But yes: the movies themselves were offensively poorly written, and I am furious at the writers for mucking things up so badly.
Back to my point about having written a lot already...
Episode 7 review
Episode 8 review
Episode 8 review #2
A review of the flaws as I see them in episodes 1 to 7
There are more blog posts I've written about Star Wars, but those are the ones relevant to this review I think. If you want to understand my severe dislike for episodes 7 and 8, those posts might help. I'm going to try to collect my thoughts nicely in this review though, in hopes of having something I can present to help my friends understand my point of view. I feel like I must not be conveying something right, because I still have friends who defend the movies.
I'm going to start from a different spot than I usually do. I'm going to start from where I believe Episode 7 should have started from, in an attempt to convey something that is agreeably better than what they actually did.
To do that, the set up is that nothing new about what happens after Episode 6 comes out for 30 years unless you look at the novels. Episode 7 is coming out, and you have an enormous fan base that loves the original trilogy and wants to know what happened. My expectation was that episode 7 would be a re-introduction to the setting including some of the history of what's been happening; including what the existing characters have been up to; including introduction of new characters; and including introduction of the new problem the heroes have to overcome.
Episode 7 failed on most of those points. It was a weak re-introduction to the setting. It barely hinted at all that time that's passed. And the old characters are broken up and doing... exactly what they were doing before episode 4... Luke was hanging out doing nothing; Leia was participating in the rebellion; and Han was back to smuggling. And the final failure is the introduction of a new problem the heroes have to overcome... because it's the same problem from the original trilogy. The Empire is still the fascist organization with military control over the galaxy, and rebels are still the underdog group. They're just called different things. The only thing episode 7 accomplished was introducing new characters.
So, not only did episode 7 fail to deliver what I hoped for, but it couldn't even manage any originality. They even make fun of themselves for it with the comment about a bigger death star. But it's such a copy of episode 4 that it's hard to understand why more people aren't upset, and really hard to understand why no one on the project spoke up to tell everyone else they had to write a new script. My episode 7 review has a pretty good list of the copies. It's pretty blatant once you start thinking it through.
It's in that review too... but I really dislike the treatment of Han in Episode 7. I get that Harrison Ford wanted his character to die, and I can really appreciate a death in the story that has meaning and which can elicit tears. But Han's death felt dumb. Kylo tricks him with acting like he wants his dad's help to come back to the light side, and the savvy smuggler that has been dealing with people for years just falls for it. I get that a father likely has a big blind spot about their kids... but we can show that Kylo is callous and evil plenty easy with Han not ending that way. I feel like the writers failed to make a good end for one of the best characters of the original trilogy. And I'm mad at them for it.
I'll also mention my hate for the utterly stupid backbone of the plot, which was the holographic star map to Luke Skywalker (another copy from episode 4: droid carries data both sides want...). Why would you need a path through space to get to a point in space? That would be like saying: I need to get to San Diego, but the starting point is Montreal... no matter what. That path between those two places is the only way to get between them. It's really dumb. All you need is the destination... and you can get there from anywhere else. No need for a path through space. And then for some reason the map is broken into two pieces. The Empire and R2-D2 each have one piece of the map, and the sought after chunk was recovered on a desert world in a dingy sand town. Who came up with that crap?
We find out later why Luke is missing, during episode 8, but at this point, all we know is that he's missing and everyone wants to find him. And there's a dumb map... instead of just coordinates that can be transmitted in a few seconds. I hate the map. And I hate the "Luke is missing" story foundation.
