Let’s pretend for a second that The Academy Awards is designed to accurately represent the best achievements in a given year in the field of cinema. We know that it doesn’t—and the #oscarssowhite problem more than proves that—but let’s just say that the Oscars should be providing a representation of movies that were both relevant to the culture and were “good”: achieving the balance between entertaining people and doing something somewhat new in the field of cinema. I think The Academy Awards should have honored this approach by nominating Star Wars: The Force Awakens for Best Picture.
(Note: Spoilers ahead for The Force Awakens.)
Regardless of their genre, film sequels are rarely nominated for awards, and it is rare for them to be considered in high regard, although there are several notable exceptions. The Lord of the Rings: Return of the King (technically a sequel) did win Best Picture, as did The Godfather Part 2. Plus, Toy Story 3 (written by Force Awakens co-scribe Michael Arndt) was nominated for Best Picture in 2013, and it’s obviously a sequel. Whether these films deserved the nomination based on their quality is arguable, but regardless, these nominations prove that there have been sequel movies that the Oscar voters have liked in the past.
Is the quality of The Force Awakens as a film the reason behind its absence in this year’s nominations? You might say that a Star Wars movie isn’t the kind of movie the Oscar voters would ever dream of nominating, because it’s a Star Wars movie. Worse, you might be among those who believe The Force Awakens sucks because it “just” borrows the structure from A New Hope and contains way too much fan service to be considered its own film. I’m not super-interested in those criticisms of The Force Awakens, mostly because they seem to ignore the central themes and events of its story. The Force Awakens is not only extremely poignant, it covers brand new ground for a Star Wars film by being a psychologically realistic family drama which just happens to be set in outer space. It differs from its predecessors because instead of relying on mythological Joseph Campbell structures, it subverts its own mythology by presenting this galaxy far, far away not as we wish it was, but as it really would be.
Imagine another film with the exact same character conflicts of The Force Awakens, but instead of a Star Wars movie, it’s just a naturalistic fictional film called something like “Awaken”: It’s a drama set in 2015 on our planet. It takes place in a trailer park. Harrison Ford plays a dad named Han who is estranged from his son, Ben, mostly because his son has become a religious terrorist; the kind of person who would blow up clinics. This estrangement also broke up Han’s marriage and now, depressed at how his family has splintered apart, he’s selling illegal merchandise in the trailer park to make ends meet. A family friend, Luke, the former pastor of their local church, also went missing after Ben started blowing up buildings and shooting people. At some point, one of Ben’s newest recruits to his terrorist cell defects and has a chance encounter with Han and a young mechanic in the trailer park named Rey. This person’s name is Finn. Finn and Rey are determined to prevent Ben from blowing up more buildings or killing more people, and through their basic good-heartedness, they show Han how he can heal his family. (And demonstrate how maybe turning back to a life of petty crime wasn’t such a great idea.) Tragically, in the end, Ben kills his father anyway, leaving Rey and Finn depressed.
This is pretty much what happens in The Force Awakens. Take out all the science fiction and fantasy and I think I’ve just described the plot of a super-depressing “serious” Oscar contender. And if you think for one second Adam Driver and Harrison Ford couldn’t do the movie I just described, you’re crazy. Adam Driver and Harrison Ford should have been nominated for Best Supporting Actor and Best Actor for their work in The Force Awakens, respectively. Driver alone does what the prequels tried to do with Anakin in only one glance while Ford brings pain and pathos to a Han Solo who was previously—let’s face it—a fairly thinly written character.
Let’s think about what John Boyega, a black actor snubbed by this year’s Oscar voters, does as Finn: he presents the personality of a confused but essentially kind male who was systematically brainwashed, and clumsily asserts his own catch-as-catch-can values in a way that is both realistic and touching. When Finn screams “REYYY!!!!” at Kylo Ren’s shuttle, that scream could have gone many different ways. It could have been a cringe-worthy moment. But it wasn’t. He sold it. Playing a “regular guy,” who is “basically good,” is hard to do. Boyega took a “concept” character and made it into a real person. I’d maybe agree he wouldn’t deserve to get nominated for Best LEADING Actor, but Best Supporting? For sure.
