The new star wars is flawed...but you have to realize the original trilogy was extremely flawed too. Just because you first digested it as a little kid and those memories are still with you does not make those movies perfect.

The new star wars was fun...something the prequels failed miserably at (effing politics is the root plotline). The characters were appealing and full of charisma.

Despite its over-hypedness and glaring flaws the new star wars is an excellent restart for the series. I look forward to the other movies coming.

Cheer up guys.

That's not unexpected, because they took the best parts of A New Hope and rehashed it for this movie. What worked for ANH back in the day still works now with a new coat of paint.

It was disappointing movie for me because after you strip away the nostalgia, there wasn't much left. It's still a good movie, but I would not put it in my top 10 list, even though the original trilogy was one of my favorite movies of all time.

I dunno, it's certainly not a perfect film by any stretch of the imagination, but I don't think its appeal rests solely on Star Wars nostalgia. I saw it with a friend who's never even seen the original trilogy, and he still loved it. I don't think the reviews or the word of mouth would be as strong as they are if it were just a nostalgic wank-fest (which it is to a certain extent, don't get me wrong).

As for your Kylo Ren issues -- the guy had been shot by Chewbacca's blaster, which is established earlier in the film as having some pretty serious stopping power. So he's injured during the Finn/Rey fights.

I've seen it twice now--once on opening night in IMAX with co-workers and the next day with my daughter and wife in 2D at the local theatre. To be honest, I wouldn't have gone to see it again if the local theatre hadn't of gifted me with discounted tickets (around $12 US for me and the wife and $9 for the daughter).

I was deeply disappointed with the film, though I would not go so far as to say it sucks like @kulpims did. If I had to sum it up in two phrases, I'd say "tries too hard to be clever" in homages to the original films and "deeply flawed" in terms of story. It's not a terrible film by any means, but I would say its unevenness makes it good yet far from great.

It's better and worse than the prequels at the same time. Acting and pacing are far better than the prequels (but not nearly as good as the originals as has been pointed out by @ChaosEngine already).

At the same time, say what you want about Lucas's prequels but he at least tried to expand the Star Wars universe and show us new sides and aspects of it--to make it really feel like a galaxy rather than a couple of mostly uninhabited worlds like Tatooine and Hoth that we got to see in the original trilogy. This movie is a step backwards from that and played things waaaaaay too safe (partly because, as I mentioned, they were too busy trying to make themselves look clever with references to the originals and lots of "nod, nod, wink, wink, see what I did there" moments).

But it is JJ Abrams and I shouldn't have really been as shocked as I was to find out how much of the movie was copy/pasted from the originals with twists that I'm sure he thought were clever but which I just found as cringe-worthy.

Still, really loved the new characters. The daughter was definitely enthralled by Rey, but surprisingly likes her better as dune-surfing scavenger than planet-hopping adventurer.

i don't recall a lot of these ever being in the original trilogy.

Now I almost want to re-watch the prequels trilogy. Unfortunately, to do that, I'd have to re-watch the prequels trilogy.

My Halloween movie recommendations based upon this video:

V/H/S, The Last Broadcast, The Blair Witch Project (not the sequel dear GOD), It Follows (soon to have a sequel "Follow It"), The Babadook, and anything spawned from Koji Suzuki's Ring Trilogy -- I bet you didn't know there were THAT many Ring movies, did you? 3 American films (one is a short film), 7 Japanese films, 1 Korean film, 2 Japanese television series, and 1 more American film on the way, executive produced by Guillermo del Toro.

Happy Hallo-fuckin-ween!

Cool stuff. Looks like molded styrofoam. Wish it was bigger.

Totally off topic but...

I've been pondering when to get my sons into Star Wars and realized I'm not sure the order I should introduce them to them, original trilogy first (the good ones) or numbered trilogy first (the embarrassment).

Maybe I should skip the later trilogy altogether.

I'm wondering why 'Red Mars, 'Blue Mars, 'Green Mars' (Kim Stanley Robinson) have been ignored. They seem like an obvious trilogy epic I would like to see.

