Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens

[Grumman]

That's an interesting idea...never thought of that before. I might have to try it next week.

I believe it is called the Machete order. It originally intended to entirely skip TPM. Which I don't see the point of, it still leaves AOTC, which I consider far weaker than TPM.

The problem is that you can't cleanly remove Attack of the Clones even if it is a worse movie. Revenge of the Sith does not function without Attack of the Clones or a substitute movie that provides the same setup, just like The Empire Strikes Back needs A New Hope to establish who Luke's ghost buddy is and Return of the Jedi so that the story doesn't end with "Vader curbstomped Luke, Han and Leia never saw each other again, The End.".

[Q99]

And how much would a dozen different helmet designs cost in comparison to one?

Out of universe, this is the problem with going back to a reliance on "practical effects." When you use more CGI, it far easier to add a diverse group of aliens in the background rather than mostly humans. For an extreme version, Mass Effect does this to a great deal because it is entirely animated. When you walk around the Citadel or Omega you see far more aliens than humans. In Star Wars it is always the opposite.

I'm asking more for, like, 2 or 3 designs. Which can include 'glue on some horns so it looks like they have horn-holes'. I don't need a full 'cantina' diversity here, I just want it to be less of a human-fest.

And they did *have* tons of practical effect aliens, just in different scenes.

The problem is that you can't cleanly remove Attack of the Clones even if it is a worse movie. Revenge of the Sith does not function without Attack of the Clones or a substitute movie that provides the same setup, just like The Empire Strikes Back needs A New Hope to establish who Luke's ghost buddy is and Return of the Jedi so that the story doesn't end with "Vader curbstomped Luke, Han and Leia never saw each other again, The End.".

It doesn't have the start of the Clone Wars, but starting 'in media res' is something most people can handle I think.

[jwl]

Where does the clone wars movie fit into all this?

[Grumman]

Where does the clone wars movie fit into all this?

I've never seen it, because I heard it was crap. I would suggest watching Tartakovsky's Clone Wars shorts, though: there's just over 2 hours of cartoons set between Attack of the Clones and Revenge of the Sith, and among other things they do a nice job of introducing General Grievous and of showing Anakin as someone who might fall to the Dark Side in a more subtle manner than the prequels managed.

I wouldn't add the 2008 series to the watch order, though. Not because it's bad, but because it would add almost 2 days to the time you need.

[Lord Revan]

I just came back from seeing a the movie, it was decent enough and my brother liked it as well. It wasn't the best thing ever but enjoyble 2 hours still. I won't say anything else as that would go into spoilers.

[Q99]

Where does the clone wars movie fit into all this?

I've never seen it, because I heard it was crap. I would suggest watching Tartakovsky's Clone Wars shorts, though: there's just over 2 hours of cartoons set between Attack of the Clones and Revenge of the Sith, and among other things they do a nice job of introducing General Grievous and of showing Anakin as someone who might fall to the Dark Side in a more subtle manner than the prequels managed.

I wouldn't add the 2008 series to the watch order, though. Not because it's bad, but because it would add almost 2 days to the time you need.

The CGI Clone Wars movie is crap, which is a shame, because the show that followed after it developed Anakin and helped sell his fall better than anything.

[Borgholio]

Just got back from seeing it with my wife. I felt like I was a kid again. I won't go so far as to say this was better than Episodes 4 or 5 (since I grew up with them) but it's definitely everything that Star Wars should be. I liked the musical score, it had great fight scenes, emotion, likable characters, and the story (although simple) did make sense. They're really going to have to expand on certain things in Episode 8 but the movie clearly intended for that to be the case anyways.

I'd have to say that after the initial viewing (and after having a couple hours to collect my thoughts), I'd rank it like this: 4, 5, (tie between 3 and 7), 6, 2, 1.

[Galvatron]

Anyone that ranks this movie higher than ANH or TESB is quite frankly a moron and knows nothing about movies. It is at best, on par with ROTJ.

