Finally got to see the new film. Will try and avoid major spoilers where possible.

I thought it was very good, but possibly not as great as a true fan might. Mainly because, to me, there was just too much fan service going on. They don't have to throw a reference to the first film (yes it was) at you every 30 seconds, it's a new star Wars film, we get that. We don't need something popping up almost constantly saying "hey! Your remember that old film? wasn't it great? we think it was, so why don't we do all this stuff all over again? won't that be great too?" Well, sometimes it is yes - the millennium falcon reveal was really well done for example. Sometimes, it all felt a bit forced. I thought the three main leads held up against the old stagers well and did more than enough to carry the spectacle. I think one of them maybe got a worst deal of the three in script terms but I guess someone's always going to cop that one.

The lake district really does look nice on screen, doesn't it?

Overall a very good spectacle movie, very entertaining and better than any of the last three, although I still think 'Empire' is my favourite of the series.


A few (Hopefully despoilered) short points

1) Despite roughly 30 years of further development, Stormtrooper armour still seems incapable of defecting or dispersing fire from any sort of small arms at all. Pretty much any shot on a trooper is a one hit kill. Seriously, why do they even bother wearing it?

2) In contrast, blasters seem to have more oomph. A small pistol now seems to pack roughly the same punch as heavy cannon like the ones fitted to 20th century copter gunships. APART FROM when you shoot the main bad guy who is wearing no armour at all, in which case instead of explosively liberating several of his internal organs, they just give him minor flesh wound that doesn't even seen to slow him down much in protracted physical combat.

3) The Rebellion don't seem to have done much since the 'original trilogy' finished - they're still pretty much an amateur outfit with hardly any real capability beyond a few fighters. In fact they seem to have significantly less capability than they did at the end of RoJ. The bad guys, in contrast, despite suffering a complete decapitation strike on their leadership and a massive loss of men and material when the second death star went up, seem to be if anything better resourced, equipped and organised than they were before. Woohoo for the good guy's victory.

4) New main bad guy boss looks like Gollum after having an accident with a microwave. About as scary and intimidating as a cheese roll.

5) If the Jedi are practically now legend and effectively don't exist any more, why are they training and equipping stormtroopers to take on people with light sabres hand to hand?

6) I don't think you can fit an entire sun inside a normal sized planet. I'll need to do the maths, but I suspect Schroedringer's equations would imply that cramming all that mass in that small a space means you create a singularity and therefore very, very bad things happen to anyone near it.

Saw it last night and really enjoyed it. The 3D version was very effective.

Which considering the 3D is post-applied, is impressive. I also saw the 3D version, and it was good. I'm told the 3D IMAX version is hugely impressive.

Waiting for it to start - so far it's just me and Leonard from The Big Bang Theory. Watching it in 2D cos 3D never seems to work well with my vision anyway.

Jon's already typed everything I was going to!

It's a solid film overall, but it's very much a repeat of what JJ did with Trek in the sense of 'here's all the references, now we just need to keep everyone on the same page for now'. It also lags badly just before the midway point.

Is it just me or did some of the reveal/background shots for prequel vehicles make them seem really small in comparison to the actors?

There's an awful lot of characters 'disappearing' for later use in sequels, presumably.

None of the above really harms the film, but my end feeling was 'that's the intros over, the next film needs to be more story-expansive'. If they can do that and keep the acting level we saw here, it'll be great.

Star Wars creator George Lucas compares Disney to 'White Slavers' | Daily Mail Online
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article ... akens.html

'Star Wars: The Force Awakens' Cameo List Revealed!
http://sciencefiction.com/2015/12/21/st ... -revealed/

I watched it with Italian subtitles for 7,50€ (plus a 4 hour round trip and assorted fuel and toll costs).

[LIFTED] loved it. JJ hit just the right notes just like he did with Star Trek. Although I think I need more viewings to be sure, as at the moment, I think I slightly prefer Star Trek. But people will always pick plot/continuity holes in things this big and that's just how it is.

I prefer to sit back and enjoy the magic...

Does it really count as a cameo if you're not actually seen on screen? The one that I'm wracking my head over is the medic who treats Chewbacca right at the end. She's quite a famous "serious" actress but I can't remember her name. Didn't know she was a fan...

http://www.mtv.com/news/2690893/star-wa ... ns-cameos/

Number 9 there.

***spoilers***




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Big giant cartoon bad guy and Lonely Island "I'm on a Boat [LIFTED]" Darth Vader were distractions from an otherwise very fun film. I laughed, I grinned, I cried. Very well done. It's clearly a reboot pretending to be a sequel. It's very impressive.

Yup, that's her. Cheers. I still think the Daniel Craig thing is a hoax, tbh.

The Trooper's voice stood out but then a few of them did. The collection of baddies were a bit rubbish overall I thought; Ren was the only one they seemed to have given real thought to.

Who Al Pacino Almost Played In Star Wars - CINEMABLEND
http://www.cinemablend.com/new/Who-Al-P ... 03167.html

From Dan Mindel's Instagram account.
https://www.instagram.com/p/9qwIhNvKz0/
Just so you can appreciate the difference between IMAX and regular 35mm film.