So, I was asked to write a spoiler review for Star Wars: The Force Awakens, and I was like “You do realize that this is going to be a lot of all-caps screaming punctuated by odd rambling and theories?”
I ended up writing it, so clearly that was okay.
But how do I begin this? At the beginning, I suppose, where I was surprised not to see the Disney title opener before Lucasfilm flashed on the screen. It felt oddly respectful? It was strange, but also nice.
Then the fanfare started up and everyone in the theater flipped out appropriately, and it all felt kind of surreal until the first sentence: “Luke Skywalker has vanished.” And at that point, everything suddenly became very real and I had to keep telling myself to stop crying, sheesh Emily, nothing has even happened yet.
We start of with Poe Dameron, and I was initially kind of disappointed because we’ve been shown Rey and Finn in the trailers for the most part and I was excited to get to them. And then Oscar Isaac opened his mouth and now and forever I plan to be furious at THIS CHARMING MOTHERF*CKER WHO BARELY SAYS TWO SENTENCES AND I’M IN LOVE WITH HIM FOR SOME REASON, STOP BEING SO AFFABLE AND FULL OF CHARISMA, YOU JERK.
The First Order shows up to ruin everything, and Poe gives the plans to BB-8 who manages to be the perfect hybrid of R2-D2 and Wall-E, and tells him he’ll come back for him, so already I’m full of emotions about that and also pleased by the smartness of the symmetry—hey, this cute droid had super important plans needed by the Resistance. How wonderfully familiar….
There’s a firefight and one of the stormtroopers visibly panics at the death of his fellow trooper, and of course it’s Finn, but this isn’t how I imagined being introduced to him, and I’m so damned impressed by the amount of character we can glean through a full suit of body armor. I’m worried for him already. Then there’s Captain Phasma being a boss, but here comes Kylo Ren, the character I was the most concerned about. His mask has been everywhere since this circus started, and I know Adam Driver is under there (who I have mixed feelings about), and it if he turns out to be a weak link, the whole movie is gonna crash and burn.
Then he pauses that blaster fire in mid air, and the physicality is on point, and it’s something new. He speaks and his synthesized voice is frightening, not the joke that General Grievous wound up being. Wow. I’m on board with Kylo Ren. My estimation at how much I’m going to enjoy the movie soars at that point. Then Max von Sydow and everyone around him dies, and we’re on a Star Destroyer, and Finn takes off his helmet and oh god, I hope Tumblr is prepared for their newest precious cinnamon roll because he truly is too perfect for this world. Leave him alone, Phasma, he’s having feelings.
We meet Rey and her life is horrible—she is worse than a cinnamon roll, and as I watch three minutes of this girl scrounging for scrap and eating horrible rations, I think, I would protect her with my life. Wait, what? What is happening to me, I did not expect to latch onto everyone so instantly HOW DARE YOU, JJ, I DO NOT REMEMBER STRIKING THIS BARGAIN WITH YOU. Then she saves BB-8 and they are friends and everything is right with the world. (Except for Rey and Finn’s aforementioned horrible lives, which require fixing stat.)
Finn busts Poe out after an unfortunate interrogation, and I am 500% on board with how much these two love each other instantly because it mirrors my own feelings about everyone in this movie, and also they are freaking adorable. Poor Poe disappears (though he’s obviously not dead), and Finn and Rey meet, and then they have to run away very quickly and they’re arguing about a garbage ship, and you’ve got this niggling sense in the back of your head going ‘But why don’t I see the garbage ship, where is OH GOD OF COURSE’ and the Millennium Falcon is standing by in all her glory. Star Wars just got even more Star Wars. The ensuing chase scene is excellent, and I will forever be mesmerized by BB-8’s ability to give a thumbs up.
Han and Chewie appear, and I’m actually kind of jarred because I was expecting to have to wait a little longer for that one. My favorite thing about their reintroduction is how done Chewie clearly is with propping up Han’s BS in old age. It’s just sarcastic comment after eye roll every time Han opens his mouth, and it feels so right. The revelation that Han is back to his old tricks is fun, but fills you with a sense of dread because you know that there’s bound to be a reason, and it can’t be a good one. But he strikes up a rapport with Rey and Finn right quick, and its wonderfully paternal and sweet.
I should mention here that I walked into this film expecting two things, thanks to the semi-drunken conversations I had with Chris Lough and Ryan Britt in the months leading up to the film: that Kylo was Han and Leia’s kid, and that Han was probably going to die in this film. It all just seemed to add up too well. So when Supreme Leader Snoke (not quite sold on that guy yet, hopefully he’ll come off a little more scary and shrewd going forward) tells Kylo about his dad getting involved in their business again, I wasn’t exactly surprised. More… unsettled.
Takodana is the most beautiful planet, though. I want to have a vacation there now please. Also, if you can’t have Yoda in a movie, Maz Kanata is exactly right as the wizened guide for the new generation. And her bar/temple is amazing. Because seriously, if you’re a thousand year old pirate, why wouldn’t you have a temple with booze in it? And then Rey finds The Lightsaber, you know, the important totem-y thing, and she has flashes of her own childhood and of what happened to Luke’s order of new Jedi, and clearly Rey is the super-special-destiny-cookie and I AM INTO THIS. Enough with all the guys being chosen ones, let this darling girl take the wheel. I have a choked up moment where all I can think of is the little girls everywhere watching this, and how much Rey is going to mean to them in the coming years.
She runs from the saber because that’s what you have to do when destiny is dropped on you, but it unfortunately leads to her capture. On the other hand, it gets Finn all invested because she and Poe are literally the only people that have imprinted on him so far. The face to face with Rey and Kylo, that first moment he takes off his mask, it’s perfect. My favorite thing about Ren is his inability to control the excessive anger he clearly feels all the time. It makes his use of the dark side a very different animal, raw and wounded and grasping for anchors. Even his lightsaber reflects that—the thing looks like it can barely contain its energy, it’s too much, just like the rest of him. You juxtapose him with Phasma and Hux, both carefully controlled (Phasma being the consummate trooper who never removes her helmet for a second) and it’s clear that the First Order is comprised of people with differing passions, which makes the organization that much more interesting.
An aside for the fact that First Order stormtroopers are recruited at birth, and that’s so similar to the Jedi Order, and I have so many thoughts about this the instant Hux brings it up, so that’s something I’m going to have to get out of my head eventually.
The Resistance shows up to drive the First Order back, and that is how you make a heroic entrance, THAT is how you do Star Wars. What a spectacular dogfight. Suddenly Han and Leia are reuniting, and I’m holding my breath for that one, but it’s interrupted by C-3PO who is the only character who is allowed to interrupt this moment. (Can I take a moment to talk about the fact that Anthony Daniels clearly gave Threepio an ever-so-slightly altered cadence to show that the droid is getting older? It’s carefully halted in odd places, and it just broke my heart. Threepio, you are my favorite.) And we finally get the real talk about Han and Leia’s estrangement—their kid turned to the dark side, and they broke apart. It make so much sense; effectively, their son died, and they retreated from each other. What hurts the most is how guilty Han clearly feels for failing Leia—he wants to fix things between them, but he doesn’t feel capable, hence his reason for volunteering to run a mission that he hasn’t really planned at all. Leia, on the other hand, has come to the revelation that love is really the only thing that can save their son, a parallel of Luke’s journey that hurts me so much.
We get Starkiller Base, blah, blah, let’s go blow it up, blah, blah, I mean, I don’t have a problem with the Death Star parallel, it’s just not all that interesting to comment on. On the other hand, the intense reunion between Poe and Finn is my jam. And then Finn goes with Han, and Han realizes that Finn does not really get what the Force means, which is going to be a problem with their not-plan. Rey is busy discovering that whenever she really calms down, she can access extreme wells of power, and she mind tricks a stormtrooper to break out (learning the Force by trial and error is a new favorite thing), and I’m thinking I know that trooper voice….
Which I do because IT’S DANIEL FLIPPING CRAIG. YOU TERRIBLE MAN. ILU.
Phasma gets thrown down the trash compactor (best callback ever), so we can be sure we’ll see her again, and then Han’s like ‘we gotta go blow up the thing with detonators’, and that’s the point where my stomach drops—it’s a big old red flag if I ever saw one. And then we get one better when he walks out to meet his son on catwalk over a bottomless pit with no railings. (Oh shit, his name is Ben, they named him Ben, just like Luke’s kid in the Legends canon, and I’m freaking out even more.) I actually don’t mind that they telegraph this moment. I’d rather be prepared for Han’s death, I’d rather not get caught off guard. And it’s tragic, and wrenching, but I can handle it, I can keep it together—
—and then Leia feels it and I’m sobbing audibly in this giant theater, and I will never recover from this.
And everything from that point on feels like a blur until Finn and Rey end up facing off with Kylo Ren. Poor Finn does his best, but he’s not really ready for this face off. (Still wondering if he’ll end up Force sensitive later on? I’d like it if he were….) And Ren is reaching out for Anakin’s lightsaber, but it comes to Rey because she has to have her crowning moment as special-destiny-cookie, and this is a beautifully sure one. Their fight is fantastic because we’re dealing with untrained elements again. Kylo’s technique is cruel but sloppy, and Rey clearly has no idea what she’s doing, and it makes for a great first fight. Chewie comes to the rescue, and he’s flying the Falcon alone because, you know, I hadn’t cried enough at this movie.
The Resistance wins the day, and Rey arrives on planet and immediately goes to Leia, and they hug and I am also entirely here for these two women sensing each other’s pain and caring about each other and fine, I’LL CRY AGAIN, ARE YOU HAPPY, MOVIE? But even with Finn out of commission, and questions about the next step, there’s only one question taking up my mind at this point—
WHERE THE HELL IS LUKE.
R2 finally wakes up! (Shout out for the fact that Threepio and Artoo clearly love BB-8. Droid friends forever.) And the map happens, and it’s quest time for Rey. She gets on board the Falcon—so many thoughts and feelings about how Chewie just latches onto her, and how there’s never any question that she inherits the ship—and arrives on a gorgeous island-dotted world, where she has to make a trek up a mountain with her offering. I’m about to chew my own hand off because if I don’t see him—movie, you better show me Luke Skywalker’s face…
And there he is. (Sobbing again, obviously. I’ve only been waiting for this moment since I first saw Return of the Jedi.) He sees that lightsaber and he knows. That one look is all we need. And we’re left with the two of them standing on a mountain, teacher and apprentice, and the possibilities just stretching out to infinity. Movie over.
So that was pretty much how that first viewing went. I’ll probably see it several more times in the theater, and I have lots of aspects I’m desperate to discuss, but that was my blow-by-blow reaction. With all caps and ramblings and the like. Time to spend another day in the office bouncing more theories off of coworkers and generally flailing.
Because Star Wars is back.
Emmet Asher-Perrin also finds herself shipping Stormpilot without ever recalling giving herself permission to do so, because idk their love is so real. You can bug her on Twitter and Tumblr, and read more of her work here and elsewhere.
“Because Star Wars is back“
I have to admit this was my biggest fear — that it would not be back. That this would be an okay movie, but nothing near the obsession-spawning, culture-impacting catchphrase-creating juggernaut that the original trilogy was. While I’m still not sure how kids these days will react to it, I know that it felt so “Star Wars” to me that I could feel myself back on the floor of my neighbor’s living room, watching their crappy VHS copy of Empire recorded off of HBO. The prequels never did that. In fact, the only thing that ever did that was the Thrawn trilogy of books, and now there’s no EU and I’m still bitter about that, but that’s not what we’re talking about.
My main takeaway from the movie was that I have to go back and watch it again. Or rather, that I have to watch the Lightsaber-finding scene again and again and again frame-by-information-saturated frame.
-Beren
Ben Solo punched my childhood in the heart.
one of the best things was han’s unadulterated joy at using chewie’s bowcaster. that first shot with it…he’s obviously thinking “why have i never used this before? how can i get one of my own?”
okay, one of the best things besides rey. rey was freaking awesome.
Pretty sure that was Luke’s lightsaber, as Anakin’s was lost with Luke’s hand. “Nooooooooooooo!”
She said it was Luke’s, and Vader’s before him — the implication seemed to be that this was the one lost in Cloud City.
No, Luke’s lightsaber in Jedi was a different design with a kind of a flared emitter. Vader’s was a similar design, but with more black accents up at the tip. The one in Force Awakens definitely looks most like the one that was last seen falling towards the bottom of Cloud City; someone must’ve retrieved it from a dust filter?
My one sentence reviews for my first three viewings. I reckon by the time it’s left the cinemas sometime in February, I should know how I really feel, hehe!
