male companionship (lol) -- this is Disney, the "Girl Power" factory after all. Will be interesting to see but I think that point you nailed.

The aspect of The Force's "rules" being altered from the original conception of a simple farmboy becoming a Jedi Master started with Lucas seemingly. Because in making him the son of a Jedi, it's as if his powers are inherent and passed down. That's the case here too, because Rey has them without knowing she does. We don't know precisely who she is, but clearly she's "someone". If they follow that, then the message about who is and can be a Jedi itself is based on who you are, not what you do...and it's not as powerful a message.

I liked PHANTOM MENACE roughly as much as this movie and liked REVENGE OF THE SITH more on balance also...but I did find it very entertaining, like a "Greatest Hits" package as I wrote in my review. It's enough to carry them for one film, but they can't possibly (can they?) rehash and recycle for the next picture.

This is why people who go nutty for Abrams seem to be missing the point. He doesn't have a vision, he recycles and reworks other people's material and franchises. Clearly his sensibilities were more in tune with Lucas than Roddenberry, but this movie doesn't do anything that wasn't covered in the original trilogy (and specifically STAR WARS itself), it's true. But he did a good job for the "safe" movie Disney wanted to resurrect the franchise. Now we'll see if the likes of Riann Johnson can do one better (not so sure about that...)

That's kind of sad. Of course that is a message board where scores like Skyfall, Dawn of the Planet of the Apes and Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows are venerated as masterpieces!

For me the best (or is it the worst) comment is the fellow who suggested PHANTOM MENACE had too many themes and "took him out of the narrative".

[Eric W.]

What are these people listening to? It's like they are struggling to convince themselves of the quality of the score. Or saying the music is better because the movie is better -- two people claimed that also!

That's kind of sad. Of course that is a message board where scores like Skyfall, Dawn of the Planet of the Apes and Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows are venerated as masterpieces!

[Paul MacLean]

I do wish I had seen this film opening night, or at least with an audience of more hard-core SW fans watching it for the first time. There were a number applause-worthy moments -- when we first see the Millennium Falcon, Han and Chewie's first appearance, the droids' appearance -- which probably would have generated "electricity" with a crowd of fans. The audience I saw it with was pretty sedate.

I was also seated next to a guy who had brought his 5-year-old, and the kid would occasionally make comments like "That's a good guy ship" (in reference to a Star Destroyer) and "What is he doing?" and (my favorite) "This is the scariest movie I ever saw in my damn life!"

[Eric Paddon]

So just to satisfy my curiosity, did someone get to utter the all-too familiar line, "I've got a bad feeling about this."?

[AndyDursin]

I do wish I had seen this film opening night, or at least with an audience of more hard-core SW fans watching it for the first time. There were a number applause-worthy moments -- when we first see the Millennium Falcon, Han and Chewie's first appearance, the droids' appearance -- which probably would have generated "electricity" with a crowd of fans. The audience I saw it with was pretty sedate.

That's something we did have going Friday night at 10:30. People cheered when it started, went nuts when Han Solo showed up, and applauded profusely at the end. Definitely did add to the experience.

[AndyDursin]

This is kind of cool...

http://variety.com/2015/film/news/star- ... 201666121/

[AndyDursin]

For anyone who thought it was just the goodness of JJ Abrams' intentions that brought Harrison Ford back....lol

http://fortune.com/2015/12/21/harrison- ... -wars-pay/

Walt Disney is paying a lot of money to get Harrison Ford to return to a galaxy far, far away.

That’s the takeaway from a Guardian piece that claims Ford could make up to $34 million for reprising his role as Han Solo in Star Wars: The Force Awakens. The salary includes a $25 million upfront with a slim share of the film’s gross earnings.

Notably, Ford is getting paid 56 times the $450,000 flat fee received by British newcomers John Boyega and Daisy Ridley—who each play new leading characters in the film. His salary is also far above the $1.5 million reportedly paid to Carrie Fisher to return to the franchise. “Harrison is the key to making this movie work,” a Disney source told the Daily Mail.

[AndyDursin]

OK anyone else get a flashback to THIS at the end?

[Paul MacLean]

^^ I never thought of that!

[Edmund Kattak]

Well, I just got back from a late afternoon showing. I have to hand it to JJ. He did what I didn't think was possible - beat the box office pants out of a MEDIOCRE movie with his own MEDIOCRE movie in the same year! I will wait forhe Blu-Ray now for repeated viewing instead of paying another $14 for a non-3D show. Man, what a magic trick. There are moments that I liked, moments of nostalgia, and cringing moments of WTF?

