TFA and STB review (Spoilers, obviously)

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Mr. Oragahn
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Re: TFA and STB review (Spoilers, obviously)

Post by Mr. Oragahn » Thu Apr 28, 2016 5:49 pm

I'll keep quoting stuff.

On Rey being sooo perfect:
Kojiro wrote: Could be all three are. Whether or not they are doesn't impact whether she is one bit.

She's just too good at everything. She's a brilliant pilot, speaks all the required languages (the fuck did she learn wookiee), can take on two thugs even when ambushed from behind by one, shoots pretty well, doesn't loose her cool under fire or in the face of adversity like Finn, can fix the Falcon of all ships surprising even Solo, not only resists the mind probe but reverses it, pulls a mind trick out of nowhere, manages to sneak through a FO base that knows she's escaped and of course pulls a lightsaber away from a trained sith. Which she proceeds to defeat in lightsaber combat moments after she first picked it up.

All this from a twenty something hobo living meal to meal in an AT-AT shell.

Luke on the other hand had his aim slightly augmented after his squadron helped out and Han saved his ass.
Nail'd.

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Re: TFA and STB review (Spoilers, obviously)

Post by Mr. Oragahn » Thu Apr 28, 2016 6:03 pm

DarkJedi521 wrote: One doesn't realize just how well the music for the 20th Century Fox logo meshes with the movie until its absent.
The old-school martial score and super epic logo illuminated with WWII/Batman spotlights is gone, replaced by... oh.

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Re: TFA and STB review (Spoilers, obviously)

Post by Mr. Oragahn » Thu Apr 28, 2016 8:11 pm

It is curious how some people have trouble remembering what Solo says about the Starkiller base's shield. It was clearly important, yet wasn't particularly well articulated, which is insane. I don't remember what he said too. This should have been worth a proper delivery.
Now, it seems it's a shield that lets stuff pass through if it comes in through hyperspace because the weapon fires at hyperspeed and shouldn't be blocked by its own defense.

- Did the weapon fire that fast? No.
- Couldn't they shape the shield to compensate for that problem? Probably, going by the DSII field's shape and the existence of front and rear deflectors.
- Why is it that such a glaring weakness known by Solo?
- If there's such a weakness to hyperspace-based infiltration, why aren't there appropriate defenses on the ground? There's a secondary, classical shield!
- If there's a secondary shield that protects the superweapon's metaphorical testicles, why is it so poorly defended against any infiltration considering how hugely important it is?

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Re: TFA and STB review (Spoilers, obviously)

Post by Mr. Oragahn » Thu Apr 28, 2016 8:23 pm

Ziggy Stardust wrote: Like due to Rey's presence. It was said earlier in the film that he was going to stay deactive until Luke came back. Instead he reactivated when Rey showed up. I think they are hinting towards her being Luke's daughter. He's obviously meditating, Force sensitive as he... it is.

Speaking of R2, though, just another in the long line of incredibly stupid and not-at-all-thought-out elements of this plot: R2 had the rest of the map stored in his memory banks, but they couldn't access them because he was in fucking "low power mode"? He's a fucking droid! The Star Wars galaxy seriously has no means of retrieving data out of a droid in "low power mode"? Beyond the use of cryptography and such, anything stored could be retrieved. Passwords work because no one can mind rape your brain. But a droid? They have private parts now? We will learn that there was a failsafe implanted by Luke so no one could get inside the droid without burning its memory. Ah. Now that's a fine fan theory isn't it? the entire movie seems to require the audience to write custom scripts four times bigger than the production one for TFA to make sense. That's the Lost syndrome.

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Re: TFA and STB review (Spoilers, obviously)

Post by Mr. Oragahn » Thu Apr 28, 2016 9:42 pm

Something like seven planets are destroyed at once. Including a city world apparently. Massive loss of life, for sure.
Did Leia and Rey feel anything?
Any bowel movement, per chance?

