Lawrence Kasdan's incredible dialogue writing skills

"What a wonderful smell you've discovered!"







LMAO. My brother and I were really into "Counter-Strike" 20+ years ago. He more than me. Ah, the good ol' days of dial-up Internet and horrific pings.

Anyway, I'll agree that this is one of the more contrived and patched-in moments in the film. A lot of FORCED BONDING.


This, to me, is one of the more human and affecting moments in the film. Han catches a glimpse of his own mortality and the possibility he has lost sight of the things that really matter.


You're being a Silly Billy with this one. Anakin turned to the Dark Side because he was seduced by the idea he could cheat death and force the universe to conform to his will. At the end of the sequels, Ben does finish what he started: by saving Rey.


That's the trap that Kylo falls into: "You mean the murderers, traitors, and thieves you call friends?" Maz sees the bigger pattern. Although she only mentions a few forms of evil, notice that she implicitly connects the Empire and the First Order with the Sith. Funny how most people missed this whopping clue.


LOL. That is an issue or hallmark in TFA and the Sequel Trilogy. Exaggerated reactions.


I think this is partly a homage to Yoda rummaging around in Luke's food containers in TESB.


Maz is terse and bossy. Rey is spooked and runs away. Classic "Refusal Of The Call".


Twice, at least.

"The two were accompanied by a girl."
"The droid was spotted heading west. With a girl."

Two other possible times:

- After the rathtars sequence, one of the surviving gang members radios back about what just happened and likely reports on Rey (a girl) being present.
- When Han, Finn, and Rey enter Maz's castle, someone sneaks into the shadows and dobs them into the First Order.

Beyond that, Kylo is pulling from his own memory and visions. He has likely seen or sensed Rey before. Unfortunately, dialogue strongly implying this being the case was cut from the released film.


Han is feeling down and guilty and trying to rationalise things. Maz has likely been on at Han in the past to give up his smuggling and return to Leia: "Han, go home." Some of his smuggling efforts, in a nod to his iconic Indiana Jones character, may also have been to aid Maz's treasure-collecting ways (tied into her obsession with galactic history and the odd workings of the Force). It's telling that Han and Maz know each other.

Han was frozen in carbonite because he had struck one too many deals and gotten himself in trouble with Jabba. But Leia killed Jabba, remember? If you want to say his freezing symbolises his shady past, or the no-good ways of being a smuggler, okay. But I don't think it implies he should never smuggle again.

I do think they could have come up with a more nuanced backstory for Han, however. Indeed, there is a lot they could have done differently. That's kind of the sequels all over. Half-baked choices and missed opportunities. Compare with the PT where almost every decision Lucas made was a good one.


They're not terrible people. They're flawed heroes. They sent Ben away early on, because of his abilities, to train with Luke. Unfortunately, that didn't work out, and then they blamed themselves. Though, yes, Leia is here trying to put Han's conscience at ease: Snoke was the architect of Ben's fall. Remember, in the prequels, Anakin leaves his mother, with his mother's blessing, at a mere nine years-of-age. Ben was sent away not younger than this. And once a character turns to the Dark Side, it is hard to turn them back, as the prequels established. Even Anakin only turned back to the light when he saw Palpatine attempting to murder his son -- the same son that had just spared Vader's life and had been exhorting him to "let go" of his hate and embrace his "true self".


I like how TFA acknowledges that Star Wars is a tale of suffering and redemption. Although the main plot structure and many of the beats are a steal of ANH, there's definitely a fair bit of ROTJ at work, too. This exchange makes that abundantly clear. And the film's title is basically a subtitle for the OT. The whole movie, while very rehashed, is also a bridging coda. It goes backwards, but looks forwards -- well, kinda. Again, half-baked choices and missed opportunities. Still, there is some intelligence behind it.


I can't defend this dialogue. I hate it. Worst dialogue of the movie, for me.


This line is better. Harrison Ford can turn straw into gold. It shows some continued admiration from Han toward Rey. It's a sweet father-daughter thing. Han, alas, has a stronger bond with Rey than Luke does in TLJ.


Huh. Perhaps Kylo heard Finn shouting after Rey? In any case, he's obviously talking about himself. And it's the second time a First Order guy calls him a traitor and challenges him to a fight. Also, it's the opposite of how Kylo calmly introduces himself to a captured Rey: "Comfortable?"


LOOOOOOOOL. You're a funny guy, Moonshield.

I hope you go on to mutilate VIII and IX. Seriously! This is too much fun.

