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Dec. 18th, 2017 10:15 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
othersideofthishi i saw the star wars here are some thoughts
spoilers, obvs, behind the cut
1. i didn't like it as much as i thought i would, but i still liked it? i think i need to see it again.
2. i think the biggest problem with kylo ren is that, like. viewers just can't take him seriously? i don't know that's what the filmmakers were going for here -- hux in this one is clearly supposed to be the slightly more comedic foil -- but at least the audience i was in, snickered a lot every time kylo started to get all YOU DON'T UNDERSTAND MY PAIN about stuff. ren is the big bad and you want your villains to be compelling and i just can't. like. make myself care about him or his feelings or how he was so very wronged by life or whatever.
3. that said, the battle scene with him and rey in snoke's room was very very good
4. that said, the absolute last thing i want is some sort of bullshit kylo ren redemption arc, even though it's surely coming in the next movie. fuck that guy.
5. also my audience laughed at the "don't you have a cowl you can put on" scene -- but not at that line, rather, laughed at the completely random appearance of shirtless adam driver
6. honestly, i just can't take kylo ren seriously and maybe that's half my problem with the film
7. most of the complaints i've seen - luke's characterization, rey being powerful immediately, the reveal that rey's parents really are just nobodies - are really not things i cared about. i kind of wish snoke tied in better with the rest of the series -- but then again, having the big master manipulator bad guy being just a random who came to power is probably more authentic than it being like the extra super reincarnation of palpatine or something
8. miss me with that sudden "you do things for the people you love" bullshit with rose and finn though, what a disservice to rose's character to try to shoehorn in some sort of romance subplot. men and women can just be friends! she can still want to save him and not want to smooch him!! please!!
9. i wish a better writer had tried to smooth out all the angles of "the bad guys are bad and the good guys are also bad". like, yes, welcome to the plot of any movie about war, but i don't feel like it was handled particularly well here.
10. i don't know that i have a tenth thought yet so i'll just leave it with: gosh oscar isaac is beautiful
11. that's a lie -- a few more things
12. i loved how diverse, for once, the extras/backing cast looked. seeing a sea of people of color alongside your typical star wars aliens was actually startling because the rest of the series has been so overwhelmingly white. and rose and finn getting their own plotline together -- a whole plot carried by two actors of color! like! how wonderful, and also how sad that it's a thing that still feels novel in the year 2017.
13. the very last scene, with the kids from that casino planet, dreaming about the jedi and the resistance and etc. like. it was both heartwarming and saccharine as hell. it was everything i like/dislike about kidfic. super treacly. it reminded me that despite the fact that the whole movie is about people dying in terrible ways, it's still ostensibly a kids' movie franchise.
14. i just have so many mixed feelings? i probably need to see it again.
spoilers, obvs, behind the cut
1. i didn't like it as much as i thought i would, but i still liked it? i think i need to see it again.
2. i think the biggest problem with kylo ren is that, like. viewers just can't take him seriously? i don't know that's what the filmmakers were going for here -- hux in this one is clearly supposed to be the slightly more comedic foil -- but at least the audience i was in, snickered a lot every time kylo started to get all YOU DON'T UNDERSTAND MY PAIN about stuff. ren is the big bad and you want your villains to be compelling and i just can't. like. make myself care about him or his feelings or how he was so very wronged by life or whatever.
3. that said, the battle scene with him and rey in snoke's room was very very good
4. that said, the absolute last thing i want is some sort of bullshit kylo ren redemption arc, even though it's surely coming in the next movie. fuck that guy.
5. also my audience laughed at the "don't you have a cowl you can put on" scene -- but not at that line, rather, laughed at the completely random appearance of shirtless adam driver
6. honestly, i just can't take kylo ren seriously and maybe that's half my problem with the film
7. most of the complaints i've seen - luke's characterization, rey being powerful immediately, the reveal that rey's parents really are just nobodies - are really not things i cared about. i kind of wish snoke tied in better with the rest of the series -- but then again, having the big master manipulator bad guy being just a random who came to power is probably more authentic than it being like the extra super reincarnation of palpatine or something
8. miss me with that sudden "you do things for the people you love" bullshit with rose and finn though, what a disservice to rose's character to try to shoehorn in some sort of romance subplot. men and women can just be friends! she can still want to save him and not want to smooch him!! please!!
9. i wish a better writer had tried to smooth out all the angles of "the bad guys are bad and the good guys are also bad". like, yes, welcome to the plot of any movie about war, but i don't feel like it was handled particularly well here.
10. i don't know that i have a tenth thought yet so i'll just leave it with: gosh oscar isaac is beautiful
11. that's a lie -- a few more things
12. i loved how diverse, for once, the extras/backing cast looked. seeing a sea of people of color alongside your typical star wars aliens was actually startling because the rest of the series has been so overwhelmingly white. and rose and finn getting their own plotline together -- a whole plot carried by two actors of color! like! how wonderful, and also how sad that it's a thing that still feels novel in the year 2017.
13. the very last scene, with the kids from that casino planet, dreaming about the jedi and the resistance and etc. like. it was both heartwarming and saccharine as hell. it was everything i like/dislike about kidfic. super treacly. it reminded me that despite the fact that the whole movie is about people dying in terrible ways, it's still ostensibly a kids' movie franchise.
14. i just have so many mixed feelings? i probably need to see it again.
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Date: 2017-12-18 04:56 pm (UTC)SAME. I also feel kind of disappointed because it felt like there was a GREAT movie in there and I came out feeling kind of meh about it. :/
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Date: 2017-12-18 05:09 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2017-12-21 04:52 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2017-12-26 02:32 am (UTC)And I couldn't agree more re: Rose and Finn and the kiss being totally not needed. I'm so torn about a lot of their storyline bc as a lot of people have said it didn't strengthen the plot as well as different ideas could have but also I want to watch them having adventures together for like 4 movies worth of time, heh. I think my affection for both the characters and the actors portraying them is definitely helping carry some water for the script, I guess. XD