As I said above, what I wanted was to see the familiar, and to learn the changes. What episode 7 should have done is opened up with Han, Luke, Leia, and probably Chewbacca. We would probably find out Luke has successfully been running a jedi academy for decades, Leia is retiring from government service finally, and Han wants them to go on a vacation. But they get sucked back in to something... the First Order is a small up-and-coming military organization that is causing problems, including reports of First Order assaults including some lightsaber wielders. Ben Solo is introduced as a student of Luke's... before he's gone to the dark side... so we can see that moment and understand it better... probably in episode 8. It would matter so much more. Rey is a pilot they run into, and Luke sees her potential and it's easy to sweep her into it. Finn is something they meet during the first real battle with the First Order, and he surrenders to them... and they find out Finn is not a clone like previous troopers. Poe can be a current member of Rogue Squadron who are sent as escorts for whatever mission occurs. The old characters working with the new people can pass the torch. Luke sees Rey in trouble and he throws his lightsaber to her... and at first she's confused, but then starts wrecking house... First Order retreats, and Snoke and his Knights of Ren suffer their first real defeat.
If Harrison Ford is insistent on his character dying in episode 7, maybe we see Kylo turn on the group. Han is aghast, and asks why... begs him to stop. They're alone for some reason. Whatever. Kylo tells him that he joined the Knights of Ren months ago... that his power is greater than it ever was under Luke's instruction. Han won't get out of the way. Kylo kills him to get past, and it affects his character for the rest of the trilogy. Chewbacca catches up at the wrong moment and sees it happen, and starts shooting at Kylo who runs to catch up with the First Order and leaves with them.
Really... I just can't figure out why nothing changed in 30 years... Empire, Rebellion, and all the old characters are doing nothing.
Episode 7 could have been so much better. I'm upset that it didn't come close to its potential. But it did give us two things to work with for episode 8...
- Rey's mystery parents
- Snoke and the Knights of Ren
And to move into my episode 8 portion of the review: Everything that episode 7 bothered to set for episode 8 is cast aside as meaningless. The big reveal about Rey's parents is that they weren't anyone special. Okay. So, a fairly major part of the previous movie is turned into a statement about how you don't have to descend from someone special to be special. That's fine. But they got that point in the most ridiculous time-wasting way. They set us up with all this intrigue about who here parents were, and then let us down. It was anti-climactic, and not nearly as fascinating as other options are based on the setup given. I want either for Rey to have been from no one special and make that point, or have Rey be the child of someone cool... maybe Obiwan Kenobi's granddaughter and explain how his life was more interesting than we thought. The combination of making us curious and then laughing at us with the completely different direction is offensive. [Edit for clarification]: It seems to me that episode 7 was setting us up for the cool parents track, and episode 8 favored the track where you don't have to come from something amazing to be amazing. Both are fine by themselves. But we got a whole movie bringing us along on one track, and then the other movie made the first one meaningless.
The second bit about the Knights of Ren and Snoke was disappointing too. I'll admit that how Kylo killed him in episode 8 is pretty cool, but suddenly that set up was thrown away too. Who were the Knights of Ren? Where did another powerful dark-side Force user come from? Is this finally our window into part of the past thirty years? No? Oh... it's just a mechanism for Kylo to overcome an obstacle? Okay... well... I guess that part of episode 7 was useless too. We had setup, and then it gets thrown in the trash.
Don't forget to take a look at my two reviews of episode 8 I linked above. But I'll try to convey what I think in a clearer way here.
Episode 8 is a pile of garbage with a couple okay nuggets if you scrounge for them. I already mentioned that it throws away groundwork laid by episode 7. It seems to want to be a stand alone movie that craps on the Star Wars universe with it's intentional choices, and also with its ignorance of Star Wars seen in some super lazy writing.
The premise of the movie is that the rebels are fleeing the empire again, but this time a hyperspace jump won't do the trick because they have a new sensor thing that lets them figure out where you went. And we end up with the dumbest chase scene of any I've ever heard of. That includes the chase scenes in Benny Hill which are at least amusing. And this is the backbone of the plot for this movie. Other things happen around it, but the writers went to a lot of trouble to make crap up so the Empire is on the heels of the Rebels for most of the movie... and the rebels are running out of fuel. The writers had to invent a new sensor and invent the problem of running out of fuel. A severe flaw to this setup is that the rebels are all just sitting on their ships for the whole movie and the Empire is just sitting on theirs. They don't bother calling smaller faster ships. They don't send their own bombers ahead. I mean... Kylo did destroy the hanger with the rebel fighters in it. The bombers ought to be able to fly faster than the behemoth ship the rebels are on. What a horribly lazy backbone for the plot. I hate it.
