Before I say anything about the plot of the movie, let me just say that I very much enjoyed The Force Awakens. It is one of the best movies I’ve seen this year, only contested in my opinion by possibly Spectre and Inside Out. It is without a doubt better than the entire prequel trilogy of Star Wars, which I barely acknowledge as canon to begin with. In my opinion, it is better than Return of the Jedi, and close to A New Hope. However, I do not think there is such thing as a perfect film. Having seen the movie twice now, I feel that I am able to give my largest problems with the film. It’s hard to criticize a movie like this, given the financial statistics and reviews that have been out there already, but someone has to do it, so I might as well.
Oh, and spoilers are ahead, so fair warning now.
Like, really, if you haven't seen Star Wars yet, stop reading, go to the nearest theatre, see the movie, and then come back and continue reading. And if you say it's because you haven't seen any of the other Star Wars movies yet, remedy that very quickly. Honestly, as much nerd-hype as they get, they are actually really good movies terms of cinematography and story.
You've done that? Ok good, now to begin.
1) The Implementation of Finn's Character
Don’t get me wrong, I think that John Boyega is a great actor. He performed with a certain intensity and style that any star-travelling smuggler or rebel would act with. However, that was exactly my problem with his character. This wasn’t who his character was, or what it should be. I like the concept that they used, having a Stormtrooper renounce the First Order, and join the Resistance, acting the way that Boyega did for most of the movie. However, based on his past, Finn should not act that way. Finn, or FN-2187 as his Stormtrooper call number is, was taken from his family at a very young age. He was essentially brainwashed by the First Order, and grew up training to become a soldier. After he first goes into combat, he sees the true brutality of war. His battalion of troopers, under the command of Captain Phasma, massacres the entire population of the village they are assaulting.
Finn does not fire on the innocent people in the village. This is not my problem with his character, however. I am definitely fine with him having a conscience and a moral compass. My main problem comes after this event, after he breaks Poe out of the prison cell on the Star Destroyer, and after he crashes on Jakku. After he deserts the First Order, and becomes a completely different person than he should be. He grew up having been trained in the military, and thus would maintain a large portion of that training in his personality even after he escaped the First Order. The very first time we see him outside the control of the First Order is when he is flying away with Poe in the stolen TIE Fighter. After taking out the long range cannons on the Star Destroyer, he yells in surprise and exhilaration, shouting at Poe and generally reacting in a way that would not seem typical of a trained soldier. Throughout the film, there are more occurrences of him acting reckless and not in the way he should. The orderly, well-trained soldier that he should be just isn’t there.
2) A Newer Hope?
There is a fine line between paying homage to something, and ripping something off. Some may argue that it is not exactly possible to rip off something that you created yourself, and fine, that may be right. However, there were definitely times that I felt like I was watching a newer version of A New Hope. A small, ragtag group of rebels need a droid, carrying plans that are important to their cause, to be safely delivered to them. They are fighting a large force that is commanded by a fallen Jedi who wears all black and a mask. The rebels, after encounters with this enemy, get the droid to their hidden base on a forest planet.
They find out that there is only one way to destroy the enemy base, by flying fighters to the surface of the base and shooting torpedoes to blow the base up. Only this time, the stakes are meant to seem higher. Instead of being able to blow one planet up, this superstation can blow five up, and instead of having to be next to the planet, they can shoot from anywhere. Oh and it’s like ten times as large as the original Death Star. So much of this just made me feel like I was watching a reboot, as opposed to a continuation. And I understand that the First Order and Resistance are literally supposed to be reincarnations of the Empire and Rebel Alliance, but with all the great screenwriters in Hollywood nowadays, couldn’t you have come up with some way to destroy this station other than having an X-Wing fly into a trench, pursued by TIE Fighters, and then blow up the system by shooting torpedoes at part of the system that leads to the central core?
