Earlier, I talked a little about fear and redemption in The Force Awakens:
This post is more a bunch of scattered thoughts…
The movie was all about Han Solo, and that was a good thing. Harrison Ford has really matured as an actor (I should see how he is in American Graffiti), where you see the gravitas, which smoothed out the ‘scruffy-haired nerf-herder*’
There’s probably something about having actors of varying ages and maturity levels, and how it smooths things out. (Even though the young actors in this movie are more skilled (or better directed), they still have the very young energy, attractiveness, and rushing intensity, all of which can do better with guidance…)
‘Droids’ is an excellent example of good ‘in universe’ lingo**.
Seeing the characters old and the death of Han Solo was not just the passing of the torch to the next generation of Star Wars, but also perhaps a passing of the torch to us, that it’s time for us to step up (similar to when Jack Layton died)…
Leia’s dress with a New Republic neck was a nice touch.
Some people have said that Leia was not the most convincing actor, but her acting worked fine for me. Her scenes with Han were very touching, along with the scene near the end with Rey. I also found her convincing as a general, who ‘went back to what she knew the best’, and seemed to fit well in that role.
In a galaxy with hyperdrive and even reasonable astronomy and astrogation, how could you not tell where a sector was, if there was a map of it that included 5-10% of the galaxy? Even with 300 billion stars in a galaxy, you wouldn’t need very many to be narrow down a sector, if the map had any reasonable level of accuracy…
So much regret for time past with problems remaining unresolved…Like Tron:Legacy…
Good use of X-wing quad lasers in ground combat against stormtroopers (apparently they added an under-blaster-cannon in the updated model for the movie), similar to R2-D2’s method for dealing with Joruus C’boath (even a jedi master cannot deflect startfighter-sized weapons, and/or they cannot predict what droids will do). Also, I liked the new X-wing colours. Apparently the shape is slightly different, but I didn’t notice that. http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/T-65B_X-wing_starfighter#Behind_the_scenes
It was very fitting that the new death star reformed back into a sun…
The art department had many scenes of groups of aliens, just doing their thing, ‘world building’ as S says.
The establishing shots were really well done (you should do Comic Book Boot Camp http://comicbookbootcamp.com/).
The force continues to be weak in dealing with droids…The light side of the force more often appears with empathy, so they they can use that to interact with droids
A very tech-savvy force user…Anakin, perhaps Luke, for sure Rey…Either a force ability, or something about growing up on desert planets. If it’s a force ability, interesting that it allows much easier repairs and jury rigging, but not sensing or understanding the motivations of droids.
A small complaint about Cineplex showing spoilers in the opening ‘pre-movie games’
Also, the imperials just sound better with English accents.
Interesting the ‘order’ vs. ‘freedom’ contrast between ‘The First Order’ and ‘The Resistance’.
*Similar to how the last few vestiges of Garath the thief were the only differences between Belgarath the Sorceror and Aldur…
**The counterexample I always use is ‘Argonians’ and ‘Kajhit’ in Oblivion, where no matter how racist the character, they always used the official names, which I always found jarring and unrealistic.