MovieChat Forums > Star Wars: Episode VII - The Force Awakens (2015) Discussion > Never forget what Force Awakens was!

Never forget what Force Awakens was!

posted 7 years ago by TristanReloaded (449)
27 replies | jump to latest

I'm afraid in view of Last Jedi criticism some amongst us seem to have become oblivious as to the true nature of TFA: An unoriginal and uncreative fanfic-level rehash, and the root for most current ST problems plaguing the franchise.

Beware! Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it. Thus:

1. RIP OFF: Within the Saga TFA is the least original and creative entry by far; this in a series primarily known and famous for its imagination:

- Instead of laying the groundwork and plan for a new trilogy with fresh story ideas and characters, TFA just plays as a Best-Of Cover Album.

- TFA rehashes apprximately 80-90% of ANH's plot beats, the rest is OT (father-son conflict; Emperor scenes etc) and some former EU elements; the PT world building is mostly ignored (Coruscant as capital etc);

- TFA uses locations, designs and vehicles from previous films, but is hardly adding anything new (even BB-8 stems from old drawings, other things such as Kylos sabre or outfit are from EU materials);

- The World Building and exposition is shoddy/non-existent: We do not get any idea how and why after RotJ we now have a Bigger, Bader & Dumber Empire again. Or what the FO actually is and how the Republic and the Resistance work;

- All of this is resulting in a stale and stagnant, seemingly shrinking universe ("Shrinking Universe" complaint);

2. CHARACTERS: the character portrayals and actions are incongruent with their character backgrounds;

- This includes racial stereotyping (mostly with Finn: "Droid Pease", runaway slave motive who is given a name by white dude, a black guy tasered by dog-like droid, while being accused of theft by white female, drinks with animals and is starngeled a lot, black guy turns out the janitor etc);

- Blatant Mary Sue writing, which is the writing’s central problem as it sucks out competence and believability of characters and events (e.g., infamous Leia-hugged-first scene, ad hoc powers etc);

- Old canon characters act out of character, especially Han and Luke, and their former arcs and development are ignored; they only serve to glorify/legitimize the new characters*;

* fun fact: that even applies to spaceships, e.g., the Millenium Falcon should be the most famous, recognizable, priceless museum-piece in the galaxy, but the ship is just standing around like "garbage";

- characters are overpowered or too weak, resulting in Video Game like scenes*,

*such as Poe shooting down more than 10 Tie Fighters plus ground groups within one take, or

* Rey saving the day in any situation with untrained ad hoc abilities, including Force power-ups, especially when defeating the main antagonist Kylo; or her getting positions and missions without any rhyme and reason.

* The (trained-from-childhood) soldier Finn is just an incompetent black bumbling fool, and he is finally revealed to be a space janitor (sanatation worker) – he seems mainly to be there to show that other characters are superior and to be theri cheerleader - e.g., cannot fly ships, cannot operate turrets, cannot understand languages, cannot fight, must be rescued all the time etc;

* Some characters such as Kylo are inconsistent, first extremely powerful, then pathetically weak (when facing the untrained scavenger Rey). His inner conflict is poorly developed: e.g., he actually prays to Vader to protect him from the light (!) - thus the guy who is famous for having been redeemed from evil, and having destroyed the Sith/dark side, and who is spooking around as a light side Force ghost...(plot hole²)

- The father/son relationship is badly developed; we never see Han/Ben interact before as father and son, or get an understanding that Kylo is really struggling with having to kill his father – his motivation for going dark side is murky at best;

- The bad guys are underwritten and just pale imitations of previous baddies (Snoke-Emperor, Hux-Tarkin, Captain Phasma-BobaFett)

- Characters lack proper backstories to set them up and to make them interesting; just take Snoke: A powerful, ancient dark side user clone of Palps does not sit well with the previous story (Rule of 2 etc). So what's his story? We know they literally pulled Snoke out of their collective ass...but story wise?

[–] TristanReloaded (449) 7 years ago

Continuation: This film packs too much hack for only one single post...

