I’m not going to argue with anyone who liked the new Star Wars movie; I liked it too. But it also infuriated me in a way that no film has since J.J. Abrams took over the direction of another beloved SF franchise—Star Trek, which has long offered spaceship fans a galaxy shaded by scientific utopianism rather than spirituality and melodrama. The Force Awakens is a movie with no soul and little intelligence and it fails to advance the mythos of the franchise.
The Plot that Wasn’t
It was high times for the Rebel Alliance at the end of Return of the Jedi (1983). Across the galaxy, crowds celebrate with fireworks and confetti, jubilant at the destruction of the second Death Star and the apparent defeat of Emperor Palpatine. Princess Leia Organa, who just two films earlier had witnessed her home planet blown up for sport, is united with a brother she never knew she had, becoming aware of her own Force adeptness, and in love with a swashbuckling hero who would later father her son. It is a resounding victory, and deservedly so, even if Ewoks had to help.
The Force Awakens begins thirty years later, yet reveals nothing about the consequences of the Rebellion’s victory. One might think democracy was restored and the title scroll refers very quickly to “THE REPUBLIC” before never mentioning it again. The original Republic, of course, existed in the time of the prequel trilogy and was transformed into the first Galactic Empire through the shrewd machinations of Palpatine, a dark lord of the Sith. But now, Leia and the good guys are called “The Resistance” and the jerks with Star Destroyers are called “The First Order.” Where is the New Republic in all this? We never find out.
Instead the entire film propels itself in pursuit of a particularly foolish MacGuffin (an object, for example, that everyone wants to get their hands on.) This is a common technique in action films and was also used in A New Hope (1977) as the Empire tries to recover stolen plans for the Death Star. In The Force Awakens, the object everyone desires is a map to Luke Skywalker, who has gone into hiding because he failed as a Jedi Master and created a pitiful emo monster in the form of his nephew, Kylo Ren. The whole idea of following a map to find a planet is embarassing–space is 3-D and wide open; all ones needs are coordinates. Instead we are shown a meandering orange trail that stretches across the galaxy. What if you’re coming from another direction? I don’t know, fly casual.
Luke is only in the film for about a minute, and he has no dialogue. So, he contributes very little to the story aside from being a tease. Where else can we look? There is Leia, who is now a General with the Resistance. Her situation must be painfully tragic. Not only is she a woman without a home or a family, but the rebellion that she led so fiercely has failed to change anything in the thirty years since Return of the Jedi. Han Solo has abandoned her and cruises the galaxy with his Wookiee bro looking for their junky old spaceship. Leia and Han’s son, Kylo Ren, has run away to apprentice for an evil mastermind and wants to murder Leia’s brother. And yet the film doesn’t explore her potential pathos at all, it instead ignores her and passes her off as basically content. Although, for Leia, the worst is yet to come.
Han Solo’s Death Wish
Harrison Ford was ready for Han Solo to die in Return of the Jedi, although he didn’t get his wish. He was tired of his character and likely George Lucas as well, and it’s likely only because of the latter’s departure (and Disney’s deep pockets) that Ford reprised the role at all. Still, he was only in it for a last hurrah, and so Disney needed to kill off his character. Han Solo was always a cagey, wily, brave and lucky bastard; despite what George Lucas would later revise, Han did shoot first, because he knew if he didn’t, Greedo would fry his ass. Han Solo is nobody’s fool, and neither is his brother-in-arms Chewbacca, who hardly even loses at chess.
Yet Han’s death in the film is hard to understand. After many years he has been reunited with the Millennium Falcon, he has seen Leia again and they agree that he should ask Kylo Ren to come home. So Han flies to Starkiller base, where Ren likes to brood, and confronts him. Han walks out onto the longest, narrowest, most railing-less, most useless catwalk in the galaxy, above an abyss that is undoubtedly bottomless. He says, kiddo, please, let me help you? And Kylo agrees by switching on his lightsaber. These two may be father and son, but could Han really be so credulous, so naive, have such a blind spot to let himself be murdered, without even a contingency plan? To let down everyone who has ever loved him? While Han’s death is the heart of the film’s narrative, it’s also meaningless, because we know nothing about the relationship Han and Kylo once had.
Kylo Ren turns out to be a kind of metaphor for the whole movie: a clueless newcomer who idolizes the remains of Darth Vader and wants to kill all the characters we love.