I’ve been pretty much useless at work today because all I’ve been doing is discussing Star Wars and everything that I think is going to happen in the upcoming movies and what everything meant that happened in this one. You’re review was awesome, I’ve seen it twice now and it was nice to be able to pay attention to the little things, like the flashbacks when Rey touches the Lightsaber during the 2nd viewing. The first time I was just so excited about everything that happened and every single scene. I hope to see it many many more times in the theater and I wish it was coming out on Blu-Ray like tomorrow.
Now that I’m reading comments on the internet it has to be the Lightsaber that Obi-Wan gave Luke in A New Hope and that he lost in ESB. I had originally thought that Luke must have given it to Maz but since this is the one he lost in Cloud City that begs a very important question. How did Maz get her hands on it? Hmmmmmmmm
Emily, you are a precious cinnamon roll who perfectly encapsulated my experience watching this film. (Twice.)
Sobs and all. :D
“Star Wars is back”
Apparently it never left since Force Awakens just took A New Hope and gave it a face lift.
Emily, thank you so much for existing. I avoided the internet all weekend, but I loved the movie, and by the time I got back, the first wave of excitement had passed, and now we are set in picking apart everything that the movie wasn’t, instead of loving what it was. But you are still here for that excitement.
I understand the complaints that after his initial intro, Finn acts in a supporting role to the other character’s agency. But he is the audience insert and soul of the film. NOT every character can drive the plot, and that’s okay. Finn got to be sensitive and kind, fearful yet courageous, traitorous yet loyal. He’s not a stoic badass. He has room to grow as a character. I think a lot of the complaints boil down to the fact that people wanted Moses with a lightsaber, and instead learned that John Boyega CAN ACT(shocker, right?).
@8, Maz had better tell us that story in VIII(which starts filming in JANUARY PEOPLE!!!!)
[wavy line flashback]
EXT: CLOUD CITY
DISSOLVE TO: TWO UGNAUGHTS CLEANING DEBRIS OFF OF A VENT.
UGNAUGHT A: EXCITED SQUEAL
UGNAUGHT B: INQUISITIVE GRUNT
UGNAUGHT A HOLDS UP A DESSICATED SEVERED HAND CLUTCHING A FAMILIAR SILVER TUBE
Saw it Thursday night after a three-hour wait outside of Kip’s Bay with two 12-year-olds. By the time it started I was just a ball of raw nerves. I was enjoying it but I couldn’t relax enough to really sink into it the way I wanted. After it was over and I finally calmed down I felt this joyous, warm glow, and all I could think about was how much I wanted to see it again. When I woke up Friday morning, the first thing I thought about was Han touching Ben’s face and Chewy losing his shit and Leia looking like she’d been gut-punched and I ugly-cried into my pillow for a solid half hour. THIS MOVIE.
Thank you for writing this and reminding me of the things that I liked about this movie. It’s always fun living your excitement with you when you write things like this.
The things I didn’t like are detailed elsewhere, so I don’t care to go into those details again. Basically, how the “realism” kind of reverses the character arcs of the original trilogy. Also, structurally, I might have cut out Starkiller base completely and I kind of think Han’s death would’ve worked better in episode VIII. I can’t imagine the “I am your father” moment working as well at the end of IV, and I feel like Han’s death would’ve also worked better story-wise in the middle of the trilogy.
But there was also a lot of good stuff in this movie that I kind of want to see again, and now I’m just feeling on the fence. I don’t know if I’ve reached the Acceptance stage quite yet. Depression, yes, and certainly Bargaining, which is where I feel I am now. Maybe only a little Anger, but I think my wife went through that stage, and she definitely went through Denial, which I don’t think I’ve quite moved into yet, although it is a possible future.
But now your review has me ON THE FENCE. And I don’t know how I feel.
http://explosm.net/comics/4154/
Also Lukes lightsaber is green in Return of the Jedi.
Yep, I love your reactions, Emily, as usual.
I also enjoyed the movie immensely. I was thrown out of it by the firing of Starkiller Base, and that has dominated my discussions on the net regarding the film, but I did like it a lot. I need to see the movie again, knowing how that will go, so my brain can ignore it and see the second half of the film. Especially the vision quest scene.
My one and only complaint:
For a guy who quit the Stormtrooper Biz because he didn’t want to kill people, Finn seemed to have no problem at all killing gangs and gangs of his just-barely-former Brothers-in-Arms!
I don’t mind him joining the Resistance and fighting for the Light Side. But he should at least be conflicted about killing guys who have been at his side all his life, who have lived essentially the same life he has.
I have no problem at all with him deciding not to slaughter innocent civilians, and no problem at all with him deciding to leave the organization that ordered him to do it.
Having quit the First Order, i don’t even mind him fighting against them.
But he was raised from childhood to be a Stormtrooper. He went through the academy and into active duty deployment with others just like him, who were raised to wear the white armor for the First Order.
So when he’s lining up his shots and killing them, it would only make sense to see him at least a little conflicted about it.
Yes, it was kill them or be killed by them, but he knew he was betraying everything he and they had ever known. Again, I have no complaint about his fighting and killing for the Resistance! But a guy who turned his back on killings that literally his entire life had led to should show some sign of hesitation or remorse when turning against a lifetime’s training, and killing men he’d have called “brother” the day before.
And how much more would we have liked him, to see that conflict, that pain, as he kills. Then, maybe, a bit of dialogue like:
POE: Are you all right?
FINN: I… It’s all right. It’s fine. It’s just– It’s hard. Until today, they were my brothers-in-arms.
POE: (shaken) I’m sorry. I didn’t know. I never thought…
FINN: They’re all just guys, Poe. Just guys like you and me, with a duty to do.
I don’t know — I didn’t get the feeling that he was against killing per se. More that he was not going to kill for them. And as for feeling conflicted . . . it seems like they did everything they could to de-humanize themselves to each other. The whole “you’re not supposed to have your helmet off” goes a long way toward showing that they’re not exactly devoted to each other, merely to the idea of the First Order / Empire. When his disillusionment with that particular entity manifested, he had no reason to display any compunction for eliminating its agents — they were never a family, never brothers-in-arms, just another bunch of faceless members of his faceless squad.
At least, that’s how I read it.
Hah, I so wish we could have gone to see it with you because I totally need somebody to sob with (sorry, it feels kind of weird to do that with my husband, haha). Like, is it normal that I feel like I should need grief counselling or something right now? This isn’t normal. I think I spontaneously got tears in my eyes like five times today at work. Clearly, I need professional help. In fact, I think I’m still stuck hard in the ‘denial’ stage, or maybe ‘anger’. (I don’t remember the order of the stages but it’s a ridiculously apt analogy. Am I really this lame? Yes, yes I am). I bounced hard off this movie, and I’m not sure I’ll ever truly accept it.
First, the good – I was actually quite surprised to see some of the criticisms leveled against Rey and Finn because I just loved them both, I loved the chemistry between them, I loved their personalities, etc. And Poe Dameron. OMG. If I see this movie again (big if) it will be solely for Poe <3 <3 <3 <3 <3. I had no real opinion of him at all from the trailers, pre-movie material. Non-married me would have such a ridiculous crush on him, lol. Honestly, I kind of want to see the movie again just to see him taking the piss out of Kylo Ren again, and his earnest niceness to Finn. (HE NAMED HIM! HE IS THE ONE WHO GAVE HIM HIS NAME! *sniffle*) I’m gushing. I’ll stop now :)
Also, OMG, Finn and Rey’s hug and Finn ‘rescuing’ her from Starkiller Base. *flails* Of course, Rey takes after her aunt/grandmother (I’m going with the Rey Skyalkwer theory for now) and can totally rescue herself and shimmy up some walls, thank you very much! And Finn is somehow both badass and adorkable and vulnerable to me. (Also, YES to the thoughts about baby snatching stormtroopers! I had the same thought!)
I’m also kind of in love with Kylo’s Anakin hair. Or is it more of a Jon Snow look?
My blow by blow would actually be really quite similar to yours for the first half of the movie. Well, basically until we ge to sad sack Mal Reynolds, I mean Han. At that point…I had a hard time really enjoying it and just felt the same foreboding.
I’ve kind of repeated myself on several other threads, but I’m just really having a hard time reconciling my original love for the movies, and the reasons I loved those movies, and the personal factors in my life that influenced all that, with the fallout we see here and the way time has just not been kind to our beloved heroes. I’m not saying it wasn’t well done, or well executed, or powerful, or emotional, or believable that things COULD turn out that way and they would react that way, or that everything should be rainbows and butterflies for them. But for me…it’s not <I>enjoyable</I>. I don’t WANT to feel like I need to sob for days after seeing the movie, or that I can’t even bring myself to watch the originals for awhile because ugggh none of it really mattered. Likewise, it makes me leery of even getting attached to the new characters or their relationships if we’ve established this is that type of story now. It would be one thing if the characters had gone out in a kind of blaze of glory, or something that seemed meaningful, and like you could raise your glass and say, ‘well they had a good run’, or that Han and Leia had had a united front throughout the whole thing, but I feel like that’s not even really true at this point.
Now, maybe in the end, a lot more will become clear. I really hope Han’s last sacrifice actually will mean/accomplish something, and that Luke’s sacrifices actually will redeem the Skywalker line and resurrect the Jedi (in a better way than they were in the PT). But man, Han/Leia was like my first OTP and I am totally not ready to let that ship go.
Fuuuck, I’m like about to cry againnn..thank goodness my officemate already left for the day…
Okay, crzydroid’s comment at 15 made me laugh really hard because he must have been writing it at the same time and I swear, I came up with the grief stages thing in the bathroom before writing this comment all on my own. I also had the same reaction which is – your review almost makes me want to see it again. You always do such a good job capturing the experience.
@14 – I am also glad I am not the only one who wants to ugly cry after seeing this movie. I feel like I have MOSTLY held it together but there has been some breathy sobbing going on and for whatever reason I almost started crying while ordering my morning coffee and had to just sit down for a minute.
By the way, Emily, do you know how lucky you are that needing to discuss Star Wars and bounce around is BASICALLY YOUR JOB and not something INTERFERING WITH your job? LOL. Jealous.
@22:
THIS. They say do what you love and you’ll always love what you do. Nice work if you can get it.
@18, @19:
I like Beren’s take on it. Couple of things.
They are faceless to one another, as well. That’s a completely different thing than shooting a bunch of civilians. Also, Finn spends most of the movie TRYING to get away so he doesn’t have to fight any one ever. He just wants to go hide on the outer rim. He decides at some point that he wants to protect Rey more than he wants to hide.
Prior to that, his only attacking was done to protect himself. There’s not much to be conflicted about.
@18: I’d had that thought about Finn killing the other stormtroopers as well, but then I realized that just because he turned, didn’t mean that he broke his programming completely. So when he is killing the stormtroopers, it’s his programming kicking in, but the enemy has changed. We see during the course of his arc that he is kind of bouncing all over the place in terms of defining what it means to have an identity, and so I think his actions there are just one part of that struggle.
I suppose there’s also room for him to turn out to be a total Teal’c-like character from SG-1: At first after switching sides he seems cool with killing other Jaffa (and even later as necessary), but his quest ultimately becomes freeing his Jaffa ‘brothers’ from Goa’uld enslavement. So Finn could totally still go down a path of trying to free his fellow stormtroopers.
Yep! Took the words right out of my brain. Thanks for the article, Emily!
I saw the movie twice this weekend and absolutely loved it, as did my 12 year old daughter (who I took with me the first time I saw it on Friday). When we left the theater her exact words were “That was EPIC dad!!!”.
Also, I was able to let the wonky science stuff go and just enjoy the movie. Didn’t bother me at all (and to be honest I kind of expect that from SW).
@@@@@ Lisamarie
I think that you are being a little harsh on Han both here and over on the spoiler thread. I neither saw him as a loser or a deadbeat dad. It seemed pretty clear to me that Ben turning to the dark side and destroying Luke’s new Jedi order was the reason that Han and Leia split up. It reminds me of the stories you hear about loving couples who lose a child and end up separating because they can’t get over the loss of the child.
It makes sense to me that Han and Leia would drift apart as they both try to cope with the loss by diving into things they know to occupy their time and keep from thinking about the loss. For Leia that meant throwing herself fully into the resistance and for Han returning to smuggling.
As someone who has gone through the whole marriage, family, divorce thing this situation seems more realistic to me then the happily ever after. I understand that you are not looking for reality in your SW and would prefer the happily ever after but I still think you are coming down hard on Han as a result of that.
Anyways, this movie felt like SW to me and that is what’s important (to me, lol). Star Wars is back and I love it!
What really caught my attention was how enraged Rey seemed at the climax of her fight against Kylo Ren. And her powers seemed to increase with that anger. She was clearly fearful as Kylo Ren started chasing after her, but by the end, she was definitely not running away from any fight! I too, was left with the impression that Rey is the offspring of Skywalker.
