Quote from: jeff37923;923947I don't know about all that. If you clicked on the link, you would see that over 2 billion dollars worldwide is a pretty huge number.

http://www.boxofficemojo.com/alltime/world/

It's a respectable number, sure, #11 when adjusted for inflation.

http://www.boxofficemojo.com/alltime/adjusted.htm

QuoteBesides, my inner 8 year old loved it.

I still like the original Transformers 1984 movie. If you weren't bothered by the warts in Force Awakens, then great. I couldn't get past them.

OH, did Star Wars VII make a lot of money? How surprising!

Was it because of the parts that didn't make much sense? Who actually thinks that?

Who here thinks that it would be hard to come up with a better series of events than this: a few minutes after Han Solo finds the Falcon in deep space, a band of Scottish mafia appear on Han Solo's own ship, immediately followed by a band of space Yakuza, without Han knowing about it. Han can't think of any way out of it and they'd all die then and there except of an accident releasing CGI comedy monsters. Finn would die anyway except for Rey pushing a button at exactly the right instant. Then Han, who apparently knows this means the Falcon is somehow being tracked by various people no matter where in the galaxy, Han who is supposed to be clever and cool and have a lifetime of experience, decides to go to a cantina planet and meet a friend and hang out with them with zero urgency, far from his own ship, and not mention there might be violent people coming. Who can't think of a better or more sense-making story than that?

Who can't think of a better way to kill off Han Solo?

Who thinks making a film stupid is a good idea, when you have gazillions of budget?

Quote from: Skarg;924259OH, did Star Wars VII make a lot of money? How surprising!

Was it because of the parts that didn't make much sense? Who actually thinks that?

Who here thinks that it would be hard to come up with a better series of events than this: a few minutes after Han Solo finds the Falcon in deep space, a band of Scottish mafia appear on Han Solo's own ship, immediately followed by a band of space Yakuza, without Han knowing about it. Han can't think of any way out of it and they'd all die then and there except of an accident releasing CGI comedy monsters. Finn would die anyway except for Rey pushing a button at exactly the right instant. Then Han, who apparently knows this means the Falcon is somehow being tracked by various people no matter where in the galaxy, Han who is supposed to be clever and cool and have a lifetime of experience, decides to go to a cantina planet and meet a friend and hang out with them with zero urgency, far from his own ship, and not mention there might be violent people coming. Who can't think of a better or more sense-making story than that?

Who can't think of a better way to kill off Han Solo?

Who thinks making a film stupid is a good idea, when you have gazillions of budget?

Your tears of impotent rage are a like a fresh spring shower to me.....

Quote from: jeff37923;923947I don't know about all that. If you clicked on the link, you would see that over 2 billion dollars worldwide is a pretty huge number.

Besides, my inner 8 year old loved it.

Also the reviews are pretty favorable. I think any improvements people might want to make could actually have hurt it. They made a film for global release that would please as the biggest number of people possible. I'd say they achieved that.

Quote from: Skarg;924259Who can't think of a better way to kill off Han Solo?

What would have been better?

Quote from: BedrockBrendan;924586

QuoteWho can't think of a better way to kill off Han Solo?

What would have been better?

I expect most RPG players would tend to be able to think of many ideas I'd like better. I think people just tend to accept what is and not try, and not question what they see much.

Apart from the whole universe of alternatives, I think even if you like the basic scene, that having Han walk slowly out to the middle of an absolutely exposed and vulnerable position like that is very silly. It exposes him and his friends to detection and gunning down by the many stormtroopers who should be just about to show up, turning victory into defeat and exposing himself to death or capture. Han's supposed to be savvy and interested in survival. Walking way out into the open of a massive central chamber like that when the alert has been raised is preposterous. Even if you think maybe Han is done and willing to sacrifice himself, for anyone who is still paying any mind to the situation, he's likely sacrificing Chewie and his companions to death. The only reason they don't die because of that move is that JJ & crew don't give a shit about anything making sense, least of all details like the situation, distances, time, logic, minor characters like stormtroopers, etc., and think no one else cares enough to have it make sense.

Ideally, however, if Ford was unwilling to keep playing Solo, I think they'd do better to have him go out in a worthy and needed way (needed by logical consequences of a situation that made some sense, and not needed by trying to make their lame emo-teen-villain more interesting). If Solo's going to die, I'd want it to be for a good rational reason that is consistent with the good parts of him as a character - the legendarily clever Solo, not the foolish incompetent TFA Solo, whose death accomplishes nothing but get him out of the way for the dull young new characters in their quests to be interesting.

