TOPIC: Star Wars: The Force Awakens

Since Knytiri has taken the threat of the BANHAMMER away from talking about the movie openly, lets get this party started. For anyone who has not seen the movie, this is your one and only warning...

SPOILER ALERT!!! We are talking about the movie with no further indicators, so stop reading now if you don't want plot points spoiled!

Take it away folks!

Just one question. Will there be any spoiler space provided so that things aren't readily visible in the Latest Posts area?

The entire battle between Kylo Ren and Rey (don't count Finn's part, because he couldn't hardly stand up to Ben) really set in stone a ton of factors that are definitely gonna be built on in Ep VIII. I'll list to save time.

Ben's arrogant attitude that fed into his lightsaber style against his favor
Rey's competence with a lightsaber thanks to her obvious competence with a staff, as well as her use of the Force despite her inability to really control it
Ben's incompetence with his lightsaber that makes me wonder how he and the Knights killed the other new Jedi Padawans, especially if he was the only one with a lightsaber
Snoke's interest in Rey harking back to the usual 'Always Two There Are' slogan of Sith, which makes me think that he's using Ben as Han says to get to a truly powerful and more highly skilled Force adept, Rey.

Eddlyss64 wrote: Oooooohh, a plot where Snoke drops Ren like a sack of bad potatoes would be awesome! But it would also mean Rey falling to the darkside. Part of me wants to see that. That's the thing there are so many great directions they could go now.

Han says Snoke is using Kylo's own power, not using him to get a better apprentice. The visual dictionary elucidates Snoke's interest in Kylo: he's a powerful blend of dark and light which makes him an attractive acolyte. Another note is that Kylo isn't his only apprentice, there are others hanging around and Kylo is Snoke's prize student

Eddlyss64 wrote:
He was also dealing with a bowcaster wound, so he wasn't exactly at the top of his game.

And now for baseless speculation!
We get to see Rey make her own lightsaber in a future movie, and it will be a non-blue or green saberstaff.

Episode VIII will pick off right where TFA left off; Luke takes Rey inside a nearby cave/temple entrance, where all the Force ghosts are waiting.

I am not sure that the Rule of Two would apply in this case. Thus far, I haven't heard indications that Snoke's crew and the Sith are one and the same.

As far as Ren's competence fighting, he does have significant issues in the discipline department that affect him in many other areas as well (I do have some thoughts on the reason for those outbursts). But as Jaden pointed out, he did get hit with the bowcaster bolt, so I think we may have to wait and see what he's like in his next fight.

Right now though, I would have to rank Kylo Ren much higher in terms of mind control and telekinesis than with the saber. Freezing a blaster bolt that he didn't even have his full attention on, and ripping things right from people's minds--even causing Rey to pass out with nothing but a gesture (which I assume signals an invasion of her mind)--to me, THAT is what is terrifying about Kylo Ren. Excluding Legends, I don't know that I have ever seen someone that powerful in the Star Wars universe with that class of ability.

Jaden Korr wrote:
Lol, please allow me to debunk your baseless speculation.

The SW trilogies have never worked like that. We'll probably pick up at some First Order v. Resistance battle with Threepio being a pessimistic gold boy, Artoo being a sarcastic counterpart, and then we'll jump back to Luke's hideout where we'll see Luke with his green lightsaber and a green shoto (make it happen, Disney; if we can't have Jacen, then we can at least have Luke dual wielding) training Rey with Luke's old saber.

Oh, and Hux being a douchebaggy asshat. That, too.

I'm sorry, but anyone that says kylo is a pansy needs to be beaten with a bowcaster. All throughout the movie they consistently hammer home the fact that the bowcaster is a howitzer in hand held form. Kylo is clearly shown to be having an intense internal mental battle between the dark and the light in his own mind, which culminates in kylo, or Ben, literally being accepted and forgiven by his father... as he is killing him.