I loved Rey. She’s a great hero (as are Finn and Poe)! I hope she doesn’t have a dark side future.
Interesting that the entire cast will be returning to episode 8. I can’t help but wonder & hope- might the technologies that saved the lives of those such as Vader and General Grievous and others, also save Han? I’m not feeling very optimistic at all about that possibility, but maybe something saved that old pirate. I was not ready to say goodbye to Han! Rest In Peace Han
What an INCREDIBLE Star Wars experience! I LOVED this movie!
This is the best honest ‘blow by blow’ reaction I have ever read. You are so right about Rey being an a inspirations for many little girl who watch this film, massive role model just hope next two film will only boost this creditential.
I think it depends on the timelines – my impression (which could be wrong) was that he’d kind of checked out of the family thing way before that, or at least was not a present father (and possibly Leia was not around much either) and basically abandoned them (this is also kind of influenced by a comment somebody made about Aftermath but I might have misinterpreted that too – but I had an impression he left them while she was pregnant, possibly and…nope. Not cool). This might actually not be what happened though. I haven’t read any of the books or other extra source material.
But it’s also kind of how they presented him as being kind of a crappy, down on his luck, smuggler, not having the Falcon, etc. Kind of a low place to put him in. He definitely was past his prime, at any rate. Nor did he seem very happy or satisfied with his life and was barely keeping it together. I agree with Emily that it’s obvious he feels a lot of guilt and useless-ness at the situation and was trying to make things right. He definitely died trying to do the right thing. I just think it is more thematically satisfying to see somebody in that place, and then able to get out, instead of ending their story there. (I think you’re totally right about it being very similar to the losing a child scenario, and that does happen in many cases). It’s a part of some peoples’ reality, but at the same time, it’s also part of other peoples’ realities that it works the other way so…I think it could have been done believably/poignantly in other ways too. They have bumps and ups and downs and tragedy and grief; but make it through together. So realism doesn’t necessarily demand it and in some ways I think it’s a little…I don’t know, condescending, to act like those are the only two options – fairy tale ‘fake’ and ‘realism’ which involves mostly bad stuff, and kind of does a disservice to those that DO make it through that kind of stuff. I can understand the logical underpinnings of it all, but it doesn’t mean I have to like it. I appreciate that they clearly still had a kind of bittersweet affection for each other, but I still want more for them than that :) YMMV and all that.
(And if for other people this is more resonant to their reality – I don’t want to diminish that. But please don’t tell me I don’t want ‘reality’. Heh, I probably said that at one point though but not going to check. I guess what I’m saying is I tend to prefer the best version of reality, at least in Star Wars. I can appreciate gritty realism too, but I just like it better in other stories. I like to at least have something that can lift me up. Again, YMMV. We all like it for different reasons.)
But then again, we’ll have to see what comes of Kylo in the end and if Han’s death ends up accomplishing something meaningful. I’m still undecided as to if this will actually serve the story and overall themes, as opposed to just being ‘realistic’, but presenting the worse parts reality has to offer. And maybe it does, maybe it’s about how the dark side tears families apart, etc. The question is – after 9 movies (assuming you count the prequels) what is the ultimate theme/message going to be?
And I think mostly, it irritates me (like sand, ha) that Han won’t really get any closure. I might even be able to handle the on again/off again if I felt like there was some closure there, or Han got to feel at peace, etc. It just kind of sucks watching the end of RotJ and thinking, ‘welp, the back end of your life is going to suck’ . I mean, does anybody really watch that and think, “You know what would be really cool? If it turns out that their future lives are full of tragedy, they aren’t able to weather it, and he dies alone.”
That’s a personal preference for how I like stories to end up though. I also think it’s important – precisely BECAUSE of the reality that we are so complex and flawed – to see heroes that get more or less to be heroes (within reason, I don’t mean a 100% flawless never-do-no-wrong cookie cutter stereotype character who has no room to grow), or at least struggle upward. I don’t necessarily want to watch characters that are like me and stay that way, I want to see characters that are something I can aspire to, or that go through struggles and progress. That CAN be realistic too. But this is also a personal stylistic choice. Don’t get me wrong, I do think Han was certainly heroic in this movie and in his death. I just wanted…more. Like, he got his wake up call in this movie, so it would have been more interesting/engaging (to me) to see him get back to his old self some more, before getting killed. But…who knows what significance that will have going forward so…we’ll see.
Again, all this is totally YMMV type stuff. What works for you may not work for me and vice versa/
Thanks for this review, Emily. I am amazed by all the raw emotion that has been displayed in this discussion and others. These movies have definitely become something more than just another tale we tell to entertain each other.
I myself smiled a lot, laughed, and got a little misty when the music started at the very beginning. The main emotion I felt was joy–I had a lot of fun.
The only thing I would change is to get rid of yet another Death Star–the movie could have worked just fine without it, better in fact. But I’m not in the mood to pick it apart–that would take the fun out of it.
I’ll see it again, perhaps once in 3D, and maybe also in IMAX. And I’m looking forward to the next one!
Quoth Em: “I have a choked up moment where all I can think of is the little girls everywhere watching this, and how much Rey is going to mean to them in the coming years.”
This. Times a million.
—Keith R.A. DeCandido
Whoa. Hadn’t picked up on that.
I wonder if Rey “balances” the Force by being able to use both sides safely?
@Lisa Marie
JJ Abrams in regard to the death of Han Solo “ He feels like this great, sexy piece of luggage you have in your movie.“
I’ll also say that we don’t know exactly why Han was roaming the space lanes. We THINK he’s gone back to smuggling, but IF Rey IS Luke’s daughter, do you think he abandoned her on Jakku? Maybe Han LET Deik(??) think they stole the Falcon, and it was there waiting for Rey the whole time, with Han roaming on the lookout for the Falcon, making sure no one took it before Rey could? It makes sense that if Luke took Rey to Jakku so she would be safe from Kylo, then he wanted her to leave eventually, and that Han would go along with Luke’s desire to see his niece safe from his own son.
@30: Han doesn’t run away from a pregnant Leia. He gets a time-sensitive opportunity to free Kashyyyk from Imperial enslavement, and takes it (at Chewie’s insistence), but goes AWOL from his Alliance duties to do so. This is about a year after RotJ, and I don’t think he and Leia are even married yet.
(I expect this adventure to be explored in Wendig’s second Star Wars novel, Life Debt.)
@35 – thanks for the clarification. I think I had kind of read the comment from another thread (I think it just said something about Han ‘betraying the alliance or something) and also applied it to what I thought was the timeline, but that at least makes me feel a lot better about how things actually shook out. Although according to the Star Wars wiki, Kylo is born within a year or so of ROTJ I think so they might be married. Anyway…still processing ALL THE FEELS so I’m probably all over the place with my comments.
@34 – hah, I really want to love that theory. And your theories usually are spot on. Although his comment to Leia kind of suggests otherwise. I certainly hope there is more to his story though.
@28 -you know, Clone Wars canon established that Darth Maul could be bisected and fall down a bottomless pit and survive….;) J/K I don’t actually want that to happen to Han. Regardless of how I feel about his death, the nature of his arc, etc I hate cop outs like that even more because it’s like trying to have your cake and eat it too – the emotional impact/shock of the death, but still getting the character back. In some stories it does make sense but…if they’re going to go ‘tragedy’ with Han’s arc, go big or go home).
That said, I totally forgive it with Poe because…Poe Dameron. <3
Yay, thank you for sharing this enthusiasm! This was really fun to read : )
Awesome review!!! I already had high expectations for Star Wars 7 from the trailers, and from my friends who saw it opening night, who told me that I will love it. I saw it in 3D on Sunday at 1:50 pm, and I was blown away! It felt like Star Wars, and it felt like I was in it! The Battle scenes were amazinglying choreographed so that you can follow every jab and counter jab, and every blast. Every emotion was felt from joy and humor, to awe and inspiration, to fear and tears. I was surprised by several plot twists that just completed the story so well. The Characters were deep. The force was strong in this movie. I can’t wait to see it again! I would love to have a part in making future Starwars movies as a 3D Artist and an extra. Star Wars 7 inspires me to create new 3D illustrations. My illustrations for “Visionary from the Stars” has a Starwars feel to it. I can’t wait to do some Star Wars fan Art. I love the look of the new stormtroopers. Everything looked amazing!! I believe this movie will inspire great creations from the the future generations to come. Yes, Star Wars is definitely back!!!!!!!!!!
If I am not mistaken, there was something in the opening yellow letter crawl about Leia sending two of her best people to Jakku on some errand. And at one point, didn’t Han say he wasn’t near Jakku by accident? So, just exactly what was that errand? To pick up a certain young lady, perhaps?
But perhaps my recollections are faulty here. So I turn to you, the forces of the Internet, to help…
I thought it said she sent her best pilot to meet with an old ally, who I assume was Max von Sydow, who refers to Leia as royalty and seems to know the family.
“Leia has sent her most daring pilot on a secret mission to Jakku” — from the screencrawl in the novelization.
I’m glad people are enjoying the movie, and I hope that kids get out of it what I got out of Star Wars back in the day. My own feelings are more conflicted. I had a lot of fun watching the film in the IMAX theater–there are some really impressive shots.
Still…this movie must grapple with The Problem that all post-ROTJ fiction faces. By extending the story of the heroes, we pretty much guarantee that they will not have happy ends. The job of elders in Star Wars is to suffer and die for the younger generation, and to leave regrets and unfulfilled duties for those that follow. Now that we have this movie, I sort of resent a bit that we dragged Han, Luke, and Leia out of happy retirement; didn’t they suffer enough? But, this is what fans want I guess.
It wouldn’t bother me so much if the movie was excellent, but it was ‘only’ pretty good. I was a little too conscious of my nostalgia being manipulated; when the sweeping Force Theme stirs my emotions, I’m aware that it’s because of how the first movies made me feel when I was a kid–not entirely because of what is happening in this movie right now. I didn’t really notice any new noteworthy music.
I don’t want to sound too negative; like I said, I had fun. And the young cast is as charismatic and likable as Ford, Hamill, and Fisher were. But I have a hard time embracing the movie without reservation.
Great review. I care about these characters-new and old. Can’t wait for May 2017.
It didn’t happen right away, but I’m falling for the new John Williams motifs, specifically Rey’s theme. Probably his best work since Across the Stars, from Episode II.
The friendships between Poe and BB8 and Rey and Finn were the highlight of the film for me (along with General Leia). I adore especially, all Finn’s attempts to hold Rey’s hand while running away, only minutes after them meeting. And the part where they made their crazy dashing escape in the Millennium Falcon, scrabbling so hard to figure out how to work their parts of the ship, and then meet up in the corridor to squee about how well they did.
The scene in which Poe and Finn are reunited – but BB8 gets in first because they belong to Poe more – is so funny and sweet, and it only just occurs to me that this totally mirrors the Han-Leia-Threepio reunion.
I can’t believe they created a newer, cuter droid which makes R2 look like the heartbroken, veteran droid that he is.
SO MANY EMOTIONS THIS FILM. Can’t believe they finally brought the feelings back to Star Wars after the bizarre desert of convincing emotion that was the prequels.
@42 – yeah. Actually, I keep thinking I’m finally ready to accept the movie, or move on and give it another chance, but then I see some random piece of Star Wars memorabilia in our house and I’m like NOPE and kind of want to crawl into bed and cry for an hour. It’s just so surreal. Funnily enough, my mom calls me Spock. I’m not a particularly emotional person. I’m reasonably sure I’ve shed more tears over this than any actual death I’ve experienced in my life. That’s so freaking insane. I find movies a little more ‘safe’ to grieve over than actual tragedy (I tend to go numb in the face of actual death, or, depending on the circumstance accept it more gracefully) and a safer way to process all that kind of thing. But I also think partially because this is all mucking up stuff I didn’t expect to be mucked up. I’m not actually a sunny, Pollyanna, everything has happy endings naïve type of person. I tend to be generally anxious and sometimes depressed, and my Facebook trending sidebar algorithm shows a tendency to get lost for hours in all of the horrible articles about freak car accidents, child murderers, rapists, home invasions, etc. So it’s not even that I’m unaware of what ‘reality’ is for a lot of people, but I already spend too much time with that view. I made a joke in one of my posts about how I need therapy, but I have gone to therapy to help with two things; my general anxiety and the negative/fearful lens I tend to view the world in, and resolving general thought patterns that were set in childhood (bullying, etc) that are still unhealed wounds in some ways. So I think in my head – maybe more than I realized – I kind of needed Star Wars (and other similar stories) to be a better version of the world I could imagine or retreat to or take inspiration from. And I don’t know how crazy or not that is – I think a lot of people (at least judging from what I read here) have a certain stories they always go to for inspiration and hope or a pick me up, and that’s what Star Wars was for me. My favorite types of movies before that were slasher movies, and I used to write purposefully disturbing/gory things in all my papers. So, given that the movies were pretty important to me in that respect and in being something more positive and not overly dark, and an example of somebody who DID overcome the darkness inside of them; it’s almost like being brought back to that point and it NOT being positive and it’s just strange. The funny thing is, I recently finished out my therapy sessions (they were helpful) and now almost feel like I need to call back and be all ‘I’m having an existential crisis over the latest Star Wars movie!’. (That’s a bit tongue in cheek, but honestly, what a freaking first world problem)
Other people don’t have all the weird little hang ups I do so they probably are able to enjoy this with a little less reservation ;) And are better at compartmentalizing than I am so they can still view the older movies and not just be totally bogged down by what comes. Actually, there is probably some Star Wars-y lesson in here to be learned about that and attachment. My husband joked that the key is to listen to Qui-Gon and just be mindful of the living Force and the moment ;) All things must pass (one of my favorite songs), and alla that.
