However, aside from the vision sequence, I don't really care for the cantina scene much and this is where we'll start to get into more of the negative side of this review. This scene highlights alot of issues I have with the movie so I'll tackle each of them one by one. To start off with, I don't really think that Rey is very compelling. The main reason being that I absolutely loathe the "reluctant anti-hero" trope. So many people think that its such a unique subversion when its really not. But the real reason I don't like it is because typically when an anti hero is involved in a story, the entire plot is just spent on simply convincing that character to come around to something and that just doesn't feel compelling to me. I don't find it interesting that the whole plot is just Rey learning to let go of the past.

In addition to Rey not being very interesting, I don't really like how Finn was handled in this movie. The main reason being that they didn't pick a direction to go in for Finn. The film doesn't know whether or not they want him to be a protagonist or a side character. If they had fully committed to either direction it would have been fine, but personally if I had it my way I would make him a side character simply because I think that Finn's humor is more appealing than his character arc of simply "not running away." This is not to say that I'm opposed to making Finn a protagonist, I'm simply saying that if you want him to be a protagonist then actually give him plotline with substantial characterization and progression.

Most people say that Rey's motivations are basically absent throughout the movie but I would say that Finn's aren't much better. I was originally going to say that I don't like that Finn's whole arc is to to not run away but I realized that that isn't really what I have a problem with. In actuality it's Finn's obsession with Rey that I really take issue with because its supposedly the crux of his development. The reason he decides to do the right thing.

Earlier I said that I can't stand Anti-heroes but what I can't stand even more than Anti-Heroes are individuals whose only characterization is their feelings for another character. A subtype of this would be the classic trope of the male character who's obsessed with a woman and the whole story is about his love for that woman but the story never actually tells us why he loves her in the first place and if it does, it's literally only because she's beautiful and/or nice. In Prison Break, Sucre's entire motivation for escaping the prison is to be reunited with Mari Cruz, but we never learn why he loves her. In the Mario game series Mario travels from world to world to save his Princess, but we never once understand why he wants to save Peach. In Romeo and Juliet we have no idea why Romeo loves Juliet other than because she's hot.

The Force Awakens is no different. For the entire movie Finn's motivation is his desire to escape with Rey and every action he takes directly feeds into that goal, but this feels like a hollow motivation because I have no idea why Finn loves Rey. Sure, in the film when he tells Rey the truth that he's from the First Order he says that she made him feel like a real person and not a stormtrooper, but from the scenes that we've seen so far I don't understand how she could have made him feel that way when all that we've really seen of the two together is them escaping from danger. There hasn't really been any moments where they've actually connected with each other in a substantial way. I really don't like to use the phrase "Show don't tell." I think people put way too much stock into it, but I think that it applies to alot of the things in The Force Awakens as well as the other movies. You're TELLING me that Rey made Finn forget his past as a stormtrooper, but so far I haven't seen it. You're TELLING me that Kylo Ren is feeling torn apart between the light and the dark but I haven't really seen a reason as to why Kylo would return to the light because I have no context of his relations to the Light Side or his relationship with his father.

And that's why when I see several of the later scenes in the film that are supposed to feel meaningful and impactful, I feel nothing. When Finn begs Rey to leave with him while she begs him to stay, I don't feel anything for a scene that's meant to feel meaningful. (which is also why earlier I mentioned that I would have felt better if the reveal that he lied to her or the lying thread itself wasn't in the film and the two had remained platonic.) When Finn screams for Rey as she's being taken by the First Order I don't feel anything for a scene that's meant to be filled with dramatic tension. When Finn is reunited with Rey on the Starkiller Base I don't feel anything because I don't really understand what she means to him. When Kylo says he's being torn apart I feel nothing because there have literally been no scenes that would suggest that he's in conflict. And I feel nothing at the end of the film when Finn is scared that Rey has died and decides to don the lightsaber and face Kylo Ren because I simply don't feel like Finn and Rey have an actual connection.

