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olorielGUESS WHO WENT TO THE CINEMA!
[This is a big deal for me, OK. Last time I went to a movie cinema was for The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey. I've missed out on everything that was hot ever since then.]
A bit absurdly, the best thing about the movie (which I enjoyed!) was just watching the crawly text crawl up, going EPISODE VII. EPISODE VII, GALS. I was too young to see any of the original movies in the theatre (I was born a few days before Return of the Jedi hit the big screen, just to put things into perspective), but I had just the right age for all the prequels (...). The crawly text and the beginning of a new movie has always been a magic moment, and one thing we all knew when we sat there watching the crawly text go EPISODE III was that this was it, there would be no other movies, no repetition of this magic moment, this was the final farewell to the cinematic Galaxy far, far away. It wasn't just because George Lucas had declared that he'd never make any further Star Wars movies; it was because we'd had to realise that George Lucas couldn't really be trusted to deliver the Star Wars feeling, anyway. (Although Episode III, back then, was better than expected. Today, it still makes me cringe.)
And now, suddenly, EPISODE VII, pushing beyond that frontier and into a new trilogy.
Which didn't make me cringe. It isn't perfect, but it's enjoyable, and right now, that's good enough for me.
- I really liked the shout-outs to the original trilogy. Let's do the whole thing all over again! Yes, let's!
- I really liked the humour of it. It wasn't silly stupid Jar Jar Binks "hah hah I make you laugh" humour, but grown-up humour. Everything seemed to be delivered with a grain of self-irony, which is so important. I had the impression that the actors really enjoyed being a part of this, too.
- I'm so in love with Rey! Even though she's entirely implausible.How can she be so pretty after growing up and living in that hellhole? Where does she get her skincare products? How are her hands so tender and elegant? Why doesn't she cover up her shoulders? I DON'T GIVE A DAMN! She's so pretty and smart and graceful and adorable! I wonder who her mother is?
- I quite liked Finn, too, although I occasionally found his cluelessness unbelievable. I guess we need to know more about how Stormtroopers are recruited and raised.
- Han Solo! He made me laugh, he made me cry. I think Harrison Ford really enjoyed himself - at any rate, he made it look that way. Leia wasn't quite so convincing. I don't know whether Carrie Fisher really just didn't bother, or whether she was asked to come across as disappointed in life and love and everything and just moving on because you have to. Hm.
- I thought Kylo Ren was really just pretty silly in the trailer, but now that I know he's basically just an emo adolescent, it sorta works. And I mean, that was pretty clever, him being the main villain and so young. (Everyone was so young! Except for Han and Leia. And Luke. And Moz, bless her wrinkled little face and her perfect grip on English grammar.)
- Haaaaan. ;_; At first I thought Kylo/Ben wanted Han to kill him. I don't think Kylo got what he wanted; he's still every bit as torn and confused (which is why Rey had a chance fighting him) because of Han's final caress. Some little solace.
- I hated the new superweapon. I'm never a fan of superweapons but this was especially overkill and stupid. I mean, you can use it once or twice and then it'll have deplenished its power source and be useless, no? (Maybe it was a Cold War kind of thing?) And how the hell is that even supposed to work, sucking the energy out of its sun? Like, not the way we do with solar panels, but literally actively sucking the plasma through space? What's wrong with just building a fusion reactor? And what's the likelihood of shooting those plasma beams through space without hitting some sort of random little freighter or asteroid or whatever long before they've reached their actual aim? And how are they even supposed to be steered? NOTHING MAKES SENSE, EVEN ON A SCI-FI SCALE OF THINGS! Sorry, not buying it. I would've preferred a modest little Death Star with a safety update, sheesh.
- Was R2 moping? WTF. (My brother says maybe he was just busy decrypting all that information on the map, and that's why he was in low power mode and unreactive for so long.Downloading the worst Windows Update ever? I hope so.)
- Luke on the island: Did he go there by himself (way to go dude, just go into hiding when the galaxy needs you, that's always worked before), or was he put there by... whoever, with no way of communicating, even through the Force? I AM SO CONFUSED.
