All right, now that Star Wars: The Force Awakens is out and has made all the money in the world, I wanted to give my thoughts on some spoilers. There's certainly a lot to talk about, and a lot of ground that I couldn't cover in my spoiler-free review. With that said, it's going to be all spoilers from this point on, so beware. Seriously. I'm going to be discussing all of the characters and the plot in full.
SERIOUSLY. I'M ABOUT TO GO IN DEPTH. YOU WILL HAVE EVERYTHING RUINED. IF YOU'VE AVOIDED SPOILERS UNTIL NOW, KEEP DOING THAT.
LAST WARNING.
The most interesting character of the film for me was Kylo Ren, played by Adam Driver. When it came to my theories, some were correct and some weren't. The theory that was correct was that he is in fact the son of Han Solo and Princess (now General) Leia. This was actually revealed very simply; there wasn't any huge moment where they redo "I am your father". Supreme Leader Snoke just kind of says it. I liked that, because they had the father-son reveal, but it was done in a way that made a lot of sense, because Kylo was already aware of it. Kylo's parentage was actually hinted at in the first scene of the movie, when Max von Sydow says "You've forsaken the light side and your family". The most emotionally powerful scene of the whole film, Han Solo's death, came from this relationship.
The death of Han Solo was nothing short of a brilliant scene. Leia had asked Han to bring their son home, so when they're on Starkiller Base and Han sees him walking across a large walkway, he goes out into the open and yells out Kylo's real name.
"BEN!"
The silence that filled the movie and the theatre was nothing short of amazing. The fact that his name is Ben is brilliant and heartbeaking, because he's named after the Jedi who began to train Luke, but we learn from Han that Kylo betrayed Luke and destroyed the New Jedi Order. Simply put, I started crying at that reveal, at the way Harrison Ford said it, and what I knew was about to happen. Han walks out onto the walkway, begging Kylo to return with him. It almost looks like Kylo will listen; he drops his mask, he holds out his lightsaber, but he tells Han that there's something he needs to, and he doesn't know if he's strong enough.
And he drives his lightsaber through Han's chest.
This was signposted from a fair distance, but it still broke me. Han Solo puts his hand on his son's face one last time (which made me cry more), and falls into the pit. But what was even more brilliant was the lighting. While Han talks to Kylo, half of Kylo's face is covered in red light, and half of it is covered in blue. When he makes the choice and activates the lightsaber, it's all red. And the look Adam Driver has when Han falls is the very simple but very powerful look of relief, because the only thing holding him back was the question of whether or not he could embrace the darkness enough to kill his father. And he did.
Ben Solo died with Han Solo. Kylo Ren is all that's left.
Kylo's personality overall was also very well done, because he's essentially a petulant child, who's dealing with way more power than he knows how to deal with. You see an example of this when a First Order officer gives him bad news, and he whips out his lightsaber and just slices the wall in front of him to pieces. That lightsaber was also a perfect visual extension of his personality: unstable and unpredictable. Later on, when he's trying to look into Rey's mind with the Force, and she fights back, she says "You're afraid...you're afraid you'll never be as powerful as Darth Vader." That right there sums up his character perfectly. The Darth Vader parallels are very well done, because Kylo initially seems like just another Vader. But the more we see of him alone, the more unique he gets. His modified voice and his mask are very dark and imposing, but when he takes it off, he's very normal. Adam Driver looks and talks like just a normal man, which is what he's meant to be. But the instability and the desperation to prove himself give so much more to his character.
The scene where he talks to Darth Vader's mask is one of the best in the film. The lines he says to this burned piece of metal says so much about him. He says that he can fee the pull of the light side, and that was when I knew that this movie was really bringing something new Star Wars. We've seen characters feeling the pull to the dark side, but with Kylo, we now have the reversal of that. I'm pretty sure that the arc of Kylo over the course of the trilogy will be his return to the light side (and probably sacrificing himself). But where Adam Driver does such a great job is in his performance. When the mask is off, the uncertainty is on full display, on his mouth and in his voice, and you can slowly see him slipping as more and more goes wrong for him.
He has some great action moments in the film as well. The first one came at the beginning, when he caught a freaking blaster bolt in mid-air. I also loved how the Force was portrayed in this film, mainly because of the other actors and the sound effects. When Kylo would use the Force to move or freeze someone, there was something unnatural about the movement. There was a slight twitching while the characters tried to break free, and the looks of confusion and fear on their faces sold it perfectly.