Which brings us to Daisy Ridley as Rey. Look, if Daisy Ridley had delivered a so-so performance as Rey, I really wouldn’t be writing this article, but come on. The nuances this actor portrays are what actors talk about when they nerd out about acting. From the little snicker Rey gives Han Solo after he tells her “Chewie kinda likes you,” to her fantastic reaction to Maz’s urging to take Luke’s lightsaber, to her perfect mind-game showdown with Kylo Ren, Ridley sells us on this character being a complete person. Rey is not a re-do of Luke Skywalker, she’s something else. Both cockier and kinder than Luke. A badass like Han, but with more of a moral center. Like Finn, I’d argue a good person and a hero are actually more difficult to portray for an actor. It requires more than just wielding a lightsaber and flying a spaceship. It requires convincing the audience to go with that person on the journey, to believe in the illusion, and to not resent the character for their good fortune.
Honoring a movie that speaks to the culture it inhabits is part of what movie awards ought to be about. The Force Awakens not only subverted its own series (and genre’s) stereotypes by casting Daisy Ridley and John Boyega, but those actors also delivered excellent performances. Further, The Force Awakens commented on the villainy of white male religious fanatics (Kylo Ren) while flipping the generational critique of all previous six Star Wars films on its head. In the classic trilogy, the problems encountered by Luke, Han and Leia are seemingly the fault of the generation before them, and sure enough, the prequels show that generation making the mistakes that Han, Luke, and Leia have to fix.
But The Force Awakens isn’t like that. Instead of having Rey and Finn blame the previous generation for their problems, they instead feel the need to preserve and revive the progress that the previous generation made. Kylo Ren and General Hux, who are young guys living on the benefits created by the previous generation, are villains because they want to eliminate those benefits. Kylo’s character alone demonstrates that the older generation here—represented by Han and Leia—tried their best and things still went wrong, which is a much darker and a more realistic portrayal of life as it is. And that is a story that Star Wars has never tried to tell before.
The zeitgeist experienced something new with The Force Awakens. Star Wars movies, and maybe movies in general, will not be the same after this film. It pushed the complexities of gender, race, and how we visualize heroes and villains. How does that not sound like last year’s Best Picture?
Ryan Britt is the author of Luke Skywalker Can’t Read and Other Geeky Truths, out now from Plume. His writing has appeared in Clarkesworld, Den of Geek!, VICE, The Daily Beast, The Barnes & Noble SciFi & Fantasy Blog, The New York Times and elsewhere. He is a longtime contributor to Tor.com.
Actually, your dire non-fantasy version of the TFA is precisely why it is probably my least favorite of all of the Star Wars movies, prequels included. I’m too old to want to go to the movies to be faced with the inherent nihilism the world has to offer. But none of that is to say that it’s a ‘bad’ movie. (Then again, isn’t it always the dark/serious movies that win? :) )
I haven’t seen the majority of Oscar winning movies so I can’t really speak to whether or not it is Oscar caliber, but I did feel on my second viewing that parts of the movie were rushed and sloppy in terms of the plotting/pacing, and also boring (that’s just a personal quirk – I actually dislike battle scenes, which is somewhat ironic given that the name of the movie is Star Wars ;) But after a while they go on too long and my eyes glaze over, or I go to the bathroom).
But overall, yes, I agree with you that in general, genre fiction gets overlooked as a prestige film quite often, despite often having important things to say, especially your point as to showing the phenomenon of reactionary young people who want to go back to the ‘good old days’ and dump the progress won by our forebears. The one exception I can think of is Return of the King. And all of the acting was fantastic.
@Lisamarie
I’m with you about battle scenes. I feel like most of the fights in The Force Awakens were mercifully short. Maybe that’s just me?
I love the LOTR movies, but some of those big battles get too long for me. Is there such a thing as TOO LONG COULDN’T WATCH? :-)
TFA isn’t at all nihilistic, though. It acknowledges that things go wrong, even badly wrong, but stands firmly on the notion that a better future is always worth striving for, and that kindness and compassion and love are just as much a useful and powerful strength as a blaster… or the ability to destroy a planet. And we see characters young and old in TFA who embrace that principle, or reclaim it, or never gave up on it. That’s not nihilsm.
