Chat corner 43: The Force Awakens

[annathecrow]

Welcome to this week’s chat corner!

Optional prompt

This week’s prompt, if you want one, is “Star Wars: The Force Awakens”, the first movie in the Sequel trilogy. Old characters return, new characters appear, new story begins.

Because I know this is a sore topic for many, I’d like to remind you to use The Dark Side post as necessary, and keep this space positive-to-neutral. If you slide into a rant, just post it there and link it here (“I have thoughts but they’re mean: <link>”).

And of course, it’s an optional topic - if you don’t feel like it, you don’t have to talk about it ;) I’m sure we can find something else :D

 

Comments

[annathecrow]

Redundancy department of redundancy: the Dark Side post is here.

[annathecrow]

I loved this film. LOVED. I've seen it twice in the cinema, the only film I've ever done that with.

Rey is probably my favorite SW character. I've seen the trailer, with bits of the first desert scene and her musical theme, and I went, HOLY SHIT, STAR WARS. Seriously, a lot of the Jakku scenes are absolutely amazing. The firefight between Millennium Falcon and the First Order fighters is so good, from "the garbage will do" to Finn and Rey babbling at each other how amazing they were :D

If Rey isn't my favorite, then it's old!Leia - excuse me, General Organa. (Let me tell you how much I loved that.) Both her and Han were amazing, and their interaction with the new generation (Leia with Poe, Han with Rey) was great.

I even liked the whole Kylo Ren angle, I thought it was tragic and poignant and I was curious where they'd go with it. Also, the fight scene between Kylo and Rey was A+. Rey pulling the lightsaber to herself? AMAZING.

Btw, Rey's vision when she found the lightsaber? Ow, my heart.

And Finn and Poe! Finn was adorable (even if I cringed a bit at some of his comedic scenes), and tragic, and he and both Poe and Rey had so much chemistry (romantic or otherwise)! Poe was kind and cheeky and I loved how the fandom immediately started making fun of him for emulating the young Luke Skywalker look. :D

Sooo...yeah. TFA is "baby's second first Star Wars", or something like that :P

[ruuger]

excuse me, General Organa. (Let me tell you how much I loved that.)

Same. In that, at least, she faired far better than her Extended Universe/Legends version. I just love that she was allowed to be the unquestionable leader of the Resistance. My only issue with her arc here is that my inner 14-year-old Han/Leia shipper is bitter that we didn't get a Han/Leia kiss.

And I don't care if it's an unpopular opinion, but I'd love to see more adventures of the "new trio" of Rey, Finn & Poe.

[annathecrow]

I'd like to see more of Rey, Finn & Poe too! And Rose and Jannah, too. The good thing about the Sequel trilogy is that it's over and done, there's definitely space for some "lets rebuild the galaxy, dammit, again" type of stories.

[fleurviolette]

Oh gosh, I remember the fun speculative days. I thought Rey was going to be Luke’s daughter from the trailer and after watching the movie in a theater. It would have made narrative sense but 🤷🏻‍♀️

[annathecrow]

Oh yeah, so many theories. :D I've been saving it for the TLJ chat corner, but personally I wish they'd stayed with the version where Rey isn't related to anybody - I thought it was really fitting, that it doesn't matter where she comes from, only who she is and what she does.

[fleurviolette]

As a concept, I get that completely.

It’s just that Disney/LF could have picked an actress who didn’t resemble Padme and Shmi to convey that idea? The audience expected a next gen Skywalker to carry the torch, like Jaina Solo in the EU.

[kittywhite]

I liked it and was really excited to see where they were gonna go with the interesting things they set up.
Loved the new characters too, especially the interactions of Finn and Poe.
(I totally wanted them to get together but knew right away that Disney wouldn’t go there)
Unfortunately the next movie ruined all that for me but I can’t say much more without gaining some Dark Side points!

[astromech1138]

Same. I loved Finn's story -- he was such a good character! -- and loved him and Poe together. (You're so right, Disney will NEVER go there -- I wonder in a slightly tinfoil hat kind of way if they punished Oscar Isaac for saying he played Poe as being attracted to Finn in TFA, considering the character assassination that happened to him in the subsequent films.)