The whole presentation of Han was an annoying disappointment to me, as he behaves like a not-particularly-competent fool more often than not.

Quote from: Skarg;924866I expect most RPG players would tend to be able to think of many ideas I'd like better. I think people just tend to accept what is and not try, and not question what they see much.

Apart from the whole universe of alternatives, I think even if you like the basic scene, that having Han walk slowly out to the middle of an absolutely exposed and vulnerable position like that is very silly. It exposes him and his friends to detection and gunning down by the many stormtroopers who should be just about to show up, turning victory into defeat and exposing himself to death or capture. Han's supposed to be savvy and interested in survival. Walking way out into the open of a massive central chamber like that when the alert has been raised is preposterous. Even if you think maybe Han is done and willing to sacrifice himself, for anyone who is still paying any mind to the situation, he's likely sacrificing Chewie and his companions to death. The only reason they don't die because of that move is that JJ & crew don't give a shit about anything making sense, least of all details like the situation, distances, time, logic, minor characters like stormtroopers, etc., and think no one else cares enough to have it make sense.

Ideally, however, if Ford was unwilling to keep playing Solo, I think they'd do better to have him go out in a worthy and needed way (needed by logical consequences of a situation that made some sense, and not needed by trying to make their lame emo-teen-villain more interesting). If Solo's going to die, I'd want it to be for a good rational reason that is consistent with the good parts of him as a character - the legendarily clever Solo, not the foolish incompetent TFA Solo, whose death accomplishes nothing but get him out of the way for the dull young new characters in their quests to be interesting.

The whole presentation of Han was an annoying disappointment to me, as he behaves like a not-particularly-competent fool more often than not.

Honestly that particular criticism seems a bit nitpicky to me (especially for a rompy adventure like Star Wars that is trying to appeal to a broad audience). I imagine that same logic applied to many similar situations in the original trilogy would yield the same criticism. The scene worked for me as a poignant Star Wars moment. I mean I think we got plenty of evidence of his cleverness, but this was a scene where he is dealing with his son, so I didn't expect him to outwit him. He was trying to redeem him (and we'll have to see over the course of the next two movies whether he failed or not). I thought that was pretty interesting because it sets up a redemption storyline for Kylo Ren. Him walking out exposed like that didn't strike me as all that unusual given that this is his son, who he probably hasn't seen in years and has been turned to the dark side (and Leia gave him the instruction to try to bring him back). I mean I guess from a purely tactical standpoint it wasn't a good idea, but I can see even Han Solo forgetting some of the stakes and taking a risk to redeem his own son. Also Han may be clever but he's never been terribly disciplined and some might even call him reckless. True, I suppose he could have been more concerned for Chewie and his friends I suppose, but in this case, I think the drama you get out of that choice, outweighs that in my mind (and it definitely isn't hard to believe that Han as a father would lose sight of those things in that moment).

It just sounds to me like you didn't notice or think about it, but when you do it even makes no real sense to you - you're just willing to overlook it. But I was trying to point out that the stupid part of it isn't at all necessary. It's like all the other parts of the movie that I can't stand, in that whoever invented the story and signed off on it just seems to have a massive vacuum around logical stuff that stands out glaringly to me, because it would not be particularly hard to avoid or change most of it. For me though, it just makes me balk hard, in ways that the OT films really don't. Giving things a pass because it's a fun romp and not terribly serious is one thing, and works for me for the OT's slips, but the TFA holes seem far far more gaping, at least as far as my sensibilities go.

Han doesn't seem capable at all to me in TFA (ok he can fly the Falcon, do the nonsense unbelievable shield timing thing, and shoot people - what else does he do right?). He starts out getting himself nearly killed and then proceeds to set them all up to be killed again, all because the Falcon is tracked and even though he must have used that tracking himself to find it, he takes zero precautions and three groups of opponents show up and get the drop on him. What kind of an idiot was running his character?

