The Force Awakens has now been out for a week, breaking all kinds of records and capturing everyone's attention in the lead-up to Christmas, as though the Skywalkers have replaced the line of David.
After walking out of the cinema, it took me a while to figure out what I thought of the film. It was good, but in such a way that it felt like it could've been better if some fundamental changes had been made to the design of the film. Here are the good, the bad and ugly choices made in the making of Star Wars Episode VII.
Good
Poe Dameron: Despite the silly name (is he a ghost?), Poe is the best character in the entire film. A spectacularly talented fighter pilot, he puts his life on the line to take on the New Order time and again. He's cool under pressure, he knows exactly what he's doing, and we only see enough of him to know his characterisation is spot on. The total hand wave of his escape from Jakku when he reappears in the last third of the film feels justified, because he's just that kind of guy.
Mixing and matching the roles from A New Hope: Rey, Finn and Poe are the Luke, Han and Leia of the new trilogy. But which one is which? Rey is the strong-willed female (Leia), who intrinsically knows everything about her ship (Han) that is the new talent in the Force upon whom events centre (Luke). Poe is a leader of the rebellion who needs to be rescued (Leia), by nature a bit of a playful scoundrel and has world experience (Han), who leads the attack on the Death
Han Solo: Second only to Poe in terms of best performances. When he arrives, it's unexpected (even though we knew he was coming at some point), and it's just he hasn't changed...other than that he's got old. He's still the same character, but full of the wisdom, experience, and regret that only age brings. Nothing throughout the film feels out of place with how you would expect an old Han Solo to be.
Interaction between the new characters: Really well done, although from memory Poe only interacts with Finn, but that's okay because it's the best relationship of the lot. Rae and Finn both know absolutely nothing about the world they've rushed into, so in some ways it's not surprising that they become besties so quickly, even though it still felt forced (for reasons I'll explain later), the 'it' being the speed of that friendship, not the friendship itself. It was also refreshing to see what is clearly a budding romance begin without the two characters not liking each other. They have some misunderstandings, but only in the way you would expect given their backgrounds, and they get cleared quickly. How convenient, too, that young Ms Skywalker (as she so obviously is) will end up with a man with no last name, thus ensuring the name 'Skywalker' will continue on to another generation.
Killing off Han: There was no conceivable way all of the old three could make it through the new trilogy - not with the way this story has been set up. Using his death as the clear symbol of Kylo Ren's fall is classic storytelling. It's sad to see him go - especially this early, as I would've done it in VIII - but it was the right call. Luke or Leia dying would feel like a step too far, but Han? He's a scoundrel, it's natural for him to die first, and for him to do it by being the least like a scoundrel ever seen in the Star Wars films felt even better.
Industrial Light and Magic: We're back to proper effects, which aren't going to age within a matter of years after the release of the film and don't exist in every nook and cranny imaginable. The graphical quality of the film speaks for itself. Just watch it and marvel.
Bad
Sticking to A New Hope like glue: This was the wrong choice. The intention seems clear: prove that the new Star Wars will be faithful to the original trilogy, and not flop like the prequels. Unfortunately they decided that the right way to do this was to copy literally every single piece of IV and use it in a slightly different way. Put the important map into a droid and sent it away, find it on a desert planet where the main character lives, have them encounter a wise old man who had disappeared for years, run into the rebellion, use what they've learnt to blow up a Death Planet which has successfully had its first test run, have the old mentor die at the hands of the evil man he turns out to be close to, have the main character successfully use the Force before getting away. Ta da! It would've been far better to do something different with the good characters they created.
Finn knows too much: If this guy, who as a character I generally like, was trained to be a Stormtrooper from birth/a young age, why does he seem so much like you and me? How he can he be so aware of things that the average person is aware of? How can he recognise right and wrong so easily? How can he play the role of comic relief so well in a way that is completely different to how the clone troopers have played it in other Star Wars media (that of being completely clueless of anything beyond fighting)? This is really noticeable in Finn, but it's actually true of everyone...