Finn also had such great scenes with Rey. I always forget that the three of them never appear together in this movie, which was a mistake IMO. I was excited to see where things would lead, too, with everything that had been set up in TFA. Too bad the next movie happened. ;)

[annathecrow]

Poe/Finn - it isn't my ship (or if it is, then only as Poe/Finn/Rey), but I would have loved it for all the people who wanted it after TFA. Alas.

The sad thing is that we're at a point where I genuinely thought it might happen. I keep forgetting that no matter how much more supportive and open the discussions around the movies get, the actual movies remain conservative.

[astromech1138]

It's so depressing, isn't it? D cares too much about markets that are blatantly homophobic to ever let it happen, but even if they were just concerned with the US, I'd never expect it to actually happen.

Poe/Finn/Rey all had such great chemistry together. I wish they had more screen time together in this movie!

[fleurviolette]

Lol yikes Disney didn’t even want to pair Rey and Finn together, even tho John and Daisy had good onscreen chemistry.

[fleurviolette]

Initially watching the movie in a theater with people getting excited over seeing a new Star Wars movie was a wonderful experience. So much hype and excitement.

I’ll get back to this later but I highly recommend watching the anti trilogy. It’s a good critical video essay on the disney sequel trilogy. With that said, I’ll save the salt for the dark side post.

[annathecrow]

The anti-trilogy, do you mean this video?

(btw, the youtube search results for "star wars anti-trilogy" look sort of terrifying. XD I usually avoid YouTube SW opinions like the plague, so seeing all that... oh boy.)

[fleurviolette]

My bad! I should have added the link or just look up so uncivilized. Yes, it’s that video. By far it’s the most nuanced video essay while being critical of Disney/LF, JJ, and RJ, without being pure click bait.

[annathecrow]

Thanks for confirmation! I'll try to give it a go if I can.

[fleurviolette]

You’re welcome! If you do watch it, let me know your thoughts.

[yourlibrarian]

My main reaction to this movie was relief. Besides being so bitterly disappointed in Ep 1 that I never watched 2 and 3 until the last two years, I was not enthused to hear Abrams would be in charge of this after the mess he made of the Trek franchise.

However while I generally do my best to avoid spoilers, trailers or reviews of movies prior to seeing them (other than knowing if reviews are generally favorable or not) I did read reviews of it, because if it was awful I didn't want to bother. As I recall the reviews I read generally said the same as I felt when I saw it, which is that the film was a variation on New Hope, just updated and less mythic.

And as such, I thought it was fine. I was disappointed about the small amount of the original characters but I was ok with what we knew had happened. And I liked the new characters very much. I thought that the character of Kylo and his storyline could have been wonderfully metaphoric. I saw him with the Vader helmet and thought of Abrams trying to compare himself to Lucas, as well as what many thought of later on which is that he also stood in for the worst elements of the fandom, particularly given their response to the new set of heroes.

So I was hopeful about where the new trilogy would go. And it was after seeing FA that I started watching the TV series, which got me completely hooked on the fandom. So it was instrumental in that respect of re-awakening my interest in Star Wars 😉

[annathecrow]

TFA also got me back into SW and into SW fandom, so it would always get bonus points for that at least :D

The idea of Kylo Ren as a metaphor... that's neat, I'd like that.

I was worried about Abrams messing up the new trilogy too. Oh well. Correct fear, wrong target. :P

[yourlibrarian]

There was a lot of pushback about Pt 2, yes, but I can't say Pt 3 didn't disappoint. And I gather it was rewritten and edited to be a lot less interesting than it could have been.

[fleurviolette]

Initially tho I was entertained by watching TFA in a theater, it seemed like a fun yet generic popcorn flick, much like the first Star Trek reboot movie. Then again, same director lol

[annathecrow]

Non-TFA things:

• if you have thoughts about the finale of The Book of Boba Fett you'd like to share, I'd love to read them. Disclaimer, the discussion so far is pretty salty, but it isn't "nothing will survive" level of salinity, at least not from me ;)
• I FINISHED KOTOR II!!!! It was really good. I don't want to touch it ever again (but I also do).

[extrapenguin]

Haven't watched the sequels, but
1) SWTOR dropped a new update! I've been playing the story and trying to get my raid characters to level 80.
2) space_swap sign-ups close on the weekend! It's a space fandoms exchange; there's a lot of Star Wars in the tagset.