(no subject)
So, I managed to avoid spoilers for The Force Awakens, and went into it basically blind. This was the best way to do it.
First off, it feels like a return to that galaxy long ago and far away. There's the same grimy, busy tone that the Original Trilogy had, and that the prequels did not. (They had justifiable reasons, but nonetheless.) It also benefits from JJ Abrams' relatively deft hand at character and set-up. As part of the buildup to Episode VII, Talia decided we should rewatch the Original Trilogy, which she has only seen once before, and her first observation was, "Episode IV has shit dialogue. Nobody talks like that." Episode VII at least did not have that problem.
The graphics were great, because they always are, but there were a few shots that were pretty clearly CGI--not because of any inferiority in rendering (a la The Matrix Reloaded) but because they defied physics in a way that any practical-effects shot could not have accomplished. I honestly wasn't a fan of those. One of the best things about the Original Trilogy is Industrial Light and Magic and their 100% practical effects. They hold up. Even today, 35 years later, they look great. There were some elements of the movie that just lacked that verisimilitude, and I'd honestly have been okay with less fancy action sequences if it meant shooting using physical models and old-style compositing. But I'm probably the only one who thinks that, so, whatever.
Always three there are in Star Wars, and this trilogy was no exception. In the roles of Anakin, Obi-Wan and Padme, or Luke, Han and Leia, this time round we have, in order of introduction, Poe Dameron (a cocky and charming Rebel pilot who actually has a last name), Finn (FN-2187, a First Order stormtrooper who has pangs of conscience and decides to defect, springing Poe free but leading them to crash-land on the desert planet of Jakku), and Rey (an orphaned scavenger on Jakku awaiting the return of her family). But what's worth noting is that the characters are introduced backwards. There were shots in the trailer of Finn igniting a blue lightsaber, and he does, but he's actually not the Force-sensitive character in this trio. Rey is. A born technician who can keep the Millenium Falcon flying (which is saying something, because she's held together with bubble gum, duct tape and prayers), a pilot of repute and ability, she's also a Force-user. And the way she finds out about this is when the Skywalker Family Lightsaber -- the one Obi-Wan first gives to Luke in Episode IV; the one Luke loses (along with his hand) in Episode V; the one we saw Anakin wield in Episode III; the one threaded through the Legends novels as the weapon carried by Luke's wife Mara Jade -- drops into her hands and she starts having Force visions. And then in the end she uses it to duel the guy with the crossguard red saber (after Finn already tried, providing us with the scenes from the trailer) and everyone has Force-gasms. Rey is, in short, this generation's Skywalker, and the main character of this new trilogy.
(Incidentally, there's been a serious furor about how toys and playsets concerning the film often don't include Rey. Finn's present in Millenium Falcon playsets, but she's missing, despite being the person who can actually fly the damn ship. One of the big "this has six action figures" packs has Poe, Finn, Chewie and Kylo Ren, but no Rey. On and on it goes. Darren is of the opinion that this was done on purpose; there have been situations when toy marketing contains major spoilers, such as the figure of "John Harrison" from Star Trek Episode XII: Into Darkness mentioning the character's real identity. Keep Rey out of them and it's impossible to spoil that she's the main character. Darren's not wrong. However, people have gone on to point out that Rey's not the only one: in Age of Ultron toys, Black Widow has been left out of playsets that are about her, and good luck ever finding a Gamora figure from Guardians of the Galaxy. In this case it might be justified to leave Rey out of the marketing, but it's still another brick in a systemic wall.)
On the other side we have Kylo Ren, played by Adam Driver, who -- unsurprisingly -- steals the movie. Oscar Isaacs, playing Poe, does a good job of holding his own, but Driver's just a better actor than him, end of story. (Driver was one of the first people whose casting news leaked, and once it was announced, everyone knew he had to be playing a Dark-Side Force user, and that he would be magnificent.) Ren was one of Luke's padawans, but turned to the Dark Side; he's also the child of Leia Organa and Han Solo. He's an intricately personal villain to all three of the Original Trilogy heroes, since all of them are directly responsible for the fact that he's rampaging around freezing blaster bolts in their tracks (?!) and using Force Mind Rape to extract things from people's heads (?!?!). And, of course, he's played by Adam Driver. It helps that he has all his back story with him, instead of having it delivered in a prequel trilogy two decades later, but so far, Kylo Ren is my favorite Star Wars villain, dethroning even the magnificent Grand Admiral Thrawn.
