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I found it mixed honestly. Kylo Ren was an interesting villain. I preferred him with the mask rather than without.

The jedi girl was ok but it was kind of ridiculous how she managed to train herself and eventually even beat kylo ren just by focusing. My issue is she barely has a clue about any of this including the idea to jedi mind trick but she did it anyway.

The nostalgia moments were kind of ridiculous. Oh hey let's have the new robot uncover r2-d2. Let's have han solo and Chewbacca find their ship after 20 years of not having it.

The later parts of the movie were fairly interesting though.

------------

The first article explains the issue better than I could. The 2nd is kind of funny but true.

http://www.vox.com/2015/12/21/10632690/star-wars-the-force-awakens-spoilers-han-solo-new-hope

http://fusion.net/story/247733/finn-x-poe/

 ScootyPuffJunior wrote:
As far as the TIE fighters go, there are two different versions. There is the standard TIE fighter, which is a single seat fighter like the original, except it is all black with white wing panels. The TIE that Poe and Finn steal is a Special Forces TIE, which has the red of the hull and is a two-seater.

I noticed that too... after I read the wiki.

Again, bad world building.

 Peregrine wrote:
It's not about explaining every tiny detail, it's having things make sense when you think about them. For example, Crablezworth mentioned the attack on the bar. They're looking for a droid that could easily be destroyed by a stray laser shot or crushed under tons of rock, but they fly in and immediately bomb the whole place into rubble. That just doesn't make any sense, and it only works if you shut off your brain and enjoy the spectacular explosions.

Not really, notice that Han and Chewy were not crushed under tons of rubble or struck by a stray laser shot. It seemed that a lot of the destruction of the bar was in the above ground area where nobody was.

Furthermore, they do not need the entire droid, just the little bit of information on the drive he is carrying. Brain is on and able to explain these things having only seen the movie once.

 flamingkillamajig wrote:
The jedi girl was ok but it was kind of ridiculous how she managed to train herself and eventually even beat kylo ren just by focusing. My issue is she barely has a clue about any of this including the idea to jedi mind trick but she did it anyway.

So, kind of like how Luke manages to do the equivalent of "hey, I've got a few hours in a Cessna 152, I can fly an F-22 in combat!", out-fly Vader in a less-maneuverable fighter, and shoot better than the targeting computer just by trusting the voices in his head?

Loved it! Only thing I wished had been different (except for Han's demise...Noooooo!) was I had thought it would've been awesome for Han to say "I love you" as he and Leia had parted (for the last time) and her to reply "I know".

 Dreadwinter wrote:
Not really, notice that Han and Chewy were not crushed under tons of rubble or struck by a stray laser shot. It seemed that a lot of the destruction of the bar was in the above ground area where nobody was.

But they didn't KNOW where the droid was. They just bombed the whole thing into rubble and hoped that the droid was in a safe area. That's incredibly stupid when they could have just landed troops and killed everyone with blasters and no risk of collateral damage. But that doesn't happen because they wanted a big dramatic dogfight and some awesome special effects shots of the building being destroyed.

Oh and with the movie mimicking the original trilogy luke is very much yoda in this case.

For some reason I just liked kylo ren as a baddie. He's han solo and leia's son, kills dad by acting like he wants to be good again, can even extract knowledge from people with the force and stop laser shots mid flight. I'm excited to see what other force powers are shown later esp. from luke.

Oh and I actually liked the pilot guy for some reason. Finn was ok but without the info he knew he was mostly not that great. The pilot, rei and kylo renn were the better characters.

 ScootyPuffJunior wrote:
Just so you know, hiding things under a spoiler tag isn't necessary.

As far as the TIE fighters go, there are two different versions. There is the standard TIE fighter, which is a single seat fighter like the original, except it is all black with white wing panels. The TIE that Poe and Finn steal is a Special Forces TIE, which has the red of the hull and is a two-seater. Also, during the attack on Maz's castle, there are a few Special Forces TIEs fighting against the Resistance X-wings. Speaking of which, Kylo Ren wanted BB-8 and the map while General Hux couldn't care less about it; both of them are tying to outmaneuver each other and they definitely don't get a long. I believe making the people of the First Order young overall was a deliberate choice; they're essentially hard-line fanatics indoctrinated by the First Order from birth.

