Star Wars: The Force Awakens

I’m delighted to report that they’ve done it: The Force Awakens lives up to its enormous expectations. Well, let’s face facts: the bar for quality was pretty low after the prequel trilogy, so even a merely average sci-fi action picture would have been an improvement. But J.J. Abrams and Disney have put out the best Star Wars they probably could within its heavy parameters of franchise-building and nostalgia (much emphasis on the latter). And it’s actually a pretty good movie, which is an achievement, considering how dangerously close it comes to being more of an original trilogy clip show than its own work.

I’m sure many won’t complain about the absolute glut of fan service on display, and indeed, it’s very nice to have the old players and dirty space western feeling of the classics back. However, it turns out there is such thing as too much of a good thing. There are too many callbacks to count in a single viewing, from whole sequences and scene constructions that viewers will recognize immediately, to entire plot points so similar that they’d be called rip-offs in any other series. Every expository locale is packed with colorful aliens, clearly emulating the classic Mos Eisley cantina or Jabba the Hutt’s palace, although never quite as imaginatively or convincingly. Hell, the story is even structured to introduce all the returning characters in blatant applause moments, sometimes at the expense of narrative cohesion.

I can’t really spoil the story because, frankly, there isn’t much to spoil. For all the mystery surrounding the picture’s production, it turns out the broad strokes were right there in the trailers: The galaxy far, far away is still at war, though the Rebellion and Empire factions now have new names (the particulars of the galactic conflict aren’t really explained, but it doesn’t really matter). Thrown into the midst of this fight are scavenger Rey (Daisy Ridley) and deserting Stormtrooper Finn (John Boyega). And as for the much-discussed lack of a certain character in the marketing, it’s pretty much the driving point of the whole plot.

The film is also pretty light on the backstories, and as a result, it takes a bit of time to come around to the new characters. But grow on you they certainly do. Boyega and Ridley both have the natural appeal and adventurous spirit of Mark Hamill in 1977 and an even greater knack for humor, playing off each other, the droid BB-8, and everything around them like assured pros (my favorite bit is a hilarious spin on a certain Force technique that remarkably fits quite nicely within the peril of a scene). Oscar Isaac also shows a bit of the Han Solo swagger in pilot Poe Dameron, despite getting much less screen time than previews had us believe. But no one is as good as the man himself, and it’s like Harrison Ford never left the role. Going on another adventure with Solo and Chewbacca (Peter Mayhew) is the greatest source of joy in the entire picture (the rest of the familiar faces are limited to somewhere between cameos and supporting roles, lest the whole thing become a complete nostalgia fest).

But the most interesting and surprising role is Adam Driver as main antagonist Kylo Ren, whose arc takes some time to get interesting. At first seemingly just a pale Darth Vader knockoff (which in a way turns out to be kind of the point), he’s gradually revealed to be a more complicated figure, and certainly the new player with the most substance. At times, he exhibits some of the tortured emotional turmoil we never got from Anakin Skywalker in the prequels (at least not well), and suggests a moral ambiguity fairly uncommon in Star Wars. So far, Ren is far and away the most interesting new element of the series going forward.

Behind all the runaway nostalgia, that’s mostly what the movie’s about, setting up all the new people and plotlines for the next era of the franchise. It at least goes about it enjoyably, with plenty of chases, shootouts, dogfights, and lightsaber duels that are the series’ hallmark. And at one point, the point I’m sure is going to be the talk of the picture once the agreed-upon spoiler blackout ends, it says loud and clear that it’s willing to break the mold and go to bold, perhaps dark new places. It’s a heavy scene, too. I’ll just say that in the theater I was in, the sound of dozens of Kleenex wrappers was quite audible.

That part notwithstanding, The Force Awakens is not on the same emotional or technically awe-inspiring level of the classic trilogy. Try as it might to duplicate them, I don’t think any film can wow the way the then-revolutionary effects of the originals once did, nor recreate the same joy and wonder in adult fans that those films did in their childhood (kids discovering the saga through this movie on the other hand…). But if the goal was to reawaken the sense of adventure and unadulterated cinematic zeal that’s been absent from the series for so long, the movie is a major success. Star Wars is fun again, and full of exciting possibilities. It’s a wonderful feeling.

