Star Wars: The Force Awakens (2015)... Part II: Old Characters and Lack of Surprises

PART II: ...AND THE RESTLast week, I talked about the new characters, but this week I'm going to talk about the old ones, and my main problem with this movie. Let's get right into it, shall we? 

(Spoiler warning: There are spoilers throughout the majority of this post. More so in some areas than others, so if you don't mind slight spoilers, just watch for the posted warnings.)

GENERAL (PRINCESS) LEIA


She's a "General" now (although I'm pretty sure "Princess" trumps "General" as far as titles go)... and apparently the main job of Generals is to stand around, looking concerned. Seriously, what does she DO in this movie? Does she make hard choices? Does she do any strategic planning? Does she lead a battle? No, she just has a few sentimental moments and hugs a couple people. That's it. She's just kindly Grandma Leia -- and if "Grandma" had been her title, it would have been fine -- but her title was "General", so there should have been a pay-off for that. (There wasn't.) If she had been left out of this movie, would it have changed substantially? No. The movie could have gotten along just fine without her. (Note: I'm not blaming Carrie Fisher. There's just only so much you can do as an actor when they don't write you anything to do in the script.)

CHEWBACCA
It was hard to find a picture of him without Han Solo.
Chewie? He walks around behind Han Solo. Why was he in this film? Because Han Solo was in it, and Chewbacca walks around behind Han Solo! "Everybody knows that! You can't have Han Solo without Chewbacca!" (Although apparently you can have Chewbacca without Han, but that's a story for another time.) But he's treated like furniture. 

A lot of people have complained about the fact that Princess Leia doesn't hug Chewbacca at the end of this movie. It's a valid complaint -- so valid that even the filmmakers retroactively agreed -- yes, Leia should have hugged Chewbacca at the end of the film, and not Rey, this gal that she barely knows. That scene clearly demonstrated that the filmmakers thought of Chewbacca (even though he arguably just went through a worse trauma than anyone else in the film) as nothing more than a walking carpet that needed to get out of the shot.
C3PO and R2D2
If they had just framed this picture and featured it in the background
in any random scene... it would been no different than their appearance this film.
C3P0 has a red arm now, which is the extent of his appearance in the film. R2-D2 is literally gathering dust in the corner but still has screen time, in spite of the fact we have a new robot that totally adequately fulfills the "Cute Robot" quota. (Okay, I get it. I know these two haven't had a good reason to be around since A New Hope -- their function was fulfilled, and after that, they were kept around for comic relief. But in this, they weren't even weak comic relief! They might as well not have been present! It would have been funnier if Finn [you know, one of the new characters who desperately needed screen time?] had been the one awkwardly interrupting Leia and Han's first meeting. R2-D2's function in the film could have been fulfilled by a post-it note.)

LUKE SKYWALKER
Luke Skywalker? More like Luke MacGuffin.
**heavy spoilers** Luke was more or less was completely left out of this film except in name -- and why? Because they wanted to focus on the new characters, that's why! And that's fine, if you're going to commit to that, but if you do, don't mention Luke Skywalker thirty times in the opening credits crawl! I spent the whole film waiting for this guy to show up, and when he did show up, it was extremely unsatisfying. There was even a really good place for him to show up which would have been extremely satisfying (remember when Kylo Ren and our heroes are lightsaber fighting for the first time, and there's a moment when the good guys' lightsaber is loose, and then suddenly it's getting force-pulled by someone... and it lands in Rey's hand, and she very improbably fights off this man who is bigger than her, stronger than her, and has years more training in both force use and lightsabering? Wouldn't it have been much more satisfying [and made more sense] if the lightsaber went loose, it got force-pulled -- and landed in the hand of Luke Skywalker? That would have been a thrill! People would have cheered in the theater! It would have implied that when he sensed, via the force, that his good friends were in trouble, he immediately hopped in a ship and flew down to help out. Wouldn't that have been ultra-satisfying as his first appearance? 

But no, instead, we're treated to a Luke who doesn't care about the plight of his friends and HIDES IN A CAVE LIKE A HUGE WHINY COWARD FOR TWENTY YEARS BECAUSE THINGS DIDN'T GO HIS WAY. By the end, I didn't even want to find this guy! And ultimately, if they weren't going to do a good reveal, they should have just saved his first appearance for the second movie -- instead of writing that very tacked-on scene at the very end that serves no purpose except to leave us with a shot of Luke Skywalker, which they felt they had to include after promising him so heavily in the title crawl. **end spoiler**

HAN SOLO
"Just doing this so they'll let me be Indiana Jones again, folks. Please ignore."
**horrible spoilers**Han Solo was the only one who served a purpose in the film, and if he'd been the only one to make an appearance, it would have been fine. THAT SAID, his first line when he sees the Millennium Falcon ("Chewie... we're home,") never worked. That just isn't something Han Solo would say! He would say something like, "That's more like it," or "Why the hell hasn't this thing been washed...?!" It should have been a cranky and/or sassy line, and because it wasn't, it demonstrated that the filmmakers were pandering to the feelings of the audience and not being faithful to the character. 

