Star Wars Episode VII, a post-mortem

Spoilers, spoilers, spoilers are coming!

Ok, so a Lucas-free Star Wars is now a thing and holy shit! Was it good? Hell yeah! Did it live up to all the hype? Yeah I think it did. Prequel movies this is not!

So I talk about the events of the movies, the characters, and the backstory. 

Last chance to close this tab/window before the spoilers...

The events. 

The events very closely mirror Episode IV's events, and in some cases are almost straight up copy pasted. You can essentially think of it as a remake of A New Hope. But even the events that were straight up lifted from E.IV they are done with a twist. The first scene, line in E.IV has Stormtroopers shooting up a place and massacring people, and just like in E.IV we have one person shooting back, Poe, who I'll get to later, but here the difference is it sets up the introduction to Finn, we a classic war film scene in where a soldier's friend dies in his arms. This is followed up by the solider having doubts after participating in an atrocity/war crime. The whole scene wraps up with Poe giving his R2 like droid information vital to the Resistance, to keep safe from the Order. 

Now, while a lot of events were carried over from E.IV, they didn't happen in the same order. The next major event from E.IV, was the jailbreak.The jailbreak was done pretty well, Here instead of the Falcon, we have a TIE Fighter jacking, and they use this also as a way for us to get a good look at this new TIE. It's now a two seater and in the hands of a good pilot, is something to be respected. Overall it was good, it got us a good look at the new TIE and set up a possible friendship/partnership between Finn and Poe, with the two having good chemestry from the start. 

The next big scene from E.VI was the Falcon vs TIE squadron dogfight. And WOW. There's a bit to be said. For one, the "choreography" was just awesome. The Falcon might be big, but if the TIE Fighter is the parallel to the A6M Zero, and thee X-Wing to the F6F Hellcat, the Falcon is either a deHaviland Mosquito or a P-61 Black Widow. We see Rey in the pilot seat and around here is where we start to see there is more to her than meets the eye. She can fly the ship just as good as Han, and she does this without a co-pilot.

Eventually, they're swallowed up by a bigger ship, and we have the two hiding in the same smuggling compartments, that Luke, Han, Chewie and Obi-wan hid in some 33 or so years ago. Only instead of Stormtroopers, the two rightful owners of the ship come to reclaim what's theirs.

Next up we have a well done cantina scene. There isn't really much to say, other than the barkeep and Han go way back.We go spies, we got rouges and other shady people, it was good. 

The next scene was something new. We have a ground battle between Han, Chewie, Rey, and Finn, fighting off the Order. We see Han and Chewie haven't gotten rusty at all in the past 30 years, we see Finn get called a traitor by one Trooper who pulls a tonfa like weapon that seems to use the same technology as the staves that Gen. Grivous's guards do, and the Trooper engages Finn in a melee fight, Finn for his part brings Anakin's old saber with him to the fight. I like this for several reasons. We see Stormtroopers this time are actually pretty bad ass. It also takes away some of the mystique around lightsabers. Several things in the Legends timelime mention that for one reason or another, only a Jedi could use one. Be it torque from the blade being a rotating energy shaft, or some other reason. Here, we got Finn, who very likely had hand-to-hand training as part of his regimen, able to use the weapon. 

Last we have the remake of the Death Star attack, which kind of blended the jailbreak scene (yes we have two jailbreak scenes) with the strike. In that sense it was like Epi. VI in that we have an aerial fight and a ground fight at the same time. Finn and the rest are in the middle of rescuing Rey. while Han and Chewie reprise their roles as demolitions experts and are once again setting up bombs to blow up something protecting the thing that needs to be blown up. Only here, it ends in a re-imagining of Obi-wan's death scene. 

The death of Han. 

Yup, that happened. Was I shocked? Not really, but a lot of people in the theater were. Was it done well, yes it was. We learn earlier that Kylo Ren is really Ben Solo. Where Obi-wan and Anakin had a final, student-master moment in the form of a duel, Han and Kylo/Ben had a final father-son moment, with the son pleading for the father's help to do what he lacked the strength to do, which at this point seems to be to go over completely to the Dark Side, but we've yet to learn his intentions in becoming a Dark Jedi (I won't call him a Sith since he's part of an order called the Knights of Ren, and that goes against the Sith's Rule of Two). After Han tells him he'd do anything, Ben slays his father. 

Now, while a lot of scenes were remade from E.IV, it's doesn't feel like watching E.IV all over again. If you're a fan of anime, specifically Macross, it would be of the same vein as Macross Frontier. 

The characters. 

Everyone seems to be paralleling a character from E.IV in some way or another. Being a direct lifting, or a composite. 

The first of the main characters we meet is actually Poe. He's something of a composite of young Leia and ace pilot Wedge Antilles. He gets captured and becomes the subject of the jailbreak, and later on we see him helming a custom X-wing. Poe is THE resistance/rebel soldier. While his parentage has already been revealed, being the badass ace that he is, I'd love to see it that he learned his skills under Wedge's tutelage.Have him be Wedge's top pupil, and the one pilot to have dogfought the master to a draw at the academy.    

We meet Finn next, and I see him as the "Han" of this movie. In the Legends timeline Han was in the Imperial military before the events of E.IV and like Han, Finn was a former member of the "Imperial" military. Like Han, Finn was a promising solider (we learn this in supplement materials) and proficient with ranged weapons. Where as Han was initially in it for the money, Finn was in it also for selfish reasons, in Finn's case, getting the hell away from his former employers, on that note, Finn also parallels Han in that Han was also having serious issues with a former employer. And, while it still remains to be seen, like Han, Finn doesn't appear to be Force sensitive. 

