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Star Wars: The Force Awakens Review (finally)

Posted on by Remy St. Gallen

The Star Wars Trek

Star Wars’ Expanded Universe (EU) has been a crucial part of its narrative since its inception, even before the release of the sequel The Empire Strikes Back three years later. This expansion was marked by influential books like Alan Dean Foster’s Splinter of the Mind’s Eye and a few spinoff stories featuring the beloved character Han Solo. However, when Disney acquired Lucasfilm, they “rebooted” the EU, invalidating all narrative elements without the original and prequel trilogies; the primary Episodes would be rebranded as the “Skywalker Saga.” Three years later, Disney released the first canon entry of the sequel trilogy, Star Wars: The Force Awakens, a collaboration between Lucasfilm and director J.J. Abrams’ Bad Robot production company.

Set three decades after Return of the Jedi, the movie introduces a new generation of characters. It revolves around the disappearance of Luke Skywalker after one of his rogue pupils annihilated his fledgling Jedi Order. His twin sister, General Leia Organa, leads the Resistance in defending the New Republic against the First Order, formed from the remnants of the fragmented Galactic Empire. On Jakku, a desert planet like Tatooine, Resistance pilot Poe Dameron discovers a star map of Luke’s location. This discovery leads to a chain of events, including the kidnapping and torture of Dameron by Kylo Ren, leader of the Dark Side-following Knights of Ren and successor to Darth Vader. A pivotal character in the narrative is disgruntled stormtrooper FN-2187, renamed Finn, who saves Dameron and escapes via a TIE fighter.

Kylo shares Vader’s dark sense of humor.

They crash-land on Jakku, escaping on the Millennium Falcon after the First Order begins an airstrike. The legendary vessel’s previous owners, Han Solo and his imposing furry friend Chewbacca, discover and board it, dealing with various gangs with which Han had conducted business. Afterward, the film cuts to political maneuvering at the First Order’s Starkiller Base, a planet converted into a superweapon (essentially a third Death Star, which the movie acknowledges, albeit capable of destroying entire star systems). Supreme Leader Snoke, who looks like a giant disfigured cross between Lord Voldemort and Gollum (with Andy Serkis ironically voicing the emperor stand-in), gives General Hux the OK to execute the weapon while questioning his apprentice Kylo’s capabilities as his enforcer (his reasons unfortunately spoiled to me by some jerkwad online before I saw the film in theaters).

The star map leading to Luke, harbored by the diminutive droid BB-8, is discovered to be incomplete. They travel to the planet Takodana to meet the cantina owner Maz Kanata, who is around a millennium old and offers the Resistance help. Visions of Rey’s past and the Jedi Order are revealed when she touches an old lightsaber below the cantina, which she allows Finn to keep. After a riveting speech by General Hux on Starkiller Base, the film’s dramatic high point, the superweapon’s fury is unleashed on the Hosnian System, home to the New Republic, leaving the Resistance by itself to face the First Order.

He could very easily be talking about many modern democracies. Try watching it in German, as well.

The First Order assaults Takodana in search of BB-8, with Kylo also capturing Rey and interrogating her at Starkiller Base. As the superweapon prepares to fire again, the Resistance launches a counterattack, with Han, Chewbacca, and Finn infiltrating the base. Kylo is confronted with a vile but heart-wrenching climax, after which the Resistance attempts to destroy Starkiller Base from within, with Rey and Finn confronting Kylo. The film concludes with a cliffhanger showing an aged Luke that ties into the following episode, The Last Jedi. The emotional impact of these events leaves a profound and lasting impression on the audience.

Probably the film’s comedic high point, ironically a bit before the emotional climax.

I didn’t have many expectations when I watched the movie in theaters, initially released in the previous decade. The trailers did an excellent job masking critical points of the narrative (but again, significant twists had been spoiled for me), and the focus on Luke’s disappearance at least surprised me. At first, it felt like a glorified remake of A New Hope (which it often and admittedly is). However, upon rewatching, I found it superior and better written, with the dialogue being nothing short of intelligent, including frequent witty banter, plenty of callbacks and homages to the original trilogy, and one reference to the prequel trilogy (“Perhaps Leader Snoke should consider using a clone army”).

The Star Wars franchise has always excelled in its sociopolitical commentary and themes, and The Force Awakens is no exception. Its chief motif is history repeating itself, freedom and democracy, and their perpetual struggle against tyranny, constantly being in flux. The characters, new and old, excel as always, with many, like Kylo, being very relatable and those like Han having had excellent growth between the original and sequel trilogies. While the sudden invalidation of the original Expanded Universe irritated many, the new canon has been just as enjoyable in many aspects.

