Top 10 things “The Force Awakens” has that “A New Hope” didn’t

Jordan Decker

8 years ago

FULL STAR WARS SPOILERS AHEAD

Star Wars – Episode VII: The Force Awakens is shaping up to be just about the biggest film ever released. It’s sitting pretty on a rock-solid 95% rating on RottenTomatoes, and TYF’s “fresh tomato” influenced that average; Jon Espino called the film “a complete fan-service that combines the exciting storytelling and use of practical effects from the original trilogy with the crisp, vibrant color palette and clean computer graphics of the prequels”. I happen to agree, Jon!

The force is also strong with this one at the box office. It did a staggering $247.9 million in it’s opening weekend, beating the recent domestic record set by Jurassic World by about 40 million.

All of this aside, that last 5% of negativity has been really bugging me. A particular review from the New Yorker spins such tangled sentences as:

“[J.J. Abrams’] direction “doesn’t shape the elements stylistically… chosen settings never rise, by means of visual composition, to symbolic significance”.
“The cast appears mainly as symbols of their own youth, a new generation of cinematic faces transplanted onto the revered corpus of legend”.
“[Abrams stands] one step down from Spielberg’s worship of a world of images to the modern worship of a world of stories. That makes Abrams just the person to plug the newest ready-made pre-fab blocks of quasi-Biblical legend into the template left by Lucas”.

First of all: what? Hyphenated adjectives never entitle a reviewer to judge a film on vague intangibles, as writer Richard Brody does here. Any Film Reviewing 101 class would teach you that. Brody claims that The Force Awakens has no symbolic images, steals archetypal characters and borrows story steps from Lucas’ A New Hope. Read some negative reviews of the film: they all reiterate the film’s lack of originality.

This list is meant to offer a counterargument about the newest Star Wars film. Without further ado, here is my list for the Top 10 ways The Force Awakens differs from A New Hope:

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[tps_header][/tps_header]10. Everyone has a sense of humor.

I love Han teasing Luke’s obsession with Leia in A New Hope, but when you really start to think about it: where does most of Episode IV’s humor come from? It’s Han – being sarcastic to Chewie or arguing with Leia. This is low on my list because the original trilogy was very good about generating humor among its protagonists. That said, The Force Awakens has it beat. From the first scene, a captive Poe Dameron quietly asks Kylo Ren, “Who talks first? You talk first, I talk first?”. It was a dramatic scene (including a bloody massacre), but it takes time to make you love Poe’s carefree attitude!

John Boyega brings a great sense of modern, awkward timing to Finn. Rey is funny in her stubbornness. Han and Chewie are back (bringing the sarcasm and charm). But the real standout: Kylo Ren! Our villain is given several comedic moments where he explodes with violence and rage at his Stormtroopers. One time he rages, then calmly asks, “Anything else?”. Very funny, and very Star Wars.

[tps_header][/tps_header]9. Diversity in casting.

The best part about diversity in The Force Awakens is not how many different ethnicities are included, nor how it meets some quota for how many women should get placed in the movie just “because”. The real progressive message here is how, with an obviously modern, open-minded casting team, they found a diverse crew of actors that simply played the roles better than anyone else could. At 2015’s Comic Con panel, J.J. Abrams said, “The truth is, we didn’t write the characters of Finn or Rey to be any color, we just cast the movie. We thought it was important that the world of the film looks the way the world looks”. It only makes sense that the talent needed to inhabit these characters isn’t found in exclusively one race, gender or nationality, and the film is better for it!

[tps_header][/tps_header]8. A confident, law-abiding bad-ass.

If someone wants to argue that The Force Awakens relies too heavily on character archetypes, then we have a problem. Star Wars is, first and foremost, a mythological fairy tale which cannot exist (and has never existed) without characters filling certain symbolic roles. One such symbolic role is the “Bad-Ass” – the character that often serves as a counter to the main hero, who is still honing their skills. In A New Hope this is Han Solo, but in The Force Awakens, it’s Poe Dameron.

Poe is everything that Han isn’t. From the opening title scrawl, we find out that Poe is basically the James Bond to General Leia Organa’s “M”. When they need a job to get done – a job for the Resistance – he’s the one they send. He knows the importance of Luke Skywalker to the Force and the war effort. The first time we meet Han, he’s brutally shooting first to murder a bounty hunter, whereas when we meet Poe, he is sacrificing his life for the valuable intel in his BB-8 droid. He’s is confident, but he can be that without being a criminal. Try and tell me he’s Han Solo! Go ahead, try.

