Second Opinion #3: Star Wars: The Force Awakens Review

Ian R Buck and Savannah Haslow discuss Star Wars: The Force Awakens in two parts, a brief introduction without spoilers, and a scathing review afterwards with spoilers.

Ian R Buck and Savannah Haslow discuss Star Wars: The Force Awakens in two parts, a brief introduction without spoilers, and a scathing review afterwards with spoilers.


Overview

Non-spoilers

General thoughts

It was very derivative; followed the formula of A New Hope far too much. Feels like the series is stagnating, when I want it to be moving forward.

Starts on a desert planet
Utility droid we have to protect
Escape in the Millennium Falcon
Rebellion hiding out on a lush planet with an old temple
Big bad Empire building a superweapon
X-Wings vs TIE fighters (where did the rest of the ships go?)
Yoda figure
The Hero’s Journey
Subvert the Damsel in Distress trope
Wilhelm scream

Avoided the complex galactic politics of the prequels so much that we have no idea about any details regarding the First Order, Republic, or Resistance. Everything was reduced to the simple “light side vs dark side”.
The special effects were really good of course

Lasers felt more kinetic
Really cool shot of some TIE fighters with the sun behind them
Camera moves around too much in the space battles
Too many particle effects

Story was slow

The entire movie could have been coalesced into about half an hour
Things that happened: character intros, slight exposition, explosions

Forced romantic subplot

Verbally brought attention to the hand-holding
More subtle stuff (Fin looking at that butt)

Lazy plot devices
When they did the action stuff, it was good

Good use of sweeping continuous shots
Wasn’t over-the-top
Didn’t drag on too long, which has been a problem in past Star Wars movies

Soundtrack was okay

Didn’t push boundaries; previously, John Williams would add a new memorable piece in each movie. Most memorable was the Resistance theme.
Used musical themes from the original series to good effect (specifically, Imperial March and Luke’s Theme)

Specific things

BB-8: not just an R2 clone

Has a very different personality
Has different tricks up his sleeve, both for mobility and tools

Liked the subtle variants on stormtroopers. Not as explicit as “scout troopers” or “snow troopers” but they carry slightly different sets of gear.

Would have been better if they showed different designations working on their specialities

A few signs of technological advancement

New Imperial Shuttle

Loved the way that the people living on Jakku mostly settled around the wrecks of old military vehicles
Wasn’t able to spot a 1138 reference. It’s gotta be in there though.
[Buck] I still think the crossguard design for the lightsaber is stupid

The only reason that design would be any good is to block other lightsabers? but there are no other Jedi??
The only reason for it is because ever since Darth Maul, every dark side lightsaber has to have a gimmick.

Fin sounded like he was just John Boyega hanging out.
Rey’s athleticism & creative terrain use should have come out more
Where were the aliens? Where was the culture?

Spoilers

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This episode of Second Opinion has a Fringe episode. You should really listen to The Fringe #354: SO #3 — Didn’t Work!

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