If adding serious-(y) subjects to escapist movies were enough to make a great film, Marvel would win every year. That is, it’s not enough to have elements of a “psychologically-realistic family drama”; you’d have to have elements of a good, psychologically-realistic family drama to make this argument.
TFA is a good movie, for what it tries to be, and does make an attempt at overlaying family drama, but not very well.
If you took all the Han/Leia/Ben scenes related to this subplot and laid them out, you’d have 15 minutes of thinly-written, woodenly-acted, cliche that wouldn’t cut it in a Lifetime movie. The movie’s biggest flaw is not that it incorporates these darker themes, but that it does nothing to set up or earn the psychological climax.
it’s MY best picture of 2015…that’s more important than an oscar, right?
one day, the critical overlords of What Is Good Art will realize that sci-fi and fantasy are nothing more than setting. i’m not holding my breath, mind you.
the more crucial question for me, though, is when is it coming out on VoD/Blu-ray/DVD/etc. ? sure, i suppose i could look that up, but i’m feeling lazy and want people to just tell me.
Not to be glib, but TL;DR the Oscars have never rarely ever been about “popcorn” movies. The same people who scoff at a fun movie (I call them film snobs) seem to be the ones who choose what is nominated.
The Oscars are certainly a flawed and narrow view of what represents ‘good cinema’ but the argument that the Academy is inherently and massively biased against SF/F is somewhat undermined by the inclusion of Fury Road among the best picture nominees this year.
And I don’t think the argument about TFA being so derivative of ANH can be dismissed so easily when discussing the former’s award credentials. Again, I don’t want to sound like I’m championing the Oscars as any bastion of good taste or appreciators of innovative film making, but no one, least of all the Academy, watches film in a vacuum. You can argue against TFA being too derivative of ANH, but you can’t dismiss the argument simply by saying TFA is its own film. There’s a reason the original Psycho was lauded (and earned its director an Oscar nomination) and the remake (which was intentionally identical) wasn’t. True, there have probably been plenty of derivative films to win an Oscar, but I think admitting that is a different argument than dismissing the importance, or even the very idea, that TFA might be.
I’d agree with @7. Isn’t the inclusion of Fury Road (not only genre, but also action and really a visual film rather than an “actors’ film”) a strong argument that straightforward genre bias may be weakening, and that the repetitive elements of TFA (which I think work as intertextuality, but many viewers found too derivative) are the real reason it isn’t there?
Besides, I’d argue that Inside Out is a far more serious snub that counts as genre according to the Nebulas, especially in an 8-film year where it’s wouldn’t even have to replace an existing nominee.
@9 — Just put the glasses on, man!
That poster really nails it. The entire Star Wars saga has to be the greatest toy commercial ever made. Don’t give it an Oscar. Give it a Clio Award.
Plenty of bad movies do get the Oscar consideration but TFA just was not good enough to be considered for best picture. You cannot just arbitrarily ignore the fact that it was primarily a remake of A New Hope with significantly better special effects. But overall the acting was weak, the plots were predictable and too many scenes were just contrived to either get a “wow” from the audience or serve a special effects need. I really liked the movie but for example The Martian was better by nearly every measure except for the fact that it did not have Star Wars in the title. Had TFA focused on original material and telling the story it was desperately trying to tell I think it could have been nominated for best picture. Instead it went for flash instead of substance.
@3 – true, I was being a bit flip in the post which probably didn’t come out that way.
Anyway, it’s kind of what we knew had to happen if you’re going to make a sequel to series which didn’t really have a sequel hook, which is why I was leery of it from the start. I don’t particularly enjoy seeing horrible fates meted out to characters I like, even if the new characters are pretty awesome and a joy to watch and I’m fairly invested in their plot. I might have loved this in my 20s but now I’m kind of turning into one of those crotchety old cranks who doesn’t want to be depressed after a movie, because I’m depressed much of the rest of the time. I completely understand why the addition of realism is lauded and really works for some viewers, and there are a lot of works that benefit from it, but I like things more on the escapist side (at least in Star Wars).
