Star Wars: The Force Awakens

[astolat]

Happy Xmas Eve to anyone celebrating! I have a few minutes to post before the groceries arrive and the cooking begins, so here is my TFA review! No reaction until below the cut for anyone avoiding reaction spoilers.

Comments

[killabeez]

Though I don't call myself a Star Wars Fan, I do have all the childhood nostalgia, especially for the first one, and this movie tapped directly into that. Very much agree with your criticisms, and also that as I was watching the movie, I didn't care very much about any of them. Emotionally, I was completely engaged. (Great point, about the time they spent on showing Rey's day-to-day life. That really made the movie, and the character, in a big way.)

There were so many rewarding emotional moments for me (Chewie's reaction to Han's death about broke me), but none as powerful as the hug between Leia and Rey, for so many reasons. At that point, I just had the best kind of tears. I'm choking up just thinking about it! Also agree the 3D was pretty great, even though I usually hate 3D. We saw it in IMAX 3d, and it was totally worth it.

It's funny, I grew up with these movies, but it was actually Clone Wars that made me somewhat fannish about the universe. Is that something you could show to Hypatia? It is rated PG.

[astolat]

I have been debating trying her on Clone Wars and Rebels -- I've watched the first couple eps of Clone Wars and they were pretty non-stop action, which is not really her thing. Do you have some favorite eps to recommend?

And omg yes, Chewie's reaction to Han's death was heartbreaking and perfect. And also now that I think about it, a moment we so rarely get to see, actually -- movies so rarely dare to kill off a main protagonist and hero that you don't generally get to see the "sidekick" character have the reaction of anguish and despair.

[killabeez]

It's true, Clone Wars was a slow build for me. I remember one in season 3, I think it's the one called "Heroes on Both Sides." That one made an impression on me. And of course, I loved the Obi-Wan death fakeout in S4. I think the episode where I started to get really hooked was called "Nightsisters" (S3) and in S4, the Darth Maul storyline (toward the end of S4). The end of S5 is powerful, too.

[in_the_bottle]

This! All of this! I literally just came home from watching it and ALL OF THIS!

Also, I can't take Ren seriously at all. He looked like one of the guys in one of the many SW fan films I saw who played a spoof version of Anakin including the hair so every time I see his face on screen I want to laugh. His outbursts were definitely juvenile in the extreme IMO. I was thinking "hissy fit much??" at the whole 'destroying all the consoles!' bits.

[xparrot]

Mostly agree - the biggest thing being I LIKED THE CHARACTERS, which should be expected except after the prequels, it was just so, so delightful to have these adorable young heroes who I care about and want to see more with.

I admit, I loved Kylo Ren myself, because he's a try-hard Vader wannabe. He's not what I expected in a villain at all, I think the one scene in the entire movie that genuinely surprised me was when he took off his helmet, because you're braced for something badass and threatening and then you get this homely kid (and despite the hair I don't think they were trying to make him shippable? The actor is substantially more attractive than how they made up his character to be.)

And I'm really hoping that Rey will have had Jedi training as a young child, because that would make her latent abilities make sense to me. Though in all honesty I didn't mind them much, because Rey was so completely the Jedi smuggler pilot my ten-year-old self fantasized about being...

[fansee]

You hit almost every one of my pro and cons; now I don't have to write a review. Yay!

[amberdreams]

I had to wait until I'd seen the film to read your review and now I've finally got to watch, I find I agree with a lot of what you say here - apart from I was left feeling 'I've seen this all before', rather than 'woo hoo! A lovely feast