Star Wars: The Force Awakens was a massive hit in 2015, and a trip to the theater I thoroughly enjoyed, but upon rewatching the sequel trilogy for the first time throughout this week, it is easy to see how it set the franchise up for a huge letdown. For just a little backstory, Disney had just bought Star Wars a few years earlier, in 2012, and the House of Mouse’s plan revolved around getting the franchise back on the big screen with alternating anthology and sequel trilogy films. Altogether, this was an ambitious plan to say the least. One thing, Lucasfilm had nothing in the way of a development pipeline and secondly, let’s face it, the idea of a George Lucas sequel trilogy comes with controversy.
Nonetheless, Star Wars returned to theaters in 2015, and there I was geeking out with all my friends… and some people I didn’t even know. Looking back, it’s impossible to overstate how massive a cultural event it was. Star Wars was back, the franchise my parents wouldn’t let me watch in theaters, (I watched all three of the originals with my cousin on his VCR one incredibly long night.) and it was here to stay. The movie grossed a staggeringly impressive $2.07 billion worldwide and I loved every minute of the film. But nearly a decade later, I rewatched the films, and it’s quite possible that The Force Awakens made several crucial mistakes; ones that brought on the controversy Lucasfilm had hoped to avoid. I’ll go through a few I noticed:
1. They played the nostalgia card too heavy with The Force Awakens.
Yes, The Force Awakens is something of a nostalgia overdose, but believe it or not, there’s a reason. That reason, it was Disney’s plan all along. At the core of Disney’s plan was this feeling Lucas’ decisions had proved too divisive after the prequels, and Disney wanted to produce something as universally beloved as the originals. Disney CEO Bob Iger later reflected in his biography The Ride of a Lifetime (an interesting read):
“In each of the films in the original trilogy, it was important to Lucas to present new worlds, new stories, new characters, and new technologies. In The Force Awakens, he said, ‘There weren’t enough visual or technical leaps forward.’ He wasn’t wrong, but he also wasn’t appreciating the pressure we were under to give ardent fans a film that felt quintessentially Star Wars. We’d intentionally created a world that was visually and tonally connected to the earlier films, to not stray too far from what people loved and expected, and George was criticizing us for the very thing we were trying to do.”
So clearly the sense of nostalgia in The Force Awakens was a conscious, calculated decision and not an accident; it was a choice made to avoid the criticism received by the prequels. There in lies the problem, Disney certainly wanted to introduce a new generation of viewers to Star Wars, but wanted to bring those who, like myself, grew up with the original trilogy along with them. A decision that worked at the box office, but no doubt, disappointed Lucas, because the overdose on nostalgia was a step backwards for the franchise as a whole in his mind.
2. The “Mystery Box” Storytelling of director J.J. Abrams left too many unanswered questions for the trilogy to successfully resolve.
Lucasfilm chose J.J. Abrams to helm the first sequel trilogy film, and that had both wonderful and unexpected consequences. Abrams has a signature approach to narrative, well known as “mystery box” storytelling, which depends primarily on unanswered questions to keep viewers engaged. He gained worldwide acclaim for his show Lost, which though fantastic, left a lot more questions raised than answered, and he followed the same path with The Force Awakens.
Just for a moment, let’s think about all the questions left by The Force Awakens: Where did the First Order come from? Who was Snoke, how did he rise to power, and most importantly, how did he seduce Ben Solo to the dark side? Why does Ben worship his grandfather? Where was Luke Skywalker, and why was he living in exile? Who are Rey’s parents, and why was the Millennium Falcon on Jakku? And maybe, most importantly, why hadn’t Anakin Skywalker’s force ghost intervened to put Ben right?
You see, there are so many unanswered questions in The Force Awakens that it would be simply impossible for the trilogy to resolve all of them. So, in conclusion, the mystery box approach of Abrams set the new trilogy up for failure, because it left too many questions to satisfactorily explain. But the real answer to why the rest of the trilogy failed to resonate with audiences lies with Disney and Lucasfilm themselves.
3. Instead of waiting to see how The Force Awakens was received by audiences, they rushed production of the trilogy.
Disney got in a rush, and the result was extensive damage to the overarching narrative. Pre-production began on The Last Jedi in September 2015. By the way, this is three months prior to the release of The Force Awakens. Sure, principal photography was delayed until February 2016 for rewrites, but still, the speed of production left Abrams’ successor, Rian Johnson, in the writer-director’s chair with little time to see which of Abrams’ many mysteries had resonated with audiences. Johnson had to pick and choose which ones to run with, which ones to discard, and there was no way to know if he chose well. Disney was just in too big of a rush.
Summing up, there were so many mistakes made during the production of the follow-ups – overplaying of the nostalgia card, the number of mystery boxes, and most importantly, the rushing of the sequels that did not allow time for quality writing. All of this leads to The Force Awakens being a poor foundation for its successors, but as a stand alone, it is a great movie.
That’s right The Force Awakens is a fantastic movie
I still remember that night at the theater nearly ten years ago with warm fondness and I dare say, if you’re considering watching The Force Awakens for the first time, please do so, it’s an unforgettable and thrilling experience. With the familiar elements of the original trilogy combined with the engaging new characters and the pulse-racing action sequences, you’ll soon find yourself being carried off to a ‘galaxy far away.
Star Wars: The Force Awakens has an A Cute Film Addictive Rating of 8.5/10
As of this writing, Star Wars: The Force Awakens is available to stream on Disney+ and Starz.
Leave a Reply