The Force Awakens: Thoughts and Theories

This post contains spoilers.

I’ve seen The Force Awakens twice now, and these are just the connections I’ve made and my theories on this new installment in the Star Wars saga. Also, this post has no particular order (I wish it were chronological. Maybe I’ll go back and fix this).

The Force Awakens implemented what made the original Star Wars so iconic, namely, the compelling characters and the connection it creates between humans sitting in a movie theater and a story that takes place in an alien universe. There are definite déjà vu moments scattered throughout the film, not just in the plot, but also in the cinematography (fade transitions!). I would’ve mistaken Jakku for Tatooine had it not been explicitly stated that the planet was named Jakku and only had one sun. One reviewer described Rey saying, “She’s kind, like Luke, without being naive, and she’s savvy and ambitious, like Anakin, without being simpering and self-absorbed.” Her development throughout even just this first film is inspirational, and the conflict between desiring to return to Jakku and the life she led with a false hope of seeing her family again and answering the call to follow in Anakin and Luke’s footsteps as a Jedi is much more poignant than young Anakin’s moment of maternal attachment before he leaves Shmi to start his Jedi training in The Phantom Menace. Finn is immediately likable (how John Boyega can convey so much emotion through that thick stormtrooper helmet is beyond me). Even BB8, a droid, elicits laughter and tears, and this immersive character development contributes greatly to the film’s success as a whole.

This was the funniest of all the Star Wars films to date. In the original trilogy, the interactions C-3PO and R2-D2 were the main form of comedic relief (actually basically just C-3PO). In the prequels, Jar Jar Binks (I guess) was supposed to elicit laughs from the audience, but for most just provoked sentiments of extreme annoyance. From the outset, with Poe Dameron’s “It’s very hard to understand you with all that apparatus,” Abrams establishes a pattern a humorous banter that does not detract from the often dark themes of the work as a whole. Even with the conspicuous comedic aspect, The Force Awakens captured the tone of the original trilogy much more accurately than the prequels did.

Rey, Finn, and Poe are parallels of Luke, Leia, and Han. Rey and Luke are both unnaturally strong with the Force. Finn and Leia are both adept with blasters and were both connected to organized government (Finn as an ex-stormtrooper and Leia as a former Senator) before joining the Rebellion/Resistance. Poe and Han are both pilots (handsome pilots).

If the map to Luke that BB8 is holding is really as valuable as it is made out to be, and they are trying to keep the droid away from the First Order and back to the Resistance, why does Finn keep announcing that BB8 has the map to Skywalker and why doesn’t anyone suggest maybe leaving the droid hidden somewhere in the falcon instead of parading it through Cantina 2.0? Seriously, did no one else get super nervous every time Finn announced that BB8 was carrying the map that leads to Luke Skywalker?

The Starkiller Base (AKA. Bigger Death Star) was pretty lazy on the writers’ part. Almost every review I’ve read has mentioned how much The Force Awakens feels like a remake of A New Hope at times. I won’t discuss that here; I’m sure you can find some better written post that analyzes the extent of the similarity between the two movies. The resemblance of the Starkiller Base, a gargantuan weaponized planet converts the energy of nearby suns into planet-obliterating death rays, to the death star is even mentioned by one of the Resistance fighters when the attack plans are first being revealed. Oh, and it has a singular weak point that is subsequently attacked by a squadron of rebel resistance pilots. It’s also much easier to destroy (no blueprints needed–just the knowledge of an ex-stormtrooper who used to work as a janitor on the base). My biggest problem isn’t the blatant imitation, but the fact that the Starkiller Base could have been a much more significant plot device than it ended up being. It is destroyed almost as soon as it is introduced, and really the only meaningful part of this sequence Han Solo’s death in the heart of the weapon (a scene which could have easily been moved to another location). Whatever the First Order comes up with next will either have to be even bigger than the Starkiller Base or an offensive threat of a non-weapon nature.

