"The Force Awakens" (with SPOILERS)

I don't get where Abrams or anybody else thought there was some huge sentiment to bring Palpy back from the grave.

 

I think he was motivated by trying to bring back as much of the original movies as possible. I also think that is why we got so much C-3PO this time around. With Carrie Fisher dead and Harrison Ford and Mark Hamil reduced to playing force ghosts or hallucinations (whichever Han was supposed to be), Anthony Daniels represented a familiar voice from Episodes IV through VI.

I'm not saying that was the right decision. I'm just taking my best guess at the thinking.

 

It was a default thing, most likely....

Adam Driver is unimpressive. Snoke is eviscerated. Palp is the best antagonist left on an underwhelming bench.

 

If he was going to bring back Palpy, why not go whole hog and bring back the Big V?

They could have had a Force Ghostpalooza where Palpy is on the verge of snuffing out Rey Naberrie, great grandniece of nearly forgotten Padme, and the ghosts of Luke, Leia and Anakin hit him with lightning blasts which give her the opening to smoke old Sheev for good with her lightsaber.

Rey goes berserk incinerating Palpy's smoking corpse into microcinders, light saber blazing, screaming, "dead, dead, dead, this time dead forever!"

Out of the shadows, the force ghosts of Obi-Wan Kenobi and Yoda shimmer into view.
Obi-Wan: "What about 'never giving in to anger,' Master Yoda?"
Yoda: "Up your ass, shove that shit, you must, Obi-Wan."

 

I liked Driver, but I think they realized he was *too* likeable, even after killing Han Solo. And Abrams didn't really want to make any tough decisions, probably after seeing what happened when Johnson actually did take some risks. So, you bring bad Palpy instead of having Driver go full-heel.

 

Of course if he had done something like my fake sequence there (minus the joke ending), Abrams would have been attacked for being cliched and predictable. But so what, that happened anyway.

 

They distinctly wrote Kylo Ren knowing full well he would come back to the light side of the Force. He was already doubting it in The Force Awakens and when he killed Snoke in The Last Jedi, it was also there.

Vader making his abrupt flip at the end of RoJ was way more surprising, even though it was his son being tortured. They told us multiple times that there was still conflict in Ben.

 

So, I saw it again. Liked it better on the second look.

I definitely get those who will not accept the Palpatine angle. I get it. Thrown in the last flick. The product of a trilogy that didn’t have one vision. No overall story. Would have been better with a hint or two from the other flicks.

But... if you can get past that, it’s a pretty damn fun movie. A lot of fan service for sure. But isn’t that kind of expected after 42 years?

The kiss is still a bit forced. But I get it a bit more on second look. (Credit to my wife). Definitely the Disney influence.

The biggest thing I didn’t get the first time is Finn’s thing he had to tell to Rey. Many scenes telegraph that he feels the Force. Probably will train to be a Jedi. Painfully obvious for the the second time around.

I was struck by a few here that they felt the flick through the eyes of their children. I don’t have kids but that was telling. It’s a series that speaks to kids. And now adults who like nostalgia on occasion in a time when our public discourse is increasingly hostile and entrenched.

I’m generally not a nostalgic person. But this hit the right notes at the right time for me.

Just a big fun space fantasy with familiar characters from my childhood.

Nothing less. Nothing more. I have spoken.

 

I'd have two responses to this: 1) Even those of us who have been more negative than positive on the film, I think we've all said that we still enjoyed it. Like, I had fun watching this in a theater! But, it was more fun in a stupid action movie way than a legitimately good movie.

2) Movies "for kids" can still be great for adults nowadays. Most of them are by Pixar, but still.

 

To Junkie's point, I think you can have it both ways. You can appreciate the nostalgia value of the films and still say ROS is not a good movie. I'm not even angry about it. But you're absolutely right. I saw Jedi in the theater when I was 7, well before I saw the other two. I didn't view that movie at that time in any sort of prism of great cinema. It was fun and there were little bear things running around and things exploding.

 

The difference, at least to me, is I think the originals hold up better than the sequels will. I still appreciate them as an adult. Are they more entertainment than art? Yes, but they were the product of creativity and innovation. I don't know that Lucas was ever particularly good at writing dialogue or crafting a masterful plot, but he knew how to create a world and characters with which his audience could connect in a powerful way. He had a good story to tell and he brought it to life by doing things that in a way people hadn't seen before. That meant innovating to make the special effects work. That meant using the music of John Williams, which most people didn't know or appreciate at the time. That meant creating a universe that looked lived in, which was something missing in most science fiction of the time. It also helped that he seemed to figure out how good Harrison Ford was before much of Hollywood had caught on to his talent. Criticize the other actors all you like, but can you really imagine anybody but Mark Hamill as Luke or Carrie Fisher as Leia? Can you hear anybody else but James Earl Jones as Darth Vader?

I think there is some quality to the originals. I'm not saying they stack up to The Godfather as great cinema, but maybe they deserve a little more credit than they get. I don't think that is true of the last three sequels, which are fun in their own way, but emptier calories.

 

No argument on any of this. Mostly saying I enjoyed it more the second.

And damn right on Pixar!