So ‘The Force Awakens’ is still very much in everyone’s
minds and one does not have to look far on the internet before you come across
someone raving about it (like just here for example) but there are other
articles, or some comments left in the positive articles, that express a very
different view of the film. Despite the fact that it holds a 93% approval
rating on Rotten Tomatoes and is well on the way to becoming one of if not the
most financially successful film of all time, there does not seem to be a
shortage of people who are doing their best to make their disapproval of this
movie known to the world.
Whether they are genuine criticism (because even I will
admit it is not a flawless film) anger at the political sides of the film
(because apparently there are some) or just general trolling I thought I would address
and discuss some of the complaints and see what I make of them. Spoilers ahead.
The largest complaint many people had with the movie seemed
to be how it borrowed elements from ‘A New Hope’ which is an understandable
flaw, there’s secretive information handed to a droid who falls into the hands
of a youngster in the desert, before they are forced to embark on an epic
adventure with various companions and a mentor as well and battling against a tyrannical
empire who possess a giant superweapon, the mentor is tragically killed by a
former ally but the superweapon is destroyed. I won’t pretend that there is not
some similarity there but I do like to think that JJ Abrams, while taking the
general outlines of ‘A New Hope’ made enough variations within the details and
characters to oppose that. After all, I’ve always believed that above all else
that is what we love about ‘Star Wars’ the brilliant detail of this galaxy and
the fantastic characters that inhabit it.
Also, remember that George Lucas’ original film borrowed its
plot from various sources. Breaking down the 1977 movie, it’s basically part ‘The
Searchers’ (a western in which a man returns home to find his entire family
murdered and subsequently sets off the rescue a damsel in distress), ‘Hidden
Fortress’ (Kurosawa’s adventure film in which two squabbling peasants stumble
across secret plans to aid a rebel army against an tyrannical empire, aided by
a captured princess and an aging warrior in their quest) and part ‘Dam Busters’
(a rough cut of ‘Star Wars’ even featured clips lifted directly from the war
film, Lucas informed his special effects wizards at ILM to use the film’s
dogfight sequences for inspiration on how to craft their effects and some lines
of dialogue are lifted word for word from the film as well). Not to mention all
of the other aspects from ‘Flash Gordon’, ‘Lawrence of Arabia’ and ‘The Wizard
of Oz’. I know it’s less forgivable if you’re lifting from your own franchise,
but remember that this year alone we saw ‘Creed’ which was also very similar to
the first film in its franchise as far as general outlines go, yet still received
critical acclaim.
That, is basically the end of really legitimate problems as
far as I’m concerned. Apologies to anyone that has more problems that stopped
them liking the film but in my opinion there’s little else that doesn’t qualify
as a minor fault. Once again I’m not saying the film is perfect, there are numerous
faults but I would not say any of them come close to running the overall
experience of the film for me. Problems like Rey learning how to use the force
too quickly, Kylo Ren being whiney or the deus-ex-R2-D2 acan either be deflated
or are practically irrelevant.
For starters, ‘The Force Awakens’ is a fantasy. People seem
to be getting upset that their science fiction fantasy film lacks absolute
realism, I have honestly heard people criticise specific force powers like Kylo
Ren stopping that laser bolt, really? To paraphrase something Han Solo himself
said, ‘That (could be) how the force works!’ This is a largely unexplored
aspect of ‘Star Wars’ (and I think we can all agree it should remain that way)
so why is a random fan suddenly allowed to dictate what its limitations and
powers are instead of Lawrence Kasden, the person that wrote Yoda’s original
iconic lines concerning the force.
Rey is a Mary Sue … no other criticism has angered me more.
Specifically because most of the people using that term had no idea what it
means prior to Max Landis Tweeting it, I didn’t know what it was and frankly I
don’t care. When I first read the statement ‘Rey is Mary Sue’ my first reaction
was ‘No, Rey is Daisy Ridley’. Another reason why I dislike that criticism is
how you could slap that label on half of the characters from the original
trilogy, Luke, Leia, Han Solo, Obi Wan, even Chewbacca, based on what I have
heard about the terms and why it applies to Rey, it could be applicable to any
original character. My point is, you can’t really criticise ‘The Force Awakens’
for something that the original ‘Star Wars’ is guilty of mainly because ‘The
Force Awakens’ is a ‘Star Wars’ movie.
People seem to be forgetting that when criticising this film
that it is in fact a ‘Star Wars’ film. What I mean by this is how people seem
to miraculously forget what this film is supposed to be, suddenly it’s deemed garbage
for not having the character complexity of ‘Taxi Driver’, the fight choreography
of ‘The Matrix’ or the writing brilliance of ‘Citizen Kane’. There is only one
film you should be comparing this to, and that film is called ‘Star Wars: A New
Hope’ Forgetting everything you know about every other film, every other instalment
of the ‘Star Wars’ franchise, ‘A New Hope’ is the only singular film that ‘The
Force Awakens’ should be compared to.
This leads me onto two main issues that people have with the
film, firstly that Kylo Ren is apparently too whiney. Ren’s psychology makes perfect
sense for his character, he’s not the invincible and all powerful villain that
Darth Vader was, Ren is much less powerful and yet he’s caught in the shadow of
both his father and grandfather with no way of proving his worth with no Jedi
to defeat. He’s torn between the light and the dark side, Rey summed it up
perfectly in that interrogation scene. There is a reason why, for me, Ren was
the highlight of the entire film because it’s easy to make a menacing yet simplistic
villain. What is hard is making that villain painfully and pitifully human and
if anything that is even scarier still, as he is obviously driven by his emotions
and therefore becomes an unpredictable menace, and no one can deny that Adam
Driver was fantastic in that role. The material could have come across as whiny
in the hands of someone else (like Hayden Christianson maybe) but Driver played
it perfectly.
