"I'm Psycho About Star Wars"
Big, spoilery Star Wars: The Force Awakens Review BELOW
Once Han and his son were talking on the bridge together, I was definitely thinking, there’s no way Kylo Ren’s inner conflict ends right here, and so easily. But I was practically in shock when the lightsaber went through Harrison Ford. My girlfriend and I left, we got in the car, and as I’m stopping to turn out of the theater parking lot, I banged both fists on the steering wheel and cackled at her, “I was SO angry that Kylo Ren killed Han! I was so @%#$@ angry!”
I don’t think there’s been such a clever and necessary use of established cinema conventions, or at least such a clever manipulation of the general audience’s feelings and perceptions outside of the storytelling itself specifically, since Psycho opened in theaters. Hitch knew what was in moviegoers’ heads, in terms of accepted conventions. The movie star is, well, the star of the film - so, no matter how scary things might get, people felt they could at least take comfort in knowing the star is going to make it out okay. So, what does Hitch do. He hires one major star for the movie, and within fifteen minutes or so, she’s dead in the shower. It wasn’t just terrifying because a story about murder can be terrifying, and it wasn’t just terrifying because the shower is such a vulnerable place to be attacked by a serial killer, coming at you with a knife from behind a partially opaque shower curtain. People had the one thing that made them feel safe in the theater ripped away - that the star is going to be okay - and now they were left thinking, “Wait a minute - what exactly are we in for here?”
I think TFA did a very similar thing. I’ve been waiting some 32 years to see Harrison Ford play Han Solo again, and I spent most of that time pretty sure it was never going to happen. Suddenly, finally, here we are - he’s back!
And then they take him away from us, ripping our hearts out. I know I’m not alone in feeling this. Similar to Hitch’s surprise in Psycho, killing off Han plays on the feelings of audiences in a way that goes way beyond simply losing a beloved character - it’s also about the fact that, for decades now, we’ve been deprived of the beloved actor behind the character. Lucasfilm has always been secretive about the Star Wars films - even Prowse, the man in the Vader costume, wasn’t given the real “I am your father” dialogue that would later be dubbed over his voice in post production. During filming, Prowse was given fake, temporary placeholder dialogue, and was told to make certain hand gestures, etc., to ensure even he didn’t know Vader was Luke’s father until the initial screening of Empire. But now Lucasfilm’s secrecy surrounding TFA takes on an entirely new dimension. It even reminds me of what I’ve heard about the ads for Psycho back in the 1960s, which told people they wouldn’t be allowed in the theater once the projector started, and the theaters were all in full compliance.
For me, Han’s death changed a lot of the movie, and even the original trilogy, retroactively. Until his death in TFA, I felt so-so about Kylo Ren as a villain. There were things I really liked, and there were things I wasn’t 100% jazzed about. He seemed interesting enough for most of the movie, what with his mask and his temper tantrums, and I enjoyed that the movie even capitalized on some of this to inject some dark humor (similar, but also just dissimilar enough, to Vader’s body count on the star destroyer throughout Empire - R.I.P Admiral Ozzel and Captain Needa).
Also for most of the movie I wasn’t 100% sure how I felt about the new characters. I liked that they seemed to be real characters. The acting was much better. The dialogue was better. Rey and Finn have chemistry, and they’re funny. And not just funny in a cheap-gags kind of way - they each had a personal brand of humor tied very much into character.
But for most of the movie, I wasn’t sure how invested I really was.
And then he kills Han. Suddenly, Kylo Ren is REALLY interesting to me. And now, I’m watching the reaction shots of Rey, Finn, and Chewie, and I’m thinking, it’s not just that I like these new characters - now we NEED Rey and Finn. And, I want to see Rey go head-to-head with this piece of garbage, and they’d better make it last three movies before she’s able to really match skills with him. Now also, when I see stills of Han from scenes in the original trilogy, I actually feel a little sad, as if I have emotional problems or something, lol...