Just some things that annoyed me - minimal spoiler related until DavidBanner reports in. Curious to read his perspective. All in all, It's a winner for Disney, Abrams, Fans, Lucasfilm, but a HUGE loser for those of us who value logical linear progression in a screenplay.

-The opening shot of the "New Order" version of a star destroyer was dark and difficult to appreciate. The way we are also re-introduced to the SW universe is awkward, underwhelming, and kind of claustrophobic. The first shot of any life is a bunch of stormtroopers in a confined space? Nothing better than that JJ?
- Instead of Evil British male bureaucrats we now have the PC world making sure that we have Evil British male and female bureaucrats
- I like Adam Driver the actor, but the script seemed to have him all of the place. That was the poorest attempt at a confused and misguided character. Maybe there's more on the cutting room floor. I wasn't buying his key moment with Harrison Ford either.
- Hamill looked constipated. Could they not have done better with him?
- Lazy coincidences substituting for plot devices (Luke's lightsaber, Millenium Falcom-outta-nowhere, Han and Chewie on a freighter? After all of the history in the original trilogy and prequels, this is Han, Leia, and Chewie's legacy? There's not enough convincing exposition to convince me that this is the course that these characters take.
- Max Von Sydow: What a waste of a good actor. Interesting banter between Ren and him, but who was Von Sydow ultimately? Do we get to even know in the next movie?
- This seemed like "focus group" STAR WARS. It was all of the elements of what made the first trilogy successful, coupled with modern PC awareness and sensibilities. Not an original vision (as was stated earlier) by Abrams. He's good with a franchise de-fibrilator, but not very good at creating and nurturing an original vision.
- Ridley and Boyega were terrific
- The R2D2 plot-line was lame
- Elements of this movie reminded me too much of Abrams STAR TREK movies. Re-hashed iconicism to trigger a, "Oh that's so cool" reaction instead of emphasizing any dramatic gravitas. It came close with Ford's nearly reflective scenes with Fisher. I wonder if Kasdan wrote those parts.
- Snoke was a dumb idea of a "Supreme Leader" and poorly realized on the screen. His portrayal onscreen was nither menacing nor suggestive of any great foreboding power.
- Rey's knowledge of a lightsaber, her way around the falcon. It seemed too convenient. I guess we'll have to wait for the second movie to find out what all that's about. I don't mind at all that's there's a strong female lead, but as with all humans, we are in a state of growth and learning. She seemed to know way too much about a lot of things for someone that young; a "scavenger." I wasn't buying her Falcon flying skills, as well as the command of the light saber against Ren. She may well have the power the the force, but it's the training and skills that make it integral in being able to go up against someone (Ren) with supposedly greater skills and command of the force.

I'm sure more will come to me later. I'm glad I got that off my chest.

[Edmund Kattak]

[DavidBanner]

Just came back from the DGA screening tonight.

MANY SPOILERS BELOW:










I'll first say that I was pleasantly surprised here. I expected a potentially incoherent mess and had a nicer time of it than that. I agree with Andy that this was a nicely packaged "Greatest Hits of Star Wars and Empire" experience, and the lived-in, on-film feeling of the whole thing was great. The acting here was frankly better than in any of the prequels, with the exception of Carrie Fisher, who looked and sounded terrible. I agree with Andy that her scenes were clearly ones that had to be helped with editing to keep them from coming across any worse. The young cast of the movie, who are really the stars here, are uniformly strong. John Boyega in particular pulled off a dramatic switch early on that could have sunk the entire film had it not worked. (Why is this stormtrooper switching sides? Boyega makes you buy it.) Ridley was also quite good.

To me the movie is better overall than Jedi but not as good as Sith. I agree with Andy that it's probably at the level of Phantom Menace. The wild reaction the movie is currently getting can be explained by a call back to the Eddie Murphy dramatic monologue "Raw", wherein he describes how a starving person will just love a Ritz cracker if someone gives it to them. The Star Wars fans falling all over themselves about this movie sound like the Ritz cracker eater in Murphy's routine. Not that I fault them for that - it's just the fervency that makes it amusing...

There's a lot to unpack here, and I'm still trying to wrap my head around it, but there are whole sections of this movie that don't quite make sense. The overall plot depends on a series of events we haven't seen, which don't completely line up with where we left things at the end of Jedi - presumably some of this will be explained in Episode VIII.

