Star Wars: The Force Awakens
Happy Xmas Eve to anyone celebrating! I have a few minutes to post before the groceries arrive and the cooking begins, so here is my TFA review! No reaction until below the cut for anyone avoiding reaction spoilers.
I am SO happy, guys.
That is not to say that this was a perfect movie -- it was not. The best description C and I came up with was that it was like a giant plate full of food, kind of a mess and not well plated, there should probably have been a few less things on there, but all the food was what you like and yummy, so you don't really care.
So this was not a great movie, but what it was, was STAR WARS. It felt like Star Wars and it let me back into the universe and it let me care again. That is worth so much to me that it outweighs any flaws there are.
The stuff I loved:
Rey. REY. How awesome was she! SO awesome. IDK if she's Luke's daughter or not--the parallels are clearly there, hidden on a desert planet, a natural pilot, finding the Skywalker lightsaber--but even if not, she's still his spiritual heir, and I loved her. I only wish tbh that this was a PG movie so I could show it to Hypatia right now instead of in five years or so.
FINN. I loved John Boyega so much in Attack The Block, and he was flat-out fantastic here too. I really liked his mix of appropriate expertise and appropriate gaps in knowledge, his inexperience with improvising, and his very human mix of heroism and self-preservation ("Why does everyone want to go back to Jakku??!" GOOD QUESTION).
The two of them fundamentally made this movie for me. I cared about them and wanted to know what was going to happen to them and I want to see them again and I want to know all their story, the same way I cared about Luke and Han and Leia after the first one, and that's basically the whole ballgame. All other positives and negatives both pale next to CARING, which is hard to achieve and which was achieved.
Also seeing Han and Chewie and Leia and Luke again. <3 <3 <3 <3 And R2 and C3PO and Admiral Ackbar and Nien Nunb. <3 <3 We can has Lando next time?
The physical action of all the flying in general. It was really well done. I was glad we saw it in 3D even though I normally hate 3D. It did give me a headache as 3D always does, but for once it was worth it. I really felt incredibly immersed and pulled through in a wonderful soaring way that made it feel so real.
The settings and the way that the movie let them breathe, especially at the beginning. I was especially surprised and happy how we were allowed to really live with Rey for a while on Jakku, to feel the rhythm of her life and get the sensory details--that food powder! awesome--and the sense of loneliness and waiting. It is the kind of thing that so many movies these days get wrong and chop out in order to get to MOAR ACTION!!! but it's a huge mistake and I was so happy this one didn't make it. Also, the crashed Star Destroyer and other ships were just amazing.
Han's death was awful and yet perfect. I could see what was going to happen and I wanted to hide my face and yet it was the right thing for the story. He had a great amount of screentime and action, I was happy with his reunion with Leia and didn't mind that they had broken up -- I thought that it made emotional sense that they'd split up after losing their son and tbh it is more important to me that Leia has kept her WORK than that she's kept Han, because -- that is Leia, to me; she is a general and a leader and the greater cause is what matters to her, more than anything.
Seeing Luke omg! I was all set for the movie to end without finding Luke, I assumed Episode 8 was going to be The Search for Skywalker, and then WE GOT TO LUKE and also he looked great, cough. Look, I was (am) a Luke girl, what can I say.
Oh, and the lightsaber vision was awesome.
The stuff I didn't much like:
The Republic vs the Resistance. WHY is there a "Resistance" if the Republic has won? I mean, it's not that you couldn't come up with some explanation for this kind of convolution, but why would you? What's wrong with, General Leia Organa has been given command of the Republic's fleet and is searching for Luke Skywalker?
This is a part of the bigger underlying issue which is that JJ Abrams & the group of people in charge don't appear to have any new ideas and were just literally replaying the original story with a twist here and there (the same thing he did in Star Trek). It more or less worked here, but that's only because I was READY to see the original story again after the crapfest of the prequels, and some of the twists were satisfying. But many of them were just gratuitous, and the repetition as a whole felt completely unnecessary. Like here, he clearly just wanted his "good team" to be The Rebellion, but it can't be a Rebellion anymore if it's the government of the galaxy, so he made The Resistance for no good reason.
Also, I would really like to know why galactic government is not more distributed given that there have been not one but TWO planet-destroying weapons built in this universe, and also, destroying the seat of the New Republic should have been a BIGGER FUCKING DEAL (c.f. the destruction of Vulcan).
Kylo Ren didn't work for me in general. He felt oddly juvenile and none of the broken-up reveal of his backstory landed for me. It felt like it all came out in these tiny dribs and drabs and not quite in the wrong order, like they couldn't decide which part they wanted to come down with a THUMP and so none of it did. And some of those pieces were easy to miss and REALLY IMPORTANT. I ended up unsure until reading the wiki afterwards that yes, he'd been the student who went wrong and that he'd murdered all the other students in Luke's Jedi Academy.