Then, he gets shot in the gut by said bowcaster, takes a new for a hit, then RUNS THROUGH A FROZEN FOREST to find Rey and Finn and hurls Rey, subconsciously powerful with the Force tho she may be, 20 yards through the air into a tree and proceeds to beat the piss out of Finn while striking his own wound to draw power from the pain and the rage..m which he's using to fuel his body and stay on his feet.

Then! He proceeds to kick the shit out of Rey until he stops, realizing he could use her on his side. He no longer wants to kill her, cause, let's face it-he could have easily ended the stare off with a force push and sent Rey tumbling to her death in the newly formed canyon behind her. She syncs with the Force, and barely escapes. Literally. He underestimated her, gets his face cut for it, and she runs before he can gather himself and do something more.

Rey has a looooooot to learn to catch up with him. She has a ton of natural talent, but Bens raw power is sheer... woooow. Freezing blaster bolts and people? Mind reading on a scale sidious could only dream of? He's a total badass. Cmon peoples. Lol

I highly doubt Luke will be using a shoto, much less his own saber at all. Think about, he's a 65 year old human, he doesn't exactly scream Form IV. Luke had to learn saber combat by himself, Yoda was no longer in his prime, so he couldn't teach him much. Besides, that's something I hope Disney doesn't do. That was one of the reasons fans raised an eyebrow when in Episode II Yoda all of a sudden became flying ninja with a death laser at the age of senseless age of 800-something.

Darth Justicar wrote:
Totally agree. When I saw him "catch" Poe's blaster bolt I was like, "HOLY SH*T!!!"

Yoda isn't exactly on Area 51's List of Known Alien Species, though. He held the position of Grand Master in the Old Order for a reason. His 800s were towards the end of his prime, and he knew it after hitting the ground as hard as he did at the end of III. He was a true master of Form IV, which made it possible to do those epic moves. However, exile on Dagobah almost certainly blunted his skills.

But he was still a teacher, and he taught Luke enough to be able to hold his own against his father, whom as we all know overpowered him with some brutal strikes and mind bending back in ESB. I have no doubts that if Han Solo could still be a badass with a blaster at like 70, then Luke Skywalker, a Jedi Master who had been training new Jedi until shortly before his exile, can and will be as strong as he was in ROTJ, especially if he got in time to study in between ROTJ and TFA. Which brings me back to the fact that it's ridiculous for him to not have at least dabbled in dual wielding, let alone holding on to his lightsaber.

Knytiri wrote: Its cause people are upset that Kylo didn't turn out to be the typical super evil, kills everybody, strikes fear into subordinates and then chokes them to death for no reason (aka ANOTHER Darth Vader). I hate these type of fans, you can't satisfy them with anything they make. I thought Kylo Ren was an excellent villain because, unlike Vader, you can actually feel for him or relate to him. Vader was just plain evil, badass yes, but still typically evil. Kylo Ren aka Ben is incredibly conflicted. He's scared of himself, his past, and he's being torn apart. This leads him to act maliciously but as we can in the film he still feels the light side. He's so obsessed with Vader that he becomes oblivious to the fact that Vader redeemed himself and died as Anakin Skywalker, a warrior of the light. That is why the Skywalker saber chose Rey and not Ben at the end.

That's an interesting interpretation of that scene.

Personally I found Kylo the most interesting of the new crew. Rey's characterization didn't have much space for nuance, Finn was fun and so was Poe but it was Kylo's struggle(s) that engaged me the most.

GreyJedi...Vader was typical evil in the first two films, yes, but I found there to be a lot of subtlety to the mannerisms Mr. Prowse imbued him with in Return of the Jedi, where you could see the conflict in him. The big difference with Ren is that he willingly unmasked and let us SEE all of it play out in front of us, and on top of that, he is still so young and not fully formed as a personality no matter how much he thinks he is.

This is part of what opened me up to wanting to cosplay as him: it's not just convenient to me that sometimes I will be able to take off my mask and not have to put up with that the whole day. It's about the fact that we were given an opportunity to see the vulnerable and uncertain young man underneath the mask. I've heard people criticize how immature he was, but it's a real, legitimate character choice. I understand not everyone likes their villains that way and that's okay. Not everyone has to think like me.

