Star Wars: Movies and Shows on Disney+ and More (Page 1 of 6)

He's getting torched for it, but I pretty much agree with Max Landis' perspective that Rey is a bit of a boring character because she's already good at everything.  I'm not going to use the phrase "Mary Sue" because I think there's an uneven description on what exactly that means. 

At the end of the day, she was cool, but she's only cool in a Superman way.  She's shown to be *great* at scavenging, fighting, piloting, using the force, and using a lightsaber.  All without any mention, on-screen, of any lineage or training she might've had before the movie.  And while, yeah, she's probably Luke's daughter and might've even had prior Jedi training that was mind-wiped, that doesn't really help her characterization in *this movie*

Han's death also bothered me.  The first act implies that he abandoned his family after Ben went to the dark side.  Fair enough and fitting with Han's character - he was always the rogue, and it's hard for those guys to be daddy.  But there doesn't seem to be any indication that he's really worried about it since then.  Then he sees Leia, sees Ben, and that's what opens him up to be killed?  I'm not saying that he didn't love his son or that he was a bad father - I just didn't think the movie set him up for that to be his weakness.  But it was still very tense - my heart was beating out of my chest when it was happening.

I don't know.  It's way better than the prequels, but it felt more like a prologue to another movie than an actual chapter in the series.

Well that's the thing.  The problems I have with the movie are based on reviewing it for more than just a fun popcorn flick.  The majority of people seem to be pretty okay with that, but it's just strange to see that level of forgiveness following the merciless tearing apart of the prequels.

The movie has some major flaws, and it does way more sequel teasing than *any* of the Marvel movies.  I mean there are things in this movie that don't make sense inside the context of the film.  People forgive them based on their own theories (Rey is really good at everything because she's either Luke's daughter or was trained by Luke at some point, neither of which is particularly hinted at in the movie - people are just speculating).  These things will be explained, but I don't think another movie should be required viewing to understand the original movie.  Empire Strikes Back is very clearly the middle chapter of a series, but it is a complete story when viewed by itself.  The Force Awakens is clearly a first chapter of a bigger story and never tries to be anything on its own.

It's a fun movie.  It's an engrossing movie.  But there are Death Star-sized plot holes.  Weak characterization.  Telegraphed story points.  An incredibly weak villain and an incredibly powerful protagonist.  Outside of being "fun" - the movie fails in an extraordinary amount of ways.  The plot was wildly unoriginal and the script seemed to be torn between trying to introduce new characters and maddening amounts of fan service.

It's so much fun that most people can get over it.  I walked out of the theater thinking it was pretty great.  But the more I've thought about it, the weaker the film becomes.  I'm going to see it a second time this week and see if those issues are glossed over or become more obvious.

Freaking loved it. Yes, it was a major retread, yes it played heavily on nostalgia, and no, it didn't push many boundaries, but the magic was there, the characters were engaging and hilarious, and my heart sang again, unlike with the prequels. I couldn't have asked for anything more of the first installment in the future of this franchise.

Luke went chasing after R2-D2 early one morning.  By late afternoon of the same day he was blowing up the Death Star.  I'd say he learned very quickly.

Rey, OTOH, had almost nothing to do with destroying the Starkiller Base.

That's something that's always confused me - does he force-guide the torpedoes into the shaft?  "Use the force" instead of using the targeting computers always made it seem like he was just shooting based on feel instead of using based on the computer.  Like using a sniper rifle without looking in the scope.  I never thought he was actually guiding the torpedoes using the force, but I can see how that might've been what he was doing.

Rey thought Luke was a myth - that's the only thing she ever mentions in the film about it.  There's a pretty good chance there have been zero Jedi for her entire lifetime.  There's definitely a way to connect A to B to C to get where you are, but the problem is the movie doesn't show it.  I've seen it twice, and there's just not anything in the actual movie that tells you this. 

The problem with "the legends of the Jedi and the Force" is that we know nothing about what the general population knows about anything.  In fact, a line *from* A New Hope makes it seem like the galaxy was basically mind-wiped about the Jedi.  Han says he's never seen or heard of anything like the Force.  And in the context of solely ANH, this might make sense.  If Obi-Wan was one of the final Jedi, he might've retired before Han was born.

