Seeing Star Wars In French Was Déjà Vu

SPOILER ALERT: Just in case you haven’t seen the latest episode of Star Wars, I grouped the spoilers at the end.

Last night I did the unthinkable…I was so eager to see the new Star Wars: The Force Awakens that I saw it on vacation in France…in French. The hype was just too great. The vacation at my in-laws just a little too long. I gave in to the true Force in the Universe: Disney. How could I resist the marketing power of their first go at a theme that been part of my life since twenty of us saw the first Star Wars as a Little League team in my small town in Upstate New York?

I’m only human.

Just Enough French

And I’m a human who speaks some French — just enough French to understand a conversation in a general sense, but not enough to understand the subtle nuances of action movie dialogue. I can easily miss irony, sarcasm, humor and the emotions that some words carry. I can miss what’s shouted over explosions.

But it didn’t matter.

This episode of the Star Wars franchise didn’t require translation…like discovering a KFC and Pizza Hut Restaurant in Kathmandu, it was substantially identical to every other version, except for the curried chicken. Without understanding the conversation fully, at times, and not even remotely at others, I was never behind what was happening or confused about what was going to happen next. Sure, the “crossguard lightsaber” was something new, but the novelty of the design and consideration of what possible value it could have didn’t outlast the scene where it first appeared. New isn’t always an upgrade.

To be fair, there were some minor surprises like how good Carrie Fisher still looks, introduction of the first stormtrooper with a conscience, and the web buzz that a punctuation error really wasn’t and that Leia and Luke have a third sibling, a brother. These were the real leave behinds when the credits rolled, and it shouldn’t be that way.

Now For The Spoilers (AKA — You’ve Been Warned)

There was no sense of surprise whatsoever that Kylo Ren, Darth Vader’s grandson, wears a voice-altering mask (but in his case, is it homage or a fetish?), that he kills his own father (after all, Darth chopped off Luke’s hand), that yet another adorable droid hides the key to rebel victory, and the X-wing squadron, led by a new non-Force master, Poe, manages to blow up the death planet, AKA Starkiller Base (though it was a little too easy,don’t you think?).

Yes, I’ll very likely watch Star Wars: The Force Awakens in English when I get home. I’ll do it for no other reason than fairness, because I’ve written something critical without having understood the potentially life-changing dialogue that I missed. If I change my mind, I promise to apologize to Disney.

With their success on this one, I’m sure they’ll care…