Star Wars rewatch: Return of the Jedi

**SPOILERS HEREIN**

I admittedly don’t remember a lot before the release of the prequels, but I sort of recall a time when the Star Wars trilogy’s reputation was unanimously sterling. All three films were acknowledged as classics, each one almost above criticism by virtue of being part of the trilogy. Whether true or not (it could just be the fact that I was only nine when The Phantom Menace came out and not in the hardcore fan loop), after the prequels showed that not everything Star Wars is automatically good, people seemed more willing to admit to the flaws of the original trilogy. Most of the criticisms seemed directed at Return of the Jedi. And while I still enjoy the film thoroughly, I must admit they have a point.

I can forgive the unoriginality of a second Death Star. I can forgive the bits of slapstick and oversentimentality that sometimes seem out of place. I can forgive the dopey musical number in Jabba the Hutt’s palace. Hell, I even forgive them for the Ewoks. Yes, as uncool as it may be to admit, the Ewoks don’t bother me so much. I remember liking them when I first saw the film as a little kid (and I embarrassingly recall being really sad at the scene where one is shot to death). As I grew older, I liked them less and less, but I can tolerate them, unlike certain CGI cretins.

What I can’t overlook, however, is the revelation that Luke Skywalker (Mark Hamill) and Princess Leia (Carrie Fisher) are brother and sister. Even though it’s been established canon for over three decades now, it’s still a bridge too far. Despite differing accounts about exactly how much of the saga George Lucas had planned and when, I’ve seen and read enough to believe that he at least had some of his ideas in mind from the beginning. But I still don’t believe he had this planned from the start. Aside from Yoda’s (Frank Oz) cryptic “There is another…” in The Empire Strikes Back (which could have meant any number of things), there’s absolutely nothing hinting at it in the trilogy until Obi-Wan Kenobi (Alec Guinness) drops the bomb on Dagobah. Just moments earlier, the shot of Luke swinging from Jabba’s sail barge, golden bikini-clad Leia on his arm, is like the quintessential comic book hero image (an image displayed prominently on at least one VHS cover). That image is a lot weirder knowing the two are siblings, as are several scenes the two of them share earlier in the trilogy.

Plot resolution is not this film’s strongest suit. In addition to the awkward reveal of Leia and Luke’s true relationship, the follow-up to Empire’s “I am your father.” revelation (Obi-Wan’s “certain point of view” explanation) is pretty weak. The whole scene between Obi-Wan's ghost and Luke on Dagobah is one big narrative cop-out, as if the screenwriters couldn’t think of an interesting story route to tie every plot point together and just opted to quickly get it out of the way and move on.

Besides the story deficiencies, the main cast, while not exactly bad, is quite apparently not operating on the same level as the last two films. At times, they look like they’re bored and just going through the motions, and their characters aren’t as fun or lively as before. Also, some exposition scenes are very slow, lacking energy and emotional spark while flatly explaining the next step in the plot. A few times, one can almost see the pacing and dialogue problems that would beleaguer the prequel trilogy start to take root.

All that said, there are also moments that are very, very good. The scenes aboard the Death Star where Darth Vader (David Prowse) and the Emperor (Ian McDiarmid) attempt to lure Luke to the Dark Side are engrossing and emotional, with Vader’s climactic redemption toward the end being the most triumphant moment. Yoda’s death is also beautiful and sad. In both cases, as in many of the saga’s best moments, John Williams’ score plays a big part. And the reversal of Empire's famous “I love you” exchange between Leia and Han Solo (Harrison Ford) is a nice touch.

