Star Wars: Episode 7 - The Force Awakens

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Stewball
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Re: Star Wars: Episode 7 - The Force Awakens

Post by Stewball »

ShogunRua wrote:
Stewball wrote:I've previously said that Boyega's Finn was one dimensional. But this from John Dellingpole's review in Breitbat is a worthy expansion on my simple evaluation:

"Token. That’s what John Boyega’s character would be called if this were South Park. But he’s not. He’s called — oh, whatever, I forget and I’m not going to look it up.

"The tragic thing is that Boyega is actually one of Britain’s most charismatic young actors — check him out in the infinitely superior sci-fi movie Attack The Block. In The Force Awakens, however, Boyega has only two functions: 1.) be black 2.) be scaredy-cat and useless so that the Rey character (see above) can show how feisty and amazing and not-scared-of-anything and omnicompetent girls are by comparison.

"Director JJ Abrams has congratulated himself on the diversity of his casting. I’d say the creation of a character whose only real jobs are to be black and benignly lame has set the diversity clock back to the pre-Civil-War era."


Diversity....oh gag. Deliver me!


Boyega's character is not the only useless one. Han Solo is useless, too. So is Chewbacca. So are all the protagonists except the main one. That's because Daisy Ridley is an unstoppable, one-woman army/God who is better at everything than everyone despite no training or background.

1. an ace pilot who can outfly trained fighter pilots.
2. And she knows more about the engineering details of the Millennium Falcon than Han Solo.
3. And she is a crack shot even though she seems not to know where the safety on a handgun is.
4. And she saves Exhench one more time, using her knowledge of the mechanisms of an unfamiliar ship.
5. Then it turns out she has force powers like a Jedi, including visions of the future and past. She can resist mind-to-mind combat with Big Bad Sith, and even read his mind in the process. But, unlike Luke, she needs no training: she can do advanced mind-control techniques without a single lesson or even being told that such things are possible.
6. Hence, she can escape from the innermost dungeon of a Sith Lord fortress unaided.
7. And she can lightsaber fight without training against a man taller and stronger and trained in the art.


All those fall under the sardonic heading of omnicompetent, what. And not to strain at the argument overmuch, but imagine, for the sake of that argument, all the characters being strewn about are at a below average 5. Finn would be a 1.

And if you're reading Breitbart reviews, read John C Wright's review, too., where that list is taken from.


(Sigh) Out of the mouths of babes, or the Devil himself, the Truth is the Truth. If I was going to copyright it, I would have checked for plagiarism. But since this is the "net".... :roll: Only so much time in the night & day y'know.

CMonster
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Re: Star Wars: Episode 7 - The Force Awakens

Post by CMonster »

Shogun, have you seen the film yet? I'm gonna go out on a limb and say no, so if you don't care about spoilers I'll add some context to the claim that Rey is the all powerful superbeing who does everything and none of the other characters do anything.

[spoiler]First, the inciting incident of the film completely lacks Daisy Ridley. Oscar Isaac is captured. John Boyega on his first combat mission sees how horrible The First Order is and can't pull the trigger on cold blooded killing. He is horrified and wants nothing more than to escape. He chooses to rebel and help Isaac escape. During the escape (and the later escape on Jakku with Ridley) he shows to be a crack shot gunner on a fast moving ship doing on a dime turns despite never having shot one before. Then the stuff with Boyega and Ridley happens which you clearly know about because those reviews you shared loving talking about it. But then in the escape Ridley can barely fly the Falcon. She doesn't raise the landing gear, she bumps into all sorts of things. Escape ends with both her and Boyega making a clutch flight maneuver and shot respectively.

This is where I'm also going to disagree with Stewball, which I didn't do before because his opinion didn't seem crazy enough to warrant my dissent, but I think Boyega does not portray a one dimensional character. Fully realized and fleshed out? No, but I like what they did with him. He is incredibly self-interested. All he wants is to get as far away from The First Order as possible. It's all he's ever know and he despises and fears it. He has also only ever been a unit. The first 2 people to show him some humanity are Ridley and Isaac (and BB-8 to some extent). He naturally becomes somewhat attatched as they are, just a little bit, his first and only friends. The next planet they get to, Then the Falcon dies while floating in space. Ridley is some magic fix-it. They are rescued by Han and Chewie.

Next planet, sure Ridley is a crack shot without knowing how to turn a safety off. Sure she gets told by some weird alien that she has the force and might be some sort of chosen one blah blah blah. Turns out, she can't do everything is captured. Boyega decides not to leave because one of his two friends in the who galaxy just got captured. While captured Ridley is confronted by an obviously only partly trained force user. Sure its a little convenient that she can compete force wise with this guy. But this is a movie with plenty of lucky coincidence. Then in her escape, she is obviously throwing things at the wall to see what sticks. She pretty obviously doesn't know what she is doing. Then on a meta level, the film mirrors A New Hope so much they needed Jedi type things to happen. But this time the old mentor was Han, not Obi-Wan Kenobi, so the only person to make such call backs is the only person we see who can use the force that isn't a bad guy.

