Anghus Houvouras with a special Star Wars: The Force Awakens edition of The Week in Disappointment…
Star Wars: The Force Awakens is finally here, and truth be told it was pretty good. J.J. Abrams had the difficult job of pleasing old fans and creating new ones. It’s a kitchen sink movie that tries very hard to be all things to all people and succeeds on many levels, however there’s a few things in Episode VII that can only be classified as disappointments.
1. A New Hope 2.0 + Death Star 3.0
The biggest disappointment of The Force Awakens is how closely it stuck to the framework of the original Star Wars. Recycling the plot of A New Hope felt so unnecessary. Did Star Wars need a soft reboot? I was already a little nervous about the idea of a third Death Star being introduced, and it turns out I was right. The most disappointing part of The Force Awakens was the copy+paste plot taken from Episode IV and VI. When they introduced the Super Death Star (aka The Starkiller base), my eyes rolled so far back in my head I could see my brain… and it was seething. At this point, who in the Empire is rubber stamping these bigger Death Stars?
Even the logic behind the Starkiller Base was disappointing. I mean, what do they do once they drain the star and the planet becomes unable to support life? Does the planet move?
One of my concerns in the lead up to the release of The Force Awakens was that they would rely too much on the previous installments and not build their own world. Even if you like The Force Awakens (which I did), you can still criticize the film for being ridiculously derivative.
2. Captain Phasma
Remember The Phantom Menace trailers, and all those bad ass moments of seeing Darth Maul. When the finished movie comes out, Maul doesn’t feature as prominently as you hoped, but he still has some awesome scenes. Captain Phasma, the chrome plated Stormtrooper, looked like the back up badass to Kylo Ren, but in the finished film she does a whole lot of nothing. Unless you count ‘ominously walking from place to place’ as ‘badass’.
3. The Map MacGuffin
What did they need the map for? The central plot revolves around finding a map that will take them to Luke Skywalker. Eventually we see this hologram map thanks to R2D2 and BB8, which looks like a map of the galaxy with a red line leading to Luke’s secret location. But what exactly did they need a map for? At this point I have to assume most of a Galaxy Far, Far Away has been mapped, so what is the meandering red line for? You’d think all they would need is the name of a planet and a system. Shouldn’t the last piece of the map that BB8 had be enough to locate Luke?
4. Rey’s Power of Referencing Earlier Star Wars Movies
You’re going to hear a lot of people complaining about how the Force awakens in Rey, and in twenty minutes she’s pulling out every trick in the Jedi handbook. I’m fine with 95% of it, except for one scene: that cringe inducing moment where she convinces the Stormtrooper to help her escape. This scene is another that you can blame on fan service. Rey tries to use her Force Powers to influence the weak-minded Stormtrooper, but how does she even know this power exists. It’s a scene that references A New Hope, placed in the movie for the benefit of the fans. But the scene feels so awkward because it’s so painfully self-referential. Like a parody bit you’d see in a Family Guy Star Wars special. Rey does that thing Obi Wan did in A New Hope because it was featured in the original film. That’s it. It was a Star Wars movie referencing a Star Wars movie for a bit. That felt… weird. As if the character had seen Episode IV and was like “Oh right… do that thing Obi Wan Kenobi did in the first movie!”
God damn did that feel lazy.
So there you go. A few criticisms lobbed towards The Force Awakens. Was anyone else disappointed with the final film?
Anghus Houvouras is a North Carolina based writer and filmmaker and the co-host of Across the Pondcast. Follow him on Twitter.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?list=PL18yMRIfoszEaHYNDTy5C-cH9Oa2gN5ng&v=WWU57JuvPl0
Originally published December 21, 2015. Updated April 15, 2018.
