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Star Wars: Quick Impressions
10 years ago
Ok. Just got back from seeing Star Wars: The Force Awakens. Just want to get a few of my thoughts on the film down before I go to bed. I'll do a full review when I have a little more time.
What I liked:
- excellent casting of new characters. Not only do they fit the parts, they have incredible chemistry together on screen.
- far less flashy and bangy than I thought it was going to be. At its core, this actually feels very Indiana Jonesy. Also quieter than usual for an action movie. Sound affects are more subdued and actually take a secondary role to the music. Which leads to...
- John Williams does it again! Excellent blending of old themes and new music. Feels familiar and fresh at the same time.
- Kylo Ren. Kylo Ren Kylo Ren Kylo Ren. What an excellent performance from Adam driver, and what a character he created. I'm not going to go into much because Spoilers, but... Kylo Ren has become by far my favorite movie Villain.
- BB-8. Technological marvel. It's almost distracting to have it in the background cause you want to see how exactly it navigates a flight of stairs, or is just looking around, or whatever it's doing.
- Returning cast. Fit into their old roles beautifully, still have the same chemistry, and feel like they've lived 30 years more life than last we saw them.
- NO CLOWN CHARACTERS! Thank you JJ for realizing that comic relief can come from the main characters and their interactions rather than extraneous clown characters with no other true purpose.
-light saber combat. Away from the Hong Kong Kung fu theater of the prequels and back to the kendo style of the OT. there's some real weight and menace to them now, and you just cringe at the crushing blows Kylo Ren rains down on those he's fighting, brutally over powering them. It really feels like they're fighting for their lives rather than dancing.
What I'm ambivalent towards:
- The story. The plot line basically mirrors New Hope and it feels kind of like a McGuffin movie. It's not bad, but it's perhaps a little bit cliche.
- The First Order. Aside from Kylo Ren, it feels a bit generic and there's little said about their motivations, where they came from, what they're trying to do. Maybe that'll be explored more in depth later on in future movies, but for now, they lack true menace.
- The pace. Despite it being full of action and being relatively well paced, I almost felt that there wasn't a sense of urgency about anything. In the OT, there always felt like there was a ticking time bomb. They had a very limited time to get the plans to the alliance and destroy the Death Star before it destroyed them, time to evacuate the base on hoth, getting the shields down at Endor before the entire fleet is destroyed. Just didn't feel that same pressure.
What I didn't like:
- under-used characters. I really felt that there were characters that could have had way more to do, especially on the First Order side. For god sakes, would SOMEBODY give Gwendoline Christie the screen time she deserves??
- Deus ex Machina. Sometimes coincidence is stretched just a bit too far. Why does this character have that object? How did they find where they'd disappeared to so fast and arrive just in time? Things like that are just a little too ham-handed sometimes.
- Too many characters. I think that they're asking us to care about too many faces. This coincides some with under-used characters, but is a bit more agregious. I feel like some characters were put in just to tic off certain boxes in the formula. Hot-shot pilot, check. Slightly skeletal fascist brit, check. You get the general idea. Heck, give most of General Hux's job to Captain Phasma, and you'll have a much more compelling story, I think.
- Threat level. Do we REALLY need another planet destroying super weapon? Seriously? And why should we care about the system it destroys. There's no connection to anybody we care about! The First Order feels far more threatening when they're razing a small town searching for a droid than they are sitting on a distant super-moon shooting random places.
Initial verdict:
I quite enjoyed the film, despite its flaws. The primary character arks kept it interesting, especially the personal relationships between them. Stylistically gorgeous without being over-reliant on superfluous CGI. It's at its best when the stakes are personal, rather than on a galactic scale. A very good movie that falls just short of being excellent, and a worthy continuation of the saga. I will most definitely see it again. Several times.
What I liked:
- excellent casting of new characters. Not only do they fit the parts, they have incredible chemistry together on screen.
- far less flashy and bangy than I thought it was going to be. At its core, this actually feels very Indiana Jonesy. Also quieter than usual for an action movie. Sound affects are more subdued and actually take a secondary role to the music. Which leads to...
