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Comment by wobbleblob | Hacker News Reader

> One of the most common refrains among ex-Disney staffers was that Disney had a strong aversion to risk.

Now why does that not surprise me. Disney stopped making art somewhere in the 1940's (fantasia) and started shipping product. I didn't share people's relief that the force awakens at least didn't suck like the prequels. The writing was so derivative as to almost make it a remake. Instead of Jar Jar Binks, the comic relief was Emo-Vader, but the comic relief shouldn't be the best part of the movie, and I'm not even sure if he was meant to be funny.

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Sorry, unless you're an angsty teen, you weren't meant to relate to emo-vader, er, Kylo Ren. You were meant to relate to Han Solo. But you'd only relate if you're a parent. If not, then I guess there's always Traitor-guy. Yes the new episode is derivative. That's because it is how epics are told. It will diverge on the next two episodes from the original trilogy, unless Disney gets scared... that would be a huge disappointment...

"Yes the new episode is derivative. That's because it is how epics are told"

What a load of bull. It is how bad sequels are told, "more of the same".

No, that's literally standard epic storytelling structure. This is Lit 101 stuff.

(citation needed)

> You were meant to relate to Han Solo

Funny coincidence: the other day my youngest stabbed me with her light saber

edit: spoiler alert. If you don't want to read spoilers, don't read the sentence above.

Yeah yeah keep making jokes but once you have a teenage son you'll understand D:

Wildly overrated movie. I tried rewatching it on a plane a couple weeks ago, and it really doesn't stand up to repeat viewings. Apparently there is a novelization that patches up all the many, many plot points that were unexplained or made no sense in the movie script, but the movie is really just another lazy JJ Abrams production. Then you notice how, like Jurassic World, nearly every scene is a blatant callback to something from the original film.

Unfortunately, you could package two hours of film of an actual gold-plated turd, and it would make a billion dollars if it had the Star Wars name on it.

I was very confused by the good reviews too, it was literally the exact same story as A New Hope.

I don't hold much hope for the next films.

Not exactly the same story. It wasn't the plans for Death Star mk.III that were hidden in the cute robot this time.

To be fair, my wife liked it because the protagonist action hero was a girl, which is original in the genre I guess.

I agree but I look at it as palate cleaner after the prequels, that being said in episode 8 Finn better not end up in carbonite.

The film had the impossible task of pleasing both old and new viewers of the franchise. It succeeded immensely in that regard, old viewers could recognize the nods to the old trilogy, while new viewers were presented with a very well made film that (in my opinion) surpasses the original trilogy in literally every way. If I had to rate it I would definitely rate it higher than new hope.

I didn't say it wasn't well made, I didn't like the writing. There were so many nods to the old trilogy that my neck started to hurt.

Spoiler alert!

Young adventurer on a desert planet unaware of their Jedi powers?

Resourceful, commanding, brutally competent as well as sexy young princess?

Help from a reluctant rogue with his hairy side kick, on the run from crime lord that he tried to swindle?

A tall masked dark side antagonist, apprentice of a mysterious emperor type guy?

An evil empire vs a rebel alliance?

Secret plans hidden in robot?

Quest to find hermit Jedi master?

Quest to destroy a planet killing Death Star?

The most original part of the writing was merging the adventurer and the princess into one character and making the Vader part an annoying teenager.

I agree with all of the above, but I don't see any of that as a problem. I would not hold "too similar to new hope" as an issue with this film. If anything, it was a good thing in my opinion.

No way that a film as mediocre as that can be comparable to the original trilogy. Saying that it is even better is a complete nonsense.

I love the original trilogy. I really do, my nostalgia towards it is very strong. But if you take off the nostalgia-tinted glasses for a second, you will see that original trilogy(ROTJ especially) has very poor dialogue, the filming and pacing is passable. ESB is the best of the three, but Force Awakens is easily on par with that film, and definitely better than ewok-filled ROTJ.

Rogue One looks somewhat promising - but it is going in a little bit different direction as a stand-alone spinoff, not having to carry the weight of the franchise.

Although I still think any movie called Rogue One should be about Rogue Squadron and Wedge Antilles... But then again, I really fell in love with Star Wars reading the X-Wing novel series.

Imo it is not very surprising, classical hype machine thing to the t. Even if we don't need to be told what to like, it is easier to play along and pretend we enjoyed it, even convince ourselves it was good, than admitting we were lead on and it is pretty bland. Of course, Occam is screaming every time a big budget IP blockbuster is coming, we just prefer not to pay attention. Without hindsight I might add.

The next films will play out the same I have no doubts about them. Emperor's new clothes and all that. Not disrespecting anyone who will genuinely like them of course.

> it is easier to play along and pretend we enjoyed it, even convince ourselves it was good, than admitting we were lead on and it is pretty bland

Even easier than this is to actually enjoy things. I didn't like it myself, but I'm happy to believe that my friends did.

Why do you claim people are pretending to like TFA but not the prequels?

They were never actually excited for the prequels, and/or it's long enough ago that they forgot the buildup to the prequels.

I don't think I have claimed that, but I believe it is more apparent in this case because TFA is the copy/remake/homage

> I don't think I have claimed that

True, but you are claiming that people are pretending to like TFA, and presumably you don't think people are pretending to like the prequels. It's rare to hear anything good about the prequels.

What's the "it" that's more apparent?

I mean the skewing effect of a cult following on the perception of the movie's qualities is more apparent here. I believe when someone is a fan they is already invested and hence incentivized to like/defend a movie/brand/franchise. Which is true for the prequels too btw. However TFA being merely a remake makes it objectively inferior imo, as I think people rate original artistic works higher (at least I do). A fact, which is not really reflected nor in its commercial, neither in its critical success. All that said, I might be just arguing about taste and trying to rationalizing my dislike for TFA.

It sounds like you're saying the effect is more apparent because TFA is bad. But the effect you claim is that people pretend (to themselves or others) to like works that have a brand or franchise or cult following behind them. And you admit that the prequels have that too.

But then we would expect people to either like or pretend to like the prequels. And we don't see that. The prequels are widely disdained. And you haven't explained why the prequels don't get the same pretense as TFA.

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