(Editor’s note: This is an opinion piece by Her Campus Ball State contributor Ryan Shank. Opinions are his own.)
After seeing Star Wars: Force Awakens for the third time, I think I’m ready to officially give my opinions on the movie.
And by opinions, I’m basically just pointing out things I’ve noticed after watching it and what I’ve thought about it. So – if you haven’t guessed already – there will probably be spoilers in this. With that being said, if you haven’t seen it, I would definitely recommend it.
So here we go: things I think about when watching Star Wars: Force Awakens.
So first off, once you realize how blatantly obvious the lighting cues are during the most spoiler-filled scene, it’s impossible to forget. In case you don’t know what I mean I’ll run through them.
To set the stage, Han has approached Kylo Ren/Ben Solo on that ridiculous, open-air bridge in the center of the oscillator, which glows a deep red (so you know it’s evil). A door opens from the outside revealing the two protagonists, Finn and Rey, and with them shines a perfect blue-tinted light (so you know they are good) on Han and Kylo. Just as Kylo says he’s being torn apart, his face is now split – one side red, one side blue – obviously mirroring what he’s telling his father.
When the entire sun gets extracted for the superlaser, the whole room goes red, which can represent a number of things. The light vanishing could represent the choice Kylo makes to kill his father (since his whole face is lit by red light now), or a metaphor for the dark time in the galaxy and the literal dire place the Resistance is in now (since the sun going away means the Starkiller has been charged). Either way, the symbolism is quite obvious. Everything goes red when something bad is bound to happen. (Also, when Han falls off the bridge, he falls into a blanket of bright light, which is again some heavy-handed symbolism.)
Anyway, there are two things that I thought could be going on in this scene. The first may be that Kylo is truly conflicted when seeing his father and just doesn’t give-in to the light, and the second is that Kylo is just stalling Han, since he probably knows his dad and company is only there to blow it up. Once he sees the sun go away, however, he thinks it’s too late for Han and, more specifically his company, to do anything to stop it – so he goes ahead and kills Han. The only possible difference I could see this having on the later trilogy is that the filmmakers could redeem Kylo at the end of the trilogy or we might end up finding out that Kylo is even more bad and conniving than we originally thought.
If we assume my first theory is true, then Kylo seems like – ironically – the opposite of Anakin Skywalker. Anakin was light being seduced by the dark. Kylo is dark being turned by the light, and it flips the whole dynamic between the two characters on its head. (Yes, I know Kylo likes Darth Vader and Darth Vader was ‘seduced’ by the light, I’m just making connections not really making any points).
I could see this trilogy paralleling the prequels in this way, and before anyone gets upset because I say prequels, let me explain. In the prequels, and more specifically the latter two, Anakin sees the problems and the hypocrisy with the Jedi order and doesn’t fully agree with it. He sees that the Jedi are not perfect and that the force is much more than just light and dark. This idea is better represented in the original trilogy with Luke, who blatantly gives into his emotions and follows his own moral compass instead that of “the Jedi” (which at that point was only Yoda and ghost Obi-Wan). While Luke—assumingly—succeeds at balancing the two, Anakin obviously couldn’t, and I would argue he didn’t have much of a choice since the galaxy was so black and white at that time. So what does this have to do with Kylo? It’s obvious he is having doubts about the dark side, since he is being seduced by the light. I could see his character realizing the ambivalence to the different sides of the force, and maybe not being redeemed by the end of the trilogy will bring him to the light side (how can we forgive someone who kills Han Solo?).
Speaking of connections that don’t have any broader points, while watching Kylo in the interrogation scene with Rey, he reminds me a lot of Javier Bardem’s character in both No Country for Old Men (2007) and Skyfall (2012). It was just unsettling, which is good, and it’s what I think they were going for. There were even aspects of Anakin Skywalker when he was interrogating Zam Wessel (before he blew up at her). My overall opinion of Kylo Ren as a character is that he is prequel Anakin Skywalker done right. Just looking at the writing for the character, he is much more interesting. I’m excited to see his backstory unfold in the next two films and witness how the character will grow. Personally, I’m also very intrigued by the dynamics between Kylo Ren and Domhall Gleeson’s character, General Hux. And I have to say, I thoroughly enjoyed Adam Driver’s performance. He was both convincingly threatening and disturbed, and while he’s conflicted, it’s more unsettling than it is humorous.
