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Incredible game in virtually every way. My favorite in the franchise by a long shot :)

Really was the pinnacle of Halo in every way. The armors, the redesigned Elites that looked menacing, the varied vehicle and weapon feel, map design, encounters, File share, Invasion, Theater mode... If only 343 gave us a 1080p version of that...

Yeah, 1080p with a smoother frame rate (a rock solid 30fps would be great)... a guy can dream :)

While we're dreaming, the ability to do all of this stuff in-game would be pretty sweet!

"This isn't where my dentist is"
"I'm taking you to a new dentist"
"What's his name?"
"Kylo Ren"

We got through the ticket line, picked up 3D glasses, and walked into the theater. "Wait, this isn't the dentist office."

lol - the 3D glasses didn't clue him in first? :)

That is ridiculously awesome! And very funny! What did you both think of the movie? Or was the movie a disappointment because the dentist hype was too real?

Episode VII also got the PG-13 rating, and there's definitely outright murder/killing and some pretty intense violence at certain points throughout the movie. Just a heads up if you're planning on taking them to this one.

Plus, you can buy the theatrical editions. It isn't hard.

Yes. Yes they are, unless you want to spend $50 per movie. They never even released a proper DVD version of the theatrical editions, only a copy of the laser disc version, which is out of print.

Plus, you can buy the theatrical editions. It isn't hard.

No you really can't. The closest thing you can buy still has updates. Look into the Despecialized Version online, that's about the closest you can get.

More importantly though, in my opinion, is that those old effects were the award winning work of amazing effect artists. Lucas decided to erase that hard work that represented a pinnacle in effects. When I first saw the movies I remember being honestly impressed at how cool everything looked, even though it was already years old. That was part of the value of the movie and to try to erase what was amazing work is pretty abhorrent.

I'm going to chalk this one up to the extreme ignorance of youth. If you'd seen the originals as God intended (e.g. 12x in 1977) i'm sure you'd have a different opinion. Lucas changed the fucking story and took very important historic films out of circulation. There's no excuse for it.

Indeed. Han shot first, as God intended.

Heh. I'm not going to revive my big debate with Vagueness, but I recently heard two prominent constitutional law professors discuss the legality of Han shooting first. The conclusion: perfectly within his right to self-defense, going all the way back to English common law.

QED

I'll chalk this one up to the extreme prejudice and stubbornness of old age. If you had seen the movies with some objectivity (at about the same time, within a couple years of each other) I'm sure you'd have a different opinion.

I feel like I'm more qualified than most to evaluate things like this objectively.

1. I've studied film history extensively.
2. I'm a literal professional when it comes to making films
3. I love to watch movies.
4. I am not old :-p

Many of the changes you say you like are but surface level details, which do not really have much impact on the story of draw the audience in any more. I am all for cleaning up visible matte lines, fixing matte paintings with incorrect perspective, etc. These fixes are nice, but nobody was really looking at the hallway when Han Luke and Leia were trapped before jumping into the garbage chute and thinking "man, the perspective is off… now I can't connect with the emotion of this scene!"

However many of the changes are not simple harmless fixes, but either significant alterations, pointless scenes or additions that significantly clash aesthetically with the rest of the film.

Every single change that was not simply a surface level detail or technical fix detracted from the films. Every single one. That is not an exaggeration, and it is not nostalgia talking.

Watch the climax in the original theatrical release. It is perhaps the most perfect action sequence ever made. Compare that to the special edition, which adds in different shots, recuts the timing, and in general just loses some of the excitement and tension. Editing is more powerful than you know, and a single simple change can cause a ripple effect to alter the experience significantly.

Surface level details are very easy to look at and say "wow, that looks better!". But there is way more to making a movie than just nice looking shots and technical acumen.

I'll chalk this one up to the extreme prejudice and stubbornness of old age. If you had seen the movies with some objectivity (at about the same time, within a couple years of each other) I'm sure you'd have a different opinion.

You're probably right if I saw what you saw, but it would be an ignorant opinion, and notice the importance of that word, ignorant. We'll all ignorant until we're not, and it's a state that can be corrected, except in this case George Lucas has actively kept younger people ignorant and prevented them from judging the original films fairly.

Doesn't make sense or feel good, does it? It's fine to disagree, but to explain away my ideas as me just being ignorant because of youth is just you not wanting to give them a fair treatment.

It feels fine, because I don't think you understand where I'm coming from.

I explained I didn't know they were out of circulation because I have them on DVDs, and didn't go searching for them. They were just the DVDs I bought at the store. I understand not liking the new versions, but dismissing differing opinions is silly.

You miss my point. You don't have them on DVD. You've got a crappy version of them, and it makes a difference.

You characterize my viewing of the trilogy as not being objective. I don't know how you can be more objective than seeing them in their first week of release in the theater. That's how I saw all of them. I dedicated several summers of my life to practically memorizing every frame of them long before anyone could watch them in their living room. I knew every beat, every shot--I knew the characters like I knew my family, and I knew what made the films work. Not only that, but I read everything I could get my hands on that explicated Star Wars, from Joseph Campbell on down. When they first came out on VHS, I tried to watch them. I didn't enjoy it very much. They were greatly diminished on the small screen.