What I'm very interested in is what happens next to Kylo, because Snoke tells General Hux "Bring Kylo Ren to me. It's time to complete his training." I really want to know what that means, especially since Kylo killed his own father, and was defeated and scarred by Rey at the end of their lightsaber duel. Going off of Kylo's personality so far, being embarrassed like that, and freed of his conflict with the light side, I think he'll be even more of a threat in Episode VIII, and embrace the dark side fully.
Finn wasn't a Resistance spy. Finn wasn't Force-sensitive. Finn was the one lying in the snow.
Called it. But he didn't die.
I kind of expected him to, but I'm very glad that I didn't, because Finn was great. John Boyega's performance was a large factor in the enjoyment of Finn, because you can just feel his love and passion throughout the entire movie. He really gives it his all, and a lot of the great humour in this comes from him. He's a very human character, which is ironic, because he was raised from birth to be a stormtrooper, and he didn't even have a name. He got the name "Finn" from Poe Dameron, who he helped escape from the Star Destroyer, because the only name he ever knew was FN-2187. His betrayal from The First Order came from the opening scene on Jakku, where he was ordered to murder a group of civilians, but was the only stormtroper who didn't fire. Along with a friend dying right in front of him, he was pretty traumatized by the experience, and only wanted to get away from the First Order, to run as far as he could. They struck an interesting balance with his character, because he was never a full coward. He was afraid of the First Order, and wanted to get away, but he was willing to help and protect others if he could.
He rescues Poe Dameron from the Star Destroyer as the first example of this point, though he did also need a pilot. This started a very fun friendship between them, and it was pretty funny that this Star Wars movie did in about five minutes what the prequels couldn't do in six hours. But later on, when they meet up on the Resistance base planet of D'Qar, they hug, and I realized at that moment how nice it was to see these characters together again, and how quickly I'd become emotionally attached to them. I loved the friendship formed between him and Rey as well, and they thankfully didn't try to force a romantic connection there.
And, despite never becoming in touch with the Force, Finn does wield the Skywalker lightsaber, rather efficiently at times. He has a brief fight scene with a stormtrooper with a "Z6 riot control baton" (thank you, Wookieepedia), and later on against Kylo Ren. I've seen a lot of complaints online about why he was able to hold his own against Kylo for a while, but it makes sense to me. He was on the backfoot for most of the fight, the stormtrooper from before seemed to imply that stormtroopers have some sort of melee training, Kylo wouldn't have fought against anyone but a wall with his lightsaber for a while, and Kylo was already injured from Chewbacca's bowcaster - a weapon which we'd seen send people flying many times before. Finn had also just seen Kylo kill Han Solo and Force push Rey into a tree, so he was very angry.
The fight was very emotionally charged because of it, which is what made it so entertaining and engaging. The location was also great, and the effects of slicing through the trees and the blades glowing on the duelists faces were great touches. It was cool to see Finn actually get a hit on Kylo's shoulder, and I loved the moment where Kylo locked Finn against a tree and started burning one of the crossguard blades into his shoulder. And in the end, Kylo disarmed Finn, sending the lightsaber flying into the snow and slashing him up his back. After Rey defeats Kylo, she comes back for Finn, thinking that he's dead. I was worried too, but after they get onto the Millennium Falcon with Chewbacca and get back to D'Qar, the medics take him away, revealing that he's still alive.
The last we see of Finn is him seemingly in a coma, or just unconscious. He was severely wounded, and I don't know where his character will go from here. He could come back with some sort of robotic enhancement, which would be cool, or he could be disabled, which would be an interesting development.
Finn is, in fact, the biggest and reddest herring in all of Star Wars. The promotional material showed him with the lightsaber, which drew everyone's eyes, but the real star was Daisy Ridley's Rey. She was a very close second for the best performance of the film, and she had the most interesting journey out of everyone. While the marketing would have you believe that Finn ends up being the Jedi, it actually turned out to be Rey.
Not only is she Force-sensitive, but I believe that she's a Skywalker. There seem to be a lot of clues pointing to this, the most obvious one being the Skywalker lightsaber. Maz Kanata says, after Rey's Force vision, that the lightsaber was "Luke Skywalker's, and his father's before him. And now it calls to you." The look on Rey's face before she ran away seems to confirm that she's on the same train of thought as I am. Whether this turns out to be true remains to be seen, but we'll probably figure it out in the next movie. THey also had some moments where Han seemed very concerned about her as well, more concerned than he would be about someone he barely knows.
Her character was the new Luke in some ways, as we see her stranded on Jakku, and we see her scavenging and trading parts from a crashed Star Destroyer. One of the most poignant moments in the film comes when we see her in her home, a fallen AT-AT walker. She's sitting outside eating, and she watches a ship take off into the sky. There's a moment of quiet, and she puts on an old Rebel pilot helmet, looking off into the distance in silence. Just that says so much about her character, and her desire for more, but an interesting element that they added to it was her desperation to get back to Jakku. She was left there at a very young age, and she's been waiting there ever since, so every moment she spends away from where she was left makes her afraid that she'll miss her family coming back for her. She does say to BB-8 that she's "classified", so she was either being sarcastic or there's more going on there.
