"The Force Awakens" (with SPOILERS)

Regarding Anakin, he was extremely powerful by the start of Revenge of the Sith. Some of that didn't show in the movies, but it was in the Clone Wars animated series, which is canon. Also, we saw him defeat Count Dooku, who beat a younger version of Anakin and Obi-Wan, then survived a one-on-one battle with Yoda in Attack of the Clones. It is with Luke that we didn't see much of him at the height of his powers, and I think part of that is simply that one of the few advantages the prequels had on the original trilogy was the choreography of battles involving Jedi.

 

The lightsaber choreography in the prequels is fucking stupid. It's greenscreen masturbation with no emotion or consequences. The fight between Vadar and Luke in ROTJ is 1000 times better than anything in Sith or Phantom because we actually care about the characters and they're not twirling lightsabers like batons in a marching band while doing backflips.

 

When you mention the "green screen" in the prequels, you mean how everything looks fake, right? I always feel like I'm watching a play.

 

Again, I'm not talking about the acting or emotions connected to the characters. I actually love the brutal efficiency of Vader's style Empire.

But in terms of showing a Jedi's powers and actual movement? Sorry, but Phantom Menace is better, mostly because they had Ray Park.

 

If society had not become so cynical at this point, the cut to Luke Skywalker sitting on the island, projecting, would go down as one of American cinema's canon moments.

It won't, because everything fucking sucks and is so fucking stupid and fuck Rian Johnson he fucking sucks, too, fucking pussy ... but it would have.

 

Almost everything in the prequels is shot on green screen, which as any of our TV/weather people on SJ can attest, is what they have the weather person stand in front of to give the weather report. The person can be placed in front of a projected background created by a computer. (Obviously its more high tech when making movies than telling us the daytime temperature in Muncie, but the principle is the same). Lucas did this because he became obsessed with using computers to imagine his world. The genius of the first three films is they're weirdly grounded in realism. The Millennium Falcon is a dirty ship. Because there is an actual stage they built to look like the Falcon. They shot the desert scenes in an actual desert. The aliens they battle with or talk with? They made them with foam and make up until they were life-like puppets.

The prequels did none of that. And that's part of what you mean by feeling like you're watching a play. Except in this play, they jump around and imagine the scene and then Lucas draws it in later. It's partly why the acting is so wooden in those films. They're standing in a sound studio.

If you watch them again, so many of the scenes of dialog are people sitting on couches or walking short distances. That's the limits of having your entire set made by computer.

If you look at the last three films, they're almost entirely shot on actual sets. With puppets again. There is a realism and humanity that's returned.

 

Popped back in to chime in on this interesting, but flawed film. Not sure why this movie doesn't deserve it own thread. Get off my lawn, etc.

I was especially intrigued by Double Down's post, which I think is pretty spot on.

Spoiler

Here are my thoughts ... and I'll give this movie credit. It got me thinking more than most do.

Spoiler

As I said, it was flawed, but mostly for conventional reasons, not necessarily Star Wars universe reasons.

Double Down is not, but many are being WAY too forgiving of the MANY deus ex machina moments. BBV8 manning an AT-ST to save the day for Finn and Rose? Fuck right off, please. Princess Leia suddenly conjuring the Force in the vacuum of space? Get bent. If I may fly my geek freak flag sky-high for a moment, she should have crushed/burned up/both in the explosion in the first place. Rose saving Finn from himself? A) He should have been dead anyway as he was in mid-incineration. B) Why save him from a noble death when so many others had already died, in some cases, ignoble deaths due to Resistance incompetency? C) It had very little emotional impact because the movie never really decided what to do with Finn in the first place. (I did like the nod to Star Trek in the cannon. Looked like the planet-killing machine from the original Star Trek.)

I also thought, narratively, the last 45 minutes were when the volume was turned up to 11 and they went too far with it. There were big reveals piled on top of another and after a while, the impact of those reveals was lessened more by the one that came before it.

To me, though, the most interesting part of the film is what it tried, but failed, to pull off thematically. They tried to advance the dogma of Star Wars more so than any movie since Empire. They didn't pull it off, but it was a noble effort.

Obviously, the theme of the entire movie is hubris. That's evident in everything from the Resistance thinking hyperspace would save them, to Poe's entire story line (the most obvious example), to Rey putting too much hope in Skywalker, to thinking the salt cave would provide sanctuary, etc. The entire Star Wars series has been a treatise in the hubris of power corrupting absolutely. It's the whole foundation of what the dark side/Empire/First Order is all about.

