Summary: “The sequel trilogy is the third installment of films of the Star Wars saga to be produced. It begins thirty years after the ending of Star Wars: Episode VI Return of the Jedi and focuses around a conflict between the First Order, a military state and successor to the Galactic Empire, and the Resistance, a military group formed to oppose the First Order and successor to the Alliance to Restore the Republic.” – Wookiepedia here
Wookiepedia does a better job of explaining the films’ existence than I can. Frankly, I can find no reason. If any of us here are force-sensitive, I’d like you to meditate on what this image means:
Most scholars within the Jedi temple have agreed that this represents the term, CORPORATE GREED.
So, as a preface to this presentation, I’d like the audience to understand that the first failing in any work that seeks to build a world is money. Specifically, when the work in question is not to create a world for its own sake, but to create a vessel through which dollars can be imported and shipped to Disney faster than lightspeed.
This presentation will briefly cover the first movie within the sequel trilogy, The Force Awakens, with regards to how it establishes its world through narrative execution and visual effects, with the budget obviously going to the latter.
Episode IVVII, A NewThe Force Awakens
“Look at how old you’ve become” -Kylo Ren
This movie, objectively, shouldered the biggest burden of the three. Before I tear it down for its lack of artistic merit, The Force Awakens did have the impossible task of establishing a new world and continuity within a decades-long film franchise, set in, arguably, the biggest sci-fi property in existence. Instead of giving it the opportunity to explore whatever niche it wanted, the sheer scope of the film meant that it had to satisfy old fans of the franchise as well as bring in a comparable amount of new viewers to fit within the new generation it was appealing to. Thus, its worldbuilding opportunities were rather limited.
The Plot Before Rey
Everyone is looking for Luke Skywalker because he went away 😦 Kylo Ren, Luke’s nephew and also dark-side apprentice to Snoke, invades a planet named Tatooine Jakku to find a man named Lor Santeka and kills him because he had a map to Luke. However, shortly before Kylo Ren’s invasion, Lor was a manboss and put the map in Resistance Pilot Poe Dameron’s droid, BB8, to run away with so Kylo won’t find the map. Poe gets captured but BB8 successfully runs away.
In my opinion, this is a cool opening to a cool world. The nighttime invasion with impressive visual effects opening off a new Star Wars story was super promising and posed interesting questions. Where will the droid go? Oh no, how is Poe going to get out of this?? All these are questions directly related to the plot, and suggest a possibly darker and more grim world to have Star Wars set in.
Jakku (Not Tatooine!!)
Jakku is the first planet of the new saga. It is also home to the protagonist, Rey.
Jakku is characterized by its, rather gorgeously shot, hilly desert landscape, as well as the many destroyed and obsolete spacecraft that dot its surface, due to being a former battleground in the Battle of Jakku some 28 years ago. Sounds like a potentially cool setup, right? Well, you wouldn’t know that last part just by watching the films.
If you’re familiar with the franchise, you could at least infer that there was some space dogfighting above from some battle. But, for people who aren’t, why are there spaceships there?? But, I digress. It’s a mystery for another day. Onto Rey:
(Remind you of anything??)
Rey grew up alone on this desert planet after being orphaned as a young child and is now a girlboss scavenger of starships to make her living. How did she survive on this planet as a tiny child? Did someone help her? Where/who are her parents? Again, mysteries. But, that’s fine, they’ll explain later, surely.
The previously established BB8 (in the picture before the last one), finds Rey as she’s scavenging for parts. It tells Rey that its in trouble and needs to get back to the resistance. Rey is based and likely sees profit on a rotating sphere, though is intrigued by the droid’s quest. So, she slaps it on her bike and rides back with her to sell her scraps.
Back to Poe
Poe is being tortured aboard The Finalizer, Kylo Ren’s Star Destroyer, for the location of the map. Poe tries to resist but ultimately succumbs a bit to Kylo’s force-powered interrogation, letting slip that BB8 has the plans
Kylo then demands an all-out invasion of Jakku’s only trading hub to find the droid.
Enter FN2187 (Finn)
Not all stormtroopers like killing things 😦 The invasion and slaughter of the small village that Kylo led, just to get a map, was the first time FN2187 had seen combat, and one of his stormtrooper buddies died :(((
(the blood somehow leaks through the armored gloves of his buddy but whatever it’s a sad moment)
FN wants out of the First Order. Luckily for him, he thinks these thoughts as he passes the captive Poe, who happens to be an ace pilot. FN breaks him out on the condition that he can find them a nice backwater planet for Finn to stay on while he plots his next move. Poe agrees, and the two quickly bond, with Poe explaining that BB8 has the map to Luke, while piloting a stolen starfighter and head down to the planet below, and Poe dubs FN, Finn. New name for A New Hope. Oh, darn, I said it again.
By this point, the plot’s intrigue is not burdened by the exposition it has yet to explain. Cool setup, new characters, typical star wars desert world, things are starting to ramp up.
Back to the Desert
Poe and Finn get shot down onto the planet. They crash land and Finn manages to eject, but the ship sinks into quicksand and Poe is presumed dead, leaving behind only his jacket.
Finn, saddened, trudges onwards. After wandering for a bit, he finds Rey dealing with a group of assailants, which he tries to assist her in defeating, but she girlbosses her way through them and mistakes Finn for another attacker due to BB8 recognizing Poe’s jacket on Finn.
Finn clears up this misunderstanding by lying to Rey. As girlboss as she is, she believes him when he says he’s a resistance fighter. Typical men. Anyways, as they’re heading back to Rey’s shack, BB8 informs them they’re in trouble because stormtroopers are after them. They decide to steal a garbage vehicle to escape the planet with and go to Finn’s resistance base, which BB8 knows the location of. Of course the “garbage freighter” they steal is the MILLENIUM FUCKING FALCON which Rey expertly pilots away from pursuing stormtroopers
Ok, now the worldbuilding gets a bit funky?