Han probably had the best character growth in between the original and sequel trilogies.

However, The Force Awakens bequeaths many of the same issues as its predecessors, chief among them the sheer volume of events that occur offscreen, explained only in the canon books and television series, like C-3PO’s red left arm and the existence of the Knights of Ren themselves. Thus, the sudden dump of new characters, settings, and situations during the film’s initial release was somewhat problematic, with many books and series slightly filling the narrative gaps since then. There are also weird expressions like “moof-milker” (akin to The Empire Strikes Back‘s “nerf herder”).

Regardless, I enjoyed Episode VII upon my first rewatch, chiefly because it evoked many emotions from me, good and bad, and often hit home hard. I know its reputation has somewhat soured since its initial release, but I felt quite the opposite and think its themes could easily apply to today’s world. The characters and writing are superb, with the music and visual effects excelling as they always have throughout the Star Wars franchise. However, it inherits many problems from its predecessors, like the endless events occurring without the films. Even so, I was blown away by the movie when I rewatched it and will happily rewatch the following Episodes and the trilogies before.

The Good

  • Brought Star Wars to a new generation of fans.
  • Excellent characters.
  • Superb sociopolitical themes.
  • Heart-rending climax.
  • John Williams rocks as always.
  • Beautiful effects and battles.

The Bad

  • Basically a glorified remake of A New Hope.
  • Some questionable plot elements.
  • WTF is a “moof-milker?”
  • Way too many things that occur offscreen.

The Bottom Line

A great start to the sequel trilogy.

Home Alone 2: Lost in New York

Posted on by Remy St. Gallen

The first Home Alone sequel, and the only one to feature a majority of the cast from the original film, starts similarly to its predecessor, with the McAllisters preparing for a Christmas trip to Florida, preceded by a school performance that goes wrong thanks again to Kevin’s older brother Buzz. This time, Kevin joins his family on the trip to the airport. However, circumstances divert him to a flight to New York City, where he stays at the Plaza Hotel, briefly meeting a future U.S. President and an adversarial concierge and bellhop portrayed by Tim Curry and Rob Schneider. Afterward, he again faces the fugitive Wet Bandits by boobytrapping his uncle’s residence-in-renovation. It’s structurally identical to the first film but decent in its way and likely better than its myriad sequels.

Home Alone

Posted on by Remy St. Gallen

The first installment of the Home Alone film series, directed by Chris Columbus, stars Macaulay Culkin as Kevin McCallister, part of a sizeable family planning to spend Christmas in Paris, although a scuffle with his older brother Buzz and consequential cleanup leads his father to throw away his ticket and passport accidentally. Coupled with a power outage in the middle of the night and a miscount of heads the following morning, Kevin is left stranded at home, which he must defend from a pair of thieves known as the Wet Bandits, portrayed by Joe Pesci and Daniel Stern. It rightfully stands as a holiday classic, with great music by John Williams, and has aged well.

Star Wars: Return of the Jedi

Posted on by Remy St. Gallen

The third and final entry of the original Star Wars trilogy, the sixth Episode of the later-named Skywalker Saga, opens with a visit by Darth Vader to the Second Death Star in the making above the forest moon of Endor, with none other than Emperor Sheev Palpatine himself overseeing its construction. The action then cuts to Luke Skywalker’s home planet of Tatooine, where droids Threepio and Artoo visit crime lord Jabba the Hutt’s palace as part of a plan to rescue the carbonite-frozen Han Solo, Luke himself promising the pair as a bargain.

Jabba refuses and demonstrates overall that he isn’t a very competent criminal since he comes to hold several high-profile members of the Rebel Alliance prisoner, encompassing the droid duo, Han, and Princess Leia, but doesn’t demand any kind of ransom for them, seeming to hold them hostage for the sake of holding them hostage (and describing Han as his “favorite decoration” in his palace). Boba Fett returns as well, with his own spinoff Disney+ series ultimately settling his fate, though Jabba’s having a son, Rotta, in the The Clone Wars pilot film still leaves to question what became of the younger Hutt.

Luke eventually comes to the rescue and gets everyone back in the Rebellion, Lando Calrissian joining their ranks and having been a part of the plot to get everyone free, with the Rebels gradually assembling to attack the Second Death Star above Endor. Before he joins the attack, though, Luke returns to Dagobah to complete his training with antediluvian Jedi Yoda, who does an about-face and says his training is complete, given his experience with fighting Darth Vader back in The Empire Strikes Back, though to become an official member of the fallen Order necessitates he defeat the Sith Lord.

