In Defense of "The Force Awakens" Episode I: Its Politics Make Enough Sense

See my full opening crawl here.

It’s possible that no movie has ever had higher pre-release expectations than Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens. Between not only continuing the epic story begun in the beloved original trilogy more than 30 years ago, but also overcoming the ill-will garnered by the widely-reviled prequel trilogy 10 years prior, The Force Awakens had quite the task before it.

Did it succeed? In my view, yes. On my first viewing (going into which I went to great lengths to avoid spoilers) it blew me away--so much that I felt compelled to see it a second time the next day. In doing so, I hoped to ensure I was confident enough in my opinion of the movie to go about testing it against the other reviews that had appeared, as too often I find the opinions of others inevitably influencing my own views of movies.

I thought highly of the movie after my second viewing, and still do after my third and--so far--final. If everyone shared my opinion, then I would simply review the movie here and be done with it. I have learned, however, that not everybody shares my affection. Indeed, I am already beginning to sense a great disturbance in the Force in the form of pushback from naysayers (who can count George Lucas and the Vatican among their number). Having read more Star Wars hot takes since December 20 than I hope ever to read again, I have identified the four strongest and most common criticisms: 

1) The politics are too vague/confusing
2) Rey is too perfect/powerful 
3) It is too similar to past Star Wars movies 
4) There are too many plot holes. 

Because I have always been better at defending my views from criticism than making positive cases for or against something, and even though I tend to be a contrarian when concerning super-popular things that probably don’t need me to defend them anyway (I turned against The Dark Knight when it first came out before coming around to it later), here follows my attempt to address each criticism in turn. In doing so, I shall not quote excessively from the takes I am citing, and will instead try to summarize their general argument fairly, while linking to them for those who wish to read them in full. When I am done with all of these posts, I shall combine them into a master post for masochists/completists.

Let's start with:

1) The politics are too vague/confusing.
Examples: Ben Domenech, Alyssa Rosenberg, Sonny Bunch

The basic thrust of this argument is that, unlike the clear-cut Empire/Rebellion struggle of the original trilogy, the political situation of The Force Awakens seems much less straightforward. Implicit (and explicit) in these arguments is a desire for more politics/political exposition in The Force Awakens. 

This is strange argument, for three reasons. First, even the deliberately understated political exposition we get in the movie suffices: The New Republic is the government the Rebellion formed after Return of the Jedi. The First Order is a sort of half-state/half-terrorist organization (think ISIS) that arose from the ashes of the Empire. (I shall say more about the First Order in rebutting argument 3).) Though the First Order actually controls territory, the New Republic refuses to act on the threat, requiring Leia’s Resistance. 

If the prequel trilogy’s political narrative showed the transformation of a decadent republic into an empire, and the original trilogy’s narrative showed the success of a Rebellion against that Empire, then this trilogy’s political narrative seems likely to show the difficulty of keeping a newly-established regime true to its roots and preserving it against internal and external threats as it becomes ever more removed from the time of its founding (a problem Abraham Lincoln once described). The seduction of Kylo Ren, the child of two of the Rebellion’s most prominent figures, by the Dark Side is a literal representation of this difficulty of maintaining a regime. Though canon non-film material confirms this, I gleaned all of it from just watching the movie (and surely we’ll learn more in sequels).

Second (and stepping outside of intra-movie logic), to ask for more politics in The Force Awakens invites a return to the rote overexposition of the prequel trilogy, which forced viewers to learn far more about the taxation of trade routes than they ever expected. 

Third, it suggests that people actually watch Star Wars movies because of their politics, which I can pretty much guarantee is not the case. This seems the weakest of the better arguments against The Force Awakens.

Next up: Why Rey is not too perfect/powerful.