Random Thoughts – Randocity!

[Updated: 2018-01-11]: Check out my The Last Jedi review and see how it compares to this analysis of The Force Awakens.

So while I have already written the movie review for Star Wars: The Force Awakens, this article intends to go in depth into some of the problems that plague the story of this film. Again, if you want to see this film and have not yet seen it, you should stop reading now.

Kylo Ren

So a lot of people are ragging on this character and the actor who portrays him. Yes, I was also personally unimpressed by the depth of this character. Granted, we don’t have much backstory for any of the new characters in this film yet. Not Finn, not Poe, not Rey and definitely not Kylo (other than his lineage). The lack of depth of all of the newly introduced characters is a problem. The most glaring problem of note is Kylo Ren. Not only because of the lack of backstory here, but the conflicted and almost childish brat nature of this character. Kylo apparently idolizes Darth Vader, but Kylo himself is but a sad pale imitation of Vader. The mask that Kylo wears looks cheap and serves no purpose. I realize that this is supposed to be a gritty world and not much is kept tidy, but still. This mask looks cheaply made even for a film of this caliber. Meaning, it looks cheap from a costume perspective, not from a character perspective. We don’t know enough about Kylo to justify the cheap look of that mask.

On top of the cheap mask, his temper tantrums are just over the top. Not only does he continually smash random consoles in fits of tantrum anger, he’s conflicted about his parents and in particular, his dad. Overall, this character is more or less a spoiled brat who seems to have gotten his way. I can’t even imagine Han and Leia bringing up such a spoiled brat. But hey, that’s what the storywriters propose here. When Kylo joined up with Snoke (The Supreme Leader), it seemed to be some desperate attempt to get away from his parents and his unhappy (?) home life. Though, that’s just a guess as we have no backstory here to back this up. Still, putting a spoiled brat who continually throws temper tantrums into the lead villain part just doesn’t work well in this movie. Kylo ends up neither menacing nor important. He just ends up playing a spoiled brat trying to ‘play’ the role of someone menacing.

On top of a character that doesn’t really work in the context of a play about good and evil, the actor who portrays Kylo is also a questionable casting choice. If you’re planning on putting a 19 or 20 year old in a part like this, either make them so dashing we can forget that they have no acting chops or find a prodigy who can really take this part to the next level. Unfortunately, the casting choice in this particular part was questionable at best. When Kylo takes his mask off, you can hear snickering all around the theater… which says everything about how the audience feels for this Snape-like character.

Personally, I’d prefer to see the part recast for the next film. Since he was wounded in the lightsaber battle, there’s now a reason to put the mask on and leave it on and never take it off again. Now that this character has finally seen real combat and has also faced injury at the hand of Rey, maybe his rantings might feel a little more sincere.

Kylo’s Force Abilities

As equally weak as his character is in terms of depth, this character is also insanely weak in the force. Yes, he seems to have been trained to some degree, but if Rey (strong in the force, but untrained) can best Kylo (who has been trained), his force powers must be especially weak. For someone like the Supreme Leader, why would you ever put someone who could be so easily bested with the force in charge of anything?

With Kylo, there’s just too much inconsistency here to make this character believable. If he had been killed off on this first installment, that at least would have been something to make the Supreme Leader find a worthy right hand man.

Rey and her force powers

Rey seems to manifest the force like a pro, like she has already been trained. So, either she has been trained and is just playing it dumb or she’s some kind of force prodigy. Even Anakin wasn’t that much of a prodigy. Neither was Luke. Problem.

The Death Planet

As big as the new Death Star (Starkiller Base) was, it would have caused so much disruption to gravity in the systems it entered, the planets would likely have been torn apart. In addition to the gravity disruption it would have caused just by being there, sucking away an entire sun would have caused all of the planets in that solar system to completely freeze and, at the same time, hurtle off into space because there is no more gravity to hold them place (other than the new Death Star, but its gravity is likely far weaker). The sun vanishing would cause planetary and solar system destruction without the need to fire a single shot. So, making these Death Stars ever bigger and bigger has consequences for wherever they end up in the universe, the least of which is gravity. So, this is a huge story weak point.

