Lucky_Ladybug (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
ladybug_archive) wrote2016-01-06 04:18 pm
ladybug_archive) wrote2016-01-06 04:18 pm
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Star Wars: The Force Awakens thoughts
So, I finally saw Star Wars: The Force Awakens. Somehow I managed to avoid all spoilers except part of Kylo Ren's identity. Now in contrast to this, I'll want to gobble up all spoilers I can for the next film, or at least, certain ones (if such things are talked about at all).
I absolutely loved the new good guys! I went in hoping to like Finn especially, because a character that was trained as a stormtrooper and then can't abide what they do and leaves sounded so intriguing and fascinating. And I did love him. And Rey. They have a beautiful friendship throughout the film. My dad thinks they're going to end up hooking up romantically, but there's really no proof of that yet. I would kind of love if they showed that a guy and a girl can be friends without romance entering into the picture at all, but I also wouldn't have any problem with them becoming romantically involved. I liked Poe too, but they didn't show as much of him and I'm still puzzled as to how he survived (even though I kind of thought he probably would). I couldn't catch what he said by way of explanation, but it kind of sounded like he didn't really explain very well. And then BB-8 is so cute! I love the idea of him and R2-D2 hanging out and being buds. And C-3PO seemed to instantly like BB-8, too. More adorableness!
Kylo Ren kind of repulses me. His arc seems to be very similar to that of Jacen Solo from the New Jedi Order and Legacy of the Force books. He seems to honestly believe he's doing the right thing, and he's been so indoctrinated by the Dark Side of the Force that he thinks that to complete his training, he has to kill someone he loves. Jacen's arc was tragic in that he was depicted as a very three-dimensional character and you saw all of his internal struggles in the books. I imagine that's what they're going to try to do with Kylo Ren. But with Jacen, you realized that there was no hope of redemption for him as there was for Darth Vader. I kind of feel that after what Kylo Ren has apparently done, any redemption for him will leave me cold.
Also, who the **bleep** is Supreme Leader Snoke? He just seemed to come out of nowhere. There was no explanation of who he was or how he came to power. Even just one sentence on that would have been good, I think. He puzzles me. So far he hasn't really come into his own as a character. He seems to just be there, as a bad imitation of the Emperor.
I read some blurbs on Captain Phasma before the movie came out, and it intimated that she might not be completely evil. I'm kind of intrigued by a female stormtrooper, especially one in such a position of power, but I certainly didn't see any indications in the movie that she isn't fully indoctrinated in the stormtrooper way of life. She might not be completely evil, per se, but I didn't really see any hints of goodness, so I wonder what that was about. Perhaps a vague spoiler for the next movies.
It was pretty awesome to see Admiral Ackbar and that other guy from Return of the Jedi! I hadn't expected them at all and I always loved them, so that was a pleasant surprise. They were even played by the same people!
I want to know why C-3PO has a red arm. And gah, it was so sad about R2 powering down. I didn't really like that, but I loved when he powered up at the end and C-3PO was so happy. So cute!
It was wonderful to see everyone who came back. I wish Luke had had a bigger part, but I did love how powerful that ending scene came across, oh wow. I look forward to hopefully seeing a lot of Luke in the next film. And ... wait a minute, it just occurred to me, why did Luke's prosthetic hand look like Anakin's from the prequels? Luke's prosthetic hand looked like a real hand in the original trilogy. You could only tell it was fake because of the control box.
I was very impressed by the effects. Everyone seems to be excitedly praising it up and down for going back to practical effects instead of just doing CGI for everything. It was definitely impressive. People are a lot more creative when they rely on other methods for creating things. That said, I have to admit that I honestly don't always have a trained enough eye to tell when something is CGI versus practical effects. Maybe that's part of why CGI doesn't bother me as much as it does some people.
I kind of wondered at why the plot was basically Episode IV redone. I was slightly amused when that was actually brought up in the script, when a character compared the Starkiller to the Death Star. Then when Leia actually showed the difference between the two, it was kind of yikes.
