My Ultimate Feelings On Star Wars: The Force Awakens

Star Wars: The Force Awakens. Love it or hate it, its here, and its here in force. After three weeks, it remains the top grossing movie at the box office, suppressing all who dare oppose it. I myself have seen it twice, and I've been stewing over my thoughts on it for at least two weeks. That's right. Two. Weeks. That's how big of a deal Star Wars is to me. The world of Star Wars, and all of its characters and plot events have such a big place in my life that I've been thinking about it nonstop for two weeks. That's more time spent on Star Wars than all of my 4 biochemistry exams combined. No wonder I tanked that class.

Star Wars: The Force Awakens isn't an amazing movie, but it isn't a bad movie. It exists in that limbo-esque realm where it satisfies so many conditions, but at the same time it creates a whole new list of problems that have been driving me nuts for weeks.

For those who don't know, Star Wars: The Force Awakens is the newest chapter in the beloved Star Wars franchise. The story follows a new generation of space adventurers, Rey and Finn, as they race at breakneck speed to join the resistance(coughRebelAlliance2cough) to help stop The First Order from taking control of the galaxy. Along the way, they join up with Han Solo and Chewbacca, and embark on an adventure that embodies the deepest of tragedies, the most unbelievable amounts of fun, and the most intense of action sequences. The movie evokes such deep emotions for long time fans of the franchise, that its tough for me to quantify just how important seeing this movie was for me.

Actually, I lied. It isn't that hard. You know that part, at the beginning of every Star Wars movie where it does the STAR WARS and the music swells in grandiose manner? Yeah. As soon as that title hit the screen, I was in tears. Both times, I might add. that's how exciting the prospect of a new Star Wars movie is to me. I cried when the movie ended, and several hours later, I wept over what Disney and my boy J.J. Abrams had done to my beloved Star Wars. But as a rabid, uncontrollable Star Wars fan, I knew it could never satisfy me. I'm afraid I'm so deep in, and so convoluted in my love of Star Wars that I might never be satisfied with an attempt to reinvigorate Star Wars. Putting that aside, what we have here is pretty damn good.

For one, every single new cast member has something great to add to the movie. Gone are the days of a whiny Anakin Skywalker, and a chemistry-less romance between Hayden Christensen and Natalie Portman. Instead, we get John Boyega, who undeniably hams up his role a little bit, and you know what? It works. Finn is the guy you want to be in the Star Wars movies. He's essentially a Han Solo-lite kind of guy; goofy, lovable, the kind of guy you'd want to pal around with on the Millennium Falcon. And, when the going gets tough, he rises to the occasion and takes things seriously. He's a little bit too close to the Return of the Jedi era Han Solo, but we've gotten to see only but a taste of what I believe Boyega can do with the character. Ren, played by Daisy Ridley, brings a burning intensity to the new movie, combining the ambition and determination of a young Luke Skywalker with the confidence and rambunctiousness of Princess Leia in the first film. Its like when they wrote the movies, they didn't want to straight up copy the original cast, but instead we get sort of a morphed together evolution, and I think that was sorta unavoidable.

Other new guys aren't quite explored well enough for me to give you a solid feeling on their qualities. Sure, I could talk about how ridiculous Kylo Ren is at times, and how much he seems like a full character based on Tusken Raider Murdering Anakin Skywalker, but at the same time, when he's in the mask, he totally nails that classic Darth Vader feeling. Or I could talk about General Hux, but he wasn't really in the movie that much, so I feel like firing off a paragraph about these guys isn't really all that fair. The story, in the way Abrams brought it to the screen just tries to do way too much in too little of a time, so, while I saw these guys on the screen, I feel like I don't really know them well enough. Like, there was so much Vader and Tarken in A New Hope, that you really got a good feel for them. I didn't get that same level of characterization out of The Force Awakens really.

The same goes for our returning players, save for Han Solo and Chewbacca, who are really the only classic Star Wars guys who come back for round two. Carrie Fisher returns as General Leia, but honestly, she's in like four or five scenes, whereas Han and Chewie are in like a billion.

And all the other new guys - Poe Dameron, crazy eyes lady, and that guy played for like three minutes by Max Von Sydow. Hell, even the hyped up Captain Phasma kind of got like two lines, and then bam, she was gone.

And this leads me to my point: Star Wars: The Force Awakens feels like it isn't a director making Star Wars 7, its a Star Wars fan making Star Wars 7. Its like Abrams tried to cram as much of his favorite things into a single movie, and it shows. The movie just tries to do way too much in two little of a time; lightsaber battles, force visions, droids, space battles, death stars, darth vaders, emperors, the Millennium Falcon doing just about everything, and every single Star Wars character ever that had more than two minutes of screen time. And then, we've got a desert planet, a Yavin carbon copy planet, a hoth like setting, tons of pieces ripped out of Star Wars 4, 5, and 6 in uneven, but still present amounts. Its like, you can tell Abrams got way too excited about the prospect of making a new Star Wars movie, that he just wanted everything, just like a kid in a candy store. And you know what? As much as this makes for a messy and derivative movie, and as much as this drives me nuts as not only a movie guy, but also a Star Wars guy, I get it. And you know why? Because I would have the same exact problem if I was asked to make a Star Wars movie. I would get so overwhelmed and try to cram so many of my favorite Star Wars things into the film that it would end up the same way as The Force Awakens is.

