I hadn’t pegged you as a slave to canon. 
And scientific theory is for science. What we’re doing is more like literary theory … like hermeneutics.
I wonder why it’s meaningful to me that Obi Wan should commune with Qui Gon after Qui Gon’s death. Or that, late in life, Obi Wan should want Luke to see the fighting with Anakin end.
Yeah, but watch what happens when you make theories about Star Wars and start including non-Canon things! It generally doesn’t end well, plus Star Wars non-Canon is absurdly huge and absurd, so you can kind of make up anything. No real challenge there.
Mind you, I’d have preferred that the prequels were excised from reality and replaced and we kept the Thrawn books, but we work with what we have, right?
Yes, why IS it meaningful to you?
And are the force ghosts really what we see them as? Are they ghosts? Or something like living AIs transmitted across the strands of dark matter and part of the alien collective intelligence the midi-chlorians generate when they’re densely populated enough?
Perhaps that’s why only Jedi become them and they only show up to Jedi? They’re the biological equivalent of machine-loaded intelligences?
(this is a fun train of thought, none of this had occurred to me before, but notice that we’re turning ‘The Force’ into science! Whee!)
That’s true of all interpretation. 
It’s a story partly about keeping the peace without abusing power. So the jedi made mistakes at some point after they began using weapons. Obi Wan learns about why and that he needs to teach Luke what was learned.
Han says in TFA that the force is “magical” and that the force is “holding together good and evil …” So it doesn’t look like there’s unanimity for a scientific account of the force.
Well, I missed the actual TFA thread here, so imma post my thoughts here instead.
I enjoyed it tremendously while I was watching it. But after sitting for a few hours and reading around it…
It’s really sad that it was just a retread of ANH. It just feels (along with already announced spin-offs) like this is going down the same route as the Marvel Cinematic Universe. All risk-averse, beyond some long overdue gender/racial diversity. Same as Mad Max : Fury Road, to be honest (and I gather, Jurassic World, which I haven’t seen). Prometheus comes to mind, too. I’m not impressed that having waited years for this, I’m now told that this was a safety first reboot, and we should hope that something more interesting will come from Rian Johnson next time - I’m not holding my breath - I didn’t think all that much of Looper, and yes, I really liked Brick, but interesting first-time movies from directors who turn out to be pretty dull franchise hacks (like, say Bryan Singer) aren’t rare.
I liked all the performances, it was well done. Just desperately unambitious, and the final shot was pointless. Perhaps it’s my fault. It is episode 7 of a massive franchise, plus all the spin-off stuff. Two hours of very competent box ticking.
Maybe I should go back and see if I can get past my intense dislike of John Boyega’s character in Attack the Block and get all the way through it.
It’s true someone needs to throw a net over Bryan Singer and pry the X-men out of his hands.
It does feel like JJ Abrams et al. had to dig out of a deep hole. Daisy Ridley’s performance hooked me. All the new talent did a nice job for those of us who were as disappointed in what followed ANH as Han and Leia must’ve felt in Ben’s turn to the dark side.
Yeah I feel that way a bit but then I think they wanted to go with something familiar after the mess of episodes 1, 2, and 3.
While not completely original it was a fun movie with good characters and a good start for the new series of films.
I didn’t dislike it at all. It was a lot of fun. Great cast, engaging performances everywhere, practical effects, all good. Being a miserable old git, I’d have liked a few less knowing stage winks (had the same issue with Skyfall, actually), but surely they could have come up with a marginally less derivative plot? It was a remake in all but name, very well executed, but surely that wasn’t necessary?
Probably not necessary but forgivable coming from a more conservative we need a hit with the audience studio point of view and I don’t fault them for that considering the past.
In terms of Rey and her powers I think I know what the take away is sposed to be. Aside from the vision she has when she grabs the light saber she doesn’t seem to use the force in any obvious way until after Kylo Ren tries to read her mind. And in fact her use of the force is (unless I missed something the one time I’ve seen it so far) limited to that sequence. The interrogation, her escape, and the resulting fight. So it seems pretty obvious to me that she’s “feeling” what Ren is doing to her, or in her presence and mimicking it. As to why she wins out? She’s the good guy and its the climax. But Kylo Ren’s story up till then is all about how unstable and unsure he is despite being powerful. And there’s multiple mentions that his training is some how limited or incomplete. So at least they took some time to establish that he might not be as bad ass as he hopes. Its a pretty simple hubris story line. I think it works just fine all things considered.
