Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)

 

100 best Science Fiction films

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#84. Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)

 

 

1.)         Introduction

“But for many, the magic of ‘Star Wars’ is inseparable from the magic of the movies and, hey, that's no small thing. These movies make us lose ourselves in the spectacle. They make us forget our best instincts. They make us love the advertising as much as the art. They make us kids again.”

n WJZ News, Baltimore

 

That unnamed Critic nailed it. I remember the first two films my parents brought me to an old-school Movie Palace, and I was blown away. Later, I realized they both films sucked (“Lost Horizon” (1973) and “International Velvet” (1978)) but experience of the massive theatre seduced me; in that moment I loved those terrible films far more than the clearly-superior cinema I’d already experienced watching TV.

 

When the first “Star Wars” came out (1977) I was eleven-years-old and my parents wouldn’t take me; all such family outings were a negotiation between my dad, who preferred Patriotic War Films, and my mom, who wanted Optimistic Family Dramas, while my preferences, SF,F,&H, were out of the question. As a result, I relied on the comic-book version of the film for a few years (that was when Marvel Comics was the licensee, theirs ran from 1977 through 1984, and it proved remarkably good in both the direct adaptions of the films and the new stories set in the “Star Wars” Universe). Even so, “Star Wars” was such a phenomenon it filled my childhood and took over everyone else’s lives. Even the local Porn-Film Theatre (Pelham Parkway near White Plains Road in the Bronx) stopped showing Skin-Flicks for a while just to cash in; that’s where my older sister saw it and complained about how sticky the floor of the theater was.

 

The “Star Wars” franchise managed to be a theatre-draw for decades to come, even when the theaters themselves dropped like flies, demonstrated in the Movie Palaces disappearing throughout the 1980s/1990s, and that Porno-Film Theater now being a Butcher Shop.

 

Excluding a few comic-book Superheroes, whose franchises get hopelessly complicated, the three greatest film/TV franchises in SF,F&H are “Doctor Who” (first appearance 1963), “Star Trek” (1966), and “Star Wars.” My preferences have always been towards first two, but I still consider the first two released “Star Wars” films Masterpieces: The original “Star Wars,” now known as “Star Wars, Episode IV: A New Hope,” and “Star Wars, Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back” (1980). Both were of the nine-part “Skywalker Saga,” that additional title necessary because of the proliferation of so many “Star Wars” sub-franchises. Unfortunately, I found everything that came later (even the good stuff) paling in comparison.

 

All these mega-franchises were, in the beginning, guided by One Strong Hand, but each, in time, saw that person step aside and others taking the reins. The last of the Founders to surrender was the father of “Star Wars,” Writer/Director/Master & Commander George Lucas; he stepped back in 2012, letting Disney Corporation take Creative Control in a deal that netted him an unthinkable $4 billion-plus.

 

Disney then turned to Writer/Director/Producer J.J. Abrams to helm the three films that would conclude the long-mapped-out but repeatedly revised “Skywalker Saga.” This put Abrams in a position that was both enviable and risky:

 

It was enviable because the hugely valuable property was at a low-point in the eyes of its audience, Master & Commander Lucas had proven himself to be in decline as a Writer/Director during the three previous “Star Wars” films, known as the “Prequel Trilogy” (1999-2005). To a degree, all Abrams had to do was give us a better film than those and not compete so much with the first two Masterpieces.

 

But it was also risky because “Star Wars” Fans were hugely invested in the Saga, then-getting-near-forty-years-old (so older than Lucas was when he first created it), and they’d handed their love down to their children. They tended to get tremendously angry when anyone messed around with the True Faith. But maybe, just maybe, Abrams was the guy for the job: He was familiar with the territory, had a track-record creating several of his own, successful, SF,F&H franchises, and experienced with dealing with Fanboys. Also, at that moment, Lucas liked him (not true later, I’ll get to that). Abrams had already revitalized the floundering “Star Trek” franchise (his films were 2009 and 2013, I tolerate the first but hate the second) and even helmed a “Mission Impossible” film (TV show first aired in 1996, the Abrams’ film was 2006).

 

2.)         Somethings to love, other things not so much.

 

Well, Abrams did mess with the True Faith, but seemed to understand “Star Wars” better than he did “Star Trek.” He pissed off Master & Commander Lucas and the Hardest-Core Fanboys, but was praised by almost everyone else. He made “Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens” big, spectacular, breathlessly-paced, fun, and introduced a new cast of Characters that most everyone wanted to see again.

 

Abrams was also granted truly extraordinary resources, the film’s budget-plus-marketing was $533 million, so the most expensive film ever made. It then became the first film ever to return $100 million in Box-Office in the first 24-hours, followed by a first-run gross of $2.07 billion (maybe less than the Lucus deal, but the Lucas deal wasn’t only for this one film, but the whole, seemingly Immortal, franchise), winning the honor of the Highest Grossing Film in USA, and the Third Highest Grossing World-Wide, of all time. It was a Critical Darling and received both Nominations and Awards up-the-wazoo.

 

But there’s a fly in that ointment: Analysts later concluded the Box-Office receipts, adjusted for inflation, demonstrated the original “… A New Hope” actually made more money. Also, though the original, “…A New Hope,” was, at the time, mocked for how expensive it was to make ($11 million budget, I don’t know the marketing figures) it wasn’t near the most expensive movie ever, it wasn’t even the most expensive of its year (that title goes to “A Bridge Too Far”), so not only did “… A New Hope” beat “… The Force Awakens” in profits-adjusted-for-inflation, it utterly crushed it in the investment-vs-return ratio. In fact, the “Prequel Trilogy,” which everyone now claims they hated (there’s even an amusing Documentary, “The People vs George Lucas” (2010) about how angry Fanboys got at Lucas about the “Prequel Trilogy”), beat “… The Force Awakes” in that same ratio.

