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Bleck

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    Star Wars: The Force Awakens (Spoilers Inside!)

    in General Discussion

    Posted

    4 hours ago, Phonetic Hero said:

    It's a little hard to believe genetics don't have *anything* to do with it though, when Anakin, Luke & Leia, and now Kylo Ren are all extremely powerful force users

    Of those four, only Anakin is notably more "powerful" than other Force users - and even then, it's implied that his strength with the Force is the result of somewhat insidious experimentation. Luke isn't really shown as being notably more capable with the Force than any other Jedi, Leia is implied to be sensitive to the Force but not actually trained in Jedi whatevers, and Kylo Ren's whole deal is that he seems very powerful, but, is not.

    Star Wars: The Force Awakens (Spoilers Inside!)

    in General Discussion

    Posted

    5 minutes ago, Geoffrey Taucer said:

    I could give a very long list of little things I didn't like, but here are some of the big ones:

    1) Fin was dopey and annoying, a small step up from Jar Jar.
    2) Adam Driver's acting seemed to take its inspiration from Keanu Reeves. The character was clearly written to be tortured by inner conflict, full of barely-contained rage, and yet none of that came through in Driver's performance.
    3) There were a lot of smaller details that pulled me out of the experience. For example, the fact that, after escaping Jakku, out of all the mercenaries, New Order troops, resistance, scavengers, thieves, and smugglers in the galaxy, they just happened BY COINCIDENCE to run into Han and Chewie (had they had so much as one line, ONE MEASLY LINE explaining why Han and Chewie happened to be there, it wouldn't have bothered me, but no). Or the fact that the galaxy is apparently so small that people on the surface of a planet in one star system can -- with the naked eye -- witness the destruction of another star system. Or the fact that Han had apparently never tried Chewie's crossbow before in all the time they've been fighting together, but decided to try it randomly in the middle of a battle.
    4) "What can we do that seems bigger and badder than a moon-sized weapon that can destroy a planet in a single blast?"
    "I know! We'll make a PLANET-sized weapon that can destroy SEVERAL PLANETS in a single blast!"
    5) Rey kept pulling new skills and abilities out of thin air. Why could she suddenly use mind tricks which, up to this point, have only been used by skilled Jedi? Why could Rey, with zero training in the use of the force, all of a sudden use it more powerfully than Kylo Ren when pulling the lightsaber to herself? Why could she, after meditating for a couple of seconds, go toe-to-toe with Kylo Ren in a lightsaber duel?

    I might come back and add more as I think of it.

    Rebuttals to the criticisms;

    1) Finn is the best character in the movie.

    2) It's gonna break people's brains to consider this, but Adam Driver's performance is inspired by Hayden Christensen's in the prequel. Stiff and petulant, and meaningfully so. Kylo Ren is a character who doesn't understand Darth Vader, written by people who do.

    3) All of Star Wars functions on coincidence, which is not surprising for a series wherein there's a metaphysical force that connects everything in the universe. It's even called the fucking Force, dude.

    4) It's easy to criticize fictional characters for building bigger and better weapons constantly, but that actually happens in Real Ass Life, so?

    5) Ren is already injured when their duel begins, and it's also implied that his training (from both Luke and Snoke) is incomplete.

    Star Wars: The Force Awakens (Spoilers Inside!)

    in General Discussion

    Posted

    2 hours ago, Geoffrey Taucer said:

    Sure, but if you remember when they dueled in Empire Strikes Back, Vader was basically just toying with him through their entire duel; not until Luke (inexplicably) became a fully-fledged Jedi could he go toe to toe with Vader.

    It was because he embraced the Force (though unlike Rey in her duel with Ren, he tapped into the Dark Side, which is what the Emperor wanted).

    Obi-Wan explains in A New Hope that you have to let the Force guide you - the overwrought fencing of the Jedi in the prequels is meant to demonstrate how out of touch with the Force they really are. Note the following;

    • how of the four Sith in the prequels, Maul fights in a very acrobatic but very direct way (nothing he does is without purpose), Tyranus and Sidious straight-up fence, and only Vader relies on exceedingly acrobatic and flashy fighting (remember that one scene in Vader's duel with Obi-Wan where they're literally just spinning lightsabers around for no reason? There's a reason for that).
    • how the only time any Sith in the prequels lose a fight, it's because a Jedi gave into rage or hatred or fear - Obi-Wan overcomes Darth Maul in a rage after he kills Qui-Gon, Anakin kills Darth Maul after Palpatine insists that he do so, Sidious loses to Mace Windu because Windu fully intends to kill him, and Vader loses to Obi-Wan because of Obi-Wan's rage and despair over what Vader's done. 
    • how Grievous is capable of fighting with lightsabers (exceedingly well, if you watch Clone Wars) despite having no Force powers, and Obi-Wan only manages to defeat him by shooting him to death.

    Luke doesn't become a full-fledged Jedi and then fight Vader - he becomes a full Jedi, and the first true one in decades, after he decides that life is sacred and refuses to kill his Vader or the Emperor. The prequels make it clear that the Jedi ideals are corrupt - even the sequels, so far, understand this.

    Star Wars: The Force Awakens (Spoilers Inside!)

    in General Discussion

    Posted

    Ren has presumably spent only a short time actually being trained in combat, since he presumably wasn't indoctrinated in combat techniques from birth (like Finn) or had to live a dangerous life consistently being accosted (like Rey).

    Consider that in the original trilogy, Luke Skywalker (never actually trained with a lightsaber in a way that wasn't just blocking blaster fire) defeats Darth Vader (verbally rated one of the most skilled lightsaber duelists in the galaxy) in a duel.

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