From the time Luke Skywalker appeared through much of the middle act, I thought they were going to take this hubris theme to a totally different level by questioning the veracity and the function of the Force itself. To question the very dogma of the entire series would have been extremely brave and it seemed they were on that track.

Luke's questioning of his role within the Force was a strong story idea. The notion that the Force isn't some entity that can, or even should, be bent to the will of good or evil was fascinating. Luke's conflict with Kylo Ren was going down this track. It also seemed that Benicio Del Toro's character was the humanization of the same theme in one of the other subplots to drive the whole point home. His moral ambiguity was more interesting than, say, Han Solo's was, because he was willing to point out that the Resistance got its hands dirty in the doing of its business too. Solo's ambiguity was something to be turned. Del Toro's ambiguity was something that was always there.

It seemed that the dismissal of the Jedi Religion almost put it in the historical plane of how we think of Greek gods. Jedis had their place within how the Force was understood in their time, but the movie seemed to be suggesting that they misunderstood the Force and that Luke was on the path of understanding it in a more enlightened manner than the series had ever revealed. They were on the path to some really ambitious shit.

But they couldn't pull it off, and you knew it the minute Yoda made his appearance. To change the dogma of the Force means trying to explain away how the Force was used in ways that would have violated that new dogma in the original films and prequels and it was a loose end that couldn't be tied up. It's hard to question the Jedi faith and the use of the Force as a tool instead of an all-encompassing, morally-ambiguous entity when it's already been used as a tool. Ambitious though these new ideas were, they were hemmed in by the mythology.

A shame because what was a fascinating idea then became a narrative cul de sac. Luke goes from world-weary sage and becomes a kind of Jesus/Buddha figure. It felt forced. Would have been better if he would have died on the island without fanfare, but then you get into fan service and how pissed everyone would have been at such a quiet demise. Del Toro's character just becomes duplicitous, and as DD mentioned, pretty pointless, instead of being a sort of affirmation of the overall theme.

So Luke goes on to crucify himself for his own sins (Kylo Ren, Jesus move) and those of others to save them for their own sins (the escape, Jesus move) and then shoves off to a mystical astroplane where he gains a greater understanding of the Force (Buddha move).

It was a noble effort on the filmmakers part, but they couldn't quite pull it off.

Still, I enjoyed the movie. Not as good as Empire, Rogue One or the original Star Wars (I'm 46, I'm a man, and I don't fucking call that movie "A New Hope"), but slots in ahead of the others for its ambition and its gorgeous cinematography (Snoke's throne room was bad ass).

 

I liked "Rogue One" well enough for what it was, but it seems like it has become pretty overrated in the canon. I think a lot of "Star Wars" films are becoming overloaded with plot, and I count "Rogue One" among them. I think today's discerning geek wants tons and tons and tons and tons of plot. Comic book movies have tons and tons and tons and tons of plot. But I'd like it if they cleaned things up a little bit, moving forward. (They won't.)

 

Rogue One was not overloaded with plot. At its heart, it was an action mission movie, the likes of which don't get made much anymore. Think of The Dirty Dozen or Where Eagles Dare. It's in that genre universe. Combined with what it was trying to do as a movie, the cinematography, special effects and just pure popcorn feel made it one, if not THE, best action movies I've ever seen in a theater.

Rogue One also solved a central problem of prequels. You already know what's going to happen in the end, so how do you get there in an interesting way?

Lucas failed in his prequels to provide resonance to what we already knew. He bogged down his prequels with crap no one really cares about in the end. Rogue One succeeded massively in doing the opposite.

To get there, character development bogs down the story. Do I really care what the motivation is for the central characters in Rogue One? Not really, I just care that they get there in a way that makes it interesting and that enhances the original story it's derivative of. In that case, plot matters most, because it's backstory, not THE story, and in the end, we want these back stories to fascinate us. Rogue One was a triumph in that respect.

 

Agree with Bubbler here. The reason why Rogue One worked so well is it had a very specific purpose, and it told a streamlined story racing us toward that purpose. It was essentially a heist movie. It didn't care so much about the larger mythos. It was a war film with great characters who all sacrificed themselves for something bigger than themselves. Pretty simple and standard narrative thread.

 

I don’t think I stayed that well. “Rogue One” probably threw too many characters at me.

 

One of the things I really liked about it was anything could happen to those characters. Their deaths were moving because they could happen. They didn't have to save them for future movies, since it was a self-contained story. It's The Sopranos/Wire/Game of Thrones principle. When anyone can die, the stakes are raised. When you know Disney has to keep someone around for future movies, its hard to care as much when they're faced with death.