Hop ahead to the epic climax. The plan to bring down the space station. Ridley has no part in it. Boyega and Han came up with the plan. Turns out Boyega lied just because he wants to save Ridley. They wing it. Boyega's knowledge of the station plus Han and Chewie winging it lead to success. Han dies in a pretty important moment for the bad guy. Boyega and Ridley move to escape but are confronted by Kylo Ren (who was shot by Chewie when he killed Han). Ridley is tossed aside and Boyega attempts to fight Ren. He gets his shit slapped. Ridley gets up and then channels the force to fight the bad guy. Spends most of the time running away. Finally hits a do or die moment, gets good for like 60 seconds, and then the fight ends because the space station is falling apart. Oh, and Isaac was the one who made the shot to destroy the space station.

With this plot, Ridley in no way played any part in the success of destroying whatever name they gave to Deathstar 3.0. (Maybe getting captured so Boyega wanted to go or something helped I guess.) The writers could have skipped the part where Ren followed them into the words and they could have just escaped and then she wouldn't have even played a part in the escape, but then we also wouldn't have had a lightsaber fight. Are there conveniences in her character? Yes. Is she better than she should be with no training? Yes. That doesn't really define the entire film as being political correctness incarnate. Again, they needed Jedi-esque stuff and the mentor character is Han Solo. There are also conveniences with Boyega's character as well. The film says his character worked in sanitation until the inciting incident. And more then anything, as to what the film is, it's a nostalgia fest to introduce new characters for later films and an effort to distance Star Wars from the prequels...and fun. At least I thought it was fun.

Please, just watch the movie before continuously sharing reviews that are just kinda off the wall and don't make sense. Trust me, my sister is into the whole politically correct liberal SJW thing. It annoys me to no end. I would 100% be with you if this movie was SJW dreck. It's not.

I mean "And she can lightsaber fight without training against a man taller and stronger and trained in the art." No mention that the guy was shot. No mention see was slapped away to start the fight which is why Boyega tried to fight Ren. No mention once she did start fighting she was getting handily beat and was just running away for a good part of it. No mention that the film actually addressed the Ren was not fully trained. It just calls him Big Bad Sith. The reviewer is grasping at straws to make a point.[/spoiler]

tl;dr
It's not a very good review. It removes all context from the film to try and make a point. Ridley is not an, " unstoppable, one-woman army/God who is better at everything than everyone despite no training or background."

Stewball
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Re: Star Wars: Episode 7 - The Force Awakens

Post by Stewball »

CMonster wrote:... but I think Boyega does not portray a one dimensional character. Fully realized and fleshed out? No,


Uhhhhhhhhhhh. **drums fingers, shrugs into a double face-palm, heaves sigh heard round the world**

CMonster
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Re: Star Wars: Episode 7 - The Force Awakens

Post by CMonster »

Stewball wrote:
CMonster wrote:... but I think Boyega does not portray a one dimensional character. Fully realized and fleshed out? No,


Uhhhhhhhhhhh. **drums fingers, shrugs into a double face-palm, heaves sigh heard round the world**

There is a grey area between completely 1 dimension and fully fleshed out. At least in my opinion anyways.

Pickpocket
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Re: Star Wars: Episode 7 - The Force Awakens

Post by Pickpocket »

Stewball wrote:
CMonster wrote:... but I think Boyega does not portray a one dimensional character. Fully realized and fleshed out? No,


Uhhhhhhhhhhh. **drums fingers, shrugs into a double face-palm, heaves sigh heard round the world**

His character wasn't one dimensional. Not sure why people are claiming this so adamantly. Here's an example of a one dimensional character for comparison: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bigZ1fmwD-Q

Stewball
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Re: Star Wars: Episode 7 - The Force Awakens

Post by Stewball »

CMonster wrote:There is a grey area between completely 1 dimension and fully fleshed out. At least in my opinion anyways.


Not to put too fine of a one dimensional point to it, but it just looks like "not fully realized and fleshed out" is a pretty good definition of one dimensional. Which shade of grey applies only accentuates the dull. But ok, lets compromise and call him 2 dimensional. 8-) He's still flat as hell.

Pickpocket wrote:His character wasn't one dimensional. Not sure why people are claiming this so adamantly.


The guy has the charisma of a (dare I say it) Hillary Clinton. OK, maybe not THAT bad, but youknowwhatuhmean. Then add to that his Stepin Fetchit there-to-make-the-chick-look-omnicompetent (I like that word) role that any non-wuss would have rejected in a heartbeat. Imagine somebody (anybody) respectable in that role, say, Lee Marvin, Robert Downy Jr., Denzel Washington, Harrison Ford...or hell, Chubacca. They'd have come away scarred for life, professionally and emotionally--which is highly likely for this poor schlub.