The prequels show that the Jedi were a *huge* deal during Han's lifetime.  Heck, during Han's childhood.  Chewie, his best friend, fought alongside the Jedi.  Chewie was on a first-name basis with Yoda.  That would be like people alive now talking about the Soviet Union like they were a myth.

My point is that information in this universe seems to be really hard to get a hold of.  And Rey seemed particularly uninformed since she didn't even know that Luke was real.

And, again, all this is easily fixed with a line or two that set it up later.  Maybe when Finn mentions Luke the first time, she says to herself "The Jedi are real?  Lightsabers, Jedi Mind Trick, all of it?"  And when Han confirms that he knew Luke, you show a moment of realization in Rey's face, and it pays off later.  But you actually have to show Chekhov's gun for the payoff to make sense.

In the movie itself, all we know is that Rey has heard of Luke Skywalker.  Doesn't show any indication that she knows he's a Jedi.  Then Han confirms that the Jedi and the Force are real.  Then Kylo uses Force powers on her, which would've been her first true indication that the Force even exists (outside of the vision she had when she touched the lightsaber).  Then she experiences a completely different way of mind-bending (I'll call it the Sith Mind Trick).  Then something happens in her head that we aren't privy to.  Then she successfully does something we've never seen an untrained Jedi do.

Not everything needs to be explained in a movie.  Over-explaining in a movie is just as bad as under-explaining.  But when you have someone who is as naturally talented as Rey, some level of explanation is needed on how such a thing is possible.  We all know how it's possible because we've seen the movies.  But she hasn't seen the movies.  And if she knows because she's heard all the legends, then tell us that.  If she knows because she saw Kylo do it, then tell us that. 

All Obi-Wan says is "use the Force" - guiding the torpedoes seems way more difficult than simply trusting the Force (which is how I'd always interpreted it).  Keeping in mind that it isn't until Yoda's training that he can move anything other than his own lightsaber.

Yeah but Han was around when Jedi were still active and plentiful.  I have no idea what Han's backstory is, but even if he was raised in a place with no Jedi, Chewie has for sure experienced the Force.  Maybe they never talked about it, but that didn't seem like the first time Han had given that speech.

Finally got around to seeing this (at home). I thought it was a pretty good pastiche of the original STAR WARS, but it lacks the originality and vision to be the cinematic event of the original 1977 movie because it's simply imitating the original -- and with a new cast. But that's okay. Repiloting can be tough especially when your core cast members are only willing or able to do supporting roles and you need to create a new team.

The stuff about Rey being a Mary Sue is stupid and Max Landis has become a tiresome bore, has been for awhile. Rey is notedly not good at everything; she can't negotiate bargains on her scavenged hardware. She nearly smashes the Falcon to bits her first time flying it. She is hopeless in handgun combat. The only reason she defeats Kylo Ren at the end is because Chewie shot him first.

Landis seems to take real issue with Rey knowing how to handle herself in her first fight at the settlement -- as though a young girl living all alone in a hostile environment with no law enforcement or stable society would have made it past puberty without knowing how to fight.

When Kylo Ren first Force-interrogates her, he reaches into her mind and then recoils as though he's being fought back while Rey's fear and helplessness are suddenly replaced with resolve -- his use of the Force in her mind unlocked something he's afraid of and he flees. Rey's instinctive trial and error results in patching the Falcon and using the lightsaber are part of her Force sensitivity guiding her hand.

In the first STAR WARS movie, Luke trusting the Force allowed him to:

(a) block blaster bolts with a lightsaber while BLINDFOLDED
(b) navigate the Death Star and escape with Leia from the cell to the hangar using a jumpline to swing across a chasm
(c) telepathically reach Darth Vader from across the hangar to pause the Obi-Wan/Vader fight to give Luke a last moment with the old man
(d) use the Falcon gun system effectively after a few missed shots despite having never used it before
(e) telepathically communicate with a dead man (Obi-Wan)
(f) fire two torpedos into a tiny ventilation shaft without a computer targeting system.

The original film alone establishes that the Force is fundamentally about its wielders receiving augmented instinct in making physical and strategic choices, trusting the guidance of the Force where knowledge or experience are not available. Force wielders who combine knowledge and experience with the Force become more powerful. While telepathy and telepathy are part of it, the main power of the Force is precognitive awareness of the plot. The original STAR WARS could see the word "Force" replaced with "Plot."