I’ve also been seeing a lot of bitching about how she “magically” knows so much about the Falcon. But I think people are being a bit willfully dense on that front. She dismisses the ship as junk when Finn suggests it, but in a peculiarly familiar sort of way. She seems to know exactly what alterations have been made to it; and exactly who owns it, who he got it from and who the previous owner got it from. Without having had much time to examine it. So its pretty clearly implied that she’s very familiar with the Millennium Falcon before they steal it. Which makes sense. She works for the guy who owns it. And they make a point of showing him short changing her on pay/food to keep her pressured (though in this case to get BB-*). I’d be willing to bet that a usual tactic for him. And she had something to do with finding parts for the Falcon, or doing repair work on the thing. And I think that’s the impression we’re supposed to get.
She also pretty clearly doesn’t know how to fly it despite telling Finn that she’s a pilot (and why would she, she’s never been off Jakku). But she figures it out quickly enough. Which is where I’d say this ties into my first bit. The scavengery stuff before she meets up with the rest of the cast, and especially the parts featuring the Falcon seem to be intended to show us that Rey is very quick. She figures out how to get the Falcon moving, and how to fly it somewhat effectively under pressure and on short notice. She trouble shoots mechanical problems on the fly. The film makers very deliberately establish her as a character who is very good as working out these sorts of mechanical and physical challenges. Using a very specific series of events. And then she does the same thing to Kylo Ren and the force. I think that makes perfect sense given the context.
That “do you have a boyfriend” line came a while after Poe’s apparent death, so you can cut Finn some slack in the “imprinting on the first people I meet” stakes.
I think Rey got her powers from her family connections.
This is a business, and you ain’t too far gone to see that yet.
Well, and Poe wasn’t a Jedi, and the Death Star wasn’t underwater (how again?) and a number of other things.
Presumably
Personally, wouldn’t mind taking over and salvaging the prequels as well. There’s so much awesome science that everybody misses with the ‘Midchlorians lalalala I can’t hear you’ bit, which is unfortunately Canon and something we have to deal with in theorizing.
I’d have still preferred a Thrawn trilogy myself, but I’ll take what joy I can get!
Nah, there are still two schools, ‘those who limit themselves to Canon’ and ‘those who include non-Canon’ … and honestly non-Canon is just too wide open to create a proper intellectual challenge.
That’s cute! But it doesn’t explain the original script.
Let’s be honest. George was kind of an idiot. We can either worship his original ideas or disrespect him and have some fun with it!
Han isn’t a scientist, silly!
Besides, science is AWESOME. And this is a movie with spaceships! It’s unfair to say ‘ignore all scientific possiblities because I want my magics, dammit’, true?
Okay, so it’s hard to explain the space battles…I’ve got nothing there.
I’ve now espoused the theory that BB-8 is a Jar-Jar head container and Jar-Jar was working to exterminate a midichlorian plague to family and a few friends. So far they don’t seem as open as I’d have expected, but it’s such an elegant theory.
On the other hand they all seem to be on board with the theory that the Ewok party at the end of Ep. 6 was a celebration of the vast quantity of fresh Stormtrooper meat they’d be feasting on, and that “yub nub” is Ewok for “yum yum.”
It all actually came together weirdly well! I’m sure Lucas didn’t plan it…but what if Mark Hamill did?
It’s not?
I mean, they were totally cool with tasty rebel meat in ROTJ, right?
I think this was a ‘damned if you do damned if you don’t situation’
It probably was wisest to simultaneously distance themselves from the prequels while doing a lot of nods to the original trilogy, because that gives them a lot of freedom in the next two movies.
Star Wars brought to you by Microsoft. The good stuff’s coming…soon.
Maybe Rogue One’ll be a bit different? Although I don’t like Gary Whitta much as a screenwriter (he wasn’t much cop as a gaming journo either), Gareth Edwards is an interesting director. With Alan Tudyk on board, maybe it’ll be a bit Firefly-esque like Rebels seems to be from what I’ve seen of that.
Given that both are owned by Disney and Disney is planning many “side” movies for Star Wars, I’d say that’s an explicit goal.
Now you’re just smoking crack. That movie rocked hard.
…and using this in the same paragraph… tsk.
I think it was deliberately unambitious. People were pretty badly burned by the prequels. Now that it is under new management, they wanted to show people that they could make something like the original movies and draw people in. I doubt anyone was given rope to take chances since if they screwed this up, a billion dollar investment would be destroyed as they wouldn’t be given another chance to win people over.