I don't agree with your idea this movie, in "typical JJ fashion," makes you ignore the backstory. On the contrary, I've thought more about the background than I have pretty much anything else because there are a lot of things going on that we've barely scratched the surface on. I'm an adult that knows how to think so I'm very glad that Kasdan and Abrams chose not to take us by the hand and explain every little background detail to us because as I've said in previous points on this thread, we've had Star Wars movies do that... they're called the Prequels.

I'm reminded of this

 H.B.M.C. wrote:

 ScootyPuffJunior wrote:
As far as the TIE fighters go, there are two different versions. There is the standard TIE fighter, which is a single seat fighter like the original, except it is all black with white wing panels. The TIE that Poe and Finn steal is a Special Forces TIE, which has the red of the hull and is a two-seater.

I noticed that too... after I read the wiki.

Again, bad world building.

Thanks, exactly, apparently me wanting some indication of the distinction is tantamount to wishing for the prequels or to come back.

 Peregrine wrote:

 Dreadwinter wrote:
Not really, notice that Han and Chewy were not crushed under tons of rubble or struck by a stray laser shot. It seemed that a lot of the destruction of the bar was in the above ground area where nobody was.

But they didn't KNOW where the droid was. They just bombed the whole thing into rubble and hoped that the droid was in a safe area. That's incredibly stupid when they could have just landed troops and killed everyone with blasters and no risk of collateral damage. But that doesn't happen because they wanted a big dramatic dogfight and some awesome special effects shots of the building being destroyed.

Exactly, it just seemed unnecessary. There was a lot to like, the entire sequence with the x-wings and the battle over the rubble was fantastic, but it still seemed very hard to turn my brain off for that one.

 Peregrine wrote:
plot holes are just ridiculous

I guess you've never seen the original trilogy?

The Force Awakens isn't perfect, but neither is the original trilogy. There are glaring plot holes in the original movies (Empire is chock full of them), some of which were made even worse with the prequels (which whether we want to admit it or not, are canon to the story).

Let's also remember that a plot hole is a logical inconsistency in a story, not just an unanswered question.

 Peregrine wrote:

 Dreadwinter wrote:
Not really, notice that Han and Chewy were not crushed under tons of rubble or struck by a stray laser shot. It seemed that a lot of the destruction of the bar was in the above ground area where nobody was.

But they didn't KNOW where the droid was. They just bombed the whole thing into rubble and hoped that the droid was in a safe area. That's incredibly stupid when they could have just landed troops and killed everyone with blasters and no risk of collateral damage. But that doesn't happen because they wanted a big dramatic dogfight and some awesome special effects shots of the building being destroyed.

How did they not know where the droid was? They already had somebody inside feeding them information, surely said person could have kept them informed on the whereabouts of the droid. Unless of course said person could only communicate with them once, but that would be ridiculous.

I think you may be forgetting aspects of the movie.

 H.B.M.C. wrote:

 ScootyPuffJunior wrote:
As far as the TIE fighters go, there are two different versions. There is the standard TIE fighter, which is a single seat fighter like the original, except it is all black with white wing panels. The TIE that Poe and Finn steal is a Special Forces TIE, which has the red of the hull and is a two-seater.

I noticed that too... after I read the wiki.

Again, bad world building.

Exactly. In ANH Vader has his special TIE fighter, but it's very obvious that it's a special TIE fighter. In the new movie there's a special TIE fighter, but unless you look really carefully (which you won't, because of all the nice dramatic explosions everywhere) you'll never notice the differences. If I hadn't known about the two different versions of the TIE fighter because of paying attention to X-Wing discussions I would never have realized that they were supposed to be two different ships.

 H.B.M.C. wrote:

 ScootyPuffJunior wrote:
As far as the TIE fighters go, there are two different versions. There is the standard TIE fighter, which is a single seat fighter like the original, except it is all black with white wing panels. The TIE that Poe and Finn steal is a Special Forces TIE, which has the red of the hull and is a two-seater.

I noticed that too... after I read the wiki.

Again, bad world building.