The prequel trilogy shot this to hell by making the Force all about briefly acquiring superstrength and superspeed in short bursts that, if sustained or repeated too much, would exhaust the user along with the telepathy and telekinesis. FORCE AWAKENS returns to the original conception of the Force with Rey.

Rey is shown to struggle, screw up and figure it out due to perseverance / Force sensitivity. Max Landis' whiny rant about Rey strikes me as him inventing evidence to justify an inherent distaste towards a Sabrina Lloyd type actress being portrayed as anywhere near Tom Cruise capable because he has some internal discomfort for female characters who aren't designed to be damsels in distress.

The idea of the Force being a myth is an idea later contradicted by George Lucas' inability to keep his own mythos straight. The Force was an urban legend at best in the original trilogy; in the prequels, Force users are elected government officials.

The Force is not an ancient and obscure religion if your ****ing Senators and Chancellors are levitating spaceships and firing electricity from their fingertips. The script for AWAKENS takes a careful middle ground -- everything is known -- the Death Star run, the mind control, the levitation -- but not necessarily believed, which, given the crazy propaganda machine of the Empire and the devastation of the original trilogy war, is not unreasonable.

Slider_Quinn21 adopting Landis' absurd and provably false views strikes me as SQ21 (a) having a fuzzy memory of how Force powers worked and (b) having no memory of what Han actually said about the Force in the first STAR WARS (c) not noticing how the prequels contradicted Han's dialogue and (d) putting Max Landis on a pedestal, just as he puts me and Informant on a pedestal he shouldn't.

In my view, Informant is a skillful writer who does not pay as much attention as he might to reader satisfaction, ireactions is at best a pastiche artist with a self-mocking sense of humour and a willingness to buy story ideas when he can't come up with his own -- and Slider_Quinn21 needs to review Landis' material and consider it in the course of forming Slider_Quinn21's own opinion -- as opposed to defaulting to the assumption that Landis is never wrong, especially when Landis demonstrates not only poor familiarity with STAR WARS but with THE FORCE AWAKENS as well.

Chewie had SHOT Kylo Ren, for god's sake -- Kylo was desperately trying to shove his internal organs into shape during the fight with Rey. Landis has gone from being a capable firebrand to a tedious dullard in just four years and it's sad to see and his issues with women are further in that absurd 2013 interview.

The film has a lot of weaknesses and the weaknesses are primarily due to using the original STAR WARS as a stencil, recreating the flaws of the original without the originality of the original. The main problem, I'd say, is that Rey's journey from uncertain scavenger to Resistance warrior is not the main focus of the story due to the necessity to set up Finn and Poe and also bring in Han, Leia and Chewie as a nod to the original trilogy.

There are moments that could be highlighted further, like Kylo telling Rey that she waits for nothing on her home planet and her family will not return, using the Force to destroy her belief system. At one point, Kylo says Rey sees Han as a father figure, a baffling remark considering they only spent a few hours together.

Poe Dameron disappears for most of the film and it's hard to relate to strongly to him, meaning the aerial battle of AWAKENS is a token segment and of no real importance. AWAKENS, being a pastiche of the first STAR WARS movie, is still stuck in a world where there is inexplicably no means of data transmission; all data must be ferried in hard media carried in droids because the Internet didn't exist in 1977 and is being ignored in 2015.

But it's fun. It captures the same fun of the original. Daisy Ridley and John Boyega have great and instant chemistry. After the bloated self-importance of the prequels, it's nice to get back to FLASH GORDON whizbang -- but I hope that now that STAR WARS has repiloted, we can innovate and expand. Maybe the next STAR WARS movie will have the Internet.

Well, I haven't seen Force Awakens since my last post here.  It's really hard to really defend/discuss whatever opinions I had then, but I would like to defend a couple points.  As per usual, you've done a better job than me of really breaking things down, but here's my two cents.

1. First of all, I'm by ZERO means a Star Wars fanatic.  I've probably seen A New Hope 5 times all the way through.  I might have seen Empire 2-3 times.  Return of the Jedi twice.  Maybe.  The prequels one time each.  Now this is Star Wars and they're on all the time, so I might have seen bits and pieces of the movies a dozen or so times.  But sit down and watch Star Wars - it just never connected for me.  I can see the allure but cannot identify with it.

