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Originally Posted by Matches Malone
Star Wars - The Force Awakens 7.5/10
Solid and entertaining film. The new characters are all an absolute joy.
I can't rate it any higher however because it just borrowed a few too many queues from ANH and RotJ and didn't make a few bold moves that the narrative afforded them for the franchise long term.
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Luminous
I don't think we saw the same movie.
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My criticism goes back to my point about it echoing the major story beats of ANH, RotJ and to a far lesser extent TPM too much.
Find unaware hero in waiting on a dessert planet, droid containing precious top secret information is sought, big bad has a familial connection to to the heroes, old mentor character with historical ties to the characters encouraging hero to embrace their destiny, death of a beloved mentor hero character in moment if self sacrifice, planet destroying super weapon, heroes exploit small flaw in design to destroy said weapon pending it firing in a seemingly hopeless battle....
This is all minor but honestly my biggest critique is that did we really need both of the big force users for the new triliogy tied to Skywalkers once again?!?!?! Ren OR Rey would have been enough, (and I am hoping against hope that Rey is not a Skywalker). The first bold move? Bad ass Jedi or Sith that has no Skywalker lineage! More than anything that was a big detractor for me; to the point I almost assume that the eviserated Ren will literally become the new Darth Vader once he is rebuilt.
I know you are referring to the death of Han as "the bold choice" but going in I knew it was him that was going to die; too logical. Harrison is (was) tough to pin down for films like this now and quite honestly he is old. Had he passed away in real life wrapping up Hans story with him onscreen would have been lost to them.
The other bold choice I saw was having Ren actually turn away from the Dark Side, or at least try to. Having him defect in some manner would have set up an amazing device for future films.
All that is not to say I didn't enjoy the film immensely; it is just not "the greatest movie evar" and beyond reproach