WARNING: Spoilers Ahead!
The hype is strong with this one. So strong, perhaps, that this may very
well be my lengthiest review yet. But this shouldn't be so surprising -
after all, we are dealing with Star Wars here, an intellectual property
so colossal that even the most seasoned critic and writer wouldn't be
able to contrive a short, concise review of The Force Awakens while
still taking into account all of the appropriate dimensions of the Star
Wars universe. It's marketing alone already seems to obligate one to
give The Force Awakens its due diligence; right now, for example, the
film isn't scheduled to be released for about another week, but I
already feel as if I can write half this review just setting the stage
for what is already a record-breaking release. And the fact that tickets
for The Force Awakens have already sold out at theaters across North
America in 2015 does, perhaps, hint at something significant; after all,
The Force Awakens will be the final film to round out what I would
consider to be one of best years of science fiction since the turn of
the century. And, in case you need reminding, this is the year that Age
of Ultron and Jurassic World both shattered records, Ant-Man and The
Scorch Trials were "sleeper" successes, and, as USA Today reports, the
National Board of Review recently named Mad Max: Fury Road as the best
film of 2015 [1]. The Force Awakens has a lot to live up to indeed. But I
wouldn't worry; again, this is Star Wars, and the success of its hype
and marketing have already illustrated that the series can still compete
as an important player in the realm of science fiction, despite several
questionable moments in its decades-long history. And if it's any
reassurance, I highly doubt that anything that could be produced in the
Star Wars universe at this point could ever achieve the degree of utter
failure that Terminator Genisys managed to achieve.
In one sense, the Star Wars films need no introduction or explanation. A
film series that spans almost half a century, it has revolutionized the
science fiction genre since its first installment (A New Hope) in 1977
(perhaps some credit can also be given the original Star Trek series
from the late 1960s with William Shatner and Leonard Nimoy). Since then,
the original trilogy has rounded out with The Empire Strikes Back in
1980 and Return of the Jedi in 1983, a prequel trilogy was released from
1999 to 2005 (The Phantom Menace, Attack of the Clones, and Revenge of
the Sith), a number of spin-offs and peripheral stories have been
produced by Lucasfilm (i.e. The Clone Wars), a game studio charged
primarily with the development of Star Wars games (LucasArts) had been
created and has since been more or less bought out by the monolithic
Electronic Arts (much to the dismay of many, not so much because people
cared about LucasArts, but more because EA sucks), and Star Wars fans
have since earned the distinction of being a new breed of human or
sub-species, yet unrealized by scientists, a kind of fanatical cult,
unlike the Westboro Baptist Church, but still somehow endowing new
meaning on the word "devotion", producing unending amounts of
self-insert fan-fiction, more so than any other intellectual property.
Now, Lucasfilm has been bought out and Disney owns the rights to the
Star Wars franchise. As such, Disney is producing a new sequel trilogy,
the first installment of which is The Force Awakens.
But where to start? Perhaps
the most daunting challenge in trying to review The Force Awakens is
trying to figure out how to review The Force Awakens. After all, an
adequate review would take into consideration all of the relevant
context and backstory, which includes having an understanding of
everything that came before it. And it goes without saying that, in the
case of Star Wars, this would be no easy feat, considering that the Star
Wars universe is just that, a universe. One would have to try and
account for the original trilogy, the prequel trilogy, the various
official and unofficial spin-offs, the board games, video games, action
figures, Halloween costumes, and, regrettably, the fan fiction. I
suppose the more important question to ask is what J.J. Abrams (or,
perhaps more accurately, Disney) hope to achieve with The Force Awakens.
Are we aiming to produce a blockbuster to surpass even A New Hope in
terms of innovation? While an admirable goal, this would also be a
pretentious one; to presume that The Force Awakens will be more
innovative than the original would suggest that Disney is capable of
producing such a thing, and, while I wouldn't put it past J.J. Abrams,
this seems like an unreal expectation of Disney. Or, if we were more
cynical, do we presume that Disney is producing The Force Awakens just
to cash-in on the Star Wars cash cow? This seems like a reasonable
question to ask of not just Disney, but any studio that is producing a
reboot. Yet, I also don't think this is accurate; if Disney was just
interested in making big bucks, as opposed to, say, quality cinema, then
I don't think they would have enlisted Abrams for the job and given him
so much control over its production. Abrams strikes me as a filmmaker
who cares about whether or not he is producing quality cinema, so
Disney's decision to go with Abrams seems to indicate an intention
beyond simply just turning a profit. Or, is Disney trying to reboot the
Star Wars series in order to introduce it to a new generation of
film-goers? This strikes me as a little closer to capturing the
intention behind The Force Awakens. While Disney has recently ventured
into more mature endeavors, it has historically kept children as its
target audience. As such, it would make sense to say that Disney is
trying to take a fictional universe that most adults today would be more
than familiar with and introduce that to a new generation.
