Director: J. J. Abrams
Writers: Lawrence Kasdan, J. J. Abrams, Michael Arndt
Cast: Daisy Ridley, John Boyega, Oscar Isaac, Adam Driver, Harrison Ford, Carrie Fisher, Domhnall Gleeson, Lupita Nyong'o, Andy Serkis, Peter Mayhew, Anthony Daniels, Mark Hamill
Runtime: 135 mins.
2015
Thus the tang of the prequels is washed from our mouths.
Sixteen years ago the whole world was anticipating the revival of the Star Wars franchise. The Phantom Menace was perhaps the most widely anticipated movie of all time. Star Wars fans had assumed for years that they would never have another new experience in their beloved fantasy world, yet here Lucas was returning to his old stomping grounds. He had a new story to tell, and his audience anticipated it with bated breath and open arms. Then the movie was released...
Many people walked out of that theater shellshocked, having realized from the moment of the opening crawl that something was very rotten in Denmark. Some people walked out thinking they had seen something good, already preparing their defenses via a psyche suffering from heavy cognitive dissonance. Few people walked out satisfied in any meaningful way.
The prequels wrapped up and Star Wars was dead yet again, leaving fans with a decades-spanning case of blue balls. It seemed impossible to conceive of being excited about another Star Wars revival after Lucas's last debacle--and yet, here we are, staring down the barrel of a Star Wars movie that has become the new most anticipated film of all time. This franchise is a titan that will not die.
The excitement did not spring up overnight, to be sure. A great deal of work was put into refurbishing the franchise's image by a great number of talented people (the marketing push for The Force Awakens has been one of the most skillful and massive advertising assaults ever). At the pinnacle of all this was J. J. Abrams, a man with an unparalleled love for Star Wars whose entire career seems to have built to this point. From the first bits of Star Wars information that came down the pipeline, Abrams and co. actively, if not explicitly, disavowed the prequels and promised a return to form. J. J. convinced us all that he understood why Star Wars became such a cultural phenomenon in the first place, and he reassured us that we were all in good hands.
All of that turned out to be true to a fault. The great failing of The Force Awakens is its unforgivable similarity to the original trilogy, A New Hope in particular. Yes, the movie is a return to form, but it accomplishes this by replicating large swathes of the originals. This goes deeper than winky and noddy homages to the original trilogy, though there are plenty of those. I'm talking about a lack of imagination on the structural level. Yet again a droid is secretly given documents of incredible importance. Yet again our characters walk into a shady cantina with aliens playing snappy music in the background. Yet again, and this is the most egregious example, our plot centers around the destruction of a massive planet-killing weapon.
When we heard that the new movie would feature a weapon called the Starkiller--a bigger version of the Death Star that is built into a planet--I think we all hoped there would be some wrinkle that would keep it from being a retread of the Death Star's role in both A New Hope and Return of the Jedi. I am here to report that there is no new wrinkle. Beginning with the scene in which it is explained to us with a visual presentation that the Starkiller base is just another Death Star but way bigger, the movie enters into a beat for beat retread of the previous movies. As the weapon prepares to destroy the base of the good guys, an intrepid band of X-Wing fighters must find a way to destroy the weapon where it is vulnerable. It's lazy, hollow, and inspires the weirdest sense of deja vu. I honestly can't believe that enough people thought this retread was a good enough idea to structure the movie around.
On the other hand, it makes total sense. It's clear to me that the creative team on this movie were so terrified of making another prequelesque mistake that they clung to the original trilogy like a security blanket. It worked. They made a safe movie that almost everybody in the world will like. But there is a prevailing feeling of missed opportunity that looms over the film, especially when you consider how functional and compelling the movie becomes when it actively tries to do something new.