Because the plot was basically Episode IV redone and the parallels were just everywhere (robot with special information turned loose on a desert planet, finds one of the human leads, they escape from stormtroopers in the Millennium Falcon, an older character becomes a surrogate father figure to the young characters, something destroying planets has to be destroyed, etc. etc.), I was afraid someone was going to die in the climax. When Han first called out to Kylo Ren on the bridge and they met, I had a horrible "Oh no" feeling. Not only did I figure Han might die then, I figured that it might be similar to the storyline that killed Mara Jade in the Legacy of the Force books. And that's what happened.
Or did it? Honestly, the lightsaber wound didn't look bad enough to be fatal. It looked more like it would be the fall into the reactor core that would do it, and we didn't see the impact. Considering that they even revived Darth Maul of all people in Clone Wars canon, I have a hard time believing Han is gone since we don't have the body nor did we see the explosion of him hitting the core. (True, the planet blew up minutes later, but people were evacuating. If someone was able to save Han during the fall, they could have escaped with him.) Leia certainly felt something, but she could have felt that he was hurt and that their son had done it, not necessarily that he was dead (even though she thought so). Until the movies confirm he's dead by showing his spirit or something, I will stubbornly hope that there is still hope. (And even then I might still hope he's astral-projected or something, unless he outright says he's dead.)
Or until J.J. Abrams or someone says absolutely that he's dead. When we got home, I looked up stuff and I honestly can't find that there was so much as an official statement made about Han's state. The closest I could find was Harrison Ford saying he didn't want to be the next Alec Guinness. (He also said things made sense with the direction the character was going in. Being murdered by his own son makes sense? Sorry, no, it doesn't. At all.) There doesn't seem to be any absolute confirmation Han is dead, and even stranger, no fan outcry. Maybe on Tumblr they're wailing or something, but I find it very odd that the fans are so silent about a character beloved from the very first film being apparently killed off. Usually there's something mentioned in the news or on Wikipedia or somewhere about something like that if a particularly loved character from any franchise dies. I know characters die in almost every Star Wars film, but usually they're characters who have only appeared in one particular film. When it's someone who's been in several, there's usually some mention of fan reaction somewhere. Considering Han was there from the beginning and loved from the beginning, it just seems very strange to me.
The fans' reaction, or should I say, non-reaction, is also part of what is making me wonder if Han is really gone. Rather than taking it in stride, perhaps at least some of them don't believe he's dead either. Also, Disney is planning a midquel movie about Han taking place between episodes III and IV. It's about time, really; I was disappointed there was nothing about Han in the prequels. But that seems an odd move to make after just killing him off. They got rid of the character, yet they want to go back and explore more about him? Maybe I'm just in denial and it's foolish, especially since Harrison Ford always wanted Han to die for some weird reason, but it just doesn't feel right to me. I just don't believe Han's gone.
Meanwhile, since this sort of thing is not the type of thing I intend to wait around for canon to solve, especially since they might not solve it, I made a decision almost as soon as Kylo Ren ran Han through. I never thought I'd write another Star Wars fanfic; I'm just not good at it. A big part of Star Wars is the locales and creatures and technology, and I just don't have the level of imagination to come up with that sort of thing. I'm grounded in reality and just can't seem to do fantasy or sci-fi very well. Even if I focus more on the characters, sooner or later I have to bring the other stuff in and I just can't seem to, and that is largely why I rarely write Star Wars fic and I don't think I've even tried since 2002. But I am notorious for "save the dead character" fics, as everyone probably knows, and this is not something I'm going to take lying down. I started planning my save Han fic while watching the movie and continued planning and sorting out how to make it make sense the way I wanted it to go right up to the time I sat down and started writing. It flowed. There's still a lot more to go, but a big chunk has been accomplished. I'm a little nervous about posting it on FF.net, as I may get a ton of WTH reactions, but I tried to make it make sense with the characters and their motivations and I actually don't think it looks too bad. Overall, I figure I probably will post it.
