⭐️ FEATURED

Well. Here I am again. Talking about the sequels. I’ve probably done this too many times and it’s starting to get repetitive, however, I don’t regret any of my posts and I don’t think I’m hurting anyone with them. I just have a lot to say about them, and I sure am not the only one. My goal with this small series of mega posts is to fully stamp my verdict on all three individual films and the trilogy as a whole. That being said, I will likely make more posts in the future, and my opinion may still change. So here we go.

The Force Awakens

Five years ago (wow), JJ Abrams, Lawrence Kasdan, and Micheal Arndt saw their creation realized on the big screen. The first Star Wars trilogy film in years, TFA was undoubtedly the biggest movie of the year, and one of the biggest of the decade. With a budget of over 306 million USD and three years to produce, the expectations were high. Having been disappointed by the prequel trilogy, fans wanted something that fully immersed them into the Star Wars they used to love, the epic space drama filled with romance, war, and wonder. Out of the three sequel movies - and arguably even out of every Star Wars movie, this one had the most pressure put on it. In summary, it was a big heckin deal.

This movie is quite interesting to me, but not in the way you’d expect. I think it’s intriguing the way it was made, given the number of high expectations that were placed on it and how well it seemed to do. Let’s look at what I think were the movie’s main purposes.

• To bring fans back into the Star Wars universe

• To present context for what has changed and what is going on in the Star Wars universe

• To set up the trilogy as whole

So, with these three things in mind, how’d they do?

Let’s start with arguably the most important one, that is to bring longtime and new fans back into Star Wars, to kickstart a forty-year-old franchise with excitement and invigoration. At this, I feel it did exceptionally well. Now, getting people hyped was no problem, all you need to do is slap ‘Star Wars’ on the title and people will go crazy, but making sure that people left the cinema happy, excited, and anticipating more. While some may have not been amazed by the film, I think it’s fair to say that every fan who watched it was very interested in the story that was to come. And I’m not sure it’s much of a surprise; this movie is fun. It takes what we all love about Star Wars and mixes it with nostalgia, new characters, and a new setting.

Now we talk about presenting context into the Star Wars universe. This means to bridge the gap between it and Return Of The Jedi with reasonable sense. This is a tough one to judge, as it depends on what we determine is clarification. I’d like to focus primarily on the politics in Star Wars (In-universe politics, not political ideology). TFA, unfortunately, seems to stray completely away from any sort of politics or setting for how the world had changed. Besides a few mentions of the New Republic’s fleet, we know nothing about what has happened to the Senate, Chancellor, or even any smaller governments. We also know nothing about what the NR is doing about the First Order, which both are the two biggest factions at this time. This is done mainly because of the poor reception and over usage of politics in the prequels, which admittedly shoved too much of the senate into the movies, but that’s not what we’re talking about. Too little is just as bad as too much, and even just a few more mentions of what the NR is doing, who’s the chancellor, etc. would’ve helped quite a bit in my opinion.

And now quite a big topic as well, and that is setting up the next two movies well. To do this, TFA needed to:

1. Present a plot that can be expanded upon.

2. Introduce a slate of characters who all have room for development and are all relevant to the plot.

In terms of the plot, this could be interpreted in different ways, but overall this isn’t a hard thing to do. All that was needed was for us to be shown a conflict between two factions and clear motivations for each of them. Characters, however, can be a little trickier to handle when talking about leaving room for growth in future movies. Sometimes, characters’ arcs that are supposed to be covered across a whole trilogy is shown completely in the first or second movie. An example of this is actually with Han Solo, as his arc finishes in The Empire Strikes Back, and he’s left with nothing to do or learn in Return Of The Jedi. Fortunately, TFA leaves an enormous amount of room for development with its characters. A great example is Rey, as while she does learn that she can make a difference in this film, she is still very intent on finding out who she is and what her role is. This one is blatantly obvious, in a good way, and is transitioned nicely into the next movie. Another exemplar of this is Rey’s opposite, Kylo Ren. Ren has just killed his father, lost a duel, and has had to be rescued by his scrawny rival, Hux. He is not only fuming, angry, enraged but also conflicted and alone. He has a next move to make, and it could go either way. Ultimately, this is the case for most - if not all of the main characters in this film.

Now, we must observe the complaints people have for this film, and while there may be quite a few, I’m going to focus on the main big one that is constantly said when talking about TFA. I think you all know what I’m talking about.

Did The Force Awakens copy A New Hope?

A lot of people would say that, yes, it did. And those people have plenty to go off of. Some of the similarities these folks point out include but are not limited to:

• There’s a cute droid carrying valuable information who finds themself on a desolate desert planet.

