New Star Wars movie gets 100% on Rotten Tomatoes

[Asdraguuhl]

"Shallow characters", i think Ben Solo is the most interesting character to date in the Star Wars universe.

Backstory that is told told in a few setences is not enough to provide depth. There certainly is potential for that character but the movie simply does not provide enough room for the characters to develop properly.

Spoiler

Take Han Solo. He is a smuggler with greyish morals but deep down has a heart of gold that eventually takes a turn in his life to fight for a good cause. In this movie, he is simply portrayed as a charicature of his former self. You'd think he would have evolved by now…but no. They didn't even try. It is really sad actually.

Leia doesn't fare much better. She only stands there and her only role seems to be: "look at me …I am Leia …I am Leia F***ing Organa". She doesn't do anything else. It is just too sad for words.

There was potential to flesh out Ben Solo in interesting ways. But the history with him and Han is basically unknown and there was absolutely no build-up towards the moment they met. Since there was no known history betweem them, there was no tension, no nothing. It was to me one of the most cringeworthy moments.

It takes time to develop a plot or character and it seems a common trait nowadays to allocate all available time to pointless action sequences at the expense of …well everything else.

And who is Poe Dameron? Well, he is [sarcasm] the best [/sarcasm] pilot. Other that that, I have no clue.

Finn had the potential of becoming an interesting character. You'd think he would be rather lost after leaving the First Order while being alone exploring uncharted territory in both literal and emotional sense. But no, there are hardly any signs of internal struggles and instead he is immediately relegated into a stereotypcal blockbuster character that spits out stupid filler dialogue.

Rey seems to be the most fleshed out. At the beginning you deduce that she is struggling to survive and doesn't have an easy life. But then she meets Finn and everything goes downhill from there.

And her sudden realisation that she is Force sensitive and her ability to defeat the bad guy…well, that is simply THE most cringeworthy moment of the movie..on par with Anakin's sudden conversion to the Dark Side in Episode III.


I really doubt people would show the same praise if it didn't have the Star Wars label attached to it. (And yes, I consider myself to be a Star War fan).

Sonny was fascinated with Phasma but she had so little screentime that I cannot quite understand that.

I guess she is experiencing the "Boba Fett effect". He also didn't have much screen time in TESB but he became inmensely popular. (He is also one of my favourites).

But I do think that Phasma was portrayed in a lame way by allowing her to be overpowered so easily.

 

[Asdraguuhl]

Funny the same tro..errr expert gamers in the rpg threads are here to spread their good cheer as well.

I assume that you are referring to me. If indeed so, do you really consider me to be one of the resident trolls?

 

[lackblogger]

Backstory that is told told in a few setences is not enough to provide depth. There certainly is potential for that character but the movie simply does not provide enough room for the characters to develop properly.

Spoiler

Take Han Solo. He is a smuggler with greyish morals but deep down has a heart of gold that eventually takes a turn in his life to fight for a good cause. In this movie, he is simply portrayed as a charicature of his former self. You'd think he would have evolved by now…but no. They didn't even try. It is really sad actually.

Leia doesn't fare much better. She only stands there and her only role seems to be: "look at me …I am Leia …I am Leia F***ing Organa". She doesn't do anything else. It is just too sad for words.

There was potential to flesh out Ben Solo in interesting ways. But the history with him and Han is basically unknown and there was absolutely no build-up towards the moment they met. Since there was no known history betweem them, there was no tension, no nothing. It was to me one of the most cringeworthy moments.

It takes time to develop a plot or character and it seems a common trait nowadays to allocate all available time to pointless action sequences at the expense of …well everything else.

And who is Poe Dameron? Well, he is [sarcasm] the best [/sarcasm] pilot. Other that that, I have no clue.

Finn had the potential of becoming an interesting character. You'd think he would be rather lost after leaving the First Order while being alone exploring uncharted territory in both literal and emotional sense. But no, there are hardly any signs of internal struggles and instead he is immediately relegated into a stereotypcal blockbuster character that spits out stupid filler dialogue.

