Smiddimizer
Well-Known Member
I'm not sure what you mean when you say the level of detail in the new movie easily tops the level of detail in the original. If I am comparing the look and feel of the worlds in the original trilogy, the prequels and The Force Awakens, I'll say the original still feels the most real and lived in while the prequels feel the most fabricated. I didn't have a problem with the look of The Force Awakens. But I definitely didn't feel it was superior to the old movies.
I did have fun with the new SW. Was it non-cynical? Again, I'm not entirely sure what you mean by that. I sometimes felt like the movie was more interested in setting up characters and concepts for countless spin-off movies than telling an actual story. The plot is pretty threadbare and mostly cribbed from the original series.
The two things that I have to give SW 7 props for are that the new characters were mostly very engaging (any one of them has more personality than any character in the prequels) and that the return of old characters and elements was nicely handled.
This is going to be one of those times when fans are going to over-praise the movie while it is fresh in their minds and as time goes on and their enthusiasm fades, they will reevaluate it to a more reasonable ranking.
I wouldn't fight with anyone over that. I personally preferred Jedi but that is largely due to the built-in advantage it has as the final chapter of a great trilogy. I will give Jedi credit for being much tighter than Episode VII which occasionally feels bloated. But Jedi is flawed enough and TFA is strong enough that I can see where someone might prefer the newer movie. I won't say you're high for feeling that way.
All in all I'd agree that it's the third best Star Wars movie ever made, which I basically expected going into it. But that's for the novelty of the original, which was a blast of fresh air in terms of its sheer premise and cultural impact. I would absolutely argue that the environments of TFA looked more real and lived in than any Star Wars film I've seen before it; it has more visual richness-- a greater abundance of strange and interesting aliens in the nooks and crannies of every scene, and more convincing action sequences. Both of these features build on what came before, however. So you're absolutely right in saying that you can't in any good frame of mind claim The Force Awakens is a better film than the originals because of this, I mean they started forty years ago. But you also can't deny that it builds on these aspects and does what they did, better.
Everyone has a different definition of "good" so maybe I took your rating as more damning than it actually was. I just think it's too good to dismiss easily. It's just a better-made movie than most blockbusters; not to be one of those people, but they come across as thinking the invention of CGI means they can do anything they imagine. That's essentially what I meant when I said it wasn't cynical: it seems to get that there's a line when physical staging--like a real explosion or a vehicle--is more appropriate than animation.
I think it's these distinctions that make SW7 and Mad Max two of my favorite movies this year. It sounds technical and therefore trivial, but it is significant. Obviously story comes first, and I enjoyed TFA throughout despite its structural similarity to A New Hope. In fact I almost overlooked it because I was having so much damn fun, and the characters were so original. I think it deserves all the praise it's getting.
