Star Wars Review (Spoiler Alert)
As I watched the new Star Wars movie last night, I realized two things:
1. The inevitability of certain plot decisions.
2. This one was made for us -- for me and my generation, and for our parents -- and only secondarily for our kids.
It was strangely touching to see all the old actors out there reprising their breakthrough roles. And cheering, too, in a medium that ditches James Bonds (never mind Bond girls) when they start to get wrinkly because they assume youth and beauty are all anyone cares about. But this film’s job was to win back the audience, and bringing back Han Solo and Princess Leia cut through all the angst over the last three movies to make that instantaneous connection.
Most of the time I don’t care whether I see movies in theaters or on Netflix -- in fact I prefer Netflix because it’s cheaper -- but this time the audience was an integral part of the experience. You participated in the small collective sigh that went up when they rediscovered the Millennium Falcon, you laughed when Dark Helmet 2.0 threw a light saber temper tantrum and a group of Stormtroopers turned and trotted off, backs to the camera so you could picture them shielding their balls from Helmet’s unscrupulous use of the Schwartz, and the guy sitting behind you deadpanned a line from “Spaceballs.”
And as you watched an elderly Han Solo bluster his way out of impossible odds your younger self sat beside you, and you didn’t even have to turn away from the screen to watch the expressions flicker across her face, remembering the scenes that called them up: the joy as the ship lurches sideways to escape a firefight and the grip of gravity, the horror as young Solo’s face is frozen in a painful grimace, the rapt attention you gave to every scene before such scenes became commonplace or cliche. Maybe no film will ever again offer that soaring sense of horizons flung wide as the universe; maybe no future audience will get to experience that particular exhilaration. (Until Hollywood stops with the constant remakes and starts searching for untapped genres, anyway.) But the skillful interweaving of past and present, both the characters’ and the audiences’, to recapture those feelings in the people who were children or young adults when Star Wars came out and have aged in tandem with the original characters, is in itself an impressive achievement. You can’t help but wonder: have we finally reached that “soon,” when “then” is “now?”
<spoiler>Spoiler Alert</spoiler>
And now to the inevitabilities of plot.
Two things are obvious in retrospect. First, the long, unintended shadow that Harrison Ford’s larger-than-life Han Solo cast over the franchise had to be dealt with before a new generation could rise up and claim the lead roles. Because of that shadow you can’t relegate Han to Master Yoda advisor status, however desirable that option might appear. Second, and even more obvious, you can’t send him off to die in a nursing home.
So, viewers can absolutely quibble over the details. (Did it really have to be Han’s son? Did the pairing of Princess Leia and Han Solo’s magnificent chromosomes really have to produce such a goober?) But it’s pointless to protest Han’s death. It was the work this movie had to accomplish so the story could move forward.
What comes next? Who knows? Does it matter? Whatever it is, this movie has provided the catharsis we needed to receive it -- with minds as free from specific expectations, impossible demands, and good old fashioned judginess as the minds of Star Wars fans ever can be.
1. The inevitability of certain plot decisions.
2. This one was made for us -- for me and my generation, and for our parents -- and only secondarily for our kids.
It was strangely touching to see all the old actors out there reprising their breakthrough roles. And cheering, too, in a medium that ditches James Bonds (never mind Bond girls) when they start to get wrinkly because they assume youth and beauty are all anyone cares about. But this film’s job was to win back the audience, and bringing back Han Solo and Princess Leia cut through all the angst over the last three movies to make that instantaneous connection.
Most of the time I don’t care whether I see movies in theaters or on Netflix -- in fact I prefer Netflix because it’s cheaper -- but this time the audience was an integral part of the experience. You participated in the small collective sigh that went up when they rediscovered the Millennium Falcon, you laughed when Dark Helmet 2.0 threw a light saber temper tantrum and a group of Stormtroopers turned and trotted off, backs to the camera so you could picture them shielding their balls from Helmet’s unscrupulous use of the Schwartz, and the guy sitting behind you deadpanned a line from “Spaceballs.”
And as you watched an elderly Han Solo bluster his way out of impossible odds your younger self sat beside you, and you didn’t even have to turn away from the screen to watch the expressions flicker across her face, remembering the scenes that called them up: the joy as the ship lurches sideways to escape a firefight and the grip of gravity, the horror as young Solo’s face is frozen in a painful grimace, the rapt attention you gave to every scene before such scenes became commonplace or cliche. Maybe no film will ever again offer that soaring sense of horizons flung wide as the universe; maybe no future audience will get to experience that particular exhilaration. (Until Hollywood stops with the constant remakes and starts searching for untapped genres, anyway.) But the skillful interweaving of past and present, both the characters’ and the audiences’, to recapture those feelings in the people who were children or young adults when Star Wars came out and have aged in tandem with the original characters, is in itself an impressive achievement. You can’t help but wonder: have we finally reached that “soon,” when “then” is “now?”
<spoiler>Spoiler Alert</spoiler>
And now to the inevitabilities of plot.
Two things are obvious in retrospect. First, the long, unintended shadow that Harrison Ford’s larger-than-life Han Solo cast over the franchise had to be dealt with before a new generation could rise up and claim the lead roles. Because of that shadow you can’t relegate Han to Master Yoda advisor status, however desirable that option might appear. Second, and even more obvious, you can’t send him off to die in a nursing home.
So, viewers can absolutely quibble over the details. (Did it really have to be Han’s son? Did the pairing of Princess Leia and Han Solo’s magnificent chromosomes really have to produce such a goober?) But it’s pointless to protest Han’s death. It was the work this movie had to accomplish so the story could move forward.
What comes next? Who knows? Does it matter? Whatever it is, this movie has provided the catharsis we needed to receive it -- with minds as free from specific expectations, impossible demands, and good old fashioned judginess as the minds of Star Wars fans ever can be.
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