(Interestingly, if you view the originals and these as one story, we’re basically at the midpoint, which makes this kind of like Empire Strikes Back, thematically).
But again, none of that has any bearing as to whether or not it was a good movie or deserves an Oscar or not. But honestly, I think another reason movies like SW might get overlooked is because they stand so much on the other films, which is a different accomplishment from a standalone movie that has to do all its world building/character development (and get you invested in it) in one movie.
I really liked TFA the first time I saw it in theaters, but even then, in the flush of my enjoyment, I wouldn’t have argued that it was one of the best pictures of the year. Further, the second time I saw it, in a nearly empty theatre, some of flaws enumerated by other commenters here became glaringly obvious. I don’t hold it against TFA, which had a herculean task to complete, and managed to do it with some truly good performances, but the film, while entertaining, is hardly “best of the year” in terms of the making of movies.
As for the other Best Picture nominees, we’ve got a truly excellent dystopian sci-fi/fantasy epic in Fury Road, AND, we have a nigh-utopian space film, The Martian, that is a master-class (from the director of Alien) on how to do a near-future science/space film properly. To chide the Oscars (and there’s plenty or serious stuff to chide the Academy about) for snubbing TFA just comes off small.
Finally – even granting that TFA did very well, and that many people were pleased with it, and that the newcomers were solid across the board, and I’m more than willing to grant all of that, once you start comparing it to, say, The Big Short, or Spotlight, or the underrated Bridge of Spies, arguments that it transcends those films start to shake apart like a certain ship making the jump to light speed.
Also, putting “serious” is scare-quotes, as though one was being forced to eat vegetables, kind of undercuts your argument. One can love StarWars, and genre films, while also loving serious (in tone) movies.
I enjoyed TFA, but even as a huge longtime Star Wars fan, it wasn’t on my personal list of best films this year, and I don’t think that it’s Best Picture material. I’d only vouch for the first two SW films in that regard.
The biggest problem, in my estimation, is the Starkiller weapon. It’s superfluous to the overall story–unlike the Death Star in A New Hope, which was the primary plot driver of that film–and muddies the waters too much. The film would’ve been better if that hadn’t been shoehorned in to cater to nostalgia and provide an easy tension boost. I’m not saying that all of the callbacks were problematic, just that one.
And while John Boyega gave a good performance, I wouldn’t say that he was snubbed. As with most things about this film–visual effects aside–there were simply plenty of better examples in cinema this year.
I’m not understanding the consistent trend here of lauding Fury Road — I would give it a solid 6/10 at best. Luke warm acting, terrible writing, cliche ridden, horrific world building, and generally boring.
The ONLY thing I thought Mad Max did right was its music. That was it.
Why is it so beloved and especially over Star Wars? Because it had a surprise mary sue as a protagonist? Rey actually had internal logic to her ability set and had multiple emotions.
No. Just no. It is so far away from best picture that they were right to ignore it. I liked it. It was too similar to previous runs. It was not a great movie.
@16 — Many of those criticisms of Fury Road can be applied to Star Wars as well, particularly the surprise Mary Sue and cliches out the wazoo. But they’re both solid, entertaining movies in my opinion. Okay but not great, definitely not Best Picture material. I suppose Fury Road had the edge getting nominated in that it’s R-rated, more adult, and less blatantly a corporate product. Something the stodgy old Academy notices.
Great article.
There are a lot of legitimate criticisms that one can make about this movie, and after trawling through reams of them on the internet there were times when I felt like my initial wildly enthusiastic reaction to it might have been overdone. But then I went back to see it again, and decided that while those flaws are definitely there, they don’t amount to much more than hairline fractures in a very solid film.
Leave aside the stuff that was genuinely bothersome – Starkiller Base, the muddled politics, etc – and what you’ve got is more than enough to elevate this movie to be easily on par with Mad Max: Fury Road, another great film, and one which deservedly got a nod from the oscars.
