Tuesday, May 31, 2022

Is "Chaos Walking" a Rip-Off of Star Wars?

 


Fresh from her stint in the most recent Star Wars movie, The Rise of Skywalker, Daisy Ridley is back in theaters in another sci-fi flick featuring intergalactic travel. Based on the book The Knife of Never Letting Go, Chaos Walking, like the Harry Potter series before it (a less-than-impressive boy discovers that he's inherited magical powers and later finds out that a disfigured guy in black with special abilities of his own murdered his parents), has seemingly remixed the Skywalker Saga to within an inch of its life.

George Lucas' influence is apparent right off the bat as the story begins with our heroine, Ridley's Viola (standing in for Princess Leia), in distress aboard a spaceship. At the same time, our hero, Todd (the new Luke Skywalker), is an orphan leading a thankless existence on a farm on a planet far, far away. Though it's not a desert planet like Tatooine and there's no mention of twin suns, it never gets dark on New World, as it's called. Instead of a friendly droid (R2D2) that serves as the sci-fi version of man's best friend, Todd has an actual dog, Manchee. After Viola crash-lands onto Todd's home-world, his bearded father-figure (Whose name really is Ben!) convinces him to save Viola from the evil guys -- equipped with laser guns -- who want her dead. By the way, the head evil guy, Mayor David Prentiss (portrayed by Danish actor Mads Mikkelsen, who also portrayed the guy who designed the Death Star in Rogue One), has supernatural abilities which include: reading people's thoughts, mind control and projecting realistic illusions. Eventually, Todd discovers that he too can use the Force conjure authentic-seeming visions out of thin air.  

At one point, Todd wrestles a tentacled aquatic creature in a lake (instead of a trash compactor). There's even a high-velocity chase in a forest, complete with the requisite sequence of weaving around trees a la Return of the Jedi. Except this pursuit involves a motorcycle and horses instead of Imperial speeder bikes. Late in the movie, Viola searches an old wrecked starship -- which is exactly how Rey (Daisy Ridley's Star Wars character) made her entrance in The Force Awakens. Like Leia and Rey, Viola can hold her own in a fight and she also gets her share of hand-holding with Finn Todd. As for Todd, he witnesses Ben's murder at the hands of Mayor Prentiss but, fortunately, he doesn't vanish into thin air. One of the last scenes features Viola at the side of an unconscious Todd, who'd been injured in the final battle -- just as Rey watched over a comatose Finn near the end of TFA. And like Finn, Todd recovers, of course, with the aid of high-tech medical care, which may as well have been bacta treatment.

Star Wars has often been described as a space western by critics and true to form, Chaos Walking revolves around settlers and the story even involves hostilities between the pioneers and the native "aliens". Unsurprisingly, CW also depicts a character falling from a great height (like random stormtroopers in Star Wars, Luke in The Empire Strikes Back, Boba Fett and the Emperor in Return of the Jedi, a death trooper in Rogue One, Han Solo in The Force Awakens, Captain Phasma in The Last Jedi, Kylo Ren in The Rise of Skywalker, Darth Maul in The Phantom Menace and Mace Windu in Revenge of the Sith).

Aside from all of the SW shenanigans, it also seems clear that the filmmakers wanted to get credit for being progressive. To achieve this, they've featured a same-sex couple as well as an entire community led by a Black woman. Hollywood sorely needs a greater commitment to diversity and the industry continues to struggle with representation. Case in point: Chaos' air of enlightenment rings false once you realize that the only Black man in the movie with speaking lines is a homicidal maniac who kills a dog out of sheer sadism.

Newness is always enticing but my advice is to save yourself the trouble, skip this hot mess walking and just watch the actual Star Wars again -- and not the "Special Edition" if you can help it. 



Originally Posted 3/14/21

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