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Reviews68
marimbadaddy's rating
I renounce Disney and Star Wars.
If you have only seen the movies, you probably will like this one. But if you are a fan of the novels and the expanded universe – you will most likely hate it, or it will make you extremely uncomfortable. It ignores all of the events of the novels and makes up an entirely different (and extremely lame) history. I wish I could love this movie. Heck, I wish I could like it.
Why would Disney pay 4 billion dollars for a franchise with a rich universe and a broad fan base only to negate most of it? Oh, yea. That's apparently Abram's thing – completely ruining an established franchise. I foresee the need for Star Wars recovery groups.
TFA is just a retread of Episode IV ANH - Chasing after a droid containing important information, and blowing up a giant planet destroying weapon. So, there was all of this hype regarding firing the initial screenwriter, and Abrams taking it over. That was obviously a huge mistake.
The film looked great. It was fun, exciting, and had most of the great elements of a Star Wars story. The score by Williams is great. Special FX also great. I like the new characters Finn, Rey, and Poe. Supreme Leader Snoke and Kylo Ren were both lame and lacking characters. And it's difficult to swallow that Ren, trained in both the light and dark side, even with an injury, would have such a difficult time battling an individual with no apparent force talent wielding a light saber, or a girl with obvious force talent, but who is completely untrained.
Harrison Ford is truly the star of this film, and he is great. His character arc was completed with full satisfaction.
Unfortunately the film is so fast paced, and there is never a pointer scene where we are allowed to breathe and to digest the plot of the film.
I wish Disney would have just followed through with re-releasing the first 6 films in 3-D. They would have made money on that investment, and that strategy would have afforded them the time to really analyze the vast amount of material they had to draw from. There are several of the novel trilogies that would have made far better films and not abandoned a vast fan base. If they would have consulted with one or a few of these great Scifi writers, there might have even been a way to tell Abram's story and still make it fit in the existing universe.
Plot Hole - Anakin & Luke's Lightsaber – That is the one that was lost when Darth Vader chopped off Luke's hand in Bespin. I'm not sure, but didn't it fall out of the bottom with Luke when he ended up hanging on the antenna, and it continued to plummet into the atmosphere of that gas giant? (Though, somewhere in the expanded universe, it was recovered along with his hand, and was used to clone a version of Luke.)
Conclusion – This was a good movie, just not a good Star Wars movie. TFA makes any of the prequel trilogy look like masterpieces.
If you have only seen the movies, you probably will like this one. But if you are a fan of the novels and the expanded universe – you will most likely hate it, or it will make you extremely uncomfortable. It ignores all of the events of the novels and makes up an entirely different (and extremely lame) history. I wish I could love this movie. Heck, I wish I could like it.
Why would Disney pay 4 billion dollars for a franchise with a rich universe and a broad fan base only to negate most of it? Oh, yea. That's apparently Abram's thing – completely ruining an established franchise. I foresee the need for Star Wars recovery groups.
TFA is just a retread of Episode IV ANH - Chasing after a droid containing important information, and blowing up a giant planet destroying weapon. So, there was all of this hype regarding firing the initial screenwriter, and Abrams taking it over. That was obviously a huge mistake.
The film looked great. It was fun, exciting, and had most of the great elements of a Star Wars story. The score by Williams is great. Special FX also great. I like the new characters Finn, Rey, and Poe. Supreme Leader Snoke and Kylo Ren were both lame and lacking characters. And it's difficult to swallow that Ren, trained in both the light and dark side, even with an injury, would have such a difficult time battling an individual with no apparent force talent wielding a light saber, or a girl with obvious force talent, but who is completely untrained.
Harrison Ford is truly the star of this film, and he is great. His character arc was completed with full satisfaction.
Unfortunately the film is so fast paced, and there is never a pointer scene where we are allowed to breathe and to digest the plot of the film.
I wish Disney would have just followed through with re-releasing the first 6 films in 3-D. They would have made money on that investment, and that strategy would have afforded them the time to really analyze the vast amount of material they had to draw from. There are several of the novel trilogies that would have made far better films and not abandoned a vast fan base. If they would have consulted with one or a few of these great Scifi writers, there might have even been a way to tell Abram's story and still make it fit in the existing universe.
