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I had posted some scathing thoughts on the movie on the home page after seeing the movie. I'm not sure they really need to be preserved, but here they are below anyway.

-a

Spoiler Wars

I had some thoughts regarding the new shiny Star Wars movie and rather than voice them on social media I thought I would put them here, where no one would read them. (Kidding. Sort of.)

In any case, this will be a relatively brief, spoiler filled opinion piece. Not a unbiased review of any kind.

So, here it is; Loved Rey, thought her story was good (even though it is the abandonment story of Luke and Leia). Liked Finn even though I thought he was a bit too chatty for a brainwashed killing machine (whoever was in charge of brain washing that day at the First Order really dropped the ball). Was somewhat indifferent to the generic hot-shot pilot, Merchandise BB-8, Kylo Ren and the fact that most of the movie was aped shots, plot and dialogue from the original trilogy.

The three pronged Lightsaber, the villain 'Snoke' (what a stupid name) and planet sized Death Star were dumb but ignorable. Tacking on the "shoot the death star" for the final act and then drawing attention to it with, "there's always a hatch" was unbelievably lazy.

Admittedly, I went into the movie with a bias against JJ Abrams. I've always considered him an inferior director that had the ability to be better, but refused to do so. Just about all his work is mediocre science fiction that has been derived from something more original and better done. But even with that prejudice, I was on track for thinking it was a fair interpretation of Star Wars. Right up until...

THEY

STABBED

HAN

SOLO

THROUGH

THE

HEART.

And then threw him off a bridge.

It was unforgivable and a dealbreaker for me liking the movie, far worse than a thousand Jar Jar Binks. Say what you want about the prequels, I doubt Lucas would kill Han as a bad plot device. At that point, I was no longer interested in Rey or Finn's story and not likely to rewatch Force Awakens or any other of Disney's scheduled sequels. Maybe that's an overreaction and my opinion certainly seems to be in the minority. But I've given plenty of money to Lucas over the years and didn't feel compelled to keep doing so since the prequels. And I'm certainly not going to Disney any more. If it's "just a movie" and I'm taking it "too seriously" then I definitely don't have to spend any money on it.

No movie has to pander to the audience and I can understand the strategy of giving the audience some adversity before building them back up for the climax. That kind of contrast is what makes a story more compelling. But for me, this dug down so far that nothing they can do will pull them out of it. The finale lightsaber duel and Rey reaching out to Luke at the end was nice, but not nearly good enough. Instead, it completely wrecked the movie.

I hope this all doesn't sound too dramatic. My whole world isn't crumbling because of this one bad space fantasy movie. I moved on from the Star Wars "Expanded Universe" after the prequels bombed and Kevin J Anderson's terrible books. But here is why I bother to bring this all up. For reasons I can't fathom, everyone seems to be alright with it. The movie did somewhere over a billion dollars in just a few weeks. I've heard of people having seen it three, four times and remarking about how much they cried each time. WHY? It's a plot written by people. It doesn't HAVE to happen that way. It can be anything. Jar Jar could fly down on a rocket scooter and pick Han up. But instead, Abrams woke up one morning and said, "You know what? Today, I'm going to be the guy to kill Han Solo."

And I can't wrap my head around any of that.

Lastly, JJ Abrams is fond of his "Mystery Box." It's this $50 magic set that he got for his birthday as a kid. But he's never opened it because he thinks that when he does, "all the mystery" will be gone. That nothing inside that box could match the possibilities or his expectations. For me this is the perfect analogy of his movies and tv work. What does the Cloverfield monster look like? It's a big stupid Bat. What is Fringe Science? It's the X Files. What is Star Trek into Darkness? A lot of Lens Flare. What is in a $50 magic box? $10 worth of plastic crap.

And it's the last time I'll be fooled into seeing one of Abrams movies.

Well, that's the end of my rant. Thanks for reading, I hope you don't disagree too much.

-a