Rey seems to be the most fleshed out. At the beginning you deduce that she is struggling to survive and doesn't have an easy life. But then she meets Finn and everything goes downhill from there.

And her sudden realisation that she is Force sensitive and her ability to defeat the bad guy…well, that is simply THE most cringeworthy moment of the movie..on par with Anakin's sudden conversion to the Dark Side in Episode III.


I really doubt people would show the same praise if it didn't have the Star Wars label attached to it. (And yes, I consider myself to be a Star War fan).


I guess she is experiencing the "Boba Fett effect". He also didn't have much screen time in TESB but he became inmensely popular. (He is also one of my favourites).

But I do think that Phasma was portrayed in a lame way by allowing her to be overpowered so easily.

I somewhat agree with you about Leia, but she's barely in it and I glazed over when she was on anyway. I think you have serious problems if a cameo sends you into rage.

I completely disagree with you about Han Solo. The guy is a complete cowboy, a man of the streets, he probably endured a year or two of bureaucracy and relentless charity dinners and, like most 'blokes', started pining for running the galaxy again, sipping whisky and smoking a big cigar with his feet up. I know for a fact that your made-up self-preferred bullshit is no better or worse than mine.

I somewhat agree with you about the meeting of Han and Ben, however I can't say I was balling in the isles when Obi-Wan met Vader in A New Hope. Ben's character is well established and we find out lots of interesting things about him and I completely disagree that the only talking point with regards to this is his relationship with Han.

I somewhat agree with you about some movies being too action heavy, however, while this argument was quite valid for the Star Trek re-boot, trying to use the same argument for Star Wars is a completely different kettle of fish and suggests more that you don't really understand why. If you think Star Wars has any history whatsoever of quality "quiet bits", may I refer you to such golden nuggets as a love triangle between Han, Leia and Luke, and the magic of C3PO the golden god of the Ewoks.

I somewhat agree with you about Poe Dameron, he's not a major character yet and he seemed like a character everyone wants to see more of, however, I completely disagree that we have no clue who he is - he's Buck Rodgers, he's James Bond, he's a representation of the classic good guy, sparkling teeth and all, and if you can't cope with that, well, that's on you.

Your reading of Finn is complete horseshit, he has many scenes where he has inner conflicts about his current situation. If you meant inner conflicts about leaving the bad guys, I don't see why you would expect that, deserters normally don't look back, for obvious reasons. I have no idea what you're on about here and I seriously doubt any amount of elaboration on your part would help, you've already posted a huge amount of text and not really said much at all. "Spits out stupid filler dialogue" - are you even sane?

You're right, Rey is quite well fleshed out, so it's surprising that you think she had a 'sudden' attack of the force powers and missed the fact that she's good with staffs and that Kylo was heavily injured. There was no decline of her character when she met Fin, when you make movies that are ensemble casts you don't spend the whole movie on one single character, your expectations here are really quite ludicrous. Ludicrous.

Of course people wouldn't show the same praise if it wasn't a Star Wars movie, there's no alternate plane of existence where we'd get that movie and it wasn't called Star Wars, people love Star Wars and demand sequels, the fact that it's Star Wars is obviously very important to people. If season 2 of Breaking Bad wasn't called Breaking Bad do you think people would give a shit about it? Utter nonsense argument.

Yes, it was odd having the Phasma character look so important but not actually do much, but I wouldn't break my balls over it.

 

[GothicGothicness]

I assume that you are referring to me. If indeed so, do you really consider me to be one of the resident trolls?

Don't let it bother you, some people think that everyone who don't agree with them about everything is a troll. You are certainly not.

There are also many people here who share your views, as we can see in this thread for example.

It looks like it is this kind of movie with a love it / hate it kind of thing. People who love it love it so much they'll defend everything about it and attack people who do not. People who hate it will dislike almost everything in it and so on.

