the death of screen writing

Rating: 2/10 (1 January 2016)

In an age where film-making is ever more commercialized and insulting of people's intelligence, The Force Awakens comes along to put the final nail in the coffin of bold, imaginative screen writing. These writers were given a golden opportunity. A beloved franchise had lost its way with a trilogy of ill-conceived prequels. A hiatus ensued that allowed for critical reflection, and time enough to prepare a script that honoured the mythology of the earlier episodes, while marking a fresh departure in terms of new characters, story lines, surprises and updating for the children who are coming to the third trilogy that will be their Star Wars. That was the mission: clear and unmistakable.
The response? An embarrassing rehash of Episode 4 with gaping plot-holes and a blatant disregard for any of the above concerns. How bad must the story ideas that were discarded be if a thinly-disguised re-boot is all they could manage? I suspect the ideas were not bad, but deemed too risky in our risk-averse times. The Internet is riddled with analysis of the plot-holes and so need no analysis here, but I have never felt so world-weary in a cinema as I did watching those X-wings attack a Death Star aiming for a porthole that is a fatal structural flaw. The equivalent in the real world is visiting an elderly relative who tells you a story she has forgotten she told you a hundred times before, though part of you suspects she knows she told you and doesn't care that you have to listen to it again.
As for disrespect of all that has gone before, and shoddy filmmaking, the appearance of Luke takes the biscuit. Why is he just standing on a cliff (of a planet far, far away that could only be Ireland) waiting to turn round? We are told he is rumoured to be in an ancient Jedi temple, so a glimpse of some artist's idea of what an ancient Jedi temple looks like would have been greatly appreciated here. Instead, Luke is rushed on-screen in clumsy fashion, to ensure we all turn up for Episode 8.
I get that they have to sell toys, and can forgive the light saber tweaks. I get that times have moved on, and applaud the gender and colour diversity in casting. I also get, depressingly, that they knew we would turn up in droves no matter what story they gave us, and so the screenplay was a less than major concern for them. This is not the only Hollywood film to desecrate the honourable craft of screen writing, but it is the most conspicuous, and possibly egregious. Disappointed is not the word for the emotion evoked by The Force Awakens - 'swindled' would be more precise.