For new viewers to the franchise, this ship they just stole is one of the most famous ships IN THE ENTIRE GALAXY. Not only do people know it from Han Solo’s escapades during the original trilogy, but he had it when he was general in the dominant governing body in the galaxy. You’re expected to believe it was just sitting there in the scraps of a backwater planet. Even with all of those factors, it would all be fine if they just explained it.
Special Episode: Attack of the Director JJ Abrams
This man, a renowned hollywood director, is the one who directed and executed the creative vision of this movie:
“Everything I told you is true. From a certain point of view” Obi-wan Kenobi to Luke Skywalker, Return of the Jedi
With many successful and critically-acclaimed films under his belt, sci-fi or otherwise, JJ seems like a great guy for the job of steering the ship of this new entry into the most successful sci-fi franchise in existence, right? Maybe, if his films EXPLAINED ANYTHING.
Let’s take a second to look at a few of the questions raised in this movie so far. We’re maybe a fourth of the way in, plotwise.
Who is Lor Santekka, why did he have the map?
Why did Luke disappear from the galaxy?
Who was that stormtrooper that Finn had that bloody mark from? (Must have mad an impact to make him defect)
WHY IS THE MILLENIUM FALCON IN AN OLD SCRAPYARD??
How is Rey able to pilot the falcon so effortlessly away from trained First Order troops???
These are, in my opinion, important questions that the audience must be able to answer by the end of the film to have a solid foundation upon which they can understand the world. Otherwise, we should all assume that stormtroopers defect all the time after their first combat, scavenging big ole hunks of metal translates superbly to flying skills, galaxy-renowned ships just disappear as well as galaxy-renowned sith-killing Jedi heroes.
But, you know what? This is fine. As long as, at some point by the end of the film, we understand the answers to these questions, then it will have made not only an intriguing watching experience, but also a consistent world with consistent rules whose expectations we can apply to future films within the same continuity. So, I posit the question to you: How many of these do you think we get the answer to by the end?
(think)
THE ANSWER IS ZERO.
Instead, MORE QUESTIONS. Here is a lightning summary of the plot after this point.
Finn and Rey escape but get pulled in by pirates, who obviously recognize the Millenium Falcon. Those pirates are HAN SOLO AND CHEWBACCA. They’re out in the middle of nowhere, literally. The Falcon is in a sorry state of repairs and can’t get into hyperspace so they just wander in search of a planet until Han Solo finds them. This raises many questions.
There’s an encounter with people Han and Chewie owe money to before Rey, Fin, BB8, and Han +Chewie escape them with the Falcon. They go to the planet Tako Dana to seek the help of Han’s old friend Maz Kanata. Finn tells Rey he is not a resistence fighter and just wants to save his own skin. Afterwards, Rey just randomly finds Luke Skywaler’s lightsaber in a random box of Maz’s and then has a very vague but impressively-shot and visually-effected vision. Endless questions from this scene alone. But, before they can linger, The First Order closes in on them and there’s a war on Tako Dana to search for BB8. They all escape except for Rey, who is captured.
Oh yeah the very subtly fascist First Order
Gets a rallying peptalk from a previously established General Hux, and then the very subtly Death Star-inspired Starkiller Base
fires a giant planet laser that destroys 4 New Republic Planets.
Han and the gang minus Rey meet up with Leia because they heard what happened and want to help. Also Poe didn’t actually die and he meets up with Finn again. Anyways, they plan an attack on Starkiller Base that involves shooting a vulnerable spot. They start the attack with Han and Finn leading the ground team to take out the shield, which they meet up with Rey for but not before they all get stuck in a trash compactor.
(familiar yet????)
They disable the shields which lets the Resistence fighters bomb the vulnerable part and because the base is a planet it’s going to explode. Also Kylo Ren kills Han and gets shot by Chewie (this part is explained rather well, so not knocking it) and then Kylo Ren catches up to Rey and Fin and Chewie and Kylo understandably wins a lightsaber duel with Finn (they took Luke’s lightsaber incase they needed it) but then, the most agregious thing in the entire fucking film happens.
This is a worldbuilding presentation, right?
Kylo Ren, former jedi apprentice to Luke Skywalker, current sith apprentice to Snoke, the leader of the First Order and presumably very powerful man, established strong evil guy in the story, gets beaten in single combat with an untrained desert girl. It’s Rey of course. What is this world???
The crew escapes with everyone except Han because he died, and they celebrate a job well done. It was the third highest grossing film that year, so sure, they did a great job. At appealing to everyone and no one at the same time.
Summary
When it’s treading its own ground, The Force Awakens establishes interesting storylines to be treated upon later, but never within its own space. The other 80% of the time, when it’s treading the ground of A New Hope, it hits the same beats but worse. The expectations of this world are completely out of whack, it seems like anything can happen just because.
The film’s shining light is the effects, set design, and environments of the places the cast visits. In this regard, the actual “worlds” themselves are colorful, distinct, and beg to be explored. The mysterious desert of Jakku (ok, I tried. The sand looks nice though), the lush tree canopies of Tako Dana and vibrant cantina, the snowy tundra and industrial design of Starkiller Base, it all looks gorgeous to the eye.
Discussion Questions:
1: How can we avoid the pitfalls of bad worldbuilding in our own worlds?
2: To what extent can gorgeous visual and distinct environments cover-up a lacking plot?
3: Is ReyLo valid? (/j)
4: What makes the difference between establishing questions that serve the plot, and being overly vague and not following through on anything?