Anghus Houvouras with an unsubstantiated opinion on Star Wars: The Force Awakens…
An Unsubstantiated Opinion is a baseless and often reckless series of interconnected thoughts about what’s appearing on the pop culture landscape. The feelings expressed in this semi-regular column are admittedly troubling and often the subject of many private discussions among the Flickering Myth staff, Anghus’ family, and a coterie of therapists desperately trying to determine his ability to roam free in public…
You can’t say J.J. Abrams hasn’t warned you. It’s right there in the trailer. The new trailer for Star Wars: The Force Awakens. Disney’s latest cash cow engineered to generate enough profit to finally pioneer the resuscitative technology what will allow Walt’s cryogenically frozen head onto a new body composed of discarded cadavers from UCLA’s Medical School and organs from homeless people captured in a Most Dangerous Game-like scenario that takes place in the park after hours. The employees, still dressed in the costumes wield weapons and hunt down the frightened hobos with their executions coming at the hands of everyone’s favorite Mouse, Duck, and Dog. Scantily clad Snow White’s and Cinderella’s cheer them on as they are worked into a trance from a combination of blood lust and barbiturates, swaying in rhythm to the mind numbing audio of ‘It’s a Small World’. For the hunted, the living envy the dead…
Wait. What was I talking about? Right. Star Wars.
There’s a shot at the end of the The Force Awakens trailer that almost felt like J.J. Abrams making a clear declaration of his vision. Familiar imagery as old Han Solo tries to shake a TIE fighter in deadly pursuit. The Millennium Falcon flies into the war torn husk of a Star Destroyer. We, the audience are the Falcon. The vehicle of our fandom. An iconic piece of our collective geeky past… an avatar for all our hopes and dreams to be fulfilled by new Star Wars movies. But our familiar ship isn’t engaging the hyperdrive to take us somewhere new.
It flies us into the past: A fallen Star Destroyer. A flight path that can’t help but make us recall the original trilogies thrilling conclusions whipping through the innards of the Death Star. This is what The Force Awakens will be… familiar.
The Falcon is grounded. Tethered to the inner atmosphere of the planet that looks like Tattooine… but isn’t? Abrams shows us a landscape every Star Wars fan knows, but it’s not the home of Luke Skywalker and Jabba the Hutt. Not the harsh lands where Obi-Wan Kenobi took his self-imposed exile, but Jakku. Familiar images and yet… different.
Oh, look: it’s a droid with a familiar design. The bastard love child of R2-D2 and a yoga ball. Familiar, and yet… different. Stormtroopers draped in garish capes and slathered in chrome. Familiar, and yet… different.
Still, I find myself focused on that final shot. That old, creaky Correllian bucket of bolts leading us into the charred, discarded fuselage of the original trilogy. Abrams is taking us somewhere familiar, and yet…
…different?
Anghus Houvouras is a North Carolina based writer and filmmaker. His latest work, the novel My Career Suicide Note, is available from Amazon. Follow him on Twitter.
Listen to the Star Wars: The Force Awakens panel using the player below:
Originally published April 17, 2015. Updated July 2, 2023.
