Star Wars: The Force Awakens

[major_clanger]

Saw this last night in one of the Gold Screens at the local Vue, i.e. the cinema-within-a-cinema with fewer but bigger and comfier seats, a bar, and no under-18s. Despite the corespondingly higher ticket costs, the 9.15pm showing on the second day after opening was three-quarters booked by the time I logged on to buy tickets back the day they

Comments

[history_monk]

... climax centres on the destruction by heroic fighter pilots of a planet-destroying super-weapon

Maybe it's the defining trope of this sub-genre?

Classic cyberpunk had a problem with a reoccurring necessity to concoct reasons why the climax of a story required a physical assault along with a cyberattack. It was the defining scene of Neuromancer, and other writers kept trying to recapture that moment.

Spoilery discussion

[timscience]

I think the whole "Who is Rey" thing is going to be a massive part of the next two films. And yes, I think there's misdirection - there are a whole bunch of hints that she's Han's daughter as well (natural piloting abilities, Han is like "The father she never had" etc) but apparently not. I'd take the bet on her not being Luke's daughter either.

Also, a couple of things that I noticed - firstly, the entirety of the First Order (excepting Snoke who we only know as a hologram after all) are stupidly young. Even the general is just a kid. I think it's a Ken McLeod novel that characterises a group made up of the very old and the very young as the demographic of utter defeat. And the mighty rebel alliance/resistance seems to be reduced to a fighter squadron operating out of a shed. Clearly a generation of war has taken its toll.

Secondly, I really enjoyed the characterisation of Kylo Ren. After all, the Dark Side is powered by rage, and who is angrier than a stroppy teenager?

[davidwake]

Just seen it, so finally I can return to the internet.

I don't recall the hanging a lampshade bit.

They could have simply had a First Order base rather than yet another Death Star, and a bigger one... by the third film of this trilogy it'll be a Death Hole...

Hang on, Death Star the size of a small moon, so Death Marble the size of a black hole.