Its taken me nearly two weeks since my 2nd screening, but I've finally been able to put into words my thoughts of the return of the greatest blockbuster franchise of all time. Star Wars is back guys. Its a heavily flawed movie, but its also a really satisfying movie. You may not see a flawless script, but you see so much overflowing energy and enthusiasm for the return of Star Wars, so much so that its hard to not fall in love with the galaxy far, far away all over again, as if it were new.

So yes, suppressing the fan boy that is dying to get out and whine and complain some more, Star Wars: The Force Awakens is everything I've ever wanted and more.

Also, the special effects were serviceable, and the look of the film did a good job of recreating the look of the original movies, and the score was good, and the cinematography was pretty cool although I really haven't had time to let it sink in. There. I said it.



Tech Talk:
Star Wars: The Force Awakens was shot on 35mm film with anamorphic Panavision lenses for a final aspect ratio of 2.35:1. One scene of the film, concerning a space ship and a daring escape was shot on 15-perf 65mm film for the IMAX screens, but its short, and rather underwhelming.

I've viewed the film twice: once in IMAX 3D, and once in regular 2D. Honestly, the IMAX 3D presentation, rendered on screen in 2K digital, looked like absolute garbage. Detail was non existent, and the whole experience was blurry from start to finish. The 3D conversion was absolutely lifeless, and the experience was so underwhelming that I've decided to swear off digital IMAX once and for all. The 2D digital screening, also in 2K digital wasn't so bad, mostly because I sat far away enough from the screen to notice the low resolution images. The problem with digital IMAX is that its smack dab in your face, so you start to notice just how awful 2K can be.

The sound mix was almost too intense in IMAX 5.0 digital sound, and pretty much not intense enough during the 2D digital screening. I'll have to wait for the home video to really make a fair judgment on the film's mix.

The Hateful Eight 70mm Roadshow - 1/3/16

It's no secret that I'm not a huge Tarantino fan. I think that his movies are a lot of fun at times, but their over-reliance on violence has started to wear on me over time, and now I find it somewhat hard to enjoy movies like Reservoir Dogs, Django Unchained, and even bits of Pulp Fiction because they just seem so over the top when it comes to over indulging in violence. I won't say they are objectively bad films, I just have a hard time finding reasons to justify in my mind what I call, "storytelling through violence." We'll get back to that point much later in the review, I just wanted to put that on the table.

I spent my Saturday, January the 2nd, traveling with a close friend out to Toronto, Canada to see the 70mm roadshow release of Quentin Tarantino's The Hateful Eight. I wasn't necessarily over enthusiastic about the movie itself, but I was really, really excited to get a chance to experience a presentation medium that has been resurrected from the grave in which it was buried in the mid-1960s: Ultra Panavision 70. For those of you who don't know, Ultra Panavision is a wide screen filmmaking process that uses 70mm film stock with a specific set of lenses to create an image that 2.76 times as wide as it is tall, the widest image used in commercial cinema. For reference, the standard when it comes to shooting movies on film is 35mm film, as was used in blockbusters this year like Star Wars: The Force Awakens, Spectre, and Mission Impossible: Rogue Nation. 70, is of course, twice 35, and therefore has twice the resolution, and it turn, makes for a sharper, more colorful presentation. Good stuff.

And you know what? The Hateful Hate is an absolute masterpiece.

My expectations were low, because I wasn't too thrilled with Django Unchained. It was a fast paced, violent, racist movie, and there seemed to be very little character development, and some less than thrilling performances (here's looking at you Mr. Tarantino, and your horrible Australian accent.) And because it was a western, and this film is also a western, I feared that it would carry with it all of the same issues that Django had for 3+ hours. You can imagine how this proposition wasn't exactly the most exciting one for me.

And yet, as the projector sprang to life, and the overture began, I knew immediately that I was so, so wrong. The music was reserved, beautiful, and almost haunting, set against a red, almost twilight background. I knew right away that this was going to be a slower, more mature product.