With age comes some privileges, and one of those is having experiences that can't be had later. An analogy: one of my all-time favorite live albums is Sam Cooke: Live at the Harlem Square Club, 1963. I love it, and if I could go back and see Cooke at that show, I would do it in a heartbeat. But let's say I knew a 70-year-old who had seen that show, but said, "Kerm, Sam was great, but if you could see one show, it should be Otis Redding at Leo's Casino in 1967." I'd have to defer to his experience.

You're welcome to your opinions, and I realize you enjoy being something of an iconoclast. You're looking at the originals through a lens darkly, I'm remembering them in their original, unmolested glory. Yes, it could be nostalgia, but you don't know that, and the real crime is there is no way for you to make a fair judgment

-removed yub nub from the final scene in Jedi and added the current beautiful score that is played now

Sammy enjoyed the original ending, I've yet to tell her about Hayden Christensen's cameo, though. Perhaps I never shall.

The saddest part of adding a great finale score to that scene is, of course, they had to add extraneous bullshit. The galaxy celebrating doesn't make a whole lot of sense, and don't get me started on the inclusion of hayden. Speaking of, it's a little strange to have older Anakin there all cleaned up and not disfigured considering he didn't really exist in adulthood without the suit.

I always took it as him being who he was on the inside at the end (a Jedi), rather than what he was externally (a... Sith?). Residual self-image?
:v
Made far more sense than becoming a teenage ghost...

Final takeaways:

Sammy loved C-3PO and R2 the most. It's funny to think that C-3PO was considered the Jar Jar of the time by some. He has a lot of charm in the first two films.

That is funny, showed my sister the OT in this past viewing run, and C3PO irked her throughout. But, unlike jar jar, she was worried for him when he got blown to bits. He's annoying, but ultimately charming.

Yeah, and exists for more than just comic relief. He was R2's counterpart and foil, in every sense.

I've been spoiled by Tartakovsky and Blur's takes on lightsaber battles. The duels in the films are much slower and simple. One of the few things that Return of the Jedi did better than the other films, though. I loved Luke's Lightsaber battle with Vader at the end there. The prequels had terrible super-choreographed fights that tended to drag on lifelessly (and don't get me started on Revenge of the Sith's stupid half-hour battle).

Yea, I do love the OT duels, mainly for what's at stake in each. I imagine the choreography of the PT would have more value to it if anything at all was at stake. I appreciate it a lot more now when someone gets involved in a fight completely or somewhat untrained. Wildly swinging and shooting, not really knowing what they are doing. (i.e. heroes in TFA)

Totally. The OT duels show those skilled in wielding a weapon that cuts and burns on contact, remaining mobile and evasive against an enemy that could kill them if they make a single mistake. As opposed to:

And part of why the final fight in RotJ is fantastic. Despite his training, Luke is coming from a place of anger, so he wails on Vader, wearing the old man down.
And that is paralleled in TFA, where Finn and Rey essentially wear down the wounded and otherwise frail Kylo. They have no training, just anger and reflexes.
I love that. I love when a fight has weight.

Sammy's first comment when the credits rolled on RotJ: "All of the old people died!" *cries*

They have a tendency to do that...

What'd you and Sammy think of TFA?

I posted below, and we got into it for a while afterwards about context, story beats, the nature of a planned trilogy, and other stuff, but my basic thoughts are in the post.

1. Return of the Jedi (I'm a sucker for good space battles)

I ordered in what I felt were best to worst in my post, but I'd like to use your post to point out that my personal favorite is Jedi even if I can recongize that it's not as great as IV and V. I can't put it ahead of that perfect script in Episode IV or that movie-making gold in Empire, but I sure do love me some Jedi primarily due to the space battles (and it's really fun watching little Ewoks beat up on Stormtroopers regardless of how ridiculous it is).

Star Wars fans are seriously all over the place.

I love the podracing scene (easily my favorite part of Episode I), but I think the Darth Maul fight is awful. I don't know what it is, but I just don't think it's very well choreographed or something. They way they swing their lightsabers around just looks silly for me (somehow even more silly than all the jumping and flipping that happens in all the big fights later in the prequels).

I'm not a huge fan of the prequels in general, but I do think Revenge of the Sith holds its own as a pretty good movie. I think they screwed up the pacing and Anakin's path to becoming Vader was much too accelerated. In one scene he's doing the right thing and telling the Jedi Council what he's learned, in the next he all but murders Windu with pretty much no build up. I hate to be that guy, but I read the novelization of Revenge of the Sith, and I think it really handled that transition very well. Other than that failing, though, I think RotS is pretty good.

I'm wondering if she was trained when she was too young to really remember a lot of it, and then dropped off on Jakku by Luke after the Kylo situation went down.

Holy shit.

I thought it was a super lightsaber because it was more powerful and had to have vents and look ragged and stuff.

