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2016/02/14 05:27:26
Subject: Re:Star Wars The Force Awakens -- full of spoilers so beware !
I know that I am really late to the party, but I can somebody please explain to me why everyone likes the TFA? To the best of my knowledge, it was little more than a re-tex of A New Hope, with absolutely no new contributions to the Star Wars Universe worth mentioning (Oh, no, it's an imperialistic force trying to defeat revolutionaries, it's so original!). You can literally summarize both movies with a single summary (believe me, I've actually done it). Have Star Wars fans really lowered the bar so far that they're willing to accept this complete rip-off? Just reading the comments after the summary made me ashamed to call myself a Star Wars fan...
To quote a fictional character... "Let's make this fun!"
Tactical_Spam wrote: There was a story in the SM omnibus where a single kroot killed 2-3 marines then ate their gene seed and became a Kroot-startes.
We must all join the Kroot-startes...
2016/02/14 07:04:46
Subject: Star Wars The Force Awakens -- full of spoilers so beware !
I can't speak for everyone, but for me it's because the plot is far less important to my enjoyment of the movie than the characters.
The dialogue is entertaining, the characters are likeable, and it was fun seeing how they dealt with the situations they found themselves in.
The fact that some of those situations were familiar didn't change that, because they dealt with those familiar situations in different ways.
Hell, just about every Superhero Origin movie can be summarised with the same plot: Flawed character becomes a superhero, gets a little cocky, runs afoul of something unexpected, finds faith in themselves and wins the day.
It's the specific characters involved that make each iteration of that story enjoyable (or not).
YMMV, obviously.
2016/02/14 07:13:07
Subject: Re:Star Wars The Force Awakens -- full of spoilers so beware !
dusara217 wrote: I know that I am really late to the party, but I can somebody please explain to me why everyone likes the TFA?
Well, if you really wanted to, you could read through the 91 pages of thread and find out... or you could just go all guns-ablaze with snark and tell everyone why you think it's a literal carbon copy of ANH.
Just because The Hunger Games, Mortal Engines (or whatever it's called), Twilight, or [insert Teenage popcorn flick here] can be summarized by a single summary, doesn't mean they are the same movie. It's the same here, even within the franchise. As insaniak pointed out, there are a number of fairly significant similarities, but it isn't the "exact same movie" as you seem to be implying.
Also, as others have pointed out earlier ITT, TFA is a good, safe money maker... it brought in the specific elements that clearly fans loved about the Original Trilogy, left out much of the bad stuff people hated in the prequels, and created a movie. Odds would seem to suggest that Episodes 8 and 9 will be much more different from 5 and 6 story-wise than 7 was to 4. But you still have to keep in mind, a number of the people who were kids for Episode 1, were bringing their kids to Episode 7. the movie HAD to introduce star wars to a new generation of fan, while at the same time, try and keep the older generations, who grew up on the OT, and suffered through the prequels happy.
2016/02/14 09:29:58
Subject: Star Wars The Force Awakens -- full of spoilers so beware !
insaniak wrote:I can't speak for everyone, but for me it's because the plot is far less important to my enjoyment of the movie than the characters.
The dialogue is entertaining, the characters are likeable, and it was fun seeing how they dealt with the situations they found themselves in.
The fact that some of those situations were familiar didn't change that, because they dealt with those familiar situations in different ways.
Hell, just about every Superhero Origin movie can be summarised with the same plot: Flawed character becomes a superhero, gets a little cocky, runs afoul of something unexpected, finds faith in themselves and wins the day.
It's the specific characters involved that make each iteration of that story enjoyable (or not).
YMMV, obviously.
Basically this. The story was fun if nothing massively new, the lead characters were all well written and very well performed, it was visually stunning, there were several 'new' things that people like to overlook (Ren being completely different to Vader, some what ironically. In-atmosphere dogfights, not somerthing SW has done on the big screen before. Maz being a non-Jedi-non-Sith force user is again something we haven't seen, I could go on). Combine the giddiness of seeing the Falcon and X-wings and Lightsabers and an opening crawl on the big screen again in superb quality with a story that is really only superficially similar to ANH, and you've got one of the most exciting films ever in my books.
