Review of Star Wars: The Force Awakens (2015) by Tim F — 07 Jan 2018

First off, I'd like to say that overall I found it to be a pretty entertaining movie. I mean other than the 5 seconds of it that made it the worst Star Wars movie ever (I'll expand on that later). It had great special effects, the dogfights and action sequences were pretty cool, and the concept of the Starkiller Base was interesting (although it was just a huge Death Star made from a planet). The casting was good for the most part and it was friggin' awesome to see Han Solo back in action. There was a lot of good humor throughout the movie too (mostly thanks to Han). They introduced some decent characters to the Star Wars universe in Finn and Rey. I don't know enough about Poe to really inform an opinion. He was alright, but pretty one-dimensional. The new little droid, BB-8, was okay, but seemed more like an R2-D2 knockoff who gets around by way of a soccer ball.

So on the face of it, I'd recommend it. But when I start analyzing from a storytelling or writing perspective, that's where I get very nit-picky. And honestly, the more I nit-picked, the more there was to nit-pick. If you haven't seen the movie yet, then you might want to stop reading now, because I'm about to give away a LOT of SPOILERS.

Now that you've been warned, we can begin. I noticed throughout the movie a lot of similarities between this one and Episode 4. See if this sounds familiar: A member of the Resistance (Rebellion) has sensitive data that the First Order (Empire) wants. The village (ship) sheltering him is attacked by First Order Stormtroopers (Imperial Stormtroopers) led by Kylo Ren (Darth Vader), a Dark Side Force-user. During the attack, the Resistance member, Poe Dameron (Princess Leia) gives the sensitive data to his trusted droid, BB-8 (R2-D2) to keep it safe. The Resistance (Rebellion) member is captured by the Dark Side Force-user, but the droid escapes. The droid is left alone on the desert planet of Jakku (Tattooine) until it conveniently ends up in the custody of a Force sensitive human named Rey (Luke Skywalker). Poe (Leia) is interrogated to find out the location of the sensitive data that the First Order wants. Finn (also Luke Skywalker), who's not officially a member of the Resistance (Rebellion), is dressed up in a Stormtrooper uniform to help Poe (Leia) escape the clutches of their captors. The Force sensitive local, Rey (Luke) escapes the First Order (Empire) on the desert planet with BB-8 (R2-D2) on the Millennium Falcon (Millennium Falcon). Anakin Skywalker's old lightsaber is stored in a chest and offered to the Force sensitive Rey (Luke) by the bizarre, old coot Maz (Ben Kenobi). The First Order (Empire) uses Starkiller Base (Death Star) to blow up a planets (Alderaan) to send a message to the rest of the galaxy. The Resistance (Rebellion) has to destroy the Starkiller Base (Death Star) before it blows up the planet D'Qar (Yavin IV) where their main base is stationed and they send a small squadron of X-Wings (X-Wings and Y-Wings) to do it. Han Solo (Obi-Wan Kenobi), the mentor figure to the Force sensitive newcomer, is cut down by the Dark Side Force-user, Kylo Ren (Darth Vader) on Starkiller Base (Death Star). An X-Wing is able to destroy the mega-battle station right before it's ready to fire at the Resistance (Rebellion) planet of D'Qar (Yavin IV) where Princess Leia (Episode IV and VII) is located during the attack.

If you watched episodes 4, 5, 6 and 7 in a row, 3 out of 4 movies have the good guys trying to destroy a battle station that blows up planets. They even slightly address it in the movie, being like "Well, we've done this before. Let's just dust off one of the old plans and do that again." Which they pretty much did. It's time to start thinking outside the box. Because I swear, if Episode 8 starts off on an ice planet... Despite it being the exact same goal of the Rebellion in episodes 4 and 6, it wasn't the main plot of this movie. It was more of a side story just thrown in there. I remember being like an hour into the movie not really sure where it was going when all of a sudden this giant laser they carved into a planet is activated and destroys a system of planets. I do like the idea for making the weapon part of a planet and that it recharges itself by sucking the energy straight from suns. Too bad it wasn't used in Episode 6.

