scavengertrash

Meta on Star Wars: The Force

Awakens
This is part one of many but it got so long that I realized I had to do it in parts. So this one gets the subtitle:

NOSTALGIA & SUBVERSION

Now, most of the critics of TFA have ragged on it by saying that its merely derivative of the OTa retread of
ground already covered, not adding anything new. To someone looking purely at world-building and
simplifying plot points down to their least common denominator, I can see how this would seem true;
however, it aggressively tears down the preconceived notions we have about what Star Wars should look like
at each corner of this supposedly retreaded ground.

Similarities: Kid grows up on desert planet, meets Droid. In helping Droid complete its mission, Kid gets
guidance and mentorship from Old Man and encounters an Insurgent Group that is opposing the Nazi
Allegory. Nazi Allegory builds a Doomsday Weapon. Kid and Insurgent Group destroy Doomsday Weapon,
but Old Man is killed in the scuffle wherein Kid learns that Nazi Allegorys Leadership is related to the core
cast.

Pigeonholing Star Wars into the above is not just reductive, its insulting. These are not the reasons we
love Star Wars thirty years later, and its not the reason that The Force Awakens recaptures that love.

Kid Grows up on a Desert Planet:

Luke wants anything to get away from his life on Tatooine, longing for greater things than moisture farming.
Rey, however, suffers her greatest inner conflict of the film in overcoming her delusional compulsion to stay
right where she is. This is not the aspiring hero who dreams of a better life; this is a real person who feels
completely tethered by the life that others have set out for her, so much so that she buys into it. This makes the
movie about overcoming others expectations of you to understand that the power within you is so much more
than you can imagine.
Luke does not buy into the shackles of his life on Tatooine: he always wants more. Part of the reason people
code Luke as whiny in the OT is that he displays this kind of entitlementhe asked for this, then he
complains that its too much. Rey attempts to run for five minutes after seeing traumatic flashbacks to her
childhood that include 1.) being abandoned, 2.) almost dyingthen promptly leaps back into the fight without
complaint or second thought. Its the difference between being convinced that you shouldnt even ask for
better than you have, and being in a position to want a specific kind of better.

Kid Encounters an Insurgent Group:

While Luke comes in direct contact with Leia and the Rebel Alliance that she leads, giving him the full scope
and hook-up in the insurgency against this literally faceless monolith of an organization, Rey gets Finn. In case
you missed it, Finn is not actually a Resistance fighter. Where Luke gets Leia, Rey gets Han Soloa coward,
ready to run away as soon as he gets his opening; in fact, until after Starkiller Base is destroyed, Rey does not
interact directly with the Resistance. In case the significance of this hasnt sunk in yet, Rey has no
support. Not only that, but the Resistance is catastrophically smaller than the Rebel Alliance now that the
Republic has been insidiously conquered by the First Order.

Everything that Rey has, she must takeshe doesnt have an X-wing given to her to help her take down
Starkiller base, or the plans, or even assurance that there is an organization of the Rebel Alliances size to hitch
her wagon to. Sure, she has Han, Finn, Chewie. Sure, the Resistance does their part to help her, but shes not
their priority, and she never engages that. What seems minor actually has far-reaching impacts that show in
Reys reaction to Finns arrival on Starkiller Base: it was his idea to get her, and shes never imagined anyone
going to those lengths for her, never imagined that she had anyone else on her team. Everything Luke has to
do, Rey has to do on her own without real political back-up. This disparity is unerringly political in nature
(regardless of intent), demonstrating the difference in experience and struggle between a white man and a
white woman in the same position; it comes as no surprise that the people who seem most blind to it are white
men.

That is Opposing the Nazi Allegory:

Lets double back to that faceless monolith of an organization that was the Empire because thats another fun
and important distinction. The bad guys of the OT are machines, clones, and villains so evil that there is no
sympathy for them because we dont even register them as human until the last 20 minutes of the last film.

