I've tried. I've generally been met with a whole sackful of nope. Boring. Corny. Apparently.
You see, the Star Wars universe isn't bound together by some teeny-tiny microbe inspired Force; it is held together by our collective memories of seeing dreams captured onscreen for the first time through our child eyes. Memories of feelings that have long since curdled into some fucked up hyper-nostalgia. That puts the films out of bounds for anyone that grew up with them. They are masterpieces.
Except they're not.
I love Star Wars and Empire and Jedi. Passionately. But I know they aren't the greatest of films. I know they have a paucity of character development. I know they lack for subtlety. But they flick the sole of the foot of the child inside me and keep him alert.
That little child says Star Wars Episode VII is the real deal. In every way. In too many ways, even. The Force Awakens is a Star Wars film like we haven't seen one since Jedi's release in 1983. For those who can't hear the prequels mentioned without dry retching, J.J. Abrams has arrived with your palate cleanser - a Star Wars pastiche to bring the Force flooding back through you.
I'll hazard that recognition was the primary driver here. Abrams, who has refined the practise of breaking down and rebuilding cultural franchises into a dubious art form, has essentially sliced, diced and reassembled episodes IV and V into a curious Star Wars jigsaw film. We open on a desert planet, we're chasing a droid with a secret, we've got a galaxy destroying weapon, a kid running away from home and a bad guy with side-turning issues.
Abrams goes further though. He's replicated the franchise's first round three set-pieced structure (A New Hope's desert escape, Empire's Hoth retreat and the climactic WMD assault from A New Hope or Jedi (take your pick). He's included Jawa-esque scavenging, familial gantry confrontations and hermit jedi. There's a holographic big bad, some Vader/Tarkin-inspired power play and a cantina band. And of course Han, Chewie and Leia.
The more astute cinema goer may bristle at Abrams gall. How dare he tug on our nostalgia quite so brazenly and so often? The thing is, that's all he's really got to work with. Star Wars runs on that. Underneath was only ever the skeleton of a myth (pinched from antiquity via Joseph Campbell); we lay the mythology on top. We've set the bar that high and that low. The only way to really be Star Wars is to rehash Star Wars. And that's where The Force Awakens excels.
When people asked for my reaction today I must have looked downcast. I've settled on the line: It met my expectations; it didn't exceed them but I had high expectations. So, I'm still a little disappointed.
But Abrams has the franchise a bit of breathing room now. He inducted some fresh (representational) blood into the world. Daisy Ridley, John Boyega, Oscar Isaac and Adam Driver are now Star Wars by association. He's cupped the flame and let it catch. Now we can see how they can make it their own.
Because surely there's nothing left to copy.
★★★★
Trailer:
No comments:
Post a Comment