 

I think one of the best yardsticks of Abrams’ success is comparing this film to the arc of Lucas’ decades of commitment. For the first six-films, Lucas Produced all, provided the story-outlines for all, and Wrote and Directed four-out-of-the-six, but even when the triumphant “… A New Hope” came out, many of Lucas’ limitations were evident.

 

Lucas, as a Writer, was never great with dialogue, but he penned stories with Emotional-Through-Lines strong enough that the wooden-ness of the words were more than compensated for. As a Director he’s been criticized for being incapable of guiding his Actors, but his early films (“American Graffiti” (1973) and “… A New Hope”) were so well-Cast that the Actors didn’t need that much guidance. But come the “Prequel Trilogy,” which would be Lucas’ last Directorial outings, we got all the worst of him on full display and that strangled his best. Director Danny Boyle, a fan of the “Star Wars” series, observed of the “Prequel Trilogy”:

 

"I personally think that's why the later ‘Star Wars’ films aren't as good as the ones he made earlier, because that drama isn't there.”

 

The Emotional-Through-Line of the Corruption of Character Anakin Skywalker (in those films played by Jake Loyd and Hayden Christensen but later (earlier?) the Character was renamed Darth Vader and played by many others) should’ve been compelling, but it had no resonance. Actor Christensen, already a Golden Globe Winner and SAG Nominee, provided two back-to-back films which were his Career-Worst Performances, and those Performances are the ones that garnered the most attention for him. Even Actor Sameul L. Jackson was boring, which I thought that was impossible. Comic Relief Character Jar-Jar Banks (voiced and preformed via Motion Capture by Ahmed Best) was so not-adorable that even Franciscan Monks wanted him to die a humiliating and painful death.

 

Whatever “… The Force Awakens” failings are, Writer Abrams (he co-Wrote with Lawrence Kasdan (already a “Star Wars” veteran) and Michael Arndt) overcame all of the “Prequels” most obvious flaws. I was especially impressed with the Main Villian, Kylo Ren (Adam Driver), who was written with an emotional depth not evident in any of previous six films, not even the two Masterpieces. Kylo is emotionally torn over his poor life-choices, sinking into petulant rages when that overwhelms him, or merely when he’s made a mistake he can’t blame on anyone else for, but then emerges from his tantrums just as imposing as his idol, Darth Vader, had been.

 

As for spectacle, “Star Wars” is visually about Space Ships and Light Sabers, and early on there’s a chase involving Space Ships (TIE Fighters vs the Millenium Falcon) through a graveyard of other Space Ships that ranks among the best Space Ship scenes in the series, and a climatic Light Saber duel in a frozen forest easily tops all such fights that came before it.

 

On the other hand, when it came to the legacy Characters, “… The Force Awakens” was seriously flawed: General Leia Organa (Carrie Fisher) loses a lot of her backbone when she swoons over returning Han Solo (Harrison Ford) whom she really should’ve slapped in the face. Actor Ford seemed unengaged, but he’s also on the record as having become disenchanted with the Character Han. Character Luke Skywalker (Mark Hammill), was really badly re-invented, though that won’t become fully obvious until the next film, “Star Wars Episode VIII: The Last Jedi” (2017).

 

I should also throw in there’s a scene where literally billions of Innocents are Slaughtered, but it is treated with a terrible casualness.

 

3.)         As for the actual plot…

 

“… The Force Awakens” begins thirty-two years after the events of “Star Wars Episode VIII: The Return of the Jedi” (1983). The Empire was defeated in that film, but in the intervening years Republic had mostly failed in its attempts to re-emerge, giving the Empire an opportunity to reconstitute itself as the First Order, which is even more explicitly Fascistic than its earlier Incarnation (there’s a strong scene modeled after the Real-World Nurenberg Rallies (1933-1938)). This was best described, sarcastically, by Critic Moff Gialac, “Thirty-Two years after the Empire was toppled by teddy bears, the galaxy has been marinating in its own turmoil.”

 

The “teddy bears” were the Alien Race of Ewoks, and Lucas would tell an interviewer that they were inspired by the Viet Cong’s success against USA Military during our intervention during the Civil War in Vietnam (years of USA involvement 1955-1975). The Ewoks were mocked by those following the franchise and also represented a shift in Lucas’ ambitions for the series, more fully realized in the “Prequel Trilogy,” which was where everything went wrong.

 

As with any Incarnation of the Empire, the First Order was a Theocracy, though not too-public about that fact. It’s Ruled be a Religious Order, the Lords of Sith, who are followers of the Darkside of the Force, the Mystical Power that holds the whole Universe together. By this point in the Saga there seems there’s no one left with the same Magical Powers as they to oppose them. Their main rivals, the Jedi Knights, were hunted to near-extinction in “Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith” (2005, part the “Prequel Trilogy”), and later the Jedi’s were reduced to only Luke, and maybe his sister Leia (“… Return of the Jedi,” the same film where Luke and Leia found out they were siblings). So, with the possible exception of “Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace” (1999, part of the “Prequel Trilogy”) the Jedi Good Guys were always Underdogs, while the Bad Guys, Lords of Sith, always continued to thrive.

 

If there’s a moral here, it is that Evil always returns, and other than the window dressing, Evil always stinks the same: The USA’s Confederacy still has its supporters, Fascism keeps coming back in different Countries, and “Baywatch” (TV series first aired in 1989) keeps returning from Hell to destroy us all. Or, to quote another wholly unrelated TV show, "People like what I have to say. They believe in it. They just don’t like the word Nazi, that’s all." (“The Boys,” based on a comic book from 2006, TV show first aired 2019, and that episode was from 2020). 

 

In this film, the two main Sith Lords are Kylo and Supreme Leader Snoke (voiced and preformed via Motion Capture by Andy Serkis) who was a product of a Laboratory Experiment initiated by the previous Emperor Sheev Palpatine (played at different times by Marjorie Eaton, Elaine Baker, and, most notably, Ian McDiarmid).