The saddest moment of all for me was largely thanks to a brilliant use of John Williams’ music score. When the resistance returns from the battle and Leia embraces Rey, the Han-and-Leia love theme from the original trilogy music score plays. What has always been a theme of heroism mixed with romance is now far more funereal, because this music has never come into play in Star Wars without Han present. It's probably exactly the right musical choice for the moment - very smart.
On the other hand, I thought a lot of the new material in the FA soundtrack was kind of lacking. It doesn’t have the character that the music for the original Star Wars movies has. Its best parts are those that hearken back to the original trilogy music score - and don’t get me wrong, those were some very well-chosen moments in TFA. I feel the music in Star Wars is its own character though, it’s what made each of the original trilogy films so operatic, and I wonder if John Williams is somewhat past his heyday. I also wonder though if it’s not John Williams so much, but rather the fact that I’m not sure TFA knew what it was until it knew what it was, which was so near the end when Han is killed. Maybe John Williams is so good, and so precise, that a movie’s on-screen struggle to find and re-establish its identity as a legitimate part of the Star Wars universe is perfectly reflected by an identity crisis in the music Williams composes for it.
I’ve listened to the FA soundtrack a few times through now, and I’ve noticed a couple of things. The first is that Rey has her own leitmotif, or theme. It doesn’t surprise me that she has her own theme in the music score - after all, in the original trilogy, there’s Luke Skywalker’s theme, the theme of the Force, Vader’s theme, the Emperor’s theme, and on and on. I think it’s significant here because it bespeaks the weakness of the FA music score - I didn’t really realize Rey had theme music until I’d given the soundtrack further listens. Meaning, her theme wasn’t noteworthy enough or distinct enough to be identifiable during the movie. And I’m not sure I exactly love the theme music itself for Rey either, however, it sounds much better when it plays its third time around, toward the end of the movie. At this moment in the movie, Rey’s theme music plays as Rey takes her seat next to Chewie as the new pilot of the Millennium Falcon. The music theme is the same as in the beginning, when she is sliding down the sand dune from the crashed star destroyer, but here it's braver, surer, and it reflects the fact that Rey is finding her way in the universe. So, her theme music has a trajectory that seems to expertly parallel Rey's personal journey - I only wish the music itself for Rey was more memorable.
I also noticed John Williams quoted his own music score from Revenge of the Sith. I don’t like that the prequels are referenced at all in TFA,. That being said, the musical choice does make sense, technically speaking. The music playing when Kylo Ren stabs Han is very similar to the music playing when Anakin Skywalker’s eyes have that oh-so-Sithy glow for the very first time.
The music playing when Kylo Ren kills Han Solo:
Listen here between 47:30 and 47:50 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Oq6cchqQSK4
The music playing marking Anakin Skywalker's journey to the dark side being complete:
Listen here starting at about 1:36:28 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LhJA7I_8-14
Here is a side note, but an interesting bit of movie trivia, about John Williams, quoting music, Star Wars, and Psycho: When John Williams was composing the music for A New Hope, someone challenged him to try and quote Bernard Herrmann’s music score from Psycho in his Star wars composition - and John Williams did it:
https://youtu.be/V_sUE8T77iI
Back to TFA, and wrapping up: I do think the movie acknowledged much of what probably makes Star Wars what it is. It likely has a lot to do with not just the themes and all the Joseph Campbell Hero's Journey stuff, but also the original music, the original characters, the original actors, the sounds, the droids, and the even the ships as characters themselves. While it’s probably a mistake to rely solely on those things to regain the feeling of authentic Star Wars, it’s also pretty necessary if handled correctly. I think they struck a good balance here, and it was a far cry from the prequels’ approach of just handing everyone lightsabers and familiar character names and declaring, “Look! It’s Star Wars!”
