[tps_header][/tps_header]1. A goal.
The Force Awakens opens with Max von Sydow’s Lor San Tekka, a wise Jedi-enthusiast, handing a piece of a map to Poe Dameron. The map is told to lead to the now-lost Luke Skywalker. While handing it over, San Tekka declares, “This will begin to make things right”.
This is the first line of the film, and it sets Force Awakens up as a “white knight” riding in to restore the franchise after the generally-disliked prequel trilogy. More obviously, it gives us the goal for the entire film: Find Luke. The Resistance (led by Leia) needs Luke to turn the tides of the war against the First Order. The dark side wants to kill him, wiping out the Jedi once and for all.
Looking at A New Hope, Luke and co. have many goals: get R2-D2 to Alderaan, then when the planet is disintegrated, rescue Princess Leia aboard the Death Star and finally fly as an X-Wing pilot with the Rebellion to blow the thing up. It works for the film. In contrast, Force Awakens seems incredibly focused in its singular goal.
Finding Luke is a journey of expectations for the audience, too. We all heard that Mark Hamill was going to be in The Force Awakens, and as the film moves along, I for one was looking all over the screen for our favorite Jedi! The more I learned about what happened with Ben Solo and Luke’s new Jedi order through Han and Leia, the darker my image of Luke became. When he finally turns around at the end, as the literal “wise old man atop the mountain”, he is not a great warrior – he’s a broken man.
I put this as #1 on the list because it really drives the film forward. It bookends the story with Luke’s character ark and also adds another layer of “mythic” to this already very mythological, fairy tale of a franchise! Star Wars has always been about heroes’ journeys, colorful villains and magical forces… it only make sense that now we have a film about basically piecing together a map to find an all-powerful wizard.
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That’s the list! Hope you all enjoyed it, that you have a great Christmas and (of course) that you see Star Wars – Episode VII: The Force Awakens a few more times!
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