“Star Wars” occupies a fairly unique place in our culture: it may be the only thing in pop culture that almost all of us generally like.
While it’s impossible for anything to be truly universal — there’s always going to be the odd person who has never seen any of the movies — “Star Wars” I think serves as the collective cultural touchstone for us. It’s the one thing that kinda gives us all a good feeling when we think about it. That phenomenon crosses pretty much every boundary — age, political affiliation, other general interests don’t matter. We all are pretty much just into “Star Wars.” It’s like some kind of safe space for us as a society. “Star Wars” is home. It’s a part of us and it will never let us down even while it’s constantly doing just that.
It also makes us crazy.
In the current moment you can make an easy punchline out of the hardcore fans of DC Comics that insist on defending to the death the absolutely awful “Batman V Superman” and “Justice League,” but something similar happens with all of us every time a new “Star Wars” movie comes out.
Take the Prequel Trilogy. It may be tough to remember now, but when each of the prequels was released the sentiment toward them was generally positive. “The Phantom Menace” was the worst-reviewed of the three and it still made almost a billion dollars worldwide. Its two sequels were far better reviewed, if not quite as financially successful.
Which is hilarious! The “Star Wars” prequels are about as inept as big-budget blockbusters are capable of being, but we all just kind of collectively rolled with them for at least a while. It wasn’t until there was a couple of years’ distance from 2005’s “Revenge of the Sith” that opinion among fans really turned toward the idea that the prequels are largely not good
When I used to reflect on my own periods of denial regarding the prequels I would assume I’d been that way because I was such a hardcore fan. I’ve been an obsessive “Star Wars” fan since I was a little kid, a fandom that endured for decades even though there hasn’t, in my judgment, been a good “Star Wars” movie released in my lifetime (I was born in 1987). That fact has been the cause of all sorts of weird neurotic behavior in me personally — to the point where not long ago I felt I had to write a column explaining how it was finally time to for me and “Star Wars” to break up because this whole thing has worn me down.
Even when I wrote that ludicrous piece I didn’t fully understand why I felt that way. It wasn’t really just about the movies being bad, or the bald-faced corporate cynicism of Disney trying to craft the most “Star Wars” movie ever using some kind of mathematical formula. It’s also about the way we all interact with the franchise.
It’s not just the hardcore fans who get weird about “Star Wars” — or, I should say, when it comes to “Star Wars” we all act like like hardcore fans. For us it’s like some kind of monolith that can never truly be bad even though it mostly is bad. It’s as though our brains collectively stop working when a new movie comes out and we all turn into the DC fanboys we like to make fun of the rest of the year.
I’ve often told my story of the release of “Attack of the Clones,” in which I bought tickets for three separate shows on opening day — and even though I hated the movie I was too afraid of compromising my fandom to express anything other than delight as I sat through that trash fire over and over again. Everyone I knew agreed that it was good, sparing me having to defending it at least. Though that movie didn’t get overwhelmingly positive reviews, it did come in at 66 percent fresh on Rotten Tomatoes.
When “Revenge of the Sith” came around in 2005 I was intent on not being taken for a ride again. I was going to be completely honest about my opinion, whether it be good or bad. I was hopeful, because the thing had gotten an 79 percent fresh rating on RT. But then I didn’t like the movie, because it’s horrendous, and I had no problem saying so to my friends as the credits rolled.
They, on the other hand, loved it.
So it’s not just me. “Star Wars” somehow messes with us so effectively that even the worst modern blockbusters can get positive reviews and responses from the crowd if they’ve got “Star Wars” in the title.
I don’t think public opinion ever really turned on “Revenge of the Sith” the way it did with the other prequels. I occasionally have people my own age or older who will defend it to me, and it’s not unusual to see it ahead of “Return of the Jedi” on lists ranking all the “Star Wars” movies even today. Which is really something, because that movie is an affront to cinema on a bunch of levels. Thus, perhaps, is out rabid need to maintain good feelings about the franchise — we have to believe there’s been some good ones in modern times.
History repeated itself again with “The Force Awakens,” which I think gave me my clearest view of the phenomenon to date. My first viewing came at the world premiere, the first of Disney’s now-annual soirees in which they shut down Hollywood Boulevard in order to stick a block-long party tent in the street so attendees could get literally drunk on the new “Star Wars” movie.
