ST Has TFA started an adult-oriented Star Wars trend?

Dak dies.

 

Perhaps what this shows is that "how many characters die?" is a very superficial way of looking at how dark a film is?

 

Yeah a lot of cartoon deaths in George's six movies. I'd put Han's death up there as the most impactful, the scene everything.

ROTJ just edges out TFA because of Vader's arc. Palps and Yoda dying actually wasn't impactful or maybe I've seen the movie so many times I forgot my original impression. I may have been a little sad to see Yoda die, but he died on his own terms.

Qui-Gon's death was spoiled in the soundtrack. He was the best character in TPM and I think I was mostly sad because of that. He was introduced and dies in the same movie. Not impactful. woulda been nice to have him die on the 3rd one instead.

I really didn't care about Jango dying in AOTC.

Padme dying in ROTS was important as a story milestone but I remember sitting there in the theatre being frustrated with the 'lost the will to live' reasoning. The whole set of sequences at the end of ROTS was great, but George had to throw in nonesense like that and the birthing robots. my god...

Generally agree # of people dying is not a measure of how dark a film is, it is how they die and the circumstances.

 

Part of the problem with the PT is that it got caught in the middle ground between trying to appeal to children and telling a darker more adult story, it did the former reasonably well I spose(at least the films seemed to get a decent younger following) but often at the cost of the latter.

I don't think TFA aims for the child market as specifically but equally I'm not sure I would call it "adult", more "casual" similar to Abrams Trek. The focus for me is more on entertainment than it is building up depth to the drama and situation.

 

Yeah "darkness" in a movie doesn't automatically mean "lots of characters die." In fact, that's often one of the shallowest ways to try and do it. It's about a tone, a consistent mood of, well darkness. ESB, though it does have humor and witty banter, nevertheless has this consistent feeling of impending doom and disaster. Like no matter how much you run, you cannot escape it.

-For Luke, it's metaphorical for most of the film. He has a destiny, and that includes facing off with Darth Vader, that he cannot escape no matter how much he may want to. And later on it becomes literal when he walks right into Vader's trap and physically cannot escape.

-For Han, Leia, and Chewie, it's more literal throughout. They're on the run from Vader for most of the movie, and (thanks to a convenient plot device) literally cannot escape him for long. And, after all of that, they still end up getting caught by him in the end.

And all of the major characters suffer, be it physically, emotionally/psychologically, or both. And it's got a pretty downbeat ending. So yeah, it was a pretty "dark film" overall.

 

I got to say that ESB isn't that dark to me. For one, it's rated PG, so I don't think the themes are so mature all the time that it becomes uncomfortable. Also, a lot of ESB is Han, Leia, and Chewie running around trying to fix the hyperdrive while Luke balances a puppet on his back while lifting rocks. I mean, you know Vader is after them, but it's just not that scary to me, more suspenseful. As an adult, I get a lot of themes about the movie that I just didn't get as a kid, and what's great about the movie is that it scales I think, with age.

If TFA is already PG13 and VIII is going to be darker, then I do think that signals a shift towards a more mature Star Wars than what we've had. I'm not for fart jokes or the grossout humor of TPM, but I have always found that there's this lighthearted take to Star Wars even when things are dire that I do like. (Except for the ending of ROTS which is pretty sad all the way through.)

As for the argument that kids have this refined palate where Lucas talks down to them: a weekend or so ago I was hanging out with family friends who have a 4.5 and 6 year old and they laughed so hard at the phrase "poop comes out of your butt" that it took a very long time for them to calm down because they kept repeating it over and over and working themselves up again. So I do think they get a lot more than adults usually think they do, but at the same time... they aren't exactly the height of taste either.

 

Dak Ralter (Luke's snowspeeder gunner/navigator) dies in ESB.

 

And a decapitation scene. It was a vision, sure, but kids might not cotton to that immediately. And Luke, a favorite character gets his hand chopped off (not just a nameless goon).

 

As I said an extra - Dak. Lol come on now

 

Dark != number of deaths.

Otherwise Rambo would be the darkest movie of all time.

TESB is dark.

 

Poor Dack all but forgotten!

I mean DACK!!

He was still alive but Luke left him to be crushed!!

 

If I were to rank them all in terms of "darkness," then it'd be as follows:

1. ESB (dark and foreboding the whole way through).
2. ROTS (the second half is REALLY dark. But the first half, not so much).
3. TFA (has numerous dark disturbing moments/subtext, but is balanced out with a sense of adventure, fun, and plenty of humor).
4. ANH (similar to TFA, but a little less dark. It also has a flat-out happy ending, whereas TFA has merely a hopeful one).
5. ROTJ (it's a mixed bag. You have the moody eeriness of the Sheev/Vader stuff, and the gross ickiness of Jabba and co. But balance that out with a lot of goofy humor as well).
6. AOTC (it's "dark" in that it's so PAINFUL to try and sit through).
7. TPM (probably the least dark. Even the stuff that might have been darker, Anakin's child slave upbringing for example, is REALLY toned-down).

 

I don't see any serious argument that anything but ROTS is the darkest film. I mean it's laugh out loud hilarious to compare ESB to ROTS, come on now! NOTHING bad happens in ESB that leaves some lasting impact on the universe at large. Yeah, the rebels have a little setback, yes, Luke whines like a baby that he figured out who his father is, apparently. But really, even that didn't happen. The fans love to overrate that movie when it's a great film, just like the other 6 Star Wars movies, but there isn't anything inherently better about it. Maybe if you were 9 when you first saw it or something and it was your first experience with a slightly darker movie, I guess, I have no clue. As a kid I found ESB to be the most boring of the trilogy and as an adult I find it a brilliant movie, just like the other 6 Star Wars movies. No better, no worse. It's certainly not a darker film than ROTS, though, which ends a trilogy that is actual tragedy. ESB isn't sad in any way, it's a bit dark, sure, but not overly so. ROTS is darker than dark, a complete collapse of democracy, the Jedi Order, the hero of the trilogy, everything we know from that story.