ALSO, I thought his death was horribly undignified, and I absolutely hated our last shot of his tiny, frail-looking body falling into the reactor pit or whatever it was. Not that I didn't anticipate it...

You'll note that my comment up there was "edited". And before you try to claimthat I retroactively edited in this line about Han -- I can show you the original, if you ask.
Edited for grammar only.In other words, his death wasn't even a surprise (except for being surprised at what an undignified ending they were giving, arguably, the most beloved character from the original films -- not to mention the surprise at how uncreative they were being. Seriously? You're that afraid to diverge from the original formula?) **end spoilers** 
THE MAIN PROBLEMS
But, ultimately, aside from all the problems created by having to give a few minutes each to all the old characters and not having enough time with the new characters ...here's my single biggest problem with this film: THERE WERE NO SURPRISES IN IT.


I'm not saying that you have to have a "I am your father!" surprise in every single Star Wars movie. Far from it. If you did that.... it wouldn't be a surprise! But a film should treat the first time you see something important as a kind of surprise, and build up to it accordingly. It's called story structure. There were important revelations in this movie that did not build properly because the surprise had already been spoiled earlier in the film -- or spoiled by the fact that the scriptwriters were clearly terrified to leave the structure of the original film, and therefore we already knew what was going to happen every step of the way because we already saw this movie in 1977.
The first time Kylo Ren takes off his mask didn't have to be a "surprise" (in the sense that you're giving us a cheap thrill by having him all weird and mutated under there), but it should have happened only when he first confronts Han Solo. NOT when he is interrogating Rey (who in this film is, for all intents and purposes "just some girl"). Seeing his face is supposed to have some kind of impact on us... and it has less impact, and less meaning, if he takes his mask off for just anybody. If he'd only taken it off for Han Solo, it would have seemed important, and further built up the impact of that scene. Expression worn during the first read-through.The first time Rey uses the force should have been when she force-pulls the lightsaber into her hand. NOT when she suddenly is able to use Jedi mind-tricks on a random guard (which didn't come across as a surprise, just as a cheap way for the writers to get her out of a tight situation). I mean, come on, folks. It wasn't a surprise that the light saber landed in her hand (except for the fact that I was surprised and disappointed that it didn't land in the hand of Luke Skywalker) -- because that surprise that she can use the force had already been spoiled by her use of Jedi mind-tricks earlier! So she can use the force! Big deal! She's so sad, because... something. It's meaningful, dammit!The first time we saw the new mega-Death Star should have been a bigger reveal. If we had seen the First Order (bad guys) massing on this random snowy planet... our heroes are running around out there, fighting bad guys... and then, when we least expect it, the freaking planet opens up underneath them and we realize, Hell, this WHOLE PLANET is the Death Star!! Wow!! ... That would have been a surprise, right? Instead, we are treated to zero reveal. The Death Star is first seen in a totally throw-away establishing shot that gives away the whole surprise, and it's utterly underwhelming. It's the greatest destroyer of expectations in the galaxy!The first time we see Han Solo -- was every bit as lame as I feared it would be, and therefore, no surprise. You and I have been waiting for this man to speak again for twenty years -- and therefore, the first thing he should have said shouldn't just have been to vocalize the feelings of every Star Wars fanboy upon seeing the trailer: "Chewie... We're home." This isn't kindly old Grandpa Solo, folks -- this is a scoundrel (see below). Granted, a scoundrel with a heart of gold -- but he's still a scoundrel, and his first line should have affirmed everything about him -- that he's still a loveable but dishonest jerk. That it didn't do that demonstrates bad scriptwriting.

The first time we see Luke Skywalker... was horribly lame. No surprises there! Rey takes off from the base (which would have been a good place for the movie to end, by the way) with the intention of finding Luke Skywalker's planet. She arrives at his planet two minutes later, and locates him immediately. They don't speak. END SCENE. Wait, what? Really? That's how you're going to end this movie we've been waiting for for twenty years? REALLY?! It's not subversion of expectations. It's not even a good lack of payoff. It's just... stuff happening. 

"I'm sorry. They didn't write me any lines. This is all I've got."
I could go on writing about things that didn't surprise me all day... but I think I'll stop here. You yourself can probably pick out a few things that failed to surprise.  But ultimately, "no surprises" is just a symptom of a much bigger issue -- the fundamental flaw of the new Star Wars: Weak scriptwriting as a result of a desperate fear of taking risks and therefore losing money. 

In the end, did I like The Force Awakens? Meh. It wasn't the worst movie I've ever seen, but it was far from being the best, either. It was resoundingly...




I only recommend The Force Awakens for your shelf if you're a Star Wars completionist, or in danger of dying from lack of nostalgia. Otherwise, you can probably skip it. (Watch Mad Max: Fury Road if you want a years-later sequel that builds upon the previous films and makes something even better! Now THAT'S a movie!)