Well, here it is. An opinion from an unsophisticated movie watcher.
And duh, spoilers. Don’t read this if you haven’t seen the movie. Just see the movie. Or don’t. And if you don’t, then you won’t have any interest in this, most likely. Just move on.
Let me take us back for a moment.
I remember when I got the original trilogy on VHS was somewhere around the same time I learned that there was a plan to make 9 Star Wars movies. I remember where I was, in the shitty Hastings video store, standing near the exit. And I remember thinking, We’ll never be so lucky as to get 6 more of these. I wish it would happen. Why won’t that happen?
And now it’s happening, which I’m pretty happy about. The originals were great, and I’m happy to watch how it all plays out.
As for the prequels, they were pretty bad. This is not information you need.
I think the only alternative perspective I have on the prequels is that I still think they’re worthwhile. If the world was going to get either 6 Star Wars movies or none, I’ll take the six.
People talked a lot about the prequels ruining the franchise, but I never saw it that way. I still loved the old ones. The new ones just weren’t for me. And honestly, after you make the original three Star Wars movies, plus Indiana Jones, plus the underrated American Graffiti, you get a pass from me. 7 excellent, monumental movies is a lot for a lifetime, plus Willow, which scared the fuck out of me when I saw it in the theater at age 5. I don’t know the appropriate age for Willow, mom, but it’s older than 5.
George Lucas has also joined Bill Gates and Warren Buffett in The Giving Pledge, which is this deal where America’s richest individuals donate half their money to charities, which is pretty rad.
Oh, and without Star Wars, there would have been no Star Wars: Battlefront 2, which is one of my all-time favorite video games.
I’ve played the games, I’ve read a few Star Wars comics and books, and so it’s safe to say I was ready for The Force Awakens, but also didn’t have colossal expectations. Because frankly, I felt like it was a lot of pressure, and the best bet for the new movie was to not fuck it up. To be better than the prequels, but still not as mind-blowing as the originals.
Which I think is where it landed.
Here are some thoughts:
Novelty
TFA had some cards stacked against it because, let’s be honest, when The New Hope came out, we hadn’t seen ANY of this shit before. The force, lightsabers, Darth Vader, ALL of this was brand new. Those first three movies explored a world that was big, and it felt big. Lightsabers and the force aren’t new. Not to mention the look of things like stormtroopers and vehicles. I’m not a car guy, but the walkers looked like something new, the star destroyers, the X-wings, and holy shit, the Millennium fuckin’ Falcon. Possibly the coolest spaceship ever.
So while there was a lot to explore, it was inevitably less novel than the original trilogy.
New Characters
I liked the new characters. They were fun. They were fun to watch. I think that’s what you want. None of them had the charm of a young Harrison Ford, because who does, but they were great.
There’s been a lot of chatter about the female lead being a Mary Sue, and I was talking to someone about that who didn’t know what a Mary Sue is.
By definition, a Mary Sue is a character inserted by the author of a work in order to play out wish fulfillment. It would be like me inserting myself into a Spider-Man comic, and I am the best at everything, ever, and everyone loves me. Spidey says, “Hey Pete! I’m glad you’re here. I couldn’t beat this bad guy without you, not to mention you’re the only one better at quips than I am. Let’s team up!”
For reference, if someone wants to create that comic, I think my power would be…really unexpected punches that hurt more than you think. Suckerpunches, I think they’re called.
Anyway, the interweb is making a lot of arguments about whether or not the new character is a Mary Sue. I’d like to end that argument.
Technically, no. I don’t think she’s a stand-in for a writer. That’s quite a stretch.
However, I think that the assertion that she’s kind of uber-capable is valid.
And things get confused, I think, because when you say that this character is a little too capable, people will say you don’t like a strong female character.
Let’s go back to the original trilogy for a second.
Luke Skywalker: Whiny farmboy who becomes a Jedi over the course of three movies.
