Saturday 19 December 2015

What annoyed me about STAR WARS: THE FORCE AWAKENS - yes, there are minor [[[SPOILERS]]]

I went as early as I could because I didn't want to get it spoiled for me. Not that the spoiler was anything big. Any viewer who has seen the 6 movies could see the twist coming. It wasn't anything big, just "oh c'mon" moment. Nowhere near the gravitas of the reveal at the end of THE EMPIRE STRIKES BACK. 

What annoyed me the most about this movie (no. 7 in the saga that would have 9 in total) is the [[[LAST CHANCE TO LOOK AWAY BEFORE I SPOIL]]] fact that the 2 main characters know how to use a lightsaber almost as soon as they pick it up. 

That goes against the logic of the saga. Luke had to learn a bit under Obi-Wan, then a bit more under Yoda (training not completed, that's why he lost to Vader in the first fight); and only after further training by Yoda did he manage to properly fight and defeat Vader. Anakin's story was the same. He had lots and lots of midi-cholrians, but that only allowed him to pilot the pod-racer well (like how Luke could pilot and shoot from an X-Wing well). Anakin had to learn (from Obi-Wan) lightsaber skills between episodes 1 and 2. That took time. 

But our new heroes, Finn and Rey - all they had to do was pick up a lightsaber, and voila, they can hold their own when taking on Kylo Ren (the bad guy who was obviously trained for some time, and who has considerable control of the Force - he could stop a blaster fire mid-blast, something no one else could do before in the saga). Yeah, this annoyed me a LOT. Finn and Rey should have been cut to pieces by Kylo Ren in seconds. 

JJ Abrams started this whole "change the logic of the saga" thing with STAR TREK. There, it was the transporter. In the series (and movies before he took over), transporter technology only worked within a reasonable distance (planet to starship, or starship to starship). Not during warp. But we forgave that change because he rebooted the series and made it abundantly clear that it's a different universe in the opening sequence when Kirk's father died. Ok, so that change of saga logic can be swallowed. 

But Star Wars 7 is not a reboot. You can't just explain away Finn and Rey's lightsaber skills by implying that purely by having a lot of midi-chlorians they immediately know how to use a lightsaber. It does not gel.

And this is what annoyed me the MOST about the movie.

As a movie, it works - I'll give you that. It brought in key elements from episodes 4, 5, and 6 and nicely packaged them together. 
BB-8, the robot, is brilliant. 
Rey is an amazing character. She is played marvellously. 
Finn, not so much, but good enough. 

So that's my rant. 
I guess I'm a Trekkar. Always will be. 

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