Why The force awakens is as bad as the prequels

By hardcore_gamer on December 24, 2015 2:20:58 PM from

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When I first saw the new star wars movie, I had slightly warm feelings towards it, and considered it an ok action movie. But the more time I spent thinking about the film the more negative my opinions on it became. I have now concluded that the movie is as bad as the star wars prequels (most of them at least, episode 1 is probably still worse).

The biggest problems I had with the Star wars prequels are all of the plotholes and the stupid story. I know others also hate on them for having too much CGI but I think that's a fairly subjective opinion and I personally wasn't too bothered by it. For me the real problems were the characters and the plot. And in my opinion, the force awakens is just as bad in this regard. Here are just some examples of what I am talking about:

-The republic forms the resistance to combat the first order. But why? Can't the republic just fight the order as the republic? And speaking of the republic, how does it even work? Is General Leia in control of it? Is it a democracy? And what about the first order? How powerful is this new empire? How do the politics in this world work? At least during the star wars prequels I understood the context in which all of the fighting was taking place. In this one I have no real clue.

-Rey takes a giant dump on everything we know about the force by becoming a super powerful jedi that can fly spaceships and beat someone in a lightsaber duel with no prior training and experience whatsoever. It appears that now being a good jedi has nothing to do with personal skill, just having the force turns you into superman! It took Luke Skywalker 3 movies to defeat Darth Vader, but Rey defeats Kylo in her first fight and nearly kills him. But then again, Kylo isn't actually as big a badass as Darth Vader, brings brings us to the next point...

-The new bad guy is pathetic. The actor playing him looks completely out of place and doesn't fit this role at all. He looks like he belongs in a teenage comedy. The actual character also acts more like a spoiled and a whiny brat rather than as an actual badass. The moment he took of his mask I could no longer take him seriously.

-Lots of pointless fan service. For no reason.

-The Starkiller base is extremely stupid. They could not come up with an original threat so they just created a new version of the Death star that is like 100x bigger (because the old death star was so small right?). In the original movies, the construction of the death star was hailed as a massive accomplishment. And that was in-spite of the fact that the empire had a whole galaxy worth of resources to build it with. How was the first order which is suppose to be merely a shadow of the old empire able to build something that is dozens of times bigger than the death star? This is a giant plothole so obvious it's painful. Oh! And it appears that they learned NOTHING from the first 2 death stars, because of course the good guys just need to destroy a single weak spot to kill it. Because screw being creative.

-How did Han Solo find the main characters so quickly after they left the planet? They just so happened to be nearby? The fact the Falcon had a tracking device on it doesn't explain how they could show up so quickly.

Those are just examples of SOME of the dumb things in this film.

The single most common excuse I hear for this film is that it's fun as an action film. But can't you also say that about the prequels? I honestly think the only reason people are saying this movie is way better than the prequels is because hating on the prequels has become a fad, "Oh yea, at least it isn't as bad as the prequels hurr dur".

Well, it really isn't much better honestly. I would even go as far as to say that episode 3 is better.

Do you share my sentiment?

Galaxy Quest - that's more to my taste.

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Quoting heft,

reply 25

Obligatory: https://youtu.be/9N5KyjM5v0c?t=133

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Quoting Daiwa,

reply 26

Galaxy Quest - that's more to my taste.

At least that's got Sigourney Weaver in it....

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Quoting hardcore_gamer,

reply 19

I liked the sword fights in the prequels more than the ones in the originals honestly. Screw the haters.

I meant that muppet-on-a-stick [Yoda] sword fight....

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I agree completely with the OP. All this bandwagon love of the movie confuses me. It's not good. So many plot holes and stupid stuff.

I also hate how it makes Luke's entire journey in the first movies entirely pointless. Um, so one of his student's somehow manages to kill all his other students, while they're all under his tutelage; because he's been seduced by some Sith lord who came out of nowhere and is never explained, but everyone apparently knows. Thus Luke goes all emo and forgets all his training and decides to run away and become a hermit. Contrived much? Apparently Luke is little useless b*tch now.

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Agreed with the OP as well. The episode III was definitely better movie. This one i would call recyclate, cause thats pretty much all it was.

I saw people saying thats all right, cause apparently it was intended. So i guess it does not matter, if something is shit now, as long as it was intended to be like that... OK then.

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I think the new Star Wars is great if we get Space Balls 2 out of it.

