Top Ten things I DON’T want to see in The Force Awakens: C.C.C. Issue #42

Top Ten things I DON’T want to see in The Force Awakens

“There’s been an awakening, have you felt it?” Chances are you have, because all anyone is talking about lately is STAR WARS STAR WARS STAR WARS!!! Including myself. 

There’s a lot of mystery surrounding this newest Star Wars film, thanks in no small part to writer-director J.J Abrams keeping as much of the plot/characters/events under wraps as he can. He always likes to keep the audience guessing as to what they’re going to see—we’ve seen it with his giant monster movie homage Cloverfield and his coming-of-age Spielberg homage Super 8, in particular—and I love that he wants to keep some mystery for the viewers before stepping into the theater to see a movie for the first time, instead of spoil it all with excessive trailers like many other blockbusters tend to do. The only problem with keeping so many things a secret is it creates expectations. There has to be a reason something isn’t being revealed, it must be because it’s the most amazing thing ever!

Well, not necessarily. There’s a ton of hype for The Force Awakens, not just because it’s a new Star Wars movie (but mostly that), it’s also because so much of it is still an enigma. Is it creating unrealistic expectations? Probably. But even still, I love that I still know so little about it. I have a lot of hope it’s going to deliver, but I also have my fair share of concerns. Here are my top ten concerns for The Force Awakens, mainly things I don’t want to see.

10. Some type of new opening

For whatever reason, I’ve had several different nightmares about seeing this movie, and in all of those nightmares, it never opens with the standard “A Long Time Ago, In A Galaxy Far, Far Away…” followed by the opening title crawl of paragraphs scrolling through space. I hope this isn’t some horrible premonition, and I hope all the theories that it might have a scene before the title crawl are nothing more than bantha fodder. Even the simple absence of the Twentieth Century Fox fanfare before the movie starts has already upset people. If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. A Star Wars movie should always open the same in my opinion, no matter what. If it doesn’t open in the traditional way, there’s a chance I’ll get up and leave long before the force even starts thinking about waking up. 

9. An Appearance by Anakin Skywalker 

I heard some rumour about Hayden Christensen returning for a cameo as Anakin, but I have a strong feeling it is just that: a rumour. I think the chances of seeing force ghost Ani are pretty slim, but still, I’m saying there’s a chance. Given J.J Abrams has clearly stated he wanted to distance himself from the prequels, having someone from the prequels would seriously contradict that (the blu ray version of Return of the Jedi does not count as him being in the original trilogy). If he comes in and talks about sand, that’s it, I’m done with Star Wars altogether. 

8. An overabundance of references to the original trilogy 

It’s fundamentally unavoidable to have same major references to the original films when part of the principal cast includes characters from those original films, but what I mean here is I don’t want The Force Awakens to rely too strongly on all the details everyone loves for the original films. Having the classic characters should be enough, we don’t need them playing a game of weird alien chess or recycling dialogue we’ve heard before or having Rey look out at two suns setting on her desert home planet or whatever. It’s like the Terminator problem. By that I mean because the line “I’ll be back,” from the original proved so popular, filmmakers have felt it’s necessary to include the line in every single Terminator sequel ever, just because it’s something recognizable, but it’s gotten to the point of being used obnoxiously and now people roll their eyes when they hear it. Please, choose the Star Wars references wisely, don’t shove them in needlessly and make them become meaningless. 

7. A story about revenge 

Both of Abrams’ Star Trek movies were about villains seeking revenge. The entire prequel trilogy led up to the Sith getting revenge. I’m getting tired of revenge movies. I can easily imagine the villain character here is trying to get revenge on the heroes for something they did in the 30 year gap between Return of the Jedi and The Force Awakens. But I don’t want to see that. If there’s a small revenge element in the story somewhere, that’s fine, just don’t let the driving force be one of revenge. (hehe, see what I did there? The force? Adam Driver is playing Kylo Ren? Never mind) 

6. A severe cliff hanger 

Save this for Episode VIII. The original Star Wars felt like a pretty complete movie, but Empire, though my favourite of all the Star Wars movies, is definitely a middle chapter, and leaves you hanging, wanting to see the third movie A.S.A.P. On the bright side, if The Force Awakens does end on a cliff hanger, we don’t have to wait three years for the conclusion like audiences did back in 1980 with Empire, because Episode VIII is only a year-and-a-half away! But still, don’t end Episode VII on a cliff hanger. Fans have been waiting for this forever, at least give a satisfying ending. 

