Star Wars: The Force Awakens/YMMV

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.


  • Alternate Character Interpretation:
    • Kylo Ren: Budding sociopath or tortured soul? Did he join the First Order of his own volition, or is he a victim of brainwashing and grooming by Snoke? And regarding the murder of Han Solo, was it a spiteful move cementing his turn to the dark side, or did he genuinely want his father to help him, only to kill him in a desperate bid to stay committed to the path he walks? As you can tell, Kylo's got a lot of this going on.
    • Related to the above, there's been plenty of speculation that as opposed to being murdered by Kylo, Han deliberately turned on the lightsaber and killed himself for some reason, usually speculated to be him trying to spare his son the pain of committing patricide, or it being a covert way to push him back to the light). While this line of theorizing falls apart when you really observe the scene in question, it doesn't stop people from speculating.
  • Base Breaker: It wouldn't be Star Wars without wildly controversial characters!
    • Rey. It's impossible to find any sort of middle ground on her, and as the years have passed she has become one of, if not the most divisive character in the franchise to date. For this movie in particular, she has fans split into two camps: those who hate her for being too "perfect" and are of the opinion that she should not be as insanely skilled as she is as a pilot, duelist, and force wielder. The other camp defends her by saying that the whole point of her character is that she's an enigma, and that all her skills are likely to be justified once more of her backstory is unearthed. Once that did happen in Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker, the divide grew bigger than ever.
    • Is Kylo Ren a cool and compelling villain in his own right, or a lame tantrum-throwing crybaby? It depends on if you wanted a no-nonsense, traditional Darth Vader Clone or were worried that he'd be too similar to his predecessor and grandfather. Even then, people who appreciated Kylo's unique characterization are even further split: was he a creepy and compelling villain in his own right, or far too mercurial and unintentionally silly for his own good? And furthermore, is his broadsword lightsaber badass or stupid-looking and impractical?
  • Broken Base:
    • Are the similarities to A New Hope a much-needed course correction after the controversial direction the prequels took and a nice way to establish goodwill with the fans, or is it a sign of cowardice and laziness on Disney's part?
    • Was Rey's victory in her duel against Kylo Ren an Ass Pull that defies internal logic, or justified given the circumstances?
    • Are the Starkiller Base's solar system-destroying capabilities a good way to raise the stakes, or a tryhard attempt at showing that the First Order means business? Furthermore, does it even make sense that they have access to such a powerful superweapon in the first place?
  • Contested Sequel: Not many people think it's an outright bad film, but its quality is still hotly contested. Fans view it as a great return to form after the prequels alienated a lot of long-time Star Wars nuts, while critics lambasted it for being too similar to A New Hope and praise the prequels for trying something different. Not helping matters is that as time passed, the prequels started getting Vindicated By History while the divisive sequels that followed led to this movie being looked at under heavier scrutiny.
  • Ensemble Darkhorse:
    • The hot-blooded baton-wielding Stormtrooper who screams "TRAITOR!" at Finn became insanely popular overnight, and he's a rank-and-file Stormtrooper who looks no different than any other of his brethren. This is thanks to both his hammy tendencies mentioned above as well as his fight scene with Finn, where he took on a man wielding a lightsaber and nearly won. It really speaks to the impression he left on fans that his popularity easily outstrips that of Captain Phasma, who was created specifically to be the Boba Fett of a new generation.
    • Maz Kanata. She's an enigmatic Cool Old Lady in a similar vein to Yoda, and left quite the good impression on fans and critics alike.
    • Sidon Ithano, aka the Crimson Corsair. While he plays a bit part, his badass voice and armor made him stick out as one of the movie's coolest extras. Fans of The Clone Wars also appreciate the fact that in Expanded Universe materials, he let Kix, the last living Clone Trooper, join his crew.
  • Epileptic Trees: Since J.J. Abrams, who's famous for his "mystery box" style of storytelling, was directing, perhaps this was unavoidable.
    • Rey's practically an epileptic lumberjack. Is she truly a random girl born on a backwater planet, or does she hail from an important bloodline? Is she a Skywalker? A Kenobi? Or even a Palpatine? Is she Anakin Skywalker reincarnated, or an avatar of the Light Side of the Force itself? Rise of Skywalker would eventually confirm one of these theories, and it turns out she's the granddaughter of Palpatine!
    • Just what is Supreme Leader Snoke's deal? Is he Darth Plagieus, who somehow survived Palpatine's betrayal? Is he somehow Palpatine himself? Ezra Bridger? A member of the Yuuzhan Vong? Mace Windu? Jar Jar? Obviously, some theories were more likely than others, but the answer ended up being none of the above... technically. He was one of many cloned individuals puppeted by a Not Quite Dead Palpatine as a proxy through which to lead the First Order. With that being said, the sequel trilogy's infamously tumultuous development cycle led to directors with conflicting visions throwing each other's ideas out the window, leaving many to believe that at least at one point, he was probably supposed to be Darth Plagieus.
