Posted in: Movies | Tagged: entertainment, film, spoilers, star wars, stormtrooper, the force awakens

10 Spoilery Thoughts About Star Wars: The Force Awakens. Spoilers, Obviously.

Published Sun, 20 Dec 2015 08:31:58 -0600

The film opened in America. Bleeding Cool has done its best to be non-spoilery about it. But there's stuff we want to talk about. So it's time to bring in the spoiler warning.

After this there will be spoilers for Star Wars: The Force Awakens. The more spoilery it is, the further down it will go, but still. Please don't repeat anything below elsewhere without similar care.

1. There's Something About Rey

Is there anything Rey can't do? From desert Tomb Raider type eking out a living mouth to mouth, to a Force adept. Luke Skywalker didn't take anywhere near this long. One touch from Kylo Ren which she is able to ride back and subvert, to being able to mind control Stormtroopers at an Obi-Wan Kenobi level. Condemned by some as a Mary Sue, this may speak more about her familial background – while everyone is concentrated on that of Kylo Ren, just who were her parents to have abandoned her – but left her with such strong latent Force? And note, she never needs rescuing from anything, she can fly the Millennium Falcon expertly first time, out and can rejig its mechanics instantly.

2. Finn Could Have Been Fin…

Look at it from the Resistance's side. Their top pilot is busted out of First Order ship by a stormtrooper who has said he's gone rogue. Said trooper then gets picked up by a friendly bounty hunter who drops him off and… no one thinks he could possibly be a plant. No one questions the information he gives them. Everyone suddenly trusts him implicitly and lets him go on the mission. If the worst was that he didn't actually know how to turn the shields off, the Resistance are very, very lucky.

3. How Big Is Snoke Anyway?

The Supreme Leader is seen as a giant, played by Andrew Serkis and looking rather Gollum-like. But thirty feet tall. However, he is only seen as a hologram – could he be Yoda sized in reality? Could he even be related to Yoda, since everyone is throwing in the familial stuff? Is this just a… snokescreen? And one more for the facial disfigurement/big bad guy trope…

4. Forgive, Don't Forget

If Star Wars Episode 4-6 was the story of Darth Vader and his eventual redemption, is the next set of three the story of Kylo Rey's redemption. We have seen him commit the most heinous act, but also that he is tempted by the light side. Will this act have plunged him into the dark forever or is that a cathartic moment in his life that will see him return? And will Leia be able to forgive him? Will Luke? And will this lead to some kind of three way between Finn, Rey and Kylo Rey like Luke, Leia and Han before they realised that this may be a problem?

5. When Rey Told James Bond To Drop His Gun

A scene in which the bound Rey uses the Force for the first time to get a Stormtrooper to free her, that Stormtrooper is played by Daniel Craig, who succumbs to her insistence that he unbind her, leave and keep the door open. And then, as he is leaving, tells him to drop his gun, which he does, saying "I will drop my gun". I wonder if that would work on the screen Bond?

6. Forced Behaviour

Rey uses the Force. Kylo uses the Force. Shouldn't Leia be able to use the Force more than just being aware of when Han Solo dies? Or maybe it's just a really bad idea to train anyone to use the force. Out of those we have seen, Anakin, Luke and Kylo Ren, surely the odds state that no one should ever be trained in the ways of the Force because the obvious will happen? Also, just don't be old in Star Wars movies, it never goes well for you.

7. "Okay, George, I'll Do The One"

In that initial conversation between George Lucas and Harrison Ford about returning to the movies, did he say "okay George, since you're asking, I'll do it – but I'll only do one." Aside from holo-flashbacks, that's what Alec Guinness did, insisting on his death in the first outing. And it justifies Han Solo getting far more screen time in this film that Leia and Luke combined, as he'll get a lot less in the next two films.

8. The Parent Trap

Ren's parents abandoned her. Finn never knew his parents. Han and Leia must have done a lousy job with their son, the product of a broken home. But it's all parr for the course, Luke and Leia's true father killed their mother and would have killed them, and Darth Vader didn't even have a father, he's a virgin birth born of The Force. The only place we see an actual biological working family was Chewbacca in the Star Wars Holiday Special and apparently that doesn't count.