Han Solo’s death scene was brilliantly executed. First, I definitely thought that when Han and Kylo were holding the lightsaber together on the bridge that Kylo Ren was going to turn on the lightsaber and simultaneously kill his father and commit suicide using the hilt of his saber. I could probably write an entire blog post analyzing this scene, but I’ll spare you that misery. It captured perfectly Kylo Ren’s internal agony as he is “torn in half” by the light and dark sides of the Force, reinforced by the powerful imagery of half his face illuminated by the blue lights on the bridge and the other half by the red glow of his saber. The eagerness in Han’s eyes as his son asked him to help. The love that showed through the hurt even as he was dying. The conflicted pain in Kylo Ren’s eyes as  his father reached out to touch his face one last time before plummeting from the bridge (throwback to Darth Maul’s death, anyone?). Even though Harrison Ford is not particularly fond of the character of Han, his performance was stellar.

Adam Driver’s nuanced portrayal of Kylo Ren creates a vulnerable villain, which is nowhere near being a bad thing. Someone on the Internet complained that Kylo Ren was intimidating until he took off his mask, at which point he just became an angsty and volatile teenager who really wasn’t sure of himself or his calling, which is exactly the point. I was shocked when I saw his face, as I, like the rest of the audience, was probably expecting a trained Sith Lord, but what we got was a kid, who above all else showed pain and fear in his eyes. As the viewer, you are confused and conflicted because it’s always easier to hate villains than to sympathize with them, but that’s exactly what Abrams intended. Kylo Ren is fueled by hatred, but not only toward his father and the Jedi Order, but also somewhat toward himself. And it all makes you wonder, what happened to Ben Solo?

Rey is Luke’s daughter. Here comes the theory aspect of this post. (Wow! All the Force-sensitive people are related!) But seriously, I wasn’t 100% certain of this at first, my main reservation being the unspoken rule that Jedi can’t marry (and would Luke really have a child out of wedlock? I mean, look at that face).

In discussing this with my freshman English teacher, I was reminded that 1) Rey shares more than just Force-sensitivity with Luke and Anakin. Like her (assumed) father and grandfather, she’s also an intuitive tinkerer and pilot. And 2) such a rule forbidding emotional attachment was never mentioned in the original trilogy, only in the prequels, which highlight the hypocrisy of the Jedi Order. Also, why would Luke’s lightsaber, of all lightsabers, specifically call out to Rey?

Rey’s memories of her life before Jakku are revealed in the sequence following her touching the lightsaber. I have heard two main trains of thought concerning the flashback-esque sequence that follows Rey picking up Luke’s lightsaber. Some say that it’s some revelation of the reality of the Force, a confirmation for Rey, who has been harboring doubt. This is unlikely, given that she immediately recognized the name “Luke Skywalker” when Finn mentioned that BB8 had the map that led to the Jedi Master. The second, which to me seems more plausible, is that the flashback sequence was exactly that: a flashback of Rey’s memories. During the first time I watched the film, I was unable to pick up too much of what was going on in that scene, only that Kylo Ren was present and threatening. Even in the second viewing, the cinematography effectively keeps the true nature of this experience vague, but when taken to be the memories of Rey revisited, the scene has much greater implications, namely…

Rey and Kylo Ren did not meet for the first time in The Force Awakens. They both trained under Luke, albeit perhaps at slightly different times, given the age difference between them. When Ben Solo became Kylo Ren, he killed everyone except Luke and Rey (Anakin in Revenge of the Sith?), wiped Rey’s memories, and put her on Jakku to wait for the family that would never come back for here, because they never existed. However, though Han and Leia bond with Rey immediately, their initial reaction when meeting her is not strong enough to suggest familial ties, unless they weren’t ever close in the first place. After all, Ben Solo was “sent away” for his Jedi training, so there is the likelihood that the Solos never met Rey. If Kylo Ren and Rey had met before, this would explain the Sith apprentice’s eagerness to capture Rey and take her under his wing for training.

Rey has been trained as a Jedi before. It’s an obvious conclusion of the previous theory is taken as true. She picks up controlling the force more quickly that even the Chosen One or Luke did. She’s fantastic with a lightsaber even without training with this thing.

No one told her that Jedi could perform mind tricks, and while it takes her a few tries to effectively make Daniel Craig the Stormtrooper undo her bonds and leave the room with the door open, after she succeeds, she has no problem making him drop his gun as well.  Apparently being a Jedi is like riding a bike.

With luck, I’ll be off to round three of Star Wars this week, and I’ll keep adding to this post as information is revealed to me by the force I entertain my overactive imagination.