WARNING – MAJOR SPOILERS
My Spoiler-Free mini review is here –
Before I try to put down my full spoiler-filled thoughts on this film, regardless of my opinions on it, I just want to say what a cool thing it has been that it has united and connected so many people in positive celebration. There is something special about Star Wars. It’s not just another movie franchise, it is The movie franchise. I can’t think of anything else, be it Star Trek, Marvel, DC, Hogwarts or Middle Earth that generates so much excitement in so many people. It joins colleagues and friends and now 3 generations of people and even when we are united in our disappointment there is still a special connection that so many people can share. I just want to say it’s great that I can join the conversation with millions of people around the world and I’m looking forward to sharing with everyone one of them the continuing adventures in a galaxy far, far away.
Now to business.
I think we can all agree that STAR WARS EPISODE VII THE FORCE AWAKENS is a mega improvement on the prequel trilogy. It is a fun, exciting, mostly well-made movie with lots going on and good performances and it sets the new franchise off to a decent start.
Do I think that some people are confusing “Great” with “Not shit”?… Maybe.
The film’s opening crawl sets the scene as usual informing us that Luke Skywalker has been missing for some time and that General Leia is fighting the newly arisen First Order with her Resistance. And so, with a seemingly large and well equipped Empire substitute and an apparently small, ragtag Rebellion substitute we kick off our Star Wars Greatest Hits reel including such classics as Death Star (complete with implausible single weakness), gnarly old Emperor, desert planet, snow planet , X-wings, TIE fighters, storm troopers, bar filled with shady characters, old tiny force sensitive alien, trench run, internal infrastructure run, creepy vision, briefing around a big hologram, and parentless young-un learning the force (among others).
Now I have to admit I do like a lot of the above. It’s comforting and fun to see these things and the subtle changes bring a lot of that stuff up to date. But some of this just feels lazy. Particularly with the new Death Star, sorry, Starkiller Base, but we’ll come to that.
Let’s start at the start – I did really like that opening desert village massacre. The new stormtroopers and the First Order in general are pretty terrifying – even more so than the empire was. Leaning heavily on Nazi imagery these fascistic murderers really are something to be worried about and Finn sells that all the way through the first two thirds of the film trying to get away from them and telling others they can’t be stopped.
This first scene also introduces us to 4 of the new main characters – Kylo Ren, Finn, Po Dameron and BB-8 all of whom I like a lot. Of the humans, Po has the least complex character, but it’s nice having that kind of brave, moral old skool swash buckler type around and it’s a character we haven’t had in the previous films.
But it’s Kylo and Finn, who I really like in this scene. It can’t be easy to act behind a mask but both Adam Driver and John Boyega nail their characters in these opening shots without being able to express a single emotion on their faces, and when Kylo freezes that laser bolt mid blast it set him apart as a new kind of badass.
Following this we meet our other main new character Rey (Daisy Ridley). She is completely competent and independent and a million miles away form a damsel in distress, proving multiple times that she does not need to be rescued. We initially find her scavenging parts from an old wrecked Star Destroyer and actually, watching this in 3D was great here, really demonstrating the epic scale of these things. We spend just enough time with her to understand her situation, waiting alone for something or someone, living under the boot of an AT-AT, before she meets BB-8 and Finn and sets off on her adventure.
It was the right decision to introduce us to all the new kids on the block early and get us invested in them. All of the new team do great work. Boyega and Ridley have a real friendly chemistry together. I’m glad they didn’t try to shoehorn in much of a romance between them and particularly happy that they stayed well away from the awful Lucas romantic dialogue from Episode II, but it’s still funny watching Finn try to impress Rey. The acting skills of the new team are much more evident here than in any of the previous films, with the team really showing fear, frustration and joy, complete with little character touches. But I have to say I really like Adam Driver’s Kylo Ren the best out of this new bunch.
I always thought they botched Vader’s reveal in Episode III so badly and made him look super lame with his wimpy “Noooo!” and a couple of canisters and the like bending out of shape. I really think they could have shown something new to the character here, some kind of extreme Vader rage that would have had the Emperor looking on in fearful awe at the monster he had created, knowing he would have to run him down to keep a leash on him.
So I was thrilled to see that Ren does have this rage. We have been told that anger and fear are the paths to the dark side, but previously all of the sith have seemed like pretty chilled characters. Sure they’re a bit killy, but their anger is always contained. Not so with Ren. He’s a ball of emotion tumbling out of control, just barely holding it together. I’m most looking forward to watching his continuing story in the next chapters more than any other character.
