The Little Moments In 'The Force Awakens' That Make It Truly Great

Eight years later, 'The Force Awakens' is still a lot of fun to watch. And it's the little moments that make the movie truly shine...

Let’s go back to August 13th, 2015.

Anticipation for the first new live-action Star Wars movie in almost a decade has been growing steadily since the film’s announcement two and a half years earlier. It’s still a ways away, of course. But with just 5 months until The Force Awakens hits cinemas, it’s starting to feel within reach.

Case and point, Entertainment Weekly has just dropped a new gallery of images from the upcoming film, with a featured article coming in the next issue.

There were a lot of grand moments in the lead-up to The Force Awakens. There was the trailer drop at Celebration, the live concert that shut down the city of San Diego, and, of course, the red carpet live stream.

I remember all of those big moments fondly, of course, but the Entertainment Weekly picture drop on August 13th, 2015 still sticks out in my mind, in a way that similar teases don’t, because of one picture in particular.

This one:

Amidst a gallery full of glamour shots of the characters and behind-the-scenes pictures that teased new locations, this one stood out to me.

There wasn’t really anything new in it, not even at the time. We’d seen two trailers by this point. We’d gotten good looks at John Boyega as Finn, Daisy Ridley as Rey, and the new First Order Stormtrooper design in other teasers. And the new desert planet of Jakku was already becoming a familiar location between the previews and leaked set pictures from the previous summer.

But there was something about it that just screamed “STAR WARS”.

Even in the still image, I could sense the frenetic energy of the scene. The characters, having gotten themselves into a classic Star Wars scrape, are now on the run. The enemy is hot on their tail. And they’re arguing about it as they run away.

I could hear the dialogue in my mind. Not the actual dialogue, of course. But I could hear other classic Star Wars banter fitting in perfectly with the energy of the scenes.

Like,

“No time to discuss this in a committee!”

“I am not a committee!”

Or,

“If you spent as much time practicing your saber techniques as you do your wit, you would rival master Yoda as a swordsman.”

“I thought I already did.”

“Only in your mind, my very young apprentice.”

The scene in the final movie ultimately has that energy. Finn tries to play the hero and grabs Rey’s hand, despite her obvious annoyance with him, creating tension between them as they run for their lives through the stalls of the Niima Outpost. The dialogue even mirrors the ones listed above.

“They’re shooting at both of us.”

“Yeah. They saw you with me, you’re marked.”

“Well, thanks for that.”

It’s the sort of classic Star Wars fun that The Force Awakens does so well.

This Will Begin To Make Things Right

I tell this story about the August 15th, 2015 EW photo gallery not to wax nostalgic about the simpler time of eight years ago (ok, maybe a little), but because I feel it embodies what makes The Force Awakens truly pop.

The film is full of big moments. The Millennium Falcon chase through the Star Destroyer graveyard. “Chewie, we’re home.” Rey calling the Skywalker saber to her so she can confront Kylo Ren in the climactic duel.

These are all great moments, no doubt about it. But, for me, what The Force Awakens does best is the little moments between (and sometimes during) these big, epic moments.

We’re talking about Rey ripping the compressor out of the Millennium Falcon hyperdrive and holding it up for Han Solo, who’s doing his best to seem unimpressed. Or, Kylo Ren sarcastically asking the First Order officer, “the droid…stole a freighter.” And, of course, there’s BB-8 giving Finn a “thumbs up” after telling Rey the location of the Resistance base so he can maintain his lie that he’s a Resistance fighter.

These moments are fun and often funny, but they serve a larger purpose in the story. They show the audience who these characters are. Take the examples above. Rey is capable but seeking validation, while Han does his best to hide his heart of gold behind a gruff exterior. Kylo Ren doesn’t suffer fools and intimidates his subordinates with his intensity. And BB-8 is a fun-loving droid and an excellent heir to the “droid is man’s best friend” throne.

In the grand scheme of things, these little moments are there so that when the big moments happen we, the audience, understand the deeper meaning of them. Take, for example, the opening scene of the movie. In it, Lorr San Tekka responds to Poe Dameron referring to Leia as “The General.”

“The general?” he says with a little laugh. “To me she’s royalty.”

It’s a little moment, a nod to the previous instalments in the saga and the changes the characters have been through since we last saw them, as laid out in the opening crawl. But it also informs what happens next when Kylo Ren confronts then kills him, a big moment.

With that one line, San Tekka’s death takes on a new meaning. He’s not some random guy who found the map to Luke, he’s someone with ties to our heroes from the previous trilogy. He knows Leia. He was a potential ally that our new villain has already taken off the board.

It also helps to form our understanding of Kylo Ren. He’s not just driven to find Luke, he wants to wipe out anyone with a connection to the legendary Jedi master (in other words, “let the past die, kill it if you have to”). It’s something that becomes clearer upon rewatch and Kylo’s lineage and history with Luke is revealed.