So, yes, my memory of the original trilogy required more use of Wookiepedia than actual memory of the movies.  And to me, I always thought Luke was a bit of a wimp and a wuss in the first couple of movies.  He's brave in the sense that he wants to get out there and is willing to go to great lengths to rescue his friends.  But I never got the sense that he was really a hero in ANH or Empire.  In the first movie, he wants to do more but his parents and his mentor get killed with him being powerless to do anything.  He accomplishes very little in the rescue of Leia.  Yeah, he blows up the Death Star, but at the time of watching it, I almost give Obi-Wan's ghost more of the credit.  In Empire, the very first scene of the movie, Luke has to be rescued.  Then he runs off to train, and all of the action happens in Cloud City.  Luke comes to rescue his friends, doesn't save Han, and has to be rescued himself after he's owned and disfigured by Vader.

If you just go by the first two movies, Luke sorta sucks.  If you're picking people to go on a mission, I'd rather have Leia than Luke.  She's more creative and just as brave.  I sorta feel like Luke would've given up the real location of the Rebel base.  It isn't until Jedi that he really feels like someone you want to bring into battle (although his plan to rescue Han goes horribly wrong and, again, has to be rescued)

With Rey, I just felt like she was never in any real danger.  In Empire, I think there was a real fear that Vader would kill him.  Even when Ren had his lightsaber to Rey's neck, I figured she'd get out of it.  And she struggles....kinda.  But it's the little things - that Han loves her instantly.  That *she* is teaching *him* how to fix parts of the Falcon.  That she has all the good parts of Han and all the good parts of Luke and all the good parts of Leia.  I don't hate her character - I just thought her character was boring. 

2. Yes, I agreed with Landis.  Yes, I have agreed with him in the past.  I don't actually like him that much as a writer (Chronicle was pretty good, American Ultra was fun but forgettable, I haven't seen Frankenstein and don't really want to, I have no interest in Me Him Her, I'd only see Mr. Right because of Anna Kendrick, etc), and he seems like an arrogant asshole most of the time.  But I value his opinion because I really think he cares about a lot of this stuff, and I think he comes at it from an interesting angle.  I thought it was a bit crazy that he got so much fire on that whole thing, and I guess it's just because so many people loved the movie and didn't want anyone to say anything bad about it.  And that we'd been waiting all these years for a female hero in Star Wars, and it felt like cheapening what was supposed to be a historic moment.

So, yeah, I don't think I was just taking his words and vomiting them as my own.  Since he's presumably seen the Star Wars saga more than 12 times all the way through, I respect his opinion on the matter more than my own.  And since his opinion melded with my original thoughts, I thought I'd let him explain moreso than me.

Now if the Force, as it was originally visioned, is supposed to give the Force-sensitive the ability to either be instinctively good/great at pretty much everything with or without any teaching, that's fine.  But I just felt like Rey had so many times where she just seemed to *know* what to do without being taught that it seemed a bit off-putting.  Many times in the movie she just "gives it a try" and pretty much succeeds every time. 

Now the explanation is probably that Rey has latent training.  But I guess I have an issue with pretty big things in a movie having to be explained in a second movie.  Hinting at something bigger is fine, but I don't even think they went that far.  But in today's film culture, I guess that's just to be expected.

Oh, God, here's that 2013 interview. I just re-read and need to take a bath.
https://web.archive.org/web/20131005120 … max-landis

To be perfectly fair, Max has come out and said that he's embarrassed by a lot of what he said in that interview and that he's grown since then.

Well, the sequel problems will have to wait for the sequel. But in a series where it's been established that the Force will make a nine year old with no space flight experience someone who can singlehandedly defeat an invasion fleet of killer warships, there is really no issue with Rey's talents. And if Landis takes issue with the Force making characters capable, why is he watching a STAR WARS movie? Again, there was absolutely no outcry whatsoever over Anakin toppling the Trade Federation in the very first hour of space flight he ever logged -- and the main difference between Rey and her grandfather is that her grandfather was a man and that's acceptable for male protagonists and Rey should go back to the kitchen and think about finding a good husband and raising children.

