There are a lot of good scenes in Star Wars: The Force Awakens. This one is my favourite.
It happens a little over 30 minutes into the movie. Immediately after meeting, nervous ex-storm trooper Finn and scavenger-with-a-destiny Rey have been thrown into a desperate battle for their lives, first fleeing a TIE Fighter attack on Rey’s Jakku town and then making a frantic escape aboard the “garbage” Millennium Falcon.
Rey’s flying the ship and Finn is in the Falcon’s gun turret. She pulls some sick low-altitude maneuvers while he manages to take one of their two TIE pursuers out. Then his turret is hit, locking it in a forward position.
Rey then pulls a so-crazy-it-just-might-work manoeuvre, threading the Falcon straight through the guts of a husked-out star destroyer before killing her thrusters and flipping end over end, which lines Finn up for a perfect shot.
Boom! Hell yes! When I saw that in the theatre for the first time, the audience went wild.
That’s not my favourite scene, though. My favourite scene comes immediately after.
As BB-8 un-moors himself from the walls, Rey and Finn come storming out of their respective areas and meet in the hall, fingers pointed, leaning forward, unable to contain themselves.
Rey: Nice shooting.
Finn: Now that was some flying!
Rey: Thanks!
Finn: How did you do that?
Rey: I don’t know.
Finn: No one trained you? No one??
Rey: I’ve flown some ships but I’ve never left the planet!
Finn: That was amazing.
Rey: Your last shot was dead-on.
Finn: You, you set me up for it.
Rey: You got him with one blast!
Finn: That was pretty good.
Rey: It was perfect.
BB-8: Boop?
I love this scene. I love it so much. I could watch it over and over again. While I was writing this article, I did watch it over and over again, and it never got old.
I love this scene because of both characters’ enthusiasm. I love how excited they are, how big the smiles on their faces are, how their immediate instinct is to be supportive of one another. They just did something incredible together, and they are so pumped about it.
I’ve long wished more characters in movies and video games would be properly psyched about the amazing feats they pull off. This was exactly that, executed flawlessly. The way the camera pulls in as they circle each other, they way BB-8 seems mystified by their gleeful energy, the looks on their faces, the way they each keep turning the conversation around to compliment the other. Perfect.
Look at John Boyega and Daisy Ridley’s faces:
This was the scene that sold me on The Force Awakens the first time I saw it. I’m guessing I’m not alone in that. For the first 30 minutes, the movie throws a lot of exciting action and spectacle your way, makes some rushed and charming introductions, but is mostly setting the groundwork for the back half. This scene is where it really comes together. It’s when Finn and Rey go from “I know how to run without you holding my hand!” to “It was perfect.”
I don’t know if these two are fated to be together romantically or if they’re just going to be very good friends. I don’t know what will befall Rey in Episode VIII and beyond, and I don’t know where Finn will wake up or how he’ll find her again. All I know is that in this 13-second exchange, their bond was forged forever.
BB-8’s reaction shot says it all:
Comments
35 responses to “The Best Scene In Star Wars: The Force Awakens”
Close, but we all know the best scene…
?
?
YES!
Why do I find it odd that a sad scene is the best scene ? hmmm…
B-ob nails it spot on. Best scene EVAAAR!
Rey: “I can’t believe how perfect I am at everything! Did you see me pull that move in the ship I only learnt to fly seconds earlier? Did I mention that I’m a woman? I feel like I should mention that.”
Finn: “You are a freakish outlier in a world where everyone else has to learn things before they’re the best at them! I thought it was strange that I was the only black guy in the First Order and also the only person with a soul, but your freakish skills are much stranger”
Yeah strange that Rey could fly so well so quickly, it’s as if she was magic or something. Like, imbued with some sort of… space magic.
Yeah, I bet it was that, space magic! Cause EVERYONE knows you don’t need an entire organisation/religion with its own temple in the capitol of the galaxy that is almost solely dedicated to training these space wizards right? They just magically instantly know how to do everything!
Yeah and I guessAnakin being an awesome pilot without training was pure dumb luck as well.
It was explainable. I mean there’s space for us to assume that there was some level of learning curve.
Like when Luke got shot repeatedly by that training droid while Obi-Wan was teaching him to use his lightsaber.
Or how Anikin went to Jedi Academy for 10 years.
Or when Luke went to Yoda camp.
Or when Luke fought Vader the first time and he lost and had his hand cut off even after significant training.
Rey inexplicably speaks droid AND wookie, goes from having no idea how to fly the falcon to doing crazy stuff in about 20 seconds, has a mechanical knowledge of everything, nails everyone with the blaster (that might be fair enough). Oh, and she beats Darth Vader’s Luke Skywalker trained grandson in everything – force mindtricks, force pull ,lightsabre battle- all on her first day (or at best with training she inexplicably learnt between the ages of 3 and 7).
I still liked the movie, but she’s so overpowered its detrimental to her as a character.
I’m talking about Anakin at 9 years old. Only human that can race pods and took down a Trade Federation control ship. WITHOUT Jedi training. Qui Gon even says he must have Jedi reflexes to race pods
But he DOES have Jedi reflexes.