Now that I think about it, there were a lot of questions that this film asks about Rey, and never answers. That's probably because this film is the first in a planned trilogy, so I'm sure those answers are coming.
Rey was pretty awesome overall; it was great to finally have a self-sufficient female character, but for the writing to not make a point of it. The only real references they make were played as joke, like when Finn kept grabbing her hand when they ran from the TIE Fighters on Jakku. She was also an efficient pilot, as we saw when they took the Millennium Falcon to escape from Jakku.
That was a great reveal; as she and Finn are running, Finn suggests a ship, and she says "It's garbage." But when the ship they were heading towards gets blown up, she says "Garbage will do," and the camera pans over to reveal the Millennium Falcon. Everyone in the theatre let out a collective noise of happiness when that happened.
When they travel to Maz Kanata's castle, she's drawn to the Skywalker lightsaber. When she touches it, she goes into a very cool Force vision sequence. We see a lot of images from the trailer, like the group shot of the Knights of Ren, and Luke putting his hand on R2-D2 (more on that later). She runs away from the castle, not wanting any part of it, but the First Order arrives to capture BB-8. Rey's chased down and captured by Kylo Ren, who believes that he can get the map out of her mind. On Starkiller Base, Kylo tries to interrogate her, which was one of the best scenes in the film. It was entirely about the sound effects, and hearing Kylo getting into her head. But Rey managed to fight back, and even though the scene was just two people looking at each other, you could understand what was happening perfectly. She manages to Jedi mind trick her way out of the room and her restraints through a stormtrooper that was apparently Daniel Craig.
After she meets up with Finn and sees Han killed, they try to get away. When Kylo tries to stop them, she's knocked unconscious until Finn is taken out. But there was a great moment, where Kylo is calling the lightsaber to him out of the snow, but it flies past him and Rey cataches it. From here, she takes over the fight, and when it comes down to a clash, with Kylo saying he can train her in the ways of the Force, she closes her eyes and lets it in. When she opens them, she seems to move through the Force, much more swiftly and efficiently, cutting Kylo's leg, arm and up his face. Before she can finish him off, Starkiller Base is destroyed and the ground opens up, separating them.
When they return to D'Qar, she embraces Leia, which was a very good emotional punctuation to the Han Solo death. At this point, R2-D2 woke up and delivered the rest of the map to Luke to everyone. Some people have said that this is ridiculously convenient, and it could be, but remember that shot of Luke touching R2-D2. Maybe he was shutting down R2 himself, or maybe he was telling him to stay shut down until he told him to wake up. And with Rey emerging as a Jedi (and possibly his daughter), there'd be no better time.
Overall, Rey is officially the new protagonist of Star Wars, and she's going to be the new Jedi. If her plan goes properly, that is, because there's no guarantee that Luke will go along with training her, especially after what happened to him before.
Speaking of which...
So, Luke was only in the final minute of this movie. Not a word was spoken, just a look, and it was one of the most powerful moments of the whole film, a complete embrace of "less is more". I thought the ending of this movie was perfect, because it was a cliffhanger and a satisfying ending.
We learn in this movie that Luke had begun to train a new Jedi Order, but when Kylo went bad and ruined it all, he went into hiding. At first I wondered why he just dropped everything, but the more I thought of it, the more it made sense. Not only did the Jedi Order fall apart again, but Luke would feel like he failed Han and Leia by failing their son. We see that their relationship falls apart because of Kylo turning, so Luke wouldn't even be able to look them in the eyes without feeling guilty.
There was a little touch with his location - which is the island Skellig Michael - with Rey. When Kylo looked in her head, he said that she would imagine an island in the ocean when she wante dto get away from Jakku, and Skellig Michael is an island in the ocean.
Luke and R2 not being a big part of the story was a great idea, because their presence feels more special when they do appear. I'm sure they'll have bigger parts in the sequels, and I can't wait to see what those are.
A character I'm not a huge fan of is Andy Serkis' Supreme Leader Snoke, who I was very excited to see. He's essentially the new Emperor, but I really wasn't a fan of his design. It just seemed kind of generic, and the CGI itself didn't even look that great. He was just big and scarred, which makes me frown at Serkis saying that Snoke "needed to be CGI, because the face was just too detailed".
But he really wasn't.