Han Solo: Shitty smuggler who is also kind of a shitty person who becomes at least a slightly better person over three movies, probably still sucks at smuggling.
Princess Leia: Hmm. Tough one. She stands up to Darth Vader, which is pretty cool. She’s the leader of the rebels, which is cool, although we don’t actually SEE a lot of that. There’s the Jabba bikini thing, which I think Carrie Fisher had the best explanation for when a fan asked how he was supposed to explain a slave Leia action figure to his daughter:
“Tell them that a giant slug captured me and forced me to wear that stupid outfit, and then I killed him because I didn’t like it. And then I took it off. Backstage.”
Carrie Fisher is kind of a badass, methinks.
What I’m getting at is, I think the appeal of the original series was that we watched a lot of characters go from fuck-ups to better people. Even side characters like Lando Calrissian fucked up and then redeemed themselves. So when you have a character who can do everything perfectly from the outset, there’s a little less excitement there. But hey, it’s possible that her arc is just beginning and we’ll see something good come of it.
If I’m going to nitpick, I didn’t really like how she somehow knew how to use the Jedi Mind Trick without having seen it or even heard of it before. I’ll get to why that’s not really a nitpick in a second. But first, let me say it’s not something I see as a character flaw or a complaint about that character. It’s not because I don’t want to see a girl do a man thing or some such bullshit. I think it’s just lazy writing.
There are a lot of ways the Jedi Mind Trick could have been written into the story so that when she used it on the stormtrooper voiced by none other than James Bond, it would have made a lot more sense.
Three quick suggestions:
- She sees Kylo Ren do it to someone.
- She notices she has a very good ability to negotiate with that weird alien who she sells parts to. Almost as if she can suggest a good price and he agrees to it.
- Han Solo or Maz Kanata mentions, when they’re talking about the force, that they thought it was bullshit, but they saw a Jedi put something in someone’s mind.
Those are three really easy ways that could have been incorporated that wouldn’t have changed the story at all, could have been done subtly or not, and would have made more sense later on. And I’m a fucking idiot who could only come up with the superpower of suckerpunching, which makes me think that a team of writers working on the biggest movie of all time could do a lot better if they made any effort.
Now, I’ve seen this kind of talk dismissed because it’s like, “Space movie has character that develops a skill too quickly? Space laser sword movie? That’s what you’re worried about?”
And that kind of talk is a way of dismissing an argument by dismissing the discussion completely. If we can’t talk about what was good and bad about a movie, if all we can do is thumbs-up or thumbs-down, then what’s the point?
Video games have gone through these growing pains. Why complain about the lack of female protagonists? It’s just a silly game where a dude goes down sewer pipes. It’s not culturally important. How much can we expect from video games?
It’s my opinion that we can expect a lot. Because it kinda matters, because it is a big business, and because if something wants to be taken seriously on some level, then it has to own up to some shortcomings.
To put it another way, I could talk about my Kindle books as being silly little forays into bullshit whenever anyone points out a typo. I could say, “Well, it’s a book about a skeleton army, so a typo is far from the least believable thing.” Or I could acknowledge that I screwed up just a bit and fix it.
My piece on the Mary Sue argument, stop arguing about the definition of a Mary Sue. That’s not the issue. The issue, to my eyes, isn’t even that the character is so perfect that there’s not much place to go, or that she knows the Jedi mind trick even though it makes no sense. The issue is that we should be able to celebrate the fact that we’ve got a cool, likable female lead, and also it’s okay to make some critiques. You don’t have to accept every event in a movie or with a character to think that the character and the movie are, overall, good.
I had fun watching the character, and my only complaint is that I think the writing could have made it a little easier to go with the flow without doing much heavy lifting, and therefore should have gone ahead and done it.
The Difference Between a Nitpick and a Legit Thing
There’s a podcast I really enjoy called The Canon where two film critics talk about movies and decide whether they belong in the canon of great films.
