On the Road to Skywalker: The Force Awakens

Let's be perfectly clear about this. I did not want to write this blog post. Writing my original series of posts was a brain breaking experience. Finding out that others did not put even half that level of thought into... well.... most things... did not help. At all. But my brain won't shut up, so here we are. I'm writing about Star Wars again. God help me. No, seriously, may God help me. I was originally going to write about how I saw the whole series, a year and a half later, one movie at a time, but honestly not much has changed about my views of the rest of the series. It's the sequel trilogy that I've grown to appreciate more. So I'm going to just write about that. I'm going to write about the Sequel Trilogy as if the previous six films didn't exist, or at least try to, to see what these things are on their own. I know that's a bit... difficult... to do... but I think that a really important way to look at these films before their own finale is what they are, just by themselves. I tried to approach this the same way someone did with A New Hope, back in the 70's.

A warning: if you're a vitriolic hater of The Last Jedi please know that I moderate the comments on this blog. Just, y'know, something to think about. Something to consider.

So, when I sit down and re-watch the The Force Awakens with that in mind, the film begins with a really intriguing line.

Wait, who the hell is Luke Skywalker??

Bear with me here, I find this exercise interesting.

By the sound of this opening crawl, Luke Skywalker is the most badass person, ever. Ever ever. His absence is so seismic it allows an entire evil government to rise up, from the ashes of what Luke had (presumably) destroyed once before. Where's Luke? Why did he go? An entire story just pops, unbidden, into my mind. I begin to have questions, about what Luke did to this Empire and what would have caused someone so legendary as to be compared to a galactic entity to just vanish. But the movie promises that we'll get to that. Because everyone is looking for Luke.

Even without my knowledge of left-right for Star Wars, Kylo Ren's opening is weird. The way they shoot him is like that of a good guy, the protagonist. Abrams takes every opportunity to put Kylo in as favorable a shot as he can, even putting the clearly more heroic Poe in the "bad guy" frame so as to keep Kylo as the more "sympathetic" personality. It's a very, very, very weird thing to see. This opening scene screams "There's more to this story than you're being told!" And yeah, eventually we are told more, and it's clear that Ben has been duped by.. something. We're not sure what, but he's clearly bought a bill of goods and can't help but regret it, somewhere deep down.

Finn's intro is powerful. Within a few seconds you know everything that you need to about him, which is that he doesn't know very much about himself. The whole incident with his dying compatriot is a huge surprise to Finn. I love every second of him having his crisis of conscience, and how he is immediately zeroed in upon by Kylo Ren. The cinematography in this shot is just impeccable. It's not my favorite shot in this movie, but it's dang close. But we'll get to that.

OK, so three masks just can't be a coincidence. And, like the other intros we've had so far, Rey's is extremely powerful. She's a tough (how on earth you expect a young girl like that to not be tough and self-sufficient goes beyond simple misogyny into stupidity), independent, kind-hearted, and quite clearly expecting to leave any minute now.  Really, any minute now.

Well, not with Finn.

But any minute now!


The introduction of the previous generation of heroes is done extremely well. I buy that Han, Chewie, and Leia were the heroes who fought beside Luke. And they all worship this dude! All of them! There's such reverence for Luke, and you can begin to get a feel for who he was to these people. It's quite possibly the best way to show how much of a hole Luke left when he vanished, by focusing on the people who were his family. The shadow of Luke Skywalker (who I'm pretending I don't know anything about!) just looms over this movie, casting a melancholic shadow. The simple fact of the matter is that Ben was having trouble and somehow all of these people, who are otherwise great people, let him down.

It is notable that Ben only removes his mask for one person, without prompting, in this entire thing: Rey. He's this dark reflection of everything these other people in the movie say the legend of the previous generation is. And he has no absolutely no issue with telling Rey that the people she's coming to adore are really any good either. He also allows her to shake him and push back. The back and forth of this is revealing on both ends. The connection between them, despite their differences, is palpable in this scene. How many people have looked that deep into Ben's soul?

Rey's conflict is then resolved, while Ben's is deepened. Finn actually comes back for Rey, and there's this look of relief on her face when she sees him again that's amazing. She finally gets it, on some level, that she is worth coming back for. Finn, who had left earlier in the film, came back because he cares. And Rey makes the conscious decision that this is enough for her. Her question is answered. She doesn't need to do anything to have someone accept her, nor should she. Ben, on the other hand, is still buying into the idea that he has to prove his worth by killing his "baggage". And so he tries to cut himself loose.

My first child was almost nine months old when I saw this scene. He'd just learned to crawl, right before the movie was starting. I was wrecked.

Ultimately I think The Force Awakens is a powerful story about searching for your identity in the face of conflict. Ending it on the cliffhanger of facing Luke Skywalker was a brilliant move, because that's exactly what the movie was about! Heck, I'm glad he doesn't talk. There's nothing to say. He's been found. He's clearly unhappy about it, and that's a completely different conflict.

The Last Jedi is tomorrow!