Kylo Ren is potentially the most interesting villain any blockbuster film has managed to roll out in years, and Rey is the female protagonist that I feel like I’ve been waiting my whole life to cheer for in a movie like this. (These two characters are a big part of what elevates TFA above basically the entire Marvel Cinematic Universe in my eyes.) The fact that it managed to expand and enrich a character as iconic as Han Solo is an awesome achievement. Finn was great. And BB-8 was the best.
By my reckoning there were at least half a dozen sequences that broke away from the “merely very entertaining” level of quality that defined most of the film, to reach the “genuinely sublime storytelling” that’s the hallmark of Star Wars at its best. And that’s more than enough for me to give TFA a very big thumbs-up.
I never expected it to get a nod from the oscars (though I would have been pleasantly surprised if that had happened) so I wasn’t disappointed about that. But it’s done the set-up work well enough that if Rian Johnson can deliver the goods on Episode VIII… well, we’ll just have to wait and see.
By the way, everybody who says that TFA sucked because it just ripped off A New Hope is dead wrong. It didn’t suck, and it plagiarized its plot from The Wizard of Oz, not ANH.
@19 Thanks Alex!! I feel like you get me and actually articulated better what I was trying to say. Hats off.
As you point out, the Oscars are kind of terrible anyway, so why would you want something you like to be associated with it?
I think a much stronger case could be made for Ex Machina than for TFA.
@14, that’s more or less how I feel (though I’m not actually as bothered by the flaws as you are). I happily saw TFA twice and had a great experience, but then I wanted to get my teeth into something with more intellectual heft and went over to see The Big Short on the other side of the theater. Only one of those films had the stylistic, writing and acting guts to be on the shortlist.
Also agree strongly with Bridge of Spies being underrated. Caught it in re-release. Wonder if Spielberg shot himself in the foot picking a bad release date to stay clear of TFA and limiting the audience for what would normally be a great Christmas release for adult viewers who’d had enough Star Wars. Seeing Spotlight this weekend.
All of which is to say: just because we’re geeks doesn’t mean we never enjoy non-genre media. We’re here as our geek selves, but I expect many of us also enjoy more conventional types of cinema, TV and fiction, that’s just not the point of this website.
And a postscript to everyone who disagrees and did want to see TFA up there: Hugo nominations are still open for another month. I didn’t have room on my ballot for it in a strong year for genre, but others might.
@15 – that is pretty much how I feel about Starkiller Base as well. Not that those scenes weren’t all a fun bit of cinema, but I definitely felt it was jammed into a movie that already had a lot going on, and then was resolved far too quickly and easily. Even the characters in-movie somewhat lampshade this. That is the main ‘objective’ (although I guess nothing is truly objective) criticism of the movie. It’s not enough to make me dislike the movie or anything. But I kind of wish they’d left that out as a climax for a later movie and (as depressing as I find it all, heh) spent even bit more time on the character drama. Because right now I’m not (yet) ready to say that Kylo Ren is the most interesting villain ever…he still comes off as a bit of an emo whiner. Which – in itself actually IS quite an interesting concept, but I would have liked to have known more about his motivations and history. I suppose that’s for later though ;)
Two strong characters in a movie full of plot and concept issues does not a best picture make.That’s why you see it nominated for editing, effects, and sound/music. A well-made movie does not an excellent story/film make. I think the Academy got this right.
A bit of a snub? To fans of the franchise, perhaps. The toys won’t be worth as much with less hardware, and a new generation’s watered down Ripley didn’t get carried around on the Academy’s shoulders. Oh well.
Science Fiction and Fantasy have long ago established channels for recognizing the excellence within the community, and we’ll see how TFA performs there. If it doesn’t do well, that’ll reinforce the Academy’s decision.
IMHO, Ex Machina could beat TFA in pretty much any/every category, including the individual actor performances. It’s unfortunate the one category they’re going up against each other in (visual effects) will likely be won by Mad Max or the Revenant; I would love to see them go head-to-head.
They put Gwendolyn Christie in the dumpster. I’m still having trouble forgiving the movie for that, so no Oscar best pic for TFA. She better have better opportunities in the next two movies (assuming she survived).
TFA was a horrible corporate cash-in, completely lacking the substance and magic of the previous films. There’s no way it would ever be nominated for Best Picture. Abrams is a TV director, he has no grasp of form or staging, nothing cinematic. TFA was utterly banal, in every way. No wonder Mark Hamill looked shellshocked at the end.