I was….confused after we watched it. I stood in the party tent drinking and talking it over with about a dozen different people, and we all felt pretty much the same way: “That was probably good, right? I think?”
“The Force Awakens” being a movie that holds up not even a little bit under scrutiny, we picked it apart while comforting ourselves with the idea that we did all like the new cast well enough that even if we weren’t head over heels for this movie we could at least view it as a decent enough foundation for the future. Still, the mood never elevated beyond lukewarm — there was little in the way of excitement that evening.
I was amazed, then, to wake up the next morning to see those same people tweet glowingly about the movie, and write exuberant reviews. “Star Wars” is back, baby! They did it! They made a great “Star Wars” movie. I was confused again.
Two years later, people still act like they need to defend the honor of that movie to the death. I remain confused about it, even as I finally start to fully grasp how culturally in the bag we are for this series. I watched “The Force Awakens” again this week for what it probably the eighth or ninth time, and I still managed to find new things I don’t like about it. But my best friend, who is usually smarter than I am, to this day claims it’s “delightful” and we get in arguments about it every two weeks.
I think maybe at this point liking “Star Wars” is such a subconsciously exhausting endeavor that we’ve simply given up on worrying about whether these movies are actually good. Things may be improving somewhat — even though last year’s “Rogue One” got very positive reviews, people seemed more willing to complain about it or outright dislike it. The standard unbridled enthusiasm wasn’t there, and neither was the general reflexive compulsion to defend it when it would be criticized. I don’t think we have a capacity for apathy toward “Star Wars,” though. If we ever stop feeling incredibly generous toward the franchise it’ll be because we all decide to hate the thing. It’ll be a complete heel turn, not a gradual change.
It’ll be interesting to see what the response to “The Last Jedi” will be like now that we’ve settled into the Disney era a bit. Has everyone calmed down? Probably not. Even I haven’t, not really. Even though I publicly broke up with “Star Wars” I’ll probably be sitting in my seat hyperventilating as I wait for it to start next week. We need to believe each new “Star Wars” movie is good, even if it isn’t.
And, in that same vein, it’s no wonder that we can be 34 years removed from the last good “Star Wars” movie and still have somebody like Laura Dern, who is a far better actor than this franchise has demonstrated in modern times it deserves, sit on stage at a press conference and gush about how special it is to be a part of the franchise. Everybody is just happy to be here. We’ll be 20 years of annual hyper-processed corporate formula movies deep and an 80-year-old Daniel Day-Lewis will be on a stage somewhere talking about what an honor it is to be part of such a special series.
Because they, like me and everyone else, will never truly be able to get over that decades-old feeling that “Star Wars” is a part of who we are.
79 'Star Wars: The Force Awakens' Characters Ranked From Worst to Best (Photos)
"Star Wars" fans just learned that the next "Star Wars" film, "Rogue One" will feature a character we didn't see in "The Force Awakens" -- Darth Vader.
So how did the "Force Awakens" characters measure up without him? Here's our rankings. (I wrote a whole bunch of jokes for this. Please laugh.)
79. Finn's old friends whom he murders without a thought.
As soon as Finn and Poe take off in their stolen TIE Fighter, Finn blows up a bunch of his old buddies in the stormtrooper corps. No hesitation, no remorse, just murder. Somehow missed all the signs of Finn's emotional instability. I didn't feel like counting all of them (thus the "77+") but there were a bunch!
77-78. Rathtars.
These CGI refugees somebody at ILM found on a server are really awful and unchill.
76. The jigsaw puzzle that shows where Luke Skywalker is.
The third time I saw "The Force Awakens" in a theater, my drunk friend leaned over at this part of the movie and loudly asked, "Why is it a jigsaw puzzle?" Indeed, that's a significant character flaw, Mr. Map.
75. The first one to die in the movie.
It's not called "Star Peace," so somebody has to receive the ignominious honor of being the first person killed. In "The Force Awakens," it's this stupid stormtrooper who runs straight forward and gets blown up.
74. Nose monster.
It doesn't want to share its water with a freeloader like Finn. What an asshole.
73. Stormtrooper who gets shot by an old guy who wasn't even looking.
It doesn't get much worse than this.
72. Teedo.
That's just Teedo, some clown who spells his name funny and tries to catch droids in a net.
