Couple of other points I forgot to mention :
While the lightsaber STRIKES and STYLES were nice (Thank god, no more prequel flippy shyt)...JJ seems to lack the ability to SHOOT those scenes in a compelling fashion. Rey grabbing the lightsaber was a brilliant moment...the fight afterwards was actually somewhat procedural though. I did like the end of it, when they put it a little bit of slow-mo as she was walking towards him...that worked. But ultimately...that set-piece wasn't used in the way that it could have been. Still, I'll take this over pretty much any prequel fight besides Darth Maul.
Lightsaber Fight Rankings (I'm only doing four) :
Luke/Vader 1 > Luke/Vader 2 > Darth Maul > Rey/Finn/Ren
Don't care to rank the others.
Maz - I liked the character. Definitely wasn't as "yoda" as I thought she was going to be. Kinda interested in what her place in this trilogy is going to be. Would love for it to be mentoring Finn...but at this point....I've lost hope for that.
Speaking on Finn...I think the FS argument needs to be put to rest. He doesn't have it, and they don't seem to be even trying to hint that he does. The marketing and shyt was pure bait-and-switch.
Snoke - This worked for me. I liked the fact that, although he's obviously evil, he doesn't (Yet) appear to want to show his hand so much, so he doesn't delve into cartoonishly evil the way Palpatine (satisfyingly I should add) was. I enjoyed the fact that he came off as somewhat...pragmatic. Ren and Hux were fukking up the entire movie, being petty towards one another. Even when Hux told him that their planet sized based was being destroyed, Snoke was just kinda like
"I ain't even worried about that, just bring me Ren".
Is Rey a Mary Sue? Kind of. This script doesn't give her a moment of failure/sadness. Neo failed his first jump. Ironman was captured and dying. Captain lost Bucky. Hell, even Luke had to bury his family (And this is after Obi-Wan saves him from Sand-People IIRC). The one time where she looked like she was in some trouble (Ren's interrogation), she IMMEDIATELY starts using force powers to rattle that cat....
They were *clearly* weary of making her seem weak at any point throughout the film. That's KK's doing....
They gave her *too much*, and didn't give enough to Finn. She has FS. She can fix shyt. She's tough. She gets the falcon at the end. She beats a more experienced saber user. Everyone likes her. Finn is immediately crushing on her. Han wants her to join the crew. No parity between her and anyone else...it stuck out.
And it wasn't just FEATS, but characterization. A tough, untrusting, no-nonsense desert scavenger who is afraid to leave less her family miss her....who also can be cheery and whimsical when we need her to smile, her tough exterior immediately sheds when we need a "d'aaaww" moment with the robot, oh she's just oh so beauti-STOP HOLDING MY HAND!
Are they going to be able to show her losing a hand or an arm, the same way every other Skywalker does? I'm sure they will...uhh...I hope they will....
*girl with rey toy beats up storm troopers*
*boy with poe toy flies around and blow stuff up around house*
*black kid with finn toy delivers "vital plans" to resistance, gets knocked into coma, and goes to play madden.......
*
*Black kid with plunger roams around his home pretending to be Finn unclogging toilets*
did that guy even do anything