There was one episode in particular where one of the hosts made what I would call a nitpick.
The nitpick was regarding E.T. and the fact that Elliot’s mom had Coors in her fridge. The critic felt that the mom would not be a Coors drinker.
The reason I think that’s a nitpick is because it’s very easy to come up with a dozen explanations within that realm that make total sense.
- They were beers someone else brought over.
- They were beers she bought for someone else.
- They were on sale and she thought, Why not?
- She’s not much of a drinker and just picked out something handy.
- She’s a fan of Smokey & the Bandit.
- Because this:
- Can I just point out that this must be a very short bar if E.T. is working there?
- Can I also point out that if you want to see this, just have a bunch of drinks at any small town bar on Christmas Eve?
- Maybe she had a BBQ and just bought a bunch of beer and Coors was the only thing left over?
- Maybe because it’s clearly a household that likes underdog brands. Reese’s Pieces instead of M&M’s? Please.
- Maybe she didn’t mean to. My mom used to buy the sugar free peanut butter on accident sometimes, even though the packaging was pretty different. God did that make for a long couple of weeks.
- Because this beer had wide distribution in only 11 states originally, and didn’t expand to the east coast until the mid-80’s. California was one of the original states and also the setting for E.T., which means, to me, that it might have signified a lot differently to a 1980’s Spielberg than it did to this film critic.
This is the definition I use for nitpicking. It’s not about size or scope. It’s about whether or not the explanation can easily go one way or another.
Are there lots of good reasons Elliot’s mom would have Coors? Totally.
Are there lots of good explanations for knowing what the Jedi Mind Trick is out of thin air? Not so much.
When you pick on something that is as likely as it is unlikely, that seems like a nitpick to me. When it’s heavily one way or the other, then it’s not.
The Role of CG in TFA
I did some homework on this in the form of watching a 4-hour documentary about the Nightmare on Elm Street movies on Netflix. It’s awesome, by the way.
Practical effects will always trump CG. And I think there’s a good reason.
When you have a practical effect, you have to make something that actually works in the real world. If you want a grabber monster that is a huge blob that rolls around, you have to make it.
In the older Star Wars films, a lot of the stuff was superimposed, but those things were real models. If you wanted to make a Sarlac Pit, you had to make one, at least on some scale. A Rancor had to exist, even if it was just as a clay model.
Now, whatever you can imagine, you can make. And after I watched the Nightmare movie, I don’t know if that’s the best thing in the world. I think that’s what results in things that look slick, but not really interesting or, more importantly, scary.
Good uses of CG will always be, to me, adding in something that doesn’t work otherwise. I think David Fincher has been pretty successful in doing this.
In Fight Club, the insertion of Ikea listings to show this dude’s apartment is pretty clever, cute, and it fits with the tone of the movie really well. Plus, it’s a movie all about what is and isn’t there, so something like this really works.
In Panic Room, we get this great long shot where the camera moves in ways that are impossible. One long, unbroken shot where the camera moves down the stairs, through the handle of a coffee urn, and out through a keyhole. It’s very cool, very interesting, and something that is not really possible without CG.
The kind of CG in Star Wars seems to be less clever, more of a way to do things quickly and easily.
I guess I feel like, in general, the less CG, the better. The more clever and sparing its use, the better. Movies like Star Wars and Transformers and even The Avengers become a CG festival, and it’s just not as interesting to watch. There’s just no more looking at a movie and thinking, How the FUCK did they do that?
The Death of Han Solo
This was pretty depressing, to be honest. I don’t really know what else to say about it.
The Fuck Yous
The other issue I had with the new female character wasn’t about her, again, but was about the writing around her. Specifically, the amount of mystery that went unsolved at the movie’s end. Where is she from? Who is she? What was she waiting for? How long has she been alone? How long do we have to wait to find out. May 2017? Jesus christ! That was a whole lot of mystery to leave behind our protagonist, and it’s not the mystery that I don’t like, it’s kinda thinking all along that we’ll get SOME idea or clue or something to hold us over until May 2017, but we really don’t.
