(Spoilers for Star Wars: The Force Awakens)
Despite every article about the movie beginning with a spoiler warning (like this one), there’s little surprising about Star Wars: The Force Awakens.
If you’ve seen A New Hope, (or Episode IV for purists), you’re familiar with the beats: A young hero living on a sandy planet goes on a journey with an old man and learns then-he/now-she is more powerful than he/she could possibly imagine. That description could also apply to Creed, except replace “sandy planet” with “Philadelphia” and “powerful” with “punches people really hard.” (Actually, that works either way.) Anyone who’s seen Rocky — or even that one episode of The Fresh Prince of Bel Air — can guess that, yup, the familiar steps are there, and Sylvester Stallone is now Burgess Meredith.
If it sounds like I’m complaining, I’m not. These are two of my favorite movies of the year (and they finished #10 and #12 in Uproxx’s Best Films of 2015 list, respectively). But how can something so unsurprising be so enjoyable?
Fan service is the pop-culture equivalent of Goldilocks’ porridge: It needs to be just right. Give audiences what they want, without them realizing they wanted it. It’s especially hard for something as culturally massive and beloved as Star Wars. The Force Awakens screenwriters J.J. Abrams, Lawrence Kasdan, and Michael Arndt had to tell a completely new story that felt like it’s been part of our lives since childhood. They succeeded by placing familiar character types in unfamiliar settings — think Rey and Finn helplessly watching Kylo Ren kill Han, the same way Luke watched Vader murder Obi-Wan.
There aren’t quite as many direct nods to Rocky in Creed, but Ryan Coogler’s script still feels like a loving tribute. The inspirational training montages and general underdog structure are in every sports movie, but Rocky makes Michael B. Jordan’s Adonis chase a chicken, like he had to in Rocky II, and the reluctant aging trainer taking a chance on an unproven, underdog youngster (wearing a grey hoodie, no less), should make any Rocky Balboa completist (i.e. anyone who paid to watch Rocky Balboa) smile from recognition.
And that’s the key: Recognition, but the right kind of recognition.
Fan service began as a term to describe visually pleasing anime characters, but it’s taken on an expanded definition, particularly when it comes to remake and reboot culture. Another way of describing the phenomenon is self-contained intertextual references, when a movie or TV show refers to another film or TV show. This happens all the time on something like The Simpsons, where there are hundreds of pop culture homages, but it’s become increasingly frequent in recent years. It’s a direct result of every other new movie being based on something pre-existing. No one demanded Ouija, but because it’s a recognizable brand, it made more than $100 million at the box office.
At least Star Wars: The Force Awakens and Creed deserve our nostalgia. And they were willing to provide the warm, fuzzy feelings — there’s a reason so much of Star Wars‘ pre-release marketing was focused on Han and Chewbacca coming home. But everything could have very easily gone wrong. Take a look at the film Abrams directed before The Force Awakens. Star Trek Into Darkness was a disaster. Both Abrams and Damon Lindelof have apologized for the movie, with The Leftovers creator telling Variety:
“When we did Star Trek Into Darkness, for example, we decided that we weren’t going to tell people that Benedict Cumberbatch was playing Khan. And that was a mistake, because the audience was like, ‘We know he’s playing Khan.’ That was why it was a mistake.” (Via Variety)
There are two ways fan service can go horribly wrong. The movie can’t wink at viewers (this was a major issue in Skyfall, which was referential to the point of distraction), and it can’t think it’s smarter than viewers. Into Darkness was sure that it was pulling one on its audience. It wasn’t, and like Abrams said, “withholding the Khan thing ended up seeming like we were lying to people.” (Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull was guilty of both.)
Meanwhile, The Force Awakens and Creed are earnest and, despite the presence of a multi-dollar corporation, authentic, providing heartfelt stories for multiple generations. They’re made by people who clearly love the Star Wars and Rocky movies, but aren’t beholden to them. They’re free to tell their own stories, with just enough cues to make the diehards happy. (Unlike the Die Hard series, which has become so far removed from the “how the f*ck did you get into this sh*t?” spirit of the original that it’s borderline offensive.)
Not every movie should resort to fan service, just because the screenwriters are so afraid of unforgiving backlashes; not every movie has earned that right. But in these two cases, where the torches were passed to younger cast members (or “legacyquels”), it works. It also works in the year’s best film, Mad Max: Fury Road, because it barely counts as fan service. It’s unmistakably George Miller’s dusty, apocalyptic vision, but that’s where the similarities to the previous Mad Max films end. If anything, Fury Road feels like the second installment of a trilogy; it ditches the set up, and goes straight to the good stuff.
The Force Awakens and Creed, on the other hand, use the same highly entertaining building blocks as their predecessors, albeit in pleasingly different patterns. They provided a solid foundation for old fans. Now they’re doing the same for new ones.
