TAKE 1: One Man’s Opinion
…because film is largely subjective
by Frederick William Springer III
Star Wars: The Force Awakens
in IMAX 3D
Release Date: 18 December 2015 Runtime: 135 Minutes
Review Date: 23 December 2015 Rating: 4 (of 6
Well, at least it wasn't The Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. But even so, Star Wars: The Force Awakens took some major missteps. To elaborate, I'd have to jump into spoilers,
so I'll hold off just a moment.
What can be
addressed first is one other issue.
Throughout the beginning, the character of Finn (John Boyega) is one big
walking emoticon, looking completely ridiculous. One almost would welcome Jar Jar Binks back
in his stead. However, it is apparent
that Boyega can actually act from the other 2/3 of the film, so go figure.
What The Force Awakens does have working for
it is a good editing pace. And 2 cool scenes
where a Destroyer hangs out into the audience, if you saw it in 3D. However, while having no basis of comparison,
I don't think the IMAX 3D experience is really necessary.
Everything else
has at least a hint of SPOILERS so you've been warned. If you want to go see the movie with a clean,
untainted slate, stop reading now.
**SPOILERS:
While originally
the screenplay was promisingly written by Lawrence Kasdan, who also penned The Empire Strikes Back (and Raiders of the Lost Ark), it was then
retooled by Michael Ardnt (Toy Story 3 and
Catching Fire) and Director J.J.
Abrams. The end product is an
installment passing the torch, as I believe was always intended, but I think
the fans, after a 30 year wait, were looking more for a continuation or, at the
very least, balanced involvement of the old and the new. Instead, you fuck with the fans by saying
you're bringing back the original cast, yet Carrie Fisher has very little
screentime, and that could have been easily removed, not helping progress the
story forward in any way, her involvement insignificant. Then in the teaser trailer we hear Luke's voice
overlaid the length of that commercial.
Well, that was one big joke, because Mark Hamill only appears in the
last 60 seconds and says nothing at all.
NOT ONE DAMN WORD.
Harrison Ford,
did have a sizeable presence. Though, it
appears they only coaxed him into returning by offering what he wanted for the
character in the original trilogy. The
way they did it here was kind of dull and lame.
If you want to pull that shit off with an iconic character, maybe you
should refer to the playbook used for William Shatner in Star Trek Generations or Leonard Nimoy in The Wrath of Khan.
Over all, I think
ultimately maybe J.J. shouldn't have jumped ships, trading the Enterprise for
the Millennium Falcon, because what he did for Star Trek he certainly didn't do here for Star Wars. (His greatest contribution
is reigning in the CGI, opting to return to more practical effects.) Philosophically, I get it and originally
supported his decision--he grew up a fan and dreamed of taking the reins, so
when someone offers you your dream, a rare thing most people never are given a
shot at, you take it. But that doesn't
always translate into something good (see Rob Zombie's Halloween).
Then there are the plot holes, the hit your
forehead moments, and things that don't ring true (which number too many to
touch on all of them). Let's work
backwards. MAJOR SPOLIER if you haven't
already figured it out and haven't heeded my last warning: When Chewie is first
reunited with Princess Leia, he gives her a huge, emotional bear hug. Yet, returning from the mission in which Han
Solo is killed, he disembarks from the Millennium Falcon and walks right past
Leia like she's a stranger, without so much as a word of condolence (or
moan/grunt as the case may be), without so much as even sympathetically looking
at her, though he's almost close enough to knock into her. WHAT.
THE. FUCK?! Unless this is some kind of Wookie cultural
thing, it is completely unbelievable and thus mishandled. Yet when Rey (Daisy Ridley), who we've seen
have no relationship with General Leia onscreen, gets off the ship, she almost
makes a beeline for Leia and the two share a lingering emotional embrace.
Speaking of Rey, how is it that she suddenly, on her own cognizance,
realizes her powers as an adult and is able to control them instantly? This goes counter to everything we've learned
in the past 2 trilogies. Even an adult
Luke Skywalker had to be coaxed into discovering his abilities. He also had to learn to handle a lightsaber,
something non-Jedi, Force void Finn picks up immediately as does Rey.
Now
that we're on to Luke, there's a map to his location? A map that was broken into several pieces and
now there's a treasure hunt for the last piece and him? Come on!
On the
same footing, Death Star 3? Really? REALLY?!
You couldn't come up with a new weapon?
Something original? Then you
even, almost tongue in cheek, acknowledge this goof by explaining it's not the
Death Star but the "Starkiller".
If it looks like a duck and sounds like a duck, even if it is 4 times
bigger, it's still a duck. And if the Empire
was pretty much demolished in Return of
the Jedi, how would you keep the construction of something of that massive
size hidden, especially since the Rebels that had now destroyed 2 of them would
surely be vigilantly on the outlook to keep a resurgence of the Empire from
forming as well as their deadliest weapon?
The
Emperor had been the evil puppeteer in the galaxy. So who's this new unexplained super villain,
Supreme Leader Snoke, and where did he come from?
And
then there's the new henchman, who's supposed to be Darth Vader incarnate. How
exactly did he turn to the Dark Side? It
was shown that Anakin Skywalker began his training later in life than he ought
to have and, with the power he had within himself, he had a hard time
controlling it when his slave mother was slaughtered before he could save her,
sending his emotions and sanity off the charts.
But Kylo Ren (Adam Driver) presumably had two loving parents and a
decent home life/upbringing, we have no reason to believe otherwise knowing
these characters, so what the hell could have possibly triggered him unless
schizophrenia is a thing a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away.
We're
also told Kylo Ren had too much Vader in him.
Again, Anakin didn't start off evil, and there was a set of
extraordinary circumstances that set him off in that path, a manipulative
authority figure present in his life coaxing it out of him, but no such glimpse
is offered about Ben Solo other than that, after these suspicions were
realized, whether this was at 2 or 12, they had Luke train him and he
failed. So he worships Vader's burnt
helmet--where'd he get that? I'm sure
Luke didn't save it, if he had wanted it he wouldn't have put it on the funeral pyre to begin with--seemingly totally oblivious that Anakin redeemed himself
in the end, turning his back on the Dark Side.
Also, neither Han Solo or Leia knew Anakin, just Vader, so to say Ben
had too much Vader in him, Ben must have been some real twisted, bad ass mother
fucker of a kid. However, when he is
sans mask, you get the impression of anything but... (Of course, in the original trilogy, we
started off knowing nothing of Vader or the Emperor's origin, and that worked
well at the time. But since we know
where Kylo Ren originated from, these questions bear a lot more weight and
deserve more consideration.)
And
though the events of the original trilogy only took place 30 years ago, many of
the characters say they believed all the elements involved--the characters, Jedis,
the Force--were all folklore and legend.
Umm, it was only 30 years ago. I
get this is a huge universe where things may not have impacted people directly,
but it's hard to believe that those that populate it would think something so
recent was more or less made up. I don't
think if you tell a teenager that in the 80s there were no cell phones or
computers that they'd turn to you and say they thought the lack of technology
was just a myth. Or that the Berlin Wall
was the stuff of legends.
Now, maybe
all this shit will all be answered down the road but what ever happened to stand-alone
films in a franchise, instead of another Lost (which, by the way, you could at least get a little taste of, a little bread crumb thrown at you every week rather than a whole year and a half wait)? You didn't have to
get to Lethal Weapon 4 to understand
the first Lethal Weapon or The Last Crusade to grasp Raiders of the Los Ark. Nor did you need to see Return of the Jedi in the original trilogy to get A New Hope (though Obi-Won essentially
committing suicide still doesn't make any real sense.)
