God Speed...


Yep, this is actually spoken in a Star Wars movie...

Saw it and is absolutely disappointed. Near angry. What a wasted opportunity of Luke, what pointless parallel stories, what a snooze fest...

Who in their right mind said at the story board table read; hey let’s introduce this new gigantic star destroyer spaceship, and then make it just follow them until they run out of gaz... great star...”war”.

Very little in this movie was good.

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Totally agree, but unfortunately lots of people are still going to pay money to see it... and that's only what matters to Disney.

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Godspeed is one word.

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One word too many.

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Yep, pretty much. I agree that large sections of it were boring. I knew something was up when the film seemed to drag on for ages and never end. When a film is good, you get to the end credits and don't even realise that 2.5 hours just passed.

I'm hoping Abrams can redeem it in Episode IX to some extent. Probably the best bet at this point is to just finish this trilogy, then move on to creating a new trilogy with all new characters, new Jedi order, etc... and maybe do something along the lines of the Yuzhan Vong invasion. Or maybe finish this trilogy then make a completely unrelated trilogy set in the Star Wars universe, but nothing to do with the mainline "trilogy of trilogies". I read something about Rian Johnson doing a trilogy set in a different galaxy, so maybe this latter idea is the plan.

With the original main characters gone, I can't really see how it can go anywhere now except where Kylo Ren wants it to ("let the past die").

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What is wrong with the word godspeed?

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The word means and comes from: “may God cause you to succeed”. God is not part of this universe, in this galaxy far far away.

Here it is “the Force” of this world that is its equivalent, and so the word strides against canon. Such Earth culture bound religious references are deliberately left out of the story telling ..until now.

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http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Category:Religions

Here is a list of all the religions in the Star Wars universe, including a list of gods that are worshipped.

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Even if we ignore the comics, animation, games, novels, etc. and look at just the movies, Jar Jar Binks shouts "ye gods" in episode 1 a few times. I'm loathe to mention that movie, especially when it comes to that particular character but it's obvious even George Lucas himself made it canon that the idea of gods exists in Star Wars.

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This is new to me. It just stroke me wrong or incorrect when she said it then and there. Not as wrong as I thought, I see. Thank you for the info.

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No prob.

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Oh, just one more while I'm thinking about it; the Ewoks worshiped C-3P0 as a god and 3P0 said it was against protocol to pretend to be a deity. If there is official protocol stating that a droid shouldn't pretend to be a god, that would mean there are many beings in the galaxy who believe in a god or pantheon of gods of some kind.

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True.

Okay, the universe permits gods and other religions. Fair enough. But didn't strike you as a bit odd she said this at that point.... I mean, "May the Force be with you", would have been my go-to, I think. ?

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Well, I consider the word just a word, so it wasn't too bad. If she said something more church-y like "I'll pray for you" it would seem more odd I guess but even then I would assume she would be praying to the Force or the Wookie's Tree of Life or some other entity.

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.... and so we sort of ultimately agree :) as I consider it exactly that; "I will pray to God for you", just in one neat word... and this rubs me.

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In the Star Wars universe, there is The Force or The Maker. No God.

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In the EU, there were mentions of gods being worshipped. Doesn't mean they're real, but the concept does exist in Star Wars.

And besides, Han Solo said "What the Hell are you doing" back in A New Hope. That's just as much of a religious reference as godspeed.

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They already said "May the Force be with you" enough times, and that is already their version of "Godspeed."

Damn, I just remembered that scene where Leia and Holdo both say "May the Force" at the same time. That was more like sitcom material, just like the steam iron made to look like a ship landing. Very poor choices.

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There are many ways to say the same thing in the Star Wars universe just as there are many ways to say the same things in real life. I've already provided a link to other Star Wars religions and gods above as well, showing that the Force isn't the only belief system.

And, again, they mentioned Hell in A New Hope. If godspeed causes a problem, so should the phrase "what the hell are you doing". They also say the word damn which has religious connotations.

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The word "hell" may derive from religious connotations, but as an exclamation that has been adopted into common speech, it is far removed from its religious roots. No one who says "What the hell" is actually referring to the "Hell" of any religion. Same thing with "damn," they are just exclamations with no real meaning other than exasperation.

"Godspeed" is a very specific religious reference, it's not just some casual language that is heard constantly.

It's just another odd choice that made its way into the movie, and there are plenty. This movie is PROVABLY hampered by inexperienced directing: The fact that the Finn/Rose/Casino/DJ/Phasma side-story is completely disposable filler and has zero impact on the plot or story... That is the kind of thing you get a bad grade for in film school, but for a major motion picture it is pretty much an embarrassment.

Let's also not forget that this movie runs a bit long, and feels like it too. That side-plot takes up a lot of time and distracts from the main plot with a bunch of technical mumbo-jumbo about ship-tracking, which again, ALL amounts to absolutely nothing.

That excess fat, and the odd repetition of specific concepts in the movie, demonstrates that there was a real lack of ideas here. It really could have been trimmed down in a major way, and that would have allowed more time for the great parts.

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Godspeed is just as removed from religion as the words hell and damn. An atheist can say godspeed and still retain the intent of the word without taking it literally. There are multiple words, phrases, and idioms in English (as well as almost any other language) that have some connection to religion.

And again, the notion of gods is canon in Star Wars so even if she was directly referencing an actual deity, it would not go against what has been established in Star Wars for years now.

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I agree. If canon or not, it seem odd. It is a pivotal moment a very "may the force be with you" moment and so makes this choice even odder... and when we see how they used (or misused) Luke, it just adds up to a lot of such oddities. I dare say the director had no idea what he was doing. J.J. Abrams must have been pretty pissed too, when he saw how many of his setups were more or less ignored.

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Eh, JJ Abrams doesn't have the best record of resolving his setups. This movie wasn't perfect but I'm glad Abrams is gone.

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No fan of his take either. Better overall movie, I think. But no fan. It does seem though that these two directors have quite different ideas on perhaps not so much where to take the saga, but how to do it. And since he is again at the helm of the next one (despite saying, he would not go back) .... well perhaps he might just have been pissed enough to take his control back. Who knows.

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It does make me wonder what happened behind the scenes. So far, Disney and Kennedy have been pretty strict on their vision for the franchise. Josh Trank was fired almost immediately because of creative differences, they ordered heavy reshoots for Rogue One (although I really liked the final product), and they fired the original directors for the Han Solo movie months into filming because there was too much ad-libbing. Considering they want to give Johnson his own trilogy, they must really like the guy.

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It's possible Johnson, being fairly inexperienced, did not put up a fight against Disney wanting to make a movie with more mass appeal, and did what they wanted.

After all, they did fire Colin Trevorrow for wanting to veer off of their plans.

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