Friday, February 5, 2016

Kotas Reviews The Force Awakens

Okay, it's been, what, six weeks now? Plus it was just announced the Blu-Ray release is in April, if the Internet doesn't steer me wrong. I think I can safely talk about this movie now. Though, and you can NEVER EVER EVER say I did not warn you, there are a giant fuckton of spoilers in this one. Do NOT read this until you've seen the movie, or if you have no care to give about spoiling it.

If I had to describe this movie in a few words, it would be: Bold, yet familiar. The plot is basically a retelling of A New Hope, with all the character beats moved around and more than a dash of Empire sprinkled in. A lot of what I'm about to say will echo what others have said. Still, I need to get this out of my head. Bear with me.

The rising power of the Empire First Order threatens to overwhelm the fragile government of the Old New Republic. Their agents have just caught up with Princess Leia Poe Dameron, who has information vital to the cause. As their soldiers close in, the information is hidden in R2D2 BB-8, a plucky astromech who is sent away...I could go on, but you get the idea. This is where I invoke that This is not necessarily a Bad Thing.

At its heart, Star Wars is about entertaining characters who get embroiled in amazing, yet personal circumstances and ultimately save the day. This film has this in excess. And thank goodness for that, after the lifelessness of the Prequels. I also appreciated the nods to, but not slavish aping of, the black and white morality of A New Hope.

Pros:
They gave us more complex characters than in A New Hope, and made us give a giant pile of shits for them. Seriously, I walked out asking the question "Why is the sequel not ready for me to watch, damn it?" You follow these character arcs and you can be attached to them. Let's talk about the new folk first.

All of the new main characters have a thematic throughline of Discovery of One's Place. Fin has basically no idea of his place, only that his originial place as a Stormtrooper was Wrong, and he is afraid yet ready to try and find himself. Poe is the thematic other side of that coin. He knows exactly who he is as the best pilot in the galaxy and has zero doubts and fears, and thus takes the shortest amount of screen time to establish. Ray starts off thinking she knows exactly who she is, and yet discovers there is so much more to explore...and accepts it. Kylo Ren is her thematic twin, in that he thinks he knows exactly who he is, and yet discovers there is so much more...and REJECTS it. Violently. Good maintenance of theme there.

Now for the old! Let's get Luke out of the way. Ran away after his failure with Ben Solo? That actually calls back to Return of the Jedi and his constant "I shouldn't have come, I'm endangering the mission/everyone" refrain. He is the MacGuffin that drives forward most of the plot for the first half of the film. Hamil looked good in the old style robes too, beard and all. Nice callback to Ben Kenobi. Leia is around too, and still a hard ass, which was nice. Chewie makes a great foil to all the characters, even BB-8. Han is kind of a big deal in this film. Some have said it was simply Harrison Ford in the Solo Jacket, but I disagree. I think he was shooting for "beaten down old man going back to his old habits as an attempt to escape a bad part of his life" and he nailed it. The exhaustion of STILL having to wrangle stupid cargos (and let's face it, the horrible snarling tentacle beasts were stupid cargo) AND STILL having to try and talk his way out of other assholes coming to get his head after ALL THIS TIME is palpable.

The most Han like moments are when Ray gets the parsec count on the Kessel run wrong (though, I have my own problems with that...parsecs are a measure of distance, damn it!) and when he is talking to his son. Right before Kylo stabs the SHIT out of him. Bold move Disney, killing off the most popular character from the old series, even if you can see it coming from 3 parsecs away. I wondered up until about 30 seconds before it happened if they were really, really gonna do that or if they would wuss out but the scene is heavily telegraphed. It certainly made Kylo a more interesting character though! Again, we have a thematic Throughline for all of the old main characters, that of Fleeing After Loss to Old Haunts. Luke literally runs off to an isolated planet to hide away. Han goes back to smuggling, though he is clearly weary of it. Leia goes back to being a rebellious politician, to work through her grief.

The lightsaber fights are actually really fun and interesting, because they have TONS and TONS of emotional context feeding into them, and they do not go on forever. The space battles are decent, but they sort of distract from all the really interesting character stuff going on around them. They are very pretty, but not TOO pretty. In fact, keeping the ships mostly in atmosphere served to provide some (ahem) grounding for the ship fights, in all their cheesy sounds in space glory.

I liked the clear indicator of the time limit (in this case, the sun slowly going out), which was another throwback to A New Hope. The look and feel are spot on. Everything about the visuals screams "We're back to Star Wars as it ought to be" and the sound design is top notch. The efficiency of this film is very high, with most scenes doing what they need to do and no more. The establishment of the scavenger society in maybe 15 minutes of screen time? Brillant, and serves as a nice contrast to Tatooine's more agrarian society. The First Order is a tropey villain group, but they are completely humanized via the character of Fin...and they are actually pretty competent compared to the Storm Troopers of the OG trilogy. They might actually be precise shots in this one. The character interactions are believable and sound natural, unlike the prequels. The nonverbal communication in this film is very good, especially the Kylo Ren Temper Tantrums and the many meaningful looks, most of which don't go on too long. Taking out the Starkiller (niiiice reference there) was freakin' hard, and I enjoyed the trench run throwback scene.

Cons: Most of these are minor quibbles, but you didn't come here for a balanced interpretation of stuff, right?. Underutilization is a crime of the Star Trek films, and some of that bleeds through here. Leia is great, but she really needed a bit more to do. Phasma gets to be...a secondary Macguffin, and nothing else. Shame, because that outfit is amazing and with just a few lines of dialogue I want to know MORE about her. CGI Darth Gollum (yes, I stole the joke) is kind of blah as a prime mover. The speed of Ray's power acquisition is amazing, given she JUST FOUND OUT she's into that whole Force thing. Fin is surprisingly competent at lightsaber fighting, though I suppose they do establish that Stormtroopers have good hand to hand training with weapons capable of going toe to toe with a lightsaber AND Kylo Ren was already fucked up from Chewbacca's bowcaster blast.

Really? Another planet destroying super weapon (that is also a planet that ruins suns)? This is, what the third one of those you've tried? Is this REALLY the best use of resources when you could have probably, oh, I don't know, built a GIANT FUCKING FLEET and leveled civilization on those planets instead? Oh, it can hit...many at once? From ridiculous ranges? Sci Fi writers often can't get scaling right, and this is no exception. Why didn't they turn the shields back on after they were shut off? Maybe it didn't matter at that point? I'm a little disappointed that Coruscant actually WASN'T destroyed, because THAT would have been super bold. The rolling saw nightmare monsters were doofy and did not add much to the story. I can probably think of more, if I really put my mind to it.

On the FACE Rating System, this gets 3 smiley faces. This was the film it needed to be to bring back the old fans and invigorate this franchise cinematically. If you are a Star Wars fan, you need to see this film, if only to wash the taste of the prequel films out of your brain. Disney, you totally got me with this one. I'm all in. When is the next film coming out? *checks* DAMN IT.

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