I’ve had a lot of great experiences seeing movies in
theaters, but my trip to see Star Wars: Episode 7: The Force Awakens on December 17, 2015, that film's opening night, will
always rank as one of the best.
I went with a group of eight friends, all of whom had bought
tickets months before (on the first day tickets
became available for the eagerly-anticipated Episode 7). We got in line outside
the theater hours before they started seating, and we weren’t the only ones.
The mall lobby was swamped by thousands of people waiting for more than a
dozen different showtimes. With all those people packed together, it was hot
and a little nerve-wracking, but it was also deliciously, irresistibly exciting. There was a buzz in the air. My friends and I wore brand new Force
Awakens shirts we had bought strictly for that occasion, plenty of people around
us were in costume, and a few individuals in full Stormtrooper get-up wandered
about serving as picture fodder for waiting fans, who beckoned them by the
dozens.
I’ll never forget the excited cheer that went up when
theater employees opened the doors to start seating my showtime, the 7:00.
People not even in line for that showing shouted and clapped, just because it
meant they were that much closer to
seeing the Movie of the Moment. People in other lines were beaming and high-fiving
me as my line proceeded toward the doors, and then into the theater. We all
just couldn’t wait. And then, once the
moment arrived, and the previews ended, it was spine-tingling delight. People clapped and cheered when the green Lucasfilm logo crept onto the screen, and a roar went up when the large yellow STAR WARS title appeared, accompanied by the familiar
theater-shaking BUM, BUH-BUH-BUM of John Williams’ iconic score. It was
dreamland.
This high-level, maximum-excitement experience was in marked
contrast to my trip to see Mad Max: Fury Road seven months earlier, on May 16, 2015. Fury Road wasn’t shown in the mall’s
largest theater, but one with about a quarter of the capacity. This was no packed
opening night premiere, either; I saw a half-full Saturday matinee with two of
my friends. We were excited, because the movie had received excellent reviews
on Rottentomatoes, but the most
memorable thing about the build-up to the movie starting was that my friend
Christina and I kept whispering back and forth during the previews, prompting
the guy sitting in front of us to turn around and say “Are you guys gonna talk
the whole time?” And the movie itself? Well, it didn’t generate any impromptu
ovations the way a Star Wars movie does, but it was, undeniably, a spectacle.
I saw both of those movies back in 2015, when I wrote more
regularly on this blog. At that time, I gave Mad
Max a grade of B+, admitting that it was a thrilling action-packed
spectacle, but added that it was seriously weird, what with its disfigured villains,
manic, body-painted soldiers, strange-accented mutters, and acid-trip
flashbacks (not to mention its heavy reliance on the use of breast milk).
When I saw The Force
Awakens, I didn’t write my review until I had seen it a second time (on the Saturday after that Thursday night premiere). I hadn’t
been as blown away by the movie as some of my friends, but I still gave it an
A-, deeming it worthy of praise for its high energy, strong characters, classic Han/Chewie
banter, and some tremendous action sequences (that epic topsy-turvy shot
of the Millennium Falcon in flight, the lightsaber fight in the snow between Fin, Rey, and Kylo Ren). I would ultimately see the movie in theaters again, this time with family, and I remember being slightly put-out when my Dad, a Star Wars fan going back to 1977, didn’t offer much praise when it
was over.
I had no idea how much things would change with time.
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I didn’t see Mad Max:
Fury Road again until it came out on Blu-Ray. I wasn’t convinced it was a
great movie until I had seen it about four times. By then, I was more accustomed to the movie’s
inherent weirdness (“WITNESS MEEEEEEE!”), and had started to appreciate the true artistry fitted in amidst the high-octane action. With those repeat viewings, it became my then-#3 ranked movie of 2015. Meanwhile, my
enthusiasm for The Force Awakens quickly
cooled, and I ranked it #7 that year.
As you no doubt know if you’re reading this, The Force Awakens, and Star Wars as a whole, has become a
non-stop topic of discussion (aka relentless Twitter feuds). It didn’t take long for the discussions to materialize, either. Amidst the initial
excitement over the release of the first big-screen Star Wars adventure since 2005’s Revenge of the Sith, some quibbled that The Force Awakens, while paying
appropriate respect to some of the saga’s classic tropes and characters, relied
too heavily on nostalgia for its appeal, to the point that it was actually a
thinly-veiled remake of the original 1977 Star
Wars. It wasn’t hard to see the logic in that argument, either. Consider:
Poor desert orphan dressed
in white gets caught up in a galactic civil war when they stumble across a droid
containing information needed by a band of rebels who are resisting a
domineering, high-tech, fascist institution. Said orphan is soon revealed to
be strong with the Force, which puts them at odds with a black-costumed,
mask-wearing villain, one who utilizes the Dark Side of the Force to serve a
craggy-faced Overlord; said masked villain also struggles with the burden of serving evil due to certain familial connections. The evil institution blows up whole
planets with a giant, spherical laser weapon while our heroes bounce
around the galaxy on the Millennium Falcon, but eventually they reach the rebels’
base and plan an attack in which they must fly X-Wings through a trench and
blow up a certain component of the imperial weapon in order to make the whole
structure combust.
Yep. While Force
Awakens’ writer/director J.J. Abrams was obviously a fan of Star Wars, his nods and send-ups to the classic
films were such obvious parallels that some thought it slightly ridiculous, let
alone unoriginal. Frankly, this was hard to deny. I maintain that Force Awakens is a well-made film, but,
overall, it does adhere very closely
to the New Hope template. That being
said, the movie had some compelling characters and, right after it came out, many pointed out that Disney could still deviate from the template in following films and give us
something different.
