Star Wars: The Force Awakens

[Mitch Gross]

Guys, I think you're seriously overreading my comments about Rey & Leia. Leia was indeed a very strong character, one could say a revisionist take on the "helpless princess" from the Women's Movement of the 70s. The fact that the boys immediately botch their rescue of her and she has to take control to get them out of the situation speaks volumes. Leia is a strong, resourceful woman. Some 30-40 years later, her image in pop culture -- the immediate, flippant, reductive image as opposed to a more deeply considered one -- is of her in that metal bikini. Do a Google search and see. Check out the costumes at ComiCon and see. In the minds of many, Leia has been reduced to that damn bikini. And don't forget when Luke first sees her hologram he exclaims "She's beautiful," and then when he first steps into the prison cell he's taken aback by the image of her lounging on a metal slab. Even from the start Leia is the object of the Male Gaze.

I believe that J.J. Abrams and Lawrence Kasdan (as well as Daisy Ridley and others ivolved) were very aware of this and wanted to make Rey a strong and independent character, not a sexualized object for the male gaze. She is attractive, but then again so is everyone else in the movie (and in most movies). I did like the touch when Finn kept trying to "rescue" her when he first meets her, and she totally takes care of herself. From fighting off thieves to repeatedly telling Finn to let go of her hand. And then she pilots them out of danger.

No, Rey is not the end-all, be-all photo-feminist character for the ages. Yes, Leia was a strong and powerful character who took matters into her own hands and was a leader who made changes happen. ALL I was trying to say, and I stress again that this is the ONLY thing I was really trying to say, is that it is nice to see that Rey is presented first and foremost as a strong character who appears to be gifted in some way as to eventually be the key to that universe's redemption. In Ancorman terms, she's kinda a big deal. I like Rey and I'm glad they made an effort to make her strong without sexualizing her. That's all.

 

[homestar_kevin]

Entirely agreed. Rey wasn't all that impressive until the (ridiculous) light saber duel. Sure, a mechanical prodigy like her grandfather, a skilled natural pilot like her grandfather and father, but also defeatist and whiny like both of them.

You're both forgetting that we see Rey's Melee fighting capabilities as soon as she's introduced to Finn, where she fights off two men and chases down Finn in the market on Jakkhu.

Not a lightsaber, but it is clearly displayed that she has fighting capabilities.

Once you put that with her 'force awakening' it didn't seem like as far of a stretch as you seem to make it.

For me it's more believable than Finn's getting a lightsaber hit on an injured Ren, when he had trouble taking down a stormtrooper with an oversized taser.


I also didn't find Rey whiny or defeatist so much as Finn was. Maybe it's about both of them finding the will to go on for each other. I don't really know, but I'm very excited for Rian Johnson's EP VIII and for more of this universe with these new players

 

[combatentropy]

spoiler alert

I avoided spoilers as best I could. I skipped over headlines that even mentioned "Star Wars." I stayed out of this thread. Towards the end, I lowered my time on the Internet in general.

The night before I saw it, my wife and her brothers invited me to play an online multiplayer game called Town of Salem. When a player dies, the game shows you the character's will --- a page that you can write anything you want in as long as you're still alive. It's mainly meant to let you leave behind clues or perhaps misleading information for the other side. We played together for three games, and then my wife and her brothers quit. I decided to play one more time, with just random players on the Internet. Early into it, a player dies, his will opens, and all it says is: "Han Solo dies."

I shut my laptop. The next day I literally had to let myself go through a grieving process before I saw the movie, to work through a loss I felt that seems silly but was nevertheless real. Don't laugh! I was born around the time A New Hope came out. The original trilogy was in my top favorite films. My favorite actor is Harrison Ford.

I was wondering if y'all could tell me how you felt when you saw it happen, so that maybe I can know it vicariously through you and try to guess how I would have felt if I were surprised. It still hit me emotionally, but it's hard to separate those emotions from the sadness I have in having that surprise taken away from me.

Did it hit you emotionally, or did it fall flat? Was it a surprise, or did you see it coming?

 

[bgundu]

spoiler alert

I avoided spoilers as best I could. I skipped over headlines that even mentioned "Star Wars." I stayed out of this thread. Towards the end, I lowered my time on the Internet in general.

The night before I saw it, my wife and her brothers invited me to play an online multiplayer game called Town of Salem. When a player dies, the game shows you the character's will --- a page that you can write anything you want in as long as you're still alive. It's mainly meant to let you leave behind clues or perhaps misleading information for the other side. We played together for three games, and then my wife and her brothers quit. I decided to play one more time, with just random players on the Internet. Early into it, a player dies, his will opens, and all it says is: "Han Solo dies."

