Thus far I’ve seen two of my friends that seem to be disappointed by Episode VII: The Force Awakens. Both of these have only posted very short, spoiler-less, detail-less posts as of the writing of this so I haven’t discussed this, but this does seem to be in line with Rotten Tomatoes (I do find it very strange that Rotten Tomatoes essentially does a “this percent of people think the movie is okay without basing the score off of … you know what, I’m not here to talk about a site that I don’t read). Of course, only the most interested people – the devout fans, the people who see every movie right away, the extremely hyped for this movie specifically – have watched the film so far, so we are likely to see more balanced views coming over time.
Let’s start with my biggest complaint about this movie: modern Hollywood. There are several things that modern movies do constantly that wasn’t done in the ‘70s and ‘80s, and that’s why I tend more often to enjoy films from the ‘70s and ‘80s. One character right off the bat seemed as though he was intended to be the new Han Solo…except he came off as more Starlord than Solo. There’s a difference between a fine line between an appropriate amount of humor and too much, and the line is when the comic relief starts to detract from the drama rather than making it easier to swallow. Several scenes were robbed of much of their intensity by an ill-timed joke, and the fact that there was more than one character doing this (to be fair, exactly two, but they’re two of the first characters introduced) make me think this is more of a script issue than a character trait. To be fair, this issue was not present with the more established characters, which makes me think there was a discussion among the writers not to change their dialogue style while the rest of the film was modernized.
Another modernization issue that occurs is that modern Hollywood seems not to understand that you can allow characters to emote without removing their masks. While the biggest offender in this regard in Sam Raimi’s Spider-Man 3, there are loads of films that have this problem. I’m going to say “Producers” because that seems to be what dumb trends are blamed on, but refrain from using names because I really have no clue. Producers don’t seem to respect the range that actors like David Prowse (Darth Vader), Kane Hodder (Jason Voorhees), Tony Moran (Michael Myers) and so many others brought to their characters, all without being able to show facial expression or speak! On top of this, the mask is a trade. Raw emotional expression is not always the best policy for a villain – even a sympathetic villain. The mask helps a character to be mysterious, untouchable, and otherworldly, and removing it too soon can break the spell. There is surely a different power to the character when Hayden Christensen is onscreen compared to David Prowse’s Darth Vader. The failure to use this properly definitely has an impact on this film.
Visually, this film is an utter marvel. Now, this is often used to say “this movie is terrible, but at least it looks nice” but I don’t mean that at all. Still, it’s impossible to completely ignore the visuals. It’s well established that J.J. Abrams was going for the look and feel of the original Star Wars trilogy, to the point of using as many practical effects as possible in place of CGI. On this point he mostly succeeded. There were some decisions I didn’t really agree with, but the vast majority of the time the film had a very similar visual style to the original trilogy. When the film does depart, it tends to do very well – there is an amazing effect where a lightsaber duel in an unusual atmosphere causes an amazing glow effect that is a natural evolution from the standard effect while still making that duel stand out in the franchise. Looking at CGI, the most obvious effect (one that absolutely could not be practical, while many of the other CGI effects were probably a blend of CGI and practical as scenes required) is the new hyperspace effect. I’m of mixed mind on this because an effect that couldn’t have been done in 1983 and would have been rather difficult even from 1999 to 2005 tends to date this movie just as much as the blue-screen effects in the original trilogy did. I also expect the Doctor Who theme to begin playing every time a starship enters hyperspace.
Let’s move on to the script. This is probably where the greatest issues lie, but it’s not terrible. I mentioned the characters that are overly loquacious, though truth be told I got over that before the film was too far in. The returning characters are mostly better, although two of them acted a bit contrived, one as a voice for the writer and another as a plot device. The script is a little gendered (something I will touch on in my full spoiler review) but not enough to detract from the movie if you don’t let it distract you.
The ambition of the story is the final thing I want to touch on. And that is the fact that it tends to lack it. The plot goes in its own direction, but the film doesn’t. This film wants to be Star Wars. That’s not a judgment as to whether it is or not; rather, it wears this want on its sleeve. This film is so determined to be Star Wars that it tends to forget that it can be anything else. A good story can want to be something else, but a great story needs to want to be itself.
This “ambition” places a limit on how good this film can be. An imitation cannot exceed the original without doing something divergent, and this film simply doesn’t diverge enough to do that. When people say this is “better than the prequels, but not as good as the originals”, they often fail to mention that that is exactly what it has to be. The film is modeled so much after the originals that being the next best thing might as well be its tagline. You can take that as a good or a bad thing accordingly depending on how much you like the original trilogy, but that’s what it is.
So far, I’ve had mostly negative comments here. That is mainly because a lot of the things I have to say are limited by not going into spoilers. To be clear, I very much enjoyed the movie, and consider it to be on the higher end of “between the prequels and the original trilogy”. It captured the feel of A New Hope (if a little too well) very well, and did a great job making use of the returning characters that are involved in the action.
If I’m talking about the returning characters, now would be a good time to discuss the acting. All of the returning actors did a brilliant job, although one that did not have any speaking lines had a minor issue. There is one character that I think the center of complaints will be about, and it’s tied into several other things that I’ve mentioned. Going into any further detail will definitely be a spoiler, but suffice it to say I think this was a story problem rather than an actor problem, and I’m curious to see what the actor will do with the growth of this character. Most of the new actors and actresses do a splendid job, though the new-school over-cinematic, over-jokey aspect does damage some performances.
You can probably tell that this review is mostly stream-of-consciousness; I’ve been typing this more or less since I returned from the movie and am just adding bits as I go. To wrap up the spoiler free section: I think you should watch it, and as long as you don’t set the bar too high and view the originals with rose-colored glasses I think you have a fairly high chance of being satisfied. If you want more details, continue on to the next page.
Insomniatic 