by Edward Gross
The movie doesn’t have much of a plot. Instead, the narrative is a collection of subplots (some of which pay off and some of which don’t) and therefore never builds to a grand climax the way a more unified narrative would. The Force Awakens is a very energetic picture—there’s a lot of action in the film and it’s constant. However, most of the action is just the characters frantically running around. There’s a distinct lack of memorable action set pieces (especially in comparison to the original trilogy, which is packed with them). All of the running around eventually becomes exhausting—The Force Awakens is a frenetic film, but it’s never really an engaging one.
PETER HOLMSTROM
The film ends up being a sad remake of A New Hope. No character arcs in an emotional sense, and as such, the film feels like one long first act. I saw the film at a seven-movie marathon, following a showing of Lucas’s original six films, and I was just floored by the utter lack of imagination by the part of Lucasfilm on Episode VII. The story was derivative, and without stakes or consequences. No one really explains why any of the characters stick around beyond the coincidences that lead them there. What is the Resistance and the First Order? Why do they want to kill each other? Rey begins the tale by wanting to go back to Jakku, and ends with wanting to go back to Jakku. Finn—who for some odd reason that’s never explained, has an existential crisis in a battle—finds and obsesses over Rey at minute 15, and by the end of the film is still obsessing over Rey. Every planet in the film is a carbon-copy to the films from the original—so why even bother changing them? The cantina sequence from Star Wars spurred imaginations and spin-off stories for over thirty years, while the blobs of aliens from Maz’s “castle” were quickly forgotten. Which can be said for the movie too.
RAY MORTON
The saga’s original characters are not served well in this story. The Force Awakens’s primary new characters fare better: Rey has all the makings of a strong protagonist and hero—she’s likable, resourceful, resilient, and talented. My only quibble is she’s too talented in that she’s good at everything: scavenging, flying, fighting, lightsabering, and so on. She’s a Swiss Army knife of a character to the point where it starts to become a little unbelievable. Still, Daisy Ridley does an excellent job portraying a young woman coming face-to-face with the fact that there is much more to her than anyone—herself included—imagined. The mystery of her parentage is a good starting point for a potential trilogy-spanning arc.
Finn has the potential to be a great hero—a stormtrooper who quits the First Order’s evil army and becomes a rebel is a terrific setup for a character. Unfortunately, once Finn is introduced, nothing is done with him. He follows Rey around like a puppy dog and that’s about it. The writers have so little idea what to do with him that at the end they literally knock him unconscious to get him off-screen and then he stays that way for the rest of the picture. John Boyega is appealing in the role—one only wishes he had something to do.
One of the reasons Finn has so little to do is that much of his story function was given to Poe Dameron. As is well known, Dameron was supposed to die early on in TFA—the idea was to set him up as the film’s apparent hero, then surprise the audience by killing him off, and then to eventually have Finn step up into the role of hero. But the casting of Oscar Isaac to play Poe changed all that. The actor has so much charisma and swagger in the role that the filmmakers quickly realized that it would be a big mistake to lose him. So, after his death had already been filmed, Poe was reintroduced later in the film and his disappearance in the middle papered over with some extremely clumsy exposition. Poe goes on to become the Resistance’s lead pilot in the attack on Starkiller Base as a combination of Luke Skywalker and Han Solo.
However, not all of the new characters are successful: Maz Kanata is an annoying Yoda knock-off—an ancient, diminutive alien who is in touch with the Force and an unending font of wisdom and exposition. Supreme Leader Snoke is another knock-off—this one of the Emperor. He’s big and mean and ugly, but we’re never told who he is, where he comes from, what his connection to the Empire is, why he chose to resurrect it, and where he got the seemingly endless resources he has to do so. The movie wants us to be afraid of him, but it’s hard when we have no idea who he is. General Hux is a standard-issue Imperial (excuse me, First Order) martinet. Unfortunately, Domhnall Gleeson plays him in such an exaggerated and campy fashion that Hux comes across as the SNL parody of himself.
On a conceptual level, Kylo Ren is by far the worst character in TFA and the entire sequel trilogy. It’s bad enough that he is Ben Solo, the son of Leia and Han who has turned evil, which is the most boringly predictable bad fan-fic notion ever. But the decision to make the character a literal Darth Vader wannabe (to the point where he even wears a completely unnecessary mask that causes him to breathe funny) is an even more ridiculous idea. The only thing that keeps the character from being laughed off the screen is the sincere and committed performance of Adam Driver as Kylo, which gives Ren way more credibility than such a ludicrous personage deserves. However, even Driver’s solid acting cannot save the character when the writers have him kill Han Solo, his own father. This is such a miserable, unmotivated, pointless act and such an ignoble end for such a beloved character that from that moment on, it is impossible to give a fuck about Kylo Ren.
