star wars: the force awakens

[splinteredstar]

okay. this one /will/ have spoilers under the cut. So. The Force Awakens spoilers below the cut.

On the one hand, there are several scenes that were definitely done to be callbacks to the original series. Lightsaber in the snow, everyone. On the other hand, they weren't obstrusive. They established continuitity without breaking realism - there were nice hints for the old fans but not jarring for the others.

Sutble call back, on that note: the weapon was called Starkiller, which was iirc one of the draft versions of Skywalker. *checks* Yep!

I kind of loved Ray scavanging from crashed empire tech. It was both continuum check and also realsim check - that shit has to go /somewhere/, and people always use the bits left behind. Also, Rey is established very well - independant, sympathetic, willing to help but unwilling to be helped. I kind of love her.  

One of the really important things that those call backs do, I think, is establish equivilency for Rey. She's shown doing the exact same actions as her (possible uncle, possible father, more on that in a bit) forebeaer Luke. Like the light saber in the snow scene, or the piloting scenes.  On that note, she's also shown to be the potential equilient to Han with her skill with the ship. I like that she's self-taught, incidentally, from scavenging and stories.  I like that she was left on her own and learned compassion as much as she learned survival.

For 75% of the movie, I assumed she was Han's kid, and thus Ren's sister. The engine knowledge, the easy comradery. Her flashbacks did not counteract this. And this is Star Wars - sibling pairs are A Thing, and especially sets of twins. (I believe in the EU novels, it's a set of twins.)

But then we saw her around Leia - and Leia doesn't act like Rey is her daughter. (And Leia would /know/ even if Han didn't.) It's not impossible that Leia is hiding it - she's lost one child, already - but it is unlikely. And I think I like it better, if Leia isn't her mother? I like cross-generational female support networks, especially if they're not by blood. An aside: the female mentorship in this movie is so great.

That being said, that girl is /definitely/ a Skywalker, because the story of Star wars is the story of that family. So yeah, I think she's Luke's daughter. I won't be heartbroken if I'm wrong, but I do like the idea. 

I liked her reaction to the the lightsaber. Both that she had a reaction to it, and that she had a very reasonable freak out. I mean. She unexpectedly got someone else's traumatic flashbacks shoved in her brain...

Fiiiiinnn. I immediately wanted to hug him. Soldiers who have crises of conscience and switch sides win me over so easily, oh my god. Also, he grows a lot. Admittedly for Rey's sake, but also for Po's. Also: interracial romance! I ship it.

Po is great. He's so friendly and charismatic and accepts Finn so easily. He's just like "yeah we're bros now! yay bros!" I don't know if I ship it, but the brotp is pretty strong.  I was /so/ glad he didn't actually die. Platonic brotps are important! On that note: I want Po and Ray to get into a race. I don't care who wins. (Well, okay. I want Ray to win. And I want Po to be cool about it.)

tl;dr RAY IS PRECIOUS. PO IS PRECIOUS. FINN IS PRECIOUS. LEIA IS AND FOREVER WILL BE QUEEN OF MY HEART. 

I loved Han and Leia. I loved the awkwardness of the relationship, the stiffness, the strain. They'd lost a son - and worse than that, their son had left them, turned to the Sith - and that's broken up stronger marriages than theirs. The arguments are easy to imagine. ("If you'd been a better father - " "it's your damn bloodline that gave him that power-") I like the sensation of "I love you, I'll always love you, but maybe being together isn't for us."

(On that note, I loved the hints we got of Leia's own powers. She might not have  chosen the path of the jedi, but not for lack of talent. She must be a goddess at politics, which I want to see.)

Kylo Ren. Ah, Ren. I kind of want to pat him on the head and coo at him. "Awwwn, whosa big scary sith looooord, who's so scawwwrrrry. it's yooou, you're the big nasy sith looooord." There /might/ be cheek pinching involved.  Like, oh my /god/, is that Anakin's grandkid or /what/. Funniest scene in the movie was when he threw a fit and sliced up everything, and the storm tropers outside were just "oh god, he's doing it again, just take the other corridor..." 

That being said. I like him as a character, even with all that he did. He's trying so hard to be as powerful as he wants to be, as strong and unassailable as he thinks he's supposed to be. "The light calls to me," he says, guitly and ashamed and in pain. I recognize the sentiments from the other side, and I feel for the kid. (and god, is he still a kid.) That's the thing about Skywalkers, I think - they never fully belong to the light /or/ the dark. Troublesome Jedi, /terrible/ Sith. Just like his uncle! (And his granddad, for that matter. On that note: where did Ren get that Vader skull? Anakin wasn't wearing it when he died.)

