The Force Awakens - To Be My Dream Movie!

I don’t usually write movie reviews, and generally, when I do write them, they are about more complex issues than something like, “That kicked a lot of ass.” (See my meandering thoughts on Zero Dark Thirty, here.)

But Star Wars: The Force Awakens kicked a lot of ass.

Like, a lot. The amount of ass kicked was so high it may have pressed into “blowing minds” territory.

To start with though, we need to go back to 1991 and Baby Tedd in his toy room. The bored child was digging through piles of his brothers’ toys when he discovered a Darth Vader action figure case.

Mind. Blown.

The towhead immediately went to his mother for confirmation on who or what this creature was on the case.

Then to find out there was more!! There were three movies about this masked person – THREE. (It is important to note that in 1991 Hollywood hadn’t become the trash regurgitating whore that it is today. A movie trilogy was rare – there was only one Batman, Harry Potter had yet to teach us the totally necessary trick of turning the last book of a series into two movies to drain even more money out of the willing public, and Disney hadn’t begun pushing movies out in phases, quadrilogies, and spin-offs to the point where one can barely count the number of Marvel movies on hands and feet combined.)

In 1991 someone getting three movies was absolutely mind blowing, ass-kicking, awesomeness.

From there the blond baby’s love of Star Wars only swelled. He had 3 copies of the trilogy on VHS, the blue-ray copies, the DVDs, he re-bought VHS’s to get the letterbox 1992 editions with the hologram cover. He collected Hammerhead and Bossk figurines – he even found the trash compactor monster in the basement of his grandmother’s house. In a notebook in his room in sixth grade he charted out 8 additional Star Wars movies, while laying on his Star Wars bed sheets, about where Luke, Han, and Leia would end up after the Battle of Endor.  (Yoda was resurrected because he needed to be, and Sy Snootles played a disproportionately large role in Tedd’s Episodes 7-15).

When The Phantom Menace came out, he saw it four times in theaters. FOUR. In Guantanamo Bay that was a form of torture. BUT HE WILLED IT TO BE GOOD.

Then Episode II happened. And it was time for him to give up. The New Hope (see what I did there?) that the new Star Wars trilogy would live up to eight years of his expectations was destroyed like Alderaan (okay, I’ll stop). Why would George do this to us? It wasn’t even enjoyable. There wasn’t banter! R2-D2 was flying around? Yoda (god bless him) could somehow do ninja flips? Sy Snootles was nowhere to be seen. The romance of the movie was as painful as watching your parent’s make out. What was this?!

The only good thing that came of Episode II was that it brought the series of films to such a low point that they literally could have just put a screen crawl on the front of Gigli and called it Episode III and people would be like, “Well, at least it’s better than Episode II.”

My nephew, when he was about ten, and I once got into a quasi-discussion about which trilogy was better – the old or new. His response of “the new” made me want to weep for the future generations. I call it a quasi-discussion because I was so disgusted with this response that I quarantined myself in a room with sackcloth immediately after the talk to try to and repent for his horrendous sin.

BUT – perhaps, Lucas was just taking us through his own genius three-act structure overlaid on the first three films. There is the first act (Episodes IV-VI) – the heroes triumph! There is joy! But evil survives. Then there is the second act (Episodes I-III, especially II) – our heroes are brought to their lowest point. They are scattered to the wind and evil has its great triumph. Then act three (Episodes VII-IX) – the heroes pull themselves back together. They get back in the saddle – AND THEY MIND BLOW AND ASS KICK LIKE IT’S THEIR JOB!

Because The Force Awakens is so freaking awesome. Some people complain about plot holes or the fact that it’s basically Episode IV 2.0, but you know what? Episode IV was a really good movie. It’s not like it was Episode II 2.0 (Talking in front of a green screen for 2 straight hours then a lot of CGI people killing each other – interlaced with scenes of your parents making out), it was built on the bones of a really good movie!

This one guy I know posted a Facebook status that was like “Omg, more like Star Bores. I was so bored solo in that movie!” Aside from where he learned his shoddy pun work, I would also like to know what movies excite this individual. My guess is he’s like a Funny Girl, musicals only kind of a guy. Because you can’t like action movies and not at least appreciate the action pieces in this movie.

A truncated list Episode VII Awesomeness:

1.     Kylo Ren is an awesome character.  A lot of people were bitching because he’s not badass enough, but THAT WAS THE WHOLE POINT OF THE ~SPOILER ALERT~ DEATH OF HAN SOLO. The movie builds Kylo up to be a whiny weak man, but then he slaughters his father so he can give himself to darkness. This guy is now free to be the worst of the worst. If you think about Darth Vader being bad, he turned evil to, in the end, help people. With darkness he was told he could save people like his wife and mother. Kylo’s like f$%k that, I want death and annihilation. This guy is set up to be an existential nightmare in the rest of the new trilogy.

2.     Real things are in this movie. Remember how in the prequels, they couldn’t muster the budget for anything other than a green screen room? The actors spent all their time talking to nothing, which might explain why even Ewan McGregor put in a performance worthy of a fourth grade talent show. JJ Abrams saved us from the same fate. He built things and the actors of this trilogy aren’t just as surprised as we are at the final product.

3.     Independent women (real ones). It’s become a trope in the new wave of action movies to make sure that women have autonomy. This is good in some cases. In other cases, it’s more of an afterthought – i.e. Deadpool, where the hero’s gorgeous female, waitress girlfriend kind of fights back? Or something? Before being ultimately saved? But she punched the bad guy, so she’s basically proved that she isn’t a caricature. (Movie executive tix a box on his “politically correct” checklist). Rey is an organically active, heroic female. She supports herself, she’s a survivor, and she’s human. She also doesn’t need a roided female counterpoint in the movie to point to to be like, “I mean, she’s a bit weak, but that girl who can lift a car balances the movie’s gender gap.” #reyforever #ithoughtaboutbeingstraightforasec

4.     Goodbye and hello – the movie does a good job of nodding to the past, while blasting us forward. Starkiller base, Tatooine Part II, etc. were all basically Episode IV 2.0, but the movie didn’t stagnate there. Han died – oops, sorry spoiler alert addendum – Kylo went from a Vader protégé to a fratricidal monster, the base was destroyed, and Rey is going to seek her destiny. I’m not worried about Episode VIII being Empire Strikes Back 2.0. JJ just wanted to say thanks to everyone for weathering the parental make out horror of the prequels and get us ready for a brave new frontier.

5.     It’s just a good, progressive action movie. Yes, there are plot holes. (Starkiller base is the size of a planet, but somehow they hustle from point A to point B like it was the kitchen in my grandmother’s trailer.) But the movie has great action, it has a diverse cast, a decent plot, heroes for people to look up to, and ultimately it explores timeless themes of good v. evil, family, and love that transcend genre, space, and time.

I think that’s all I’ve got on this. I’m super pumped for Episode VIII, super pumped to (hopefully) see Kylo Ren evolve into the monster he sets out to be, and excited to see him thwarted by Ren after she becomes full Jedi. (Sidenote: I believe Ren’s true identity will be revealed to be the love child of Sy Snootles and an X-Wing figher – not pilot – the actual starship.) At the very least, I hope this blog entry was better than watching your parents make out in front of a green screen.