I Think I Fixed It: On Episode VII, One Year Later
The Force Awakens was a weird movie, one whose enjoyability ended up being REALLY hard to pin down.
On the one hand, it was fun, kinetic, and exciting. A big budget blockbuster of the highest order, one that featured characters we all actually… you know… liked. The kind that felt like actual people. (Unlike a certain trilogy of prequels I could mention…)
But on the other hand, it was such a blatant rehash of everything that made the Original Trilogy work. It was fan-service to the point of feeling like the biggest budget fan fiction film of all-time. Watching it made me feel like I was being sold Star Wars, which felt gross.
But then again, it was so undeniably significant, in terms of the much needed diversity it succeeded so spectacularly in promoting. A female Jedi lead and her black pseudo-love interest. It was definitely past-time for that kind of thing to be featured on the grandest of pop culture stages.
But then again, the film seemed so preoccupied with establishing Rey as the hero that it overcooked the bejesus out of her: an exceptional mechanic and natural pilot who needs no assistance at any point or training of any kind in wielding a lightsaber or performing Jedi mind tricks (when she hasn’t even been informed those are a thing yet). So a saga primarily about steadily overcoming our flaws/limitations and the importance of coming together now has a perfect protagonist of seemingly limitless ability who can easily handle any challenge (including the main villain — who is so much better trained — on her first try), and apparently never needs anything from anyone.
You see what I mean? This stuff’s freaking complicated to unpack, so much so that the idea of narrowing it all down to one over-arching assessment feels totally elusive, even a year after the fact.
So instead of going that route (along with half the internet), I decided to revisit The Force Awakens with the benefit of that year’s worth of hindsight, in the hopes of fixing its flaws and covering its lapses; I wanted to keep what inarguably worked for it and replace what didn’t. Specifically, my goal was to enhance its main characters — and each of their respective struggles — in a way that protected everything important about them, while also bringing more interesting/engaging emotional content out and into the forefront.
Ahem…
The Force Awakens: The Special Edition
Rey opens almost exactly the same: She is tough, capable, and solitary. However, her “waiting for her family” motif now implies to the audience that she has idealized this phantom presence in her life — i.e. built them up to the point where those around her are considered superfluous. Thus, her initial solitude is somewhat flawed, and her self-reliance has even the faintest of cracks.
Finn also opens up mostly the same. The only major difference is that, while trying to escape Starkiller Base with Poe, he directly comes across Captain Phasma, who almost kills him, and thereby terrifies him to his very core. This addition both establishes her as a forceful, intimidating (Read: actually relevant) presence in the film, and gives Finn a tangible focal point for his immense fear.
Now when these two characters meet up, Finn is again exactly the same: adorably smitten. But Rey is actually now much more dismissive of him, due to her somewhat stunted social state, derived from her idealization of what are essentially, to her, imaginary people. She’s not mean about it or anything—because she’s still a good person, of course — but she’s just not down for him all that much, which only stokes the fires of his interest, quite obviously.
She’s still drawn in the same way she was to Han Solo though, because he’s very much like her: self-reliant to the point of being dismissive of others. This is something she innately gravitates towards; he’s a mentor she can connect with — on an intentionally surface level — at this point in her development.
Where things begin to really change, however, is at Maz’s Cantina. Because now, when Finn gives the table his spiel about The First Order (i.e. how they can’t be stopped and he’s never going back), the audience is now able to connect with him so much more, since they actually saw what Phasma did to him, which means they can better feel his fear. And much more importantly, after he’s finished, Rey doesn’t try to make him stay. She doesn’t say “f — k off” or anything, mind you, but she’s just not all that interested in what he elects to do or not do. So when he asks her to come with him, she’s pretty much just like “Meh… I’m good.” (But even the briefest of unspoken second thoughts should be included here on her part, subtly further revealing her “actual human connection” issue that’ll be worked out later.)
Next, when Rey touches Anakin and Luke’s old lightsaber in Maz’s basement, what she’s jolted with is the legacy it represents — i.e. that she’s a part of something both deep and vast: the Jedi of old, the eternal battle, etc. And THAT’s what she rejects, because she’s just not ready to be a part of anything so real or important. Remember, at this point, she’s still fixated on that idealized fantasy waiting for her on Jakku, which is the dream of a child, and rejecting of what’s actually in front of her. So she runs away from all this, alone, into the forest, and gets captured by Kylo Ren as a result.
(Note: There’s a reason why I haven’t mentioned Kylo at all yet: He’s freaking perfect as is. His obvious insecurity, his pyrotechnical tantrums when he doesn’t get his way, his unnecessarily complicated lightsaber that’s obviously only that way to make him seem unique/special to others, the fact that he wears a Darth Vader helmet even though he doesn’t need any help breathing… all perfect. He was the best conceived part of the movie, by far.)
And while that’s going on, Finn is off handling The First Order’s attack with Han and the Resistance, just like he was before. However, that random storm trooper with the bionic nightstick that he faced down with the lightsaber is now Phasma herself, who — after a legit fight this time — ends up kicking his ass again, before he’s able to successfully escape from her clutches once more. This simple switch would’ve shown both his growth and remaining limitations — i.e. he’s finally beginning to face his fears, but hasn’t fully conquered them yet either. And again, bringing her more overtly into the film as a direct threat to a central character would’ve made Phasma an actual, important presence, and not such an obvious marketing stunt.