When we do finally get to our first Original Trilogy characters, Han and Chewie, it really was like seeing old friends again. They got the characters just right after all this time. In a film that was surprisingly much funnier than any of the previous outings, the duo skirted dangerously close to just becoming comic relief at times, but they stayed just on the right side of this line.
I wasn’t enamoured with their first big action set piece. Coming off the back of the fantastic Millennium Falcon escape from Jakku, the corridor chase with the big roly-poly monsters didn’t do it for me. And it seemed like… not star wars. Something about those creatures, or the fact that Han was transporting them, or the bit too colourful ship just didn’t sit right. The best bit about this scene was definitely just watching Rey and Finn bond.
This leads to another bugbear here though. Where are the cool space ships? This is the first chance we got to see a completely brand new ship that didn’t have to be heavily influenced by something from the previous trilogies, and they really missed a trick here. One of the best things about Star Wars in general is just looking at the cool space ships. Can you even describe Han’s new ship? Long? Rectangular? I can’t remember anything else. Even the prequel trilogy presented us with some cool new designs, things you would want to have a model of on your shelf (you know, if you’re a fucking geek like me) but barring Kylo Ren’s shuttle, which although cool looking is let’s face it, the bastard child of a Tyderian shuttle and Darth Maul’s ship, there were no new designs that stood out.
What did stand out though, like a sore thumb, were new CG characters Maz Kanata and Supreme Leader Snoke. Snoke (Andy Serkis) in particular was one of the worst looking CG creations I have seen in recent years. He comes dangerously close to looking like one of the zombie monster things from I AM LEGEND.
You’ve only to go and look at Caesar in DAWN OF THE PLANET OF THE APES last year to see just how amazingly realistic and wonderful motion-captured computer-generated characters can be (also played by the fantastic Andy Serkis). And it’s not like Star wars would have had budget problems or anything, and it’s not like they didn’t have the world’s finest special effects house – Industrial Light and Magic doing the effects for them so why do these characters look so, frankly, rubbish? I fucking hate Snoke’s look. why was it necessary to have him as CG at all? He doesn’t move and the design was not something that would have been impossible to achieve with makeup. Or they could have done something subtle with the CG like Ralph Fiennes’ Voldemort from HARRY POTTER where they just removed his nose to make him look super creepy. Hopefully that giant Snoke hologram is just a WIZARD OF OZ type facade and we’ll get to see the real Snoke behind this in later chapters. Either that or ILM gotta upgrade their graphics cards before the next episode.
Thankfully for Maz Kanata (Lupita Nyong’o), even though her face doesn’t quite work (looking both smooth and wrinkly at the same time) the character does. I really like her line about about Chewbacca being her boyfriend. It instantly tells us just what kind of character she is and about her relationship with Han and the Wookie. She is definitely has a back story I’m intrigued about, how does she know the force, how does she come to have Luke’s lightsaber, why does she run a bar (temple?) filled the scum and villainy of the universe.
Speaking of which, I love the crowd of characters populating her home. Along with the similarly fun practical effects from the Jakku scenes this really is a cool throwback to earlier times, with some of the creatures looking like they would be right at home in LABYRINTH.
The First Order attack on Maz’s home is another great action set piece with more legions of storm troopers, TIEs and X-Wings flying around and Han shooting Chewie’s bowcaster apparently for the first time in their over 40 year friendship. I love it when the Resistance X-wings appear in the distance over the lake which reminded me of the AT-ATs appearing in the distance on Hoth. Then there’s Finn having a badass one-on-one with a ninja stormtrooper, demonstrating that he is competent enough with a blade and culminating in him shoving said blade through the poor trooper’s chest. I’ve heard some people complaining about Finn’s skill with a lightsaber – how could he possibly hold his own against Kylo Ren later in the film, even for that very short time. Well he is a soldier, even if he has been recently working in sanitation. And a soldier trained from birth, mind. To think the First Order wouldn’t train those dudes up in hand to hand combat and with weapons other than blasters at some point in their first 20 years is ridiculous.
At the end of this sequence following the kidnapping of Rey by Ren we meet our next OG, Leia. It was really great to see Carrie Fisher here, aging gracefully (as all the original cast are thankfully). She looks tough and experienced and motherly but when she lets her eyes fill up with emotion and she loses that facade it’s really beautiful. I was worried about learning the fate of Han and Leia’s relationship, but somehow this separation due to circumstance, although a little disappointing, seemed right and it was good to see the affection the two retained for each other. When we find out that Ren is Han and Leia’s son I was surprised and it added a new emotional depth to the proceedings but I think the film and the impact of Han’s eventual demise suffered by us not knowing more about Ren’s relationship to his parents and its breakdown.