 

Meanwhile, Leia leads the fragments of the lost Republic, now referred to as the Resistance, so she’s basically in the same boat she was in “…A New Hope,” which was long before she had gray hair. Add to that, she misses her brother Luke and her lover Han, both of whom ran out on both her and the cause of Freedom, as well as her son Kylo, who ran out on her to join the Sith Bad Guys (yep, Kylo is Leia and Han’s kid, his birth-certificate reads Ben Solo. What a friggen family). Leia has some Magic Powers (these won’t be much on display until the next movie) but Luke is the only true Jedi left, and no one knows where his is.

 

Here, our new Main Hero is Rey (Daisy Ridley) and though she doesn’t know it yet, she will be the next Jedi. She’s a girl of uncertain parentage surviving as a Scavenger of crashed Space Ships. She’s a great Heroine, her ferocious Independence and Loneliness are born of the same thing, so when she is given a companion worth trusting, her Loyalty knows no bounds. After she’s dragged into the Fight for Freedom, her main Ally will be Finn (John Boyega) a Conscript Storm Trooper of the First Order (“Finn” is a shortening of his Military identification, “FN-2187”) who Deserted and joined the Resistance because he refused to participate in Mass Murder.

 

Which brings me to the most obvious flaw in “… The Force Awakens,” it’s mostly a remake of “… A New Hope.” Rey fills the role of Luke, and her journey begins by a Secret Message hidden in a Cute Robot by a Rebel about to be captured (Leia did that in “…A New Hope,” but this time around it’s Resistance Pilot Poe Dameron (Oscar Isaac), and the new Cute Robot, BB-8, is clearly filling for “… A New Hope’s” R2-D2). Rey’s journey begins on a Desert Planet Jakku (stand-in for Desert Planet Tatooine) and as she wanders the debris of the previous War’s wreckage, we feel her longing to Touch the Stars as much as we did Luke’s wish to escape being a Moisture Farming. Soon, she hangs out in a marvelous Alien-filled bar (stand-in for Mos Eisley’s Cantina) run by Maz Kanata (voiced and preformed via Motion Capture by Lupita Nyong’o). During her journey, she stumbles across Han (just like Luke did), then finds Leia (just like Luke did), and will search out Luke (who is now much like the Hermit-version of Obi Wan Kenobi played by Alec Guiness in “… A New Hope”). She has to survive the threat of Kylo (very much like Darth, played by David Prowse and voiced by James Earl Jones in “…A New Hope”). Moreover, the main goal is to stop the First Order’s new Super Weapon, the Starkiller Base (basically, a bigger Death Star, already destroyed twice, in “…A New Hope” and “… Return of the ...”).

 

Critic Nick Pinkerton observed, “Abrams is playing conscientious steward to what’s widely regarded as a national treasure here, and he handles his business in a composed, collected manner.”

 

Good enough, but way back when I was eleven, Lucas delivered what we didn’t know we wanted while Abrams delivers only what we expected. Yes, the first “Star Wars” films were as Nostalgia-steeped as this one, rooted mostly in movie serials like “Flash Gordon (the comic-strip first appeared in 1934 and the first film-serial was 1936) but back then it felt like a new discovery because though I was familiar with “Flash Gordon,” it still pre-dated my birth, so in 1977 everything old was new again. Also, to his credit, Master & Commander Lucas did try to explore new territory in the “Prequel Trilogy,” while Abrams’ “Star Wars” leaned only on Nostalgia that was, by then, Nostalgia for itself, not stuff from before I was born.

 

(Lucas was born in 1944, while Abrams was born in 1966, same year as me. Somehow it seems that Lucas and I share similar experiences with network TV, but it looks like Abrams grew up without “Flash Gordon” only “Star Wars.”)

 

This flaw was not killer; in fact, it may have been helpful. The film draws from all six predecessors, but most heavily the first three released, which were then all more than-thirty years-old. Abrams was seeking a new Audience for an old franchise, and one can credit him for immersing the uninitialed into the whole of the Mythology without confusion. As for older Audiences, had not been Nostalgia-steeped, they would’ve cried foul.

 

Of course, they cried foul anyway, and I’ll get to that.

 

 

4.)         1.)         “Star Wars” is now a cultural landmark, but more than thirty years passed, “Star Wars” changed, and so did the USA, but Abrams won’t publicly admit it.

 

Of the three mega-franchises I mentioned above, “Star Wars” has always been the least Political, which was ironic because it was the only one built entirely around Rebellion, but I’d also argue that the Rebellion aspect made the a-Political part easy. Unlike “Doctor Who” and “Star Trek,” where every context had to be created with each new story-line, and especially “Star Trek,” which was about maintaining a Political Order (the Federation) by Negotiating with Adversaries more than Defeat Enemies. “Star Wars” clearly identified its Good Guys and Bad Guys during the famous opening scroll of the very first released film and never strayed from its comfortable Black-and-Whiteness. The Empire was always evoked as the Nazis, the Space Dogfights were influenced by WWII Arial Combat films, and in 1977 it wasn’t a Bold Statement to say Hitler was bad …

 

Except there was a time in the 1930s when saying Hitler was bad was, in fact, a Bold Statement. There was a potent USA Third Party called “America First” dedicated to keeping the USA from interfering in Fascism’s Mad Plans for World Domination and was partially financed by the Nazis themselves. Beloved USA Hero Charles Linberg was among its Leaders and two future USA Presidents, John F. Kennedy, Jr & Gerald Ford, were card-carrying members. After the Sneak Attack on Pearl Harbor (1941), all three of these men joined the Fight Against Fascism, though Linberg had to do so against the explicit orders of then-USA-President Franklin Delanor Roosevelt, who never forgave him his flirtation with Hitler.