By contrast, Finn (bless his cinnamon roll heart) comes out of the gate as the humanization of the First Order.
The First Order is terrified of Finn because he represents the fact that any stormtrooper could defect at any
time: they dont have the control over their armies unless that army allows them to. Dont get me wrong;
Finns actions are incredible and heroic, but its important that Finn doesnt view them that way, because it
means that every stormtrooper has a choicenot a good one, granted, because the First Order got them early
and indoctrinated them, but a choice. These are people who have been swayed by the fascist machine they
work for and continue to reaffirm their connection to it. This prevents them from getting a free pass or from
becoming 2-D. The evil in our world is the very real result of people making impossible choices, and so too
does The Force Awakens present the evil of Star Wars. (Note: the prequel trilogy makes an attempt at this with
Anakin by consistently reinforcing the importance of his decisions at every turn, which casts a shadow over the
OT of knowing that it was all Anakin/Vaders choice, but Im looking at the OT in the vacuum of what it was
at the time because thats the only way to be measured and fair in comparing what the critics are bitching
about).

Kid Learns that Nazi Allegorys Leadership is Related:

But wait! Theres more. Finn isnt our only insight into the First Orders humanity. Kylo Ren, who unmasks
himself deliberately in the first film of the trilogy to reveal the very same truth,that the First Order isnt a
dehumanized collection of machines and clones, but people making choicesturns out to be the Skywalker
familys very own homegrown white terrorist due to a series of abominable choices.
So what? So was Vader! Congratulations; you stared right at the point and walked past it. Anakins anger
and ambition for power were cut from the same cloth of toxic masculinity that only Lukes (traditionally
feminine coded) willingness to empathize and forgive were able to overcome. Vader became powerful only
when he conquered those feelings and helped destroy the Empirebut none of this was made clear in the OT,
accounting for the reason we saw Vaders mystery as a vehicle to his badass level. In truth, what this extended
trilogy of flashbacks shows us is that Anakin/Vader was always seeking peace to soothe his conflicted mind
and his ragethats what drove him to such firm structure and order in the Empire. It was a direct contrast to
the troubled and chaotic feelings that raged within his heart.
The novelization (and interviews) make it clear that Snoke has been whispering in Kylo Rens ear since Ben
Solo was just a child, skewing how he perceives Vader. This manipulation set the stage for Snoke to persuade
Kylo Ren that Vaders redemption was in fact a failure; that all of the kindness and empathy that Ben Solo
feels so strongly (even from the Dark Side, he develops compassion for Rey, and Snoke scolds him for it) is
weakness in the same way that boys and men today are told that displaying their emotions and caring about
people are signs of weakness, and strength is achieved through dominance and physical prowess. Repeatedly
through the film, we see Kylo Ren struggling to force himself through this peg hole because these roles are not
healthy and no one fits them perfectly. Kylo Ren constantly feels the pull to the Light; his instincts lie with that
peace and order and kindness, but he is seeking to stomp it out and replace it with his idealized belief of what
Vaders icy rage should have looked like because thats all hes heard from Snoke.
In truth, theyre opposites. Anakins nature led him to the Dark Side; Kylo Rens nurture is dragging him there
by the ear, and instead of seeing nothing but a pile of machine parts breath heavily into a voice modulator, we
see a deliberately young-looking man-child struggle with what he has been indoctrinated into (in the same way
that we see white men in the real world struggle against the indoctrination of societyyou know, if they dont
want to be racist, sexist shitstains). Abrams & co want The Force Awakens to humanize that choice because it
shows that its something that any human being could do; its not the boogeyman under the bed. This is
important because in 90% of shitty Sci-Fi Nazi allegories, they are not fleshed out, and theyre a faceless
shortcut. Not so in TFA: TFA shows us that it was the result of the way we socialize the privileged parts of
society to search for strength, and humanizing that gives us a cautionary tale of what kind of behavior must be
avoided to dodge that choice.

(Not incidentally, the people who tend to glorify Vader are the same ones who are guilty of the behavior Kylo
Ren exhibits, those most guilty of his brand of toxic masculinity.)