The fact that Ren is the grandson of Anakin Skywalker raises obvious questions about where Rey came from. The movie very specifically does not answer them. Current theories are that she's another Organa-Solo spawn, that she's somehow Luke's, or that she's somehow Obi-Wan's. The movies (all one of them) are pointing in the direction of the second one, but if that's true, it raises the question of who the heck Rey's mother was, especially since Luke's wife doesn't exist in this universe. (She may of course get ported back over to this continuity; Ysanne Isard's dad was. But until then there's a gaping hole in the "Luke is the baby daddy" theory.) The more likely answer, at least in my mind, is that Han and Leia had a second child, a daughter, and deliberately abandoned her on Jakku as an Auxiliary Backup Skywalker in case their son went bad (which, of course, he did). The fact that the Falcon was abandoned on the planet with her seems to lend credence to this idea. However, throughout the movie, neither Han nor Leia give any indication of having recognized her. Additionally, if this turns out to be the plot of the trilogy, you have the problem that the Legends novels already did it. In that continuity, the children are twins, Jacen and Jaina. Jaina takes after her father, being a natural pilot (she joins Rogue Squadron at one point, which is basically an official badge saying "You're one of the 12 best pilots on the good-guy side") and having enough technical savvy to keep the Falcon flying. Jacen... turns to the Dark Side, becoming Darth Caedus, for reasons similar to those of his grandfather (wanting to keep his wife and secret love child safe), starting another major war and (amongst other things) killing a family member (his aunt, Mara Jade) to complete his conversion to the Dark Side. Eventually Jaina has to duel him; she's the only one who can, being his twin and all. If this turns out to be the plot of Episodes 7, 8 and 9, fans are going to be understandably disappointed at the lack of originality. "You mean you declared the existing version of this story non-canon just so you could tell your own version of it?" (Then again, what else should one expect from the guy who made Star Trek Episode XII: Into Darkness. Oh Light, now I'm worried that this is going to be the plot of the new trilogy...)
Speaking of "Legends". After the Original Trilogy movies came out, there were some Star Wars novels. But three of them, released in the early 90s by Timothy Zahn, were very good, rocketing to the top of the NYT Bestseller lists. These are the Thrawn Trilogy, for a long time considered the honorary Episodes 7, 8 and 9, and in a couple ways superior to the ones we actually got. The incredible excitement generated by these books are, it's believed, part of what convinced George Lucas to go forward with his Prequel Trilogy plans. In the meanwhile, more people kept writing more novels, advancing through more and more plotlines: the end of the Galactic Civil War; the establishment of the New Republic and the regrowth of the Jedi order; the invasion of the "Yuzhaan Vong," aliens from another galaxy who are immune to the Force; the Second Galactic Civil War (caused by Darth Caedus); all that nonsense concerning Abeloth in the nine-book Fate of the Jedi; and more. The most recently-published one, Crucible, takes in the year "45 ABY", where Year Zero was the Battle of Yavin where the first Death Star was destroyed (IE "Episode IV"). The novels went and went and went... until Disney bought Lucasfilm, and with it, the Star Wars franchise. How much of those novels were still considered canon? In the end, Disney declared that none of it was. They represented an alternate continuity; Abrams' film, and all those following it, would be in a new one, the "real" one. Again, this is not to say that everything is gone; at least one character invented in the Legends continuity has shown up in the "real" one too. But until anything is said specifically about them, Legends characters, events, concepts... no longer relevant.