On that note: fuck, HAN. I - i am not angry. Mouring, but not angry. It was done well. And I think the /way/ it was done was important. That was an important part in Ren's plotline - I don't think he wanted to kill his father, he just knew that he was /supposed/ to want to kill his father, and thought that if he killed his father he would stop feeling so much pain over it. He would stop feeling so damn much if he acted like he didn't feel anything. Destroyed the symbol of his pain, because he thought that would make his father not matter any more. By killing his father he would have proven himself strong, and unemotional, and unaffected.

(Brief aside: nice to see "boy with daddy issues" being treated as an immature child, tbh)

But Han prevented that. If Han had been fearful in his last moments, then Ren would have felt powerful. If Han had been angry, betrayed, then Ren would have felt justified. But Han reached out in love, and in doing so prevented everything that Ren was trying to do. When your murder victim forgives you and reaches out to you in love with their least breath, all you can feel is pathetic and weak. And that's /important/, that what  would have been Ren's last step into the dark - wasn't, because his father didn't let it.

....okay so i ended up talking more about Ren than Ray. More eloquent people have talked about Ray, and my feelings for her are still mostly in the inarticulate !!!! phase.

Comments

[sanctum_c]

The idea of Rey being Han and Leia's kid is definitely fed into by the framing of the film - and that to be force sensitive, let alone someone with potential needs a genetic connection. That said, the idea of genetics being a factor, while very much setup by the original trilogy ("the force is strong in my family"), is more of a prequels thing. There's a sense in the older stuff that being a Jedi is more akin to a religion (okay, so this is literally said in A New Hope at Vader. The difference I suppose is who you believe on what aspect of the world-building - did Lucas really have the whole thing mapped out (and thus Vader was always Anakin Skywalker) or was A New Hope a version of the original outline and then part recycled again for Return of the Jedi. Based on the comic version of one of the earliest drafts I'm going with the latter. Er... Ah! My point here is that familial links as force strength formed out of the prequels, and that the real issue in the original trilogy for lack of Jedi was lack of anyone to teach) or a martial art; there are those with an innate talent to it, but it can be learned - anyone can start Jedi training just as anyone can learn martial arts. The prequels on the other hand got kind of hung up on midichlorians and blood tests and such.

There's an interesting tidbit I saw today on tumblr which reportedly states that the casting for Rey was: someone who might be Obi Wan's grand-daughter. Which is an interesting other direction for things to go in (given that TFA didn't rely on anything from the prequels the monastic nature of the Jedi might have been dispensed with along the way as well - which remains true if Luke is indeed her father. So on that point; if potential Jedi are rooted solely in a genetic aspect/midichlorians where are they coming from? Presumably (since TPM turned out to be better on this point than I remembered) the force can trigger an abundance of midichlorians in an individual regardless of their family ties). EU-wise you are correct that Han and Lei had twins (The Thrawn trilogy is the point Leia gives birth as far as I remember - and both are force sensitive. The books while now incredibly non-canonical are very well done - five years post-RotJ). And I would agree; Leia doesn't seem to act like Rey is her daughter - though I did wonder why the film cut away from Han when Maz asked him about her and just what he did say...

But very much agree with all your stuff about Rey; the scavenging, independence, refusing to sell BB-8 even though she'd get a fortune in return (oh and her home being an AT-AT. Did not expect to see one of those in the TFA!). And the reaction to the lighsabre was really nicely done - and restrained! When the corridor from Empire appeared I was sure Vader was going to cameo in her vision, but noooo. Good, good!

Fin! Fiiiiiin! So shipping Fin/Rey (and Fin/Poe. And Fin/Rey/Poe. Because). And no one prodded him to give a longer answer than his initial ones; he wants to do the right thing. ...I was a bit annoyed that Poe's death was actually a thing as it's pretty obvious from the second trailer that he's in a later part of the film so...

Han and Leia were soooo good.

Kylo Ren; that second temper tantrum was definitely one of the funniest moments. But yes; as a character he was very interesting as a character. Ah! The point that made me actually start typing the reply:

Vader's skull would have been on the forest moon of Endor; Luke does indeed take it off on the Death Star, but when he lights the pyre you can see the mask has been reassembled (it's a lot better than when they burned Qui Gon Jinn in TPM - he's just... er... on top of the pyre). I think there was a debate for a while if Vader's body vanished like Obi Wan and Yoda (given Anankin's ghost appearance) - but since Obi Wan left his cloak and Yoda vanished with his clothes it could go either way (Luke might have just burnt the Vader outfit in the end. Well, not with TFA in place).

