The release of Star Wars: The Force Awakens was a bittersweet moment for me. As a child I watched the movies and my motivation to read was encouraged by two worlds, Brian Jacques' Redwall and Star Wars.
When I saw The Force Awakens in early January I had a great time and quite enjoyed the film but leaving the cinema I had the feeling that the Star Wars I'd grown up with was gone.
Going into the movie I knew that the stories I'd grown up reading were no longer the official events of the Star Wars universe but as I thought about why I felt that the old Star Wars was gone I realised there was something deeper which had been changed. The heroes of the story had been replaced by superheroes.
Developing abilities versus dormant powers
The speed with which Rey goes from knowing nothing of the force to dueling it up and controlling individuals with the force quickly separates her abilities from being normal and the rapid development implies a dormant power.
It is this difference between a dormant power which is turned on like a tap and a capacity which is developed and nurtured over time which forms a key difference between what is in my opinion a hero verses a superhero.
Personally I find this development of a character's power an important part of their development. I find that power without development to be quite shallow and hard to relate to. For example people aren't born being good at things and to become notably better requires practice and perseverance.
Superheroes
While it's true that the capacity for powerful feats is inherently greater for Jedi it is still a capacity which must be developed. While I'm sure we can draw out superheroes for which this might also be true, perhaps DC's Batman, they are still set up to be superlative to all "normal" characters around them by their power.
This focus on their power has a tendency to bring the struggle between the superhero and the inevitable supervillain into the foreground, reducing "normal" characters into the background and making it very difficult to show two organisations fighting against each other.
So the conflict between the Rebellion and the Empire pales in significance compared to the power of a superhero. By framing characters as superheroes the struggle between the Rebellion and the Empire is lost in the shadow of their power.
Star Wars, but not as we knew it
Now as I said before I enjoyed the movies, but I didn't feel hooked by the new Star Wars world. I missed characters requiring practice to hone their skills and I also missed an ensemble of heroes which had their own strengths and contrasts.
The Force Awakens is so focused on "Force sensitive" characters it focusses on Jedi and Jedi-like characters a lot, to the detriment of establishing any non "Force sensitive" individuals to provide a more diverse group of heroes. Despite the Clone Wars era Star Wars also focusing more on Jedi, they still managed to provide a suite of notable characters who were not Jedi.
I guess what I feel is while Star Wars kind of started out as cowboys and samurai in space it appears to have turned into another comic book movie. Maybe it is related to Marvel receiving rights to make Star Wars comics again, but it's certainly a different Star Wars to the one I grew up with.
Sam Gillespie is a postgraduate research student at the university of New South Wales.
Sam Gillespie's previous articles may be viewed at www.pressserviceinternational.org/sam-gillespie.html