And what if the canon decides Han is absolutely dead and there's no wiggle room for that? Well, then I'm afraid that as much as I love the new characters, the new movies will not be canon to me, any more than the New Jedi Order books are canon. I never forgave the books for killing off Chewbacca, and I won't let the movies go with a pat on the head if Han is really dead. I want the core characters to stay alive, dang it, and to not die until they've lived good, full lives. Is that really so difficult for the movies and books to capture? And why do Han, Leia, and Luke have to live such tragic lives? Why can't they have some happiness? They don't seem to be able to have that in either verse following Return of the Jedi. Naturally it wouldn't be rainbows and smiles when they're trying to rebuild their galaxy, but do their lives have to be so downright heartbreaking? Give them a break!
My current state of mind is that the only absolute canon are the six live-action movies George Lucas made. Everything else is ambiguous and only canon if you want it to be. I never considered any of the books to be absolute canon, honestly; they were just fun supplementals and possibilities. (I was kind of baffled when someone complained to me that the movie Wookie planet was "wrong", for one thing. Why should George make it the way the books did, if he wanted to do it differently? And why should it be considered wrong if he did?) And now that George isn't making the movies and the new crew's vision for them is not what he wanted, plot-wise, that kind of seems like a good enough reason to render the new movies non-canon if I don't want them to be canon.
Note that I don't agree with all of George Lucas's decisions. I don't like some of the changes he made when he started fiddling with the original trilogy to make it align with the prequel trilogy. I thought it was awful to put prequel Anakin into the last scene instead of keeping older Anakin. And I never liked changing Boba Fett's voice. I always figured he was using a voice changer to get that gravelly tone, so it didn't seem odd to me that he didn't sound like Jango. I think it's an insult to the original actors to remove their work from those movies.
But nevertheless, no matter what I think of decisions like that, I still consider George Lucas the master of the Star Wars verse and of the characters he created. Unlike my feelings about the Once Upon a Time people, I don't really have problems with how he handled the characters. Although I do think Anakin's downfall could have been depicted differently in the prequels, I like just about everyone better than Anakin, so that's not a huge stumbling block for me.
That said, I feel Kylo Ren is more evil than Darth Vader. At least Vader still cared about his family and didn't want them harmed. Kylo Ren, even if he struggled with his feelings, opted to murder his own father. That is just ... ugh. It was likely that love of family that was the good Luke sensed in Vader. Kylo Ren has chosen to destroy all family ties. I just can't see him as being redeemable.
It's so haunting that Leia told Han she felt he would be the one to save their son and Han scoffed but then he tried and that happened. I wonder whether it was meant to be deliberately haunting and ironic or if Han really will still save Kylo Ren, if they decide he can be redeemed. That still wouldn't mean Han is alive, though; he could show up as a spirit.
I feel a strong urge to watch the original trilogy, continue reading one of the original trilogy-era books I have, play Star Wars Monopoly, anything where Han is alive and okay. I would also like to watch Episode I.
Anyway, in any case, I definitely want some merchandise of the new good guys. I bought a big figure of Finn right after the movie last night. I wished I could have found Rey too, but I didn't see any of her. I don't even know if they've made a big figure of her. They made a small one, but Wal-Mart didn't have any of those last night, either. I could have got the small Finn and waited for the small Rey, but the big one was only two dollars more, so it seemed silly to get the small one. I really want Rey too, though, so I hope they have a big one of her.
It's so frustrating, though; everything is so cheaply made these days. The big figures don't have removable clothes or helmets anymore. I remember when the big Star Wars figures all had removable clothes and even the guys had rooted hair. The Qui-Gon figure was just awesome!
Little Golden Books, too. They used to be illustrated so beautifully and lushly and you could tell a lot of effort had been put into making them amazing. Now they look like they were illustrated by a middle-schooler on his lunch break. It's like they feel kids' books just don't deserve the same time and devotion they used to. That's something that's made me sad for years.