It seems as if that final
question hints at a good starting point for formulating an approach to
The Force Awakens. Does The Force Awakens successfully reinvigorate the
series for the next generation of science fiction fans and movie-goers?
And, reflecting on a point I made earlier, one should keep in mind that,
at its fundamental core, The Force Awakens is a reboot, one of several
reboots throughout the year. This can perhaps add another dimension to
the approach we take to reviewing it; one can assess the merits of the
film as a reboot alone, removing it from the larger context of the
fictional universe and evaluating it more on its success as a new
installment in a series. And it perhaps may be important to weigh it
against other reboots of the year - does The Force Awakens, for example,
ask the same kinds of provocative questions that Jurassic World asked?
And this question would be consistent with the guidelines I laid out for
myself in my first review over the summer; much like literature or
other forms of visual art, film is a potential outlet of socio-cultural
criticism. As such, one can also ask whether or not there are any
socio-cultural undertones to The Force Awakens, and, if so, how well the
film weaves those points into its overall narrative. Between these points and the questions asked in the previous paragraph, I think I at least have a good idea as to how one should approach The Force Awakens. But, as I hinted at above, in order to adequately review it without being too disingenuous, one has to properly situate it in the Star Wars universe.
The first installment of the Star Wars series (later dubbed A New Hope)
was first released in 1977, with a digital remaster released in 1997.
It's two sequels, The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi,
followed in the years after. The series focuses on the Rebel Alliance's
struggle against the tyrannical Galactic Empire, and the relationships
that develop therein. We are introduced to drug smugglers and gang
bosses on desert planets, cities suspended in the clouds of far away
star systems, rebel bases assaulted in a hail of lasers on planets made
of ice and snow, and an ancient, mysterious "Force" that underlies all
events in the galaxy, and is revered by an order known as the "Jedi",
essentially the futuristic-space-equivalent of the Knights Templar. The
core cast for the series consisted of Mark Hamill as Luke Skywalker,
Harrison Ford as Han Solo, and Carrie Fisher as Princess Leia, and the
series more or less put each of them "on the map", so to speak, with
their acting careers (only for Carrie Fisher to quickly fall off the map
again by becoming a drug addict some time after filming The Blues
Brothers). After Star Wars, Mark Hamill went on to a very notable career
as the voice of the Joker in almost every animated iteration of the
Batman series, while Harrison Ford continued to propel his acting
career in history, perhaps most notably as the treasure hunter Indiana Jones, but
also as one of the early actors to portray Jack Ryan when the Tom Clancy
novels started getting cinematic iterations (i.e. Clear and Present
Danger and Patriot Games), ex-cop Rick Deckard in Blade Runner, and even
as the President of the United States in Air Force One.
The prequel trilogy was released between 1999 and 2005, consisting of
The Phantom Menace in 1999, Attack of the Clones in 2002, and Revenge of
the Sith in 2005. It tells the story of the conflict between the
Galactic Republic and the Trade Federation, the attempts of the Jedi
Council to try and quell the conflict, the influence of the mysterious
Sith Order behind the scenes, and the subsequent downfall of the
Republic, the Jedi, and the Federation, and the rise of the Galactic
Empire...and, perhaps the most controversial thing in the entire series,
the advent of Darth Vader. As can be inferred from the previous sentence, the
prequel trilogy is not very well received. As I start writing this, for
example, Graeme McMillan of The Hollywood Reporter writes that "the
prequel trilogy...is not only a low-point for the franchise, but for
science fiction cinema as a whole, and single-handedly (well,
triple-handedly, technically) responsible for breaking an entire
generation of fans' hearts in its sheer ineptitude" [2]. And McMillan's
assessment isn't without merit; perhaps the most questionable thing in
the entire prequel trilogy is the way it develops the various
characters. The Phantom Menace, for example, introduces us to Jar Jar
Binks, a bizarre character that is meant to serve as a kind of guide for
the Jedi early on the series, but ends up being a kind of comic relief,
and not a very good one at that. Much like the original trilogy, the
prequel trilogy was also responsible for launching the successful film
career of several of its actors. Perhaps the biggest success story of
the prequel trilogy is Natalie Portman, who portrayed Padme Amidala,
Queen of Naboo, although it should perhaps also be noted that Ewan
McGregor saw a noticeable shift in his career from more independent
films (i.e. Nightwatch) to the Hollywood mainstream (in the years
immediately following The Phantom Menace, for example, one can quickly
see McGregor's CV expand to include films such as Black Hawk Down and
Moulin Rouge).
