With everyone on the internet singing it’s praises, here are a few problems I noticed with Star Wars Episode VII – The Force Awakens (Spoiler Free)
1. The Pacing:
A little hint: Try to take a few deep breaths before you go into this film because you aren’t given very much time to breathe between each of the quickly paced scenes. The pacing is breakneck and barely gives you time to orientate yourself before moving on to the next action scene. Unlike the prequels, at least this film’s pacing is consistent. Consistently Fast!
2. The Humor:
Speaking of the narrative tone, there is some very jarring and self aware humor in the film. Although every bit of dialogue is said clearly and quickly, even in times they should be whispering, some of the cuts tended to ask the audience not dwell too much on character’s over reaction or joke as it was suppose to be passing reference to the older films.
3. The Low Camera Angels:
Maybe they were trying to make the bad guys all look a lot taller than their actors were because the amount of low, low-wide and low-twisting camera angles might make you feel like you are viewing the film from the perspective of a dog following the characters around… or maybe a droid like R2D2.
4. The Accents:
The original Star Wars films were known for their British accents, the Imperial officers in particular. However, you’re going to question why certain characters who have grown up in certain rough settings or who do certain rough jobs have very specific European accents that don’t really fit their surroundings.
5. The Ass-Pulls:
With most Jedi being trained since they were kids, you might think certain abilities take a long time for a Jedi to learn. Nope, it turns out just hearing the possibility you might be Jedi is enough for you to quickly teach yourself most Jedi trickery with no prior training and this takes suspense away from what could’ve been some good suspenseful scenes. Plus the Millennium Falcon is pretty much indestructible.
6. The Predictability:
This is only a spoiler if you’re watching the film RIGHT NOW and are relatively perceptive. If when your watching this film and you think something is going to happen, it’s probably going to happen. That’s because this film is extremely predictable and your going to think a lot of, “Oh no, that’s going to happen, isn’t it?” and then it will happen.
Anyway, if anyone who reads that thinks any of these are spoilers, you’re wrong because with how vague I was I didn’t reveal any specifics about the plot. And if you didn’t want to know what these problems were, why did are you even reading this?
Fantasy and Anime 
I’m not a fan of Star Wars but I don’t dislike it either. I personally felt that the film leaned to heavily on themes that occured in the first Star Wars movie, and relying on the nostalgia factor.
I do like however that the story portrayed in Star Wars is continuing and am curious to see how it develops and eventually ends.
I really need to see a good argument about it being the same as a new hope because besides a vague formula, which is used in a lot of film, I only see half a dozen similarities at most which could be just coped up to it being another Starwars film.
I’m just referring to the similarities you have spotted. I didn’t like the fact that there had to be another Darth Vader, another Death Star (or rather Death planet), and another evil overlord. However I did like the fact there is a new female jedi. I liked that we got an inside look at the storm troopers, because I thought they were all clones, not children who were taken away and trained. So there are many original aspects in the film
I loved the movie but can agree or at least appreciate most of these points. The humor was definitely trying too hard for me in particular. One thing I have to say would be to NOT see it in 3D– it’s rather hard on the eyes with certain camera angles and whatnot.
Lol I would say that about going to the movies in general.
On the plus side, I hear that the humor is better than what we got from the prequels.
Depends if you find bad films funny or not XD.
I wouldn’t rewatch the movies, but if I want to laugh I would watch the Red Letter Media reviews of the films.
Hah, watched all those. Yeah Jarjar+toilet humor=shit comic relief. Those were some pretty damn great movie analyses, though. I personally think it was the case of having a few pretty good parts in some pretty bad films. If Lucus had spent the amount of time, money and effort he spent on the prequel trilogy into a single prequel film it could have been great. Alas money was a better motivator.
Watched it yesterday and if I were a die=hard fan I would have been really disappointed! I agree with 1, 2, 5 and 6 and would add a lack of quality villains; Young Snape was a pretty poor choice for Darth Flavor of the Hour.
It tried to rest on its laurels too much and ended up failing to tread any new ground while trying to be funny where funny wasn’t needed. I…probably won’t be watching the rest of them.
Honestly, I wasn’t that disappointed with the film. It’s not as bad as menace and clone wars, but not as good as new hope or empire. It belongs in the silver medal, pretty good but not great level of return of the jedi and revenge of the sith. Because I had watched his Trek films, lost and fringe shows recently, it was pretty much exactly what I was expecting from JJ Abram’s directing.
The hilarious thing is that The Phantom Menace is my favorite =P
I can’t think of any other reasons besides the final lightsaber fight and maybe podracing for that being the case… :S
Droideka, man. I know the droids are long gone, but I can hope!
Thank you for writing this! I just saw it today and was disappointed to say the least. I completely agree with your points, and have more I could say that added to my displeasure. Do you mind if I link this on my blog?
That would be fine. What are the points you thought of?
The cinematography seemed weird to me. The characters were super high definition and the backgrounds were super blurred. I would’ve liked to see a rougher grain style like the old movies… I feel like the super high def is something you would see in a reality T.V. show. And the acting was just so-so. I felt like maybe they were trying to mix new elements with old ones to attract both audiences, but it just wasn’t working for me.