As I said in the previous article, I was at the target age when the Star Wars prequels were released. And in fact, my initial reactions to them were positive. But as time went on and I reexamined them (and, yes, had things pointed out to me,) I realized that they were really mangled movies - with some inventive visuals and a sweeping score by the consistently excellent John Williams, but flawed deeply in both writing and direction. I don't want to go too hard on George Lucas, because ultimately Star Wars is his thing, but it's clear that without collaborators who could really challenge his decisions and force him to re-work elements that weren't working, we wound up with probably the most disappointing (not worst, disappointing) movies ever.
So when Lucas sold Lucasfilm, with all its properties, to Disney, there was actually a kind of hope in the air. Disney, for all its corporate greed (and make no mistake, they are going to make an obscene amount of money on Star Wars merchandise now that they can make as many Star Warses as they want,) does actually have a good company feel for strongly-made entertainment. We've seen it in their Marvel movies (some better than others, but even the least impressive of them - I'm looking at you, Thor-centric movies - are still a good watch,) and now they're trying out the ultimate blockbuster franchise - a series that people feel deeply passionate about.
So, before I get into HEAVY spoilers, I'll just give a very simple opinion of Episode VII: The Force Awakens. It was good. If you like Star Wars, this is a worthy addition to the series.
Now let's jump behind the cut so we can talk about things in private.
SPOILERS AHEAD.
The decades after Return of the Jedi are not detailed all that much - we learn a bit more about them as the film goes on, but the basic idea is this: The Republic has been reestablished, but they do not control the entire galaxy. They are rivaled by a new power called the First Order, which seeks to re-establish the Empire. Within the territories controlled by the First Order, there is a movement simply called the Resistance, which is backed from far away by the Republic. But while the Republic has the Resistance's back, they're not in a position to simply sweep in and wipe out the threat.
In the meantime, Luke Skywalker has gone missing - disappearing years ago, and his disappearance is probably what allowed the First Order to fester into existence.
VII mirrors IV in several ways, though not quite as much as I had feared. There's a giant doomsday device and a young person who is more than they seem on a desert planet, plus a cute little droid who has valuable information that the bad guys are trying to find. But the elements are assembled in such a way to provide a familiar environment for new characters to establish themselves, and this is the real success of the film.
I don't want to summarize the whole movie. I'm assuming at this point that if you're reading this, you've seen it as well. If not, back away and go see it.
I'd say that there are three really key characters to this new generation (though Poe Dameron is a lot of fun, and I suspect he'll continue to be the cocky pilot buddy in the following movies.) We first meet Finn, whose name is just a play on the only name he had before - an alphanumeric code starting with FN. Finn was a Stormtrooper, who at least in the First Order seem to have been kidnapped as children and raised to fight. Finn's first mission as a fully-fledged Stormtrooper shakes him - despite all his conditioning, he can't make himself kill the civilians he is ordered to. So he changes sides, trying to join the Resistance or at least get the hell away from his former masters. Multiple times, Stormtroopers he fights greet him by calling him "traitor." But with this one example, you almost wonder if a lot of the guys in the white armor were actually good people who were just pushed along by groupthink (you know, like most people in evil armies.)
Finn is, I think, convinced for some time that he's the hero of this story, and actually a lot of the marketing feinted in that direction, depicting him wielding the Lightsaber and battling against the Sith, Kylo Ren. But while Finn is certainly a hero in his own right, I think that the movie really sets up another newcomer, Rey, as protagonist.
Rey remains something of a mystery. Perhaps thanks to the Marvel model, the movie does set up a lot of stuff that will clearly pay off in later films, especially her backstory. She was left on a desert world called Jakku - the site of a huge battle presumably between the Rebel Alliance and the Empire - where she was, according to her, told to wait - that she's important and top-secret. But she doesn't know what her secret is. And we don't learn explicitly what that secret is, but there's a heavy implication that is deeply tied to generations and family lines.
The film's villain is this new Sith called Kylo Ren, but the "twist" of his true identity is refreshingly revealed rather early in the movie, allowing there to be some real development with him rather than just a gasp-inducing shock. Kylo Ren is, in fact, Ben Solo (we don't hear his first name until the climax of the movie, but we know that he's Han and Leia's son much earlier.) Ren/Ben is obsessed with Darth Vader, his grandfather. He desperately hopes to live up to Vader's legacy, and has modeled himself on him - donning a black cape and a helmet that distorts his voice, even though the helmet is really just for show.
There's something very meta going on here - Kylo Ren wants to live up to Vader just as these movies are going to want to live up to the original trilogy, but there's a kind of concession that that's not really possible. Ren is deeply conflicted, but there's a disturbing perversity to his conflict. He is worried that encountering his father will "seduce him," not to the Dark Side, but to the Light.
Much as Luke did with Vader, Ren ultimately confronts his father. Han goes to his son, hopeful that he will be able to offer him a sort of bridge back to his humanity, but ultimately Ben takes this as an opportunity to prove himself fully committed to the Dark Side, and in an act that will make millions of Star Wars fans terribly sad after watching this movie, he kills Han Solo.
Yet the feeling of power he gets from vanquishing this remnant of good within him makes him overconfident in the final lightsaber confrontation of the film. Ren goes after Rey, even seems to toy with her, and actually offers to teach her the ways of the Force (she is only just discovering her connection to it,) probably intentionally trying to ape Darth Vader's offer in his duel with Luke at Cloud City, but Rey bests him - the first time she's ever used a lightsaber, mind you - leaving him to an uncertain (though we can be pretty certain he'll live) fate as the Starkiller Base (if the Death Star was a moon, Starkiller is a planet) begins to erupt.
As the film closes, R2-D2 - in a robotic coma since Luke disappeared - wakes up and combines his map with BB-8's, thus showing where Luke is hidden. Rey, who Han offered a job on the Millennium Falcon, goes there with Chewbacca, and our last sight in the movie is their meeting, face to face, as she extends the long-lost lightsaber that had been Luke's and Anakin's to the last Jedi Master.
So we have a few questions to answer:
Is Ben Solo/Kylo Ren redeemable? He killed Han Solo, which is probably the worst crime anyone could commit in the Star Wars universe, but that just shows you the stakes we're working with here. He is, after all, still Leia's son and Luke's nephew. The first trilogy was about the redemption of Darth Vader, so perhaps Kylo Ren will be able to follow in those footsteps as well.
What is Rey's lineage? The movie heavily, heavily implies that Rey is Luke's daughter. The scene in which she experiences the vision after touching the lightsaber practically confirms this. But why was she stuck on that planet? Why was she hidden away? Who was her mother?
What does the First Order wish to achieve? Clearly they want to destroy the Republic (either politically, militarily, or physically,) but who is this Supreme Leader Snoke guy?
What made Ben Solo go to the Dark Side? He was training with other prospective Jedi under Luke, but then turned on them. We don't really know why.
What's the title of Episode VIII going to be? No idea.
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