Consider Chewbacca, who was once a threatening and temperamental (if warm-hearted) presence. In this film he only makes funny sounds and gestures for easy laughs. And the droids, whom George Lucas envisioned as the point of view for all of Star Wars, are likewise relegated to the sidelines and negelcted; R2-D2 is asleep for most of the movie, and C-3P0 only gets in the way once.
Diverse New Idols
Of course, this film is supposed to be about the new characters, not the old ones. Disney made a very clear nod to gender and racial equality in casting their lead actors. The unfortunate thing is that neither of these characters is given any substantial backstory or character development. They demonstrate no internal conflict or struggle. They experience no defeat, and little growth. It seems to be within these two that the Force has “awakened,” since it gets them out of every jam with killer, invincible instinct. Rey, although she begins the film as a poor desert scavenger, is purely virtuous and physically adept from the beginning: she excels at hand-to-hand combat, won’t sell out a friend for money, magically flies a spaceship for the first time, magically wields a lightsaber for the first time, etc. Her basic attribute is that she kicks ass and while that’s always fun, she’s little more than an emblem, and therefore a stereotype. The film tells us nothing about her personal history or relationships, except that she has been waiting in the desert for someone to return.
Meanwhile Finn the black Stormtrooper begins the film by having a panic attack in battle. He witnesses his fellow Stormtrooper killed and bloodied, and refuses to fire on the enemy. He soon defects from the First Order and joins up with Rey for their mindless hijinx. Finn’s moment of truth is presented as a moral awakening: he realizes that killing is wrong and refuses to do so. And yet, once he joins the good guys, he has no problem turning around and shooting his former comrades. Finn reveals that he was kidnapped as a child and indoctrinated as a soldier all his life—presumably the other Stormtroopers were too. Finn ought to have immense sympathy for Stormtroopers; he should be deeply conflicted about his actions and his future. Instead, he’s a happy-go-lucky blaster jockey, another empty emblem. Both actors are partially wasted in this film because these roles are meaningless. And that is not what women or racial minorities (or anyone) needs.
And moreover, the finesse of these characters undermines everything the other films have taught us about the Force. These new heroes don’t have to learn anything, it just comes to them naturally. It seems this is the only Star Wars film without a line of dialogue spoken by a Jedi Master. Character development in Star Wars has always been about learning and discovering the difference between dark and light, but that sense of apprenticeship is wholly lacking.
Um, That’s Not How Starkilling Works
Of course as someone interested in science I find it infuriating when films present blatantly unscientific cause and effect. Even if the technology in speculative fiction is more advanced than ours, the rules of physics still usually apply. Even magic such as the Force is plausible as long as it operates according to a set of rules. But when writers make lazy shortcuts, it’s hard to take their work seriously.
Take the case of the First Order’s headquarters, Starkiller Base. Now, although The Force Awakens is dead-set on recreating every iconic element of the original trilogy, someone in Hollywood must have thought that after two Death Stars with highly vulnerable shafts, it was time for for the First Order to up the ante. The result is Starkiller Base, an entire planet that has been hollowed out and turned into a weapon that suck up the mass of a star and fire it across the galaxy to incinerate distant planets. It does the same job as a Death Star, except from longer range. Honestly a Death Star is much more economical, if only someone could design some good grates.
The first time Starkiller Base fires its weapon, we see a cinematic technique J.J. Abrams used previously in Star Trek (2009). Here, people on one planet look up in the sky just in time to see another planet destroyed. And they go, OMG! Now the speed of light is not a limiting factor in the Star Wars univere; spacecraft can exceed it. But the beam fired by Starkiller Base was not traveling faster than light, and likewise appeared to consist of matter rather than radiation, meaning it was traveling much slower. So how many years would it take to reach its target, if ever? And once its target was destroyed, how many years before the light from that event would reach other solar systems? Not to mention, planets in other solar systems are too small and distant to be observed with the naked eye at all, much less in broad daylight. I don’t know why Abrams insists on making galaxies so tiny and convenient.
I Have a Bad Feeling About This…
In fact the whole film is an a-causal jumble of narrative serendipity, a steady stream of nostalgic, unconnected tropes that we can expect to see again and again as the franchise rolls forward. We know the Force works in mysterious ways, and so we can accept that Rei stumbles upon the Millennium Falcon sitting under a tarp, collecting dust in a junkyard. What is harder to believe is that on a planet full of scavengers, she is able to walk onto the ship, power it up, and fly it away without a key. Everything is right there when the characters need it. Like Luke’s lightsaber is in the basement, take it with you.