2016/02/14 19:26:16
Subject: Star Wars The Force Awakens -- full of spoilers so beware !
Grey Templar wrote: That might be true for other franchises, but Star Wars is so big at this point that I think it would be impossible to NOT make money. There is no such thing as un-safe money when it comes to Star Wars.
While almost Star Wars production will make a loss, it is possible. The Holiday Special comes to mind. However you are right, that is a mere technical example, no 'episode' will mlose money. But it can make less money. I watched the prequels on DVD only, admittedly I bought the DVD's and didnt just borrow them, but I didn't go to the cinema. i saw all the other episodes in the cinema, twice, though I didn't see Return of the Jedi on the big screen until the remastery.
And I am just a casual watcher. Many people went to see A New Hope weekly back when it was just Star Wars. There have beemn repeat viewings of The Force Awakens, but who will want to go back to the cinema to see Jar Jar Binks scenes you already bear witness to?
Yes, Star Wars is an exceptional case in that it cant lose money, but it can make considerably less money. Disney paid handsomely for the franchise and want Episodes 7-9 to be cash cows to recoup on the investment. JJ Abrams is able to deliver on this at the expense of creativity and is a safe choice for a director. As a business model giving the film to him or Michael Bey made best sense, though I rate neither; a riskier move but ultimately better one for the fanbase would be to give artistic control to James Cameron, or Martin Scorcese.
n'oublie jamais - It appears I now have to highlight this again.
It is by tea alone I set my mind in motion. By the juice of the brew my thoughts aquire speed, my mind becomes strained, the strain becomes a warning. It is by tea alone I set my mind in motion.
2016/02/14 23:13:22
Subject: Star Wars The Force Awakens -- full of spoilers so beware !
Waiting for my shill money from Spiral Arm Studios
I don't think the Holiday special is a good example anymore. At the time, Star Wars still had the possibility of failure.
I imagine that Disney will begin taking some risks with the franchise in the future. I'm hoping Rogue One is a full blown war movie.
Self-proclaimed evil Cat-person. Dues Ex Felines
Cato Sicarius, after force feeding Captain Ventris a copy of the Codex Astartes for having the audacity to play Deathwatch, chokes to death on his own D-baggery after finding Calgar assembling his new Eldar army.
I personally had to stop from groaning aloud when it was discovered that the not-death star could be taken out by a surgical strike against one weak point. Minor differences about Starkiller Base aside, that was practically unforgiveably lazy writing. The entire movie would have felt different than a simple remake without the mechanisms surrounding Starkiller Base.
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2016/02/14 23:54:04
"By this point I'm convinced 100% that every single race in the 40k universe have somehow tapped into the ork ability to just have their tech work because they think it should."
2016/02/15 00:51:22
Subject: Re:Star Wars The Force Awakens -- full of spoilers so beware !
AegisGrimm wrote: I personally had to stop from groaning aloud when it was discovered that the not-death star could be taken out by a surgical strike against one weak point. Minor differences about Starkiller Base aside, that was practically unforgiveably lazy writing. The entire movie would have felt different than a simple remake without the mechanisms surrounding Starkiller Base.
Honestly, the fact that they addressed this in the movie is the main reason I am okay with it. If they treated it like some giant mystery to figure out I would have been upset, but the dialog in the movie was pretty much "we destroy it the same way we destroyed all the other ones". If you use the same trope or plot point and you at least address it, I'm okay with it.
2016/02/15 04:23:21
Subject: Re:Star Wars The Force Awakens -- full of spoilers so beware !
Just a bunch of stuff about expecting to see basic literary principles in blockbuster movies, ignore if all you wanted from the movie was "fun".
Spoiler:
Ensis Ferrae wrote:
dusara217 wrote: I know that I am really late to the party, but I can somebody please explain to me why everyone likes the TFA?