PETER HOLMSTROM
* * *
Han’s death was sad, and not in a good way. There’s a fundamental problem with the script in that Han’s death matters to no one but Kylo Ren. Kylo’s pretty much the only one with any emotional arc in the film, which is, “I’m bad, but conflicted,” to “I’m bad, let me prove it, Daddy.” Obi-Wan’s death in the original Star Wars marks the low point for every single character in that film. The existential death for every single character we’ve known up until that point. Luke’s mentor is killed, Leia’s mission has failed, Han’s source of income that’s going to save his life is gone, R2’s mission is ended, and Obi-Wan’s obviously dead. Here—Han’s death matters to exactly … one person. Kylo Ren. Finn called him “Solo” once or twice, Rey turned down Han’s job offer, and Leia divorced his ass years before. While Chewie should’ve gone down in a hail of bullets—he instead gives a halfhearted cry and moves on.
* * *
Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens was in production between March and November 2014. Produced at a budget of $245 million, it grossed over $2 billion at the global box office. The reviews were extremely positive for the most part, and for many people, the film served as a palate cleanser for the prequel trilogy.
RAY MORTON
In the end, Abrams gave Disney what it wanted—The Force Awakens definitely looks and feels like a Star Wars movie. Which is ultimately its biggest problem. The movie is frequently knocked for being a scene-by-scene remake of Episode IV, something I have never felt it was. However, it is undeniably a rehash: every element in the piece—every story element, every location, every bit of costuming and production design—is recycled from one of the films in the original trilogy. We have another empire, another rebellion, another lowly hero from another desert planet, another Sith, another Death Star (in the guise of Starkiller Base), another cute little robot carrying important info, and so on and so on. There is nothing fresh or original or new in the picture. When you make a movie that depends almost entirely on engaging the audience by recalling elements from earlier movies, you run the risk of reminding viewers of how much they liked those films and deciding they’d rather go back and watch them than sit through your film. I felt that way most of the time while I was watching The Force Awakens.
JONATHAN RINZLER
[The Force Awakens and Rogue One] are just not my cup of tea. They didn’t strike me as being at all in the tradition of Star Wars, personally. But also, I was probably too close to the behind-the-scenes, and I had a bad taste in my mouth. I might feel differently if I saw them again. Like I say, many people liked Rogue One better than any of the other Star Wars films—and they have a right to
their opinion. I don’t want to say, “You can’t have that opinion, what’s wrong with you?” You have a right to your opinion and more power to you.
ALAN DEAN FOSTER
(author, The Force Awakens novelization)
It feels like Star Wars. You may disagree with this plot point or that plot point; “I’d do this instead of that” or “I don’t like this as opposed to that.” But the spirit is there and you walk out of the theater thinking, “That was Star Wars.” I enjoyed it and can go pick it apart with my friends.
TODD FISHER
I remember Carrie and I sitting at the screening of The Force Awakens and it was déjà vu: she squeezed my hand just like she did during the first Star Wars. But in that film when the spaceship flew over, you felt like, “Okay, that’s done.” So then, when she goes back to make The Force Awakens, at that moment she knew that she and Princess Leia would go on forever. That was when she started to accept it; it didn’t happen until Star Wars: Episode VII.
BRIAN JAY JONES
George Lucas cannot win for losing. He’s done with the prequels and the day before The Force Awakens comes out, the fans are like, “George Lucas needs to keep his hands off of Star Wars. Look at Jar Jar Binks, look at everything that’s happened. The prequels are just awful!” Then The Force Awakens comes out and the fans are like, “They need to bring George Lucas back.” Then Last Jedi comes out and everyone’s saying things like there’s rumors Lucas is involved with the next movie. It’s like everybody’s desperately trying to fill this narrative out regarding Lucas’s involvement. But I just love that so many people looked at him as the shittiest thing that happened to Star Wars until The Force Awakens came out.
PETER HOLMSTROM
The one silver lining of the sequel trilogy and the Disney acquisition is, it got people to revisit and reevaluate the career of George Lucas. The classic example of the artist who only became renowned after their death can be somewhat applied here. George was gone, and people suddenly realized, “Oh, Willow is fantastic! The prequels are great! The Clone Wars is epic!” I’m not sure we would’ve had this renewed appreciation for the man in his lifetime if not for this.
J.J. ABRAMS
I knew this movie needed to feel like it was part of a continuum, and part of it was a gut feeling of what makes a Star Wars movie a Star Wars movie. Films have been trying to do what George did since Star Wars came out, and this was an incredible opportunity because we were actually inheriting the legacy of Star Wars. The question became, What do we embrace and what do we let go of? And for certain elements—like the Millennium Falcon, an X-Wing, a TIE Fighter, or a Star Destroyer—that were so gloriously associated with this world, it felt criminal to not use them. And when you look at what Ralph McQuarrie did, and certainly Joe Johnston and others, there was a kind of unbelievable simplicity. When you look at a triangular Star Destroyer, or the sphere and two planes of a TIE Fighter, or the literal “X” of an X-Wing, there was such a “primary color” approach to some of these things, which were then rendered and executed in such incredible detail. The wear and tear and the sense of practicality to these fanciful designs were really inspiring.