Your video, 5 Minor Actors From The Original Star Wars Trilogy ..., has made it into the Top 15 New Videos listing. Congratulations on your achievement. For your contribution you have been awarded 1 Power Point.

Considering the dick-waiving that the whole Star Trek vs Star Wars thing always devolves into, I actually enjoyed the light-heartedness of this skit.

That said, the purpose of the stories told by each is meant to be completely different. That Star Wars goes for the simpler, classic hero's journey doesn't make it a lesser work, it just has a more singular focus, and the original trilogy did it well. But when you have a strong foundation like that, you really can't expand on it without losing a lot of the charm of the basic story. That's part of why the sequels were so disappointing. They couldn't retell the hero's journey without being a rehash, and by focusing on the hero's downfall, they had to up the complexity of the plot. But how complex can you make a plot before it just drags the movie down? (The exception was Clone Wars, which was able to circumvent this because it had more space to tell the story.)

This is why I am fairly certain that the new Star Wars movies will be lacking. They can either go the simple route and end up with a rehash, or the complex route, and end up with a similar mess to the prequels. There's a fine line they need to ride in order to make a good set of movies, but there are a lot of things working against them, from the expectations of the Star Wars fans, to the concessions writers have to make to appeal to the mass audience of modern movies. (To say nothing of Abrams, whose insultingly abysmal treatment of Star Trek gives me little confidence.)

Now on the Star Trek end, the stories are meant to be more complex, with commentaries on philosophy, modern politics, and the human condition (as well as showing the unique technological possibilities that the future held). Most of the stories were designed for introspection, and that's a major part of what made the show popular.

But if you lose that introspection and focus on action and special effects, the stories become empty. This is why many of the later movies, which again had to focus on mass appeal, were so lacking. (Movies like Wrath of Khan, Undiscovered Country, Generations, and First Contact avoided this because they were able to draw on the richness of the show to round out the themes they were trying to express, but even still, they weren't quite up to par to the shows when it came to the fundamental concepts of Star Trek.) The same goes for much of Voyager and Enterprise, which often ended up going more for appeal than intellect. (Perhaps the writers ran out of things to say, perhaps the audience just got dumber, who knows.)

So in the end, which one is nerdier? Star Trek, hands down, and as ChaosEngine said, it's a good thing.

Which one is better? That depends on what kind of story you're looking for.

But in the end, there's no denying . . .


Riker is a freaking boss.

classic right?
i think it is a better movie than the godfather trilogy.

I haven't seen The Hobbit 3 - do they talk about the Seven at all in the film? It would have been a great way to link the Hobbit films with the darker, bigger world of the LotR trilogy if Thorin had come into possession of one of them after Smaug was killed.

The indieflix link above has died, but archive.org has it - http://goo.gl/6fz17Z - and confirms the film is from Paul Whittington.

He has posted it on his yt channel... updating embed from that and also *length=598

Also, in the description, he has a dvd available from Amazon with this film and some others http://goo.gl/t7LFqG

Films included are:
- Android 207 (an android is trapped inside of a large maze)
- L19: Disposed (the last few minutes of an android's life)
- The Kitchen Trilogy (three films that showcase a menacing look at the baking, carving, and juicing of food)
- Inanimate Objects (when the humans are way the objects will play)
- Table Kid Kirby (a five part stop-motion animated series about a small clay man stuck on a table)
- Dead Fish (a wasteland of dead fish an those who feed on them)
- Isabel Knew Too Much (a friendly dog begins to comprehend the world around her)
- Plus more...

If only that were true.

This girl is 5 years old. Over the past 5 years, in every commercial she's seen on TV, on every magazine cover she's seen by the checkout counter when she's grocery shopping with her parents, in the majority of the cartoons she's watched and the dolls she's probably played with, in every reaction she's seen in adults' faces to how women dress and behave, she's been culturally programmed with and internalized what modern Western society deems as "beautiful."

It's unavoidable, really, as @Truckchase pointed out above. It's part of the socialization process. But if you've read about how Carrie Fisher struggled with body image issues and eating disorders throughout the filming of the original trilogy, then you probably (like me) find this video more tragic than cute.