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sophia_sol) wrote2015-12-29 07:17 pm
sophia_sol) wrote2015-12-29 07:17 pm
Entry tags:
star wars post!
Last night I went to see the new star wars movie!
This is the first star wars movie I have ever seen in my life. All my prior knowledge is cultural osmosis. And I have apparently osmosed a lot! I managed to catch quite a few call-backs/references to the previous movies, though I'm sure there are also plenty that I missed. The weirdest part though was how I had these intense feelings of nostalgia as the movie was beginning despite having never seen any star wars before.
At any rate: as a movie it worked quite well with solely my level of prior knowledge! And it was a HELLA FUN MOVIE.
I mean, for starters, our new lead characters (Rey, Finn, and Poe) are the most adorable???? Gosh I was just so heart-eyes for all three of them, and most especially for any interaction between any of them. I spent a lot of the movie grinning soppily at the screen because of the three of them. I love how they're all so competent, and I love their mutual appreciation societies over their various competencies! And they all feel so three-dimensionally human, and all like astonishingly decent people, and they LIKE each other so much! I am ALL OVER this ot3. Or platonic team! (you know me.) Even though Rey and Poe haven't even met yet. This problem can be easily solved!
And I loved how Rey (a female character!) was the main character of the movie, and an excellent one at that. And that the movie decided to portray stormtroopers as not just faceless pawns of evil by having Finn choose to defect because he feels like that's the right thing to do!
Also I was surprised by how deeply fond I got of Leia and Han, given their relatively minor roles in this movie. And can I say how nice it was to see an older female character, played by an older female actress, who still gets to do things? (and get the only explicit romance in the movie!)
And the world of the movie was so immersive and full of lived-in details! I loved it. And I love how this is a society where humans and aliens and robots just all live together in one mishmash of people without apparently thinking anything of it.
The plot of the movie was pretty generic fantasy epic: there's a macguffin (or plot token) we have to retrieve in order to defeat the forces of evil! In this case there were two macguffins: first BB8/the map, which then leads to the second macguffin, Luke Skywalker. I am pretty amused by a prior main character getting the role of merely a macguffin in this movie, I must say.
But that's all okay, I tend not to be into narratives for plot, but for characters and worldbuilding. So hey I was good to go here!
I had seen spoilers for a fair amount before seeing the movie (deliberately) and the best/worst was definitely all the talk about emo Hot Topic Kylo Ren. It made it so hard to take him at all seriously! His emo angst meltdowns and inability to be a reasonable person were hilarious and gr9, and I loved how longsuffering Hux was about having to deal with Ren's general incompetence, and how the Dark Side is apparently only keeping Ren around for his abilities with the Force despite Ren's delusions of grandeur.
I had also seen spoilers that Han Solo dies, but not of HOW he dies - but the moment he and Kylo Ren start talking to each other on that bridge I was like WELP CLEARLY THIS IS IT, BYE HAN. And of course yes that's what happened. And frankly it would have felt wrong if Ren HADN'T killed Han there. Though I may be affected here by not having had a previous emotional attachment to Han :P
Another thing to mention is the soundtrack! A whole collection of glorious space opera cheese and it was perfect and great. I loved it. And I was pleased that we got at least a wee snippet of the Imperial March because that's such a fun song. (....I played it in band in high school, hence why I'm able to recognize it. Frankly I wouldn't have been able to recognize that partially-destroyed skull/helmet as Vader without the music cue!)
Totally irrelevant thought #1: When Leia said "May the Force be with you" to Rey, my EVERY INSTINCT was crying out for Rey to respond "And also with you" (thanks, tradition of passing the peace!) - and it would have been appropriate for the situation and everything! C'MON STAR WARS, GET WITH IT.
Totally irrelevant thought #2: I can't call this movie tfa; my brain parses that as "the first avenger" and Rey is not Captain America, and I have trouble seeing how that would work even in a goofy crossover!
