Great review, agree on all points, thanks for not obsessing over Rey's power level.
How did you feel about Han dying at the hands of a character we had never met before?
That didn't bother me....in fact, that was one of the things that worked in the movie's favor...the idea that we as viewers are showing up in the middle of it...it's the same thing George did way back when and it works here too. We know Han has history with his son...in their brief encounter here (as with Leia), we can get the feeling that it's a history rife with tragedy and disappointment. If anything, Kasdan and Abrams have really written Kylo into quite the corner here. And Driver's performance is quite good at showing all of that conflict. Again, we're in "re-run" territory with the story elements here, but it's where the saga goes with it from here that has a potential of being really interesting....c'mon Johnsom...don't let us down!
And another thing about the movie to me that seems to go unsaid in a lot of the back-n-forth. Looking at the story and characters here, this is one dark movie. It's the one main thing Kasdan and Abrams have done here that makes me sad...that "happy" ending we all saw in ROTJ all those years ago turned out to be very short-lived. They've ripped out the "Once Upon a Time" where redemption through unconditional love vanquished evil and the idea of "happily ever after" is wiped away to reveal a galaxy of tragedy, disappointment and despair. Intellectually, I get it...Disney needs the story to go on, and to do that, conflict is needed. I'm just sad as a fan that the price for that is to make all of the heroes who's tales we've had for forty years as an illustration of the triumph of good over evil turn out to be tragic figures awaiting yet another chance at redemption though another set of characters for the sake of doing it all again.
Again, that's drama....I get it. But it's still sad to me that the only way this new creative regime could see to make the story go on was to obliterate the accomplishments of the earlier movies and "rinse, lather, repeat" their way through these new stories.
I want to be wrong here...but Disney is a company to make money first and foremost...they are not here to foster art and myth. As this movie proves, they don't have to...the money is poring in. They may continue on the path of "if it ain't broke, don't fix it" and why not? It's certainly proving to be popular.
But will it stand the test of time like the original movies? We won't have an answer to that for a long time.
Ray, Finn and Kylo are good strong characters being brought ot life with great performances. I'm gonna go on the light side here and hope that the story becomes as strong and different as the characters in it.
I'm glad Abrams is only doing one of these....I'm looking forward to what Johnson brings next....still a little nervous about Treverrow (Jurassic World has to be one of the most bald-faced, cookie-cutter- by-the-numbers success things we've seen in a long time...the very definition of a studio wet dream)...but we'll see.