Agreed. It was a step in the right direction so I'm left with hope for the future, but there were still aspects that annoyed me. Then again, I'm a hard man to please.

[Ziggy Stardust]

Anyone that ranks this movie higher than ANH or TESB is quite frankly a moron and knows nothing about movies. It is at best, on par with ROTJ.

Agreed. It was a step in the right direction so I'm left with hope for the future, but there were still aspects that annoyed me. Then again, I'm a hard man to please.

This.

Look, I enjoyed the movie, and it was a fun movie, and it did have a lot of redeeming value (the practical and special effects were phenomenal, the acting was solid, etc.). But what amazes me are the people praising the plot, which was a rickety and haphazard mess. It was pretty clear that there was no world-building going on underneath this plot; hell, it didn't even feel like a plot that was written by the same person. It was just a collection of scenes meandering from set action piece to set action piece, with no regard given to internal (or external) consistency.

It's fine if you liked it. It wasn't a bad movie, per se. But I agree with Havok that you have to be a complete moron to think that the plot wasn't a disaster.

[Borgholio]

I don't think the plot was what really mattered this time around. They basically wanted to wave their arms and say, "HEY LOOK! STAR WARS!!!" and get people interested in the franchise again. And it worked. I am hopeful that much of the worldbuilding will happen in the next episode now that we're off and running again.

[Col. Crackpot]

I don't think the plot was what really mattered this time around. They basically wanted to wave their arms and say, "HEY LOOK! STAR WARS!!!" and get people interested in the franchise again. And it worked. I am hopeful that much of the worldbuilding will happen in the next episode now that we're off and running again.

Being careful not to get I to spoiler territory, I think there was a deliberate minimalistic thread to this film. I found it to be quite refreshing, especially when looked at side by side with the prequel trilogy (and the re-masters) which were quite bloated IMHO. There was a simple purity to this film... And that has been lacking in Star Wars for a very, very long time.

That said, I am happy to say that i took my sons to see the new Star Wars movie today... That gave me more joy than than I can express in mere words.

[Patroklos]

They were kind of bipolar in this film between minimalism and maximism, and thus pulled neither off well.

[Col. Crackpot]

They were kind of bipolar in this film between minimalism and maximism, and thus pulled neither off well.

Oh please... Rabid Warsies can be so melodramatic...like partisains at a politcal rally so focused on the ideological purity and minutiae and wanting so bad to feel acxepted in the popular group think you don't see the goddamn forest for the trees. This was a damn good film. Better than the prequel trilogy. Damn near close to Jedi. But people around here have to be such pedantic cockbags about it. Go watch it again. I saw it twice today, and I will again.

[Borgholio]

This was a damn good film. Better than the original trilogy.

I still have to digest it...maybe watch it one or two more times before I'm willing to go THAT far. But I can say with certainly it's better than the PT (at the very least, it's as good as Ep 3), and can compare favorably to the OT in terms of how much fun I had watching it.

[Col. Crackpot]

This was a damn good film. Better than the original trilogy.

I still have to digest it...maybe watch it one or two more times before I'm willing to go THAT far. But I can say with certainly it's better than the PT (at the very least, it's as good as Ep 3), and can compare favorably to the OT in terms of how much fun I had watching it.

Dammit. I meant Prequel trilogy. I edited that. Nothing touches ESB.


In my day we commented on SDN with a fucking keyboard. Not this stupid Android shit.

[Lord Insanity]

Anyone that ranks this movie higher than ANH or TESB is quite frankly a moron and knows nothing about movies. It is at best, on par with ROTJ.

Wait ANH is better than ROTJ? That is some powerful set of rose colored nostalgia glasses. ANH has aged horribly mainly because the three main actors thought they were making a stupid kids movie. Their performances in ESB and ROTJ were far better as they were taking the roles seriously. (Keep in mind I watched ESB and ROTJ dozens of times before I finally saw ANH. The acting difference was jarring to say the least.)