I shut my laptop. The next day I literally had to let myself go through a grieving process before I saw the movie, to work through a loss I felt that seems silly but was nevertheless real. Don't laugh! I was born around the time A New Hope came out. The original trilogy was in my top favorite films. My favorite actor is Harrison Ford.

I was wondering if y'all could tell me how you felt when you saw it happen, so that maybe I can know it vicariously through you and try to guess how I would have felt if I were surprised. It still hit me emotionally, but it's hard to separate those emotions from the sadness I have in having that surprise taken away from me.

Did it hit you emotionally, or did it fall flat? Was it a surprise, or did you see it coming?

Biggest let down of the film was Hans death. It pales in comparison to even the carbonite scene in Empire for emotion.

 

[yoclay]

This is a film that the critics are giving 4 out of 5 stars in France, and is so hopelessly predictable, with so much bad exposition throughout the entire film, that I almost fell asleep in the cinema.What's more fun than characters explaining to each other what they already know so that the public stays up to speed through an entire film?

I loved it too when Ren takes off his mask and reveals...Adam Driver. Half the cinema began to laugh. (Really) And I love Adam Driver. Which wasn't helped by his James Dean/Rebel Without a Cause line "Your tearing me apart!". How about that startling divide which opens up between Ren and Rey? How totally shocking and unexpected - gee guess we'll have to have a sequel. Or poor Finn. Sorry folks but he just couldn't seem to get it together, as he is turned into a silly Sambo sidekick. Not exactly an act of estime if we are going to cross the racial divide of traditional cinema. He should have been given a much more force-ful character. Once again it's only the beautiful young white folks who get left standing.

Disney. Pure Disney ersatz.
Of course what do they care? They are laughing all the way to the intergalactic bank.

 

[David Jimerson]

spoiler alert

I avoided spoilers as best I could. I skipped over headlines that even mentioned "Star Wars." I stayed out of this thread. Towards the end, I lowered my time on the Internet in general.

The night before I saw it, my wife and her brothers invited me to play an online multiplayer game called Town of Salem. When a player dies, the game shows you the character's will --- a page that you can write anything you want in as long as you're still alive. It's mainly meant to let you leave behind clues or perhaps misleading information for the other side. We played together for three games, and then my wife and her brothers quit. I decided to play one more time, with just random players on the Internet. Early into it, a player dies, his will opens, and all it says is: "Han Solo dies."

I shut my laptop. The next day I literally had to let myself go through a grieving process before I saw the movie, to work through a loss I felt that seems silly but was nevertheless real. Don't laugh! I was born around the time A New Hope came out. The original trilogy was in my top favorite films. My favorite actor is Harrison Ford.

I was wondering if y'all could tell me how you felt when you saw it happen, so that maybe I can know it vicariously through you and try to guess how I would have felt if I were surprised. It still hit me emotionally, but it's hard to separate those emotions from the sadness I have in having that surprise taken away from me.

Did it hit you emotionally, or did it fall flat? Was it a surprise, or did you see it coming?

Well, any time two characters are on a catwalk together in Star Wars, one of them always goes over.

 

[Mitch Gross]

This is a film that the critics are giving 4 out of 5 stars in France, and is so hopelessly predictable, with so much bad exposition throughout the entire film, that I almost fell asleep in the cinema.What's more fun than characters explaining to each other what they already know so that the public stays up to speed through an entire film?

I loved it too when Ren takes off his mask and reveals...Adam Driver. Half the cinema began to laugh. (Really) And I love Adam Driver. Which wasn't helped by his James Dean/Rebel Without a Cause line "Your tearing me apart!". How about that startling divide which opens up between Ren and Rey? How totally shocking and unexpected - gee guess we'll have to have a sequel. Or poor Finn. Sorry folks but he just couldn't seem to get it together, as he is turned into a silly Sambo sidekick. Not exactly an act of estime if we are going to cross the racial divide of traditional cinema. He should have been given a much more force-ful character. Once again it's only the beautiful young white folks who get left standing.

Disney. Pure Disney ersatz.
Of course what do they care? They are laughing all the way to the intergalactic bank.

I can understand all of your criticisms except the part about Finn being a "Sambo". His motivations and other aspects of his character could have been made more clear, but he certainly was a driving force in the story and acted throughout. He was only stopped very near the end when injured in a fight -- a fight he was clearly outmatched in and he knew that going into it. Doesn't seem particularly sidekick to me.