The lasting influence (or, in
the case of the prequel trilogy, controversy) that the Star Wars
universe has made on science fiction and pop culture is undeniable.
Prior to A New Hope, for example, "space opera" was a phrase usually
thrown around in the sci-fi underground, an obscure term usually applied
to pulp fiction like the Flash Gordon series. Now, the phrase "space
opera" is much more ubiquitous (though, interestingly, not quite
"mainstream"), and one researching the Star Wars fictional universe is
inevitably bound to quickly come across it. The Star Wars series,
including the prequel trilogy, is also responsible for giving us some of
the most memorable and influential characters in pop culture today.
Even more menial ones, like the generic "stormtrooper", are instantly
recognizable, and have even lent their title to a particular phenomenon
in cinematography and film criticism (Roger Ebert's famous "Stormtrooper
Effect"). Even characters who are featured in the films only a portion
of the time, like, say, Boba Fett, have developed something of a cult
following. And, of course, many of the tropes and creative concepts
introduced by the Star Wars series have at this point infiltrated modern
science-fiction and have become ingrained in it. The space dog fights
in Battlestar Galactica and Thor: The Dark World bear an uncanny
resemblance to the dog fights in A New Hope and Return of the Jedi. The
lush landscapes and desolate wastelands of The Chronicles of Riddick and
Stargate seem eerily familiar to the landscapes of Hoth, Tatooine, and
Endor. One can quickly see the influence that the "lightsaber" has had on
the "beam saber" of the Mobile Suit Gundam series or the "psi-blades" of
the Dark Templar in StarCraft. And even all of these points still do
not capture the extent to which Star Wars has influenced modern science
fiction and pop culture, but they are meant to, at least, start to paint
the picture.
Now with this very crude background established, I can finally turn to The Force Awakens. And I must say, after having finally seen it, it certainly deserves a large degree of praise, and will likely make my top 5 film list for the year. That said, I should also point out that, in some ways, it doesn't quite live up to all the hype that we have seen leading up to it over the past six months. Specifically, the areas where The Force Awakens shines are its introduction of new, unique characters to the Star Wars universe, it passive commentary on a handful of various socio-cultural issues, and its resistance to utilizing the obscene amounts of CGI that currently permeate throughout modern science fiction. However, the same kind of praise cannot be given to its story; anyone who is even remotely familiar with the Star Wars series will realize that the plot of The Force Awakens is a reimagining of the plot for A New Hope, and the lack of effort in this regard really takes away from what would otherwise be a very solid sci-fi film. At the end of the day, The Force Awakens easily succeeds at introducing the series to the next generation of sci-fi film-goers, and perhaps even presents us with some of the most memorable characters in science fiction, but it had the potential to do so much more.
The characters are perhaps the most intriguing elements of The Force
Awakens. We see the return of old classics Han Solo, Luke Skywalker, and
Leia Organa, played by the original actors Harrison Ford, Mark Hamill,
and Carrie Fisher, respectively, but it seems as if the overwhelming
majority of the hype this time around actually centers around the
mysterious Kylo Ren. And Kylo Ren is perhaps the best example of a case
where the hype is actually justified. He is, by far, the most unique
character in the film, unlike anything ever seen in the Star Wars series
up until this point. Portrayed by Adam Driver, Ren fancies himself the
spiritual successor to Darth Vader, and, in public and in rumor, he
achieves this. He is ruthless and extreme, a student of the Knights of
Ren, a sect of acolytes of the Dark Side of the Force, and is one of the
most feared warriors in the galaxy. However, his more intimate
interactions with the other characters in the film, particularly Rey and
Han Solo, illustrate what Kylo Ren is really like: a skilled, but rash
young man with daddy problems and bipolar disorder, more akin to the
edgy, misguided Anakin Skywalker from the prequel trilogy than Darth
Vader (only much better acted). And again, much credit is due to Adam
Driver for this performance; at times, I was reminded of Tom Hardy's
portrayal of Bane in The Dark Knight Rises, a character that, at one
moment, seems wise and well-spoken, and the next, displays a huge degree
of anger management issues. But, of course, Kylo Ren was not the only
character in the film. Perhaps a great degree of credit is also due to
Daisy Ridley for her portrayal of Rey. Rugged and humble, Rey lives
alone as a scavenger on the planet Jakku, selling machine parts and
artifacts she finds for meager scraps of food. I actually kind of saw
elements of the Book of Eli in Rey's interactions on Jakku; Jakku seemed
like a desolate wasteland, and Rey was a wasteland wanderer, roaming
from place to place, trading post to trading post, settlement to
settlement, just trying to make a living. Because of such harsh
conditions, she has developed the survival skills she needs; she climbs
landscapes and machines alike, knows how to run through the desert
sands, and has the necessary fighting skills to ward off muggers and
thieves. And Daisy Ridley portrays this character as one that is
seasoned in all of this; all of these various elements seem like "just
another day out on the town" for Rey. That is, until BB-8 shows up. And
it is at this point that I should note that BB-8 is probably the next
most memorable character from the film. Much like Kylo Ren is to Darth
Vader, BB-8 is the spiritual successor to R2-D2. BB-8 is a white and
orange droid that rolls around with the appearance of a soccer ball, as
opposed to the kind of clunky trash can that is R2-D2. But, despite
being a successor to R2, J.J. Abrams actually manages to give BB-8 a
personality that sets it apart. Perhaps the best way I can summarize the
difference is as follows: R2-D2, while energetic and spunky, was still a
droid, but BB-8 is more like a little animal, a playful labrador retriever or a shy
beagle, trapped in the mechanical body of a gadget-loaded soccer ball.
