OKAY. Here’s the deal, children. I was going to put this behind an actual password and decided against it. I will, instead, drop all of the spoilery parts behind a jump. And understand me: DO NOT READ THIS REVIEW UNTIL YOU SEE THE MOVIE. I intend to spoil every second of the film that I can remember, and chances are I’m going to get some stuff wrong, and chances are some of the stuff I’m going to complain about is going to be resolved satisfactorily in future films, and I may make some shit up partway through just for the sheer hell of it.
But see the fucking movie before you read this.
Note also that virtually the entire review is going to be complaining and nitpicking. This is because I am a horrible person and I enjoy that sort of thing. I am not standing in front of you in the theater holding this review in front of your face, so since I’m telling you in paragraph 3 that this is what you’re about to read, I’d like to suggest that if you already know you don’t want to read that sort of thing, you skip my review. I bet you can find at least one more site on the web talking about Star Wars if you are very good at Google and look very carefully.
There will be a spoiler review, although I’m not committing to writing it tonight. If I do, it’ll be password-protected. The password will be SKYWALKER, all caps. Just so you know.
Note that for the purposes of this conversation “spoiler” means “something you do not already know if you have watched the trailers and seen the toys.”
So. We ready? Okay.
(Sits and thinks for ten minutes)
(May not, in fact, be ready)
…I actually don’t know what I thought of that, guys. I Tweeted a one-word review after walking out of the theater, and the one word was “Worthy.” And I’ll stick with that, and I’ll say that if you’re a Star Wars fan you should definitely see this movie, and if you’re not a Star Wars fan you probably ought to see this movie anyway. In fact, I think that there are some weaknesses to the film that will only be visible to people who have seen the movies a million times before.
I will say that this movie features two of the finest performances– from Adam Driver and Daisy Ridley– that I have ever seen in a Star Wars movie. In fact, screw it, there’s no competition: Daisy Ridley and Adam Driver have the two best performances in Star Wars history, period, and their scenes together are amazing.
I guess that’s a spoiler. Rey and Kylo Ren meet, guys. I hope I didn’t just ruin the movie for you. Some of the other performances are not as good. Harrison Ford is mostly kind of embarrassing, actually, although he redeems himself toward the end of the film.
Here’s part of my frustration, and I think I can do this without getting into details: a lot of this movie isn’t going to be something I can fairly evaluate until I see at least the next film. If you’re someone who will see that as a weakness… well, be prepared for it. There’s a lot of stuff quickly passed over, or not explained, or just assumed, and I’m okay with waiting until Episodes 8 or 9 to fill in some of the details. If you aren’t like that, adjust expectations downward.
I have a very tangled relationship with my own Star Wars fandom, guys, and if you’ve been following my blog since the first trailers for this dropped you may have felt some of that ambivalence. I was in line, in costume, for three days for Episode I. I saw it ten times in the theater. By the time Episode III came out the lines really weren’t a phenomenon any longer, but I still saw that one at least two or three times. Right now, my main relationship to Star Wars is through the books, and the books by and large have not been very good lately. My wife and I talked last week about watching a Star Wars movie a day until this one came out. We didn’t rewatch any of them. I can’t bring myself to any longer. I can no longer enjoy watching the prequels; a decade-plus of arguing about them has drained whatever fun they might once have had out of them, and even the thought of watching the OT frustrates me now because the movies have been altered so much and in so many different ways that I no longer even feel like I know what I’m watching. The way I’ve phrased it before is that I will love Star Wars until I die; I’m just not interested in being a fan any longer.
I’m not sure this movie helped. I told my wife earlier that my main goal was to not be sad when I walked out of the theater, and I wasn’t. But that was a couple of hours ago, and the initial exhilaration has already worn off and I’m not sure what it’s been replaced with.
I can’t take my son to it, either. Not yet.
There’s going to be a Star Wars movie a year forever now, guys. That was the last one we get to look forward to. Was it a worthy Star Wars film? Did JJ do a good job? Yeah. Do I want to see it again? Sure.