In my opinion, doing this was a very smart move. First off, Episode VII takes place "about 30 years" after Episode VI... or somewhere around 35 ABY. In the Legends continuity, things were happening at this time, which the movie would have to somehow work around. Most of it was the Dark Nest Crisis, which Jaina was involved with... as was Luke. Because that's the other thing that Legends continuity did: revolve, endlessly and without shame, around the "Big Three" of Luke, Han and Leia. Yes, even up until "Crucible". Remember how that takes place in 45 ABY? That's ten years after Episode VII; it's the equivalent of 2025. Ten years from now, they're still on the front lines, wielding blasters and lightsabers, flying starships into combat. Just looking at Mark Hamill, Carrie Fisher and Harrison Ford today shows you how silly this idea is; and yet the Legends continuity adhered to it blindly.
So when that diagonal crawl came scrolling up and its literal first words were, "Luke Skywalker has vanished," I was actually really happy. Because it meant that Episode VII would attempt to forge its own identity, instead of just trying to hitch its wagon to the star of the Original Trilogy. And I think we can all agree that one of Episode VII's strengths is that it tells its own story, in addition to checking in with the beloved Big Three we've all waited thirty years to see again.
With that in mind, it might be surprising to hear that I don't have a problem with the fact that Episode VII is just "Episode IV with Rey instead of Luke, Poe instead of Han and Han instead of Obi-Wan." But I don't. Partially it's because, as Talia identified, Episode IV just had shit writing. Her biggest complaint was Luke slumped at the dejarik table going, "I can't believe he's gone" about Ben. "He's known him for like five minutes!!," Talia exclaimed. And the thing is, she's right. There are a lot of reasons for Luke to be sad about losing the idea of Obi-Wan--he represents everything Luke wants, including the Force--but it's still been an extremely short association, and we never see the two of them bonding in any real way. But when Han bites it, it has meaning--a lot of it. He matters not only to Rey and Finn, not only to Chewie, but to us, The Audience, in a way that Ben Kenobi just never did. In short, I don't mind that Episode VII is just Episode IV again because it's Episode IV done right, which is something Episode IV itself never quite managed. (Because, again, George Lucas just doesn't know how to characters. It's not his fault, but there it is.)
What I didn't like was the discarding of the entire previous Legends canon. I'm glad they got rid of most of it, but there are some really good bits--mostly the Thrawn Trilogy, to be blunt, but if you go through Legends continuity, there's a great deal of it that was just flat-out started by Zahn, because he just did a good job of it. Frankly, that could have been kept without sacrificing much. One of its cooler beats is Leia starting to train as a Jedi and use the Force. We saw just a little of that in Episode VII, when Leia is shown to be Force-sensitive (picking up on Han's death), but we never see her use it, nor carry a lightsaber, which is kind of a shame. Luke may be the last Jedi, but he's got another person hanging round nearby with just as much Force potential as him; shouldn't they look into that?
I was also a little less impressed with Rey's almost instant facility with the Force. She's already doing Force Pull by the end of the first movie. We never saw Luke do that until the beginning of Episode V, in the wampa cave--as a matter of fact, Luke gets a lot from the Force during the Battle of Yavin, but we never see him use it until Episode V. See, this is another thing that Zahn actually got right about Star Wars that basically no one else ever has: it's a low-magic universe. People do not use the Force very much, and what it can accomplish is relatively little. Just like the most miraculous thing we ever saw Gandalf do in Lord of the Rings was "You Shall Not Pass" (well, and come back from the dead, but according to some interpretations--IE the movies--he never actually died in the first place), the most miraculous thing we ever saw in Star Wars was Yoda dig an X-Wing out of a swamp. Seriously, that was it. And while that wasn't nothing, it wasn't the mad reality-warping chaos of, say, Rand al'Thor (who literally has enough magic power to tear the fabric of reality into scraps) or Haruhi Suzumiya, or even the Scarlet Witch, who is capable of a great deal more than Age of Ultron suggests (at least if M-Day is any indication. Zahn grasped this. I'm not sure if Abrams has.
And finally--and this is a petty gripe--I don't like the new X-Wing design. The Rebellion-era X-Wing is one of my favorite spaceships of all time. This new one is, in my opinion, a huge step down.