The battle going on around Han and Leia is pretty disorganized, to be sure. The iconic battles of Yavin in Star Wars and Hoth in Empire were imaginative and well-planned action sequences. Planning for the Battle of Endor seems to have consisted of thinking up cutesy ways for the Ewoks to destroy things with their Stone Age weapons and just stringing them together. There’s not much focus to the fight, and the non-furry heroes have little to do besides just stand around in front of the shield generator bunker. Fortunately, the ground warfare is edited together with the stronger scenes of Luke on the Death Star, as well as the space battle between the Imperial fleet and Rebel forces led by Lando Calrissian (Billy Dee Williams). More than just keeping the final act afloat, the dogfights and attack on the Death Star reactor are as impressive and thrilling as any effects spectacle in the saga.

And of course, there’s the rescue of Han from Jabba the Hutt, the opening half-hour or so that almost seems like another movie, an interlude to the Rebellion plotline. If Star Wars was a serial like the works that inspired it, this sidetrack would be its own separate episode. Appropriately, this is the saga at its most comic book, full of colorful aliens (the Jabba puppet is endearingly PG-repulsive) and pulpy old-school fantasy peril (and some of the technical blotches and rubber-looking creatures are actually a plus, giving it all a classic Flash Gordon vibe). Fans of Empire’s darker and more serious tone might disagree, but the detour to Jabba’s Palace might be the most entertaining part of the film, and is certainly where the leads show the most energy in their roles.

So, that’s Jedi, a little flawed but fun, and ending the trilogy on a cheery note. Would it have been better if it had followed the alleged original story treatment? With a big battle on the Wookiee home planet instead of Ewoks, and darker story turns that included death among the main characters? We’ll never know. But I can’t imagine the movie any other way, or the trilogy without it. And you know what? I like it this way.

Thank you for reading my Star Wars rewatch! I hope you enjoyed it as much as I. Check back next weekend for my review of The Force Awakens!

South Park, "PC Principal Final Justice"

I was afraid this was going to happen. I was invested in the continuing storyline this season to a degree I was not last year, and genuinely interested to see how it would close out. But once again, it kind of missed the landing, though for different reasons than last year.

Last season had a pretty loose thread connecting all its episodes, trying something new but playing it relatively safe. The mistake of the two-part finale was to sloppily try to tie them all together. This year had a much more (but not completely) cohesive storyline, with every new episode extending the narrative instead of simply referencing the previous week. And all the different subjects and subplots fit together rather well.

The problem with this finale is that none of the plot was really left at this point. The entire conspiracy involving sentient ads and PC Principal turned out to have been completely fleshed out in the previous weeks. There were no new compelling twists or surprises, save for one final turn involving the town’s Whole Foods which made no sense (honestly, if there’s one weak point in the season’s narrative, it’s that I never got what the show was trying to say with the whole Whole Foods thing). It all just sort of ends.

It also made the mistake of bringing in a new topic so late in the game: guns, as if to be timely in light of current events. The tense armed conversations between the characters was admittedly a very funny recurring gag, one that could have made its own whole episode. But added in at this 11^th hour, it didn’t really fit, or add much to the overall narrative. It seems like a waste of a good idea.

There were some other funny parts, mostly from Jimmy’s nemesis Nathan and his prostitute underling (don’t ask). However, the humor is rather immaterial in the end because, frankly, I was more in it for the narrative payoff than to laugh. Such is an unexpected turns of events: last year and the first part of this year, I found myself rather lamenting that the show was trying to be more ambitious and ceasing to be the simple R-rated cartoon it used to be. Yet here, at the end of the season, the opposite is the case.

I guess you can call that praise for the show’s new season-long style. Really, the main flaw of this season seems to be that they simply muffed the ending, not that the continuing narrative and interconnectedness didn’t work. And how many season or even series finales can you think of that didn’t leave you satisfied even though the season itself was good? I still kind of wish to one day see the simpler dirty toon with which I fell in love again, but the show may have successfully transitioned into the next phase of its existence.

Don’t be too hopeful just yet, though. Despite winning the praise of the anti-P.C. crowd this season, this one ends with PC Principal turning out to be less in the wrong than it seemed. It also strikes a rather melancholy note, similar to the season's first episode, hinting that the town of South Park will reluctantly embrace political correctness out of necessity…

But, I don’t think the show will really do that (as I said before, even at its most offensive, this show is tolerated and even beloved). What I do hope is that we’ve seen the last of PC Principal. I’m sick of him.