TFA isn’t worthy of any nomination. It was an okay movie, but is a very weak movie overall that blatantly steals plot from the original three movies, and most of all is basically a remake of the original Star Wars. It was something we’ve seen before and has been done far better.
Okay, I get it, this movie warped a lot of people back to their childhoods and reignited their love of the franchise for a lot of different reasons. But not one of those reasons makes this movie a possible front runner for all films of 2015. First, the movie was fan service. The very reason it exists at all is fan service. Lucas wanted to a trilogy with the full intention of making another to set the first one up. So anything extra, was strictly for the fans. Now, whether you think it took the old formula and did something new with it or not, that is the basis of any sequel. And if that’s what makes a sequel good then every prequel should’ve gotten an academy nod, too, because those movies went above and beyond and charted brand new territory for the franchise. They didn’t borrow from what had been done before, they went their own way. Like good sequels do. Chalk up their failings to bad acting and poor scripting, but not to story. The prequel’s stories were interesting and fairly complex. Unlike Force Awakens which was neither.
And I’m kind of insulted he pointed out Finn and tried to paint him as a realistic character, because he is the most unbelievable character in the movie. “Playing a ‘regular guy’ who is ‘basically good’ is hard to do.” Yes, that’s true, but Finn isn’t a regular guy. In fact, he should be anything but a regular guy. How can the author admit he’s been brainwashed and then say he’s a regular guy in the same paragraph and not pick up on the idiotically simple contradiction? Finn’s been (essentially) born and bred in military captivity, an intergalactic Hitler Youth program that will execute you for failure. All the people he knows are brainwashed members of a very Nazi-esque political faction just like him. This character that leaves the only life he has known all behind to forge his own path could’ve been the coolest Star Wars character. Finn, not really knowing what right or wrong is outside the Order, but deciding, actually deciding something for himself for the first time in his life, that whatever the Order was it wasn’t for him, should’ve been a monumental moment for the character. Just to take a single step for himself should’ve been huge. Every part of his life has been decided for him. Chain of command, and fear of failure are all this guy knows. Yet, after seeing death and cruelty on his first combat assignment, without hesitation he goes against his entire 20+ year lifestyle and instantly adapts to normal life on fake Tatooine. He jokes, he flirts, within minutes he’s just one of the boys. How could that even be remotely believable? Finn should have the emotional depth of a stonewall. Just normal conversation would be completely alien to him. Everything normal and human about him would have to be relearned, and that’s a process. A process that could’ve been an amazing sub-plot throughout the sequels. But no. Why put in the work and make him believable when you can just make his fake backstory all the development he needs to catapult him into acting heroic? Same reason you wouldn’t buy the cow. ‘Cus people like this will give you the milk for free.
I’m sure a world in which TFA can be nominated for best picture for last years movies is a world when next years winner would be—Deadpool !!!
Sadly that is not the world we are living in. Lets hope for the popular choice awards :)
OOps I meant people’s choice awards :)
@20 – You’re very welcome Ryan.And thank you in turn for the compliment!
Geez, so much negativity here! To judge by what you read on internet comment threads, you’d never know that J.J. Abrams and co. gave us what is unquestionably the first good Star Wars film since 1980!
Should one weigh in? Or not? There’ s a lot of love for TFA, and quite a bit of counter-love, not hate exactly… but people pointing out that it really isn’t that good a film, not really, objectively speaking, once nostalgia is stripped away. It certainly isn’t typical Oscars material, so that complaining TFA hasn’t been nominated is a little bit false sounding too.
Would we complain that Three-Body Problem wasn’t nominated for a Pulitzer, or a Nobel Prize or the Booker? Personally, no, because, Three-Body Problem may be a great novel, but those are just not the right sort of awards. The fit isn’t quite right. Complaining that those people who award Bookers don’t like the stuff I like is sort of… well… it does kind of imply a confused state of thinking where you feel that somehow your taste is actually objective–that stories are actually good or bad in an objective, testable, provable way–and it is therefore confusing that anyone else might like different stuff. Confusing, and enraging… people become angry when their beliefs are contradicted, and this is all about beliefs in the end. I believe my beloved stories are good stories and yours are naff. That sort of thing. I’m rambling now. Maybe there’s some anti-elitism mixed in there too, a sort of Low Culture Snobbery, where an award that is too high culture is derided or attacked for being outside of personal ideals of Low Culture excellence.
