ST Why is the FA script so effective?

Strongbow · Jan 6, 2016

Darth Doop said: ↑

I think it's popular because it's star wars and pandering to OT fans is guaranteed to make money.
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Don;t like the use of the word pandering here. This is a sequel to ROTJ. If it doesn't have significant connections to the OT, it fails as a sequel. I mean, it is no surprise that fans of the OT want to see a Star Wars movie that looks and feels like the Star Wars they love.

Strongbow · Jan 6, 2016

My answer. Characters and dialogue. Kasdan knows how to write Star Wars dialogue. I hope Rian Johnson can effectively pick up where he left off. To be successful, tis movie had to remind old Star Wars fans about what they loved in Star Wars, and to still appeal to a large segment of more casual and new fans. I think in was pretty darn successful at doing that. Of course, you can;t please everyone, but they hit a good balance IMO.

AcerCatrun2 · Jan 15, 2018

AcerCatrun said: ↑

I have this theory about why The Force Awakens is so popular with so many people. It centres on the script: my idea is that the script deliberately makes memory centrally important to many characters - much more than in most films - and this creates a connection with many members of the audience. (Who are, after all, coming to see the film brimming with memories of Star Wars.) This isn't to deny the many other brilliant things about the film that make it popular - but I think memory is the core theme of the movie, and this enables it to connect with many many people.

Below is more detail!

What do you all think?

Almost every character in Star Wars: The Force Awakens has another strong force in their lives: that force is their memory. BB8 the droid carries a map fragment that contains part of the route to Luke Skywalker – the rest of the map is hidden in the memory of the slumbering R2D2; Han Solo has been searching for the Millennium Falcon (as has Chewie) and all the memories the ship entails for him – not to mention searching for Leia and searching Kylo Ren (called by Han Solo Ben, in memory of Obi Wan); Leia’s life is also bound-up with memories of Ren – her and Solo’s son; Leia’s identity as General Leia is confused for others due to her memory as Princess Leia; Luke Skywalker has disappeared due to something long buried in the past; Rey stays attached to and longs to return to Jakku thanks to a lost promise someone will return – whilst the landscape she scavenges is haunted with memories of the previous Star Wars films, downed hazy Star Destroyers sinking into shifting sands; Finn deserts the First Order due to a traumatic memory of killing – and then his decisions are haunted by the First Order itself, fleeing when staying and/or fighting on Takodana makes more sense; Kylo Ren’s relationship with his memory takes a whole paragraph later on. (Bear with me.)

Well, so what? Don’t all characters have a memory of their past – a backstory? Yes, but not like this. Each character makes crucial, otherwise-incomprehensible decisions based on their past - often several; furthermore, each past has different emotional purity. BB8’s memory is loyal; R2D2’s depressed; Han Solo’s romantic; Leia’s burgeoning with a parent’s caring urgency; Luke’s that of a distant difficult disturbed dream; Rey, a child’s simple hope; Finn, fear. And now we come to the point.

Memory is the central theme of The Force Awakens, and a brilliantly-chosen theme it is: for every single audience member will have come to this film briA brilliant start to the new trilogy. Everything is the same: now forget what you know for next time . . .
Click to expand...

AcerCatrun said: ↑

I have this theory about why The Force Awakens is so popular with so many people. It centres on the script: my idea is that the script deliberately makes memory centrally important to many characters - much more than in most films - and this creates a connection with many members of the audience. (Who are, after all, coming to see the film brimming with memories of Star Wars.) This isn't to deny the many other brilliant things about the film that make it popular - but I think memory is the core theme of the movie, and this enables it to connect with many many people.

Below is more detail!

What do you all think?

Almost every character in Star Wars: The Force Awakens has another strong force in their lives: that force is their memory. BB8 the droid carries a map fragment that contains part of the route to Luke Skywalker – the rest of the map is hidden in the memory of the slumbering R2D2; Han Solo has been searching for the Millennium Falcon (as has Chewie) and all the memories the ship entails for him – not to mention searching for Leia and searching Kylo Ren (called by Han Solo Ben, in memory of Obi Wan); Leia’s life is also bound-up with memories of Ren – her and Solo’s son; Leia’s identity as General Leia is confused for others due to her memory as Princess Leia; Luke Skywalker has disappeared due to something long buried in the past; Rey stays attached to and longs to return to Jakku thanks to a lost promise someone will return – whilst the landscape she scavenges is haunted with memories of the previous Star Wars films, downed hazy Star Destroyers sinking into shifting sands; Finn deserts the First Order due to a traumatic memory of killing – and then his decisions are haunted by the First Order itself, fleeing when staying and/or fighting on Takodana makes more sense; Kylo Ren’s relationship with his memory takes a whole paragraph later on. (Bear with me.)

Well, so what? Don’t all characters have a memory of their past – a backstory? Yes, but not like this. Each character makes crucial, otherwise-incomprehensible decisions based on their past - often several; furthermore, each past has different emotional purity. BB8’s memory is loyal; R2D2’s depressed; Han Solo’s romantic; Leia’s burgeoning with a parent’s caring urgency; Luke’s that of a distant difficult disturbed dream; Rey, a child’s simple hope; Finn, fear. And now we come to the point.

