Star Wars Discussion Thread contains spoilers (and may contain nuts)

[celedhring]

Btw, is it me, or do all the people in the First Order (except Snoke) look very young? The Resistance has people of all ages, but First Order officers all seem to be in their 20s or early 30s.

I liked the whole SS Youth look they had going for the First Order. Made it fresher than just a retread of the Empire (the film already has a bit too many retreads)

[Syt]

On the First Order, I read that the writers were thinking, "What if the Nazis that went to South America after the war founded a new regime?" The Order seems more ideologically driven than the "old" Empire.

More info on the destroyed system:

http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Hosnian_Prime

Hosnian Prime was a planet located in the Core Worlds of the galaxy. It was the capital of the New Republic by the time of the conflict between the Resistance, an off-shoot of the Republic, and the Imperial successor force known as the First Order. The planet was chosen as the Republic's capital and the headquarters of the Galactic Senate through an election; the Senate's location rotated every so often based on what planet was elected to serve as its headquarters at a given time.[1]

The First Order, believing the Republic to be an illegitimate government incapable of maintaining order in the galaxy, targeted Republic planets with a superweapon known as Starkiller Base in an effort to destroy them. The Starkiller turned its sights towards Hosnian Prime and incinerated it with plasma sucked from the Starkiller sun.[2]

Behind the scenes

Hosnian Prime briefly appeared in the 2015 film Star Wars: Episode VII The Force Awakens.[2] Information about the planet and its status within the New Republic was elaborated upon in the reference book Star Wars: The Force Awakens: The Visual Dictionary.

That's information that would have been great to have in the movie, though. They talk about destroying the senate on its homeworld, but for all the amazing visuals it had little impact on me, and not even the Resistance acknowledges the enormity of the act.

[derspiess]

"What if the Nazis that went to South America after the war founded a new regime?"

MIND YER OWN BIDNESS

The Order seems more ideologically driven than the "old" Empire.

Yeah.  The Riefenstahlish cinematography was unmistakable. A little forced (particularly with the plain red banners) but still pretty cool.

Another homage I caught was the brief sunset scene where you had two or three tie-fighters flying towards the camera.  Straight outta Apocalypse Now yall.

[derspiess]

Just back.

Lots of stuff I liked, lots of stuff I didn't like. Overall I enjoyed it, and - more importantly - I'm pretty invested in the new characters and I really look forward to know where they will take them in the next two films.

I'm kind of neutral on them.  I hope each of them are further developed in Episode 8 but I don't feel like I know enough about any of them.

Too many coincidences, chanceful encounters, etc... to my liking. Way too many.

Been that way from the beginning IMO.

But there's a fun chemistry between the main characters, things are kept moving, and well - it's entertaining.

Definitely entertaining. 

[derspiess]

Probably the coolest thing my mom ever did for me was to show up out of the blue the day Return of the Jedi premiered to pick up my best friend and me from school to go catch the first viewing at the local theater.  We were probably the first kids of our age in the entire county to see that movie. 

So I figured I ought to pay it forward and get my kid out of school early today to take him to see Episode 7.  I know it premiered last night but I doubt many kids in his school made the cut and saw it.  I kept him in the dark until we pulled right up into the cinema parking lot (official excuse was that he had an "appointment").  He figured out what was going on and literally jumped out of the car.  I told him to chill out and that he was way too excited to see 'Creed'.  That didn't fool him so we went inside, got our tickets, popcorn and soda and found our seats.  Ended up being one of those father-son events you never forget.   

[katmai]

Very nice of you Spicy.

[Admiral Yi]

Very sweet Speish.

[Sophie Scholl]

Btw, is it me, or do all the people in the First Order (except Snoke) look very young? The Resistance has people of all ages, but First Order officers all seem to be in their 20s or early 30s.

It's mentioned that the members of the First Order were all abducted from their families at a very young age and trained/indoctrinated from then on.  I would imagine it was either an Imperial project or the idea of the new head of the First Order in the immediate aftermath of the Emperor's death to build a solid core to replace the failing Empire.  This would account for the youth and similarity in age with the vast majority of the members.

[Admiral Yi]

It's mentioned that the members of the First Order were all abducted from their families at a very young age and trained/indoctrinated from then on.  I would imagine it was either an Imperial project or the idea of the new head of the First Order in the immediate aftermath of the Emperor's death to build a solid core to replace the failing Empire.  This would account for the youth and similarity in age with the vast majority of the members.

But who held the power in the Empire after the Emperor died? 

[celedhring]

That's information that would have been great to have in the movie, though. They talk about destroying the senate on its homeworld, but for all the amazing visuals it had little impact on me, and not even the Resistance acknowledges the enormity of the act.

Yeah, that wasn't well handled at all.

The election thing seems a cheap way to avoid destroying a famous planet (Coruscant).

[celedhring]

It also bothered me a lot how easy it was to get inside in Starkiller Base and move around it, capture captain Phasma et al. I know bad dude ineptitude has been one of the most joked over platitudes of the saga, but at least in A New Hope they bothered to disguise themselves as stormtroopers.

[celedhring]

So I don't come across as a hater I'll say that I liked Rey and Kylo Ren a lot. Ren is the kind of insecure and powerful young man that Anakin Skywalker should have been in the prequels. Since both characters look like they will be the core of the new saga, I'm already sold on that aspect.

Ren is probably the only thing that sets this movie apart from being a mere retread of A New Hope, too.

[Queequeg]

Too many coincidences, chanceful encounters, etc... to my liking. Way too many. Some stuff is very confusing (what system is being attacked? What are the consequences of that planet being blown up? What's the exact political situation?). But there's a fun chemistry between the main characters, things are kept moving, and well - it's entertaining.

They overcorrected from the Prequels.  I wanted to know what planets those were.  I was guessing it was Coruscant, but I'm not sure.

So Snoke is Darth Plageus, right?

[celedhring]

Some great jokes/one liners.

I think my favorite was the scene where Rey "learns" force persuasion with an unsuspecting Stormtrooper (".... aaand I'll drop my blaster"), plus the aftermath with Kylo flipping his shit and the other two Stormtroopers going, "Yeah, let's be somewhere else right now."

A lot of the humor and back-and-forth felt very Indiana Jones-y (Kasdan wrote those too), and it was one of my favorite parts of the film. I wouldn't turn my nose up to an Indiana Jones reboot if they kept Kasdan around.

More thoughts, they should give the Lucas treatment to John Williams. Absolutely nothing remarkable in that soundtrack, which is a crime when it's a Star Wars film. He's 83 anyway, they should have gone for somebody younger.

[Grinning_Colossus]

Some great jokes/one liners.

I think my favorite was the scene where Rey "learns" force persuasion with an unsuspecting Stormtrooper (".... aaand I'll drop my blaster"), plus the aftermath with Kylo flipping his shit and the other two Stormtroopers going, "Yeah, let's be somewhere else right now."

A lot of the humor and back-and-forth felt very Indiana Jones-y (Kasdan wrote those too), and it was one of my favorite parts of the film. I wouldn't turn my nose up to an Indiana Jones reboot if they kept Kasdan around.

More thoughts, they should give the Lucas treatment to John Williams. Absolutely nothing remarkable in that soundtrack, which is a crime when it's a Star Wars film. He's 83 anyway, they should have gone for somebody younger.

Apparently that had to do with Abrams' directing style. Lucas would give Williams the completed film to score and then not edit it (because Lucas didn't really edit...), whereas Abrams made big cuts to TFA after Williams had written the score, so he had to subsequently re-score it.