Obi-Wan’s Force ghost returns as well, agreeing with Yoda that Luke must confront Vader and his Sith Master the Emperor, after which comes the revelation of who the “other” the diminutive Jedi mentioned in Episode V is, and continuing the story of Luke’s lineage. I know many critics and fans talk about the “inconsistency” of Obi-Wan not knowing of the “other hope” in Empire, although the late Jedi continues to insist that Luke is the Galaxy’s “last hope” within the film but given Kenobi’s experience with said “other hope” in his respective Disney+ series, I can semi-understand why he would feel that way.

However, Luke is hesitant to kill Vader given the iconic revelation in Episode V, believing there is still good in him, and since Obi-Wan had warned him about the young Skywalker’s wish to “take the quick and easy path” to becoming a Jedi, Kenobi was pretty much going against his own advice, and had done exactly that in The Phantom Menace. Regardless, that Luke had to off Vader and his Master to become a Jedi proper would be equivalent to winning the Indy 500 to pass a driving test, but Luke did admittedly start his training at a late age.

Luke is initially part of the plan to down the deflector shield protecting the Second Death Star in space, but believes he jeopardizes the mission and parts ways to allow the Imperials to capture him to meet Vader and eventually the emperor in the fledgling space station, culminating in a final duel while the Rebels deal with the trap Palpatine laid for them. The final scenes between Luke and Vader are among the most emotional in the Skywalker Saga, the Rebels down on Endor overcoming the emperor’s trap with the help of the local Ewok population, after which everyone across the Galaxy celebrates their sudden obtained freedom from the Empire.

While I’m mostly fine with the changes effected to rereleases of the Original Trilogy, the scenes of everyone across the Galaxy including Coruscant, Tatooine, Bespin, Naboo, et all, celebrating in my mind was one I find issue with, since the Rebels just destroyed a space station and a fraction of the imperial forces, which would be akin to the destruction of the Pentagon causing America to collapse. Throughout history, furthermore, the deaths of national leaders rarely made regimes fall as well; for instance, the Ba’athist Iraqis still fought when Saddam Hussein fell out of power. 

I know a trilogy of canon novels addresses what happens post-Battle of Endor, and I intend to read them one of these days, but as I’ve said before, George Lucas wasn’t completely foresightful when turning Star Wars into a franchise, given the various clashes of continuity within and without the original and prequel trilogies. Regardless, Episode VI did somewhat move me emotionally, even a little more so than Empire, and John Williams’s score as always is good and led me to fully watch the ending credits. Overall, Return of the Jedi, regardless of its faults, has aged well and is one of the cornerstones of the series.

Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade

Posted on by Remy St. Gallen

The third installment of the Indiana Jones film series, which had somewhat fallen into development hell due to the length between it and the second film, opens with a bit of backstory on the eponymous adventurer, archaeologist, and adventurer in 1912 when he was in the Boy Scouts, separating from his fellow troop members and stumbling upon a few criminals holding the golden Cross of Coronado, which he attempts to steal so it can go on display in a museum, only to lose it again. Fast-forward to 1938 off the Portuguese coast where he encounters the same gang again, gets it, and returns to the college where he teaches.

There, Indy learns the Nazis are seeking the Holy Grail and travels to Italy to meet with Dr. Elsa Schneider, with whom he visits a Venetian library to start the quest proper, coming along a tomb that holds the remaining portion of the tablet his missing father, Dr. Henry Jones, had that gives clues to the location of the Grail. There, he briefly battles with members of the Order of the Cruciform Sword tasked with protecting the Holy Grail for under two millennia, and spares the life of one of its members, Kazim, who has an excellent quote, probably the most iconic in the series, that summarizes my personal Christian views: “Ask yourself: why do you seek the Cup of Christ? Is it for His glory, or for yours?”

Indy learns that his father is held captive in Anschluss Austria, near the main German border, with the two fighting their way out and going to Berlin to take a zeppelin in an attempt to reach Hatay (a short-lived country part of what now is Turkey), although it turns around, with Jones and his father needing to elude the Nazis again, ultimately reaching their destination enroute to the Holy Grail. After further conflicts with the Germans, the temple that houses the Grail Indy and his companions reach, where certain riddles need to be solved to safely reach the artifact.

