Movie review: Star Wars Episode 7: The Force Awakens

Dara and I, accompanied by friends Mimi and Layna, have finally seen The Force Awakens.

YOU GUYS. That? That right there? That was a goddamned Star Wars film. And let me put this in perspective for you: do you all know the last time I would have walked out of a movie theater entirely emotionally satisfied with a Star Wars film? That would have been 1980–the year The Empire Strikes Back came out.

And I can say this. Even having had a major plot point spoiled for me (and I am STILL cranky at the player on Dungeon Boss chat who blew that for me, grr), I was still full of the feels. And I have many, many thoughts on what I just witnessed, and I shall now share them with you all!

Needless to say, SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS OMG SO MANY SPOILERS YOUR FLEET CANNOT REPEL SPOILERS OF THIS MAGNITUDE AND DID I MENTION SPOILERS? If you’re coming over from one of the social media networks or from LJ or Dreamwidth to read this, I beg you: please stay right on angelahighland.com if you want to drop comments. Because there will be spoilers and I want to minimize their presence anywhere this post gets mirrored. If I see you drop a spoiler-related comment on any of my social media networks where this post goes up, I WILL DELETE THAT COMMENT. Do not make Han cranky!

Thank you in advance for your patience and understanding! Let’s get to it, shall we? And did I mention OMG SPOILERS?

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I’m coming into this movie pretty cold. I knew that they’d punted the EU out of canon, and so far I’ve had very little exposure to the newer novels and comics that they’re releasing to bridge the gap between this movie and Return of the Jedi. But I have read Chuck Wendig’s book Aftermath, which picks up pretty much right where Jedi leaves off, and so I have at least the beginnings of a sense of what the timeline’s been like. I knew that the Empire had been fractured by the destruction of the second Death Star and that new factions would be rising to vie for power.

But there’s a lot of backstory here that I don’t know and that I don’t feel like we got on camera. For example: that crashed Star Destroyer on Jakku. I really want to know what happened there. And how the Falcon got stolen from Han. How the Republic got founded–and that’s at least a bit of an echo of the EU, since I read enough of those novels and played long enough on Star Wars MUSH to know what the New Republic was. So at least that’s sticking around in some form.

It is very, very interesting to me that Leia is functioning in a military capacity now, rather than a royal one. Or even a non-royal governmental one. Also interesting to me that their forces are now the Resistance, not the Rebellion. I want to know what’s going on with that.

And oh my god yes I want to know the backstory of what the hell happened with Leia and Han and their Darth Emo son. So many little bits of backstory get teased to us in this film, and I for one am very hungry to know more about that backstory now. You may be assured I will be investigating more of the new novels and comics.

But all that’s backstory, really. So let’s talk about what I just saw on the actual screen.

Applause broke out in our theater when the title crawl and opening theme began. My heart caught at the sight and the sound of it, I will state right out. And I was particularly charmed to hear Dara muttering beside me, “I can’t believe this is happening!” Because yeah, Dara and I just finished a machete order rewatch of five of the six previous films, and Dara has a lot to say about that, and she was in fact kind of whomperjawed that she’s been pulled back into caring at least a little about Star Wars. ;D

First Order as the new bad guys: okay sure I’m on board. Splinter offshoot of the Empire, sure why not. I saw some of this in Wendig’s aforementioned novel, and it makes sense to me that some faction of Imperial forces would keep it together well enough to keep stormtrooper forces going. We get a couple of interesting throwaway lines about programmable, cloneable troops as well, which is a logical followup to what we see get established in the prequel trilogy.

But, interestingly, we also get Finn. A.k.a., FN-2187. We get just enough of a story on him to make it clear he was stolen from his family at a very young age and conscripted into the stormtrooper forces. So not only is the First Order cloning and programming troops, they’re stealing non-clones as well. Which says interesting things about their level of desperation and dedication to their cause.

Right out of the gate, I loved Finn. His horror to what he experiences on Jakku, his first real battle, sold me on him hard. He’s all “WHAT IS THIS I CAN’T EVEN” and decides he’s going to just NOPE right on out of there. Good for you, FN-2187.

So of course he gets to meet up with our new lead hotshot pilot, Poe Dameron, who of course also has the obligatory adorable new droid which of COURSE has the obligatory MacGuffin of this plot, the map to where the hell Luke Skywalker has gone.

(Side note, let it be noted that while I am not in Camp OMG BB-8 Is the Most Adorable Thing to Ever Adorable, I gotta admit… droid’s pretty cute. Yep.)

