I don't think it should be a big surprise that I have more thoughts on this latest of Star Wars movies. The film has only been out for a few days, and some of my friends who have not yet had the chance to watch it are already having major plot points and elements spoiled by, frankly, pretty inconsiderate people. I know that there's a whole investigation into the idea that spoilers are even a bad thing - that there are studies that say people enjoy a movie or other piece of media if they already know where it's going. But my philosophy is that, while that might be the case, every subsequent watch of the movie will be "spoiled," so even if the "unspoiled" version is worse, viewers should still be given the opportunity to have that one unique experience. So that's why I'm being careful to provide a spoiler warning here and also give a nice big block of text dedicated to spoilers in case someone catches the first part of this post on the mobile version or something like that.
Right, are we good? Ok.
What will the verdict be on this movie? I think there are a lot of balls still up in the air on that front. I think so many of us viewers are just relieved that it's not like the prequels that we can't really evaluate it objectively. But on the other hand, if we were to compare this to an identical movie that was not the continuation of a beloved, nearly 40-year-old franchise that has been a supporting column of pop culture for multiple generations, we might be less strict in our criticisms.
There's no avoiding the fact that the structure of the movie is very closely tied to that of the original movie. Starkiller Base is the Death Star 3.0, and BB-8 serves a very similar role to R2-D2, carrying a very important piece of information - though this time it's trying to get to Leia, rather than being sent by her. One could even make the argument that this plot thread is kind of too divorced from the other. In the original, the hidden plans are to the Death Star - the whole movie revolves around stopping the Empire from having this massive weapon. In The Force Awakens, Starkiller Base is just something the First Order have been able to build, and represent a major asset that the Resistance needs to destroy.
I suppose that this whole element didn't bother me all that much because the whole "there's a new Death Star" was already a recycled plot thread in Return of the Jedi. If we're ignoring the prequels (and shall we?) that means that Empire's really the only Star Wars movie that doesn't have a Death Star.
In fact, a lot of the "sequel escalation" stuff in the movie (our Death Star is bigger than the old one!) is, I think, incorporated into the plot. To me, it was not a groan-worthy ploy to recapture the feel of the old movies by rote copying, but instead an expression of the film's villain's psyche.
While I'm very excited about Rey as the clear main-protagonist of the movie, and I'd guess the whole sequel trilogy, and Finn's a lot of fun as a guy trying to redeem himself but with literally no idea how to behave when not a Stormtrooper, I think Kylo Ren - aka Ben Solo - is the most interesting character. In a sort of meta way, he represents the fans who have fetishized the iconography of Star Wars to the point of madness. He is obsessed with his grandfather (no, not Han's dad) and has decided to emulate him in every way possible, from the dark mask that modulates his voice to the giant doomsday device that he's overseeing. His turn to the dark side is wrapped in mystery just as it was for Darth Vader (and given how poorly the prequels handled this, it's still kind of wrapped in mystery,) but unlike Vader, who we first met after two decades as the scourge of the galaxy, it seems implied that Ben's not been doing this for quite as long.
There's a kind of prequel to this that's implied (please do not make it) in which Ben Solo goes through a kind of opposite process that Luke did. Luke was introduced to the Force through the Light Side, and then discovered that his father was the greatest champion of the Dark Side. Luke fought against this legacy and defeated it by bringing his father the opportunity to redeem himself. Ben turned to the dark side after receiving some training (I'm guessing not much with a lightsaber, given that no one is terribly artful with their weapons in this movie) from Luke. But we see him praying to the Force, hoping that in confronting his father, he will not be "seduced" by the Light.
It's really interesting to see this turned on its head, and it makes his potential redemption and the potential tragedy of a failure to achieve it that much more dramatic. Darth Vader, as cool as he was, really didn't show much of a redeemable side. You could argue that bringing Luke to the Emperor suggested there was Light-Side subconsciousness motivating him, but there's really no proof until Vader tosses Palpatine down the shaft to his death.
Han's death is going to anger a lot of people, but I felt that it was earned. Often in later installments of long-running series, major characters will be killed off to establish the credentials of a newcomer. It often feels cheap - a kind of shorthand that also cuts off the potential for further development of a fan favorite. But Han couldn't be the hero of this new series (even if Harrison Ford wanted to do it.) And if Kylo Ren had been some random new character with no background, then I'd be super pissed. But to see him killed by his son - a son who was the product of a relationship that we were all rooting for way back in Empire Strike Back - has the mythic quality that you look for in these movies. The Skywalkers (yeah, Ben's a Solo technically, but only because of patrilineal naming conventions) are figures of modern myth, and just as it's really sad to discover that Odysseus dies in some myth taking place after the Odyssey, it doesn't undo the things we loved about him when he was in the spotlight.
One thing that does potentially warrant some big criticism is that with Disney in charge of things (and man was it weird not to have the 20th Century Fox Fanfare at the beginning) they're definitely doing some Marvel things here, re: seeding future movies. Granted, I'm usually ok with that. The only really egregious one was that cave thing in Avengers 2 (the stand-alones are supposed to set up the Avengers, not the other way around!) And we knew going in that this was part one of the "sequel trilogy." After all, the only really standalone Star Wars movie was the first one, and Empire, generally considered the best, ends with a whole lot of dangling plot threads.
I have heard some people describing Rey as something of a Mary Sue. Now granted, everyone has a different definition of a Mary Sue character (well, everyone who's heard the term.) In a way, it's come to just mean a "character I don't like." I think the more accurate definition is a character, often introduced by a new author to an existing series, though not always, who derails things by being too good at everything, often having convenient connections to existing plot elements and characters, and who kind of steals the spotlight from established, popular characters.
Does Rey fit this? Well, honestly, kind of. She's strong with the Force (possibly stronger than anyone else we've seen, given that she picks up some of the big tricks with literally no training,) and on top of that she's a tech wiz, showing herself equally capable of fixing the Millennium Falcon as Han. She even gets the Falcon after Han dies (well, really Chewbacca gets it, but she gets Chewbacca) and on top of that is presumably about to get trained by Luke Skywalker.
The thing is, Star Wars has always kind of operated this way. It's all about people coming up from seemingly nothing only to discover a powerful family connection or power or both and becoming this huge disruption to the larger conflict. The Rebellion's been fighting the Empire for years if not decades when Luke shows up, and he's the one to destroy the Death Star, kill Darth Vader, and bring back Jediism, within the space of like 5 years.
So even if she is, I don't think it's out of place in the series.
At this point, I really think the question is where we're going to go from here. My sister (and I'm crediting her here as well as elsewhere to make sure I don't forget) thinks that Finn is going to lead a Stormtrooper revolt, freeing the slave-soldiers from the First Order's clutches. I think we're going to find out about Rey's parentage. It hints incredibly heavily that Luke is her father (making Kylo Ren her cousin!) but it's almost so strong a hint that I wonder if it's a subversion - that she's either a relative nobody, or perhaps related to the Emperor or Supreme Leader Snoke (which, let's be honest... not a great name.) She does have a British accent, which could suggest she's part bad-guy (then again, so did Obi-Wan.)
I'm also curious to see if Poe (Po?) Dameron is going to become a more prominent character. He was lots of fun, and had a great swagger that could help with the earnest Rey and the blustery Finn, but he was definitely not as big a part of the movie as the others. Basically, right now he's Wedge Antilles if Wedge were seen outside of his fighter more than once.
Given how much of the movie was dedicated to setting up the new trilogy, in a way we have to wait to see the others to decide if this is the start of a new Star Wars golden age or the start of a disappointment. But I think if you just look at the filmmaking, the fundamentals, I think this one will go down as a good one.
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