3. STORYLINE/SCRIPT

- The main story line is broken and abandoned: First the plot is about getting a map and finding Luke.Then it's suddenly about destroying Death Star III (no inner connection between stories). The Luke’s map-plot is then suddenly resolved by a deus ex machina event (R2 conveniently awakening, having the map and nobody ever thought of looking in Luke's left-behind droid R2...);

- The scrip excels at creating logical inconstancies/plot holes, (e.g. Han taking BB-8 into Maz's cantina, resulting in it’s destruction), deus ex machina events, convenient coincidents, and plain old bad writing - e.g., the sword fight starts with a plot hole and ends with a earth hole (chasm ridiculously and conveniently opening to save Kylo from Rey), in between lies bad writing violating common sense, the established lore and Force rules.

- The dialog is badly writing and laughable (got a boyfriend cute boyfriend?), often just created to create cheap lowbrow humor;

- All about Death Star 3, including physics and its workings, is blatantly unoriginal and stupid;

- The map subplot is beyond absurd and convoluted (since when do you define destinations in space by directions but not coordinates - but let's not even get started on this!).

[–] TristanReloaded (449) 7 years ago

Continuation....

4. EXECUTION:

- Lot of the CGI is shoddy, the dogfights look like video games, characters like Snoke, the tentacle monsters or Maz look fake and not any beter than in the PT done decades before;

- The direction is rushed (relentless pacing);

- There is a propensity for overacting, especially with the new characters, especially with Ridley making silly faces.

- The action scenes and set pieces are just adequate – there is nothing remotely as iconic as in the OT (DS trench run, AT-AT attack, speeder bike race/DS attack) or even the PT (pod race, Clone War/Geonosis battle, Coruscant battle etc);

- The music is decent but like the film lacking the old inspiration for the most part;

- Many nitpicks/ ”lens flares” such as the “Ties approach with red sun backdrop”, even that shot is a mess: It’s obviously a rehash, sorry, tribute to the famous Apocalypse Now shot with helicopters. But the TFA-Cantina battle scene plays during bright daylight, a red sun is only seen for this very shot.

Nuff said!

[–] furiousstyles (4391) 7 years ago

Tristan my old foe, I could smell your fowl stench as soon as you joined the board , TFA was entertaining, majority of fans loved it, TLJ was far far worse

[–] TristanReloaded (449) 7 years ago

Furious my old fiend, it was your foul stench that led me here. At last the last prequel-haters must pay the price for their lack of vision.

You are dead wrong: TLA sucked moderately, while TFA was an apotheosis of suck. R1 was fine (as is fowl).

[–] furiousstyles (4391) 7 years ago

You need to understand why TFA used that tried and tested OT formula, after the dissapointment of the prequels, fans needed a movie they could recognise and have a sense of familiarity and at the same time, introduce a new generation of younger fans to star wars. TFA does that, its a comfort blanket for old fans, it has nostalgia, but at the same time, it builds a platform for the next movies to build on. Trouble is , RJ decided not to build on that and instead gave us a dull , comedy , and ignore every question TFA raised, who is snoke, who are the nights of ren, whay is rey so powerful , who are her parents.

The Last Jedi reminded me of how i felt when i watched the prequels, flat, dissapointed and dissatisfied.

TFA however i enjoyed, yes it had similar arcs to the OT, but i dont analyse that as much as the die hard haters, i knew what it was trying to do and i enjoyed it.

Is it the way i would of liked the story to go and start with ? no , i would of liked Lucas to write the sequels trilogy and produce, and maybe tell the story of the Skywalker and Solo offspring.

In fact if i had my way there wouldnt be a sequel triology as star wars is all about father and son , the skywalkers, that story has been told, the end.

[–] NotoriousRio (12927) 7 years ago

You could film a turd rotating in a microwave for two hours, attach the Star Wars name to it and people would watch it...more than once.

Star Wars now is like a cult, people will watch any old crap as long as its Star Wars, its why KK can add feminism to it now, the fanboys will still watch it.

[–] Renovatio (2990) 7 years ago

Exactly

[–] furiousstyles (4391) 7 years ago

hows IMDB2 by the way Tristan ? i do find this board a much better platform to discuss.