You like Tatooine or whatever. Okay, set your story on a planet basically the same. You liked Luke's reluctance to go with Obi-Wan until fate forces his hand. All right, your character will do that too. You liked putting the fate of the rebels into the hands of a droid. Go for it. You liked Han Solo, but thought Luke was a drag. Good, Luke disappeared, and your story miraculously has Han show up with his ship. Darth Vader was totally cool, but he's dead, so you come up with a new guy in a mask. Part of the cool thing about Vader was that he was family of Luke. Shit, make the new guy Luke's nephew. The sacrifice of Obi-Wan was awesome, too. Let's kill Han for our sacrifice at the end. You loved the trench in Star Wars. Might as well put another one in this movie for no reason whatsoever. Okay, so we need another death star...but that's lame. This is a SUPER DEATH STAR. And the lightsaber the bad guy has is a SUPER LIGHTSABER. And at the end, unmasking Darth Vader was awesome, so you have the bad guy unmasked! Twice! The climactic battle in Empire where Luke and Vader never finished was totally sick. Then how he left, searching for a teacher to make him a real Jedi? Man. Amazing. Let's have new main character do literally the exact same thing.

I think this is one of those areas where it will be impossible to please everyone.

The cyclical nature of life is very much one of the core themes that Star Wars has always explored. Even within the original trilogy, we are made to see parallels between Vader and Luke... parallels which would then be expanded upon in the prequels (to varying degrees of success). So I get that The Force Awakens would revisit similar themes and situations. It is very much part of the core of Star Wars.

The tricky part is how far to take the similarities. Clearly, there are A LOT of super intense Star Wars fans. Fans who watch the movies on a fairly regular basis, read the books, play the games, etc. These fans know every scene, every plot point with intimate detail.

But then there is also the wider audience. Many people who consider themselves "fans" who might have only seen each movie once or twice, maybe even missed one or two of them completely. People who only have a vague memory of the exact plot, which events took place in which movie, etc. It's still important for these viewers to pick up on the theme of "life repeating" that is so important within Star Wars. And the similarities need to be somewhat bold or obvious in order for those viewers to notice them.

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Only three gripes:

Another bigger Death Star was kind of lame.

The supreme leader being CGI was really dumb! Totally stuck out, and took me out the moment he showed up. Just put a guy in makeup. Nothing about his appearance could not have been done with makeup and prosthetics.

I heard portions were shot in IMAX, so I saw it in a real IMAX theatre. Turns out it is just ONE action scene. It is not to the level of Dark Knight Rises in terms of amount shot in IMAX.

Other than that… LOVED IT.

My only issue right now is: the Jedi seem like little babies. It just hit me tonight after I watched Revenge of the Sith.

Yoda, after failing to defeat Palpatine, immediately declares he must go into exile. Then in the OT when we first see him, he's hanging out, doing nothing, and even initially doesn't want to train Luke.

Now we have Luke doing the same thing after failing with Ben Solo.

Why are the Jedi so quick to give up and go into exile after making mistakes?

It seems meditation before action is a big thing for them. Leads right to silly stuff like these...

I mean, I get that, but it seems like Yoda was pretty content to just hang out in a swamp until he died. Doesn't seem like he really had any plans to train Luke, until Luke came to him.

Of course, he spent that time training with Qui-Gon, so it's not like he wasn't doing anything. But they just don't seem to be about making sure things get done.

You bad, bad person!

Literally Hitler.

Allow me to pile on...

3. Kylo Ren, a powerful Force-user, fights a light saber duel with an ex-janitor who has never held a light saber and yet (a) never uses the Force on his opponent, though doing so would have ended the duel immediately, and (b) barely wins the fight, suggesting that he is simultaneously one of the least strategic wielders of the Force the Dark Side has ever seen and, despite his training, absolutely terrible with a light saber. None of this stops Kylo Ren from designing and building his own, completely impractical cross-barred lightsaber.

I see this complaint all the time, and it's stupid. He handily wins the fight against Finn; it's not even close. Keep in mind that he's wounded. But how do we know what Finn's training is? Finn fights another Stormtrooper with that electrified club thing; maybe Finn has trained with that thing? He handled himself alright in that fight, so it's a possibility.

People also forget that The Force is not just some resource that obeys commands. It controls the user as much as the user controls it, maybe even more. Those who wield it are sometimes just instruments, used to whatever end The Force is working toward. Being a Force sensitive person doesn't necessarily mean you win everything. It does mean that you sometimes progress toward your destiny in unusual ways, but that destiny still might be your own doom.

Basically, this person needs to play KotOR II. Kreia droppin' some knowledge on fools.

4. Rey becomes nearly as effective a Force-user in a few hours as Luke Skywalker did in a few years.

I think that's intentional, and it's supposed to show us both that Rey is very powerful with the Force and that Kylo Ren isn't as well-trained and badass as he thinks he is.

Yep. There's plenty of precedent in the Star Wars universe for exceptional force-users who gain ability faster than normal, or with not much training. Darth Bane developed pre-cognition abilities years before he even knew The Force existed. Also, see above about the nature of The Force. If it needs Rey to win the mental battle against Kylo in the chair, then she will.

Also, I think it's pretty clear that aside from lacking proper training, Kylo is unfocused and may not even be a "true" follower of the dark side. He mostly just seems to be lost and trying to emulate Vader. He surely must have some innate ability given his lineage, but he's not necessarily reaching that potential in his current role. My guess is he'll end up having a Vader-like change of heart further down the road. Which makes me wonder who his dark adversary will be at that point.

6. The reason Ren was slowly bleeding to death -- instead of being dead by Rey's hand -- is that a massive a chasm had just miraculously opened up in the several feet between the two of them. Such bad timing for Rey! (Damn you, deus-ex-geology!)