A lot of the problems cited with Rey -- which I don't really see as problems to begin with -- are really issues with STAR WARS.

Well, despite her competence, I definitely got the sense that Rey was in trouble and turmoil in many points of the movie such as when she struggled to buy enough food to live on and found it difficult to pilot the Falcon and nearly crashed it or was overwhelmed by the Force vision that caused her to flee into the forest or when she fought Kylo Ren with a blaster and was promptly disarmed or when he mind-raped her or when even a wounded Kylo dominated her in a lightsaber fight until she finally tapped into the Force and beat him.

Because she saved his life through the (insane and accidental) release of the monsters aboard the ship and also (inadvertently) retrieved the Millennium Falcon for him and (coincidentally) was willing to help Han find his old war buddy who had gone missing.

Han also offered Luke a job in STAR WARS.

Maz specifically says she can feel the Force in Rey -- which is also especially present because Rey is telepathically drawn to the lightsaber that Anakin and Luke carried. Ah, the Force.

Leia is Force sensitive as well (first established in EMPIRE when Luke reaches her telepathically) -- she felt Han's death through the Force (as shown in an insert where after Han's stabbed, Leia reacts) and felt Rey's reaction to Han's death through the Force. Admittedly, Chewie was likely grieving more, but Leia could actually feel Rey's sadness for Han and feel it mirror her own.

This just just how the Force works and has since 1977. I think the real issue, then, is the core weakness of STAR WARS -- the use of the Force to connect disparate events and direct characters in a fashion that, without the Force, would be implausibly nonsensical and random. The use of the Force to make characters possess knowledge and skills they haven't earned in precognitive bursts.

At its best, STAR WARS highlights use of the Force as self-awareness and awareness of the world and acting calculatedly yet honestly to others and to one's self and achieving harmony in both. At its worst, STAR WARS uses the Force as an excuse for narrative malpractice.

Nevertheless, to me, complaining about Rey's psi-powers and precognitive gifts is the equivalent of complaining that Batman is too good at fighting or Iron Man is too good at fixing machines or that Superman can fly. It also ignores numerous scenes where Rey is clearly in trouble. All Force users have demonstrated that their superpower is using the Force to very suddenly become super-talented at something they'd never touched before.

That is the universe this movie is set in, for better or for worse. Anyone telling STAR WARS stories either embraces it -- or finds a more logical franchise. It seems silly to criticize STAR WARS for using the Force. One might as well complain that DEADPOOL is unrealistic because the character is aware he's in a movie.

What I find is that cinema is full of characters who are tragically orphaned and more powerful than anyone and every supporting cast member is a willing love interest for these characters with genius level intelligence, Olympic level athleticism and incredible good looks matched terrible angst that only makes them more attractive especially when these characters are hypercompetent and earn implacable loyalty and demonstrate the ability to win no matter how much the odds are against them -- and while that's an acceptable template for Tom Cruise, Batman, Jason Bourne, James Bond, Indiana Jones, Captain Kirk, Mr. Spock, Sherlock Holmes, it's apparently implausible and questionable if even a portion of that template goes to a woman.

Which is why I simply don't buy the claim that the male version of Rey would receive complaints about competence and ability. Rey is no more implausible than any heroic figure of cinema, but because she's a woman, it's an issue.

I do not recognize this invincible, unchallenged character you describe. Rey in the film is clearly on her back foot throughout, struggling not to starve, isolated, alone, near the losing end of every fight, perpetually near defeat and only succeeding through sheer, dogged effort and a bizarre luck that can only be explained by the Force. STAR WARS is set in a universe where trying really hard actually counts. This Rey who never loses a fight and is never in trouble seems to be from some movie I haven't seen.

Well, this is just from re-reading the two novelizations and the script (and the script is no different from the finished film -- my God, a J.J. Abrams screenplay is tightly edited) -- Rey is starving. Not to death, but she's constantly hungry. She is furious when the pawn shop owner offers only a half-portion of rations, so hungry she licks her plate clean.

The Falcon flight is haphazard and desperate throughout and Daisy Ridley plays the character as absolutely terrified and noticeably straining to control the ship when playing both co-pilot and pilot, whispering, "I can do this I can do this" and on the verge of tears throughout. Noticeably, the novelization and the prequel novel, BEFORE THE AWAKENING, mention that Rey's only entertainment is a flight simulator -- which is not in the script. (The prequel novel is canon.)