Welp, Force Awakens’ follow-up, The
Last Jedi, did give us something
different (which may be putting it mildly), and, when Abrams returned for The Rise of Skywalker, he attempted to
right the ship largely by resolving the central hero-villain conflict in a
manner strikingly similar to the climax of The
Return of the Jedi. The division over whether any of the new trilogy films
was “good” has resulted in Star Wars becoming
a complicated and sometimes toxic topic of conversation.
Mad Max: Fury Road,
on the other hand, has enjoyed a pretty straightforward reputation. While it was no Star Wars-level smash, it was still a surprise hit with a $153 million domestic gross. More impressively, it became
the rare action film to make a serious splash at year-end award ceremonies, receiving
10 Academy Award nominations, including nods for Best Picture of the Year and
Best Director (George Miller). It did not win either of those major prizes, but
captured 6 Oscars for its impeccable aesthetic and technical work. It is still regarded by most cinema enthusiasts as
something of a modern classic, one of the standout films of the 2010s (if not
the 21st century as a whole). Rumors persist that the film will
have at least one sequel.
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Why am I talking about these movies that have nothing in
common except the fact that they came out the same year? Well, last night, I
was in the mood to watch a Star Wars
movie, and my roommate had been wanting to re-watch Mad
Max. So we made a double feature of it, first watching The Force Awakens and then Fury
Road. And it was interesting to see how I perceived each movie now, over five years after the release of the latter and about 4.5 years since the
former kicked off a new era in the Galaxy, Far, Far Away.
Watching The Force
Awakens in 2020 is a bittersweet experience. It’s true that it is very
derivative of A New Hope, but, in the moment, while watching the film, I think that the characters are
acted and written well-enough that you don’t really notice the “unoriginality”. It’s a fast-paced film with fun
character interaction, a number of laughs, and some eye-catching visuals (the
sweeping first reveal of Poe Dameron’s X-Wing, the aforementioned up-is-down
shot of the Millennium Falcon soaring over the Jakku desert, clashing red and
blue lightsabers gleaming in the eyes of Rey and Kylo Ren during their
third-act duel). In the end, the movie is entertaining (albeit with a draggy
middle section) and reasonably compelling.
That said, it’s hard to watch the movie now without having a pang at the realization that little of what is onscreen ultimately paid off. As has become
well-known, J.J. Abrams was initially, vocally, on board for just one Star Wars film, and Disney pushed it out apparently without having
pre-established arcs (or any plan at all) for the following films. Thus, Rian
Johnson went his own way with 2017's The Last
Jedi, infuriating a number of fans, resulting in Abrams being recalled to
try to patch things up with Rise of
Skywalker. The end result is that the film that started it all feels like a
half-baked shell of a movie, full of questions and talking points that either
weren’t answered or were answered--but in eyebrow-raising ways. This included:
-Supreme Leader Snoke, who it turned out was created in a bottle in a lab, made to act as a surrogate for a mysteriously (i.e. poorly explained)
resurrected Emperor Palpatine
-Alien Maz Kannata remains a mystery, as does the means by
which she obtained Luke Skywalker’s original lightsaber
-Some early sparks between Rey and Fin, who
do a lot of bickering, hand-holding, and hugging, went nowhere, as they barely
spent any screen time together again (the oft-shipped Finn/Poe coupling
similarly never materialized)
-Luke Skywalker, so memorably handed his lightsaber in a vivid
moment at Force Awakens’ end, ultimately
chucked it away, only to later backpedal on this cynical stance in order to encourage Rey
to step up to the plate
-Rey’s parentage was revealed to be nothing, only to later
be re-revealed as very important!
-Intriguing villains General Hux and Captain Phasma became
barely-there afterthoughts
-The Luke/Kylo Ren fallout was never resolved
And on and on we could go.
Ultimately, judging The
Force Awakens on its own merits, today, I would give it a grade of 7 out of
10 (or, if I were using my old letter-grade scale, a B). Like I said, it’s an
entertaining (if fairly unoriginal) film that boasts some likable characters,
impressive visuals, and fun action.
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Mad Max: Fury Road
lies on the other end of the spectrum. Compared to Force Awakens, it’s simple narratively (a chase ensues, and then goes
back the other way!), but it is such a uniquely-crafted piece of cinema that,
not only is it a very good movie, but I find new things to appreciate about it
every time I watch it. These “things” range from how certain colors pop even in the movie's brown, orange, and blue-tinted scenes, how much of the film happens (or could
have happened) without dialogue, and what the wives’ whispered slang-y commentary
means, to just how electrifying the score is. It’s a marvel of a movie—so basic yet meaningful in its story, and so intensely, breathlessly depicted. A
barely-recognizable Charlize Theron is a force of nature as the gritty Furiosa,
sacrificing reputation, life and limb to try and save the warlord’s captive
wives. Vehicles are torn to pieces and explode, bodies are crushed,
and two painted “war boys” get to enjoy mesmerizing, vivid onscreen deaths
(“WITNESS MEEEEEE”).
It’s a unique and magnificent movie, enough that, when, in January, I
made a ranked list of my top movies of the 2010s, Fury Road was my #3, behind only Skyfall and The Martian.
Today, I would give Fury Road a grade
of A+, or 9.5 out of 10 (maybe more of a 9.8). It’s striking, it's engaging, and
it’s a spasmodic surge of energy into what has become a pretty conventional and
unexciting cinema landscape.
So, which movie would I most willingly watch again some time
soon? I like Star Wars, and it’s a
little easier to just put on, but, nah, “I wanna die historic on the Fury Road.”