I'll also say that I have a feeling that Kathleen Kennedy, Abrams and Kasdan must have laid out a basic battle plan for the entire new trilogy before they started the script for this one. Doesn't mean they pre-wrote the scripts - just the beat sheets. The arcs of Rey, Finn, Po and Kylo Ren feel to me like they've already been thought through - which is not a bad thing. It's likely better for Rian Johnson if they've given him a solid structure from which to work. I realize that Kasdan and Abrams are saying different things publicly, but I believe they're referring to actual scripts with dialogue - Abrams just read Johnson's script and nobody has touched the script for IX yet. That doesn't preclude them from having pre-built the plots, in the same way Lucas did with his movies.

There have been massive hints dropped about the true identity of Rey, and Andy pointed out one of the most interesting ones. When Rey faces off against Ren, and she's just seen Han thrown in the trash compactor and believes Finn to be dead, we hear a complete reprise of "Burning Homestead" in the music, down to the notes of resolve at its climax. Interesting choice. When Rey gets in the Millenium Falcon, a ship she's never dealt with before (other than to know it's garbage), she immediately instinctively knows how to fly it as well as Han Solo, and also understands how its parts work immediately. When Rey is challenged with Ren's force powers, she instinctively protects herself and begins to figure out how to call on the force to help herself. So she's a natural - so strong in the force that she can immediately fight off Ren with a lightsaber she's never used before. Where have we seen abilities this strong before? Whose bloodlines might these be? Oh, and there's also the icing on the cake from the preview - Luke's voice talking about this very situation. Hmmmmm. The end of the movie seems to set up what should be a very happy little chat, eh?

The dumping of Solo is sad, but inevitable. It's driven partly by the outside economic issue - Ford wasn't about to do a whole new trilogy of these movies, and they gave him an offer like the one given to Nimoy for Star Trek II. Why wouldn't Ford say yes to this? He gets paid a LOT of money and gets a cool death scene. Everything he wanted from Lucas - what's not to like? But there's another piece here - just in terms of story, Solo really isn't needed anymore. He has, as Ford pointed out, fulfilled his story function. The new characters are the ones driving things and he was frankly extraneous. It was nice to see him back in action one more time, but I can't think of anything more his character could do - killing him at least provides some motivation for Rey and Finn in the coming movies. (And frankly, Leia no longer has much purpose other than to be the crusty-but-benign boss character. She's essentially going to be the General Dodonna of the remaining movies unless her performances force them to sideline her further.) It will be interesting to see what happens with Hamill in the new movie. If he pulls it off, we could be seeing him as the new Obi-Wan for both movies - or he could wind up as a Jedi spirit very quickly. I'm frankly wondering if Yoda makes an appearance in VIII or IX as a spirit - would be interesting. Abrams is saying they did mix in Yoda and Obi-Wan voices into Rey's flashback moment. I appreciate that they showed Chewie getting hit by laserfire. That was a good touch.

BTW - I also have to agree that the score is pretty forgettable. There are moments of reference to the earlier films that are welcome, but most of it is just flaring action beats without an overarching melody to tie things together. It frankly sounded more like much of the prequel scores to me, without any of the big soaring pieces like "Duel of the Fates" to really shine. I also noted in the end credits that Williams was assisted both in the orchestrations and in conducting - even to the point of bringing in the conductor of the LA Philharmonic to handle the Main and End Titles. The Wikipedia page notes that William Ross conducted the initial sessions and that Williams conducted the rest - other than Dudamel's session. I have a feeling that Andy is probably right - this is probably Williams' last work for Star Wars. They'll turn to another composer to apply Williams' themes for the next movies, I'm sure.

I also have to agree that the basic plotting and settings of this movie are a complete replay of Star Wars, with a bit of the environs of Empire and Jedi jumping in here and there. The cantina scene in particular felt forced to me, complete with a side band in the corner. (The cantina scene actually fell flat for me - I didn't feel anything of the interest I had in the original Star Wars scene or even in the stuff in Jabba's palace in Jedi - this just felt like a rote repeat.) Where things got interesting here was the journey of Finn from stormtrooper to reluctant hero, and the awakening of Rey to the powers she clearly has. Interesting that both characters run from their situations - similar to Luke's reluctance to join Star Wars til they kill his aunt and uncle.