Well there was a massive earthquake happening from the explosion and destabilization. Sure, lucky that it separated them. Not worth being upset about.

Yeah, that's not really a plot hole. It is, however, a literal hole. ;)

7. Rey, who has never left her home planet since she was a child, can speak Wookie. Nobody can speak Wookie -- it's a running joke in the Star Wars universe. But Rey being able to speak Wookie surprises neither her, Han Solo, nor Chewbacca himself.

Can she? I honestly don't remember her answering Chewie, but I've only seen it once so I might have just missed it.

No, she doesn't answer, she merely understands what he said. Lots of people have that ability, including Han himself. This could mean she's well-read, but it could also just be a manifestation of The Force.

8. It's okay that Poe survived a Tie Fighter crash; after all, so did Finn. But has any film ever cared less about (a) giving the false impression a character has died, and then (b) having that character show up later with no one being surprised by it? Even Finn doesn't seem to care very much what the explanation is.

Did anyone actually believe Poe was dead? I would call that person naive.

Again, this is not actually a plot hole. Why would there need to be an explanation? There was no special way Finn survived, he simply woke up and walked away. Why would Poe not have been able to do the same thing? Apparently Star Wars universe airbags and chassis crumple zones are just hella good. The only thing Finn might reasonably wonder about is how Poe got away from the wreck and off of Jakku. Which, though I'm sure Finn might wonder about it in his head, isn't really necessary to go into for the purpose of advancing the film's plot.

11. Kylo Ren is the head of the Knights of Ren, but there are no other Knights of Ren in the movie.

Plot hole doesn't mean what he thinks it means, I don't think. Just because they're not in the movie doesn't mean they don't exist. Also he's wrong, as they're in Rey's vision.

So what? Why do they need to be in this movie? It's the first part of a trilogy, it NEEDS to set up mysteries precisely like this. Good grief, is this guy for real?

Also, who says Kylo's the head of the Knights? Maybe he's just a disciple. I think this person's assuming the Knights of Ren are named after Kylo, but remember that Kylo Ren is not his given name. It might be that he took the name AFTER joining this organization, to denote his membership.

12. Captain Phasma is supposed to be a big-deal character in The Force Awakens, if the merchandising and casting are any indication, and yet (a) how bad of a commanding officer do you have to be, how thoroughly inept in military tactics and strategy, to command the worst-trained fighting force in the Galaxy (the Stormtroopers hit even less with their blasters in The Force Awakens than in any preceding Star Wars film); (b) she's only in three scenes, in one of which she relays an order from Kylo Ren to initiate a massacre of innocents (hardcore!) and in another of which she immediately surrenders to Han, Rey, and Finn as soon as they encounter her and then does exactly everything they ask of her (pathetic!), making her character incomprehensible; and (c) in her third scene she effectively reveals that Finn's character is incomprehensible, as she notes that he has in fact been trained since birth to obey all orders, and has never in his life disobeyed even a single order until the day he decides to act like he's never been trained, indoctrinated, or dehumanized at all.

Okay, agreed, Phasma was underused and kindof stupid.

Yeah, she did seem pretty under-utilized TBH. Still, this is hardly a plot hole. Just something that maybe could have been fleshed out better, and it might be later. Maybe not in the films, but a character like that (who stands out but isn't delved into) is a perfect opportunity for some EU material.

14. Finn is an ex-janitor who goes AWOL from a Stormtrooper force numbering in the tens of thousands. Yet he is absolutely convinced, despite being someone of no importance whatsoever to the First Order, that he will be chased across the galaxy for having defected. Apparently, there's a premium on janitors in this quadrant of the Galaxy. Sure, Finn killed some people during his escape, but doesn't the First Order emphasize with every tactical decision it makes that it considers its soldiers thoroughly expendable, and don't they quite obviously have much bigger fish to fry during the events of The Force Awakens than to worry about Finn? Why wouldn't this be obvious to him?

Okay, he's a janitor. I don't think he's privy to all the First Order's grand plans. He's probably been indoctrinated to think that abandoning the First Order will lead to a manhunt and is the worst thing he could ever do. That's how ruling by fear works.

You nailed it. His initial characterization revolves around his fear of the First Order and desire to get away. That fear doesn't have to be entirely rational, in fact part of the schtick, I think, is that he is overly fearful.

On the other hand, maybe they do relentlessly hunt down the disobedient. We have no evidence to suggest otherwise. It's true that stormtroopers are considered disposable, but that only means their bosses don't care or feel remorse if they die. It does NOT mean that said bosses are content to let them go free, which might encourage others to do the same and lead to more disobedience. That's a pretty fantastic leap in logic, and indicative of someone who's just TRYING to make up faults IMO.

16. By the end of the movie, the impression is left that every single First Order soldier is dead besides Supreme Leader Snoke, General Hux, and Kylo Ren.

Are we given that impression? Was every single Imperial soldier killed aboard the first Death Star? I certainly wasn't given that impression.