Repetition of themes also defines Star Wars; George Lucas said of the prequel trilogy that is was supposed to mirror the original. Disney obviously had no problem with this concept, but rather than crafting a variation on a theme, they regurgitate every element from the original trilogy that they could. In part two of the original trilogy, a great secret is revealed: Darth Vader is Luke Skywalker’s father and Leia’s as well. One can expect a similar bombshell will drop in in Episode VIII, and it will almost certainly involve Rey and the mysterious figure she was waiting for in the desert. I wager that Rey is Luke’s daughter, or perhaps Kylo’s sister. She must be a Skywalker; she appears to be more gifted than even Anakin. Midichlorians, anyone?
Now, like everyone else who loved Star Wars and was excited for the prequel trilogy, I was let down by The Phantom Menace (1999). It’s a bewildering film, there are aliens are arguing about economics, the acting is horribly stilted, the dialogue is poorly written, the plot is inscrutable. Jar-Jar Binks tries to coin a catchphrase. Everybody dies a little inside.
Attack of the Clones (2002) generates more narrative interest, Anakin is old enough to discover himself and his love for Padme; he shows flashes of the lust and rage that would ultimately lead him into darkness. And Revenge of the Sith (2005) features some truly incredible moments, as Palpatine pulls his labrynthine trap together and Obi-Wan tries to bring back Anakin back to the light. I really do not enjoy watching the prequels. But I feel that, underneath their obscure, indiosyncratic presentation, there is a very interesting story about good and evil. The prequel trilogy burns brightly in my imagination if not onscreen. Meanwhile, The Force Awakens is just the opposite. It is an enjoyable movie to watch. But it has no compelling story, no character development, no morality. The film is obviously a set-up for larger plot elements to follow, but still this is supposed to be cinema, not a TV pilot.
Also they made X-Wings a lot uglier.
Two stars.
from ScienceBlogs http://ift.tt/1SJVOjS
I’m not going to argue with anyone who liked the new Star Wars movie; I liked it too. But it also infuriated me in a way that no film has since J.J. Abrams took over the direction of another beloved SF franchise—Star Trek, which has long offered spaceship fans a galaxy shaded by scientific utopianism rather than spirituality and melodrama. The Force Awakens is a movie with no soul and little intelligence and it fails to advance the mythos of the franchise.
The Plot that Wasn’t
It was high times for the Rebel Alliance at the end of Return of the Jedi (1983). Across the galaxy, crowds celebrate with fireworks and confetti, jubilant at the destruction of the second Death Star and the apparent defeat of Emperor Palpatine. Princess Leia Organa, who just two films earlier had witnessed her home planet blown up for sport, is united with a brother she never knew she had, becoming aware of her own Force adeptness, and in love with a swashbuckling hero who would later father her son. It is a resounding victory, and deservedly so, even if Ewoks had to help.
The Force Awakens begins thirty years later, yet reveals nothing about the consequences of the Rebellion’s victory. One might think democracy was restored and the title scroll refers very quickly to “THE REPUBLIC” before never mentioning it again. The original Republic, of course, existed in the time of the prequel trilogy and was transformed into the first Galactic Empire through the shrewd machinations of Palpatine, a dark lord of the Sith. But now, Leia and the good guys are called “The Resistance” and the jerks with Star Destroyers are called “The First Order.” Where is the New Republic in all this? We never find out.
Instead the entire film propels itself in pursuit of a particularly foolish MacGuffin (an object, for example, that everyone wants to get their hands on.) This is a common technique in action films and was also used in A New Hope (1977) as the Empire tries to recover stolen plans for the Death Star. In The Force Awakens, the object everyone desires is a map to Luke Skywalker, who has gone into hiding because he failed as a Jedi Master and created a pitiful emo monster in the form of his nephew, Kylo Ren. The whole idea of following a map to find a planet is embarassing–space is 3-D and wide open; all ones needs are coordinates. Instead we are shown a meandering orange trail that stretches across the galaxy. What if you’re coming from another direction? I don’t know, fly casual.