 

“Doctor Who” and “Star Trek” were both products of the hyper-Political 1960s, while “Star Wars” was released during the post-Civil-Rights-Era and during the Administration of USA-President Jimmy Carter. That was a time in the USA when one could take an anti-Fascist, pro-Civil-Rights, and a lot of other Political stands, while at the same time presenting themselves as a-Political. It’s worth comparing “Star Wars” first-three released films (1977-1983) to a non-SF,F&H TV show they partially over-lapped with, “Little House on the Prairie” (1974 - 1982).

 

“Little House on …” were based on a series of novels by Laura Ingalls Wilder (published 1932–1943). The novels were unapologetically Political, selling a Libertarian Ideology and too often explicitly Racist. The TV program’s reputation as being carefully a-Political was more a product of its time than its actual contents, as it openly defied some of the contents of the novels it was based on. As Lead Actress Melissa Gilbert recently pointed out to a Pundit, “Umm … watch the original again. TV doesn’t get too much more ‘woke’ than we did. We tackled: racism, addiction, nativism, antisemitism, misogyny, rape, spousal abuse and every other ‘woke’ topic you can think of. Thank you very much.”

 

So “Little House on …” and “Star Wars” were born of an era where one didn’t have to defend oneself being anti-Fascist, pro-Civil Rights, etc, and fighting an Evil Empire required no Explanation or Exposition. Maybe the best demonstration of this was a scene early in “… A New Hope” where Luke’s friend Biggs Darklighter (Garrick Hagon) told him, “I'm not going to wait for the Empire to draft me into service. The Rebellion is spreading and I want to be on the right side.” That was a Political choice, more explicitly so than any choice made by Hero Luke, but that scene was also cut from the film as unnecessary to the story.

 

Writer/Director/Master & Commander Lucas did take a stab at Political analysis in the “Prequel Trilogy.”  He told an Interviewer, "How does a democracy turn itself into a dictatorship? It happened in Rome, happened in France, happened in Germany. What causes that?”

 

His answer was a storyline wherein a Dishonest and Narcissistic Politician (Actor McDiarmid as Character Sheev) instigates a Feud over Tariffs to win an Election, declares contrived Emergencies to consolidate his Power, cancels Democracy, cripples the Legislative Branch of Government, slaughters his Political Opponents, and finally Declares himself Emperor. (As I wrote that outline, I felt a new wave of disappointment, the “Prequel Trilogy” wasn’t very good, but it had so much promise.)

 

Writer/Director/Producer Abrams seemed to learn from Lucas’ mistakes, making the Nazi-connection with the First Order more explicit, because no one needs to explain, “I hate Nazis,” while backing off on Lucas’ more complex, but failed, ambitions. Still, Abrams didn’t wholly back off, he did go “Woke,” but he never said it very loud.

 

Character Rey, like Leia before her, is a strong Heroine, but even stronger than Leia, who needed to be rescued by Luke; secondary Hero Finn was constantly playing catch-up with the girl. Abrams even slips in a joke about this, while Rey and Finn run from danger, chivalrous Finn grabs Rey’s hand and she snaps, “I know how to run!”

 

Though Lucas’ personal Ideals have always been Liberal and Egalitarian, and that’s evident in “… A New Hope,” he was also mocked for its lack of non-White Characters in an Empire that was bigger than Real-World Ancient Rome (27 BCE - 1453 CE and as Racially/Ethnically diverse was one would logically assume). The only non-White Actor to get Cast in a significant role in “… A New Hope” was James Earl Jones, voicing Main Villian Darth, but the same Character was played on-screen by White Actor Prowse, then then another White guy, and then another, and then another, as the franchise progressed. But, in fairness, “Star Wars” Casts did slowly diversify starting with “…The Empire Strikes …” and by the time we reach “… The Force Awakens,” the Secondary Lead, Finn, is a Black guy.

 

Finn, unlike Luke and Rey, wasn’t an impoverished marginal devoid of prospects until it is revealed they are the “Chosen One.” Finn was a young man who made a clear choice between the obvious Political expressions of Good and Evil and broke with his Comrades, rescuing the fore-mentioned Character Poe, and Defecting to the Resistance. Character Finn was basically Character Biggs, but this time Biggs didn’t land up on the cutting room floor.

 

Also, the massacre that Finn witnessed and changed his life was clearly modeled on the Real-World Mai Lai Massacre during the Vietnam War (1968), so Finn becomes a sorta stand-in for Real-World Major Hugh Thompson Jr, who rescued threatened Civilians and helped end the Massacre. (Note: Thompson didn’t switch sides, he stayed with the USA Military for more than a decade even as many Trolls vilified him for alleged disloyalty).

 

Which brings me to how Abram’s non-pushy approach was still too Woke for some. What I’m about to describe, I admit, is a Tempest-in-a-Teapot, but I think an important one, because reflected something quite ugly emerging in the Real-World. Back in the 1930s you had to fight for your right to say “Nazis are bad,” which, in the 1970s, neither “Little House on …” or “Star Wars” needed to do. But after about 2010, or perhaps 2013, things in the USA seemed to have got ugly again.

 

There was a highly visible, though trivial, on-line movement “#BoycottStarWarsVII” led by USA White Nationalists because Lead Character was female and the secondary Lead was Black. Yes, the movement was a farce, as demonstrated in the above-mentioned Box-Office returns, but it reflected an uglier, and larger, trend in the USA.  

 

Probably most often quoted On-line Troll was End Cultural Marxism@genophilia, stating, “#BoycottStarWarsVII because it is anti-white propaganda promoting #whitegenocide,” and later, “A friend in LA said #StarWarsVII is basically ‘Deray in Space’ [referring to a former School Administrator, now Civil Rights Activist, DeRay Mckesson]” and further complaining that “Jewish activist JJ Abrams is an anti-white nut [Ummm … Abrams is White].”

 

Also demanding to be heard was Captain Confederacy, raging that, “SJWs [Social Justice Warriors] complain about White artists ‘misappropriating’ culture created by blacks but then celebrate a non-White Star Wars.” Because of that, the movie should be boycotted “because it’s nothing more than a social justice propaganda piece that alienates it’s [sic] core audience of young white males.”

