Lee Family 2015 Year In Review

 

Here is our Lee Family 2015 Year In Review. It is our 10th edition, and all prior editions are available here.  Also visit Victor's Picasa Web Albums site and YouTube channel.

Thoughts on Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens

Today I saw Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens, and in the words of Darth Vader from Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope, "This will be a day long remembered." Like many Star Wars fans across the galaxy, I have been anticipating the arrival of this movie for quite some time and alluded to it in a prior blog post.

SPOILER ALERT: I'm sure you can get detailed summaries of the movie plot elsewhere, so I'd like to focus on some things that I liked about the movie as well as some things that I think could have been done differently.

Things I liked:

1. I celebrate the gender and ethnic diversity with the introduction of Rey and Finn as main characters. I especially liked the portrayal of a female protagonist as the hero of the movie, as I try to instill positive values and beliefs in my 6-year old daughter. Rey and Finn brought a fresh new look to the Star Wars franchise, and I look forward to seeing them in subsequent episodes.
2. Finn's character development was done well. His defection from the First Order was a nice twist, reminiscent of the Star Wars Rebels cartoon series, and his initial reasons for siding with the resistance were flawed which generated my interest in the plot.
3. It's nice that BB-8 had some personality like R2-D2 did. When I first saw Episode IV as a 6-year old, the droids played a big role in capturing my imagination. But of course they had to instill some cuteness into their droids to promote merchandise sales!
4. It made a lot of sense for Kylo Ren to be Han and Leia's son, those midichlorians gotta come from somewhere!
5. Kylo Ren's light saber--the crossguard has the same coolness factor as Darth Maul's double-bladed lightsaber. Why can't the good guys have such cool toys too?
6. Han Solo's death was probably unexpected, but I welcomed it not because I wanted to see Han Solo die. Rather, I agree with Harrison Ford's comments from a prior interview that killing off his character would have strengthened the original trilogy by adding more dramatic effect, so I guess he eventually got his wish.

Things that I think could have been done differently:

1. Kylo Ren was portrayed a rather weak villain, and this was my main dissatisfaction with the movie. Yes, he did mercilessly kill his own unarmed father, but his character development was incomplete in my opinion. He also had poor fighting skills, especially as compared with Darth Maul (who is my favorite sith lord out of the entire franchise, despite the original 6 movies really being a story about Darth Vader). Additionally, why could Kylo Ren not dispose of Rey and Finn in a light saber battle when apparently neither Rey nor Finn had never even previously wielded a light saber? It is clear that Rey is a Force user, but she was a novice and should not have been able to fend off an attack from Kylo Ren.
2. Part of the appeal of the original trilogy came from the sarcasm, humor, and punchy lines which I can see were attempted in Episode VII but fell short. For example, compare Han Solo's famous "I know" line from Episode V to his no-look shooting of a stormtrooper or his witless bargaining with bounty hunters in Episode VII. Those scenes simply don't measure up to the same entertainment value as the playful banter from the original trilogy.
3. I don't understand why R2-D2 had to emerge from "low power mode" so late in the story, as there was nothing in particular that seemed to trigger his awakening. In fact, if he had awoken earlier, he could have easily provided the missing piece of the galactic map that would have led to Luke's whereabouts, and he could have helped fight the battle in Episode VII. I guess we'll see a lot more of Luke in Episode VIII. It might have been nice to develop a better rationale for the timing of R2-D2's completion of the map.

Overall I enjoyed the movie, and these are only my initial impressions after my first viewing.  Perhaps I have missed portions of the movie that would change my opinion of some of the above points, and of course I do plan to see the movie again (and again). While I chose my first viewing to be in 3D to focus on visual effects and to get a general understanding of the plot, I think I prefer my subsequent viewings to be in 2D so I can focus more on story details. What did you think of The Force Awakens? Leave a comment below.