In conclusion, I feel weird about having seen a star wars movie now. I've always been annoyed with sff gatekeeper fans, and star wars is one of those major things that's held up as being obligatory for nerds. And I tend towards contrarian, so I've actually been kind of deliberate about not bothering to watch star wars? Like, SUCK IT DUDES, I'M AN SFF FAN EVEN IF YOU THINK I DON'T BELONG. (see also: me never having read or watched lord of the rings. see also: my lifelong struggle with being weird/wanting to fit in/defiantly not even trying to fit in because I know I'd never succeed, and how that relates to whether it's okay to like popular things.)
But now I've voluntarily seen a star wars movie, and LIKED it, and now have intentions of going back and watching at least the original trilogy. So. There's that.
Time to dive face-first into reading fic now!
This is the first star wars movie I have ever seen in my life. All my prior knowledge is cultural osmosis. And I have apparently osmosed a lot! I managed to catch quite a few call-backs/references to the previous movies, though I'm sure there are also plenty that I missed. The weirdest part though was how I had these intense feelings of nostalgia as the movie was beginning despite having never seen any star wars before.
At any rate: as a movie it worked quite well with solely my level of prior knowledge! And it was a HELLA FUN MOVIE.
I mean, for starters, our new lead characters (Rey, Finn, and Poe) are the most adorable???? Gosh I was just so heart-eyes for all three of them, and most especially for any interaction between any of them. I spent a lot of the movie grinning soppily at the screen because of the three of them. I love how they're all so competent, and I love their mutual appreciation societies over their various competencies! And they all feel so three-dimensionally human, and all like astonishingly decent people, and they LIKE each other so much! I am ALL OVER this ot3. Or platonic team! (you know me.) Even though Rey and Poe haven't even met yet. This problem can be easily solved!
And I loved how Rey (a female character!) was the main character of the movie, and an excellent one at that. And that the movie decided to portray stormtroopers as not just faceless pawns of evil by having Finn choose to defect because he feels like that's the right thing to do!
Also I was surprised by how deeply fond I got of Leia and Han, given their relatively minor roles in this movie. And can I say how nice it was to see an older female character, played by an older female actress, who still gets to do things? (and get the only explicit romance in the movie!)
And the world of the movie was so immersive and full of lived-in details! I loved it. And I love how this is a society where humans and aliens and robots just all live together in one mishmash of people without apparently thinking anything of it.
The plot of the movie was pretty generic fantasy epic: there's a macguffin (or plot token) we have to retrieve in order to defeat the forces of evil! In this case there were two macguffins: first BB8/the map, which then leads to the second macguffin, Luke Skywalker. I am pretty amused by a prior main character getting the role of merely a macguffin in this movie, I must say.
But that's all okay, I tend not to be into narratives for plot, but for characters and worldbuilding. So hey I was good to go here!
I had seen spoilers for a fair amount before seeing the movie (deliberately) and the best/worst was definitely all the talk about emo Hot Topic Kylo Ren. It made it so hard to take him at all seriously! His emo angst meltdowns and inability to be a reasonable person were hilarious and gr9, and I loved how longsuffering Hux was about having to deal with Ren's general incompetence, and how the Dark Side is apparently only keeping Ren around for his abilities with the Force despite Ren's delusions of grandeur.
I had also seen spoilers that Han Solo dies, but not of HOW he dies - but the moment he and Kylo Ren start talking to each other on that bridge I was like WELP CLEARLY THIS IS IT, BYE HAN. And of course yes that's what happened. And frankly it would have felt wrong if Ren HADN'T killed Han there. Though I may be affected here by not having had a previous emotional attachment to Han :P
Another thing to mention is the soundtrack! A whole collection of glorious space opera cheese and it was perfect and great. I loved it. And I was pleased that we got at least a wee snippet of the Imperial March because that's such a fun song. (....I played it in band in high school, hence why I'm able to recognize it. Frankly I wouldn't have been able to recognize that partially-destroyed skull/helmet as Vader without the music cue!)