There are a few movies and games which really splits people like this, I think I have a pattern as to why though, because they all have something in common, they do some things really well, and if those are the things you are looking for you'll love it. If you looking for something else you'll hate it, because it is not there at all in those products. Thus it can create such a huge divide and even hatred, because people cannot understand how you can dislike something they love so much.

For the new Star Wars, if all you wanted was a kind of reboot, with the classic characters, simple plot, some laughs, no depth or deeper meaning to think about and mindless action copied from the original, it'll be a great movie for those people.

If you wanted something new and fresh in terms of lore, some new insights about the characters you loved from the original, some complex relationship between student and teacher, a deeper story with some surprises, or none recycled action scenes, you are going to hate it.

For a game like skyrim if you think story, combat and character development is the most important aspect in a game for you, it'll be a game you hate.

If you think freedom to go wherever you want and explore wherever you want in a large world simulator is the most important thing, and you like to make your own stories, you'll love it.

 

[azarhal]

Yes, it was odd having the Phasma character look so important but not actually do much, but I wouldn't break my balls over it.

They cut at least one of her scene: she is in promo shots taken while filming around Maz's castle and there are Lego toys with her that are set around the area. The rumor I've read is that Disney forced a max of 2:15 hours running time on the editors/director, they had to cut around 15-20 minutes of scenes to make it fit.

Also, Phasma was added very late to the script, just like they buffed Harrison's role very late at the expense of Poe's when they had already started the marketing with Poe's being the 3rd lead.

 

[lackblogger]

The movie doesn't split people.

The percentage of people who don't like it is incredibly small. The percentage is higher on these boards precisely because of the politics that a lot of people on discussion boards like to partake in. You almost can't read a negative review on here or the codex, for example, which isn't full of key-words like some kind of underground cult - Jar Jar Abrams, Mary Sue, the prequels were better, instant force powers - like any of that even means anything to anyone.

The only major flaw with the movie is the whole recycled death-star routine and the other obvious mimics of previous films. As you say, you can either cope with that or you can't, and if you can't, please don't make up all the other horseshit to try and make your meaningless posts more meaningful.

Being a forum of course there will be people who only post stuff to wind-up other posters, and the more serious your posts appear, the more people will enjoy winding you up.

The new SW movie has the same popularity has the original trilogy, of the people who don't like it a large section of that extreme minority is a cult (remember that guy who topped himself because it was going to have a black guy in it) and another section of that minority is, obviously, trolls. The percentage of people who genuinely think it's just a weak entry in the series is a nano-percentage and vastly over-represented on these boards.

The reason Fallout 4 is getting so much stick is a completely different kettle of fish, but for the cult of those who hate anything popular and light-entertainment it's the same ballpark as a new Star Wars movie. With the RPGWatch being so closely 'neighbours' of the codex, it's not surprising there's a large contingent of anti-light-entertainment here.

The main question clouding F4 is whether it's an RPG, and whether it's a good RPG. There'a no question that it's a good game. There is no question that the new Star Wars movie is a Star Wars movie, and there's little question that it's a good Star Wars movie, the extent to which people want it to be a bad Star Wars movie is a completely different situation to people who know F4 is very light on traditional cRPG elements.

 

[lackblogger]

They cut at least one of her scene: she is in promo shots taken while filming around Maz's castle and there are Lego toys with her that are set around the area. The rumor I've read is that Disney forced a max of 2:15 hours running time on the editors/director, they had to cut around 15-20 minutes of scenes to make it fit.

Also, Phasma was added very late to the script, just like they buffed Harrison's role very late at the expense of Poe's when they had already started the marketing with Poe's being the 3rd lead.

Sounds like the Director's Cut will be a fun watch as well then!

 

[GothicGothicness]

The movie doesn't split people.

