Ten Days Later, More Episode 7 Talk

I like to look at this photo above now and pretend they are thinking.... wait, WHAT did you say happens after we get married?!?!

Someone requested another new post, because once we get over 200 comments it gets tough to see stuff. So, here is another one.

We've covered a lot, of course. And the more we talk, the more problems seem to come up. It irritates me so much because anything that doesn't have to do with the old characters I don't really have a problem with. There are parts of this movie I really liked, but so much of it makes me so mad it makes it really difficult for me to enjoy it in general.

A couple of points specific to Han and Leia as individuals that have come up in the later comments on the last post. In regard to Leia, it is almost an afterthought that she is Kylo's mother. It is a much bigger deal to the plot and to the enemy for some reason that Han is his father and not even really mentioned that Leia is his mother. Why? Is it just because of plot convenience or are we going to get a reason? My fear is it will just turn out to be plot convenience. We don't have time to get into the mother/son stuff so let's just not think about it right now. Maybe because Snoke didn't believe Kylo would be able to kill his own mother, but he COULD deal with killing his father. And it is also basically ignored that Leia is essentially sending her little army out to blow up her son. That never seems to be addressed at all. Why is it Han's job to bring him back and not hers? Has she tried at all? I am still quite fearful that we are going to find out that Han was the worst dad ever and kind of deserved what he got.

So now then back to Han. I said in some comments below, the more I think about his entire involvement here, the more annoyed I get. His "reluctant hero" journey during the OT worked for the character because it wasn't his fight, but he chose to stay involved anyway. His initial involvement was accidental, but he decided to stick around to take care of his friends and to help the greater good. That was a great growth and development of his character. Here, he kind of follows the same path except it IS his fight that he had been running away from for years. His involvement was accidental once again, but he only stepped up because he kind of had to at that point, and it was something that he never should've been running away from in the first place. What does that say about him when he turns his back on his son and his wife to just disappear and live in relative obscurity for his remaining days? I'm losing sympathy for his character the more I think about it. I mean, I can kind of understand regressing from pain and going back to "the only thing he was good at" in the face of so much heartache, but man, with the issue you're running from being the defining one in the galaxy, it's a lot more difficult for me to believe he would've just run away like that and not looked like he had any intention of going back.

The point of this movie was to move us forward with the story about the new characters. It has probably set us up to do that. But, there are a LOT of things I feel like need to be reconciled with Han and Leia especially, and even Luke, in order for me to feel better about their whole situation and give them some sort of meaning here other than just screwing up the galaxy by all collectively creating and then screwing up Kylo Ren.

As a somewhat unrelated side note, Push and I will be bringing back the EU book reviews and moving forward with those, hopefully at least covering all of them through the NJO. Not sure if we will go beyond there but time will tell. In revisiting the now "legends" version of the timeline, we are taking comfort in the fact that in spite of whatever else thrown at them, Han and Leia's relationship/marriage tended to remain strong. Yes, there was that estrangement, but they came back together and were stronger from then all the way until they "retired" at the end of Crucible, which I also recently re-read as it made me feel better. I know we used to complain about the EU, but overall, and compared to the alternative, it really wasn't so bad!

Oh, and one other side note, I'm kind of laughing about all these articles popping up about Harrison Ford getting paid more than anyone else for this movie, but especially compared to Daisy Ridley, like it is some strictly male vs. female thing. Sure, it can't possibly have anything to do with the fact that Harrison Ford first started making his mark on film 20 years before she was born, or that people go to see movies to see Harrison Ford, especially Harrison Ford as Han Solo, and not Daisy Ridley, regardless of how well she did. Or how about that she earned something like 40 times more than he did when he did ANH? Or how there is not similar outrage over the fact that Carrie and Mark earned more than John Boyega? But no, let's pretend none of those things matter and it's just because Harrison is a boy and Daisy is a girl. I'm really sick of people being outraged over everything for no reasons.