GazChap wrote:
Further thoughts (mostly negative, unfortunately)
ZOMG Spoiler! Click here to view!
- The bombers appear out of fucking nowhere at the start (when Poe is doing the cannon run) - how the fuck did the FO not spot them?
- Bombs dropping in space? And laser fire arcing as if affected by gravity?
- Leia somehow manages to survive in a vacuum long enough to pull herself back into the ship? I thought for sure that they were going to use that scene to kill her off because Carrie Fisher died, but no...
- Benicio Del Toro yet again playing someone with a speech impediment - and also knows the rebel plan despite not having anyway of doing so
- Snoke's guards are fucking useless, and just keep on coming
- Too much forced humour that didn't really work for me
- Luke's weird sacrifice at the end - would have been much more powerful if he'd flown there in his X-Wing and fucked shit up
- Doesn't make sense for Laura Dern to keep the plan secret from everyone, at all. I half expected there to be a reveal that she was a First Order spy deliberately fucking up the rebels.
- The audio (lack of it, specifically) and the visual when the cruiser hyperspaces through Snoke's ship was fucking amazing
- I thought the film was going to get Kylo Ren to suggest to Rey that they join forces and start a new order of both dark and light, which I thought would have been really interesting but ultimately went nowhere
- Finn says to Poe near the end "Luke's facing their army alone, we have to help him" even though, to their eyes, he's literally just brushed off a HUGE barrage of attacks from said army without a single scratch.
- Finn and Rose's plotline was ultimately pointless and could have been dramatically cut down
Despite all that, it was enjoyable enough. I maintain that I really don't get why everyone creams their pants over Star Wars movies though.
Some responses from how I took it:
ZOMG Spoiler! Click here to view!
* Yeah, the bombers did kinda come out of nowhere.
If you were being generous they could have snuck up while everyone was watching Poe
* The bombs dropped as they were within a spaceship that has artificial gravity. Once they go out of the ship there’s nothing to slow them down
* Leia used the Force in the vacuum as she is strong with it, like Luke, but only seems to use it in extremis. Did seem like a fun fake out, which is weird since it was obviously all conceived and filmed before she died
* Del toro has plenty of opportunity to learn the plan. Finn and Rose were in contact with Poe, and he’s also the master hacker who had access to the Resistance computers. I don’t think it’s too unlikely that he could, as he said, cut a deal on them.
* I thought Snoke’s guards were pretty badass. They didn’t just get slaughtered by two people who are supposed to be the strongest natural force users ever
* Luke doing what he did was much more inkeeping with the character and his promise not to leave the island. In the end he follows Obi Wan into the Force, having saved the legacy of the Resistance and the Jedi
* Laura Dern’s silence on the plan was a bit odd, granted.
* Her sacrifice was epic and the visuals and sound were brilliant. But you do just wonder why that isn’t the primary method of space combat; flinging hyperspace drives at each other. Looked cool though!
* The Finn/Rose bits were the weakest to me, but some other people seem to like them, and it plays strongly into the theme of background not mattering, and spreading the seeds of the Resistance across he galaxy.
It’s obviously a film with lots of flaws, but I really liked it, and I liked it diverging from the old template whilst keeping enough of the old ways about it.