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The Force Awakens ...From A Certain Point of View

Posted by Chuck | December 21, 2015 at 07:40 PM ET

The Force Awakens is making headlines across the globe. Here at JTA is no exception! Between our three discussion articles so far we've amassed over 1500 comments! My family and I had the pleasure of attending The Force Awakens at a private showing rented out by the Kentucky Star Wars Collector's Club (KSWCC) this past Thursday, organized by long-time friend here in Lexington (and KSWCC member/former president) Kevin Lentz. After letting it soak in for a few days, Kevin posted his thoughts of Facebook today. What he wrote mirrored my feelings as well and I thought it would be a great addition (and opposing perspective) to our other reviews we've had on the site. Kevin agreed to let me post it here as another point-of-view for our viewers to read. Enjoy... and thanks Kevin for sharing!

Kevin is a long-standing active member of KSWCC, as well as an English teacher here in my hometown of Lexington, Kentucky. These are his thoughts on The Force Awakens...

My thoughts on the new Star Wars. Spoilers included - comments and discussion welcomed!

The nice thing, as I’ve been saying for years now in my own defense regarding the prequels, is that we don’t have to agree whether the new Star Wars is a good movie. So much of that decision is subjective, and you’re free not to like it. I respect your judgment and your reasoning (unless your reasoning includes objections to the diversity of the cast, in which case I question whether your bias hasn’t clouded your reading of the rest of the film). My job here isn’t to convince anyone that the movie is good. However, the movie worked for me from my first viewing of the first sentence of the opening crawl. I love it. My job here is to evaluate why I dig The Force Awakens. After seeing the movie twice, reading others’ reviews and comments, and deleting multiple drafts of this text, I’ve come to this conclusion: The Force Awakens resonates with me because it is everything that the prequels were not.

Let’s start with the obvious. It’s not a prequel. It’s a sequel. It comes down to basic storytelling. One of the biggest issues with the prequels was the closed system. We knew where it was headed: Obi-Wan and Anakin were going to duel over a volcano, Padme was going to give birth to Luke and Leia, and the Jedi and Republic would fall. Episode 7, on the other hand, was wide open. At the beginning of the movie, we didn’t know where the story was headed. “Luke Skywalker has vanished” is a big deal. I didn’t expect that. At the end of the movie, heading into Episode 8, we still don’t know what’s going to happen. That anticipation matters in storytelling – it keeps the audience engaged, interested.

Secondly, the prequels lose too much momentum by trying (and failing) to telegraph character traits through stilted and unnecessary dialogue. Star Wars movies are not psychological dramas. They’re space opera. Don’t give me long speeches about sand or lament about killing Tuskens. Don’t have the characters speak everything I need to know. Show me through action and reaction and acting. As Tommy Garvey mentioned in a Facebook post, we find out tons about Rey from her acting. Her genuine tears in her conversation with Maz Kanata, her gazing into the sunset in the X-Wing helmet, and her quick loyalty to BB8 all reveal character traits without her having to exposit ad museum about her motivation.

Further, and while it’s become pop culture cliché, there’s Jar Jar Binks, and there’s no avoiding him in a discussion of the prequels’ shortcomings. While he was intended to be endearing and funny, he comes across as offensive and laughable. BB8, however, his counterpart in The Force Awakens is engaging and amusing. Just compare their two thumbs up moments – Jar Jar’s thumbs up after getting his tongue rescued from the pod racer engine is groan-worthy. BB8’s lighter thumbs up to Finn got applause and genuine laughter from the theater I sat in.

The humor worked in other ways too in Episode 7. A great example happens early on with Poe’s first encounter with Kylo Ren – a moment of silent tension broken by his sardonic dialogue. The moment where the two stormtroopers turn the corner, notice Ren’s fury in the torture room, and make quick 180 back around the corner brought a huge grin to my face. Nothing in the prequels works that genuinely to make the audience smile. Granted, it’s arguable too that nothing in the prequels builds up enough tension to necessitate comic relief.

Some of the most legitimate concerns I’ve heard about The Force Awakens mention the obvious similarities in plot between TFA and the 1977 Star Wars. I see that, and I agree that we might not have needed a third Death Star. However, let’s face it, the plot to Star Wars was intentional classic hero’s journey to start with – the hero, the mentor, the threshold, the reward, the resurrection. That formula is part of what makes Star Wars feel like Star Wars. While it may have gone a bit overboard, it’s part of what this movie needed to do to reengage the old audience. After the prequels, we needed to feel like this was a Star Wars story again, and the plot structure is part of that.

Many fans have understandably reacted strongly to Han Solo’s death. I believe it was necessary. Showing that nobody’s safe increases the stakes for Episode 8. Han’s death also works much better than a similar moment in Episode I, Qui-Gon’s death. Much of the middle act of TFA reminds us how much we love Han Solo. His snarkiness, his loyalty, his cockiness – all the traits we loved from him in the OT are on quick and believable display here. We really, really like Han Solo. I never felt anything like that for Qui Gon. Nothing in the movie endeared me to him – he was wooden and somber. At his death, I felt like I was supposed to feel something, but I really didn’t invest. With Han’s death, I did.

Of course, I should insert some fanboy nitpicking here, because that’s my prerogative as a fanboy. Bagher Pashmi sent me a link to an article in which Abrams explained R2-D2’s deus ex machina awakening at the end of E7. Apparently, in Star Wars, when R2 accesses the entire Imperial network on the Death Star, he downloaded a backup of the entire Imperial network. BB8 inspired him to search that info in low power mode until he found what he was looking for – the rest of the map (the same data to which Kylo Ren had access). It’s a stretch, but I buy the explanation. I didn’t buy it in the movie when he just somehow just woke up with the missing information. There’s a place where we needed a little more exposition. I also didn’t believe that Han, as implied, had never used Chewy’s crossbow before. Granted, it was really cool watching him shoot it, but, given the years the two have been adventuring, it can’t have been the first time.

Minor things, really. Generally, I really, really liked The Force Awakens. It’s the Anti-prequel, which really, if you follow Obi-Wan’s advice and look at it from a different perspective, connects it much more clearly the original trilogy. All the points above (story, dialogue, comic foil, comic relief, formula, investment and stakes) are the elements that made the original trilogy so strong. It is a genuine pleasure for me after all these years to see Star Wars awaken. Bring on Episode 8!

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