TrendsStar Wars the Force awakens: success or heresy?

Titty Paternoster8 years ago12 min

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Star Wars: The Force Awakens is the movie that three generations of nerds have been waiting for.
Who was not there in the ’80s or who incredibly snobs sci-fi, cannot understand how fascinating this trilogy is and how many hypotheses and stories have been made by fans about the lives of the three protagonists after The return of the Jedi.

Star Wars: history of a worldwide success

Star Wars is a series of six movies divided into two trilogies: the original and the prequel. The One – and only – trilogy is made up of episodes IV, V and VI and was produced and distributed between 1977 and 1983. Episodes I, II and III were shoot from 1999 on and are part of the second trilogy, prequel of the first one. George Lucas, the mind behind the saga, after writing (and rewriting and shooting and editing) episode IV understood that he was in front of something bigger than just a movie.
The world Lucas wants to talk about is far too wide for just one movie, it barely fits in three films. And so after the worldwide success (not foreseen in 1997 since just 40 cinemas agreed on screening it), after 40 years a second trilogy was born but it was not enough for critics and fans.
However, even six movies are too tight for the Star Wars saga. Nine are the episodes needed for it to be complete so Lucas also wrote the third trilogy with the help of Michael Arndt, Academy Award winner screenwriter for Little Miss Sunshine.

Star Wars The Force Awakens

Star Wars between Lucas film and Disney

In 2012 Lucas sold his production company to Walt Disney Company for ‘just’ 4 billion dollars, giving them the screenplays for the three upcoming sequels. Moreover, it seems that the father of Star Wars took place in the selection of J.J. Abrams as the new director and also during creative meeting with Abrams to explain what he could and could not do with the universe he had created.
The meetings were so successful that J.J. Abrams entirely rewrote the screenplays and Disney decided not to use any of Lucas’s ideas for these three upcoming sequels.

The soul weights 21 grams, but a bag full of 4 billion dollars is far heavier and worth a dream.

Also, Lucas told «The Guardian» that he had chosen to direct just experimental movies so that he doesn’t have to answer to many of Star Wars fans critics like: Ewoks? Jar Jar Binks? Who shot first, Han Solo or Greedo? Jar Jar Binks? Midi-chlorian? Jar Jar Binks? And again, Jar Jar Binks?

J.J. Abrams may the Force be with him

The first season of Lost is a legend, and dramatized by J.J.Abrams, that kept writing it introducing time travelling, mystique religions, dark smokes, till reaching the apex with a wheel that moves the island who-knows-where.
This introduction makes sense when you read in the international press that in Star Wars the force awakens Lupita Nyong’o’s Maz Kanata will interpret an alien that never shows its eyes because of their great power somehow connected to the Force.
Photonic eyes? Hopefully not, since the universe of Star Wars is inhabited by many different alien species but none of them have special powers, except the few that can control the Force: Jedi or Sith, their Dark version.
Some say that there will be no Jedi nor Sith, just someone that handles and controls a bit of Force. Not a total control, because this mystic veil had been resting for 30 years, after the death of Palpatine. Scenes with normal people fighting with swords – whose construction defines the rise of a Padawan to the role of Jedi – predict an interpretation of the Force different from the one we are used to.
Another alarm bell is the continuous use of “Light Side” and “Dark Side” in various commercials of the Abram’s movie.
Star Wars has its cornerstone in the fleeting boundaries between good and evil, and Anakin Skywalker is the emblem: the man who can be grey, going from white to black, into the darkness and back to the light, all for love, for his mother, wife and kids.
So even if the Dark Side of the Force is very much connected with the devastating instinct of humans – death, destruction, tyranny – the Force itself is neutral, as humans: it can create life or its contrary. It is everything.
Translating for Star Wars lays: the Force is a mystic field that embraces the universe, it keeps it unite and generates life but also death. This is the stream of things, and Jedi need to know the Dark Side, because that is part of the force too.

The women in Star Wars

Star Wars

J.J. Abrams declared that his movie is not just for boys, but also for girls. Fathers and sons will be at the cinema, but also mothers and daughters. But it has always been like this, there is no genre for Star Wars’ audience.
Nonetheless, the director specified that his movie will give much more importance to women. No one will be wearing Princess Leia’s golden bikini. His heroines will be much more feminist and important than Leia.
Saying that the female protagonist of the trilogy is not too important and not so feminist because of a bikini could be true if Carrie Fisher had shot The empire strikes back with a bikini. But no, she is well covered in all three movies, except for half an hour when Jabba the Hutt, a mobster, captures her and forces her to be his favorite dressed like an odalisque.
No, no trace of feminism in the first trilogy right? Leia doesn’t count much, she kills Jabba the Hutt as soon as she can and after she runs away, an expert politician, the only one capable of facing Han Solo and she doesn’t flinch when she declares her love and he replies “I know”. A little Cinderella right? The one that takes control over the rebellions and she herself, as soon as Han confesses his love to her, replies, “I know”.
What mother would have brought her baby daughter to see Carrie Fisher? None according to J.J. Abrams, that keeps looking at Leia as the lady with the golden bikini.
Waiting to see this Star Wars according to Disney and Abrams, nerds from all over the world can stop fighting: Greedo shot first and may the Force be with you.

Titty Paternoster

"La vita è piena di miserie, solitudine e tristezza e per di più dura troppo poco" (Woody Allen) Scrivere, progettare e intervistare sono le mie passioni, ma riesco meglio nel bere, mangiare e guardare serie TV.

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