The only other main player I haven’t really mentioned yet is General Hux. I’m still not sure on this chap. He seems to be the bearer of some of the more clunky dialogue Star Wars is famous for, and has a real no-nonsense evil villain persona. Mirroring Peter Cushing’s Role as Grand Moff Tarkin from Episode IV he does not command that same authority, and certainly is not able to maintain his poise like the old master, but in a way, like Ren, I like that he is a bit more unstable. Snoke seems to have populated his First Order with young people. I can see that they may be able to be easily influenced, like in a cult. Having not been born during the intergalactic war that saw the rise of the New Republic they could easily be manipulated into believing what Snoke wanted. I do like the teary look of awe on Hux’s face when Starkiller Base unleashes its planet destroying superlaser.
Which brings us to our big bad laser ball. The more I think about the fact they use a third Death Star the more I dislike it. The only reason using a Death Star for a second time was forgivable was because they used it as a trap, bait for the Rebel Alliance, to destroy them once and for all with the lure of an incomplete battle station. It was the perfect bait and switc literally and figuratively. Presumably audiences back in ’83 groaned at the prospect of another Death Star but just when they thought it was going to be the same old thing, old man Palpatine delivers the line “Now witness the firepower of this fully armed and operational battle station!” Oh Shiiit!
So I was looking forward to the nature of the bait and switch this time round. Obviously it couldn’t be a standard Death Star and obviously it couldn’t be another trap since we’ve seen these two iterations before. They even laid it on really thick with the briefing scene around the hologram of the death star. I thought it was played out for ironic laughs. Populated with some just-too-famous-to-not-stand-out TV actors and Admiral “Comedy Meme” Ackbar, they first show the comical scale of Starkiller Base compared to the original. Then Han literally says the comedy line “How do we blow it up? There’s always a way to do that!” followed by Leia’s “Han’s right!” Then the single weakness is revealed just like we expect and a plan so simple and derivative of the earlier films that they couldn’t possibly get away with is developed. I could not wait to see how they were going to completely defy our expectations.
So when this didn’t happen, at all, it was crushing. Was it really just another Death Star? Apparently so.
I know there was intention behind this. I’m certain this repetition and all the other similar beats, shots and themes in the film were not added by accident. George Lucas always said these films were supposed to ‘rhyme’. It’s why we get similar motifs, characters, settings and situations cropping up in the first six films. So it makes perfect sense to continue this to the new films, but just because it was intentional doesn’t mean it was a good decision.
It wasn’t the only poorly handled thing in relation Starkiller Base. How about the blowing up of the New Republic planets? Was it even clear they were Republic planets for the casual viewer? They were introduced literally seconds before being destroyed and we as an audience had no investment in these planets whatsoever. At least with the destruction of Alderaan we got Leia’s pleading horror, and Obi-Wan’s “as if millions of voices suddenly cried out in terror and were suddenly silenced” line. Nothing came even remotely close to that here. It’s not even really clear why they focus on those planets. Were they the hub of the intergalactic government? Who knows.
And while I’ve got my rant on, let’s talk about Captain Phasma. Man did she look cool in all the promo material. A big badass chrome plated female Stormtrooper. We’ve never seen the like before, strolling in Reservoir Dogs style slow-mo through the trailer. What a lame duck she turned out to be. All she does is give Finn a bit of a nag at the start and then turn off the shields of Starkiller base at the slightest suggestion from him and Han, condemning the entire population of the base including herself to death in doing so.
There’s no reason for us to believe she is someone to be feared at all. Sure she looks cool but at least her Original Trilogy mirror Boba Fett, gets a line from Vader explaining how badass he is “No disintegrations!” and he outsmarts Han by hiding in the star destroyer junk. She really needed at least one scene where she was shown to be a stone cold evil mother crusher or at the very least a better more ruthless or more skilled stormtrooper than the rest of the surprisingly competent troops surrounding her. Maybe even just a scene of her severely reprimanding Finn or one of his trooper buddies so we get some kind of an idea about why Finn might be scared of her. Just being chrome doesn’t cut it.
And so we come to the emotional climax of the film: Han’s death at the hands of his own son. As I already mentioned some, perhaps even a lot of the weight of this scene was lost since we barely knew the relationship between Ren and his Father, but that didn’t stop me from getting a lump in my throat when Han shouted his son’s birth name “Ben!”
I liked their emotional talk on the bridge with Kylo talking about being torn apart and even though the death was kind of telegraphed in from the start of their conversation, that didn’t make it any less brutal seeing that red blade sticking out of Han’s back. And then when Han tenderly caresses his son’s face in forgiveness before falling that lump in my throat got even bigger. But what really very nearly set me off blubbing was Chewie’s reaction. Damn, I love Chewie in this film, there are loads of nice little touches that put the focus on him. But when he goes into a wookie rage blowing shit up and taking out troopers like it’s going out of fashion even forgetting to give a shit about Finn and Rey I loved it and really felt for that big hairy oaf.
