Star Wars Episode VII - Atoning for the Prequels

[Overmind One]

In fantasy, objects can hold magical powers. When the object it is intended for touches said object can trigger what the original owner wanted.

True. In fantasy also, inanimate objects can even talk and/or fly through the air and turn themselves into princes or monsters. In Star Wars prior to JJ, the aspect of objects holding powers or memories was not there. It was in Harry Potter, but not in Star Wars. By adding this into the mix, evil users of the Force could "charge" objects with evil energy and nightmares and wait for the unsuspecting to touch it or come near it.

 

[YJ02]

I am actually a bit miffed at the idea that Hans had to die because HF did not want to do anymore. At least when they killed off Kirk in ST it made more sense in the movies. They should have just sent him away to retire on his MF. I really don't like that his son killed him off to get rid of his own humanity and it makes NO sense, because, hello? MOM is still alive and kicking so what is she chopped liver? I read in a fan theory that this will actually wear on him and cause him to gradually turn back to the light side once he sees how truly powerful a person of the light can be in Rey. He will become upset that killing his dad did not make him stronger than her and realize that he was played, just as Grandpa Anakin was so many years earlier. You would think he would have learned that the bad guys lie!

We watched EP3 again last night, and boy it really it evident that Anakin was not the brightest lightbulb in the box. He fell for the lie that the Dark Lord of Siths could save Padma, and then just believes it that he killed her himself in his anger, which why would that ever be directed at her or the babies, and did all the other pregnant woman in the world die too? What line of bunk was that? Clearly the Dark Lord dude did it. Then he does not even think to go looking for his kid and find out if it survived? If he did, he might have thought to go check out the kid's family on the desert planet and find him. Now, Ren is also not so bright buying that killing dad will make him all powerful and pure evil. What's the first thing he does? He gets shot by a wookie, his concentration clearly thrown. Then he get his bumm beat by his sister/cousin/somebody that never even had a lesson and this is all after he is dumb enough to remind her about her powers since he wants to teach her.

Now, as to the elephant in the room for me. What is the big damn deal about the lightsabre? Who needs it? Since she is so powerful and Luke can train her, they can rebuild the Jedi's and fight the first order. Isn't the power in her and not in a piece of metal? It was never so revered like anything super special in any other SW movies? In this movie it was on a higher pedestal than poor R2D2, who was on "low current" mode, but they threw a damn tarp over his head!

I will say that I don't think Rey should be Han and Leia's daughter. They spoke only of their son and even when alone with nobody else around. If she was their kid, and if they knew it, then it should have come up. Now that they also killed off Han, Leia and Han could never tell her they were her parents. This brings her to being either Luke's or Obi Wan's grandkid since both of them had the magic lightsabre for years before. Obi is more of a stretch since she never came up in originals but then again, SW is famous for hiding for kids on desert planets and never speaking of them.

The new generation must move on but in my mind. Han grabbed a lightsabre, cauterized his wound which Ren failed to hit the heart and was caught by a a ship in mid air and flown to safety to live out the rest of his days in his new watering hole, that is not in a castle from the 18th century.

I think the focus on Anakin's lightsaber is a call back to some of the Japanese Samurai movies that Lucas originally used for inspiration; in them, the Samurai's sword is nearly the most important thing in his life and important to his descendants as well. I think this was a slight motivation for the focus on the weapon; "something my father had and I had and now you have" type of tangible legacy thing

If Kylo would have touched it, would he of had visions of Darth Vader's evil acts or of Luke's "light" ones?

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Just saying that following the family storyline of SW's, that it seems that Kylo and Rey are somehow related. perhaps it is part of inability to beat her? a relative with force powers-can they be beaten? <<and is that one reason for why Jedi were not to have children?>>

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[YJ02]

Triggered how? It literally CALLED to her from where it was. As though it had a spirit locked up within it. It brought back flashbacks and even gave her premonitions about her fight with Ren. Anakin had to train for his lifetime to be able to see the future. Like Azalearazor said, this is out of canon, since the lightsaber was never any sort of vessel of the Force or spirits. If that were true, then why doesn't somebody find Yoda's sword or Master Windu's? (BTW, we did not see him die).

Yes, an alive and kicking Mace in hiding could well be the father/grandfather of Finn

the kids were abducted; REBELS also established precedent for the Empire abducting force sensitive children, not much of a stretch from that to abducting kids for the army.

or ARE all of the Stormies in the First Order force sensitive? they would make better soldiers for one.

and abducted for that reason? Finn seems to be fairly good with a light sabre without training. And I don't think that JJ-as a big SW fan-would have changed that, not just anyone can pick a LS up and be able to use it in any way close to the way Finn did. He could very well be a descendant of Mace.