It kind of also implies a strangely privileged worldview: the world’s top awards should reflect what I personally think is excellent.
I dunno. I’d be creeped out if all of the world’s award-givers started suddenly agreeing with my personal views. I’d be pretty sure I was going crazy, or in the Matrix, or something.
So, yes, I suppose that we could argue back and forth about the merits of TFA and whether it is a worthy film, for whatever definition of worthy you want to use*. I think what’s maybe more interesting is that it sort of feels like the same exclusionary behaviour, and beliefs that one’s own opinions are sacrosanct, seem to be present both sides of the low and high culture divide. It is almost as if we are afraid of someone else strongly disliking our favourite stories because somehow that will undermine or undervalue our own enjoyment? Humans are social creatures, deeply so, and perhaps there is a piece of us that is very slightly offended, even slightly frightened, when the tribe does not wholly agree with us? I don’t have these thoughts sorted out in my head, but there is something interesting here, something to mull over maybe.
Hopefully haven’t offended anyone with my wandering thoughts. Apologies if I have.
C.
* If you want my opinion, TFA was Star Wars flavoured. Watching TFA was like eating something strawberry flavoured instead of eating actual strawberries. But you know what: that’s just me. You’re allowed your opinion too.
You would be wrong, as it is a carbon copy of the first film which wasn’t too good itself.
I strongly disagree. I won’t lie, I did enjoy watching TFA in the cinema and during that time it was entertaining to watch, but nothing more than that. Great films (Not that those always are the same as oscar nominess unfortunately) should still be great once you think about them later, and that TFA is not.
I’ve heard someone call it a “committee movie” and I think that’s a great description. It tries to do everything right, and in that, takes no risks at all. It adheres to the tried formula of ANH because the people want “Star Wars”. It doesn’t do anything new or daring. It doesn’t feel like the work of an artist but more like that of an algorithm that just takes whatever people like and puts it together into a movie. And the “family drama” tbh felt rather tacked on. It wasn’t nearly explored enough to do anything meaningful in the movie.
I still think the prequels are worse movies, but at least the tried to at least somewhat innovate. I prefer failed attempts at something new than rehashed old stuff – At least the former could have been great, but never the latter.
TFA strikes me as a perfectly adequate blockbuster, but no more than that. My main objection is that it is a remake of ANH, when it claims to be a remake of The Empire Strikes Back, and that movies search for Luke Skywalker.
I don’t mind remakes, but I am a bit surprised they didn’t know which film they wanted to remake.
Unfortunately a movie like Star Wars will never win an oscar, but Adam Driver should have been nominated as best supporting actor. This guy did a wonderful job !!!!!
Nothing made by JJ Abrams could be considered “best” anything, frankly.
@34, actually I would complain, at least quietly and without any realistic hope of it making a difference, about no one considering that The Three-Body Problem might have been a Pulitzer-level novel (admittedly the Booker is even more extreme in its lit-fic orientation, plus it hasn’t been open to non-British authors very long). Assuming the original Mandarin prose is as good as the English translation I think that is actually a case of a great novel being overlooked because it has aliens in it. But I do also think we’re seeing evidence of those prejudices breaking down–and, to return this conversation to the Oscars, I offer as evidence not the non-nomination of TFA, but the nomination of Fury Road (and on the de facto shortlist too, given that Miller is up for Best Director) as well as letting both Inside Out and Ex Machina into the screenplay nominations.
Which is to say, maybe in another ten years when the next amazing speculative novel is published (and I would put The Three-Body Problem in “best of the decade” level, not just best of its year), maybe it will have a shot at the Pulitzer. I agree that you can’t force taste, but tastes are changing. I mean, The New Yorker is starting to accept speculative stories!