• There’s a force-sensitive, masked antagonist who is after the information from the droid.

• There’s a desert settlement that’s taken control of by stormtroopers.

• There’s a female hero who’s tortured by bad guys to retrieve the information.

• There’s a lonely, force-strong desert dweller who dreams of more.

• There’s a cantina filled with various creatures/aliens.

• There’s a massive spherical weapon that destroys planets.

• There’s a surrogate father figure who’s cut down by someone previously close to him in front of the desert-dweller hero.

And then there a couple more that people will say that isn’t as relevant in my opinion. So that’s quite a few points, and on face value, it would seem like they are all valid and prove the point that TFA copied the original Star Wars. This...is only partly true.

You may have noticed something from reading these points in conjunction with having watched The Force Awakens. This consistency is that all of these allegations are plot-based. They are only considering the story and not things like the characters, tone, etc. That being said there are a couple that considers the characters, but even then those can be picked apart.

• “There’s a force-sensitive, masked antagonist” This is the norm for antagonists in the Star Wars universe. It’s unfair to call it a copy, especially when the characters themselves, beyond their appearance, are different.

• “There’s a lonely, force-strong desert dweller who dreams of more” This is, of course, comparing Luke Skywalker and Rey, and the point itself isn’t incorrect, but it implies that those two characters are the same, which is not true. Rey has absolutely no one, she is utterly alone and fighting for herself, whereas Luke was raised by his aunt and uncle.

And there are a few other things that you could nitpick about the others, but that’s probably not worth doing. I’d like to focus mainly on the big question. I think that TFA does share a lot of similarities with ANH concerning the plot, but a movie isn’t just its plot. The next big component of films (and it could be argued that this is more important) is of course characters. Without characters, the plot of a movie can’t exist, and it loses all of its humanity and engagement. One consistent thing about JJ Abrams’ films is how he treats the plot vs the characters. Most of the time, the plot will be some throwaway, simple, and easy to understand storyline that everyone’s seen or isn’t surprised by. Whereas the characters are focused on much much more, with them being the absolute main focus. The best example of this for me is Super 8, which (spoiler alert if you haven’t seen it) has as basic a story as an alien landing on Earth and going home (E.T style), while the characters are much more unique and their own stories are put front and centre. This may seem like just standard procedure when it comes to movies, but you’d be surprised how many films put plot far too much over characters. Ironically, one of the best examples of that is The Rise Of Skywalker, also directed by JJ Abrams.

But back to the point, being that JJ didn’t have much care for the plot of TFA, and thus decided to follow the New Hope format and please fans. With his characters, however, excluding Rey (even though she has some differences compared to Luke), he went in completely different directions.

• Finn: Finn is the first character that comes to my mind when this specific argument is brought up. Finn can’t be compared to any of the original characters, his entire story, personality, and role are new to Star Wars. He’s the first stormtrooper defector that we see on the big screen, and he provides such a great insight into what it actually is. Stormtroopers have always been faceless, generic, disposable idiots who can’t hit shots and are gone in the blink of an eye. But one thing the movies never show us is that they’re human beings, with feelings and thoughts. Even with the FO’s brainwashing, no one can ‘learn’ to not have emotions. You can train yourself to resist them, or be forced to through fear, but you’ll always have them. And in situations where you don’t know what to do, when you’re lost, they will take over. As what happens with Finn. It’s such a great idea and one that I’m surprised we haven’t seen before.

• Kylo Ren: Now, immediately after mentioning this poor guy’s name, people will jump up and say either ‘Discount Vader/Revan!’ or ‘Emo crybaby!’ which just makes me laugh. It makes me laugh because if the majority of those people paid as much attention to Ben Solo as they do someone like Anakin or Obi-Wan, they’d be able to see how much of a great, deep character he is. And don’t get me wrong, I love those characters, they’re just the two people seem to discuss the most. But that’s not the focus, the focus is on whether or not he’s a ‘Discount Vader’. This may seem true from the surface, which is all those people seem to pay attention to. He’s an evil, force-sensitive dark sider with a mask and black cloak, and he leads a fascist regime where he fights alongside stormtroopers. However, most of those similarities are there for a reason. Kylo Ren completely and utterly idolizes Lord Vader. He believes that he is going through what Vader experienced, and being his grandson, he wants nothing more than to carry on his legacy and be worthy of his blood. This is exactly what sets him apart. The only thing Vader was afraid of was losing Padme, and after that happened, he was afraid of himself. He didn’t look up to anyone, or feel the need to succeed for anyone (at least not in the same way Kylo does anyway). Kylo is afraid of just that, of failing, of being humiliated and tossed aside. Of not being worthy of Vader’s name. Along with his evident insecurity, confliction, and connection with Rey, this is what makes him his own character.

• Poe Dameron: Ah yes, the character that first appears in the sequel trilogy. I have seen some people compare Poe to Han Solo, but Han Solo got much more screentime and character development in ANH than Poe does in TFA, and them both being good pilots isn’t the end-all. He is still a main character, however, and there is a bit to say about him. While Poe may not learn a big lesson in this installment, he still has something very important happen to him. That being an ego boost. Now I’ll try not to get into the next movies, but TFA is a perfect setup for Poe’s arc in the future, putting him in a position where he is arrogant, headstrong, and a little too sure of himself. So he still progresses forward character-wise in the story, albeit not nearly as much as some of the other main characters.

• Armitage Hux: I’m only really considering this guy because, of course, there have been accusations of him being another Tarkin. But when it comes to that comparison, the only substantial similarity I see is their role within their faction. Sure they might have some similar behavior when it comes to Vader and Kylo, and their massive superweapon is still their pride, but from a character perspective Hux is much more prudent than Tarkin, much less thoughtful, and above all less experienced. Whether you think that’s a bad thing or not, it negates the idea of Hux being a copy of Tarkin.

The only character that, in my opinion, can be called a copy of an original character is Snoke. But even then, Snoke in this movie is a flat character at best, and Palpatine (whom Snoke is compared to) isn’t even in ANH.

So in conclusion to this question, the answer is...only partially, does TFA copy ANH. JJ has taken a plot that he knew would work and decided, justifiably, to focus more on his characters. While yes, it may have disappointed some (maybe a lot) of fans, it was the direction he wanted to take and, in my opinion at least, succeeded.

My Own Conclusion

Now for my overall thoughts on the film. As I’ve stated, I thought it was fun, but more than that I thought it was pleasing. Like comfort watching, it’s the perfect movie for when you just wanna be entertained. This is a good thing, this doesn’t mean it requires you to turn your brain off, it means that you can be doing whatever, feeling whatever, and thinking whatever and still enjoy it.

As for a Star Wars movie, I’d say that after what we got with the prequels this was perhaps a step too far in the opposite direction. Like a substantially big step away from the style and tone of the PT. And while that’s ok, I think at times it can feel a bit obvious and forced, very much harkening back to the OT and not paying the prequels anything. Of course, it doesn’t have to do that, but I feel it just could have been more subtle in the way it treated previous films.

Perhaps my favorite part of this movie is what it sets up. I know, that might sound bad, but it’s still vital to the first film of a trilogy, and I thought that the plotline was solid and the characters especially intriguing. But more than that, it was the start of a new era for Star Wars. The special effects (which btw, were phenomenal), the usage of nostalgia, the underlying pressure of being a Star Wars movie. That’s another thing, no other Star Wars movies have really had the pressure of being Star Wars movies. What I mean by that is that episodes one to six have created such a franchise, such a legacy, and one that they didn’t quite need to go off of, unlike TFA. One could argue that the prequels had the same pressure, but the prequels happened because they needed to, to fill in the gaps. The Sequel Trilogy happened because the Star Wars franchise was in need of movies, on the surface they didn’t exactly have much of a purpose in-universe as much as they did in real life. And I think TFA did an amazing job of filling the role of a Star Wars movie, of owning that mantle and continuing that legacy. To me, TFA is like a facade of what Star Wars is all about. Even if it is lacking in some areas, it gets the basics of being a Star Wars movie right in my opinion.

By no means, of course, do I think it’s perfect. But I think that JJ Abrams took the responsibility he had and embraced it readily and happily, and displayed that with The Force Awakens. It is an example of a film made not just with care but with happiness, and with a primed acceptance of its role.

Well, there it is. Overall this took me about two months and over 3000 words to think about, write, and edit, and I hope you enjoyed the finished product. I’m hoping to become a better writer with this small series, as well as finally conclude what I think of these films. I have thought about doing something similar for the OT and Prequels, but I’m not sure I’d have nearly as much to say, and I’d prefer to express my opinions on the sequels, as these movies are quite a topic, and have remained so since they were released. I thank you all for reading and hope to have some quality discussion about The Force Awakens down below.

EDIT: Apologies to those of you on the app, the subheadings aren’t centred and are messed up. Unfortunately you can do less with text formats on the wook than you can on docs.