Contrary to what it may seem like I don’t actually depend on a fictional universe to provide my worldview or happiness, but it is making me think about a few things. Which is good. I don’t know if I’ll ever truly enjoy it or if it will be to my taste, but we’ll see. I feel like in a few days or so I’ll be able to disentangle my personal experiences from the movie itself and view with a little more distance, as well as work through whatever it is this is dredging up: Dealing with things that seem meaningless, I suppose, or the need for hope in the face of non-happy endings, or the ability to still enjoy good things even when there are bad things before or after. Actually, hmm, that’s a huge problem I have. I can’t even enjoy time I spend with my children because all I can think is SOME TRAGEDY MIGHT BEFALL US. Did I just have some type of breakthrough?
Okay, now that I’ve basically co-opted the Tor forum as my own personal therapist couch, time to peace out, go home and rethink my life ;)
(But seriously, I have a final exam in my night class tomorrow and then leave for a vacation so I won’t be word vomiting all over this site for awhile. Sorry for being unable to shut up but I do enjoy reading/experiencing what everybody is saying and all their perspectives. Nobody else at work has really seen it and my husband and I are sometimes a bit of a echo chamber with each other).
As much as I liked Kylo Ren overall, I kept thinking Marilyn Manson. Manson wears the same kind of clothes, wears the same stacked boots and even the same walk. Really distracting.
Awesome review, though you forgot to mention one of the most epic moments in the movie. After Han dies, and not even giving us a second to think it through, CHEWIE GOES FREAKING BERSERK MODE AND NOT ONLY SHOOTS KYLO REN AND HITS HIM BUT ALSO SINGLEHANDEDLY KILLS I DON’T KNOW HOW MANY FREAKING STORMTROOPERS AND BLOWS UP THE GORRAM SHIELD GENERATORS. OMG that moment was F’ing epic, the amount of rage and emotion you feel from poor chewie, who’s been with Han longer than Leia or Luke is just amazing. JJ ABRAMS IS A BEAST.
OMG STOP EVERYTHING I JUST READ THAT “REY THESE ARE YOUR FIRST STEPS” WAS SAID TO HER NOT BY LUKE BUT BY NO ONE OTHER THAN OBI WAN FORCE SPIRIT KENOBI HIMSELF OH MY GOD THIS CHANGES EVERYTHING!!!!!!!!!!!
This movie makes me so happy in many levels. (Ewan McGregor’s Kenobi was the best thing in the prequels.)
You forgot to comment about the best bit in the movie, just after Finn and Rey are done with their dogfight on Jakku, they meet in the center of the ship, high-fiving each other and telling each other how awesome they were. You can feel their excitement and gleefulness, it was just so adorable.
“An aside for the fact that First Order stormtroopers are recruited at birth, and that’s so similar to the Jedi Order, and I have so many thoughts about this the instant Hux brings it up…”
Pretty much exactly my thoughts. I watched it once with adult friends and got all kinds off teary-eyed and emotional, then saw it with my son (18) and my girlfriend’s 12 and 9 year olds. The 9yo kept losing her mind, every chase scene, every dogfight, was AWESOME to watch, and the 12yo kept talking about her ship for PoFinn the whole ride home.
And, lucky me, my 20yo daughter wants to see it, too. With me <gushes>. Guess I’ll go order more tickets….
@35, @36:
Given the timeline, I made a comment saying that when he left in Aftermath, I bet that Leia was pregnant.
It was 4 months after the Battle of Endor. Kylo Ren has to be at least 28-30 for the timeline to work. He also has to be 10 years older than Rey for the timeline to work as presented. So, most likely, Leia was pregnant with Kylo Ren when Han left. I highly doubt they ever got married.
But I never meant to imply that either of them knew that at the time.
We don’t know what happens after, but the people Han uses to help free Kayshhyk are a bunch of smugglers. I can’t imagine they did it out of the goodness of their hearts, or that Han had enough favors to make that all possible.
Its a reasonable supposition that Han’s choices her left him with no choice but to return to his old life. He most likely incurred debts to shady people to make all this happen. He may be still fulfilling those debts when we see him in The Force Awakens. That puts him back in the same situation he was in at the beginning of A New Hope.
I think he was gone, a lot, fulfilling these debts and obligations during Kylo’s first decade, but he was still around some, and he and Leia were still “together”. But they strongly imply that even before Kylo fell to the dark side that it wasn’t great all the time, or even most of the time.
And there is no way Leia had a lot of time to be a mom, leading the end of the Rebellion, building the New Republic with Mon Mothma, and then later forming the Resistance and leading it. So i can easily imagine a scenario which explains Kylo Ren’s petulant behavior, and fits in nicely with the scene with Han on the bridge. From his perspective, he grew up alone, he wasn’t as important to his parents as everything else was (even though, from his parents perspective, this was all FOR him… kids don’t, and will never, see it that way. And the kids are right), and then Leia dumps him on Luke’s lap when he acts out. She does it out of concern for him, but that’s not the way a child would see it. It completely explains the way Ren acts in this movie.
But it’s all supposition.
Just saw the movie for the second time last night. I do wish Abrams had slowed it down just a little, which I think he could easily have done without losing the overall pace of the story, so we had a little more ability to enjoy some of the dogfighting action (although maybe I’m just too old for the kids these days and their being accustomed to action so fast you can’t follow it) and good lines. One of the ones I liked most on rewatch was when Finn complained about Chewie, “He’s almost killed me six times!” and then Chewie grabs him around the neck and he chokes out, “And I’m all right with that!” I laughed out loud. Definitely a bit of a Lando moment but I had completely missed it at first.
@52, I haven’t read Aftermath yet, but just from the movie I had more of the impression that Han and Leia had been together for several years and he didn’t leave (or they both didn’t retreat to their old familiar, separate roles) until after Ben fell. Even if Han may have disappeared for awhile around the Aftermath timeline for a specific reason. Man, I would be completely bummed to think it *never* really worked out between them. I saw too much lingering affection even in their short scenes to think that had really been the case.
Emily – I don’t have time to write a long review of my own…or even a proper response to your review!! But I just wanted to say thank you for this review – best review I’ve read yet, and one I *needed* to read. Thank you thank you Emily. I knew I could count on you(yours was the review I was most looking forward to). =)
I was checking the Star Wars wiki, and it does say they got married after Endor and cited the TFA Incredibly Cross Sections book (apparently he redid part of the Falcon as a wedding gift for her). In fact, it implies this happened AFTER the liberation of Kashyyk. And it also says Kylo was born within a year or so of TFA so he’s about 30 (he seems younger to me, to be honest) and that their marriage didn’t really end and he didn’t go back to smuggling until after Kylo really turned. I think your supposition is right that they probably did struggle, especially with their powerful son and how best to parent him, but (not having read Aftermath) I guess we don’t know what was really going on in those intervening years and when the cracks appeared and how good the good times were, how bad the bad times were, and their relative proportions, etc. It’s possible parts of the wiki entry itself is also based on supposition that the sequel to Aftermath will have to fill.
But, I resent the story being written such that this is even the logical path we have to follow in the first place and that everything has to go down the path of worst case scenario (or close to it). And I also kind of resent the implication the story is now making that Leia can’t be a good parent because she’s busy with her career. Obviously it happens, but it’s also kind of stereotypical and there are so many ‘realistic’ examples of good career mothers too. Although maybe in universe Leia was a great mom and it was more about Kylo’s chip on his shoulder; we just don’t know. I don’t even know what’s sadder; if Han and Leia actually were pretty good parents but still couldn’t save their son (a huge fear for all parents, I think), or if they just completely dropped the ball there and are now faced with their mistakes.
If these were all new characters, I actually might be totally on board because the story in itself is compelling/interesting and speaks to the fears and perils involved in parenting. And maybe that’s a tad hypocritical of me to not care as much about the trauma of some nameless parents. But like I said, who wants to watch the original trilogy and root for Han and Leia to get together so they can later separate and unable to connect with their son and all have shitty lives? It just undermines the enjoyment of originals/previously invested characters. It COULD happen that way, but it COULD happen other ways too so. The story itself is well-executed, logically consistent, emotionally powerful, etc. Do not get me wrong on that; as a self contained thing, or maybe as a Star Wars movie set 100 years in the future, it’s amazing. But it somewhat confirms my original thoughts when I heard this whole project which was; the story already had a fairly satisfying and rounded arc, so restarting it is only going to mess with it, and subtract from it, not add to it. I guess the question is – what is the point of doing it this way? What message is it that the filmmakers are trying to convey?
It’s also one thing if these movies were all being made in quick succession and this was the plan from the start. But it wasn’t. And from a meta standpoint and the way the world is right now, it makes perfect sense that these are the movies that are getting made now; that people will look at childhood heroes and think, ‘they are probably very flawed individuals, and things are never simple. They did not actually get a happy ending, and despite our best efforts things will never work out, the bad things will be too strong to overcome, and tragedy is always just around the corner’. Maybe that’s the message the filmmakers think we need to hear now? Not sure. Of course there is shit in the world, but this strikes me as the equivalent of a dog rolling around in it, instead of just cleaning it up. Now, it’s only the first story in a new trilogy – so I suppose one can’t say until it’s finished, although of course if Disney has their way it will never be finished ;)
I guess it just feels like a huge pendulum swing. I can handle some flaws and mistakes and complexity and tragedy and death and the struggle never truly being over and some losses along the way, but this just took it so far that it barely feels like Star Wars anymore. I usually have a hard time getting used to change so it will probably be a while (if ever) before I can accept it. Sorry, I keep getting stuck on this, haha.
I guess it’s kind of like – let’s say somebody’s favorite part of Star Wars was the Force and Jedi, and in this movie it was revealed that the Force had actually died out, and so the movies going forward would be about the various struggles of the galaxy, but without the Force. Possibly, that’s an interesting story to tell (I’m certainly not advocating for that though!) but if that’s why you like to watch Star Wars, it’s just not going to be as satisfying. One of the reasons (I am realizing) that I really enjoyed Star Wars is the fact that the characters do get a happy ending (although not without some suffering) and the camaraderie of the main 4 characters so without that…what do I really have to enjoy? (There is other stuff obviously that I enjoy so in spite of myself I’ll probably still see the next one :P). It’s not that it’s bad, it’s just not meeting my particular desire for the story to be satisfying. Totally not trying to be a Debbie Downer and I’m glad everybody else is having so much fun with it; I just feel sad that I can’t totally partake in it.
But, I resent the story being written such that this is even the logical path we have to follow in the first place
I disagree that your interpretation is as logical as you say it is. You are literally the only person I’ve read refer to Han as a “deadbeat dad”. It seems to me that since the story didn’t give you the resolution to Han and Leia that you wanted, you went with the most uncharitable interpretation possible.
@56 – no, I think that got clarified in a previous post (or at least one of them on one of the myriad threads), but I had misinterpreted something somebody else had said regarding the timeline and WHEN exactly Han left, so I think that is fair to retract. He may or may not have been an inattentive or somewhat emotionally absent dad (at least from Kylo’s perspective) but that’s a different thing from running out on your pregnant wife.
By logical I just mean that people are saying, ‘well, it’s logical that Han and Leia broke up because they underwent the trauma of losing their son’. And it is. I’m just saying, why do we even have to go there, why is THAT the story? Why are we dragging them through the mud in the first place? I mean, it’s interesting drama, so I get it from a writerly point of view, I just don’t necessarily want to see it. I understand it, can even appreciate the artistry of it, I just don’t like it.
@57, Why are we dragging them through the mud in the first place?
