I posted this elsewhere, but I thought I'd share. I'll try to spoiler as much as I can:
I’m not the biggest fan of The Force Awakens. It did what it had to do, which was “remind us why Star Wars can be fun,” but there’s a number of elements that didn’t sit well with me. However, I wanted to take a look at one of the most disappointing aspects of The Force Awakens and compare it with Rogue One’s greatest strength.
The most important element of Rogue One is how it deals with the construction and destructive power of the Death Star, and the way it utilizes virtually every aspect of its narrative in order to emphasize these points. The Force Awakens uses Starkiller Base, also known as “The Death Star 2.0, 2.0” as a narrative device to connect the various threads of its characters and make sure they are all in the same place at the same time, but the way it is introduced and dealt with completely underscore the dramatic heft of such a devastating superweapon. In Rouge One, a film that takes place 34 years before the destruction of Starkiller Base, the idea of a mobile planet-killer is treated with incredible weight through various means- characters talk about the sort of fear it would impose upon the crumbling Republic, scientists weigh the morality regarding the usage of the device, and then there is the very literal, visual representation of its destructive power, highlighting the way the Death Star is able to perform precision strikes in addition to its iconic destruction of Alderaan from A New Hope.
The entirety of Rogue One is spent attempting to subvert the usage of the Death Star upon the galaxy, and it is a noble cause that doesn’t work out for everyone. This requires the Rebel Alliance’s concentrated efforts to infiltrate and extract the plans for the weapon, a plan that was touched upon in A New Hope (although, where were all the Bothans in that final sequence, anyway...? I heard a bunch of them died), which means the construction and subsequent destruction of this weapon now shapes half of the Star Wars canon- the weapon makes its appearance in Episodes II, III, and IV, and now Rogue One. So you’d think that superweapons like these would be treated with some level of severity and importance, right...?
Well, The Force Awakens would like to have a word with you.
The Starkiller Base firing sequence is so lacking in weight, it almost feels out of place in the story. Its activation occurs simultaneously with Kylo Ren’s acquisition of Rey, which packs a markedly heavier punch because of how engaging the character dialogue between her, Finn, and Solo. In fact, if you were to edit out the firing sequence, the movie would not lose much- sure, you’d miss out on Domhnall Gleeson screeching for a bit and you might not get to see Oscar Isaac do cool things in an X-Wing, but what does Starkiller Base add to the narrative of The Force Awakens? The only benefit it brings to the finale of the movie is that it gives Kylo Ren and Rey an excuse to not-make-out after she gashes his face with a lightsaber. Come on, you were hoping for it. No? It’s just me? Well, okay.
But whereas Rogue One uses its two firing sequences to highlight the cruelty and overwhelming odds the Rebel Alliance must face, and even A New Hope uses Alec Guinness’ powerful and brief commentary to deliver the crushing realization of destructive power, The Force Awakens sort of throws away its super-dee-duper-weapon, despite the firing sequence being less showy than Rogue One or even A New Hope’s displays of destruction. The Resistance is able to create a strategy for destroying this seemingly-unknown-until-yesterday-threat ON THE SPOT, and sure, while Thermal Oscillators might be more familiar and exploitable in-universe than the Death Star’s complex construction, we have no reason to believe this is the case. Oh, and how convenient and non-Bothan-sacrificial is it that a custodial Stormtrooper happens to know about all of these interesting details.
Sure. Say it’s “The Force awakening” to make everything work out in Rey and Finn’s favor, but it reeks of laziness and a nostalgia-grab on Abram’s behalf. Where Rogue One respects the prospect and implications of a planet-destroyer, The Force Awakens expands the literal size and destructive properties of the device, but underplays its effect on the galaxy. Will we see the implications of this system-wide destruction in later films? I would argue that, to be an effective narrative device, Starkiller’s abilities should have been emphasized from the very start. While The Force Awakens re-established the status quo of the universe, it did little to bring any semblance of reality to the gravity of its conflict. Yeah, okay, the Resistance base was sure in trouble, but again, A New Hope had similar stakes and even established logical methods of revealing the Rebel Alliance’s base of operations to the Empire, something The Force Awakens lacked.
To make a long, long rant short, was I entirely fond of Rogue One, and did I even appreciate its glorified and literal representations of the Death Star firing sequences? Not really. But the film also did an exceptional job at- excuse me, Alex Matthew- world building from the very start: having characters discuss the destructive capabilities early on in the film and centralizing its narrative on that aspect, while adding references to The Force and the Jedi throughout. The Force Awakens had the opportunity to tell a reverse narrative, one of Jedi re-establishing themselves in the galaxy and, you know, The Force awakening, but chose to toss in a bigger, badder Death Star rather lazily in the middle of its second act. While its destructive capabilities were certainly more impressive, it never delivered on its danger in a satisfying manner, and I would argue that a larger Death Star would have more impact if it had been a threat over the course of more than one movie- after all, we know the main Star Wars films do not have to tell a concise narrative because they come in trilogies. Still, Rogue One did a better job of displaying the might of a superweapon without even having to destroy a single planet- and Starkiller Base did not manage to do so despite destroying five.
Topic: Rate the last movie you've seen (Read 1553735 times)
