Episode VII (spoilers)

[Aractus]

He had a struggle? I thought the whole thing was a poorly done act by Kylo to lure his dad to his hand. That shouldn't have fooled anyone, especially someone somewhat savvy like Han.

No, saw it again last night. Kylo was illuminated by the fading light of the star, the planet destroyer was sucking dry, and while illuminated he was tearing up and honestly struggling/blubbering on about not doing what he knew he had to do (kill han per snoke's orders), he offered han the light saber with both hands open. han went to grab it with one hand, and just then the light started to fade as the sun was being depleted. which cause kylo to pause in handing the light saber over. then they stood staring at each other, ben with both hands and han with the one hand on the saber. when it when completely dark han started to pull, and so did ben it went back and forth for a second, the ben snatched it away and ran his old man through. chewie screamed and blasted ben with the bow caster. the same weapon that han used to blow storm troopers apart with.

Why would you see the same movie twice at the cinema? What's wrong with you?

Ah, finally, someone who tells it like it is:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O8hQVlRgFlU

"They (Disney) looked at the stories and said 'we want to make something for the fans'. So I said 'all I wanted to do was tell a story about what happened (...)' (...) it's a family soap-opera, ultimately. People don't realise it's actually a soap-opera. And it's all about family problems - it's not about spaceships."

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VEIrQUXm_hY

"Star Wars is the moment the industry changed."

Lucas replies: "well it changed for the good, and for the bad (...) you can either use it for good or you can use it for evil. And what happens when there's something new, people have a tendency to over-do it. They abuse it. There were two things that got abused with Star Wars. And still being abused. 1. when SW came out everybody said 'oh it's a silly movie it's just a bunch of space battles and stuff; it's not real, there's nothing behind it' (...) And so the spaceships and that part of the science-fantasy got terribly abused and of course everybody went out and made spaceship movies and they were all horrible and they all lost tons of money. (...) And the other part was the technology - which is 'oh we'll just use this new technology it's great' (...) and people just abused it all over the place. (...) The point is the other thing that got abused (naturally in a capitalist society, especially from an American point of view) is the studios and everyone said 'oh wow we could make a lot of money this is a license to kill!' (...) You've got to remember, Star Wars came from nowhere, American Grafitti came from no where, there was nothing like it. Now if you do anything that's not a sequel or not a TV series, or doesn't look like one, they won't do it (...) and it really shows an enormous lack of imagination and a fear of creativity on the part of an industry."


GL himself makes a whole lot of great comments here. The only thing he doesn't explain is why he sold Lucasfilm to Disney, who are well known for churching out bland poorly written, unoriginal money-making sequels instead of simply floating the company and leaving it with a hand picked CEO for the future.

As I mentioned earlier, every one of the five Star Wars sequels/prequels expanded the universe and brought its own story.

The trailer promised a more intimate and serious movie more in the tone of the original trilogy, but what was delivered was an action movie first and foremost with little regard to intimacy, story integrity, or the creativity and imagination of the original trilogy. What we got was bland and predictable.