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.
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

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

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

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.
So accurate. Han Solo using the force scares the shit out of me :( And don't worry there won't be a different title scroll. Just calm down haha. Also our bet still stands ;)
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