Many of these little moments stand out even more on re-watching the film. Some are highlights on opening night, like the aforementioned BB-8 “thumbs up”, but others are often forgotten in the spectacle of the first viewing. It’s only when the shine of the big moments wears off a bit that the little moments come into focus.

It’s not because the audience doesn’t notice them on the first (or second) viewing, it’s that—by design—these moments are there to inform those big moments. The big moments hit, in large part, because we feel like we know these characters, and we care about them. And that’s the job of the little moments.

We understand why it’s a big deal for Han to offer Rey a job (a big moment) because we saw her watching the older woman on Jakku doing the same job as her, wondering if that’s her future (a little moment). Finn’s defection from the First Order (a big moment) is foreshadowed by his inability to fire on the defenceless villagers (a little moment within a big moment). Kylo’s creepy calm when interrogating Rey (big moment) is made all the more intimidating and unsettling because we’ve seen how unhinged he can be when he lashes out over the First Order’s failure to capture BB-8 (little moment).

Star Wars movies (all movies, really) work best when the big moments and the little moments build off each other. Like balance in the Force. You don’t need to have the same number of big and little moments to achieve this. But they need to inform each other. And when they do, the whole movie is better for it, as is the case with The Force Awakens.

A Star Wars Tradition

None of this is to say that The Force Awakens is the only Star Wars movie to do this, far from it. Star Wars is at its best when it finds this balance. Part of the reason I started this with that long anecdote about the Force Awakens preview picture was that I consider great little moments to be key to a successful Star Wars movie. And that preview suggested to me that The Force Awakens was going to nail that aspect.

The first film, A New Hope does this so well that it can be hard to differentiate between the big moments and the little moments. Take the iconic Binary Sunset scene. It should be a little moment. It’s just a young man watching the sunset, wishing for a better future. On paper, it’s no different to Rey looking at the older woman in The Force Awakens. But while the Rey scene is definitely a little moment, the Binary Sunset feels like a big moment. Part of it is Mark Hamil’s performance. A lot of it is John Williams’ score. You could easily say it’s a big or small moment and I don’t think you’d be wrong. It’s a moment that defines Luke’s arc throughout the rest of the film, and there isn’t another character, let alone a blaster, lightsaber, or starship, in sight.

When A New Hope was first released in 1977, people went to see it in theaters over and over again. Of course, this was partially due to the film’s incredible, unrivalled special effects. But the fact that film has stood the test of time and is still drawing in new audiences 46 years later means there’s something more going on.

The movie is just fun to watch, even when you’re used to the sort of spectacle that wowed audiences in 1977. And that’s because of the story and the characters. The film’s use of archetypes gives it a near-universal feel, but what made it stand out was, again, the little moments along the way. The entire sequence of Luke and Han rescuing Leia and their subsequent from the Death Star embodies this. Countless little moments make these characters ones we want to rewatch and revisit for decades.

Like,

“Will somebody get this big walking carpet out of my way?”

Or,

“He’s the brains, sweetheart.”

And,

“I can’t see a thing in this helmet.”

The reasons for Star Wars’ success are many, but one is the perfect balance it strikes between big moments that dazzle and little moments that make the journey so much fun.

The Empire Strikes Back also strikes a near-perfect balance between the little and big moments but in a different way. The little moments inform the characters, yes, but they also serve to break up some of the film’s intensity.

The most common descriptor of Empire is “dark”, and with good reason. It’s a film where the heroes are on the run constantly and fail at almost everything they try. From the moment the Wampa attacks Luke through the battle of Hoth, the Asteroid chase, and all the action on Cloud City, almost nothing goes right for the heroes and they often endure great hardships (betrayal, failure, torture, loss of limb, etc.) before barely escaping by the skin of their teeth.

And yet Empire is a lot of fun to watch. And not just for sadists! Part of the brilliance of the film is the way that it peppers in enough little moments that give the audience enough relief from the relentlessness of the film. And yet, it still maintains enough of the spirit of fun of A New Hope that the audience still feels like they are watching a continuation of that film.

R2-D2’s antics on Dagobah (fighting with Yoda over the lamp, messing with Luke when he falls into the bog, etc.) serve this purpose. As does the incredible banter between Han Solo, Princess Leia, C-3PO, and Chewbacca throughout their journey from Hoth to Bespin. There’s a reason “Never tell me the odds” is such an iconic line (and has led to comments about outrageous survival odds becoming one of the overused jokes in subsequent Star Wars media). These moments gave the audience a chance to laugh, even as our heroes’ worlds were falling apart around them.

It’s worth noting that The Force Awakens similarly deploys its little moments. Like Empire, on paper, The Force Awakens is a very dark film. It starts with a massacre, features the destruction of an entire system’s worth of planets, and ends with a beloved hero being murdered by his son. Not a lot goes right for our heroes until the very end of the movie.