I didn't think so. By "the impression is left," I think they mean "I assumed, based on no evidence other than having seen SOME of them die." ONCE AGAIN, how is this a plot hole? This is just devolving into a list of questions now, many of which are OK questions to have hanging in the air after the first film of a trilogy. Why do we need to know the exact number of troops left on each side? Even if this was a universe where number of troops mattered, that would be an OK question to leave for the next movie. But this is Star Wars, where only the major characters really matter. It always comes down to Jedi vs. Sith in the end.

17. Why does General Hux need to gather all of his troops just to tell them he's about to press a button and destroy the entire Republic? Can't he do that without a cattle-call of his entire army? Because it really ends badly for him, putting his entire army on the very planet he's about to make Resistance Target #1. No chance anybody saw that coming?

It's a dramatic show of force and probably some sort of morale booster for his troops. It's what they've been working for. Making a sort of ceremony around it isn't that peculiar.

Right. This seems pretty obvious. I agree that having everyone (though again, no evidence that it is actually "everyone") in one place is a tactical mistake, but how does that matter? What, movie characters don't make mistakes? This is just silly.

19. Why wasn't the Resistance able to access R2D2's data archives at any point over the course of the many years Luke was gone? Why did they, instead, simply prop him up in a corner, when they had to know that he knew Luke's whereabouts -- as he always has in the past?

It seemed pretty clear to me that Luke did something to him to make it impossible to retrieve that information until the time was right.

Yup. Duh. C-3PO specifically mentions that R2-D2 conveniently powered down around the time Luke disappeared. Seems pretty obvious that he was just waiting for the right time. And anyone who thinks that trying to hack R2-D2 would be a worthwhile endeavor is out of their mind. :P

21. Kylo Ren has such a Force-enabled sense of where his father is in the Galaxy that when his father lands on Starkiller Base, Ren immediately exclaims to himself, "Solo!" Yet a few minutes later, when Ren is just twenty feet from Solo, he can't detect him -- and actually starts searching for him in the wrong direction.

The exact same thing happens in A New Hope. Vader senses Obi-Wan's presence, but doesn't know exactly where he is

It's not a damn radar. Sheesh.

24. Rey says that the Millennium Falcon is "garbage" and hasn't been flown in many, many years. Indeed, it's such junk, in her view, that she won't even board it when she's about to be ripped to pieces by twenty Tie Fighters. Then she gets on board and it basically flies perfectly. So much so that it's not at all clear why no one has been flying it, let alone why its owner (Unkar Plutt) hasn't tried to sell it at any point over the past dozen years -- despite the fact that Plutt appears to live in a hovel.

It's the Millennium Falcon, that's sort of the running joke. Yeah, everyone thinks it's garbage, but it's not, and it's basically indestructible and just keeps on running. Also, maybe he hasn't sold it because to him it's like that rusted out, beat up '67 Mustang that he'll fix up "someday".

Oh FFS, now they're harping on the idea that the Millenium Falcon is more than it appears? Has this person ever seen a single Star Wars film? I don't even know how to respond to this.

25. Why does Plutt offer Rey 250 times her usual pay for BB-8 and then, when she says "no," simply tell some of his heavies to just steal it? If Plutt is enough of a baddie to order it stolen at all, why not just steal it from the outset instead of first offering some random urchin the biggest financial windfall she's ever seen?

Because it's often much, much easier to buy something than it is to take it by force. And more importantly, because that moment informs us on Rey's character more than her simply fighting a few dudes to protect him would.

Her normal pay is crap. 250 times that is still a piddly amount to him. It's pretty clear that he's the rich one here and everyone else is working for such small scraps that they're almost slaves. Also, he probably has to pay his goons, and I bet they're more expensive than the meager sustenance he gives the scavengers. So really, his initial offer not only represented less potential trouble, it likely would have been cheaper for him.

26. Maz Kanata is a friend to the Resistance. So why is she hiding Luke's light saber from them? Wouldn't she give them anything she could to help them find Luke, and doesn't it in fact turn out (as anyone could have supposed) that Luke's light saber is indeed helpful in tracking the last Jedi down?

Where was is said Maz Kanata is a friend to the Resistance? She's a friend of Han Solo, the smuggler, who doesn't have anything to do with the Resistance.

And anyway, you don't just give a lightsaber to any old goon. You wait for the right person.

29. Who trained Rey to fight with a staff as effectively as she does, given that (a) she is an orphan with no friends or family, and (b) she has never been in a battle, but is, rather, merely a scrap-metal scavenger?

That's an awful lot of assumption about someone we've know for all of five minutes of her 20-something year life. How do we know she's never been in a battle? In fact, I'd bet you're wrong and that she's had to fight plenty to survive on Jakku.

No one trained her. She's been surviving on her own in a lawless wasteland since she was a toddler, and we're surprised that she might have had to bash a few skulls?

30. If Finn is such a good guy that he would try to save Rey the moment he saw she was in distress, doesn't it further call into question just how in the world the order to kill civilians on Jakku was the first time he'd ever had qualms about doing something the First Order had asked him to do?

Again, he was a garbage-man. It seemed pretty clear that was the first time he'd seen combat.

This is just a repeat of 13.

Also, can I just say that bit where Finn starts going to help her, and then she just beats the guys down on her own, was great? Aside from being funny, it established early on who Rey is.