- Maybe Snoke will become relevant in the upcoming movies (EPISODE VIII and IX BE STILL MY HEART) but in this one, I found him pretty useless. I'd much rather prefer a First Order run by someone we actually see running around or even by a group of people, instead of one stupid supreme leader who looks like the love child of Gollum, Voldemort and the alien from Alien: Prometheus. (What a threesome.) What is he? Who is he? Why should I even care?
- I would've preferred a couple more scenes with the New Republic. I mean, apart from them all getting killed. I'm assuming that they're more or less openly funding the "Resistance" because they can't themselves fight the First Order unless directly attacked, because, like, other planets have the right to follow Voldesnoke. BUT WE KNOW NOTHING. And therefore, we feel nothing. I mean, five planets were just Alderaan'd and I had little to no emotional investment in that? The death of the Jakku villagers in the very first scene shouldn't affect me more than the death of five entire planets! In conclusion, I really don't like Starkiller Base.
- I did enjoy this movie, though, I really did. But I need SO MUCH MORE INFORMATION. Sheesh, I thought I knew this fandom, and now I have to start over again! ;)
- - -
Right. Trying to prepare for Christmas. It's kinda hard because the weather it so Spring-like that I want to work in the garden and just postpone Christmas until it's colder or wetter or until all the work is done. NO TIME FOR TINSEL. I HAVE SERIOUS WORK TO DO, DAMMIT.
[This is a big deal for me, OK. Last time I went to a movie cinema was for The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey. I've missed out on everything that was hot ever since then.]
A bit absurdly, the best thing about the movie (which I enjoyed!) was just watching the crawly text crawl up, going EPISODE VII. EPISODE VII, GALS. I was too young to see any of the original movies in the theatre (I was born a few days before Return of the Jedi hit the big screen, just to put things into perspective), but I had just the right age for all the prequels (...). The crawly text and the beginning of a new movie has always been a magic moment, and one thing we all knew when we sat there watching the crawly text go EPISODE III was that this was it, there would be no other movies, no repetition of this magic moment, this was the final farewell to the cinematic Galaxy far, far away. It wasn't just because George Lucas had declared that he'd never make any further Star Wars movies; it was because we'd had to realise that George Lucas couldn't really be trusted to deliver the Star Wars feeling, anyway. (Although Episode III, back then, was better than expected. Today, it still makes me cringe.)
And now, suddenly, EPISODE VII, pushing beyond that frontier and into a new trilogy.
Which didn't make me cringe. It isn't perfect, but it's enjoyable, and right now, that's good enough for me.
- I really liked the shout-outs to the original trilogy. Let's do the whole thing all over again! Yes, let's!
- I really liked the humour of it. It wasn't silly stupid Jar Jar Binks "hah hah I make you laugh" humour, but grown-up humour. Everything seemed to be delivered with a grain of self-irony, which is so important. I had the impression that the actors really enjoyed being a part of this, too.
- I'm so in love with Rey! Even though she's entirely implausible.
- I quite liked Finn, too, although I occasionally found his cluelessness unbelievable. I guess we need to know more about how Stormtroopers are recruited and raised.
- Han Solo! He made me laugh, he made me cry. I think Harrison Ford really enjoyed himself - at any rate, he made it look that way. Leia wasn't quite so convincing. I don't know whether Carrie Fisher really just didn't bother, or whether she was asked to come across as disappointed in life and love and everything and just moving on because you have to. Hm.
- I thought Kylo Ren was really just pretty silly in the trailer, but now that I know he's basically just an emo adolescent, it sorta works. And I mean, that was pretty clever, him being the main villain and so young. (Everyone was so young! Except for Han and Leia. And Luke. And Moz, bless her wrinkled little face and her perfect grip on English grammar.)
- Haaaaan. ;_; At first I thought Kylo/Ben wanted Han to kill him. I don't think Kylo got what he wanted; he's still every bit as torn and confused (which is why Rey had a chance fighting him) because of Han's final caress. Some little solace.