Star Wars rewatch: The Empire Strikes Back

 **SPOILERS HEREIN**

The Empire Strikes Back is close to a perfect film. So perfect that it doesn’t even matter that it has some pretty glaring flaws. 

WHAT!?!, I can hear the superfans raging. How dare you insinuate there’s anything wrong with Empire! It is impeccable! It is immaculate! It is sacred! I won’t argue against its greatness, but it still has some pretty obvious errors that are right in front of the viewer’s face should they choose to think about them for even a second.

For instance, why would the Rebels put the shield generator protecting their base on Hoth outside of the shield (a question that also comes up in several video games, such as one of my childhood favorites Rogue Squadron)? Alright, so this lapse in logic has been rectified via the Expanded Universe. But then, why didn’t the Imperials impound the Millennium Falcon on Cloud City instead of just turning off the hyperdrive, thus enabling it to escape following a little tinkering from R2-D2 (Kenny Baker)? Okay, maybe they’re just lazy or incompetent (an explanation bolstered by the old joke about how Stormtroopers are all terrible shots). One thing that can’t be denied, however, is that the movie’s sense of time is all screwed up. Either Luke Skywalker (Mark Hamill) is an exceptionally fast Jedi pupil, learning the basics of the Force in a matter of days on Dagobah, or Han Solo (Harrison Ford), Princess Leia (Carrie Fisher), Chewbacca (Peter Mayhew), and C-3PO (Anthony Daniels) were stuck in that asteroid slug for months and months, and yet never even put on a fresh set of clothes (well, the two of them that wear clothes, anyway).

But, it matters not. Small mistakes, inconsistencies, or plot holes are mostly irrelevant in works of make-believe, especially more fantastical ones like Star Wars. People only dwell on such things, I think, when they don’t like the work as a whole; such foibles are easy to overlook if a film (or work in any other medium) is good in the aspects that matter. And Empire is far greater than simply “good.”

The picture is a step up from Star Wars in every respect. On a purely aesthetic level, the sets are much more detailed and dynamic. Not that those in Star Wars were bad, but some of them look like they could have been built on a studio set or backlot. In Empire, all of them look like we’re seeing a real environment, be it the frozen Echo Base on Hoth, the glitz and gutters of Cloud City, or especially the living swamps of Dagobah (yeah, I almost forgot that it wasn't a real swamp, too). As for the special effects, while Star Wars was still a thrilling technical achievement, there are admittedly some shots among the space battles that look rather static. No so in Empire. The Battle of Hoth feels the closest to real combat of any moment in the saga (the Death Star trench run is still the trilogy’s top action sequence in my opinion, but this is a damn close second), and the chases through the asteroid field are breathtaking. These are all the more impressive with the knowledge that they were created without a bit of CGI.

And as for John Williams' "Imperial March," which debuts in this film, I say the following without a shred of hyperbole: it's the 20^th century's answer to Richard Wagner's "Ride of the Valkyries."

The bigger, greater production spectacle, however, isn’t the best thing about the movie. Rather, it’s the exact opposite, the littler things. Like the moments where Luke’s fears and feelings are stripped bare during his training with Yoda (Frank Oz), alternately haunting and inspiring. Or the spilling-over romantic tension between Han and Leia. There’s a real, passionate emotional intimacy to these scenes. In Star Wars, the audience had a great time with these characters, but it’s this movie where they come to love them like they’re real people.

It is this that makes third act story turns likes Lando Calrissian’s (Billy Dee Williams) betrayal and Han’s carbonite imprisonment so heartbreaking. It also gives Lando, Leia, and Chewie’s escape from Cloud City, at least as well-staged as the Death Star shootouts in Star Wars, a much greater tension. And as for Luke losing his hand and Darth Vader’s (David Prowse) “I am your father.” revelation, it cuts as deep as a plot twist can. The Rebels’ overwhelming defeat in the snow battle earlier in the picture isn’t half as devastating as this iconic scene. The entire last half-hour or so is emotionally draining in the best, most satisfying way a movie can be.