Another noteworthy factor of
The Force Awakens is the fair amount of cultural commentary present in
the film. Perhaps in continuing with the trend started by Jurassic
World, The Force Awakens has some very up front feminist tones to it. As
one can imagine, most of them center around Rey. Rey is depicted as a
strong, fit, and independent scavenger, on both a physical level, as
evidenced by the fact that she manages to fight of two would-be kidnappers
of BB-8 on Jakku, and on a mental level, as evidenced by the fact that
she manages to resist the psychic torture of Kylo Ren. And this is in stark
contrast to Ren, who, as mentioned above, does not possess the same
strength of will as Rey, at times giving a sort of "confession" to the
charred mask of Darth Vader for any deviance away from the Dark Side.
She is not the same sexualized support character that Princess Leia was
in the original trilogy, instead taking center stage as the main
protagonist. And it should be noted that Rey is not alone in making such
a statement. Captain Phasma (portrayed by Gwendoline Christie of Game
of Thrones fame) is a towering storm trooper commander, ruthless and
calculated. It should also be noted that Phasma is
apparently not the only woman that is sympathetic to the cause of the
First Order; we encounter several women serving the First Order
throughout the film, both in the role of soldier as a stormtrooper on
the front lines, and as operations officers serving directly under
General Hux at Starkiller Base. Again, this is in stark contrast to the
original trilogy, where there were very few women at all in the films,
and, when there were, they always seemed to be sympathetic towards the
Rebellion. And much like Rey, Phasma escapes the over-sexualization that
unfortunately characterizes a number of successful sci-fi and fantasy
series. Her armor is merely a chrome version of normal storm trooper
armor, and, were it not for her voice, one would likely not be able to
guess that it was a woman wearing it. As Inquisitr points out, the
discussion surrounding Captain Phasma can best be summed up by a comment
from one poster on the Star Wars Facebook page, and the rather clever
response from one of the moderators [3]. And the feminist statements
made by Rey and Captain Phasma are not the only the only points of
cultural commentary made throughout the film. Finn (portrayed by
British-born John Boyega) represents another shift away from the
historical cast of white, male protagonists in the Star Wars universe.
This point is especially pertinent for science fiction in general;
traditionally, more whites and Asians have been burdened (or blessed,
depending on how you want to look at it) with the stereotype of the
sci-fi nerd, while African-Americans and Hispanics have largely avoided this. To
have a black protagonist in one of the most important science fiction
series in history undoubtedly illustrates the potential for a shift away
from the traditional stereotypes.
Another characteristic of The
Force Awakens that deserves praise is the way that J.J. Abrams decided
to handle the special effects for the film. And, in keeping with the
precedent set by Fury Road and Jurassic World earlier in the year,
Abrams had, much to the benefit of the series, shied away from the
grotesque amounts of CGI that characterize the Avengers films, or
anything produced by Michael Bay, and preferred to use genuine sets and
real props, giving the film a much more realistic appearance and
avoiding the silliness that eventually comes with overdoses of CGI.
Scenes for The Force Awakens were filmed on location in Iceland,
England, and Abu Dhabi, and many of the extraterrestrial characters that
Rey encounters on Jakku were realistic props or puppets, as opposed
to the artificial appearance of, say, many of the CGI aliens in the Men in
Black films. Apparently, it had been the aim of Abrams' production staff
all along to recreate the the "real" look and feel of the original
trilogy [4]. As I have suggested in the past, the benefits of such an
approach are rooted in something much more fundamental than just
preserving the look and feel of the "original" Star Wars; while there is
nothing inherently wrong with CGI, going overboard with it tends to add
a degree of "cartoonishness" to whichever film it is being applied to,
and it seems as if the cinematographers of The Force Awakens were
inadvertently scratching the surface of this principle when they decided
to be more conservative with their application of CGI.