It's funny. Abrams said in 2008 that he thought relating to Anakin in the prequels was "criminal" -- ironically, and weirdly, in an interview published on the official Star Wars website, long before he became involved with the franchise:


I think his next answer is also pretty cute and interesting:


Between these two answers, it's obvious that Abrams has some intellectual admiration for the prequels -- and perhaps also recognises the power of sparking online debate. He talks about Anakin in a backhanded fashion, but at least admits that his kids relate to Anakin. And then he went and wrote, directed, and produced an entire new Star Wars trilogy where he ended up putting an Anakin-like Dark Sider, who is Anakin's grandson and draws sustenance from his Vader legacy, front-and-centre (for all intents and purposes) as the main character. Thus, in a way, the Sequel Trilogy is Abrams orthogonally acknowledging the brilliance of the prequels, and through his own creative process, trying to come to terms with their impact on the Star Wars Saga and the entire Star Wars franchise.

All the seeds are there in those answers for what he eventually went and did, in fact:

He said he related to Han, Luke, and Leia.

He gave them a significant presence in the ST.

He sought to create new characters and bring a similar emotional intimacy to them.

I think he achieved this with Kylo, at the least; and the attempt was there with Rey, Finn, and even Poe in TROS.

He strove to imbue them with a strange or "Mystery Box" past.

Rey, at least, got this; while the pasts of the other new characters, even the OT characters, were left relatively unexplained.

He made the films at least partly interactive and generated fierce debate.

Even if a lot of this was to do with keeping Rey's parentage a mystery and dragging out her connection to the Skywalkers.

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Of course, he didn't really bother attempting to come anywhere near Lucas' level of worldbuilding; his understanding of history, politics, psychology, etc.; his love of silent cinema and comedy characters; his deep feel for motion, speed, and energetic yet coherent intercutting; or all the esoterica that Lucas planned to pump into the sequels (though, in my estimation, the sequels do have some). 

But I'll be darned if there wasn't an anxiety about the prequels, when the new films were being made, from everyone involved. In the top quote, Abrams certainly seemed to capture something of the power of the prequels when he said that following Anakin "changed the way you consider Darth Vader" -- which was surely one of Lucas' main intentions. It was something nobody could run away from on the sequels.

Star Wars is different in the wake of the prequels; and it always will be. That's because Lucas had scarcely told the story in the Original Trilogy. In a way, he was just getting warmed up. It's quite sad and telling how so few people seem to want to acknowledge this notion outright. A Sequel Trilogy -- yes, even a commercially-play-it-safe Disney one -- could never be built on the foundation of the OT alone -- no matter how much it was sold to The Fandom Menace that way and packaged as a Cosmic Homecoming and the cure for world hunger.

He definitely has some appreciation, I think, for the tremendous effort that Lucas went to in the prequels -- at least, I think, in terms of worldbuilding and expanding the lore of Star Wars. That's his inner filmmaker and producer recognising that films are hard things to make. I think he appreciates the audacity and tenacity of Lucas on that level.

Unfortunately, he appears to have a much more mixed regard for the prequels as competent dramatic vehicles, or things you can get lost in; the prequels, in other words, as movies functioning as they were designed to function: i.e., as an authentic backstory and "prehistory" to the Original Trilogy.

Here, Abrams, like so many other fanboys of his generation, seems almost petulant in his disregard for the tremendous scope, beauty, and sheer heft of the prequels, despite recognising that they recontextualise the OT. It's kinda like Abrams wishes they had never happened (or, at least, in the way that they did), and that his connection to the original movies, again, like so many fanboys before him, remained unsullied.

Yet he isn't a stupid man. He knows the prequels garnered a following, despite what was written in the press and online. And he seems to respect that following -- at least, a little bit. He surely understands that cinema is a powerful medium for magnetising people's interest and generating loyalty (and revenue). I think his answer in the following interview from 2015 maybe provides the clearest window into Abrams' general opinion of them. That is to say, an opinion that is both plainly-stated and willfully evasive:


"All I'll say about the prequels." A peculiar way to begin an answer. Especially when he is specifically being asked what he did and didn't like. Abrams never likes to be cornered on the prequels and has never disclosed a detailed opinion -- despite being so enamoured of Star Wars as a whole (and, y'know, tasked with realising the opening and later the closing installments of the Sequel Trilogy: the third and final part of a three-trilogy structure, of which the prequels are the first and foundational piece). Again, I think he does respect them as pieces of spectacle, overflowing with themes and ideas, but he also talks about them like a difficult family member he'd rather not speak too often in public about. On the other hand, he is charitable enough to admit or suggest they actually had "a more powerful draw" than the Original Trilogy did for him. 