Well, if you really wanted to, you could read through the 91 pages of thread and find out... or you could just go all guns-ablaze with snark and tell everyone why you think it's a literal carbon copy of ANH.
Or I could ask people to explain to me the appeal of a movie that I found unappealing, so that I can understand the hype behind the move, like I did, but, hey, to each their own, I guess. Also, NINETY-ONE PAGES. If it were five pages to read through, I could do that - hell, I would probably even read through 15 pages, but a small novel's worth of reading on a single topic all at once is massively unappealing to me, and most people I can think of.
insaniak wrote:I can't speak for everyone, but for me it's because the plot is far less important to my enjoyment of the movie than the characters.
The dialogue is entertaining, the characters are likeable, and it was fun seeing how they dealt with the situations they found themselves in.
The fact that some of those situations were familiar didn't change that, because they dealt with those familiar situations in different ways.
Ah, that explains it, perhaps this is how most people are. Myself, every little plothole bugs the living crap out of me, and with the, imho, terrible dialogue on some characters' parts (Leia: "There's one thing that hasn't changed; you still drive me wild!"), I spend the whole movie thinking "what? But how? How did she beat a trained force-user with mind control? How did she teach herself mind control? What? That takes years to learn!". Plus, after having watched the entire trilogy so many times, watchin TFA just feels so trite, with nothing really original in it, due to the huge amount of recycled material. Don't get me wrong, it makes for a very fun movie, but the unoriginality just robs it of any substance. This sort of repetition and recycling of old material (the Super Deathstar! such a novel concept!) is exactly what is seeing genres like the zombie horror genre slowly fade into the background, and is precisely why trilogies like the Hunger Games and Maze Runner all feel like the same movie. The only real redeeming qualities to TFA, for me, seem to be the fan theories, such as how Maz Kanata is actually involved in every episode of Star Wars.
Hell, just about every Superhero Origin movie can be summarised with the same plot: Flawed character becomes a superhero, gets a little cocky, runs afoul of something unexpected, finds faith in themselves and wins the day.
It's the specific characters involved that make each iteration of that story enjoyable (or not).
YMMV, obviously.
See, I liked a lot of the new characters (Maz, Snoke, etc.), some of them were quite interesting, but then you have a bunch of recycled characters like: generic fatherly figure who dies at the end (han), seeming badass who goes out like a punk without really doing too much in the movie (Captain whats-her-face, she wasn't really that memorable), etc. The personalities of some characters, like Rey, were well-acted and semi-well-written, but, then you have Finn, who somehow resisted at least a decade of brainwashing and indoctrination with the "just say no" mantra that is all but impossible to make work in real life.
So, Insaniak, what you're saying is that people liked TFA purely because it was fun/entertaining? I'm honestly a little disappointed that there wasn't something really great and original that I was missing, but, fun is at least understandable. Thank you.
This message was edited 2 times. Last update was at 2016/02/15 04:24:18
To quote a fictional character... "Let's make this fun!"
Tactical_Spam wrote: There was a story in the SM omnibus where a single kroot killed 2-3 marines then ate their gene seed and became a Kroot-startes.
We must all join the Kroot-startes...
2016/02/15 04:34:13
Subject: Re:Star Wars The Force Awakens -- full of spoilers so beware !
dusara217 wrote: Or I could ask people to explain to me the appeal of a movie that I found unappealing, so that I can understand the hype behind the move, like I did, but, hey, to each their own, I guess. Also, NINETY-ONE PAGES. If it were five pages to read through, I could do that - hell, I would probably even read through 15 pages, but a small novel's worth of reading on a single topic all at once is massively unappealing to me, and most people I can think of.
While it can understandably be a little difficult when you come into a busy thread a bit late, you realise that you're essentially just asking people to repeat themselves (and thus make the thread even longer, and repetitive to boot) just so that you don't have to bother catching up with the current conversation, right?
How did she teach herself mind control? What? That takes years to learn!".
I wasn't aware that there were documented timeframes for learning mind control.
Clearly it's possible for it to be picked up by someone sufficiently powerful in a shorter time, since that's what happened...
