CinemaDome: Creed vs The Force Awakens

Mad Dog wrote: Kylo Ren is clearly a pawn of Snoke who is the real villain and basically nothing is known about him.

Yeah, I thought about that... Kind of like Darth Vader to the Emperor. But they still made Vader cool. Ren is no Vader.

I liked The Force Awakens when I saw it, even though little things niggled at me. As time wore on, more things didn't sit right with me and several grew my displeasure. TFA is entertaining fan service, but it misses the mark in too many ways and leaves me with an empty feeling. Fun, flawed, forgettable.

I had relatively low expectations for Creed. I wouldn't have seen it at all had it not been for the good reviews. It is a retread of the first Rocky, but updated and respectful. The bones were the same, but the meat around them was different enough to matter and give it depth. It's a solidly made film.

Vote: Creed

JonJacob wrote: It was self-aware and some of that worked. But I need better villains in this world.

This is so true.

The OT worked because the heroes had the force of nature, Vader, to contend with. Vader ran roughshod over three films. First he beat Obi-Wan, then he beat Luke, then, even when going out, he beat the Emperor.

The PT looked off to a good start with Maul being a silent assassin to Vader's brute force, but the series quickly fell apart. First Maul was beat, then Tyranus and Jango Fett, then Tyranus and General Grievous. It's like all the villains in the service of the PT Emperor were stooges in the Cobra organization...no one could get a win. This series needed Maul or someone to stick around and give the series some continuity or at least a solid foil and a little suspense.

Now we have the sequel-trilogy(?) and already the main villain is, again, defeated. This time it's even worse though because the character who defeated him makes every other character in this series timeline...worthless. She's the best pilot, mechanic, saber duelist, and force user. Can someone tell me why she's seeking help from Luke again? The writers also sacrificed the integrity of the OT characters for Rey. Leia's going to console her over Han's death instead of Han's life-pal, Chewie? whaaat?! A sobbing Leia and Chewie embracing would have brought the audience to its knees.

I left TFA thinking the series was trending in a worse direction than Phantom Menace left its trilogy.

Creed on the other hand, left me actually wanting to see the next episode in the series. Sure, this one was set up like Rocky, but with Conlan going to prison I don't expect we'll be seeing a Rocky 2 scenario playing out. Balboa on his way out hits home as the audience from his generation are also seeing their own mortality nearing. I don't think we've seen a long-term, real time character arc like this. The movie has weight. On top of that, the Adonis character and what he meant to Apollo's legacy was more interesting than Ray and her needless hype crew.

Mr. White wrote:

Jackwraith wrote:

Mr. White wrote: I know there is no prerequisite to voting...but I'm beginning to wonder if many F:ATties have seen Creed.

I haven't and, therefore, won't be voting.

well over 24hrs til polls close...watch it tonight!

Possible. If I don't make it and you're hurting for votes, this was my reaction to TFA last year: dichotomouspurity.blogspot.com/2015/12/t...aken-so-much-as.html

Lots of good points in your post and I see with both noticed the anachronism of the map. I removed it from my post because re-reading the post, I feel its inclusion diluted the point of the importance of SW villains and characters.

i bet if I had seen Creed I would have voted for that. I hear it's very good.

But TFW isn't terrible. Horrible villian, but that SpaceBalls scene was fantastic.It was a good laugh. And you can't go wrong with Oscar Issacs. Daisy Fuentes (or whatever her name is) was very good too.

Barney, you too?!

down here it's streaming on Amazon Prime. not sure if that means anything to you...

is that a river or something?

Creed: I haven't seen it. Apparently I am still allowed to vote on this dome despite my ignorance about one of the two movies. I am not generally a fan of boxing or boxing movies.

The Force Awakens: I like the new characters, but the whole movie was too familiar. Abrams basically took the plot points of the original Star Wars movie, and shuffled them like a deck of cards.

Vote: Creed, out of sheer spite for the unoriginality of The Force Awakens.

Originally it bothered me that TFA was like a re-imagined highlights reel of the original trilogy but now I believe it needed to be that way. Because this movie had to reboot the Star Wars franchise both to recover from the prequels and bring in a new generation of fans. You're probably thinking that the kids could just watch the originals and get into the franchise that way. Unfortunately the sad fact is that most people don't want to watch movies that came out decades before they were born. This includes Star Wars and many other now classic films that most of us grew up with. So TFA was half-sequel and half-reboot trying to please older fans while bringing in new ones. May not be ideal for us older fans, but I don't think Disney would have made it any other way. So I don't think the blame entirely lies on Abrams.

I've heard that theory before, Mad Dog, but I'm not sure how true it is.

I mean, between the time of Revenge of the Sith and The Force Awakens...tons of Star Wars merchandise was sold (toys, video games, board games, etc) and there was plenty of very highly rated media to consume in the form of the Clone Wars cartoon, Rebels cartoon, and recent comic books.

I just don't see a fan base that "went away", "wasn't there", or needed to be "brought back".

It's all a hunch though...

I thought Creed was fine, but I'm voting for the nostalgic spectacle that was A Force Awakens. It's not a fantastic movie, but watching it was a fantastic experience.

I'm trying to think of what would be more boring... another boxing movie or another film about Steve Jobs. Though I would watch either of those before I watched another "wizarding world" picture. I forget where I was going with this so it's definitely nap time.

Vote: BB-8 & Friends

I think JJ has the most convincing analysis.

Vote: DRUNKEN MASTER 2

My vote is for The Force Awakens. I enjoyed both movies and I thought both were good for rebooting their series with a new star.

The Force Awakens I thought was purposely done like the first in order to show that they can get the mood of the series right. I felt like they did that. Could it have been better, sure, but I walked out of it feeling hopeful for the new movies. Something I didn't feel for the prequels.

Additionally I didn't mind the reveal of Kylo Ren. Had they left it for later, then people would be complaining that it was too much like Empire. I thought it was a nice touch of him not being a bad ass in this movie. I'm hoping to see him grow more powerful and evil in the next two movies as a dark compliment to Rey (and agreed she needed to be at least unskilled at one thing, but granted all Skywalkers in the movies are Mary Sues, so why not her).

Creed almost took my vote for the fight in the middle of the movie that was done in a single take.