Why is not being absolutely 100% perfect parents “dragging them through the mud”? I just don’t get this belief that our heroes have to be flawless. I got into an argument with someone over Avatar: The Legend of Korra because I said I liked the headcanon that Sokka was the father of Toph’s youngest daughter, because another commenter felt that said terrible things about Sokka. Again, characters are supposed to be people, and people make mistakes.
The thing I really noticed, that no one seems to be talking about, is how I kept looking at Rey and thinking how much she resembles young Natalie Portman. Between that and the bit about her searching for her disappeared dad and being all supposed to find him on an island, it just kind of makes you wonder…
@59 The thing I really noticed, that no one seems to be talking about
It was talked about to death when she was cast. The exact words used were that she “looks like you put young Carrie Fisher and Natalie Portman in a blender”
On this note, I really want to clear something up:
I’m not saying either Han or Leia were irresponsible, or weren’t there as much as they should have been. I’m saying that from Ben Solo’s emo perspective, I can totally see how HE sees it that way, and develops the way he does.
And as far as being a really, really famous person whose job takes them away from home a LOT, like Leia, that is worlds different than being a working mother in the sense we have today. And also, to be clear, what I was bringing up was not that Leia needed to be there more for him, but that he obviously felt that SOMEONE should have. Han, or Leia. Or someone like Winter in the EU.
I’m not saying Han and Leia are responsible for Ben becoming Kylo Ren. Snoke is most likely responsible for that, along with Ben himself. The y are his decisions, after all. I’m saying that its reasonable to assume that this is Kylo Ren’s perspective on it, and the way he views the facts. I’m saying it makes sense as a narrative. Especially given how famous his parents are. I mean, there’s a reason we have the generalizations we do about the kids of famous and powerful people today.
To be clear – ‘dragging them through the mud’ specifically means ‘putting them through misery’ (ie, having to go through the trauma of losing their son, and then not able to hold their relationship together), not an aspersion on their characters.
And I already said like 5,000 times that I don’t actually want a flawless character, that is a strawman – but I like to see characters that come out on top of their struggles and mistakes.
@anthony – don’t worry, I didn’t take what you were saying that way either, and I think at this point we don’t know why Kylo is the way he is. Sometimes kids have great parents and still do horrible things. And there’s also a spectrum between ‘important mom who just has a lot on her plate and can’t do it all’ and ‘important mom who just completely neglects her other responsibilities’. And to be sure – I did not get the latter from Leia at all. And I think you’re totally right that it’s Ben’s perspective that thinks this…but how close to the mark that perspective is, remains to be seen (assuming the backstory ever goes there). I just brought it up because it’s a dumb working mom stereotype that occasionally gets thrown at us, even for those of us that don’t actually have a galaxy on our shoulders (I read a lot of sanctimommy posts) ;) But thinking about it, I don’t think the story itself is really going that way.
COULD/SHOULD they have made better decisions? Possibly, but hindsight is 20/20. So (assuming there is no actual parental abandonment going on) I don’t think it makes them ‘bad’ people in the morality department per se, just flawed and unable to see where things were headed before it was too late. I still find that unsatisfying as an ending for our heroes and with an irritating lack of closure but YMMV on that.
@62 but I like to see characters that come out on top of their struggles and mistakes.
But I don’t see how you can say that, while also saying you like reality in your stories. Because sometimes, people do lose to their struggles, and never get over their mistakes.
OK, so here’s my thoughts on the latest discussions. First, I really will dislike it if Rey is Luke’s daughter. Because, how do you just abandon your child like that? In the flashback you can see that the hand holding her back as the ship with her family flies away is the guy who “buys” the stuff she scrounges. The way she lives on Jakku is portrayed as being essentially slavery. So basically her family sold her into slavery when she was five. WHO DOES THAT TO THEIR CHILD? (OK, yes, I do know that it happens, even now, in the real world. And it’s even more awful in the reality.) Are they really going to make Luke Skywalker be the guy who sells his child into slavery just to keep her “safe”? He’s the most powerful Force user in the galaxy at that point, so to think that she’d be safer without him to protect her is just madness. If he had to leave her with someone else while he went questing for the Jedi Temple, he didn’t have any better option than that? Seriously? Yes, it worked out in the movie and Rey is just awesomeness through and through, but I hate what that would say about Luke. Ditto if she’s really Ben Solo’s sister or something.
Now if she’s a Kenobi, the grandchild of an affair that Obi-Wan had somewhere along the way, that would be OK. She won’t be though. The writing is on the wall that she’s a Skywalker and Luke has a LOT of explaining to do.
Hey, if Anakin can have no father, Rey can have no mother. How about she’s Luke’s daughter, condensed out of the pure living Force into a worthy protege for the Jedi master, who then had to leave her behind when he went into exile after his failure at the academy?
And…sometimes they do. That is also reality. Doesn’t mean it’s not not hard or heart-wrenching or sad or there aren’t mistakes/losses on the way. And (for me) it’s also genre/franchise specific. I like Star Wars because it generally shows the better parts of reality (at least as much as a story about lightsabers and Ewoks and the Force and all that can) or at least leaves you feeling like you can come out on top despite what the galaxy is throwing at you. I also like other stories that focus more on the worse parts and I think it fits them fine. For me, this is a dissonance.
The story’s not done yet though. I’m assuming there will be some type of happy ending. I wish Han and Leia had gotten one. It bothers me that they didn’t. It’s a bit too much mood whiplash from 6 to 7, in my totally subjective opinion. I think there are a lot of great things in this movie, and even this part was itself well done from a technical standpoint, but I would have preferred it not to be there. If other people enjoy it and it resonates with them – good. It’s fun to see so many people into Star Wars again.
@65 – I actually kind of love that as an off the wall theory, but since they’ve said they’re not having the midicholorians in these movies (or maybe it was just this one? Do the future directors feel beholden by that) I doubt it.
(Also…the biology of that would be…odd. Well, I guess if the Force can create a fetus in a womb, it could create a baby outside of that).
@64, I’m pretty sure that’s why Max von Sydow’s character is there, to be the Obi Wan to Rey. He has that map because Luke gave it to him. Luke’s probably thinking “I turned out okay, perhaps this is the best way to make a Jedi”.
But another popular fan theory is that Ben did it himself. That Rey was a student he couldn’t bring himself to kill for whatever reason, and so instead he hid her on Jakku thinking he’d hide the fact that she survived from Snoke, and this is why he’s quickly become obsessed with her.
@64:
Alternate narrative (one Aeryl doesn’t like, but I don’t care, its AWESOME. But she’s probably right ;). Kylo Ren and the Knights of Ren attack the academy and kill all the apprentices, injure Luke, and then there’s just one little girl left. A youngling, strong in the force, precocious, who loves her cousin Ben more than anything.
And what’s left of Ben just can’t kill her. So he does something with the force to her mind and leaves her on Jakku. Luke doesn’t know she’s alive, or what happened to her. Neither does Leia and Han. She’s been dead and gone for 13-15 years.
@67:
Unless, of course, Snoke is Plagueis. I don’t believe this theory, because I think they will completely ignore the prequels, and this requires the reintroduction of midichlorians. In that case, “The Force” didn’t create Anakin in the womb, Plagueis did, in order to create the perfect host for his own consciousness and increase his Force power.
In this theory, Snoke is using Ren to hunt down Vader artifacts in order to find some of his DNA and clone Anakin. Not in order to bring Vader back, but in order to bring his perfect host back.
@Lisamarie
I wish Han and Leia had gotten one
They did. Like I said, it’s not like that doesn’t exist anymore. But nobody’s stories “end”. That’s the point of stories. Harry and Ginny will eventually get a sad ending too, does Harry’s eventual death mean they never had their “happy ending” on Platform 9 3/4 , 19 Years Later?
After Obi Wan died in ANH, did you get upset about all the people in his past he didn’t get to reconcile with? Because that’s the same role Han plays in this story, the guy with a heavy burden picking it up one last time to make up for the mistakes he’d made as a youth. I just do not understand the idea that a character’s death erases their story. This isn’t the Neverending Story, Han’s very existence was erased from the story when he died.
@67 I’ve always had a bit of an off-the-wall theory that Anakin was not actually “concieved by the midichlorians.” That was just a mistake that Qui-gon made because he had nothing in his experience that would prepare him for the correct explanation. You remember in Revenge of the Sith when Palpatine and Anakin were talking and he mentions that Darth Plageous could use the force to create life? What if -he- was the actual “father.” He created Anakin to be his protege eventually, but was killed by his apprentice Sidious (who was looking for that secret) before that plan could come to fruition. Twenty years later, Sidious recruits Anakin, who is so powerfully force-sensitive that even his children can become powerful enough to face a fully-trained Jedi after only training for a few weeks in a swamp with a Muppet. Then Luke figures out the theory behind that, uses it to create a young protege of his own, but without a father -or- mother, just a baby condensed out of the Force.
Then he abandons her when the whole thing goes pear-shaped and his actual nephew turns out to idolize Vader because lets face it Vader was always cooler than Luke. Just listen to that theme music.
-Beren
One quick note: The “Han & Chewie kite off to Kashyyyk” bit in Aftermath is literally a page or two — it’s just kind of an aside and not directly connected to the main narrative. I assume it’ll be playing a much, much, much larger role in the second book, which is called Life Debt.
@18, @19: Popping in late, but having just finished reading Before the Awakening — Finn does see the stormtroopers as family. They have nicknames and personalities (which I think is a nice echo to the fraternal clone dynamic in Clone Wars or Republic Commando), and a big deal throughout the short story is him going “We’re brothers, we’re family” and looking after them when he’s not supposed to. And that, in fact, is what makes Phasma side-eye him and earmark him for termination, because he’s not supposed to have sympathy as a trait.
So, I would’ve liked to see him struggling with that heel-face turn a bit more too. But to justify it, I agree that I think it’s his programming kicking in, functioning on autopilot as he falls back on what he does best: kill things. :(
Also AMAZING POST, EMILY, I AGREE WITH ALL OF THESE FEELINGS
@72 – isn’t that more or less the same thing from a different point of view though? I mean – I am assuming you mean that by ‘father’ you mean in a more metaphysical way. Like he directed the midichlorians as opposed to it somehow spontaneously happening? Wasn’t that supposedly part of RotS but it got cut?
@Aeryl – I hear you, I really do. I’ve been processing this for about two days now and on about 4 different threads so I’m probably not totally coherent. But one of the breakthroughs I DID have will pushing at this bruise and whyyyy I’m reacting this way is because of a tendency in my personality to use the ‘end state’ of something to color the entire thing. Like, it’s one thing if you die after a more or less content life. That’s sad, but you can still feel satisfied about it. It’s another if you die in the middle of a fight with something. That…that kind of thing scares me, to be honest. It took me practically years to get over this thing that happened in high school involving a bunch of drama with my group of friends at the end of senior year and to be able to finally convince myself that it didn’t ‘erase’ all of our friendships and make whatever happened before that not ‘real’. I just haaaaaaaaate lack of closure. Like really, really hate it. I even hunted down an 8th grade ex “boyfriend” once to apologize to him for how poorly I treated him when we were in high school, haha. A
ctually, it’s post 46 above where I go in this huge weird rant that probably nobody read (I don’t blame you) about my own personal issues and how I am unable to ever really live in the moment ala Qui Gon. (And actually, regarding Obi-Wan, sometimes I DO think about that stuff, argh! I think it was a different thread where I said – even if it’s a bit inconsistent – if Kylo were just the offspring of some nameless parents it would be a sad and thought provoking story, but I wouldn’t be crazy torn up over it, because those weren’t the characters I had been following from the start).
(By the way, if the plot of the Cursed Child begins with them being divorced I’ll be irritated about that too, lol)
But regarding my post-of-crazy at 46: when I was writing it last night, I practically felt something ‘click’ in my head and it was like oh. Oh. Oh. That is why I reacted that way. And I felt suddenly a type of acceptance. I still have the same stylistic/storytelling complaints, and I’m not sure I can ever really love/enjoy something that painful, and it’s sad, but at least I don’t feel like I need to cry every five minutes and like ‘everything my life is based on is a liiiiiie!’. (That’s a joke :))
On the bus to work this morning I was thinking about death (as you do) and for the most part I have never really had too many traumatic deaths in my life or even really cried at a funeral. Mostly older grandparents/great-aunts/uncles who had full lives so it was sad but not tragic. A few exceptions (a young cousin who passed from CF, and two people that were really more friends of friends that died under very tragic/sudden circumstances – I cried more about those than people I actually did know, actually). And then it kind of hit me like a bolt.
