I'm back, so mini review for now while I clear up some thoughts about some stuff I'm not sure how I feel about it.
Let's start by saying I enjoyed it quite a bit. For a movie that was blatantly marketed as 'Nostalgia! Come see it!', it didn't feature nearly as many references to the OG trilogy as I had expected (or as had been reported). The story hits some overly recognizable beats towards the third act (the Empire created yet another planetary weapon of mass destruction with a single identifiable weak spot) and there's some really, really lazy writing to wrap things up (and underselling some pretty important moments), but overall the story is pretty good and develops nicely.
Abrams' direction however remains amateurish. It becomes less noticeable as the movie progresses but some of the early action scenes feel more tv-showish than cinematic (think the opening scene to The Avengers), but my biggest problem is that he has no grasp on the concept of a "beat" (a pause, or a moment, in between dialogue and/or reactions). There are so many moments where a character takes something in (whether it be a view of scenery or a revelation) and it's completely no sold because Abrams pushes it forward without giving the moment some time to breathe. To give an example, at some point they arrive on a forest planet and Rey, who has lived on a desert planet all her life, says 'I didn't know there could be so much green in the galaxy'. It's a moment that should designate the significance of her stepping into the wide world of the galaxy, of how much more there is out there, but the moment isn't there because Abrams doesn't show her actually taking it in.
On to more pressing matters, which is the ongoing debate about the representation of Finn and how this representation of a sing black character in a scifi movie affects the entire race of black people around the world. Or something like that. By now most people are probably already aware that Daisy Ridley's Rey is the "true" protagonist, at least in terms of who the story ends up being about. That's not to say Finn is the sidekick, they are equal in being lead protagonists, but it's clear that Rey is in the driver's seat (literally too). The thing about Finn is, I don't think they quite knew how to portray him. His arc in short is a guy who wants to run away from his problems but realizes he needs to face them head-on, but with Poe taking the back seat here (and the further development of his character being extremely uncertain), it's like they didn't know whether they wanted Finn to be Luke or be Han, and ended up somewhere in the middle where at times he's serious and driven, and at other times he's in over his head and bluffing/fumbling his way through. This means he's also most often the "butt of the joke" (this is probably where the faux-militants will take most offense in), but in the end it all comes down to one thing and that's the fact that Boyega kills it. He has it, he knows it, and dominates the screen. He has great on-screen chemistry with the entire cast and Ridley in particular (their first scenes together are pure magic), so if they bring more focus into his character only good things can come from it.
Harrison Ford is probably the weak link as he continues to phone it in like he's been doing since the 90s, particularly disappointing because I had hoped he would've at least tried given that this is one of his most iconic roles. It's made up though with the direction they took his character in, that decision was much needed to separate the new trilogy from the old one and push it as its own entity. Driver was very good as well, he has a difficult role because he's not the type of Sith we've become accustomed to, and people are already missing the point saying he wasn't intimidating enough when that was very clearly intentional. Furthermore I'm not sure why they had cast The Raid guys in this since they were given such throwaway parts. They are credited as additional fight choreographers for the scenes they're in, but since they don't actually fight in their scenes I'm left to assume they left some stuff on the cutting floor.
Last but not least I want to shyt on the ending shot, which might be the worst picked ending shot I've ever seen. Abrams deserves a light saber up his ass for going from that close-up (perfectly fine ending shot) to that goddamn circling helicopter overview shot, fukking goddamn amateur. All of this might sound very critical for a movie I stated I enjoyed quite a bit, but what with all the hype it's probably better to ease down on the hype before I get into the things I did enjoy.
"Yeah, I got your sword and I'm powerful as fukk" type of shyt.
@ all dese spoilers got mufukkas runnin through dis thread and da rest of internet like a field fulla landmines.
