On coming out of the cinema after watching ‘Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens’ I was buzzing with the feeling “Star Wars is back!”. I couldn’t wait to see it again.
But after that initial elation had time to cool off, and I was able to think a little more clearly, several things became apparent to me and with each one I decided that I liked the movie less and less.
WARNING: SPOILERS AHEAD!
Not The Real Episode VII
George Lucas has been saying for years that he has the outlines to the stories from Episode 1 through to 12. He recently sold the rights to ‘Star Wars’ to Disney, who handed the reigns to J.J.Abrams, and they decided not to use his stories. They wanted to make a movie for the fans.
Which means that the story we got in Episode VII was not the one we were meant to get according to the original vision. Episode VII was co-written by Lawrence Kasdan, who also wrote ‘The Empire Strikes Back’ and ‘Return of the Jedi’, so potentially there’s some surviving elements, but overall ‘Star Wars Episode VII’ and onwards is as much Star Wars as ‘Curse of Monkey Island’ and onwards is Monkey Island without Ron Gilbert’s real ending.
Does that make it a bad movie? Not necessarily. But it does raise questions about whether it should be considered true canon.
Unoriginality
As mentioned. Disney and Abrams wanted to make a movie for the fans.
Say what you like about Episode I, at least Lucas gave us something fresh and added a whole bunch of planets and lore to the already vibrant universe. Without the Darth Maul vs Obi-Wan and Qui-Gon battle, we’d still be looking at lightsabers as though they were broadswords.
Episode VII was on the whole a rehash of stuff we’d seen before. It played almost like a ‘best bits’ of the original trilogy. Another Death Star, a cantina scene full of wacky aliens, a tiny wrinkled mystic, a prison rescue, a conversation between the bad guy and a giant hologram of his mysterious boss, he is your father, just to name a few.
It kind of feels a bit like someone said “We’re gonna make millions however this goes, let’s just give the fans what they want”, which is something good film-makers should never say. I did appreciate the fan service of having cameos from Admiral Ackbar and Nien Nunb though.
That New Death Star
Starkiller Base was the First Order’s superweapon. While in Episode IV we were shocked to see a space station the size of a small moon with enough firepower to destroy a planet in one blast, the stakes have been upped as the newest round space blaster thingy is the size of a planet, eats suns for fuel, and can destroy entire solar systems with one blast.
It’s the same just ramped up to 11.
Also it’s called Starkiller, as though that name hasn’t been referenced enough over the years of Star Wars spin offs.
It also has the same weakness: one thing that needs to be destroyed that will cause a chain reaction that will blow up the rest of it.
Although this time instead of being a tiny, practically impossible to hit target of a 2 metre exhaust port in a turbolaser strewn trench, or a reactor tucked deep inside the core of the structure, it’s a huge building right there on the surface. Just like in ROTJ, the ground team needed to deactivate the protective shield before the X-Wing fighters could make a dent, but they’d done that before, so doing it again wasn’t a big deal. Unoriginality note: shutting down the shield played out as a cross between Obi-Wan switching off the tractor beam in ANH and Han planting explosives in the bunker in ROTJ.
Stupid plot hole note: Why did they only send X-Wing fighters to attack the reactor building on Star Killer base? Where were the Y-Wing bombers? Even a B-Wing or two would have been handy!
Chewie’s Bowcaster
I don’t remember it having that kind of firepower in the the original trilogy, but it’s been 30 years. He could have upgraded it.
Anyway, the niggle here is that this movie is the first time Han ever uses Chewbacca’s weapon. How long have they been friends for now? He really never had a go with it before? Why is he so surprised by what it can do?
Getting the band back together
For many of us, much of the excitement of the new trilogy was that it would be continuing from Return of the Jedi and our heroes would be back in action. We were all hyped to see Han, Luke, Chewie, Leia, and the droids back in the falcon.