[–] TristanReloaded (449) 7 years ago

we miss you there, we ran out of furious-types, guess you were banned. Pretty boring, no antagonism anymore. And yeah, I hardly recognized your writing style here...so sober, civilized and un-foul mouthed, was demonstrably different back then.

[–] furiousstyles (4391) 7 years ago

fuck you Tristan.

[–] [deleted] 7 years ago

So did you write all that in one breath, or do you like to cut and paste it into boards whenver you get the chance?
Did you put "unmemorable" in there? I didnt read the whole thing as i cant remember enough of it to weigh up your points. It had Han solo in it so it must have been good.

[–] TristanReloaded (449) 7 years ago

both, the main bulk of text stems from an OP on IMDB Vol 2 I did some time back.
http://imdb2.freeforums.net/thread/21297/never-forget-tfa-friendly-reminder
But I have redrafted it slightly, though it still lacks a few crucial points like character development and motivation, which was noticeably attrocious too.

"Unmemorable" is on my list too, it's indirectly referred to in some points especially the ones on story rehash, music and action scenes.

[–] AP (5288) 7 years ago

It seems that more people are beginning to realize TFA’s flaws now that TLJ is out.

[–] TristanReloaded (449) 7 years ago

When you finally find that the much-hyped mystery box does not even contain one measly carrot dangling, you are bound to be disappointed. People now want to kill the messenger, Johnson, who revealed it, but he just reaped what JJ sowed.

[–] TexasJack (12516) 7 years ago

I don’t blame JJ for RJ’s failure. They each created their own unique brand of suckage.

[–] Threadkiller (3075) 6 years ago

I blame JJ for J.J.'s failure. J.J. was given a blank canvace to create anything & her was either inept and/or too cowardly to come up with anything remotely original & gave us a lazy, bastardized reboot of the OT.

[–] Skullomania (483) 7 years ago

I really didn't like it either and seriously doubt I'll ever watch it again, even if it's on tv.

One thing I find with the new films is that they've somehow managed to make the Star Wars universe feel tiny. In the other films (even the prequels) it felt massive. I'm not sure how they've achieved that.

[–] Bubbathegut (18054) 7 years ago

Lucas did a lot of World building in the Prequels and we finally got to see Coruscant. Lucas made movies cause thats what he loved to do, Disney on the other hand is just trying to recoup their 4 billion dollar investment.

[–] Threadkiller (3075) 6 years ago

I guess why create when you can just piggyback & rehash for all its worth?

[–] Frogarama (12942) 7 years ago

1. RIP OFF: Within the Saga TFA is the least original and creative entry by far; this in a series primarily known and famous for its imagination:

Incorrect.

A New Hope: Lucas originally sought a license for a Flash Gordon movie. When that failed, he reconfigured the Flash story into Star Wars, renaming characters and planets. It's still Emperor Ming with his weapons planet Mongo heading toward Earth to destroy it, Flash and Dale and Dr. Zarkov fly to Mongo to stop it.

Return of the Jedi: Same basic structure as A New Hope. Getting someone off Tatooine in the opening, and then heading off to fight a Death Star.

The Phantom Menace: Still the same basic ANH structure, but with some swapping. They still find a new Jedi hopeful on Tatooine, and there is still a planet being threatened by a superweapon which gets easily taken out by blowing up the core. It even ends with a big award ceremony.

Force Awakens actually follows a tradition.

[–] TristanReloaded (449) 7 years ago

Force Awakens actually follows a tradition.

Maybe, but it is still the least original and creative entry doing that; and I can demonstrate that.

1. First, a plot-point for plot-point test like in court; I start with TFA at the beginning.

Crawl
- White Stormtroopers attack civilians to retrieve an item, and brutally defeat them
- Enter their masked, black clad leader. He is a Skywalker and was a former Jedi seduced by a dark side lord, so that he betrayed the Jedi and killed them.
- He questions the civilian leader and then kills him.
- In the meantime a young rebel hides the sought item in an astro-droid who escapes into the desert only to meet a young hero.
- The rebel is captured and tortured

...and so on... There are of course elements from Jedi and even Clones in here (massacre of desert village at night)

