Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens - Page 161

On January 02 2016 22:40 Ghostcom wrote:
Context is important. You have to remember that line is uttered by Obi Wan, former padawan of Qui Gon. Qui Gon was very "grey" around the edges and really quite the relativist. And while the line itself might seem self-defeating remember that it is a response to Anakin and probably meant more as a warning rather than as an absolute.

On January 02 2016 23:02 kwizach wrote:

Obi-Wan is not Qui-Gon, though. We've seen lots of Jedi deal in absolutes with regards to the dark side (which is, again, seen as inherently evil), which makes the line meaningless. And warning or not, the line is an absolute.

On January 02 2016 23:16 Ghostcom wrote:


We learn from our teachers.... Obi-Wan is clearly not a black/white guy.

I think you and I have a fundamentally different interpretation of what the "the dark side" is. To settle that we would need to have a rather lengthy discussion of morals which I frankly can't be bothered to have.

On January 02 2016 23:16 Ghostcom wrote:


We learn from our teachers.... Obi-Wan is clearly not a black/white guy.

I think you and I have a fundamentally different interpretation of what the "the dark side" is. To settle that we would need to have a rather lengthy discussion of morals which I frankly can't be bothered to have.

On January 02 2016 01:17 Jibba wrote:

It was bad at the time. It's like watching Twitch when someone is getting their green screen set up for the first time, and it looks ultra obvious because the lines around them are a bit fuzzy. Only add in that they're trying to dodge obstacles. The style was supposed to be cartoony. Plus things like animals and actual character movements swing weirdly.

Then you've got the sword fighting, which is so flowery and has so much twirling in it. Those are bad sword fights.

The acting ranges from bad to good, but the dialogue is miserable. Ewan McGregor did what he could, but you can't save dumb lines like, "Only a Sith deals in absolutes" or Hayden's "sand blah blah blah", "Breaking my heart", etc.. Lucas has no regard for "show, don't say". More awful exposition is his solution to everything.

On January 03 2016 02:26 The_Red_Viper wrote:
Eh? Yes the whole dialogue there was awkward because it felt so out of place, but highground being valuable shouldn't be an issue, no?
But yes, the whole Anakin/Obi Wan scene was very underwhelming.
I feel the general storyline of the prequels was pretty good tbh, but the execution was just bad.

On January 01 2016 04:43 Falling wrote:

You haven't been reading what I have been writing, if you think I'm not allowing for any criticisms of the film. If there are camps, I fall in the 'liked it, but saw some issues with it, but not so many that I disliked it, and many things that others had issues with, did not bother me" camp.

So my next question, having identified the dejarik board as fan service according to your definition, does that make its inclusion bad? Is the film worse for it's inclusion or is it just there? I'm not convinced it is necessarily fan service as that guesses at intention and to some extent, it's showing that the Falcon continues to work as it always did (and the original dejarik scene was not exactly plot relevant in the first place- more a character/ world building moment.) Is fan service intrinsically bad- that discovering fan service, means you have found a flaw? Or is there good, harmless, and bad (and many more) types of fan service? (For not good call backs, I'd point to Sarah Connor's "come with me if you want to live" as it deliberately mimics an iconic scene, serving to remind the viewer of a past epic moment, while not allowing the new film to create its own new epic moment. Or how C3PO get dragged along to Geonosis for no real reason- the amount of screen time those two droids get in the prequels for no plot reason whatsoever is nothing at all like we get in Force Awakens. So there are bad callbacks, but identifying a callback is not the same as saying it is bad.)

You say criticism is not allowed, but you have maybe identified why an element is in the story... but that doesn't actually analyze what makes it bad once it is there, in the film where it is. It is my belief that story elements can arrive in a story for a multiplicity of reasons, but the only thing that really matters is whether it works once it is there.

On January 01 2016 04:16 zf wrote:

There's not much to say here, except that I disagree. Do I see why someone might think that it was gratuitous? Sure. Hypocrisy has nothing to do with it. And happy birthday!

On January 03 2016 02:50 KwarK wrote:

They're all jumping around and somersaulting all over the place but suddenly a fight between two super powerful ninjas is decided by this arbitrary piece of high ground? Why even bother with training Jedi to sword fight, why not just give them a step ladder and send them out to battle evil?

On January 03 2016 02:55 Coppermantis wrote:
I thought Obiwan's "Only a Sith" line was a good line. It's self-defeating, yes, but I thought it was intentionally so to point out the hypocrisy of the Jedi order and lend validity to Anakin's view that they are stagnant and weak. A lot of the other writing then renders any good qualities of that line irrelevant, but, in theory, it's good.