Now TFA was decent but not great. I would rank it dead middle of the previous six films.
In order of my favorite episode to least: 5, 3, 6, 7, 2, 4, 1.
I suspect upon further viewings and more reflection 7 might move down below 2 but maybe not. The story of 7 was kind of a mess but the acting was really good.

[Col. Crackpot]

Insanity, ANH is ranked high by many of us because we remember how much of a game changer it was... It WAS sci Fi in the late 70's. That's it. It set the standard, everything else followed in the trails it blazed.

[UCBooties]

I enjoyed TFA and would rank it somewhere around ROTJ.

It succeeded in making me like the new generation of characters and I think that's really important for the project of, for lack of a better term, rehabilitating Star Wars.

I did think that it made the Star Wars Universe seem smaller and I think that's a shame. I think some of that just has to do that when it comes to making sci-fi J.J. Abrams doesn't have much sense of scale. I'm hoping the future movies open things out a bit more but I can't really articulate what I mean without getting into spoiler territory.

[Lord Revan]

tbh ANH was rather small too and the universe didn't really open until ESB, ROTJ and the old EU.

[Elfdart]

Anyone that ranks this movie higher than ANH or TESB is quite frankly a moron and knows nothing about movies. It is at best, on par with ROTJ.

Anyone who ranks this movie much higher than the Holiday Special needs his head examined. TFA proved that John Williams is more important to Star Wars than Harrison Ford. When Ford phoned it in for ROTJ, it was still a fun movie. John Williams totally phoned it in for TFA and the one chance to salvage this project goes down in flames.

[Galvatron]

I actually agree with Elfdart that Williams phoned it in for TFA. It was one of the things that annoyed me.

Did anyone else notice the absence of Corellian bloodstripes on Han's trousers?

[Guardsman Bass]

I thought the music was alright. At least they didn't play "Duel of the Fates" fifty times in the same movie - I loved that song in Phantom Menace, but by the time Revenge of the Sith rolled around I was sick of it.

Did anyone else notice the absence of Corellian bloodstripes on Han's trousers?

That may have been one of the dumbest things in the EU. No, we can't just Han's pants be something he bought for 10 credits on sale at Space Walmart because he's a broke-ass smuggler - they've got to be special.

[Channel72]

They were kind of bipolar in this film between minimalism and maximism, and thus pulled neither off well.

Oh please... Rabid Warsies can be so melodramatic...like partisains at a politcal rally so focused on the ideological purity and minutiae and wanting so bad to feel acxepted in the popular group think you don't see the goddamn forest for the trees. This was a damn good film. Better than the prequel trilogy. Damn near close to Jedi. But people around here have to be such pedantic cockbags about it. Go watch it again. I saw it twice today, and I will again.

Yeah, really. This was light-years ahead of the Prequels - it had you know, "acting" in it... and "characters". Seriously though, the new cast is really good, and I think that alone makes this film a success. It's close to ROTJ in terms of overall quality, because the plot structure could have used some more work, and there's one particular action sequence which is way too much of a rehash of ANH/ROTJ, but overall it did exactly what I had hoped, which was to recapture the atmosphere of the original trilogy, and establish a new set of characters who are at least as fun to watch as the original cast. And honestly this new cast is fantastic. I'm actually looking forward to seeing more of Poe Dameron especially in the next film.

[Galvatron]

It didn't ruin the film for me, but once again, I was tricked by the trailers into thinking that we'd hear the classic themes throughout the whole movie and was, once again, disappointed.

[Channel72]

Yeah, that could be an issue. I guess John Williams is getting old, and hasn't really penned a great original score since Duel of the Fates. The music in this movie was mostly generic, but there was some nice whimsical, almost Danny Elfman type stuff playing in the background while Rey is alone scavenging in the ruins. But there weren't really any standout new themes.

Apparently, like, John Williams is the only remaining composer with any talent left on Earth, and once he's dead we basically have to settle for generic background music.