However, despite the above
strengths of The Force Awakens, it wasn't flawless. Perhaps the most
glaring thing that it seemed to miss the mark on has to do with its plot
and story. I will echo what a lot of other critics have said and point
out that, in many ways, The Force Awakens is simply a reimagining of A
New Hope. The First Order, having risen from the ashes of the Galactic
Empire, has a planet-sized space station, Starkiller Base, that is
capable of firing a giant laser beam and blowing up planets. Trying to
stop them are the "Resistance", as opposed to the "Rebellion", still led
by Leia Organa. It turns out, however, that the person who is really
capable of stopping the First Order is Luke Skywalker, who has
mysteriously vanished, so the Resistance sets out to try and find him.
Aware of Skywalker's potential to resist them, the First Order also sets
out to try and find him before the Resistance. The movie opens up with
Poe Dameron, a Resistance fighter pilot, hiding a map to Luke Skywalker
inside BB-8 on the desert planet of Jakku just before the First Order
attacks the village he's in. It was at that moment that my alarms
started going off; I couldn't help but slightly cringe at the fact that
it appeared as if Abrams quite literally subbed in BB-8 for R2-D2 and a
map to Luke Skywalker in place of the plans to the Death Star and then
called it Episode VII. Still, I felt inclined to give The Force Awakens
the benefit of the doubt - "perhaps", I thought, "the plot will get much
more interesting by the end". And then it turns out at the very end
that the Rebellion, er, I mean Resistance, launches a fighter assault on
the Death Star, er, I mean Starkiller Base, just before it can fire its
laser beam. Needless to say, I was overall disappointed with how the
story was handled. And it wouldn't be as big of a deal if it wasn't such
a crucial thing to get right. As I have said in the past, I regard the
story as one of the biggest drivers of quality science fiction, and
while the story for the original trilogy was great, that does not
justify recycling it again here; we've heard this story before, and have
already learned from it. Perhaps the argument could be made that
recycling the story was necessary in order to properly reintroduce the
series to millenials, many of whom have never seen the original trilogy.
But this argument baffles me; I'm a millenial, and I saw the original
trilogy when I was a small child, and instead of recreating A New Hope
in the form of The Force Awakens simply for the sake of introducing it
to millenials, one has to wonder why you can't just show millenials A New
Hope. And, on a smaller scale, there is one more thing about the plot
that struck me as odd: despite the great amount of hype that the
character of Captain Phasma got before the film was released, she had a
grand total of about two minutes of screen time. Again, I am not the
only one that feels this way; as Jason Guerrasio points out, "the flashy
Stormtrooper with chrome armor and cape played by 'Game of Thrones'
star Gwendoline Christie has been all over the marketing of the film,
the captain of the First Order gets the least screen time out of the
newest main cast members in the movie" [5]. Guerrasio goes on to
attribute this to editing, pointing out that the run time for the film
clocked in at over two hours, so, for editing purposed, the producers
had to make the choice to sacrifice some of Phasma's screen time. But
even this explanation baffles me; each of the Lord of the Rings films
clocked in at over three hours, and nobody seemed to care about their
run time. As such, I don't quite understand what is achieved by more or
less cutting out Captain Phasma when the film still probably would not
be as long as a Lord of the Rings film.
Let me finish by returning to the original question I posed earlier
about the criteria that we should use to evaluate The Force Awakens:
does the film reinvigorate the Star Wars series for another generation
of science fiction fans? The answer is a solid "Yes", but again, its not
perfect. While The Force Awakens has its moments of pure brilliance,
such as the concept and character of Kylo Ren, it also has its blunders,
such as its unoriginal story. It's unfortunate that it misses the mark
on something so core; its poor handling of Captain Phasma is forgivable,
but the recycling of the story of A New Hope compromises one of the
most important aspects of good science fiction - an imaginative story
that is used to ask important philosophical and social questions. As
much as I don't want to say it, this disqualifies The Force Awakens from
being my film of the year. But again, I must emphasize that it is still
light years better than many of the other films I have seen in 2015,
and I doubt I will see a character as unique as Kylo Ren in anything
coming out of Hollywood anytime soon. Overall, I think it is a great way
to close out my cinematic experience for the year, and, because of the
way it balances props and CGI, I think I can safely say that 2015 was
the year where filmmakers finally learned how to do a reboot.
