The Force Awakens
I need to get back and re-watch Episode 7, but my first impression was VERY positive. Most movie review websites rank it behind New Hope and Empire Strikes Back, but ahead of Return of the Jedi. That was pretty much my opinion as well. I guess I should say something like, "Here there be Spoilers," but if you haven't watched Force Awakens yet, a) come on, man, and b) you probably don't care enough to be upset by a spoiler.
I was too young when the original trilogy (from here on to be referred to as OT) was released to remember how I felt about the viewing experience as a whole, although one of my earliest memories is my dad carrying me into the theater at the beginning of Jedi (pretty sure I slept through the rest of the movie). The prequels were too limp to generate any emotions higher than extreme excitement followed by extreme disappointment. This movie shook me up. I had the extreme excitement going into the theater, but after that it was a rollercoaster.
My wife came out of the theater feeling "ick" (in her words), but I was more up and down. The decision to kill off Han Solo was pretty hard to take. Harrison Ford as a grizzly, vulnerable, less sure of himself, elderly Solo was easily the best part of the whole movie. I was hoping to get more of that in Episode 8. And losing him was like losing a family friend. The whole scene had more emotional content than the entire prequel trilogy, and the way he died was especially rough. There have been a few crackpot theories that Solo isn't actually dead, but I don't rate them as very likely at all. I would think less of the writers if they played the fans like that. It was pretty ballsy to kill off the series' best-loved character. It challenges the fans and opens up a multitude of possibilities. A major problem with the prequels was they were basically pre-scripted from the beginning and there were essentially no surprises. Now, anything can happen.
I liked the new characters. I've liked John Boyega since I saw Attack the Block several years ago, so it's good to see him in such a major role in a movie like this. I thought Daisy Ridley was fascinating as Rey. Maz Kanata and Poe Dameron were cool, and I especially liked Poe's flippant, flyboy style. Adam Driver was brilliant as Kylo Ren, but he lacked the menace of Darth Vader towards the end of the movie, which was spent largely without his mask. Kylo Ren is a mix of Hayden Christiansen's whiny, emotional mess in Episodes 2 & 3 (but better written and acted), and Vader's raging power trip in Empire Strikes Back. Supreme Leader Snoke is appropriately menacing, authoritative, and mysterious, but I could take or leave General Hux. Captain Phasma looks pretty cool but doesn't actually do much.
Mysteries of the movie:
- Who are Rey's parents? Probably either Luke and somebody, or Han & Leia, but maybe neither. I think Luke is most likely based on Rey's strong connection with his lightsaber, her powerful connection with the force, and the looks she exchanged with Luke at the end of the movie
- Why did they leave her on Jakku? The obvious answer is to protect her from the First Order, Supreme Leader Snoke, and the Knights of Ren, but that opens up more questions. Why Jakku, which appears to be the Star Wars universe's version of Arrakis? Why was she left to fend for herself instead of being left with a guardian (like Luke with Uncle Owen and Aunt Beru, and Obi Wan keeping tabs)?
- Who are Finn's parents? Speculation is he's Lando's son, but that's mainly because Lando is the only black character from the original trilogy. Some speculation has arisen that he's Mace Windu's grandson. I don't buy this, because the Jedi of Windu's day were warrior monks, and Windu was very committed to that. I think what's more likely is that Finn isn't directly related to Mace Windu, but he comes from the Windu clan. More on this in a second. He might also be a clone of somebody, but the question would remain, who is his father?
- How was Finn able to break conditioning? Finn was the first stormtrooper we know of ever to break his conditioning. What is so unique about him? Maybe there's something unique about his parentage, which goes back to my Windu clan (or Gosh Windu) theory. Without getting too deep, Mace Windu was a Korun, a people who were all naturally force sensitive but didn't actually touch the force in the way the Jedi did. Finn could be just a regular guy, and I'd be all for that, but a lot of this fits. He's black, as were all the Korunnai. As his conditioning is breaking down, Kylo Ren senses something is wrong, which suggests that the force is somehow involved in his conditioning breaking down. And Korunnai didn't actually "wield" the force, they just used it naturally, and possibly subconsciously, through their own cultural rituals. Finn doesn't appear be force sensitive, but that might be due to the fact that he's a Korun and has a different sort of connection to the force
- What has Luke been doing this whole time? He's been on Ahch-To, the supposed site of the first Jedi temple. What new things does he know? How is Luke's use of the force going to look different from how it did before? We know he can see the future, the past, things far away, and friends long gone through the force, so... why didn't he get off his butt when things started going to hell.