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Quoting Timmaigh,

reply 31

Agreed with the OP as well. The episode III was definitely better movie. This one i would call recyclate, cause thats pretty much all it was.

Actually, recyclate isn't the word. Recalcitrant is a much better fit.

Quoting Timmaigh,

reply 31

I saw people saying thats all right, cause apparently it was intended. So i guess it does not matter, if something is shit now, as long as it was intended to be like that... OK then.

To those people it should be said that terrorism is intended, so does that make it alright? Sadly, too much "shit" is being spewed out of Hollywood in recent times. It's not so much about entertainment anymore. No, it's movies for movies sake. It doesn't matter if they are crap cos all the studios are producing crap, and sadly, the cinema going public is largely non- discerning, it has to go see something.... anything, so the shit movies will keep on coming.

For mine, the cinema going public asked for this [seemingly endless river of shit to be produced/released]. I mean, how many people get up and walk out on a crap movie nowadays? Not many do: "It's crap, but I may as well stay and get my money's worth." Sure, movie producers are smart, in that they cram the best two minutes of a movie into a 60 second TV ad/preview, but more people need to walk out on the abysmal crap to send them a clear message that it's not good enough.

And how many people stay away from crap movies in droves? Not too many! There hasn't been a notable box office flop in ages. The cinema going public either hasn't got anything better to do or can't be bothered looking, and a crap movie beats the heck out of Keeping Up With The Kardashians and/or endless TV reruns, so the river of shit movies continues. Mind you, the much of the recent stuff being offered up on TV leaves a lot to be desired.

Fortunately, I can honestly say that I have not contributed to this cinematic decline. I have not been to a cinema in almost 40 years. In part that's because I have health issues. The seating is less than comfortable and I cannot bear to be crammed into a tight space like just another sardine. For the most part, however, it's because there has been so much crap on offer that I simply wouldn't bother... and/or there was so very little I wanted to see badly enough that I couldn't wait for the DVD/Bluray.

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Quoting Jafo,

reply 28

At least that's got Sigourney Weaver in it....

Her zipper was the best running gag in the movie.

Well, it didn't make me gag, actually.

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JJ was screwed whichever story line he came up with. I absolutely wouldn't want to direct any Star Wars/Star Trek movie because of the fandom and whatever the quality of the plot, the reaction from some would be: "No, you moron film director, Star Destroyers didn't have that hindmost turret on the left side until 34BY so like 600BY after the goddamn movie! And what's with calling people Darth? That didn't happen until 142BY when Count Dooku's Grandfather....etc Oh that imperial uniform was just laughably bad!! They didn't turn grey until about 264BY. Epic Fail, Film Director Man!"

He could have done Reservoir Dogs in space (imagine R2D2 dancing to Stuck In The Middle With You while C3PO's tied to a chair), Citizen Kane etc and there'd still be complaints.

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I'm not a fan of Star Wars so I'm judging the movie on its own merits, and I found it sub par. Honestly no unbiased reviewer should ever have given it more than 3 stars. It just wasn't a great movie. I think that after the prequels everyone was just hoping for another good Star Wars movie so badly that they are ignoring all the reasons why SW:TFA is worse.

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Most of us here don't care for the movie, so to help balance out the opinions, here's a link to some pro arguments.

Primarily post #56...

http://forum.veggieviews.com/threads/star-wars-episode-7.3919/page-3#post-253843

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Not really. You should probably just watch Plinkett's very famous reviews of the prequels (especially Phantom Menace) because I'm going to repeat the main points.

The prequels completely failed as action movies because the plot structure was bad (e.g. 4 separate climaxes in Phantom Menace, some of which we don't care about), the characters were demonstrably uninteresting, there wasn't a definable protagonist in some of the movies, and the antagonist's actions didn't make sense. The plot holes and grating characters like Jar Jar were actually secondary issues.

Listen, I went to midnight showings of the prequels as a young adult (I'm getting old...). People LAUGHED during the key love scenes because the dialogue was so bad and nobody cared about the stupid characters (nobody in that theater cared about the Anakin/Padme romance). And these were the super hardcore Star Wars fans at midnight showings. People were really excited before the shows before, and really upset after. The reaction was completely different after Force Awakens.

Force Awakens was at least competently done as an action movie. It had a reasonably appealing plot with fun protagonists. It had issues - primarily that it was highly derivative of episode 4 - but they were mostly secondary.