The percentage of people who don't like it is incredibly small. The percentage is higher on these boards precisely because of the politics that a lot of people on discussion boards like to partake in. You almost can't read a negative review on here or the codex, for example, which isn't full of key-words like some kind of underground cult - Jar Jar Abrams, Mary Sue, the prequels were better, instant force powers - like any of that even means anything to anyone.

The only major flaw with the movie is the whole recycled death-star routine and the other obvious mimics of previous films. As you say, you can either cope with that or you can't, and if you can't, please don't make up all the other horseshit to try and make your meaningless posts more meaningful.

Being a forum of course there will be people who only post stuff to wind-up other posters, and the more serious your posts appear, the more people will enjoy winding you up.

The new SW movie has the same popularity has the original trilogy, of the people who don't like it a large section of that extreme minority is a cult (remember that guy who topped himself because it was going to have a black guy in it) and another section of that minority is, obviously, trolls. The percentage of people who genuinely think it's just a weak entry in the series is a nano-percentage and vastly over-represented on these boards.

The reason Fallout 4 is getting so much stick is a completely different kettle of fish, but for the cult of those who hate anything popular and light-entertainment it's the same ballpark as a new Star Wars movie. With the RPGWatch being so closely 'neighbours' of the codex, it's not surprising there's a large contingent of anti-light-entertainment here.

The main question clouding F4 is whether it's an RPG, and whether it's a good RPG. There'a no question that it's a good game. There is no question that the new Star Wars movie is a Star Wars movie, and there's little question that it's a good Star Wars movie, the extent to which people want it to be a bad Star Wars movie is a completely different situation to people who know F4 is very light on traditional cRPG elements.

Well, I have not refereed to any cult, and neither did I want it to be a bad star wars movie, I really wanted it to be good. Anyhow unintended or not, you really hit the nail on the head with your post. Light-entertainment, just out of curiosity do you consider the other Star Wars movies as barely light-entrainment too ?

As for the nano-percentage, I already debunked it is a nano-percentage. On IMDB it is around 15% who gave it less than good rating, ok if you consider 7 good it is 8%. Still it is not a nano percentage. I have not denied that there is a large part of the audience that loved it, and just as you said the majority were probably looking for light entertainment only and nothing more.

 

[lackblogger]

Check out this 'critic' posting on the IMDB boards:

You could speculate that, but then again with speculation you can fix any problem, with any movie. Given all the rest, it just felt like more cream on the pie of social justice.

Did you see the key-word, did you, did you? "it felt like more cream on the pie of social justice" omfg, no, no abstract agendas influencing troll-like behavious here... s/he's not a part of a cult at all is s/he...

 

[txa1265]

The movie doesn't split people.

The percentage of people who don't like it is incredibly small.

Exactly my point.

But you know what - I don't really care if people don't like it. There are movies that are considered 'very good' that I am not a fan of. Same for games, books, art, music, whatever. We all have individual tastes.

I have expressed that I think it is disingenuous to claim 'onset of disappointment' from opening credits, and think it is bizarre to rush out to see something when there is some pretty clear antipathy (but hey, your money), and these ultra-low 'scores' are really no different than the Metacritic 1/10 trolls.

But I think it is important to understand that this site is a very narrow niche audience, based on love of PC RPGs. That confers a sort of shared context ... But even within that context there are splinter groups - fantasy vs sci-fi, turn-based vs. real-time, and so on.

 

[lackblogger]

Light-entertainment, just out of curiosity do you consider the other Star Wars movies as barely light-entrainment too ?

First of all, I never used the term "barely", you've... cunningly... added that yourself, once again exposing your rather disingenuous approach. But, yes, the Star Wars movies have always been considered popular light entertainment, just as opera is considered a light version of Ballet and Soap Operas are considered light versions of Dramas. No-one has ever held Star Wars movies to the expectations of The Godfather, they hold them to the expectations of normal schlocky blockbusters like Jurrasic Park, Indianan Jones, James Bond, etc etc etc, most of which derives from the 'Pulp Fiction' branch of literature. The fact that you even need to ask this is more telling than any answer I could provide.

