‘Star Wars: The Force Awakens’ or — ‘Spaceballs II: The Search For Meaning’?
I’ve only received genuine flak for criticising two movies online: once was when someone (who lived in Los Angeles) gave me a tonne of grief and then unfriended me for tearing into ‘La La Land’ (2016), a film I said made me assume everyone who lived in L.A. was a self-absorbed narcissist, his actions, oddly enough, proving my point and the other time was with ‘Star Wars: The Force Awakens’ (2015). I had written on its release that I wasn’t a fan, nothing more negative than that, when I received a private message from someone saying I shouldn’t criticise the movie because everyone else loved it and, besides, I should be showing J.J. Abrams support because of my connection with him. “What connection?” I asked, baffled. Their reply was that both Abrams and I were writers so I should be demonstrating solidarity with the guy, despite the fact that J.J. Abrams is wildly successful, a world famous director and, apparently, beloved in Hollywood. Personally I saw no connection whatsoever, but felt oddly flattered yet also unnerved by the implications of what they were saying (“Shut up and march along with everyone else”).
It didn’t stop there. So many people I spoke to told me I was being either deliberately “contrary” or actively intransigent for criticising the movie even when they conceded my points about it being very much a carbon copy of the original ‘Star Wars’ (1977), cynically designed nostalgia bait and dramatically hollow. I “had” to like it because it was Star Wars, regardless of its content. For a good few months I felt I was in ‘Invasion of The Body Snatchers’ or in the midst of a particularly bizarre cult with a fixation for glowing swords. Even my girlfriend at the time called me an asshole, although that could’ve been for countless other reasons.
In full disclosure I will admit I am biased in that I have a problem with J.J. Abrams’ movies in general finding them to be not just mindless entertainment but actively insulting to their audience’s intelligence. In chasing spectacle, speed and that ersatz Spielbergian “sheen” his recklessness can’t help but smash and break canonical rules or indelible restrictions of the universes he presents to us. The best example is Han pulling the Falcon up from light speed within the atmosphere of Star Killer base. I always thought that hyperspace wasn’t like “dusting crops” and was highly dangerous due to the sensitive calibrations needed to avoid the gravitational pull of nearby stars and accidentally smashing into them. Huge distances needed to be kept and maintained. So how can Han come careening into an atmosphere at the speed of light and not smash his way through the centre of the entire fucking planet? Because logic and rules be damn as we need to keep everything happening and happening FAST! What makes it worse is that it is all utterly cynical with Abrams knowing when he is breaking these rules but thinking we won’t notice, most worryingly of all, or won’t care if he bombards us with incident. Yet these things do matter and they matter a lot.
I won’t go into detail about my issues with ‘The Force Awakens’ as the last thing the world needs is another Star Wars rant, but I was surprised by some of the counter-arguments I was hit with. People would concede that, sure, Rey and Finn don’t really have character arcs or any depth and there isn’t, technically, any actual point to the movie (seriously, what is this film actually about? It’s not about Rey or the Resistance or even blowing up Star Killer base) and, yes, it was a cynical marketing move to have Han Solo not be happily settled down with Leia, sitting by the fire with a pipe enjoying his well-earned retirement but STILL dicking about with Chewie like a deluded, senile old man desperately re-enacting his youth simply because Disney needed Han back in the costume and that specific role (say all the you want about what they did to Luke’s character but, in my opinion this was worse) but all that was acceptable because this film was all about reintroducing us to the Star Wars universe and reminding us all what Star Wars is. But surely of all the film franchises in film history the one we least need reintroduced to is bloody Star Wars, a series of movies so engrained in our culture it’s impossible to escape. And if it was just to reacquaint us with the classic “look” of the originals then that just reduces everything down to cosmetics. The one argument I would say has some validity was that ‘The Force Awakens’ functioned to purge our minds of the stink of Lucas’ prequels. I agree with this as it perfectly sums up what this movie actual is — nothing more than a cinematic enema.
Rian Johnson received criticism for ‘The Last Jedi’ (2017) and I can understand why, but at least Johnson was attempting something different and wasn’t just regurgitating nostalgic beats. ‘The Last Jedi’ is woefully misguided but Johnson, unlike Abrams, is a genuinely talented and interesting filmmaker with actual flare and if these latest Star Wars films do stumble at the end it won’t be because of Johnson’s entry throwing everything off course but because there was never an actual, properly defined, solid foundation to this new series to begin with.
Obviously I don’t mind people liking the ‘The Force Awakens’ but I do find it unnerving when I am expected to like something because everyone else does. I bristle against that feeling, especially when people freely admit it is not really that good but, you know, its Star Wars, man, so you gotta be on board even if it means being disingenuous and losing your integrity. It’s a movie I find boring, dull and hollow and not going to say works because of the hype involved in the franchise. I can’t think of another movie to compare it with but it does remind me of something else in particular and that’s the death of Princess Diana: i.e. a tragic event that elicited an irrational and insincere emotional response from millions of people across the globe.
