It's hard to get all five local members of my family to agree on a movie, as we do for Christmas. This was a bit of a compromise, with my mom expecting to be bored some of the time despite a female protagonist. (Hey, modern action scenes do go on rather long by older viewers' standards.) Afterward, she said at least she stayed awake and enjoyed some humor. So how does it stand up for a moderate SW fan?
Well, first, let me assure you that it's not the fanfic-esque retread that many viewers perceived Episode VII to be, for better or worse. Ending possibly mere minutes before the start of Episode IV (you know, the first SW film ever made), it tells the story of how the Empire began its Death Star and how the Rebel Alliance learned its key weakness. The title refers to an eventual call sign for a ship containing a handful of rebels on a secret mission. Chief among them is Jyn Erso (Felicity Jones), who has a bone to pick with Imperial Commander Krennic (Ben Mendelssohn) for killing her mother and coercing her father, Galen (Mads Mikkelsen), to design the space battle station, starting when she was little.
Several factors set this entry apart from others, and not just cosmetic things like the lack of an opening scroll or Michael Giacchino competently replacing John Williams as composer. Perhaps most notably, there are no Jedi knights, putting aside a couple late appearances by Darth Vader (still voiced by James Earle Jones), the only light saber wielder at this time. The closest thing we get to a heroic Jedi is Chirrut (Donnie Yen), a blind monk who uses the Force simply to sense things, allowing him to be something like Zatoichi with a staff. Kinda surprised it took this long to get one of those in the franchise, at least on the big screen. Chirrut is typically accompanied by Baze (Wen Jiang), who puts much less faith in the Force than in heavy guns.
The story also features an unusual amount of disunity and moral ambiguity in the Rebel Alliance. Jyn's disabled adoptive father of sorts, Saw Gerrera (Forest Whitaker), takes an approach too militant for most rebels to tolerate, bordering on villainy for the way he treats unexpected contacts like ex-Imperial pilot Bodhi (Riz Ahmed). Other rebels, including assassin Cassian (Diego Luna), hope Jyn will serve as a liaison for extracting info from Saw. From her standpoint, each side fights dirty, and she'd rather continue to look after herself -- until she discovers just how big a threat the Empire's "peacekeeping" effort really is. After that, the question remains how to convince the rebels that their only hope lies in a quest to swipe plans from Krennic's base.
You may have noticed from the last two paragraphs that this is easily the most ethnically diverse cast of any SW movie. I only wish this cast didn't come in a prequel. Oh, it's leagues beyond any previous prequel in the series, but it still has the inevitable downside that certain outcomes were predetermined. For all their awesomeness, none of these heroes continue to later episodes.
And I must admit that my favorite new character, K-2SO, is voiced by an Anglo man: Disney regular Alan Tudyk, who ad-libbed some lines. A hacked security droid, "K" comes across as a snarkier, badass counterpart to C-3PO. To call him a comic relief may not do justice to his importance. In contrast to C-3PO, whose only line (to R2D2) is there for laughs.
Other returning characters? Well, Grand Moff Tarkin gets mixed reactions. If no one had told me that he was a CG restoration of the late Peter Cushing, it would have taken me an impressively long time to figure that out. Only his dead eyes (which befit his evil character) and a few off mouth movements shake the illusion. The CG Princess Leia actually fooled me into positing cut footage from the original trilogy with slight touch-ups. You may prefer "live" actors, but I have to admire how far the animation has come. Even Episode VII didn't go this far.
I'm bothered a little more by less famous cameos and other fleeting references to past films. Not only do they call on you to compare the present quality to classics, but they're not very unobtrusive; if you don't recognize them, you'll be left wonder what they were about. One tip: The guys who threaten Jyn in the marketplace would go on to threaten Luke in the cantina.
I had warned that Episode VII in 3D would be dizzying. This time, I'm more concerned about the literal darkness in many scenes, with not much color variety to help. Last I checked, 3D glasses darkened one's vision further. If that's still true, then this darkness is a mistake that should have been left in 2010.
As you probably guessed, this darkness reflects the mood of the piece. It continues the pattern of adding a bit of grit. It's also, dare I say, relatively credible for SW, for what that's worth. We finally have a story that barely relies on magic, blurs the line between the Dark and Light Sides of the Force, allows no improbable coincidences, lets no major character be too bland or too perfect, and doesn't shy away from the tragic realities of war. I found myself caring more than I thought I would.
If all you want is dazzling spectacle, R1 will strike you as about par for the course. If you want decent writing to help it along, it's one of the best in the franchise. (I wouldn't have predicted this upshot from director Gareth Edwards, known for little else besides the latest Godzilla.) It'll take me some time to sort out precisely where to rank R1 among SW flicks, but I am glad to have seen it.
No comments:
Post a Comment