film

Star Wars: The Force Awakens (2015)

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We all know how the “prequel trilogy” turned out…so what does the “sequel trilogy” have in store for us?

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Over 15 years after the The Phantom Menace and nearly 40 years after the original A New Hope, we finally get our first official taste of what happens post-Return of the Jedi. Novels from the expanded universe have spent decades dealing with the resurgence of the Jedi and the dwindling grip of the Empire, but so much of the official Star Wars canon has stayed in the realm of prequels, interquels, and sidequels. I was marginally excited at the thought of an Episode VII, especially since it would give us some insight into characters I actually cared about, i.e. Luke, Leia, and Han.

Now I’m not a total Star Wars nerd.  I went through a phase in about the 6th grade where I had a few books and vehicle guides and toys (this was around the time that the original trilogy was re-released with a slew of new changes) but it turned out to be just that – a phase – and by the time the prequel trilogy hype was in full swing a couple of years later I’d left much of my Star Wars fandom behind.  I liked the series as a younger adolescent, but as I got older and really started understanding what made a film work and what didn’t, it became harder to watch the older films without cringing at the dialog, questioning the character development, and wondering if these flicks might’ve been about 30 minutes longer than they needed to be.  Lucas created an amazing fantasy-like world in a sci-fi setting and really nailed some of the visceral aspects of watching a movie, but he took a lot of wrong turns when it came to creating drama and fostering a connection with his characters.

By the time “Force Fever” had been introduced to a whole new generation in 1999, I was 14 years old and busy trying to establish myself as anything but a nerd who foamed at the mouth over starcruisers and monk-warrior-knights of outer space.  I won’t say I wasn’t a little interested in what the prequels had to offer, but they weren’t at the forefront of my “media radar.”  This was a time in my life where my interest in film was firmly planted in the likes of Tarantino, Stone, Lynch, Scorcese, Avary, Rodriguez, and the like.

It wasn’t until sometime late in highschool that I had my first encounter with the prequel trilogy.  My parents had randomly bought me Attack of the Clones (that’s Episode II) on DVD for Christmas one year; why they did that I’ll never know.  (I also have other odd DVDs like one of the Transformers movies and Men in Black II, neither of which I’ve ever expressed any interest in.)  But like I said, I wasn’t totally disinterested in seeing this new swatch of Star Wars movies, so within a couple of weeks I’d watched it.  It was long as hell, I didn’t like Anakin, and I thought that most of the connections to the original trilogy were a little too overt, but overall, it wasn’t that bad and it filled in some gaps in an interesting way.  (You’ve got to remember that this was way back when “The Clone Wars” was just a throwaway line that Ben said to Luke near the beginning of Ep. IV.)

Revenge of the Sith was even in existence yet, and since the release of The Phantom Menace all I’d ever heard was people making fun of it, so despite my reasonable enjoyment of Ep. II I didn’t really follow up on it.  At some point over the next few years I finally did see Ep. I; I think I may have actually watched a cable broadcast of it or something.  And yes, between tiny Anakin and Jar Jar Fuckface, it was every bit as dopey as I’d been warned.  Apart from the special effects, there is literally nothing redeeming about this film.

Episode III came and went, and aside from the buzz about it being PG-13, I don’t remember much about it during its release.  In fact, it was probably sometime from 2009 – 2011 where I first saw Revenge of the Sith, during a period where I bought all 6 films on DVD from Walmart for something like $7 a piece.

Superficially, Revenge of the Sith was satisfying as a movie, and by far the best of the prequel trilogy.  Everything seemed to fit, but it seemed like it fit a little too neatly.  As I really started looking at how the prequels tied into the original trilogy, something about the timelines really started bugging me.