The Aging
Carrie Fisher has asked people to stop commenting on whether or not she’s aged well.
All 3 of my feelings. Did I mention that I think Carrie Fisher is kinda awesome?
It’s funny to me that this has been such a raging topic as the characters are SUPPOSED to have aged. That’s built in to this story. I even heard people in the theater commenting on it aloud during the movie as the different original characters marched on or off screen.
It’s my opinion that a Carrie Fisher who tells the world “blow us” has aged pretty well.
Kids in the Seats
You might not all know this, but I’ve declared myself the unofficial Mayor Of America. Which mostly involves issues of etiquette.
TFA was a harsh reminder that I mostly see rated R movies these days, or at the very least movies in which children have no interest. I don’t see a lot of kids in the theater when I go.
I think we should all agree to a fair rule when it comes to movies like Star Wars, Pixar shit, and so on.
Past 7 PM: Do not bring your children unless they are of the age where they know not to talk through the whole movie.
Before 7 PM: DO bring children.
If I go to a 1 PM showing of Star Wars and get a little annoyed by a kid asking who people are and what’s going on in a voice loud enough so his parents can hear him over SPACESHIPS flying around, that’s my fault. I’m the asshole there. It’s a family-ish movie, and 1 PM is the middle of the day.
When I get out of a theater at nearly 10 PM and have listened to more than one small child talking through a whole movie, that’s not cool.
This doesn’t have to be an antagonistic thing, but let’s respect each other, me and you, parents. I totally respect your right to go out to the movies as a family, and I understand that you can’t tell a kid who’s 4 to shut the fuck up. That would be very uncool.
It would be nice if, in turn, you would respect that other adults want to go out to movies at a time when, if someone talks through the whole thing, it’s an adult and therefore okay to tell them to shut the fuck up.
Action!
I want to say one more bad thing about this movie and leave it there.
Return of the Jedi is probably the least-liked movie from the original trilogy. And yet, when I look back at it, there are still some very memorable action sequences. The Sarlac Pit, the Rancor, the speederbike chase, Darth Vader versus Luke. Even if you dread Endor and its inhabitants, you have to admit, there are still some very memorable sequences in that movie.
While the action was pretty good in TFA, it wasn’t as memorable, to me. The sequences weren’t as exciting. We had a plane chase, which is a skybourne car chase, we had some swordfights, an action staple. Things blew up. We had a scene where people were placing charges, which is a total action movie go-to. But I didn’t feel like the sequences were about interesting things or doing really interesting things the way they were in the older movies.
In the older movies, we have the Death Star sequence, which is about blowing up a huge, planet-sized thing with tiny ships. We have the trash compactor. The cave that turns out to be a giant space worm. Shooting from the Millennium Falcon. All this stuff that felt pretty different and interesting to me.
The new movie just didn’t have that in spades the way I’d hoped.
What My Mom Said
“I was waiting for it to get exciting.”
It should be noted that my mom does NOT see these types of movies. She’s so indie that she was pissed when Javier Bardem signed on to No Country for Old Men. She considered it selling out to be the bad guy in a Coen brothers adaptation of a Cormac McCarthy book.
And I don’t think she’s totally wrong.
Star Rating
Eh, who gives a shit? I’m not doing that.
I think this was a good movie. It’s not a masterpiece. It’s not even JJ Abrams’ space masterpiece as I think his first Star Trek fills that role. But I certainly didn’t feel like it wasted my time, and I liked it better than Ant-Man. It’s nowhere near the bad of a Transformers or something like that. I’d probably be more interested in watching it again than I would be in The Avengers. It’s no Fury Road, but it was good enough, by which I mean it showed that it’s still possible to make a good Star Wars movie.