They did have a good moment when he was first revealed, and he's just enormous. He was about 50 feet tall, but it was revealed at the end of the scene that he was just a hologram. It was a big relief, because I was repeating "Please don't be a giant" again and again in my head. It would have just been too goofy.
The most interesting part of him is the question of whether or not he's Darth Plagueis. They don't answer that question in this film, but they certainly still could. Serkis has said that Snoke has ties to the original trilogy, but I'd be lying if I said I hoped he wasn't just an original character.
Since we know so little about how the politics of the galaxy work, I don't know how he came to be in charge of the First Order. I do know, from internet research, that the Republic was established out of the Rebel Alliance, and they signed a treaty with the Empire to end their war. The First Order grew out of the ashes of the Empire, and built Starkiller Base to strike back. With a weapon that powerful, Snoke clearly has a vendetta against the Rebels.
I think the real problem with Snoke's look, and Maz Kanata in her castle, was that the CGI was very noticeable. Because so much of the film had practical elements and puppets, seeing these prequel-looking characters was kind of jarring. At least they weren't annoying like the prequels.
Captain Phasma does nothing for the entire movie.
Moving on.
Poe Dameron was a great character. He was cocky, self-assured, but also brave and courageous. I'm glad he was the one who got to take out Starkiller Base, and he really does earn the title of the best pilot in the Resistance. There's a shot in the battle at Maz Kanata's palace where it just follows his X-Wing, and we see him flawlessly take out about ten TIE Fighters. Oscar Isaac was also just incredibly likable, and had the first great joke of the film. For the rest of the film, he balanced humour and drama perfectly, as Oscar Isaac always does.
BB-8 was, thankfully, well worth all of the advertisements. They gave him a very New Hope-ish role, as Poe hid the map to Luke Skywalker inside of him, and the First Order was trying to hunt him down. BB-8 also got the biggest laugh of the film with his thumbs-up, and there were many other moments where he seemed like the perfect replacement for R2-D2. But given the end of this film, he's not even really a replacement. just another awesome droid that I feel strangely emotional about.
Han Solo was in an interesting place when we meet him again. He intercepts the Millenium Falcon as it leaves Jakku, and he had an enormous smuggling ship . It's actually kind of a bittersweet return though, as after Kylo turned to the dark side, he says he "went back to the only thing he was good at". We do see a couple of gangs that he got involved with (one of which had cameos from the guys from The Raid. The Raid!), which led to a very Star Trek-reboot like action sequence with some enormous creatures Han was smuggling. His interactions with Chewbacca were the best in the series, and was peppered with jokes.
Leia also didn't have much to do, she was once again at the forefront of the Rebellion forces, but she didn't really say or do much. Hopefully she'll also have more to do next movie, and I really want to see a reunion between her and Luke. She did show some Force usage, though. When Han dies, it cuts back to her on D'Qar, sitting down with a pained look on his face, so they haven't forgotten that she's Force-sensitive.
An interesting thing to note is that both Han and Leia are aware of Snoke, and that he's the reason that Kylo turned to the dark side. So, Snoke clearly doesn't have that secretive of a role to the galaxy, or he made himself known to Han and Leia at some point.
Starkiller Base was essentially another Death Star. There's no dispute about that, but they did effectively show how much more powerful it was. The base is actually capable of destroying an entire star system, which was displayed in a scene that was absolutely beautiful. The red light travelling across the sky, visible from a variety of perspectives, and seeing the crowds on the Republic's planet look on in fear as the whole world turned red.
I'm pretty sure that the main planet was Coruscant, which means the Senate is gone. And Jar Jar is probably dead.
I liked the design of the base as well, and how it was built into the planet itself (which is apparently Ilum, the planet where lightsaber crystals are harvested). The Resistance attacked and destroyed Starkiller Base in essentially the same way as in A New Hope, but I liked the new things they added to it. For example, Starkiller Base is powered by absorbing the sun's energy, so instead of the station exploding at the end, Finn tells the Resistance where the core is located. Poe Dameron attacks and destroys the core, destabilizing it, so a sun actually grows out and consumes the planet. Visually, it looked great, and with the Republic and Starkiller Base destroyed, the light and dark sides are pretty much on even ground now. Especially since both sides have a master and an apprentice.
Well, that's pretty much everything I can think of to talk about. I'm sure as I see the movie more and more, I'll notice more and more. There were also a number of cameos, jokes and references, but I don't want to list them all off, because even though this is spoilers, there are some moments that can't be recreated.
The only solution is to watch the movie again and again, which I definitely plan on doing. I'm sure that The Force Awakens will be burned into my brain just as much as the rest of the films have been, because it was truly great.