Given the final scenes involving the confrontation over the Cup of Christ, the quarrel over it seems somewhat pointless, and things would have ended the same, like Raiders of the Lost Ark, if Indy had just stayed home, though then again, said quest for it does have the auxiliary effect of Indy reconciling with his father. However, said revelation about getting the Grail out of the temple doesn’t reveal itself until near the end, but still. John Williams’s score, as always, is excellent, and this is probably my favorite of the series, given the religious overtones and above iconic quotation.

Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom

Posted on by Remy St. Gallen

The first Indiana Jones film sequel, actually occurring chronologically before the first, opens with American songstress Willie Scott performing a Chinese rendition of the titular theme from the old Broadway show Anything Goes in 1935 Shanghai, where the eponymous college professor, archaeologist, and adventurer negotiates with Chinese mobsters in an exchange of treasured artifacts, which culminates in a shootout that leads to Indy escaping with the woman who semi-serves as a love interest, along with his trusty sidekick Short Round, portrayed by Vietnamese child actor Ke Huy Quan (who would ultimately append Jonathan to his name upon becoming a United States citizen, his other notable role being Data in The Goonies).

The party of three escapes on a cargo plane whose pilots eventually bail out, and after a lucky escape, they find themselves in colonial India, where the first village they encounter has lost a precious stone along with its children used by an evil shaman as child labor, and Indy decides to help them, traveling to a Maharaja’s palace for a hearty “meal”, and that night, after an assassination attempt, he finds a passageway into the eponymous temple, Short Round coming along and Willie following suit to rescue them from a trapped room that nearly kills them, although she needed to overcome her fear of bugs (which I very much share, so it would be hard for me in such a situation).

The remainder of the film involves the three dealing with the cult that stole the sacred stones and kidnapped the children and concludes satisfactorily. It’s very much a good film, but it’s probably my least favorite of the series due to being way too dark and gross at times, and when it originally came out showed the flaws of America’s film rating system (it was instrumental in adding PG-13 to it, although I more think it should have been rated R). Apparently in the eyes of the MPAA’s film raters, saying the f-word is a lot worse than ripping someone’s heart out or otherwise attempting to murder someone, which says a lot of the sorry state of how Americans perceive certain “offensive” content.

The film’s overall xenophobic attitude is another reason I don’t hold Temple of Doom to the in the same regard as other Indiana Jones films (and Short Round is a memorable sidekick, but not in a good way), given the portrayals of the Chinese and Indian people and society, and that I think is another factor to consider when giving movies content ratings. Even so, John Williams’s score is also notable, given the mentioned Chinese rendition of one of the older Broadway showtunes, along with several pieces fitting the Asian locales throughout the movie, along with “The Raiders March” and its various remixes, the ending theme worth sitting through the opening credits to hear. Not a bucket-list film like Raiders but has nonetheless aged well.

Raiders of the Lost Ark

Posted on by Remy St. Gallen

The inaugural Indiana Jones film starring Harrison Ford as the iconic adventurer / college professor opens with Dr. Jones on an expedition to South America to filch an idol from a temple so that it can be displayed in a museum, with backstabbing aplenty as there would be throughout the main plots of future installments. This subplot doesn’t really have much bearing on the main narrative, like its first two sequels, and when Indy gets home, he hears that the Nazis are seeking the eponymous Ark of the Covenant due to a combination of Hitler’s interest in mystical artifacts and that the Ark itself allegedly makes armies that hold it invincible.

Sure enough, Indy agrees to get ahold of the Ark first, traveling first to Nepal where his old love interest, Marion Ravenwood, daughter of Indy’s old mentor Abner, has the headpiece of the Staff of Ra necessary to reveal the Ark’s location, where others who wish to find the artifact before him get into a tussle, and everyone moves on to its current resting place in Egypt, with several more conflicts in Cairo leading to the desert, where the Nazis waste their resources digging in the wrong location. Luckily, Indy and his trusty sidekick Sallah manage to find the Ark, resulting in a game of keep-away between them and the Nazis.

Given the ending scenes in the film, said game of keep-away seems incredibly unnecessary; Indy could have very easily just stayed home, and it would have ended largely the same way (save maybe for positive historical circumstances given the Nazis’ involvement), though he wouldn’t have hooked up with Marion, critical later in the franchise. It’s certainly an amazing movie and “culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant,” but as I’ve said before, critics and audiences confuse that with “infallible,” and I think it’s sad I found out about the film’s glaring issues through Cracked and not any “professional” critics, which says a lot about the sorry state of any kind of entertainment journalism, really.

Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back

Posted on by Remy St. Gallen

The very first Star Wars sequel, Episode V in the later-named Skywalker Saga, opens as with other main entries, with an opening crawl, detailing how the Rebel Alliance had to abandon their base on Yavin IV and seek another, in their case on the remote ice planet of Hoth, where Luke Skywalker, hero of the first film, is out on exploratory mission with his trust Tauntaun, only to get captured by a monstrous Wampa, from which he escapes thanks to the Force abilities acquired from his late Jedi mentor Ben Kenobi. Ben’s spirit orders him to the Dagobah system to find Yoda, “the Jedi Master who instructed me,” in which case when George Lucas ultimately expanded his franchise’s cinematic scope, he could have either cut Alec Guinness’s line short or added “when I was a youngling,” which the original Legends continuity would note.

Empire further expands upon the fledgling romance between Han Solo and Princess Leia, the latter describing him with the iconic line as a “stuck-up, half-witted, scruffy-looking nerf herder.” Han goes out and rescues Luke from the cold of Hoth, after which the Galactic Empire, with the help from probe droids, discovers the Rebel base, choosing to launch a ground assault with their cameloid walkers since their star destroyers came out of hyperspace too late, alerting the Rebellion to their presence and they got the opportunity to raise their energy shields. After my latest rewatch, it sort of makes the Gungan shield technology in The Phantom Menace somewhat make sense, where the droid army could walk through their shields but not shoot through them.

The Rebels are eventually forced to flee again, although given that we don’t see a whole lot of star destroyers on the Imperial side, it begs the question of why the evacuating Rebel ships felt they had to keep near their enemies’ vessels when fleeing, when they could have very easily just flew elsewhere off the planet, again bringing to mind that many science-fiction writers, Lucas included (and this hole would notably recur in Episode I), often seem to forget that space is three-dimensional. On the imperial side, Sith Lord Darth Vader seems especially interested in finding Luke Skywalker given his role in destroying the First Death Star and agrees with his Sith Master the Emperor (in which case I think replacing the holo of Madam Monkeyface with Ian McDiarmid was a change for the better), that he should be turned to the Dark Side.

In the meanwhile, Han, Leia, Chewbacca, Threepio, and Artoo go on their own way, given Solo’s wish to rectify his dealings with Jabba the Hutt, and find themselves on the run from the Empire, in which case the trope of 2-D space does receive significant exception. Han and Leia’s romantic relationship begins to form, while Luke reaches Dagobah to begin his training with the diminutive Jedi Master Yoda, who initially feels Skywalker is too old to train, since instruction in the ways of the Force takes a lifetime, but reluctantly agrees with Ben’s Force ghost. Here arises the question of how much time elapses when Luke is training, along with Han and company eluding the Empire.

Han and his passengers find their way to Bespin where his partner in crime Lando Calrissian, and after a series of events, Luke senses his friends are in danger and wishes to help them, despite Yoda’s insistence that he continue his training. On a philosophical note, Yoda has the iconic line “Do, or do not; there is no try,” which Revenge of the Sith would contradict with Obi-Wan’s statement that “only a Sith deals in absolutes.” Despite Yoda’s warning about Luke breaking from his instruction, he arguably does better than worse in the end, given the events in Return of the Jedi that result, since he really didn’t jeopardize the Rebellion overall.

Luke’s visit to Bespin leads to his confrontation with Darth Vader, the end culminating in the legendary twist that’s been spoiled, imitated, and misquoted to death, which itself mirrored a major twist in Frank Herbert’s Dune, later played straighter in The Rise of Skywalker. In terms of tone, many have said Empire is the darkest Star Wars film, but I think Episode III is way darker, even if it has its narmy instances, since in Episode V Han and others really lighten the mood; even Vader has his moments. As in other films in the franchise, finally, John Williams’s score is notable (the music on Bespin being awesome, for example), and led me to watch the closing credits from start to finish.

All in all, Empire Strikes Back is very much a classic of science-fiction and space opera, just as much so as A New Hope, and is indeed “culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant”, but critics and audiences often seem to confuse that with “untouchable”, and in many cases more appear to love “the idea” of the film instead of the film as it actually is, given the various issues with the narrative and to an extent the dialogue. It is very much a bucket-list movie and one of the great cinematic tragedies, particularly within its genre, although like Episode IV still demonstrated George Lucas’s inexperience as a storyteller, and newcomer Lawrence Kasdan’s as a screenwriter.