Rae. Not Rey ;) But when I was 15 (so, those turbulent years) and soon after I had entered the heights of my SW obsession, I met a woman (in her 30s) named Rae and she became one of my best friends. It was one of those rare friendships that really transcended the age boundaries. She was probably the first adult I’d met that had suffered (and gotten through) depression and did not dismiss my own. We’d email a lot, trade writing (she was an amazing writer and one day wanted to publish her own book. I cringe when I think of the stuff I shared with her because it was SO BAD but she never let on; only encouraged me. Hahaha), talk about Star Wars, she took me to my first convention, we saw TPM together on opening day, etc. She was the one who talked me down from some really bad stuff or that I’d call in the middle of the night.
Similar to Star Wars she was one of those things that dropped into my life unexpectedly and completely the right time (and if it hadn’t been for Star Wars, we never would have connected). And within a few years…she was gone. She was diagnosed with a brain tumor, and by my sophomore year of college, she died. It’s hard to believe she was really only in my life for about 4 years. And at the time, one of the big regrets of my life was that our relationship had drifted apart and I felt very guilty about this. It was a little different – towards the end she was too sick/weak to be able to email or have long phone calls. She was also the type of person to draw inward and not want pity, or other people around so part of it was self imposed. At times this made me a little angry. But I did write her letters (not enough) and at the funeral I was asked to write a eulogy and later told that she really did read and appreciate those letters, so at least I did get some measure of peace that she at least knew the relationship was still there; circumstances still got in the way, but the relationship itself was not erased/meaningless. (And I’m seeing all sorts of uncomfortable parallels here…)
I don’t think I ever cried at her funeral – it wasn’t until months later that I had a chance to cry over it (at somebody else’s funeral, ironically) and every now and then something would happen to remind me of her and make me take a moment. As soon as I heard that a new character in this movie would be called ‘Rey’…it was a little surreal constantly hearing it on screen. And so now I feel a little weepy, but I think in some ways I am finally getting another chance to grieve my friend. (Actually, the thing that makes me laugh-cry is that she probably would have hated this movie (or at least parts of it) for the same reasons I did; she was one of those types who gave up on the EU when they killed Chewie, etc. She didn’t cate for AOTC either though, because it was too ‘mushy’ in such a bad way. She didn’t live to see RotS so I don’t know how she would have felt about that one).
Damn it, this movie.
Okay. I’m not a Star Wars fan, but I really liked this movie. BB-8 is adorable, and I’ve seen (most of) the previous movies, so I’m not exactly lost.
What I have to say my favorite part of this movie is that Rey kicks Kylo Ren’s ass and she does it all on her own. No one else. Finn is unconscious, it’s just her and Kylo Ren. He’s maybe a bit chaotic and not entirely trained, but he’s had way more training than she has. But she finds that quiet, calm place within herself, and doesn’t need to be rescued. She doesn’t even need anyone else to distract him for her so she can land the final blow.
Rey is a great character who completely stands on her own, and his awesome on her own, and also fits with the others.
I love Rey.
@75, Yeah, I on the other hand experienced a LOT Of death in my early years, and my partner is an orphan. I literally walked away from the family on my dead parent’s side, because they are not people who relate to me and my values AT ALL. My surviving parent has been on and off sick for the past 10 years, so I’m also 90% mentally prepared for their eventual death. Death is something I’ve experienced so much(and OH how I could tell you how much I HATE funerals, give me a wake ANY DAY) that my viewpoint on it is atypical from average people. In certain quarters of my family, we snarkily refer to funerals as family reunions.
So yeah, my perspective is skewed.
And in part, this particular story hit me right in my HAN FEELZ. Is it a happy ending? Well no, but it’s an ending that makes SO MUCH SENSE to my read of the character, and I think pretty consistent with the EU interpretation of the character that I just loved, especially with how that reflects in my own personal life. And killed by his own son??? THAT’S how Jacen should have fallen, not that bullshit with Mara. Though if the theories are right and Kylo killed people at a Jedi school, Luke’s possible wife and Rey’s possible mother may have died, echoing that story.
It was my impression that Han and Leia were together until Ben went dark side and attacked Luke’s academy. And while they feel guilty about sending him away, I’m not sure that was the wrong thing to do — it would have been like trying to raise that kid from Twilight Zone’s “It’s a Good Life.” You want to think that raising a magical kid by non-magical parents is like Tabitha in Bewitched but what if it is more like Voldemort in the muggle orphanage? What else could they do?
And I’m not sure about little girls making Rey a role model just yet. When Kylo mentioned the Force, and she really opened herself up to it, it looked like she went full Dark Side on him, and she had him beaten. It’s not obvious to me that she wouldn’t have killed him if not for the fissure opening up between them. Movie 9 might be about saving Kylo from the dark side and uniting to take down Snoke, but first movie 8 is going to be about saving Rey from the Dark Side.
One other thing I can’t quite figure out. Do Kylo Ren and Snoke know who Rey is? When the officer mentions “a girl”, Rey force-chokes him for more info, but is that just because he wants to know who is helping to hide BB-8 so he can find it, or does he have some other reason to be interested in “the girl”? He clearly doesn’t know that she is strong with the Force until her interrogation, and Snoke seems to know nothing about her either. I suppose it’s part of the overall puzzle about who she is, but I can’t even tell at this point whether Kylo and Snoke know who she is.
(Han and Maz might know, but the scene conveniently cut away.)
One Three more things — as usual, JJA has no idea how big a galaxy is and how far apart stars are. Someone does say at one point that the Starkiller main weapon is FTL, but it’s nuts that you would see a Republic world destroyed while standing on another one, unless they are in the same solar system and Kylo spared it specifically to try and retrieve the map. And the Starkiller base must have sucked dry two suns but there’s no indiction that it moved in between shots.
And JJA tossed out the idea that flying through hyperspace was a delicate and dangerous procedure that required lots of planning to avoid getting killed.
I didn’t mind that the move was largely a retread of ANH (with a bit of ESB and RotJ on the side) except for one thing–the attack planning scene in the Resistance base was so much a copy of the Death Star I and II attack plans that it was just obnoxious.
Although as someone mentioned, maybe JJA was rebooting the franchise by taking the best bits of the first 3 movies as a palette cleanser from the prequel trilogy, and the real good stuff is coming in 8 and 9.
@80: The visible destruction of Hosnian Prime is canonically a side effect of using a hyperspace weapon. From Pablo Hidalgo, author of the Visual Dictionary: “What they’re seeing is some weird hand-wavy hyperspace rip. Side-effect of the Starkiller.”
This is a retcon, no doubt, to paper over a neat visual Abrams didn’t think too hard about, but if you want to think of it as bleeding through into normal space, and thus visible, all across a big swath of the galaxy you can
Quoth Em: “Kylo’s technique is cruel but sloppy, and Rey clearly has no idea what she’s doing, and it makes for a great first fight.”
Having finally seen this: Rey does know what she’s doing — with a staff. Every technique that she used with the light sabre was a staff technique rather than a sword one. It was a brilliant touch (and there’s at least some overlap between the two). Meanwhile, Kylo’s techniques were all two-handed Claymore techniques, which fit his particular sabre.
—Keith R.A. DeCandido
Emily, this is one of the many reasons I enjoy reading your posts here. I had SO MANY of the same feelings except Han yelling out “Ben!” made me want to weep because OF COURSE THEY WOULD NAME THEIR SON BEN anever there was a time when Ben was a little kid and they were all happy together and Han and Leia had hopes and dreams for Ben and I CAN’T HANDLE THIS.
All these feelings triggered by Han yelling, “Ben!”
Also, please give Luke a happy ending to all this. I still love Luke (ROTJ Luke is still my favorite) and I want him to live and get to successfully train Jedi. Han’s ending was sad enough DO NOT MAKE LUKE SAD TOO
@77 – well, maybe my perspective is skewed. :) I’ve for whatever reason lived a more or less charmed life. Certainly not perfect or without some dark stuff, but it was mostly from within, or inflicted by peers (not family). Part of me is often waiting for the shoe to drop and for something horrible to happen. Which is probably why I see the family stuff as so tragic, and the breakup of friendships, becuase (similar to Han) I was kind of a ‘I don’t need friends’ type of person. Which is really why these movies are quite amazing in the first place because I think we all bring so many different things to it and get something out of it. If anything, I really appreciate this place because it’s a chance for me to step away from some of the things that upset me about the movie and also talk about all the things I enjoyed and that were really intriguing and try to focus on that more.
I’m not sure if this is atypical or not but I kind of enjoy funerals. Not so much my cousin’s, because it was definitely too early for her and while we could definitely celebrate her life and our family being there for each other…it wasn’t ideal. Allthough even that had some positive moments. But for my elderly relatives, there was often a sense of, ‘this is a great legacy this person was a part of’ and now they’re at peace. And maybe a part of that IS because it’s a chance to put everything in context/perspective and not just focus on ‘the end’. But I like the wakes too. My family is Italian so the after-funeral luncheons are usually a bit more rowdy than you’d expect a funeral to be.
But I did mean to say in another thread, that I am glad you and your husband have beat the odds and made something good for yourselves. :)
If anything, the biggest struggles I have are probably around my son and making sure we do right by him and helping him deal with his huge emotions/anger. So I can actually relate quite a bit with Han/Leia’s fears and desires for their son and wanting the best for him and to do the right thing for him – and the fear that even if we do the best we can do, it won’t be enough. Of course, at 4, I’d like to think we still have a lot of time to guide him to a new trajectoy. But some of Kylo’s tantrums/reactions were just way too familiar!
I loved what was basically the last scene Han and Leia got together – their hug seemed so evocative of the ‘hold me’ moment in Return of the Jedi. And it kind of occurred to me as I thought about all their ‘iconic’ moments; part of their relationship was that they knew. So I guess I have to think that through it all, they still always knew.
@78 – I’m a bit torn on that! My first impression was that Rey was centering herself and that it wasn’t a Dark side thing. But I’ve seen a lot of people also say they saw a lot of anger there. Towards the end I was having a hard time following all of the fight scene, but I thought maybe she was content with just disarming him? I’d have to watch that more closely. But seeing as how even Luke had to face those demons, it makes sense she will as well.
@79 – I definitely got the impression Kylo knew (in some way) who Rey was.
@76 – totally agreed :)
@73 – thanks. I think I had seriously misinterpreted one of the references, which sent me down a totally different path that colored my interpretation of the character totally different. I think the original phrase had said something like ‘betrayed the Alliance’ so I had it in my head that Han basically abanonded everything really early on and was just like wtf no.
@85 I hate how emotionally manipulative funerals* are. I’ve been to family members funerals I wasn’t even close to and end up a blubbering mess. They feel designed to rush you through the five stages of grief, instead of allowing these things to run their natural course. I quite enjoy the celebration of life, and a life lived.
And yes, it was amazing the chemistry that Fisher and Ford were able to regenerate in those few short scenes. You can tell that these two people cared deeply for each other, despite the pain and trauma in their lives.
I haven’t waded into the spoiler thread, so I wonder if you’ve commented on that fact that they named their son after Obi Wan, instead of Luke and his hypothetical wife. I stated elsewhere that I actually think it makes more sense for them than it did for Luke.
*I’m not talking about church specific services, but anonymous commercial funeral homes.
Yes, I did! I think I ended up commenting on one of the other threads (maybe the newbie one) that while I do think it makes sense for Luke to have named a child after Ben, it was a little jarring to hear Han and Leia have named it (probably in part because it’s so close to the EU), but I do love the reason that Han especially would have wanted to honor him and also fits nicely with his transition from Force skeptic to believer :)
Oh, and regarding Jacen: maybe this is the wrong place to come from, but I’m so conflicted on that anyway. Honestly, that was my least favorite part of the EU to start with, and I was so excited that it got axed.
Aside from the similar meta-problem I have with the Jacen/Darth Cadeus stuff regarding just wanting the Skywalkers/Solos to be able to catch a break for once, I just…hated watching it. I loved the silly, bad joke telling, empathic, animal/nature loving Jacen. It was in some ways really hard to buy that the same guy who goes through all of these periods of questioning, learning, takes off to learn about other ways of the Force, and even (supposedly, according to Tionne) has one of the most unified moments with the Force ever STILL ends up falling to the dark side? Not to mention that he DID have a fairly good relationship with his parents and uncles. Like what the what? It’s almost like saying these characters just can’t win and the Vader ‘destiny’ is just too strong, or just that the dark side is still too strong. How did the Jedi manage to survive for generations if it’s that freaking easy to fall?
