Star Wars is Back!

I've been putting off writing a review for Star Wars: The Force Awakens for a while now, not because I didn't like it but because I'm having a hard time focusing enough for any kind of detailed analysis rather than just going "SQUEEEEEE!!!! STAR WARS IS BACK!!!!!" I thought I needed to see it again to process it beyond just the excitement, especially since I came down with a cold about halfway through the movie (seriously, suddenly I couldn't stop sneezing and someone turned on a faucet in my nose, and I ran out of tissues). So I saw it again, and I may have had more detailed things to say, but I still pretty much felt like I did back in 1977 when my mind was blown and I sat in the back seat shooting down TIE fighters with the window crank handle as my family drove home from the movie. Though I did refrain from rushing out to tell the entire story to all my friends the next day this time around, and I forgot to help my mom look for the Star Wars sheet set she says she still has (yes, I had Star Wars sheets on my very princessy canopy bed, which I think sums up my personality and interests quite nicely).

So that's pretty much my non-spoiler review. I didn't hate the prequels as much as a lot of people did (not that they were great movies, but they didn't ruin my childhood, or anything like that), but this movie actually really felt like Star Wars. It felt like a real world instead of a computer graphic, and the characters talked and acted like people rather than robots (and that includes the robots). I actually think these new characters are more three-dimensional and fleshed-out than their original trilogy counterparts were at this point in that trilogy. Those characters were essentially archetypes. There wasn't a lot of depth or detail to them, and to some extent that helped because it made them so universal. These characters all feel more real. They have more defined goals and motivations. I also think that this movie works as an entry point in the series, with the previous generation characters functioning a lot like Vader and Kenobi did in the first trilogy, where we knew there was a history there but we hadn't seen it play out yet. If this was your first Star Wars movie, you might not get the impact of all the moments and references, but you could still follow the story and figure out the older characters from context, like we had to do with the original. The difference now is that if you're intrigued, you can go watch the backstory right away instead of having to wait to see what further hints are dropped in subsequent movies or a trio of prequels.

And now for the spoilers. Go away now if you haven't yet seen the movie. Really. Trust me on this one, it's better unspoiled.

Snow White and the Huntsman

I like fairy tales, and I like retellings of fairy tales that flesh them out or reimagine them. You'd think that would have led me to see Snow White and the Huntsman in the theater, but something about it just struck me as Not My Kind of Thing. And I was right, but it was the perfect thing to watch on HBO when I was sick. You really need to be feverish and on cold medicine to properly appreciate it, probably because it seemed like the entire cast was doped up on Nyquil. They all just kind of mumbled their lines like they were barely conscious, and then every so often Charlize Theron would jolt herself out of her stupor and scream something and make me jump. Being on Nyquil yourself makes you more sympathetic to the characters. You want to hand them a tissue and some juice instead of just rolling your eyes at them.

Snow White is a pretty problematic fairy tale to try to translate because the heroine is essentially a Mary Sue -- she's the most beautiful girl around, so beautiful that everyone either loves her instantly or is insanely jealous. The core of the plot is that someone is so jealous of her beauty that she wants to kill her, which is a rather lame motivation for a villain. Some of the retellings attempt to provide another motivation, which can backfire if it's even lamer than "because she's prettier" (see Once Upon a Time). I haven't seen Mirror, Mirror, but my impression is that it was played for laughs there, where we were supposed to think it was a ridiculous motivation. The Disney animated version played it straight. This one really goes for the gusto. Not only is Snow White the fairest of them all, she's so fair and pure and good and sparkly and wonderful that her very existence threatens the queen's powers. You see, the queen has made a career out of marrying kings, killing them, taking over the kingdom and then she seems to get some of the power from killing the kings and other power from taking milk baths and more power from sucking the youth and beauty from all the young, beautiful women in the kingdom (they weren't really precise with the explanations here, or else I missed something in all the soporific mumbling). I guess she moves on when she's depleted the place. Anyway, her magic mirror tells her that her power will be weak while Princess Sparkly Perfect still lives, but if she eats her heart, she'll be immortal. To make sure we know how magically special Snow White is, she literally <i>walks on water</i> to meet the Aslan-like magic white hart that rules the forest, and the Aslan-like creature <i>bows</i> to her as an onlooker breathes, "She is life itself!" So, yeah, go big or go home -- if she's going to be the fairest of them all, why not go over the top?

The movie follows most of the beats of the fairy tale otherwise, except the huntsman sent to get her doesn't send back a deer heart and instead stays with her for a kind of buddy road trip thing, she only stays with the dwarfs for about a night instead of living with them in hiding, she rallies the people into an assault on the castle after being awakened from the magical coma, and nobody falls in love with a corpse in a glass coffin (which is a step up from the story).

I hadn't seen the Twilight movies, so I didn't have a lot of preconceived notions about the Twilight chick, but she seemed to mostly go through the movie with a perpetual "Huh?" look on her face. In fairness, I probably had a similar look while watching the movie, but mine was more "You have got to be kidding me" than "I don't get it." The poor girl just looked confused the whole time. I'm also worried that she needs to be evaluated for breathing difficulties. She spends a lot of time with her mouth hanging open and her chest heaving like she's struggling for air. Maybe that was why she needed all the Nyquil.

