6 minutes ago, Oberon_Command said:

DID he use the lightsaber to block blaster bolts? I don't remember that... I was thinking of this scene: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZoiRJnr-rtU

No he didn't. I'm absolutely certain of this.

Also, just to add some more credence to my point on the OT trilogy plot holes:

https://screenrant.com/star-wars-original-trilogy-plot-holes/

EDIT: I want to note that not all of these are great points, but some of them I have noticed as well. I also want to note that I'm not trying to knock on the original trilogy but more trying to make the point that the new movies aren't extremely far below the standard set by the original trilogy.

I think the reason they made this movie along with having Han Solo feature in Force Awakens is because the prequels were critized for having too much politics and jedi shenanigans, and not enough Han Solo - i.e. fun, humour and charisma.

Harrison Ford only returned for Force Awakens on condition that Han be killed off and given a substantial paycheck.  Taking a guess I don't think he liked the role after being subjected to the Holiday Special( could you honestly blame the poor man )...of which we will never speak of again.  To get around Ford's reluctance for the role, they had no choice but to look for other actors, and a "young Han" movie made a lot of sense, not to mention they had the A.C Crispin trilogy to use as a rough guide.  Solo, along with Rogue One are stories LucasFilm have wanted to tell since at least the 90s, and have done so in many different forms.

So to be fair, Disney and LucasFilm have responded to the fans who wanted Han Solo to return to SW. They wanted Han and Chewie flying around in the beloved Millenium Falcon, once again.  While Solo may have only just broken even on its budget the reception is at least positive.  Disney may have not recovered their advertising costs but they spent too little too late for a movie they were expecting huge returns from.

Regarding Ren and the lightsaber... my impression was always that he was powerful but lacking finesse. 

Everything about his character up to that point screams this.... the crossguard lightsaber is a great example. It's a shoddily constructed mess with unnecessary ornamentation. It's the Star Wars equivalent of a mall bought katana with a dragon on it.

There's nothing in TFA that actually establishes him as being any good with a lightsaber. Even the "stopping a bolt in mid air" is really good characterisation. Every other force user we've ever seen, would either deflect it with a saber or just quietly absorb it (Vader in the Empire dinner scene). Ren goes out of his way to do the most flashy thing he can, but we also don't see him deflect the bolt. 

He's a fanboy that desperately wants to impress the ghost of his idol.

The movie really isn't subtle about this. 

Even the throne room fight scene.... do you really think Vader would have had that much trouble? Ren is just not that good with a lightsaber and neither is Rey.

23 minutes ago, Oberon_Command said:

 

As for why you'd have a melee weapon on a battlefield as a stormtrooper... maybe their guns break easily and they need a backup weapon. Modern soldiers carry bayonets, too.

"maybe" sounds like a hand-wave again.  We didn't see storm-troopers in any of the previous movies walking around with melee weapons. The point is to get away with even wielding a hand to hand weapon as your primary on the battlefield and not instantly being killed, you would have to have super human skill  and/or abilities.   Therefore it can be assumed that Kylo Ren had the requisite skill.

 

27 minutes ago, Gnollrunner said:

We didn't see storm-troopers in any of the previous movies walking around with melee weapons.

So what? Again, it's worth noting that the Galactic Empire and the First Order are not the same organization. Probably also worth noting that TFA takes place 30 years after ROTJ. I don't think the First Order troopers need to be constrained by the legacy of the Empire troopers.

I can't remember seeing any stormtroopers with flamethrowers in the original trilogy, either.

27 minutes ago, Gnollrunner said:

The point is to get away with even wielding a hand to hand weapon as your primary on the battlefield and not instantly being killed, you would have to have super human skill  and/or abilities.

Which stormtroopers in the film have a hand-to-hand weapon as their primary weapon? Even the stormtrooper who used that electric rod thingy threw his blasters down first. Finn is only using a lightsaber in that scene because he doesn't have any other weapon.

8 hours ago, Oberon_Command said:

Which stormtroopers in the film have a hand-to-hand weapon as their primary weapon? Even the stormtrooper who used that electric rod thingy threw his blasters down first. Finn is only using a lightsaber in that scene because he doesn't have any other weapon.

