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Doherty, Ember
Writing 2
Roberta Wolfson
3/14/16
The Force Awakens:
Using Genre to Decide to Go to the Movies
There are many genres that make up the world of writing. These various genres are
defined by style and a set of guidelines that they follow. When writing about a topic it is
important to consider genre because the genre of the writing greatly influences how one
understands a topic. To understand this concept about genre and its effect on writing, we can look
at the two genres of online magazine articles and movie reviews their different takes on the
movie Star Wars: The Force Awakens, and how their various conventions such as tone and
formatting add to the credibility of each piece.
One convention that sets magazine articles apart from other genres is their lack of
personal opinion. When people read magazine articles, they expect a level of credibility and want
facts rather than opinions. The article I read for this assignment, Box office report: The Force
Awakens narrowly beats The Revenant to become the third-biggest movie ever, described the
box office numbers surrounding Star Wars: The Force Awakens and thus included numerical data
in almost all of its sentences. This data was very good for ensuring that the information was
credible and for giving a detailed look at the economics behind the movie. Since the article uses
specific numbers like secured first place as expected with an estimated $41.6 million
(Coggan), it is clear that the writers did real research on the topic and thus their information is
credible. However, what this article lacked was personal opinion as the author did not include his
thoughts about whether or not the numbers were good or bad. Rather they were just stated. This
lack of personal opinion adds credibility and helps to define the genre of magazine articles.

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In contrast, the movie reviews I read were full of personal opinion. I looked at the user
reviews on rottentomatoes.com where anyone has the chance to write what they want about the
movie. The prime purpose of reviews is to inform the readers if the movie is worth their time, so
the main function of these reviews is determining the good and the bad. Movie reviews serve the
function of influencing readers opinions and thus must utilize the opinions of their authors to
portray the ideas they are meant to. Unlike the magazine article, there was very little numerical,
statistical, or factual data. Some people gave descriptions of parts of the movie, but that was the
extent of what could be confirmed as truth. For example, the online article reads In total, The
Force Awakens has grossed a whopping $1.73 billion globally, just surpassing Jurassic World
($1.67 billion) to become the third-biggest global movie of all time (Coggan). In contrast, the
movie reviews say things like Thought the script writing was brilliant (Letitia L) and Overall
I liked this new film (hunterjt13). These opinions give us different perspectives on the film and
help us to understand how other people like us felt about the film.
In addition, there was far more formatting on the online magazine article than the
reviews. By formatting, I mean the article followed what seemed to be a specific set of rules
about how it was laid out and how the text appeared on the screen. The reviews, which, as I
would like to make clear, were user posts on a website rather than formal reviews by critics
published in articles of their own, did not seem to follow any specific format and the style of
writing and way the text was presented to the reader was different in practically every post. This
stems from the fact that the online article is trying to uphold an expectation whereas the reviews
are not. When it comes to the online magazine article, its format is based off the print version of
the magazine. The article I used can be found on the Entertainment Weekly website and thus is
produced by the same company that produces the Entertainment Weekly print magazine. Since

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print magazines cost money to read, people expect a level of professionalism and format. Online,
this professionalism is not quite as important since the article is free to read; comparing the
online article to a print article it becomes clear that it is not nearly as strictly formatted as its
printed brother. However, compared to the random posts found on rottentomatoes.com, the
online magazine article is extremely strict. The reviews vary in length from a single sentence to
multiple pages of text. Some people break their reviews into paragraphs, but others just leave
their writing as a massive block of words. Since the reviews are open to anyone to post at any
time, there is a far lower expectation than there is for the online article. We expect articles to be
written, edited, and produced by professionals. This adds to the credibility of the article and our
view of the company that produces it, Entertainment Weekly.
The expectations that our society has for magazine articles as well as our tendency to
trust information found in magazine articles comes from the fact that we tend to trust the
professional because we feel that they have an amount of expertise in their area of study. We
automatically see someone who is paid for his work as more credible than someone who is not.
For this reason, we see the work of Devan Coggan as being more true than the writings of
hunterjt13. It is because of this professionalism that we feel we can trust companies like
Entertainment Weekly to give correct and current information. If Entertainment Weekly were to
start producing completely unformatted articles written by people with screen names like
hunterjt13 versus real names like Devan Coggan it would immediately lose the trust that readers
have in it.
Although we do not really see user reviews as necessarily credible, they provide valuable
perspective that we feel we can trust in a different way. What I mean by this is that we know that
user reviews are written by our peers. Writers like hunterjt13, although not necessarily the most

