Star Wars: The Boorish Insertion of Hayden Christensen

For me, the 1997 special editions of the Star Wars films are the originals. A babysitter called Russell showed me the original originals first, but it was a box set of the re-touched trilogy that I spotted in Sainsbury’s. I loved them, and only discovered years later they were largely reviled. The changes George Lucas had made then never bothered me enormously, even after I’d learned about them. They’re what I grew up with, after all, and I still look back on those versions fondly. But for the 2004 DVD release, further changes came, including one that I’d have considered odious even if these had been ‘my’ versions. For the sake of continuity, several supporting actors from the original films were completely replaced, notably Sebastian Shaw.

Special effects alone don’t make a sci-fi masterpiece, as years of vintage Doctor Who has taught me; excellent drama does. What a great film needs at its heart is an engaging story, brought to life by an exemplary cast. Working to enhance already ground-breaking special effects understandably irritates some, but chopping and changing individual actors, with such casual disregard for their whole contribution, strikes me as full-on vandalism. Jason Wingreen as Boba Fett and Clive Revill’s vocal turn as the Emperor (Elaine Baker on-screen) are small parts, but they’re sinister, compelling performances that are part of the character of The Empire Strikes Back (1980). Replacing them with Temuera Morrison and Ian McDiarmid might be more consistent with what followed, but don’t mistake that for better serving the individual film.

Shaw’s fleeting appearances in the closing ten minutes of Return of the Jedi (1983) make that film for me. The revelation of Darth Vader as the frail human he always was is spellbinding. He looks up at his son with a kindly smile, father and son finally united, before the last of his strength leaves him. It’s the nearest to tear-jerking the Star Wars films get, and its emotional weight is thanks in part to Mark Hamill, but especially to Shaw. He returns at the very end as a spirit, rejuvenated, looking on his children with what seems to me a look of pride, tempered by yearning and loss. In his scenes, Shaw says little (nothing at all in his closing scene). His expressions show all we need. It’s a highly affecting performance that brings the whole trilogy to a fitting end.

Aside from anything else, the boorish insertion of Hayden Christensen into the final scene in 2004 shows an utter lack of consideration for Shaw’s contribution as an actor to the overall story. Shaw was presumably directed to look slightly to his right as part of the shot-reverse-shot Richard Marquand uses, and his expression is perfectly appropriate to the scene as well. The footage used of Hayden Cristensen was not specially filmed, but clipped from elsewhere and stitched onto Shaw’s body. We’re therefore watching a scene performed by an actor who not only has literally no idea what he’s doing in it, but who has no idea he’s in it at all.

I feel sympathetic towards Christensen – as if he needed something to enamour him to Star Wars fans any less. For one thing, he had no idea his disembodied head was being bandied about in this way. Perhaps if he’d been asked to record the scene himself, a greater match could have been achieved, but that isn’t the main issue. As it is, the switch is incompetently done, but the very idea that it was considered acceptable at all is unbelievably disrespectful to Shaw, and to actors in general. They are the agents of storytelling at its most basic level, satisfying our human need to be told tales by other humans. If an actor is cast in a role, it is because they have something of themselves to offer the story, as Shaw clearly did. If they can then be cast aside so thoughtlessly, the very they bring to cinema is invalidated.

Something similar was done when a 1972 Doctor Who story was released on DVD (Oliver Gilbert and Peter Messaline’s Dalek voices have become unpopular down the years – again, I have fond memories of them). But that was at least offered as an extra, rather the main feature, and the original has not become increasingly hard to find. The flavour brought to it by those actors stays intact, while detractors can enjoy the new version (with the historic appeal I see in the original soundly removed). This seems to me a phenomenon exclusive to sci-fi: a need for consistency that sacrifices the charm of individual human contribution for some perceived technical superiority. I can’t imagine actors being replaced in ‘revisions’ of a work in any other genre (correct me if I’m wrong). It would rightly be seen as an insult to their work, and to their legacy.

Anyone contributing to the making of a film is there to serve the finished piece, but after a point, the relationship shifts, and the piece comes to serve them. In their acting, their music, their craftsmanship, an individual legacy is forged. That isn’t to say these artists are defined by a small role they had in a Star Wars film. For each of the actors I’ve mentioned, it was one job, and they’ve had long, varied careers. Between them, they enjoyed distinguished turns at the RSC, a make-up credit for An American Werewolf in London (1981), an appearance in Airplane! (1980), a Tony award-nominated performance as Fagin, and writing a sitcom that almost, but didn’t quite, stop Coronation Street from getting commissioned. Their Star Wars contributions are not the be-all and end-all, but they’re important nonetheless, Shaw’s in particular. In their own ways, they helped to make those films what they are.

Star Wars: Episode VII – The Force Awakens

Everyone needs to have some controversial view they occasionally profess while not really meaning. Mine is as follows: they shouldn’t have made any Star Wars films after the first one. Not The Phantom Menace, the 1977 one, the one that everyone calls Episode IV – A New Hope, even though it’s just called Star Wars, and always will be. This view alienates people, and I only think it a little bit myself. I love all three of the original films as a trilogy, but only one feels to me a perfect adventure film in isolation: the first.

For all that’s wonderful about The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi, they open up the world of the films such as paves the way for the insipid prequels, devoid of all that made me love the series. The loveable characters, the engaging stories, the sense of pure enjoyment that pervades episodes Star Wars-VI. Having only been old enough to see the prequels in the cinema is perhaps what left me with that jaded view, that each film following Star Wars diminished that supreme piece of adventure cinema. So it’s nice that Episode VII has come along to remind me it’s a silly opinion, re-capturing as The Force Awakens does that original sense of excitement, that ability to draw me in, that quality that can only be achieved by cinema at its finest.