Luke is only in the film for about a minute, and he has no dialogue. So, he contributes very little to the story aside from being a tease. Where else can we look? There is Leia, who is now a General with the Resistance. Her situation must be painfully tragic. Not only is she a woman without a home or a family, but the rebellion that she led so fiercely has failed to change anything in the thirty years since Return of the Jedi. Han Solo has abandoned her and cruises the galaxy with his Wookiee bro looking for their junky old spaceship. Leia and Han’s son, Kylo Ren, has run away to apprentice for an evil mastermind and wants to murder Leia’s brother. And yet the film doesn’t explore her potential pathos at all, it instead ignores her and passes her off as basically content. Although, for Leia, the worst is yet to come.
Han Solo’s Death Wish
Harrison Ford was ready for Han Solo to die in Return of the Jedi, although he didn’t get his wish. He was tired of his character and likely George Lucas as well, and it’s likely only because of the latter’s departure (and Disney’s deep pockets) that Ford reprised the role at all. Still, he was only in it for a last hurrah, and so Disney needed to kill off his character. Han Solo was always a cagey, wily, brave and lucky bastard; despite what George Lucas would later revise, Han did shoot first, because he knew if he didn’t, Greedo would fry his ass. Han Solo is nobody’s fool, and neither is his brother-in-arms Chewbacca, who hardly even loses at chess.
Yet Han’s death in the film is hard to understand. After many years he has been reunited with the Millennium Falcon, he has seen Leia again and they agree that he should ask Kylo Ren to come home. So Han flies to Starkiller base, where Ren likes to brood, and confronts him. Han walks out onto the longest, narrowest, most railing-less, most useless catwalk in the galaxy, above an abyss that is undoubtedly bottomless. He says, kiddo, please, let me help you? And Kylo agrees by switching on his lightsaber. These two may be father and son, but could Han really be so credulous, so naive, have such a blind spot to let himself be murdered, without even a contingency plan? To let down everyone who has ever loved him? While Han’s death is the heart of the film’s narrative, it’s also meaningless, because we know nothing about the relationship Han and Kylo once had.
Kylo Ren turns out to be a kind of metaphor for the whole movie: a clueless newcomer who idolizes the remains of Darth Vader and wants to kill all the characters we love.
Consider Chewbacca, who was once a threatening and temperamental (if warm-hearted) presence. In this film he only makes funny sounds and gestures for easy laughs. And the droids, whom George Lucas envisioned as the point of view for all of Star Wars, are likewise relegated to the sidelines and negelcted; R2-D2 is asleep for most of the movie, and C-3P0 only gets in the way once.
Diverse New Idols
Of course, this film is supposed to be about the new characters, not the old ones. Disney made a very clear nod to gender and racial equality in casting their lead actors. The unfortunate thing is that neither of these characters is given any substantial backstory or character development. They demonstrate no internal conflict or struggle. They experience no defeat, and little growth. It seems to be within these two that the Force has “awakened,” since it gets them out of every jam with killer, invincible instinct. Rey, although she begins the film as a poor desert scavenger, is purely virtuous and physically adept from the beginning: she excels at hand-to-hand combat, won’t sell out a friend for money, magically flies a spaceship for the first time, magically wields a lightsaber for the first time, etc. Her basic attribute is that she kicks ass and while that’s always fun, she’s little more than an emblem, and therefore a stereotype. The film tells us nothing about her personal history or relationships, except that she has been waiting in the desert for someone to return.
Meanwhile Finn the black Stormtrooper begins the film by having a panic attack in battle. He witnesses his fellow Stormtrooper killed and bloodied, and refuses to fire on the enemy. He soon defects from the First Order and joins up with Rey for their mindless hijinx. Finn’s moment of truth is presented as a moral awakening: he realizes that killing is wrong and refuses to do so. And yet, once he joins the good guys, he has no problem turning around and shooting his former comrades. Finn reveals that he was kidnapped as a child and indoctrinated as a soldier all his life—presumably the other Stormtroopers were too. Finn ought to have immense sympathy for Stormtroopers; he should be deeply conflicted about his actions and his future. Instead, he’s a happy-go-lucky blaster jockey, another empty emblem. Both actors are partially wasted in this film because these roles are meaningless. And that is not what women or racial minorities (or anyone) needs.
