My wife and I finally saw the new Star Wars movie. Our verdict: It was not good! I will explain why after the jump. But what worries me is that pretty much everyone I’ve heard from, plus 93% of critics tracked by Rotten Tomatoes, loved it. Are we the only ones in the galaxy who were disappointed? What is the matter with us? A group of our tribe that was home for Christmas watched it earlier, and the report was positive, though later, under interrogation, one admitted that she felt the way we did. Are there others, perhaps inhibited by peer pressure from stating their true views? Or is there something good in the movie that we somehow missed?
Let me state my case against the movie. Then I’d like you to say whether I’m right or wrong. I wanted very much to like this film, being a fan of Star Wars, so I’m open to persuasion.The good reports about the movie have generally been rhapsodies about how faithful The Force Awakens is to the original story. Faithful? It’s the same material! The new movie consists almost completely of remade elements from the original trilogy.
A cute droid with a message for the resistance; a rural hero from a desert planet; an Oedipal villain dressed in black; a bar scene with aliens; bad spaceships chase the Millennial Falcon; good & bad space ships fight each other. There are variations, mostly along gender lines: The new rural hero and would-be Jedi knight is female. There is a small, wrinkled Yoda figure, who is female. The classic motif of rescuing a princess, now deemed sexist, is replaced by having the princess transformed into a general. There is a Death Star, only this one is a lot bigger than the original.
These are only a few of the repeated motifs, which extend to dialogue bits and camera shots. Some of those connections to the old material could be charming, but that’s pretty much all there is to the movie! Beloved material from the original trilogy wrenched from its context, rehashed, and turned into an ironic cliche.
Basically, the movie lived up to my apprehensions. At the end of Revenge of the Jedi, the Empire was defeated and the rebels of the Republic were victorious. Now it is 30 years later. We are told that the remnants of the Empire have come back as the First Order and are trying to overthrow the Republic. That could be interesting. The bad guys are now the rebels. We could see a conflict from another point of view, one in fact parallel with what we are facing now with insurgent terrorists. But the good guys in this movie are called “the Resistance.” Resistance against whom? The First Order is presented just like the Empire was, as if it were in charge.
The new movie even retained the old series’ faults, such as embarrassingly atrocious acting and poorly-written dialog.
There were two good things in The Force Awakens, though these were not sufficient to overcome the faults. One of the criticisms of the old story was that the bad guys were objectified and dehumanized, turned into masked ciphers who existed only to symbolize evil and to be killed. The new movie has a storm trooper (a black guy, to remedy another of the old criticisms) act on conscience, turning against the atrocities he was being asked to make and joining the “Resistance.” That was a good moment, the origin of the new hero Finn.
The new movie advanced the ongoing story in only one way, as far as I could tell. Without giving away a spoiler, it had to do with a relationship between two of the original characters. We in the audience would love to hear more about what happened with that, but instead we quickly go back to the replications. But it was a good story element.
Part of the frustration is that George Lucas gave us a universe. Even the disappointing prequels did some new things with that universe, showing us different kinds of planets and creatures. That this Disney version (having no input from Lucas) did so little with that universe, other than what had been done before, is just a let down.
So tell me how I’m wrong about this. Please don’t just say, “But I really liked it!” Well, I liked going to the movie, and it was good to see the old characters now that they have become old like me. There are all kinds of reasons a person might “like” something, even something that isn’t very good. “I liked it” describes you. “The movie was good” describes the movie.
Tell me what was good about the movie; that is, something that was well-done, well-written, imaginative, excellent, of good quality. Or am I right in my criticism, even though you might have “liked” watching it?
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