New Republic was kinda unnecessary, agreed, it's already a huge deal that all the boundless optimism of the first trilogy is kinda brought to reality when it becomes apparent that killing the Emperor didnt just destroy the Empire overnight.
I feel dirty for even saying it because ever since the prequels i've wanted less CGI and more real locations, but that final planet was just Scotland... I mean, that island with the stone steps and the entire background... quite clearly Scotland. Even putting a filter on the sky or adding some shitty very distant alien birds or something might have helped. I hate saying this since they did a great job and the filming looked stunning, but it was still quite obviously Scotland and not an alien world.
On the subject of CGI, why was that meaningful and potentially really important alien in the bar CGI? Every single other thing in that room was a puppet or costume but the one they interact with looks like they animated Edna from the Incredibles ontop of the film.
The characters were great tho. Like with Loki in the marvel films, i like it when the villain seems unstable and out of their depth, it makes them seem more dangerous than if they're this awesome epitome of all that is evil and totally in control 100% of the time. PS. I totally heard my buddy Alec Guinness Obi Wan in one scene, checked afterwards, they sampled him saying 'afraid' and cut it down so that he's saying 'Rey' :DDD
Yeah, I caught the obiwan quote also, then read up on it... pretty neat. Also, I must admit I didn't really catch Ewan's contribution to it though, was really well done. But overall, an awesome scene when you consider the possibility that obiwan basically spoke directly to her. It wasn't just the "memories" of the saber or anything flooding her mind, it was obiwan himself, since he obviously knew no one else by the name of rey (that we know of). And yeah, agreed on the Scotland planet. So cheesy that Luke was "trying to find the first temple" and he ends up basically as you said, in Scotland, a place that conveniently has old ruins already.
Speaking of where Luke headed... why the hell do they need a MAP to find him? Shouldn't they just need to know the exact planet? That's one thing I never understood with the star wars universe, especially in the EU they always go on about hyperspace trading routes and such. Like, what? Just go in a more-or-less straight line from planet A to B at ultra-lightspeed. Not very difficult imo. But apprently they need special routes to follow just to get from one planet to another? Maybe hyperspace works like jet streams/ocean currents... going with the wind will make you go faster than against it, who knows. Not to mention that with the whole map thingy, it led rey to a single planet if she followed it. I mean, cmon. "Yes hi, my name is Jona and I reside on planet earth. Come find me." Yeah, good luck searching a whole planet for me. Maybe Luke was literally the only single living thing on that planet and she used infrared scanners to find him, idk. I guess it might just be the whole "will of the force" sorta thing, since a similar thing happened with luke finding yoda in ep 5 after all, and we didn't really question it then. But really, needing a map to lead her to a specific planet, that whole plot point was kinda cheesy. Personally I woulda preferred that BB8 held some sort of encrypted data and R2 the key to the encryption so when put together it just gave away the name of the planet.
Also, I'm not really certain about kylo yet. On one hand I definitely agree that I like how he's tormented and kinda regretting his decision to be evil, and yet it kinda came across as almost too angsty and reminiscent of good ole anakin (which he is trying to take after I suppose, but cmon.) At least adam driver is a way better actor so it didn't have such a stiff delivery. Kinda strange also that they have a 30-something year old actor trying to portray some angsty teenager (okay, he probably isnt meant to be a teen, but he sure came across like one, especially with all the makeup and such to make him seem young-er) when han solo definitely seems old enough to just have a 30 yr old kid running around. But then again, do we even know how many years passed between rotj and tfa?