All the other parts of the story are built around that. Let's start with Finn. Finn meets Rose, who is a fine character, and they come up with the idea about breaking into the empire ship to stop its tracking device without them knowing it's not working, so the fleet can jump away. And actually... I could get behind that idea. And if they had a small ship they could use and the rebels dump their trash... to hide the ship that's got most of its systems shut down... we use an idea like in Empire Strikes back to camouflage a ship. Something we've seen before, but used differently. I like it. They sneak aboard the big ship and try to complete their plan. It's maybe a bit much of a copy of shutting down tractor beams... but it's better than what they did.
They decided they needed a code breaker to fool some sensors on the imperial ship. And of course, none of the rebels you have handy are capable of this feat. I'm sure they're all just accountants and massage therapists. So, how do you find a code breaker? You take a ship and jump through hyperspace to find someone at an opulent casino town. Good thing the rebel leaders didn't know that ship was available to send someone to send a message asking for help. Nope... they waited for the base that should have communication equipment strong enough to send a message all over the place. Good thinking rebel leaders. Why bother using the small ships you have to save people at all? Why use them to get your message out now instead of later? I hate this part of the writing too. It's awful logic.
So anyway, Finn and Rose go on their adventure where we get the bluntly stated message that business is immoral. They sell weapons to whoever can pay, and profit on war and misery. That's a fine message, and I agree with it, but I didn't need it to soak up 45 minutes of my precious little time of a new Star Wars movie. It's like the pod races in episode 1... completely offensively useless.
They find their code breaker and leave the planet after getting to ride some nice animals. And we get hit over the head with the "business is immoral" message again. They make their way back to the slow chase scene that's happening and manage to get on the bad guy's ship. Hooray! But wait! They completely fail at their mission and only through the blessing of plot armor do they get away... so they can meet back up with the people they left much earlier in the movie.
The one good thing to come out of this entire side quest is that Finn gets to know Rose better and he realizes that Rey isn't the only person he cares about helping. He realizes he wants to help the rebellion against his former masters. That's good... but it could have been accomplished entirely without the waste of time and definitely more easily if the movie wasn't built on the slow chase in space. Corporate greed could have been detailed if the setting for the movie had included cities and rebels looking for help. Rose and Finn might easily have ended up working together on whatever other plan was given... even using the bit about him trying to escape to find Rey and the humor of Rose stopping him from fleeing.
We have Finn figuring out he wants to help the rebellion and we have that scene where he's chosen to give his life to destroy a battering ram weapon that will expose and probably kill a bunch of the people he's chosen to help. It's actually a really good moment for Finn, but Rose comes screaming in and rams him out of the way... an act that would probably kill them both at the speeds they were going. Her reasoning is that love will fight off the darkness better than destroying things. Except... now the big gun fires, and all their friends are exposed and probably screwed. It was dumb, and robbed Finn of a pretty awesome hero moment. But I can understand them not wanting Finn to die yet. I just think their explanation is lousy.
That's Finn's arc. Holy crap there's so much more. Okay... let's hit Luke's arc next.
We come to find out that Luke's character has been assassinated like Han's. We went from the original trilogy where Luke is the most optimistic person in the galaxy who redeemed his horrifically evil father that had been responsible for countless deaths... to the frightened pessimist who was willing even for a moment to consider killing his nephew? What kind of awful writer comes up with that crap? I can imagine a Luke struggling with running a Jedi Academy, but considering killing his nephew when he forgave and redeemed his father is not in the character. It's wrong. It's bad writing. It's offensive to the character of Luke Skywalker. I despise this aspect of the movie.
