At first, the stranger has no name, though he soon acquires one. Finn (John Boyega) turns out to be an Imperial Stormtrooper with a conscience. I must admit, I never realized that such tender beings existed. It’s as though a member of the Hitler Youth had volunteered for Meals on Wheels. Anyway, off comes his helmet, and Boyega gives a fine demonstration of moral relief, as the sweaty burden of malice is lifted from his soul. Such, at least, is one reading of the scene; the expression on his face could equally be that of a grown man who no longer has to jog around in one of those white plastic codpieces, which never look quite as shatterproof as the wearer would like them to be. Not for a second, as a teen-ager, was I spooked by the Stormtroopers, and Abrams, I suspect, feels the same, which is why he dedicates one of the earliest shots in his movie to refurbishing their image—showing them all in a row, under lighting that flickers like a strobe. Just for once, they seem to be something other than outsize toys, although even Abrams can’t do much about the Millennium Falcon, which struck me, decades ago, as little more than a Lego kit waiting to happen.
And what of its proud owner? In contrast to Luke, Han Solo, still armed with his lopsided sigh of a smile, resumes his spot on center stage in “The Force Awakens,” and rightly so, for the franchise owes so much to Harrison Ford. Without him and Alec Guinness, after all, the first “Star Wars” would have been largely unwatchable; viewed again earlier this week, it came across as startlingly inept—barely written, often badly acted, and always poorly paced, with some sequences tumbling past in an embarrassed rush and others lingering like unwanted guests. Granted, the result made hundreds of millions of dollars, and acquired the patina of legend, but, still, “Star Wars” was emotionally as null as the interstellar void through which its vessels leaped. That gratuitous round of applause at the end, for the returning saviors, and thus, by implication, for the movie’s own bravado? I blocked my ears. And the comedy? Don’t make me laugh. Ford alone took the measure of the nonsense around him, and saw instinctively how it might flourish; his lazy sprawl, and his grumbling asides, encouraged the audience to step back and inspect the striving of other life forms, and other civilizations, from a laconic angle. He understood, as Bogart did before him, that a half-reluctant hero, with a fondness for cash payments, is sexier and more plausible than any pink-cheeked enthusiast who gets turned on by the dream of doing good. Ford became the ironist of junk.
Hence his conversation in “The Force Awakens” with Carrie Fisher, who turns up once again as Princess Leia, still unfazed but minus the cinnamon roll of hair glued onto each ear. Solo says, “Wasn’t all bad, was it? Some of it was”—a loaded pause—“pretty good.” Leia ponders. “Some of it,” she says. I like to think that Abrams had a similar chat, on the sly, with Lawrence Kasdan, one of his co-writers on the project. (Michael Arndt also gets a credit.) It was Kasdan, of course, who worked on “The Empire Strikes Back” and “The Return of the Jedi,” and yet his efforts here suggest not so much a tour of the old galactic homestead as a step into another well-known terrain. With Kasdan and Ford back in harness together, as they were for “Raiders of the Lost Ark,” almost thirty-five years ago, “The Force Awakens” feels closer to Indiana Jones than it does to Lucas’s “Star Wars.” (Solo to Rey and Finn: “Escape now. Hug later.” Indy to a T.) By temperament, Abrams is more of a Spielbergian than he is a Lucasite. His visual wit may not be, as it is for Spielberg, a near-magical reflex, but nor is Abrams suckered into bombast by technological zeal, as Lucas has been, and the new movie, as an act of pure storytelling, streams by with fluency and zip. To sum up: “Star Wars” was broke, and it did need fixing. And here is the answer.
http://chathambaroque.org/ep-star-wars-episode-vii-force-awakens