 

[Barry_Green]

Some 30-40 years later, her image in pop culture -- the immediate, flippant, reductive image as opposed to a more deeply considered one -- is of her in that metal bikini. Do a Google search and see. Check out the costumes at ComiCon and see. In the minds of many, Leia has been reduced to that damn bikini.

Is it fair to blame the character for what the audience does to her? In the first film, Lucas actually strapped her breasts down to keep them from being a distraction because he didn't want her to be seen as a sex object. If, by the third film, Kasdan and Abrams put Rey in a comparable bikini, will that be what we remember her for 40 years from now?

I believe that J.J. Abrams and Lawrence Kasdan (as well as Daisy Ridley and others ivolved) were very aware of this and wanted to make Rey a strong and independent character, not a sexualized object for the male gaze.

Yet it's Kasdan that put Leia in the bikini in the first place! (well, to be fair, I don't know that for a fact, but it makes for a good line here and as the writer he certainly could have been who came up with the idea). Lucas specifically tried to de-sexualize Leia, but when he turned the reins over to other writers/directors, well, we got what we got. And yes, you're right, that outfit has certainly been the way she's been most represented. It's a serious disservice to one of the original legitimate female badasses of all time.

I did like the touch when Finn kept trying to "rescue" her when he first meets her, and she totally takes care of herself. From fighting off thieves to repeatedly telling Finn to let go of her hand.

Yes, this is a good point. Even if I don't agree that she really did anything heroic or take any active steps towards embarking on a hero's journey, she absolutely displayed utter and complete independence and internal strength, and that definitely gives optimism on how her journey may progress.

ALL I was trying to say, and I stress again that this is the ONLY thing I was really trying to say, is that it is nice to see that Rey is presented first and foremost as a strong character who appears to be gifted in some way as to eventually be the key to that universe's redemption. In Ancorman terms, she's kinda a big deal. I like Rey and I'm glad they made an effort to make her strong without sexualizing her. That's all.

I totally agree. I'd just ask you to consider that that is exactly how Leia was presented too, and even moreso -- a total hero, taking action, leading a rebellion against an empire, and all doing it with every stitch of her body 100% covered and her breasts taped down so they wouldn't sexualize her. And all done 40 years ago, when it was absolutely stereotype-obliterating! Long, long before Aeon Flux and Lara Croft and Resident Evil and a full decade before Ripley and Vasquez shattered molds and mindsets in Aliens.

What happened two films later cannot and should not take away from the character as presented. We have no idea what they'll do with Rey one or two films from now either.

 

[David Jimerson]

Yet it's Kasdan that put Leia in the bikini in the first place! (well, to be fair, I don't know that for a fact, but it makes for a good line here and as the writer he certainly could have been who came up with the idea).

Make of it what you will:

17 INT JABBA'S THRONE ROOM

Jabba is asleep on his throne, with Leia lying in front of him. Salacious sits by Jabba's tail, watching it wriggle. Leia is now dressed in the skimpy costume of a dancing girl; a chain runs from a manacle/necklace at her throat to her new master, Jabba the Hutt. Threepio stands behind Jabba as Bib comes up to the gangster slug.

 

[KurtF]

I enjoyed it well enough. The staging of the action; fights, ship maneuvers, etc. was well done. The scope was there with wide shots and eye candy. The writing left tons of plot holes, most of which have been pointed out already. The one that had me puzzled was the whole Axis' of Evil thing. I thought the Empire was defeated? Who brought all the big Cruisers and Stormtroopers? Didn't the good guys blast them all to heck? Then there was the Death Planet. I kept wondering - how do you turn the planet to aim the thing? Then there was the solar power aspect. If you drain all the energy from the Sun - (including it's mass?) wouldn't all the orbiting bodies fly away into space? Yes, it's a fantasy not a true science fiction, but come on. It's these type of things that take you out of the story and you wonder - where was the story editor?

 

[Greg Smith]

Then there was the solar power aspect. If you drain all the energy from the Sun - (including it's mass?) wouldn't all the orbiting bodies fly away into space?

Furthermore, you're now sitting on a planet with all the mass of that former star inside it. The gravity on the surface would be a gazillion times normal (to use the scientific term). Everything and everybody would be crushed.

- Greg

 

[mail4joeg]

Seriously? You people are dead inside.

I was 11 years old when I saw Star Wars in 70mm in Paramus NJ. It was great. Subsequent films rewrote what the hell it was though. In the end it is pretty inconsistent and a tad cheezy. Ask Mel Brooks for more on that.