Hopefully in Episode VIII there is a scene where two TIE fighter pilots sit down and discuss the difference in the different models and we get to see some technical read outs on them while they do it.

 Dreadwinter wrote:
I think you may be forgetting aspects of the movie.

And I think you're inferring something. My issue in general is the movie has no problem with forced exposition, which is fine and often totally works because so many of the new characters are great and totally resonate and help suspend disbelief. The really forced exposition gets even more obvious with dialogue between leia and han, which is incredibly specific and rushed with sly aloofness of a four year old trying to hide that they have to pee. Add to that the amazingly cast scene with all the resistance finishing each others sentences like sorkin tv show. The stuff I was most excited to see/hear/learn about was rushed and glossed over in favour of keeping up a pace that felt too rushed. Why compare the size of the two stations and then spend no time building up excitement with badass briefings.

 ScootyPuffJunior wrote:

 H.B.M.C. wrote:

 ScootyPuffJunior wrote:
As far as the TIE fighters go, there are two different versions. There is the standard TIE fighter, which is a single seat fighter like the original, except it is all black with white wing panels. The TIE that Poe and Finn steal is a Special Forces TIE, which has the red of the hull and is a two-seater.

I noticed that too... after I read the wiki.

Again, bad world building.

Hopefully in Episode VIII there is a scene where two TIE fighter pilots sit down and discuss the difference in the different models and we get to see some technical read outs on them while they do it.

Man I hope so, maybe some blueprints brought up on a heads up display discussing where certain parts are manufactured and whether or not slave labor was involved in building it. (It is the Empire, I am betting on tons of Slave Labor!)

 Dreadwinter wrote:
How did they not know where the droid was? They already had somebody inside feeding them information, surely said person could have kept them informed on the whereabouts of the droid. Unless of course said person could only communicate with them once, but that would be ridiculous.

I think you may be forgetting aspects of the movie.

There's a difference between "hey guys, I saw the droid here, get here quickly" and "I'm currently watching the droid and know its exact position within a few inches, and can give you exact coordinates". What would have happened if, after the spy called in the message, Rey had decided to go take a tour of the upstairs half of the building instead of the basement? Or what would have happened if they'd just been a bit wrong in judging how the building would collapse when it was blown into rubble and those nice "safe" basement areas had been crushed?

 Peregrine wrote:
Exactly. In ANH Vader has his special TIE fighter, but it's very obvious that it's a special TIE fighter. In the new movie there's a special TIE fighter, but unless you look really carefully (which you won't, because of all the nice dramatic explosions everywhere) you'll never notice the differences. If I hadn't known about the two different versions of the TIE fighter because of paying attention to X-Wing discussions I would never have realized that they were supposed to be two different ships.

You can tell that there are two different TIE fighters, but you have to pay attention to notice them?

So what you're saying is that paying attention is hard, which is obviously the movie's fault. Gotcha.

 ScootyPuffJunior wrote:
Hopefully in Episode VIII there is a scene where two TIE fighter pilots sit down and discuss the difference in the different models and we get to see some technical read outs on them while they do it.

Or, instead of proposing obviously stupid ideas to mock legitimate criticism, they could have done something like Vader's TIE advanced vs. the standard TIE fighter and made the visual differences more obvious. It's really not hard to show "it's a TIE fighter, but special" in a way that is obvious to everyone who sees it.

 Dreadwinter wrote:

 ScootyPuffJunior wrote:

 H.B.M.C. wrote:

 ScootyPuffJunior wrote:
As far as the TIE fighters go, there are two different versions. There is the standard TIE fighter, which is a single seat fighter like the original, except it is all black with white wing panels. The TIE that Poe and Finn steal is a Special Forces TIE, which has the red of the hull and is a two-seater.

I noticed that too... after I read the wiki.

Again, bad world building.

Hopefully in Episode VIII there is a scene where two TIE fighter pilots sit down and discuss the difference in the different models and we get to see some technical read outs on them while they do it.

Man I hope so, maybe some blueprints brought up on a heads up display discussing where certain parts are manufactured and whether or not slave labor was involved in building it. (It is the Empire, I am betting on tons of Slave Labor!)