To get to your issues with plot holes. There are two ways to watch a Star Wars movie. You can either just watch it as an action movie, in which case you don't want to get too involved with details of intergalactic politics and stuff like that. Or you can watch it trying to figure all that stuff out, in which case you are going to have to look into supplemental material or use the internet. I mean, they aren't going to take the time to explain the details of the politics of the Republic/First Order/Resistance in a 2 hour adventure movie. Doing so would be boring to most viewers and is covered elsewhere for the hardcore fans.

So yeah, a lot of that stuff isn't plotholes, its just covered elsewhere. You can find some of your questions answered on the internet if you want to look.

For example, your first point: my understanding is that the First Order and the Republic are basically in a cold war. Mon Mothma has dismantled a lot of the military might of the Republic because <reasons>. The Resistance is a resistance cell within the First Order that might be kind of supported by the Republic. It is very small (see how little power it has to launch at the end of the movie).

This isn't really different than Episode 4. It's just that the details of Episode 4 got fleshed out in later movies/books that you saw before you had to wait years for a new movie. But if you just saw Episode 4, you would have NO IDEA of what is really going on with galactic politics and the power structures. You would just know that there is an Empire, which is bad. And some spunky fighters who are good. Everything else is left to other sources, just like in this movie.

I mean, can you imagine the outrage that there would be if JJ Abrams had dropped a line like the Kessel Run/parsecs line in Episode 4? But Episode 4 had bad lines like that and just as few details of background of politics, and nobody hates on the movie. But that's because it doesn't really matter in an adventure movie.

Rey takes a giant dump on everything we know about the force by becoming a super powerful jedi that can fly spaceships and beat someone in a lightsaber duel with no prior training and experience whatsoever.

Hm? Luke became the best (second best?) pilot the Rebels had directly off the farm and blew up the Death Star right away. So its right in line with flying spaceships (see also Phantom Menace and pod racing/blowing up droid controller ships).

(FWIW, I don't think the movie is great. 3 stars is a fair rating).

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Quoting starkers,

reply 33

And how many people stay away from crap movies in droves? Not too many! There hasn't been a notable box office flop in ages.

Um, what?

Just in 2015, Fantastic 4, Jupiter Ascending, Tomorrowland, and Pan lost their studios ~$100 million EACH. I think that 2014 wasn't so bad, but 2013 had winners like 47 Ronin, which is believed to be the worst box office flop ever.

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Quoting Jafo,

reply 28

Quoting Daiwa,

reply 26

Galaxy Quest - that's more to my taste.

At least that's got Sigourney Weaver in it....

Galaxy Quest - the best!

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I think Krazikarl has it figured out. Thanks to that insight, I can see how none of the SW movies were intended as stand-alone, self-contained films in the traditional sense. They have been the focal point of a vast social/business structure that has been unbelievably successful; the hooks, if you will. They are just the biggest pieces of the fabric of what has been the SW phenomenon. Viewed that way, Lucas is even more of a genius than we thought.

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Quoting Daiwa,

reply 41

Eh, not really. My point is that the movies actually are standalone products that most people choose to consume by themselves. I have 60 year old aunts who found the new movie reasonably enjoying, but I'm quite sure that they have no (and will not) read the secondary material (come to think of it, I have no intention of reading it other than some internet discussions of the background). However, hardcore fans can chose to go into crazy detail with secondary products if they want.

The original movies were actually fairly standalone products. My point was that the types of detail that were being pointed out in the original post were not present in the original movie(s). In episode 4, only minimal background was introduced to set up a good rebels vs evil Empire dynamic - the overwhelmingly most important thing was the standalone adventure.

Almost all of the details were only introduced years to decades later in the books.

So this new movie is actually doing something very similar to the originals in that its pushing all of the details into secondary material while keeping the movie to a relatively straight forward adventure plot.

The Prequels did put more details into the main movies. But I think that most people would argue that they suffered greatly for it. Most people did not enjoy the discussions of intergalactic grade routes and space taxes.

I don't think that Lucas ever intended this - he didn't really seem to do much very coherent with the early EU material (it came substantially later and never tied all that closely to Lucas directly). And he made a mess of the Prequels. So I'd say definitely not a genius here. He seems a lot more interested in selling toys to kids rather than tying movies to secondary material like books.

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I have a much bigger problem with the ex storm trooper holding his own than I do the girl kicking her probable cousin's ass. She's been scrapping it on a desert planet since she was a kid, and carrying around a staff for self defense against people that include aliens with far superior strength and reflexes to vanilla humans.

