attempt at a film review

2015 saw the release of two sequels to beloved classic movie trilogies, Jurassic World and Star Wars: The Force Awakens.
granted star wars had two trilogies but that's neither here nor there

spoilers for both movies naturally



Jurassic World once again tells the story of what happened when someone attempted to play God, revive the dinosaurs, and open a theme park based on it.
However, despite reusing the same basic premise as the original Jurassic Park, JW feels far more fresh and exciting than The Force Awakens does. Despite having the male lead be Chris Pratt (who, at the time I had first seen JW, had starred in the last three movies I'd watched*), and TFA having the leads be "literally who"s, JW feels far more fresh and exciting than The Force Awakens.
*If you were curious, the two movies I'd seen before JW were Guardians of the Galaxy and The LEGO Movie


The Force Awakens may technically "star" two new characters (Fin [black guy] and Rey [girl]), but the entire plot of the movie is to find Luke Skywalker/prevent the bad guys from finding Luke Skywalker.
TFA relies on coincidence after coincidence to move its plot along. The piece of the map to Luke's location happens to be on the same planet where the Millennium Falcon is. Han and Chewie happen to be nearby on a completely unrelated job when Rey and Finn steal the Millennium Falcon. Glasses Alien happens to have Anakin/Luke's lightsaber somewhere (and handwaves the explanation for how she has it).
All of these coincidences left a bad taste in my mouth when all was said and done.

Jurassic World's plot makes complete and total sense from A to B. Everyone who is there has a reason to be there, and even the park being built on the same site as the original Jurassic Park makes sense, since, you know, the dinosaurs are already there.



Jurassic World features a new wrinkle in the plot to keep it going: a genetically-engineered new breed of dinosaur. Of course, the scientists went mad with power and created the ultimate killing machine. This wrinkle gives the movie a unique plot element not in any of the other three movies. Of course, they plan to make Jurassic World a trilogy, so I might be saying the opposite about JW2.


The Force Awakens's plot is so similar to the original's, it isn't even funny.
>One main character is from a desert planet and happens to meet a small droid with important information on it
>Masked Sith villain who is blood-related to two separate main characters, one of whom is Princess Leia
>Masked Sith villain is ordered around by a mysterious grey master figure
>Masked Sith villain kills a mentor figure near the end
>Gigantic planet-destroying machine destroyed at the end of the movie by the rebel forces in their X-Wings
>Obviously going to have a sequel because the bad guy isn't dead


Kylo Ren is a bad villain. In his mask, he's an obvious attempt to recapture the popularity of Darth Vader. Without his mask, PFFFFFFFFHAHAHA what a faggot
"Son kills father" has never been done in Star Wars before I mean wow
On top of that, I saw that coming miles away. The entire scene lasted way too long for such an obvious conclusion.


And when Kylo Ren offered to make Rey his apprentice, giving her the revelation that she can just use the force there? Wow such great writing
And, naturally, the landmass shifts before Rey can land the killing blow, so we all know Kylo Ren will return in the next film. Why even fucking bother at this point?


the best part though was the ending i mean wow luke and rey staring at eachother for a minute or so man wow





Jurassic World took an old concept and breathed new life into it. There's not much you can do differently with the concept of "dinosaur theme park again", but they managed it.
The Force Awakens took an old concept and rehashed the shit out of it. There's so much you can do with an entire galaxy at your fingertips, but they didn't do any of that.



How did The First Order come into being? Where did Bad Guy come from? Why does he command the Storm Troopers? Why is there a "Republic" that only exists to be destroyed about a minute after they're first mentioned?



I'm not an amazing writer, but they could have done so much better than The Force Awakens, and now we're locked into a trilogy of it. Hopefully, they'll do some more interesting things with it and we won't have a rehash of the Yoda/Luke training in the sequel. bad guy is rey's father calling it now

I'm also not big on this whole Rogue One business. Leave the original trilogy alone, please. It doesn't need to be expanded upon, it's completely coherent the way it is. They're classic films for a reason.

I haven't seen Jurassic World yet (not sure if I ever will tho), but I was severely disappointed with TFA.

It was essentially the exact same plot as Ep 4. It was the very definition of Rehashing.
Though, the movie had a very Prequel feel to it. My theory is that it was that way (rehashed, boring background stories) intentionally in order to get people on board with the new director. I have hopes that the next few movies will go off in a different direction now that they've laid the ground work.