I might be the only one who really likes The Last Jedi, mainly because it tried to take the saga in a new direction. And I don’t cream in my pants about Rogue One or Andor. But I really don’t care much about The Force Awakens, the seventh episode in the Star Wars saga that feels almost like a farcical fuck you to SW fans.
When I left the theaters about 10 years ago, both my partner at the time and I were in agreement, it seemed to follow the basic premise of the first Star Wars which was later retitled Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope. I should’ve known going in that the person who actually fooled us with Super 8 and lens flares for two Star Trek remakes was going to pooched the screw with a a geeky fanboy fiction remake of the 1977 classic.
A droid, BB-8, is given crucial information that the villainous entity, The First Order led by Snoke (Andy Serkis), wants. They slaughter all the people and take a crucial person prisoner, Poe Dameron (Oscar Isaac). Then, a poor young person, Rey (Daisy Ridley), finds the droid and they quickly find themselves taking off on the Millennium Falcon as the stormtroopers and TIE Fighters chase them.
I mean the plot points were out of place compared to A New Hope but it’s all there. You have the cantina scene with all the colorful characters. There’s the fatherly figure, Han Solo (Harrison Ford), that is killed by the villain, Kylo Ren (Adam Driver), with a light saber. And this happens as why the main characters including Chewbacca (Peter Mayhew). And then you have the dangerous space base that can destroy an entire planet.
Right here is where I lost all hope in the movie. In the original series, it was called The Empire. They basically controlled just about everything in the galaxy and more or less the chartered universe. So, they had the abilities to construct The Death Star under extreme secrecy as the Rebellion was just slowly picking up momentum in the recent years before events in Rogue One and A New Hope.
Now, a New Republic has been put in place in the Hosnian System as its main headquarters. This time the bad guys are called The First Order and General Hux (Domnhall Gleeson) is the commander of Starkiller Base. He has also worked with the First Order in the creation of the new Stormtroopers of which includes FN-2187 (John Boyega) later called Finn.
Now, I would believe there would be a few divisions and sects that would still be loyal to the Empire after the Battle of Endor and the fall of the Empire with the deaths of Darth Vadar and Emperor Palpatine. But none of this makes sense in how the First Order would become so powerful as the New Republic is in charge of the galaxy nor why they New Republic would need a Resistance led by General Leia Organa (Carrie Fisher). Wouldn’t it just be the regular military force and why would they need to hide their base?
I mean when The Phantom Menace opened in the summer of 1999, some people had issues with it. And it more or less followed the same format of A New Hope, but the characters were different. But it seemed miniscule to the problems with this movie. I mean the thing that really bugs me is how they just decided to come up with Starkiller Base, which is supposed to be a cold, snow-covered planet or moon, it’s never made clear. And the about a third of this planet or moon is the weapon which pulls in the energy of a nearby sun.
Ok, I’m no astrophysicists but according to the movie the sun is close to Starkiller Base, which would create so much heat, there’s no way it could be covered in snow. Also, all suns are stars, so basically once they pull in the energy thus destroying it, it would cause a supernova followed by a black hole. Both of which would destroy the Base. There’s a reason the Base was left out of all the trailers and it was reduced to a faded imaged in the background on the movie posters.
If the Base was as far away not to be affected, there’s no way it could pull in the energy in a few hours as shown in the movie. Also the radiation fallout since the main chamber of the weapon is close to the Base office, just about everyone would either be vaporized or suffer severe radiation poisoning. Didn’t anyone see what happened to Steve Guttenberg and Jason Robards in The Day After?
Also, planets, moons and satellites are so far away from each other that it takes days, weeks, months, years (many light years) to reach its target. Considering that all the planets in the SW universe have the same amount of gravity and breathable atmosphere for all species, the laws of physics on Earth should apply. It takes about 25,000 miles per hour for a rocket to fly into the orbit of space. That’s 20 times the speed of sound.
So, this pulse laser they shoot from the Base would have to travel a long distance at a huge rate of speed to get into orbit. Then, it would have to continue on a force trajectory that wouldn’t come into contact with anything else no matter how small that could throw its trajectory off. I was never good at science or math to be a NASA scientist but I do now that anything could throw it just a tad and it could miss its target by light years.
That’s why a lot of shuttle launches were delayed for minor changes in the weather or they have to find a small window to re-enter Earth’s atmosphere from space. I know they tried to say it’s supposed to be a hyperspace laser but all this behind the scenes bullshit that ends up on outrageously detailed Wikipedia pages doesn’t cut it for the lay people or even long-time SW fans, especially if you’re going to rip off a far better movie.
While it was nice to see Han, Chewey and Leia back together as well as C-3PO (Anthony Daniels), I felt it was a dick move having Solo killed off even though this movie does give him better character development than the first three movies. Driver does show some talent in his role as Ren even though he comes off more as an emo. He’s a good actor as well as Isaac, who has fun with the role as Poe. I think it might have been great if him and Finn got closer.
I just wish they made Rey less of a character and made her seem more of a person. They’ve even called her “MaRey Sue” because she follows the abilities to do just about everything including flying the Falcon. Ridley does what she can with the role but she jumps from being very irritated and very in awe of Solo and Leia. I just don’t buy how she can suddenly have the Force.
As for Boyega, he endured a lot of criticism when the first trailer dropped only to show that Finn is a worthy character. Sadly, Abrams didn’t feel the need to continue this in Rise of Skywalker where he became just a sidekick. Production on this movie began almost immediately after Disney purchased Lucasfilm and the SW property in the Fall of 2012. I’m sure Abrams had this script stuck in a drawer for years hoping one day he’d be able to make it. While Lawrence Kasdan and Michael Arndt share screenplay credit, Abrams does get the final say as director.
And he’s saying to everyone, “Fuck you!”
Hey, at least Mark Hamill made a cool $3 million for a few days of work which also makes this the first huge budget “Geazer Teaser.”
What do you think? Please comment.
Zane Says 