Frankly, if plot holes were going to bother you, perhaps going to the cinema to see a movie with 'Star Wars' in the title wasn't the best idea...
So, Insaniak, what you're saying is that people liked TFA purely because it was fun/entertaining?
No, I'm saying that I liked TFA purely because it was fun\entertaining. As I said, I don't speak for everyone else.
But. ultimately, it's a Star Wars movie. It had fun dialogue, it had spaceships blowing stuff up, and it had lightsabers. That's really all that I was expecting from a Star Wars movie, and I wasn't disappointed.
2016/02/15 06:07:58
Subject: Re:Star Wars The Force Awakens -- full of spoilers so beware !
How did she teach herself mind control? What? That takes years to learn!".
I wasn't aware that there were documented timeframes for learning mind control.
Clearly it's possible for it to be picked up by someone sufficiently powerful in a shorter time, since that's what happened...
It's actually a fairly often used bit of plot armor... One particular example that I'm reading through even now is in the Wheel of Time series. The main characters who are magic users are all sufficiently powerful enough that they merely need to see something done, before they can do it (in one case, during book 3, a character does something, unsure of how, but then sees a friend do it, and thereby learns how they did it in the first place)
Sometimes, this is explained, as it was in "The Matrix" sometimes, it isn't.
2016/02/15 14:32:01
Subject: Re:Star Wars The Force Awakens -- full of spoilers so beware !
We are thrilled to announce Benicio Del Toro, Laura Dern and Kelly Marie Tran will join Daisy Ridley, John Boyega, Mark Hamill and director Rian Johnson for Star Wars: Episode VIII, which begins shooting at London’s Pinewood Studio today. May the Force be with you, always
The poor man really has a stake in the country. The rich man hasn't; he can go away to New Guinea in a yacht. The poor have sometimes objected to being governed badly; the rich have always objected to being governed at all
We love our superheroes because they refuse to give up on us. We can analyze them out of existence, kill them, ban them, mock them, and still they return, patiently reminding us of who we are and what we wish we could be.
"the play's the thing wherein I'll catch the conscience of the king,
2016/02/15 16:23:26
Subject: Star Wars The Force Awakens -- full of spoilers so beware !
Waiting for my shill money from Spiral Arm Studios
Director who?
Self-proclaimed evil Cat-person. Dues Ex Felines
Cato Sicarius, after force feeding Captain Ventris a copy of the Codex Astartes for having the audacity to play Deathwatch, chokes to death on his own D-baggery after finding Calgar assembling his new Eldar army.
Rian Johnson, the guy who directed the severely underrated Looper.
d-usa wrote: "When the Internet sends its people, they're not sending their best. They're not sending you. They're not sending you. They're sending posters that have lots of problems, and they're bringing those problems with us. They're bringing strawmen. They're bringing spam. They're trolls. And some, I assume, are good people."
2016/02/15 17:19:24
Subject: Star Wars The Force Awakens -- full of spoilers so beware !
I've not seen TFA yet, but I've got a chance to see it in IMAX this weekend hopefully (before Deadpool takes up all the available slots). Is it worth seeing? I've heard some good stuff such as it being nostalgic and some bad stuff such as the main character is a badass Mary-Sue and ripping off IV without developing on the end of VI.
YMDC = nightmare
2016/02/15 18:35:29
Subject: Star Wars The Force Awakens -- full of spoilers so beware !
Frozocrone wrote: I've not seen TFA yet, but I've got a chance to see it in IMAX this weekend hopefully (before Deadpool takes up all the available slots). Is it worth seeing? I've heard some good stuff such as it being nostalgic and some bad stuff such as the main character is a badass Mary-Sue and ripping off IV without developing on the end of VI.
As has been noted even on this page, it has some stuff that is pretty easily viewed as being "ripped off" of previous installments, BUT they actually use a number of those moments to insert pretty decent jokes/throw backs.