But TL;DR: the Force is with us again. For realsies this time.
First off, it feels like a return to that galaxy long ago and far away. There's the same grimy, busy tone that the Original Trilogy had, and that the prequels did not. (They had justifiable reasons, but nonetheless.) It also benefits from JJ Abrams' relatively deft hand at character and set-up. As part of the buildup to Episode VII, Talia decided we should rewatch the Original Trilogy, which she has only seen once before, and her first observation was, "Episode IV has shit dialogue. Nobody talks like that." Episode VII at least did not have that problem.
The graphics were great, because they always are, but there were a few shots that were pretty clearly CGI--not because of any inferiority in rendering (a la The Matrix Reloaded) but because they defied physics in a way that any practical-effects shot could not have accomplished. I honestly wasn't a fan of those. One of the best things about the Original Trilogy is Industrial Light and Magic and their 100% practical effects. They hold up. Even today, 35 years later, they look great. There were some elements of the movie that just lacked that verisimilitude, and I'd honestly have been okay with less fancy action sequences if it meant shooting using physical models and old-style compositing. But I'm probably the only one who thinks that, so, whatever.
Always three there are in Star Wars, and this trilogy was no exception. In the roles of Anakin, Obi-Wan and Padme, or Luke, Han and Leia, this time round we have, in order of introduction, Poe Dameron (a cocky and charming Rebel pilot who actually has a last name), Finn (FN-2187, a First Order stormtrooper who has pangs of conscience and decides to defect, springing Poe free but leading them to crash-land on the desert planet of Jakku), and Rey (an orphaned scavenger on Jakku awaiting the return of her family). But what's worth noting is that the characters are introduced backwards. There were shots in the trailer of Finn igniting a blue lightsaber, and he does, but he's actually not the Force-sensitive character in this trio. Rey is. A born technician who can keep the Millenium Falcon flying (which is saying something, because she's held together with bubble gum, duct tape and prayers), a pilot of repute and ability, she's also a Force-user. And the way she finds out about this is when the Skywalker Family Lightsaber -- the one Obi-Wan first gives to Luke in Episode IV; the one Luke loses (along with his hand) in Episode V; the one we saw Anakin wield in Episode III; the one threaded through the Legends novels as the weapon carried by Luke's wife Mara Jade -- drops into her hands and she starts having Force visions. And then in the end she uses it to duel the guy with the crossguard red saber (after Finn already tried, providing us with the scenes from the trailer) and everyone has Force-gasms. Rey is, in short, this generation's Skywalker, and the main character of this new trilogy.
(Incidentally, there's been a serious furor about how toys and playsets concerning the film often don't include Rey. Finn's present in Millenium Falcon playsets, but she's missing, despite being the person who can actually fly the damn ship. One of the big "this has six action figures" packs has Poe, Finn, Chewie and Kylo Ren, but no Rey. On and on it goes. Darren is of the opinion that this was done on purpose; there have been situations when toy marketing contains major spoilers, such as the figure of "John Harrison" from Star Trek Episode XII: Into Darkness mentioning the character's real identity. Keep Rey out of them and it's impossible to spoil that she's the main character. Darren's not wrong. However, people have gone on to point out that Rey's not the only one: in Age of Ultron toys, Black Widow has been left out of playsets that are about her, and good luck ever finding a Gamora figure from Guardians of the Galaxy. In this case it might be justified to leave Rey out of the marketing, but it's still another brick in a systemic wall.)
On the other side we have Kylo Ren, played by Adam Driver, who -- unsurprisingly -- steals the movie. Oscar Isaacs, playing Poe, does a good job of holding his own, but Driver's just a better actor than him, end of story. (Driver was one of the first people whose casting news leaked, and once it was announced, everyone knew he had to be playing a Dark-Side Force user, and that he would be magnificent.) Ren was one of Luke's padawans, but turned to the Dark Side; he's also the child of Leia Organa and Han Solo. He's an intricately personal villain to all three of the Original Trilogy heroes, since all of them are directly responsible for the fact that he's rampaging around freezing blaster bolts in their tracks (?!) and using Force Mind Rape to extract things from people's heads (?!?!). And, of course, he's played by Adam Driver. It helps that he has all his back story with him, instead of having it delivered in a prequel trilogy two decades later, but so far, Kylo Ren is my favorite Star Wars villain, dethroning even the magnificent Grand Admiral Thrawn.
