My understanding of the Kessel Run is that the greater the skill of the pilot and speed of the ship, the shorter/more straight the run... Possibly because the route is populated by black holes.
Nothing much new I can contribute, but it did follow the 1st trilogy a little too much for my taste. It was entertaining and the dialogue was much better imo. I liked how they made the dialogue a little more with how we converse today. Like when Finn is saying "I'm the boss now, I'm the boss now, who's the boss'' or something to that effect and Han is like, "alright that's enough" I liked the little bit of comedy that was injected by the characters to sort of shed a little light in times of extreme stress and conflict. Kinda of like normal people would in those situations. Like when Joe Montana famously pointed out, "hey there's John Candy!" in the huddle when the 49ers were behind in their final drive of SB22. I do have a little deja vu, not necessarily in a good way, of seeing Phantom Menace. I feel like Ep 8 will make or break whether I will ultimately like Ep 7 or not in years to come. The big difference is ep 7 didn't make the same mistake and move too slowly like ep 1 did. It also had more character development than Ep 1. I'm much more of a plot kinda guy. The characters and dialogue were good and are an important aspect, but I'm much bigger on the plot. The originals were a pretty good mix of all three. The prequels had a decent plot, although they moved too slowly, but dialogue was horrible and characters were only so-so. This one could've done wonders for me as far as being more original and diverting from the original trilogy by just changing a few relatively minor things. Like, have Rey be not on a desert planet just like Luke was in the original. Why have the 1st order chasing around a droid just like in the original? (btw, no real explanation of the origin of the map to Luke either). BB8 could've just been Rey's droid and the map could've been just given to Poe. I'm also not crazy about how Finn, Rey and BB8 just happened to stumble onto the Millennium Falcon. I thought that was a little too "convenient" and co-incidental. I think they could've had them meet Han and Chewy in a different way. I really like the characters, though. There is so much they can do with Finn and Rey. I also like how they made Ren show weakness. It leaves room for him, who is much younger than Vader was in the originals, to grow and become more evil and powerful. You see glimpses of his temper and anger. That can be used for further development of his sinister abilities. Overall, this film can be a great set up for 8 and 9 to really knock it out of the park, but they need to be more original with them imo.
When I first described my feelings on the movie with friends I said it lacked character development but someone here said it even better. Not so much the lack of development but it seemed rushed. It was like hurrying from this part to get to the next. The blatant homage to the original trilogy aside, I thought it was pretty good.
I tend to believe that those first steps were her training as a youngling and the "past" where she sees the person (Troll Cin Drallig?) get killed by the lightsaber in the back, could be her memories of those. And remember when they landed on Starkiller base, Rey said she had never seen such greenery before. I think she was re-programmed and memories erased to keep her safe. Since we know all of it is a re-hash then we should also believe that the people who raised her were just the same as Aunt Beru and Uncle Owen were to Luke.
I just saw it last night, and I agree with you fully. Was okay, but my least fav SW so far. Agree with lack of character development of Ren. It was also a bit too convenient how some of the characters come together for the first time, on multiple occasions - when Fin lands on Jakku and immediately finds the droid and Rey and when Han Solo draws in Millenium Falcon out of nowhere. Thought Rey and Fin's characters were developed pretty well, and they seemed to have good chemistry.