But then the evasion kicks in as he quickly switches focus, with him spending the rest of his answer explaining how TFA is basically an extension/rehash of the OT movies:


In another answer given in the same interview, he rapidly sidesteps the whole issue of not following Lucas' sequel treatments:


"I can't quantify that" = I'm not going to answer. And what opaque response he does give is framed in terms of the Original Trilogy. Abrams stating that the sequels would "feel like a continuum" (ha!), with a comforting analogy drawn to the original movies, suggests he doesn't see the prequels the same way -- i.e., he doesn't see them as a continuum, perhaps either with respect to themselves or the Original Trilogy. Yet there's some delicious irony in the fact that many fans no longer view the sequels as a continuum; and, on the contrary, they say back, "At least Lucas had a plan."

Anyway, in terms of Moonshield's thread, which I might have taken a little off-topic, there's a nugget in there for him: "Larry had created some of the greatest lines in Star Wars ... He was the dream collaborator." Hmm.

Back with you, Seeker:


Yes! As I said on TFN in 2015, whenever Lucas has quipped about Jar Jar, it has always been with playful affection. Abrams, on the other hand, has no artistic attachment to Jar Jar, and he knows full well that Jar Jar became the whipping boy for fans' dislike of the PT; so to take a cheap shot at Jar Jar like that, as he most certainly did, is pretty trashy -- especially since Ahmed revealed his personal story. It was basically Abrams' way of virtue-signalling, for the umpteenth time that same year, that TFA would be more to the mob's liking -- and very unlike the PT. New empires and regimes are always built on the bones of the innocent.

Indeed, I have long maintained that Lucas put Jar Jar into the PT, giving him almost a starring role in Episode I (he's really still just a supporting character, of course -- but in a beautiful, literal way: i.e., he provides uplift and assistance to others), as a challenge to older viewers, and as a learning aid. By the same measure, he is also a kind of yardstick or weathervane for the casual cruelty, bigotry, and supremacist striations of human hubris. Hating on a jolly, well-meaning, bell-bottomed amphibian gives a stark indication of where humanity is at the turn of a new millennium. Quite literally since TPM came out in 1999. THE MILLENNIUM FALCON.

Congratulations, JJ. You also failed the test. Jesting about Jar Jar and using prequel hatred to power your movie? (I had a go at Moonshield for suggesting the ST is founded on hate before, but he actually had a point). Callow, crass, and ugly -- especially when the actor (a young black actor at that -- so much for Bad Robot's support of Black Lives Matter) fell on hard times, became full of self-doubt, and seriously contemplated suicide. 


That's right. This was another mesmerising quote of Abrams' from 2015:


So, according to that, he did look at at least one Kurosawa movie and some of Lucas' other influences, but even passed those off as unusual -- as if he was going out of his way to infuse TFA with something special, when Lucas had been grandly synthesising a multitude of cinematic, visual, and literary sources from the start. Indeed, in the PT, Lucas made it clear that Star Wars is a very deep dish, and that he draws on sources far and wide, without fear or prejudice. Abrams, on the other hand, seemed determined to make the dish shallow, and then pass of what he did as a smart and thoughtful accomplishment: a gift that restored the "quintessential" Star Wars experience to the world. In that regard, "The Force Awakens", from the movie title down, isn't just a movie -- it's a manifesto.

It is for the joke about the workaholic.

It does make sense, but the word "vulnerability" is not a good choice.


How can I understand what is he trying to do? Vader started a lot of things. Another variant:




I know that this is a homage to TESB, but it doesn't mean anything. They wanted to make a reference, but it turned out to be a clownery.


Word play isn't need.



Alright, it is not a big deal.







"Luke is a Jedi... you're his father" is an elementary speech flaw of 10-year-old writer. Then, this "there's still light in him. I know it." instead of "There is good in him. I've felt it" doesn't look good. At all. They could make a nice double reference: "There is good in him. I can feel it" to Luke's dialogue with Leia and to Leia's dialogue with Han. Again, 1001st reference, but, alright, whatever. But this... "there's still light in him"... for me, is the worst line. It really looks naive, ridiculous and shameful even.


It doesn't deserve your hatred.


Could. Sometime.

Yeah? What am I missing? Lucas worked a ton on the first six, and only now is The Force Awakening? I guess it does sound like it was sleeping on the job prior.