When the mercenaries board Han Solo's ship, Rey tries to trigger the blast doors but screws up, releasing the monsters.

All of Rey's suggestions for fixing the Falcon are voiced by Han Solo at the same time or based on her knowledge of how the pawn shop owner modifies his stolen ships (the compressor, the fuel pump). The script specifies that Han and Rey talk over each other saying pretty much the same things about the Falcon -- Han could and would make all these fixes except he's flying the ship. It's possible that Rey is unconsciously reading Han's mind and pulling knowledge from it.

After the Force vision, Maz tells Rey that Rey is deluding herself; this belief that she has to go home to wait for her family is a lie she tells herself. She knows full well that no one will return for her.

When Rey is captured, Kylo-Ren rips right through Rey's mind, telling her the same thing; he knows she's a scavenger and that she's alone and that she has been abandoned and she lies to herself. He also sees that the map fragment is in her memory, but that's the only thing he can't pull out of her mind because he gets in so deep she can read his.

Rey's first two attempts to use the Force hypnosis on the stormtrooper fail.

When Rey first tries to fight Kylo Ren in the woods, Kylo sends her flying backwards and knocks her unconscious from a Force blast. Rey awakens to see Finn fighting and defeated and then she grabs the lightsaber, but Kylo easily drives her to the very edge of a cliff and tells her that she doesn't know how to use the Force. At that point, Rey closes her eyes and -- I think -- begins to trust the Force inside herself, her feelings for Finn, her grief for Han, her acceptance that her life at home was waiting for something that would never happen -- and then the Force guides her in the fight from that moment forward.

Han and Rey bonding so quickly -- oh come on. This is a god-damn STAR WARS movie. That's how these things work. Han bonded with Luke in STAR WARS and that was maybe half a day, to the point where Han (extremely charitably) declared Luke to be "good in a fight," which is one of the most laughable things Han has ever said. Luke's daughter, however, is a scrapper.

I do agree that Leia walking right past Chewie was a mistake and JJ Abrams says he blocked the scene incorrectly -- that Resistance soldiers should have been surrounding Chewie and ushering him and Finn to the infirmary and that Leia should have been kept at a distance to establish that she was standing back to let the medical professionals do their jobs. Abrams apologized for this.

I can see some reasons for Leia sending Rey alone. If you're trying to get a warrior to come out of retirement, sending him a potential protege is probably your best bet; there's no way Luke doesn't know that the galaxy has gone to hell in his absence. He's chosen to stay out of it for whatever reason -- earlier drafts, I believe, were going to overtly reveal that Luke has become so powerful in the Force that a word or a breath could shatter worlds and he's isolating himself to protect people. Leia has a Resistance to run and a government to rebuild after the Death Star Mark 3 blew up the Republic core system. Chewie knew that Han would have insisted on flying Rey to meet Luke.

And Leia always hated the Falcon and considered it a hyperdrive equipped death trap; she would give it away in a heartbeat to the first person dumb enough to assume responsibility for that creaking pile of malfunctions and dysfunctions.

Thanks for reading the first SLIDERS REBORN script.

Han risked his life for Luke at least twice the first day they met.

Essentially two days.

C-3PO and R2-D2 escape one day.  Luke buys them and cleans them up then R2-D2 runs while he's eating dinner and whining about having to stay when all his friends are gone.  Luke looks a little, but it's too dangerous to go after him at night with all the Sand People.

Early the next morning he takes C-3PO and goes hunting for R2-D2.  The rest of the movie up to the destruction of the Death Star and return to base takes place that day.

The medal ceremony at the end is probably a different day, if that matters.

According to the various technical manuals, the Death Star had hyperdrive -- but all the books before April 25, 2014 have been declared apocryphal. They are now labelled as STAR WARS LEGENDS. So now, it's kind of a gray area.

**

In other STAR WARS news -- well, in February (so not news, really), fan editor Peter Harmáček released version 2.5 of his DESPECIALIZED STAR WARS. These are versions of the original trilogy where all the SPECIAL EDITION changes have been removed -- and they're in high definition.

