The flaws in the first movie of the new trilogy grow worse in the second, and any pretense of following a narrative is abandoned for first generation blip-vert style impressions. This is worse than the prequels: Bad storytelling graduates to mindless visual diarrhea.
Incoherence continues. The complete inability to sustain a scene and allow character plus setting to resolve as a coherent situation. Distance and time are continually ignored for a confusing form of hack transitionalism. Everything is conveyed to the audience through fiat and illusionism.
The driving attitude of the film is audience contempt. Fan feeling is openly mocked. Audience enjoyment of the story and connection to its history is undermined with sneering, cavalier stances while at the same time attempting to maintain irrational allegiance to the consumerism of the film.
The movie is surrounded with apologists who defend it based on juvenile realism over the romanticism of the original trilogy. They appeal to the value of acceptance of banality as superior to the striving elation of mythology, while at the same time turning a blind eye to poor movie craftsmanship and their own inability to recognize bad storytelling.
I won’t go over the ridiculous turns of character, nonsensical behavior, and lifeless conformity of the old characters. Clue one for the writers/directors/producers of the endless dumpster dive: If it has to be explained to the audience then it’s not in the script. You have to earn your moments.
I like the new characters. I just wish they were actually in the movie. They may as well not exist in this story: That’s how little agency they have. How’s that for a pro-feminist, pro-people of color, pro-LGBT Star wars universe? You can be in the show but you still won’t matter.
Rey: Confused Enigma
I think she is exactly what Star Wars needs: Ultra-powerful woman with a journey of self-discovery. You know, PURE FUN. I don’t care if she’s a Mary Sue or not. If she’s a nobody that’s awesome. If she’s Luke’s long lost daughter/cousin/niece so what? If she’s the second coming of Anakin, sounds great. Choose a position and run with it people. This is narrative dynamite waiting to be set off and rock the audience.
Instead, we get a refusal to embrace or explain her power. There’s no personal development for her, she must always remain a blank slate so the audience can endlessly project their dreams onto her. It’s lame and it reinforces sidelining of women as legitimate carriers of power or consciousness.
Finn: Cowardly Buffoon
He is also exactly what Star wars needs: An Imperial traitor who can cross both lines and serve as a bridge between the two worlds. If the movies were in the least bit interested in knowledge, healing, and understanding, then he would be making a huge impact on the story and the audience. Scriptwriters, heal thyself!
Instead we get reinforcement of stereotypes through the inability to allow situations to resolve and evolve. The incoherence of the script is arresting the development of a character of genuine interest and forcing him to resort to conventional responses of the lowest common denominator when he isn’t being completely random.
Poe: Dullard Hotshot
He too, is exactly what Star wars needs: A new heroic boy consciousness who pushes the limits hard and establishes his own maturity through the recognition of limits. He too, appeals to the joy of adventure, but in a different way. Poe and Rey could be delivering a one-two punch of exciting storytelling and awakening of the aesthetic sense.
Instead of wisdom for what needs to be encouraged in him, the legitimate expressions of his need for self-expression are demeaned. This is how you make a monster, folks: Deny the growth of a character who needs to understand and come to terms with his inability to love the feminine. Only then can he seek the help he needs. This is reinforcement of patriarchy through violence to vulnerable boy psychology. Good job, writers!
Kylo Ren: Desperate Sadist
This kind of villain is also what Star Wars needs: A dysfunctional boy on a path of malfunction and ruin as indicative of the kind of scary acting-out we experience every day in our lives–both in ourselves and from others. The warrior whose goal is cruelty without passion rather than disciplined service to a transpersonal goal is a deep well of possibility. It can be a tragedy or a redemption of meaningful inner exploration that reflects back to us images of our own participationism to domination and control.
Instead we get a refusal to commit to consequences, either internal or external, and a denying of the character actions that entails. Is his pathology ever going to crystallize into something meaningful? If his evil remains forever undecided and unrealized, then so does his good. His depth will never go beyond crazy guy, the same person he was when we first saw him.
You see what a dumpheap this trilogy is now?