Say I tell you you get to play Han Solo in a Star Wars campaign. You've lost the Falcon but know it has some beacon on it that somehow despite all established Star Wars precedent will let you hyperspace to it 15 minutes after it goes into space again (...). So you've bought a gigantic ship that can swallow the Falcon and carry deadly illegal space monsters but the ship is the ugliest block of shit ever to taint Star Wars and you've lost all your crew but Chewie. What do you do as far as ship security? When the Falcon alarm goes off and you hyperjump to it, do you possibly consider some of the groups who want you dead might also show up, given that the crew you pissed off know you were sulking around hoping that would happen? Do you lock the doors to your ship? Do you set any kind of alarm in case another ship shows up while you're chatting with whoever's on the Falcon? Do you set an alarm so you might know if someone boards or wanders around your ship looking for you? Do you have any kind of precautions or security set up? Or can two bands of armed thugs both dock with your ship, waltz aboard and get the drop on you before you have any idea they are there at all? Hmm, and then when the GM lets you escape anyway, and you're in the Falcon, knowing it can be tracked like that and the new kids have a droid wanted by Kylo and the One Direction Empire wannabes, do you have anything to say about the plan of flying the Falcon to a friend's bar and then walking far away from it and hanging out talking to them without warning them until a Star Destroyer has time to land an invasion force there? Are your players ever that careless? How hard is it to think of a plot that would make more sense? When did Solo ever do anything that mindless and stupid in the OT?

Having watched JJ's Star Trek and Lost, I see that he just doesn't give a flying flip about anything making sense, especially details of how people actually manage to do anything smartly to get the better of situations. He just decides what will happen because he thinks it sounds cool, and is oblivious that some people notice that they're not shown doing anything that makes sense. It's just "well this can then happen so it does". It's totally missing the element of "well this kind of makes sense that if they do this in this way, it might tend to work because some vestige of logic exists", which I think was generally there in the OT (with a few exceptions such as replacing Wookies with Ewoks).

It painfully true that JJ doesn't give a shit about anything making sense (Trek/Lost/etc), and its bizarre to me, but the audience apparently LOVES that and throws piles of money at JJ's various efforts.

I don't get it. I really couldn't believe how painful JJ's Star Wars was. I was sitting there staring at a big budget ripoff of the original SW, a whack ass remake being sold as a sequel, and while there were entertaining bits, I felt completely bamboozled. At least the action was entertaining in a WTF video game way.

I actually have higher hopes for SW: Rogue One.

Quote from: Skarg;924906It just sounds to me like you didn't notice or think about it, but when you do it even makes no real sense to you - you're just willing to overlook it. But I was trying to point out that the stupid part of it isn't at all necessary. It's like all the other parts of the movie that I can't stand, in that whoever invented the story and signed off on it just seems to have a massive vacuum around logical stuff that stands out glaringly to me, because it would not be particularly hard to avoid or change most of it. For me though, it just makes me balk hard, in ways that the OT films really don't. Giving things a pass because it's a fun romp and not terribly serious is one thing, and works for me for the OT's slips, but the TFA holes seem far far more gaping, at least as far as my sensibilities go.

Han doesn't seem capable at all to me in TFA (ok he can fly the Falcon, do the nonsense unbelievable shield timing thing, and shoot people - what else does he do right?). He starts out getting himself nearly killed and then proceeds to set them all up to be killed again, all because the Falcon is tracked and even though he must have used that tracking himself to find it, he takes zero precautions and three groups of opponents show up and get the drop on him. What kind of an idiot was running his character?

Say I tell you you get to play Han Solo in a Star Wars campaign. You've lost the Falcon but know it has some beacon on it that somehow despite all established Star Wars precedent will let you hyperspace to it 15 minutes after it goes into space again (...). So you've bought a gigantic ship that can swallow the Falcon and carry deadly illegal space monsters but the ship is the ugliest block of shit ever to taint Star Wars and you've lost all your crew but Chewie. What do you do as far as ship security? When the Falcon alarm goes off and you hyperjump to it, do you possibly consider some of the groups who want you dead might also show up, given that the crew you pissed off know you were sulking around hoping that would happen? Do you lock the doors to your ship? Do you set any kind of alarm in case another ship shows up while you're chatting with whoever's on the Falcon? Do you set an alarm so you might know if someone boards or wanders around your ship looking for you? Do you have any kind of precautions or security set up? Or can two bands of armed thugs both dock with your ship, waltz aboard and get the drop on you before you have any idea they are there at all? Hmm, and then when the GM lets you escape anyway, and you're in the Falcon, knowing it can be tracked like that and the new kids have a droid wanted by Kylo and the One Direction Empire wannabes, do you have anything to say about the plan of flying the Falcon to a friend's bar and then walking far away from it and hanging out talking to them without warning them until a Star Destroyer has time to land an invasion force there? Are your players ever that careless? How hard is it to think of a plot that would make more sense? When did Solo ever do anything that mindless and stupid in the OT?