First of all, we’re led to believe that the Empire is this big bad all-consuming thing; that the Republic is a distant memory, and that the Jedi have been reduced to near-mythic status.  Well you see, this doesn’t really jive with the events as they are told.  I don’t suppose anything is technically contradicted, but the fact that the Empire has only really been around for about 20 years at the onset of A New Hope feels kind of cheap.  That’s not even a generation.  There would be all kinds of people that remembered the Republic – that were actively involved in the Republic.  There would still be areas where the Republic had a major foothold.  The great wars between the Empire and Republic would still be going on.  Instead we’re led to believe that the Empire is a cruel force that has dominated life in the galaxy for an indeterminate but lengthy period of time.  I get that things moved quickly at the end of Revenge of the Sith, but when we’re talking about the affairs of an entire galaxy, I don’t care what kind of power shift happens – 20 years is not sufficient to establish the Empire as orderly and in control as they appear, nor is it long enough to relegate the Jedi to myth.  There would be plenty of people walking around who remembered clearly what a room full of Jedi looked like.

This all stems from Lucas trying to cram too much story into a single film.  He should’ve been stretching these developments out over the course of Episodes I and II.  It’s all too neatly tied up – we have 1) Anakin’s fall to the darkside, 2) Anakin’s transformation into Vader, 3) the Emperor’s rise to power, 4) the beginning of the Empire, 5) Obi-Wan’s exile, and 6) the birth of Luke and Leia….all of this happened at the same time.  I think it was a crummy, childish way to handle it.  The fall of the Republic and the emergence of the Empire should’ve happened 4 or 5 (or more) generations back.  Anakin should’ve spent years as an agent of the darkside before becoming Vader (instead of like, 2 days (he also shouldn’t have built C-3PO either, what a stupid and unnecessary plot point)) and the drama between him and Ben could’ve played up a lot more.  As it was, the two had a very master-apprentice relationship, rather than one of equals which is what I pictured from Ben’s first conversations with Luke.

We all knew that Anakin was going to become Vader – the fun was in watching the progress, an aspect of the film that was severely rushed.  Don’t even get me started on that cliched, “NOOOOOOO!!!” immediately following his transformation.  Anakin rushed straight from petulant child to the cold and methodical Darth Vader; it would’ve worked better to really follow Anakin’s descent.  Yeah,we spend the better part of 2 movies watching his impulsiveness and anger get the better of him, but we don’t really get anything that touches on Vader’s eeriely calm demeanor later on.  I think many of us expected a reserved, somewhat charming, maybe even likable version of Anakin…not the whiny, headstrong, totally immature mess that we got.  I think it would’ve been fine for the writers to have his journey start that way, but the sudden shift from bratty Anakin to the menace that is/was Darth Vader (over a damn girl, at that) was one of the prequel trilogy’s major follies.

I sort of hated that the the prequel trilogy turned the entire saga into “The Tragedy of Darth Vader.”  I’d always thought of Luke and Leia and Han as the pillars of Star Wars, so it was nice to see The Force Awakens leave Vader behind and embrace the legacy of Luke, Leia, and Han.  However, I do have some problems with The Force Awakens, mainly because it feels more like a reboot/retelling of the original Ep. IV instead of a brand new sequel.

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SPOILERS AHEAD – If you haven’t seen The Force Awakens yet and don’t want anything revealed, stop reading NOW!

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Ok, so first things first – The Force Awakens was not a bad movie.  It’s to be expected that one must wade through some degree of hype that the movie may never be able to live up to.  It isn’t the “event of a generation” that it wants to be; it’s no Matrix trilogy or Pulp Fiction or really anything remotely close.  However it is competent, enjoyable, and worth watching.

My main issue is the degree in which in panders (or fails to pander) to fans of the series.  It was easy for the prequels to drop hints and make connections at every turn (which they did a little too well for my liking) but Force Awakens tries a little too hard to move in the other direction and carve out its own legacy.  Unfortunately, it relies too heavily on plot elements from A New Hope to be successful.  It seems clear that this was by design since there are way too many parallels between the 2 for it to be an accident.  Have you noticed?  It’s like the same basic outline as A New Hope.