Anything is possible in fantasy without being locked down by hard logic or science

 

[YJ02]

True. In fantasy also, inanimate objects can even talk and/or fly through the air and turn themselves into princes or monsters. In Star Wars prior to JJ, the aspect of objects holding powers or memories was not there. It was in Harry Potter, but not in Star Wars. By adding this into the mix, evil users of the Force could "charge" objects with evil energy and nightmares and wait for the unsuspecting to touch it or come near it.

No, the objects having meaning thing WAS there.

The reason for Obi wan holding onto Anakin's LS for Luke for so long. "It was your father's light sabre". Him keeping for so long instead of showing him how to build his own, shows that descending ownership has meaning.

 

[Quetesh]

Meaning in a completely symbolic way for all other movies, now it has additional non canon abilities and once again, how could they just tarp poor old R2D2 if objects have such meaning in this universe? Wasn't he kinda important since he brought Leia's message to Luke and Obi Wan to begin with? Where's his magic meaning while being stored like an old rusty safe?

 

[Joelist]

You're overstating the state of R2D2. They clearly said they had tried repeatedly to bring him out of low power mode but were unsuccessful. So they had him hooked up to a power source to maintain him for the time being.

Really this whole thing has devolved. You are bothered by the notion that the lightsaber for whatever reason (because it is not specified in the film that it has Force powers) acting as a trigger for Rey's latent Force sensitivity. Most of us are not. It's not going to progress beyond that point so what say we just agree to disagree?

 

[Quetesh]

Done.

 

[Overmind One]

You're overstating the state of R2D2. They clearly said they had tried repeatedly to bring him out of low power mode but were unsuccessful. So they had him hooked up to a power source to maintain him for the time being.

Really this whole thing has devolved. You are bothered by the notion that the lightsaber for whatever reason (because it is not specified in the film that it has Force powers) acting as a trigger for Rey's latent Force sensitivity. Most of us are not. It's not going to progress beyond that point so what say we just agree to disagree?

Is that fair? What you are doing is saying that huge changes in things like Star Wars are not that big of a deal, when in reality they are. These "Force sensitives" in the population would have always been there, and being a Jedi Knight would not really have required all the training they had all along. It was just a dumb tradition for religious Force sensitives who chose to belong to the Jedi Order. And saying that it's suddenly okay for inanimate objects to have energy stored in them which can summon people and trigger memories like what was in the movie. It is not okay to do these things and it was not okay for them to do it in Sttar Trek.

Perhaps if audiences were more picky like they used to be when fans had power to shape what they watched, we would not be getting the dreck we are getting. If you are okay with these changes, then the studio is happy and they can just change whatever they want and the followers will help explain it away.

 

[Overmind One]

Meaning in a completely symbolic way for all other movies, now it has additional non canon abilities and once again, how could they just tarp poor old R2D2 if objects have such meaning in this universe? Wasn't he kinda important since he brought Leia's message to Luke and Obi Wan to begin with? Where's his magic meaning while being stored like an old rusty safe?

I'm with you on this. I am not going to lower my bar or purposely take my focus into a blur to dismiss the major changes they have made to the already fantastical Star Wars universe. I find that Star Wars fans are much less demanding than other fans of major franchises. The prequels are allegedly hated by so many of them, but the numbers say otherwise:

The more people use fuzzy critiques and are "okay with" fundamental changes in the canon, the studios will continue to cheapen the product and do whatever it takes to make the money and not what makes the piece good. Science fiction will NEVER be fantasy. Fantasy will always be fantasy, but even those franchises have rules, and many of them were broken for this movie and I see them like you do. Does it matter? Probably not to those who are in love with Star Wars, and probably not to those whose threshold for changes is very low. I imagine they would even explain a curved lightsaber away.

 

[Overmind One]

No, the objects having meaning thing WAS there.

The reason for Obi wan holding onto Anakin's LS for Luke for so long. "It was your father's light sabre". Him keeping for so long instead of showing him how to build his own, shows that descending ownership has meaning.

Objects "having meaning" and being able to summon people and trigger memories is not part of canon. Anything has a meaning emotionally. Even a rock or a piece of bark. Souvenirs from places you visit is an example. But those things do not call to you from their hidden places in the attic and then put you in a waking dream when you touch them again. Anakin's lightsaber had no such effect on Luke. It could not even tell him that Darth Vader was his father. Why are you trying to give it a pass?

 

[Bluce Ree]

Triggered how? It literally CALLED to her from where it was. As though it had a spirit locked up within it. It brought back flashbacks and even gave her premonitions about her fight with Ren. Anakin had to train for his lifetime to be able to see the future. Like Azalearazor said, this is out of canon, since the lightsaber was never any sort of vessel of the Force or spirits. If that were true, then why doesn't somebody find Yoda's sword or Master Windu's? (BTW, we did not see him die).

