Film - Star Wars VII: The Thoughts Awaken
The young Padawan, Kraig Taylor-Bryant, gives us his thoughts on the new Star Wars film, The Force Awakens (with MAJOR SPOILERS from the start)...
Let me start off by saying how disappointed and annoyed I was by Han Solo dying. I do understand why they killed him off and why Harrison Ford would only want to be in one more film, although this is just a assumption, as I could not find out if he really did want to die. I do know that he wanted to die in Return of the Jedi when, in a previous interview, he said that he thought Han was ‘not a very interesting character' which is what made him want to die sooner. Besides his opinion of his character, this is not the case for many Star Wars fans who have grown up with the franchise as well as those fans who did not grow up with it but simply heard about it and found their own way to love Star Wars. Judging by my age (15) you can tell that I did not grow up with the franchise but I also found my own love for it, which made it still very depressing when one of the franchise’s most memorable characters was killed off. However, since Harrison Ford got injured on set, it has become clear to me that Han Solo did need to leave the story and I believe that J.J Abrams gave the best ending to Han's story.
“Why would you think Han should have died” is what others may say against my points but what the older generations don’t understand is that, since our generation would feel obliged to watch the Star Wars films from episode one to follow the story, we would feel more depressed at the death of Obi Wan Kenobi as we watched all of the Star Wars episodes whilst the older generations may have stopped watching the prequel trilogy, which is understandable considering Lucas made Jar Jar Binks to make the franchise more child friendly. This all means that our generation understands that this type of sacrifice is important in the Star Wars story to make the heroes more determined to do good in the memory of that character. It may seem like I was rambling a bit for that aspect of the film but it was a key point for me as it’s one of the main reasons why I enjoyed this film.
However, I felt like the soundtrack for the film was a bit of a letdown as, for some reason, the music did not ‘feel’ like Star Wars. Of course the main theme hasn’t changed, which is good because this article would have taken a completely different direction if it had been, but, although it is still John Williams, the new music did not feel like Star Wars. Even the prequel trilogy music still felt like Star Wars even though it too did not meet the standards of the older generations. Who knows, it may begin to grow on me but throughout the film the only music I enjoyed were when small parts of the old music were added in.
Another part of the film which I disliked was that too many old characters were brought back, such as Admiral Ackbar, C3PO and Chewbacca, when these characters were not needed. Of course Chewbacca is a central character, as he also made an appearance in the prequel trilogy but, if he was dead in the comics then would it affect the story at all to simply keep him dead? And C3PO, as well as being a comical character due to his consistent complaining and being a useful character in the plot occasionally, had no relevance to the story in this film. Of course it was good to see him but his lines in the story were not needed and I think that, if he was going to be in the film, then he should have had a more significant role such as R2D2 having the map of Luke Skywalker’s whereabouts. I do understand why he was brought back into the story, so that he and R2 could be the only characters who are in all the films, but I don’t think his role in the film was chosen right. And to finish this point off I might as well talk about Admiral Ackbar. I suppose if it wasn’t Admiral Ackbar then I wouldn’t be as frustrated but, yet again, his role is not too vital to that story so they don’t need to have the Mon Calommari to have such large life spans just to keep the old generation happy.
I want to end this article, if you still want to call it that and not a rant with some positive comments which were meant to be central to this article but I was temporarily consumed by the criticisms of this article, with some positives. Even though the new superweapon, the ‘death planet,' or whatever you want to call it, is not very original, it is still slightly different to the Death Star as, with this new weapon, J.J Abrams allows us to know how it actually works and this tells us how it is different from the Death Star. Its ability to destroy more than one planet is still fairly original which is what made me feel sorry for the resistance when I watched the film. However, if they build another one in episode 9, then this idea will become another criticism for the film, as this idea was done before as well! Another positive comment about the film is the way the story seems to fit together very well and makes a lot of sense. I feel like this because one of my main concerns (although probably not mentioned in my previous article) was that it didn’t make much sense that the Force had awakened and yet, in all these years, Luke had not thought to create a new order of Jedi knights as no clue of this was given in the trailer. This was later explained in the story that he did try to create a new Jedi order but it was destroyed which makes sense why we don’t see much of him in the trailer. This is how the story fits together well and also gives R2D2 relevance to the story with him having maps to find Luke.
One final thing I enjoyed about the film was that the trailer misleads the audience into thinking that Finn is the Jedi of the story which made everyone focus their attention on him but, when it’s discovered that the story is focused on Rey, it creates interest for the audience and, in my opinion, opened up new doors of curiosity such as whether Luke is Rey’s father which would continue to make the story more interesting. I do understand why J.J has kept so many things the same but this does not mean I agree with these ideas. However I think the positives far outweigh these which is why I think this film is worth watching again.
Another part of the film which I disliked was that too many old characters were brought back, such as Admiral Ackbar, C3PO and Chewbacca, when these characters were not needed. Of course Chewbacca is a central character, as he also made an appearance in the prequel trilogy but, if he was dead in the comics then would it affect the story at all to simply keep him dead? And C3PO, as well as being a comical character due to his consistent complaining and being a useful character in the plot occasionally, had no relevance to the story in this film. Of course it was good to see him but his lines in the story were not needed and I think that, if he was going to be in the film, then he should have had a more significant role such as R2D2 having the map of Luke Skywalker’s whereabouts. I do understand why he was brought back into the story, so that he and R2 could be the only characters who are in all the films, but I don’t think his role in the film was chosen right. And to finish this point off I might as well talk about Admiral Ackbar. I suppose if it wasn’t Admiral Ackbar then I wouldn’t be as frustrated but, yet again, his role is not too vital to that story so they don’t need to have the Mon Calommari to have such large life spans just to keep the old generation happy.
I want to end this article, if you still want to call it that and not a rant with some positive comments which were meant to be central to this article but I was temporarily consumed by the criticisms of this article, with some positives. Even though the new superweapon, the ‘death planet,' or whatever you want to call it, is not very original, it is still slightly different to the Death Star as, with this new weapon, J.J Abrams allows us to know how it actually works and this tells us how it is different from the Death Star. Its ability to destroy more than one planet is still fairly original which is what made me feel sorry for the resistance when I watched the film. However, if they build another one in episode 9, then this idea will become another criticism for the film, as this idea was done before as well! Another positive comment about the film is the way the story seems to fit together very well and makes a lot of sense. I feel like this because one of my main concerns (although probably not mentioned in my previous article) was that it didn’t make much sense that the Force had awakened and yet, in all these years, Luke had not thought to create a new order of Jedi knights as no clue of this was given in the trailer. This was later explained in the story that he did try to create a new Jedi order but it was destroyed which makes sense why we don’t see much of him in the trailer. This is how the story fits together well and also gives R2D2 relevance to the story with him having maps to find Luke.
One final thing I enjoyed about the film was that the trailer misleads the audience into thinking that Finn is the Jedi of the story which made everyone focus their attention on him but, when it’s discovered that the story is focused on Rey, it creates interest for the audience and, in my opinion, opened up new doors of curiosity such as whether Luke is Rey’s father which would continue to make the story more interesting. I do understand why J.J has kept so many things the same but this does not mean I agree with these ideas. However I think the positives far outweigh these which is why I think this film is worth watching again.
Image - IMDb
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