I am still not OVER the fact that Poe GAVE FINN his NAME because do you know how important the act of naming is??? in stories?? in real life?? in EVERYTHING?
Finn literally wasn’t Finn until he met Poe Dameron, and I have more to say about this at some other point but!!! NAMES!!!! SPACE HEROES IN LOVE!!! AWESOME THINGS!!!!
No, you weren’t hearing things: Those were the voices of Ewan MacGregor, Frank Oz and Alec Guinness that we heard during Rey’s vision in The Force Awakens, J.J. Abrams confirmed to Entertainment Weekly.
Ewan McGregor came in to record his part (after cartoon counterpart James Arnold Taylor took a shot at it,) as did Frank Oz. Guinness’ “Rey” was isolated from existing audio:
As they worked on editing the dream sequence, Bryan Burk, a longtime Bad Robot collaborator and one of the producers of the film, surprised Abrams one day with the gift of a single word: Obi-Wan Kenobi’s voice saying the name “Rey …”
“I said, ‘That’s cool, is that the thing from Ewan McGregor?’” Abrams recalled. “He said ‘No, we took a line from Alec Guinness saying ‘Afraid.’”
Not only that, but the lilt in his voice from that truncated word happened to fit exactly what Abrams had in mind. “They cut it, and you hear the performance – he’s saying it the way I would have begged Alec Guinness to have said it. It is so crazy perfect,” Abrams says. “So when you hear Obi-Wan talk to Rey it is both Alec Guinness and Ewan McGregor doing the voice.”
Taylor and several other familiar voices can still be heard in various parts around the film – but I’ll leave the specific IDing to those more well-versed in the cartoons than I.
I….actually think this film may be more divisive than the media is making it seem like at the moment. Not because of the acting or the dialogue, those are great! But I can see some Star Wars purists really hating this film-
because a Big Thing happens in it. BUT IT’S NOT THE BIG THING I WAS DREADING!
Are you ready for the spoilers? Here’s some blank space before they start:
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Okay! Um, the film is an enormously fun romp (are you shipping Rey/Finn? Are you shipping Finn/Poe? ARE YOU SHIPPING BOTH OR ALL THREE TOGETHER?) right up until the end, where something big and horrible and very sad happens. Goddamn it, here is the spoiler: Kylo Ren is Ben, Han and Leia’s son gone evil and the reason Luke has buggered off. And at the end, in a scene that’s very reminiscent of the climatic scene of Empire Strikes Back, he kills Han with that funky lightsabre we all made so many jokes about. Kills him! Very dead! Oh no!
So I’m sad about that. It’s a weird kind of sadness, but very much there. And I’m sad for Leia too, who is now down a husband and a son and a brother (….and an adopted family and a planet and a father and a mother!) Ah, look at me, taking about these people like they’re real. But I am sad about it.
The ending of Return of the Jedi holds a special place in my heart, because of the hope and relief evident in that final scene. You really wanted that to be the happy ending, and now it isn’t, I guess. Luke and Han and Leia didn’t really get one, just like how it usually is in real life – and subconsciously, I guess I always knew they didn’t because they’re great mythological heroes at this point and great mythological heroes don’t get to just settle down with their well-adjusted kids and have quiet lives. They keep doing Great Things until they’re dead. But anyway…
There’s a quote that means a lot to me, from the writer Mary Norton: “Stories never really end…it’s just that after a certain point, one stops telling them.” And I always thought the end of ROTJ was the stop-telling point. I don’t begrudge people for wanting to know what happens next. I just feel a bit sad that my childhood happy ending has more or less gone, I guess. Like how I felt when JK Rowling implied that Ron and Hermione probably wouldn’t have lasted long after Harry Potter ended. My imagined future for imagined people! What happened to it?
(Also, I hope they warned/ran Han’s death by George Lucas first, because damn, seeing one of your creations coldly murdered like that by his new writers would hurt like hell. But maybe he was cool with it. Sorry, I’m very protective of that strange old man.)
