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All the movies I've seen this year were delivered on borrowed DVDs or over-the-air broadcasts, except for three symmetrically-distributed outings to the big screen: Mockingjay Part I on January 1, Kiss Me Kate in mid-summer, and Star Wars Episode VII today. Although I initially planned to make my debut visit to the PG Plaza Regal cinemas in Hyattsville for this event, at the last minute I had the idea to check movie showtimes in one of the theaters that normally doesn't appear on the list of nearby venues but is still a convenient bike ride away. It turned out that there were two Star Wars start times even earlier than my initial plan, the 10:30 a.m. screening in Hyattsville. Amazingly, despite living and working for years near PG Plaza, I never got around to seeing a movie in the Regal cinemas there, although my former housemate Dave Bourne saw something there between its construction and his departure for a postdoc in Germany. Continuing this tradition of avoiding the Hyattsville Regal cinemas, I chose to use my second trip to the AMC Loew's theatre in Beltsville (the first was for Borat featuring Sacha Baron Cohen) for Star Wars Episode VII.
First impressions of this movie:
1. Producer J.J. Abrams stayed remarkably true to the look and feel of the original trilogy, which itself appropriated leftover materials from the movie sets of the California desert and the ethos of a mid-20th century hot-rodding culture. He does well to make sure the starships appear grubby and perpetually on the verge of falling apart, despite the incredible feats of space travel they can attain. The shinier appearance of the Empire's starships is also consistent with the source material, but one might question whether the attention to surface appearances is the best use of limited resources that are no doubt stretched thin after 30 years of retreat from the expanding Republic. Perhaps the First Order leadership took their name too literally, emphasizing their contrast to the anarchy of a Republic at the expense of the ability to project military strength effectively. In theory a Republic, with long-serving elected representatives, is actually less chaotic than a true Democracy, but from the point of view of such dictators as are heirs to the Sith mantle, this distinction is as meaningless as most humans' grasp of the differences between prokaryotes and eukaryotes.
2. Speaking of biological metaphors, I'm glad that Abrams and Kasdan steered clear of the prequel trilogy's biological "explanation" of the Force, opting instead for the more mystical descriptions given in the original trilogy. We are still expected to believe that Force-wielding abilities are at least partly inherited, although the mechanism is implied only in a Mendelian sense (Punnett squares for Han and Leia, anyone?) rather than a Watson-and-Crick sense (mitochondrial DNA --> midichlorians). If parentage is the dominant factor in one's Force-wielding ability, then the story of Rey's birth needs more fleshing out than I got from that one flashback sequence when she discovers Luke's old lightsaber. Maybe it passed too quickly for me.
3a. Abrams and Kasdan also hew closely to the framework of the Hero's Journey, but with almost as much emphasis on Finn's journey (out of a mindset of self-doubt and escape) as on Rey's journey (toward a new future harnessing the Force). The inner struggles of both characters echo the similar struggles of Han and Luke in the original trilogy. But here the writers are constrained by having characterized Luke at the beginning of this episode as the last Jedi and a hermit, making it impossible for Rey to develop her Force abilities under the tutelage of a light side mentor like Obi-Wan. The only other Force-wielders in this sequel are on the dark side, and they seem cartoonishly impotent compared with the Sith Lords of earlier episodes.
3b. Despite Kylo Ren's characterization as inferior to Vader, the writers require of us an incredible suspension of disbelief to entertain the notion that a Force-novice like Rey could---without training---withstand the mind-probing techniques of Kylo Ren and discover on her own the ability to bend the wills of weak-minded stormtroopers. We've already had to swallow the idea that Rey can understand droid bleeps and Wookiee grunts, after having lived her whole life on a junkyard planet not especially teeming with a cosmopolitan mix of species. Perhaps being in touch with the Force grants her some degree of telepathy, but again this would have to emerge in her without any training. Then in the lightsaber battle at the climax of the film, we're expected to believe that a self-trained desert planet scavenger of scrap metal could take on an apprentice of the dark arts trained by Luke Skywalker himself before being corrupted by Snoke.
4. This corruption of Kylo Ren serves at least to provide Han and Leia a more personal common cause intertwined with their fight against the First Order. Although this cause costs Han his life (in an Oedipal scene benefiting from Kasdan's light touch at dialogue rather than George Lucas's ham-fisted over-writing of the blossoming relationship between Anakin and Amidala), in the Han and Leia interactions on the "resistance base" one can hear echoes of the witty one-liners sprinkled throughout Empire Strikes Back.
5. Next, a quibble about terminology. If the Empire is supposed to be defeated, having shrunk into a shadow of its former self to become the First Order, why are we expected to use the language of a "resistance base" and "General Organa"? This supposedly peaceful republic apparently still has a military ruling class, just like Burma before the recent movements toward power-sharing with Aung San Suu Kyi's party. Of course a former stormtrooper like Finn can be expected to know only the language of "resistance" and "generals", but although he's present in nearly every major scene there's no indication that the story is told from his point of view. It's not even from his lips that we first hear the suggestion that his allegiances lie with the "resistance"; the question is posed to him by Rey when BB8's observation of his master's stolen jacket brings Finn under her scrutiny. So apparently the language of "resistance" and "generals" is quite natural on the tongue of an outsider like Rey, and it goes unchallenged when they finally do meet with the ruling military class of the Republic.
6. Finally, in the closing credits we see just how globalised the movie production business has become, with scores of Indian and Chinese names acknowledged for contributing to the visual artistry and sound effects. Of course a multinational corporation like Disney would have the networks in place to seek out the best talent from around the world, rather than interviewing only local talent in Los Angeles and Hollywood as Lucasfilms might have done a mere forty years ago. In this world of highly-mobile and outsourceable labor, everyone will have to compete much harder to make it to the top of the millions of names that cross the hiring managers' desks.