[tps_header][/tps_header]7. Rivalry between villains.

If you’ve seen the new film, you know that Kylo Ren is not alone in the villain department. There is the looming presence of Andy Serkis’ Supreme Leader Snoke, the tragically-underused Captain Phasma, played by Gwendoline Christie (deleted scenes please?), and of course, the First Order’s barking General Hux, played Domhnall Gleeson. Comparisons between Original Trilogy scenes with Vader hologram-chatting the Emperor vs. Ren doing the same with Snoke are just!

However, Force Awakens has another baddie in the room vying equally hard for Snoke’s attention. Ren and Hux are basically two brothers “trying to impress daddy” in a petty game of one-upmanship. Hux convinced Snoke to let him build an army of recruited Stormtroopers rather than clones. Ren, on the other hand, has that whole religious bond with dad – they basically go to church together to worship the evils of the Sith, and Ren kills his father for Snoke (we’ve all been there with our dads, right?) This rival-dynamic adds another dimension the First Order that A New Hope never had.

[tps_header][/tps_header]6. Kylo Ren

If you think that Kylo Ren is a cheap rip-off of Darth Vader, you’re dead wrong for two reasons.

Reason #1: Vader was stable. He had been killing Jedi, working with the Emperor, choking Stormtroopers, and mastering the Force for twenty years before A New Hope starts. He is confident, and knows his morals. Throughout the series, Vader lectures Luke about the power of the Dark Side like a father would lecture a son. Kylo Ren is everything that Vader wasn’t: new at his job and exploding with rage. Ren tortures not with an honorable “force choke” like his grandfather, but with his own “force brain squeeze”. He can only read a bit of Rey’s mind, whereas Vader could talk to Luke’s brain from planets away as if through a cell phone.

Vader needed his mask to live, Ren made his for intimidation. Pretty big difference…

Reason #2: The Force Awakens knowingly bases Kylo Ren’s persona off of Vader! It’s a part of the film’s story. Ren talks to Vader’s mask, worrying he won’t be able to live up to his “achievements”. Ren is all about emulating a tough image, but he hasn’t grown enough to justify his peacocking. It’s all subtext about the film’s status as a franchise reboot, and it is subtle. It makes Ren one of the more-interesting film villains in recent memory. His timid reaction is awesome when Rey says “You’re afraid… that you’ll never be as powerful as Darth Vader!”.

[tps_header][/tps_header]5. A Stormtrooper’s perspective.

The Star Wars franchise has always been pretty one-sided. In the original trilogy, the Jedi and Rebellion are good and the Sith and Empire are “bad guys”. Every Stormtrooper is faceless and mindless. They invade planets, murder Luke’s family, shoot Ewoks and attack our heroes . A New Hope never shows the perspective of, say, a soldier being ordered to shoot innocents, but I know a film that does…

It’s Force Awakens! – which gives us Finn! Or “FN-2187”, as he is originally branded. His story is that of slavery to the First Order – he was stolen from his family at birth. We see FN’s nerves spike when his friend is KIA in the film’s opening raid on Jakku. Then the dying soldier streaks blood onto FN’s helmet (the first blood ever shown on a Stormtrooper in Star Wars!) The following shot of the Stormtroopers lining up to kill unarmed villagers is haunting, especially as FN can’t bring himself to do it.

What follows with his escape! He befriends Poe Dameron, who gives him a spiffy jacket, an identity with the name “Finn” and a new search for his purpose. And BAM – we have our first (and quite awesome) Stormtrooper character in Star Wars.

[tps_header][/tps_header]4. An Empowered Female Protagonist.

Let’s just say it: Rey is awesome. So awesome, actually, that I have to divide her ass-kickery into two spots in this Top 10 list.

First off, she don’t need no rescue from no man! Seriously – even Poe Dameron (our aforementioned bad-ass) needs to be rescued by Finn. Kylo Ren takes Rey prisoner, and what happens? She escapes on her own! She resists Ren’s mind-probing, then she uses the Force convince the Stormtrooper guarding her cell to release her – a far-cry from Leia’s rescue from the Death Star in A New Hope. It’s 2015, and we’re putting a spin on Campbell’s hero myth. It doesn’t get any more modern than Finn attempting to pull Rey’s hand to run, and her shooting him a look of, “Dude, I’m helping you… plus I live here!”.