Very neat stuff. Harmáček received a variety of donations to make this happen; fans calling themselves TeamNegative1 tracked down 35mm prints of the unaltered films and did scans and restorations and gave some of their stuff to Harmáček. Harmáček took the SPECIAL EDITION blu-ray versions and mixed them with the 35mm versions and the unaltered but low-res DVD footage to recreate the original films.

He used rotoscoping to lift the original effects and put them on top of the SPECIAL EDITION video, covering the CG additions. For example, the SPECIAL EDITION STAR WARS created a new Leia hologram; Harmáček kept the HD version but covered the new Leia hologram with the original. He also recreated all the edits so that shots removed or altered in the SPECIAL EDITION have been restored to the DESPECIALIZED version. The original sound mix has been reinstated. All blu-ray colour alterations (designed to make the original films' tan, low contrast image match the bright, high contrast look of the prequels) have been undone.

Harmáček also restored errors. He recreated matte lines, scanlines, incorrectly placed matte paintings and visual artifacts, aiming for historical accuracy. It's called DESPECIALIZED, but that implies there've been changes; these releases are STAR WARS (1977), EMPIRE (1980) and RETURN (1983) as shown in theatres. Fans no longer need George Lucas to sign off on unaltered HD releases; they've made it themselves.

Earlier versions of the DESPECIALIZED version did not have material from the 35mm prints available. Harmáček made do with other sources: a 16mm print scan of STAR WARS, the low-resolution DVD release of the unaltered trilogy and a few 35mm sequences here and there as they came in. Harmáček also received film cells that he used to create matte paintings to restore original backgrounds to shots.

Sometimes, the unaltered materials were of a very low resolution and had to be upscaled to blend with the HD blu-ray footage. In some cases, it was no big deal -- for fast motion scenes, the original effects could be blurred to blend; for the space battle scenes, there was so much movement that the absence of fine detail wasn't an issue.

In others, you'd have a sharp and pristine shot suddenly becoming jagged and rough, or there'd be a low resolution effect on an HD shot. These were isolated instances, but enough to distract -- such as the final scene of RETURN OF THE JEDI where Harmáček removed Hayden Christiansen, but the Anakin in the shot was low resolution where Yoda and Obi-Wan were in HD. With version 2.5, areas where the visual quality dropped have been replaced by 35mm material, sufficiently cleaned up so that mismatches, while noticeable if you pause to examine, are invisible during normal viewing.

I like some of the SPECIAL EDITION changes. I think it's ridiculous to alter scenes to insert CG slapstick comedy like robots in Mos Eisley fighting each other or amp up the space battle sound effects so much they drown out John Williams' award winning score or recolour the films so badly that all shadow detail is lost.

But there are some things worth doing -- like correcting special effects errors where planets show up inside asteroid fields or redoing the glow effect on the Millennium Falcon to look consistent or adding more stormtroopers to the Death Star hallways. Changes that don't make the movie look like it was filmed in 1977 but only got edited and received special effects in 1996.

THE EMPIRE STRIKES BACK, if you set aside the crushed blacks and bad colouring, is a pretty good example of what a SPECIAL EDITION should be. The changes are minimal; the airspeeder windshields are now completely transparent where they were translucent and bluescreen artifacts are removed. Cloud City has windows digitally inserted to make the place seem bigger. The Falcon exterior hatch, once a vague, white space, now has mechanical texture and detail. It's not obvious what has been put onto the film after the fact; these changes are unintrusive while additive.

The SPECIAL EDITION versions of STAR WARS and RETURN are unwatchably schizophrenic for me. I'm glad Peter Harmáček has released this new version which isn't even new at all. Crazy how much work he had to do when Lucas could simply have new transfers made.

He put his 2.5 releases up on Torrent sites, merely stipulating that anyone downloading them should first buy the SPECIAL EDITION releases.

It clearly had some kind of FTL capability.  Otherwise it would take hundreds of years to get from system to system.

I wondered if they would eventually get the range so powerful on the Death Star that it wouldn't need to move. But the books declared it had hyperdrive, so I always went with that. To be honest, I'm not entirely clear if ships in STAR WARS can even move faster than light -- off the top of my head, the characters only refer to going at "light speed" but then the use of hyperspace suggests that reaching light speed lets them enter a realm where ships can 'jump' to a farther location without travelling that distance.