On the other hand :) It’s definitely a fascinating progression to see how selflessness/humility can actually get totally twisted into something else; his obsession with ‘saving the galaxy’ turns into this obsession with controlling it and a burden he’s placed on himself to be its savior, and his willingness to ‘suffer’ for others turns into being willing to suffer by doing horrible things or betraying his family (not of course realizing that he’s taking away THEIR right to decide if they want to suffer or not – it’s all about him, and his suffering, and HIM being willing to take it on). His willingless to question everything and be open minded to everything – not just the way the Jedi viewed the Force – in some ways led him to perhaps be a bit too open minded regarding Lumiya’s teachings. Not to mention his arrogance in thinking that once he did ‘take over’ somehow that would be the end of all conflict? In some ways that’s the catch-22 of life; usually doing the right thing involves leaving it open for other people to do the wrong thing. (Heh, I just watched the LEGO movie again and now I’m thinking of Lord Business trying to Kragle everything…)
I had to go look some of this stuff up to remind myself of the whole thing, but there is a scene where he flow-walks to see Anakin destroy the temple, and is ‘relieved’ that he’s not THAT kind of Sith; not selfish or obsessed or full of rage, etc. But there are more than one ways to skin a cat, and while I’ve seen some people argue that Jacen isn’t actually selfish because he’s doing it for his daughter; well, in some ways he is (and more like Anakin than he realizes) because it’s also about his own fears/grief. Other peoples’ daughters don’t matter; just his.
But…I guess this is just one of those personal preference things, but I don’t really enjoy watching heroes turn bad. I think in some ways it would have been more interesting to have Jacen somehow be able to break way from the Jedi, learn about all those other Force techniques, but that would be the key to keeping him in the light or winning some victory due to a key insight he has. OR heck – maybe this is a bit heretical – actually figure out a way to be a Sith/use the dark side and show that it DOESN’T necessarily lead to megalomania and mass murder. (I’m not really sure if I like that idea or not, to be honest). But I guess that’s the point; even with the best of intentions the dark side/Sith is a corruptive path.
(In some ways, Kylo is a less interesting character, although the books had way more time to explore Jacen’s fall).
It was nice that in his very last moment, Jaina thinks he came back to himself and chose to save his daughter over vengeance. I haven’t read FotJ yet (my new year’s resolution is to try and binge read all of the leftover EU Legends canon I haven’t gotten to yet. At least I can say that’s finished, and so there’s an end in sight! But now I’m hopelessly behind in the new EU books) but I have intentionally spoiled myself a little – I know there are some scenes with his Force spirit and his family which I’m kind of geeked to read. But damn. I know I tend to get a little hung up on what their state was at ‘the end’, but even so…not sure if one second of possible light at ‘the end’ completely makes up for all that :) Not to mention it’s still about his daughter, and doesn’t necessarily mean he wouldn’t still be willing to do other evil things if he thought it would save her… (to be fair, this is actually a complaint I have about Return of the Jedi if I think too hard about it – you could probably make the exact same argument about Anakin’s turn back. Too little too late? Still primarily self focused and just about his own son? If he had lived, would he have been able to let go of his anger and fear and possession?)
It’s actually a little funny in that attachment is the thing the Jedi of old preached about, but it’s what ultimately made Jacen a bad Sith ;) I don’t know that he was ever truly willing to sacrifice Tenel Ka or Alanna (or even Ben). I think somewhere there’s a workable philosopy in there – caring for others, being attached to others, recognizing every person as an individual with worth that you can’t just sacrifice for the masses/greater good. But ALSO not being so attached/possessive that you can’t let them go if that’s what ends up happening. Sometimes completing a mission, or just refraining from doing some evil thing might mean a loved one dies.
There’s also the question of Vergere and if this is actually what she intended or what her agenda was. Was his experience in Traitor the thing that made all this a foregone conclusion, or could that/should that have gone differently?
@88, I loved the Jacen story, as sad as it was, because it was Anakin’s fall done right
Agree with almost everything you said, Emily. I’m still not sure how sold I am on Finn- he’s okay, and his rejection of the Empire works considering that the trauma he experienced in his first battle, but his trajectory still seems kind of sudden to me. It’s a small thing, and it bothered me less on my second viewing so hopefully it will be gone by my 3rd one tomorrow.
From the beginning, I thought Rey was probably Luke’s kid, and nothing I saw has changed that, though it seems kinda cheap that she grows up in the same kinda situation as him (and Anakin), but I still loved her character. And of course Poe was great, def wanted more of him. And BB-8 was the only possible new droid that I could accept (and love).
Whoo! Star Wars is BACK!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Well, I had a great time, too… and I’m going to spout out my two cents worth, ’cause I’ve got a feeling…
We’re told that Han and Leia are Kylo Ren’s parents, and I accept that. That is… I believe they’re his adoptive parents.
Why would I think this? Because I don’t believe for an instant that either Han nor Leia would name their first-born Ben. They just don’t have the connection to Obi-Wan to do that.
The only person who does… is Luke.
We don’t know who the mother is, or why Luke would have to give them up… but I believe that both Ben and Rey are Luke’s children. That’s right – siblings.
You can laugh at me now, but just wait for the next movie; the face Kylo was named Ben will make it so obvious, you’ll wonder how you ever accepted the misdirection.
Bad copy of New Hope and Jedi. Lazy attempt. Walked out. Nothing original.
message in a droid
find droid on desert planet
find jedi on desert planet
Destroy rebel base with deathstar
Go to planet to disable deathstar sheild
good guy and bad guy sword fight
destroy deathstar with a shot from a tie fighter
Um….
Hello?
This movie was lame.
I wrote it up on my blog: http://www.almaalexander.org/6032-2/
YES there are a hundred little (and some not so little) holes. But the bottom line is, I walked out of the theatre at the end and I only had one word: AGAIN. I’m going back to see it for the details as soon as I can manage it.
Yeah, I kinda liked it. WHy do you ask?
Why is it so hard for people to think that Han and Leia would name their son Ben? Its like everyone is thinking Han would never name a kid after Obi-Wan but you know what? I’m sure Leia had a huge part in picking out the name also and Obi-Wan was very important to Leia. I mean, Luke knew Ben for what, a week or so? Obi-Wan was friends with Leia’s (adoptive) dad, I’m sure she grew up hearing about how great Ob-Wan Kenobi was during the clone wars, etc. It seems obvious to me that she knew Obi-Wan way better than Luke ever did. So of course it was Obi-Wan that Leia turned to for help in Star Wars.
This is how I see the naming of their child going:
Leia: I want to name our son Obi-Wan.
Han: After that old fossil?
Leia: He wasn’t a fossil, he was a hero.
Han: Okay, I can buy that, but won’t the other kids make fun of him with a name like Obi-Wan? How about Ben?
Leia: Ben? I like it, let’s call him Ben.
First, I’d like to say that I enjoyed Emily’s review.
Secondly, that billiam’s @94 thoughts about Leia having a lot of feeling for Obi Wan Kenobi due to her upbringing echo my own reasoning — although I have to confess I’m not sure she would be terribly familiar with the name Ben.
And third – several people above seem to feel that Rey was reaching for the Dark Side when she attacked Ren at the end – after my second viewing, when I was looking for details, I interpreted it differently – I thought that Ren’s reference to the force reminded her of what Mas (the cantina owner) said – that to feel the force she should close her eyes (which she did) and then she would more open to it (that last part isn’t a quote.) But I saw that as her reaching for the light side of the force, and she found it and won her fight.
Emily, I love you! Your review and synopsis and commentary is so spot on and parallel to mine. So many feels! I was so over the moon at the thought that this time the girl gets to be the hero, the Jedi, the Chosen One – it was unbelievable!!! You’re so right – Rey will mean so much to so many. Not just little girls, but also young women and just plain women, and I hope most men too. She is the unapologetically strong, ultra capable, fantastically talented hero we see so often in male characters – she’s just female, that’s all. It’s incidental to who she is, which is EXACTLY HOW IT SHOULD BE.
I had so much trouble adulting long enough to get outside the theatre I was positively vibrating. I flailed wildly in the parking lot, a grown woman hopping up and down and waving my hands (I’m not kidding) and squealing! My husband just stood there, amused and indulgent and happy. HAHA!
Really, I’ve only wanted to be a Jedi in my fantasies since I was NINE.
I am not going to pick apart the movie or whine over plot holes or anything of the sort. Sure, they’re probably there, but y’know what? I DON’T CARE! What was missing from the horror of Episodes I-III was the HEART, the SOUL of it all. IT’S BACK!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
OK, I saw the movie again yesterday, and I had a few thoughts.
1) 3D is not worth the extra $4. In fact, it still looks like a gimmick to me and distracts from the experience. Things look less real, not more real.
2) Did anyone else catch the orange suited x-wing pilot doll in Rey’s Jakku home? Did she have that in the vision of her as a child? Did she bring that with her?
3) Rey’s vision sequence. It really seems more like she was remembering things rather than seeing them in a vision. She was outside of the events, but I think she was a part of those scenes. I’m becoming convinced that Ren left her alive and dropped her off on Jakku.
4) The operation of Starkiller base is at least 50% less stupid than I thought it was initially. Point by point:
A) The rewatch made it obvious that the planet stays where its at. It doesn’t move. The beam travels through hyperspace. And it only travels to a single system.
B) The beam destroyed all planetoids in the Hosnian system. After it got there it split somehow and destroyed five things in system. Probably indiscriminately. But only one system, the one currently hosting the republic Senate, was destroyed.
C) The oscillator was a key component to containing the suns energy. That’s why the planet exploded. It was well protected with both a shield and physical protection. Han destroyed the physical protection, allowing the x-wing to get inside and do a lot of damage.
What’s still dumb:
A) A beam that travels through hyperspace without a computer to route it. I looked in the visual dictionary. Starkiller base is opposite from the Hosnian system. The entire core loes between them. A dense cluster of stars. It would take several jumps through hyperspace. How is this accomplished?
B) The destruction of the Hosnian System was visible from Maz Kanata’s temple, which lies on a planet in a system that is a quarter rotation of the galaxy away from Hosnian Prime. That’s… Not possible, in a ridiculous way. It’s the single most idiotic thing I’ve ever seen. [Edit: outside of a Wal-mart, at least]
I saw the movie yesterday too. My mom has been wanting to see it (after talking about how Han is her favorite character) so I finally agreed to go see it again.
By now my emotional reaction had much mellowed and I had more or less accepted this is How Things Are now in the SW universe, so I was hoping I could just relax and enjoy it a bit more. And there are definitely some really fun parts, I love Rey and her ass kickery (and now I see what people are saying when they say that they can see some starts of darkness in Rey! But I think that will be part of her training and journey) and was able to have a bit more fun. On the other hand, I think the movie relies a bit too much on fight/battle scenes. Even the first time I watched it, I knew I would get bored by them on repeat viewings (confession: I even think the original Death Star battle in ANH is boring and too long. It’s rather funny that Star Wars is my favorite series even though I hate battle scenes, lol).
I was able to better appreciate the music this time. The first time I saw it I was a little disappointed with the score, but there’s some great stuff in it and I’m looking forward to the soundtrack. Also, am I crazy? I could have sworn there were some hints of Episode III parts – for example, Rey and Kylo’s fight scene music strongly reminded me of Battle of the Heroes at a few points. I noticed that the first time too. I thought some of the space music near the beginning reminded me a bit of the space battle that starts out Episode III as well (and say what you will about the prequels, but I think all 3 of them had utterly gorgeous music)
I don’t know if it was intentional, but there were several points where Kylo Ren’s specific diction and cadence reminded me so strongly of Ep III Anakin that it gave me chills. I loved it. I hope it WAS intentional because it’s a great callback. There was this one part where he said “Don’t be afraid” (I think to Rey, after he’s killed his father) and it was just like hearing him try to console Padme after his assault on the Temple.
Seeing the words ‘Luke Skywalker’ in the main crawl gave me chills. I wish we got more of him! I heart Luke Skywalker so much! I hope he’s awesome in the next movie. Or a least contributes meaningfully to Rey’s awesomeness.
I am pretty sure I saw Finn grab the training remote from ANH when he was ‘treating’ Chewie during their escape from the pirates!