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Re: TFA and STB review (Spoilers, obviously)

Post by Mr. Oragahn » Thu Apr 28, 2016 11:56 pm

TFA novelization wrote: No planetary defense system can be sustained at a constant rate. It would take too much power. Besides, it isn’t necessary. All planetary shields have a fractional refresh. Instead of being constantly ‘on,’ they fluctuate at a predetermined rate. Keeps anything traveling less than lightspeed from getting through. Theoretically, a ship could get its nose in when a shield is off. Half a second later, the shield snaps back on and—well, it isn’t good for anyone on that ship.
Literally self contradictory (you need to move faster than light to get through at a totally improbable moment but apparently it's measured in half seconds...), this is a known property of shields (no super arcane knowledge here).
LOL
In other words, you could spam a world with hyperdrive missiles until one gets through.
Versus debates are going to be fun for those who care about this new batch of SW stuff.

On another note, Ren losing it anytime he learns of bad news has lots of internet meme potential.

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Re: TFA and STB review (Spoilers, obviously)

Post by Mr. Oragahn » Thu Apr 28, 2016 11:59 pm

Never realized that ideally, an opening scroll in SW must be about three tweets long. No more, no less.

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Re: TFA and STB review (Spoilers, obviously)

Post by Mr. Oragahn » Fri Apr 29, 2016 1:33 am

There's been a shit ton of pro-Rey denying at (pathetic) length her Mary Sue character.
Let's add one more solid point that proves she exactly is that.
Kojiro wrote: Does Rey really need to pull a spectacular maneuver to line up a locked gun on a TIE? Couldn't we just skip the whole 'it's locked in position' thing and have Finn be useful for once? Or move to the top gun? Of course we could. We could skip the CGI slow mo shot and just let the gunner do their job. But they elected to spend money and screen time showing us how awesome Rey was. They literally create a convoluted reason to put her awesomeness on screen. So we can watch her line up a gun she can't see on a target she can't see. So far Finn has failed to do just that with the gun working and targeting computer- despite the fact we're told earlier he knows how to man a gun.
Let's notice that Luke Skywalker, with all his massive untaped Force awesomeness, occupied a similar position decades ago and despite the help of a computer, had a hell of a hard time to get a lock and land a shot on those buzzing TIEs before he started to get it after numerous misses.

TFA is as bad, if not worse than the worst prequels. But at least the story in the PT was whole and made more sense, appropriate details were given, perhaps a bit too much regarding TPM, and it still was Lucas' universe. Potential was high, delivery was mediocre, OK. But there was a sense that he was still involved for the artistic part of it.
OTOH, Disney's first attempt at a SW flick is a rushed cash grab. As soon as they secured the plans of the... erm, secured the intellectual property of the franchise, they shat a script on paper, put the technical and artistic in frienzy mode and rolled the film to the theaters in quick order, and you barely hade time to realize STAR WARS had actually changed hands!
Right there, the pressure for Disney to nail a solid sequel to a very famous franchise was high.

Let's be honest too.
If it weren't SW, this flick would have gotten far worse reviews.
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Re: TFA and STB review (Spoilers, obviously)

Post by Mr. Oragahn » Sun May 08, 2016 4:51 pm

Moved to there since it deals with opinions more than the analysis of technical elements.

-----------[Replying to Sothis' post in the other TFA thread]------------

I'v read it, it's a good summary but relies a bit too much on the novels. But since the movies are so reluctant to expose the background, I can see how one would be tempted to go for the book.
I started this empty thread before watching the movie, somehow feeling that it may be worthy of some analysis. However, after witnessing the clusterfuck it is, I absolutely don't feel like going through any particular scrutiny of background elements anymore.

