My Problem With Star Wars: The Force Awakens

A missed opportunity in storytelling (also spoilers)

I have an incredibly unpopular opinion at the moment: I didn’t like The Force Awakens.

Not to say that it’s bad — it’s certainly an excellent entry into the holiday movie lineup from J.J. Abrams, and in many ways, much better than his second swing at Star Trek. The costuming is fantastic, the creatures blend well with the original trilogy, and there are some solid moments of Star Wars hilarity. Also, all of BB-8 and Chewbacca.

Next to these decent moments are some iffy ones: the hand that awkwardly goes out of its way to rub blood over Fin’s helmet, the very first impression of General Hux, and the spell-it-out way in which we discover Han is Kylo Ren’s dad. I feel as if the STARKILLER BASE rides the line between hilariously paralleling and lazily ripping off of the Death Star. Lastly, Chewbacca’s bowcaster gets more character development than best-pilot-inda-galaxy Poe Dameron.

These flaws can be overlooked. After all, it is a Star Wars movie, and I’ve always had a soft spot for Chewie’s bowcaster anyway. However, there’s one problem I have with The Force Awakens that I simply cannot forgive: Rey.

Rey is our surprise main protagonist. She’s played wonderfully by Daisy Ridley, who delivers a performance second only to Ford’s Han Solo. The movie is named after Rey’s apparent awakening to the power within her. Supreme Leader Snerkis even speaks of such an event occurring.

So… when does it happen? Am I supposed to see that Rey slowly woke up to the Force over the first half or so of the movie? It certainly wasn’t when she mind-tricked Daniel Craigtrooper ; the force was awake and agile by then. Did Kylo Ren’s attempt to divine the map from her trigger some awesome recognition of power?

Why is this even a question?

It’s very easy to say it was Luke’s lightsaber or Kylo Ren doing his probing thang. However, those explanations feel a bit… forced. I think J.J. Abrams and crew missed a huge opportunity to build off of their attempted recapitulation of A New Hope.

The original Star Wars has the Death Star blowing up Alderaan while Princess Leia watches in horror. What happens immediately after is the perfect demonstration of the Force: Obi-Wan is sitting in the Millennium Falcon, while it’s in hyperdrive, and senses the destruction of Alderaan.

This is a critical moment in the building of the Force mythos. Kenobi felt the disturbance from, potentially, lightyears away. He was able to hear when “millions of voices cried out terror and were suddenly silenced.” It was a sensation so powerful that he was pulled from an otherwise pleasant state of mind and had to sit down.

My question is this: why did Rey not feel the pain of the four or five planets being destroyed by STARKILLER BASE? Especially when at least one of them appeared to be within the same solar system as Takodana?

This would have been a critical moment for Rey. Running through the forest, escaping her problems, only to have her head be infiltrated with millions of cries of terror. From a storytelling perspective, it makes sense given her apparent natural aptitude for the force. From a cinematic perspective, it makes sense as well: cuts of her reacting to each planet being destroyed, her pain and suffering growing worse as they fall, would have made me feel something when these millions of people — who I literally had no idea existed thirty seconds before — died.

In A New Hope, we already knew about Alderaan. From a storytelling perspective, it already served a purpose as the point of convergence for all our main characters. When Alderaan was destroyed, Leia served as our emotional narrator. When the capital of the New Republic is destroyed? We get Finn running back saying, “BY THE WAY THEY HAVE A SUPER WEAPON AND THEY JUST USED IT.”

If we saw Rey very clearly going through the emotional angst of feeling hundreds of millions of people die all at once, alone in the woods, it would actually alleviate some of the other issues I had with The Force Awakens. Her overcoming that pain, and turning it into productive hate to use against Kylo Ren, would give her power. Her overcoming that hate, transforming it into awareness, would justify her lucky and desperate use of the mind trick. The resurgence of that hate after Han’s death would fuel her passion in the final battle against Ren. Not only that, but the presence of that hate would be an excellent plot device when Luke makes the choice of whether or not to train Rey in the ways of the force.

I’m not sure what would be more disappointing: the writing crew consciously deciding against Rey sensing the planets’ destruction, or them not even considering it a possibility. For me, this would have turned The Force Awakens from the fanfic it feels like to the true sequel it so desperately tries to be. Again, there were good things about this movie. The Force Awakens is kicking ass and chewing bubblegum at the box office, and almost everyone I talk to loved the movie. I’m excited to see where Rian Johnson takes the story, and I’m excited to see what the anthology films do within the world.

However, I can’t help but feel like the Force hit snooze with this entry into the Star Wars saga.