71. Stormtrooper who smears blood on Finn's helmet.
What's this guy's deal, honestly? He uses his dying breath to try to get Finn written up for having blood all over his face.
70. Guy who didn't already have the ventral cannons powered up.
When a prisoner escapes in one of your starfighters with a defecting stormtrooper, you probably should power up all the weapons. But this guy doesn't power up the ventral cannons until some other officer suggests it.
69. Child Rey.
She just yells a bunch because she's a child who is sad about her parents leaving her on the dirt planet with Unkar Platt for some reason. Meh.
68. Stormtrooper who doesn't care.
Finn just walked into the torture room and was like, "Hey, I'm gonna leave with this guy and we're gonna murder your friends, cool?" And dude just lets him do it.
67. Condescending Resistance medic.
She's like, "Wow, you must be so brave" to Chewie as if the Wookiiee is some child and not a 200-year-old hairy guy who shoots people a lot.
This feels like a misuse of Pegg's considering comic talents.
62-65. Terrible bar band.
I know some people are partial to Lin-Manuel Miranda's music, but this track the band is playing is absolutely horrible and I hope Disney will just George Lucas it down the line.
61. R2-D2.
Honestly, screw R2 in this movie. Slept through the whole thing.
60. BB-8.
I really wanted to like this guy. But he's mostly just luggage and he disappears halfway through the movie.
58-59. Snitches.
A couple stormtroopers show up at Rey's village on Jakku and these clowns give up her, Finn and BB-8 like they don't even care about their rep.
55-57. Mosquitoes at the bar.
This is weird, right? Would you drink at the same bar as these guys? I wouldn't.
54. Sitcom couple.
They call the First Order on BB-8 even though that has to be some kind of violation of the rules of the bar. And they perpetuate a bad TV sitcom trope, that of an overweight and unattractive man being paired with a conventionally attractive lady.
53. Random dude who gets jacked up by those stormtroopers
These troopers are hilarious, just running around this little shantytown firing wildly and bowling over random people like whatever this guy is.
52. Woman who watches the countdown clock that says when Starkiller will be able to blow up planets.
It's a weird job, but I guess somebody has to do it.
51. New guy who does the Starkiller Base countdown.
Right at the end of the movie, the First Order apparently gets a new person whose job it is to watch the countdown clock that says when Starkiller will be able to blow up planets.
50. The guy who wants to bail on Starkiller base because it's about to blow up.
This guy's dark-side karma is basically zero after pulling this shit.
49. Officer who thinks the Starkiller base crew should keep working even though they're all about to die.
"GET BACK TO YOUR STATION!" he yells at a guy who wants to bail. I hope Supreme Leader Snoke gives him a big house in the afterlife.
48. TR-8R.
Maybe Finn didn't care that he murdered all his friends, but this guy does. He almost gives Finn what he deserves but Han blows him up first.
47. Jojen Reed.
He died on "Game of Thrones" and then was reborn in the "Star Wars" galaxy only to get killed again after uttering his first line. Next stop: "The Maze Runner."
46. Stormtrooper who has a funny death freezeframe.
This image, at least, will live forever.
44-45. These dudes from the "The Raid."
All they do here is get eaten by the rolling toothy buttholes. That's, like, peak wasted potential, JJ.
43. Lady who watched the Starkiller laser blow up her planet.
She doesn't get to talk, because JJ cut her scene with Leia that was supposed to happen earlier in the movie.
42. Captain Phasma.
Positioned by the toy marketers as the Boba Fett of "The Force Awakens," all Captain Phasma actually does is lower Starkiller Base's shield without any kind of resistance whatsoever. She basically defects.
41. Mind-tricked stormtrooper.
He thinks he's big and bad, but Rey manages to pull an old Jedi mind trick on him despite not even know that was a thing. Basically, this dude is the worst.
38-40. Scavengers who nearly get nailed by CGI shrapnel.
Don't know if I should blame them or overly aggressive pre-viz work for these folks almost getting nailed by a crashing TIE Fighter. But they don't seem alarmed by it either way.
37. Major Something or Other.
The funniest thing about "The Force Awakens" is how they named every single character even though most of their names are never spoken. Like this guy, who serves as an audience surrogate when he's like, "It's another Death Star," so Poe will have a reason to explain that, no, actually it's worse.
36. Pilot guy.
Do I really have to rank all these anonymous pilots who don't have any distinguishing characteristics?
