first off I enjoyed this movie. It was definitely a redemption of the franchise after the prequel films. The 3 big highlights:
-Rey being the one with the Force vice Finn. yes, we all kind of guessed she would have a connection to Han/Leia or Luke but I applaud Abrams for having the trailers focus the lightsaber aspect on Finn vice Rey so we could have that nice twist.
- Fun and humor. at times maybe a bit too much slapstick given the overall plot but it was better to see too much than to start this trilogy off with the depressing mood the prequels brought.
- Finn and Rey's connection. A nice middle ground here between what Luke and Leia started at with and Han and Leia eventually had in their time as its far more immediate and, I'd say, a bit more heartfelt despite its quickness. We didn't need to see them step around each other but at the same time it didn't devolve into a love story (a huge problem for the prequels).
- the crossguard lightsaber....sorry, I loved it, including the true use of the hilt blades which make so much sense when seen in action and visually indicate that desire to win, to prevail, to overcome his opponent that Kylo is trying to master.
It suffered though, in my opinion, in 3 big ways:
- too many characters. Captain Plasma could have, should have, been awesome and I'm really hoping she has a comeback in the next film just as Kylo will be coming back with a vengeance. Poe as well suffers because of this, but really because of his near identical take to Han. It will be interesting to see how he grows in the next film and particularly his friendship with Finn. His actions and overall use to the Resistance felt a lot more like Kyle Katarn so it'd be nice to see him go down a similar path.
- too much re-used from A New Hope. this seems to be Abrams great weakness in getting to helm this and the last two Star Treks...he's too concerned with past homage to go the proper next step. The biggest piece for this film being the Starkiller, which is just an absurd idea. But more than that is the idea that the Republic....WHICH HAS A FREAKIN FLEET....would be doing nothing against the First Order and let some ragtag resistance team do all their fighting for them. This is where the new films needed to take more from the EU stories and mold them into a new trilogy. This film had the perfect opportunity to use Thrawn or, at least, the idea of a Confederation that looks to impose order out of the chaos that the Empire's collapse left. That's what was missing here, the whole 30 years of what one would correctly assume would be a chaotic time as thousands of systems fought each other for power and control of what the Empire no longer had, as well as old Empire remnants. Had they used a concept like the Confederation and set up the premise that it was the Republic vs the Confederation it would have been a great deal more plausible to why the Starkiller was built as a means to break the stalemate of each side, giving this film more of a Cold War feel and leading into the next film that each side would be strategically weakened....the Republic for having lost a Fleet and the Confederation for losing their big gun.
- Kylo/Ben's age? how old exactly is Kylo if he was the one that slaughtered everyone? it stands to reason that Rey would have been left on Jakku after the massacre but as that was probably about 20 years ago are we really looking at a 10-15 year old taking out all of Luke's apprentices? Even with help? That seems extremely far-fetched and more likely he gave up the location of the training site to Snoke who then led the massacre....possibly how he got his scars deformity in trying to take down Luke during the battle.
Very minor thoughts/issues:
- wish they had had Luke "calling" to Rey throughout the film, being this slight whisper of a voice that would tell her to run, alert her to danger, speak the means to her of force persuading the guard, encouraging her when Kylo had her at the edge of the cliff. That would have been great callbacks to A New Hope to hear a disembodied "the force can have a strong influence on the weak minded" and "a Jedi feels the Force flowing through him/her".
- I feel like the end shouldn't have been Rey and Luke meeting given the point of just how far Luke had traveled being central to the movie. Like some of the adventures to the Unknown Regions in the EU books, it should have taken weeks or months for the Millenium Falcon to get there and instead of meeting face to face it could have ended with a conversation through the Force similar to how Luke and Vader spoke to each other at the end of The Empire Strikes Back. Think this would have been a lot more meaningful, particularly if Luke actually made some statement along the lines of waiting for Rey or being excited for her arrival, rather than starring at her with concern like he did.
Overall:
A good start to the new trilogy and I'm interested in how things will develop with these characters. Really hoping for a timeline gap like New Hope and Empire Strikes Back did so that we can come into the Luke/Rey scenes with Rey already possessing skill and training as a Jedi rather than going from scratch like they did with Luke and Yoda. The gap would also allow Finn and Poe to establish their partnership in support of the Resistance and we can see where each of them ends up at in the overall rank structure. With luck we'll see more of Poe out of the cockpit and taking a frontline approach to the fight, again similar to a Kyle Katarn-style character than a straight pilot. My only lingering concern is where they take the First Order from here as we got so much of a copy of A New Hope that with luck we won't get something copying Empire Strikes Back to the same degree. It would seem far more effective to open up the war between the Republic and First Order to the point of battles equaling what we got from the Clone War series and Episode III. That way the shift of the second act isn't in the Resistance being hunted like the Rebels were at Hoth, but the true power and might of the First Order being unleashed galaxy-wide. As all that chaos looms the Resistance can then be a focused, special forces style aspect of the overall war effort with their direct counterparts being the Knights of Ren, who take center stage in leading the war effort much like the Jedi did during the Clone Wars.
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