Really like the analysis of Han's death. Sadly this moment was kinda ruined for me as I heard the spoiler earlier in the week (Not simply Han's death but: "I can't believe Kylo Ren is Han's son and he killed him!" Thanks so much ><). And spot on with Kylo being treated as an immature child. I liked how people treated him with less fear than Vader - not just in terms of A New Hope where half the staff are sneery but if you push him he'll choke you - but in Empire where everyone's petrified of him. He really wants them to treat him like they would treat Vader but no one's scare of him like that.

I saw a slightly perplexing review making the point that Snoake is more evil/worse news that the Emperor which seems a slightly odd claim given, well, the Emperor but it's a bit early for that and quite what he's up to is really unclear.

[splinteredstar]

I don't actually object to the idea of a familial connection being tied into the force, or their being blood tests you can use - honestly, as well established as the jedi order was before, it'd be weirder if they /didn't/ have a blood test for force ability. I doubt it's a purely familial thing, and I doubt the idea is canon anywhere - it tends in families, sure, but so do a lot of traits. (comparable to magical ability in HP, perhaps.)

That being said, I like the idea of her being Obi-Wan's grand daughter. Someone's Secretly Related, and I don't really care who. (Maybe Finn is Lando's kid? Maybe Rey and Finn are related? Doesn't matter!)

I ship all combinations of the trio. Po, Finn, Rey - any mixture I am 100% okay with.

Rey is flawless and must be protected.

and re: mask - yeah, I realized that after I typed this up. It's been /ages/ since i've seen the original trilogy (I didn't even know I had this fandom) and I couldn't quite remember. I was just thinking - and I still think so, a bit - that it wasn't Vader's actual skull, but a fake that his master created in order to manipulate him.

I am 100% certain that Snoake both allows and encourages Kylo's emotional instability and control issues, because they make him easier to manipulate. That boy has not been trained, he has been /used/

[sanctum_c]

Ah - good point; something like the Harry Potter wizarding community works very nicely as a comparison - hereditary force users plus some spontaneous/deep buried bloodline kind of situations (some of the muggle born were completely spontaneous weren't they?).

Oh - Finn as a Lando relative would be very neat (I was a little disappointed he wasn't included - maybe next time. Also; I kept hearing Mon Mothma was in TFA but if so I completely missed her (double check though - I'm going to see it again tomorrow!))

I actually really like the idea of the Vader skull being fake. Both from a symbolic sense and accuracy; quite what the mask is made of is unclear, but I would be surprised if it would have survived Luke's pyre to be even as recognisable as it was. But from the other direction, that Snoake is so manipulative that he's given Ren a fake (unless it later turns out he went and retrieved it) to inspire him - and that the inspiration is formed up from Vader's behaviours prior to his moment of salvation really underscores the manipulation and callous behaviour. Like you said; that fits perfectly with Snoake using him not training him.

So... I suppose it's a question of just what Ben was told about his grandfather growing up - both by Han/Leia and Luke (they must have discussed it at some point) - did they emphasise the redemptive moment over everything else (Probably - not comfortable talking about all the terrible stuff Anakin did) and Ben accepts that for years. Then... does he read about the rest, or are there persistent rumours that Anakin Skywalker was Darth Vader and he hears those and starts finding out more and more and gets really into the idea of having that kind of fearful presence that Vader had? Questions, questions. Or is it just going to be like the training in Empire Strikes Back? The Dark Side is quicker and easier - Ben starts Jedi training but he's too impatient. Also - if Snoake is force sensitive could he give Ben visions of Anakin and Vader? How, when and why did these two meet... Questions for later installments!

Roll on the next film though!

[splinteredstar]

Yeah - the prequels did some very silly things, but the bloodline bit actually makes sense. (If everyone had theoretical access to the force, then everyone would use it because it gives you a major power boost. But it's not in wide, casual use - even the neutral powers like force grab or leap - so it's probably exclusive somehow.)

I kind of want to see it again! As far as Rey-is-a-Skywalker - the old man who had the map was on Jakku, possibly in the same role as Obi Wan was on Tatooine to watch over Rey. On the other side, he's clearly /shit/ at it, as Rey was left abandoned. It's possible that Luke stayed long enough to drop off the map and father a child, and didn't stay for the birth - but that doesn't match Rey's flashbacks. (Old man given the map with the intention of giving it to Rey when she's grown? Maybe Rey ran away from the old man, but that doesn't make sense either...)

Yeah, see the main problem I have with the movie as it stands now is that kylo's motivation doesn't - like, okay. If he knows that Vader returned to the light at his death, then his idolization of Vader doesn't make sense. (Or he'd be less guilty about still having Light in him, at any rate.) It makes more sense for all of his information about Vader to have come from Snoake - But why the hell /wouldn't/ Luke tell him? You'd think that would be day one of Jedi training as established by Luke. (I mean, I can see Leia not claiming Anakin as her father, but Luke?)