I felt a little bit of “who the hell is this guy?” going on at the introduction of Poe, but then again, it ain’t like we got much more in the way of in-depth introduction to the characters in the classic trilogy. So really, that isn’t actually a problem. 😉 Really, the only beef I had with that boy was trying to figure out what the hell his name actually was, since I was never sure if Finn was calling him Poe or Pol or Paul. Had to look him up to see what his name actually was. Also? Not surprised in the slightest to see him turn up alive later on in the plot, either.

And of course this brings us to the introduction of our other major character, Rey. I’ve seen at least a little bit of rumbling on articles on The Mary Sue that there are those out there who are calling Rey exactly that, i.e., a Mary Sue. To which I say: bullshit. Okay, sure, she’s got a kinda ridiculous level of skills: hardscrabble desert scavenger, natural born pilot, and apparently able to ramp right up into Jedi Mind Tricks and lightsaber fighting without any formal training whatsoever.

But hello, have you met Star Wars? Let’s talk about how Luke’s also a gifted pilot and pretty damned powerful with the Force before he gets any training, either–dude blows up the Death Star with no other training than a few swings at a remote and Ben’s ghost voice in his ear. Luke doesn’t get shit for being a Mary Sue. Rey shouldn’t either.

But hoo boy howdy, talk about backstory I want to know more of: i.e., who the hell left Rey on Jakku? I’m really wondering if she’s Luke’s daughter. Though I also spent a good chunk of the movie expecting her to be Han and Leia’s other kid, particularly given how Leia gives her that big hug at the end of the film, just before she takes off in the Falcon with Chewie (more on this below). I kept expecting Leia to fess up and go “so uh yeah, Jakku, ABOUT THAT”. Or for Rey to clue in via the Force that the reason that lightsaber is calling to her is because HELLO LUKE SKYWALKER’S DAUGHTER.

I fully expect all of that to get answered in the next two movies, anyway! I hope it will!

But yeah, Rey. Loved her. She and Finn were great together, and I loved all the little bits like “I KNOW HOW TO RUN WITHOUT YOU HOLDING MY HAND” and the two of them gushing at one another after they make their initial escape in the Falcon. And she and BB-8 were great together as well; I loved the whole “adorable droid getting under the grumpy exterior of the scavenger girl” thing going on there.

Loved Rey’s taking so quickly to the Falcon, enough that that’s what had me wondering if she was also a child of Han’s. 😉 And Han offering her a job on the Falcon. D’awww. Solo, you old softie!

Which of course brings me to Han and Chewie.

*sniff*

RIGHT SMACK DAB in the feels as soon as they showed up on camera. And I’m tellin’ you all, going straight from the rewatch into this movie, and getting these two versions of Han and Chewie back to back? ALL THE FEELS.

And as soon as it’s apparent that they’ve been off being smugglers again, that Han had a major rift happen between him and Leia, I go right off on the “what the HELL is the backstory here?” tangent yet again. Particularly once it’s revealed that Kylo Ren is Han and Leia’s son and that his defection to the Dark Side–and presumably his being the apprentice who destroyed Luke’s attempts to build a new Jedi academy–caused Han and Leia to be no longer able to deal with each other. It’s a very human reaction for them to have had, and I want to know more about it.

And of course, of course that boy’s name is really Ben. Because of course it is. This also managed to remind me of the EU, since Han and Leia’s son Jacen also turned to the Dark Side in that storyline–but they had another son named Anakin, and in the EU version of the timeline, it’s Luke that has a son named Ben. I stopped reading the EU novels before the point at which Jacen turns, but I’m now really curious about Kylo/Ben’s backstory and what, if anything, got pulled from Jacen’s storyline to use in his.

Han’s death at his son’s hands is the major spoiler that I got hit with beforehand, and as I said, I’m cranky about that. Knowing that it was coming kicked some of the emotional teeth out of that bit for me. But on the other hand, it’s not like they didn’t also totally telegraph it coming, anyway. And actually, it’s not the first time I’ve even dealt with a version of a Star Wars storyline that involved the death of Han. I’ve RPed in a storyline that involved that. So given that, I wasn’t as saddened by that as some of y’all might have expected me to be.

That said? It was appropriate to the narrative, based on what we got in the way of info about Kylo’s backstory. And it sets appropriately high stakes for whether Kylo can be redeemed in this new trilogy of movies. The boy’s killed his father on camera, and his father was Han freggin’ Solo, and that’s about as gutsy a move as this movie could have made to underscore that like Anakin before him, this boy has made some severely fucked up choices.

