Anyone else fan crazy over the hints JJ dropped that you can only get in retrospect? For example, Kylo Renn notes Ray sees an endless see with a green isle in its center and that is where we find Luke.

Did you guys notice anything else like this?

Otherwise, the movie was fun the first time I saw it, then became boring the second and I was straight up annoyed that all of my groups of friends had included me in seeing it for their first time.

Jesus, man! Jesus!

Ice Cream Jonsey wrote: Just the fact that he made it so Rian Johnson - whom we all like, yes, yes? Yes? - can't use Han is a crime.

Harrison Ford is not "Han Solo". We all love Han Solo, but as with Indy 4, it's painfully obvious that the Fordmeister is just getting up there in age. Hey, happens to all of us. But if I had to sit through another movie of him trying to muster the energy to read lines like he was 25 and hungry, I would... well, be sad about that.

They killed Han, because they cannot legally kill Harrison Ford.

I don't know this for a fact, but I'm guessing the only way JJ got Ford to come back was to promise to kill him. It's old news that Ford wouldn't originally sign on for Return of the Jedi (which is why Empire ended with him in carbonite), and Lucas basically told him that Solo was going to be killed during the Deathstar run in Jedi (and either changed his mind or simply lied). Ford has gone on the record saying that Solo's story arc begged for him to die, going from "ruthless smuggler" (who, yes, shot Greedo first) to a guy who would give his life for the Rebellion. I'd bet a million Republic credits that Ford told Abrams up front that the only way he would come back would be if Solo bought the spacefarm, so to speak.

I really need to see the film again, as I am starting to have questions that I can't answer -- like why did Luke go into hiding but leave a map behind so people could find him?

It also seems a little sad that both Luke and Han just walked away from the Rebellion. I'm pretty sure in Lucas' drafts of films 7-9, Luke was a lot more... present.

Here's that article I referenced, followed by another one. Some of them are pretty glaring while others are a little nitpicky.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/seth-abra ... 50324.html

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/seth-abra ... 56844.html

pinback wrote:No, I disagree that Abrams sucks, and I think the new bad guy was great, and I don't care that they killed off Han, because these characters do NOT "live in my imagination", it's a goddamn movie.

Okay, but now Han can't be in any more movies and it's because JJ Abrams couldn't think of anything to do with one of the greatest action heroes ever.

That's your guy. That's on you.

Just the fact that he made it so Rian Johnson - whom we all like, yes, yes? Yes? - can't use Han is a crime. But what do I know, I'm only the guy that turned you onto the person that directed the best episode of that TV show you like.

I've only seen it once, and I had a hard on the entire time so I really need to see it again to write a more level-headed review of the thing.

I skimmed an article yesterday in the airport called "40 blatant Star Wars 7 plot holes" (or something like that) and as I read each one I was like, "yeah, that's true." It was all things I didn't think of while watching the film, but reading it afterwards I agreed with most of them.

George Lucas does this thing where he repeats plots over and over and shots over and over to drive home the fact that history repeats itself and it seems like maybe Abrams did that to a fault on this one. Even I was shaking my head when they blew up yet another Deathstar-looking thing. How many of those things are they going to build before someone quits adding an easy way to destroy them?

No, I disagree that Abrams sucks, and I think the new bad guy was great, and I don't care that they killed off Han, because these characters do NOT "live in my imagination", it's a goddamn movie.

You disagree with SHOW not TELL?

Ice Cream Jonsey wrote:Pinback, I would love to know your thoughts on this. That. All of it.

I disagreed with pretty much everything you said. But I like pretty much everything Abrams has done, so we're coming from two completely different worlds here.

Never the twain shall meet.

You're never going to get the same kind of "magic" that Star Wars IV had when it came out because it was new and we were all young and innocent. Plus Lucas was too rich and not hungry when he made the prequels so he ruined them. He should have gotten others long ago with a fresh perspective to direct, and write, the first three films. All he did was make Darth Vader the whiny teen who never grew up, and foisted that abortion upon us known as Jar Jar Binks.