 

Here, the buzz words are more important than the speakers. These Trolls expertly mimicked others of greater Cultural Influence, the Leaders of the USA’s quite ugly Culture Wars, the people who managed to temporarily ban Amanda S. C. Gorman’s poem, “The Hill We Climb,” from a Florida School Elementary School just after it was read during USA-President Joe Biden’s Presidential Inauguration in 2021.

 

“Cultural Marxism” is a silly piece of Conspiracy Masturbation, similar too, and frequently over-lapping with, 9/11 Trutherism, QAnon, 2020’s Scam-demic lunacy, 2020’s Election Denialism, and the 2021 attempted Coup now remembered as 1/6. Its toxicity remains prevalent as those associated with that short list of lies remain influential and the 1/6 Traitors and Terrorists have been Lionized by too many and protected from the full consequences of their Criminal Violence by none other than USA-President Donald Trump himself.

 

Cultural Marxism argues that after the collapse of Soviet Communism (officially 1991, but it was really earlier than that) the forces of Satan regrouped and shifted focus from Economic Theory to Mass Media, so away from the previously Propagandized needs of the Working Class, who had collectively rejected Communism, onto less-worthy but more Easily Manipulated Demographics like Ethnic Minorities, LGBT, and Women (so really, still, mostly the Working Class). As described by the Free Congress Research and Education Foundation (FCF), “By exploiting the legal system and the Federal Courts … operatives have successfully oppressed the White Middle Class and substituted genuine liberties with enforced equality.” They argue that Cultural Marxism is a form of Mind Control through a Secretly Dominated News Media, Public Education, Higher Education, Hollywood, and post-2018 Taylor Swift, all contriving to mold the USA to their Godless Agenda.

 

FCF was founded in 1977 (the same year the first “Star Wars” was released) by Paul Weyrich, who was a protégée of Laszlo Pasztor, a Hungarian Immigrant who was formerly Jailed because he was a High-Ranking Fascist during WWII. Though Weyrich would never become a house-hold name, his importance in reshaping of USA Political Culture can’t be over-estimated. In addition to FCF, he co-Founded the hugely influential American Legislative Exchange Council (1973), which co-ordinated Nation-Wide Campaigns to have State Legislatures pass largely identical Bills furthering his Political Agenda Nationwide. He also co-founded the Think Tank Heritage Foundation (HF, also 1973), which proved tremendously influential over the two Administrations of USA-President Donald Trump (elected 2016, voted out 2020, voted back in 2024), both of which were chock-full HF Associates and whose annual publications of their Master Plans for a new USA consistently proved the backbone of the various Trump agendas, especially the most recent, “Project 2025” (70% or more of Trump’s Executive Orders from his second-term’s first 100 days in Office come directly from “Project 2025”). Weyrich further coined the term "Moral Majority” and then co-Founded the Organization of the same name (1979). Weyrich’s Conservatism was a new-ish breed, not broadly accepted in the Republican Party in 1977, but started gaining more traction with the Election of USA-President Ronald Reagan in 1980 (Reagan was apparently a “Star Wars” fan) and then Dominating that Party and the whole rest of Conservatism with the 2010 mid-Term Congressional Elections, better known as the “Tea-Party Revolution.”

 

I’m gonna be rough on Weyrich here, but I must say he took a strong stand against Racism hiding under the banner of Conservatism in 1990, condemning  influential but un-Accredited Bob Jones University because of its anti-Catholic, Racist, Segregationist polices, but somehow that stand was only got noted in 2000, when Bob Jones proved an embarrassment to a Conversative USA-Presidential Candidate, the younger George Bush, when he visited there, just like all other Conservative Candidates had for decades. Still, Weyrich also supported other Discriminatory Policies, most notably Voter Suppression and stripping the Constitutional Guarantees of Religions he was unfamiliar with.

 

Regarding Voting Rights, he stated in 1980, "I don't want everybody to vote. Elections are not won by a majority of people. They never have been from the beginning of our country, and they are not now. As a matter of fact, our leverage in the elections quite candidly goes up as the voting populace goes down.”

 

Regarding Religious Liberties, in 1999 he preached that "our traditional, Western, Judeo-Christian culture … we have lost the culture war" and called for "a … strategy … to look at ways to separate ourselves from the institutions that have been captured by the ideology of Political Correctness, or by other enemies of our traditional culture.... we need to drop out of this [alien and hostile] culture, and find places, even if it is where we physically are right now, where we can live godly, righteous and sober lives."

 

That same year, he Advocated that USA Military exclude some non-Abrahamitic Religions from the Free Exercise Clause of the First Amendment of the USA’s Constitution, “Until the Army withdraws all official support and approval from witchcraft, no Christian should enlist or re-enlist in the Army, and Christian parents should not allow their children to join the Army …” and that Military Families should take offence at “...The official approval of satanism and witchcraft by the Army is a direct assault on the Christian faith that generations of American soldiers have fought and died for. ...If the Army wants witches and satanists in its ranks, then it can do it without Christians in those ranks. It's time for the Christians in this country to put a stop to this kind of nonsense. A Christian recruiting strike will compel the Army to think seriously about what it is doing.”

 

He was still preaching the same in 2006, "The Christian church grew amidst a decaying Roman Empire … the next conservatism can restore an American republic as a falling America Empire collapses around us."

 

While demanding others be denied their Religious Liberties, he denied he was Advocating a Christian-only Theocracy, a pretty explicit contradiction. He also used the phrase Cultural Marxism often, and by 2007 he advocated for the a revival of the House Un-American Activities Committee (created 1938, later known as House Committee on Internal Security, and finally dissolved in 1975 after decades of Scandal) to route alleged Communist Influence in the Media even though the Soviet Union was dead-and-gone more than a decade.

