nerd writes about star wars

It's been about two years since the new Star Wars movie came out and with Episode 8 right around the corner I figured now would be a good time to reflect on the movie and talk about what I expect from episode 8. So I'm just gonna go out and say it; I didn't really like Star Wars: The Force Awakens. It's not because I don't like Star Wars. I love Star Wars. I had this Star Wars trivia book in elementary school that I memorized front and back and I was like 3rd in the state at Quiz Up Star Wars trivia in Middle School. Now that you're convinced I'm a virgin which validates everything I'm about to write, let's get into the biggest, most glaring flaw of the movie. The plot was, for lack of a better term, extraordinarily derivative. I get the motivation behind it. I really do. Good old J.J. Abrams wanted to prove to the die hard Star Wars fans that he could make a proper Star Wars movie without the guiding, destructive hand of George Lucas. As fans like to say, "No one has less respect for Star Wars' source material than its writer." And he did. Star Wars: The Force Awakens has been heralded as a triumph, a return to glory for Star Wars as it enters its days as a licensed Disney franchise. I guess I should clarify, before I go any further, that I don't think the movie is bad. The visuals were stunning, the actors delivered solid performances, the cinematography left nothing to be desired and J.J. tried his best not to muddle the screen with lens flares galore. But none of this, none of the faithfulness to fans or new original characters or the references to the beloved originals can make up for the plot of this movie. It was fairly well done at its best, but janky, choppy fan service at its worst. Let's take a quick detour and explain that I have nothing against so-called "fandoms." What I do have a problem with however, is when the creators of a show, movie, book series, etc. directly pander to these fandoms by including inside references and jokes in an effort to earn cheap brownie points, and it directly impacts the quality of the original content of they produce. Some examples of this are the CW show Arrow and Valve's Left 4 Dead 2, who decided to cater to a small vocal minority of a fanbase and it ultimately detracted from the base content. Star Wars isn't quite as egregious as these examples but the plot is very clearly a slightly modified version of the plot of A New Hope. Now A New Hope has a great plot, and for the most part, so does The Force Awakens. But that doesn't make up for the fact that the sequence of events is so similar to A New Hope that it made me question whether I was watching a sequel or some kind of fan film remake. Harkening back to some beloved aspects of the original is one thing, but let me summarize the plot of The Force Awakens: Droid with super secret information escapes from a place where a bunch of good guys get killed by bad guys, where he goes and meets a poor scavenger living a bleak life on a desert planet. She gets caught up in the conflict and meets some good guys then goes to a tavern to meet some other good guys then has her first experience with the Force. The main female protagonist gets captured by the main bad guy who is actually answering to a bigger bad guy then the bad guys blow up a planet with a really big planet blower upper gun. Then the bad guys say they're going to blow up the good guy's forest base planet with their gun so the good guys try to blow up the blower upper gun. Then the main character's mentor gets killed by the bad guy and then the main character gets angry and beats the bad guy in a fight (but doesn't kill him) and the good guys blow up the gun and everybody is happy. You cannot possibly convince me that didn't recall anything from A New Hope. There are of course glaring differences but it is a major problem when I can point out just about any given scene in the movie and draw a pretty distinct parallel to the original. I for one, when I go to the movies, expect to see something I've never seen before, even if it isn't particularly good. The Force Awakens delivered an enjoyable experience, but on reflection didn't bring anything new to the table. It really felt more like a Marvel movie to me more than anything, something you watch, have a good time with, then never watch or think about again. It didn't come close to how I feel about the original trilogy, which I have easily watched in excess of 100 times. I have watched The Force Awakens a total of 0 times since December 2015. So what do I expect from The Last Jedi? I expect something similar; a servicably good movie that will pay homage to the originals but not bring too much new to the table. I'm hoping I'll be wrong and it will capture my imagination the same way Empire Strikes Back, definitely one of my top 5 favorite movies ever made, did, but only time will tell.

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