Memory is the central theme of The Force Awakens, and a brilliantly-chosen theme it is: for every single audience member will have come to this film brimming over with memories and intense emotions linked to Star Wars, just like the way the characters in the movie relate to their memories. What better way to reconnect the new movies with the core emotional appeal of the brand, than create characters equally overburdened with and complicated by memory as the millions of audience members are? It is thus almost impossible not to connect with the film, for it not to resonate with one’s past and emotional frame of mind in some way. (In a way it’s impossible to objectively evaluate the script as a result: so inscribed it is with what the Star Wars franchise has been up until this point, and everyone’s precise individual experience of it. And of course, the narrative itself, many scenes and images, are reminiscent of the original films.)

But the jewel in this crown of memory is the Kylo Ren character. Ren is haunted by the memory of Darth Vader, and whether he will ever live up to Vader’s memory. He is haunted to the point that, like a good fan boy, he dresses up like his hero, replete with mask and distorted voice. He stands nervous and juvenile in the shadow of a more profound past – like a movie following in the giant steps of a great predecessor. Ren fears he won’t live up to Vader’s memory. This dread is the same dread everyone has about the Star Wars movies: will the new Star Wars movies live up to the memory of Episodes VI, V and VI? The memory of those movies so compromised by the prequels?

This is not to say every character in Force Awakens is best-described by memory. Poe Dameron isn’t – but his part seems a minor role that could be expanded in later films; his freshness almost deliberately sprinkled as lightly as possible. Snoke is a direct correlate of the Emperor, but also seems unburdened by memory; but in this he achieves a one-dimensional quality of evil lacking from Kylo Ren or the Storm Troopers. Both Poe and Snoke are promises that future films will not just be about memory. Their parts are circumscribed and minimized, used when absolutely only essential. But put it this way: could the rebooted Star Trek movie (also directed by JJ Abrams, to mention but one of several obvious points of similarity) be described in terms of memories of previous films – at the level of both character and world-wide audience? Not at all: sure Star Trek has points of reference to its predecessors and most audience members will have some sense of Star Trek’s history, but there is nothing like the intensity of connection, nothing like the pervasiveness memory plays in the character’s decisions and identity, nothing like the strict-rationing of anything not memory-infused. Memory really is the distinctive theme of Force Awakens.

All this is not to say that this is some kind of trick, fooling us into a connection with Force Awakens that is somehow artificial or unwarranted. The theme of memory produces a vast emotional resonance, but this is hardly an act of dishonesty, and the film has many other fine qualities: the many wondrous images; a stripped-down script – with looks often sufficing when words are expected, thanks to the cogent performances; moments of great tension and emotion and excitement; unoriginal, true, but a story familiar and satisfying.

In the original Star Wars movies, characters look to the future: Luke Skywalker is always looking away; Darth Vader says nothing is left of his past almost until the final moment, instead looking constantly forward to ruling the Empire; Han is after the next payload or snatched moment with Leia; Obi Wan and Yoda look out into the galaxy to identify new hopes. Force Awakens, so apparently derivative, has the opposite emotional texture to its great predecessors: the past of its characters almost subsume them, almost stop the plot, almost are everything.

Almost, but not quite. Not quite because the characters witness one another, and so things change. To name three examples picked from so many: Ren’s patricide of Solo is witnessed by Rey, who will subsequently embrace the light-saber she previously rejected in favour of a return to her past life; Finn and Rey witness each other’s retrospective talents at gunning and flying, briefly dazzled by each other’s newly-emerging abilities; Poe witnesses Finn’s change by leaving him with his jacket. The characters are an audience to each other’s changes, to each other’s eventual escape from memory. They serve the audience in the same way. Change, the characters show the audience, in spite of all the memories, change is coming: because we see and are seen; things change. A brilliant start to the new trilogy. Everything is the same: now forget what you know for next time . . .
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My reading of FA predicted a sequel in which “Everything is the same: now forget what you know for next time . . .”

I think this is pretty well-matched by all the thwarted expectations of Last Jedi, adding to the plausibility of the original post!

3sm1r · Jan 15, 2018

Abrams is great in connecting the audience with the characters. The scene in which we see Rey for the first time is a perfect example. There is a nice video about that. It compares the way the character of Rey is written with the one of the protagonist of RO.

I remember that I felt sympathy for her since the beginning, couldn't tell why. The video provided an explanation.

AcerCatrun2 · Jan 15, 2018

3sm1r said: ↑

Abrams is great in connecting the audience with the characters. The scene in which we see Rey for the first time is a perfect example. There is a nice video about that. It compares the way the character of Rey is written with the one of the protagonist of RO.

I remember that I felt sympathy for her since the beginning, couldn't tell why. The video provided an explanation.
Click to expand...

Agreed and thanks for posting

What I am getting at is that there is a thematic compactness to both movies - memory, and then thwarted expectations - which I (and perhaps just I!) find really interesting.

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ST Why is the FA script so effective?

Strongbow Force Ghost

Strongbow Force Ghost

AcerCatrun2 Jedi Youngling

3sm1r Force Ghost

AcerCatrun2 Jedi Youngling