Meh. Thought it was lousy. I posted this elsewhere but I'll copy it here:
So much potential, and most of it squandered on hollow callback and jokey references to prior Star Wars movies. The film gets shaky when Solo shows up, and falls apart completely once Starkiller Base is introduced. I’m baffled by the near-universal acclaim this is receiving.
I’ve had a thought ratting around in my head the last few days and I’m wondering if anyone else thinks this makes sense: I think they rewrote the second half of the movie very late in preproduction and most of the story flaws stem from that decision. Let me explain.
There was a rumor floating around over the summer that Starkiller Base belonged to the Resistance and there would be a moral dilemma where General Leia would have to decide wether to use it against the First Order or not. As the release date got closer and we found out more about the movie, that looked more and more like usual baseless rumormongering and of course it turned out not to be true at all once the movie came out. Oh those silly Internet rumors, right?
Well…if you assume that was, in fact, true in an older draft of the screenplay, suddenly most of TFA’s story issues go away. For example:
• Finn’s aborted character arc. Finn’s story sort of peters out as the movie goes on, eventually being forgotten about. Why create a character who is a former faceless enemy turned good and not capitalize on that? Assuming a different role for Starkiller, he’s the perfect character to make the impassioned plea to the good guys to remember that the planet full of First Order troops they’re bout to blow up are living, breathing human beings, slaves who were brainwashed by the First Order and don’t deserve to die just because of where they had the misfortune to be born. Any one of them could be another Finn and they deserve a chance, same as him. Finn saves the day, and gets to become a hero and find a new purpose in his life.
• Leia’s near-total uselessness. Leia basically does nothing in the finished movie. But if she were, say, the sole dissenting voice on the New Republic council (or whatever) advocating against the use of the Starkiller, she’s got a point and an arc. She would be the spearhead against the immoral use of a weapon of mass destruction, able to speak form experience because she lost her home planet to the Death Star. The arrival of Finn, Rey, and the key to finding Luke Skywalker finally gives her some traction in her fight against the superweapon. Speaking of…
• The search for Luke Skywalker would actually matter. “This will begin to set things right,” says Lars Von Tekka at the very start of the movie. Except….how? It’s never clear what problem the Resistance/New Republic has that finding Luke would solve. Sure they need to keep him safe from the First Order but they could do that by destroying the thumbdrive with the map in it. But if the Replublic has begun to fall to the Dark Side in Luke’s absence, it makes sense that Liea et al would need to find him. He’s the last Jedi, the last lightside Force user, and they need him if there’s any hope of stopping the Republic from making a huge mistake.
• It would explain why Starkiller Base was so easy to destroy. It takes very little effort to destroy Starkiller in the finished movie. There’s a couple of minutes where the characters go from knowing nothing about the base to having a plan to blow it up that then proceeds flawlessly. This would make perfect sense if Starkiller belonged to the Republic/Resistance. It’s their own base! Of course it’s easy to deactivate/blow up. They built it! They’re already on it! They probably just have to go push a button.
• It would strengthen the theme of reversal the movie has going on. A female version of Luke. A female version of Yoda. A stormtrooper disguised as a rebel instead of a rebel disguised as a stormtrooper. A Skywalker son who is dark and feels tempted by the light but sticks it out and stays loyal to his side. Another Death Star but in the hands of the heroes would be another addiction to the OT perspective flip that the movie has going on. (Plus reversals are the kind of thing JJ loves to do. See Star Trek Into Darkness)
And so on. There’s lots of other little things it improves, as well as some new flaws it introduces, but I feel like it makes a lot more sense than the movie we ended up with. I can’t prove it, but I suspect there was an early draft very close to these ideas and for whatever reason JJ and company changed their minds at the last minute.