But anyway. So, there were definitely things I liked about The Force Awakens and definitely things I didn't like. And we'll see how that balances out as we near the second movie next year. I'm so glad we don't have to wait three years for it....
I absolutely loved the new good guys! I went in hoping to like Finn especially, because a character that was trained as a stormtrooper and then can't abide what they do and leaves sounded so intriguing and fascinating. And I did love him. And Rey. They have a beautiful friendship throughout the film. My dad thinks they're going to end up hooking up romantically, but there's really no proof of that yet. I would kind of love if they showed that a guy and a girl can be friends without romance entering into the picture at all, but I also wouldn't have any problem with them becoming romantically involved. I liked Poe too, but they didn't show as much of him and I'm still puzzled as to how he survived (even though I kind of thought he probably would). I couldn't catch what he said by way of explanation, but it kind of sounded like he didn't really explain very well. And then BB-8 is so cute! I love the idea of him and R2-D2 hanging out and being buds. And C-3PO seemed to instantly like BB-8, too. More adorableness!
Kylo Ren kind of repulses me. His arc seems to be very similar to that of Jacen Solo from the New Jedi Order and Legacy of the Force books. He seems to honestly believe he's doing the right thing, and he's been so indoctrinated by the Dark Side of the Force that he thinks that to complete his training, he has to kill someone he loves. Jacen's arc was tragic in that he was depicted as a very three-dimensional character and you saw all of his internal struggles in the books. I imagine that's what they're going to try to do with Kylo Ren. But with Jacen, you realized that there was no hope of redemption for him as there was for Darth Vader. I kind of feel that after what Kylo Ren has apparently done, any redemption for him will leave me cold.
Also, who the **bleep** is Supreme Leader Snoke? He just seemed to come out of nowhere. There was no explanation of who he was or how he came to power. Even just one sentence on that would have been good, I think. He puzzles me. So far he hasn't really come into his own as a character. He seems to just be there, as a bad imitation of the Emperor.
I read some blurbs on Captain Phasma before the movie came out, and it intimated that she might not be completely evil. I'm kind of intrigued by a female stormtrooper, especially one in such a position of power, but I certainly didn't see any indications in the movie that she isn't fully indoctrinated in the stormtrooper way of life. She might not be completely evil, per se, but I didn't really see any hints of goodness, so I wonder what that was about. Perhaps a vague spoiler for the next movies.
It was pretty awesome to see Admiral Ackbar and that other guy from Return of the Jedi! I hadn't expected them at all and I always loved them, so that was a pleasant surprise. They were even played by the same people!
I want to know why C-3PO has a red arm. And gah, it was so sad about R2 powering down. I didn't really like that, but I loved when he powered up at the end and C-3PO was so happy. So cute!
It was wonderful to see everyone who came back. I wish Luke had had a bigger part, but I did love how powerful that ending scene came across, oh wow. I look forward to hopefully seeing a lot of Luke in the next film. And ... wait a minute, it just occurred to me, why did Luke's prosthetic hand look like Anakin's from the prequels? Luke's prosthetic hand looked like a real hand in the original trilogy. You could only tell it was fake because of the control box.
I was very impressed by the effects. Everyone seems to be excitedly praising it up and down for going back to practical effects instead of just doing CGI for everything. It was definitely impressive. People are a lot more creative when they rely on other methods for creating things. That said, I have to admit that I honestly don't always have a trained enough eye to tell when something is CGI versus practical effects. Maybe that's part of why CGI doesn't bother me as much as it does some people.
I kind of wondered at why the plot was basically Episode IV redone. I was slightly amused when that was actually brought up in the script, when a character compared the Starkiller to the Death Star. Then when Leia actually showed the difference between the two, it was kind of yikes.
