The first time I saw “The Force Awakens” my entire review was “this is just the original three films slammed together into one film”
Which translates to me not being that impressed.
Yes, I remember thinking the same. But I saw it as Disney winking at it’s audience, saying “don’t worry, we understand star wars”. I expected the continuation to flow logically and focus more on this new generation. I was excited to see what we’d discover about Maz and Rey’s journey as she learns from Luke etc.
It’s more the lack of harmony with the following movies that I disliked the most (even if I still had a tonne of fun watching them in movie theaters, D-Box seats and all!)
🤷
Everything is a remake today. I guess that’s what you get when you don’t pay your writers shit.
What are you on about? The Force Awakens is just a poor remix of A new hope, but with bad characters and an stilted script. It’s the most boring of the new trilogy.
I thought the characters definitely had potential, but it felt like it tried to copy ANH almost shot-for-shot. It seemed like every plot beat had an ANH equivalent.
Yeah for real, the characters were extremely interesting in TFA. Poe and the storm trooper(Boyega) had really cool chemistry. Rey was probably a bit more interesting at that point than later, Kylo I remember liking a lot too because of his conflict with the dark side that we’ve not really seen before. Palpatine was interesting as well because he didn’t exist, yet.
Phasma seemed pretty badass too, at least until the subsequent movies did absolutely nothing interesting with her. She’s basically the sequels’ equivalent of Darth Maul in that regard.
Basically. They had the opportunity to make an interesting bad character, and even though they didn’t kill them off quickly like with Maul, they said made the character boring.
I’m with you OP!
I was a kid when the original movies came out and it had a huge impact on me. Force Awakens has it’s flaws, but I liked it then and I still like it now.
Just want you to know, you’re not alone!
(bracing for the inevitable downvotes!)
I loved TFA when it came out; I recognized and was slightly disappointed by its similarities to Episode IV, but it was still loads of fun. I didn’t hate TLJ when it came out, but I didn’t enjoy it nearly as much, and suddenly the fandom became a lot less fun to be a part of.
I loved TFA too, and TLJ is something I feel like I can never even discuss because it is actually my second favorite Star Wars movie after Empire Strikes Back, but Star Wars fans will drag your ass for saying such a thing.
In my headcanon, the entire franchise ended with broom kid.
I really think Rian Johnson should not have been given part two of three. If we didn’t have TFA and TRoS, his film could have been a really cool “Star Wars Story” exploring some post Episode VI ideas in a single sitting. Johnson’s thing is subversive writing, which isn’t super compatible with an ongoing franchise, much less with the middle part of a trilogy; you’ve got to have that kind of thing baked all the way through.
To me, it felt like a good progression from TFA. In a way, the contrast felt similar to me as way back when I first saw TESB (I’m old). There was a lot that was unexpected and fresh in TLJ, but it all felt like a nice progression and expansion to me. But then, I’ve never really felt like Star Wars has ever had a consistent, solid lore, even back in the 80s. More than any movie since RoTJ, watching TLJ really made me feel the childlike wonder that made me love the franchise so much at one time. My reaction to TFA was, “Pretty good, but a bit too fan-servicey.” TLJ really was set to redeem it for me.
It introduced so much potential, only for it all to be cast aside for the sake of appeasing fans in the (imo, unenjoyable) TRoS. It was a real shame to see so much potential cast aside, especially Rose. What an absolute shame.
Again, all of this is my opinion. Preferences like this are entirely subjective, and I’ve come to understand that what I loved about Star Wars is not what most people like about the franchise, and that’s ok.
Star Wars has long since gotten too big for its own good, I think; every fan has their own idea of what it is and should be, and no one’s going to make them all happy.
Having sat with my TLJ opinions for a while, the biggest complaint I have now, and both times I saw it in theaters is that it’s so long. Lucas had really dialed in 2ish hours as a good length for these stories, and I feel like there’s just too much happening in TLJ. I don’t super dislike any of it (aside from the casino, but probably just cause that’s when I check my watch and realize how much time is left), but I think removing a subplot or three would help it out a lot.
Oddly, TLJ felt shorter to me than any of the prequels or TRoS. But yeah, I haven’t watched any Star Wars since 2019.
Interesting; I love the prequels (terribly flawed as they are), but they were my first exposure to Star Wars. Not that my dad wanted it that way, but when parents are gone and you want to watch a movie, and you see DVDs labelled 4, 5, 6, 1, and 2, it’s so obvious to start with the first one.
Honestly, I already thought that The Force Awakens was underwhelming
The inverse is what made episode 9 so much worse. Like, this is it, this is the end? There’s no more? One of the most epic film sagas ever and this is how it’s going out?
It’s GOT S8 all over again.
… So now I only rewatch the OT and sometimes Rogue One.
I remember it still drew some pretty heavy criticism at the time, don’t let the rose-tinted glasses fool you. Rey as a character had quite a lot of legitimate flaws in her writing IIRC (not about whether she was a good or bad person, about whether she was handled well as a protagonist with substance to her character, importance and story)
Disagree… Disagree… And disagree…