And they did a great job of the passing of the torch from Han to Rey - I buy it, and I feel Han Solo is there in spirit with Rey. The matchmaking of Rey, Chewie, and the Falcon has Han Solo’s official stamp of approval on it and for me, it works. I also suspect we’re going to see Han again, in that we’re going to learn more of Kylo Ren’s past, and what part Han and Leia each played in that past.
I loved BB-8. A masterfully desinged (and "acted"), adorable droid, who is now the baby as opposed to R2, but in its own unique way. I really like Poe Dameron, and I love the brotherly camaraderie between Poe and Finn. I also love how practically instantaneous their bond is - a bond achieved so quickly, probably thanks in part to who they are as people, and also thanks to the post traumatic stress of a very intense shared experience.
I think I like it that in Rey's dream sequence/vision, Ewen McGregor's voice as the voice of Obi Wan can be heard calling to her, along with the voice of Yoda, and the voice of Luke yelling "No!"
I would guess Luke's "No" is from the moment Vader cuts down Obi Wan on the Death Star in A New Hope - a moment similar to the one she is about to have with Han on Starkiller Base. So, an interesting moment for Rey, of seeing the past through the Force - and in a way, the future as well.
I do not like the giant bad guy (even if it will turn out he's just projecting himself via hologram to be so huge), I do not like that his name is Snokes, and I felt that the even-bigger-than-the-Death-Star weapon was kind of a big nothing. Same stuff all over again. It at least needed way more build up, although even that probably wouldn't have redeemed it. I do think the point, though, was to hit the reset button - we're back to the big Empire versus the much smaller rebel alliance underdogs, which will probably serve the remainder of the series well. I did appreciate the name Starkiller Base as a nod to Star Wars history, given that Luke Skywalker was named Luke Starkiller in the earlier draft of A New Hope.
All in all, I feel the movie accomplished what it set out to do. It made me like the new characters, it made me absolutely hate the villain, and it made me want to see them all again for round 2...I want to see what happens now! I would say for me, Empire ranks as #1, A New Hope is #2, and The Force Awakens ranks somewhere around #3 with Return of the Jedi. One of those two is #3, and one is #4, but I'm hard-pressed to decide which is which for various reasons. Either way, this is not a bad thing. TFA makes my list, which is just fine with me. I’m mainly excited we have Star Wars back, and people are having fun.
I don’t think there’s been such a clever and necessary use of established cinema conventions, or at least such a clever manipulation of the general audience’s feelings and perceptions outside of the storytelling itself specifically, since Psycho opened in theaters. Hitch knew what was in moviegoers’ heads, in terms of accepted conventions. The movie star is, well, the star of the film - so, no matter how scary things might get, people felt they could at least take comfort in knowing the star is going to make it out okay. So, what does Hitch do. He hires one major star for the movie, and within fifteen minutes or so, she’s dead in the shower. It wasn’t just terrifying because a story about murder can be terrifying, and it wasn’t just terrifying because the shower is such a vulnerable place to be attacked by a serial killer, coming at you with a knife from behind a partially opaque shower curtain. People had the one thing that made them feel safe in the theater ripped away - that the star is going to be okay - and now they were left thinking, “Wait a minute - what exactly are we in for here?”
I think TFA did a very similar thing. I’ve been waiting some 32 years to see Harrison Ford play Han Solo again, and I spent most of that time pretty sure it was never going to happen. Suddenly, finally, here we are - he’s back!
And then they take him away from us, ripping our hearts out. I know I’m not alone in feeling this. Similar to Hitch’s surprise in Psycho, killing off Han plays on the feelings of audiences in a way that goes way beyond simply losing a beloved character - it’s also about the fact that, for decades now, we’ve been deprived of the beloved actor behind the character. Lucasfilm has always been secretive about the Star Wars films - even Prowse, the man in the Vader costume, wasn’t given the real “I am your father” dialogue that would later be dubbed over his voice in post production. During filming, Prowse was given fake, temporary placeholder dialogue, and was told to make certain hand gestures, etc., to ensure even he didn’t know Vader was Luke’s father until the initial screening of Empire. But now Lucasfilm’s secrecy surrounding TFA takes on an entirely new dimension. It even reminds me of what I’ve heard about the ads for Psycho back in the 1960s, which told people they wouldn’t be allowed in the theater once the projector started, and the theaters were all in full compliance.
