Star Wars: The Force Awakens—you know, that movie we’ve been anticipating/debating/worrying about for three years now—was finally unleashed into the world a little over a month ago, and we still haven’t gotten tired of talking about it. It helps that the film is lighting up the box office charts, already taking the #1 domestic crown off the top ofAvatar’s head and now working its way up the global all-time chart. The film was, thankfully, not terrible, and maybe more importantly it offered up plenty of reason to continue talking about the story and characters long after we’d left the theater. But for some,The Force Awakensfell short of expectations in one very specific way: it’stoofamiliar to the original trilogy.
Indeed, when we finally got to experienceThe Force Awakens, we discovered that Abrams and co-writerLawrence Kasdanused the story template of the originalStar Wars, effectively building their film on top of the skeletal foundation ofA New Hope. There’s a lonely reluctant hero awaiting “something bigger” who gets roped into a big adventure to vanquish evil; there’s a cavalier, dashing pilot; there’s a finale that involves said pilot driving into one very specific weakness in the enemy’s big weapon, which is essentially another Death Star.
As it turns out, these aren’t just coincidences, this was all part of Abrams and Kasdan’s plan. Speaking withTHR, Abrams addressed complaints thatThe Force Awakensis simply a rehash of aStar Warsstory fans know already:
“It was obviously a wildly intentional thing that we go backwards, in some ways, to go forwards in the important ways, given that this is a genre — thatStar Warsis a kind of specific gorgeous concoction ofGeorge[Lucas]’s — that combines all sorts of things. Ultimately the structure ofStar Warsitself is as classic and tried and true as you may get. It was itself derivative of all of these things that George loved so much, from the most obvious, Flash Gordon andJoseph Campbell, to the [Akira]Kurosawareferences, to Westerns — I mean, all of these elements were part of what madeStar Wars.”
The filmmaker continued by citing influences older thanStar Warsthat made up what he says are the “least important” aspects of the movie:
“I can understand that someone might say, ‘Oh, it’s a complete rip-off!’ We inheritedStar Wars. The story of history repeating itself was, I believe, an obvious and intentional thing, and the structure of meeting a character who comes from a nowhere desert and discovers that she has a power within her, where the bad guys have a weapon that is destructive but that ends up being destroyed — those simple tenets are by far the least important aspects of this movie, and they provide bones that were well-proven long before they were used inStar Wars.”
Abrams elaborated even further, specifically citing the new characters as his main focus:
“What was important for me was introducing brand new characters using relationships that were embracing the history that we know to tell a story that is new — to go backwards to go forwards. So I understand that this movie, I would argue much more than the ones that follow, needed to take a couple of steps backwards into very familiar terrain, and using a structure of nobodies becoming somebodies defeating the baddies — which is, again, I would argue, not a brand new concept, admittedly — but use that to do, I think, a far more important thing, which is introduce this young woman, who’s a character we’ve not seen before and who has a story we have not seen before, meeting the first Storm Trooper we’ve ever seen who we get to know as a human being; to see the two of them have an adventure in a way that no one has had yet, with Han Solo; to see those characters go to find someone who is a brand new character who, yes, may be diminutive, but is as far from Yoda as I think a description of a character can get, who gets to enlighten almost the way a wonderful older teacher or grandparent or great-aunt might, you know, something that is confirming a kind of belief system that is rejected by the main character; and to tell a story of being a parent and being a child and the struggles that that entails — clearlyStar Warshas always been a familial story, but never in the way that we’ve told here.”
While I’d have to argue with a couple of things there (C’mon, Maz Kanata is New Yoda), Abrams makes some solid points, specifically that he took the familial aspect of theStar Warssaga and twisted it into something different. We’ve seen a young man reject his mentor, and we’ve seen a father attempt to corrupt his son, but we’ve never seen a son so clearly and violently reject not only his father, but the philosophy of “good.”
I also think it’s interesting that Abrams specifically notes thatThe Force Awakensneeded to take a couple of steps backwards “much more than the ones that follow,” implying thatRian Johnson’sEpisode VIIIandColin Trevorrow’sEpisode IXwill be more focused on moving the new story forward rather than echoingGeorge Lucas’ original films.
Speaking of which, Abrams reiterated that he and Kasdan gave plenty of story ideas to Johnson forEpisode VIII, and that they addressed all but a few ending requests made by Johnson to help the story of his sequel:
“Larry and I had a bunch of thoughts of where certain things could go and we shared those things with Rian Johnson, who’s directingVIII. He had things that he came up with where he asked if it was possible if we could make some adjustments with what we were doing at the end, most of which we did — there were just a couple that didn’t feel right, so he made adjustments — but it was just collaboration. We’re all fans and friends and supporters of each other, and there’s been no one cheerleading and supporting louder and more consistently than Rian on this, and I feel that I am grateful that I now get to take that position for him.”
While I certainly had some issues withThe Force Awakens, I still think it’s a wildly entertaining film and admire the passion with which Abrams approached the project. This was an impossible task for any filmmaker, and Abrams made the filmhemost wanted to see, as aStar Warsfan. That said, I am insanely excited to see Johnson take this franchise to new heights withEpisode VIII.
For more onStar Wars: The Force Awakens, peruse our recent links below:
