Just got back from 'Star Wars: The Force Awakens'. My random thoughts (SPOILER ALERT)

[RandySF]

1. I held my breath when "A Long, Long Time Ago" came across the screen and nearly jumped for joy when the title music began.

2. I unexpectedly teared up when Carrie Fisher and Harrison Ford looked into each other's eyes for the first time in years.

3. Daisy Ridley, John Bodega and Oscar Isaac have very strong careers ahead of them.

4. Kylo Ren felt kind of weak next to Darth Vader, and perhaps that was by design.

5. The mischief-maker in me would have allowed the Star Killer base to get that last shot off before exploding, thus wiping the slate clean for the new generation of heroes.

6. Luke's lightsaber making its way to Maz could be a movie in and of itself.

7. But the show stealer for me was Poe and his Poe Dameon's Blue Squadron.

8. I'm counting the days until 'Rogue Squadron'.

[NewJeffCT]

1. I liked all three of the main newcomers

but, I agree that I liked Oscar Isaac's Poe the best.

I'm wondering who they cast as the young Han Solo.

I'm also happy it's only about 18 months till Star Wars 8 comes out.

[LynneSin]

2. Thoughts

#4. I thin Kylo Ren was meant to be somewhat weaker which is why ultimately he did what he did near the end of the film. I think by doing that he will become stronger than Vader.

[WolverineDG]

3. or (spoiler)

he just thinks he will.

I loved how the actor clearly portrayed Ren's confidence sliding into fear when he realized Rey is stronger in the Force than he is.

[Taitertots]

4. 9. Random people using the force without training trivializes the force

It's the Superman problem. When the main character is invincible, there is no suspense and it's not compelling.

Someone who learned about the force yesterday can hold their own against a dark master. Someone who trained under Luke Skywalker and drove him into hiding after slaughtering a generation of trained Jedi.

[LynneSin]

6. Yeah I had issues with that one ** potential spoilers **

I understand that somehow Rey maybe registers extremely high with the Force and thus was able to somehow hold her own against Kylo Ren. That I was ok with.

But I really had issues that a former Stormtrooper Sanitation work was somehow able to weild a lightsaber against former 'Jedi-trained-by-Luke-Skywalker-now-turned-darkside' Kylo Ren. You'd think that Ren could just wield his hand and Finn would have gone flying but maybe Ren is one of those who wanted to toy with his prey a bit before killing him. You know like those spy movies where the bad guys foolishly tells the good guy how he is going to kill them and that is how the good guy manages to escape.

Also, my friend pointed out that she kinda figured out that really massive spoiler simply because there was a giant walkway across a deep chasm with no hand-rails. And she said that throughout Star Wars history when there is a giant walkway near a deep chasm with no hand-rails that something super huge is about to happen and she kinda knew what it was even though I did my best to hide all emotions since I had seen it already and knew what was to happen.

[First Speaker]

7. **Spoiler Warning**...I found that whole chasm bit reminiscent of...

...Gandalf in Moria during *LOTR*...maybe whenever we see a chasm in a SF/Fantasy film, we can expect the death of a major character.

[Taitertots]

16. I saw that and thought "somebody better call OSHA"

Who builds these doomsday machines? Why do they make them so unsafe? It's like ACME of the Starwars universe.


If people can use the force without training, then Finn could have it as well.

[LynneSin]

19. If I was to build a Death Star Doomsday device. ** yes spoilers **

I would make sure that even the most lowliest of employees could not figure out how to disable it. Which means I would bring in every janitor, cook, maid, bathroom attendant and other low skilled employees - if they can figure out how to disable it then we need to redesign it.

Also there would be fricking handrails EVERYWHERE! I'm not about to die because someone pushed me off the end of a walkway into a deep deep chasm because I went cheap on the handrails.

[backscatter712]

21. I'll bet Palpatine was thinking the same thing....

[RandySF]

17. Two things

Ren, though powerful, was reckless and not fully trained. Also don't forget he was wound by Chewie's bigass gun.