Story

Since we’re talking about story weak parts, let me just say that entire story was rather weak. Not only did it somewhat plagiarize from both A New Hope and, again, Return of the Jedi, it isn’t even plagiarized very well. As I said in my review, I liked what I saw, but it could have been far far better. I’m not saying George Lucas himself could have done better, but it seems that Disney does better when it comes to things like Star Wars Rebels than it does when it comes to full length movies. In fact, I find that TV story arcs in general are better done than most movies today.

Let’s explore the Rey character. She’s a scavenger who’s been living on Jakku since a very young child. She scavenges and sells what she scavenges for food rations, which seem to be getting less and less with each sale. Note that this information at all doesn’t spoil the film. Because, after the very long boring opening of her performing this activity several times, we never see her do it again. So, while I do understand that it is intended as character development, it could have been done in a much more offscreen way (like, through dialog, through a series of montages or even flashbacks). Instead, JJ feels compelled to bring us every boring moment of her scavenging on screen. If the only reason for this is to see the crashed Star Destroyer, that could have been done in a much more compelling way than seeing her scavenger her way through that site. In fact, they do it in a more compelling way later in the Millennium Falcon. Hey, no need for the scavenging which dragged down the opening.

As with most JJ stories (though I realize it was also in combination with Lawrence Kasdan who also brought us The Empire Strikes Back), it’s just enough to get the job done, but not enough to be anywhere near as good as The Empire Strikes Back. Note that Empire worked because it was a middle film. This first film needed a rousing opening, an even more thrilling middle and an intense end… and ultimately it didn’t deliver on all three aspects. Instead, it had a slow boring opening, a somewhat rollercoaster and exciting middle and a contrived ending. It also didn’t really need the Starkiller Death Star at all to establish the evilness of the First Order. There are many ways to show how evil can manifest on screen. The Starkiller was contrived, unnecessary and reeked too much of previous films.

I want to see stories that haven’t been done. Sure, we all want to see space battles between X-Wing fighters and Tie Fighters. But, give us a space battle that involves something other than trade blockades and death stars. Can we think of no other plot elements that require ships in space fighting? Seriously?

Let me count the ways

I want to love this film as much as Rotten Tomatoes does.  I want this film to be as endearing as A New Hope. Unfortunately, it isn’t and I don’t. I do like it, but only to the degree that I would like any blockbuster released in the last 10 years and only on that level. Basically, it’s as good as Transformers or the Avengers or even Ironman. It’s a good watch, but it is in no way fresh and new. To some degree the universe has been established by George. But, there are still ways of taking that universe and making it into something entirely new and fresh and endearing. Unfortunately, the story was just a too weak to carry it off in this way.

The only controversial thing about this movie is Kylo Ren (and the title of this film). Even then, it’s only from the perspective of Kylo being a spoiled brat in the Star Wars universe (and somewhat miscast). If you’re going to cast a character with a helmet on, make damned sure that when the helmet is removed, that person is menacing to anyone he/she faces. There is no room in the Star Wars universe for spoiled children. That’s not the reason we go see Star Wars films. Characters should always act larger than life, but never as spoiled brats.

As for the title of the film, The Force Awakens, to whom did this reference? It isn’t clear. Does it refer to Kylo’s force power temper tantrums? Does it refer to Rey’s manifestation of her force powers? Does it refer to Finn’s use of the light saber. After all, I’m pretty sure that Finn wasn’t taught light saber training as part of The First Order. We still don’t know to whom the title of this film refers.  Partly the reason is that the one thing that was entirely forgotten was Yoda, Ben and Anakin as force beings. None of these people chimed in at all during any part of this film to attempt to explain anything. These small snippets of Ben and various other Force manifestations helped carry the story along in episodes 4, 5 and 6. Where are they in 7? Were they just conveniently hiding among the midichlorians?

Note: this article is still under revision and may continue to be updated as I further analyze this and future installments.