 

He Ideology would continue to thrive long after his 2008 death, best seen in those who self-identify as “Paleo-Conservative”: Andrew Breitbart, Pat Buchanan, Tucker Carlson, David Horowitz, and Alex Jones. Weyrich got to the emerging success of his ideas with the Election of USA-President Reagan, but missed his real triumph, the remarkable advancement of his Ideological Goals, the fore-mentioned Tea Party Revolution in 2010 and then the 2024 Presidential Election, wherein his version of Conservativism was holding Majority Power in all three Branches of the USA Government.

 

Trying to put large, apparent, trends in some context, we can rely on groups like the Federal Government’s General Accounting Office (GAO), which try to track tends over incidents, and their data is both revelatory and disturbing:

 

The worst Terrorist Attack on USA soil in 2010 was an attempted Bombing by a Jihadist in Times Square, NYC, which failed to result in any Fatalities (had street vendors not alerted Police, the death toll would’ve been huge). But the GAO’s mandate is year-by-year tracking of all incidents was an attempt to establish the steady consequences of Terrorism on USA, above and beyond the Tragedy inflicted on specific families on in a single day. In their data we can see 357% increase in Terrorism-related Investigations between 2013 and 2023. The increase reflected Preparators representing a vast-array of Mutually-Contemptuous Ideologies, but the majority proved to be on the Political Right-Wing Extreme.

 

There’s a reason I engaged in this long aside. Cultural shifts emerged since the first-released “Star Wars” film and “Little House on …” the TV. Yes, maybe I’m too harsh to single-out Weyrich, but one can’t deny he was a major player at every sign-post passed during the almost-fifty-years between then and 2025. I must say, I don’t see even a single example wherein Weyrich Advocated Acts of Political Violence, but I can hear his voice echoed in the Justifications of those Acts, even though I believe even he would’ve found those Players Repugnant.

 

In 2011 (so four-years before this film’s release) a guy named Anders Behring Breivik became the worst Terrorist and Mass Murderer in Norwegian History since WWII. He killed more than seventy-people during his well-planned Day-of Rage, and he seemed to take specific glee in killing children. In his rambling 1,500-page Manifesto he directly quoted Weyrich’s FCF, “in Critical Theory the origins of the endless wailing about ‘racism, sexism and homophobia’ that ‘PC’ pours forth” and raged endlessly against so-called Cultural Marxism.

 

The same Cultural Marxism that Trolls accused the “… The Forces Awakens” of, but somehow, magically, didn’t much exist in the Public Conversation when “… A New Hope” was released.

 

Actor Hammil, our beloved Character Luke, is a very public Critic of the type of Conservative Movement we’ve seen triumphant in the USA since 2010, and especially of USA-President Trump. He wrote, “After playing a fictional member of the Resistance a long time ago, I never could have imagined it ever happening in real life, but here we are.”

 

And then came 2020 (so five years after the film’s release) and things got worse …

 

The Internet is a place where the signal-to-noise-ratio is wildly off-scale, so full of inconsequentialities that we daily face the risk of getting too enraged over nothing-burgers, but we also risk also ignoring real threats because they first appear too silly. I thought the “Boogaloo Bois” were a joke given their loose Group affiliation, dumb name, and Hawaiian shirts, and ignored that their threats of Violence were backed up by Military-style Semi-Automatic Assault Weapons; in 2020 they proved to be the Deadliest Terrorist Group in the USA. The same goes for the Incels, not even a Group but more a Collective Whine, but proved to inspire more Mass-Shootings in the USA and Canada than the Boogaloo Bois, and over a longer period of time.

 

Abrams’ “…The Force Awakens” was very much about returning us to a wondrous, childlike, state of moviegoing Innocence, and therefore, wholly in-tune with “…A New Hope.” The “Prequel Trilogy” was how Innocence gets lost. We live in a different World, the USA is different than when I was eleven, and “… The Force Awakens” Innocence was Radical in the eyes of some.

 

Meanwhile for me, then aged of fifty-five, felt compelled to Cast a Cold Eye of a franchise that built around the Quest for Freedom, but failed to articulate what it thought Freedom actually meant, though it was really good at marketing plastic toys (many of which I owned when I was eleven).

 

5.)         Other criticisms, less Political.

 

Returning to this film specifically, not everyone who was pissed-off was a wannabe Nazi, and the most important pissed-off person was Master & Commander Lucas himself.

 

Soon after selling “Star Wars” to Disney, he found his role of Creative Consultant was meaningless, likely a combination of the poor reaction to the “Prequel Trilogy” and the impossibility of getting anyone of equal skill to agree to be his lap-dog. I’m no fan of the “Prequel Trilogy” but I admire its serious ambitions, so when Lucas Tweeted, “‘They wanted to do a retro movie. I don’t like that,” I totally got it, though I did wonder what he expected to happen at that juncture.

 

Lucas then behaved badly on National TV during an interview with Talk-Show Host Charlie Rose. He said that Disney sold his “kids … to the white slavers that take these things.” That was beyond-the-beyond, and even he knew it, and soon apologized, calling it a “very inappropriate analogy.”

 

A less objectional quote from the same interview, “They weren’t that keen to have me involved anyway, but if I get in there, I’m just going to cause trouble, because they’re not going to do what I want them to do. And I don’t have the control to do that anymore, and all I would do is muck everything up. And so, I said, ‘OK, I will go my way, and I’ll let them go their way.’”

 

Disney CEO Bob Iger would even admit to the Charges, “The truth was, Kathy [Kathleen Kennedy of Amblin Entertainment, which Lucas helped create, and stayed with “Star Wars” after Lucas’ departure as Lucasfilm’s President], J.J. [Abrams], Alan [Horn, Disney’s Chairman], and I had discussed the direction in which the saga should go, and we all agreed that it wasn’t what George had outlined.

 

“George knew we weren’t contractually bound to anything, but he thought that our buying the story treatments was a tacit promise that we’d follow them, and he was disappointed that his story was being discarded.”

