The Force has been awakened

What else would you do with your plus hours from work if not to go to the movies in the middle of the day? This way we didn't need to worry about who looks after the project assistant or anything of the sort. Oh, and for a change I got to use some of those hours to do something fun instead of taking care of some business or another.

The Force Awakens

Spoilerlessness

I hadn't specially avoided the spoilers but I also didn't seek them. Avoiding absolutely everything (re: my approach to RotS) is something I didn't feel like attempting, especially as my assumption was that we wouldn't see the movie before it got released on dvd. Surprisingly only a couple of headlines got through anyway (both were about Kylo Ren's family relationships), but who cares?

At some early point I did read some very, very odd speculations that I encountered here and there. Their sources were either attention-seeking fakes or otherwise idiotic, as the "spoilers" or "rumours" were so very braindead. I guess that's the reason I didn't bother with the spoilers. I got fed up with these unknown idiots fooling around and just ignored them.

The movie experience

Sadly there were only those repeatedly cursed 3d versions on in places we'd get to easily at tolerable times. My everyday life is already three-dimensional so I'm more than happy to watch moving pictures on flat surfaces. Especially as the normal movies don't require ill-fitting, annoying and inconvenient plastic frames to be worn - and the image looks natural. Or at least I find the 3d effect always either very cardboard-y and all the "hey, it's in 3d!" moments look so very purposefully set (roller coasters, throwing stuff at the viewer, the nose of a space cruiser coming out of the screen).

In very short: I liked the movie. As usual, there were things to mumble about, but nothing really serious. I'll start with the cons so that's done then.

-

Underlining events with music. I really can't stand how certain references to the OT just couldn't be left on the screen but there had to be a tune from the OT, a tune that didn't fit the rest of the soundtrack at all.

The music was totally unmemorable, excluding the theme and the aforementioned short bits. I keep assuming that there was something on the background all the time... I guess,

There may have been more parallels to the OT (or ANH) than what the minimum requirements demanded. One thing that especially caught me off guard was the Starkiller Base (I was wondering if they had mixed some stuff from the EU just for the fun of it (Suncrusher + something else), as a nod to those of us who meddled with the books as well?). Then again, I don't think my reaction would've been much different in any other case, as the Empire had more superweapons than the Germans in the Commando comics, so it'd been a bit of a challenge to come up with something totally new and original ;)

+

TIE fighters with their howling. Also, you can call me mad but I think they also referred to the awesome TIE Fighter game (Mag Pulse missiles, avoiding the concussion missiles ...), the troop transports / assault transports had been slightly updated over the years, I guess.

X-Troopers or Stormtroopers, the new Flametroopers and what else they had. Awesome. I also loved the combat drop that we saw in the trailer. For a change they also had !main characters as their targets so they got to hit something.

The lightsabering was also nice. Or actually it was horrible, which was great, as a nice opposite to the acrobatics of the PT's fights with the skills honed over a lifetime. You know, this "I'm gonna chop you to bits with this cool new weapon right now, damnit!" attitude.

The insurgents apparently weren't the great winners of the galactic civil war and the resulting rulers of the galaxy far, far away - very unlikely what happened in the now non-canon EU. Whatever the balance of power is between these parties (the successor of the Galactic Empire vs. the pitiful rebel band) remains a mystery, but I assume (or is this wishful thinking?) that it's more tied than not.

Very importantly the galaxy isn't as small as it has been before and what could've been expected! For a change (this being the second time in a series of seven movies) no one sets their foot on Tatooine. That alone should be worth throwing a party :p

...

I guess there's plenty more but these came to me right now and I don't really think that anyone's that interested in reading what I thought of this stuff. So I'll cut the crap now and won't even try to analyze anything, as that never works out (that is, I hate peole analyzing movies, books and whatnot)

Oh and we don't have to wait further than until the next year to see the Ep VIII? Himmel.

/fanboy