But that didn’t happen. We got Han and Chewie, and a small amount of Han and Leia, but there was no big reunion. Personally, my favourite part of the original trilogy is the first half hour of ROTJ: the Jabba’s palace sequence where everyone has teamed up to rescue Solo. They’re all there, they’re all buddies, they all have a bit of banter, and they all save the day.
Closely following that is the Death Star escape when Luke, Han, Chewie, Leia, Obi Wan and the droids are each doing their bit to save the galaxy. The trilogy is about an ensemble and there’s no one stand out hero.
I wanted to see them all together again for another adventure, but it didn’t happen, and it’s now not going to.
Captain Phasma
Super cool looking chrome stormtrooper commander. Ruthless and powerful. Gives in when threatened.
They brought in Gwendoline Christie to play the saga’s first proper female villain, and then did nothing with her except make her look like a coward. She could have been the new Boba Fett, but now she’s not even a General Grievous (Episode III version, not awesome Genndy Tartakovsky version).
Why wasn’t Phasma the trooper who took on Finn with a melee weapon? FN-2199 or Nines(fans call him TR-8R) will forever be the Fett for a new generation.
Poe’s Revival
Star Wars: The Force Awakens
Poe Dameron (Oscar Isaac)
Ph: David James
©Lucasfilm 2015
Poe’s dead. Oh crap. Now Finn’s alone!
Half the movie passes.
“Oh hai! Yeah. I’m fine actually. Let’s go blow up a Death Star!”
Eh?
ROTJ Ruined
This if anything is probably ‘Force Awakens’ unforgivable sin. Since 1983 we have been watching ‘Return of the Jedi’. It ends on a massive high note. The Empire is defeated, the Sith Lords are dead, Han is a military hero, Luke is a Jedi about to rebuild the order starting with sister, Han and Leia are happy young lovers.
Episode VII undoes all of that. The Empire have survived and although they are not in power, they’re still a huge threat, somehow capable of affording a new bigger superweapon. The Sith are gone, but the Knights of Ren happily step in to take their place. Han has been forced back into illegal underworld activity instead of being an important leader in the New Republic. Luke began building a new Jedi Order, but one Vader wannabe destroyed it all. That Vader wannabe happened to be his nephew, Leia and Han’s son Ben. Leia and Han’s excellent love story came to a tragic end as they parted ways only to be reunited once more before the end.
ROTJ told us that everything was ok in the end. FA says that the peace lasted the length of the Endor party and that the destruction of the second Death Star wasn’t that big a deal.
This I think was one thing that the old expanded universe might have done better than FA. There were threats, there was an Imperial Remnant, but the end of the Empire actually mattered.
Han’s Death
I think we were all expecting Han to go in this trilogy. Harrison Ford has wanted Han to die a martyr for a good while. I didn’t expect it in the first movie.
We came for Star Wars and Han is one of the main reasons we come back. Now he’s gone and no one will be able to fill his boots. We’re not going to be treated to any more Luke and Han buddy banter. We’re not going to see any more of the tension between him and his love Leia. He’s a huge part of the comradery that gave the original trilogy its heart. With him gone, will he new trilogy have that same feeling?
I had the same complaint about Abrams ‘Star Trek’ movies. The friendship and history between Kirk, Spock, Bones, and the rest just is not there in the reboot movies, while it was the solid core that fans came to see in the originals.
But anyway. We expected Han to come to his end at some point. I’m not sure he was much of a martyr though. If anything he was wasted. His death only served to make Kylo Ren/Ben Solo feel more like the villain he wants to be. Han went out bravely, but his death wasn’t a sacrifice to save the others like Obi-Wan Kenobi’s, or in the heat of battle like Qui-Gon’s. It creates a pattern of a mentor being killed in the first movie of each trilogy, but he’s gone and it didn’t achieve anything. If anything it made the villain stronger, although perhaps his patricide will bother his subdued conscience later on.
You know what. Forget this point. I think I’m just sad that Han died.
