The Panda

People are nitpicking so hardcore, it's not even funny. It's not like the phantom menace, most of these "flaws" aren't flaws at all, they only look like flaws because it's leaving questions to be answered for the sequels. Imagine watching Empire Strikes Back and being like, "Wth, Yoda is just some cop out. Why is a Jedi master hiding??" Or, "It's lazy writing to bring Obi Wan back as a ghost," or, "How is a barely trained kid holding his own with Vader?" Or "How convenient that Han found Luke on time, plot shield, lol!" Theres even more you could say about a New Hope or Return of the Jedi in that manner, and then the prequels are another story. Ill be seeing this movie a few times, maybe the "critics" view of it will be apparent. But honestly my only major criticism is the Death Star thing, and even that might have a reason going on. The movie's great, there's a reason it has phenomenal reviews and audiences are loving it. And no, not everyone besides you are blind by the hype, maybe they simply liked a well made movie?

Yeah, I don't understand complaints about him at all. He was a very fleshed out character and Adam Driver did a great job. I rarely see villains as well-crafted as he was. Even if you compare him to Vader, Vader in a New Hope isn't nearly as fleshed out as Kylo. It took 3 movies (or 6 even) and so much expanded universe stuff to make him as complex as he is today. The Force Awakens did a better job with Kylo (for a single movie basis), then A New Hope did with Vader. However to be fair, ESB is what really made Vader great. I'm eager to see how he grows.

Think about it this way, if you show up whim of the moment you're going to get bad seats anyways. You know an hour out? You have a chance to get decent seats, maybe not for Star Wars, but any other movie? Yeah. I got my Jurassic World tickets a few hours out, spur of the moment thing, reserved seat and didn't have to worry about lines for a seat. Theyre worth it.

1.The Force Awakens - A+ 2.The Avengers - A 3.Jurassic World - A- 4.Iron Man 3 - B 5.Age of Ultron - B-

What if Rian makes the crowd pleaser and Colin delivers the dark depth?

So 119m 68m 60m My overly optimistic calculations Mon: 40.2m (-33%) Tue: 44.2m (+10%) Wed: 36.7m (-17%) Thu: 31.2m (-15%) 400m 1st week total Fri: 64m (+105%) Sat: 51.2m (-20%) Sun: 44.5m (-13%) 159.7m 2nd Weekend (-35.5%) 559.9m 10 Day total Mon: 27.6m (-38%) Tue: 32.6m (+18%) Wed: 27.1m (-17%) Thu: 20.3m (-25%) 667.5m 2 Week Total, 2015 Total Fri: 45.7m (+125%) Sat: 41.1m (-10%) Sun: 32.9m (-20%) 119.7m 3rd Weekend 787.2m Over Avatar in three weeks

Given holiday shopping, the full OW potential was probably even higher if it opened say a week earlier or in the Summer. Legs will be great though.

Star Wars only needs a 3.07x multi to take the DOM crown and it's next two weekends are huge Christmas and New Years.

It's astonishing how Actuals went up by about 10m.

2.1m under 250m

I like that he took his mask off. Kylo isn't Vader, he's a kid desperately trying to be like Vader. The mask is a show and I think it helps add humanity to show that early on. He isnt a Sith Lord, he's a guy with an internal struggle going down the wrong path.

About a month from now, we'll get to track the sequel to a forum favorite, even bigger than The Force Awakens...

121m Monday, beat the Friday record.

This is not the number you were looking for.

Point Break - 7m Joy - 15m Daddys Home - 14m Concussion - 12m The Big Short - 17m

Eagerly anticipating actuals...

I just find it funny how the complaints of a "Mary Sue" character in Star Wars only arise when it's a female character who's the Jedi.

A Beasts of No Nation Bridge of Spies Creed Ex Machina Inside Out Jurassic World Mad Max: Fury Road The Peanuts Movie Spotlight Star Wars: The Force Awakens B Ant-Man Avengers: Age of Ultron The Best of Enemies Brooklyn The DUFF Everest Furious 7 Going Clear: Scientology and the Prison of Belief The Good Dinosaur Kingsman: The Secret Service The Last 5 Years The Martian Mission Impossible: Rogue Nation Sicario Slow West Spectre The Walk C Cinderella Chappie Crimson Peak The Hunger Games: Mockingjay Part 2 Minions No Escape Pitch Perfect 2 Ricki and the Flash Terminator: Genisys Vacation War Room The Wolfpack D Blackhat Descendants Do I Sound Gay? Get Hard Insurgent Jupiter Ascending Max The Man From U.N.C.L.E Mortdecai Pixels T3ken Tomorrowland F Fantastic Four Fifty Shades of Grey Hot Pursuit In The Heart of the Sea Pan Paul Blart: Mall Cop 2 Paranormal Activity: The Ghost Dimension Seventh Son