Having watched JJ's Star Trek and Lost, I see that he just doesn't give a flying flip about anything making sense, especially details of how people actually manage to do anything smartly to get the better of situations. He just decides what will happen because he thinks it sounds cool, and is oblivious that some people notice that they're not shown doing anything that makes sense. It's just "well this can then happen so it does". It's totally missing the element of "well this kind of makes sense that if they do this in this way, it might tend to work because some vestige of logic exists", which I think was generally there in the OT (with a few exceptions such as replacing Wookies with Ewoks).

Again, I really just didn't see it when I watched it and now that you are raising the point, it doesn't resonate with me. It isn't about overlooking it. It is that I just don't see the criticism you made about the death scene being that persuasive.

In terms of his characterization, Han Solo has already had a history of getting into trouble with groups he owes money to (and not being particularly good about avoiding). We are not talking about cautious and cagey player characters, we are talking about the guy who got himself frozen in carbonite, specifically told C-3PO never to tell him the odds (when the sensible thing probably would have been to make that calculation), etc. He has got to be one of the most reckless characters in the series. He is all about shooting form the hip.

Quote from: Skarg;924906Having watched JJ's Star Trek and Lost, I see that he just doesn't give a flying flip about anything making sense, especially details of how people actually manage to do anything smartly to get the better of situations. He just decides what will happen because he thinks it sounds cool, and is oblivious that some people notice that they're not shown doing anything that makes sense. It's just "well this can then happen so it does". It's totally missing the element of "well this kind of makes sense that if they do this in this way, it might tend to work because some vestige of logic exists", which I think was generally there in the OT (with a few exceptions such as replacing Wookies with Ewoks).

I don't know. There is a lot in the original trilogy that feels like they are making it up as they go because it is cool (the whole thing with Luke and Leia passionately kissing until we find out they are brother and sister stands out pretty high in my mind). There is plenty of great science fiction where logic and consistent characterization is paramount, but Star Wars has always been more about feeling and intuition than that stuff. I love the former but I can enjoy the latter and for me this is the level Star Wars has always operated on.

Quote from: Spinachcat;924907It painfully true that JJ doesn't give a shit about anything making sense (Trek/Lost/etc), and its bizarre to me, but the audience apparently LOVES that and throws piles of money at JJ's various efforts.

I don't get it. I really couldn't believe how painful JJ's Star Wars was. I was sitting there staring at a big budget ripoff of the original SW, a whack ass remake being sold as a sequel, and while there were entertaining bits, I felt completely bamboozled. At least the action was entertaining in a WTF video game way.

I actually have higher hopes for SW: Rogue One.

Yep yep yep.

Quote from: BedrockBrendan;924923Again, I really just didn't see it when I watched it and now that you are raising the point, it doesn't resonate with me. It isn't about overlooking it. It is that I just don't see the criticism you made about the death scene being that persuasive.

In terms of his characterization, Han Solo has already had a history of getting into trouble with groups he owes money to (and not being particularly good about avoiding). We are not talking about cautious and cagey player characters, we are talking about the guy who got himself frozen in carbonite, specifically told C-3PO never to tell him the odds (when the sensible thing probably would have been to make that calculation), etc. He has got to be one of the most reckless characters in the series. He is all about shooting form the hip.

The death scene isn't the worst part for me, but it really doesn't make sense unless you're/he's in a spell or I suppose depressed. The real continuity/logic problems are the earlier ones (Starkiller base, seeing planets explode from the wrong star system, the appearance of two groups of goons on Han's own ship at the same time, flying to get ambushed again, and the choreography of most of the shoot outs and fighter battles being "pew pew heroes don't get shot", CGI X-wings can now spin and zap people like in Galaxian, and fight for half an hour while we have our dramatic ground confrontation, because we like having interleaved action even though there are only a handful of X-wings and when we show them they're getting blown up sometimes. Han's death scene I could almost pardon, but I was mainly trying to say that it's easy to think of ways to improve it or do something better for most of the film, from the point of view of someone who likes things to make sense and seem at least as plausible as the OT. Ya that's not a terribly high bar, but it seems like a much higher standard than they applied (if any standard was applied - it seems to have just been what seems cool to someone who never thinks about how things actually happen or why).

