Tag: The Force Awakens

Film

Blog 723: Close, But No Biscuit — Star Wars — Part 12

Rao Dao Zao

The Force Hits Snooze. This should have been a rollicking finale to Close, But No Star Wars, but we’ve said pretty much all that we need to about The Force Awakens throughout our rambling examination of the Star Wars films, usually as a counterpoint to what the other ones got right. So here we put a few final nails in the coffin and… move on with our lives?

Bah. I only get angry because I care. My answer, of course, is to bear in mind all of this as I work on my own fiction. I will have giant death lasers, yes — but mine will have the narrative framework to support them, and give them due weight when they arrive. I will not be afraid to extrapolate my universe, I will not endlessly recycle the same set-pieces, and I will not let old characters completely smush new ones… I hope. (But rebellions are built on hope, right?)

Since I don’t really want us to end on a downer, remembering only the pain of bad Star Wars rather than the heights of good Star Wars, I’m going to part with this fantastic 15-minute disco medley of the Star Wars theme(s) by Meco. May the force be with us!

Film

Blog 722: Close, But No Biscuit — Star Wars — Part 11

Rao Dao Zao

Starkiller Base is such a massive, critical failure of writing. Handed the keys to Star Wars, they did not carry the torch forward and instead sat still to make the same thing again but bigger. If you can’t remember, Disney, we already did that in the original trilogy and only barely got away with it. The galaxy’s biggest ever super-weapon, a footnote barely present for half a film and destroyed as perfunctorily — in the first part of a trilogy!

I don’t see a way that they can escalate beyond this, but neither can I see an Empire Strikes Back-stlye de-escalation that wouldn’t render the thing more meaningless than it already is.

First film in the new age, such promise, such hope — and the ball was thoroughly dropped. Dropped so thoroughly that the best we can do in subsequent things is to sweep it under the carpet… But it’s too big for that. Aaargh! Listen as we outline better ideas.