Adam Driver is terrific. Villains often show up as cartoonishly diabolical monsters. Here's one who has all makings of a hero, but wants something very different. He's the kid that grew up American but ends up worshipping Osama bin Laden and joining ISIS. It's very chilling.
Ren starts with plenty of innocence in him, wearing a mask to buff himself up into a menace he wants to be, but is not. By the end, he has neither his innocence nor his mask. There's no hint of Ben Solo on his face left to hide.
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A New Hope is a movie about a hero's destruction of the enemy superweapon.
The Force Awakens is most decidedly not. The power of either the Resistance or the First Order is incidental to Rey's journey, which is the star of the show. It's liner to the
awakening stories of an excellent set of characters:
- Rey, a scavenger clinging hard to the only past she knows. Her embrace of a new belonging is reluctant, and realized only in the climactic final confrontation of the film (against which Poe's X-wing wizardry is only background action). The moment to which the entire film is building up -- where Rey steps to the fore and takes command of Luke's lightsaber -- man, goosebumps. It's the Sword in the Stone, finding Arthur.
- Kylo, a tortured soul who'd been promised greatness by competing sides for all his life, embraces his own new belonging. This is everything he wanted. Right? Right? ...Well. There's no turning back now.
- Finn, a stormtrooper with heart, making a crazy leap and taking that escape ticket. He was only going to be a runner, but discovers a lot more caring within himself than he'd bargained for. He ends up having something to fight for -- his friends. A conscious choice for perhaps the first time in his life. He can hardly avoid taking up the Light Side's mantle now in a battle he didn't even want to recognize.
- Hux, a young general whose position was never that secure Supreme Leader's petulant prodigy hanging around. His Stormtroopers are under scrutiny and he's desperate for the success of what seems to be his pet project, Starkiller. And oh, man, he really did that, too. I don't get the sense that, as politically ruthless as he is, he'd ever murdered before. Well, now he's got
billions of lives taken to his name, and a lot of glory earned for his cause. That's got to change anyone. And now he's made it.
- Han. I guess you always wondered how a guy like him was going to settle into the married hero's life. I suppose the answer is it didn't fit him that well -- too much space cowboy in him. So Hans stays true to his roots, although even he can see his luck's run up by the end. And so finally, resignedly, he turns back to face the music, knowing what was likely in store. It might've been the first heroic thing he'd done in a decade (or three). But as much as Han would begrudge it, coming back for his loved ones and doing what's right are also in his DNA.
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Also, I think what's happened with Luke frames the OT very well, and with gravitas -- much more so than would any tales of Next Great Jedi Master leading elite magic warriors in further, bigger galaxy-saving conquests.
Luke's restless youth was distracted early on by great adventures, great friends, and a beautiful princess. His journey towards maturity, though, sees him learn to recede and let go. No, this was never leading to
Luke, Leia, and the Galactic SuperFriends teaming up and saving day after day. War glory and smuggler's thrills may have been the continuing pursuits of Leia and Han, but not Luke. His ascendance meant an intractable distance even to the ones who knew him best.
And so the real victory in the OT does not belong to the Rebels for trouncing the Empire and its Emperor. It belongs to Luke, for triumphing over the dark side within both himself and his father. Sidious? Merely the vehicle for Vader's redemption. In a millenia-old battle between Light and Dark -- the
only battle, to use Maz Kanata's words -- Luke had saved the Light in a moment where it could have extinguished. And now, the task of fostering it anew is his alone. In success, he had freely chosen to consign himself to a long, quiet journey he had only just begun. His victory has become legend, its significance truly appreciated only by a few.
Pretty good way to go about it
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Lastly, in terms of recycling, human beings have been telling the same stories to ourselves for as long as we've been around. Of course, what you find compelling or not is really up to you. It's fine if this one doesn't work for you. If you're in seek of the truly
avant garde, though, perhaps children/family coming-of-age stories such as Star Wars, Lord of the Rings, Harry Potter, etc, is just not the place to look. You'll surely not find it in the OT.