Consider the incident in Starship Troopers where a bug crashes into the whiny general and kills him in a nasty way. I doubt there is a person alive who wouldn't cheer loudly if the same fate happened to Jar Jar Binks.

Come to think of it, if that Radio personality said in honor of Star Wars VII he locked Jar Jar Binks in his studio to be burned alive and played those sounds instead of saying he was burning a dog alive, now that would have been funny!

Sure, it's a 3 star movie. I wouldn't have bothered to go and see it if everyone wasn't SO GODDAMN ANNOYING with spoilers. I had one guy tell everyone on Twitter that Luke appears for 16 seconds, so I had to mute him. Another guy retweeted something that said "It's just like the original Star Wars" but that was hours before I saw it. I'm amazed that's all that got spoiled for me, but at the same time if your movie CAN be spoiled to that degree, you did it wrong.

Of all the Abrams stuff I've sat through, this was the least terrible. I would never willingly see something he was involved with, though.

Okay, time to talk about Solo. In some ways it reminds me of Kirk's death in Star Trek: Generations. I see a lot of comments that say, "Well, Han's character arc was finished" and that there was nowhere else for the character to go. Also stuff about how Abrams "wanted to develop a really bad ass new villain!" I shouldn't have read it, it really does cement him as a hack. One who is a billionaire, but still.

It was kinda dumb because we don't give two shits about his tantrum-throwing kid. We didn't see him go evil. They couldn't have shown that rather than just tell it? Really? Using well-loved characters to prop up new ones, Jesus. The Transformers Movie was guilty of that.

But I also read that Ford doesn't want to do the character any more and they are making a Han Solo film with a young actor, so who cares. I dunno.

There's characters that "live" in your imagination I guess, even if the actor dies. We never saw the deaths of Scotty or Bones on TV or film and I liked that.

Pinback, I would love to know your thoughts on this. That. All of it.

This review, though it only gives it three stars, is exactly correct, word-for-word. Everything you read here is my opinion.

(Except I gave it an extra half-star, cuz I still have an emotional attachment, 38 years later.)

http://www.chicagotribune.com/entertain ... olumn.html

I thought it was a nice return to form. Here are some positive/negative notes I came away with in my brain:

+ More personality than any of the previous three, by far.
+ The new kids are great, acting-wise. All of them. Mostly the girl and the bad guy, but everyone is good.
+ The bad guy in particular is great, and the best Star Wars bad guy since Vader.
+ Light sabers are handled properly, so that when they show up, they're important.
+ I liked BB-8, which I was afraid would be too cutesy. It's cutesy, but not TOO cutesy. Barely.
+ Carrie Fisher didn't look/act as bad as I was fearing.
+ The very last shot works for me.

- A little too "call-backy". Maybe a lot too callbacky. The Star Trek reboot had the same problem, though. Maybe it's just the nature of the beast, doing a sequel to one of the most beloved movies ever.

- Harrison Ford, huh. Every once in a while, you catch a glimpse of the old spark, but he's so much slower and older, it's a little jarring.

- This overlaps "call-backy" but deserves special mention: Again? With the blowing up the Death Star-like-thing? That has one glaring weakness built in that a handful of idiots in X-wings can exploit to blow it up? Twice was too many. Now it's just getting silly.

- Feels way more like "the beginning of a trilogy" than a movie that can stand on its own. There are a lot of action scenes, and lots of stuff happens, but there's no climactic event tying everything together. A "TO BE CONTINUED..." would have fit perfectly at the end.

Overall, though, it was a rollicking good 2 hours and 20 minutes, and I recommend it.

Three And A Half (***1/2) Star Wars.

This one is only for people who SAW THE MOVIE and wish to discuss it, or WILL NEVER SEE THE MOVIE and wish to discuss it, or DON'T GIVE A FLYING FUCK ABOUT SPOILERS.