I'll comment on a few points though.
Rey is the embodiment of what a strong lead character should be in this day and age – one not defined by her gender. The fact that she is a woman is pretty much incidental – she is a true equal to the other characters, which makes a refreshing change.
Her stats are boosted in all competences with a large stash of Force points to spend at abandon. She's like a vampiric syncretism of several main characters from ANH. Therefore, she cannot be terrible. Well, she could have been so if her prowesses had been balanced out by equally huge defaults but I'm afraid that would have required some truely hurr durr moments from her.
Before I continue, I must address the charges that she is something of a Mary Sue (a character who can do no wrong, a projection of the writer’s desired self-image into the film or book). Rey does not come through unscathed in this film – she still has no idea of who her family is, nor where they are.
That is relatively minor and not even some result from the movie's events. It's part of the character's overall background nobody would care about. This point is rather irrelevant since nothing has changed on that front between the beginning and the ending of the film.
She is kidnapped by Kylo Ren and, though she was able to escape her cell,
Not something small at all!
she was still totally dependent upon outside help to escape the planet.
Was she? She seemed to be on her way to a fighter and doing very fine playing Spiderman in such a non-conspicuous way (...). But considering the level of security inside this large base...
When she and Finn confront Ren at the end of the film, she is initially rendered unconscious!
A dozen seconds until she hacks into Ren's TK and grabs the lightsabre.
Which matters not because she still pwns him in the end anyway, because TEH FOARS!
To cut away any lingering doubt, Ren, when face-to-face with his father, makes the decision to kill him (in what was, in my view, inevitable from the moment Han stepped onto that bridge), but the act of the son killing the father – and the father, in his dying moments, reaching out to his boy one final time – is emotionally draining for Ren. The novel establishes that, far from strengthening his resolve, the act actually weakens it – he is left shaken by what he does.
I don't know... the guy is a complete Freudian psychotic nutcase. Next move, he rapes his mother and feels better.
It must take some serious madness to be willing to kill your father (who hasn't beaten you or raped you when you were eight years old).
It feels nothing more than a gross trick at pulling the audience's emotional strings.
There have been suggestions that his fight with Finn and Rey was all wrong – that Finn should never have been able to stand up to Ren – but this ignores the facts. Ren was injured (he had been shot by Chewbacca just after he killed Han), he was emotional, for the reasons already mentioned, and Finn had been through some form of melee combat training (this was clear from Finn’s earlier fight with a Stormtrooper). Despite this, Ren was still able to defeat Finn, albeit not without sustaining further injury.

So, by the time he fought Rey, he was nursing two wounds, and we don’t actually know the extent of his melee combat experience. Rey may not have had any experience either, but she was naturally gifted in the Force and unhurt.
Aside from Ren being a pretender who has nothing else to do but build a lightsabre and actually learn how to use it, the point is that since so many people, even if they liked that flick, were not convinced of the sort of deus ex pulled there, it must tell us something: it's because it's badly told.
It wouldn't be so hard to accept the course of events if Ren hadn't been shown to best Vader in about everything he's shown in the OT, especially in the telekinesis department.
You move from one guy who can effortlessly deflect or hold people or energy bolts into place and continue doing whatever he was doing before and after without even flinching or showing any need to concentrate (it is just that hax) to getting defeated by a total noob who got lucky not accidentally dicing herself to pieces with that deadly energy sword. You think that even at 10% of his abilities (and surely he didn't show to be at only 10% of his stamina), you'd expect Kylo-boy to still be a brute.
The problem is that for contrieved plot reasons that both required a showdown and a conclusion that wouldn't result in the death of the two new heroes, the nasty dude was utterly nerfed. Yet, he still manages to catch on them in the middle of nowhere! Yeah, just like that; one of those tiring tropes of people ninja'ing in or out of a scene. The kind of shit that surely breaks suspension of disbelief and is lazy writing, so often abused by American writers these days. TFA simply fails to properly convey any sense of sufficient weakness coming from Renn. A good director would have made the clue obvious. Because when someone is really on the brink of crumbling, it should be visible beyond a doubt. What would it takes? Something like five extra seconds of movie length? Geez.
It's also problematic because most people assume, quite rightfully, that Renn is somewhat skilled. It's made clear in the movie that he killed other Jedi students and that for some reason not even Jedi *cough* Master *cough* Skywalker managed to stop him. So it comes to logic that Renn should really know enough tricks to get rid of amateurs who have never handled a lightsabre, even at a quarter of his abilities.
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Re: TFA and STB review (Spoilers, obviously)

Post by Mr. Oragahn » Sun May 08, 2016 4:58 pm

If anything, TFA perfectly demonstrates why a EU movie was a bad idea. JJ Abrams' latest hijacking is both a lazy and a cynical cash grab.
Think of it! Disney barely got its greedy hands on the franchise that it immediately started spinning the plot computer and claimed planning a ton of exciting derivatives.
At least with Lucas you could still give him the benefit of doubt, being pushed forth by an artistic motive, no matter how clumsy (although I've been cynical enough to consider the PT nothing more than a way to improve the value of a coveted but quite old franchise).
But now it's just so brutally commercial. Where is the love in that?