If there’s one thing alone the prequels have over The Force Awakens, it’s the reassuring sound of Alfred Newman’s opening 20^th Century Fox fanfare, and that’s hardly Disney’s fault. But there are so many cheeringly familiar elements here, in what is essentially a reboot, that it feels churlish to complain. Yet in turn, there’s far more to the film than simple nostalgia; what it does revive it develops well, and the new elements it introduces offer a great deal of promise for the future. It seems only fair to start with those.

Firstly, it’s heart-warming, and appealing to my liberal sensibilities, that one need no longer be a man and/or white to be a main character in a film like this. The trailer helped to wrong-foot expectations in that regard. Watching it countless times prior to the film’s release, I doubt I was alone in presuming the Millennium Falcon was being piloted by Han Solo. The revelation that it was Rey (Daisy Ridley) every single time was a pleasant surprise. She’s more headstrong than Luke Skywalker was at his beginning, and that feeds into her development, coming also to reflect how cinematic storytelling in the genre has evolved over time.

Our knowledge from previous films of the Force is taken for granted, and as such, Rey’s discovery of her own powers can be shown as purely instinctive. Her gradual realisation, with little need for guidance, makes plain her self-sufficiency, but crucially, requires only the barest exposition during the film. This is not due solely to our prior knowledge, which would only take us so far. It’s a sign of the renewed sophistication demanded by, and conversely expected of, cinema-goers today, not least children. We absorb the story visually, in particular by reading Ridley’s face. She has a gift for communicating a lot through relatively subtle changes of expression, and it makes our experience of Rey’s story that little bit more intimate, more real.

The other two most prominent new characters, Finn (John Boyega) and Kylo Ren (Adam Driver) offer interesting counter-points to Rey. Respectively they are a loveable foil and a formidable antagonist, but they also correspond to one another in relation to the film’s view of shifting morality. It’s a concept that has been the perpetual fascination of the Star Wars films, brought to the fore here. Finn and Ren mirror each other: just as one flees his troubled past in the First Order, the other is sprung from good, and seduced by evil. Together, they embody the moral flexibility of the individual, and it’s telling that, while Finn may not be the Jedi-in-waiting that Rey appears to be, he and Ren nonetheless commence the film’s climactic lightsabre battle.

It seems me the most successful new elements introduced in The Force Awakens are its characters, and I look forward to seeing them again. (Special mention also to Lupita Nyong’o as Maz Kanata – I very much hope she returns.) J.J. Abrams handles elements from the original trilogy well too, taking them in refreshing directions. All that left me partially unconvinced was the deadly battle station, modelled on the Death Star of days gone by. It makes narrative sense, the First Order having built itself in the Empire’s image, but it’s perhaps one iconic image too many in terms of the nods to the past we see. Not that a new Death Star seems especially an issue with Return of the Jedi, in hindsight. Perhaps where Starkiller Base falls down is in its self-conscious, ever-so-slight variance to the Death Star image. It is aware of its derivative nature, and tries unsuccessfully to hide it, in some ways a worse crime than not trying at all. It feels almost apologetic, rather than wearing its heritage proudly.

But such concerns are of little interest to newcomers to the franchise – certainly not to the children whose thrilled reactions I heard in the cinema: the film’s most important audience.

What’s most exciting about how The Force Awakens handles its heritage, though, lies not in its reverent emulations of set designs or memorable imagery. More engaging is its bold treatment of beloved characters, its determination to move their stories on, not necessarily in comfortable directions. Return of the Jedi’s happily-ever-after ending is soundly demolished. Luke has vanished, we later learn in shame at having let down his friends. In the shock of losing their son to the Dark Side, Han and Leia have separated, becoming something closer to who they were before they met. And having only just reconciled, they’re dealt the greatest blow of all, as Han is cut down by his own child – failing to save him. I’ve seen the film twice now and, while initially sure that Han must be granted some reprieve, maybe even be saved altogether, I now feel rather less hopeful. If the move really is carried through, it’ll be looked on as a very brave choice indeed in years to come.

Other recurrences from earlier instalments are deliberately more muted, and rightly so – the Star Wars films have had enough clutter to cope with in their time. C-3PO is used sparingly, allowing his appearances to really count: his entrance had me chuckling well after the credits had rolled. Similarly, R2-D2’s triumphant return is held until the film’s close (although BB-8 proves an endearing, and highly marketable, surrogate). His inanimate shell stands as a symbol for the theme of absence that runs through The Force Awakens. He’s a physical emblem of the vacant Luke, the quest for whom provides the basis of the entire plot. In the closing few minutes, as R2 becomes animated once again, and we finally reach Luke, our anticipation is brought to its peak. At last, the recovery from the catastrophe that has occurred before the film can begin. Cue end credits – of course.

That the story should cut off just as a new thrill, and a new trajectory, arrives, is in keeping with a film that leaves much enticingly open-ended. Quite aside from the advancing plot, much remains unsaid about the true nature of the First Order, the beginnings of Kylo Ren – not to mention Luke’s recent past. While the original Star Wars remains the best standalone film of the series, that’s unsurprising given that it could, in 1977, have gone on to be the only one. What The Force Awakens does is not only relaunch the series, but does so in a way that is clear in its own position as one part of a greater story. It’s a triumphant new beginning, and  I couldn’t be more excited for Episode VIII.