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Quote:

Originally Posted by mapuc (Post 2368062)

It is a movie Mr DeGrasse

Movies, like any (soft) science fiction, don't need scientific accuracy to be good, but it can certainly help them be more enjoyable. I don't agree with most of his points in this instance, though. Things like BB-8 not skidding on the sand can be easily handwaved by assuming it's equipped with technology capable of preventing this. Ironically, the previous explanation for how the infamous Kessel Run line was logical no longer seems to be possible as of this movie, but that's a minor issue.

Anyway, yes, Star Wars Episode VII and all that. I just managed to finally get around to watching it. I think it rather impressed me in a few aspects, as it was not entirely the train wreck I initially expected it to be, but I don't think it really holds up as a sequel to the original trilogy either in quality or in, err, sequel-ness.

I'll start with the good parts. I liked most of the characters, both the old and the new ones. There hasn't been a great deal of development to most of them, but I expect that that is largely because this is only the first part. The soundtrack was quite good, at least what I could hear of it through the bloody audience, but that's to be expected. When it comes to visuals, this movie very much attempts to recreate the aesthetics of the original trilogy and I think it does a rather good job at it for the most part (though it did default to standard modern movie look in a few places). I wasn't one of those too bothered by lens flare in the Star Trek movies and I wasn't looking out specifically for it, so I didn't notice if there was an unnecessary amount for anyone that cares. Sorry.

As far as story is concerned, I thought the movie started out well and was quite interesting for the first half or so. It sets up a story that ties in to the original trilogy and yet, despite copying a lot of the plot structure and having a large amount of shot-for-shot scenes, seems to have a distinct premise. Then around the second half it rushes forward, expands the scope of its story (which has previously focused on largely small-scale events) considerably, sets aside anything that distinguished it from Episode IV and proceeds to copy its entire plot resolution from it. It does all this while simultaneously not bothering in the slightest to establish any context for what is going on or any serious connection to the events of the original trilogy, leaving the whole thing seeming rather hollow.

I'll try to elaborate a bit, though I don't think I can express this very well:

The opening crawl for this movie, much like the other movies, lays out the basic premise. There's a New Republic supporting a Resistance fighting against the First Order, who used to be the Empire and want to exterminate the Jedi; fair enough. We then start off on Jakku, introduced to the characters, the main factions and the basic plot. This is all well and good. The problem is that by the time the movie reaches its third act, in which the Resistance is planning the galaxy's most ad-hoc operation to blow up the First Order's superweapon, the original premise is half-discarded in favour of a repeat of the Death Star and Battle of Yavin sequences from Episode IV. This happens with not the slightest explanation of why the conflict is taking place, what any side of it is standing for, why it came about, or what meaning any of it has for the future, and the movie ends soon afterwards.

The original trilogy didn't have much in the way of explanation about its setup, but it didn't need any: the Empire has overthrown democracy in the galaxy, it is building a superweapon to establish its rule by fear and the Rebels are trying to stop it; everything was very self-explanatory just by the events of the first movie. Episode VII, on the other hand, has both a much less self-evident premise and attempts to be a continuation to the events of the original trilogy, and it just doesn't bother to establish its setting either on its own or in relation to the movies it's following up on. Who is this Republic, which we see for only about 5 seconds of the movie, how does it work, over what does it rule? How was the First Order established from the Empire, why does it want to destroy the Jedi so badly when they barely even exist, what is the extent of its power or the scale of its conflict with either the Resistance (which seems to be comprised of nothing more than a couple of X-Wing squadrons) or the Republic? Why doesn't the Republic seem to directly fight the First Order when it's obviously a big enough threat that it can wipe out its political and military strength with one shot from its new superweapon (if that's even what happened, since nothing is established that gives any sort of perspective to this scene)? All of the locations from the old movies are completely missing from this one, and most of their events are barely alluded to, so you can't even draw reference to them for the most part.

(It really doesn't help that the First Order's superweapon seemingly destroying multiple planets in visual sight of each other, an event which can then be seen in real time from a completely different star system, has by this point completely destroyed my immersion in the movie's supposedly galactic-scale events.)

Sure, Episodes VIII and IX will answer some of these questions, but the almost complete lack of elaboration on this movie's setting and lack of attempt to connect it to the older movies not only made it seem like it's taking place in a completely different universe, but also in a setting that feels almost devoid of life. In Episode IV I found it easy to believe there was a Galactic Civil War going on and see what role the events of the movie have in it, but in Episode VII it seems like these (largely identical) things just happen with little reason or meaning.

If any of what I'm saying even makes sense...

I can't really say it's a bad movie by its own virtue, but I think it ultimately ends up with a story and setting that feel like they're neither stand-alone nor recognizably a continuation of the older movies, despite the appearance of characters and a few other elements from them, and a plot that is very visibly attempting to imitate the older movies (and is entirely predictable as a result) rather than build on them to something new.

I also can't help but compare this movie unfavourably to Timothy Zahn's Thrawn trilogy, which largely took the role of 'sequel trilogy' in the old continuity and which I think is a much more complex and interesting story (so far, at least). Directly adapting these books would have been impractical, and not just because the prequels contradict large parts of them, but I think they are a good example of how a sequel to the original trilogy could have been much more coherently tied to it while not copying it.

Those are my initial thoughts, at least. I'd probably have to watch the whole series again, but at least I can say that I enjoyed this movie a fair bit more than most of the prequels, and I'm not even the most avid hater of those, so it can't be that bad.