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Re: TFA and STB review (Spoilers, obviously)

Post by Mr. Oragahn » Wed May 11, 2016 8:55 am

One thing that escaped my scrutiny is how the whole TFA thing would return to the source, with plenty of solid sets and no profusion on unwarranted CGI.

One of the people I quoted on page 1 said this:

"The world felt real, and it looked right. None of the gratuitous and inappropriate CGI from the prequels. The only time I was pulled out the movie by crappy CGI was the glasses alien from the fake cantina scene. Even the stupid in concept Starkiller base looked like Star Wars at least."

Err hello? The Toned down CGI punchline was nothing more than a marketing ploy. What you say is that, yes, Disney has marketed this movie very well.
Remember Phasma too? Pha... Phas who? How the hell people even know her name in fact? Or how to spell it?
Anyway, going back to the supposedly measured quantity of CGI in TFA, you really have to be kidding me.
The movie is spilling synthetized imagery at every pore.
Rewatch TPM's makeoff, see how the large angle shots of sceneries were, for the most part, done with solid materials. Remember how they did the waterfalls of Naboo? Or the audience in the Mos Espa podrace amphitheater?
Sure thing, the next two movies increased the quantity of CGI, yet that level is exactly what you find in TFA. Aside from the few uses of cheap sand places and acres of wood, plus the small scale locales (cantina, Resistance HQ) everything else that's large is CGI. Was the crowd Hux spoke before really made of stunts in white plastic suits? Or was it CGI? Snoke? Dried orange fruit face Mas Cantina whatever?
Besides, in order to know about the name of these people, I actually had to look for them on Internet.
It's funny because even secondary characters in the OT had their names properly spelled out for the most part.

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Re: TFA and STB review (Spoilers, obviously)

Post by Hernalt » Wed May 18, 2016 4:27 pm

Mr. Oragahn wrote:Statements on TFA.
Hi, Mr. Oragahn.

Would you feel that individuals unhappy with TFA are outnumbered on this forum?

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Re: TFA and STB review (Spoilers, obviously)

Post by Hernalt » Wed May 18, 2016 4:32 pm

Mr. Oragahn wrote:Statements on TFA.
Hi, Mr. Oragahn.

Would you feel that individuals unhappy with TFA are outnumbered on this forum?

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Re: TFA and STB review (Spoilers, obviously)

Post by Mr. Oragahn » Fri May 20, 2016 8:35 pm

Hernalt wrote:
Mr. Oragahn wrote:Statements on TFA.
Hi, Mr. Oragahn.

Would you feel that individuals unhappy with TFA are outnumbered on this forum?
Hi.

Active members are outnumbered by bots here.
What do you mean?

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Re: TFA and STB review (Spoilers, obviously)

Post by Hernalt » Sun May 22, 2016 3:54 am

Mr. Oragahn wrote:
Hernalt wrote:
Mr. Oragahn wrote:Statements on TFA.
Hi, Mr. Oragahn.

Would you feel that individuals unhappy with TFA are outnumbered on this forum?
Hi.

Active members are outnumbered by bots here.
What do you mean?
I am trying to assess the degree to which this forum in general is pro-TFA. This forum bills itself as technically oriented, and of the variety of technical departures that any Star Wars takes, those in The Force Awakens are the most stark. (If I am requested to list examples then that probably tells me what I need to know.) So, does that starkness translate into this technically oriented forum being less favorable towards TFA? Or, is the proportion or percentage of TFA support on this forum the same as any of the other large forums, i.e., such as theforce.net?

Dead honest question.

Thank you for substantive insights.

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