The Force has awakened a new hope.

It’s been more than a week since the “The Force Awakens” premiered.  It's been confirmed that it's the first film to reach the one billion dollar mark in ticket sales this fast, and here I am still trying to figure out what to say.  I’ve been avoiding any and all reviews for months now in order to avoid even the slightest hint of a spoiler, and now that I’ve seen the movie I really have no need to read anything about it.   I’ve been trying to blog about it for over a month now and have several attempts saved to my hard drive to prove it, but the blog you’re now reading did not start out as any of those. 

What I’d initially wanted to write about was how the film was uber-promoted in the months leading up to its release and how it reflected, if not a culture shift, an acceptance of a culture.  How this particular form of escapism has become more than an afternoon adventure for movie fans.  

I think it’s safe to say that the only way anyone could have NOT known there was a new Star Wars movie coming out was if they had boycotted not only mainstream media, but mainstream shopping.  There aren't many retail outlets that haven’t capitalized on the phenomenon and that shows more than just an interest in the current movie.  The saturation of all things Star Wars in department stores, drug stores, grocery stores and pet stores, the over-abundance of trinkets available anywhere is a sign.  The media barrage included commercials selling items not even directly related to the movie:  One commercial showed a romantic engineer type fanboy building an R2D2 to ask his own Princess Leia on a date to a premiere of the movie.  

If this were an indie film, we fans would be aghast at the sheer magnitude of the commercialization, but in reality we’ve seen it before.  Time was they’d use clips from the movie to sell cereals and collectible glassware, maybe a picture of a character on a box.  But now I’ve not only seen storm troopers dancing on multiple Target commercials, I’ve seen Chewbacca and BB8 hawking batteries.  Not with clips from the film, new footage filmed specifically for the commercial.

To me, this level of commercialization shows how accepted we, the fans, have become.  Perhaps because the film franchise has been so successful for so long, or because the juggernaut of Disney merchandising has penetrated the markets so well, it feels like we’re not just seen as tech geeks living in parent’s basements, our DVD sets of the original trilogy sandwiched between our D&D books. Maybe it’s due to the omnipresence of technology and geek culture outside of films and sci-fi/ fantasy.  We’re no longer the geeks trying to escape reality, we’re the early adopters of a new culture.  We’re still dreaming with our heads in the clouds, but we’re not alone this time.  

Without spoiling anything for those who haven’t seen it yet, I’ll say this.  While it’s not even close to being Episode IV: A New Hope, it is indeed a new hope.  And very welcome. 

 

I may be biased in my opinion, but the first three films will forever stand alone as quite possibly the greatest trilogy ever made. 

It seems to me that most films made in threes follow a familiar pattern:  Fantastic first film followed by an okay second film that only serves as a setup to the final blockbuster.  (Back to the Future comes to mind)  Not so with episodes IV-VI.  While I recall that The Empire Strikes back was not as popular when it came out, most likely because the good guys didn’t clearly win at the end, it has since been called by some the best of the series. 

The second series, the prequel trilogy, was amazing in its own way but never quite achieved the status of the first.  George Lucas was said to have held off from making the second series until film-making technology caught up to his vision, and what a vision it was.  They were second to none in their use of CGI to create new worlds and in showing us how spectacular that galaxy far, far away could be.  The opening space battle sequence in “Revenge of The Sith” was overwhelmingly vast and showed how far FX had come.  Also, this series was completely under the creative control of Lucas; No longer did he have to acquiesce to studio heads on what direction the film should take… He was the head.  The dollars stopped with him.

While I totally support the idea of the creative genius being in control of their vision, I will concede that sometimes the conflict of different ideas brings about the best.  The cooperation, or lack thereof, of an editor or a producer with the writer or director can force the finished product to become something neither party had imagined.  The world of DVD and Blueray is filled with director’s cuts that show the world exactly what the creative side wanted unhindered by the un-creative class (Producers and bean counting movie executives.)  Sometimes the director’s cut provides new insight into the film.  Sometimes it shows that less is more.  I do not completely believe that if a 2 hour movie is great that additional scenes adding 2 more hours to the film will make it twice as good. 

But the biggest failure of the prequel series was NOT Jar-Jar Binks as many claim.  The biggest failure of the second series was its inability to make the audience feel hope.  At what point in any of those films did anyone have the desire to stand up and cheer?   We were witnessing the end of the Republic, the end of the Jedi and the corruption of a man’s soul as he turned to the dark side.  

And we knew it going into the theater.  I wanted to see the spectacle.  I wanted to find out what happened in the beginning; I felt I had to.  But each time I went I knew what was going to happen.  Nothing good was going to come of any of this.  In other words, I had a bad feeling about this.    

Now, finally, nearly 40 years since “A New Hope” and 32 years after "Return of the Jedi," we finally get to find out what happened to our favorite crew of rebels.   But there’s a lot missing.  It’s the first time the drums and fanfare of the 20th century Fox intro hasn’t heralded the start of a Star Wars film.  Even with the classic “crawl” of the pre-movie story set up, it doesn’t feel like the classic B-movie serials that influenced the series.  It’s the first time George Lucas hasn’t actually played a part in the creation of what was seen on screen and that's a noticeable difference.  

But…

It lives up to its promise. The majority of characters were new, but even before the old favorites appeared, Rey, Finn and Poe had already started telling their own stories.  At one point I even feared that the old timers would slow down the new storyline, that bringing back familiar characters would equate with taking a step backwards.  But JJ Abrams wisely chose to stick with Lawrence Kasdan, an alumni of the original series, making a perfect amalgam of old and new.  Abrams has an appreciation of what makes a franchise legendary and understands that you can reboot something without throwing away what came before.  I can’t get into the feels of the new film without giving everything away, but I will say that it’s a fanboy’s, and fangirl’s, dream.  I think it’s just what we really wanted and needed.

It’s not “A New Hope,” by any means.  How could it be?  That first movie took us headlong into a new world and made us want to see it again and again.  It's like your first beer, your first time staying up past midnight or your first kiss.  It only happens once, and no matter how many times you try, it'll never feel that way ever again.  

Doesn't mean you won't do it again or that it's no fun.  

The Force has awakened, and it’s a new beginning. This series could go anywhere.  There are films scheduled for years to come, some are prequels and some continue the new storyline… growing and stretching out in their own way…and in that new beginning, there is indeed a new hope.