5. Han Solo as a Force user

This idea just came to me, and I find it pretty disturbing. In the full trailer we hear Rey say there were stories about what happened (obviously referring to the events from the original trilogy) and Han Solo, the scoundrel smuggler who didn’t believe in the Force back in Episode IV, is now saying all of it was true, which is great to hear. But what if, after spending potentially 30+ years with force sensitive Leia and her brother Luke Skywalker, the last of the Jedi, he decided he wanted to learn the ways of the force too? It would totally not fit with his character, and I have a feeling this idea might have been thrown around in the early phases of writing the script, and then thrown in the garbage. “Hokey religions and ancient weapons are no match for a good blaster at your side, kid.” He better still think this way (more or less). 

4. A super lame intro for Luke Skywalker 

One of the biggest elements of mystery surrounding The Force Awakens is where the hell Luke Skywalker is. Everyone knows he’s going to be in it, but he’s been absent from all the marketing (minus the trailer with the voiceover pulled from Return of the Jedi and what might be him putting his hand on R2D2). All this secrecy about what he’s up to leads me to believe it’s something very crucial to the story. But, what if it isn’t? What if he just shows up, like, hey guys, I’m here, let’s go on an adventure? Not only would it be a huge letdown, it would make me think, what was the point of all that secrecy? Like I said earlier, the mystery creates higher expectations, so however Luke is introduced, it better be good. 

3. Kylo Ren killed off

Question: What is arguably Marvel’s #1 problem with all of their movies, even the great ones? Answer: One-off villains.  Take Loki out of the picture for a second, and what do you have? Whiplash in Iron Man 2, Malekith in Thor: The Dark World, Ronan in Guardians of the Galaxy, Yellow jacket in Ant-Man, etc. Villains who show up, do some stuff, then die by the end, and a new baddie shows up for the next installment. Star Wars has one of the greatest villains of all-time with Darth Vader. It would be a huge disservice to the franchise to have Kylo Ren, who seems like he’s the main villain of The Force Awakens, be set up as such, then have him dead by the end of the movie, only to have another villain take up the reigns for the sequels. It is possible Kylo Ren isn’t the main baddie in The Force Awakens, but even then, given how much merchandise has already been released with him on the packaging, it seems like he’ll be important to the story whether he’s the big bad or not. Killing him off within the same movie he’s introduced in would be a big mistake, as far as I’m concerned, no matter how epic of a death it is. And speaking of death…

2. A character “dies”, but is alive again by the end 

This is one of the worst clichés around. It happens way too often, it’s also a problem in the Marvel movies, but most concerning, is it’s been in one of Abrams’ Star Trek movies. Spoilers: Star Trek Into Darkness has Captain Kirk die, only to be brought back to life. The stakes of the film completely disappear when a character can cheat death, no matter how elaborate the method. Once a character is dead, they should stay dead. I’ve seen it too many times, and if I see it in Star Wars, it’s going to be a major flaw, no matter how great the rest of the movie ends up being. And this brings me to my number one concern…

1. The same thing I’ve already seen 

This is a more general concern, but by far the biggest. I’m not expecting The Force Awakens to blow my mind with some brand-new original story we’ve never seen before, but that doesn’t mean I want to see the exact same movie I’ve seen before. Perhaps one of the only praise-worthy things about the prequel trilogy is it didn’t try to do the exact same thing as the original trilogy. The stories were hardly the same, but I’m concerned the story of The Force Awakens will be too similar to the story of A New Hope. Character who lives on a desert planet, who doesn’t know her family, wants to go on an adventure, joins up with some new-found friends, goes on exciting space adventures, fights against the First Order (formerly the Empire) as part of the Resistance (formerly the Rebellion), learns the ways of the force, finds an old mentor, mentor dies, they blow up the Resistance’s giant planet-sized weapon (the Starkiller Base, instead of the Death Star), and save the day by the end, but don’t save it entirely, leaving room for more adventures in the sequel. Just saying, it’s a possibility. 

Hollywood is going through a trend right now of playing on people’s nostalgia to get butts in the theater seats. What are some of the biggest movies of the year? Jurassic World, Furious 7, Minions, Spectre, and Mission: Impossible – Rogue Nation, to name a few. These were all sequels to long-running franchises, but look at Jurassic World in particular. It is the highest-grossing movie of the year so far, and what did it do? It played heavily on the nostalgia for the original Jurassic Park, some might say too heavily. This was a successful example, but what about an unsuccessful example? Terminator Genisys tried to play on the nostalgia of Terminator and Terminator 2 while also trying to reboot the franchise, but it failed miserably. 

Will The Force Awakens rely on a proven formula to copy what we’ve seen before? I think the chances are good, but it’s all in the execution. If it’s beat for beat the same as A New Hope, yeah, of course I’ll be upset. But if it’s sort of similar, with lots of new elements thrown in, and it twists the familiar story into an unfamiliar one, that’ll be great. There is so much riding on this movie, it’s hard to fathom all the elements that have to come together to make it work for the widest audience possible, but hopefully they don’t sacrifice the quality of the storytelling just to make money.