Side note: Kylo gets shot by Chewbacca’s bowcaster, and for some reason, the filmmakers made a point of showing how powerful it was. So yeah, Kylo is a machine.
By the way, Chewie talks all the time. And I’m not even talking about this movie. When I went back to watch the Original Trilogy, I noticed it there, too.
Side note two: If you look closely, the piece that holds the map to Luke Skywalker from Max von Sydow’s character looks extremely similar to the S-coded piece from Superman’s spaceship in Man of Steel (2013). Just saying.
Side note three: To all of those who think Luke might be evil, which I don’t know if anyone does anymore, I just want to point out that Luke is wearing very light Jedi robes once we see him, which is a stark contrast to the black outfit he wore in Return of the Jedi. Does this mean he doesn’t use the dark side anymore like he did in Episode VI?
Another thing I noticed was that during Rey’s vision, there’s a glimpse of what appears to be and the Knights of Ren. However, only Kylo appears to have a lightsaber, and most of the others actually have other weapons visibly shown. So does this mean the Knights of Ren is a group of bounty hunters? (One does appear to be wearing Mandalorian Armor.)
I also noticed something that might point to who or what happened to Rey’s parents. Maz tells Rey that she knows they aren’t going to come back. Which means? Well, it could mean a lot of things. The one I’m most likely to believe is that Rey’s parents are dead, which I wouldn’t be too upset by. Why does she have to be related to someone already known? (Rey Kenobi, for real though).
There are also a lot parallels to the original trilogy. Avoiding the obvious ones, there’s one that I enjoyed during a conversation between Han and Leia when discussing turning Kylo to the light side. This follows the same form of Luke’s conversation with Darth Vader in Episode VI when Luke is first captured.
There is also a nice parallel within the movie during the two confrontations between Rey and Kylo. They both take place in virtually the same terrain and they mirror each other really well.
Side note four: In both instances, Rey reminds me of the wife from The Shining when she swings the bat, since Rey is backing up firing the blaster or swinging the lightsaber aimlessly with terror all over her face.
Alright, now to address the most complained about “plot hole” from people I’ve heard:
How could Rey and Finn hold their own against Kylo?
*Assuming Kylo is a master swordsman and Rey and Finn literally just picked up a lightsaber.
First off, Kylo is obviously just taunting Finn. Kylo is using his anger – which apparently doesn’t make him a good swordsman which might come up later. He fights with large, swinging hits, and Finn is mainly on the defense until he manages to get a hit on Kylo. This is where it’s obvious that Kylo isn’t playing anymore. In one, move he disarms and disables Finn (which is to be expected).
When Kylo fights Rey, it’s a slightly different story. Its obvious Kylo doesn’t want to kill Rey – he knows her potential. He even tells her that he can teach her the ways of the dark side. Rey at first is giving-in to her fear and is again the mom from The Shining. There is a moment in the duel (specifically when Kylo tells Rey he can teach her) where Rey relinquishes her fear and fights back. This is when Kylo, knowing Rey’s potential, is thrown off-balance and has fear that she’s fighting back and that’s what ultimately turns the tides of the duel.
If you guys really want to think about plot holes there are two that easily come to mind. Where does Maz go after she gives Finn the Skywalker lightsaber? More importantly, however, the whole situation with R2-D2 makes the least amount of sense. The reason R2-D2 is shut down is only addressed by some strange expositional dialogue from C-3PO that isn’t clear. There is absolutely no good reasoning as to why he was asleep in the first place, and it seems he chose to wake up again only because plot needed to keep progressing after the battle, and because it makes everyone hopeful after Han’s death.
With that being said, this is by no stretch a perfect film, but it is definitely much improved from the prequels. I am very pleased with the direction Disney has this trilogy going, and most importantly, the movie was just overall entertaining to watch.