I remember when this movie came out that most of the enthusiasm was for the Huntsman character, and apparently he's going to be the focus of a follow-up film, but I have to say that I wasn't impressed at all. He was such a standard issue Something Bad Once Happened to Me, So Now I'm a Drunk Who Doesn't Care About Anything Until The Right Woman Cures Me With Her Magical Sparkliness antihero stereotype. He actually had two Han Solo "I'm leaving because I'm selfish, but I'll come back at the right time" moments. I think he was method acting with the drunkenness and combining it with the Nyquil because he was the worst for sounding like he was barely awake. Not that I blame him, given the dialogue he had to spout. Like, "What does a girl like you know about pain?" Dude, the wicked queen hired you to track her down. Do you really have to ask the question?

The guy I found intriguing and who I'd like to see focused on in a future movie was the former childhood best friend. Yeah, I've got a weakness for the childhood best friend type, but this one had just as much reason for pain and guilt but didn't feel the need to go on and on about his angsty manpain. Instead, he apparently has been working on some serious skills, and he got the absolute best moment in the movie (one I wish I could steal without being obvious about it so it could go in a more worthy story). He's learned that Snow White is alive (he's believed her dead all this time and blames himself), has escaped and that the queen is hunting her, so he infiltrates the queen's creepily quasi-incestuous brother's (someone's been reading George RR Martin) hunting party by standing in the road in front of them to block their progress and asking if they need a bowman. The queen's brother says they already have one. THWANNNNNG. Thud. "I ask again, do you need a bowman?" That's my kind of badass. Plus, he looks like he smells a lot better than the Huntsman (come to think of it, that may explain her other facial expression, which seems like "What is that smell?" and it may explain the panting and mouth breathing).

The other best thing about the movie was the dwarfs, which were a surprising who's who of British actors. I figure they must have found the bar where they all hang out, dosed their drinks, tossed them into a van when they passed out, then held them prisoner long enough to do their scenes. That's the only explanation that makes sense. Too bad they were barely in the movie.

Actually, there was some potential to this story, although the dialogue was terrible. The main problem was that they didn't bother to flesh out the characters into anything resembling people. Snow White is the Perfect Sparkly Princess with no touch of humanity or depth to her. She mostly exists as a quest object, no matter how much they try to make her a kick-ass woman warrior (note: it takes time to learn to use a sword or even be able to hold it without pain -- something that didn't seem to happen when she was locked in a cell for years). There was nothing to the Huntsman other than his standard-issue angst/reluctant heroism. There were hints of something kind of intriguing about the best friend -- how did he become such an expert archer, what was his relationship with his risk-averse father, what was his role in the rebel underground? -- but he just seems to exist because apparently a movie like this needs a triangle. I wonder if I could write his story of what's going on the whole time Snow White's imprisoned and file off the serial numbers.

But I will say, it gave me a laugh or two and inspired me to start thinking about how I'd deal with the issues inherent in the Snow White tale.

When Darth Met Mickey ...

The big geek news of the week is that George Lucas sold Lucasfilm to Disney. That's resulted in some fun photos that have been going around Facebook, like the Death Star with mouse ears, or the Death Star hanging overhead with the "When you wish upon a star" logo below.

But I think my favorite Star Wars/Disney mash-up is an official one. This is what Disney Parks put together, and though I don't normally embed videos, this one is totally worth it. So, Darth Vader, Disney just bought Lucasfilm. What are you going to do next?

Listen very carefully to the music. On the surface, it sounds like the kind of tinkly music they play in all those Disneyland ads, but it's actually a rather familiar theme in a way you've never heard it before. That alone makes this a work of art, and if this is the kind of thing that comes out of this merger, I'm totally on board with it. I have to admire the kind of minds that would come up with this sort of thing.

They've said they'll be putting out new Star Wars movies, but in my wildest dreams, what I'd love them to do is reboot the prequels. Those stories need to be told, but they did it wrong. Now they need to claim that those movies were badly produced Imperial propaganda and set the Disney-Pixar writing team to work on telling the real story. They know character and story and know to focus on that, no matter how many pretty bells and whistles they're throwing at the screen. I think they'd realize that they have to totally scrap the idea of Anakin being the "hero" of the prequels because that puts them in the uncomfortable position of making the Young Hitler Adventures. The hero should be Obi Wan, who's struggling with this kid he loves like a brother but who's going down the wrong path. I'm sure they could get Ewan McGregor back (try to keep him away), and he hasn't aged that much, plus he was actually way too young before to have turned into Alec Guinness in only 20 years after the end of Episode 3. They could scrap everything that wasn't already directly referenced in the original trilogy, which would get rid of Jar Jar, make Luke and Leia's mother less useless, allow Anakin to be a darker, less whiny figure (when out of Lucas's grasp, he'd have to be less of a Mary Sue), scrap that awful immaculate conception pseudo-scientific "midichlorian" nonsense, and just tell the tragic story of a young Jedi who was so full of himself that he was easily seduced by the dark side.

Not that I expect that to happen, but in my geeky mental happy place I'm picturing Pixar writing allowed to go into more complex, adult places, with better acting coming out of a better script and better directing. I am curious about where they might go with the new movies. I've lost track of that expanded universe and haven't even finished the last two Zahn books (his are the only ones I've really liked), but I think I'll always be a Star Wars geek at heart, since that was my gateway drug into science fiction and fantasy.