It doesn't get any darker than ROTS no matter what anyone says. And AOTC is an amazing film, I always laugh when someone doesn't like AOTC. Doesn't get much more fun than that movie and very dark and mysterious as well, at least as much so as ESB.

 

Didn't expect any AOTC love from the TFA forums. Made me smile a bit...

 

TFA is more "kid-friendly" than a lot of mainstream blockbuster films, IMO. The last few Marvel films had a lot of gruesome, in-your-face violence (the climax of Civil War for example) and thuddingly vulgar sexual innuendo (GOTG and Age of Ultron) that TFA mostly turned the camera away from or left out altogether.

It also lacks a snarky cynical tone. Things are played straight. In an age when every hero is a wannabe Han Solo, Finn is refreshingly honorable, vulnerable and friendly. Poe could easily have been an aloof roguish womanizer, but he's instead warm, dutiful and unfailingly optimistic. Rey could have been sarcastic, cold and worldly, but she's earnest, hopeful and almost childlike in the face of danger and personal hardships. All these character choices harken back to the family friendly quality of the original films, and are unlike the vast majority of mainstream fare you'll find today.

 

With the presence of characters like BB-8, Finn, and Poe in TFA, this is what makes Episode 7 quite reasonably kids-friendly... Even my 4 year old son, who watched TFA with me on DVD while at home, now likes Star Wars and is particularly fond of Chewbacca!

Contrast that with the "Angry Birds Movie" which is certainly a CGI-based cartoon but one that also has adult-oriented themes in certain parts... (Spoiler alert) From the scene where the Mighty Eagle pees into the so-called Lake of Wisdom, to Red crashing his privates on a branch, there are loads of funny jokes that adults can understand - which goes to explain the loud laughter heard during the humorous parts in the movie, from grown-ups... Even if many of them brought children to watch the movie, including me and my wife!

 

TFA is the most gloomy episode to date, in my view.
There's plenty of humor, but the general atmosphere is very dark. There's so much sadness in everyone! Rey, Kylo, Finn, Han, Leia, Luke... They're all weighed down by heavy emotions because of tragic events in both past and present. The whole galaxy seems quite depressed, actually, which is accentuated by the melancholy compositions of John Williams.

If EpVIII is even darker, I'm gonna need a freakin' flashlight!

 

Kids are much smarter than we give them credit for, and need not be talked down to.

And between BB-8, Maz, Chewie, the silly rathtars, Finn and Rey's dorky relationship, and sledding on sand, there was plenty for kids to love. My young nephews and niece (8 and 9) absolutely adored the film, and are now very clear on this year's Halloween costumes.

Perhaps if some kids were distracted, it simply means that too many "kids movies" these days assume that all children have extreme cases of ADD, and cater to that/ encourage it.

 

I would say yes OP.

TFA, was more structured for the adults, but still appeals to children...

It's a weird mix of Meta/Ourobors to it with some Yin and Yang thrown in..

 

While I don't think #deaths really tells the story in terms of how dark a movie is, I don't think comic relief is much of an indicator either. For example, I never experienced ANH as a particularly dark movie, neither as a child nor as an adult. Why? Because it was always more of a "space adventure" for me. Instead of non-stop action, there was a sense of exploration and adventure that TFA doesn't really have.

It's worth keeping in mind that a child often doesn't see stories unfold; they take part. They're not watching a Jedi do something cool; they become a Jedi doing something cool. Anakin, Luke, Finn and Rey all more or less "fit the bill" in that regard, but ANH spent more time fleshing out the setting and the places, making it easier to establish a connection. It also means that ANH is (probably) still the "right" movie to see first, despite being set smack in the middle of the story.

 

The 'Dark' label attached to Empire doesn't come from the amount of deaths. The tone throughtout is probably the most sinister of all 7 movies. The palette is desaturated, a lot of the film is in shadow. The cloud city carbonite chamber is so beautifully lit. All you see of Vader is the lights on his chest and highlights on his armour. The threat of the Empire is huge. The rebels are running from one mishap to the other. Sure there're light moments of humour, but it all comes to a head with the desperate escape and NOT rescuing han, Luke is in a bad way and they have been sold out to the Empire. You can't trust anyone. To chalk up 'darkness' to death count is a very simplistic way to look at it. ROTS, to me, isn;t darker because the tone shifts wildly. You have kids being murdered but then ridiculous slapstick with r2d2 squiritng droids with silly voices and flying about. It tries to be dark but it is just trying to shock. The cave in Empire feels threatening. The tone of the movie is super consistant and that tone is Dark. Hence 'the darkest one' fits.

Bring on the darkness in 8.

 

Given most of the jokes were geared to the OT fans, it would be reasonable to say that there was at least some effort made to make it adult orientated.

In terms of themes and darkness, as someone mentioned above, the many similarities of TFA and ANH say it's not any darker. Only really the slaughter of the villagers being ordered makes it worse, as opposed to the off-screen slaughter of Jawas.

 

Star Wars should never be''adult oriented''. It should be aimed at all ages.

The essence of Star Wars is in a sense is about inspiring a child-like idealism in the world.

Even watching it as an adult, it should speak to your inner child.

 

Look on the bright side: Quite a few posters around here are former lurkers, like me, so now you get to watch new overreactions to the exact same issues! Oh joy!

Repitition is even better when the original is altered slightly, as the amount of reboots, remixes and what not in various media are proving right now.