Lack of respect for good storytelling

Rating: 5/10 (30 December 2017)

Firstly, I am a 40 year old male, born in the same year as New Hope was released and have been a huge fan of Star Wars since I was old enough to watch it. I am prepared to accept that my review may be biased given my love for the franchise but having had a couple of days to digest my opinion, I have come to the conclusion that my disappointment at this latest effort is not without real justification.
My feeling is that there was a distinct lack of respect in the writing. I don't simply mean in regards to respecting Star Wars lore although that is of course also true, but more to do with established rules of good storytelling.
From the start and throughout, humour was used at hugely inappropriate moments and although in and of themselves, the jokes were well executed, they detracted from nearly all of the more meaningful, darker moments of the film. This served to halt your emotional connection to the scenes and to the characters.
This highlights another flaw with the writing which is character development and consistency. Rey, we are supposed to believe has come from nothing, with no formal training other than being a scrap dealing street (desert) fighter, and yet is a deadly, highly skilled Jedi from the start. It may turn it to be false but revealing her to be no more than a skip rat, descended from skip rats doesn't do much to make her super powers believable. I mean, if you wanted to do the "heroes can come from nothing" thing, then fair enough, but there still has to be a developing arc otherwise all we have is a superhero and we have enough of those films to be getting on with if that's what we're after. These films are always about growth and development through adversity and hard work, discipline and devotion to a cause or spirituality; that being a hero means not having the most power or skill but of doing the right thing.
Similarly, our view of Kylo Ren is simply a test of our trust in what we're told rather than what we're shown. We never saw him with his parents and were never privy to his training or relationship with Luke so to expect us to invest in a sadness or hope for him just based on trust of the writer, is misguided. This is not to say Adam Driver's tearful anguished close ups were badly acted, but given the lack of back story to his or Rey's life, an audience can't be expected to feel how we're being asked to feel. Perhaps this is as much of the fault of J.J. In Force Awakens too for not covering any of it but it wasn't so crucial in that movie as the conflict hadn't grown.
I honestly felt more emotional bond between Rey and Finn when they finally caught up during the rescue in Force Awakens because we'd seen them already develop a relationship and mutual respect, they'd argued and bonded.
This sort of development is vital to how we respond to characters and then to how we respond to the scenarios in which you place these characters. To defy such laws of storytelling isn't brave, it's naive and foolish.
There are character flaws with Finn and Rose's relationship too which lead up to one of the most contradictory morality messages delivered by anyone in the film. Saving him from saving hundreds of his comrades and loved ones just so she could berate him and tell him he should be saving loved ones not fighting the enemy. Was this entire (completely pointless albeit cinematically magnificent) scene written by two different people? Their entire story together was weak and ill-planned and resulted in their efforts being seen to be not only futile but seriously damaging to the resistance. Yoda's message in the film that we grow through failure is one thing, but these two wouldn't be celebrated as heroes upon their return but as defectors and traitors. To simply imply that the few remaining resistance fighters that weren't eliminated as a direct result of these bumbling dimwits would simply say "oops, better luck next time" is again a flaw in the story.
And to return to Yoda - I can live with the summoning of lightening from beyond the grave if I must (and I also appreciate that there is a rumour that Rey has saved the books and taken them aboard the Millennium Falcon) but to have him as far as we and Luke are concerned, burning books as a means of delivering his message says more of our throwaway culture of downloadable content than anything else. "Burn it all because it's what's inside that counts" is a message loaded with a lack of respect for sentiment, for old ways and for at its core, books! which the next generation of Star Wars addicts to whom this film is directed, could well do without.
Perhaps this isn't bad story writing so much. But as the film is clearly loaded with pseudo political messages under the thinly veiled guise of the casino scene with rich people looking down on the poor and profiting from war, messages to our young is evidently on the minds of Hollywood and I know from my memory as a child that the stuff that Yoda says and does will remain longer in a child's mind than some long speech by a pair of numpties staring over a balcony at a horse donky thing. To deliver a subtle message that you can just obliterate history and that it doesn't matter is putting a lot of faith in our disenfranchised youths not to go on to repeat our mistakes.
There has been much written about the false promises and gotcha moments too so I'll do nothing other than agree with them all. It appears that the writer has no idea how to deliver a twist and instead offers a variety of "pranks". Again, poor and naive story writing.
There is much else but I feel it's more my opinion on how I feel characters would have behaved and as that is speculation in a fictional world, it's unfair for me to criticise.
I will however say to all those who believe that many people are moaning simply because it's not true to Star Wars and that they should embrace the new, that this shows a lack of respect to the franchise and to those who have invested in it. If you have so much courage of conviction in your story, write a different film using different characters. To just go blowing up and writing off all the old characters simply to hurry things along so you have carte blanche to do what you will with the new generation of characters is cheating. It's like buying a Ferrari and tearing the bodywork off and putting it onto a VW chassis and still calling it a Ferrari. You have to treat the whole thing with a certain amount of respect otherwise you end up with a different franchise which lacks the solidity which has meant that the Star Wars name has remained in the consciousness of people (not just its fans) for 40 years.
All this said, it is a visually stunning piece. Acting is solid and only suffers through bad story writing and poor direction.
The film will of course go on to make loads of money but I fear that money is being taken from the people who hope to wow their kids with their own memories of the Jedi ways and to pass on the message of hope and heroic deeds going rewarded. Whether this latest trilogy is going to be solid enough a story to have the future generation still talking about it to their kids is still to be seen. I personally have my doubts.