Plot Hole - Anakin & Luke's Lightsaber – That is the one that was lost when Darth Vader chopped off Luke's hand in Bespin. I'm not sure, but didn't it fall out of the bottom with Luke when he ended up hanging on the antenna, and it continued to plummet into the atmosphere of that gas giant? (Though, somewhere in the expanded universe, it was recovered along with his hand, and was used to clone a version of Luke.)
Conclusion – This was a good movie, just not a good Star Wars movie. TFA makes any of the prequel trilogy look like masterpieces.
How on earth they got Treat Williams and Ronny Cox to do this movie is an amazing feat. This movie is of course essentially a rip off of Jurassic Park: The Lost World - well... the final two reels anyhow. Unfortunately, the script is so horrible. (If you were a fireman, standing holding an ax, and a dinosaur was in the process of tearing into somebody 4 feet away from you, wouldn't you at least take a swing, instead of standing there for five seconds with a bored look on your face?)
The visual FX are OK for this movie. They are about one generation from being 'done' as the dinosaurs didn't seem to blend in with the lighting from scene to scene, but not entirely distracting. The "script" is just so bad, that is really what takes you out of the movie. Although, I wonder if there was any writing forethought at all, and if this really wasn't just an exercise in improv, then having the effects done to suit the filmed improv. Visually, this movie was a touch better than a similar movie called Carnosaur (1993), though this is twenty years later in the technology for the FX.
The reason for the two stars is simply because the visual FX were at times OK. And I did appreciate the fact that when the dinosaurs tear into people, they didn't feel the need to show the actual teeth tearing the flesh. There were cutaways where you only saw the blood splatter - reminded me of Alfred Hitchcock's style.
The Mythbusters once proved that "you can polish a turd", however in this case, the script is a turd that probably couldn't be polished with out a few more rewrites - or a burning the first draft, and restarting all together.
The visual FX are OK for this movie. They are about one generation from being 'done' as the dinosaurs didn't seem to blend in with the lighting from scene to scene, but not entirely distracting. The "script" is just so bad, that is really what takes you out of the movie. Although, I wonder if there was any writing forethought at all, and if this really wasn't just an exercise in improv, then having the effects done to suit the filmed improv. Visually, this movie was a touch better than a similar movie called Carnosaur (1993), though this is twenty years later in the technology for the FX.
The reason for the two stars is simply because the visual FX were at times OK. And I did appreciate the fact that when the dinosaurs tear into people, they didn't feel the need to show the actual teeth tearing the flesh. There were cutaways where you only saw the blood splatter - reminded me of Alfred Hitchcock's style.
The Mythbusters once proved that "you can polish a turd", however in this case, the script is a turd that probably couldn't be polished with out a few more rewrites - or a burning the first draft, and restarting all together.
The stand up portion of When All the Leaves Blow away is absolutely hysterical. Wright's dry deadpan humor kept me laughing during the entire concert. I am amazed that Wright can perform his routine and keep it so dead pan and straight faced, particularly when the audience is cracking up.
I viewed this via a streaming service, so the concert was unfortunately followed up with Wright's own short film "One Soldier". It really feels like one eternity. (I believe that the DVD version also includes this short film.) Clearly an exposition of Wrights internal monologue regarding life and death, this film is tortuously boring, and not at all funny. Even when Wright includes formerly hysterical material from his stand up routine, these jokes fall below flat. It is possible when viewed separate from the concert material, it is a good short film. It is definitely interesting, dry, and witty, much more quirky than funny. However, its presentation directly following the laugh out loud comedy is a real turn off.
If I was rating only the stand-up concert, it would have gotten a 10. But the short film pulls the presentation down to a five. Do yourself a favor, watch the stand up concert, but skip the short film. Or save "One Soldier" for a time when you wish to feel more existential.
I viewed this via a streaming service, so the concert was unfortunately followed up with Wright's own short film "One Soldier". It really feels like one eternity. (I believe that the DVD version also includes this short film.) Clearly an exposition of Wrights internal monologue regarding life and death, this film is tortuously boring, and not at all funny. Even when Wright includes formerly hysterical material from his stand up routine, these jokes fall below flat. It is possible when viewed separate from the concert material, it is a good short film. It is definitely interesting, dry, and witty, much more quirky than funny. However, its presentation directly following the laugh out loud comedy is a real turn off.
If I was rating only the stand-up concert, it would have gotten a 10. But the short film pulls the presentation down to a five. Do yourself a favor, watch the stand up concert, but skip the short film. Or save "One Soldier" for a time when you wish to feel more existential.