(Side note: one criticism I’ll never agree with is that everything goes right for Rey and that she faces no real obstacles. Excuse me? What movie were you watching?)

Despite all this darkness, the film is still a lot of fun to watch. As much as people will remember Han’s death, they also remember BB-8’s antics and the banter between the heroes as they run from one crisis to another. Though, I suppose an argument could be made that the little moments are almost too successful in this way as The Force Awakens isn’t talked about as a “dark movie” the way The Empire Strikes Back is.

I’ve emphasized A New Hope and The Empire Strikes Back here because I think they, along with The Force Awakens, do the best job of utilizing the little moments to elevate the story. But all Star Wars movies (and, by extension, all stories) do it to some degree. I could sit here all day and list examples from Return of the Jedi, the prequels, Rogue One, and Solo that demonstrate this fundamental of storytelling.

The Sequels

Which brings me to The Last Jedi and The Rise of Skywalker, the follow-ups to The Force Awakens. At this point, it’s trite to pit the sequel trilogy movies against each other or go on long diatribes about why one film or the trilogy as a whole is a “cinematic failure” (which, for the record, it’s not). And it’s not my goal to tear down the sequels, films which I have a lot of fondness for. But I’ve always felt that something about The Force Awakens feels different from the other two.

This is not to say that The Last Jedi or The Rise of Skywalker don’t have little moments that cut the tension or inform the characters. C-3PO running away from Poe Dameron during his mutiny because “it’s not correct protocol” is a great example of injecting some humour into a tense sequence (also one of my favourite Threepio scenes in all of Star Wars). Similarly, Rey extending her hand to Zorii Bliss after knocking her on the ground and replying, “I care” to Zorii’s claim, “Not that you care, but I think you’re alright” reminds the audience of Rey’s inherent kindness even as she grapples with her growing darkness.

The balance, however, is off.

The Last Jedi has many tremendous, big character moments that subvert expectations and challenge audiences in similar ways to The Empire Strikes Back. But it can feel overbearing in places with its darkness. Luke’s arc is excellent, but it can feel relentlessly depressing, especially early on (even with a small handful of so-so jokes thrown in). The result is some of the audience rejects the story entirely because it’s no fun to see an iconic, beloved hero actively ignore calls to help and dismiss the hero of the next generation who is seeking his guidance. It comes up short when balancing the dark big moments with the fun little ones.

Meanwhile, The Rise of Skywalker has some amazing, big moments of spectacle. The battle of Exogol. Lightspeed skipping. The Pasaana Chase. But once the initial “wow” factor of these scenes has worn off, they can feel a little empty. In part, because the breakneck pace of the movie doesn’t leave space for enough little moments to inform the character’s journeys we’re meant to be seeing the evolution of during these big moments.

I want to emphasize again that these little moments do exist in both The Last Jedi and The Rise of Skywalker. And I’m not saying that either of those films is inherently bad because of this or that anyone is “wrong” to like them. I really do love The Last Jedi, for example. But neither film recaptures the mix of fun and heart that The Force Awakens does so well.

There Has Been An Awakening

There is a magic to The Force Awakens that gives it the feel of Star Wars at its best.

Cynics will point to the fact that it follows a nearly identical plot structure to A New Hope, but this is a reductive argument. There have been countless Star Wars rip-offs and homages over the years that have tried to capture the magic of A New Hope (and The Empire Strikes Back, for that matter) but none of them succeeded the way The Force Awakens did.

Box office numbers don’t necessarily relate to quality when it comes to film, but there is no denying that audiences came out for this movie. Adjusted for inflation, the film sits just outside the top ten highest-grossing films of all time at #11. The only Star Wars film that sits higher is A New Hope at #2. Even The Empire Strikes Back comes in behind it at #13.

Were there many factors that contributed to this box office success? Of course. The hype about a new era of Star Wars, combined with the nostalgia of seeing the heroes of the original trilogy on screen again definitely contributed to the film’s success. But The Phantom Menace, which had similar hype surrounding it as the first Star Wars movie in 16 years, still only lands at #19 on the list.

Not to mention that, to use another imperfect metric, 85% of audiences on Rotten Tomatoes liked the film and it has an “A” score from CinemaScore. In other words, when asked, people say they like the film. And they went and saw it. A lot.

Because it felt like Star Wars.

And I don’t just mean in a nostalgic sense. The film gives audiences the feeling they want from a Star Wars movie. It has a meaningful story that will inspire a new generation, and it’s just plain fun to watch.

It balances those little moments that live on your mind—Rey’s awe at the green of Takodanna, Han asking Kankiklub what the second time he swindled them was, BB-8 zapping Finn repeatedly for stealing Poe’s jacket—with big moments that fill you with excitement, elation, and sorrow.

In this way, it achieves balance in the Force, the big moments and little moments working together to create something that sticks with you. You’ll laugh, you’ll cry, you’ll cheer. You’ll remember the experience and want to relive it.

And because of that, the story lives on.