Why great writing has seen the Star Wars force re-awaken

What deadens all writing is cliches, and considering everything in Star Wars is now, by its popularity, a cliche, It must have been a heel of a job to bring this old chestnut to life. Maybe I will see it.

Am I the only person who didn’t like this movie? Normally a big Star Wars fan, I even watch the cartoons, yes, I know, but it didn’t do it for me.

Without giving anyway any spoilers, I just don’t think it flowed well. There was no substance behind the story line in my opinion, everything moved too quickly and you were left guessing why and who these people are.

In previous films, people had to spend their youth and early adulthood learning the ways of the force and how to use a lightsaber. Those prerequisites seem to have gone out the window in this version.

The baddies are just not bad at all, in fact, they were really miscast. I mean I can’t even remember the dark lords name as he was hardly mentioned and you knew nothing about him, and why was he blown up so big in the hologram?

It tried too hard to come up with cheesy one-liners, don’t get me wrong, I love cheese and I know that’s what Star Wars is about, but there were too many poor ones.

Where were the big galactic battles? New, interesting characters? It just seemed like a rehash of old character personas muddled into one. There were hardly any new ships and although I do love the Millennium Falcon, I was hoping for a lot more.

Having said that, what I did like was:
1. The diversity shown in casting the actors;
2. Some of the lead acting was great;
3. Some, only some, of the lightsaber battles were good; and
4. Well, it was Star Wars after all so I did love it all the same.

Sigh.

So…

– Lucas may have written a lot of “A New Hope”, but he was getting script contributions from people like Francis Ford Coppola, Brian De Palma, Willard Huyck, Gloria Katz, Marcia Lucas and John Milius. He had a lot more control and input into the prequels, with few people being happy with the results.

This is important because “Lucas wrote Star Wars on his own” is completely wrong and helps explain the gaps between the original films and the prequels.

It’s also a story that pulls pieces wholesale from other movies and shows, all based on space opera serials like Flash Gordon.

– Having seen “The Force Awakens”, it’s a solid Star Wars film, but to say it is a writer’s victory is massively overstating things. There are quite a few points of hokey dialogue and the narrative clunks along unevenly (but that’s arguably Star Wars as well). The film relies very heavily on having recognisable characters from previous movies involved. As a result, the new characters (with the exception of villain Kylo Ren) don’t really get much opportunity to develop.

It’s the action sequences – the CGI and the explosions – that do most of the heavy lifting in moving the film along.

Or, put it this way: if it didn’t have “Star Wars” on the title, would people be as excited about this film? No, I don’t think they would.

Hi Huw,
You’re getting information from a much better source than me, I’m afraid. I’ve done some more digging, including looking at who was nominated for Best Writing – Screenplay Written Directly For The Screen at the 1978 Academy Awards and I can’t find anyone else’s name but George Lucas’ attached.
Still, my overall point was Empire Strikes Back, Return of the Jedi and The Force Awakes are all infinitely better than the prequels.

Hi CBIST…,
(VERY VAGUE, TAME, POSSIBLE SPOILER ALERT)
To your point about lightsaber use: one person, who had apparently been trained in combat since birth “I’ve only ever known one thing”, used it very ineffectively – and the other had clearly displayed great effectiveness when outnumbered while fighting with a long stick earlier in the movie.
Remember Luke’s first time using it in Star Wars? He only started sucking at it when Obi Wan put the blast shield down on his helmet.
Did you pop out for some popcorn or a wee at any stage? I definitely remember a space battle. A few of them actually.
And don’t forget, the best baddies never think they’re the bad guy – unless they’re a Bond villain.

Maybe once the fanboy buzz subsides, clearer minds will see Force Awakens as the lame and lazy story it actually is.
A nod or two to the past can be passed off as a homage.
A two and a half hr carbon copy of an earlier movie is an insult.
We deserve better.

Hi Chris,

I’d recommend reading ‘How Star Wars Conquered the Universe’ by (another?) Chris Taylor. It covers a lot of ground around the development of Star Wars, plus has a lot tidbits like Brian De Palma actually re-wrote the original opening text crawl as a part apology for being insulting of Lucas’ script, or how Marcia Lucas was crucial to challenging George’s concepts.

It also points out that as far as Star Wars goes, “A New Hope” is only about 10% of George Lucas’ vision while “Phantom Menace” was closer to 90%.

I don’t think too many would argue that “Phantom Menace” was a horribly flawed film!

I really enjoyed the movie. I thought the best writing was the character of Kylo Ren. He was more complex than your usual villains. He was unpredictable – talking softly one minute and then throwing temper tantrums the next.

But I didn’t think Rey was written well. Everything was too easy for her.

In the original films, Luke failed at everything and that’s why we loved him. He was constantly getting saved by other characters – Obi Wan from the sandpeople/in the cantina, Leia into the trash compactor, R2 out of the trash compactor, Han Solo shooting Vader away etc. Even in the last film he fails to defeat the Emperor yet still wins! That is a true underdog.

With Rey, everything was the opposite. Everything came easy. She can fight. She’s an awesome pilot. I won’t spoil anything further – but those who have seen it will agree there are other things she does that come quite conveniently as well.

That’s weak character development. If that’s how Luke was depicted in the originals, he what be nowhere near as iconic.

“…script contributions from people like Francis Ford Coppola, Brian De Palma, Willard Huyck, Gloria Katz, Marcia Lucas and John Milius”

As well as Harrison Ford, who basically rewrote every line he had.

Chris Taylor:
” I can’t find anyone else’s name but George Lucas’ attached.”

There’s a difference between screenwriter *credit* – which is determined by the WGA – and screenwriter input. Willard Huyck and Gloria Katz could likely have been given credit if they sought it, given the amount of input they had, but it likely would have meant arbitration and would have soured the relationship they had with Lucas.

Also important that the original concept artist Ralph McQuarrie created a lot of the look of the films. The editing on the first film, the design and the FX help cover what is a classic heroes journey with some pretty crummy dialogue.

Lucas himself in Star Wars: The Annotated Screenplays: said that Willard Huyck and Gloria Katz wrote about 30% of the dialogue.

This is all easily available online for anyone interested.

Having been a fan of the very first Star Wars, I was most disappointed with the latest feature episode. It’s storyline is so hackneyed and obvious, where most of its old cast are in it for one reason only – the money!. Harrison Ford and Carrie Fisher look they been dragged out of a Vincent de Paul’s second hand store under protest. They have also enticed the great Swedish actor, Klaus von Sydow to do a 30 second cameo delivering 2 relatively forgettable 1 liners and then losing him in even less time.
You can recite the lines long before the actors deliver them. Every cliché seems to have been written into this script. If Chris Taylor genuinely believes this to be a well written script, then he must have been watching something else or been taking something before he watched the movie. We know how disappointed George Lucas was over the end version. I can’t imagine what Speilberg and Coppola must have thought of this turgid storyline, knowing how much was spent on it. Roll on ET 2. The old renowned “May the Force be with you” should be replaced by “May the Botex protect you!” I taken my hat off though to the P and A departments, they managed to turn a lemon into a raw diamond, in the eyes of a beguiled audience with all the saturated coverage. Give us back the original Darth Vader!

Saw ep 7 this morning and was thoroughly entertained by it. Almost as good as the 1977 original.
The biggest insult was having to sit through 25 minutes – that’s right – 25 minutes of ads and trailers, ads and trailers, ads and ads and more ads at the 9.30am screening at Hoyts, Erina.