You've never heard of Honest Trailers?  They've been doing them for a while - fairly popular.  They do a trailer for the film, usually using it as a (comedic) review of the film.  They typically point out flaws in the movie (sometimes obvious, sometimes stretching).  One of my favorites was when they pointed out that, in the final battle in the Avengers, the team was speaking to each other as if they had earpieces in (when it was clear they didn't).

Oh wow, I'm an idiot.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vs3sVrm … tml5=False

I'm pretty sure he's said something about that, but I can't remember what and I wasn't able to find it in a 2-minute search on Twitter.  I don't even remember if it was defending the characters or explaining that they're invincible for whatever reason.  I also haven't seen it so I can't speak my own opinion.

What's funny, at least to me, is that I don't think he ever really thought it was a negative thing.  Just that she's a fanfic character.  He didn't think she wasn't awesome, and I'm not even sure he's disputing that there are valid reasons for why she could be awesome.  Just that she's a fanfic character who's great at everything and everyone loves her.  And that it made her a boring character.  He's said several times that he liked the movie....he just didn't love it.  He was much more critical of BvS than he was of TFA.

I've watched pretty much this whole thing unfold, and I know that he didn't mean it as a sexist term (whether or not he's actually a sexist I cannot say).  He claims it's just a misunderstanding on what "Mary Sue" actually means and any already-sexist connotations that are connected to it.

How did I get dragged into this?

I just thought it was funny, reading through Star Wars comments and then seeing myself pop up.

Well, I think it might've been in the presentation.  Yes, he struggles with the lightsaber, but he also is adept enough in the Force to stop that blaster and hold it in the air for a while.  We saw Vader deflect/absorb Han's blaster fire in Empire, and maybe one is harder than the other.  But it's something we'd never seen before from any other Force-user, and I think it was supposed to be impressive.

Then there's the fact that Ren appears to be in the "Vader" role for Snoke.  So Snoke is the master and Ren is the apprentice.  Now, maybe Ren is an apprentice in the true meaning of the word and is simply learning the ways of the dark side and the Force, but it'd be odd for Snoke to entrust someone who could've easily been killed by a couple people with no experience.

The problem with the "Is Rey too powerful" argument is that you have to weaken your villains to make it work, and I'm not sure that's any better.  The Force Awakens has three villains: Snoke, Kylo Ren, and Phasma.  Snoke and Phasma are barely in it and don't do much so almost all the "villain" weight falls on Kylo Ren.  And if he's just a very-Force-sensitive guy with "rudimentary training" and "marginal talent" then he's not much of a villain.  I know they're going for a villain who's conflicted and maybe someone who will rise to power on the same level as our hero, but Star Wars has a legacy of strong villains that the hero has to rise to overcome (even in the prequels).

To suddenly have an inexperienced guy who doesn't really know what he's doing isn't a great way to go either.

I mean I understand that but I don't fear Kylo.  I don't fear Phasma or Snoke because I don't know anything about him.  So I walk out of Episode VII without really understanding who's what.  I walked out of Episode IV understanding that Vader is still really powerful and that, while our heroes won, there's still a lot of work to do.  It was clear.

My problem with TFA is and was that it's a pretty good setup to a movie that might be great down the line.  It's a pilot for a cool TV series but not a standalone movie.  It's the ultimate culmination in the storytelling we're seeing at Marvel or DC or Fast and the Furious or these tween movies - where each movie is a chapter that builds on each other.  The Force Awakens is a first chapter that an only be truly understood/appreciated once the whole story is complete.

So that's why I didn't love it.  I felt like it was a prologue to the new trilogy - not the first entry in one.

The feeling in the cinema when I saw it was quite good.  Perhaps it doesn't have a ton of rewatch, but JJ succeeded when it counted, when I saw it the first time.  I always thought the great wonder of the original trilogy was that things WEREN'T explained.  The prequels seemed to try to do this, and it failed badly.  JJ makes some "dumb movies" but he succeeds in the fun, awe, and excitement of the movie going experience.  One other point to consider is that this is the 1st of a new trilogy, and therefore perhaps we need to see the follow ups to properly judge it as part of a larger story?