The Force Awakens: more coherent thoughts
I liked it a hell of a lot. I don't think I'm able to unconditionally love Star Wars movies any more, because I'm not seven, but this was pretty fucking awesome.
* I went into it almost unspoiled - I'd seen the very first teaser trailer, and I'd heard a news story I didn't avoid fast enough about how Mark Hamill wasn't in the marketing materials for a reason, but other than that nada - I hadn't even seen the trailer. I think this was a good choice. :)
* I felt it was really evident that George Lucas had very little input into this movie; it didn't have the same kind of visual imagination that previous movies had. And JJ's cinematography style is very different -- I don't have the words for it, not being in any way educated about cinema, but I think that different style was a large part of what stopped me from being absolutely immersed in TFA.
* It didn't really have much in the way of the worldbuilding that I love about Star Wars - but I adored all the post-Imperial wreckage, and the first scenes of Rey scavenging in the belly of the old Star Destroyer were fantastic.
* I think it did a lot better than the prequels in terms of nods to the OT - it had the advantage that it was 30 years after instead of before, so a lot of the recurring elements (the droids and the Falcon, for instance) felt a lot more natural instead of being jammed in.
* But I thought there were a few too many homages to ANH in terms of plot elements - well, I'm sure they were going for 'homage' not 'rip-off' but so many elements were recycled it felt very self-conscious. I think it would have been stronger if they'd let this movie tell its own story instead of trying to hit every beat from ANH.
* And I think it's a bit bleak in that it implies nothing ever really gets better - RotJ should have been a decisive victory and yet here comes the First Order 30 years later, just as well-resourced and oppressive as the Empire, and with a superweapon ten times larger to boot. That sort of "no your decisive victory didn't actually make anything better, welcome to decades of more of the same" feels very cynical (hello, modern politics) and out of place - it's not what I want from my Star Wars.
* Oh my god, Rey was amazing. So brave, so kind, and so fucking awesome. Good god. (I laughed my ass off at Rey's "stop grabbing my hand!". She's so, so not a damsel in distress.)
* Assuming she is, as implied, Luke Skywalker's daughter: the casting was brilliant. Rey is a perfect inheritor of Padmé's legacies, IMO. (And if she is Luke's daughter, her hug with Leia is especially poignant.) And it's an interesting parallel between Rey and Kylo - both the inheritors of Padmé's and Anakin's legacies.
* I thought Finn was ... interesting. His characterisation walked a fine line between badass and comedy schmuck and I'm not always sure it was on the right side of that line. But I did really like the progressive reveals about his character and background.
* Poe's sudden reappearance at the resistance base seemed odd; there hadn't been a single indication he could have survived that crash. And how on earth was he thrown free (far enough away that Finn saw no sign of him), yet left his jacket behind - without detaching either or both of his arms? I know it sounds like I'm nitpicking, but his reappearance was so out of the blue I found it jarring.
* FUCK YOU JJ. I get why the scene with [redacted] and [redacted] on the bridge had to happen. But still. NOPE NOPE NOPE NOPE NOPE.
* Yay Harriet Walter in a tiny cameo! (As the doctor treating Chewbacca.)
* Unsurprisingly, the bulk of fic in the AO3 tag is already General Hux/Kylo Ren hatesex. Oh fandom, why so predictable? (Where's all the good Rey fic, people? Come on!)
* I went into it almost unspoiled - I'd seen the very first teaser trailer, and I'd heard a news story I didn't avoid fast enough about how Mark Hamill wasn't in the marketing materials for a reason, but other than that nada - I hadn't even seen the trailer. I think this was a good choice. :)
* I felt it was really evident that George Lucas had very little input into this movie; it didn't have the same kind of visual imagination that previous movies had. And JJ's cinematography style is very different -- I don't have the words for it, not being in any way educated about cinema, but I think that different style was a large part of what stopped me from being absolutely immersed in TFA.
* It didn't really have much in the way of the worldbuilding that I love about Star Wars - but I adored all the post-Imperial wreckage, and the first scenes of Rey scavenging in the belly of the old Star Destroyer were fantastic.
* I think it did a lot better than the prequels in terms of nods to the OT - it had the advantage that it was 30 years after instead of before, so a lot of the recurring elements (the droids and the Falcon, for instance) felt a lot more natural instead of being jammed in.
* But I thought there were a few too many homages to ANH in terms of plot elements - well, I'm sure they were going for 'homage' not 'rip-off' but so many elements were recycled it felt very self-conscious. I think it would have been stronger if they'd let this movie tell its own story instead of trying to hit every beat from ANH.
* And I think it's a bit bleak in that it implies nothing ever really gets better - RotJ should have been a decisive victory and yet here comes the First Order 30 years later, just as well-resourced and oppressive as the Empire, and with a superweapon ten times larger to boot. That sort of "no your decisive victory didn't actually make anything better, welcome to decades of more of the same" feels very cynical (hello, modern politics) and out of place - it's not what I want from my Star Wars.
* Oh my god, Rey was amazing. So brave, so kind, and so fucking awesome. Good god. (I laughed my ass off at Rey's "stop grabbing my hand!". She's so, so not a damsel in distress.)
* Assuming she is, as implied, Luke Skywalker's daughter: the casting was brilliant. Rey is a perfect inheritor of Padmé's legacies, IMO. (And if she is Luke's daughter, her hug with Leia is especially poignant.) And it's an interesting parallel between Rey and Kylo - both the inheritors of Padmé's and Anakin's legacies.
* I thought Finn was ... interesting. His characterisation walked a fine line between badass and comedy schmuck and I'm not always sure it was on the right side of that line. But I did really like the progressive reveals about his character and background.
* Poe's sudden reappearance at the resistance base seemed odd; there hadn't been a single indication he could have survived that crash. And how on earth was he thrown free (far enough away that Finn saw no sign of him), yet left his jacket behind - without detaching either or both of his arms? I know it sounds like I'm nitpicking, but his reappearance was so out of the blue I found it jarring.
* FUCK YOU JJ. I get why the scene with [redacted] and [redacted] on the bridge had to happen. But still. NOPE NOPE NOPE NOPE NOPE.
* Yay Harriet Walter in a tiny cameo! (As the doctor treating Chewbacca.)
* Unsurprisingly, the bulk of fic in the AO3 tag is already General Hux/Kylo Ren hatesex. Oh fandom, why so predictable? (Where's all the good Rey fic, people? Come on!)