The I loved it! It felt very new and refreshing, to ally and visually it was evident it was a new trilogy from the last two, but that's not a negative. What I Loved 1.The new alien designs were really fun, they really expanded the world and created a distinct universe that feels changed since we last saw Star Wars (which it should, that's one thing the prequels did well, it felt like a different period in that universe's history. The different look and feel helped a lot) 2.Daisey Ridley, John Boyega, and Oscar Isaac were all great in their roles, and cemented their like ability as soon as they came on screen. They were vividly fun characters, lots of personality, and very personable. You want to root for them as soon as you meet them. JJ arguably does better characterization here than Lucas did for any human character besides Solo. 3.The film is gorgeous to look at, albeit I was watching it in true IMAX, but it is gorgeous. The production design is gorgeous, and seeing the environments was like a wet dream. 4.Harrison Ford was great in his role, it was a shot of joy to see him and Chewie working again. It really seemed like Han Solo aged, he's not the exact Solo of the OT but that's a good thing! He should be different, it's been 30+ years. 5.The lightsaber fights were beautiful. I also didn't have a problem with the end fight. Kylo was no Sith Lord, it was evident he lacked completed training, he lacked the control that menacing Sith Lords like Vader had. He was also shot and injured, and while he was obviously using the pain (which was great characterization), it was going to weaken him. Plus, I think there's more to Rey's past, I think she has some force experience (it seemed to be a recall when she heard the force, like when she heard it, she knew what to do.). So until we know her past for certain, I'm not going to complain about her whooping a very raw and uncontrolled Ren or her Jedi mind trick. 6.While on the topic of Ren, I'm going to mention the star of the movie for me. Adam Driver was incredible as a villain, he was what I wanted Anakin to be more like when becoming Darth Vader. He's a conflicted boy, and he's really not as great as he makes himself out to be (which I loved). He was a human villain, and a very unique one for Star Wars, instead of being a badass Sith Lord he was just a guy desperately trying to be. You could tell Snoke was using him, but he was so desperate to have the power of his grandfather that he just let him. You could tell he was losing his mind and while he had a lot of raw power, he had absolutely no control over his emotions (which is something a lowly trained Sith would be like). You can tell the conflict, but you also despise him at the same time in a Joffrey Baratheon type of way. He's menacing in his own way, and when Han Solo confronts him, you rightfully fear for Han's life. If I nominated an actor for an Oscar from this film, it would be Adam Driver. His performance has the most nuance and depth to them, beating out Harrison Ford's solid performance. 7.As for fearing for Han Solo's life, that scene was devasting. It was the most effective death scene in any Star Wars movie, in fact one of the most gut-wrenching death scenes I've probably seen period. This rivaled some of Game of Throne's most iconic death scenes and the power of them. You have a heightened sense of anxiety the entire scene, and the longer the scene lasts, the more it builds that anxiety. There's also the emotional power of seeing Han as such a different person from the OT, seeing the guy who always was kind of a runner go up to his son hoping he could save him was emotional. You can see the conflict on Adam Driver's face, and the sadness and desperateness in Han's. And when Ford is finally stabbed, it's a punch to the heart to see one of your favorite characters get murdered in such a cruel way. That pain only twists harder when you hear Chewbacca's scream. Also, the way they used the lighting as a symbol to show hope when Han tried to save his son, and despair when his own son killed him and cemented his path to the dark side was a great effect. One of the most powerful scenes is the franchise. 8.BB-8 was hilarious, and the bits we got from C-3PO were still pretty fun. I want to see a BB-8 and R2-D2 road trip comedy spin off. What I Liked 1.John Williams score was nice, it wasn't as good as I have come to expect from him, but it was an effective score. 2.I liked a lot of the new alien designs and such, but at times, they did look a bit like a fan-creation rather than the actual Star Wars world. It was kind of like watching part of the Expanded Universe in movie form. I like a lot of that, because there's some great things in the EU, but I also kind of wish it could have felt a bit more Star Warsy and less video gamey. However, don't take that as me comparing the visuals to a video game, because I'm not. The visuals are great 3.Carrie Fisher was good in her role, she probably was the weakest out of the big cast members, but she still seemed like an older, battle-hardened Leia. 4.The action feels non-stop, it's very fun, and it's incredibly engaging. I kind of wished they had taken a bit of time to breathe and world build like the original trilogy, but it was a different approach. Definitely the most action packed Star Wars film. 5.Theres a lot of mystery to the film, and it's very fun. It feels like watching ANH for the first time in some ways, it would have been nice if there was some closure at the end, but it was fine how was. 6.I loved the look Mark Hamil had for the 1 scene we got of him, he looked exactly like a man going into hiding because he was ashamed of failing as a teacher. Great backstory for him, I wish we could have gotten just a line from him at the end (which is a nice shot). Things That Were Okay 1.Rehashing the Death Star was meh. I liked the twist of it, and I liked seeing it in action. It made it fairly formidable. But I wish they could have come up with something else. No more Death Stars from here on out, okay? 2.It does borrow from ANH a little bit too much. I'm not going to say it's as much as some make it out to be though. It is it's own film, and it's by no means a rehash. But some plot devises are obviously borrowed and used as similar beats. Despite that, there's a lot different, so calling it a hack-job is being fairly over dramatic. The more I think about the film, the less the film felt like it was a copy and paste (minus the Death Star). I'm just hoping the next episode takes the new saga to it's own territory completely, though. This isn't a real big complain from me. 3.I wasn't a huge fan of Snoke's design, I'm glad he was a hologram and not actually giant though. He doesn't have the menacing feel the emperor had. Maybe that will change? Also, his identity as either Darth Sidious or Plagueious feels fairly obvious. Those are my only complaints, and I didn't get to touch on everything I liked and loved about the movie. A+ My favorite Star Wars film since Refurn of the Jedi, it might even be my second favorite, I'll have to do some thinking and rewatching.

Gandalf is pretty much a godlike character in LOTR, Han is just a dude. It's not comparable.

LOL at "Sunday will be weak. People would rather watch football."

Dang, I could have sworn I predicted 250.5 not 251.2m. That might cost me.

As much as I love Han, I don't want them the resurrect him. That'd be poor writing.

Please, I predicted 250.4m. That would win me a fandango card. Let's go!!

Han's dead. Sorry. Resurrecting a supposed dead character is one thing, but there is no way you could make his resurrection believable. Especially since he isn't a Jedi. Also, I kind of think Maz is the same race as Yoda. They have a lot of similarities.