The Pros and Cons of Modern Cinema - Star Wars: The Force Awakens
Is this why TV prospers over film in the year 2015, and for arguably a decade beforehand? Think about the first film that comes to mind right now. Don't think hard, just let it happen. There's a good chance that, love it or hate it, Star Wars just scrolled through your mind.
Or The Avengers, or Batman, or The Hunger Games. That modern blockbuster trend rules the modern movie theater. There seem to be more summer blockbusters every year, and they are noticeably beginning to lack in quality.
Now, I point out Star Wars: The Force Awakens in the title not because I have any sort of vendetta against it. Actually, it's the opposite. I've got my IMAX seat for the 18th of December. The fact is, the new Star Wars film encapsulates everything good and bad about the big budget film, and it hasn't even been released yet.
There's no telling what this thing is going to make at the box office. It'll break records. It's hard to see it not. It has a wider immediate release than any of this year's films so far, and will eclipse Jurassic World and Avengers: Age of Ultron. It is flooding the online world. New footage is released every day. The tiniest of details for the film gets a headline.
The weight of expectation has surely been on J.J. Abrams, though I think he's by now shrugged them off. Still, there has to be nerves to go with the excitement at Disney. Immediately, it's going to have massive rewards. In the long term, it still needs to be a strong film.
What it does so well is that it takes so much spotlight off of any other film that it's hard to imagine there are other films coming at all. But indeed there are, and unfortunately for them they have Star Wars to compete with. The ultimate shame is that any of these other movies could potentially be far better at what films are ultimately supposed to do; tell a great story.
And I'm not predicting the seventh episode of Star Wars to be a bomb critically. In fact, I'm confident it will be the strongest Star Wars film since 1983. But the problem lies with these constricting limits for film, because there is an increasingly high demand for big budget, heavy editing, and bombastic action. There's name recognition to contend with, and most of these big name films get their names from their predecessor.
Let's talk the positives to come from something like Star Wars, though it's perhaps something other blockbuster films don't get quite so much. There is something phenomenal about being involved in a cultural event. There are people all over the globe waiting, patiently or otherwise, for the new film. Tickets are selling out for not just day 1 but the days to follow.
I'm not even sure whether I feel genuine excitement for this film, or whether I've been swept up in the euphoria with everybody else. Either way, it's exciting. The excitement may wear thin after the next Star Wars entry, or the one after that, but for now there's experience even in just waiting.
Television doesn't have these restraints or expectations, though it may just be developing them. There is a much broader range of possibilities to bring to the small screen. It doesn't demand high budget. It rarely requires name recognition. Do we need to be concerned that there is an ever increasing number of superhero shows and film-to-TV adaptations in the works? As TV fans, I think so.
But as of yet, it hasn't stopped from there being literally too many to choose from. And that's great. But on the other end, there are only a handful of films for us to choose from at any given time. That's because that handful are the only ones that matter. They get the money. They get the coverage. They get the audience.
Maybe this is dramatic. There is still life in cinema. Film at all levels will never die. But some perhaps deserve a little more. The Revenant is a bad example. There's plenty of anticipation surrounding it. But does it deserve more of it? It has an a-list cast and the director of last year's Oscar-winning Birdman. Star Wars: The Force Awakens is the follow up to three severely underwhelming films.
It boasts the return of iconic characters, and a return to the era that the great films of the franchise took place in. There's no more lingering in the past. And as fans of stories, we love the familiar just as much as we love the new. It's a hard balance to find.
I think that, come mid-December, we will discover that J.J. Abrams has found that balance. I expect an impressive film, with a rare marriage between visuals and storytelling. But this kind of blend is certainly uncommon.
Roger Ebert once said that, rather than "story comes first", it often seems as though "storyboard comes first". That's sadly true in many cases but, all too often, a familiar title from a familiar franchise comes before anything else.