Han Solo having slipped back into his old ways and made lethal enemies is not a problem. And yes he's overconfident and gets into trouble but he's not incompetent, or he'd be dead already, in a logical universe. Han shooting Greedo first was consistent with that - when it came down to it, he anticipated, prepared under the table, and shot as soon as it was clear he needed to. He escaped capture and death before by managing to hide in secret compartments in the Falcon. C3PO's calculation, it seems to me, was just wrong, and he had the skill to make it into and out of the asteroid belt, and to hide in the blind spot on the back of a Star Destroyer and drift away with the garbage. Getting turned in by Lando and captured by Vader wasn't incompetent - he was just out-done by Vader and his Force powers and army. Even though he's overconfident and sometimes sloppy, he tends to at least try. Having two different groups simultaneously find you on your own large ship before you even know they're there? How does that even happen? Seems to me it happens because JJ thinks it's a funny joke (which it is, but it pays the price of undermining making any sense, and again it's lazy - it's not so hard to think of a way to make Han get cornered without just having his ship wide open and him not having thought about that at all and them just magically finding him at the same time... like, it could have just happened on the ground when they were hanging out talking to Maz BEFORE it was obvious he was being hunted via the Falcon - people could easily have recognized him and had time to move into a position to corner him. It's EASY to make even the same dull essential story make much more sense.) If Han was just airheaded and not doing anything to avoid getting killed by people who just waltz up, help themselves to his ship and get the drop on him all the time, he wouldn't have lived to be so old.

The way they set up the death scene, with Leia telling Han he had to try and bring their son back...when Han hugged her you saw the look on his face that he knew it wouldn't work.  As Solo said himself "He has too much Vader in him."  So right there, you have a setup that Han knows he probably going to die trying to reclaim his son.

Now fast forward to the bridge...the one thing I can't really forgive is Han Solo dying without saying anything.  So Ren says he wants to be free of this pain, kills Solo, and says "Thank You".  A simple "I'm sorry", "I love you", hell even touching his son's face, neck or shoulder and a nod would have made his death stronger showing that he tried to save his son, knowing he probably wasn't going to make it, but willing to make the sacrifice and atone.

The second unforgivable thing is that Chewie should have died there too, we should have seen what happens when a Wookie totally loses his shit, and the two new kids plant the bomb while Chewie goes down fighting Ren and 20 stormtroopers.  Granted a kids flick, so don't want to see Chewie dripping with blood, but can still show him leaping down, knocking guys 20 feet, etc...

The other stuff about the movie is just too numerous to list, but basically little things.  Assuming your shooting for the widest audience possible doesn't mean you can't come up with a better way to introduce the Millenium Falcon and Han Solo.  Does focused marketing show ridiculous coincidence improves audience turnout?  Nonsense.  This thing was going to bust a billion no matter what, they didn't have to make a different kind of movie, just make what they did, better.

Quote from: BedrockBrendan;924924I don't know. There is a lot in the original trilogy that feels like they are making it up as they go because it is cool (the whole thing with Luke and Leia passionately kissing until we find out they are brother and sister stands out pretty high in my mind). There is plenty of great science fiction where logic and consistent characterization is paramount, but Star Wars has always been more about feeling and intuition than that stuff. I love the former but I can enjoy the latter and for me this is the level Star Wars has always operated on.

Luke & Leia kissing was cool? The only passionate kiss was fake passion to get Han jealous, and they didn't know they were siblings till later so it may cringe some people and yes Lucas just made it up for his own version of "oh let's reprise the family connection reveal that people liked in ESB", which is where I'd say the "because it's cool" comes in, but it's not actually a contradiction.

I know I'm more sensitive to certain types of logic than many viewers, but to me it's really clear that the OT had some logic & explanation that is not only lacking in TFA, but replaced by stuff that makes much less sense and also messes with the SW universe as a tolerable/interesting place. Especially how TFA supposedly takes place in several (5-6?) different parts of a galaxy, yet no one has any trouble finding anyone else in a matter of minutes, and of course the whole guided splitting bending lasers that strike all the way across the galaxy AND whose destruction can be seen large in the sky from an entirely different system thing, which breaks my scale of WTF and also makes the universe pretty ridiculous and unpleasant.