Star Wars: The Force Awakens

Overly Devoted Archivist Uncategorized I am taking NO chances spoiler-tagging this, spoilers, star wars, star wars spoilers, sw spoilers, tfa spoilers, the force awakens, the force awakens spoilers 0 Comments

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.

Also also, no, Jar Jar is not in this movie.