So we knew that going forward we needed to embrace these iconic pieces of the puzzle, and yet we needed to adjust them in ways that made them new again. Sometimes the feeling you wanted to [evoke] wouldn’t be effective if [you were] literally re-creating it as it was. Some things needed to be embellished; you want to see some adjustments, some changes, some advances for things to be believable in a story taking place nearly forty years after the first movie. With [costume designer] Michael Kaplan, there was an enormous amount of work to be done on costumes for characters that no one had ever seen before. And, of course, they all needed to be unique and stand out and be different from each other. The design of the movie—from locations to set design to props and wardrobe—all of it, even the casting of it, was about, What feels right? What feels like it is the Star Wars movie that’s relevant for now?
14
REY OF HOPE: THE LAST JEDI
“This is not going to go the way you think.”
Once Disney had acquired Lucasfilm, the engine that initially drove the Star Wars franchise was a new trilogy, episodes of which would be released two years apart from each other. But then, the idea was that a new stand-alone anthology film would be released in between new “episodes,” meaning that every year a new Star Wars film would be released to theaters, redolent of the model that had been so successful for Marvel. The first of these—released between Episode VII: The Force Awakens and Episode VIII: The Last Jedi, was 2016’s Rogue One, which many consider the best Star Wars film since The Empire Strikes Back. Despite a complicated production that resulted in director Gareth Edwards being sidelined by The Bourne Identity’s Tony Gilroy, who supervised extensive reshooting, it’s arguably one of the best and most engaging films in the series.
The film is from a screenplay by Chris Weitz and Tony Gilroy, based on a story by John Knoll and Gary Whitta. Visual effects legend Knoll was the one who first conceived of the idea: Wouldn’t it be interesting to know how the Rebels got their hands on the Death Star plans in the original film? Rogue One is an extension of that idea and would be the first feature film set in the Star Wars universe to not star a Jedi, or a member of the Skywalker lineage (or, regrettably, feature a title crawl, which is as jarring as the Bond movies not having a gun barrel sequence). Set just prior to the events of Episode IV: A New Hope, the focus is on a group of Rebels who are able to obtain the plans to the Death Star that would play so integral a role in that film. Produced at a cost of $200 million, it grossed a little over $1 billion. Surprisingly, despite a largely glowing critical and fan reception, Disney had expected more from its box-office receipts and was particularly disappointed at the performance of the film’s toy line, which they felt underperformed at retail.
Rogue One was followed by The Last Jedi, the second film in the new Star Wars sequel series and the penultimate installment of the so-called Skywalker Saga. The film, directed by iconoclastic director Rian Johnson (Looper, Brick, Knives Out), proved to be one of the most polarizing entries in the saga. Many fans lauded its risky, original take on a hermit Luke who has abandoned the Jedi ways along with its slick photography redolent of The Empire Strikes Back, including a tour de force sequence in which Luke confronts Kylo Ren in a holographic lightsaber fight. It also had surprising twists like the assassination of Supreme Leader Snoke and a revelation of Rey’s true lineage (a reveal that would be revisited and retconned sadly in Abrams’s follow-up). Detractors knocked the film’s slow-speed space chase and lethargic Canto Bight diversion, which separated Finn from Rey for most of the film, and lambasted Luke’s decision to abandon his friends and go into self-exile after almost killing Ben Solo, thus inadvertently creating Kylo Ren.
With Episode VIII, Lucasfilm’s plan had always been to hire a different writer/director to create each episode of the new trilogy, especially after butting heads with Abrams on the first film. Before The Force Awakens had even finished shooting, Rian Johnson was brought on board to begin developing the new entry.
RIAN JOHNSON
(writer/director, The Last Jedi)
I had had a couple of general meetings with Kathy Kennedy after she stepped in and started running Lucasfilm. But they were very general meetings, and I didn’t think that I was actually in the running for anything. And then at some point, I came in for what I thought was another just how-you-been, what-are-you-working-on meeting, and she felt out whether I would be interested in doing this. My jaw hit the floor. And I took some time to think about it. It was a big decision, actually. On one hand, it was something that I felt was a dream offer. On the other hand, it was a big life-changing deal. I wanted to make sure it was something that was going to be a good experience, and it really was. It’s the second movie in the trilogy and I think we’ve been kind of trained to expect it’ll be a little darker and obviously it looks a little darker. I loved the tone o
f the original films, which J.J. also captured in The Force Awakens. First and foremost, we were trying to make it feel like a Star Wars movie. That means you have the intensity and you’ve got the opera, but it also means that it makes you come out of the theater wanting to run in your backyard, grab your spaceship toys, and make them fly around. That’s a key ingredient to it. So we go to some intense places in the movie, but I hope also it’s fun.
LAURA DERN
(actress, “Vice Admiral Holdo”)