For me, Han’s death changed a lot of the movie, and even the original trilogy, retroactively. Until his death in TFA, I felt so-so about Kylo Ren as a villain. There were things I really liked, and there were things I wasn’t 100% jazzed about. He seemed interesting enough for most of the movie, what with his mask and his temper tantrums, and I enjoyed that the movie even capitalized on some of this to inject some dark humor (similar, but also just dissimilar enough, to Vader’s body count on the star destroyer throughout Empire - R.I.P Admiral Ozzel and Captain Needa).
Also for most of the movie I wasn’t 100% sure how I felt about the new characters. I liked that they seemed to be real characters. The acting was much better. The dialogue was better. Rey and Finn have chemistry, and they’re funny. And not just funny in a cheap-gags kind of way - they each had a personal brand of humor tied very much into character.
But for most of the movie, I wasn’t sure how invested I really was.
And then he kills Han. Suddenly, Kylo Ren is REALLY interesting to me. And now, I’m watching the reaction shots of Rey, Finn, and Chewie, and I’m thinking, it’s not just that I like these new characters - now we NEED Rey and Finn. And, I want to see Rey go head-to-head with this piece of garbage, and they’d better make it last three movies before she’s able to really match skills with him. Now also, when I see stills of Han from scenes in the original trilogy, I actually feel a little sad, as if I have emotional problems or something, lol...
The saddest moment of all for me was largely thanks to a brilliant use of John Williams’ music score. When the resistance returns from the battle and Leia embraces Rey, the Han-and-Leia love theme from the original trilogy music score plays. What has always been a theme of heroism mixed with romance is now far more funereal, because this music has never come into play in Star Wars without Han present. It's probably exactly the right musical choice for the moment - very smart.
On the other hand, I thought a lot of the new material in the FA soundtrack was kind of lacking. It doesn’t have the character that the music for the original Star Wars movies has. Its best parts are those that hearken back to the original trilogy music score - and don’t get me wrong, those were some very well-chosen moments in TFA. I feel the music in Star Wars is its own character though, it’s what made each of the original trilogy films so operatic, and I wonder if John Williams is somewhat past his heyday. I also wonder though if it’s not John Williams so much, but rather the fact that I’m not sure TFA knew what it was until it knew what it was, which was so near the end when Han is killed. Maybe John Williams is so good, and so precise, that a movie’s on-screen struggle to find and re-establish its identity as a legitimate part of the Star Wars universe is perfectly reflected by an identity crisis in the music Williams composes for it.
I’ve listened to the FA soundtrack a few times through now, and I’ve noticed a couple of things. The first is that Rey has her own leitmotif, or theme. It doesn’t surprise me that she has her own theme in the music score - after all, in the original trilogy, there’s Luke Skywalker’s theme, the theme of the Force, Vader’s theme, the Emperor’s theme, and on and on. I think it’s significant here because it bespeaks the weakness of the FA music score - I didn’t really realize Rey had theme music until I’d given the soundtrack further listens. Meaning, her theme wasn’t noteworthy enough or distinct enough to be identifiable during the movie. And I’m not sure I exactly love the theme music itself for Rey either, however, it sounds much better when it plays its third time around, toward the end of the movie. At this moment in the movie, Rey’s theme music plays as Rey takes her seat next to Chewie as the new pilot of the Millennium Falcon. The music theme is the same as in the beginning, when she is sliding down the sand dune from the crashed star destroyer, but here it's braver, surer, and it reflects the fact that Rey is finding her way in the universe. So, her theme music has a trajectory that seems to expertly parallel Rey's personal journey - I only wish the music itself for Rey was more memorable.
