Star Wars The Force Awakens Thread (SPOILERS)

The movie wasn't bad, it was pretty innocuous, I guess I just expected more.  I couldn't take Kylo Ren seriously as a threat when he throws temper tantrums like a two year old.  The biggest problem was that I just didn't care about any of the new characters ouide of Rey.  I didn't hate them, I jut didn't care.  All of Finn's backstory is given to us via talking so his Heel-Face turn from the First Order, which happens in the first scene falls flat for me.  Personally I think his character would've been better served of we'd seen him be loyal to the First Order for part of the movie and slowly turn to the side of good.

I mean he was raised by these people and indoctrinated into their cause since childhood.  He broke that conditioning way too fast.  What could've been a really good character arc is done pretty much in one scene, with a little more at the bar, just so he can be comic relief.

I suppose that's a matter of personal taste.  I didn't feel it, but that doesn't make your enjoyment less valid in any way.  That said they had to take him from home very young as he didn't have a name, just a number, so you'd think the indoctrination would be stronger than it was as he was raised by these people.

I also agree with this. The movie expects emotional heft but doesn't do anything to give it to us. When Ben killed Han Solo, the movie obviously wanted to get a reaction out of us, but doesn't do anything to earn it. The only background we have on Solo and Ben is long, drawn out blatantly expository dialogue between Han and Leia. At least with Finn they TRIED, with them showing us the village shooting and all. It wasn't nuanced in any way, but at least they showed SOMETHING. I felt absolutely nothing but complete apathy toward Ren (which is generally what happens when you don't follow the rule of "show, not tell" in storytelling). He's like Prequel Anakin, only instead of giving him 3 whole movies all they gave him was a bunch of expository dialogue by other people.

I heard somewhere that Star Wars has never imagined its audience to be dumb, they'll give you enough information to where you can infer what's happening. Makes sense because 2/3 trilogies start with the main protagonist being in their late teens. WHAT HAPPENED TO THE PAST 18 YEARS OF THEIR LIFE? Oh, we get to piece it together through dialogue and other such stuff. Okay.

Kylo Ren: THEY WANT HIM TO ACT LIKE A LITTLE CHILD! Kylo Ren, to me, is portrayed how Anakin should have been. Here is some dude with anger problems, doesn't know what to do because he's an immature teenager, and power hungry because power is super cool when you're 19. The whole point is for him to have temper tantrums. They don't want another villain and be like "btw, this guy will only be defeated through sheer luck because he's way too strong for anyone else". They gave us a whole new generation with both good guys and bad guys.

Finn: I think the big emotional break was when the Stormtrooper died right in front of him and smeared blood all over his helmet. That's when Finn was like "wtf am I doing here? Why did my friend just die? Why am I killing all these people?" With that said, blood shouldn't be in any Star Wars movie. Why? Because lightsabers and laser guns cauterize wounds as they create them. Goes for Kylo Ren getting shot as well. For the person who said "Maybe Palpatine and the Empire being destroyed created a fault in the conditioning", I don't think any First Order Stormtrooper was alive for that. The Empire broke up 30 years before this movie. Finn ain't a 30 year old man.

Rey: The weakest of the characters, I think. She was just like "hey, I'm here, lemme do things that allude to me being a Skywalker, but hey, we won't tell you!" Her backstory was "Grew up on a desert. That explains why I can just fly things and also use a one handed weapon when I've used a staff my whole life." At least with Finn, they explained why he could use a lightsaber.

The part between Han and Ren: I don't think they were going for emotional resonance between those two characters so much as just emotional resonance with Han's death. At the same time, they fell flat on that ESPECIALLY WHEN CHEWBACCA WALKED STRAIGHT PAST LEIA AFTERWARDS. Ugh, my biggest complaint with that movie.

I find that hard to believe. But whatever you say.

It's not about the audience being able to follow what is happening on screen, that's not what I said at all. I followed what was going on just fine, I just didn't give a shit about what was happening or the character of Ren at all. And I don't need to see the explicit details of every little thing that happens for every character between the ages of 0 and 18, but if you're going to try to make a relationship in the movie a big deal, you need to show some sort of evolution between the characters. Imagine the scene on the second Death Star with Luke, Vader, and the Emperor except there's been no interaction between any of them. In fact the entire relationship between Vader and Luke was given through an expository dialogue "oh yeah, that huge cyborg dude is actually his dad, blah, blah, blah". Would anyone give a shit? No, that entire part of the movie would lose its entire emotional weight. 

Also, we're nerds about caring about the physics of the movie, but here you are critiquing the presence of blood in scenes due to the cauterizing ability of fictional weapons. Doesn't seem like very fun party talk.