The Force Awakens (Spoilers!)

[lefaym]

Returning to DW/LJ for this, because it's the only place I can reliably hide spoilers!



Just some rambling, really:

• OMG IT WAS ACTUALLY GOOD! IT WAS NOT DISAPPOINTING! OMG! I AM SO HAPPY!
• I am SO SAD. Han! I think his death worked well in the context of the story, and I loved that he was still so totally himself right up to the end, but I am SO DEVASTATED that Han and Leia never got to reconcile completely, and Leia's face when she felt him die! I think I was crying 50% for Leia and 50% for everyone who has them as their OTP -- I'm so sorry, and I hope you're all okay (or that you will be soon).
• But Leia! Oh, she was still herself too, holding herself together in the face of grief and being generally awesome, and oh god I am tearing up again. Leia!
• New characters! Rey! Is it too obvious for her to be Luke's daughter? I hope that she is, but I wonder if they're just setting us up for something else. I'm guessing there must be some reason that she can use the Force in the way she can -- some combination of training in very early childhood plus amazing innate skills, all of which points to Luke as her father. I love that we can see both Luke and Leia in her.
• I also love that Finn is his own character, really the most original of the new characters, yet there are times we can see elements of both Luke and Han in him (the expression on Han's face when Finn was about to walk out on Rey, it was all, "I know how this goes, kid"). I love that even though he's brave, he's not actually heroically inclined. That even though he desperately wants peace, he'll do the difficult thing when he knows that the easy thing is wrong.
• Can't say too much about Poe yet, because he wasn't in it enough, and of the three originals, he's the most like his pre-type -- hopefully in the next movie we'll get to see him as something other than mini!Han! (Gosh, devastating thought -- he is so like Han, having him around must have been agony for Leia, but of course she would put her own feelings last, because she needed the best pilot around. OH, LEIA!!!
• Totally agree for the calls for OT3 fic, which this time is unlikely to be disrupted by surprise!incest.
• Kylo Ren, or as my partner and I are calling him, Darth Snape (Snoke is Darth Voldemort). Actually, I want to be serious for a second: the most interesting thing I find here is the narrative of radicalisation, and how that ties in with contemporary fears about young men (and women) running off to join Daesh and doing horrific things -- but instead of representing Ren as the other, as dominant Western narratives do when the people involved are Muslim, it represents him firmly in the camps of the "self" -- the audience is positioned to identify with Han and Leia, and when they want their son to come home, we don't see them as condoning the terrible things that he has done. They just want their boy back. On a character level, I'd like to see the further movies do more with Ren though -- so far he comes off as... whiny young man with anger issues -- I need to know more about his history to really connect with him as a character. I did enjoy his interactions with Rey.

Okay, I've gotta get going now. Might post more thoughts later! But, OMG, I loved this movie! I want to watch it again. (And also, my generation got shafted with the Prequel trilogy being "our" Star Wars. But hey, I got to grow up with the originals and now I get to see these ones, so... can't complain too much!)