Also, on a tiny nitpicking grouse that annoys me unreasonably, you know, if you are going to make it a reveal that Han and Leia named their son "Ben" then maybe do NOT have his Sith name be "Kylo REN" especially when you also have a character named "REY" in the same movie. Just, this is not rocket science. There are explosions and music going on, do not make your audience spend a moment wondering "er wait did he say..."
And while I approve on principle of shippable villains, in this case that made the helmet a faintly pathetic affectation instead of a necessary evil, and also it was BLATANTLY OBVIOUS every time he took it off that his fluffy long hair had not actually been inside that helmet the moment just before. Unless maybe this is a new Dark Side power? :P
There was nothing WRONG with Poe for me, but alas, he didn't do anything for me either. IDK, he felt maybe too straightforward? I enjoyed his escape with Finn a lot, but I wouldn't have minded if he had actually died on Tatooine. Also this was a "I see the hand of the author" thing where he felt too much like they needed to build a heroic pilot central character because they wanted to redo the destroy-the-death-star run from SW and ROTJ, which IMO was the worst of the unnecessary repetitions. Just, you know, we've seen it. We've seen it TWICE. Yes, it was filmed better and the graphics have gotten better, but they could have applied those techniques to a DIFFERENT kind of space battle.
And seriously, the Empire STILL hasn't learned not to throw all their eggs into one superweapon basket? Really? Also the superweapon was just too far on the side of implausible for me. Sucking up a star? And the whole planet jumps through hyperspace every time they need to use up a star? And it somehow can shoot across multiple light years, with light trails visible through all of space (uh, light trails that should have been moving... at the speed of light... and therefore should not have become visible at the cantina until however many light-years away from the target planet it is?)
Finally, I didn't love how fast Rey gained Force abilities. It felt too easy, and it also felt like throwing away the pleasurable experience of watching her power grow. I am hoping that we get an interesting explanation; maybe she was trained in the Force as a very young child before she was left on Jakku, and her power is coming so quickly because she already had that connection to the Force. But, IDK. Even if there is an explanation, I didn't love it. Again, it felt like Abrams wanted to do the Jedi mind trick and wanted a lightsaber battle. And, okay, but it just didn't feel momentous and exciting enough.
So, you know, there is definitely stuff not to like, IMO. But that said, this all does feel like nitpicking ultimately. I am happy and will probably go see it again in the theater!
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I am SO happy, guys.
That is not to say that this was a perfect movie -- it was not. The best description C and I came up with was that it was like a giant plate full of food, kind of a mess and not well plated, there should probably have been a few less things on there, but all the food was what you like and yummy, so you don't really care.
So this was not a great movie, but what it was, was STAR WARS. It felt like Star Wars and it let me back into the universe and it let me care again. That is worth so much to me that it outweighs any flaws there are.
The stuff I loved:
Rey. REY. How awesome was she! SO awesome. IDK if she's Luke's daughter or not--the parallels are clearly there, hidden on a desert planet, a natural pilot, finding the Skywalker lightsaber--but even if not, she's still his spiritual heir, and I loved her. I only wish tbh that this was a PG movie so I could show it to Hypatia right now instead of in five years or so.
FINN. I loved John Boyega so much in Attack The Block, and he was flat-out fantastic here too. I really liked his mix of appropriate expertise and appropriate gaps in knowledge, his inexperience with improvising, and his very human mix of heroism and self-preservation ("Why does everyone want to go back to Jakku??!" GOOD QUESTION).
The two of them fundamentally made this movie for me. I cared about them and wanted to know what was going to happen to them and I want to see them again and I want to know all their story, the same way I cared about Luke and Han and Leia after the first one, and that's basically the whole ballgame. All other positives and negatives both pale next to CARING, which is hard to achieve and which was achieved.
Also seeing Han and Chewie and Leia and Luke again. <3 <3 <3 <3 And R2 and C3PO and Admiral Ackbar and Nien Nunb. <3 <3 We can has Lando next time?
The physical action of all the flying in general. It was really well done. I was glad we saw it in 3D even though I normally hate 3D. It did give me a headache as 3D always does, but for once it was worth it. I really felt incredibly immersed and pulled through in a wonderful soaring way that made it feel so real.
The settings and the way that the movie let them breathe, especially at the beginning. I was especially surprised and happy how we were allowed to really live with Rey for a while on Jakku, to feel the rhythm of her life and get the sensory details--that food powder! awesome--and the sense of loneliness and waiting. It is the kind of thing that so many movies these days get wrong and chop out in order to get to MOAR ACTION!!! but it's a huge mistake and I was so happy this one didn't make it. Also, the crashed Star Destroyer and other ships were just amazing.