- Who the heck is Snoke? Supreme Leader of the First Order, yes. Powerful with the dark side because he was able to turn and train Ben Solo and the other Knights of Ren. But where does his political influence come from? Where does his force knowledge come from? Some fan theories have speculated that Snoke is Darth Plagueis, who somehow fooled Sidious into thinking he killed him or managed to resurrect himself. Others have suggested he might be Darth Bane, probably the most powerful Sith ever, which would put him at nearly 1,100 years old at the time of Force Awakens.
- Who are the Knights of Ren? There are at least 7 of them that we know of (from Rey's vision), not counting Snoke as the head of that order, which would make 8. That is a serious deviation from the Sith's "Rule of Two", instituted by Darth Bane 1,000 years earlier because the Sith tended to spend more time fighting and plotting against themselves instead of getting anything done. So what makes the Knights of Ren successful at working together where the Sith failed? Disney's wikia states that they are "an ancient cult of dark side force wielders" and Kylo Ren's lightsaber (which is SUPER sweet-looking, by the way) is supposedly based off of an ancient design. So these Knights of Ren are some kind of retro-throwback with a new look (kind of like The Force Awakens in general, right? By the way, this is a major parallel theme in this movie - both the light side and the dark side are taking an ancient thing and bringing it back to life). But how did Snoke know about all this stuff, how did they stay hidden from both the Sith AND the Jedi for so long, and why are they poking their heads up now?
- How did Maz Kanata/Kylo Ren get her/his hands on Luke's lightsaber/Vader's mask? Another one of the parallels in this movie (and I'm expecting to see a lot more) is both the dark and the light sides have an artifact from the past that influences a main character. Ren has Vader's melted mask, Maz Kanata gives Rey Luke's old lightsaber. The last we saw Vader's mask, Luke had set it on fire in some remote part of the forest moon of Endor. The last we saw Luke's original lightsaber, it was spinning away into the abyss in the center of Cloud City after Vader had chopped off the hand that was holding it. So how did these things get back into circulation? I assume they are imbued with the force in some way, so it'll be interesting to see how that manifests as the movies roll along.
- Presumably some training with Luke & Rey on Ahch-To. If they follow the pattern previous Star Wars films have established, Episode 8 (no actual title yet, which would give us an inkling of plot) will pick up a few years after the events of the previous movie. Everything I've heard suggests that this will be the case with Ep. 8 as well. So, I expect Rey will be about mid-way through her training and either Luke will send her out, or she'll take off like HE did in Empire Strikes Back. But the training should be super-cool
- Also, maybe some training with Snoke and Kylo Ren, but probably not. Snoke had invited Ren back to wherever he was to complete Ren's training. Since Kylo Ren was wielding a flawed saber, was a conflicted emotional mess, and got his ass handed to him by the entirely untrained Rey, some more training is definitely in order. But I doubt they show us much of this, if any. Baddies are more menacing if they're more mysterious. The unknown usually is. So, I expect we won't actually see any training but we might see some type of special dark side knighting ceremony or something.
- Some light will be shed on Finn's backstory. Rey left Finn with the Resistance, still unconscious and recovering from his wounds. He's got a lot of inside information about the First Order and Stormtroopers in general, so obviously the Resistance will want to utilize that knowledge. He's also buddy-buddy with Poe Dameron, so I expect they'll partner up on missions, and Poe will help Finn find out more about where he comes from. There is a rumor about a Billy Dee Williams cameo in Ep. 8, which adds some fuel to the theory that he's Finn's dad, but I'd go the other way. A cameo suggests a minor role, and you would think if he were Finn's dad, he'd get a lot more screen time than "cameo". Anyway...
- Some rebuilding from both sides. The good guys lost their governing body, the bad guys lost their main weapon. My guess is the First Order stays ahead of the Resistance in their rebuild due to stronger central leadership under Snoke. Nothing has changed there for them. Meanwhile, the natural inclination of the good guys would be to push General Leia more towards politics, maybe Queen of the Galaxy or something, and my feeling was she was trying to be done with all of that. Hopefully they only briefly cover the political mumbo-jumbo, because that was a big flaw in the prequels
- More of a romance angle between Finn & Rey. This was teased in Force Awakens, but you only saw the beginnings of it. These two feel strongly for each other. Romances are more interesting when there's conflict, and I'm not sure how that gets introduced because they seemed to gravitate toward each other instead of clashing, like Han & Leia did. I'm fully expecting Finn & Rey's relationship to follow a similar path though, expect this to develop more fully.
I might have more to say, but that'll probably come after I watch Force Awakens again.
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