3) Rey's use of the Force
Now, I understand that we don’t know who Rey’s parents are, so this leaves us with some room for movement with her character, but she suddenly has the ability to, not only use the Force, but be as powerful as Kylo Ren, someone who had been trained in the ways of the Force for many years, and is known to have a Force-sensitive parent. Sure, there are theories that Luke is Rey’s father, or maybe Rey is also the daughter of Leia and Han (which seems more unlikely due to the fact that they would’ve recognized her), but she doesn’t know this.
She doesn’t know who her parents are. One of the main arguments early on is if they are going to return to Jakku, because she is waiting for her family to return. Anyway, she doesn’t learn she has Force powers at all until she touches Anakin’s lightsabre in Maz Kanata’s watering hole, and then she even denies it to be true, despite the thousand year old Kanata telling her it is so. Kanata has been around for a long time, even for Star Wars’ standards. Some people theorize that she knew Yoda in his younger days (that’s an interesting thought, a younger Yoda). I’m pretty sure she knows what she’s talking about. After a run through the forest, and a capture by Kylo Ren, she is brought aboard the Starkiller Base for interrogation. And now, all of a sudden, as if someone had flipped a light switch, she has the ability to not only to use the Force, but to resist Kylo Ren’s mind games (something he had been training in for years).
Either Kylo Ren had been doing a horrible job in his training for the past twenty years, or the screenwriters needed some way to put the Force in the story already. And in the very next scene, she mind-controls a Stormtrooper (Daniel Craig), forcing him to release her restraints, drop his weapon, and leave the room. She has had no training, no experience, and is now able to do something that we’ve only seen one other person do in the whole entire series, and that was Old Ben Kenobi during the speeder check in Mos Eisley, and he had trained for all of his life, and was far more experienced than Rey. However, the scene that bugged me most was the final fight between Rey and Ren. After Finn gets knocked down, Ren reaches out with the force to grab his grandfather’s lightsabre. It gives a little, and then shoots out of the snow. It promptly zooms past his face, and into Rey’s hand. Then they fight, and she is not only able to keep her own against Ren, but by all definitions of the word, wins the fight. Again, if Ren is as powerful as he is portrayed to be, shouldn’t he be able to easily defeat Rey in matters of the Force?
4) Concern about BB-8
I loved BB-8. After Poe, he was probably my favorite character in the whole film. Basically any scene he was in was amazing, with his little soccer ball body, and his Zippo lighter thumbs-up. However, here’s what I’m afraid of: He is going to turn into the minions of this new Star Wars Trilogy. I have never been a big fan of the minions. Moving beyond the annoying voices, and their overuse in the commercialism that followed the Despicable Me movies, they were deteriorating to the plot of the movies, especially the second one. I have never seen the Minions movie, and honestly I’m not sure I will.
The reason I did not like them in that second movie is because of how large of a role they had. Universal, after seeing how big of a cash-cow they were for the first movie, overused them in the second movie. Although it is a light-hearted kids movie, it is the story of Gru, the three girls, and their relationship. The first movie establishes their relationship, and you should expect that grow in the second one, especially with the introduction of a female character to counter Gru, and to become a mother role to the girls. However, whenever there were any real touching meanings, the stupid Minions were always there, in the background, reminding you to buy their products. It got to the point where people thought I was a bitter, cynical jerk for not liking these obnoxious, yellow-painted marshmallows with arms. (Site note: I am a bitter cynical jerk for other reasons, not because I hate minions). And I am afraid that this treatment will happen to BB-8. Disney will see him as this source of income, and beat it to death and beyond.
Those were my main concerns with the film. There were others too, but these definitely came to mind first. And don’t get me wrong, I enjoyed the movie as a whole. My nerd heart went crazy when Han quipped about the Kessel Run, when he asks if the Starkiller base has a “garbage chute or trash compacter” and when he says “women always figure out the truth. Always.” Basically, if Harrison Ford graced the screen with his presence, I enjoyed the scene. Except for his last scene in the movie. That was brutal, and I’m still not over it, having seen it twice.
