Adoption in Film: Star Wars The Force Awakens (original) (raw)

Having not posted on LJ in over two years, I'm trying to start something new with reviews of films from the optic of the adoption community. As anyone still reading my blog likely knows, I am the father of two adopted sons. As anyone who is familiar with adoption is likely aware, there are concerns that you face as part of the adoption community that are not intuitive to the outside, and I thought I would try to add something from that perspective.

In any event, since azriona has already posted her review of The Force Awakens, I figured I'd start here. The bottom line is that this is a pretty good film (closer to Episodes IV-VI than to I-III, but definitely in between the two groups). However, there's some really troubling stuff in here from an adoptive family standpoint for which you will want to watch out.

First, the plot line with Kylo Ren aka Ben Solo should worry anyone dealing with kids from a broken family. The film makes pretty clear that Kylo/Ben's actions are the cause of the separation of his parents, Han Solo and Leia Organa (i.e., azriona's OTP. Think about this one for a second, as a lot of kids blame themselves for being placed for adoption (or especially foster care), for their parents' divorce, etc. This is not good. It's probably going to blow right past the younger crowd, but some of the older kids are going to get a very negative message reinforced.

Obviously, Kylo/Ben has some issues - azriona rightly refers to him as having repeated tantrums, and that's pretty accurate. The Emo Kylo Ren Twitter feed captures this brilliantly. Kylo/Ben kills Han Solo, so nobody is going to walk out of this film looking at Kylo/Ben as a role model by any stretch of the imagination. Looking at the divorce (?) from a purely storytelling standpoint, I get how we got here, but it is still something that would make me want to at least discuss it with an older child.

Second, Rey was apparently abandoned by her parents. I don't mean she was left with her Uncle Owen and Aunt Beru aka Luke Skywalker. I mean she was evidently just left on a deserted planet to fend for herself at a fairly young age (like six or seven). There's a lot of back story with Rey that is yet to be explored, so it's not even clear if the people leaving her were her parents or someone else. But one of the turning points in this film is when Maz Kanata tells Rey that all the time Rey has been waiting for her (family?) to come back has been wasted, as they are not coming back.

The implications for adopted children here are pretty stark. The current line of thought is to try to present the birth parents in as sympathetic a light as possible and to keep reinforcing the idea that the birth parents made a conscious decision for the child's good to place them with a loving family. Put another way, that the parents did not just cavalierly dump their offspring in an orphanage or on a desert planet. Hopefully, this is going to get resolved in some way in Episode VIII, but that's at least a year away, and parents are going to have to frame this for children now.

That's it from the adoption standpoint as far as I can see. This film has been beaten to death on line, so I'll just list four things I'd like to see more developed and one thing I liked in the film.

1. Please, please tell me there's more to Finn. I love the concept - that Finn is a stormtrooper who transcends having been ripped from his parents and forced to become a cog in the imperial machine (there's some adoption material there too, but it is much more obviously a parallel for slavery) to join the Resistance. Great. But after switching sides he almost immediately is surrounded by Resistance fighters killing his former comrades, all of whom are shown as faceless automatons (i.e., with the helmets on). Wouldn't Finn have some pang of conscience here? Some desire to help rescue other rebel stormtroopers? Possibly to liberate the people - like his birth parents - who are serving as baby factories for the First Order? There's a great movie if Episode VIII revolves around a Resistance hell-bent on revenge following the genocide of the Republic while Finn is trying to save First Order stormtroopers. I hope they make it.

2. Rey is a Mary Sue. I stole the phrase from Max Landis, but had the fundamental problem before I heard his valid commentary. Right now, there is no dramatic tension. With no training, Rey can defeat Kylo Ren, an at least partially trained Sith Lord. The only thing to save Kylo Ren was the destruction of the Starkiller Base (more on that below), as Rey clearly had the upper hand both in the lightsaber duel and when he tried to use his Jedi mind trick on her. So if she is clearly stronger with no training, how much better is she going to be now that she's with Luke Skywalker as her sensei? (And as a side note, did we really need to see Luke? There was a great ending with Rey in the Falcon with Chewie flying off to find Luke in a nice parallel to The Empire Strikes Back.) The next time she fights Kylo Ren, there is every reason to believe she will emerge the victor. Far better would be if the destruction of the base had saved Rey, who was losing the fight, or (best yet, and another Landis comment) if she had, in a plot twist, joined Kylo Ren when he offered to train her. Imagine the anticipation for Episode VIII if Ren and Rey were off together training now....

3. This is Star Trek: Into Darkness all over again. JJ Abrams was involved in both, and they suffer the same problems - he's trying to reintegrate parts of previous plots instead of coming up with his own. So yet again, they have a Death Star (can you imagine the kind of profit being racked up by First Order defense contractors on these things?). Yet again, there's a stolen plan. Yet again, there's a daring, final raid that succeeds at the last second before the rebel base is destroyed. Yet again, we have the orphan in the desert with the heart of gold.... You get the idea. Not to keep going back to the same source, but Landis pointed out that we don't even see new vehicles here - just X-wings with a slight paint job. Where are the A wings? The Y wings? Something entirely new? There's great potential here, but it is unrealized because Abrams seems to want to hit all of the tropes from the original series. It is smoother here than it was in Into Darkness, and he clearly avoids creating the Purgatory of the prequels with their original characters like Jar-Jar Binks, but it also avoids creating a great new villains like Darth Maul.

4. Can we see Leia do general things? There was clearly an agenda here to introduce stronger female characters; part of this was re-introducing Princess Leia as General Leia Organa, commander of the Resistance. Great. So lets see her lead the Resistance. She was always a leader of the rebellion, but the only sign we got that she was more than a figurehead was in The Empire Strikes Back when she is clearly giving orders and organizing the evacuation of Hoth. There is no similar scene in The Force Awakens, though apparently in the book associated with the film you see a lot more of Leia moving chess pieces on the board, including her fraught relationship with the Republic. She's no longer the damsel in distress (or slave girl) the way she so often was in Episodes IV-VI, but she's also not presented as the leader she should be. The fight online over whether Leia / Carrie Fisher aged well is the wrong fight (though I do think something is missing in her voice compared to the early films); the right one is what the character is actually doing in the film.

And one thing I liked...

Finally, Chewie is sentient! There's some great introductions in this film (C-3P0's being by far the best), but even better is that we're starting to see more of the broader Star Wars universe. Chewie doesn't have lines - he never has - but there's some great moments of him reacting/acting that reveal a really interesting character, especially when you consider him taking Rey under his wing after Han's death. There's a lot more of Chewie figuratively rolling his eyes at Han here and some other character traits that were missing in the other films. The stormtroopers are also more varied, although it would be nice to see a bit more of who else is under the helmets to see how Finn fits into this universe. The scene where the two troopers see Kylo Ren throwing a fit and decide to go the other way was good humor, but also a good insight into what their days must be like - living in fear of some of their own leaders, and doing their best to survive. This is what makes Capitan Phasma's apparent willingness to deactivate the shield so interesting - even she is not willing to die for the cause. This is the Empire/First Order's weak link - I wonder if these guys spent time building Starkiller while rolling their eyes that the First Order leadership keeps making the same mistake over and over, or if they steal office supplies or have a black market of their own. In short, I wonder if they are more like college humor's Troopers than we've previously been led to believe...

In any event, it was a good film, well acted (especially by Harrison Ford) and despite obviously being the opening act in a three act play had enough going on to hold anyone's interest. However, it could have been so much better, and anyone in the adoption community needs to look out for a couple of landmines.