Star Wars: Despecialized Edition

I thoroughly enjoyed the new Star Trek movies and if the new Star Wars is anywhere near as fun, I'll be happy. It's impossible to touch the originals. Here's hoping Disney sees what an easy money grab it is to get the un-adulterated versions out there.

This is of course coming from someone who thinks the only truly watchable Star Treks are TNG and the original series (and not many of those).

 

So I saw Force Awakens last night. Now sitting at my desk running on 3 hours sleep and felt like writing a mini-review. You have my word there are NO plot spoilers but out of respect for people wanting to avoid reviews and see it totally fresh I've hidden it below.

Spoiler: Force Awakens Review

TLDR: the highlight of the experience was when someone in the cinema did the obligatory Chewbacca call at the end of the opening credits. It was cliched but well executed and perfectly timed. Good throat.

Some context for my feelings:

Original Star Wars Trilogy: I do enjoy these & appreciate their place in the hearts of many people. However I feel little sentimental attachment towards them. I was born in '83 so missed the boat first time around. Given the choice now I might often prefer to binge watch Firefly & Serenity.

Prequel Trilogy: Horrendous.

Star Trek into Darkness: Slightly-better-than average-disposable entertainment. I don't have a big problem with it.

(semi) Recent big-screen action-movie experiences and ratings:
Good: Interstellar, Gravity, Mad Max
Mediocrity: Spectre
Poop: Fury, Jurassic World


Force Awakens:

I am being quite critical (but fair) because the tidal wave of 5 star reviews for this film is severely disrupting the force. I need to invoke the Dark-Side.

There were some positives. The sets, costumes and vehicles are very well realised, having little of that fake CGI look and instead having much more of a tangible, mechanical, real-world feel that is certainly pleasing and less likely to leave people cold and disconnected. Lightsabers have had a make-over vs the originals but quite tastefully so. The visual backdrops for some of the scenes are excellent, epic and believable. Action sequences are not particularly inventive but deliberately authentic in look.

Unfortunately that's where the positive ends for me. While many people feared for an overly-glossy Disneyfication aimed at inspiring the next generation of kids - this was not the over-arching feel. It's not that there weren't large doses of this (especially with 2 of the young new characters and the spherical droid). Instead this film seems more squarely aimed at fans of the old series looking to get their nostalgia sensors aroused. For people looking for little more than this it might deliver some temporary satisfaction.

The problem for me is that the film is utterly devoid of any meaningful new ideas. Any new threads or plot-lines woven into the old-universe and characterisation are just so incredibly thin and half-baked. I can't go into details here but the motivation for the central characters feels practically non-existent. Spock's backstory in the recent Star Trek movies seems like a masterpiece in comparison. The main character for the Dark-Side does have his moments but, when the helmet comes off, is just a complete dweeb.

As many of us expected, the film has virtually none of the - for want of a better word - "spirituality" of the originals that gave it its sense of purpose & scale. That's fine, but nor does it deliver as decent disposable entertainment. Most of the climaxes fell flat. The "First Order" has a reasonably satisfying Nazi-esque feel but again carries little sense of real looming threat. In many cases it simply rehashes what we have seen before, often giving a knowing nod to the originals, but ultimately making a poorer job of it. Another gripe is that, despite us travelling to different places, the universe somehow manages to feel too small.

I can understand that using Han-Solo & Chewbacca anchors this to the originals but they really contribute little of substance except the glory of seeing a familiar face and throwing in some old lines & references. I was getting horrible flashbacks to watching Indiana Jones 4, after growing up loving Harrison Ford when he was more charismatic & in the zone with this stuff. I'm being slightly unfair here because his performance in Force Awakens is ok (and humorous) but you can't just ride on these former glories and expect us to nod our heads in approval and ignore all the glaring basic faults in developing a richer story. I feel it would have been better to give screen time to actors in their prime.

I should say that opinion in our group of viewers was split. Out of 5 , one of us was pretty disgusted, one thought it was pretty poor (me), one was Meh, and two were much more enthusiastic and felt it was a good starting point for future films. One thing I did notice is that the whole auditorium seemed quite flat when the credits rolled, although there were a couple of small ripples of applause.

Make no mistake this is definitely a cut above the crap we've seen with the prequels. I wonder if this would have been better if Joss Whedon had been given a crack at it. Better yet - in a perfect world - Christopher Nolan. For me, I can't think of many other big budget directors better than him at delivering massive scale while also having a heart...and an edge - which are three things this film was sorely lacking.

2.5/5

 

Rotten Tomatoes has TFA at 95% Fresh right now. Looks like the initial reports are positive.

 

Better than silly cartoon Return of the Jedi which unravels the moment it leaves Tattooine? Luke was walking around in all black threatening to kill everyone as he took the same path as his father at the end of Empire and suddenly it dawns upon that both the Emperor, Yoda, and Vader know he's following the exact path as his father and is dark side as shit? Make Leia his twin sister so Luke can hammer Vader into submission with the power of the dark side. Then of course Vader has to turn his head both ways for 20 seconds like Homer Simpson before deciding that it's not really worth sacrificing his own evolutionary future over being on his preferred side of the debate of using one's genetically inherited telekinetic mind powers for self-benefit or altruism which is still enough to get him into Jedi heaven.

Not that this has any bearing on the overarching story or that any other character in the movie has any sort of development or anything to do at all. The overall plot of Jedi is Admiral Ackbar shows up with a huge fleet and kicks the empire's ass as the Emperor went senile and developed a four pack a day habit between Empire and Jedi. The Emperor, Vader, the Super Star Destroyer, and bigger and better Death Star would've been blown to bits anyway. The good guys win as in between movies they met these space traveling squid aliens who happen to have ships in great numbers that can blow Star Destroyers away.

 

^ lolol I am sure you are correct. It's been a while since I watched Jedi, though I do remember the cartoonish nature of some of what you are describing and it's present in all of the trilogy to very varying extents. I do remember ROTJ being referred to as Muppets in Space at one time.

I'm not precious about the originals and don't treat them as some kind of flawless work of art. But I do enjoy them. The Empire Strikes Back most of all because of its darkness. If you were especially attached to the originals I'm not sure if it would make you more or less likely to enjoy Force Awakens - I could see it going either way actually.

Hey, after a point it's all pretty subjective stuff isn't it. I think many will enjoy it - it looks like they have so far. I'm probably just cynical.

 

I mean, it's true.

 

Not to mention that suddenly the Empire didn't know how to effectively combat a bunch of primitive teddy bears.

Jedi was really just the downward spiral into the awfulness of the prequels.

 

The new one is JJ Abram's sterile, self-aware MTV fan fiction featuring Darth Toddler.