We’ve got a desert planet (Jaaku instead of Tatooine), a commoner with grander aspirations (Rey instead of Luke), even a little droid running around on this planet with super-important information (BB-8 instead of R2-D2).  Finn and Rey even go so far as to visit a Mos Eisley-ish bar to find a pilot!  What gives??!!??

As if that wasn’t enough, the parallels between Kylo Ren (sounds like the name of an indie-rock duo) and Darth Vader should be obvious – not just on a superficial level, but their origins as well.  Darth Vader – an apprentice of Obi-Wan, a Jedi, who went rogue.  He ends up questioning his morality when confronted by a family member who happens to be one of the best of the good guys.  Now what about Kylo Ren?  Oh shit, he was Luke’s apprentice who went rogue!  (Maybe the Jedi lineage of Obi-Wan and Luke needs to stop training Jedi.)  And get this: instead of being the father of one of the good guys, he’s actually the son of 2 good guys (Han and Leia)!  Mind = blown.  But seriously, this development can’t even be taken as shocking since it’s all lifted and only slightly rearranged from A New Hope.  

Is that it?  Nope.  Remember the “that’s no moon it’s a space station” big ass planet destroying Death Star?  I must admit, seeing and conceptualizing such an idea as the Death Star was pretty darn impressive to my 9 year old brain.  Well, The Force Awakens takes this concept and turns it up to 11…no 13, even 14.  And it would be cool except that it’s such a blatant rip off of the Death Star!  Force Awakens gives us the Starkiller.  Fuck a moon, this shit is a planet with a giant fucking laser built into it.  It sends out a beam that fragments into multiple smaller beams, each of which destroys a planet.  It kills multiple planets.  And how does it do this?  By sucking up an entire fucking star.  That’s right, the Starkiller drains an entire goddamn star and then fires a massive laser over vast distances to destroy an entire system of planets.  Never mind that it could just suck up an entire star which in and of itself would probably result in the death of an entire planetary system.  (A plot hole which I sincerely hope others will begin latching onto in time.)

So if Force Awakens is technically a better film than A New Hope, and it lifted most of its ideas from A New Hope, does that mean its legacy will supplant that of the original?  No, and I’ll tell you why.  A New Hope wasn’t perfect, but it was enjoyable in its own naive sort of way, and if nothing else, it was original.  Episode VII doesn’t bring anything original to the table.  It should use its superior talent and budget and resources and all that to make something wildly spectacular, not retread well-worn territory.  With millions of dollars, a legacy that could snatch whatever actors it wanted, Abrams and Disney at the help, and a fanbase rabid with creativity, why couldn’t Force Awakens give us more than a retooling of A New Hope?  I don’t know, but it kind of pisses me off.  I didn’t really like that Han got killed either.

I can only hope that his was some sort of perfunctory exercise in re-establishing a franchise (albeit one that doesn’t need to be re-established) and reserve my judgement until the next film.  I really would like to see Star Wars done right, and while Force Awakens is bubbling with potential, it never even tries to push beyond what other entries in the series have already done.  I might even go on to say that despite the inferior quality of the prequel trilogy (especially Ep. I), those movies may have been more fun to watch than Force Awakens.  Seriously, if you’re familiar with A New Hope, within 10 minutes of everyone wandering around in that damn Jaaku desert, you’ll be quickly calculating all the ways in which Episode VII is wholly unoriginal.

One thing that Lucas’ original trilogy lacked was a firm sense of characterization.  Most of the lines delivered by the characters are total throwaways, and only Ford as Han managed to breathe some life into his character (at least on the “good guys” team).  I liked Ben as well, but he’s written out of it pretty quick, and Ewan McGregor’s version of Obi-Wan doesn’t quite align with how I pictured a young Ben.  The Force Awakens does a marginally better job of establishing its characters, yet abandons the process about a third of the way into the film.  We spend a few minutes getting a sense of who Finn and Rey are individually, though once they team up it’s a mish-mash of old characters, old tropes, and familiar situations where it feels like Finn and Rey are just sort of standing in for Luke and Leia.  Neither of them really drives the action (partially a result of the thin plot that was reused) and what little interest I had in both of them quickly waned as events unfolded.

