So, I had the opportunity to go see The Force Awakens on opening night. I probably wouldn’t have gone, except the tickets were free. I wasn’t expecting much–the prequel trilogy sucked the joy out of the universe for me.
To my great surprise, I enjoyed it. I mean, really enjoyed it.
I can’t say for sure if it was a function of having ‘lower than a snake’s belly in a wagon rut’ level expectations, or if the movie was actually good. And there seems to be a lot of discussion going on over whether it was or not. You’ll see me use the word original a lot in this post, for good reason.
Personally, I think the movie did exactly what the producers wanted it to, and I give them credit, because that would be a tough balancing act. They needed to appeal to a new, younger audience, while still keeping happy the ones who saw the original in theatres more years ago than I care to admit (I was 10, I believe).
It was a good opener to the trilogy, if possibly a bit too predictable. The plot followed very closely on New Hope’s, just transposed a few years into the future.
That doesn’t necessarily make it bad, because it gave the producers the opportunity to make callbacks to the original, with a few extra touches. It does mean that if you’re going into the movie looking for surprises, you’re going to be disappointed.
In the beginning, we have a rebel pilot carrying the Very Important Plot Point/MacGuffin, who is captured by the Empire/First Order, but not before he manages to give his adorable droid the McGuffin. The most novel part of this was that the stormtroopers were actually hitting things they aimed at. (I know–shocking!) Then we have a desert planet, with a girl scraping a living scavenging parts off the detritus of the war from IV, V, and VI. This type of movie often ignores that aftermath of a space war, so I was really happy to see all the dead machinery lying half buried in the sand. It only makes sense that this stuff would still be sitting around, and that a scavenging industry would be built up around it. So, not exactly subsistence farming, but it evokes the same desolate setting from New Hope. (On a side note, I now want to go sand dune sledding.)
BB-8 is, of course, R2D2, cute and funny and the Keeper of the Very Important Plot Point/MacGuffin. Finn is, I’m guessing, this generation’s Han Solo, or will be. He’s going through his ‘encased in carbonite’ phase right now.
There’s the requisite cantina scene, the requisite watching the heroine captured by the bad guys scene, the requisite bad guy showing off his powers scene, the ‘these aren’t the droids you’re looking for’ scene, etc. I did get a huge kick out of the one where Kylo Ren is destroying the chair in a toddler-like temper tantrum, and the stormtroopers coming around the corner hear the noise, obviously know what’s going on, and go back the way they came, because it seems that stormtroopers have used the past thirty years to become, not just better shots, but smarter. The respect and fear that Vader commanded is noticeably lacking. Kylo Ren is young, and not handling anything in life well–a throwback to Luke in the originals that I thought was an interesting switch. I’m curious to see what they do with this.
The scene on the catwalk was an obvious homage to the scene in New Hope in which Vader killed Obi Wan; Vader killed his figurative father, and Ren killed his actual father.
They destroyed the Dark Side’s giant weapon in nearly the exact same way–a few tweaks to the process, but anyone who sees the planning stage for it will feel the ghost of the original in the room.
But, despite all that, it was still a fun watch. I will freely admit that I squeed when the Millenium Falcon came on screen. (My movie boyfriend–hey, don’t judge.) Most of the movie was spent going “Haha, I remember that!” I suspect that this is the transitional movie–it’s balanced between the two story lines, bridging the gap between Return of the Jedi and the rest of the saga. I wouldn’t be surprised if there were fewer references to the original in the next movie, and almost none at all in the last. They’re easing us older fans away from the New Hope trilogy, and into the Force Awakens one.
My overall impression? This felt very much like that thing we sometimes do in books, where the echoes of the past are felt in the present, and the job of the current hero is to do the exact same thing as the original hero, but better, and to finish the job the first hero couldn’t. It’s a definite go-see, but probably better if you remember A New Hope.
One last thought–Mark Hammill only had a few moments of screen time, but he did it well. Unlike his tendency when younger, he didn’t overact. In fact, it was so well done, you could almost hear the mental “Noooooooooooo!” there at the end, but only the most subtle of expressions appeared on his face. (I still have trouble thinking about him, though, and not remembering the time he guested on The Muppet Show with the Gargling Gargoyle. Classic.)