  • Evil Is Cool: Much like his grandfather, Kylo Ren became an icon thanks to his unique lightsaber, awesome voice, kickass armor, and strength in the force. Not too shabby, given that he seems to be a deconstruction of Vader more than anything.
  • Evil Is Sexy:
    • Kylo Ren. He's got a deep and imposing voice, cool armor, and is a troubled Jerkass Woobie played by the handsome Adam Driver. It didn't take long for thousands of women to find themselves utterly smitten with the guy.
    • Likewise, Captain Phasma attracted plenty of male attention due to her height, sultry voice, and the fact that she's played by the gorgeous Gwendoline Christie.
  • Fanon Discontinuity: Attracting this kind of response was unavoidable since it overrides Return of the Jedi's triumphant ending, but detractors especially hate how Han and Leia's relationship has fallen apart with Han falling back into smuggling once again. It certainly plays into a lot of detractors' wishes for the sequel trilogy to be de-canonized, though it's nothing compared to certain events that would transpire in episodes 8 and 9...
  • Franchise Original Sin: Some criticized the casting of black actress Lupita Nyong'o as Little Orange Woman Maz Kanata, as she is one of the few black women in the franchise and they used a Motion Capture technique to portray the character. However, black women have usually been cast in the role of aliens in the Star Wars franchise, including Femi Taylor as Twi'lek Dancer Oola in Return of the Jedi, Gin Clarke and Lily Nyamwasa as Tholothians Adi Gallia and Stass Allie in the Prequels. But these alien characters in the older films were much more minor characters, and were also portrayed by actresses in prosthetics and makeup rather than in CGI. Maz is just the first main character to be an alien portrayed by a black woman.
  • It's the Same, Now It Sucks: One of the biggest criticisms is that this movie feels like a scene-for-scene retread of A New Hope. The Empire/First Order is searching for a cute beeping Droid who has information that they can't afford to let fall the Rebel Alliance/Resistance's hands, the main character lives on a crappy desert planet before they get swept up into the main conflict, Han Solo gets them off said crappy desert planet, the heroes are pitted against a giant spherical planet-killing weapon, and the elderly mentor character dies on the station at the hands of the black armored villain he has a history with. Later movies would make sure to shake things up, but that opened up its own can of worms.
  • It Was His Sled: Han Solo's death is this generation's "Luke, I am your father".
  • Mary Sue: Rey is considered one by a great number of fans, mainly because she gives off the impression of a very poorly-written character whose every defining moment seems like an Ass Pull. She has access to the Force without having ever trained, operates and fixes the Millennium Falcon better than Han Solo, and effortlessly defeats a much more skilled and experienced Kylo Ren in their first battle.
  • Member Berries: Practically the trope codifier due to being the butt of the jokes in the South Park episode that is the trope namer.
    • It matches the visual style of the old trilogy much more closely than the prequel trilogy did despite more time passing between the OT and Episode VII than between the OT and PT.
    • It features as many actors as possible from the OT reprising much older versions of their characters, but in supporting rather than leading roles.
    • It copies plot points and settings almost exactly from A New Hope, all the way down to Rey being an orphan living on a desert planet that looks exactly like Tatooine.
  • Moral Event Horizon: If you thought the Death Star destroying Alderaan put Tarkin over the line, Starkiller Base destroying the entire Hosnian System sent Hux (who ordered its firing) and Snoke (who approved it) catapulting over it.
  • They Wasted a Perfectly Good Character: After going through all the trouble to cast Gwendoline Christie as Captain Phasma, giving her unique chrome-plated armor, and hyping her up as a huge threat, what does she get to do? Spend a minute barking orders, selling out the First Order, and getting thrown down a garbage chute. She was promised to have survived and would be getting more screentime in The Last Jedi... aaaaaaaand then she was hit with this status. Again. Probably the most damning aspect of this status is that in terms of popularity, she's greatly overshadowed by the memetic "TR8R" who is a generic stormtrooper!
    • On a similar note, they actually got the legendary Max von Sydow on board, only for his character, Lor San Tekka, to croak a little over a minute into the movie.
    • Some were upset that Finn wasn't the main character instead of Rey, since his backstory as a brainwashed child soldier carving out a purpose and sense of identity is immediately an interesting and unique plot hook. His prominence in early advertising, which often showed him wielding a lightsaber, had many hoping he could be a canonized Expy of the popular Kyle Katarn, only for them to be disappointed when he took a backseat to Rey and progressively became more of a comic relief character as the trilogy unfolded.
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