At the Late Night Double Feature Picture Show (In the Front Row [Fuck the Front Row])

***NONSPOILERY DISCUSSION OF THE STAR WARS TO FOLLOW UNDER THE CUT***

But if you are very... scrupulous about spoilers, or if reiterating well-known facts about the franchise is a spoiler danger, you might just want to wait.

Hermione dies.




Ok, now that we've got that out of the way, let me just say the things I said on Facebook.  Only expanded.

1) It's good Star Wars.  It's got space wizards, daddy issues and pew-pew laser beams.  The dialog only drags when certain characters are talking about certain other characters under the thrall of the Dark Side, and frankly, not even Sir Ian could polish up that turd, so don't worry.  Gone is any trace of Lucas' attempts in the prequels to aim the franchise younger with broad characters and slapstick.  I don't think kids needed that anyway.

2) Star Wars is formulaic.  It has always been formulaic.  On purpose.  It's a myth and myths don't adhere to the usual demands of believable causality.  It's a formula, but a tasty formula, and a satisfying one, so don't worry.

3) Part and parcel to myth is that things that happened once are going to happen again.  The characters from the original trilogy take up positions of the elders in the orignal and the younger characters sort of inhabit the places that the older ones did in the original.  Sort of.  One of them gets Luke's spot, another sort of works as Han, but there really isn't a new Leia.  Leia is kind of still Leia, leading the rebellion, in whatever form.  Fin becomes super interesting in this because he's an entirely new archetype.  I wonder what his influence will have on the tale of the Skywalkers and their Very Bad Decisions.

4) Actually, let's talk a little more about the new characters.  I like them.  I can pass the test of telling you about them - Rey is a more independent, mature, resilient and guarded kid from the backwater, strong in ways that grow naturally and organically from her background.  Fin is a good kid who had no identity other than a conscience until five minutes ago and has to create himself on the fly and decide very quickly and in a crisis who he's going to be.  Poe is a cool operative of the Resistance and a talented pilot, neither as red oni as Han nor as blue oni as Lando.  Kylo Ren ****SPOILERESQUE**** is all exposed wiring, pouring smoke and shooting sparks and fetishizing a Vader that only was on Bespin (and possibly in Star Wars Rebels).  BB-8 is not annoying, though I wish they had used female pronouns for what I will headcanon forever as her.  It doesn't matter, but it does.

5) I hate JJ Abrams' work.  I feel betrayed by LOST, got sick at Cloverfield, felt insulted by Super 8, and regard his treatment of the Star Trek reboots as an act of vandalism.  That said, I think that not only did he do well by Star Wars, he was, in hindsight, the logical choice for the first film of the new trilogy.  His love of myth, reliance on homage, and preocupations with daddy issues and half-baked mysticism put Star Wars perfectly in his wheelhouse.  It's the Hugh Jackman as Wolverine thing all over again - I don't much care for Hugh Jackman and I hate Wolverine, but I love Hugh Jackman as Wolverine.  Actually, I am softening on Jackman, but Wolverine is bullshit.

6) This is the big one and probably the most contraversial thing I came away from my viewing with.  I am more kindly disposed toward what Lucas was trying in the prequels because of The Force Awakens.  Hear me out.  Lucas is a effects guy.  He's never been a good director, he was just friends with good directors in the 70s and was a brilliant creator of special effects.  Now think of what was happening during the run of the prequel trilogy - CG was finding it's legs, pushing on its boundaries, and folks on the technical side of things were in love with it.  Especially Lucas.  ESPECIALLY LUCAS.  This was a guy who made no bones about the fact that the technical side of film-making was where his interest lay.  A new technology just beginning to blossom.  It wasn't his fault that no one knew in '99, '01 and '03 that that flower was going to be a big gaudy bloom with a nauseating stink that fills up the theater and lingers for more than a decade.  It's only within the last year (Mad Max: Fury Road and this - the Marvel movies are ok in this regard, but they sometimes screw it up) that I've started to notice films where CG gets used responsibly and with restraint.  Lucas is a big part of the reason why, both in terms of Lucasfilm pioneering the tech and as a cautionary tale (that came too late to save the Hobbit films from being unwatchable bullshit).

6.5) Lucas deserves a lot of shit for certain things, still: his painful dialog and his insistence on aiming the prequels at kids.  Weirdly, Star Wars doesn't have to be aimed at kids for kids to be on board.  Space wizards and pew-pew laser beams.  I have yet to hear a kid not be on board with that.  Unless that's not their thing, I won't judge your kids if that's not their thing (*judges*).  But in terms of having been in love with technology and what it might do, but finding out that it led down a dark path, much is forgiven.  Not all.  Give me a Willow sequel with someone else writing and directing and you using your power with responsibility and we'll talk.

Stupid daikini.