Age of the Geek

I've got a bad feeling about this
     Here we are. Mere days away from “Star Wars: The Force Awakens.”
     All-aboard the hype train! Choo-choo!
     This is the big moment. The movie that will determine whether Disney’s multi-billion dollar purchase of the Star Wars franchise was worth it. A success here will start a new age of Star Wars mythology. Failure will drive the franchise back into depths it hasn’t seen since the early aughts.
     But there’s no way this movie could be bad, right? That just couldn’t happen. We’ve waited too long for this. For most of our lives, we never thought these movies had a chance to be made at all.
     How soon we forget.
     It has been 16 years since legions of fans camped out for weeks, if not months, in advance to see “Star Wars: The Phantom Menace.” The first movie in the prequel trilogy generated more enthusiasm for a film than we’ll probably ever see again.
     The hype is understandable. Star Wars isn’t just a film franchise. It’s modern mythology. The idea of getting a second trilogy of movies was more than anybody ever thought was possible.
     To say expectations were high would be a gross understatement.
     And we all know how that tragic tale ended. Once the adrenaline rush wore off and the audience had time to process what they just watched, millions of voices cried out and were silenced by the crushing realization that Episode I was simply a terrible movie.
     Nobody wants that to happen again, so before the hype train goes completely out of control, I’m gonna be the Negative Nancy and temper some expectations, just in case history repeats itself.
     If you want to ride the wave of excitement all the way into the theater, stop reading now. I’m not saying that Episode VII will be a bad movie, but a more realistic expectation going in may save some disappointment in the future.
     First, let’s take a look at Episode VII’s director, J.J. Abrams.
     It may surprise you to learn that even though he’s a huge name in the industry, Abrams only directed four films before Star Wars. After building a resume on television with “Alias” and “Lost,” Abrams moved up to the director’s chair for “Mission: Impossible 3,” a move most generously described as “passable.”
     Abrams also directed “Super 8,” another relatively inoffensive movie that, more than anything else was, a love letter to Stephen Spielberg. The movie wasn’t bad, but I doubt many people bothered to see it twice.
     And of course, there’s the “Star Trek” reboot films. These movies make it really hard to predict how Abrams may handle the Star Wars franchise. On the one hand, J.J. Abrams’ “Star Trek” and “Star Trek Into Darkness” are complete failures of adaptation. Abrams took a franchise known for well thought out sci-fi with compelling characters and methodological plots and made two movies that were big, loud and dumb.
     Very dumb.
     So. Incredibly. Dumb.
     His inability to show even the slightest amount of respect to the source material should raise warning signs to any Star Wars fan out there.
     On the other hand, Star Wars is at its core, big, loud and dumb. This doesn’t mean Abrams will show the source material of Star Wars any more reverence than he did with Star Trek, but at the very least he’ll be playing to his strengths.
     Another concern is whether we’ll be watching a Star Wars movie or a J.J. Abrams movie. One would hope that Abrams would be able to put his ego aside for a moment and just focus on making a good Star Wars movie. However, judging from the fact that there are nine of his signature lens flares in the trailer alone, it doesn’t look like that’s going to happen.
     Details about the new Star Wars movie are thankfully sparse. We know that it will follow the story of a desert dwelling protagonist who ends up in the Millennium Falcon on the run from an evil empire with a planet-destroying super weapon. We know that Han and Chewy are still around and that Princess Leia has traded in her title for the military rank of general.
     But we don’t know what happened to Luke Skywalker.
     Other than a mysterious glimpse of a hooded figure reaching out to R2-D2 with his robot hand, there’s been no sign of Luke in the trailers, posters or any other promotional material. We know he didn’t rebuild the Jedi Order like he was supposed to, so what has he been doing for the last 30 years? What doesn’t Abrams want us to know?
     That will be the question going into Episode VII. Is Luke still the new hope of the Jedi, or has he fallen to the dark side like his father before him?
     I know, right? Luke Skywalker turning to the dark side? That’s ridiculous. Who would ever come up with such a hackneyed twist, and then hide that twist so poorly? Definitely not the guy who thought he was being subtle by pretending that Benedict Cumberbatch wasn’t playing Kahn in the last Star Trek movie. Right?
     I honestly don’t know what’s going to happen here.
     The best case scenario is that J.J. Abrams makes the best movie of his career, not that that’s a particularly high bar, and leaves the franchise in a good position for Rian Johnson to continue with Episode VIII.
     Worst case scenario is that Abrams irreversibly taints the franchise and we all disregard the sequel trilogy just like the prequel trilogy.
     The most likely outcome probably falls somewhere in between. Abrams will make a movie that is big, loud, dumb and full of lens flare. It will crib all of your favorite moments from the original trilogy without adding anything of substance and you’ll leave the theater feeling entertained but unfulfilled.
     One way or the other, we’ll find out this weekend.
 
     Travis Fischer is a news writer for Mid-America Publishing and hopes Jar Jar Binks returns as the evil mastermind behind everything.