31. Given that all Poe knows about Finn is that he's a First Order defector, why does he seem happy to see Finn just seconds after (and perhaps as) BB-8 tells him Finn is alive? There's no real reason for Poe to trust Finn -- or care about his well-being -- at all. Rather, he would assume, as anyone would, that whatever Finn did or did not do on Jakku, he surely had committed other atrocities for the First Order (and killed many a Resistance fighter) before then.

You wouldn't be happy to see the person that saved your life?

33. Why does Kylo Ren assign just a single Stormtrooper to guard Rey, the most valuable prisoner in the history of the First Order?

Why wouldn't he? She's locked up pretty securely.

He felt it was the correct course of action. Sometimes The Force works towards its own ends, and just uses people.

34. How do the Rathtars on Han's freighter get loose? If he's just keeping them loose in the hanger, why don't they kill him when he's walking through the freighter toward the Millennium Falcon, or at any other time? And if he's got them chained up, how do they escape?

That's literally explained in the movie. Pay attention instead of trying to find things to point out on the internet.

Seriously, there's a whole bit of dialogue whose only purpose is to lead up to them being released. Did they even see the movie?

36. Why are all Stormtroopers human (or humanoid)? If by the time of the First Order any clones being raised to be Stormtroopers are no longer clones of Jango Fett, why aren't there now Stormtroopers of every species as well as every (human) race? Why aren't there flying Stormtroopers from the same species as, say, Watto (from The Phantom Menace)?

I guess maybe it's not canon anymore, but the Empire used to be basically a bunch of racists and didn't want anything to do with anyone that wasn't human.

The same reason that Nazis were all white Germans. Sheltered childhood much?

37. If basically everyone in the Galaxy knows the Force is not a myth -- for instance, every single Stormtrooper in the First Order, who has seen Kylo Ren use it or heard tell of him using it; every single person in the Resistance, who knows the Resistance is looking for Luke Skywalker; every single person in the Republic, which was first established in part by the heroism of the Jedis -- how is the existence of the Force a total shock to Rey? Jakku is sheltered, but as we know from the film (cf. Lor San Tekka) there are many people on Jakku who either have seen the Force first-hand or heard first-hand accounts of it from visitors to the planet.

I've seen this point a lot, too. What it boils down to, I think, is that not many knew about the Force to begin with, and the Empire spent the better part of 40 years erasing the Jedi and the Force from history books everywhere. In A New Hope, people that worked directly with Vader didn't believe in the Force.

I also get the impression that not many people know the full legacy of Luke Skywalker. The only one that knows what happened in the second Death Star is Luke anyone that Luke happened to tell, which probably only amounts to Leia and Han.

It's pretty much a Star Wars trope at this point that the Sith always set about trying to erase the legacy of the Jedi. And they're not the only ones. The Jedi ban certain Sith knowledge and artifacts.

TL:DR; the author of this piece is bad and he should feel bad (and pay more attention the movies he's trying to bash online).

TBH I think he should pay LESS attention and just try to enjoy the friggin' story.

Did anyone actually believe Poe was dead? I would call that person naive.

Um.... *Raises hand*

So, not a refutation of every point, just most of them.

3. Kylo Ren, a powerful Force-user, fights a light saber duel with an ex-janitor who has never held a light saber and yet (a) never uses the Force on his opponent, though doing so would have ended the duel immediately, and (b) barely wins the fight, suggesting that he is simultaneously one of the least strategic wielders of the Force the Dark Side has ever seen and, despite his training, absolutely terrible with a light saber. None of this stops Kylo Ren from designing and building his own, completely impractical cross-barred lightsaber.

I see this complaint all the time, and it's stupid. He handily wins the fight against Finn; it's not even close. Keep in mind that he's wounded. But how do we know what Finn's training is? Finn fights another Stormtrooper with that electrified club thing; maybe Finn has trained with that thing? He handled himself alright in that fight, so it's a possibility.

Also, Kylo Ren is powerful. He doesn't need to use the Force to dispatch a Stormtrooper. We also don't know how much training he's actually had with a lightsaber. He's not anywhere close to as proficient as Vader was, but everyone seems to think he's already this super bad ass villian when the movie pretty clearly shows us he's not.

Yeah I actually think Kylo was toying with him up until the point that Finn grazes his shoulder. After that Kylo destroys Finn.

So, not a refutation of every point, just most of them.

3. Kylo Ren, a powerful Force-user, fights a light saber duel with an ex-janitor who has never held a light saber and yet (a) never uses the Force on his opponent, though doing so would have ended the duel immediately, and (b) barely wins the fight, suggesting that he is simultaneously one of the least strategic wielders of the Force the Dark Side has ever seen and, despite his training, absolutely terrible with a light saber. None of this stops Kylo Ren from designing and building his own, completely impractical cross-barred lightsaber.

I see this complaint all the time, and it's stupid. He handily wins the fight against Finn; it's not even close. Keep in mind that he's wounded. But how do we know what Finn's training is? Finn fights another Stormtrooper with that electrified club thing; maybe Finn has trained with that thing? He handled himself alright in that fight, so it's a possibility.

Even if you end up scrubbing toilets in the Marines, you still have to go to boot camp... These stormtroopers are shown to be proficient in hand-to hand combat with their zappy clubs, and it's even more clear since Finn's lightsaber technique involves mostly hacking at the opponent (as one would do with a club).