The result is that the audience now wants to hold the First Order (and ourselves) accountable to these choices
that they make because they are monstrous human beings, not just monsters.

Old Man is Killed in the Scuffle:

Obi Wan Kenobis death in A New Hope did not come around until multiple heavy edits had taken place in the
script and George Lucas wife told him that the stakes werent high enoughthey got away too clean. Kenobi
died so that the heroes would realize what they had to lose, so the story held weight.
And yeah, theres a lot of that in Han Solos death too. One of the first people in her entire life that Rey forms
a genuine connection with is ripped from her before her very eyes just like Lukes only connection to his father
is severed by, well, his father while he can do nothing but watch. Its tragic. We feel for our heroes. We
understand that No One is Safe. Thats an important part of a films narrative structure, and it doesnt deserve
to be undercut, but Im going to undercut it right now because thats not the most interesting part of the
mentors death in The Force Awakens.
But (sorry, Obi Wan) Han Solos death has a lot more layers than that. Where the patrilineal bond saved the
day in the OT, Kylo Ren stabs it through the heart after a few minutes of inner turmoil. This is the moment that
Abrams seals the deal in showing that The Force Awakens is Not Your Dads Star Wars.
Let me say that again: Lukes bond to Vader was the ultimate secret weapon of the original trilogy. If this were
a retread of the original trilogy, the appeal of a father/son bond and the intrinsic love and power of it would
save the day. The masked villain would learn the error of his ways and support the heroes in defeating the big
fascist organization hes helped build. But he doesnt.
At the end of Act I in a screenplay, theres something that structure analysts like to call the break into the new
world. Act I was the old world, where we learn to understand what everything is likeits Jakkuand at the
end of Act I, we have the point of no return where we learn that theres no way for our protagonist to go back
to that life. In a trilogy, this moment happens at the end of the first installmentor around the time that Han
Solo dies in The Force Awakens.
In our new world, the father/son bond is not strong enough to beat the Dark Side, which means we no longer
know what weapon can accomplish that. We lack a solution. And in stripping us of that solution, it also
unravels the arbitrary patriarchal value foisted upon the bond between fathers and sons that is glorified because
of this concept of continuing the family line. Kylo Ren gets another slap of the same medicine when he isnt
the one chosen by his grandfathers lightsaberthis isnt about boys continuing family lines anymore. The
entire concept of legacy just got stabbed through the heartand it almost got smacked in the face with a
lightsaber too.

Kid and Insurgent Group Destroy Doomsday Weapon:

Now, if the patrilineal line isnt what saves the day, what does? Not to go all kindergarten on you, but the
answer is teamwork. Rey doesnt destroy the Doomsday Weapon.

Neither does the Resistance.

Rey, Chewie, Finn, and Han do. And while Chewie and Han are there 50/50 for the Resistance and for Rey,
Finn is there 100% to save his best friend, and Rey is there 100% to just Do the Right Thing. No single one of
them could have done it alone, and no single one of them should have. While Rey didnt need Finn, Chewie,
and Han to break her out of Kylo Rens control, she did need them to help her off the planet and help her
destroy it. While Rey didnt need Chewie or Finns help to beat Kylo Ren, she did need Chewies help to lift
her and Finn onto the Millennium Falcon and zip off back to the Resistance. Finn and Han and Chewie needed
to work together to bring the shields down, to find Rey, to plant the explosives. None of them can take more
credit than the others for being instrumental in its destruction.

Luke pitched a missile down the exhaust port of the Death Star alone with the Rebel Alliance foisting him up
to display his accomplishments and providing him with the tools necessary to accomplish them.

Rey learned how to work with a team and, in doing so, they took down an even greater foe.

Because the achievements of white boys are cool and all, but the contributions of a diverse group of an
individuals to a common cause brings more skills, more viewpoints, and more heart to the table.
Ultimately, The Force Awakens (even as it sets Rey up as an extraordinary Force user) deconstructs the idea of
the inherently exceptional individualism of the OT and sets up instead the importance of the unique
contributions of many.