THE GOOD, THE BAD, THE UGLY: THE CASH GRAB AWAKENS

                                  EPISODE XXXXXXVVVVVVVIIIIIIIIII

           

Once upon a time, as Sergio Leone and Ennio Morricone did for Westerns, George Lucas and John Williams redefined the Sci-Fi/Fantasy genre. Star Wars is a visceral cinematic experience; a space opera that Hollywood has not seen before or since. Drawing from Joseph Campbell's The Hero With a Thousand Faces (1949), audiences were captivated by a young person's call to adventure against the backdrop of funky aliens and cheesy space jargon.

A bootleg copy of Return of the Jedi was the first movie with which I became "obsessed”. The idea of triumphing over a powerful dark force resonated with my five-year-old brain, and like millions before me, I was hooked on the spectacle of Star Wars. 

Also like everyone else, I was thoroughly disappointed and bored with George Lucas' hashed out return to a prequel trilogy. See Redlettermedia’s on point analysis offers for why these movies fail so miserably.

Ten years after we said NOOOOOO to Darth Haydensen, why did everyone in the world eagerly spend their holiday vacation in packed theaters, to sport disorienting tinted glasses for a 3D gimmick?

THE CASH GRAB

After Disney’s strategic acquisition of LucasFilm, the human race collectively gasped and wondered if a competent movie maker like JJ Abrams would satisfy the needs of mourning Star Wars nerds - still recovering from painful dialogue exposition (“I hate the sand; it's coarse and...”).

Inevitable teaser and the theatrical trailers revealed familiar desert landscapes, storm troopers, tie fighters, defunct Imperial Cruisers, the millennium-freaking falcon and HAN SOLO! The lush Princess Leia theme pulled our heartstrings, while an aged Solo tells us, or new the generation of Star Wars actors, that the myth of the force, the dark side and light are true. ALL OF IT!

It felt like an affirmation that 21^st century Hollywood producers finally understood and recognized elements from the original trilogy that fans were missing: coherent story telling, daddy issues, and of course, the millennium falcon.

But hold on…

After nearly forty years, is it realistic to expect any filmmaker to capture or reproduce the essence of what made the original movies so magical? Haven’t we been down this road before? (re: trailer for Phantom Menace)

BUT THE ORIGINAL CAST IS BACK TO REPRISE THEIR ROLES!!!

AND LAWERENCE KASDAN CO-WROTE EMPIRE!!!

First of all, has Lawrence Kasdan written anything of significance since the 1980s? (wtf is Dreamcatcher [2003]?)

Rather than tell a new story and extend the Star Wars Universe, like Empire or ROTJ, TFA recycles characters and imagery - a sort of mish-mash of atmospheres and drama points. Disney and Co. exploit our nostalgia for the original trilogy as a basis to accept the new cast of overly giddy actors. Ultimately, it feels like a disservice to the characters and story we grew to love.

The actors that played these roles in the 1970s are not the same people today. The success of the franchise and its enduring legacy has radically altered their personal and professional lives, pulling them light years (or some reasonably long distance) away from the characters they inhabited as young stars. To expect the original gang to step back into their respective roles seems a little cruel.

Why did it take $23 million dollars to bring Harrison Ford back? It’s a nostalgic treat to see these actors return to their iconic roles, but didn’t anyone see the last Indian Jones movie? Do we really need to see Carrie Fisher as a General (?) Leia talk about how she lost her son when he went to Jedi school?

Would the character of Han Solo really be running around cargo ships with Chewy, sporting the same outfit (but it’s a new jacket!), 30 earth years after the events of ROTJ? What function does a dusty looking version of Han Solo serve other than passing the falcon torch and being related to the new villain?

HEY, DO YOU LOVE HAN SOLO AND PRINCESS LEIA?

IN THE ABSENCE OF NARRATIVE LOGIC,

THEY LOVE THE NEW CHARACTERS - SO YOU SHOULD TOO!!