Indeed, it’s fair to say Darth Vader’s reputation as one of cinema’s greatest villains stems mostly from this picture. Think about it: In Star Wars, he was little more than a colorful masked bad guy you’d find in any Gold or Silver Age comic book, and arguably more of a secondary villain to Peter Cushing. Here, he’s absolutely evil, and terrifying. I, for one, freaked out a bit at his habit of force-choking his underlings to death when I was a child, and to this day it remains a chilling trait.

While the film secured the dark lord’s legacy, it also gave us an instantly iconic new character in Yoda. He’s the single greatest creature creation in the whole saga for the same reason his swampy home planet is such a great set: we never once think what we're seeing is fake. His expressive features and tiny movements give him the illusion of life that eluded most creations of puppetry in the pre-CGI era. It’s simply masterful work from Frank Oz, making the little green sensei look like a real living, breathing alien being and a full character on equal footing with Mark Hamill in the scenes they share. Higher footing, even, as the puppet exudes a stronger authority than even the great Alec Guinness as Obi-Wan Kenobi. 

Empire isn’t just the best Star Wars picture (at least so far, but The Force Awakens will practically have to be the best move ever if it’s going to top this) and among the best sequels ever made; it’s arguably an important point in the evolution of the modern comic book movie.

Let’s take a little trip back to 1980: It was the latter half of comics’ Bronze Age. The medium featured smarter, elaborate stories with more grown-up appeal, writing which would usher in the Modern Age a few years later. However, the onscreen comic productions of the time like the Christopher Reeve Superman movies and The Incredible Hulk with Lou Ferrigno were lagging behind, more reminiscent of the lighter, sillier, and increasingly distant Silver Age. Star Wars may not have been directly  based on any comic book, but it was very rooted in old-school comics and children’s serials, and the first film reflected that.

But three short years later came Empire, treating the same material with a seriousness and deep reverence that was fairly new to comics and practically unheard-of in any comic book film up to that time. It’s hard to gauge how directly the movie influenced the genre; I don’t doubt Tim Burton’s Batman at the end of the decade and all the “grownup” comic movies and shows that followed would have still been made if Star Wars had no sequels. But it’s arguably fair to say Empire was one of the first screen works to bring a mature sophistication to “comic book” fare.

Regardless of its importance in the history of the comic book movie, or the history of all film, The Empire Strikes Back is an incredible motion picture. Flaws and all.

South Park, "Truth and Advertising"

I suppose it was inevitable that we’d get an episode like this now that South Park’s storylines stretch over the entire season. This one’s pure filler, the type of connective tissue you’d see in a continuing drama series between the episodes with major plot points that everyone remembers.

Is it any good? That depends on how you look at it.

Last episode’s revelation about advertisements taking human form was spelled out, and the fact that there’s some sort of conspiracy involving PC Principal and ilk was established. None of this really moved the narrative forward, however, and merely set things firmly in place for big stuff in next week’s season finale. The only real new development is that the ongoing gentrification plotline came to its logical conclusion of pricing the South Park residents out of their own town.

That sounds sharp for a split second, but think about it for a moment and it’s a pretty obvious point. Similarly, the running smash cut—in which the characters get distracted by pop-ups and suddenly appear in the businesses of the ads with which they’re bombarded—is a decent gag, and an apt encapsulation of the struggle to maintain an attention span in these always-connected days. But while it might have been fairly cutting edge a decade or so ago, today, it’s an observation that’s been made many times before.

So, the satire was a bit stale and mediocre this time around. As for the non-satire humor, I laughed lightly at one moment with the britches farmer, and one entry on a list of gentrified name gags (which I’m too ashamed of laughing at to point out) made me guiltily snicker. But overall, this wasn’t the funniest episode, either.

To its credit, though, it did its job as buildup. I’m genuinely interested to see where this plotline concludes. I just hope that spending this week fueling our anticipation doesn’t backfire on the show.