Episode VII: The Undiscovered Country
I require a few caveats to this entry before we move on. First, I just wanted to be done with the Star Wars arc because I've been sitting on these for over a month and I know that you all want to hear what I have to say. Second, there's an appendage to this entry that I wrote today that you'll understand better once you read it.
Before: Obviously, I haven’t seen this movie yet and I’ve tried really hard to not spoil anything beforehand so that when I present you with an assessment, my thoughts can be without blemish and my opinions objective. All of my friends have praised it and that’s well and fine. I do have a lot of misgivings about this movie though. Foremost among these concerns is the director. I have not watched many Abrams films that I have actually enjoyed by the end. Actually, the only one that I liked most was his 2009 Star Trek film and I even feel that that movie would have been infinitely better had it not had the Star Trek name attached to it. Plain and simple, I don’t think JJ Abrams is a very good director and I am dismayed that he keeps getting so many high profile directing gigs. The man understands nothing about solid basic storytelling techniques. With him, it’s all throw backs and forced ‘mystery’ driven by shallow, soulless spectacle. It makes me a little queasy just thinking about it, but as evidence, just watch Star Trek Into Darkness. At this point, I’m hoping to eat this entire paragraph. But, I’m not holding my breath....
After: Why is this movie making so much money?! It wasn’t necessarily a disaster, it just wasn’t a $1.8B film, in my mind. I would liken it to Armageddon in terms of box office scale. It was good enough to warrant some buzz, but I think it’s only made so much thus far because of nostalgia. If there had been another Star Wars film released in the last decade, I think this movie would have tanked. The story was disjointed and confusing. The plot didn’t flow well and actually felt forced at most turns. The characters were flat and completely uninteresting and at the end of the day, it was basically a shameless remake of Ep. IV.
Now, I know I’m being kind of harsh, but I promise there’s rationale and objectivity being used here, just hear me out. I had the rose colored glasses towards the beginning of the movie. They were smudged somewhat by the lack of Fox Fanfare at the beginning. See, I’ve been brainwashed into reacting positively whenever that bit of music plays at the beginning of a Star Wars film. It’s my cue that something exciting, and/or entertaining was about to happen. But, no fanfare… Boo… However, there was some decent story and mystery happening during the Jakku sequence so I could give it a pass, I suppose. Then Han Solo enters the scene. Now this should have been amazing, but the presence of the original characters actually distracted me somewhat. Also, there’s not a well established POV character. Most films, you can get away with two, maybe three if your film is four hours long, but in two hours, you need a clear cut point of view character to help the audience get invested in the story and to help them process what’s being presented. I didn’t see any of that going on here.
There were some flashy action sequences, a vision that I guess was supposed to exposition some plot and some other stuff. Honestly, I could have stayed on board if everything had continued the way it was, but the last act killed it for me. As soon as those X-Wings started literally flying down a Death Star trench, it was over. My suspension of disbelief lifted and I saw everything as it was. A droid getting lost on a desert planet carrying information that would prove vital to defeating the Empire. Said droid happening across a hapless protagonist. A group of scrappy rebels struggling to beat back an insidious Empire. Said rebels about to be destroyed by a massive weapon of mass destruction. All of this culminating in a seemingly futile effort to destroy this WMD before its wrath is unleashed on the rebel base. This of course is made possible by a harrowing run down a trench/through a tunnel where the core is destroyed. Sounding familiar yet?
See, JJ doesn’t do original stories these days. He takes beloved stories from days gone by and puts his inept stamp all over them. If I sound like I’m seething, it’s because I am. I think the most disappointing aspect of this movie is that they had a chance to move on to something completely new and unexplored and yet, they decided to rehash the same exact story that we’ve already seen in the ‘previous’ trilogy (OT). Some have said that it was the movie that needed to be made following what most consider to be the disaster of the prequels, but at least Lucas could craft an entertaining and original story. He made some horrible decisions, but pound for pound, he still gets it better than JJ.
Kylo Ren is just a nerdier and whinier version of Anakin (A feat I never considered possible) that I don’t even find remotely intimidating, probably because he looks like the love child of Napoleon Dynamite and Tim Burton. We see him literally throwing temper tantrums! The head honcho hologram guy had penis issues and he doesn’t seem nearly as conniving as Palpatine. Fin could have been an interesting character, but he got relegated to plucky comic relief. Rey was about the most interesting character of the bunch, but even she is just cut from swatches of the Anakin and Luke cloths. Here’s a question, during the final duel between Kylo and Rey, why did he give her a full 90 SECONDS to realize that she could use the force and to decide she wouldn’t turn to the dark side before pushing her off the cliff. There are fumbles and then there are fumbles. There was even a scene where JJ LITERALLY compares his balls to Lucas'. Real classy, JJ...
I’m not going to waste anymore time spewing hate in the direction of this film. I’m glad that JJ only got one. I think he should be ashamed at the weakness inherent in his entry. I’m hopeful that the directors of the other films are able to salvage what’s left. But final verdict, it was fine through the first two thirds of the film. Then the wheels really came off the wagon and the last third just became a totally incoherent and nonsensical mess.
*Appendage: Okey-dokey. I hadn't re-read that entry until just before posting. I still stand by most of the things that were said. Specifically, After a second watching, I found that I enjoyed it a little more than when I watched it the first time. The difference, I watched it in a very clinical fashion the first time through. It's what I do. It's why you can trust my opinions. They're clinical and without emotional blemish. But, this really is a film that requires that you put some emotion behind it. If you do, it's a more entertaining watch. Not a strength, and not a weakness, per se, but just what it is. I did feel more connected to Rey as I watched it the second time. I was, surprisingly enough, able to choke down the 'Death Star' run a little bit better this time. I still contend that it's a pretty weak film, especially by comparison to the other entries in the franchise, but it was a decent start to what will hopefully be a good trilogy of films and that's all it had to do, literally, the bare minimum that it had to do. It may never be a classic as a stand alone, but here's hoping that it will add something that will elevate this trilogy near the status of their predecessors.
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