Also, Kylo Ren is powerful. He doesn't need to use the Force to dispatch a Stormtrooper. We also don't know how much training he's actually had with a lightsaber. He's not anywhere close to as proficient as Vader was, but everyone seems to think he's already this super bad ass villian when the movie pretty clearly shows us he's not.

They cast a frail-looking dude to play a troubled kid who likely felt weak and underwhelming all his life, but found power and strength in the dark side. He's very proficient at using the Force, but is mediocre at actual combat. That's a neat bit of characterization, I thought... And he's still in training, since he's not yet a Sith.

4. Rey becomes nearly as effective a Force-user in a few hours as Luke Skywalker did in a few years.

I think that's intentional, and it's supposed to show us both that Rey is very powerful with the Force and that Kylo Ren isn't as well-trained and badass as he thinks he is.

Also, she grew up around fighting and dealing with lowlifes. She knows that people aren't as powerful or as intimidating as they act. Plus, she is imitative when it comes to using the force. She learns from what Kylo does.

7. Rey, who has never left her home planet since she was a child, can speak Wookie. Nobody can speak Wookie -- it's a running joke in the Star Wars universe. But Rey being able to speak Wookie surprises neither her, Han Solo, nor Chewbacca himself.

Can she? I honestly don't remember her answering Chewie, but I've only seen it once so I might have just missed it.

She understood him, but never spoke Wookie. And it's not a "running joke", if each film showed that multiple people understood him (Lando, the medic, Yoda, C3PO, Han). In fact, I can't think of any instance where the joke was that a person couldn't understand him...
Either way, she grew up in an outpost full of weird low-class aliens. Odds are she would meet a Wookie or two in her life.

8. It's okay that Poe survived a Tie Fighter crash; after all, so did Finn. But has any film ever cared less about (a) giving the false impression a character has died, and then (b) having that character show up later with no one being surprised by it? Even Finn doesn't seem to care very much what the explanation is.

Did anyone actually believe Poe was dead? I would call that person naive.

Answered below, but yeah, folks should learn movie rules...

11. Kylo Ren is the head of the Knights of Ren, but there are no other Knights of Ren in the movie.

Plot hole doesn't mean what he thinks it means, I don't think. Just because they're not in the movie doesn't mean they don't exist. Also he's wrong, as they're in Rey's vision.

12. Captain Phasma is supposed to be a big-deal character in The Force Awakens, if the merchandising and casting are any indication, and yet (a) how bad of a commanding officer do you have to be, how thoroughly inept in military tactics and strategy, to command the worst-trained fighting force in the Galaxy (the Stormtroopers hit even less with their blasters in The Force Awakens than in any preceding Star Wars film); (b) she's only in three scenes, in one of which she relays an order from Kylo Ren to initiate a massacre of innocents (hardcore!) and in another of which she immediately surrenders to Han, Rey, and Finn as soon as they encounter her and then does exactly everything they ask of her (pathetic!), making her character incomprehensible; and (c) in her third scene she effectively reveals that Finn's character is incomprehensible, as she notes that he has in fact been trained since birth to obey all orders, and has never in his life disobeyed even a single order until the day he decides to act like he's never been trained, indoctrinated, or dehumanized at all.

Okay, agreed, Phasma was underused and kindof stupid.

I feel like she maybe had more scenes explaining her and her actions (Finn seems to really hate her in particular), but that may be for later...

13. Really? Was there no previous order Finn had ever refused to execute? Was the slaughter on Jakku actually the first naughty thing the First Order had ever required of him?

Well, he's a space garbage man, so maybe?

14. Finn is an ex-janitor who goes AWOL from a Stormtrooper force numbering in the tens of thousands. Yet he is absolutely convinced, despite being someone of no importance whatsoever to the First Order, that he will be chased across the galaxy for having defected. Apparently, there's a premium on janitors in this quadrant of the Galaxy. Sure, Finn killed some people during his escape, but doesn't the First Order emphasize with every tactical decision it makes that it considers its soldiers thoroughly expendable, and don't they quite obviously have much bigger fish to fry during the events of The Force Awakens than to worry about Finn? Why wouldn't this be obvious to him?

Okay, he's a janitor. I don't think he's privy to all the First Order's grand plans. He's probably been indoctrinated to think that abandoning the First Order will lead to a manhunt and is the worst thing he could ever do. That's how ruling by fear works.

I thought that they'd come after him for freeing the most valuable prisoner that they had gotten their hands on, and escaping with him after killing multiple stormtroopers and doing thousands (if not millions) of credits worth of damage to their ships and equipment, then stealing another ship with the Droid that was vital to their plans... I dunno, I'd think that would be enough to put a bit of a target on my back...

16. By the end of the movie, the impression is left that every single First Order soldier is dead besides Supreme Leader Snoke, General Hux, and Kylo Ren.

Are we given that impression? Was every single Imperial soldier killed aboard the first Death Star? I certainly wasn't given that impression.

The specifically started to evacuate a number of their folks. Stands to reason that many of their soldiers had just been in orbit, or off system. Each imperial starship holds thousands and thousands of crewmembers. Why would all of them unload onto the habitable outposts on the giant ice planet?