Fantasy. Fairy tale. Magic. Needs no sciency explanation.

 

[Bluce Ree]

I'm with you on this. I am not going to lower my bar or purposely take my focus into a blur to dismiss the major changes they have made to the already fantastical Star Wars universe. I find that Star Wars fans are much less demanding than other fans of major franchises. The prequels are allegedly hated by so many of them, but the numbers say otherwise:

View attachment 32337

The more people use fuzzy critiques and are "okay with" fundamental changes in the canon, the studios will continue to cheapen the product and do whatever it takes to make the money and not what makes the piece good. Science fiction will NEVER be fantasy. Fantasy will always be fantasy, but even those franchises have rules, and many of them were broken for this movie and I see them like you do. Does it matter? Probably not to those who are in love with Star Wars, and probably not to those whose threshold for changes is very low. I imagine they would even explain a curved lightsaber away.

It's just Star Wars. You're trying to set the bar higher than where it should be.

If we're going to nitpick Star Wars then we might as well start a thread nitpicking the science of Harry Potter, too.

 

[Overmind One]

It's just Star Wars. You're trying to set the bar higher than where it should be.

If we're going to nitpick Star Wars then we might as well start a thread nitpicking the science of Harry Potter, too.

Good point!

Also, in the OT Luke could communicate with R2D2, but not in actual droid language, even though it seemed that way (I recently watched all of films before SWTFA came out, and this is clear). In this new movie, Ren seems to speak an actual language of Droid, and she knows it. When Ren and Finn took off in the Millenium Falcon, she could hardly steer it and it was riding on it's edge and bunping into things. Next few minutes, she is flying it through the close quarters of the inside of an Imperial Cruiser engine like a pro, and the much smaller starfighters could not hang? Mkay. Kylo Ren came off as immature and emotional, not at all reminicent of Darth Vader.

But this is Star Wars and like you said, no explanations are necessary or even wanted by it's fans.

 

[Joelist]

OM I posted that it is devolving because all that is happening is two camps are restating their position over and over which no prospect of movement by either side.

Going from there to other things.

Trying to use old initial boxoffice to claim the prequels are not despised by Star Wars fans is not that accurate. Note they don't get the re-releases the original films do and that is because no one wants to see them. They have a bad reputation in the Star Wars fanbase and it is instructive that the new film took care not to reference them at all.

Rey talking to Droids - she did exactly what Luke and everyone else did. They never had her speaking machine language.

Flying the Falcon - we don't know if she ever flew a ship before. If she did then this is not a big deal.

Kylo Ren - never supposed to be reminiscent of Darth Vader. Part of the basic structure of the character is that he lacks maturity and balance.

Regarding the canon, since this is a new chapter in a story anything that happens is a change to the canon in some way. But changing fundamental concepts of the story universe? Didn't happen. First, the debated scene was not explained in the film so this is all us reading interpretations into it. Second, the whole thing has canon-fitting explanations (which occurred upthread). For example:

a) Places (and by extension objects) having an innate "Force" was established back in the Original Trilogy. In The Empire Strikes Back Luke in his training had to go into an area that per Yoda was strong with the Dark Side of the Force. When he went in there he had a vision which in ways resembled Rey's (symbolic elements, traumatic).

b) The notion that specifically an object can possess innate Force properties actually comes from (of all places) the Rebels and Clone Wars animated series. Now we know why they were included in the canon when the EU was jettisoned

This is not to say that the film does not have areas that require more explanation. It does.

For example, we know next to nothing about the overall Galactic situation. I understand it because they chose to keep the story tightly focused on their new characters but I would like some explanation in the next film. They gave us enough backstory to put character actions into context but not much more. Its questions like these I have.

But all in all I liked the film. It looks Star Wars, it feels Star Wars, it fits properly into the canon Lucasfilm has defined, acting was well above par and so on. And really where it has shortcomings they actually are pretty similar to the shortcomings in the Original Star Wars (for example being told just barely enough about backstory for the character actions to work).

It all works - as epic fantasy. As Science Fiction not so much

 

[YJ02]

Objects "having meaning" and being able to summon people and trigger memories is not part of canon. Anything has a meaning emotionally. Even a rock or a piece of bark. Souvenirs from places you visit is an example. But those things do not call to you from their hidden places in the attic and then put you in a waking dream when you touch them again. Anakin's lightsaber had no such effect on Luke. It could not even tell him that Darth Vader was his father. Why are you trying to give it a pass?

I think some of you are really getting pulled into the weeds on some of this stuff.

It is fantasy set in space with a "Sciency" feel -they use terms like "flux capacitor" which the fans know is nonsense, but we know it doesn't matter, any science in SW's real or imagined doesn't matter, it is nothing more then a prop or backdrop.