Also: Rey is attractive but not sexualized by the filmmakers, she has terrific piloting and engineering skills and she can hold her own with a lightsaber, which leads to my next list entry…

[tps_header][/tps_header]3. A “sleeper agent” Jedi?

Given Rey’s ability to ward-off Kylo Ren’s mind control, to utilize the Force to make others do her bidding, her confidence with Luke’s lightsaber in the film’s final battle as well as just the way she says “The Force…” when she’s reminded of it – I’m 95% sure this girl is what I’m calling a sleeper agent Jedi.

My working theory? She’s Luke’s daughter. Luke and Ben Solo were training new Jedi, then Rey came of age and started getting much stronger than either of them. Ben got jealous and tried to kill her on Jakku, but couldn’t bring himself to do it so he left her, wiping her memory. Now can use the force and a lightsaber VERY well despite not knowing why she knows that.

This allows Rey to be sort of the “anti-Luke”, as well. When Luke had friends, family, leisure time and and a safe life on Tattoine, Rey’s life is utter shit. She scavenges just to stay alive and fed. The biggest difference between the two is that Rey is a reluctant protagonist throughout the film. Even given how skilled she is, Han’s work offer and Maz Kanata’s prophecy, she still wants to sit on Jakku, count the days and wait for whoever left her there! This makes her mythic “refusal of the call to adventure” and eventual acceptance more cerebral than Luke’s journey, which is basically, “I want to leave! My family is dead? Darn… well at least now I can leave!” thing.

If anyone ever tries to tell you that The Force Awakens has no original ideas, throw the sleeper agent thing at ’em and see what they say!

[tps_header][/tps_header]2. There’s no happy ending.

The ending of A New Hope (and Return of the Jedi for that matter) is very happy. This is not a bad thing! Remember: Force Awakens being different doesn’t take anything away from the original’s successes.

The original 1977 film was made under tight watch from the studio, a lower budget and a huge amount of pressure on George Lucas to deliver a profitable film. No sequel was planned, or even considered until the money started rollin’ in and it was clear that Star Wars would be a huge phenomenon. We now live in a very different world – In 2015, Star Wars is the biggest thing ever! Under Disney’s ownership, multiple sequels can be planned and executed, with longer-term arcs, rivalries and payoffs. J.J. Abrams has stated that he is very fascinated by what happened to Han, Luke and Leia after they “walked into the sunset”, because there is always the question of, “Okay, then what?”.

Force Awakens doesn’t end with a party or celebration: it ends with a classic cliffhanger. The first thing I said when the movie ended was, “Okay, I want the next one!”. It may seem less-than satisfying, but so did The Empire Strikes Back in 1980, and we all know how fantastic that film is…

[tps_header][/tps_header]1. A goal.

The Force Awakens opens with Max von Sydow’s Lor San Tekka, a wise Jedi-enthusiast, handing a piece of a map to Poe Dameron. The map is told to lead to the now-lost Luke Skywalker. While handing it over, San Tekka declares, “This will begin to make things right”.

This is the first line of the film, and it sets Force Awakens up as a “white knight” riding in to restore the franchise after the generally-disliked prequel trilogy. More obviously, it gives us the goal for the entire film: Find Luke. The Resistance (led by Leia) needs Luke to turn the tides of the war against the First Order. The dark side wants to kill him, wiping out the Jedi once and for all.

Looking at A New Hope, Luke and co. have many goals: get R2-D2 to Alderaan, then when the planet is disintegrated, rescue Princess Leia aboard the Death Star and finally fly as an X-Wing pilot with the Rebellion to blow the thing up. It works for the film. In contrast, Force Awakens seems incredibly focused in its singular goal.

Finding Luke is a journey of expectations for the audience, too. We all heard that Mark Hamill was going to be in The Force Awakens, and as the film moves along, I for one was looking all over the screen for our favorite Jedi! The more I learned about what happened with Ben Solo and Luke’s new Jedi order through Han and Leia, the darker my image of Luke became. When he finally turns around at the end, as the literal “wise old man atop the mountain”, he is not a great warrior – he’s a broken man.

I put this as #1 on the list because it really drives the film forward. It bookends the story with Luke’s character ark and also adds another layer of “mythic” to this already very mythological, fairy tale of a franchise! Star Wars has always been about heroes’ journeys, colorful villains and magical forces… it only make sense that now we have a film about basically piecing together a map to find an all-powerful wizard.