The helmet in the movie looks like a plastic toy...

I haven't seen the movie yet - will see it next Thursday.

I'm puzzled by all the fuss of the Vader Helmet. From what I've seen so far, overall I like it. It's a definite hybrid between ANH (in particular the chin vent and the widows peak) and ESB, the shiny newness, dome placement, maybe paint scheme.

To me it looks like a worthy addition of the OT trilogy family of Vader helmets - whereas Revenge of the Sith an awful disappointment.

And I don't think LFL could just grab one of their old casts off the shelf and insert into the movie. They likely had to remake the helmet to fit the new Vader actor.

I wasn't fan of the helmet. It had an odd looking neck and I didn't like the paint up of it. It looked like something that came off of an assembly line.

Also Vader in general had a slight hunched back and looked a little thicker around he mid section oppose to the previous films.

Movie was excellent though. Just great and loads of action with a fun story.

Saw the movie on wednesday and have to say that I am very unhappy with Vaders appearance. Helmet shape looked good to me, but as said here before it looked like a plastic toy coming from an assembly line. The figure was lacking menace and massiveness. It reminded me on a touring Vader appearance, like someone was "acting" as Vader, not really "being" him. Some good ideas though visually, like the Bacta tank and his scene with the rebel soldiers...

I liked very much the look in the final scene.

I'm off to see it today

Totally wrong actor and the helmet was just horrible. Nearly ruined the scenes for me.

Jup just can agree.
The parts for the costume, despite the cod really had could give him a great look, but the actor ruined it completly with his shape.
And cause of his horrible shape all the parts as the helmet as well were placed wrong.
Helmet dome to short, the neck of the mask to wide and to long and the red bunny eyes are the cherry on the cake.

I enjoyed the movie, but it was a very long winded way of explaining how the Death Stars plans got stolen, I think Disney/Lucasfilm have tried way too hard to build a backstory.

Tarken and Princess Leia looked particularly CGI.

Vader seemed like he was hunched or the mask was sitting too low on the shoulders.

Enough whining from me, it was still great to see all those old style costumes, props and Vader back on the big screen

Happy days

The film was a boring desaster.The Vaderhelmet looks also cheap and wrong in the first scenes.
At the end it looked better.I think they used smoked lenses there and not red ones like before?

They never were red anytime.
Or do you mean that they changed the lenses while filming?

I think in the first scenes they looked more red(can also be the lightning)...



but at the ending not.

Image from deleted scene:

Yeah, the costume could be better. The problem is that, when they make these films, costume people are brought in and they say, "oooo, Star Wars - we are going to do it REALLY nice this time!" And they are excited in that very green way.

Here is an example of a mistake. With the money and dedication they would obviously make a very very very nice cape with tailoring and all that. But perhaps what they don't realize is that the original cape was just a flat, half circle (basically) - and as such, with no "shoulders" sewn in it pulled to the sides and caused it to hang open such that audience could see all the robot stuff down the center.

Someone trying to make it "nice" might put shoulders in - big mistake.

Helmet - using an archived helmet or the SL or a Gino or the DJ or any of that would have been far better.

But the armor - I think it is not so much the actor's shape - I doubt it was resculpted to his body. I suspect someone got a copy of armor that has distorted over time and, believe me, the LFL armors that have been made for various purposes over time have also distorted. When Kermit Eller put on the costume it looked just fine. It's not the actor - it's the costume people. Easy fix for a lot of us out here. Say what you will of Gino but I would have loved to have seen his ANH costume on this guy.

Film could have done more with less ambition - smaller story with more hardship. Should have been more hard and intimate. I suspect Kathleen Kennedy may have ideas about Star Wars that do not connect with the consumers. Her concern, and rightly, is the "brand" but, as such, it might cause them to repeat themselves over and over. This is idea of "brand" is so dumb I can't even begin. "Brand" means repeat yourself over and over. In every profession.

Now THAT shot is more gorgeous than anything in R1 (except for hallway massacre ;)