And now we get to the places where the wheels came off the wagon. Let's try to timeline this, shall we? So, 30 years ago, Luke and the Rebellion destroyed the Emperor and Vader and ended the war. The Rebellion effectively became the New Republic and freedom was restored to the galaxy. Somewhere during that time, Han and Leia have a lovely son named Ben who apparently has some "issues", like really being susceptible to the something something something Dark Side. And at this time, Luke tries to set up a new Jedi Temple, with himself as Big Jedi or something like that, recruiting a bunch of folks to be Jedi and work with the force. 15 years or so go by, we must presume. And around that time, young Ben Solo-Organa joins the Jedi Temple and decides it would be a good idea to wipe everyone out. Luke's response is to, well, disappear. Okay. At around the same time, a young, shall we say 5 year old, Rey is left by her parents on the desert planet of Jakku, and is forced to live as a scavenger, trading stolen vehicle parts for food. She seems to scavenge and live in the ruins of Imperial machines that were left behind on Jakku, including Star Destroyers and AT-ATs. (How the heck she learned to do this at 5 is a good puzzle, but let's not go there yet...) With Luke's sudden abdication, we now hear that the First Order, a group modeled from the Empire is trying to take control again. The New Republic fights back, but their group is called The Resistance - kind of odd, since the First Order would now be the rebellion, but I digress... Another 15 years or so go by, at the end of which the Republic is almost beaten, Luke is nowhere to be found and the galaxy is in a far greater mess than it was in under Palpatine. Oh, and there's the matter that Han Solo has gone back to being a scoundrel and smuggler - apparently with some success, since he's lost the Falcon and now is operating a much larger vessel with Chewie. (Let's not ask where he got the money for his new fortress) (And let's not ask where the new First Order came up with all this snazzy new equipment, recruits and even their humongous solar system killer.)

And then there's the matter of this new improved Death Star, Starkiller Base. Lemme see - they've carved into a complete PLANET and turned the whole thing into some kind of huge laser weapon that sucks energy from stars and then blasts it to other star systems. Even in a fantasy world, how the heck can they pull that off? Do they kill a star, and then move the planet to another star system? How the heck do they do that? It's a great idea for scale but makes no sense at all on a practical level. And of course there's the matter of this Map to the Lukes, er Stars. How the heck does that work, and where did it come from? Luke sure wasn't leaving a trail for anyone to follow, so how does anyone have this item? Obviously, Artoo has it in his memory banks, but how does anyone else have it, and why do they need this other piece from Max von Sydow?

As Andy noted above, tug on these threads, and the whole sweater comes apart very quickly.

All that said, the movie itself is at least entertaining, and it looks and feels a lot like the earlier movies from the 70s and 80s. The mad rush to complete the movie doesn't show in the production as I had feared but instead is reflected in the poorly constructed script. And that's where the real problem lies in the coming movies - if all the movies are being rushed like this (and they want these movies pounded out like sausages in the next few years), I don't know that the next ones will look or feel like this. If they do, great. But I'd be prepared for a quick drop - unless they've got some great idea for the next big movie that will send the fans reeling. Based on the track record, I'd say that this is not likely. The interim movies they've planned really don't feel like anything more than quick cash grabs in between the bigger saga movies. Although the Kasdan Solo movie might, just might, have a chance. Unless it comes out like Dreamcatcher...

[AndyDursin]

David, we have had many passionate discussions but I think of all the conversations, we agree the most on this subject of any. Great post! I put this movie as you did: right on the same level as PHANTOM MENACE, a notch below REVENGE OF THE SITH, which is why I have run into so many people screaming at me "but the prequels suck!!!" Really, they don't, and I think a good amount of us here agree with that sentiment. My real main disappointment with the prequels lied with ATTACK OF THE CLONES which was a really problematic and poorly executed film across many levels.

I would write more but we have to jet off to Boston for a party at my wife's grandmother's...will come back and get back into it soon. I will leave you though with this: several days ago my wife became CONVINCED we will see Yoda in the next installment. So you are not alone in that feeling!

[Monterey Jack]

I would write more but we have to jet off to Boston for a party at my wife's grandmother's...will come back and get back into it soon. I will leave you though with this: several days ago my wife became CONVINCED we will see Yoda in the next installment. So you are not alone in that feeling!

Either via flashback or as a Force Ghost, Yoda is too popular a Star Wars character to never see again.