- John Williams does it again! Excellent blending of old themes and new music. Feels familiar and fresh at the same time.
- Kylo Ren. Kylo Ren Kylo Ren Kylo Ren. What an excellent performance from Adam driver, and what a character he created. I'm not going to go into much because Spoilers, but... Kylo Ren has become by far my favorite movie Villain.
- BB-8. Technological marvel. It's almost distracting to have it in the background cause you want to see how exactly it navigates a flight of stairs, or is just looking around, or whatever it's doing.
- Returning cast. Fit into their old roles beautifully, still have the same chemistry, and feel like they've lived 30 years more life than last we saw them.
- NO CLOWN CHARACTERS! Thank you JJ for realizing that comic relief can come from the main characters and their interactions rather than extraneous clown characters with no other true purpose.
-light saber combat. Away from the Hong Kong Kung fu theater of the prequels and back to the kendo style of the OT. there's some real weight and menace to them now, and you just cringe at the crushing blows Kylo Ren rains down on those he's fighting, brutally over powering them. It really feels like they're fighting for their lives rather than dancing.
What I'm ambivalent towards:
- The story. The plot line basically mirrors New Hope and it feels kind of like a McGuffin movie. It's not bad, but it's perhaps a little bit cliche.
- The First Order. Aside from Kylo Ren, it feels a bit generic and there's little said about their motivations, where they came from, what they're trying to do. Maybe that'll be explored more in depth later on in future movies, but for now, they lack true menace.
- The pace. Despite it being full of action and being relatively well paced, I almost felt that there wasn't a sense of urgency about anything. In the OT, there always felt like there was a ticking time bomb. They had a very limited time to get the plans to the alliance and destroy the Death Star before it destroyed them, time to evacuate the base on hoth, getting the shields down at Endor before the entire fleet is destroyed. Just didn't feel that same pressure.
What I didn't like:
- under-used characters. I really felt that there were characters that could have had way more to do, especially on the First Order side. For god sakes, would SOMEBODY give Gwendoline Christie the screen time she deserves??
- Deus ex Machina. Sometimes coincidence is stretched just a bit too far. Why does this character have that object? How did they find where they'd disappeared to so fast and arrive just in time? Things like that are just a little too ham-handed sometimes.
- Too many characters. I think that they're asking us to care about too many faces. This coincides some with under-used characters, but is a bit more agregious. I feel like some characters were put in just to tic off certain boxes in the formula. Hot-shot pilot, check. Slightly skeletal fascist brit, check. You get the general idea. Heck, give most of General Hux's job to Captain Phasma, and you'll have a much more compelling story, I think.
- Threat level. Do we REALLY need another planet destroying super weapon? Seriously? And why should we care about the system it destroys. There's no connection to anybody we care about! The First Order feels far more threatening when they're razing a small town searching for a droid than they are sitting on a distant super-moon shooting random places.
Initial verdict:
I quite enjoyed the film, despite its flaws. The primary character arks kept it interesting, especially the personal relationships between them. Stylistically gorgeous without being over-reliant on superfluous CGI. It's at its best when the stakes are personal, rather than on a galactic scale. A very good movie that falls just short of being excellent, and a worthy continuation of the saga. I will most definitely see it again. Several times.
And yes, Starkiller Station is too cut and paste with the Death Star. If they were taking cues from the old EU, they could have gone with something more original like the Dark Reaper or Star Forge and make it original to the First Order...or how 'bout a virus bomb (like the nanovirus in Legacy of the Force: Invincible or the prevalent use of G3 in the Gundam Universal Century timeline or like the virus bomb Horus Lupercal used in The Horus Heresy: Galaxy in Flames)?
I view Episode VII as more of Star War's Gundam SEED in terms of what it wants to do and the material it draws from (too closely in the case of Episode VII) of the original material (Episode IV for Star Wars, the original Mobile Suit Gundam for SEED) to bring the saga to a new generation.