Of course we all know that the biggest role to live up to would be Darth Vader.  Kylo Ren (still can’t get over that name…I feel like there’s a concert flier somewhere that says, “Tonight only, it’s Teagan and Sara featuring Kylo Ren!”) is a laudable attempt at distancing the villain from Vader, at least in terms of his behavior and demeanor, though the mask really helps and once he’d taken off that artificial proboscis I was more than a little underwhelmed.

Kylo Ren had something going for him that Vader didn’t: he was full of unquenchable, maniacal, all-consuming rage that was only very thinly concealed by his minimalist speech.  The impending notion of a raging storm that could burst forth at any moment created some real tension when he was on screen, as opposed to Vader’s wealth of composure and patience.  Vader was a resigned and defeated “man,” devoid of ambition.  He knew that, because of his limitations, he’d moved as far up the ladder as he could, and that his role henceforth was to act as a cog in a greater machine.  It was this cold, emotionally divested attitude that kept him so deadly – Vader didn’t do anything that he did for himself, he did it in service of the Empire/Emperor.

Kylo Ren wasn’t like that at all.  Although he may have started out looking a little like that, his quest for Luke’s lightsaber and his old melted Vader mask and his animosity towards Han all point to his emotional stake in the events taking place.  Unfortunately, the actor, or the screenplay, or perhaps both, is unable to keep this momentum going and Ren finishes the film as a far less effective replacement for Vader than when it began.  The filmmakers do deserve some credit for going out of their way to not create a Darth Vader clone, but I think they would’ve done better to draw out Ren’s story a bit longer and save events such as his confrontation with Han and the removal of his helmet for the next film.

At least Kylo Ren is better than Darth Maul.  Or, god forbid, Count Dooku.  Jesus.  I mean I’m all for Christopher Lee, but the guy can hardly fucking move.

I know I’ve been coming down pretty hard on Force Awakens, but in all fairness, making something like the sequel to Return of the Jedi opens one up to a certain degree of enhanced scrutiny.  It is not a bad movie, but it isn’t a great one either, and I think that’s what a lot of older Star Wars fans were expecting – a great movie.  I had my reservations about Disney taking over Star Wars (I mean hell, they de-canonized Shadows of the Empire, which is a fucking bullshit move) and it looks like Disney is more interested in making a film for today’s children and teens rather than fans of the original.  Why they had to reuse the story from A New Hope (which isn’t even that great of a story) to do so is beyond me though.

Obviously the film is setting us up for a sequel where we dig more into this “Supreme Leader” stuff…not too much different from what they did with the vague introduction of the Emperor in Empire Strikes Back, prefacing his full reveal in Return of the Jedi.  Again, this feels like another cheap rip off from the original trilogy, but we’ll just have to wait and see.

Unfortunately, between Disney’s acquisition, the franchise’s increasing reliance on cartoon/children’s media to carry the story, and the advent of the new film anthology series, I fear that Star Wars’ most prestigious days are in the past.  More than ever, the franchise is going to be a vehicle for greed and mass consumption, with enough “official” supplemental material crammed down our throats to make even the most devout Star Wars nerds turn their backs.  Hopefully this won’t happen.  Like I said, my days of Star Wars uber-nerdom are behind me, but I definitely feel for the guys and girls who’ve spent decades reading all the Expanded Universe material; hunting down novels and comics and guides and hanging on Lucas’ every word.  To have that jerked out from under you has got to be unpleasant…Star Wars has always been far from a perfect body of work, but one of the things that distinguished it was the love it had from both its fans and creator.  Now that the franchise has been fully transformed into a commodity, well, I guess we can only hope for the best.

Have you seen The Force Awakens yet?  How big of a Star Wars nerd are you and what did you think of the latest installment?  Let us know in the Comments section below!

Written by The Cubist