Like Lucas said a long time ago about SW's, to the effect of "we watch movies with cars and other machines but we don't require the movie make to explain the internal combustion engine"- its been awhile since I read that, so its from memory. Just as cars are props in other movies, so too, are the ships and the other "Sciency things" in SW's

ST started out with a focus on science, capturing the public's attn on space due to things like the Mercury and Apollo programs. PPl then were in a much more science receptive state. So a "imagined" show like ST with science used in it, was acceptable for the time (and even more acceptable later)-it was probably the show's pushing of social bounds (Uhura and Kirk kissing,etc) that helped to kill the show in the 60's. People and enough preachy demonstrators in the streets in reality, they didn't want to be preached to in their TV sci fi as well

SW started as a story about a family set in space and on planets. It is about a quest of the underdog against the power that existed. It NEVER claimed to be sci fi

"Sci fi" was a classification assigned to it by the studios and their PR and marketing ppl-Lucas let it happen because he wanted his film to be seen in mainstream theatres

SW's has been assigned to sci-fi category just like we see stuff like LOTR's getting assigned to sci fi area in libraries and book stores; ppl who do not know better-or just don't care and are striving for bookshop efficiency, just lump fantasy in with sci-fi for reasons that have nothing to do with what the story actually is about.

as such, anything can be done in a fantasy film-so long as it does not piss off the core fans--like Jackson did with HOBBIT and even with LOTR's with some really geeky hard core fans (I remember seeing a couple of nerds walk out of the theatre during FOTR because the Liv Tyler character rescued Frodo from the black riders,when in the book, she did nothing warrior like)--so long as JJ and other TPTB's don't do a complete rework of the core story or its facets (like introduce "beaming transporter tech" to SW's or introduce little people with magic rings OR go heavy with the shipping) then it will be "all good"

 

[Joelist]

No one here is classifying SW as Science Fiction (indeed we have been going to pains to show that it is epic fantasy) or trying to deny that JJ messed with the core Trek story facets. In fact in the threads here I (for one) have been harsher on Star Trek Into Darkness (for example) than even you have.

As to if anyone (remember in this film JJ did not have carte blanche and not only had a cowriter who literally defined Star Wars canon but the Lucasfilm Story Group was also consulted during writing and production) changed the core story here it was already shown upthread that nothing was introduced that was new. Really that whole piece of The Force Awakens strongly resembled the part of The Empire Strikes Back where Yoda sends Luke into a place that is strong in the Dark Side of the Force and once in there Luke has visions.

a) Having visions in the Force - The Empire Strikes Back
b) Lightsabers (actually the crystal inside them) possessing innate Force properties - Rebels and Clone Wars plus previously established in The Empire Strikes Back that places possess innate Force properties

 

[Errant of Patha]

Is that fair? What you are doing is saying that huge changes in things like Star Wars are not that big of a deal, when in reality they are. These "Force sensitives" in the population would have always been there, and being a Jedi Knight would not really have required all the training they had all along. It was just a dumb tradition for religious Force sensitives who chose to belong to the Jedi Order. And saying that it's suddenly okay for inanimate objects to have energy stored in them which can summon people and trigger memories like what was in the movie. It is not okay to do these things and it was not okay for them to do it in Sttar Trek.

Perhaps if audiences were more picky like they used to be when fans had power to shape what they watched, we would not be getting the dreck we are getting. If you are okay with these changes, then the studio is happy and they can just change whatever they want and the followers will help explain it away.

If fans had a say, episode VII would be based on the EU, I am glad it is not.

 

[Errant of Patha]

What I get for episode VII is not an atonement for I-III, it's more of a reboot of episode IV with better SFX.

 

[Joelist]

Can't call it a reboot because it is a sequel and the plot may generally follow the lines of IV but is different in many ways. And it is an atonement for the horrific prequels first because it did right pretty much everything the prequels did wrong and second it pretty pointedly did not mention or refer to the prequels in any way whatsoever.

 

[Errant of Patha]

Can't call it a reboot because it is a sequel and the plot may generally follow the lines of IV but is different in many ways. And it is an atonement for the horrific prequels first because it did right pretty much everything the prequels did wrong and second it pretty pointedly did not mention or refer to the prequels in any way whatsoever.

The plot and story of VII runs the same as IV, the minor differences just make it VII

Boldfaced, That is a very weak defense for VII being an atonement, just saying.

After reading your review and defense of any slight against VII you're a fanboi, NTTATWWT. I'm not a fanboi so I see things differently without the goggles.

You had me bust a gut laughing when you asked me in a pm(I answered you in the pm it was an overlook on my part the credit links where left out) to add credit links for the 40 plot holes in VII from the spoilers thread. I did add the links, then 30 mins later you posted in the thread I needed to add the links I can not figure out how you missed the edit.