Then there's Kylo Ren, who turns out to be Han and Leia's son. He was a Jedi who turned to the Dark Side. Leia tells Han that if he sees their son to bring him back because, "There's still good in him." Now where have I heard THAT before? I know when George Lucas was in control of the movies, he liked repeating themes, but come on! Disney seemingly bought the Star Wars franchise to take creative control away from George Lucas (and to make lots and lots of money) and then all they did was steal his ideas and reuse them!

But like I said earlier, blowing up Starkiller Base wasn't even the main goal of the film. That piece of sensitive data BB-8 had was part of a map that leads to Luke Skywalker who went into seclusion after his nephew killed all the Jedi he was training. Now both the First Order and the Resistance are looking for him for different reasons. It turns out some old man at the beginning of the movie had one piece of the map and R2-D2 (who's been in sleep mode since Luke left) had the other part. What I'd like to know is who made this map? Did Luke make the map ahead of time saying, "This is where I intend to go and how I intend to get there. But I don't want anyone to find me, so I'm going to split the map into two pieces instead of not making it in the first place"? R2 randomly pops out of sleep mode at the end of the movie and shows everyone his half of the map. So if he went in sleep mode after Luke left, it would stand to reason that someone (Luke!) gave him an incomplete map of where Luke was going before he left. Did someone else track down Luke's movements and slip half the map into R2 memory while he was asleep and gave the other half to some old man (an old man that they never really explain who he was or why he had the other half of the map)? Seriously. Who made the map and why did it get split up? Maybe I wasn't paying attention, but that didn't seem to be explained at all. And why do you need a map to a planet? It's space! It's not like a treasure map where you have to "go left at the skull shaped rock and through the waterfall". You pop in the coordinates for the planet and bang! You're there...which is exactly what happened. They put the pieces of the map together and Rey gets in the Falcon, travels at lightspeed for 3 seconds and arrives at Luke's hideout. Pretty convenient that she knew exactly where to land on an entire planet and found him within minutes of arriving...

Going back to Kylo Ren, he seems to be in conflict with the sides of the Force. So he talks to the mangled helmet of his grandfather Darth Vader to look for strength. He wants to stay on the Dark Side, but he admits he feels the pull of the Light. He says to the helmet, "I will finish what you started." Uhhh, what? Did no one tell Kylo that his grandfather eventually returned to the Light Side and threw the Emperor down a shaft to his death? You'd think Luke would've told his nephew that considering he was there...

Rey is another new Force sensitive character introduced in the movie. She turns out to be quite adept at using it which is impressive considering just the day before she thought that the Force and Jedi were myths. But within moments of Kylo Ren using the Force on her, she's able to read his mind, Jedi mind trick a Stormtrooper into releasing her from captivity and out-Force pull a lightsaber away from Kylo Ren (a guy who's been training with the Force for years). I already knew she could handle herself with a staff, so I won't make a big fuss about her lightsaber skills (although she is inexplicably good with a blaster. Better than stormtroopers. But I guess inaccurate stormtroopers is a staple of the Star Wars universe).

I don't get Finn. He says he was kidnapped as a child and trained to be a stormtrooper. But not once through the movie does he seem like an indoctrinated, brainwashed fanatic. Yet his superiors say he showed no signs of being non-compliant or something. Then later when he leads Han and Chewie onto Starkiller Base, he says he worked sanitation. Huh? They kidnapped a child to make him a janitor? I thought he was kidnapped to be a stormtrooper?

Another new character introduced in this film was a stormtrooper named Captain Phasma. First you have the cool name "Phasma" and then you add the silver armor and the cape and you have the potential makings of the next Boba Fett. And the promotions for the film made Phasma seem significant. Well, she's not. That's right. SHE. I was totally caught off guard when I heard Phasma speak with a feminine voice. The fact Phasma is a woman wasn't the problem, but the voice really didn't suit the character. I could even look past the voice if she did anything cool. But she was more of prop seen maybe 3 times in the movie. Her biggest contribution to the film was betraying the First Order which led to the destruction of Starkiller Base and possibly being thrown into a garbage compactor. Some badass... What a complete waste of a potentially awesome character.

