I don't know if this has been shared yet, but this video very much illustrates my frustrations with TROS and how it failed what was set up by the previous two films...
Now.. having shared this, I stand by my earlier comments that I did enjoy TROS. I feel it's possible to enjoy something, yet still wish it had been... more.
My main complaint being that somehow a 2 hour and 22 minute movie felt rushed, and the above video exactly explains why I felt that way -- it was all plot, no scenes. Basically my same complaint with the last season of GoT -- it, too, was all plot, plot plot, and no scenes. While I generally liked and understood how everything wound up the way it did, the final season was devoid of strong character scenes, previously a hallmark of GoT, that gave weight to the plot. Likewise, TROS never bothered to slow down for a minute and let the characters really matter.
I didn't mind the plot. What I minded was the relentlessness of it.
And that's because JJ Abrams, in my opinion, is pretty great at coming up with ideas, but kind of terrible at telling them. I hate to say it, but he's just a more intellectual Michael Bay -- all style, little substance.
Abrams is basically a roller coaster engineer. He knows how to take the viewer on an emotional ride, how to spark their interest, how to make them feel a gut punch, and how to make them thrill at a character's success.
But he's not really a very good storyteller. Most of what he does relies on what I call meta-narrative audience manipulation.
What I mean by this is stuff that is outside of the narrative, that doesn't contribute to the story itself, but which triggers an emotional response in the audience nonetheless. I'll give you a couple of examples.
1. The Cat/Jump Scare. In horror movies, this one is an old trope. A character is sneaking around or checking out some noise that they've heard. The tension in the scene builds as we sit waiting in anticipation. The character reaches for the door to a closet or sneaks around the corner of an alley and then....>MROOWWW!!< a cat jumps out and scares the bejeezus out of the character and the audience. Often, this is followed up by the character turning around and >ORCHESTRA HIT< the killer is right there next to them and they get brutally murdered! So, why is this "meta-narrative audience manipulation"? Well, you have to start by asking yourself what the point of a horror movie is. I think it's to, you know, scare people. It's meant to create fear in the audience. The Cat Scare does this, but it does it in a meta-narrative way. It uses techniques separate from the
story to put the audience in a false state of tension, and then surprises them. Usually it's accompanied by tense music or the total absence of sound, and is then punctuated by a rapid visual flash plus a loud orchestral hit, both of which trigger the fight-or-flight response in the audience member. But
none of that is actual fear. You know what actual fear is? Actual fear is when an
idea itself is frightening. A Cat/Jump scare merely startles you; it plays on unconscious stimulus/response pathways in your brain and
simulates fear, but it's gone the moment the scene passes or as soon as you leave the theater. When you're walking home that night, you won't be worried that Jason is waiting in the alley for you, or hiding in your closet. Contrast that with, say, the original Nightmare on Elm Street or The Ring. Both films include frightening
concepts that stay with you after you watch them. Maybe you're a little scared to go to sleep that night because...I mean....it's only a movie, but....what if Freddy comes for you in your dreams? Likewise, you watched the video and maybe Samara is gonna come crawling out of your TV...soooo....maaaaaybe I'll just unplug that tonight. And my computer monitor.
That is real fear.
2. The Mystery Box. JJ
loves this one. The Mystery Box is the concept that you present an audience with a "mystery" and part of the "fun" of watching the film or TV show is unraveling the mystery. The thing is, the Mystery Box usually relies on keeping something secret
from the audience. Only sometimes is the information also a mystery
for the characters. Rey's parentage is a perfect example in these films. TFA sets up the question of who Rey's parents are. TLJ basically dispenses with that by saying "That's the wrong question because the answer doesn't actually matter. What matters are Rey's choices." And then ROS does another 180 by answering the question with the ultra-dumb "She's a Palpatine, because The Emperor at some point went off and boned....someone to create a son who...I guess...uh...didn't like his dad and ran away and...um....he had a kid and that kid was Rey so.....yeah. She's a Palpatine." Now, ask yourself this question: was Rey's parentage a mystery
FROM REY, or was it just a mystery
from the audience? Did
Rey know who her parents were? The third film suggests that yes, she absolutely did, given that she fears she's harboring a dark secret about herself. The first two films kind of leave it open, with the second strongly calling into question whether Rey actually knows (I mean, she literally says "Who are my parents?"). This is classic JJ Mystery Box bulls**t. Again, for JJ the "fun" is in the speculation about the answer. It's not the reveal of the answer. In fact, the reveal is almost always anticlimactic in some manner. But the way the "Mystery Box" works is that it creates audience engagement with the story. In other words, it fools the audience into think they're invested
in the story when what they're really invested in is
the mystery itself, and that mystery only exists for the audience. The characters may already know the answer. The point of the story isn't even usually answering the question. It's like endlessly speculating about the identity of Mona Lisa or wondering who You're So Vain is about (it's Warren Beatty, by the way). These "mysteries" are entirely beside the point for the underlying work itself. And very often, if you remove the mystery element, the rest of the story is pretty...ho hum, really. There's nothing all that special about the story. But by introducing a mystery for the audience to solve, you create a kind of false audience engagement with the story. Only instead of watching the story for its own sake, they're watching it to figure out the answer to the mystery -- which, again, may not even be a mystery for the characters in the story. It's like the Who Is Snoke? "mystery." Han and Leia suggest that they know who he is. And it turns out, he's a clone of the Emperor. Or something. But his identity is entirely beside the point of the story. It's just a lingering question brought on by the fact that the film started in media res, introduced some new characters, and suddenly we were totally lost as to what the hell was going on and who this dude was who is in charge now. Meta-narrative. Outside the narrative. That's what this stuff is, and JJ loves, loves, LOVES to use it to make audiences think they're super into his story, when really they're super into figuring out the puzzle and the story itself is just kinda "meh." (Which is why everyone ends up pissed or at least mildly annoyed at him when he reveals the answer and it's always a let-down -- because the answer is pointless for the story or is some ham-fisted post-hoc solution to the mystery that he hasn't managed effectively during the telling of the story.)
These are just a few examples of how JJ plays with his audience. He does other things, like having his characters run from one crisis to another, falling out of one problem and into another, but with none of it actually mattering to the story itself. It's just a way to keep the audience engaged because ACTION!!! is happening on screen. If you focused purely on the story itself, the action is mostly extraneous. It serves no purpose other than to keep people engaged with the film. There's also usually very little building of actual tension; instead, it's just ACTION!!! pause to talk a minute then SUDDENLY MORE ACTION!!! and on and on it goes. You can see this in his Star Trek films. you can see it in his Star Wars films. You can see it in his Mission Impossible films. You run from one place to another, but there's no real purpose behind the action. It's just a series of complications that ensue between getting from Point A to Point B. In the moment, it's thrilling and visceral, and paced in a way that leaves the audience feeling as if it's gone on a roller coaster ride. But at the end, if you look back and start picking over it, you start to realize that it didn't really matter, it made no real sense, and it wasn't really a story so much as a series of events happening in sequence in between actual story points which are dealt with just as hastily because we have to get on to the next big cool moment.
I should also say, I think JJ is amazing at crafting these kinds of films. I think he is absolutely a master craftsman in this regard. I also don't think he's especially interested in telling real stories; he's happy doing what he's doing, and he's damn good at it, too. So, why mess with it? Steer into your strengths, right? But it does leave these films often feeling kind of lacking.