@37, I think that your take gets at least one thing very wrong. Like it or dislike it though one may, TFA did take risks. Not huge risks, but risks all the same.
Casting Adam Driver to play a sad Darth Vader cosplayer as the main villain was one of the boldest choices the filmmakers could have made, and I thought it paid off for the movie in spades.
Well what do you know, Ex Machina DID win! I’m so glad that answers the question of which of the two would win even with a could other heavyweights potentially playing spoiler.
I’m glad the academy could see just how amazing that movie was effects-wise. So brilliantly and seamlessly integrated.
This article makes some good points about how TFA shows life how it really is, with Solo (Trio?) family breaking up, and movies of that ilk typically get recognized by the Oscars.
While true, I’m glad it wasn’t up for Best Picture. There’s a lot I did like: the new good-guys and their roly-poly robot; Han and Chewie on the Falcon again; and the story in general. It didn’t seem that derivative of the original to me, had a very different feel.
It was a good movie, but… I hated it.
(Tangent alert!) TFA left me kinda devastated, and feeling nihilistic. Luke, Han, Leia, Chewbacca, R2 and 3PO are characters I’ve cared deeply about for decades. Everything they worked and sacrificed so much for, all of it was tossed out. Han and Chewie escaped a life of crime, became a hero… but went right back. Luke surrendered to the Empire and willingly went to the Death Star — but emo nephew is too much?? Come on. If this was the only SW movie, it might be poignant. Instead, it’s just a two-hour crap taken on everyone we all love.
And NOBODY puts R2-D2 in the corner!
Now, if you’ll excuse me, im’ma go re-read that old article about how Luke is a BAMF in “Return of the Jedi.” He really is!
The Oscars seems to want movies to be the equivalent of literary fiction. That means it’s all about characterization with the plot being secondary. A lot of time is spent in The Force Awakens introducing characters and building the plot foundation for the new franchise. Character introduction is not a deep characterization. There are too many characters for there to be enough time for them to be characterized. Like a flash of Rey’s parental past doesn’t do it. Who cares. The movie needs to make you care, make you literally taste her angst. It comes across a more of a trained dog response than an emotional need that must be met.
I enjoyed the movie and if they had really made it literary, I don’t know Disney could have attracted the audiences it did. Literary novels don’t generally attract huge audiences either. I think the Academy goes for deep characters, beautiful cinematography that you remember after you have forgotten plot and musical score that you can’t get out of your head. Overall entertainment value is a pretty small consideration.
@45 “I think the Academy goes for deep characters, beautiful cinematography that you remember after you have forgotten plot and musical score that you can’t get out of your head. Overall entertainment value is a pretty small consideration.”
I happen to find deep characters, strong plots, beautiful cinematography and sweeping musical scores to provide incredible entertainment value. In fact, I doubt you can make an entertaining movie without the majority of those elements being present.
Without the above, I think the best a movie can provide is titillation, which is what I felt coming out of TFA. We’ll see if the next couple movies move away from fan servicing and start exploring deeper elements of the main characters just as the original trilogy did. Hopefully, by the end of the arc we’ll have a story we can judge on its whole.
STAR (JEST) WARS
Cartoon by Héctor Bometón
@44 – I just wanted to say I completely empathize with your view. :) I can look at it objectively and say it was a really good movie and appreciate all the different symbolisms and opportunities for drama inherent in Kylo’s story. I can appreciate the depth of discussing what happens afterwards and how things can fall apart despite our best intentions but we keep going anyway. But it just made me too (irrationally, perhaps) upset to watch characters I love have bad things happen to them like that.
But I’ll probably see the next one anyway ;) (If only in the hopes that Luke gets his BAMF on…)
@44, 49 I was going to read Aftermath and maybe other tie-in fiction but I just don’t want to know how it all goes wrong. It some ways, TFA is even worse than The New Jedi Order books. I understand that happy endings need to be disrupted to make sequels interesting but did they have to ruin everything?
Ryan: While you kinda have a point there, how can the Academy consider TFA a movie worthy of nominating, when even many scifi/fantasy and Star Wars fans can’t understand that the movie is not a remake of ANH and the characters are not rehashes of the original ones?