I still think this is going to be too scary for my son, which is very disappointing. We haven’t even managed to get him through the OT yet, which is my current greatest failure as a parent. We have not tried the prequels.
I think my favorite thing about this is what they’ve done with the music. The Force Awakens trailers have had a very different tone and feel than the previous six films, and this one is the most sonically different. I really like it.
In the very last shot, Finn takes one look at Kylo Ren’s lightsaber and does a little hop backwards like he wasn’t expecting to see it. You’re in trouble, bwah.
…and I haven’t mentioned Daisy Ridley’s Rey yet, but check this out too.
The amount of stuff I still know nothing about going into this movie is astounding. Did you know Max von fucking Sydow is in this movie? And NO ONE knows who the hell he’s playing? That that’s Lupita Nyong’o’s Maz Kanata character doing the voiceover along with Rey and we don’t know what the hell she looks like?
My wife and I thought it was Leia; I don’t actually know Nyong’o’s voice, and am going by what everybody else is saying on that.
The shot of Rey descending into the bowels of the Star Destroyer is outstanding.
There’s been a lot of talk about the complete absence of Luke from these trailers, other than (presumably) the shadowy, robot-handed figure reaching for Artoo in that one shot. Fewer people appear to be noticing the absence of C-3PO, who hasn’t appeared in a single shot in any of them. I can come up with plenty of reasons to hide Luke. Fewer for Threepio.
It’s looking more and more like the movies are going the opposite direction from where the original Expanded Universe went: Luke does not appear to have re-founded the Jedi order, and damn near no one has seen a Jedi in several generations (since the purge) by this point. I wasn’t super happy with losing the EU but at least they’re not bothering to retread any of the same stories.
Got to leave work early today because of a doctor’s appointment; I’m proud to announce that my liver appears to no longer be eating itself. Everything that should be down is down (in particular, I’ve dropped 12 pounds since early August) and… well, actually, nothing was supposed to be higher than it was a month ago. Blood pressure, liver enzymes, weight, errythang. All down. I actually got a hug. Most doctors don’t hug, but mine does.
Then I went looking for Star Wars: The Force Awakens toys, which I sorta knew was gonna be a fool’s errand so I wasn’t super annoyed when it predictably went nowhere. I have decided that I will allow myself to buy Captain Phasma, Kylo Ren, Rey, and Finn, in the traditional 3.75″ barely-articulable version, but that will be it. Possibly a stormtrooper, because for some reason I really dig the alterations to the armor that they’ve made. That will be it, though. I found zero of those figures at Target, and then came home and fiddled around online trying to buy them and had a startlingly poor time at that too. I’ll give it a couple of weeks and see what happens. I’m pretty sure I don’t need them right now.
Somewhat more worrying is that Chuck Wendig’s Star Wars book is out, and while it’s currently Amazon’s #1 book (!!! Go Chuck!) it’s getting shockingly poor reviews. I have not liked a single one of the books released in the new continuity, and they’ve been getting worse— Kevin Hearne’s Luke Skywalker book was unreadable, and I really like Kevin Hearne. If Chuck effin’ Wendig can’t write a Star Wars book that I like, it may be time to pack it in. That said, some of the reviews have a whiff of Internet Asshole about them. I’ll probably end up buying it, but if this one doesn’t work I’ll have to be done. I have dozens of Star Wars books I can reread if the urge strikes, after all. It’s just that none of them count anymore.
You remember when your grandpa used to call movies that? And it was a weirdly redundant phrase, but also oddly comforting? I miss pitcher shows.
