Mea culpa.

I will never understand why the Internet seems to take away the basic humanity of most people, and allows — no, enables — them to say things that they’d never say to another person face to face.

- Wil Wheaton, Just A Geek

I'm sorry to say that I owe Wil Wheaton an apology.

To be fair, I think that a lot of people owe Wil Wheaton an apology, and probably a lot of them owe him a much larger apology than I do, but that in no way excuses me from offering mine.

Even before his departure from Star Trek: The Next Generation, Wil Wheaton had become somewhat of a punching bag for the fan community.  People were unimpressed by the direction that the character of Wesley Crusher had gone in, and in spite of the fact that he was only working with the material created for him by the writers, he became the focal point for the fan community's resentment regarding the situation.

When he left The Next Generation in 1994, he continued to be a target of criticism, paradoxically for his decision to leave - and probably by the same people who hated his work on the show.  At that point in time, Wheaton fell off the map for me, to be honest.  I heard various bits and pieces of news that suggested he had left the world of acting and had shifted his interest to computers, but I really didn't pay attention.

However, I've just finished reading Just A Geek, his well-written and deeply personal autobiographical description of those years following his departure from the show - his struggle to find work, his frustration, anger and disappointment at his lack of success, and the difficult process of reinventing himself as a writer, both online and in published form.

One of the things he discusses is the feelings of failure from not having an income, and having to resort to the sad irony of selling bits and pieces of personalized Star Trek memorabilia in order to pay his bills.

Unfortunately, I wrote a post in 2012 that discussed the loss of The Next Generation from television, and speculated as to the possibility of a Next Next Generation starring the various child actors - now adults - from the show, with "Wil Wheaton as the infamous Wesley Crusher" and a link to one of the less fortunate exchanges between Wesley, his mother, and Captain Picard.*

The posting then went on to hope that Wil Wheaton wasn't behind on his mortgage payments, which might well provide the impetus for just such a series.

So, Wil*, I'm very sorry - I feel that I was kicking you when you were down, or at least making fun of a time in your life when money was a serious issue for you. By way of explanation if not defense, I wasn't aware of the details of your situation, but that's no excuse for bad behaviour.

I've edited my original post so that the phrasing has nothing to do with your financial situation, and I've changed the link so that it takes readers to your scene from Nemesis that was cut from the movie - which shows you in a far more flattering light as a performer. 

And again, my sincere apologies.  There's a lot of people left to go, but at least it's a start.

 - Sid

* Which I won't quote here.

** Or Mr. Wheaton, whatever you go by with apologetic strangers.  Having a public persona tends to create a sort of artificial intimacy, but under the circumstances it may be inappropriate.

Gnomic Statements XV.

Well, at least this time he gets to drive.

- Sid

P.S. Seriously, though - a "Time Master"?  This is genre typecasting writ very large indeed.

"There has been an awakening. Have you felt it?"

The Force Awakens has reached a global box office close to 1.9 billion dollars after a month in movie theatres, and the critical response has been glowing in its praise for the seventh movie in the Star Wars series.  I've seen it twice now (a third trip may be in the offing, I'm a movie wing man for several people) and I have to say that it's a spectacular film, with flawless effects, good performances and excellent cinematography, which does its best to balance between the old and the new - and, for the most part, succeeds, without falling prey to the errors of the prequels.

(Because I'm fully aware that there are still people queuing up at the theatres for tickets to Episode 7, I'll do my best to keep my comments spoiler-free - for a given value of the term "spoiler".  I won't give away any of the big plot twists, but if you haven't seen it yet and you want a completely virgin mind when the Lucasfilm™ logo appears on the screen, stop reading now.)

Although I appreciated and liked The Force Awakens, I can't quite bring myself to say that I enjoyed it - for me, it was a somber first act from a larger story, with moments of personal emotion that outweighed the larger scenes of triumphant success.  Some questions were answered,  but many more were left unresolved, as you might well expect from the first film in a planned trilogy.*

 

To a surprising extent, the plot of The Force Awakens echoes the plot of A New Hope: a droid holds important information that everyone wants, it ends up on a desert planet in the possession of a young local who turns out to have an astonishing connection with the Force, a daring rescue is staged to release a captive from a gigantic enemy base equipped with a planet-killer weapon before they can reveal their secrets under interrogation by a helmed, black-clad villain, and said enemy base needs to be destroyed by a ridiculously small fighter squadron before it can eliminate their headquarters.  (There are a couple of other similarities that I can't go into here, see above re: spoilers.)

Regardless of these strong similarities in overall plot, The Force Awakens has a completely different tone than A New Hope. If I had to sum up the overall theme of The Force Awakens in one word, that word would be "regret".  Almost every major character is motivated by remorse in one form or another, which gives the film an unexpectedly solemn feeling. I re-watched A New Hope** before seeing The Force Awakens, and it felt completely carefree by comparison.

In addition to its more dramatic tone, The Force Awakens came across as somewhat incomplete.  There's certainly a lot of action and resolution, but it also felt very much like one-third of a trilogy, a 136 minute dramatis personae in order to provide an introduction to the players, both new and old, who will appear in the next two films.

Almost everyone that we saw in the first trilogy makes an appearance*** to a greater or lesser degree, but the new characters are the focus of the action: ace pilot Poe Dameron, ex-Stormtrooper Finn, abandoned desert waif and potential Force adept Rey, and the villainous, traitorous Kylo Ren, who is hoping to literally don the mantle of Darth Vader.

The dynamic between the new trio of protagonists isn't as defined as the one between Luke, Leia and Han in the first trilogy, and it's actually very close to just being a partner act between Finn and Rey, whose relationship could easily develop into either a friendship or a romance.

However, let's take a broader view.  If the writers really want to break new ground in this trilogy, let's not rule out the possibility of Finn and Poe building on their initial connection to create a love story - I think that science fiction cinema is long overdue for its own version of Brokeback Mountain.

- Sid

* It's a shame that George Lucas hadn't signed a three-movie deal for Star Wars before production began.  If he'd written all three scripts at once he might well have avoided some of the more egregious contradictions from A New Hope, such as the incestuous love triangle between Han, Leia and Luke, or Obi-Wan's explanation of how Luke's father was killed by Darth Vader. 

** Sigh...I watched the blu-ray edition, which contains far too many tweaks and adjustments to the original material.  I should have gone with my bootleg download of the original cut...

*** With the exception of Lando Calrissian - hopefully the 78-year old Billy Dee Williams will stay in good health until his planned cameo in the next film.