The way it's working out in my head - my kingdom for a timeline! - is that Snoake grabbed him /young/. We don't know how old anyone is (and it matters a great deal, for Kylo Ren in particular. His behavior is very different coming from a 30 year old rather than a 21 year old.) but I think Kylo Ren is young, early 20's. And this shit's been going on for a decade, probably? Based on Han and Leia, they lost Ben Solo years ago.

So Ben Solo comes up on the public stage at 10, 11 years old, famous son of famous parents. They haven't told him about Anakin, thinking he's too young for that. And he's clearly strong in the force, and eager to prove himself, and has all the emotional control of a young boy. And Snoake thinks, "I'm having that," and starts to put his claws into the kid. Once the kid started his training with Luke - and thus was off world, away from his parents - Snoake snagged him. (I like the idea of Snoake giving him misleading visions of Vader, though.)

(Kylo Ren is self destructive, even for a Sith. He is a wrecking ball, he is a /weapon/, and once his usefulness is depleted he will be thrown away.)

Of course, the way I'm framing it makes Ben Solo more of a victim, and Kylo Ren someone who's been manipulated and used rather than someone who chose the darkness of his own will. Which does fit the pattern of the stories - Anakin was dragged into the dark kicking and screaming - but it does weaken the whole "Kylo Ren is a subversion of what whiny nerd boys think is cool" idea that I'm also fond of.

Again, a lot of how I read him is gonna depend on how old he is. I will be much less sympathetic to a grown ass man who throws tantrums like a child, compared to an actual young adult who has all the self-awareness and emotional control of a teenager.

i want the next movie so badly though, omg.

[sanctum_c]

The limitation on Jedi does make sense. Though... after rewatching the first film again, it actually kind of felt a bit like the Jedi were sort of dying out before Vader started on hunting them down. It's just a bit about how Obi Wan says he thought he could train Anakin as well as Yoda trained him, like, that was never the intended way or Obi Wan was massively unprepared for training anyone and that's part of what went wrong with everything - if he'd sent Anakin to Yoda it might have avoided everything.

Yeah, really not sure on the old guy - he had a name and everything but no one seems to have heard of him before - and if his role was the same as Obi Wan's... yeah that doesn't seem to fit either.

The timeline sounds very plausible! Hopefully something will specify that at some point... I am also fond of Kylo Ren being a subversion! So I would hope they do avoid weakening that...

Hehe - yeah, the wait for the next film is going to be quite arduous!

[sanctum_c]

Back from Star Wars again!

Okay: old guy on Jakku - the film essentially specifies he wasn't left with the map and it's more he found it (somehow). So while he's probably not an Obi Wan kind of role in the film, but he might have gotten the map because of someone who did have that role for Rey.

Rey is still amazing.

Curious on Snoake as well - there's this kind of insinuation that Rey could have been tempted by the dark side after just talking to him.

[splinteredstar]

huh, okay. Yeah, that makes sense - it's possible that the map was left with Rey in some capacity, and it was stolen or whoever was holding it was killed or /something./ I like to think that whoever Rey's parents are, they didn't just toss her in the desert and say "have fun" - it just went horribly wrong somehow, and no one realized it until too late.

Rey is flawless.

Yeah, Snoake - he concerns me. He's much more manipulative than some of the other sith, I think - I mean, Palpatine had his hooks into Vader, but it took him years and once he'd established control, he didn't bother as much. Snoake seems like he might be more subtle. (I ramble about sith power dynamics in some of the comments on *vague hand wave* that fic I wrote, but I think things have gone a bit more wrong than usual with this particular sith lord.)

[sanctum_c]

Yeah - Rey being abandoned really needs some clarification. If she *is* Luke's daughter then it would be a bit like hiding him for whatever reason - and at least he didn't do it on his father's homeworld for a change! That said, if she is Luke's daughter then quite why she was dropped off like that is unclear. I suppose we need to know Ren's age to know how long it's been since he turned against Luke - since Rey might have been left in response to Luke cutting and running away... Also just who was hanging onto Rey's arm since it's clearly not the old man Poe met.

But yeah, hopefully there was a specific reason for why she was left.

And yes - Rey! Her excitement, enthusiasm, abilities, figuring things out, rising to challenges...

Yeah, Snoake does seem a lot more subtle. And just the ominous tone of completing Ren's training (However; I was unable to not think about Hux tearing across Starkiller base to grab Ren like that comic on tumblr)

[sanctum_c]

Okay, from that script link you reblogged on tumblr, it more or less confirms who was watching over Rey... Can't see Han/Leia or Luke really intending to leave her with that guy for a second. More questions!