Skywalker's are freaks of nature, this was true before they introduced the face palming virgin birth and midi-chlorians(Seriously, can anyone seriously call the prequels a serious effort just with that word? If I say serious enough, I might be able to avoid laughing over remembering this bit) and turned the Epic Darth Vader into a whiny, prepubescent little shit, that grew up into a whiny, postpubescent little shit. Honestly, his emo grandson is the worst part of the new movie, reminds me of his origin rape of a prequel character. If she is indeed a Skywalker, her whiny father managed to hold his own after a few weeks of training against a real badguy, without a hard life scrapping against his elders in hand to hand.

If Skywalker trained his child before dumping her off and going all hermit, then that part of the movie is actually quite logical. His own nephew going dark side and slaughtering his students is a rough patch, even for the hero of the galaxy, he was always pretty emotional so completely flipping his shit probably isn't as far out there as some of you are thinking.

The storm trooper with PTSD getting a hit on even a wounded emo Skywalker is just a gaping chasm of a plot hole. The guy nearly got his ass kicked by a fellow storm trooper before that so it's not like he's being billed as some super force attuned badass, he's just a vanilla drone with an inconveniently strong conscience.

Regardless of how utterly fucked that particular point is, one must always keep perspective, and the evil incarnate of that first prequel's scientific explanations and absurdities.

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Quoting Krazikarl,

reply 38

I went to midnight showings of the prequels as a young adult (I'm getting old...).

Problem is....I was older than that for the FIRST Star Wars....and hence was beyond even THAT target audience.

Sadly it's a case of....if you're pre-pubescent you'll like it/them....if you're not you won't.

If you are old enough to shave....and you STILL like them - either you need to grow up and act your age....or you're prematurely hirsute [or that gorilla thing that started the absurdity] ....

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Quoting Jafo,

reply 44

Quoting Krazikarl,

reply 38

I went to midnight showings of the prequels as a young adult (I'm getting old...).

Problem is....I was older than that for the FIRST Star Wars....and hence was beyond even THAT target audience.

Sadly it's a case of....if you're pre-pubescent you'll like it/them....if you're not you won't.

If you are old enough to shave....and you STILL like them - either you need to grow up and act your age....or you're prematurely hirsute [or that gorilla thing that started the absurdity] ....

Yup, that pretty much nails it... the entire series was/is darned immature and lacking. After watching the first prequel with my son, who was pre-pubescent at the time, and walking out on the second 20 minutes in, there was/is no way on Earth I'd ever torture myself with yet another sub-par installment. As for the discussion and analysis of the plot holes and etc, what a complete waste of time.

Simply put, the movies weren't that good and undeserving of that much attention.

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Quoting neone6,

reply 1

Gamer dude, not so sure you're gonna make a lot of friends with this.

Boy was I wrong ! lol

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I agree with the OP on most of his points. TFA however is not as bad as the prequels. While it did have some absurdity it didnt stand out like it did with the prequels. When i first saw the movie i felt just as the OP did, I thought it was a pretty good action flick. Something JJ is almost notorious for. Look what he did to Star Trek. Enough said. Star Wars on the other hand fits the "action" genre better than Star Trek. However as i let it sink in i saw the flaws that were pointed out, and more. Still JJ's Star Wars is far better than his Star Trek.

If you went in expecting to see Storm Troopers kicking ass (and getting their asses kicked) You got it. If you went in expecting light saber battles you got it. If you went in expecting some serious wookie rage you got it (Chewbacca did shine in this movie).

If you went in expecting to see something completely different in the Star Wars universe... You will be sadly dissapointed.

This film is yet another example of hollywood flat out refusing to try out any new, and fresh ideas. Or is it that writers just can not think of anything "new" any more? I don't just blame just JJ Abrams for the "rinse, and repeat of Episode IV". I blame the writers. Some of whom wrote empire strikes back. JJ just directed what the writers wrote on the screenplay. Though he could have taken a bigger risk, and rejected some of the screen play. What we do have is a rehash of episode IV. With a new, and even bigger "Death Star III" with apparently the same damn design flaws as the previous two Death Stars. You would think that the Imperials would have FIXED this by now!

Again.. Tiny X-Wings blow up a planet sized station (ok so its a station built inside the planet... whatever).