Grunberg pulls double duty here, playing both a reference to a Rebel pilot from the original "Star Wars" film and "Greg Grunberg in a JJ Abrams movie." He pulled it off pretty well.
30. Poor computer.
I don't know why Kylo Ren chooses to destroy valuable computer equipment instead of useless officers, but whatever. Darth Vader wouldn't have taken out that computer.
29. C-3PO.
He has a red arm this time. Can't wait to buy the comic book that explains why!
28. Rey's makeshift doll.
Rey. You're an adult. Burn this.
27. Minigun stormtrooper.
Wow! Where was this guy the rest of the movie? He's only in this one shot.
26. Flamethrower stormtrooper.
This guy's even better than the minigun trooper, despite being seen in the exact same number of shots in the movie.
25. Nien Nunb.
Despite being old as hell, Nien is still suiting up to fly around in space shooting stuff.
24. Admiral Ackbar.
He asks a couple questions while the Resistance is pulling a plan out of their asses to take out Starkiller base, then quietly returns to the retirement home.
23. Supreme Leader Snoke.
George Lucas caught a lot of shit for bad character names in the prequels, but he never would have dreamed of calling his villain "Supreme Leader Snoke." It's a name that makes "General Grievous" look really well thought out.
22. Cool village defender lady.
We never actually see her fire that rifle, but I'm sure she was great at it and wasn't immediately murdered.
21. Cool mechanic droid.
I wanna be friends with this guy. J.J. Abrams' "Star Wars" legacy is this droid.
20. Old lady scavenger.
Would have been the Obi-Wan Kenobi of this movie except they forgot to talk to her.
18-19. Smart stormtroopers.
Believe it or not, they do exist, as evidenced by these two who are smart enough to not go near Kylo Ren while he's destroying stuff.
17. The God of the "Star Wars" universe.
For some reason this deity gave everyone at Maz's bar a vision of the Republic capital getting blown up by the First Order. The Lord works in mysterious ways.
16. Maz Kanata.
"Maz is a bit of an acquired taste," Han says about the nicest character in the entire movie.
15. Lor San Tekka.
They brought Max von Sydow in for one scene because they knew nobody else could as convincingly say weird cryptic lines about Kylo Ren's decidedly not secret family heritage. Great actor.
14. Random First Order dude the movie cuts to for no reason.
Is this a cameo? Who knows? Great use of the Mystery Box, J.J.
I like Finn as a person, sure, but he's mostly just along for the ride and not contributing much until somebody, like clockwork, kicks his ass in every battle.
11. Kylo Ren with hair.
Kylo Ren has such great hair, at least when he chooses to wear it.
10. Bald Kylo Ren.
When Kylo takes off his wig, we see his true visage -- a truly terrifying sight.
9. Luke Skywalker.
Maybe the hottest dude in the whole movie.
8. First Poe Dameron.
Well, except for probably this guy. The original (so far as we know) Poe Dameron, who tragically was killed while escaping from a First Order star destroyer with Finn.
7. Clone Poe Dameron.
After Poe died when he and Finn crashed onto Jakku, the Resistance brought out this clone, who seems to have some feelings for Finn.
6. General Hux.
I love this guy. He's basically me if I were fascist and lived in space and liked murder.
5. Rey
She's just happy to be here. Plays with dolls, which is not cool. Kicks a lot of ass, which is cool.
4. Han Solo.
What can I say about Han Solo? He's the guy we liked from those other movies, except old now.
2. This guy who guessed Starkiller Base's weakness.
The Resistance had never seen any kind of weapon like the First Order's Starkiller base, which can destroy multiple planets through hyperspace with a single shot. But this guy is so smart that his wild guess about how to destroy the planet-sized weapon was actually correct.
1. Chewbacca.
I would say something snarky here, but I'm having a hard time conjuring anything since I chose like the saddest possible screenshot to use for Chewbacca. Whoops. I'll do better next time.
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There are a lot of characters in ”The Force Awakens,“ and we ranked many of them!
"Star Wars" fans just learned that the next "Star Wars" film, "Rogue One" will feature a character we didn't see in "The Force Awakens" -- Darth Vader.
So how did the "Force Awakens" characters measure up without him? Here's our rankings. (I wrote a whole bunch of jokes for this. Please laugh.)