The fact that Ren is the grandson of Anakin Skywalker raises obvious questions about where Rey came from. The movie very specifically does not answer them. Current theories are that she's another Organa-Solo spawn, that she's somehow Luke's, or that she's somehow Obi-Wan's. The movies (all one of them) are pointing in the direction of the second one, but if that's true, it raises the question of who the heck Rey's mother was, especially since Luke's wife doesn't exist in this universe. (She may of course get ported back over to this continuity; Ysanne Isard's dad was. But until then there's a gaping hole in the "Luke is the baby daddy" theory.) The more likely answer, at least in my mind, is that Han and Leia had a second child, a daughter, and deliberately abandoned her on Jakku as an Auxiliary Backup Skywalker in case their son went bad (which, of course, he did). The fact that the Falcon was abandoned on the planet with her seems to lend credence to this idea. However, throughout the movie, neither Han nor Leia give any indication of having recognized her. Additionally, if this turns out to be the plot of the trilogy, you have the problem that the Legends novels already did it. In that continuity, the children are twins, Jacen and Jaina. Jaina takes after her father, being a natural pilot (she joins Rogue Squadron at one point, which is basically an official badge saying "You're one of the 12 best pilots on the good-guy side") and having enough technical savvy to keep the Falcon flying. Jacen... turns to the Dark Side, becoming Darth Caedus, for reasons similar to those of his grandfather (wanting to keep his wife and secret love child safe), starting another major war and (amongst other things) killing a family member (his aunt, Mara Jade) to complete his conversion to the Dark Side. Eventually Jaina has to duel him; she's the only one who can, being his twin and all. If this turns out to be the plot of Episodes 7, 8 and 9, fans are going to be understandably disappointed at the lack of originality. "You mean you declared the existing version of this story non-canon just so you could tell your own version of it?" (Then again, what else should one expect from the guy who made Star Trek Episode XII: Into Darkness. Oh Light, now I'm worried that this is going to be the plot of the new trilogy...)
Speaking of "Legends". After the Original Trilogy movies came out, there were some Star Wars novels. But three of them, released in the early 90s by Timothy Zahn, were very good, rocketing to the top of the NYT Bestseller lists. These are the Thrawn Trilogy, for a long time considered the honorary Episodes 7, 8 and 9, and in a couple ways superior to the ones we actually got. The incredible excitement generated by these books are, it's believed, part of what convinced George Lucas to go forward with his Prequel Trilogy plans. In the meanwhile, more people kept writing more novels, advancing through more and more plotlines: the end of the Galactic Civil War; the establishment of the New Republic and the regrowth of the Jedi order; the invasion of the "Yuzhaan Vong," aliens from another galaxy who are immune to the Force; the Second Galactic Civil War (caused by Darth Caedus); all that nonsense concerning Abeloth in the nine-book Fate of the Jedi; and more. The most recently-published one, Crucible, takes in the year "45 ABY", where Year Zero was the Battle of Yavin where the first Death Star was destroyed (IE "Episode IV"). The novels went and went and went... until Disney bought Lucasfilm, and with it, the Star Wars franchise. How much of those novels were still considered canon? In the end, Disney declared that none of it was. They represented an alternate continuity; Abrams' film, and all those following it, would be in a new one, the "real" one. Again, this is not to say that everything is gone; at least one character invented in the Legends continuity has shown up in the "real" one too. But until anything is said specifically about them, Legends characters, events, concepts... no longer relevant.