Even better, I'm hoping we can get some senators and Jedi to discuss trade negotiations concerning those parts.

 Peregrine wrote:

 Dreadwinter wrote:
How did they not know where the droid was? They already had somebody inside feeding them information, surely said person could have kept them informed on the whereabouts of the droid. Unless of course said person could only communicate with them once, but that would be ridiculous.

I think you may be forgetting aspects of the movie.

There's a difference between "hey guys, I saw the droid here, get here quickly" and "I'm currently watching the droid and know its exact position within a few inches, and can give you exact coordinates". What would have happened if, after the spy called in the message, Rey had decided to go take a tour of the upstairs half of the building instead of the basement? Or what would have happened if they'd just been a bit wrong in judging how the building would collapse when it was blown into rubble and those nice "safe" basement areas had been crushed?

I assume said person would have relayed the position of the droid by saying, "The Droid is no longer in the main cantina and has moved in to the upper parts of the structure. Will relay position as soon as I can locate." Just because we did not hear every last bit of dialogue between two people, does not mean that the dialogue stopped abruptly. Things are going on in the background of the film constantly. We are not going to know absolutely everything that happens.

 ScootyPuffJunior wrote:
You can tell that there are two different TIE fighters, but you have to pay attention to notice them?

So what you're saying is that paying attention is hard, which is obviously the movie's fault. Gotcha.

You can tell if you know to look for the differences. Yes, there are slight differences in the two ships, but if you're watching them in an action scene with stuff happening all over the screen you're not going to be paying attention to tiny details that are barely visible. You're just going to assume that, because both ships look the same at first glance, they are the same.

 Peregrine wrote:

 ScootyPuffJunior wrote:
Hopefully in Episode VIII there is a scene where two TIE fighter pilots sit down and discuss the difference in the different models and we get to see some technical read outs on them while they do it.

Or, instead of proposing obviously stupid ideas to mock legitimate criticism, they could have done something like Vader's TIE advanced vs. the standard TIE fighter and made the visual differences more obvious. It's really not hard to show "it's a TIE fighter, but special" in a way that is obvious to everyone who sees it.

Why would they make the visual differences more obvious? So the enemy could tell the difference between them?

 Dreadwinter wrote:

 Peregrine wrote:

 Dreadwinter wrote:
How did they not know where the droid was? They already had somebody inside feeding them information, surely said person could have kept them informed on the whereabouts of the droid. Unless of course said person could only communicate with them once, but that would be ridiculous.

I think you may be forgetting aspects of the movie.

There's a difference between "hey guys, I saw the droid here, get here quickly" and "I'm currently watching the droid and know its exact position within a few inches, and can give you exact coordinates". What would have happened if, after the spy called in the message, Rey had decided to go take a tour of the upstairs half of the building instead of the basement? Or what would have happened if they'd just been a bit wrong in judging how the building would collapse when it was blown into rubble and those nice "safe" basement areas had been crushed?

I assume said person would have relayed the position of the droid by saying, "The Droid is no longer in the main cantina and has moved in to the upper parts of the structure. Will relay position as soon as I can locate." Just because we did not hear every last bit of dialogue between two people, does not mean that the dialogue stopped abruptly. Things are going on in the background of the film constantly. We are not going to know absolutely everything that happens.

Right but in a movie where exposition is often incredibly blunt it's a perfectly acceptable expectation. One line of dialogue here or there.

 Peregrine wrote:

 ScootyPuffJunior wrote:
Hopefully in Episode VIII there is a scene where two TIE fighter pilots sit down and discuss the difference in the different models and we get to see some technical read outs on them while they do it.

Or, instead of proposing obviously stupid ideas to mock legitimate criticism, they could have done something like Vader's TIE advanced vs. the standard TIE fighter and made the visual differences more obvious. It's really not hard to show "it's a TIE fighter, but special" in a way that is obvious to everyone who sees it.

Or maybe you can stop blaming the movie because you think paying attention is hard?

Return of the Jedi never explained what a TIE Interceptor is or why it was different from the TIE fighters in the first two movies, should we complain about that too?