But for me, just as Harrison Ford got these haunted looks that could just about kill, seeing that look on Kylo's face after Han fell, when no one was close enough to get a good look and Snoke wasn't there to punish him for it...I didn't catch it the first time I saw the movie, but the second time, oh my goodness. That look, to me, said remorse, no matter how much he tries to cover it up.

While I have seen some fan theories claiming he's a double agent that I think are WAY too far (no way Luke would've just tolerated the Knights of Ren slaughtering his padawans or a lot of other things Ren did), I do find myself wondering if Kylo has serious second thoughts, but similar to someone who has fallen in with a cult or an abusive relationship, cannot figure out how to get out. Even his rage-filled outbursts could be more than simply a "gooooood, feeeel the hate" thing, but self-loathing due to his own sense of helplessness.

Mind you, I am not letting him off for his actions; he's got a LOT to answer for, and that's putting it mildly. But that's what I got from his characterization. Again I know some people won't like that, and that's okay. I only speak for myself.

Eddlyss64 wrote:
There's an episode of Dinner for Five where Mark Hamill says he (along with the fight choreographer) pitched a more dynamic fighting style involving lots of spins and one handed grips for the saber fights for ROTJ, but Lucas vetoed, saying, "Lightsabers are heavy, like Excalibur." So I wouldn't be surprised if Mark would push for Luke to get one more fight.

The whole episode is worth watching (it features Stan Lee, J.J. Abrams, Jason Lee, and Kevin Smith), but Mark's part starts around the 10:50 mark:

Eddlyss64 wrote: While I certainly don't deny your reasoning, I find myself in the "Unlikely" camp. I'm still really anxious about what role lightsabers will play in the new trilogy. The dueling in the VII was spot on for the context of these characters, and the traditional forms as handed down and previously canonized by fans have been all but erased. I would love to see something exciting like Rey using a saber pike, or someone duel wielding (though I still wouldn't peg it as Luke), but when they said that the lightsaber battles would be different in the new trilogy, I kinda took that as a "don't get your hopes up if you liked the prequel stuff."

But Jedi Master Luke engaging in a duel just needs to happen.

What're the chances that Ren completes/fixes his saber?

Anyone expecting a turnaround like this:


Unlikely, but fun to think about.

h2soy wrote: I love film analysis to death, I could analyze archetypes of characters as well as the style of directing till I die. All the characters (and the actors CHOSEN for the roles) blew me away because I understood what they were. Kylo Ren is...the lost or fallen angel. He's young and naive. He has so much potential to be good but has been corrupted by the true evil figure of the story. At first I thought I wasn't going to like Rey, but at the end of movie I was all about her. Just like Luke, she's really a nobody who became a somebody. We were ALL fooled when we thought that Finn was suppose to be the Jedi but it was actually Rey. Finn's role was for comic relief but he was there to also inspire the audience of bravery and action. Finn is what I like to call the cowardly lion: he runs away from the First Order because he's scared of what they can do and what they WILL do to anyone who stands in their way. He's actually playing it smart and tried to get away from the conflict before the Bantha fodder hit the fan (which it did). Yes Finn was a coward but he had his reason BUT in the END, after witnessing Rey getting flung to a tree by a raging young dark Jedi, he picked up that saber and did what needed to be done; Finn knew he was going to lose, but that wasn't the point of Finn, the point was that he had to be brave, to find his courage even in the face of danger and utter death.

If you want to really look at film symbolism GreyJedi...it's actually some of Abrams' imagery with the Starkiller base that has got me seriously speculating about what will happen to Kylo Ren in the last episode.

Did you notice Poe Dameron (I think it was Poe) saying that as long as there was visible light from the sun the Starkiller was draining, then there was a chance? The flip side of that, of course, is that after that point, there is no more hope. Yet notice when the critical strike against the base is made, that destabilizes it enough to destroy it. AFTER the death of all outward light. After the seeming point of no return. And what should burst forth from it when it's destroyed but a very much living miniature star?