But there was no time to grieve as we were soon into the final lightsaber showdown. It’s good watching Finn fighting with a sabre even when he gets his ass handed to him, and I hope that the story develops Finn into a force users of we can get more of this action, but when Rey ignited that blade and the old John Williams score started to swell I got serious chills. I really liked the fight choreography here. Much less acrobatic than the prequel fights and Rey was properly throwing some Luke signature moves in there straight outta Deaths Star throne room, thrusting wildly with her blade. When she finally calls on the force and knocks down Ren it was a pretty satisfying conclusion.
Much has been said about Leia embracing Rey rather than Chewbacca when they return to the Resistance base following the destruction of Starkiller Base (note that Chewbacca also ignores Leia) since this is the first time they meet. And while I agree it’s a weird misstep, you have to assume that Rey has some history with the Skywalkers prior to being abandoned on Jakku. Likewise we have to assume Rey has some prior experience of the force or there would be no excuse for the speed at which she developes her powers with no training. But judging this as a standalone film these little niggles and logic problems add up and do end up detracting from the enjoyment.
Finally after all of this and a brief awakening by R2-D2 we get the final piece of our Original Trilogy Trinity, Luke, who kind of just confusedley stares at Rey for a bit too long for it not to be awkward before the credits roll. Now don’t get me wrong. I don’t hate the decision to keep Luke out of the proceedings until the end. It makes sense story wise and having both Han and Luke around earlier would certainly steal a lot of thunder from our newbies but I think I would have liked at least a little more, or for Luke to do something other than stare for a bit. How about – he’s sensed a disturbance in the force and comes out of hiding, gets himself to Starkiller base to save the day, just in time to see Han fall to he death. “Nooooo!”
Or here’s my idea, right – both the First Order and the Resistance get the full map to Luke much earlier in the proceedings. Then it’s a race across the galaxy to get to Luke to either blow up his planet or rescue him respectively. This time limit adds tension and it provides us with a planet we would actually care about if it were destroyed. The Resistance still go after the oscillator on the surface of Starkiller Base and blow it up but it’s a complete bust. Destroying the oscillator hasn’t affected the functionality of Starkiller base at all. The plan has completely failed. We now have a different scenario to episode IV and VI which we haven’t seen before. Meanwhile Rey gets to Luke’s planet and finds Luke just in time as Starkiller base starts to fire the laser. She pleads “Luke, you don’t know me but you’re in terrible danger you have to leave with me right now!” And as the laser starts to fire Luke turns calmly to Rey and says “Rey, the ability to destroy a planet is insignificant next to the power of the force.” And as he extends his hand skywards the laser blasts towards the planet, he closes his eyes and uses the force to somehow nullify or bounce back that huge beam (remember, “size matters not”) and against Luke’s nullification of the beam, the base over heats or ends up in some kind of feedback loop and is destroyed. Thus we eliminate some of the problems mentioned earlier, we get a cool introduction to Luke, he gets to show he is the ultimate force badass after having trained in solitude all these years and we get an awesome throwback (see “rhyme”) to the first Star Wars with the Vader quote.
Man that ending is so good I got excited just typing it. Thanks Disney, I’ll expect my cheque in the post within 28 days, ta.
So I’ve ended on a bit of a whinge, but it’s only because it’s Star Wars, only because we want it to be good so much. We want to have a return to the times when there were 3 films that united all of Geekdom.
I think JJ Abrams has done about as good as he could, considering the weight of expectation on him, the time deadlines, and the fact we now know he was still working on the script while they were filming. I think it is fast paced, is excitingly shot, occasionally looks like a movie set, is flawed in a lot of places, but has definitely captured the soul of Star Wars and has nailed the character work. And it is completely watchable. I seriously struggle to get through Episode II these days. JJ has left some wonderful characters, interesting story threads and a solid legacy for new directors and new storytellers to come on board without having that pressure of trying to make the first Star wars film in a generation.
In short, I like it. I don’t love it, but I’ve come to realise I don’t have to. Just cos you might love Jaws, do you have to love the god awful Jaws IV? (Which, by the way, I do, but you get my point.) Me and the Original Trilogy are bro’s and nothing’s ever going to change my opinion on those. Disney could release terrible Star Wars films year after year from now and I could live with it. Thankfully though, it looks like that’s not going to be the case. Live long and prosper!
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