Because the plot was basically Episode IV redone and the parallels were just everywhere (robot with special information turned loose on a desert planet, finds one of the human leads, they escape from stormtroopers in the Millennium Falcon, an older character becomes a surrogate father figure to the young characters, something destroying planets has to be destroyed, etc. etc.), I was afraid someone was going to die in the climax. When Han first called out to Kylo Ren on the bridge and they met, I had a horrible "Oh no" feeling. Not only did I figure Han might die then, I figured that it might be similar to the storyline that killed Mara Jade in the Legacy of the Force books. And that's what happened.
Or did it? Honestly, the lightsaber wound didn't look bad enough to be fatal. It looked more like it would be the fall into the reactor core that would do it, and we didn't see the impact. Considering that they even revived Darth Maul of all people in Clone Wars canon, I have a hard time believing Han is gone since we don't have the body nor did we see the explosion of him hitting the core. (True, the planet blew up minutes later, but people were evacuating. If someone was able to save Han during the fall, they could have escaped with him.) Leia certainly felt something, but she could have felt that he was hurt and that their son had done it, not necessarily that he was dead (even though she thought so). Until the movies confirm he's dead by showing his spirit or something, I will stubbornly hope that there is still hope. (And even then I might still hope he's astral-projected or something, unless he outright says he's dead.)
Or until J.J. Abrams or someone says absolutely that he's dead. When we got home, I looked up stuff and I honestly can't find that there was so much as an official statement made about Han's state. The closest I could find was Harrison Ford saying he didn't want to be the next Alec Guinness. (He also said things made sense with the direction the character was going in. Being murdered by his own son makes sense? Sorry, no, it doesn't. At all.) There doesn't seem to be any absolute confirmation Han is dead, and even stranger, no fan outcry. Maybe on Tumblr they're wailing or something, but I find it very odd that the fans are so silent about a character beloved from the very first film being apparently killed off. Usually there's something mentioned in the news or on Wikipedia or somewhere about something like that if a particularly loved character from any franchise dies. I know characters die in almost every Star Wars film, but usually they're characters who have only appeared in one particular film. When it's someone who's been in several, there's usually some mention of fan reaction somewhere. Considering Han was there from the beginning and loved from the beginning, it just seems very strange to me.
The fans' reaction, or should I say, non-reaction, is also part of what is making me wonder if Han is really gone. Rather than taking it in stride, perhaps at least some of them don't believe he's dead either. Also, Disney is planning a midquel movie about Han taking place between episodes III and IV. It's about time, really; I was disappointed there was nothing about Han in the prequels. But that seems an odd move to make after just killing him off. They got rid of the character, yet they want to go back and explore more about him? Maybe I'm just in denial and it's foolish, especially since Harrison Ford always wanted Han to die for some weird reason, but it just doesn't feel right to me. I just don't believe Han's gone.
Meanwhile, since this sort of thing is not the type of thing I intend to wait around for canon to solve, especially since they might not solve it, I made a decision almost as soon as Kylo Ren ran Han through. I never thought I'd write another Star Wars fanfic; I'm just not good at it. A big part of Star Wars is the locales and creatures and technology, and I just don't have the level of imagination to come up with that sort of thing. I'm grounded in reality and just can't seem to do fantasy or sci-fi very well. Even if I focus more on the characters, sooner or later I have to bring the other stuff in and I just can't seem to, and that is largely why I rarely write Star Wars fic and I don't think I've even tried since 2002. But I am notorious for "save the dead character" fics, as everyone probably knows, and this is not something I'm going to take lying down. I started planning my save Han fic while watching the movie and continued planning and sorting out how to make it make sense the way I wanted it to go right up to the time I sat down and started writing. It flowed. There's still a lot more to go, but a big chunk has been accomplished. I'm a little nervous about posting it on FF.net, as I may get a ton of WTH reactions, but I tried to make it make sense with the characters and their motivations and I actually don't think it looks too bad. Overall, I figure I probably will post it.
