durdencommatyler wrote:stip wrote:durdencommatyler wrote:I've said before and I'll reiterate now, Bodhi was a great character and his death was profound. I actually felt it in my chest and teared up. K2SO's death was the other meaningful and difficult death for me.
Baze wasn't as well developed but his death was powerful as well.
In terms of character arc, did anyone other than Finn and Rey have arcs in TFA? There are a lot of comparisons to be drawn, I think. Krennic was a great villain. Galen was a great mentor character. I just don't think the lack of character arc complaint holds up. Especially in the context of "A Star Wars Story."
Han and Ren both had arcs as well (important ones). Every major character went on a significant journey during that film.
I really enjoyed Krennic as a villain. Galen was pretty strong, too. It was the main team that I thought was thin, though the actors did a lot with a little. I agree that there was a great story to tell with Bodhi, but they didn't tell it - they just hinted at its margins.
I guess you're just gonna have to get really specific with me on this, bud. To me Han's arc is... nonexistent. Unless we're talking about stuff we don't see on screen; stuff that's told to us, not shown. If you're including Han from the other films, maybe you have a point, but that's not fair. Han's had several films. But even at that, I'm not sure I'd agree with your notion that he had much of an arc in TFA.
Ren didn't have any more of an arc than Cassian. And Cassian was also stronger than Poe (in terms of actual arc). Rey goes on a massive journey and has a more obvious "change" than Jyn but Jyn's arc is pretty substantial, too.
Yeah, man, as a guy who has studied acting and writing for 25 years, I'm just not sure I can see where you're coming from here. Bodhi's story was fantastic. The only missed opportunity was the bit with the mind reading alien thing. But that was unnecessary. That could have been totally cut and nothing changed. That's a plot flaw, not a character flaw.
I'm not going to comment on the R1 arcs here. I still haven't been able to make it to a second showing, and I'm reluctant to commit to anything in detail on just one viewing
Han's Arc: So Han's arc in the OT, as I understand it, was his journey from a largely selfish loner to someone who opens up enough to commit to people and causes. But this is really something he was already inclined to do, and it's more a question of him just becoming comfortable enough with who he is to drop those pretenses. In the OT, Han isn't really wrong or crazy for not wanting to break Leia out of the Death Star OR participate in the assault. Both are, by almost any measure, suicide. But he does them anyway, because they're the right thing to do (there are subtle cues that it was never really about the money, Han's protestations to the contrary). This is also a guy who clearly cares deeply about Chewbacca. He risks his life to save Luke twice in the first two movies, in both cases risking almost certain death and for no real personal gain. He admits that he's a full blown hero by the time Jedi rolls around, and is open about his love for Leia. This is where we left the character.
In the interim Leia presumably is caught up in intergalactic politics (something Han never showed any interest in) and they have a child. The child turns out to be difficult, dangerous, and clearly heading down a dark road. They sent him to train with Luke to resist that lure (and TFA seems to say that he went to Luke AFTER he started getting seduced by the skywalker darkness that's a part of his legacy). Ren clearly feels abandoned by Han, and Han knows it (Ren says as much in one of his banters with Rey, and his insistence on always referring to Han by his full name certainly speaks to some estrangement).
Then, of course, Ren fully embraces the dark side and mirroring anakin slaughters Luke's students. Han and Leia's relationship snaps under the strain of this, which is probably the most realistic part of the movie, actually. Leia throws herself into her work, and Han puts up his old walls and wanders away. Being around Leia reminds him of his failure as a parent, and, perhaps more importantly, Leia sees Ren when she sees Han. Out of a desire to protect her from that he leaves (and when Maz calls him out on not seeing her Han doesn't reply that he doesn't want to see Leia. It's that he thinks leia doesn't want to see her).
So Han is out wandering the galaxy with Chewie running from anything that smacks of an attachment (Maz hints at this as well, I believe). This starts to change when he finds Rey. He is reunited with the Falcon, probably the most enduring symbol of his old life (both the lonely times prior to the OT and the more fulfilling existence he built during it) and after having been away from it for a while the feeling is comforting. you can see him start to tear down some of his walls (look at his expression when he sits in the cockpit for the first time). He is confronted with Luke's disappearance and asked to take responsibility for it, which he does. He must know Maz will pressure him into going after Leia and getting himself involved, and I think he wants someone to send him back to Leia. Han spends so much of this movie wanting to belong again, but afraid of hurting others (not getting hurt himself). In some ways this is why he opens up to Rey so quickly. She is someone who needs nurturing, she's impressive, and there's no baggage there.
At the battle at Maz's bar he sees Ren, and then shortly after Leia. They have a pretty clean reconciliation, which makes sense since they were broken apart by their son, not by anything to do with each other, and Han almost immediately inserts himself back into his own life, having fairly clearly been invited back into it by Leia. And he volunteers to once again take on an incredibly dangerous mission with little to no reward, and he could just as easily have run away again, but he knows that he's back with Leia, back with a cause, and has something in his life that can give it meaning.
To a lesser extent he also takes on the mentoring of Finn, someone else that he sees some of his old self in. The posturing, the fear of commitment.
All this makes his final sacrifice at the end more compelling. Han doesn't go into that exchange as someone ready to die. He has people and causes back in his life worth living for. But he's willing to throw all that away if there is even the slightest chance to make right his failure with his son, the mistake in his life that looms larger than anything else. And he does it out of love for Leia, who asks him to. Han is pretty convinced that their son is gone (and says as much) but Leia disagrees. Given how much he cares for her, and the fact that it was the loss of their son that drove them apart, he is ready to make the ultimate sacrifice of self in an attempt to set things right. And he loves Ren, as well. his final moments are defined by shock and pain, but the last thing he ever does is lovingly caress his son's face and, I think, communicate that he loves him in spite of all this. It's an intimate, fatherly moment, and one that closes out his larger journey through the 4 films really well.
Joey, watch the film again with this in mind. It's all there. Some of it is expository, and some of it is extrapolating from the context and the more subtle notes in the performance, but that's in part what makes it well done. It is a pretty complex journey and performance, but it also cannot upstage the three new characters that have to shoulder the story going forward.
