BY ADAM PARKER
If we judge the new “Star Wars”
movie strictly within the context of the franchise, we’d give it a score that’s
higher than the one we’d assign if critiquing the film on its merits.
As part of the franchise, it
was pretty good, mostly because of the appealing “Star Wars” aesthetic, Adam
Driver’s performance as the troubled villain Kylo Ren, and Daisy Ridley’s turn
as the new hero.
But if we set aside for a
moment the history, the baggage, all that we know and like and hate about the
first two trilogies, and consider “The Force Awakens” independently, we should
probably admit that the movie was, well, just OK.
This is probably because director
J.J. Abrams was caught between two rocks and two hard places. He had to appease
die-hard fans and appeal to the new generation of moviegoers. And he had to
adhere adequately to the general plot and interstellar environment established
by the first six films, yet introduce enough new elements to ensure audiences
didn’t merely experience a lot of déjà vu.
In a sense, then, it was a
no-win situation.
When the first of the “Star
Wars” movies appeared in 1977, it thrilled audiences precisely because it was so
revolutionary. The 1970s was, in certain ways, a terrific decade for Hollywood,
which produced a slew of gritty and exciting films such as “Taxi Driver, “The
Godfather” and “All the President’s Men.”
When the Jedi knights, Darth
Vader and that cowboy Han Solo burst onto the screen, audiences suddenly were
confronted with a new kind of very old storytelling, a space opera, a grand
myth. Everything about the experience was thrilling, and we didn’t mind that
the dialogue sometimes could be cheesy or the alien creatures a bit goofy. The
epic adventure provided an unusual and enthralling form of escapism from
recession, gas shortages, Middle East conflict and Cold War animosity. Never
mind our earthly troubles; we could lose ourselves in the intense drama of this
galaxy far, far away.
But Abrams’ “Star Wars” comes
after we’ve become accustomed to huge Hollywood blockbusters selling escapism
and special effects. We’ve seen all the Marvel movies and disaster flicks and
Star Trek remakes. Big ships and exploding Death Stars cannot impress us the
way they once did.
The only other option for the
filmmaker, then, is to scrap the archetypes (reluctant hero, brilliant pilot,
turncoat, evil villain in the service of a master, wise mentor) and old plot
formulas (hero’s journey, good vs. evil) and go for something fresh, a more
invigorating kind of storytelling. But that would mean to abandon what “Star
Wars” fans love.
And it would threaten to topple
a multi-faceted enterprise at just the moment Disney paid $4 billion for
Lucasfilm. Well, that’s not an option. So we get, in the end, a movie that
plays it safe, that necessarily keeps within its commercial boundaries. While
the craft is evident, there is really no art involved to speak of.
And therefore no goosebumps. No
chills. No accelerated pulse rate. We know what will happen long before it
does. We know that young Rey will embrace her destiny, that the masked Kylo Ren
is someone’s son and still has a sliver of light in him, that one of the
characters will play the role of the sacrificial lamb, that the battle will be won and the new Death Star will be destroyed but that the war will rage on.
We know that, to keep us hooked
and ready to buy tickets to episodes VIII and IX, certain key questions purposefully
will be left unanswered, such as Rey’s and Finn’s parentage, the manner in
which Kylo Ren’s redemption will be realized, the mystery of the dismembered map
and why C-3PO has one red arm.
So be it. Yet these mysteries
fail to engage our curiosity as intensely as they might, perhaps because we
know they will eventually be resolved in predictable ways. After all, there is
a formula with which to comply.
“The Force Awakens” hews
closely to the first of the movies, “A New Hope,” with many of the same
proto-characters and much the same narrative arc. Whereas the older film was
rough around its edges because of the intensive manual labor involved in
making it, this movie is slick. Too slick. The action unfolds in a rush, and
the glitches and inconsistencies are few. The pace struck me as a little off:
each plot development follows logically and quickly from the previous one. Rey
learns to fly the mechanically compromised Millennium Falcon (which conveniently
starts right up after years of disuse) with ease. Han Solo turns up at just the
right moment. The planetary system housing the Resistance is obliterated
unceremoniously. The only moment someone feels a disturbance in the Force is…
well, I won’t give it away.
Suffice it to say that it’s all
too pat. And it fails to provide us with a glimpse of the characters’ inner
turmoil. We see angst and stress on their faces, but we know little of their emotional
lives.
“Search your feelings,” Darth
Vader told Luke Skywalker, a plea repeated in various forms throughout the
first six films. Feelings were important. They determined to which side of the
Force one gravitated. They could be harnessed for good or exploited for evil.
One could, within limits, shape one’s destiny.
In the new movie, feelings take
a back seat to action. Destiny seems imperturbable. And we don’t wonder whether
or how Rey might be corrupted.
Of course it’s impossible to
employ a standard myth narrative, such as the hero’s journey, and throw in a
twist — say, kill the hero, or cause her to fail. So Abrams is stuck with the
predictable and inevitable. He’s also stuck with an already-defined space adventure milieu, so
he can’t change that up either.
Finally, he’s stuck with a
commercial obligation that takes precedence over everything else. Failure, Disney mandates, is
not an option.
What we’re given, then, is an
adequate if ultimately unimpressive Hollywood rendering of a favorite movie
realm. It succeeds in transporting us to this far away galaxy of long ago, but
it doesn’t grab us by the throat like Darth Vader and fling us about with any
force.
December 23, 2015
