STAR WARS: THE FORCE AWAKENS - May the Force Bewitch You

More Star Wars Reviews.

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.

UP: Just a Piece of Latex in My Eye

Twenty years ago Pixar Animation Studios revolutionized cinema with the first full length completely computer-generated film. Two decades later and Pixar is still one of the most consistently groundbreaking studios in the business. Leading up to the release of their new film The Good Dinosaur, I will be going through Pixar's entire filmography at the rate of two movies a week. As anyone who has watched Up already knows, it is a masterwork in emotional manipulation. And I mean that in the best possible way.

Other Reviews in this Series.

Directors: Pete Docter, Bob Peterson (co-director)
Writers: Pete Docter, Bob Peterson, Tom McCarthy
Cast: Ed Asner, Jordan Nagai, Christopher Plummer, Bob Peterson, John Ratzenberger
Runtime: 96 mins.
2009

Nothing makes me cry. I'm not a tough guy, I've just never had easy access to my emotions. Crying isn't weakness, it's a release valve. One that I'm often envious of. Most of my favorite stories throughout my life have failed to move me to tears. In recent years this has been changing a little bit; as I learn more about movies and the craft that goes into them, it has made me more capable of accessing and understanding the emotions at the center of the story via an intellectual conduit. Maybe that makes me sound like a sociopath, but that's how things are. I have to understand before I can participate.

With that said, I will readily admit that the famous opening montage of Up makes me cry like a fool every single time I watch it. For those not in the know, Up is the story of a curmudgeonly old man who lives alone. The first five or so minutes of the film contain a montage showing his progression through the decades with the love of his life, Ellie. It is one of the most elegant, effectively manipulative feats of emotiontugging that I have ever seen. The story it tells is so simple, as is its montage format. But this sequence of silent glimpses into the lives of this couple--strung along to a tremendously moving Michael Giacchino composition that crops up again and again in the movie, always reminding us of this opening salvo--yanks the rug out from under us so hard, it could almost be considered cruel. Of course, the sequence is not just an exercise in pathos; it also establishes the character of Carl Fredricksen (Ed Asner) with maximum economy. Thanks to these five minutes, any time Carl is kind of a dick in the movie (which is not uncommon), we can never hate or resent him for it, because we have seen the exact emotional arc that has brought him to this point. Everything he does is out of a bullheaded sense of love, even when his decision making is misinformed.