 

Lucas took specific aim at how this new film showed none of the ambition of the series it inherited, “When Star Wars came out, everyone said, ‘Oh it’s just a silly movie with a bunch of space battles and stuff. It’s not real. There’s nothing behind it.’ And I said … ‘There’s more to it than that. It’s much more complicated than that.’ But nobody would listen.” He then brought up how most films following in the footsteps of “… A New Hope” failed to win over audiences, “So the spaceships and that part of the science fantasy, whatever, got terribly abused. And of course, everybody went out and made spaceship movies. And they were all horrible, and they all lost tons of money.”

 

That was entirely true even if you hated the “Prequel Trilogy,” but it also demands context. “… A New Hope” was followed by a wagon train of Rip-Offs like, “Message from Space,” “Star Crash” (both 1978), “The Shape of Things to Come” (1979), another a number of films that, originally written to be in a Galaxy Far-Far Away from Star Wars were, last-minute, rewritten to be “Star Wars” rip-offs, like “The Black Hole” (again 1979). There were countless others, both small- and big-budgeted, and some of the rip-offs landed out costing more to make than “… A New Hope” did.  

 

“… The Force Awakens” was better than all of them combined, but still, this film barely qualified as a true sequel because the story wasn’t advanced, it was a rewind.

 

And Iger Pled Guilty even to that, “Just prior to the global release, Kathy screened ‘The Force Awakens’ for George … He didn’t hide his disappointment. 'There’s nothing new,' he said. In each of the films in the original trilogy, it was important to him to present new worlds, new stories, new characters, and new technologies … He wasn’t wrong, but he also wasn’t appreciating the pressure we were under to give ardent fans a film that felt quintessentially ‘Star Wars.’

 

“We’d intentionally created a world that was visually and tonally connected to the earlier films, to not stray too far from what people loved and expected, and George was criticizing us for the very thing we were trying to do.”

 

Even disliking the “Prequel Trilogy,” one can’t help but side with Lucas on his complaints at least a little bit. But he had one specific complaint that was demonstrably off-base, namely, “There weren’t enough visual or technical leaps forward.” I’ll get to that in the next section.

 

Moving on from Master & Commander Lusas’ complaints to those of the Fanboys who weren’t Nazis, I’d rather not quote their actual words, instead rely on an out-of-context quote that says it all. It’s from fictional Character Tim Bisley, created by Writer/Actor Simon Pegg, for the TV show “Spaced” (first aired 1999). Tim is the owner of a comic-book store, and he rages at a Customer:

 

“You are so blind! You so do not understand! You weren’t there at the beginning. You don’t know how good it was! How important! This is it for you! This jumped-up firework display of a toy advert! People like you make me sick! What’s wrong with you? Now, I don’t care if you’ve saved up all your 50ps, take your pocket money, and GET OUT!” 

 

The Customer was a child and appeared to be eleven-years-old. He runs out of the shop in hysterical tears.

 

6.)         How Abrams saved Lucas.

 

Lucas was always on the cutting-edge of cinema technology. Still in school, he made the short-film “Electronic Labyrinth: THX 1138 4EB” (1967), which he then expanded into his very first feature, “THX 1138” (1971), both were low-budget SF outings. In both, he rose far above his budgetary limitations by pushing the one technology he could actually afford and push beyond conventional limits, sound-design, so he was cutting-edge even though he had no money to sharpen his blade with. He and his friends Steven Spielberg and Francis Ford Coppola then created a Revolution in the way cinema treated sound even though none of them were Sound-Men, they just got how important Sound far more than their better-established peers. Not-for-nothing, “…A New Hope” won an Oscar for Best Sound Design, and every other entry in the series either won or was nominated it that or a related category.

 

Lucas continued to stay on-top of the importance of changing technologies in his technology-driven media as he got access to more-and-more money to exploit those changes. In 1975, Lucas co-founded “Industrial Light and Magic” which, even today, most agree remains the World’s Premier FX house.

 

Lucas next technological breakthrough came with “… A New Hope” and his reliance of Chroma-Key techniques for the Space Battles; that changed cinema forever. Though various versions of the process had been used since the Silent Era, it was often sloppy. Then in 1964 Petro Vlahos won an Oscar for refining the process with Blue Screen technology, but that wasn’t regularly applied even by the best Directors (not even Stanley Kubrick in “2001: A Space Odessey” (1968)). After Lucas’ use of it in “… A New Hope” the attitude of the FX Industry became “Don’t look back.”

 

Though Lucas didn’t make “Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow” (2004), the key landmark in the development of the Digital Studio idea (that the Imaginary Worlds of cinema should be wholly Imaginary, only Actors need be Real, but all else, even the simplest sets, would be CGI) he was already leaning in that direction with the first of the “Prequel Trilogy” (1999) and leaned even more so by the time he completed them (2005). An irony here, the much admired “Sky Captain and …” lost money (Note: that’s disputed, there have been accusations of bogus accounting) but the much-hated “Prequel Trilogy” made boat-loads of cash. Since then, the abandonment of filming on film and embracing of full-Digital Cameras has mostly taken over Hollywood.

 

But Abrams, who offered us a lot of remarkable and cutting-edge FX effects, chose to shoot in 35mm and 65mm film, not go wholly Digital, and went for Practical Effects as much as possible. FX Supervisor Roger Guyett said they wished to be, “very specific about what the shot was about. And making it feel like you were photographing something that was happening.” Abrams also relied on more Location-Footage than the second and third films of the “Prequel Trilogy.”

 

Probably the greatest praise one could lay upon “…The Force Awakens” was that it looked better than the prior three films, and that was because it was made in a manner closer to “…A New Hope.” Critic Justin Chang put it this way, “Gone, happily, are the prequels’ ADD-inducing background shots of spaceships zipping across a sterile cityscape like goldfish trapped in a giant screen saver.” Abrams even changed his own cinematic techniques to mimic the old Lucas style, dumping his camera flares and focus tricks for establishing shots. He relied of Lucas’ relying on wipes, irises, and pans across Star Fields. He chose Set and Costume Design more consistent with the first-three-released-films rather than the “Prequel Trilogy” that followed.