All of this begins to seem inevitable when you look at J. J. Abrams as a filmmaker. He belongs to a certain group of directors who have been cropping up recently in greater numbers than ever before--directors who can only make movies about movies. Tarantino is the ur-example of this, and the only one who makes it work in a compelling way. These people grew up as cinefiles; they obsessed over the works of Spielberg and Lucas, Kubrick and Scorsese, Coppola and... well, Tarantino. Their love of the craft was the force that compelled them into filmmaking, but now that they're here it's apparent that they have very little to say. Artists have a much harder time creating something meaningful when their only inspiration is the art of others. Creatives need to feed the soul, and that comes from engaging with an array of interests and experiences. Of course J. J. Abrams' best movie is the first half of Super 8: it's a story about a group of kids who are making a movie. It's not yet clear whether Abrams has anything else to say. The Force Awakens is a Star Wars movie that is obsessed with Star Wars, which frequently works to its detriment.
Despite the deep down dearth of meaningful content in his work, Abrams is undeniably talented. The Force Awakens features the best camerawork and compositions in the franchise; Abrams makes it look easy. He has an eye for the iconic, and the film is stacked with beautiful images. They tend to feel fleeting, and they don't really land like imagery does in better films, but that could be an issue with editing and pacing.
Abrams' true talent, however, is with characters. He has always excelled at populating his work with talented actors out of whom he coaxes top notch performances. That happens here in a big way. The heart and soul of The Force Awakens is its characters. They are bold, beautiful, interesting, engaging, inspiring, diverse, fun, and fresh. Even when the plot wallows, we don't mind because we still get to spend time with these wonderful people who pop right off the screen, 3D glasses or not.
I won't say much about them specifically because it's best to discover them on your own. If I were to pick a stand-out among them, I could easily default to any of the main three. Poe Dameron is the least utilized, but in his brief amount of screentime he immediately establishes himself as a ridiculously likable straight-up hero figure. It helps that Oscar Isaac is one of the best actors working in Hollywood right now. John Boyega plays the hell out of Finn, a stormtrooper with a crisis of conscience who just wants to do the right thing. The movie fumbles the immense promise of his introduction, a shocking perspective shift that imbues faceless soldiers with humanity but then forgets to follow up on that for the whole rest of the movie; even without the script support, Boyega carves out a compelling niche for his character. And Daisy Ridley acts the hell out of the wide-eyed and determined Rey. There's something special about this character, something that transcends the tired and typical "strong female character" quota that blockbusters begrudgingly fill, and I have no doubt that Rey will become an important inspirational figure to a new generation of young girls and boys.*
*Special shoutout to BB-8 and Domhnall Gleeson's General Hux, who both kill it as embodiments of pure good and evil, respectively.
However, my vote for standout character lands on Kylo Ren. This villain idolizes Vader but cannot replicate his sinister stoicism. Ren's character is a turmoil of emotions, played viscerally by Adam Driver. Though it may be heresy to say so, he creates a more compelling foe than Darth Vader. He certainly has more psychological complexity, and in a movie that is sloppy with its character arcs, Ren has the most complete and engaging throughline. His character is tragic and fascinating, and he is the one aspect of this film that J. J. delivers on flawlessly.
Of the returning characters, Harrison Ford has by far the most to do as Han Solo. He has a far more significant role than I was expecting, actually. Even more surprising is how good he is. Ford has spent the last couple decades sleepwalking through almost every movie he's been in, and he makes it absolutely clear in his interviews that he is a cranky old man who doesn't care about any of this Star Wars crap. But if you look closely you can still see that old twinkle in his eye. Nobody who is actually checked out could have pulled his weight as admirably as Ford does in this film. Aside from Ren, Solo has the most satisfying character arc in the movie, and for that I am grateful.
The Force Awakens is inarguably a mixed bag. It's got dodgy CGI, underutilized side characters, stale aerial battles, messy plot contrivances, and stretches that verge on being dull. Yet for every one of those deficiencies, there is an example of the opposite: effective reveals, hilarious dialogue, fantastic worldbuilding, and an all-timer thrill of a final lightsaber duel. The good and bad aspects may be fairly balanced, but the scale-tipper is the character work. Thanks to the characters, the movie is never not fun to watch. Abrams has constructed an edifice upon which an entire franchise will be built, and I am extremely excited to see what the incredible Rian Johnson will do with Episode VIII.
3 / 5 BLOBS
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