2. Now, lets compare character and world building:

- The Resistance was the Rebel Alliance 2.0
- The First Order was the Empire 2.0
- Rey was Luke 2.0 (and the best bits of Han, Leia, R2 and C-3PO for good measure)
- BB-8 was R2-D2 2.0
- Poe Dameron was Han Solo/Wedge 2.0
- Kylo Ren was Darth Vader 2.0
- Supreme Leader Snoke was Emperor Palpatine 2.0
- General Hux was Grand Moff Tarkin 2.0
- Captain Phasma was Boba Fett 2.0
- Maz Kanata was Yoda 2.0
- The Hosnian System was Alderaan 2.0
- Jakku was Tatooine 2.0
- Star Killer was Death Star 3.0
and Luke was be Obi-wan 2.0

Note that this does not even include the spaceships that were essentially repainted stuff from the old movies (Ties/X-Wing/Shuttle/Destroyer/Falcon etc), whereas the previous saga Saga introduced ample of new designs per film.

NOW, if you can present me with any previous Saga movie remotely as similar in plot points (not in broad thematic structure) and characters/world building, my "least original and creative" claim would be debunked.

[–] lordbishop34 (1442) 7 years ago

I think at this point, with even the director noting it. We all know the film is a rehash of the previous film. But it worked as a whole much better than TLJ. And I would still place the film above two of the three prequel films while TLJ sits as my worst SW experience on film.

[–] DracTarashV2 (4493) 7 years ago

Both extraordinary films, I agree.
And bless tough gals with a no-nonsense attitude that get on the nerves of insecure, whiny, projection-fueled Marty Stus longing for the good ol’ days.

That’s all, one of millions of internet nutcases.

[–] Arghhhh (804) 7 years ago

Lucky you're here 'DractarashV2' as I've been trying to understand something. Why is it that the 'whiny, projection-fuelled Marty Stus' had no issue with the 'tough no nonsense gals' in the following sci-fi/action movie franchises:

Aliens (6)
Resident Evil (6)
Tomb Raider (3)
Underworld (5)

I mean, I make that to be 20 movies but yet they're saving up all their misogyny for Star Wars? And why is it with so many of these damned strong-women hating geeks around do the majority of existing sci fi franchises (that are presumably watched mainly by men) feature strong women? I just don't understand. Either they have a problem with the way Rey is written and they're not misogynists (which I *know* can't be the case!) or they're just forgetting to be misogynistic a lot of the time. What a set of terrible misogynists!

[–] TristanReloaded (449) 7 years ago

You know, if you have nothing and just want to vent you coulf use emoticons instead. No need to consider grammar or spelling with this, let alone logical argumnet.

[–] Arghhhh (804) 7 years ago

Yes, I completely agree!

The faults - by and large - of VIII are mainly due to VII and unfortunately VII (and JJA) seem to be 'getting away with it'.

For two reasons I think. One, TFA used up a lot of goodwill and so there was a lot less of that around for TLJ (there will be even less around for IX) and Two, the f*cking mystery box. The 'genius' of leaving these huge gaps to fill is that people enjoyed theorising and coming up with their own solutions but the thing is, an unsolved mystery contains an infinite number of possibilities and reality can never compete. RJ didn't just chuck a lot of them out of the window for a laugh he did it because it was very hard to come up with satisfactory explanations *especially* as he has to tell episode 8 not episode 6.5.

Take the idea that Rey is a Skywalker. Yes it explains (in a very weak way) why she might be so strong in the force but that would mean we have yet another Skywalker abandoned on a desert planet who doesn't know their dad who gets mixed up in the galactic civil war blah de blah blah. And also - why was she abandoned? And why doesn't she know who she is?

He could have done better with Snoke though - there was no reason why that character was just killed of like that.

[–] Threadkiller (3075) 7 years ago

I'm afraid in view of Last Jedi criticism some amongst us seem to have become oblivious as to the true nature of TFA: An unoriginal and uncreative fanfic-level rehash, and the root for most current ST problems plaguing the franchise.

*applause* My exact sentiments which I bring up as often as I can. They could have done virtually anything with TFA and what they gave us was a shitty soft reboot of ANH. Undoing what was accomplished in the OT & turning our heroes into washed up old failures. I will always have the most disdain for this abomination that laid the foundation for everything wrong with this ST.