The Week In Geek: Star Wars Edition

So, This Week In Star Wars....Star Wars happened this week. So, it's should be pretty obvious that this week, I am going to be discussing Star Wars. With that in mind, if you haven't watched The Force Awakens yet, now is the time to jump ship because there are going to be spoilers after the jump. Last chance so there's no excuses.

Okay, so The Force Awakens was fucking awesome!!! JJ Abrams clearly improved upon the sins of his predecessor. The thing that this movie did better than episodes 1 through 3 is give us characters to care about. Anakin Skywalker was a borderline McGuffin in The Phantom Menace and after that, he was a whiny petulant brat. Obi Wan could have been a relatable character, but suffered under the weight of George Lucas' wooden ass dialogue. Padme was just kinda there (not too much unlike the Clone Wars series, where she was just kinda there to get captured periodically). I cared about every single character in TFA because mostly every character in TFA had a clear, understandable motivation. Finn wanted to be free to make his own way in the universe, Rey wanted purpose, Han wanted his son back. Even Kylo Ren, as misguided as he is, just wanted to surpass Darth Vader in power and stature.

The problems that some of the fans are circling over seem kinda minor. For one thing, the fight in the third act between Kylo Ren, Fin and Ray....Fans are complaining that Finn and Rey both shouldn't have been able to contend with an enraged, skilled Force user. First of all, Ren was seriously wounded from Chewbacca's blaster, so that's a handicap right there. Furthermore, in fairness, Finn got a few good lightsaber swings in, but he ended up comatose, clinging to life for his trouble, so if he leveled up, it was the WORST level up of all time. That's like saying the Night's Watch men who held the gate against the giant in Game of Thrones leveled up even though they died holding the line. Another thing is the Starkiller wiping out an entire system of planets without them being completely established in the context of the movie. Well, guess what....one of the problems of the prequels was that they seemed more focused on giving us an intergalactic political science lecture in an attempt to build the SW universe than it was in being a fun movie, so that's something I can live with.

Some people took issue with there being similar plot beats from previous installments. Generationally speaking, Star Wars is a series that speaks heavily to the theme of history repeating itself. I mean, Sons of Anarchy is almost completely about history repeating itself. If you're going to have an ongoing saga that revolves around the Skywalker family, you're going to see a revisiting of strong themes. Guys, it's obvious that Disney thought the best idea was to play up the things that people traditionally like about the series and, honestly, there's nothing wrong with that. Batman movies always traditionally revisit the Joker and question whether or not villain create Batman or the other way around. James Bond movies always have weird villains, a hot enigmatic woman and an awesome car. Spider-Man is always about villains that hit too close to home.

At the end of the day, was it perfection? No, but what is? Even the original trilogy has issues that had to be fixed along the way (especially considering Lucas made up at least half of the fine points of story up as he went). But it was a fun movie that left me walking out of the theater with a good feeling. That counts for a lot with me.

My reviews for the week on Superman: American Alien, Tokyo Ghost and The Mighty Thor are all available on Black Nerd Problems for your viewing enjoyment. My comic, Neverland: The Untold, is taking a little holiday break so my team can catch their breath. In the meantime, check out the new art gallery we added to the website. If you have fan art of your own that you'd like to submit, there's an option for you to upload that so feel free.