Sorry but to me the whole thing struck me as completely stupid.  While there are some holes in the old films they  weren't so glaring for me that I instantly rolled my eyes when watching the movies.  No soldier  is going to throw away his perfectly good ranged weapon so he can have melee combat in the middle of a shooting war. That's suicide. Furthermore they wouldn't even be carrying a bloated useless weapon like this into combat. You would carry a backup hand gun (like they do now). That fight should have been over in a couple seconds with Finn being dead. Again, the only way the Jedi/Sith get away with it, is that they are so incredibly skilled they can block incoming blaster bolts.

1 hour ago, Gnollrunner said:

Sorry but to me the whole thing struck me as completely stupid.  While there are some holes in the old films they  weren't so glaring for me that I instantly rolled my eyes when watching the movies.  No soldier  is going to throw away his perfectly good ranged weapon so he can have melee combat in the middle of a shooting war. That's suicide. Furthermore they wouldn't even be carrying a bloated useless weapon like this into combat. You would carry a backup hand gun (like they do now). That fight should have been over in a couple seconds with Finn being dead. Again, the only way the Jedi/Sith get away with it, is that they are so incredibly skilled they can block incoming blaster bolts.

Welcome to the world of movie magic, where in order for something cool to happen, logic is told where the door is and how to use it.

Speaking of which, why didnt they just put the dinosaurs in Fallen Kingdom on Site B, the neighbouring island?

1 minute ago, Anri said:

 

Welcome to the world of movie magic, where in order for something cool to happen, logic is told where the door is and how to use it.

Of course, but there is some median between wanting something cool to happen and things making sense.   If stuff that is too ridiculous happens, what's cool is no longer cool. That line is different for different people and also for different genres of films.  A successful action film should draw that line in a good place (whatever that means) ....

In general I think Star Wars is crap now. IMO it's been surviving on it's past reputation, the same way an old band gets by when it puts out a sub-par album.  However that won't last forever. With Solo we are already seeing signs of its decline and I think this is likely driven by backlash from the TLJ. For me SW has been ruined to the point that it doesn't matter if Solo is good or not, since the SW universe sucks now. In any case, it will be interesting to see what happens to SW in the future.

13 hours ago, ChaosEngine said:

Regarding Ren and the lightsaber... my impression was always that he was powerful but lacking finesse. 

 

Where was it ever established that someone who is awesome with the force is a bad at light sabering? Even the Emperor and Yoda who had not really used light sabers in the original movies, turned out to be light saber masters in the prequels. And the originals never claimed that they were bad at it.

So we have a universe in which it is set up that every Force master is a light saber master. And Kylo Ren isn't. Ok, I'd be willing to accept that *IF* there was something alluding to this in the script ... Even in hindisght... (Luke could have made a comment about training him) But there isn't. So being able to stop a blaster while losing light saber fights to Noobs seems like a plot hole. Not like a deep message about his character.

2 hours ago, Anri said:

Welcome to the world of movie magic, where in order for something cool to happen, logic is told where the door is and how to use it.

I don't accept that. Think about it: The entire concept of lightsabers is preposterous. People are using them in the age of ranged weapons and bombs. And the only reason they were invented was that you could have sword fights in a sci-fi movie. It's just silly. But that is called "suspension of disbelief". In order to get me to suspend my disbelief, the original writers show them to be: Exceptionally powerful, able to block blaster shots, and also kind of magic ( you use them with the force ). The moment you violate those well established story rules, then my disbelief is gone and it becomes silly again. Following the last 2 movies' logic  some glaring questions come to mind:

1. Why doesn't everyone just use light sabers? ( unless the big reveal is that Flinn was a force-wielder all along)
2. Why doesn't the empire use more powerful weapons (if it's so easy to block a light saber now that any empire grunt has access to this electric anti-lightsaber device.
   1. Why didn't he just use another light saber?

I would be content if the movie even provided some silly "plot device" justifications (such as the "force" in the first movie ). But the writers couldn't even be bothered to do that. They seemed more concerned with just keeping the story in motion, and bombarding you with new info so they don't have to justify the old. 

6 hours ago, Gnollrunner said:

While there are some holes in the old films they  weren't so glaring for me that I instantly rolled my eyes when watching the movies.