I also noticed John Williams quoted his own music score from Revenge of the Sith. I don’t like that the prequels are referenced at all in TFA,. That being said, the musical choice does make sense, technically speaking. The music playing when Kylo Ren stabs Han is very similar to the music playing when Anakin Skywalker’s eyes have that oh-so-Sithy glow for the very first time.
The music playing when Kylo Ren kills Han Solo:
Listen here between 47:30 and 47:50 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Oq6cchqQSK4
The music playing marking Anakin Skywalker's journey to the dark side being complete:
Listen here starting at about 1:36:28 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LhJA7I_8-14
Here is a side note, but an interesting bit of movie trivia, about John Williams, quoting music, Star Wars, and Psycho: When John Williams was composing the music for A New Hope, someone challenged him to try and quote Bernard Herrmann’s music score from Psycho in his Star wars composition - and John Williams did it:
https://youtu.be/V_sUE8T77iI
Back to TFA, and wrapping up: I do think the movie acknowledged much of what probably makes Star Wars what it is. It likely has a lot to do with not just the themes and all the Joseph Campbell Hero's Journey stuff, but also the original music, the original characters, the original actors, the sounds, the droids, and the even the ships as characters themselves. While it’s probably a mistake to rely solely on those things to regain the feeling of authentic Star Wars, it’s also pretty necessary if handled correctly. I think they struck a good balance here, and it was a far cry from the prequels’ approach of just handing everyone lightsabers and familiar character names and declaring, “Look! It’s Star Wars!”
And they did a great job of the passing of the torch from Han to Rey - I buy it, and I feel Han Solo is there in spirit with Rey. The matchmaking of Rey, Chewie, and the Falcon has Han Solo’s official stamp of approval on it and for me, it works. I also suspect we’re going to see Han again, in that we’re going to learn more of Kylo Ren’s past, and what part Han and Leia each played in that past.
I loved BB-8. A masterfully desinged (and "acted"), adorable droid, who is now the baby as opposed to R2, but in its own unique way. I really like Poe Dameron, and I love the brotherly camaraderie between Poe and Finn. I also love how practically instantaneous their bond is - a bond achieved so quickly, probably thanks in part to who they are as people, and also thanks to the post traumatic stress of a very intense shared experience.
I think I like it that in Rey's dream sequence/vision, Ewen McGregor's voice as the voice of Obi Wan can be heard calling to her, along with the voice of Yoda, and the voice of Luke yelling "No!"
I would guess Luke's "No" is from the moment Vader cuts down Obi Wan on the Death Star in A New Hope - a moment similar to the one she is about to have with Han on Starkiller Base. So, an interesting moment for Rey, of seeing the past through the Force - and in a way, the future as well.
I do not like the giant bad guy (even if it will turn out he's just projecting himself via hologram to be so huge), I do not like that his name is Snokes, and I felt that the even-bigger-than-the-Death-Star weapon was kind of a big nothing. Same stuff all over again. It at least needed way more build up, although even that probably wouldn't have redeemed it. I do think the point, though, was to hit the reset button - we're back to the big Empire versus the much smaller rebel alliance underdogs, which will probably serve the remainder of the series well. I did appreciate the name Starkiller Base as a nod to Star Wars history, given that Luke Skywalker was named Luke Starkiller in the earlier draft of A New Hope.
All in all, I feel the movie accomplished what it set out to do. It made me like the new characters, it made me absolutely hate the villain, and it made me want to see them all again for round 2...I want to see what happens now! I would say for me, Empire ranks as #1, A New Hope is #2, and The Force Awakens ranks somewhere around #3 with Return of the Jedi. One of those two is #3, and one is #4, but I'm hard-pressed to decide which is which for various reasons. Either way, this is not a bad thing. TFA makes my list, which is just fine with me. I’m mainly excited we have Star Wars back, and people are having fun.