Anyway. You’ve seen this already:
I had a few things to say about the first trailer, both right after I saw it and after I had some time to think about it. My main concern, right now, is that the movie’s going to end up being a bit too scary to take my four-year-old to, and taking Kenny to see this movie is literally the main reason I want to see it. That image yesterday wasn’t a joke. Now, most of the scary scenes seem to be confined to John Boyega’s Finn character, so I’m hoping that it’s just a few bits from early in the movie. But look at this:
The bloody handprint– or at least what looks like one– on his helmet has me a bit nervous. This is a series that managed to burn three characters to a crisp and cut off multiple limbs without getting bloody. I’m not making doom and gloom proclamations, mind you– it just makes me a teeny bit less likely to take my son to see it. It’s not going to affect whether I do.
(Note: I don’t know whether Finn is in costume for these bits or if he’s actually a Stormtrooper. I kinda like the idea of a main character being a former Stormtrooper.)
On the good side, and this isn’t in the trailer, there’s this:
This is the hilt of Kylo Ren’s cross-guarded lightsaber, which caused so much kvetching when the first trailer came out. I was not happy with the new look for the lightsaber blade (not the crossguards, the blade itself) and said that I’d drop my objection if there seemed to be a story-based reason why the blade looked different.
That saber hilt looks like it was put together by an amateur. And I note that Kylo Ren’s name does not include the word Darth. Therefore: objection dropped.
Everything else about the trailer? Gold. I’m not super keen on the idea of the Empire and the Rebellion being renamed the First Order and the Resistance, but I’ll roll with that for the time being and it’s not in the trailer anyway. But yeah, I’m a lot more psyched about this film now than I was for the first teaser.
On the other hand…
Nope.
Noooooope.
One of these days they’ll make a new Superman movie. Hell, one of these days they’ll make a Batman movie; they haven’t made one of those in like two decades or something. Make all the movies you want about Angsty Alien No Moral Core Raised by Assholes Dude and Snarling Ninja Bat-Costume Dude, but stop calling those two “Superman” and “Batman.” Wild fucking dogs couldn’t drag me to see this shit.
(“But, Luther, you were down on the new Star Wars before the second trailer came out, and you seem to have changed your mind! What makes these different?”)
The entirety of the Nolan Batman films and the horrid piece of shit that was Man of Steel. Ain’t nothing gonna change in this one.
(“How dare you judge an entire movie on a two-minute trailer!”)
Can we change the subject for a sec and talk about how fucking stupid this is as a line of argument? Trailers literally only exist to make people want to see things. They exist to make people judge movies. They’re put together by the same people who put the movies together. It’s bullshit to say that you can watch a trailer and go “I want to see that!” but it’s somehow illegitimate to see a trailer and (backed up by the last four entire movies by these idiots) claim that you think it looks like a piece of shit. And this movie looks like a piece of shit, and is a sequel to a movie that was a piece of shit, and there is no indication that anything has changed.
(“But what about Aquaman? And Wonder Woman?”)
Okay, Aquaman looks awfully cool and fuckit I’ll be honest by awfully cool I mean amazingly hot:
That said? This whole design is more of the what am colors? nonsense that both of these franchises are draped in, and frankly the inclusion of the characters just makes me think the movie is gonna be unwieldy and overstuffed in addition to depressing and stupid. Be honest: would you really know this was supposed to be Wonder Woman if no one told you in advance?:
Totally something I wanna spend ten bucks on.
(EDIT: Just saw this. How infinitely better is this? Way infinitely better.)
Let’s talk about the Star Wars trailer again a little bit. No, I’m serious. Yes, I’m actually doing this. I know I already posted about it. I don’t care.
Let’s deal with the easy stuff first:
IN WHICH I CHANGE MY MIND: Fuck it, I’m on board with the lightbroadsword. Yes, the crossguards are ridiculous. HOWEVER, lightsabers themselves are ridiculous. No one can fight with a blade that cuts in every direction without killing themselves quickly. Here’s why the crossguards work: because the Force, shut up. They bugged me at first and now they don’t.