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I think that alot of these scenes would have worked for me if I could have seen more evidence of the character motivations. Show me more of what Finn's experience was like as a stormtrooper so that I can understand how Rey is able to pull him out of that trauma. Show me what Kylo Ren's struggle with the pull from the Light Side actually looks like so that I can understand what it means when he kills Han Solo. Maybe show him being tormented by Visions of the Light Side showing him a life that he doesn't think he deserves or the pleasant life that he left behind when he joined Snoke and the First Order. Essentially, lay the groundwork for story so that the payoffs to the setups actually mean something.

Anyway, moving on from the cantina scene, we enter the second half of the film. Despite labeling this as the weaker half of the film in my mind, I don't have much to say about it and that's because I don't really think that a whole lot happens in it. To be honest that's all that the Force Awakens is really. If you REALLY think about it the only moments of real significance in the Force Awakens are Han Solo dying and Starkiller Base blowing up and even then I honestly couldn't care less about the latter. Aside from that nothing really happens. The first half of the movie is fun, but as I've discussed before they don't really hold any weight for me and the scenes that are supposed to hold weight are mostly nostalgia moments and seeing how I hadn't seen the original trilogy until afterwards, it fell flat for me.

I guess Rey learning to use the Force is significant but we don't really see her using it that much other than to resist Kylo, trick a guard, and pull a lightsaber to her, but I suppose it's a meaningful development for the character. I think this is also a good time to discuss Rey and Kylo in this film. Most people don't like Rey because they state she is a Mary Sue which is a term describing a character who is usually admired by everyone, is typically always in the right, and is highly proficent and capable of many feats without necessarily earning it. Mary Sue is definitely something I've seen in media, but at the time I hadn't known the term for it. Because I haven't seen the original trilogy, I likely didn't understand what people were talking about with it since I had no context of what was an impressive feat within the Star Wars universe. Watching in retrospect I can see why now, but it's not something that bothers me as much as when I see it in other pieces of media.

That being said, I don't like that Rey beats Kylo Ren. Both in the interrogation chamber and in the forest. The main defining feature of a Mary(or Gary) Sue for me is the fact that she's better than every other character. Basically the story brings down every other character for the purpose of bringing the Sue up. That's the main quality that I don't like about it. I don't really mind characters who are universally likeable, highly competent, or hell even lack flaws altogether. In fact I actually tend to prefer consuming stories with characters who are extremely powerful and likeable (no I'm not just talking about characters from Jujutsu Kaisen). But there's a difference between that and a character who makes all other characters look incompetent, more flawed, and generally inferior. For context, I don't find a problem with Rey bypassing the compressor, but I do have a problem with her pointing out to Han Solo that he needs to use said compressor to jump into lightspeed when that's something he should know. The difference being that in the former she's simply showing immense skill but in the latter she's shown to be better at doing a particular feat than a master of said feat.

And that's why I don't appreciate when she beats Kylo Ren on both of the occasions. It's not so much that Rey is good at doing things when she maybe shouldn't be, it's because it disrespects Kylo Ren's power, who is a master of the Force and lightsaber combat. In the interrogation sequence I could understand if Rey was able to merely resist Kylo enough that he can't get anymore information out of her, but to be able to successfully probe him in turn, putting them on equal grounds when he's clearly much more proficent than her is disrespectful to his power. And it's particularly embarressing for Kylo when she's able to beat him in the forest. The way he falls to the ground with her towering above him while he's practically cowering away is just pure cringe. Especially considering how poweful and competent they established him to be in the early acts of the movie.

Now obviously it is shown why Rey was able to beat Kylo. He was shot by Chewie's crossbow and he also needed to fight two different opponents. However the problem isn't that it doesn't make sense. It's the principle of the matter. The same can be said when Rey manages to knock down Luke in the next movie. It makes sense why. She had a lightsaber. He didn't. It's the principle of it that matters more than the logic. The showcasing of her triumph whether through fair means or not sends a very clear message to the audience: Rey is better than Luke and she's better than Kylo.