- I hated the new superweapon. I'm never a fan of superweapons but this was especially overkill and stupid. I mean, you can use it once or twice and then it'll have deplenished its power source and be useless, no? (Maybe it was a Cold War kind of thing?) And how the hell is that even supposed to work, sucking the energy out of its sun? Like, not the way we do with solar panels, but literally actively sucking the plasma through space? What's wrong with just building a fusion reactor? And what's the likelihood of shooting those plasma beams through space without hitting some sort of random little freighter or asteroid or whatever long before they've reached their actual aim? And how are they even supposed to be steered? NOTHING MAKES SENSE, EVEN ON A SCI-FI SCALE OF THINGS! Sorry, not buying it. I would've preferred a modest little Death Star with a safety update, sheesh.
- Was R2 moping? WTF. (My brother says maybe he was just busy decrypting all that information on the map, and that's why he was in low power mode and unreactive for so long.
- Luke on the island: Did he go there by himself (way to go dude, just go into hiding when the galaxy needs you, that's always worked before), or was he put there by... whoever, with no way of communicating, even through the Force? I AM SO CONFUSED.
- Maybe Snoke will become relevant in the upcoming movies (EPISODE VIII and IX BE STILL MY HEART) but in this one, I found him pretty useless. I'd much rather prefer a First Order run by someone we actually see running around or even by a group of people, instead of one stupid supreme leader who looks like the love child of Gollum, Voldemort and the alien from Alien: Prometheus. (What a threesome.) What is he? Who is he? Why should I even care?
- I would've preferred a couple more scenes with the New Republic. I mean, apart from them all getting killed. I'm assuming that they're more or less openly funding the "Resistance" because they can't themselves fight the First Order unless directly attacked, because, like, other planets have the right to follow Voldesnoke. BUT WE KNOW NOTHING. And therefore, we feel nothing. I mean, five planets were just Alderaan'd and I had little to no emotional investment in that? The death of the Jakku villagers in the very first scene shouldn't affect me more than the death of five entire planets! In conclusion, I really don't like Starkiller Base.
- I did enjoy this movie, though, I really did. But I need SO MUCH MORE INFORMATION. Sheesh, I thought I knew this fandom, and now I have to start over again! ;)
- - -
Right. Trying to prepare for Christmas. It's kinda hard because the weather it so Spring-like that I want to work in the garden and just postpone Christmas until it's colder or wetter or until all the work is done. NO TIME FOR TINSEL. I HAVE SERIOUS WORK TO DO, DAMMIT.
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no subject
Date: 2015-12-23 10:32 am (UTC)I was a sophomore in college when the original Star Wars came out. I thought it was fun and cool, but not in the same class with Star Trek or Silent Running - not even 'science fiction' at all, since there is no actual science in it.
The tradition of zero science continues in this newest episode. The special effects are bigger and better, and particularly stunning in 3-D; the acting is surprisingly good; the plot has more gaping holes and WTFs than you can shake a stick at, and of course the Physics Police have no jurisdiction in the Star Wars 'verse at all.
I LOVE Finn. All these years, watching Stormtroopers getting shot down by the dozens, I've wondered about the guys inside those shiny white shells. So good to finally see one of them as a person! His cluelessness seemed pretty natural to me; apparently he was 'selected' in early childhood and never knew any other life, like Qarlo in Harlan Ellison's 'Soldier' (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soldier_(The_Outer_Limits)). What didn't really seem natural was his lack of emotion about Stormtroopers being killed (as usual) by the dozens. Weren't those his comrades? One even calls him "Traitor!".
But that's always been a problem with the Star Wars movies: killing is portrayed as 'normal', no big deal. Leia's home planet is destroyed before her eyes, yet she never shows any emotion about it, nor about shooting people down. She's really kind of scary that way, so I was glad to see her acting a bit more 'real' now.