SERIOUSLY. I'M ABOUT TO GO IN DEPTH. YOU WILL HAVE EVERYTHING RUINED. IF YOU'VE AVOIDED SPOILERS UNTIL NOW, KEEP DOING THAT.
LAST WARNING.
KYLO REN
The most interesting character of the film for me was Kylo Ren, played by Adam Driver. When it came to my theories, some were correct and some weren't. The theory that was correct was that he is in fact the son of Han Solo and Princess (now General) Leia. This was actually revealed very simply; there wasn't any huge moment where they redo "I am your father". Supreme Leader Snoke just kind of says it. I liked that, because they had the father-son reveal, but it was done in a way that made a lot of sense, because Kylo was already aware of it. Kylo's parentage was actually hinted at in the first scene of the movie, when Max von Sydow says "You've forsaken the light side and your family". The most emotionally powerful scene of the whole film, Han Solo's death, came from this relationship.
The death of Han Solo was nothing short of a brilliant scene. Leia had asked Han to bring their son home, so when they're on Starkiller Base and Han sees him walking across a large walkway, he goes out into the open and yells out Kylo's real name.
"BEN!"
The silence that filled the movie and the theatre was nothing short of amazing. The fact that his name is Ben is brilliant and heartbeaking, because he's named after the Jedi who began to train Luke, but we learn from Han that Kylo betrayed Luke and destroyed the New Jedi Order. Simply put, I started crying at that reveal, at the way Harrison Ford said it, and what I knew was about to happen. Han walks out onto the walkway, begging Kylo to return with him. It almost looks like Kylo will listen; he drops his mask, he holds out his lightsaber, but he tells Han that there's something he needs to, and he doesn't know if he's strong enough.
And he drives his lightsaber through Han's chest.
This was signposted from a fair distance, but it still broke me. Han Solo puts his hand on his son's face one last time (which made me cry more), and falls into the pit. But what was even more brilliant was the lighting. While Han talks to Kylo, half of Kylo's face is covered in red light, and half of it is covered in blue. When he makes the choice and activates the lightsaber, it's all red. And the look Adam Driver has when Han falls is the very simple but very powerful look of relief, because the only thing holding him back was the question of whether or not he could embrace the darkness enough to kill his father. And he did.
Ben Solo died with Han Solo. Kylo Ren is all that's left.
Kylo's personality overall was also very well done, because he's essentially a petulant child, who's dealing with way more power than he knows how to deal with. You see an example of this when a First Order officer gives him bad news, and he whips out his lightsaber and just slices the wall in front of him to pieces. That lightsaber was also a perfect visual extension of his personality: unstable and unpredictable. Later on, when he's trying to look into Rey's mind with the Force, and she fights back, she says "You're afraid...you're afraid you'll never be as powerful as Darth Vader." That right there sums up his character perfectly. The Darth Vader parallels are very well done, because Kylo initially seems like just another Vader. But the more we see of him alone, the more unique he gets. His modified voice and his mask are very dark and imposing, but when he takes it off, he's very normal. Adam Driver looks and talks like just a normal man, which is what he's meant to be. But the instability and the desperation to prove himself give so much more to his character.
The scene where he talks to Darth Vader's mask is one of the best in the film. The lines he says to this burned piece of metal says so much about him. He says that he can fee the pull of the light side, and that was when I knew that this movie was really bringing something new Star Wars. We've seen characters feeling the pull to the dark side, but with Kylo, we now have the reversal of that. I'm pretty sure that the arc of Kylo over the course of the trilogy will be his return to the light side (and probably sacrificing himself). But where Adam Driver does such a great job is in his performance. When the mask is off, the uncertainty is on full display, on his mouth and in his voice, and you can slowly see him slipping as more and more goes wrong for him.
He has some great action moments in the film as well. The first one came at the beginning, when he caught a freaking blaster bolt in mid-air. I also loved how the Force was portrayed in this film, mainly because of the other actors and the sound effects. When Kylo would use the Force to move or freeze someone, there was something unnatural about the movement. There was a slight twitching while the characters tried to break free, and the looks of confusion and fear on their faces sold it perfectly.
What I'm very interested in is what happens next to Kylo, because Snoke tells General Hux "Bring Kylo Ren to me. It's time to complete his training." I really want to know what that means, especially since Kylo killed his own father, and was defeated and scarred by Rey at the end of their lightsaber duel. Going off of Kylo's personality so far, being embarrassed like that, and freed of his conflict with the light side, I think he'll be even more of a threat in Episode VIII, and embrace the dark side fully.
FINN
Finn wasn't a Resistance spy. Finn wasn't Force-sensitive. Finn was the one lying in the snow.
Called it. But he didn't die.