And given how obsessed he seems to be with Darth Vader (because I mean honestly, how fucked up is it that Kylo actually had the burned remains of Vader’s helmet, and was asking it for guidance?), it ties in well with the whole narrative structure of the universe as to presented to us in all movies to date.

So yeah, the Han fangirl in me is all “waaaaaugh”, sure. But the writer in me is appreciating the stakes that have been laid here, and the parallels with what has gone before. Also, the Han fangirl in me appreciates that Han died nobly. He was trying to bring his son home, like Leia asked him to. It wasn’t dying going out big, blowing up a Death Star or in a firefight with stormtroopers. But he died in an attempt at an act of love and that’s as noble as you can get.

I’ll tell you what also got me in the feels at his passing, though. The cut to Leia and the look of quiet horror on her face when Han fell off the railing. She knew. She totally knew. Also, Chewie’s roar of desolation.

Waaaaaaugh, indeed.

And of course, that final shot of Luke, when Rey finally finds him. I appreciate that there wasn’t actually any dialogue there, just her reaching out to him with the lightsaber, and Luke with so many emotions etched into his face. SO MUCH UNSPOKEN BACKSTORY.

(Although, I gotta also say, it was weird seeing Mark Hamill’s current face functioning in the role of Luke Skywalker again, after I’ve seen him be the Trickster a couple of times on The Flash. He is SO good at being a supervillain, and that’s just not what I need to have in mind when he’s trying to be Luke!)

What else. So much more that stood out for me. In no particular order:

Starkiller Base. I caught the homage to how Luke’s name in the earliest drafts of A New Hope was in fact Luke Starkiller. Nice reappropriation of that name! And, ramping up from “Death Stars” to “an entire planet that can blow up other planets from the comfort of its own solar system” was a suitable escalation of the technological stakes. Even if part of me kept remembering the Invader Zim episode “Battle of the Planets”, of all things, in which Zim and GIR discover that the species that once lived on Mars wiped themselves out converting the planet to a giant spaceship:

And there’s an exchange Zim has with the holographic Martian AI that runs the converted planet, as the AI is telling him the history of the Martians wiping themselves out: “Why would you DO THAT?” “Because it’s COOL.”

This, I fear, robbed Starkiller Base of a little of its gravitas for me. But Dara quite rightly also pointed out that Star Wars does have a long history of ridiculously gigantic lethal technology, so hey, Starkiller Base fits right in with that.

It also reminded me of anime, while we’re at it–in particular, the Macross/Robotech saga and the great cannons that show up in that storyline. Not only the great gun of the SDF-1, but also the earth-based Grand Cannon. People who are bigger anime fans than I am will be able to see similar gigantic cannons all over the genre. And given how Star Wars originally was pulling influences from Kurosawa films, it seems fitting to me to see some echoes of anime here now.

In general, though, I appreciated that the overall look of the tech in this film was nicely updated to reflect modern movie-making ability–and at the same time, the tech looked used, again. This universe looks lived-in once again, in a way it almost never did in the prequels.

And I must make happy noises about the diversity of casting that the movie was showing as well. CAPTAIN PHASMA, baby. And big ol’ shoutout to the female X-Wing pilot in the crew attacking Starkiller Base! \0/ At the same time, I noted with pleasure that several of the faces in the Resistance command staff were in fact faces of color, AND! A slightly more noticeable non-human presence in the Resistance corps, as well. One of the X-Wing pilots was non-human, and I saw a Sullustan among the ground crew, and Admiral Ackbar even shows up again (though I had to do some googling to confirm that was in fact supposed to be the same character, not just another member of the species).

I really liked Maz Kanata, the little alien that Han initially goes to visit. Yet again, some strong curiosity as to how exactly she was in possession of Luke’s lightsaber.

Musically, I kept noticing themes popping in–some familiar musical cues from the previous movies, but some new ones as well. The soundtrack WILL be required listening.

And I’ve already bought the ebook edition of the novelization, since I’ve seen the Mary Sue posting about it and how it does in fact fill in some blanks that the movie leaves open.

All in all, I am feeling very, very good about what I just witnessed. There will be another viewing. It’s been 35 years since I last saw a Star Wars film in the theaters that fully pleased me–and 10 years since we had a Star Wars film at all.

Now we’ve got another one, and it feels like coming home. I can’t wait to see where this story will take us next.