I like Rey; she is indeed adorable; and her life as a scavenger on that wretched planet was totally implausible in light of the price she'd fetch elsewhere. I'm betting she's Luke's daughter. I guess time will tell!
no subject
Date: 2015-12-29 06:57 pm (UTC)I'm just happy that this time the special effects are bigger and better, but they're (mostly) used to tell the story, rather than using the story to show off special effects. These days, that's pretty much all I'm asking for. I think these days, I'm not particularly bothered by wonky physics on a small scale - or even by the wonkiness of lightsabre physics or blaster gun/Death Star physics - but something as absurdly OTT as plasma drones does annoy me. I don't even know where I'm drawing the line between "oh well, it's sci fi" and "no that just doesn't work", so this probably doesn't make much sense...
Yeah, there are quite a few inconsistencies about Finn's reaction to violence and killing - the biggest for me, though, wasn't his lack of emotion about Stormtroopers getting killed, but his breakdown on Jakku. I mean, he was trained or even conditioned for this kind of action, no? And presumably this wasn't the first "real" action he saw outside of training or simulations or whatnot. So what was suddenly different? I guess explanations could be dreamt up - the sudden awakening of Force sensitivity (he did pretty well with that lightsabre!) that made him "feel" those deaths, or this being his first real action after all so he suddenly realised that his job was killing actual living people - but in that light, his relative calmness to the death of his Stormtrooper comrades is even more implausible. Even if we assume that there are millions of Stormtroopers and they all look the same so Finn perhaps keeps telling himself "Oh well, surely this wasn't anyone I knew", the fact that it might be someone he knows (and the trooper who calls him a traitor removes all doubt!) should be enough to give him pause! That's what I mean about his cluelessness. First, he somehow isn't aware that he's been raised to be a remorseless killing machine? And then killing his own comrades is no big deal? What!
I don't actually find it hard to imagine that with her entire home planet being destroyed before her eyes, Leia looses any and all qualms about shooting down people "on the other side". No matter how many of them she kills, it's unlikely that she'll ever pull even with the population count of Alderaan. I mean, that sort of thing can push a person over the edge. So that's actually making sense to me. Does that make me scary too?
I think everyone (including myself) "knows" that Rey is Luke's daughter - so perhaps the producers will decide that hah hah no, she isn't! As you say, time will tell. I do hope her mother wasn't just fridged in order to send Luke into hiding. I'm so tired of that sort of plot point.
no subject
Date: 2015-12-30 10:00 pm (UTC)Yes, because science has advanced a great deal in half a century. Everything in the original Star Trek that tried to be scientifically plausible now looks hopelessly out-of-date, or like an alternate universe in which humans never invented the microchip. Not that it ever tried that hard to be plausible, but it did make some efforts, and those are just the parts that have aged the worst.
Star Trek was incredibly classy compared to Lost In Space (https://youtu.be/P9y1PqJ6EaQ), which had premiered just one year previously - and Lost In Space started out trying to be plausible science fiction too, even though it got pretty silly later on. There was never any science in Star Wars to become obsolete, even though the Empire's level of technology suffers a severe, inexplicable drop between Episode III and Episode IV.
I got the impression that what Finn realized in his first battle was that he could get killed, which puts a whole different face on the 'remorseless killing machine' thing. He didn't ever show any particular emotion about killing other people, but then, no one in the Star Wars 'verse ever does.
Leia would be a lot less scary if she did act like she'd been pushed over the edge by the destruction of her home planet. Not that the original movie gives her much scope for emotional expression; she's mostly just a rescue-object. But she doesn't show any in the next two movies either: no blood-lust; neither craving for vengeance or satisfaction in taking it; no emotional reaction of any kind. She just kills, like it means nothing to her either way. Han does too, of course, but Han was a criminal to begin with.
So, maybe Rey isn't Luke's daughter. Maybe she's another 'virgin birth' like Anakin supposedly was, because if there can be one, there can be more than one. But yeah, in any case, where's her mother?
I really, really hope Kylo Ren doesn't go falling in love with her or something. She can do so much better, and by that I don't mean Finn.