I kind of expected him to, but I'm very glad that I didn't, because Finn was great. John Boyega's performance was a large factor in the enjoyment of Finn, because you can just feel his love and passion throughout the entire movie. He really gives it his all, and a lot of the great humour in this comes from him. He's a very human character, which is ironic, because he was raised from birth to be a stormtrooper, and he didn't even have a name. He got the name "Finn" from Poe Dameron, who he helped escape from the Star Destroyer, because the only name he ever knew was FN-2187. His betrayal from The First Order came from the opening scene on Jakku, where he was ordered to murder a group of civilians, but was the only stormtroper who didn't fire. Along with a friend dying right in front of him, he was pretty traumatized by the experience, and only wanted to get away from the First Order, to run as far as he could. They struck an interesting balance with his character, because he was never a full coward. He was afraid of the First Order, and wanted to get away, but he was willing to help and protect others if he could.
He rescues Poe Dameron from the Star Destroyer as the first example of this point, though he did also need a pilot. This started a very fun friendship between them, and it was pretty funny that this Star Wars movie did in about five minutes what the prequels couldn't do in six hours. But later on, when they meet up on the Resistance base planet of D'Qar, they hug, and I realized at that moment how nice it was to see these characters together again, and how quickly I'd become emotionally attached to them. I loved the friendship formed between him and Rey as well, and they thankfully didn't try to force a romantic connection there.
And, despite never becoming in touch with the Force, Finn does wield the Skywalker lightsaber, rather efficiently at times. He has a brief fight scene with a stormtrooper with a "Z6 riot control baton" (thank you, Wookieepedia), and later on against Kylo Ren. I've seen a lot of complaints online about why he was able to hold his own against Kylo for a while, but it makes sense to me. He was on the backfoot for most of the fight, the stormtrooper from before seemed to imply that stormtroopers have some sort of melee training, Kylo wouldn't have fought against anyone but a wall with his lightsaber for a while, and Kylo was already injured from Chewbacca's bowcaster - a weapon which we'd seen send people flying many times before. Finn had also just seen Kylo kill Han Solo and Force push Rey into a tree, so he was very angry.
The fight was very emotionally charged because of it, which is what made it so entertaining and engaging. The location was also great, and the effects of slicing through the trees and the blades glowing on the duelists faces were great touches. It was cool to see Finn actually get a hit on Kylo's shoulder, and I loved the moment where Kylo locked Finn against a tree and started burning one of the crossguard blades into his shoulder. And in the end, Kylo disarmed Finn, sending the lightsaber flying into the snow and slashing him up his back. After Rey defeats Kylo, she comes back for Finn, thinking that he's dead. I was worried too, but after they get onto the Millennium Falcon with Chewbacca and get back to D'Qar, the medics take him away, revealing that he's still alive.
The last we see of Finn is him seemingly in a coma, or just unconscious. He was severely wounded, and I don't know where his character will go from here. He could come back with some sort of robotic enhancement, which would be cool, or he could be disabled, which would be an interesting development.
REY
Finn is, in fact, the biggest and reddest herring in all of Star Wars. The promotional material showed him with the lightsaber, which drew everyone's eyes, but the real star was Daisy Ridley's Rey. She was a very close second for the best performance of the film, and she had the most interesting journey out of everyone. While the marketing would have you believe that Finn ends up being the Jedi, it actually turned out to be Rey.
Not only is she Force-sensitive, but I believe that she's a Skywalker. There seem to be a lot of clues pointing to this, the most obvious one being the Skywalker lightsaber. Maz Kanata says, after Rey's Force vision, that the lightsaber was "Luke Skywalker's, and his father's before him. And now it calls to you." The look on Rey's face before she ran away seems to confirm that she's on the same train of thought as I am. Whether this turns out to be true remains to be seen, but we'll probably figure it out in the next movie. THey also had some moments where Han seemed very concerned about her as well, more concerned than he would be about someone he barely knows.
Her character was the new Luke in some ways, as we see her stranded on Jakku, and we see her scavenging and trading parts from a crashed Star Destroyer. One of the most poignant moments in the film comes when we see her in her home, a fallen AT-AT walker. She's sitting outside eating, and she watches a ship take off into the sky. There's a moment of quiet, and she puts on an old Rebel pilot helmet, looking off into the distance in silence. Just that says so much about her character, and her desire for more, but an interesting element that they added to it was her desperation to get back to Jakku. She was left there at a very young age, and she's been waiting there ever since, so every moment she spends away from where she was left makes her afraid that she'll miss her family coming back for her. She does say to BB-8 that she's "classified", so she was either being sarcastic or there's more going on there.
