What makes a Star Wars movie good?

Part 3 of a 30 part series. You can see the previous entry here

Back in 1977 the only thing that mattered about Star Wars was that it was a groundbreaking movie. There were no other movies like it to compare it to. The only thing people could focus on was the quality of the film itself.

There are actually a number of reviews from May 1977 saying Star Wars is NOT a good movie. I’m of course disinclined to agree with them, as is the rest of history, but its interesting to note that even from the beginning there was a “Star Wars” effect in place. That a film’s important and impact could exist outside of any objective quality applied to it.

I wake up on another cold grey Portland morning. Me and the homie Finn head to a 9:40am showing of the Star Wars: The Force Awakens at Century 16 at Eastport Plaza. I typically work a Sunday- Thursday schedule which means that I have Fridays off. I tend to go to the movies every Friday morning for the first showing of whatever interesting movie is in theatres at the time. I’ve always had a soft spot in my heart for the Century 16 theater. Because it’s out on 82nd street, there is never an absurd amount of people. On top of that, they were one of the early adopters of the Fandango Mobile Ticketing App, which made it easy to buy tickets at the last minute.

Unfortunately I now live on the other side of town from that theateer and so it’s increasingly difficult to make the trek out there. This project gave me an excuse to go back to my own cinaphillic roots and catch a flick at my old haunt. This was also to be the first time I was to see The Force Awakens NOT in 3D or IMax.

I’m not going to lie, as I’ve mentioned before my experience watching Star Wars in 3D has been less than stellar. Even from the first viewing I knew it was a mistake. I wore my contacts in order to accommodate the 3D glasses and the irritation from the seemingly foreign material on my eyes, along vertigo inducing 3d effects made it so that I was taken out of the moment more than a few times.

Because of this I was excited to be able to finally see the movie in 2D, but alas, even though I no longer ran into issues with my eyes, the experience at Century 16th was also sub-optimal. The screen I saw the movie on wasn’t digital and so it was easy (from where we were sitting) to see the individual grains from the projection. Potentially If we’d been able to get a seat further back in the theatre this might have been avoided.

That being said I’ve always prided myself of sitting very close to the movie screens. My philosophy being, I’m paying money to see this movie and with flat screen TVs becoming increasingly bigger and affordable the only thing movie theaters have to offer is size and scale much of which is mitigated by sitting further back in the movie theatre.

One of my biggest worries was that I wasn’t going to be able to tolerate watching this movie a bunch of times, and that eventually I wouldn’t be able to muster the effort to make it to the theater.

Mamma didn’t raise a fool and I assume it will only get more difficult as time goes on, but the movie is so gorgeous and exhilarating that movie fatigue hasn’t yet settled in.

But more to the point what makes a Star Wars movie good? And what of those elements make the Force Awakens so good?

If I were to hazard a guess, it’s the mixture of mythological storytelling mixed with swashbuckling good fun. From the mythological side its about the struggle of good over evil, and from the swashbuckling mentality, its a bunch of heroes taking on astronomical odds with humor, excitement, pluck and verve.

I’ve always felt that Star Wars was constantly straddles the paradoxical line between Tolkien-esque world-building and campy genre films from the 80s.

But how does this movie in particular accomplish this?

The Force Awakens sets in motion a new mythology by riding the solid framework from the original. The force, specifically how it works in this universe is always a mystery. The movie works best when the integrity of this mystery is maintained. This is why we were so disappointed by midichlorians from the prequel trilogy. That over-explanation robs the force of all of its magic. We never get a clear picture as to why the force decided to awaken in Rey at this particular time. This creates a situation where the more pronounced her power becomes the more the audience is pulled into this mystery.

The swashbuckling half of the formula, on the surface, seems like it might be the easiest thing for the movie to pull off, but that couldn’t be further from the truth. In 2015 is very difficult to pull off a movie that’s too earnest. It will come of as childish or just annoying without something to ground it. To that end filmmakers have continued to up the stakes in such a way that thrills can only be had from cataclysmic explosions and increasingly large Digital set pieces. Unfortunately for many of the populous we’re just too numb from 40 years of blockbusters to be tricked by just going bigger. Star Wars has to go smarter.

J.J Accomplishes this though characterization. He lets us have as much fun as the characters on the screen are having. This involves a level of screenwriting that less akin to an O’Neil play and more similar to the misadventures kids on the playground tend to concoct. Strategic winks and gambits with high stakes are what end up keeping us invested. Add some explosive visuals and you’ve got a recipe for a total banger of a movie.

While this may seem contrived, it’s also something that’s extremely resonant with pretty much all of movie goers.

The most exciting thing about the movie is that it leaves viewers with more questions than it answers, but does so using the above formula such that you are having the time of your life while they move set pieces into play for questions that will ultimately be left to the other movies to solve.

In no particular order (and spoilers abound after this) here are the biggest questions I’m left with after watching The Force Awakens.

  1. How did Rey get on Jakku?
  2. When did Kylo Ren fall and where are the rest of the Knights of Ren
  3. When did Snoke get on the scene and what machinations does he have in store for our heroes
  4. How did Maz Kanata get her hands on Luke’s Saber?

Of course there are no answers to the questions to be had just yet. I‘ve got theories of course, but they are as unsubstantiated as the theories I had before this movie was released.