The plot of this film is as follows: eight murders and killers end up stuck together in a small lodge in Wyoming. Mayhem ensues as the different members turn on each other to suit their own goals, with some graphic violence tossed in the mix as well. As far as the plot of the film goes, its nothing particularly impressive, or terribly original. Like most movies however, its strength lies in the execution of its story, and boy does Tarantino deliver. His perfectly crafted cast, featuring Kurt Russel, Samuel L. Jackson, Jennifer Jason Leigh, Walton Goggins, Tim Roth, Michael Masden, and a few others, has some of the best chemistry as an overall ensemble that I've seen in a long time. The way they play their sharp, witty dialogue off of each other is absolutely to die for. It's funny, and it's appropriately intense when necessary. I was worried after Sam Jackson's absolutely unbearable performance in Django Unchained that he would return to once again chew up the scenery and perform as poorly, but I could not have been more wrong; each one of these actors and the one main actress in the film turn in their own respective best performances. Kurt Russel, Sam Jackson, and Walton Goggins play off of each other so well, they essentially carry the show in a film full of show carrying performances. Jennifer Jason Leigh's Daisy Domergue is sinister, and yet delightfully comedic, proving that she most definitely has what it takes to make a comeback as a major Hollywood star, and I hope to god that she does.

What's even better about this movie, is that it really takes its time to tell its story. Over the course of three hours of run time, including an intermission and the above mentioned overture, we really get to know these characters. They no longer feel like violent cartoons, which at times characters in Tarantino's films kind of felt like. These guys have stories, identities, and interesting ones at that. The script is sharp, and while it carries some of same time period relevant racism as Django did, it doesn't feel as forced or obnoxious. Something to note about this movie: I feel that it includes the least amount of violence that I've seen in a Tarantino film, but it does include the most effective violence that I've ever seen in one of his films. Whereas films like Django and Kill Bill were most certainly what I like to call, "storytelling through violence," in that most of the storytelling is done through acts of brutal violence, such as well.....all of Kill Bill, The Hateful Eight spends most of its runtime building up to violence. For the sake of simplicity, I'll refer to it as, "storytelling that justifies violence." Tarantino's script perfectly builds tension, and moves slowly enough that you really get absorbed into his characters and the narrative, so that when his signature violence steps in at full force, it feels right. It feels satisfying. At some point while watching Django Unchained, I thought to myself, as a plantation building exploded in grandiose fashion, "this is absolutely ridiculous." Not once during the 3 hours of The Hateful Eight did I have a similar thought. I will note however, that the violence in this movie is a little gross, and is not for everyone.

As much as the film's cast is full of stars, I must include the cinematography as a main character in the story as well. Too many times do I watch a movie, where the camerawork is too fast to be admired effectively. Such is not the case in The Hateful Eight, where the Ultra Panavision photography is used to its maximum impact. The frame is so wide, and covers such a limited area, that you see so much. In each shot, there is a million different things to look at, whether it be 4 or 5 characters on screen, or the placement of items in terms of the misc-en-scene of the movie. The slow movements of the camera allow nothing to get lost in the shuffle, and the large, wide exterior shots are some of the greatest on screen representations of the ferocity of a good winter storm that I've ever seen. Take it from me, I live in Rochester, I know a good winter storm, and the cinematography certainly felt almost too familiar. Robert Richardson should be commended for his work, I hope to see his name on the ballot of the Oscar for best cinematography during the coming awards season.

Last but not least, I gotta give a huge nod to Ennio Morricone, as his score was great. It was subtle, fitting, and atmospheric. It really helped build the tension throughout the three hour run. I don't have anything well thought out to say really, as it takes me weeks to full digest a movie's soundtrack. All I can say is that it's damn good. The sound design of the film was quite good as well, with the surrounds constantly active, and engaging. Overall, the sound of this movie was quite the class act.





Tech Talk:
The Hateful Eight roadshow 70mm release was minted from a photochemically timed internegative prepared by Fotokem in California, and presented in 70mm with a 1.25x anamorphic squeeze to create a 2.76:1 aspect ratio, as mentioned above. The film was projected off of a pre-prepared platter of 70mm film, with 12 minutes of black film included to run the intermission.

The print that I saw, having been run three times a day for an entire week beforehand, was essentially in mint condition. There was a little bit of dirt during the overture, and in random places throughout the film, but overall the print was stellar. The focus, which has been a recurring issue with the 70mm roadshow presentations all over the place, was nearly perfect across the entire 2.76:1 frame. Only when text was on screen, such as in the opening titles and the credits, could you notice that the focus was a hair soft in the center of the frame, which did not distract from the overall quality of the presentation. The only damage I noticed to the print was during the 12 minute intermission, which was just black film. The presentation was bright, sharp, and grainless, due to the quality of the 70mm film stock.

The sound mix, presented in 5.1 off of a 70mm Datasat digital soundtrack was flawless. No dropouts, or any sound level issues present whatsoever. The entire movie was incredibly clear, and a pleasure to listen to.

Overall, it was the brightest, most colorful and sharp film presentation I have ever seen, and it will likely hold that title for years to come. I only wish that I had the means to view it in that format again.