And what if the canon decides Han is absolutely dead and there's no wiggle room for that? Well, then I'm afraid that as much as I love the new characters, the new movies will not be canon to me, any more than the New Jedi Order books are canon. I never forgave the books for killing off Chewbacca, and I won't let the movies go with a pat on the head if Han is really dead. I want the core characters to stay alive, dang it, and to not die until they've lived good, full lives. Is that really so difficult for the movies and books to capture? And why do Han, Leia, and Luke have to live such tragic lives? Why can't they have some happiness? They don't seem to be able to have that in either verse following Return of the Jedi. Naturally it wouldn't be rainbows and smiles when they're trying to rebuild their galaxy, but do their lives have to be so downright heartbreaking? Give them a break!
My current state of mind is that the only absolute canon are the six live-action movies George Lucas made. Everything else is ambiguous and only canon if you want it to be. I never considered any of the books to be absolute canon, honestly; they were just fun supplementals and possibilities. (I was kind of baffled when someone complained to me that the movie Wookie planet was "wrong", for one thing. Why should George make it the way the books did, if he wanted to do it differently? And why should it be considered wrong if he did?) And now that George isn't making the movies and the new crew's vision for them is not what he wanted, plot-wise, that kind of seems like a good enough reason to render the new movies non-canon if I don't want them to be canon.
Note that I don't agree with all of George Lucas's decisions. I don't like some of the changes he made when he started fiddling with the original trilogy to make it align with the prequel trilogy. I thought it was awful to put prequel Anakin into the last scene instead of keeping older Anakin. And I never liked changing Boba Fett's voice. I always figured he was using a voice changer to get that gravelly tone, so it didn't seem odd to me that he didn't sound like Jango. I think it's an insult to the original actors to remove their work from those movies.
But nevertheless, no matter what I think of decisions like that, I still consider George Lucas the master of the Star Wars verse and of the characters he created. Unlike my feelings about the Once Upon a Time people, I don't really have problems with how he handled the characters. Although I do think Anakin's downfall could have been depicted differently in the prequels, I like just about everyone better than Anakin, so that's not a huge stumbling block for me.
That said, I feel Kylo Ren is more evil than Darth Vader. At least Vader still cared about his family and didn't want them harmed. Kylo Ren, even if he struggled with his feelings, opted to murder his own father. That is just ... ugh. It was likely that love of family that was the good Luke sensed in Vader. Kylo Ren has chosen to destroy all family ties. I just can't see him as being redeemable.
It's so haunting that Leia told Han she felt he would be the one to save their son and Han scoffed but then he tried and that happened. I wonder whether it was meant to be deliberately haunting and ironic or if Han really will still save Kylo Ren, if they decide he can be redeemed. That still wouldn't mean Han is alive, though; he could show up as a spirit.
I feel a strong urge to watch the original trilogy, continue reading one of the original trilogy-era books I have, play Star Wars Monopoly, anything where Han is alive and okay. I would also like to watch Episode I.
Anyway, in any case, I definitely want some merchandise of the new good guys. I bought a big figure of Finn right after the movie last night. I wished I could have found Rey too, but I didn't see any of her. I don't even know if they've made a big figure of her. They made a small one, but Wal-Mart didn't have any of those last night, either. I could have got the small Finn and waited for the small Rey, but the big one was only two dollars more, so it seemed silly to get the small one. I really want Rey too, though, so I hope they have a big one of her.
It's so frustrating, though; everything is so cheaply made these days. The big figures don't have removable clothes or helmets anymore. I remember when the big Star Wars figures all had removable clothes and even the guys had rooted hair. The Qui-Gon figure was just awesome!
Little Golden Books, too. They used to be illustrated so beautifully and lushly and you could tell a lot of effort had been put into making them amazing. Now they look like they were illustrated by a middle-schooler on his lunch break. It's like they feel kids' books just don't deserve the same time and devotion they used to. That's something that's made me sad for years.
But anyway. So, there were definitely things I liked about The Force Awakens and definitely things I didn't like. And we'll see how that balances out as we near the second movie next year. I'm so glad we don't have to wait three years for it....