Well, I just got home from seeing Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens. I'm still reeling. This was such a great film, for so many reasons. This was definitely a labour of love for JJ Abrams, and it shows. It really shows.
PLEASE BE AWARE THAT THERE ARE SPOILERS BEYOND THIS POINT. I HAVE ALMOST ZERO FILTER, SO CONSIDER YOURSELF WARNED. I HAVE NOT READ ANY OTHER REVIEWS, OR ANYTHING ELSE PERTAINING TO THIS MOVIE, SO EVERYTHING WRITTEN HERE IS MY OWN THOUGHTS AND OPINIONS.
First, I'm not sure if it was just my theatre (hoping it was), but we jumped directly into the crawl. Where was my "A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away..."?!?! That was disappointing, but I stopped caring once the goosebumps started on my arms partway through the crawl. I'm sure that the people around me thought I was nuts if they saw me grinning through the planet and ship shots.
Anyway, I won't give a full play-by-play of my thoughts and feelings because, as much as I'm sure everyone would be utterly fascinated by that, we'd be here forever. So, moving on. But not too far, because the first thing to take a stab through my intense internal fangirling was, "Why can Poe understand BB-8 without a translator or screen?" Later this was followed by, "Why can Rey understand it, too?!" I'm still stuck on this one. I mean, yeah, sure, Han can understand Chewie, but that's different. Chewie's a living thing. There's, like, intonation and stuff to his groans and roars. I'm pretty sure there's a finite number of beeps and whirs that a droid can make. Is it enough to make up a language?
That's... really the only problem I had with this movie. There were some contrivances, sure. Like Luke's original lightsaber. Maz Kanata's answer to Han's question about it, in my mind, amounts to, "We wanted it in here, but we didn't know how, so we're just going to say we don't have time and avoid explaining it altogether." But overall it was well-done, and so I don't really care. If it didn't have some cheese and fancy coincidences, it wouldn't be a Star Wars movie.
So the First Order basically amounts to space-Nazis being led by Voldemort. That's really almost all I got out of them. And really, we were beat over the head with the Nazi parallel during the speech when they blew up the Republic, but it made for a really great visual, so I'll let the cliche slide. But can we just take a moment to consider how much more likely the Dark Side would be to succeed if they would stop making giant space Poke-balls? I mean, seriously. And stop putting your weaknesses where people can access them! Real reason why the Dark Side fails: they just don't learn. I caught (broken pieces) of a conversation a group of guys were having on the way back to the station, and it amounted to the remark that no one on the Dark Side was using the title "Darth" as they had in the past. My theory on this is that, previously, there had always been at least one Sith lord who could carry on the Darth title and name the second one. With Return of the Jedi, both Sith were taken out at the same time, which means that this new pseudo-Sith order had to start on its own, and they just didn't feel comfortable naming themselves "Darth." They're humble like that, y'know? And I'm curious as to where Voldemort is actually holed up, since he wasn't on the Poke-ball planet with everybody else.
The next piece to puzzle out is Rey. My standing bet is that she's a Skywalker, but I'm trying to figure out how. Originally I thought they might have actually gone the Jacin-and-Jaina route, and that Jacin was Kylo Ren while Jaina had been taken to Jakku and renamed. This was reinforced through all of Rey's interactions with Han. She was totally going to end up being their daughter. But still no one was saying anything, even after Leia showed up, and then they pulled out the name "Ben" (Which, seriously, why? Han thought he was crazy, and then the old fool got dead; Leia barely knew him, and when she did, it was as Obi-Wan), so that theory went out the window. My next theory, which is my current working theory even though it has holes so large you could fly a plane through them, is that she's Luke's. She was left on a desert planet, she's a good pilot, strong in the Force, and has at least some connection to Luke since she had the weird lightsaber flashback memory thing (I'm just letting that one go). We never saw her family, and there's an obvious cinematic reason for this beyond "We didn't want to pay more people." But there's a noticeable lack of "OMG DADDY" levels of reaction from Rey at the end. So, is he not her father? Is he her father and she was hiding that secret? Is he her father and she didn't really know who he was but she kind of already knew because the Force told her so she wasn't shocked?
Han's death was.... well, I saw it coming, but I was in denial until the end. I really, really hoped I was wrong about that one. I can understand why it had to happen, story-wise, but Chewie without Han is like a jam sandwich. Sure, jam's tasty, but it's a little weird to be eating without peanut butter. Chewie partnering with Rey is going to take some getting used to.
Mostly I'm still processing, but I just read an article about Oscar Isaac being worried that people would come out of theatres hating Poe, so I'd like to take a moment to address his character. First of all, I love him. He's adorable. In so many ways, in my mind, he's what we would have gotten if Han Solo had been played by Bruce Campbell. Thought I think that comparison also has something to do with why Han had to die. You can't have two of the same character type in the same movie. Sure, Poe has infinitely more integrity and moral fibre than Han, but they're still the wise-cracking, smart aleck pilot at the end of the day. I'm excited to see how his character develops from here. (Also, it was really obvious that he wasn't dead. If he was dead, we would have had a body. It's how these things work.)
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