Ricky Church on whether nostalgia can be a bad thing…
Last week Star Wars: The Force Awakens released its final trailer and crashed many theater sites in its sale of tickets, literally breaking the Internet. The reception of the trailer has been overwhelmingly positive, stirring the emotions of a grown adult to make them feel like a child again while raising excitement of this film to whole new levels. The Flickering Myth team discussed our reactions to the trailer and one word that was thrown around a lot here, and among various other sites and forums, was the word ‘nostalgia’.
Everyone agreed the trailer was full of nostalgic moments, from the music to various shots reminding you of the Original Trilogy’s magic, but there was some concern that there might have been too much nostalgia in the trailer, begging the question: can nostalgia be a bad thing?
Much of the marketing campaign around Star Wars: The Force Awakens has relied on nostalgia. From the first teaser’s new footage of the Millennium Falcon in 30 years to Mark Hamill’s voiceover and Han Solo’s declaration that they’re home in the second, each trailer has been geared to target the emotions of people who love the franchise, specifically the Original Trilogy. After all, this is the first time in over 30 years the original cast of Star Wars are together again on film, continuing the journeys of Luke, Han and Leia while introducing them to a whole new generation of fans. For fans who were children when Star Wars was first released, of course nostalgia will play a big part in the marketing, especially after the poor reception of the Prequel Trilogy.
It may be in part due to the Prequel Trilogy that people are so wary of the nostalgic factor in these trailers. A strong case against the prequels is they relied too much on nostalgia to truly stand on their own. Obviously they’re tied to the Original Trilogy, but the prequels went to great lengths to generate nostalgic feelings, going so far as to nearly recreate many scenes from the series: a Skywalker destroying a ship as he flies through a tight corridor, Obi-Wan chopping someone’s arm off in a bar or a Skywalker fighting a Sith Lord in front of Palpatine as a space battle rages behind them are just among a few scenes meant to mirror the originals.
These nostalgic callbacks (or in this case call-forwards) don’t just end in visual scenes either, but are spoken aloud through dialogue. Take for example Anakin and Obi-Wan’s climactic fight in Revenge of the Sith as Anakin screams “From my point of view the Jedi are evil”, putting a new twist on Obi-Wan’s talk with Luke about people’s point of views in Return of the Jedi. While some of these moments work, many of them, such as the aforementioned line, seem forced, no pun intended, to take viewers back to their feelings of the Original Trilogy.
With franchises as long as Star Wars, utilizing nostalgia can be hit and miss. One example of a film that relied way too much on nostalgia to the film’s detriment was 2006’s Superman Returns. As a direct sequel to Christopher Reeve’s series of films, Returns featured the same versions of the characters from those films. However, the gap between Superman IV: The Quest for Peace and Superman Returns was 19 years. Not only did the film feature visual and spoken callbacks, it relied on outdated characters that were no longer considered modern. Kevin Spacey may have been perfect for Lex Luthor in different circumstances, but he was still playing the campy, almost goofy version of Luthor played by Gene Hackman, once again involved in a real estate scheme as opposed to the corrupt Francis Underwood-like businessman the comics had turned him into. The fact that new viewers had to catch up on four outdated films to truly understand Superman Returns was detrimental to its performance.
However, while the Force Awakens also relies on viewers having seen the Original Trilogy, this won’t be as detrimental since the movie will largely focus on new characters like Finn, Rey, Poe Dameron and Kylo Ren. In this way, its similar to last year’s X-Men: Days of Future Past, another film that brought back the original cast of a long franchise and somewhat relied on viewers seeing the previous films (at least X-Men: First Class), but put most of the attention on the newer characters (or rather the younger versions of the characters), giving the series a soft reboot.
This is not entirely dissimilar to 2009’s Star Trek and its sequel Star Trek Into Darkness, focusing on a younger cast while honouring everything that came before with nostalgic nods to the past, creating a new Star Trek experience for a whole new generation. The Force Awakens director J.J. Abrams also directed those Star Trek films so he already has experience balancing nostalgia with story and character elements.
While the marketing for Star Wars: The Force Awakens has relied heavily on nostalgia, this doesn’t strictly mean nostalgia is a bad thing for any film franchise to utilize. Ultimately it’s a good thing that helps get older fans who have perhaps long moved on from the franchise to renew their interest. One has to be careful with how much nostalgia to put in a film, however, as it has the potential to alienate newer viewers, such as the case with Superman Returns.
No one should be worried about the nostalgic factor in the new Star Wars; on the contrary, people should be excited because, so far with only three trailers, it seem likes the franchise has returned to its former glory as opposed to the lows of the prequels. Everything about The Force Awakens screams that J.J. Abrams and the cast, both old and new, have taken this film quite seriously and put in their best efforts to make this film feel and look like a classic Star Wars adventure. When you watch the trailer and you feel like you’re six years old watching A New Hope for the first time again, that only means you’re meant to feel that way.
Ricky Church
https://www.youtube.com/watch?list=PL18yMRIfoszEaHYNDTy5C-cH9Oa2gN5ng&v=Yo85WjqklYY