 

[GothicGothicness]

Check out this 'critic' posting on the IMDB boards:



Did you see the key-word, did you, did you? "it felt like more cream on the pie of social justice" omfg, no, no abstract agendas influencing troll-like behavious here… s/he's not a part of a cult at all is s/he…

Well, what if you look at the highest rated reviews, in order?

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2488496/reviews?ref_=tt_urv

They are all very long and with a lot of good reasons:

"It is not a sequel, but a remake" - 1363 out of 2312 people found the following review useful.

"Boring and Predictable" - 799 out of 1398 people found the following review useful.

"Perfectly average" - 750 out of 1316 people found the following review useful.

"It's like when an unknown Chinese manufacturer decided to make a fake iPhone" - 779 out of 1377 people found the following review useful.

Now here comes the first postive one:
"Don't give in to the negativity (remember Yoda's warning: hate and anger only lead to the Dark Side)" - 649 out of 1131 people found the following review useful.

And next one most negative of all:

"The Manipulation Power of Nostalgia and Mass Appeal" - 496 out of 839 people found the following review useful.

If you read those reviews you'll see none of them are written by trolls and they are each very long reviews full of good points.

 

[txa1265]

First of all, I never used the term "barely", you've… cunningly… added that yourself, once again exposing your rather disingenuous approach. But, yes, the Star Wars movies have always been considered popular light entertainment, just as opera is considered a light version of Ballet and Soap Operas are considered light versions of Dramas. No-one has ever held Star Wars movies to the expectations of The Godfather, they hold them to the expectations of normal schlocky blockbusters like Jurrasic Park, Indianan Jones, James Bond, etc etc etc, most of which derives from the 'Pulp Fiction' branch of literature. The fact that you even need to ask this is more telling than any answer I could provide.

Yeah, she is a troll looking for any excuse to forward her bizarre vendetta. Oh well ... As I said before, it says more about her than anything else.

And I TOTALLY agree with what you are saying. Back in the 70s and 80s those of us who were fans NEVER thought that this was 'high art' ... It is awesome popcorn fantasy action sci-fi that really grabbed our imagination. I loved the movies, but didn't know they were 'great' until many years later.

One other interesting thing I am reading here is an odd revisionism towards the prequels. My opinions have held constant about these movies since 1977, but suddenly 'prequel haters' are lauding those films for one reason or other to support some agenda or other. Weird.

 

[txa1265]

Well, what if you look at the highest rated reviews, in order?

Thing is - people with an agenda or axe to grind are much more likely to take to a site such as IMDB to dispense their superior opinions ... And the rest is just confirmation bias. This is proven.

Like I said, we have people on this forum who would say that what most call the 'greatest RPGs of all time' are only 3/10. We've seen it in threads before, so don't debate it. Am I saying that this movie is 'greatest of all time'? No - none of the Star Wars movies are. But it is a solid movie in general, and a fine entry in the series.

 

[Caddy]

I have to say, I watched it again. And it's soooo much better the second time.

 

[lackblogger]

list of best reviews

Yes, the power of agenda bombing is the new battleground of the internet, I think we're quite aware of that. When the meaningful stat is "Ratings: 8.7/10 from 189,290 users" and yet the "comments section" has a 60/40 ratio of unbridled negativity I think it suggests a problem with the concept of comments sections rather than a problem with the movie. However, many of those negative reviews harp on about the repeated elements, which I've already stated is a valid criticism, it's no justification for 1/10 though unless you're in some way trying to make a statement beyond the actual quality of the movie.

 

[GothicGothicness]

Thing is - people with an agenda or axe to grind are much more likely to take to a site such as IMDB to dispense their superior opinions … And the rest is just confirmation bias. This is proven.

Like I said, we have people on this forum who would say that what most call the 'greatest RPGs of all time' are only 3/10. We've seen it in threads before, so don't debate it. Am I saying that this movie is 'greatest of all time'? No - none of the Star Wars movies are. But it is a solid movie in general, and a fine entry in the series.