Why is everyone so human: This may seems like an odd complaint, but hear me out. I do not mean that it's a bad thing for them to be human in comparison to the prequels, because in those the characters were all robotic thanks to terrible decisions of direction (read: green screen everything). What I mean is that Star Wars is a space opera. It is not a realistic drama. I am meant to sympathise with the good guys and dislike the bad guys, like in a pantomime. The better the performances, the easier it is to do this, which is why it was so hard in the prequels. Even the complexity of good and evil (like a bad guy being good at heart) is meant to be relatively simple, ala Anakin coming back to the Light at the end. TFA ditched this in favour of complex, realistic, meant-to-be-relatable drama, and I don't like it at all. We see Kylo Ren struggling with the call of the light side. We see Finn explaining his feelings. We see everyone look like they're going to cry more than once. Why? This is meant to be a pantomime! What happened to the space opera?
What even is the Force: Seriously, what is it? Perhaps we never hear a proper explanation of it because the only characters who talk about it with any kind of knowledge are two non-Force users, but if you're coming into this film with no knowledge of the Force, you aren't going to come out much wiser. It seems to kind of help the way you fight, but not especially so, as we see two people use the Skywalker lightsabre with no Force knowledge whatsoever, and they don't die immediately - or at all. The Force has always been deliberately vague in a folk religion, mystical kind of way, but in TFA it was basically about closing your eyes and feeling better. Also, watching a guy thrust his hand out near someone's face for minutes on end is not thrilling viewing, please find a better way to symbolise what Ren is doing.
Rey is a Mary Sue: I want to like this character, but I can't, and I don't want to use the phrase 'Mary Sue', but what other way is there to describe this kind of character? Everything about her is perfect, including her one character flaw ('I want to go home'), which isn't really a character flaw at all, and which she gets over fairly quickly anyway. Pretty lady, very skilled hand-to-hand fighter, knows everything about spaceships and mechanics, everyone likes her, she picks up the whole Force powers thing basically straight away (though this can at least be hand-waved as 'she stole it from Kylo Ren') and everyone will drop everything for her wellbeing. Unlike Luke Skywalker, who, despite his circumstances, is an entirely believable head-in-the-clouds innocent figure, Rey (Skywalker) is an entirely unbelievable worldly figure who manages to hold on to only the most frustrating part of innocence (I can run away and it'll be fine). She even has a British accent, which strikes me as the kind of thing done to make a character seem different for no reason whatsoever. Remember, this is a pantomime made in the US, only evil characters should have British accents.
Ugly
Phasma: What a pointless character. How much of this character was not designed for monetary purposes? She is neither a strong female character (as obviously she was designed to be) nor a cool Boba Fett type (as she talks too much and is annoying in a way the Fetts aren't). I hope we never see her again (but we will).
The way they killed off Han: Could this have been any more excruciating? We knew this was coming. The hints were everywhere, and the moment Han saw Kylo is was over. He walked onto that bridge sealing his own fate. So why did it take so long? It would have been a far more memorable seen had it been over nice and quickly, without seeing Han slowly die and fall off the bridge, and everyone slowly react. The symbolism of 'this is the moment' would've come through more clearly too. This wasn't the first time that a moment was missed either - it only becomes apparent after his death that Leia's request to bring Kylo (Ben) home was what would lead to his death, because it was the only reason he confronted his son at all.
The ending: Who thought this was a good idea? In this case, following the Episode IV script closer would've resulted in something better. For example, a funeral for Han Solo, and then finish with an award ceremony for the fighters who blew up the planet, with a final cut shot of Luke Skywalker staring out over the waters from his island, zooming out to reveal his location, then cut to credits. Instead of this ending, which wraps things up and provides a tiny tease for the next film, we got something that felt rushed and haphazard, with an awkward pacing and an odd leap in the story. In particular, the final minute (which felt like five), which consisted of Rey holding Luke's lightsabre out to him while camera kept on panning around them, was genuinely excruciating and added nothing to the story. All we needed, if indeed we really needed to see the Jedi Master at all, was a quick shot to see that he was old, alone and isolated. Making this sequence so long added nothing to the film, and actually detracted from the events that had happened just prior. It would've been much better to spend more time on the death of quite possibly the most beloved character in the series, seeing how the other characters dealt with it in the aftermath, along with where the group headed from there.
Don't get me wrong, The Force Awakens is not a bad film. But it isn't great either. There is always the sense that this is a fanfiction brought to life just lurking in the background. Perhaps this is unsurprising, as I have no doubt most of the cast and crew are fans of the series, especially of the original trilogy. But the fact that this film is as good as it is ultimately results in a feeling of genuine disappointment, as there are simply too many significant issues in the film that prevent it from being great. This is not a film that I envision too many people ranking as their favourite Star Wars in twenty years from now, and that is a shame.
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