[LanternWaste]

5. Easily my favorite since the original movie.

Easily my favorite since the original movie. I felt a few pangs of the same wonderment and awe I felt when I was eleven... something I didn't expect.

I got misty-eyed twice... the first shot of the Falcon, and when Leia and Rey embraced.

[NightWatcher]

8. When Ray and Ren were fighting in the forest, tell me your brain didn't go here

It reminded me of the Black Knight scene from the Holy Grail.

[alphafemale]

9. Ren is a coward. Nothing is more dangerous than a coward with power.

Adam Driver played it perfect.

[backscatter712]

10. Here's the thing: Darth Vader was a powerful and experienced Sith Lord...

Kylo Ren is far less experienced, and he's very emotionally unstable.

On two occasions, he completely lost his shit and slashed things up with his lightsaber, and after he got wounded, and was fighting with Rey and Finn, he was literally hitting himself where he was wounded, to drive his pain and anguish, presumably for more Dark Side mojo. And then you got to see him really lose his shit in the chasm scene (those who have seen it will know what I'm talking about.)

Darth Vader in the original trilogy was very cold and controlled, yet with rage fueling him underneath. Kylo Ren is not controlled, and is in fact borderline psychotic. And he'll probably be even more dangerous in the next movie...

[alphafemale]

15. I suppose there must be something of his back story in all the extra Star Wars fiction.

I really know nothing of that.

He is both heartbreaking and terrifying though.

Should be interesting.

I am absolutely certain he survived.

You just don't kill that good of a villain.

[NightWatcher]

11. Questions about Fin's job as Stormtrooper

Was he a janitor and then got promoted to death squad (where he suddenly got a conscience and decided to defect)?

Was the First Order hurting so bad for soldiers that they recruited janitors and sent them on storming assaults of importance (like tracking the whereabouts of Skywalker)?

[RandySF]

14. Another plot hole

[backscatter712]

18. IIRC, stormtroopers are raised from kids taken from their families very young.

My guess is during his training process, which likely took place at Starkiller Base (which was a core First Order military base world long before its planet-killer weapon became operational), they had him doing janitorial/sanitation work. Probably something they did to all their trainees.

And also, remember, Finn's given name is FN-2187. The First Order is so cold blooded that when you're raised to work for them, your only name is a license plate number.

[NightWatcher]

12. Another question about the plot

Why was the mega uber Death Star planet able to be blown up so pitifully easy?

At least in Jedi they had to work harder to take out the shields

[RandySF]

13. Yeah, definitely a plot hole.

[backscatter712]

20. The trick about building planet-killers...

...is that you have to have some way to build, and store all the googols of joules of energy required to blow up an Earth-sized planet.

In the case of Starkiller Base, every time it fired its primary weapon, it had to charge up first by sucking all the energy out of a star.

So, when you've got all the thermal and nuclear energy of an entire star cooking in the innards of your battlestation, you'd better have a really robust containment system to keep that energy stored and under control.

And as it so happens, Finn knew a way to fuck with that energy containment system. Just give a little push, and destabilize the system...

[LynneSin]

22. That concept also bothered me **spoiler**

If I recall science class from 9th grade, if you sucked all the energy out of you local sun wouldn't the planet you were standing on pretty much implode. (I.e. The planet sucking up that energy).

[backscatter712]

23. It wouldn't implode, it would explode.

...unless your energy containment and storage system was robust enough to contain the thermonuclear energy of a fracking STAR.

Let's just say that takes Sufficiently Advanced Technology...

[LynneSin]

26. It would cease to exist

How it would die I'll leave up to the experts which clearly is not JJ Abrams

[NewJeffCT]

24. It was a lot tougher than the original Death Star

one torpedo and that thing was toast. This one had to have a series of explosives inside and a lot of hits from the outside until finally it blew up.

[UTUSN]

25. RandySF, I don't care about SW, *love* your posts!1 Thanks. n/t