TFA Review Part 3: The Bad

The elements of The Force Awakens that we’ve described so far have been mostly about the writing, and almost all of them can be found in the script alone. However, that leaves us most of the actual interesting decisions about appearances, timing, and everything else that makes a movie different than a novel - what pretentious critics call “filmic” factors. Unfortunately there, TFA falls down.

TFA Review 2: That Which Came Before

This blog is about the Prequel Trilogy after all, and it would be impossible to ignore how The Force Awakens relates to the immediately preceding movies. Onward through spoilers!

Rian Johnson

Apparently Episode 8 will be written and directed by Rian Johnson, who doesn't have a lot of movies under his belt, but is known as a brilliant auteur. His three movies so far are Brick, the Brothers Bloom, and Looper.

So if you want to get a sense of how Episode 8 might go, check them out.

Brick is considered the best of those, and is very heavily stylized, taking a lot of fast, close cuts and using them to put a hyper-noir style onto a high school setting. It's great.

Looper does that, but less so. It's a time travel based noir. And his interpretation of how to explain the science in a science fiction movie is... pointed.

Symbolism Call Out

More Force Awakens spoilers:

The Force Awakens Review: Part 1

Okay, spoilers for Episode 7 from this point forward, and probably any future posts on this blog. So go see the movie if you haven’t yet. It’s pretty good. Onward!

Reviews are in!

Well I don't mean the meta-critic score, but here are just a couple reviews (with opposing reactions) that I felt really thought on the movies.

From the Jacobin: https://www.jacobinmag.com/2015/12/star-wars-the-force-awakens-empire-joseph-campbell-george-lucas/

From Walter Chaw: http://www.filmfreakcentral.net/ffc/2015/12/star-wars-the-force-awakens.html

From Jeremy Parish: Spoiler Tag in URL

First reaction to "the Force Awakens"

Spoilers ahead.