Much like Darth Vader, Kylo Ren served a master. His master is Supreme Leader (Kim Jong-) Snoke. He's only seen as a giant hologram throughout the movie. Andy Serkis plays him, so of course he had to do it in motion capture. Since Snoke looks exact like a (Voldemort inspired) human with scars over his head and ear, it seemed utterly pointless to make him CG. Is there a reason they couldn't slap some makeup on Serkis and just film him like they used to do before CGI? He did a great job of portraying Ulysses Klaw in Avengers: Age of Ultron and they didn't need motion capture on him then.

Now it's time to cover the 5 seconds that made it the worst Star Wars ever. There's really no way to soften the blow or casually slide it in, so I'll just blurt it out as bluntly as possible: Han Solo dies. Yes, that's right. His good for nothing punk kid stabs a lightsaber through his heart, ending his existence. I have been impacted by fictional character deaths before, but they've never felt anything quite like this one. I almost felt like a lightsaber ran through my heart too. Maybe mine wasn't stabbed, but it was definitely broken. I kinda feel like I lived or believed a lie my whole life. For 32 years, Han Solo was safe and alive after Return of the Jedi and I thought that would be the case forever. He had his happy ending. But I was wrong. Deceived, if you will. I thought, "Well, maybe he survived." But he was stabbed through the heart, fell off a bridge into what seemed like a bottomless pit and the planet exploded shortly after that. So, I think it's safe to say, Han's not coming back. Unless maybe the planet's core was made of carbonite...

I read that the writers said the film needed "guts" and to that extent, I will give them credit. Killing off Han was definitely gutsy. Stupid, but gutsy. Killing off Luke, Leia, Chewie, R2 or C-3PO would not have had the same impact. It would be sad, but not traumatic. Han was the glue of this movie. He is what made it feel like the old-fashioned, Star Wars fun I grew up watching and loving. It's been 32 years since Harrison Ford played Han Solo, but watching him reprise the role, it seemed hardly a day had past. And just like that, he will never strap on the holster again.

From a writer's perspective, I appreciate that the writers wanted to shake things up. And as awful as it was to experience watching that scene, if they were going to kill off Han, at least they handled it pretty well. It was meaningful in the sense that it pushed Kylo further towards the Dark Side. And despite just being stabbed by his own flesh and blood, Han lovingly held his son's cheek before falling into oblivion. But also from a writer's perspective, you don't kill off your best character, especially when there's no one to take up the mantle. Look what at George RR Martin did with his A Song of Ice and Fire series. He got so addicted to killing off his best characters, he forgot to replace them (or wasn't able to) and the quality of the books suffered drastically. Rey, Finn and Poe were fine, but they don't come close to filling Han's role in the films. I doubt any of them were supposed to do that, but I guarantee Episodes 8 and 9 will feel hollow, like something is missing. Like its soul.

I've only seen the movie twice in theaters and it took me about a month before seeing it my second time. Part of the reason was I just didn't want to see that scene again. I invited my mom to see it, but I also didn't want to see it with her, because I didn't want to be there when she first saw him die. I thought it might be easier seeing his death the second time because I knew it was coming. But I was wrong. It was harder BECAUSE I knew it was coming. My heart was twisting the whole time he was on the bridge confronting his son. I even said in my head before he yelled out to Kylo, "Don't do it, Han. Don't go on that bridge." And just like it broke my heart, it broke my mom's heart too. She was devastated by it. It's truly disappointing, because she was just saying how much fun the movie was because of Han right before they entered Starkiller Base. I agreed with her, but knew in the back of my mind the fun would be over soon.

So anyway, that's one man's opinion of The Force Awakens. If you turn off your brain (and heart for 5 seconds), it's a pretty fun and entertaining movie. However, it will destroy your soul.