Rather startled Star Wars reaction

[sabotabby]

I genuinely liked it. As in into every second of it and applauded various creative decisions and almost, almost forgive J.J. Abrams for screwing up Star Trek.

I had zero expectations, as part of the generation that was betrayed by the prequels, and even though it had good reviews, I did not believe it would be good until:

• Opening crawl with no mention of trade federations or taxes or anything.


• No fucking green screen CGI bullshit.


• Completely ignores the existence of the prequels.


• Stormtrooper with PTSD.


• Actual blood when people die! Violence has consequences and it's not a mindless cartoon.


• The setting felt lived-in, and like they were picking up from the fallout of the first three. I particularly loved Rey living in the ruins of an AT-AT.


• Lucky for Poe that he found the one Stormtrooper with a good aim.


• There were nods to the originals, but also subversions. While Rey is Luke's daughter, probably, you got to know the characters as people rather than Chosen Ones. Very little mystical bollocks. They destroyed the Starkiller by utilization of everyone's knowledge base + lots and lots of firepower, rather than one special guy turning off his targeting system and trusting Space Jesus.


• I really loved the new characters. I was predisposed to like Finn because of Boyega's role in Attack the Block, but they were all good, and quite decent acting from everyone involved.


• Minimal silly alien shit. The new droid and new little alien were cute but not cloying, like they are marketable as toys but also not annoying for adults.


• Leia. Unapologetically old and not thin and she's still a total badass and I love her.


• Roles for Han and Chewy that felt necessary and not like fanservice.


• Bechdel win. Places where you would expect a bit character to be male (or white) and then they weren't.


• Rey not getting shunted aside so that one of the dudes could have the crowning moment of badassery at the end. Nope, she's the heroine. Awesome.


• The Triumph of the Will scene, in case you weren't sure if the Empire were supposed to be Space Nazis.


• Your latest favourite Twitter account: Emo Kylo Ren.

Anyway really happy to be wrong.

Comments

[mle292.livejournal.com]

Excellent points, I agree wholeheartedly.

Thanks for the Emo Kylo Ren recommendation. Best tweets I can't share.

[sabotabby]

Yeah, now I'm sitting on spoilers until the internet deems it socially acceptable to say things again.