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star wars
We went to see the new movie yesterday afternoon, because we're no longer brave enough to handle opening-night crowds but we didn't want to push it too far and risk getting spoiled.
I do miss the opening-night crowds a little bit when the "A long time ago" card appears and I'm the only one going "yaaaay!" I spend the opening crawl wondering if they've re-recorded the music or if they're still using the same track from 1977. Has sound reproduction changed as much as video in the past generation—would we be hearing hisses and whatnot that we may not even have noticed at the time but today's higher-fidelity and digital whatnot would make totally obvious and unacceptable?
I adore the BB-8 droid. I assume everyone does.
Did we ever learn the name of the Max von Sydow character?
The new pilot looks a little like Joaquin Phoenix, am I right? (Himself read when we got home that they asked Denis Lawson to reprise his role as Wedge Antilles but he turned it down because he thought it would bore him. And I have no doubt it would indeed have bored him, but I was sorry not to see old Wedge again. Not sure if the lack of Wedge is the entire reason for having this new hot-shot kid, but I do have my suspicions. Himself says stunt piloting should be left to the young'uns, and he's probably right re: twentysomething vs. fiftysomething reflexes, but I'd have liked to see Wedge in that sequence. Plus it would have made the pilot-dies-in-the-TIE-fighter-crash thing more poignant for us long-time fans. [Though it would also have raised the question that has not gone unraised in the novels, which is, after thirty years, why would the guy still be flying missions instead of being a more general officer?] Ah well. You can't make a guy be in a movie. Wedge is still my favorite.)
I like Finn fine. I like Rey very much. I like them together a lot. Go team!
So Kai Loren [eta: Apparently it's Kylo Ren. My bad. I have never been able to parse syllable boundaries of made-up shit at all well.] is the son of Han Solo, and then he says blah blah "Grandfather" and we see Vader's mask burned to slag, and Himself leans over to me and says "Wait a minute, so that implies—" and I said "Oh come on, honey, who the hell did you think his mother was?!" Seriously. I guess I can see that they were going for a sort of slightly coy pieces-falling-into-place thing?, but by me, the moment I learned Han was his father I simply assumed he was Leia's son as well and I would have been frankly astonished if that had turned out any other way.
I did wonder for a couple of minutes if Rey was going to be Han and Leia's long-lost daughter. The way Han took to her was a nice distractor, along with some other—well, let's look.
Reasons Rey could be a Solo
Reasons Rey could be a Skywalker
It's really the last thing that seals it up for me. They made such a clunky fact of how R2 had been in Low Power Mode ever since Luke went away, and thenthe blossom appeared on the White Tree of Gondor he lit up again the first time she got there—I am considering her paternity a matter of no mystery whatsoever. (Mind you I don't know who her mother is or was, as the entire Extended Universe is out the window at this point so there's no sense bringing Mara Jade into it at all. I have a grim expectation that it will turn out not to matter worth a single damn.)
Of course the moment Han and Chewie split up and said "We'll meet back here," I knew it was curtains for one of them. (Han! Dude! Weren't you in the first movie?!) I assumed it was going to be Chewie, but I should have revised that expectation a little sooner than I did once the boy (I like that his name was Ben) walked out on the totally non-OSHA-compliant catwalk. I do give myself credit for recognizing that the kid was bullshitting with his torn-apart don't-have-the-strength act. Oh, Han. (Inner Doyleist says: Harrison Ford is 73 years old. He can't keep playing this part forever. In fact he wanted the character to die in Return of the Jedi. It was bound to happen. Nice job faking us all out with the press junket, everyone.)
Girl behind us as we were leaving was saying to her boyfriend, "But now that Han Solo is gone they can focus on the interesting characters. Or, the new characters." I turned around and said "Nice save." (A block and a half later she was speculating that Rey might be Luke's daughter. Himself and I decided she must be new.)
Himself thinks the next arc is going to be the redemption of Kai Loren, but I'm not so sure. Luke Skywalker said "I can't kill my own father"—and his father was a mass murderer. Ben Solo basically said "Huh. I can," and did.
I liked that Leia sensed Han's death in the Force.
And of course Luke did as well. Dudes, I thought Mark Hamill looked great in his fifteen seconds of screen time. I bought the beard and the shaggy hair at full price and I one hundred percent dig the sad eyes as well. To me, that whining farm boy's face said "I left you on that shithole of a desert planet so you wouldn't inherit my lightsaber, and now here you are, and my nephew just killed my brother-in-law, and here we go again."
