Star Wars: The Force Awakens is a Failure
Spoiler Alert: You’ve already seen this movie. It was directed by Richard Marquand in 1983 and produced by George Lucas- it’s called Return of the Jedi. What came to theaters in December of 2015 was the result of an affliction that ails Hollywood, a lack of ideas.
In his review of the 1951 adaptation of Tennessee Williams “A Streetcar Named Desire,” acerbic New York Times critic Bosley Crowther stated that “inner torments are seldom projected with such sensitivity and clarity on the screen.” Watching the latest Star Wars I felt a similar inner torment, a disgust with a complete lack of originality. The Force Awakens is the utter abandonment of the groundbreaking storytelling and cinematography of the original series which began with Episodes I,II, and III.
Star Wars has joined the dark side — Walt Disney. There are few other companies that build, recycle (re-releasing The Jungle Book?), and profit from brands better than Disney. They are a cult of brand builders, marginally talented folks like Jerry Bruckheimer and J.J Abrams are given loads of cash to ‘reboot’ a ‘franchise’. Star Wars, just like Star Trek, and nearly everything J.J Abrams directs has become a vehicle for profit rather than great storytelling. It is obvious that actors like Harrison Ford ( who has never appreciated his role in this saga, nor voiced a desire to return to it), Carrie Fisher (whose performance was the worst of any character, potentially the worst of her career), and Mark Hamill (who was totally pointless in this film) are just cashing out at the end of their careers.
The plot of the new movie is basically an amalgamation of everything we saw from the original three episodes (IV,V,VI) simply recast with safe new characters and cliches. The Mos Isley Cantina is duplicated, there is a new Death Star only Larger, the Rebel Alliance is now the Resistance, (even though they have the same uniforms?) and it goes on and on. Exactly how, in just a brief period of time the Galactic Empire goes from being completely defeated to reborn powerful enough to destroy several planets isn’t entirely explained. Exactly how, a brainwashed from birth Stormtrooper has a ‘change of heart’ isn’t entirely explained. We don’t care about these characters the way we cared about Luke in a New Hope, gazing off longingly at the distant suns of Tatooine.
Deliberate resemblances to original characters did nothing to build interest, nor did complete duplications (Grand Moff Tarkin’s character). The epilogue is weak; the love story is silly, the plans, even the costumes are uninspired. We are expected to believe Han Solo just fell into debt smuggling after helping to save the galaxy? Kylo Ren was barely menacing, and nowhere near a Darth Vader. Removing his mask to reveal the lack of a need for concealment also seemed pointless. We are expected to believe the dark seduction was so strong that he had no issues killing all his fellow Jedi and his father, while Darth Vader struggled repeatedly to kill his own son?
The ideals established in the original series are also completely abandoned. No need to go to study with Master Yoda to learn to be a Jedi, all one need do is grab a lightsaber to battle Kylo Ren. You don’t even have to be a Jedi, you can be an ex-stormtrooper or a young girl. Luke Skywalker, the greatest Jedi in the Galaxy just runs away because his apprentice kills all of his other students, and he just sits idly by what that happens? Is that idealistically inline following his mentor Obi Wan Kenobi actions? Where is the new technology that we’d expect from a 21st century film? Has anything progressed in the Galaxy since the 1980s?
The ending was equally uninspired, and felt like the ending to a reality TV show. Why do we even care to find Luke Skywalker now that the new Death Star is destroyed? Why does he have a Terminator hand instead of the hand he received almost immediately after he lost his real one? I’m not sure John Williams even composed anything new and just chose to play his greatest hits.
The cinematography was nearly the worst thing about the movie, marked by a typical overreliance on CGI. The original movies were a contrast between extremely busy scenes and stark exteriors, a chance to showcase of the ideas of Industrial Light and Magic. Here have the politically correct version of Star Wars (none of the planets had names?) where every race is included simply just to do so. Close ups were overused more than any other shot, and let to the weak dialogue (specifically between Han and Leia) becoming completely uninteresting.
This is not the same series as Empire Strikes back, where we see a father slice off his son’s hand after trying repeatedly to seduce him to the dark side. An opera where we see mythologies, struggles, fears, hopes, and palpable rage. This is simply convincing (fleecing) a new generation of global youth to spend 500 million dollars. Where as Return of the Jedi was the first film to use THX technology, The Force Awakens is one of countless to use 360 degree Michael Bay style ariel wraparounds. Groundbreaking indeed.
Hollywood used to take risks on films often losing huge, yet now it is a place that prefers franchises to films. Films like Jaws, which went over twice it’s projected budget and Apocalypse Now horrendously so, or Cleopatra. The previews: anew X-Men and a new Captain America. Why even screen a foreign film, when you can just remake it without subtitles? (The Secret in Their Eyes/Los Secretos en sus Ojos) Now Hollywood is focused on just making sure things, and Star Wars was/is a sure thing.