Now that I think about it, there were a lot of questions that this film asks about Rey, and never answers. That's probably because this film is the first in a planned trilogy, so I'm sure those answers are coming.
Rey was pretty awesome overall; it was great to finally have a self-sufficient female character, but for the writing to not make a point of it. The only real references they make were played as joke, like when Finn kept grabbing her hand when they ran from the TIE Fighters on Jakku. She was also an efficient pilot, as we saw when they took the Millennium Falcon to escape from Jakku.
That was a great reveal; as she and Finn are running, Finn suggests a ship, and she says "It's garbage." But when the ship they were heading towards gets blown up, she says "Garbage will do," and the camera pans over to reveal the Millennium Falcon. Everyone in the theatre let out a collective noise of happiness when that happened.
When they travel to Maz Kanata's castle, she's drawn to the Skywalker lightsaber. When she touches it, she goes into a very cool Force vision sequence. We see a lot of images from the trailer, like the group shot of the Knights of Ren, and Luke putting his hand on R2-D2 (more on that later). She runs away from the castle, not wanting any part of it, but the First Order arrives to capture BB-8. Rey's chased down and captured by Kylo Ren, who believes that he can get the map out of her mind. On Starkiller Base, Kylo tries to interrogate her, which was one of the best scenes in the film. It was entirely about the sound effects, and hearing Kylo getting into her head. But Rey managed to fight back, and even though the scene was just two people looking at each other, you could understand what was happening perfectly. She manages to Jedi mind trick her way out of the room and her restraints through a stormtrooper that was apparently Daniel Craig.
After she meets up with Finn and sees Han killed, they try to get away. When Kylo tries to stop them, she's knocked unconscious until Finn is taken out. But there was a great moment, where Kylo is calling the lightsaber to him out of the snow, but it flies past him and Rey cataches it. From here, she takes over the fight, and when it comes down to a clash, with Kylo saying he can train her in the ways of the Force, she closes her eyes and lets it in. When she opens them, she seems to move through the Force, much more swiftly and efficiently, cutting Kylo's leg, arm and up his face. Before she can finish him off, Starkiller Base is destroyed and the ground opens up, separating them.
When they return to D'Qar, she embraces Leia, which was a very good emotional punctuation to the Han Solo death. At this point, R2-D2 woke up and delivered the rest of the map to Luke to everyone. Some people have said that this is ridiculously convenient, and it could be, but remember that shot of Luke touching R2-D2. Maybe he was shutting down R2 himself, or maybe he was telling him to stay shut down until he told him to wake up. And with Rey emerging as a Jedi (and possibly his daughter), there'd be no better time.
Overall, Rey is officially the new protagonist of Star Wars, and she's going to be the new Jedi. If her plan goes properly, that is, because there's no guarantee that Luke will go along with training her, especially after what happened to him before.
Speaking of which...
LUKE SKYWALKER
So, Luke was only in the final minute of this movie. Not a word was spoken, just a look, and it was one of the most powerful moments of the whole film, a complete embrace of "less is more". I thought the ending of this movie was perfect, because it was a cliffhanger and a satisfying ending.
We learn in this movie that Luke had begun to train a new Jedi Order, but when Kylo went bad and ruined it all, he went into hiding. At first I wondered why he just dropped everything, but the more I thought of it, the more it made sense. Not only did the Jedi Order fall apart again, but Luke would feel like he failed Han and Leia by failing their son. We see that their relationship falls apart because of Kylo turning, so Luke wouldn't even be able to look them in the eyes without feeling guilty.
There was a little touch with his location - which is the island Skellig Michael - with Rey. When Kylo looked in her head, he said that she would imagine an island in the ocean when she wante dto get away from Jakku, and Skellig Michael is an island in the ocean.
Luke and R2 not being a big part of the story was a great idea, because their presence feels more special when they do appear. I'm sure they'll have bigger parts in the sequels, and I can't wait to see what those are.
SUPREME LEADER SNOKE
A character I'm not a huge fan of is Andy Serkis' Supreme Leader Snoke, who I was very excited to see. He's essentially the new Emperor, but I really wasn't a fan of his design. It just seemed kind of generic, and the CGI itself didn't even look that great. He was just big and scarred, which makes me frown at Serkis saying that Snoke "needed to be CGI, because the face was just too detailed".
But he really wasn't.
They did have a good moment when he was first revealed, and he's just enormous. He was about 50 feet tall, but it was revealed at the end of the scene that he was just a hologram. It was a big relief, because I was repeating "Please don't be a giant" again and again in my head. It would have just been too goofy.
The most interesting part of him is the question of whether or not he's Darth Plagueis. They don't answer that question in this film, but they certainly still could. Serkis has said that Snoke has ties to the original trilogy, but I'd be lying if I said I hoped he wasn't just an original character.