A sort of falsely grandiose and weird title, maybe.


It's only script direction, though. And I don't think it's really that bad.

There are more mediocre examples to sift through a-plenty.


I'm pretty sure that Kylo wants to wipe out the Resistance, which also means finding Luke Skywalker and destroying him -- although Kylo (like Vader before him) kind of seems in two minds about it. Does he really want the map found or not?

Ben already was a Jedi, like Anakin, until he turned on Luke and destroyed the temple at the same age as Anakin. And with a similar power-level to Anakin. Then he cast his old identity aside, like Anakin, and assumed a new name.


Fair enough. There seems to be a lot of this in the sequels: just doing things for the sake of doing them, and then they are never really referenced or rhymed with anything again; or not in a way that feels especially significant or purposeful.


Her dialogue is a touch contrived, maybe. She never really says anything inspiring, touching, or insightful. She's a knockoff, bargain-bin Yoda and it's all too obvious. I do like her quiet moment with Rey, however.


Ah, I see what you mean. I think it was written that way so Leia could deliver her reassuring line: "We both did." In that way, it's the screenwriter(s) thinking ahead in an artificial way -- although the actors play the scene so well, it's a little easier for me to forgive them here.


LOL! You're terrible, Moonshield. And yet you're awesome. 


It does sound like Leia is a little "blocked" in her senses compared to Luke, doesn't it? When you parse out the words as you've done, it starts to sound... less than ideal, sure. I mean, I like the fact that the dialogue is so close to ROTJ in that instance, but maybe it does come across as awkward-exams-cramming. On the other hand, they definitely wove in a motif here about "dark vs. light" -- as shown in the climax with Starkiller Base. But I guess it's a bit heavy-handed and clunky compared to before. I mean, come up with something new, for cripe's sake!


Ouch! I think you're right. 


True. He's a bit inconsistent and there's only so much for him to work with here.


He heard it through the Force. 

"I heard Master Yoda talking about midi-chlorians."

But yeah, it's about as unsubtle as it gets. REEEEEEEEEEY. There's some animal poopy on your SHOOOOOEEEEEE.


You only wanted to write Lawrence Kasdan a love letter, and put all your attention on him, huh? 

I actually do think, in many ways, VIII and IX are better written. VII actually goes against even the most basic wish of Lucas that the sequels be done by a new generation. Kasdan is obviously old school. Things changed for the worse when he went from an adviser to an actual scriptwriter on TFA. The movie was basically being directed by a hardcore OT fanboy and co-written by one of that trilogy's writers -- whom the fanboy seems to think wrote all the good dialogue and scenes worth knowing about.

Another irony here (see my other post) is that Abrams seems to think Kasdan was responsible for the writing of "Yoda and some of the great sequences". If he actually believes that, it's funny how between the two of them, they could only manage a phoned-in Yoda clone (Maz), and anything like one character powerfully tutoring another character in the ways of the Force was basically dropped from the movie -- the whole trilogy, really. Yet that trope is the backbone of the OT and PT (Obi-Wan, Yoda, Qui-Gon, Palpatine). It's a big part of what makes Star Wars Star Wars. They seem to have overlooked it.

I think the Kasdans did well for what they were assigned to do. Grounding the characters as believable, and in their proper place. I wish someone could have been a narrative anchor for the sequels.

To me, the greatest failing of the sequels was Chewie merely walking by as Rey embraced Leia after Han's death. J.J. says he regrets that he missed it, but 1) Why didn't you fix it for DVD? 2)How could you miss it to begin with?

Kasdan. Only Larry (as far as I know) worked on TFA. But he did screenwriting duties (with JJ) on TFA because he was promised a Han Solo spinoff, and that one was done jointly with his son, Jonathan Kasdan. Unless you meant the spinoffs there as well.

I mean, to be fair to LFL/Disney, they cranked out some solid Star Wars movies here. They weren't as ambitious as they could have been, but they're decent films all the same. I can't wait to sit down and watch the full "Skywalker Saga" on Blu-ray soon, I to IX.


Yeah. While JJ admitted his error there, it's certainly strange, isn't it? In fact, I would argue it's emblematic of a wider problem: mismanaged or contrived character moments. TFA runs the gamut, from having Poe and Finn instantly becoming best buddies, to Rey quickly feeling (in the words of Kylo) that Han is the father "she never had" (Moonshield, Where Art Thou?), to, yeah... neither Chewie nor Leia acknowledging each other after Han's death. Freakin' bizarre.