Then we have Rey. Obviously, she's the "Luke" of this film. We have someone grinding out a living in the middle of a desert planet who happens to have powerful Force abilities. Like Luke, she's kind hearted and wants to do the right thing. But the big question is... who IS she? We're not given a last name and that's stated to be intentional. Is she also Leia's kid? Luke's? I'm of the opinion that she is Luke's daughter. She has a vision and her Force abilities seem to be unlocked when she picks up and holds Anakin's lightsaber. Her relationship to Han is very much like Luke's to Obi-wan's. And lets take a closer look at that. Who was Obi-wan? He was Luke's father's best friend. Who was Han? He was one of Luke's best friends. What was Luke and Obi-wan's relationship? Obi-wan provided guidance to Luke, showed him a larger world (the Force), and they had a connection though their Jedi heritage. Now what was Rey and Han's relationship? Han showed her a larger world (a green planet, when all she knew was a desert), she and Han bonded over her mechanical aptitude. Given those parallels, I'm willing to bet that Han has the same relationship to Rey's father that Obi-wan had to Luke's, and that pretty much narrows down the list of candidates to Luke himself. 

On the baddies side we have Kylo Ren/Ben Solo, who's clearly meant to be the Darth Vader of the series, in more ways than one. His character is literally a Darth Vader wannabe. He idolizes his grandfather, and strives to be just like him. At this point, he isn't so much the analogue to Darth Vader, the way Rey is to Luke, but rather, he's playing the role of Darth Vader. You could almost say he's Vader's phantom. Now the interesting thing is, he idolizes DARTH VADER, not Anakin Skywalker, which leads to the question, did Luke ever tell him what happened that day on the Death Star II? That Anakin overcame Vader and became a Jedi again? It's said that the Empire spun the Battle of Endor as an Imperial victory for propaganda purposes, long after the battle. Did Ben hear Imperial propaganda from the Supreme Leader, where Vader wasn't a traitor to the Empire but rather a martyr?

We also have General Huk, who seems to be a re-imagining of Tarkin, being a top ranking, trusted, and loyal officer of the regime. Like Tarkin, Huk appears to out rank the Dark Side guy. Though where as Tarkin and Vader seemed to be on good terms or at least respected each other, Huk and Kylo appear to have a rivalry. I'm willing to be at some point one will double cross the other, probably Kylo selling out Huk in some form or another. and causing Huk's death. 

Another of the new baddies we have is Captain Phasma, who seems to be in overall command of Starkiller Base and it's supporting ships' Stormtrooper detachments. I can't say much given that she doesn't get much screentime, but she certainly makes her presence felt in her main scene. Some had said she's analogous to Boba Fett, I'd say that still remains to be scene. Fett relentlessly pursued Han and Leia in Epi. V and here Phasma has yet to do anything like that. 

Lastly there's Supreme Leader Snoke, who seems to fill Palpatine's role. He leads the First Order and is the figure who turned Ben into Kylo. We only see a hologram of him, but if that is indeed what he looks like, he appears to be a scarred figure, and if he's a Human, he looks to be someone who suffered severe burns. Some speculate that he's Palpatine, but I don't think so. If he was Palpatine, then the Sith live, and therefore the prophesy is unfulfilled. If anything, my guess is that Snoke, given the theme of the First Order being those who idolized the Empire, was someone who picked up where the Empire left off. Though it would be interesting if he turned out to be a Clone Wars veteran Jedi who turned dark, and saw the Empire's authoritarianism as the way to establish and maintain order, and therefore prevent another war like the Clone Wars. 

Now on to the classic characters. 

Han is certainly the Obi-wan of this film. He plays something of a mentor figure to Rey. Leia is now most definitely the General Dodonna of the movie, and Luke is set up to be the Yoda of the next movie. 

Lastly the setting and backstory. 

It is now 30 years after the Battle of Endor. The rebellion grew into the New Republic and set up it's capital at Chandrilla and later Hosnian Prime... wait what? Not Corusant? In the Legends timeline, the Alliance took Coruscant and officially became the New Republic/Second Galactic Republic and took off where the Old Republic/First Galactic Republic left off where as the Empire was reduced to a backwater nation at the edge of known/civilized space. In this new canon it seems as if the Galactic Empire might still be around and based on Coruscant. 

In an interview with Abrams it was stated that the First Order was based on the idea of what if top Nazis and their loyalists had fled to Argentina to carry on their work. Some Nazis had actually fled to Argentina, so while there was a small, in hiding Nazi presence in Argentina, there was still a separate Germany. Prior to the events in Epi. VII, there was the Galactic Concordance that was signed that ended the Galactic Civil War, and reduced the Galactic Empire to a rump-state. There doesn't seem to be any information indicating that the Empire was absorbed into/conquered by the Republic. Given that, my guess is there still remains a Galactic Empire, with it's capital still at Coruscant under a new regime. With the First Order being remnants, and loyalists of the former Palpatine regime, establishing themselves in some backwater away from the center of galactic events. My guess is that there is a cold war between the New Republic and the Empire, with the Resistance and the Order being proxies of both powers. 

My prediction for Epi. VIII is that this theoretical cold war will erupt into full scale war. In Epi. VII we see the First Order destroy the Republic's capital with their super Death Star. Being a galaxy spanning nation-state, destroying just the capital wouldn't wipe out the entire nation anymore than wiping out Washington DC or Moscow would wipe out the US or Russia as a nation. Supplement information shows that the Republic kept it's military forces on a war footing for some time, so it's likely that the Republic has a NORAD equivalent elsewhere. So my prediction is that things go Attack of the Clones, and the Republic mounts a counter-attack and invades Imperial space from "NORAD", or the Empire sees this as it's chance to regain supremacy and Strikes Back. Or the hypothetical Imperial government on Coruscant may throw the First Order under the bus, only to get overthrown by the FO by popular support.

Either way, E.VIII can't come soon enough.