Totally irrelevant thought #1: When Leia said "May the Force be with you" to Rey, my EVERY INSTINCT was crying out for Rey to respond "And also with you" (thanks, tradition of passing the peace!) - and it would have been appropriate for the situation and everything! C'MON STAR WARS, GET WITH IT.
Totally irrelevant thought #2: I can't call this movie tfa; my brain parses that as "the first avenger" and Rey is not Captain America, and I have trouble seeing how that would work even in a goofy crossover!
In conclusion, I feel weird about having seen a star wars movie now. I've always been annoyed with sff gatekeeper fans, and star wars is one of those major things that's held up as being obligatory for nerds. And I tend towards contrarian, so I've actually been kind of deliberate about not bothering to watch star wars? Like, SUCK IT DUDES, I'M AN SFF FAN EVEN IF YOU THINK I DON'T BELONG. (see also: me never having read or watched lord of the rings. see also: my lifelong struggle with being weird/wanting to fit in/defiantly not even trying to fit in because I know I'd never succeed, and how that relates to whether it's okay to like popular things.)
But now I've voluntarily seen a star wars movie, and LIKED it, and now have intentions of going back and watching at least the original trilogy. So. There's that.
Time to dive face-first into reading fic now!
no subject
- well, I mean, my dearest wish is for Finn and Rey and Poe to have approximately five million more hugs, but this is my second-dearest wish. No, third-dearest. My second-dearest is a scene in which General Leia Organa talks strategy with Maz.
no subject
no subject
The prequels are BAD. SO BAD. Don't watch them. The only good thing about them is this poster: http://www.theforce.net/collecting/posters/tpm/images/starwarsshadow.jpg
no subject
You know, everyone keeps telling me how bad the prequels are, which says that everyone HAS SEEN the prequels in order to make this judgement. It's like it's inevitable or something - "don't see the prequels", but nerds are completists and watch them anyways despite the unavoidable disappointment. (that is a fabulous poster though!)
no subject
Everyone saw Phantom Menace because we didn't know it was going to be bad until we'd already seen it. Then everyone saw Attack of the Clones because Menace was so bad that it seemed unreal - Lucas must have been high or something, surely the next one would be better. I'm not sure why everyone else saw Revenge of the Sith, but I got dragged by a friend.
You may enjoy this, in which I list the five worst movies I've ever seen. Two of the prequels were on there, and I'm not sure why all three weren't. But it explains the exact sensation of watching Phantom Menace on opening night, when everyone is expecting it to be amazing: https://rachelmanija.dreamwidth.org/266763.html
no subject
And huh, you know, I'd not quite realized that the prequel movies were made so much later, such that people in my generation COULD have seen them in theatre before they had a reputation! Thanks for linking that post of yours - an interesting perspective.
no subject
And yes, Rachel is totally right about expectations for Phantom Menace. I remember being deeply excited -- a new Star Wars trilogy! Made by George Lucas! Prequels!! I didn't care so much about Anakin's story of becoming Darth Vader, though I was entirely willing to be made to care, but Obi Wan and Bail Organa and Mon Mothma and Anakin and the last days of the Republic! And then we got... what we got.
(Though I also know a few people who will fiercely defend the prequels. All of them are enough younger than me that they were kids when they came out and the prequels were their formative Star Wars instead.)
no subject
It really is too bad that the prequels were so disappointing to so many people. I've had conversation so far with just one person who does recommend watching them - and afaik she's actually older than me, and the prequels were not her formative star wars. At any rate, I do intend to watch the prequels, because a) I'm terrible at following instructions and b) I'm very much a completist.
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Of the prequels, I only watched the first. I loved, loved, loved Padme, but didn't find anything else about it compelling enough to make an effort for the next two. I'm sure the fact that there was a guaranteed unhappy ending for the whole thing didn't help, though.
no subject
Yeah, I'm not excited about the guaranteed unhappy ending for the prequels. But I am going to watch them!