 

This is best demonstrated by comparing the Characters of R2D2, Jar-Jar Banks, and BB-8.

 

R2D2, introduced in “…A New Hope,” was a Practical Effect. It was on the set with the Actors who interacted with it, and though not an Anthropomorphized Robot (not like Character CP-30) it was wholly charming and did have an actor inside it (Kenny Baker).

 

Jar-Jar, introduce in “…The Phantom Menace,” was far more Anthropomorphized (he had an actual face) and also had an Actor (the fore-mentioned Best), but he was a Motion Capture/CGI creation. Even with Best and other Actor’s facing each other, Jar-Jar’s the other Actors was unconvincing. Best said, “There’s this idea that motion capture involves an actor, and then the animators come along, and then that’s it. As if it’s these two separate things, the actor, and then the animators.”

 

When it came BB-8, introduced in “…The Force Awakens” That Robot was as un- Anthropomorphized as R2D2 and this time didn’t even have an Actor inside. BB-8 was pushed around by Puppeteers like a lawn-mower, only with a more sophisticate bail control bar, all of which magically disappeared with post-production FX but BB-8 was still on the set, and in the moment in ways Jar-Jar couldn’t be. BB-8 and Character Rey displayed a great chemistry lacking in Cast interactions with Jar-Jar.  

 

“… The Force Awakens” wasn’t the best SF film of 2015, but it was a contender. Also, over-all, 2015 was a year we, as an Audience, had a right to be cynical about. The year was worse than being merely franchise-crazy, every year for decades has been franchise-crazy, but it was now about franchises that ran-their-course and now the sequels were essentially reboots. This was true of “Jurassic World” (part of a series that went back to 1993), “Mad Max: Fury Road,” (part of a series that went back to 1979) and “Terminator Genesys” (part of a series that went back tov1984), they all shared with “…The Force Awakens” that they introduced new Characters/Actors to retell the same/similar stories again. Marvel Comics so-called “Cinematic Universe” (part of a series that went back to 2008 and was itself part of a larger convergence of multiple Superhero comic-book franchises going back all the way to 1940) already released, and would continue to release, at least two interconnected films each year. “Insurgent” was a lack-luster sequel of the “Divergent” series (first film 2014) which was itself a lack-luster knock-off “The Hunger Games” series (first film 2014 and two entries were co-Written by “…The Force Awakens” Arndt). Meanwhile, the big-budgeted SF outings that were stand-alone suffered badly in the Box-Office, “Jupiter Ascending” and “Tomorrowland” (the later connected to Disney’s overlapping franchises, but not any other film). And yes, “Jupiter Ascending,” wasn’t very good, but was it really worse than big-hit “Jurassic World”? Only “The Martian” managed to be big-budgeted, stand-alone, and successful.

 

7.)         And what came next …

 

For a long time, “Star Wars” has been a complex interaction of over-lapping franchises in every conceivable media. On TV, I actively disliked “Star Wars: The Clone Wars” (animated series first aired 2008) but never saw the more admired “The Mandalorian” (2019) and “Andor” (2022). In the cinema, I loved “Rogue One: A Star Wars Story” (2016, and even grumpy Lucas liked that one) but saw none of the other films outside the “Skywalker Saga.”

 

Regarding the “Skywalker Saga,” the second-to-last installment was “Star Wars, Episode IX: The Rise of Skywalker” (2019), which was both a huge success but had some cringe-worthy aspects.

 

The bad was mostly about how the beloved Character Luke continued to be abused in the writing to serve the development of more recently introduced Characters. There’s stuff in the film that violated everything we knew about Luke. Even Actor Hammill complained; he was able to do so because they killed him off, and in a manner wholly illogical and way too-similar to the death of Character Obi-Wan in “… A New Hope.” The Fanboys cried foul quite loudly, and with greater justification this time.

 

But the best stuff in this film was pretty fabulous. For starters, it was the best looking “Star Wars” to-date, building on the accomplishments of “…The Force Awakens.” When the First Order’s Attack on the Resistance Base on Planet Crait, it evoked the Assault on Planet Hoth from “… The Empire Strikes …” but was even more impressive-looking.

 

Characters Rey and Kylo were deepened, and developed a deliciously toxic relationship. One already knew they were on the road to be something echoing Luke and Darth, but here it far-was more convincing, so the echoes had deep resonance.

 

Another terrific new Hero is added, Rose Tico (Kelly Marie Tran), an Asian female, similar to Finn in that she was unburdened by the “Chosen One” baggage placed on Luke and Rey, so as easily identifiable in her remarkable pluck and Heroism as Finn. And Finn seemed to fit into the story better this time around by spending more on-screen time with Rose than Rey.

 

But the toxicity of the Trolls came back, similar to #BoycottStarWarsVII, but much worse this time, and it was overwhelmingly directed at Actress Tran. The Racism and Misogyny drove Tran to quit online culture entirely and even go into therapy, but she did not quit Acting.  "I've truly just been so much happier without being on the internet … I've had my agents tell me [I'm] forgoing brand partnerships, but I'm not here to sell flat-tummy tea to young girls."

 

Better still, Character Leia got her pluck back, there was much promise that she would be central and expansive in next and Final Chapter, becoming as much a Jedi as Luke. Unfortunately, Actress Fisher died in 2018, mostly dashing those hopes. Her appearances in the Final Chapter were artifice created by exceptional Editing of unused footage from previous films and sophisticated FX.

 

I didn’t watch that Final Chapter, “Star Wars, Episode IX: The Rise of Skywalker” (2019). It wasn’t nearly as popular, in-fact, rating on IMDB below all the installments of the “Prequel Trilogy.” But guess what? It still made boat-loads of cash, and “Star Wars” still carries on.

 

Trailer:

Star Wars: The Last Jedi Trailer (Official)