I do miss the opening-night crowds a little bit when the "A long time ago" card appears and I'm the only one going "yaaaay!" I spend the opening crawl wondering if they've re-recorded the music or if they're still using the same track from 1977. Has sound reproduction changed as much as video in the past generation—would we be hearing hisses and whatnot that we may not even have noticed at the time but today's higher-fidelity and digital whatnot would make totally obvious and unacceptable?
I adore the BB-8 droid. I assume everyone does.
Did we ever learn the name of the Max von Sydow character?
The new pilot looks a little like Joaquin Phoenix, am I right? (Himself read when we got home that they asked Denis Lawson to reprise his role as Wedge Antilles but he turned it down because he thought it would bore him. And I have no doubt it would indeed have bored him, but I was sorry not to see old Wedge again. Not sure if the lack of Wedge is the entire reason for having this new hot-shot kid, but I do have my suspicions. Himself says stunt piloting should be left to the young'uns, and he's probably right re: twentysomething vs. fiftysomething reflexes, but I'd have liked to see Wedge in that sequence. Plus it would have made the pilot-dies-in-the-TIE-fighter-crash thing more poignant for us long-time fans. [Though it would also have raised the question that has not gone unraised in the novels, which is, after thirty years, why would the guy still be flying missions instead of being a more general officer?] Ah well. You can't make a guy be in a movie. Wedge is still my favorite.)
I like Finn fine. I like Rey very much. I like them together a lot. Go team!
So Kai Loren [eta: Apparently it's Kylo Ren. My bad. I have never been able to parse syllable boundaries of made-up shit at all well.] is the son of Han Solo, and then he says blah blah "Grandfather" and we see Vader's mask burned to slag, and Himself leans over to me and says "Wait a minute, so that implies—" and I said "Oh come on, honey, who the hell did you think his mother was?!" Seriously. I guess I can see that they were going for a sort of slightly coy pieces-falling-into-place thing?, but by me, the moment I learned Han was his father I simply assumed he was Leia's son as well and I would have been frankly astonished if that had turned out any other way.
I did wonder for a couple of minutes if Rey was going to be Han and Leia's long-lost daughter. The way Han took to her was a nice distractor, along with some other—well, let's look.
Reasons Rey could be a Solo
- Hot shot pilot like Han
- Dark hair and dark eyes like Leia
- At least passive, if not active, fluency in several non-Basic languages (Wookiee, Droid, whatever that other scavenger dude was speaking) like Han
Reasons Rey could be a Skywalker
- Hot shot pilot like Luke
- Dark hair and dark eyes like Aunt Leia (and Grandma Padme)
- Granddad's lightsaber calls to her (and comes to her in the woods, damn near taking Cousin Kai's nose off on its way)
- R2-D2 wakes up when she comes back to the Resistance base after being rescued from the planet-weapon thing
It's really the last thing that seals it up for me. They made such a clunky fact of how R2 had been in Low Power Mode ever since Luke went away, and then
Of course the moment Han and Chewie split up and said "We'll meet back here," I knew it was curtains for one of them. (Han! Dude! Weren't you in the first movie?!) I assumed it was going to be Chewie, but I should have revised that expectation a little sooner than I did once the boy (I like that his name was Ben) walked out on the totally non-OSHA-compliant catwalk. I do give myself credit for recognizing that the kid was bullshitting with his torn-apart don't-have-the-strength act. Oh, Han. (Inner Doyleist says: Harrison Ford is 73 years old. He can't keep playing this part forever. In fact he wanted the character to die in Return of the Jedi. It was bound to happen. Nice job faking us all out with the press junket, everyone.)
Girl behind us as we were leaving was saying to her boyfriend, "But now that Han Solo is gone they can focus on the interesting characters. Or, the new characters." I turned around and said "Nice save." (A block and a half later she was speculating that Rey might be Luke's daughter. Himself and I decided she must be new.)
Himself thinks the next arc is going to be the redemption of Kai Loren, but I'm not so sure. Luke Skywalker said "I can't kill my own father"—and his father was a mass murderer. Ben Solo basically said "Huh. I can," and did.
I liked that Leia sensed Han's death in the Force.
And of course Luke did as well. Dudes, I thought Mark Hamill looked great in his fifteen seconds of screen time. I bought the beard and the shaggy hair at full price and I one hundred percent dig the sad eyes as well. To me, that whining farm boy's face said "I left you on that shithole of a desert planet so you wouldn't inherit my lightsaber, and now here you are, and my nephew just killed my brother-in-law, and here we go again."