I noticed that the imagery was rather similar when Kylo murdered his father: no more visible light from the outside, and then he kills Han. This act is so horrible that I am seeing a lot of fans saying he will NEVER, EVER come back to the light after that--that it is completely unforgivable. And yes, it IS a horrible thing. But after the exact same thing was alluded to with the Starkiller base...that past a certain point where you could no longer see any evidence of hope that none existed, and yet the light still won...

I could very easily be reading WAY too much into that. But I think what we get is Ren seeming to be spiraling down further in 8, and then in 9, breaking. And IF things go as I hope...surviving. Hopefully this would not be an easy, immediate "All is forgiven!" kind of survival. Hopefully he would have to learn to LIVE with the guilt instead of running like he's trying to run now. But I do think he could well break, much like Raskolnikov at the end of Crime and Punishment.

Eddlyss64 wrote:
I've seen the movie 4 times now, and I'm looking at my 5th round this coming weekend. I have to say that on my first watch, this scene bothered me a bit as well. However, on my second go-round, and there after I haven't been so mad at it.

I think at first I was most bothered by the lack of "flare" present in the scene. With each movie, the lightsaber combat was progressively better than the last. We had a back-to-basics scene, so to speak, with Ep 7. JJ explained however that this was intentional and he was looking for more of an ignite to kill style... hack and slash if you will. Ok, mission accomplished. So now as I watch this scene I appreciate what is in front of me without expectations.

Now, I have to disagree that Finn "hardly" stood up to Ben. He was ultimately defeated, but he stood his ground and was in fact the aggressor for most of the fight, landing almost the same blow that Luke did to Vader in ESB. I imagine that his weapons training with the mace as a Storm Trooper played a part in him knowing how to wield the lightsaber... maybe... Perhaps he was not proficient but he certainly was effective in the short period of time.

Rey fought that entire fight retreating. Striking and being swatted away. She lasted longer because she was barely engaged. That is, until The Force Awakens and she let's it in. But, who's to say that she isn't channeling another Force User; as Luke did Obi Wan in his first encounter with Vader? Before that pivotal moment however, she was in no way winning that fight.

I would also not discount the fact that Finn could also be Force Sensitive. Consider the following:

1. JJ Abrams love for plot twists.

2. The obvious play on something "awakening" inside him when his fellow Trooper, Slip, is killed. This is the same time that Kylo Ren lands in his shuttle... a being strong in the Force with both the light and dark side calling to him. If you read "Before the awakening" Finn clearly has a conscience and cares for the people that are close to him, but this was different. It was more of an enlightenment, an epiphany... an awakening. At this point, he had to make a choice...

3. When Kylo is leaving the same scene, he stops dead still to look at Finn. He can feel the Force "awakening" in him, the conflict. The same conflict within himself. He then identifies Finn from the village when they report that someone has helped Poe escape.

4. Force bonds - his attachment to Rey. Could be platonic, could be a crush, or....

5. Maz ( a force sensitive) makes a point to give the lightsaber to Finn, to find his friend. Why not Han or Chewy?

6. Finn says on Starkiller base... "we can use the Force". Yeah, it's delivered like it's meant as a joke... or is it? JJ strikes again.

7. He actually survives the duel with Kylo Ren - the Jedi Killer. Sliced in much the same manner as Anakin did many of the Seps on Mustafar, but he survives. Daddy Solo is impaled and dies...

I don't think that Ben is incompetent at all with his lightsaber. Remember, he is fighting with a fresh wound from a bowcaster. Shots from that weapon were sending troopers literally flying. Ben takes a knee from the shot like he just got kicked in the nuts, and then expeditiously gives chase to Finn and Rey. He is clearly calling on the force to sustain him through that fight.

As for Snoke... The jury is still out with him for me... I'm not sure what I think of him yet.

Of course these are just my thoughts and I'll wait to see what EP 8 brings