Death Star III eats stars for breakfast to fuel its big f@#king gun. Errr no mention is made on how its supposed to refuel after it sucked the star its orbiting dry. Can it move? Or was it a fire, and forget type weapon? As in fire it twice, and forget about ever using it again? Considering the two primary targets were the new republic capital, and the resistance base. I would say the weapon was fire, and forget. Once the two targets were destroyed it served its purpose. How the hell did they get the man power to build that thing to begin with?

New Republic needs a Resistance.... Yea... That makes a whole lot of sense. Well i guess it needs the Resistance now. Considering that the New Republic had its ENTIRE FLEET parked at its CAPITAL... You know, the System that Death Star III just OBLITERATED! Damn it sucks to be the Republic now. With this kind of stupidity it makes you want to side with the Empire! Least the new Storm Troopers don't miss near as bad as before.

My biggest Disappointment was with Vader 2.0 aka Kylo Ren. If they wanted to portray Ren as a mentally unstable bi-polar psycho.. they sorta succeeded. He went from being a major Bad Ass that could stop, and freeze Blaster Fire in mid air! To a wuss that worships grand daddy just a little too much, and expensive electronic equipment is no match for his tantrums. Though i admit the not so unexpected scene where he tricks Han Solo into helping "Ben" kill him was pretty good. "Here hold my light saber while i switch it on, and turn you into a kabob". The wookie rage scene afterwards was also pretty good.

Kylo seemed to have forgotten how to be a bad ass after his fathers death. He let Chewy get a good hit on him (what happened to the freezing of laser blasts in mid air??). He let a DULLARD get a good hit on him, and he HESITATED at a critical moment when he let his "cousin" close her eyes, and let the force in. The pause was so long that the DULLARD could have sliced, and diced her thrice over.

Don't get me wrong i did enjoy Finns character, but wielding a light saber is something a non force user should NOT do. Finn "We will use the force!" Han "THAT'S NOT HOW THE FORCE WORKS!!!". Something tells me that Finn is a latent force user, because correct me if i'm wrong, but you cant ignite a light saber unless you have some kind of force ability? Err wait i forgot about Grievous.

Rey... I don't know what to make of her. Much about her i guess we wont find out about until the next movie. I believe she IS Lukes daughter. She is strong with the force, but doesn't realize it yet. In fact she rejects it after the flashback scene, and Maz all but tells her shes lukes kid. I believe she did have some training at the academy, but blocked it out of her mind after the academy was destroyed. How else could she have Jedi Mind Tricked a Storm Trooper, or read Kylos mind, and found out his worst fear. She "should" have got her ass handed to her by Ren during the light saber dual, but NOOOOO! Like a typical comic book villain Ren had to pause, and try to seduce her to the dark side. Count 15-20 seconds while they had sabers locked, and her eyes closed "letting the force in". BAM! she becomes instant jedi bad ass all of a sudden. Ren made the same mistake with Rey that Vader did with Luke by not killing, or incapacitating her when he had AMPLE opportunity to do so. Worst light saber duel ever. Now i guess he really needs the mask.

Did anyone notice when Rey found luke both all teary eyed that luke was standing next to a grave?

Not the best Star Wars film, but i do rate it better than the prequels simply because it didn't have the annoying cheese of the prequels. No Yippie!! Pod Racing, Waaaaaaaaaah!! he's holding me back!!! I HATE YOU (in a whiney brat voice).. NNNNOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!, or freaking Jar Jar.

I still rate the original trilogy better than TFA.

TBH NONE of the Star Wars films are worthy of academy awards. If you go see these movies for intriguing plots, and engaging dialog... then you are watching the wrong movies.

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Quoting Major Stress,

reply 47

TBH NONE of the Star Wars films are worthy of academy awards. If you go see these movies for intriguing plots, and engaging dialog... then you are watching the wrong movies.

None of the Star Wars films IS worthy....

May as well get the grammar right - means the dross and its post mortem can be educational...

'none' is an abbreviation of 'not one' so is singular ... Spell checker ...

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....oh....and if there's ever an Academy award for 'Major Cash Cow' ....then you'll be wrong there too...

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Though i am educated, I can be grammatically challenged at times English was NOT my best subject in school. I would fail at writing, but excelled at reading, and comprehension. I guess they both balanced out in the end.

It does seem like this movie was a major set up for sequel.. Like we didn't see this coming. It will be interesting to see what the "other" directors are going to do with Disney's new "cash cow". Since JJ won't be directing them.

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Why The force awakens is as bad as the prequels

hardcore_gamer