Since we know so little about how the politics of the galaxy work, I don't know how he came to be in charge of the First Order. I do know, from internet research, that the Republic was established out of the Rebel Alliance, and they signed a treaty with the Empire to end their war. The First Order grew out of the ashes of the Empire, and built Starkiller Base to strike back. With a weapon that powerful, Snoke clearly has a vendetta against the Rebels.
I think the real problem with Snoke's look, and Maz Kanata in her castle, was that the CGI was very noticeable. Because so much of the film had practical elements and puppets, seeing these prequel-looking characters was kind of jarring. At least they weren't annoying like the prequels.
CAPTAIN PHASMA
Captain Phasma does nothing for the entire movie.
Moving on.
POE DAMERON & BB-8
Poe Dameron was a great character. He was cocky, self-assured, but also brave and courageous. I'm glad he was the one who got to take out Starkiller Base, and he really does earn the title of the best pilot in the Resistance. There's a shot in the battle at Maz Kanata's palace where it just follows his X-Wing, and we see him flawlessly take out about ten TIE Fighters. Oscar Isaac was also just incredibly likable, and had the first great joke of the film. For the rest of the film, he balanced humour and drama perfectly, as Oscar Isaac always does.
BB-8 was, thankfully, well worth all of the advertisements. They gave him a very New Hope-ish role, as Poe hid the map to Luke Skywalker inside of him, and the First Order was trying to hunt him down. BB-8 also got the biggest laugh of the film with his thumbs-up, and there were many other moments where he seemed like the perfect replacement for R2-D2. But given the end of this film, he's not even really a replacement. just another awesome droid that I feel strangely emotional about.
HAN & LEIA
Han Solo was in an interesting place when we meet him again. He intercepts the Millenium Falcon as it leaves Jakku, and he had an enormous smuggling ship . It's actually kind of a bittersweet return though, as after Kylo turned to the dark side, he says he "went back to the only thing he was good at". We do see a couple of gangs that he got involved with (one of which had cameos from the guys from The Raid. The Raid!), which led to a very Star Trek-reboot like action sequence with some enormous creatures Han was smuggling. His interactions with Chewbacca were the best in the series, and was peppered with jokes.
I've already talked about his death (don't make me go through that again), but his interactions with Leia were also pretty good. I don't say great because Carrie Fisher wasn't really giving Harrison Ford much to work with. At the very least, you did get a real feeling of regret between them. and seeing them hug was actually pretty heartwarming.
Leia also didn't have much to do, she was once again at the forefront of the Rebellion forces, but she didn't really say or do much. Hopefully she'll also have more to do next movie, and I really want to see a reunion between her and Luke. She did show some Force usage, though. When Han dies, it cuts back to her on D'Qar, sitting down with a pained look on his face, so they haven't forgotten that she's Force-sensitive.
An interesting thing to note is that both Han and Leia are aware of Snoke, and that he's the reason that Kylo turned to the dark side. So, Snoke clearly doesn't have that secretive of a role to the galaxy, or he made himself known to Han and Leia at some point.
STARKILLER BASE
Starkiller Base was essentially another Death Star. There's no dispute about that, but they did effectively show how much more powerful it was. The base is actually capable of destroying an entire star system, which was displayed in a scene that was absolutely beautiful. The red light travelling across the sky, visible from a variety of perspectives, and seeing the crowds on the Republic's planet look on in fear as the whole world turned red.
I'm pretty sure that the main planet was Coruscant, which means the Senate is gone. And Jar Jar is probably dead.
I liked the design of the base as well, and how it was built into the planet itself (which is apparently Ilum, the planet where lightsaber crystals are harvested). The Resistance attacked and destroyed Starkiller Base in essentially the same way as in A New Hope, but I liked the new things they added to it. For example, Starkiller Base is powered by absorbing the sun's energy, so instead of the station exploding at the end, Finn tells the Resistance where the core is located. Poe Dameron attacks and destroys the core, destabilizing it, so a sun actually grows out and consumes the planet. Visually, it looked great, and with the Republic and Starkiller Base destroyed, the light and dark sides are pretty much on even ground now. Especially since both sides have a master and an apprentice.
Well, that's pretty much everything I can think of to talk about. I'm sure as I see the movie more and more, I'll notice more and more. There were also a number of cameos, jokes and references, but I don't want to list them all off, because even though this is spoilers, there are some moments that can't be recreated.
The only solution is to watch the movie again and again, which I definitely plan on doing. I'm sure that The Force Awakens will be burned into my brain just as much as the rest of the films have been, because it was truly great.
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