And moreover, the finesse of these characters undermines everything the other films have taught us about the Force. These new heroes don’t have to learn anything, it just comes to them naturally. It seems this is the only Star Wars film without a line of dialogue spoken by a Jedi Master. Character development in Star Wars has always been about learning and discovering the difference between dark and light, but that sense of apprenticeship is wholly lacking.
Um, That’s Not How Starkilling Works
Of course as someone interested in science I find it infuriating when films present blatantly unscientific cause and effect. Even if the technology in speculative fiction is more advanced than ours, the rules of physics still usually apply. Even magic such as the Force is plausible as long as it operates according to a set of rules. But when writers make lazy shortcuts, it’s hard to take their work seriously.
Take the case of the First Order’s headquarters, Starkiller Base. Now, although The Force Awakens is dead-set on recreating every iconic element of the original trilogy, someone in Hollywood must have thought that after two Death Stars with highly vulnerable shafts, it was time for for the First Order to up the ante. The result is Starkiller Base, an entire planet that has been hollowed out and turned into a weapon that suck up the mass of a star and fire it across the galaxy to incinerate distant planets. It does the same job as a Death Star, except from longer range. Honestly a Death Star is much more economical, if only someone could design some good grates.
The first time Starkiller Base fires its weapon, we see a cinematic technique J.J. Abrams used previously in Star Trek (2009). Here, people on one planet look up in the sky just in time to see another planet destroyed. And they go, OMG! Now the speed of light is not a limiting factor in the Star Wars univere; spacecraft can exceed it. But the beam fired by Starkiller Base was not traveling faster than light, and likewise appeared to consist of matter rather than radiation, meaning it was traveling much slower. So how many years would it take to reach its target, if ever? And once its target was destroyed, how many years before the light from that event would reach other solar systems? Not to mention, planets in other solar systems are too small and distant to be observed with the naked eye at all, much less in broad daylight. I don’t know why Abrams insists on making galaxies so tiny and convenient.
I Have a Bad Feeling About This…
In fact the whole film is an a-causal jumble of narrative serendipity, a steady stream of nostalgic, unconnected tropes that we can expect to see again and again as the franchise rolls forward. We know the Force works in mysterious ways, and so we can accept that Rei stumbles upon the Millennium Falcon sitting under a tarp, collecting dust in a junkyard. What is harder to believe is that on a planet full of scavengers, she is able to walk onto the ship, power it up, and fly it away without a key. Everything is right there when the characters need it. Like Luke’s lightsaber is in the basement, take it with you.
Repetition of themes also defines Star Wars; George Lucas said of the prequel trilogy that is was supposed to mirror the original. Disney obviously had no problem with this concept, but rather than crafting a variation on a theme, they regurgitate every element from the original trilogy that they could. In part two of the original trilogy, a great secret is revealed: Darth Vader is Luke Skywalker’s father and Leia’s as well. One can expect a similar bombshell will drop in in Episode VIII, and it will almost certainly involve Rey and the mysterious figure she was waiting for in the desert. I wager that Rey is Luke’s daughter, or perhaps Kylo’s sister. She must be a Skywalker; she appears to be more gifted than even Anakin. Midichlorians, anyone?
Now, like everyone else who loved Star Wars and was excited for the prequel trilogy, I was let down by The Phantom Menace (1999). It’s a bewildering film, there are aliens are arguing about economics, the acting is horribly stilted, the dialogue is poorly written, the plot is inscrutable. Jar-Jar Binks tries to coin a catchphrase. Everybody dies a little inside.
Attack of the Clones (2002) generates more narrative interest, Anakin is old enough to discover himself and his love for Padme; he shows flashes of the lust and rage that would ultimately lead him into darkness. And Revenge of the Sith (2005) features some truly incredible moments, as Palpatine pulls his labrynthine trap together and Obi-Wan tries to bring back Anakin back to the light. I really do not enjoy watching the prequels. But I feel that, underneath their obscure, indiosyncratic presentation, there is a very interesting story about good and evil. The prequel trilogy burns brightly in my imagination if not onscreen. Meanwhile, The Force Awakens is just the opposite. It is an enjoyable movie to watch. But it has no compelling story, no character development, no morality. The film is obviously a set-up for larger plot elements to follow, but still this is supposed to be cinema, not a TV pilot.
Also they made X-Wings a lot uglier.
Two stars.
from ScienceBlogs http://ift.tt/1SJVOjS