 Dreadwinter wrote:
I assume said person would have relayed the position of the droid by saying, "The Droid is no longer in the main cantina and has moved in to the upper parts of the structure. Will relay position as soon as I can locate." Just because we did not hear every last bit of dialogue between two people, does not mean that the dialogue stopped abruptly. Things are going on in the background of the film constantly. We are not going to know absolutely everything that happens.

Now stop trying to rationalize the scene and put yourself in the position of the enemy commander. Your spy has just reported that the droid went downstairs and is probably safe, but what if your spy just didn't notice when the droid went back upstairs into a more vulnerable location? Why would you even consider sending in an airstrike to level the entire building when you can just deploy some stormtroopers to trap everyone inside and retrieve the droid without any risk of collateral damage. You're risking catastrophic failure of your entire "find Luke" plan with the assumption that your spy is 100% indisputably accurate and could not possibly be mistaken about the droid's exact location, and why? Why not take the much safer option?

(The answer of course is that it doesn't allow a spectacular scene of the building being bombed into rubble.)


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 ScootyPuffJunior wrote:
Return of the Jedi never explained what a TIE Interceptor is or why it was different from the TIE fighters in the first two movies, should we complain about that too?

No, but even a casual glance at the two ships will tell you that they are two different ships. They're obviously both TIE variants, but the fighter and interceptor will never be confused. From every direction and at every distance the difference in wing shape is obvious. Contrast that with the two TIEs from the new movie, where they look exactly identical at first glance and you can't tell them apart without carefully studying them to look for the tiny differences in details.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Dreadwinter wrote:
Why would they make the visual differences more obvious? So the enemy could tell the difference between them?

So the audience can tell the difference. FFS, this is something they realized back in 1975 when they gave Vader a different ship so you could tell who the villain is. Or, alternatively, they could have just dropped the idea of having two different kinds of TIE fighters and only had the two-seat turret type.

 Peregrine wrote:

 Dreadwinter wrote:
I assume said person would have relayed the position of the droid by saying, "The Droid is no longer in the main cantina and has moved in to the upper parts of the structure. Will relay position as soon as I can locate." Just because we did not hear every last bit of dialogue between two people, does not mean that the dialogue stopped abruptly. Things are going on in the background of the film constantly. We are not going to know absolutely everything that happens.

Now stop trying to rationalize the scene and put yourself in the position of the enemy commander. Your spy has just reported that the droid went downstairs and is probably safe, but what if your spy just didn't notice when the droid went back upstairs into a more vulnerable location? Why would you even consider sending in an airstrike to level the entire building when you can just deploy some stormtroopers to trap everyone inside and retrieve the droid without any risk of collateral damage. You're risking catastrophic failure of your entire "find Luke" plan with the assumption that your spy is 100% indisputably accurate and could not possibly be mistaken about the droid's exact location, and why? Why not take the much safer option?

(The answer of course is that it doesn't allow a spectacular scene of the building being bombed into rubble.)

Well first off, if my spy did not notice if their target came back upstairs then the spy is of no use to me and as a commander of the Empire, they are going to be executed for negligence and losing a crucial target. On top of that, surrounding a building that looks to be easily defensible and has tunnels underneath that could lead to almost anywhere, seems like a silly thing to do, considering they could just walk down a tunnel and pop up anywhere in the forest. Instead, knowing that the droid is no longer inside and Han Solo and Chewbacca are inside, I am going to take a chance at killing two heroes of the resistance in a bombing run and killing a cantina full of people who could be armed and could be hostile. Just to prevent fatalities to my troops and make things easier on us as a whole.

As far as the Tie Fighter goes, it does not matter if the audience noticed the difference or not. The audience now knows there is a two seater tie fighter. That is all we need to know. If we question why there is a two seater tie fighter after the movie, we can of course check online to find out why and see that it is of course a Special Forces Tie Fighter, which is not something we needed to know during the movie.

 Peregrine wrote:


No, but even a casual glance at the two ships will tell you that they are two different ships. They're obviously both TIE variants, but the fighter and interceptor will never be confused. From every direction and at every distance the difference in wing shape is obvious. Contrast that with the two TIEs from the new movie, where they look exactly identical at first glance and you can't tell them apart without carefully studying them to look for the tiny differences in details.