I really object to this. We really need to stop putting all of the old films onto a pedestal here. The old films had plenty of unbelievable plot holes. Tiny teddy bears killing Stormtroopers in battle armor by throwing sticks and rocks at them? That was beyond ridiculous. Why does the Emperor leak literally everything to the rebels to spring his trap in the last movie? That seems a bit risky, no? How the hell does Luke have the necessary knowledge to duke it out in a dogfight in a military space-combat vehicle when he's never even left the planet of Tatooine, let alone piloted a spacecraft? Why would anyone sink all that time and money into building a weapon that is so obviously vulnerable (explained only in Rogue One, not the OT)? Why did they not destroy that escape pod as it jettisoned from the Tantive IV in a universe literally filled with non organic beings known as droids?

This list could go on and I haven't even gotten into the prequels, where there are plot-holes galore. 

Padme still loves a guy who essentially admits to being a mass murderer?? What? How the hell does nobody notice that there's a massive clone army being built? How do none of the Jedi not notice a Sith infiltrating the political structures of the Republic? How the hell does Anakin lose because of 'the high ground'? Better yet, how the hell did Yoda lose? Why did those star systems leave the Republic anyways? 

Now hold on, this sounds like nit-picking, but that's exactly my point. Look hard enough and there are a ton of holes in the original movies as well.

Again, it's absolutely your opinion to like or dislike the new movies, but can we at least stop enshrining the old movies as films without noticeable unbelievable plot holes?

7 hours ago, Gnollrunner said:

Sorry but to me the whole thing struck me as completely stupid.  While there are some holes in the old films they  weren't so glaring for me that I instantly rolled my eyes when watching the movies.  No soldier  is going to throw away his perfectly good ranged weapon so he can have melee combat in the middle of a shooting war. That's suicide. Furthermore they wouldn't even be carrying a bloated useless weapon like this into combat. You would carry a backup hand gun (like they do now). That fight should have been over in a couple seconds with Finn being dead. Again, the only way the Jedi/Sith get away with it, is that they are so incredibly skilled they can block incoming blaster bolts.

Blasters work really poorly against lightsabers though. That's been fairly well established. Yes, Finn isn't a force user, but he's already killed one other person with it by the time the other melee weapon wielding Stormtrooper arrives. Now remember this: by the time the First Order is real, the Jedi technically aren't extinct anymore. It is a conceivable threat that First Order troopers would have to face down Jedi. So they'd be trained to take down targets that wield lightsabers. Knowing fully well that shooting at a lightsaber armed opponent means potentially having those shots come back at you, you'd probably last longer with a melee weapon that is capable of blocking a lightsaber. It'd make sense to switch to that melee weapon, especially if the target in question has already killed another guy with it. Sure they know Finn was a former trooper but they don't know if Finn has any training with the lightsaber. 

Though I hate to pull out lore books, here's a quote from a novel:

Quote

The instructors demonstrated the use of each weapon, the vibro-axes and shock staffs and force pikes and resonator maces, elaborating at length on the respective strengths and weaknesses of each and when and how to employ them to best effect. They explained the composite alloys used to make the weapons, how some of the equipment was strong enough to block even a lightsaber. FN-2187 wondered about that—not whether it was true but whether or not they would ever be expected to fight someone who used a lightsaber. 

5 hours ago, Gnollrunner said:

With Solo we are already seeing signs of its decline and I think this is likely driven by backlash from the TLJ.

That is debatable. There was a heavily crowded release schedule at that time, not to mention that the last SW film was only 6 months old, and, of course, most people weren't super interested in a Han Solo movie anyways. As for the TLJ drop itself, the same thing was observed with The Empire Strikes Back and The Attack of the Clones: part 2 movies always see a bit of a drop. 

This is a pretty good summary of all possibilities which includes the whole 'backlash'. 

I personally have doubts that this any indication of a 'backlash'. 

3 hours ago, SillyCow said:

I would be content if the movie even provided some silly "plot device" justifications (such as the "force" in the first movie ). But the writers couldn't even be bothered to do that. They seemed more concerned with just keeping the story in motion, and bombarding you with new info so they don't have to justify the old. 

I think we do need to remember it's only a 2 hour long or so movie. How much more can you possibly add in? The amount of complaints people have had would probably lead to a documentary film than a new Star Wars movie. 

Although @Oberon_Command, you did mention you had your complaints about the Force Awakens, what were they? I'm curious since I had my complaints as well.