Once Kylo makes off with Rey and Finn joins up with the Resistance, the basic events of the third act play out how they did, only with much more narrative and character significance. Finn goes after Rey with Han & Chewie, using both his personal growth and powerful feelings for Rey to overcome his great fear of Phasma and The First Order, which gives this supporting character his own, fully fleshed out arc. And Rey still succeeds in escaping the interrogation room all by herself, just like before (though using means other than the Jedi mind trick because she has no idea what that is yet), because she’s dope and doesn’t need to be saved.
BUT, when she sees that Finn has come for her, regardless of the fact he didn’t really need to, a GIGANTIC cavern opens up in her chest, BECAUSE SOMEONE ACTUALLY CAME FOR HER. At that moment, she finally gets to experience what she’d been waiting for all her life, and it instantaneously unlocks all the powerful emotions she had stashed away. This is the point in the story when she begins to realize the reality in front of her is supremely superior to the idealized fantasy, and it changes everything in a flash. (Plus, Finn gets to see this reaction play out on her face, and feels appropriately ecstatic because of it; he is metaphorically rewarded for conquering his fear and completing his arc by finally getting to know that he matters to the girl he’s been crushing on this whole time.)
So, when Han later dies, that moment deepens significantly for Rey; just as she’s begun to really appreciate the people in her life, on a genuine emotional level, she loses one of them. Wound. Then, Finn practically dies trying to protect her from Kylo while completely out of his league. Double, deeper wound.
At this point, Rey is now evolving with her Jedi powers, as well as her very personhood emotionally; she is being remade through great struggle and revelation right before our very eyes. And when she Force-grabs the lightsaber away from Kylo, that act is now the metaphor for all of this: She is finally ready… ready to be connected, to let go of her old self and that childish fantasy. She’s ready for the mantle, the legacy to which she will now be willingly tied.
Then the fight itself, one more time, plays out mostly the same way. Rey comes at him straight and hard at the outset, which reflects her emotional state of anger, loss, and tumult. Kylo handles this rookie maneuver easily enough, however, and immediately moves to recruit her by saying she needs a teacher, and that he would be happy to fill the role. Then she takes him down by meditatively tapping into The Force much more powerfully than he anticipated, catching him with his pants down and thereby punishing him for his hubris.
Here’s where it shifts, though: Once she drops him, Kylo effortlessly morphs into the rebuffed emo boy who flips out at his humiliating rejection (in keeping with his character), only with substantial Force connection and training behind said flip out; his propensity for melodramatic displays of angst merges with his physical/psychological wounding, making him lash out recklessly. Shit now goes to an EPIC SCALE as he takes down trees and shakes the very earth with this mega-tantrum.
Rey is not prepared for this, and feels real fear as she realizes it. She was ready to engage with this new reality, but wasn’t quite fully aware of all that entailed, since it was her first time. Coping with this kind of power — manic and unfocused though it may be — is simply beyond her at this point. She’s just not there yet. However, because she’s still our hero and he’s being such an emotional toddler here, she resourcefully outwits Kylo, and manages to save Finn as well, before just getting out of there. She doesn’t win or lose (because NO HERO should flat out win — and thus deflate what should be the still rising stakes — in the first installment of a trilogy); she escapes to fight another day.
This impasse creates greater depth/complexity in her relationship with Kylo, maintaining a sense of real tension between them as it sets up their future entanglements. It also maintains Kylo as a formidable enemy, one who is to be taken seriously as a threat, despite (and actually due to) his whiny bitchness. And it creates an impetus within her to train/work/struggle in the future; it establishes something for her to overcome in later installments. (Also, Snoke can tell Kylo he’s going to teach him how to control those mega-tantrums — making him even more powerful — so Kylo gets to evolve as well, while those aforementioned stakes further raise. Both will become more powerful before they meet again.)
The close then becomes the Resistance learning of Luke’s whereabouts, with Leia set to be the one to go after him, since he’s her brother and they have a pre-existing relationship; it only makes sense. (She also hugs the crap out of Chewie for that same reason, but I digress). Then Leia goes to Rey and says she’ll have her transported back to Jakku immediately, which means our hero is freely offered her old wish: the childish fantasy.
Only, Rey has come full circle: she no longer needs the ideal, she lives in the real; she no longer is dismissive of these people and their fate, because she’s become deeply connected to them and genuinely invested in what happens to them; most importantly, she knows she’ll need a hand or two if she’s going to get where she needs to before her next showdown with Kylo. In other words, she levels up in her adulthood. She grows up some.
And Rey shows this to the audience through telling Leia that it is she who must go to Luke, because he’s the only one who can help her now, and Leia knowingly looks back without saying a word. Thus, Rey also has a bona fide character arc, just like Finn and Kylo, and it is completed — for this movie at least — with that decision on her part.
Then the movie closes in exactly the same way it did. (Which was freaking perfect, by the way. Without any words needed, Mark Hamill’s face, in that one moment, told a story more compelling than all the Transformers movies combined. And Daisy Ridley was right there with him. It was wonderful.)