This latest film is for people who didn't see Star Wars at 11 in 70mm in Paramus. For them we have a pretty slick, updated highly kinetic retelling of the rise of a new Jedi: Rey.

And it was great.

Wonder how YOUR version would have compared against Abram's love affair with The Force?

You are mostly blending into one at this point... the comic book guy from The Simpsons. Nitpicky, can't see the forest for the trees. The more things change...

 

[Paul F]

Yep, it's a bunch of old men here critiquing a film rather than watching a movie. This is Flash Gordon. You know, flares spitting sparks out the back of a model. Its for kids. Remember being a kid? Light sabers, robots, wookies, swashbuckling adventure.... What's to complain about? Oh, yes, bikinis.

Complaining about girls in bikinis? It's girls in bikinis! What young boy doesn't like girls in bikinis?....... What old man doesn't like girls in bikinis? There should be more of them. Ahh, Raquel Welch in 1 Million Years BC.

 

[Mitch Gross]

Complaining about girls in bikinis? It's girls in bikinis! What young boy doesn't like girls in bikinis?....... What old man doesn't like girls in bikinis? There should be more of them. Ahh, Raquel Welch in 1 Million Years BC.

I guess someone has to speak up for the young GIRLS as well. The boys get plenty pretty much everywhere you look.

No one is taking a reductive, extreme feminist stance here (although I cringe at writing words that may appear to make "feminist" sound like a bad thing). All that was said is that it's nice that the young ladies can enjoy the movie too. That's a GOOD thing, right?

 

[David Jimerson]

No one is taking a reductive, extreme feminist stance here (although I cringe at writing words that may appear to make "feminist" sound like a bad thing). All that was said is that it's nice that the young ladies can enjoy the movie too. That's a GOOD thing, right?

Sure, except that you're still reducing Leia (and the ability for young ladies to enjoy the previous movies) to about 7 minutes in the third movie only . . .

 

[Leon Bailey]

I thought it was ok. Not bad, not good, just ok. Rey was some unstoppable force who could do everything and know everything (Disney did this on purpose). Finn was a weak character and the same role as other black characters in movies. The friend, the help, and the comic relief. He's practically the same as Falcon from Captain America. Hey, they put more black characters in the background, so I guess I should be happy right?

Not really happy that they basically remade the first movie and added some sprinkles from ESB in it.

The opening scene was my favorite of the movie.

 

[Leon Bailey]

Sure, except that you're still reducing Leia (and the ability for young ladies to enjoy the previous movies) to about 7 minutes in the third movie only . . .

I can't say I was old enough to remember ROTJ because I wasn't even born. But in today's society where everything is sexist, racist, and offensive, the narrative seems to be Leia being in a bikini is sexist and it ruins any little girls thoughts about her and that they can't enjoy Star Wars. smh.

 

[j1clark@ucsd.edu]

I can't say I was old enough to remember ROTJ because I wasn't even born. But in today's society where everything is sexist, racist, and offensive, the narrative seems to be Leia being in a bikini is sexist and it ruins any little girls thoughts about her and that they can't enjoy Star Wars. smh.

I hesitate to point out that her 'costume' was selected by the 'degenerate' Jabba the Hut, and as such, was quite different from Leia's other costumes... well... there was the original initial costume of the first Film that one could see bouncing mammaries back when 'bra-less' was a feminist statement... but I digress...

In any case, outside of that one 'degrated' den of iniquity... Leia's costumes were quite 'chaste'...

And of course Episodes I-III were quite devoid of any 'sex, drugs, and attendant skin'... fitting for the 5 year old target market, and their parents that would be accompanying them.

 

[j1clark@ucsd.edu]

I was able to see the film today, and even several weeks now the theater was quite full... not overflowing... but fuller than many 'hot' films...

In any case, I liked it. But could see that it was not going to break any Academy Award ground.

On the other hand... it was a great relief from the Episodes I-III 'junk'. At least there were no obvious 'product placements' for the 5 year olds... (Jarjar...).

And I do look forward to how they are going to play the plots that were initialized in this film in the next one(s)...

 

[Mitch Gross]

Sure, except that you're still reducing Leia (and the ability for young ladies to enjoy the previous movies) to about 7 minutes in the third movie only . . .

I'm not taking anything away from Leia. She's a great character, but she's not the main character. She's strong and proactive, but Rey is the character around whom this new story effectively spins.

Honestly, Leia's great. But that was also a couple generations ago. Ripley & Sarah Conner at least one generation ago. Strong action females are also sex symbols these days. So It is nice to have a character like Rey.