Also bothering me at first: the new F/X on the blade itself, which is receiving much less attention than I would expect it to. Everybody’s been so focused on the crossguards (ONE WORD, DAMMIT, WORDPRESS) that they’re ignoring the fact that lightsabers generally neither look nor sound like this lightsaber looks and sounds. (Seriously, listen to it ignite. That’s not how they sound!) It’s like it’s made of fire more than it’s made out of light.
It has been suggested by someone that this weapon was created by someone who didn’t quite know what they were doing, or that there is a genuine story-based reason why the saber looks different. If that is the case, I’ll drop all objections. If I see Luke holding a lightsaber and it looks like this, it’s because JJ is changing shit just to change shit and that will seriously get on my nerves. I’ve seen interviews with Lucas where he discusses the F/X team’s debates about the look of the lightsabers in the prequels, and they deliberately decided to mimic the look from Return of the Jedi as closely as they could. This is the correct decision.
Lotsa gripes about this guy being cutesy. Shut up. If you’re griping about this guy being cutesy you are either deliberately ignoring cutesy in the previous films or you don’t actually like Star Wars very much. You’re allowed to not like Star Wars! You’re just not allowed to get mad when new Star Wars films are like the old Star Wars films.
(One of the things that really get on my nerves about the prequels: Star Wars has never, ever, ever had good dialogue. No, not even Empire. Never. The prequels are just as bad as the originals in this respect, and if you gripe about the sand on Naboo I’m gonna make you watch Luke griping about Tosche station until your eyes bleed.)
This is not to say that I’m not nervous. I still am. Here’s why:
Oh, shut up, it’s not because he’s black, you fucking cretin. (Seriously, this is the stupidest thing to complain about ever, except maybe for the scum who got mad that Rue was black in Hunger Games because they couldn’t goddamn read.Jango Fett is brown, every trooper in the prequel films looks exactly like him, and none of the troopers in the original movies ever take their helmets off. Also, Boba Fett is brown too, you assholes.)
No. The problem is he’s terrified. And this scene is followed soon after by this one:
Complete with shakycam.
You never see fear like that on anyone in any of the first six movies. Most of the time when the characters are scared it’s played for laughs– the trash compactor scene, for example. Han Solo is practically barbecued in ROTJ and it’s played as a joke. This guy thinks he’s going to die, and thinks he’s going to die soon, and that’s a problem. This shot and the shakycam and blue lighting on the stormtrooper scene gives the whole thing a militaristic, gritty feel that is entirely absent from the original films.
Now, if I’m just worried about me seeing the movie, no big deal. But I want to take my four-year-old to see it. In fact, I’m rather more invested than I should be in this being my kid’s first movie. And if they couldn’t put together a ninety second trailer without giving me a couple of pieces of evidence that this film is going to be a lot scarier than the previous six, I probably have a problem.
(And if the rumors that I’m hearing about the end of the film are true, I’m not seeing it at all— but we’ll worry about that later.)*
* Some of you may be going “Yeah, whatever, nerd, yes you will.” No, really, I won’t. Go ahead: ask me about the third Matrix film, or the latter seven or eight Hobbit movies, or the two sequels they made to Sword Wielding Bat Costume Punchy Man. I know nothing, because I’m actually pretty good at not seeing movies that are wrong. And if this ends like I’m hearing? No money for you.
I’m trying my hardest to not be one of Those Guys, because I hated Those Guys during the prequel era and it’s their fault that I’m not really much of a Star Wars fan anymore, but this is all wrong. Well, half of it is. The very first shot throws the tone all off, the shakycam sucks, and just like every other nerd on the internet I cannot believe that stupid fire-lightsaber made it past the review board.
(Everybody’s bitching about the crossguards. Can we talk about the fact that they’ve apparently changed the look of the lightsabers altogether? And that that’s not okay?)
I really wanted this post to be all rapturous and shit. I’ve been trying to look forward to this. This isn’t Star Wars; it’s just a movie. Oh well.
There will be a spoiler review, although I’m not committing to writing it tonight. If I do, it’ll be password-protected. The password will be SKYWALKER, all caps. Just so you know.
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