So he can learn those things quickly but he still needs some training, that wasn’t his first podrace. I mean even when he destroyed the massive ship he was doing it after he’d crashed…. Besides those movies were so full of garbage that it was easier to miss.
If at the end of Episode I Anakin suddenly force pulled a lightsaber over to himself and then fucked Darth Maul up with it I’d be complaining about that too.
She’s been pulling apart and scavenging ships for her entire life, i dont think it is a stretch that she learned to fly one at some point?
I imagine in Star Wars it’s like driving a car- you know how to drive a car, so once you get your eye in you can drive a bigger car/ one with the gears laid out a little different like the falcon with a little adjustment.
The rest of the stuff is explicitly jedi magic.
Sure, if it had been that one thing then fine- she’s gone from having no idea how to turn on the ship to knowing every mechanical detail of how it works and how to fly it with ridiculous skill in 30 seconds- I could ignore that.
It’s everything though. She’s the best person ever at everything and she has no proper training. She’s gone from being a scavenger to making the most formidable Sith in the movie (in the galaxy?) look like a little bitch in the space of a few hours with no training whatsoever.
She just pulls skills out of her ass “Oh, I never realised I could pick things up WITH MY MIND. All these years I’ve been using my arms like a sucker, it never occurred to me that I could suddenly do that”. “Oh, if I asked really nicely I can brainwash people. I wish I knew that when I was starving and eating half portions of shit for the past 20 years”…..
I’m sure they’ll do something to try to justify it in the next film, but it’s still ridiculous. Anakin is a complete retard compared to her.
As if something was… I dunno… forcing her actions.
I like how this is what puts you off TFA, but Luke ignoring the targeting technology of a super-advanced attack fighter and ‘using the force’ to fire a missile down an exhaust shaft is perfectly ok.
Luke has had practice bullseyeing womp rats in his T-16, and flying beggars canyon.
That’s totally the same thing as destroying the Death Star.
Nah, @foggy is cool with that because Luke was a guy and white.
Uhhh, could be cause Luke has been at least partially trained in the force by an actual jedi? Oh nah, that’s right, cause Luke had a sandspeeder when he was a kid, he leaves Mos Eisley and suddenly he’s the best pilot in the history of the world, can magically use a lightsaber and hes force pulling shit all over the place, right?
You’re totally right! I forgot all that Jedi training that Anakin had before he was a champion pod-racer and droid technician as a small child!
Did lol
How do you know he’s the only black guy? They all have helmets on…
Also, when does Rey talk about being a woman?
Maybe. Maybe it’s only the obnoxious white guys who are allowed to speak and not wear helmets.
I love this scene especially for it showing the added movement the J.J.Abrams brings to Star Wars. This and dynamic character shots like the Finn/Poe X-Wing shot are great examples of this. If it was filmed by George Lucas that scene would’ve had them walk up to each other and stand still as they praised each other.
To be fair, Jorg Sacul would have filmed the scene, then dubbed in the praise afterwards in a special edition of some sort.
Well… it’s a good scene in isolation. But so much of Finn’s dialogue in the movie seems completely unnatural for a guy who was stolen at birth and spent his whole life being indoctrinated into a fanatical fascist military regime.
But the space magic, laser swords, sun-sucking planet killer, aliens that all happen to tolerate the same atmosphere, that’s all perfectly natural, right?All of those things are believable (not to be confused with ‘realistic’) within the confines of the universe and its ‘rules’ that we are presented with. Accepting them is not the same thing at all as accepting a character’s motivations, personality, speech patterns etc. when we’re explicitly given his back story. Of course, it might be fake. Why else would he be just about the only FO member with an American accent (short of Ren who wasn’t raised by them from birth)?
It’s really not the only think unnatural in this saga — I still love it though!
As a Star Wars fan I found the movie to be rather average. I just keep telling myself it is the first of 3 and will only get better.. Please!
it’s the best star wars movie to come out since 1983, I can save my wanting for more at the door… what it did was show me that they’re on the right track.
The trailer for Rogue one is getting me pretty effing excited. I feel like they can go out on more of a limb with those side stories, we’ll see how it all turns out. I’m very happy at the state of the SW franchise now, very very happy.
I think my favourite moment is the bit where the big octopus thing is loose on Han’s ship. At one point Han starts to retreat then comes back to grab one of the bad guys and throws him to the octopus.
It’s clearly a deliberate attempt to deal with the whole “Han Shot First” silliness once and for all.
i found this scene of them hyper excited alittle silly and cringe worthy.
So the Blu-Ray is already out in other countries?
Mine just arrived in the post from JB HiFi!
Man, they were both just so damn likable as characters. I was so invested in both of their stories because of that
This was one of my least favourite scenes, the whole talking over the top of each other just seemed silly. Same as when Han is annoyed that there is a compressor on the fuel line, they both say at the same time, “…it puts too much stress on the hyperdrive”. Its just very corny, and not in a good way
Saying this is the best scene is pretty much the same as saying you picked the best corn kernel out of a turd
lol. though i wouldnt say its a bad movie its definately not as great as most people make out.