I can vouch for that, I know what tie crawler is, I've got a bunch of star wars books on my bookshelf even the massive encyclopedia, but I guess I just didn't notice the distinction between the two variants. Thankyou wikipedia.

 ScootyPuffJunior wrote:
Return of the Jedi never explained what a TIE Interceptor is or why it was different from the TIE fighters in the first two movies, should we complain about that too?

That wooshing noise you're hearing is the sound of Perry's (and mine, and half a dozen others') points flying over your head.

They didn't need to explain that the TIE Interceptor was a different fighter. We could tell that just by looking at it. As opposed to the special First Order TIE that looks like this and the non-special TIE that looks like this. Both are fighters with white panel wings. One has some antenna on it. Moving around fast they are all but indistinguishable.

As opposed to this or this, which are visually distinctive.

But tell me Scotty, have you asked your mother what she thought about Hosnian Prime yet? I'm dying to hear what someone who isn't as invested in SW as you clearly are thought of the vitally important Republic capital world and it's horrific and game-changing universe-shattering status-quo up-ending destruction?

 Peregrine wrote:

 ScootyPuffJunior wrote:
Return of the Jedi never explained what a TIE Interceptor is or why it was different from the TIE fighters in the first two movies, should we complain about that too?

No, but even a casual glance at the two ships will tell you that they are two different ships. They're obviously both TIE variants, but the fighter and interceptor will never be confused. From every direction and at every distance the difference in wing shape is obvious. Contrast that with the two TIEs from the new movie, where they look exactly identical at first glance and you can't tell them apart without carefully studying them to look for the tiny differences in details.

The fact that they are different makes no impact on the narrative of the movie. Obviously, a casual glance will tell you that the two TIEs are different, which is why we are having this conversation.

You're complaining just to complain.

 Dreadwinter wrote:
Why would they make the visual differences more obvious? So the enemy could tell the difference between them?

So the audience can tell the difference. FFS, this is something they realized back in 1975 when they gave Vader a different ship so you could tell who the villain is. Or, alternatively, they could have just dropped the idea of having two different kinds of TIE fighters and only had the two-seat turret type.

Vader got a special ship because he's Vader and George Lucas wanted audiences to know it immediately. In The Force Awakens, Kylo Ren gets a special ship because he's Kylo Ren.

A TIE fighter is a TIE fighter is a TIE fighter. In this movie, one has a a turret and one doesn't. In Empire, one could drop bombs and one couldn't.

 Dreadwinter wrote:
Well first off, if my spy did not notice if their target came back upstairs then the spy is of no use to me and as a commander of the Empire, they are going to be executed for negligence and losing a crucial target.

Executing them after you just blew up your only way to find Luke because you were too stupid to use ground troops instead of an airstrike doesn't bring the priceless data back. Sensible military commanders don't assume that everything is going exactly according to the plan and all of their sources are accurate, they assume that things aren't going to go the way they should and take appropriate action to handle that possibility. Bombing the last-known location of a fragile droid into rubble is an incredibly stupid idea, and no amount of trying to rationalize "BUT SO MANY COOL EXPLOSIONS!!!!!" will change this fact.

As far as the Tie Fighter goes, it does not matter if the audience noticed the difference or not. The audience now knows there is a two seater tie fighter. That is all we need to know. If we question why there is a two seater tie fighter after the movie, we can of course check online to find out why and see that it is of course a Special Forces Tie Fighter, which is not something we needed to know during the movie.

I guess you missed the post from someone saying that they were confused about why the TIE fighters never used their turrets in any of the other battle scenes? If people are saying "WTF, why did they forget their turrets" then you've done a bad job of designing your ships in a way that the audience can easily see that they are two different ships.

@H.B.M.C: You mean like how they destroyed alderaan on the first movie of the original trilogy only for the real rebel base to be somewhere else. Sorry I'm not sure what you're completely talking about but the 'rebels on the run' thing has often happened in the original trilogy and this as well (hoth being invaded in 'empire strikes back'). Not sure if it's as valid now but I'm sure they're used to it by now.

I'm sorry if I came into that conversation at the halfway point and don't know what you're trying to say.