The second issue is how people seem to take issue with the
film containing unanswered questions by the end. For starters, that is called
franchise building as remember this film is just one part of a trilogy, as well
as numerous anthology films. These are questions intended to draw you into the
next instalment, this has happened in almost every franchise film ever, why is
it suddenly a problem now. I am sure that JJ has a good idea of where this story
is heading and is ready to and the reigns over to Rian Johnson who will in turn
hand it over to Colin Trevorrow. Just be grateful that we only have to wait
eighteen months for Episode VIII, and we get ‘Rogue One’ in between, as opposed
to the three years in between episodes IV, V and VI. Back to the main issue,
how many unanswered questions were there by the end of ‘A New Hope’, where did
Obi-Wan go, who is Luke’s father, will Darth Vader return, has the entire
Empire been destroyed, who will teach Luke in the ways of the force now? Yes
there are unanswered questions, but they are merely part of the experience and
the story, frankly I can’t wait to find the answers to them.
Then there are those hurt about the Expanded Universe no
longer being canon. Look, if those novels and comics were still watertight and
part of this universe, the filmmakers would instantly have dozens of strings
tying their hands and various other limbs behind their backs. I just want to
see more ‘Star Wars’ without having to check up on every additional novel to
understand it, and the writers to have creative freedom when making it. Also,
those stories still exist and you can still enjoy them, Disney is not going to
raid your house and take away your precious copy of ‘Heir to the Empire’, on
the contrary they had the decency to republish the whole series as ‘Legends’
and they can still borrow aspects from the EU stories, they’re not completely
done away with.
Then there is the whole feminist propaganda argument put
forward by Red Pill Philosophy which simply isn’t even worthy my time to
consider it so I’ll move on, it’s just as idiotic as the bigots who started the
‘boycott Star Wars’ campaign on Twitter because of John Boyega’s skin colour
and JJ’s Jewish upbringing.
The hypocrisy of some of this criticism is also rich. From
people disliking how Rey can beat Kylo Ren when she has never used a lightsabre
to then hating on how the fights looked uncoordinated … one of those could be
true as a criticism but not be both because if she’s never used a lightsabre
then the fighting wouldn’t be coordinated, but if she had used a lightsabre
then the fighting would be to a high level. Incidentally though, all the choreographed
fights in the prequels never felt real for me, there was no emotional
investment and I never felt like the characters were trying to kill each other
as they performed amazing acrobatics and unbelievably fast pace. I was on the
edge of my seat for the entirety of the duel between Kylo Ren and Rey. But in a
broader scope, ‘The Force Awakens’ is a flawed movie, but only to the extent
that the original films are flawed movies. If you hate this film that’s fine,
but don’t hold the originals on some untouchable pedestal where the rules by
which you criticise this film can’t be used against them. It may be a bold
statement, but I feel like anyone who claims to hate this film would also have
to mate the originals if applying the same criticisms.
But of course you could disagree with all of this, and that’s
fine. The reason I wrote this article was not simply because someone disagreed
with my opinion. I’m writing this because of how there seems to be a crusade of
people trying to force their opinion down our throats. Why make such a valiant
effort to ensure that everyone hates this film? People are allowed to keep their
own opinions, it’s as simple as that.
If you have legitimate complaints about the film, then good
for you for taking the courage to stand up for wat you believe in, don’t attack
and insult people that like the film. For a start it’s click bait, but then
some just insist that anyone who likes this film is not ‘a real fan’ of ‘Star
Wars’. They take the criticisms others came up with and then pretend that’s
what they believe in or they write aggressive comments on every glowing review
of the film. If we’re not real fans because we like this film then what is? Why
can you judge what does and what does not constitute a ‘Star Wars’ fan? To take
a stab in the dark, I think what constitutes a ‘Star Wars fan is answering yes
to the question ‘Do you like Star Wars?’.
Apparently these ‘hard core fans’ hate anyone who has only
jumped upon the fan wagon with the release of this film, they hate anyone who hasn’t
been with ‘Star Wars’ since the beginning and if ‘The Force Awakens’ was the
first film in the franchise that you saw you don’t deserve to watch the others.
Firstly I unless you were actually there in 1977 to see those original films
for the first time and can remember a definite phase in history where there was
no ‘Star Wars’, you are pretty much in the same boat as anyone who joined after
seeing ‘The Force Awakens’. Apparently these new fans are phonies for not
sticking with ‘Star Wars’ from the beginning, well take it from someone who
grew up loving ‘Star Wars’ and went to primary school with just four other kids
in his class and none of them liked ‘Star Wars’, who cares? More people are
talking about ‘Star Wars’ now than I can ever remember and it’s fantastic,
people are invested in this galaxy and it’s great, they want more and Disney
are about to deliver. It doesn’t matter if your first experience was ‘The Force
Awakens’, ‘The Phantom Menace’, ‘A New Hoe’ or any period in between on home video.
If you really love ‘Star Wars’ you should just be happy that now, regardless of
their introduction to the series, now everyone else does as well.