What episode 8 should have done for Luke is give him a GOOD reason for having gone off to be alone for a while... maybe even answer why the map from episode 7 was a path instead of a set of coordinates by saying that reports of Luke had been found on each point along the way... Luke is looking for something pretty hard, and purposely avoiding contact to keep his trail as hidden as possible. You wouldn't want to bring the First Order to the places he's been and endanger the innocent people there. But we didn't get a good story for Luke. We got utter garbage.
And the garbage for Luke ended with him dying at the end of the movie for no reason at all. He was tired? Again, I'm fine with handing off the story to the next generation in the Skywalker story (because that's what the numbered episodes are), but there was no reason to kill off Luke, and so much awesome potential for keeping him around (not in ghost form).
Han is dead; Luke is dead (but presumably a ghost); and no new scenes can be shot for Leia because Carrie Fisher passed away. I hate the writer... what's his name? Rian Johnson? I think it's awful when actors are given a hard time for something they had no control over. The person that should be shunned from the entertainment industry for this pile of crap is Rian Johnson. That guy sucks at writing, and his ineptitude destroyed something that should have been wonderful. He deserves punishment. Yes. I'm currently angry as I type this.
I think that covers Luke's arc. Let's look at Leia's arc. And I guess Poe's arc, since her arc is entirely about Poe.
She plays a part in Poe's arc... which is pretty good actually. But it's basically three scenes... maybe four? Leia looks brokenhearted as she chastises Poe for spending so many people's lives on the attack against the big ship at the big movie. It's Poe's first look at the burden of leadership and making those kinds of decisions.
Then Leia gets blown into space and uses the Force to survive, but now she's stuck in a medical bay for the majority of the movie. If we didn't have the slow chase scene restraining us, it would have been much easier for Leia and Poe to separate and for Poe to have to deal with a different commander. But because they were writing for Poe... Leia got a stupid story. I'm offended by the writing here again. Awful backbone to the story strikes again!
Leia is back again later, and she sits in the old rebel base waiting. Poe sees his people struggling against the empire again, but this time he makes the decision to save lives instead of wasting them on a slim to nothing chance. Poe has character growth. Yay!
This is also the moment where Finn ignores the order and almost has an awesome hero moment, but I already wrote about that.
The last bit of Poe's arc is the passing of the torch from Leia to Finn when he realizes the animals got out of the back of the base somehow. She has her line "Don't look at me. Follow him.". I actually like that line... but Leia is criminally under used in the movie. Poe got his epiphany and growth which is good. Leia got to sit there and have her most exciting moment be surviving being blown into space.
Then finally there's the Kylo and Rey story arc. Mostly... I just don't care about their arc. Kylo was emotionally wronged and he decides that killing everyone he doesn't like to start over is the way to go. And Rey is written sort of... bland. Or maybe the character isn't bland. Maybe it's the story she got stuck into. I don't know. I guess my complaint with their arc is not very specific. But for the two new main characters who are Force users to not really leave an impression... something is wrong with the writing.
One more thing I'd like to mention that my brother pointed out before I noticed on my own: the brand new use of a hyperdrive as a weapon. He correctly pointed out that if a smaller ship on the verge of destruction can jump to light speed through a fleet of enemy ships and destroy all of them... it's a technology that would have been weaponized a long time ago. Why aren't all missiles hyperspace missiles? Just start to jump to hyperspace a little before hitting the target and bam... instant winning. Why hasn't this been a thing for a long time?
I guess that complaint can be tacked on to the backbone of the plot. Because part of my issue with the slow chase is the re-defining of star wars technology... and the only reason is to make the writer's job easier instead of adding to the story. Write a better story, and you don't need to resort to waving the magic wand to change things to the way you need them to be to make your weak story work.
All in all... the prequels are still worse than 7 & 8, but 7 & 8 are awful and I hate the writers for doing such a ridiculously poor job on something so meaningful to so many people... so meaningful to me.
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