Second Opinion #3: Star Wars: The Force Awakens Review

Published: Dec. 20, 2015, 7:40 p.m.

b'Overview
\\nNon-spoilers
\\nGeneral thoughts
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\\n* It was very derivative; followed the formula of A New Hope far too much. Feels like the series is stagnating, when I want it to be moving forward.
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\\n* Starts on a desert planet
\\n* Utility droid we have to protect
\\n* Escape in the Millennium Falcon
\\n* Rebellion hiding out on a lush planet with an old temple
\\n* Big bad Empire building a superweapon
\\n* X-Wings vs TIE fighters (where did the rest of the ships go?)
\\n* Yoda figure
\\n* The Hero\\u2019s Journey
\\n* Subvert the Damsel in Distress trope
\\n* Wilhelm scream
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\\n* Avoided the complex galactic politics of the prequels so much that we have no idea about any details regarding the First Order, Republic, or Resistance. Everything was reduced to the simple \\u201clight side vs dark side\\u201d.
\\n* The special effects were really good of course
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\\n* Lasers felt more kinetic
\\n* Really cool shot of some TIE fighters with the sun behind them
\\n* Camera moves around too much in the space battles
\\n* Too many particle effects
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\\n* Story was slow
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\\n* The entire movie could have been coalesced into about half an hour
\\n* Things that happened: character intros, slight exposition, explosions
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\\n* Forced romantic subplot
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\\n* Verbally brought attention to the hand-holding
\\n* More subtle stuff (Fin looking at that butt)
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\\n* Lazy plot devices
\\n* When they did the action stuff, it was good
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\\n* Good use of sweeping continuous shots
\\n* Wasn\\u2019t over-the-top
\\n* Didn\\u2019t drag on too long, which has been a problem in past Star Wars movies
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\\n* Soundtrack was okay
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\\n* Didn\\u2019t push boundaries; previously, John Williams would add a new memorable piece in each movie. Most memorable was the Resistance theme.
\\n* Used musical themes from the original series to good effect (specifically, Imperial March and Luke\\u2019s Theme)
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\\nSpecific things
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\\n* BB-8: not just an R2 clone
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\\n* Has a very different personality
\\n* Has different tricks up his sleeve, both for mobility and tools
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\\n* Liked the subtle variants on stormtroopers. Not as explicit as \\u201cscout troopers\\u201d or \\u201csnow troopers\\u201d but they carry slightly different sets of gear.
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\\n* Would have been better if they showed different designations working on their specialities
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\\n* A few signs of technological advancement
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\\n* New Imperial Shuttle
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\\n* Loved the way that the people living on Jakku mostly settled around the wrecks of old military vehicles
\\n* Wasn\\u2019t able to spot a 1138 reference. It\\u2019s gotta be in there though.
\\n* [Buck] I still think the crossguard design for the lightsaber is stupid
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\\n* The only reason that design would be any good is to block other lightsabers? but there are no other Jedi??
\\n* The only reason for it is because ever since Darth Maul, every dark side lightsaber has to have a gimmick.
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\\n* Fin sounded like he was just John Boyega hanging out.
\\n* Rey\\u2019s athleticism & creative terrain use should have come out more
\\n* Where were the aliens? Where was the culture?
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\\nSpoilers
\\nIf you would like to read the notes we have on spoilers, please view the source code of this webpage. The notes are\\xa0contained in an HTML comment.
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\\nAttributions
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\\n* Free Music Archive: Beat Doctor – Organic (electric edit)
\\n* The Elevator Bossa Nova | Muzak Royalty Free Music
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