Han's death was awful and yet perfect. I could see what was going to happen and I wanted to hide my face and yet it was the right thing for the story. He had a great amount of screentime and action, I was happy with his reunion with Leia and didn't mind that they had broken up -- I thought that it made emotional sense that they'd split up after losing their son and tbh it is more important to me that Leia has kept her WORK than that she's kept Han, because -- that is Leia, to me; she is a general and a leader and the greater cause is what matters to her, more than anything.
Seeing Luke omg! I was all set for the movie to end without finding Luke, I assumed Episode 8 was going to be The Search for Skywalker, and then WE GOT TO LUKE and also he looked great, cough. Look, I was (am) a Luke girl, what can I say.
Oh, and the lightsaber vision was awesome.
The stuff I didn't much like:
The Republic vs the Resistance. WHY is there a "Resistance" if the Republic has won? I mean, it's not that you couldn't come up with some explanation for this kind of convolution, but why would you? What's wrong with, General Leia Organa has been given command of the Republic's fleet and is searching for Luke Skywalker?
This is a part of the bigger underlying issue which is that JJ Abrams & the group of people in charge don't appear to have any new ideas and were just literally replaying the original story with a twist here and there (the same thing he did in Star Trek). It more or less worked here, but that's only because I was READY to see the original story again after the crapfest of the prequels, and some of the twists were satisfying. But many of them were just gratuitous, and the repetition as a whole felt completely unnecessary. Like here, he clearly just wanted his "good team" to be The Rebellion, but it can't be a Rebellion anymore if it's the government of the galaxy, so he made The Resistance for no good reason.
Also, I would really like to know why galactic government is not more distributed given that there have been not one but TWO planet-destroying weapons built in this universe, and also, destroying the seat of the New Republic should have been a BIGGER FUCKING DEAL (c.f. the destruction of Vulcan).
Kylo Ren didn't work for me in general. He felt oddly juvenile and none of the broken-up reveal of his backstory landed for me. It felt like it all came out in these tiny dribs and drabs and not quite in the wrong order, like they couldn't decide which part they wanted to come down with a THUMP and so none of it did. And some of those pieces were easy to miss and REALLY IMPORTANT. I ended up unsure until reading the wiki afterwards that yes, he'd been the student who went wrong and that he'd murdered all the other students in Luke's Jedi Academy.
Also, on a tiny nitpicking grouse that annoys me unreasonably, you know, if you are going to make it a reveal that Han and Leia named their son "Ben" then maybe do NOT have his Sith name be "Kylo REN" especially when you also have a character named "REY" in the same movie. Just, this is not rocket science. There are explosions and music going on, do not make your audience spend a moment wondering "er wait did he say..."
And while I approve on principle of shippable villains, in this case that made the helmet a faintly pathetic affectation instead of a necessary evil, and also it was BLATANTLY OBVIOUS every time he took it off that his fluffy long hair had not actually been inside that helmet the moment just before. Unless maybe this is a new Dark Side power? :P
There was nothing WRONG with Poe for me, but alas, he didn't do anything for me either. IDK, he felt maybe too straightforward? I enjoyed his escape with Finn a lot, but I wouldn't have minded if he had actually died on Tatooine. Also this was a "I see the hand of the author" thing where he felt too much like they needed to build a heroic pilot central character because they wanted to redo the destroy-the-death-star run from SW and ROTJ, which IMO was the worst of the unnecessary repetitions. Just, you know, we've seen it. We've seen it TWICE. Yes, it was filmed better and the graphics have gotten better, but they could have applied those techniques to a DIFFERENT kind of space battle.
And seriously, the Empire STILL hasn't learned not to throw all their eggs into one superweapon basket? Really? Also the superweapon was just too far on the side of implausible for me. Sucking up a star? And the whole planet jumps through hyperspace every time they need to use up a star? And it somehow can shoot across multiple light years, with light trails visible through all of space (uh, light trails that should have been moving... at the speed of light... and therefore should not have become visible at the cantina until however many light-years away from the target planet it is?)
Finally, I didn't love how fast Rey gained Force abilities. It felt too easy, and it also felt like throwing away the pleasurable experience of watching her power grow. I am hoping that we get an interesting explanation; maybe she was trained in the Force as a very young child before she was left on Jakku, and her power is coming so quickly because she already had that connection to the Force. But, IDK. Even if there is an explanation, I didn't love it. Again, it felt like Abrams wanted to do the Jedi mind trick and wanted a lightsaber battle. And, okay, but it just didn't feel momentous and exciting enough.
So, you know, there is definitely stuff not to like, IMO. But that said, this all does feel like nitpicking ultimately. I am happy and will probably go see it again in the theater!
You can also read this entry on Dreamwidth (
comments)