Personally, I really enjoyed it, because there is the nostalgic factor: I think it has that adventure feel and grand scope that the OT was so good at conveying. I think it does a pretty good job in it's balancing act: providing a NEW star wars experience for a new generation of upcoming fans AND keeping the older fans happy (for the most part, there are some grumpy-gusses in this here thread who simply love to gak all over it)
2016/02/16 01:36:05
Subject: Re:Star Wars The Force Awakens -- full of spoilers so beware !
Frozocrone wrote: I've not seen TFA yet, but I've got a chance to see it in IMAX this weekend hopefully (before Deadpool takes up all the available slots). Is it worth seeing? I've heard some good stuff such as it being nostalgic and some bad stuff such as the main character is a badass Mary-Sue and ripping off IV without developing on the end of VI.
As has been noted even on this page, it has some stuff that is pretty easily viewed as being "ripped off" of previous installments, BUT they actually use a number of those moments to insert pretty decent jokes/throw backs.
Personally, I really enjoyed it, because there is the nostalgic factor: I think it has that adventure feel and grand scope that the OT was so good at conveying. I think it does a pretty good job in it's balancing act: providing a NEW star wars experience for a new generation of upcoming fans AND keeping the older fans happy (for the most part, there are some grumpy-gusses in this here thread who simply love to gak all over it)
I hazard to guess that there's a disproportionate share of diehard EU fans in the "SW fans who hate TFA" club. I'm NOT saying that one equates to the other, NOR suggesting that it's about EU fans being petty.
I DO think that there are some EU fans who walked into the theater wanting to see what NEW thing has replaced the (highly developed) EU, and then watched a film with a lot of nostalgic touches that was sketchy with a lot of the background information.
A letdown might have been inevitable given that the film wasn't really intended for that audience.
The problem with Thrawn done right is that he's someone the Galaxy would have to deal with and so isn't good source material for stand alone movies and dealing with him would require people now to old for the role. So he'd have to be a TV villain in cartoons or he'd have to be a villain for a follow-up series after Ep 9. Let the new generation deal with him.
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2016/02/16 20:30:31
Subject: Star Wars The Force Awakens -- full of spoilers so beware !
Waiting for my shill money from Spiral Arm Studios
Well there are two options for getting Thrawn back into the setting.
1) Introduce him back into Rebels as a recurring villain. Issue with this is it basically pigeonholes him into being defeated during the Rebels show.
2) Bring him back in Episode 8-9 as a new villain, who may or may not have served under the Empire.
Self-proclaimed evil Cat-person. Dues Ex Felines
Cato Sicarius, after force feeding Captain Ventris a copy of the Codex Astartes for having the audacity to play Deathwatch, chokes to death on his own D-baggery after finding Calgar assembling his new Eldar army.
I vote a follow-up series where the new generation has to deal with him as leaders of the galaxy similar to the actual books. Just replace Han, Leah, and Luke w/Poe, Finn, and Rey.
Best Painted (2015 Adepticon 40k Champs)
They Shall Know Fear - Adepticon 40k TT Champion (2012 & 2013) & 40k TT Best Sport (2014), 40k TT Best Tactician (2015 & 2016)
2016/02/16 22:14:19
Subject: Star Wars The Force Awakens -- full of spoilers so beware !
Who says that Chiss in the brave new Disney world have human lifespans...
Hmm, made me think of maybe a Napoleon kind of situation. Defeated by Leia/Han/Luke etc. and sent into exile. Returns later when the republic is weak to rally imperial forces to himself, rather than the First Order who he considers to be just as dangerous as the rebels due to their ambition and relative inexperience.
The Laws of Thermodynamics:
1) You cannot win. 2) You cannot break even. 3) You cannot stop playing the game.
Colonel Flagg wrote:You think you're real smart. But you're not smart; you're dumb. Very dumb. But you've met your match in me.
2016/02/19 21:40:12
Subject: Re:Star Wars The Force Awakens -- full of spoilers so beware !
Yeah, screw Snoke. The First Order would have given the perfect way to introduce a slightly rethemed Thrawn.
"By this point I'm convinced 100% that every single race in the 40k universe have somehow tapped into the ork ability to just have their tech work because they think it should."