But it is a good movie! The new characters are great! Also, I laugh at how much Kylo Ren/Ben takes after his grandfather. He’s just a tantrum-throwing whiny brat, like Anakin was. (He also has the same hairstyle and gets some similar wounds. Wonder if that was intentional.) I suspect his character will get much the same reaction grown-up Anakin did – why is this Dark Lord of Evil such a petty git? – but I think that’s the point. I think that was the point with Anakin, too – real evil isn’t strong or dramatic or exciting, real evil is pathetic. Which is what Kylo 100% is in this movie. I wanted Leia to turn up, slap him round the face and say something like “Get the fuck out of that black cape, you twat, and stop killing your underlings and learn some fucking manners. I AM YOUR MOTHER! GO TO YOUR ROOM!” But I suppose if she’d done that the movie would be over before it had even begun.
Also, Luke is not evil. Despite a fake-out at the start, he is not evil! (He’s also barely in it…) Which is good, because if JJ Abrams or anyone else takes the power of the “I am a Jedi, like my father before me” moment from me, I will end them.
I liked Jurassic World, but I would have liked it a lot more without the sexist, workaholic-mothers-are-destroying-society subplot/tropes
I MEAN ALRIGHT (spoilers ahead)
Claire’s a ‘cold’ workaholic manager who can’t remember her nephew’s ages. She seems like a nice enough person, and competent, but we’re meant to judge her and judge her and judge her for…what, exactly? Not wanting kids? She’s referred to at least once as “the mother” of the park/the Indomitus Rex, the implication being that she’s a bad mother and it’s all kind of her fault, but she’s not a mother! And she doesn’t seem bothered about being one! And that should be fine! But the message we keep being hit over the head with is, “Women who place their work commitments above having children are selfish and will cause dinosaurs to run amok’ I mean, Claire isn’t remotely actually cold to her nephews – she’s just too busy to take them out to the park, so has her assistant do it. On the scale of likes-kids to hates-kids, she’s not even an Alan Grant! Yet her whole story revolves around Defrosting the Ice Queen (with as many sexist tropes, including an unasked-for kiss in the heat of the moment, as possible thrown in) and making Claire into a maternal figure worthy of a relationship with the alpha male Owen. Who likewise expresses no interest in children (actual children, not his raptors) but that’s okay cos he’s a dude? I guess? Anyway,
IT GETS WORSE
You’ve also got Karen, Claire’s sister and mother of the aforementioned nephews, who is going through a divorce. This is making her younger son unhappy and her teenage son a total jerk. In one scene, we see her calling her sons from her office only to be hurried into a meeting, implying that her devotion to her work is causing her family problems. And yet in all other respects she seems like a good mother, so we’ll take this one as a ‘maybe’, but
IT GETS WORSE
Claire leaves her nephews with an assistant, Zara (played by Katie McGrath! Hi there!) who like her boss seems competent enough but is clearly not interested in kids. (I can’t remember if she’s even seen actually antagonising them, but I don’t think so.) They give her the slip to go and explore the park. The next time we see her, she’s running towards the boys when she’s grabbed by a pterodactyl, tossed around as she screams, dunked into the Mosasaurus tank and eaten. She’s the only character to get such a gratuitous death scene, and – for why? I’m reminded of Gennero from the original movie, but he actually ran off and left the kids in danger; Zara just…cares more about her Blackberry than the kids she’s watching? (Who at that point aren’t in any danger at all.) Not exactly a crime, certainly not one deserving of GRATUITOUS DINO VIOLENCE. Her character’s presented in such a misogynistic way – attractive young woman stuck to her phone and not interested in children; therefore killed. You can’t imagine a man playing that same role, can you? I can’t.
Um, basically – pretty much every woman in this film is judged by their attitude to children and family, and/or their ability to be a caretaker, and if they don’t want one or don’t have that ability then they’re judged or punished in some way. I was so disappointed by that.