29. Who trained Rey to fight with a staff as effectively as she does, given that (a) she is an orphan with no friends or family, and (b) she has never been in a battle, but is, rather, merely a scrap-metal scavenger?

That's an awful lot of assumption about someone we've know for all of five minutes of her 20-something year life. How do we know she's never been in a battle? In fact, I'd bet you're wrong and that she's had to fight plenty to survive on Jakku.

She is very proficient with her zappy spear/staff that she's clearly had for years. I like that it carried over to her fighting with a lightsaber, as she focused on wide swings and jabs, as one would with a staff.

31. Given that all Poe knows about Finn is that he's a First Order defector, why does he seem happy to see Finn just seconds after (and perhaps as) BB-8 tells him Finn is alive? There's no real reason for Poe to trust Finn -- or care about his well-being -- at all. Rather, he would assume, as anyone would, that whatever Finn did or did not do on Jakku, he surely had committed other atrocities for the First Order (and killed many a Resistance fighter) before then.

You wouldn't be happy to see the person that saved your life?

Not only that, but he honored your absence by completing your super-important mission. I'd be pretty stoked.

33. Why does Kylo Ren assign just a single Stormtrooper to guard Rey, the most valuable prisoner in the history of the First Order?

Why wouldn't he? She's locked up pretty securely.

And he had no idea that she would be able to use the force to control minds. She failed at it the first couple of times...

34. How do the Rathtars on Han's freighter get loose? If he's just keeping them loose in the hanger, why don't they kill him when he's walking through the freighter toward the Millennium Falcon, or at any other time? And if he's got them chained up, how do they escape?

That's literally explained in the movie. Pay attention instead of trying to find things to point out on the internet.

Deer Lorde...

36. Why are all Stormtroopers human (or humanoid)? If by the time of the First Order any clones being raised to be Stormtroopers are no longer clones of Jango Fett, why aren't there now Stormtroopers of every species as well as every (human) race? Why aren't there flying Stormtroopers from the same species as, say, Watto (from The Phantom Menace)?

I guess maybe it's not canon anymore, but the Empire used to be basically a bunch of racists and didn't want anything to do with anyone that wasn't human.

The First Order is Cerberus... I can get that...

37. If basically everyone in the Galaxy knows the Force is not a myth -- for instance, every single Stormtrooper in the First Order, who has seen Kylo Ren use it or heard tell of him using it; every single person in the Resistance, who knows the Resistance is looking for Luke Skywalker; every single person in the Republic, which was first established in part by the heroism of the Jedis -- how is the existence of the Force a total shock to Rey? Jakku is sheltered, but as we know from the film (cf. Lor San Tekka) there are many people on Jakku who either have seen the Force first-hand or heard first-hand accounts of it from visitors to the planet.

I've seen this point a lot, too. What it boils down to, I think, is that not many knew about the Force to begin with, and the Empire spent the better part of 40 years erasing the Jedi and the Force from history books everywhere. In A New Hope, people that worked directly with Vader didn't believe in the Force.

Would you be aware if an actual psychic lived in a small town near you? Or would stories of psychics seem like fairy tales and lies?
There were hundreds (if not thousands) of planets, people's, and cultures that likely had never seen a Force user, much less one of our heroes...

I also get the impression that not many people know the full legacy of Luke Skywalker. The only one that knows what happened in the second Death Star is Luke anyone that Luke happened to tell, which probably only amounts to Leia and Han.

TL:DR; the author of this piece is bad and he should feel bad (and pay more attention the movies he's trying to bash online).

Yeah, it's a nitpicky click bait article written by some disgruntled moron. I wouldn't put too much stock into it.

Or take the point where Starkiller Base fires and takes out five planets all within view of each other apparently.

So about that... Did they just blow up Curosant? The skyline looked similar, and Curosant has always been the galactic capital. It's not a stretch to assume the new Republic would be based there. Either way, the Starkiller Base destroys 5 worlds, killing who knows how many billions, and the movie moves right along to the next plot point. We get virtually no reaction from any of the characters, no outrage or sorrow... it's just on to the next thing. I found that whole section of the movie a bit confusing, to be honest (for many of the reasons you mentioned in your post).

Or take the point where Starkiller Base fires and takes out five planets all within view of each other apparently. It's okay if they didn't show us the Starkiller Base charging up elsewhere, but just a scene or two ago, they were saying how the Republic was in some system somewhere needing to be dealt with, and then bam, it's right there in that system. How much time has passed between this thing traveling places? It also was conveniently in the system of the resistance base when it started sucking up that final star in the movie. When did it go there? A lot of whack time jumps that are not conveyed very well at all.

Part of the upping the ante in this movies is that the Starkiller doesn't need to be in the system to kill a planet. It's weapon fires through hyperspace (they mention it briefly), so the Starkiller base only needs to get near a new star to suck up.

All the same, this is probably my favorite critical review of the movie that I bet you'll agree with. Hell, I can hardly disagree with the majority of it. Either way, my second viewing of the movie was definitely as enjoyable if not moreso than my first, incredibly valid criticisms and all. Something about this movie just works in ways that other reboots/remakes/sequels/prequels don't (probably the fact that Abrams is so great at ripping off things that came before that worked well).

Thanks, Avateur. Great read.