Well, my definition of a troll is someone who doesn't give reasons as to why they have a certain opinion. The point is all of those reviews have plenty of good reasons. While the people who rate it high, says it is great light entertainment, or there is so much action inside it. But think that their opinion is superior.

I don't mind if you think it is a great movie and give good reasons for that, but neither should you disregard people who says it is bad and have a lot of good reasons for that. Several people here refuse to even admit that are quite a few people who dislike the movie that are not trolls, they even refuse to say it is a split at all, in their picture of the world everyone has to love the movie and if you don't you are a troll. That is a very narrow world view, and the fact that you can't accept it and instead come up with several insults and calling people trolls, instead of solid facts, just proves what kind of people you are.

 

[Moriendor]

The movie doesn't split people.

The percentage of people who don't like it is incredibly small.

That might depend on one's definition of "don't like it". Some of us here who did not think much of it might have used extreme terms like "garbage" at first but e.g. Asdraguuhl has come back with decent arguments why he considered the movie to be mediocre.
Personally, I also just found it mediocre and not abysmally bad or anything.

As for "incredibly small percentage", well, the critics rating on MC is 81% and the user score is a 7.4/10 (it was a 7.6/10 when I checked a few days ago so the trend is downwards).
On Rotten Tomatoes we're at 95% positive reviews (score >= 60%) but the actual average critics score is a 8.3/10.
I'd say those are pretty ordinary scores for such an extremely highly anticipated (most anticipated ever?) blockbuster and the no. 1 movie launch in US history.

The percentage is higher on these boards precisely because of the politics that a lot of people on discussion boards like to partake in.

Nah. You seem to be reading way too much into it. Most of us evil retard critics just watched the movie and thought that it was meh .

You almost can't read a negative review on here or the codex, for example, which isn't full of key-words like some kind of underground cult - Jar Jar Abrams, Mary Sue, the prequels were better, instant force powers - like any of that even means anything to anyone.

Well, the prequels (especially the OT) being better is simply a fact and I haven't really seen much of what you mention at all around here. I don't visit the Codex. Maybe you are reading too much Codex and it all becomes a blur and you can not properly differentiate between the critics here or there anymore?

The only major flaw with the movie is the whole recycled death-star routine and the other obvious mimics of previous films. As you say, you can either cope with that or you can't, and if you can't, please don't make up all the other horseshit to try and make your meaningless posts more meaningful.

Why always so aggressive when someone has a different opinion or interprets things differently? The beauty of movies and games is that people can perceive things differently and have different opinions about it. It's not like most people you are arguing with here are factually wrong. They just have a different point of view and maybe wish that things would have been handled differently.
No need from my point of view to throw tantrums or insults because of that.

 

[lackblogger]

@GG I'd really love to hear your 'valid' reasons why the movie is only a 3/10… You know, detailing each and every aspect of the film-making process and how each deducted point is calculated…

 

[GothicGothicness]

Yes, the power of agenda bombing is the new battleground of the internet, I think we're quite aware of that. When the meaningful stat is "Ratings: 8.7/10 from 189,290 users" and yet the "comments section" has a 60/40 ratio of unbridled negativity I think it suggests a problem with the concept of comments sections rather than a problem with the movie. However, many of those negative reviews harp on about the repeated elements, which I've already stated is a valid criticism, it's no justification for 1/10 though unless you're in some way trying to make a statement beyond the actual quality of the movie.

Well, agreed 1/10 is not fair, however as you can see in most of these reviews it is 4 or 5, and in fact I would be willing to go up to 4/10 now that the initial disappointment has settled. Still there are also a lot of people in total ecstasy which will calm down and change their mind about the 10/10 they gave as well. Either way of course metacritic or IMDB scores has a lot of flaws. Still it is the only way we can get some kind of fairly reliable fact on what people think, instead of just speculation.