That said, now that the newness has worn off, I can also see some of the ‘sloppy’ storytelling. This isn’t just my ‘I like to see a more hopeful tale’ preference, but it does still bother me that they take everything implied from RotJ – a new Jedi Order and and a new Republic – and either say that it’s already been destroyed (Jedi) or destroy it in this movie (Republic). It just seems like a kind of lazy way to get the story back to the state it was in A New Hope so they can essentially ‘reboot’ without actually rebooting – instead of coming up with something new that the Republic and new Jedi could be fighting. It just seems a bit derivative, aside from also making 6 a bit unsatisfying. I also feel a bit that way about returning Han to his solitary (solo, ha) smuggler ways, but I think even he can’t toally escape hero-ing, as he is the one who has to convince Finn that the galaxy is counting on them and he doesn’t hesitate to go down there and get into the fight. He’s kind of like Mat from Wheel of Time, now that I think about it :) Tries not to be the hero, but he totally is. I think I was able to really appreciate him a bit more this time in this viewing :)
Another thing that was kind of fun to really pick out was all the different character parallels in their journeys. I don’t actually completely mind the ‘derivative’ nature of the character journeys because I enjoy the cyclical natures and being able to compare/contrast and of course the story itself works. I’m just still of two minds if they went too far with that (I think in some ways they did and in others not). As heartbreaking it is, Han and Kylo’s scene is a really great parallel of Luke and Vader but horribly subverted (and also a bit of an echo of Obi-Wan and Vader in ANH, and even Padme and Anakin in RotS) – by ‘horrible’ I mean from the heroes’ point of view, not that it was poorly done. In some ways, this is Han’s movie, or at least Han is playing to Obi-Wan part to both Rey and Finn in certain ways, which is just kind of delicious. In some ways Finn is more like Han in that he’s trying to figure out his place and wants to run away, but can’t bring himself to, although there really isn’t an analogue for a deserter. It’s a bit like Luke wanting to start a new life that means something, but not exactly. Rey is pretty straight up Luke, although a bit more self sufficient, and not sure if we really get a Leia analogue (somebody already part of the ‘fight’ from the beginning, unless you count Poe, but he doesn’t get as much to do as Leia does). Even the Kylo/Hux relationship is pretty much straight up Vader/Tarkin (down to arguing about using the superweapon vs the Force).
And yeah, the Han and Leia stuff still makes me sad…I was trying to get hints of the timing and things. It sounds like they had kind of an up and down relationship, Han was possibly gone a lot (they both mention him leaving a lot, and Kylo says his dad was a dissapointment and also weak and foolish) and it was once they sent Kylo to Luke (and he went bad) that things really fell apart and he left for ‘good’. (Which btw, I don’t even think is that bad of a parenting move – OF COURSE you’d send your Force sensitive kid to Jedi Academy. But perhaps he felt like he was being shipped off even though one would think that would be the expectation for him as soon as they knew hew as Force sensitive, even if he was the most perfect child ever). And you know, I want better for them than that, but…at the same time I think being able to watch Han and Leia’s scenes more closely, the affection was clearly still there and perhaps they would have reconciled again at some point and I think they both totally sold the affection, tenderness and grief they were going through. So sad. :( Perhaps when I get into movies and really invested in the main characters I basically just want for them what I want for my loved ones. When people were talking about how ‘cool’ it would be if Luke was evil in this movie I was thinking, ‘really? Would you want that for your own friend or child or other loved one? For them to become evil and lose their soul? Why is that cool?’. Even if I understand it makes for an interesting story/drama, etc.
I still don’t quite feel as drawn to the movie as the others. Even the prequels, I went and saw numerous times in the theater to immerse myself in the world and soak it up. This one doesn’t quite feel the same or as ‘home’ to me. But I am intrigued enough to see the next one.
As for my mom’s reaction. As soon as Han went on the catwalk (my heart started pounding actually – it was so weird. Even though I knew full well what was coming, I could just feel it pounding through my chest at a mile a minute) she said, “Oh no, he is NOT going to kill Han Solo” and when it finally happened she just yelled “GOD DAMN IT” in the theater, haha (it was mostly empty). After the movie came out she said she was so pissed off and that the movie sucked and she wished she could just unsee it, hahahaha. My mom is the one who got me into Star Wars in the first place, and is more of a casual moviegoer who tends to just want feel-good/funny entertainment. But she felt they didn’t ‘really have to’ do that, and that there wasn’t even a story; she felt they didn’t do enough to explain why Kylo fell or why Han and Leia separated or what was going on, and instead just ripped off the first movie and killed off Han for shock value, etc. Anyway, she thought the movie was too depressing. Funny thing is when I was growing up, I used to rag on her a bit for only ever wanting to see things with happy endings because ‘true art is dark’ and all that. LOL. I mean, I admit, some of the stuff she likes is a bit glurgey even for me, and I find the things she thinks funny to be (for the most part) completely unfunny, but maybe I’m turning into her in some ways.
@97 – 1)I have never seen a movie where 3D was worth it so I’m glad we didn’t spring for that either.
2)Yes!! I looked for it because you mentioned it in this post!
3)I think the vision is stuff in the past, personally – I thought I saw the Bespin halls, which makes sense becuase the lightsaber was there, and I think she saw Kylo Ren slaughtering the new Jedi. But then again, that specific lightsaber wouldn’t have been present then, so not sure if that fits (unless it’s perhaps a repressed memory of Rey’s). So it’s hard to tell if the lightsaber is somehow Skywalker memories even if the saber itself wasn’t there, or memories of that particular saber, unlocking repressed memories for the person at that moment, or some combination (to say nothing of possible futures). I’m also not sure if the Yoda/Obi-Wan voices were meant to be specifically TO Rey (like, at that very moment) or just memories of things that were said to Luke…
@97, then where did the Starkiller base get two stars to drain?
@99, they edited a line reading of Guiness saying “afraid” down to “Rey”, and they got new audio of McGregor saying “you’ve taken your first steps”, so at least some part of the vision is specifically to Rey.
@100: !!!! That is awesome. I heard the ‘Rey’ part but wasn’t sure which Obi-Wan it was or if it was really that, and I also heard the ‘taken your first steps’ but thought maybe it was just from ANH. Now I kind of wish they’d gotten Qui Gon or even Anakin!
I heard Yoda too but maybe that was more a memory of him talking to Luke…
Oh, and I wanted to mention Kylo’s remark about the island and the ocean – when he said it it clearly seemed in context of her past memories and what she thinks of when she goes to sleep on Jakku every night and thinks of her family. So I guess the question is – was that her childhood home? Is it the same island Luke is on now, or a different one? Perhaps Luke’s first Jedi Academy? Or is Rey herself having a vision of the future (and Luke’s current island) when she sees it?
The Obi-wan’s voice was specific. “Rey, these are your first steps.”
The lightsaber most definitely was not at all of the events. I also read the shot about three more sequences, including Vader cutting off Luke’s hand from a different angle.
@100
Yeah, the only way this works is if fusion reignites inside the star. As I said, still idiotic. Just 50% less so.
101:
I was thinking Rey and Kylo were both seeing visions of Luke’s location, because they are both connected to him through the Force as former students (or blood relatives).
It was alright. I took my son who is as big a Star Wars fan as they come. We both agreed that it was a nice film. We took JJ’s advice and saw it on an Imax screen. 3D is such a waste. If you cannot get me immersed in your world in 2D, then the extra tricks of 3D are somewhat useless.
I might watch it again when it is released on DVD, but otherwise I will save my time and money for something more entertaining.
Thank you
What a great review. I was so happy to learn that I was not the only one who cried before anything had happened! All it took for me was the first line, “A long time ago, . . .”
Did anyone else notice the Harry Potter moment between Kylo Ren and Rey? It was so much like the scene between Harry and Snape (dressed all in black) where Harry is able to do a reversal to get into Snape’s mind. Instead we see Rey getting into Ren’s mind.
Thanks for the great review.
Possibly multiple people on the internet have already noted this, but I saw the byplay between Rey and Finn about his holding her hand as they flee danger as in part a shout-out to the late Roger Ebert. From “Ebert’s Glossary of Movie Terms”: Hand-in-Hand Rule. In many Hollywood action pictures, the woman characters are incapable of fleeing from danger unless dragged by a strong man, who takes the woman’s hand and pulls her along meekly behind him. This convention is so strong it appears even in films where it makes no sense, such as Sheena, in which a jungle-woman who has ruled the savage beasts since infancy is pulled along by a TV anchorman fresh off the plane. <end quotation>
I remember Ebert mocking this trope a number of times, and pointing out how the hand-holding would actually interfere with both persons’ ability to run full out. When Rey objected to Finn’s holding her hand, I laughed and hoped that Roger could see this from heaven.
I also through it was rather funny that about 5 minutes later, Rey is offering Fin her hand. Haha :)
Star Wars is Back! – best sentence in a review EVER. Perfectly said. And that made me cry.
A little funny seeing this pop up on my comments thread, since I was just thinking about it and even wanted to post something in it, but didn’t want to annoy anybody by dragging it up. But since it’s here:
We showed my five year old son the movie for the first time this weekend (since we were in a more controlled environment and could skip through any scary parts). He was pretty into it. When Kylo Ren knocked Finn out he yelled, “Oh no! I hope somebody saves him!”. Right at that moment, Rey summoned the lightsaber to herself and he totally flipped out and yelled “WOOOOOOAH! OH MY GOODNESS! THAT IS SO AWESOME!” And it made me think of your line about Rey as the super special destiny cookie and how important that is. My son is a boy so maybe not on a personal level for him, but I think it’s cool that he gets to grow up in a world where he gets to see that and it’s just cool because it’s cool, and not see anything out of the ordinary about a girl saving a boy.
(Also, apparently Kylo Ren DIDN’T MEAN to kill Han. It was an accident!)
I find this line to be particularly heartbreaking.
I was really unsure if I’d let him watch that part at all, but he was really into the rest of the movie and I knew at that point we wouldn’t be able to skip any scenes. And because I’m a bit of a sadist, I positioned myself so I could clearly see the expressions on his face when the whole thing happened – there were probably at least 3 distinct emotions that flitted across his face in 5 seconds.
Right when Han stepped on the catwalk (before he called out to Ben), he yelled out, “Han, DON’T!” (ha, kid is already genre savvy). During the whole confrontation, he kept asking if Kylo Ren was sad, or if he was a good guy now (because he took off his helmet; he’s kind of at a stage where he’s a bit fixated on classifying characters as good guys and bad guys. Finn especially intrigued him, as a bad guy who didn’t want to be a bad guy anymore).
You could tell he had sort of decided he was and then of course…BAM. His face was pure shock, and then for a few seconds his face made the exact same expression he makes when he’s about to cry (which is when I really started to second guess myself!)…but then it was replaced by shock again. His mouth was just completely agape. When Han opened his eyes, started at Kylo and touched his face, he kind of visibly relaxed and said, “Oh, Han’s not dead!”….but right at that moment he fell down the pit. That was when he declared Kylo Ren didn’t mean to do that.
But I think he knows the truth because there were several other points where he’d ask why Han was dead (including a digression about how pits are dangerous and we shouldn’t go near them), how he wanted to go into the movie and beat Kylo Ren, cheering for Finn/Rey to beat him because he was a stupid brat, and he got visibly upset when the Falcon appeared at the end but Chewie was piloting it (“But I wanted Han to be in there!”).
He asked to watch the movie the next day, but when it got to the explosives scene, he asked my husband to skip it. But then at dinner he was saying it was his favorite scene (although I think he was trying to get a reaction out of us).
So you know….he’s processing. ;) He still probably handled it better than I did!
Glad to hear he enjoyed the movie. :)
@112 Did you watch the Red Wedding with friends, too? (Not with a five-year-old though!)
I’m still having trouble processing, though I wouldn’t be surprised if the five-year-old has an easier time of it. Adults have more baggage; it my case, it includes the fact that even the Sun Eater got a second chance.
I didn’t comment here the first time because it was kind of hard typing with my eyes full of tears; so, seeing new comments, I came belatedly to say Yes to all of this and thank you all for existing. Only few of my friends have seen TFA; none of them share these feelings (so I can’t sob continuously in front of them forever: they wouldn’t understand). It’s been four months since I saw TFA for the first time, and I’m still processing it. It’s so good to know I’m not alone. I love TFA, but it is breaking my heart every time I watch it, and sometimes even when I watch some videos on youtube, and sometimes even when I just think about it. I’m usualy not this emotional – movie, what have you done to me??
@114 – Hah, no. I did watch it with my husband but now I can’t remember if he had gotten that far in the books yet…
I am not catching your Sun Eater reference…
@115 – Yessss! This is the first time (the viewing at home) that I’ve watched the movie since December. I saw it twice when it came out (the second was mainly because my mom hadn’t seen it and wanted to see it with me) but after that I just couldn’t really bring myself to ‘love’ it. OMG, the week after it came out, I WAS A WRECK, even at work, haha. But I think I’m in an okay place now, haha.
I think he means Kyp Durron getting a second chance after destroying the Carida star system with the Sun Crusher.
@116, 117, It’s from Elizabeth Bear’s Edda of Burdens books.
I haven’t re-watched it yet in part because Lisamarie convinced me of how depressing it is. My SO still has to watch it though, so I’m probably going to at some point.
I wondered that, but he didn’t exactly eat the sun…
@118 – oh dear, I didn’t mean for all my baggage to become other peoples’ baggage too!
@120 the perils of making good points. I think I would have reached the same conclusions on my own eventually. There’s really no way around how TFA’s backstory affects for the original trilogy.