The prospect of a strong female protagonist in the fantasy/sci-fi genre is a brilliant opportunity to portray a complex character whose challenges are more daunting in the context of a male dominated society, and all the more satisfying when they over come them (re: Aliens and Terminator 2). We almost get a taste of that with Rey; however, she seems to effortlessly overcome any obstacle that comes her way.

She intuitively pilots the millennium falcon, presented to us in all of its digitally rendered glory (how is this thing still standing, let alone operational and fueled for take off?). Rey and Finn are overjoyed and mystified by their successful escape from those pesky tie-fighters - it's as if the force was with them. Or perhaps there’s another explanation for the ease of their escape  - but I digress…

Rey’s knack for the force doesn’t really bring any tension to the story. It’s a missed opportunity to watch the protagonist genuinely struggle and hone in her skills. After having an unpleasant Jedi trip, she does have a moment of internal conflict and basically “Nope(s)!” the f*ck out. But where was she going to go anyway? Sure enough, she gets captured by her cousin and returns right back to the movie. By the end, Leia forcefully accepts Rey with a “may the force be with you” high five and she’s off to invite the movie’s McGuffin into the sequel.

When you pause for another moment and think…

How does Finn know how to use a lightsaber? What is that weapon used by the random traitor hating storm trooper? How does he even recognize Finn in the first place? Are these storm troopers more social in First Order and hang out without wearing their gear? How the heck was Anakin/Luke Skywalker's light saber recovered - did they find Luke's hand too? How Ben/Ren find his grandfather's burnt mask? Is Poe just a bro? Why do Chewy and Leia not grieve together over Han’s death? And Maz, really?

On the surface, TFA has all the right intensions of looking and sounding like a Star Wars movie, but at the best, its effort feels like an impersonation. When you peel back the layers of nostalgia, what remains? Why are reviews so quick to glean over obvious plot holes, forced characterization, inconsistent quality of special effects, all for the sake of satisfying their inner child's excitement? Why create an inferior product when the existing one still exits and works great?

Could this movie possibly stand on its own if the original trilogy never existed? That would be as unrealistic as any comic book movie.

Was there really nothing more novel than to blow up another sphere of celestial death? Just compare the names Death Star and Starkiller. Both have the word Star. One has Death and the other is Killer. C’mon…

Even Han Solo agrees: this is tired plot territory. And yet the Rebel, eurh, Resistance, fighters swiftly surmise the death planet thing must have a vulnerable weak spot that when attacked will ignition a chain reaction explosion. Why do these reboot sequel franchise movies act like its audience have no knowledge or memory of the original?

In a galaxy like Star Wars, it's a shame that George Lucas's failed prequels have revoked the imagination of new worlds, characters and designs.  The Star Wars franchise template offers unlimited possibilities for storytelling and characters; it’s as ripe for innovation and imagination as it was forty years ago.

So much of the success of the originals was based on its rich detail. The Cantina bar evokes the feeling of a shady alien spaceport bar. You feel its dank atmosphere and uneasiness; the perfect hang out spot for a guy like Han Solo.

While TFA has callbacks to these kinds of familiar settings, they come off a bit polished, out of place, and coldly calculated. Mostly, it feels needlessly derivate to recycle and mash not just character arcs and plots, but actual shot references (Chewy choking Lando/Finn). The effect feels so pointlessly obscure it comes off as an attempt to hack my subconscious five-year-old brain to think hey this DOES feel like a Star Wars movie!!

But more likely, Disney needed to rekindle a very specific set of emotions among viewers, calling back familiar visual cues and designs. Using a safe director like JJ is another calculated move on the movie-making chessboard. The result is a high concept sci-fi flick released in the year 2015 that borrows heavily on the design and internal logic of a low budget 70s flick. The original films are inherently corny and cheesy in dialogue, but its absurd execution somehow works better in the context of the time these movies were produced. Shouldn’t we strive for something more?

The overwhelming success from an independent visionary has stripped away the imagination of movies, placing emphasis on proven formulas and familiar icons.

Along with the strategies of Warner Brothers and Universal Studios, we can count on the future of cinema to be comic books, Jurassic Worlds, and Star Wars – but to call this movie a Star Wars film, to me, is a profitable lie.