Here's an example of a one dimensional character for comparison: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bigZ1fmwD-Q

:?: At least a rapist is a villain with some potential for at least an evil personality, as evident when he admits that he not only likes rape, but he's also into murder and arson, and is thus multi-dimensional. A wuss is a tree stump. (I know, I'm overusing the Hillary persona, but it's such a deep well I just can't help going back to it.)

Pickpocket
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Re: Star Wars: Episode 7 - The Force Awakens

Post by Pickpocket »

Stewball wrote:The guy has the charisma of a (dare I say it) Hillary Clinton. OK, maybe not THAT bad, but youknowwhatuhmean. Then add to that his Stepin Fetchit there-to-make-the-chick-look-omnicompetent (I like that word) role that any non-wuss would have rejected in a heartbeat. Imagine somebody (anybody) respectable in that role, say, Lee Marvin, Robert Downy Jr., Denzel Washington, Harrison Ford...or hell, Chubacca. They'd have come away scarred for life, professionally and emotionally--which is highly likely for this poor schlub.

Hillary Clinton is a rapist enabling career criminal corrupt psycho so that's a pretty baseless comparison. And I get that you don't like him as an actor but the level of his charisma doesn't have much to do with what the writers decided to do with the character.

Stewball wrote: :?: At least a rapist is a villain with some potential for at least an evil personality, as evident when he admits that he not only likes rape, but he's also into murder and arson, and is thus multi-dimensional. A wuss is a tree stump. (I know, I'm overusing the Hillary persona, but it's such a deep well I just can't help going back to it.)

Only you would write this. Hilarious :lol:

ShogunRua
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Re: Star Wars: Episode 7 - The Force Awakens

Post by ShogunRua »

Pickpocket wrote:
Stewball wrote:The guy has the charisma of a (dare I say it) Hillary Clinton. OK, maybe not THAT bad, but youknowwhatuhmean. Then add to that his Stepin Fetchit there-to-make-the-chick-look-omnicompetent (I like that word) role that any non-wuss would have rejected in a heartbeat. Imagine somebody (anybody) respectable in that role, say, Lee Marvin, Robert Downy Jr., Denzel Washington, Harrison Ford...or hell, Chubacca. They'd have come away scarred for life, professionally and emotionally--which is highly likely for this poor schlub.

Hillary Clinton is a rapist enabling career criminal corrupt psycho so that's a pretty baseless comparison.


Don't forget serial killer, with Benghazi and Vince Foster only being the tip of the iceberg.

Pickpocket wrote:Only you would write this. Hilarious :lol:


I've always maintained that Stewie is a comic genius, in his own way.

CMMonster wrote:Shogun, have you seen the film yet?


Considering the last Star Wars movie was the worst movie-going experience of my life, I would have to be a damn fool to do the same for its sequel. I will watch it whenever it comes to Netflix.

Suture Self
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Re: Star Wars: Episode 7 - The Force Awakens

Post by Suture Self »

ShogunRua wrote:Anyone who pontificates or reviews a book/movie without having read/seen some portion of it, not even the first 15 minutes prior to leaving the theater in disgust, can be safely dismissed.

Stewball
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Re: Star Wars: Episode 7 - The Force Awakens

Post by Stewball »

Pickpocket wrote:Hillary Clinton is a rapist enabling career criminal corrupt psycho so that's a pretty baseless comparison.


Think Bill Clinton. He's at least as corrupt as she is , but he's charming in the process making the poison easier to swallow. But she's that AND she has the charisma of a scorpion which her followers ignore with such ease one can only marvel at depth and breadth their useful stupidity--real life zombies.

Stewball wrote: :?: At least a rapist is a villain with some potential for at least an evil personality, as evident when he admits that he not only likes rape, but he's also into murder and arson, and is thus multi-dimensional. A wuss is a tree stump. (I know, I'm overusing the Hillary persona, but it's such a deep well I just can't help going back to it.)

Only you would write this. Hilarious :lol:


Humor, besides the banana peel variety, is rarely more than highlighting an incongruent or absurd Truth. So thanks...I think.

ShogunRua wrote:Don't forget serial killer, with Benghazi and Vince Foster only being the tip of the iceberg.


Yeah, but again, take Bill. The media would have marveled at how skillfully he lied his way out of it. "That depends on what the definition of 'is' is"; while she leaves even the media aghast at the lack of intelligence of the smartest woman in the world, "What difference, at this point, does it make", or, "I don't recall". Hell even Huma, at this point, has got to be continually wondering why she ever thought it was a good idea to take this senior au pair gig...well, besides the money, and supporting Islam.

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