In my opinion, doing this was a very smart move. First off, Episode VII takes place "about 30 years" after Episode VI... or somewhere around 35 ABY. In the Legends continuity, things were happening at this time, which the movie would have to somehow work around. Most of it was the Dark Nest Crisis, which Jaina was involved with... as was Luke. Because that's the other thing that Legends continuity did: revolve, endlessly and without shame, around the "Big Three" of Luke, Han and Leia. Yes, even up until "Crucible". Remember how that takes place in 45 ABY? That's ten years after Episode VII; it's the equivalent of 2025. Ten years from now, they're still on the front lines, wielding blasters and lightsabers, flying starships into combat. Just looking at Mark Hamill, Carrie Fisher and Harrison Ford today shows you how silly this idea is; and yet the Legends continuity adhered to it blindly.
So when that diagonal crawl came scrolling up and its literal first words were, "Luke Skywalker has vanished," I was actually really happy. Because it meant that Episode VII would attempt to forge its own identity, instead of just trying to hitch its wagon to the star of the Original Trilogy. And I think we can all agree that one of Episode VII's strengths is that it tells its own story, in addition to checking in with the beloved Big Three we've all waited thirty years to see again.
With that in mind, it might be surprising to hear that I don't have a problem with the fact that Episode VII is just "Episode IV with Rey instead of Luke, Poe instead of Han and Han instead of Obi-Wan." But I don't. Partially it's because, as Talia identified, Episode IV just had shit writing. Her biggest complaint was Luke slumped at the dejarik table going, "I can't believe he's gone" about Ben. "He's known him for like five minutes!!," Talia exclaimed. And the thing is, she's right. There are a lot of reasons for Luke to be sad about losing the idea of Obi-Wan--he represents everything Luke wants, including the Force--but it's still been an extremely short association, and we never see the two of them bonding in any real way. But when Han bites it, it has meaning--a lot of it. He matters not only to Rey and Finn, not only to Chewie, but to us, The Audience, in a way that Ben Kenobi just never did. In short, I don't mind that Episode VII is just Episode IV again because it's Episode IV done right, which is something Episode IV itself never quite managed. (Because, again, George Lucas just doesn't know how to characters. It's not his fault, but there it is.)
What I didn't like was the discarding of the entire previous Legends canon. I'm glad they got rid of most of it, but there are some really good bits--mostly the Thrawn Trilogy, to be blunt, but if you go through Legends continuity, there's a great deal of it that was just flat-out started by Zahn, because he just did a good job of it. Frankly, that could have been kept without sacrificing much. One of its cooler beats is Leia starting to train as a Jedi and use the Force. We saw just a little of that in Episode VII, when Leia is shown to be Force-sensitive (picking up on Han's death), but we never see her use it, nor carry a lightsaber, which is kind of a shame. Luke may be the last Jedi, but he's got another person hanging round nearby with just as much Force potential as him; shouldn't they look into that?
I was also a little less impressed with Rey's almost instant facility with the Force. She's already doing Force Pull by the end of the first movie. We never saw Luke do that until the beginning of Episode V, in the wampa cave--as a matter of fact, Luke gets a lot from the Force during the Battle of Yavin, but we never see him use it until Episode V. See, this is another thing that Zahn actually got right about Star Wars that basically no one else ever has: it's a low-magic universe. People do not use the Force very much, and what it can accomplish is relatively little. Just like the most miraculous thing we ever saw Gandalf do in Lord of the Rings was "You Shall Not Pass" (well, and come back from the dead, but according to some interpretations--IE the movies--he never actually died in the first place), the most miraculous thing we ever saw in Star Wars was Yoda dig an X-Wing out of a swamp. Seriously, that was it. And while that wasn't nothing, it wasn't the mad reality-warping chaos of, say, Rand al'Thor (who literally has enough magic power to tear the fabric of reality into scraps) or Haruhi Suzumiya, or even the Scarlet Witch, who is capable of a great deal more than Age of Ultron suggests (at least if M-Day is any indication. Zahn grasped this. I'm not sure if Abrams has.
And finally--and this is a petty gripe--I don't like the new X-Wing design. The Rebellion-era X-Wing is one of my favorite spaceships of all time. This new one is, in my opinion, a huge step down.
But TL;DR: the Force is with us again. For realsies this time.