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trustworthy, are normal people and consumers like we are. When considering whether to go see a
movie or not, we want to consider more than just the box office numbers. Opinions of other
consumers are often off of what we base our decision. A review such as Letitia Ls I thought the
scriptwriting was brilliant accompanied by a four star review can back up the information
provided in the article as it confirms, along with the box office numbers, that the movie is a good
watch. Matthew Samuel M adds to this with his review Extraordinarily faithful to the tone and
style of the originals. The Force Awakens brings back the Old Trilogys heart, humor, mystery
and fun. This information is not necessarily true for everyone as many people may not feel that
the new movie lived up to the legacy of the original films. However, for viewers looking for
nostalgia, this review might be the reason they go see The Force Awakens. We tend to believe
that because Matthew Samuel M is a consumer like ourselves, he likely feels the same nostalgia
we do and thus has a valid opinion regarding this issue. We cannot completely take these reviews
as truth, though, as there are some reviews that completely contradict these examples here. We
see reviews like Not a good movie. The plot makes no sense (Dana L), Disappointingly poor
(Simon B.), and waited 30 years for itsad (Patrick F). Seeing these reviews that blatantly
contradict the information provided in the reviews before, we come to understand that the
information provided here is not a solid truth. With information such as that provided in the
Entertainment Weekly article, The Revenant has now made of total of $39.6 million
domestically (Coggan) it cannot be debated. It is fact and it cannot be contested. However, the
information provided in the reviews, although valuable to us as consumers when making
informed decisions about whether or not to see the film, are not absolute truth and can very
easily be debated.

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As a consumer, it is important to consider both the unbiased, factual information provided

in articles such as Coggans article on the Entertainment Weekly website as well as opinionated
reviews such as those on rottentomatoes.com. Although very different from each other, both
genres provide valuable information and perspective necessary to making an informed decision
about The Force Awakens. In order to think critically about the information being given and to
make our informed decision, it is important to think about the differences in these genres and the
information they provide.

Works Cited

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Coggan, Devan. Box office report: The Force Awakens narrowly beats The Revenant to become
the third-biggest movie ever. Entertainment Weekly. Entertainment Weekly, 10 Jan.
2016. Web. 25 Jan. 2016.
Dana L. Not a good movie. The plot makes no sense. The story is the same as Episode IV. Its
badly written, very badly written. Big disappointment. Rev. of The Force Awakens, dir.
J.J. Abrams. Rotten Tomatoes 24 Jan. 2016. Web.
hunterjt13. Rey, a young smuggler, is thrust into a battle between the First Order and the
resistance when she teams up with a storm trooper who suffered a crisis of conscience.
The new entry into the Star Wars universe is profoundly derivative, essentially an updated
retelling of A New Hope, and while ignoring the backstory about the First Order largely
mutes the events of Return of the Jedi, the new characters are interesting enough that J.J.
Abrams has successfully made me excited about the new installments, rather than
cringing, as I did after The Phantom Menace. It's a fun, popcorn film, returning to its
roots, and this isn't all bad, even if it fails to advance the scope of the original films. I
especially like Daisy Ridley as Rey. Ridley gives Star Wars a feminist character, one
whose hand should never be held and whose life is not dependent on others, but the film
doesn't allow Ridley to explore enough of the character because it withholds so much
information in the name of suspense. Also, Star Wars as a series is based on the struggle
between good and evil. In the original trilogy, we accepted the empire as evil and the
rebellion as good - the bad guys had red light sabers and the good guys had green or blue
light sabers. In the second trilogy, George Lucas bungled a political plot, which by
necessity forced the film to explore intricacies of good and evil and descent into evil.
Obviously that failed. In order to deal with the rise of the First Order, we needed a

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political plot, but yet the film disavowed itself of this responsibility, and as a result, the
film's antagonists are hollow and the series doesn't hold together as a narrative whole.
Star Wars has to get better at politics, not just for the sake of Episode VIII but for the
continuity of the series as a whole. Overall, I liked this newest film if only because it
manages to return the franchise to the rails; now if only Episode VIII can get the train
moving again. Rev. of The Force Awakens, dir. J.J. Abrams. Rotten Tomatoes 2 Jan.
2016. Web.
Letitia L. Thought the scriptwriting was brilliant, but I didn't enjoy the actual sets and scenes so
much. Rev. of The Force Awakens, dir. J.J. Abrams. Rotten Tomatoes 13 Jan. 2016. Web.
Matthew Samuel M. Extraordinarily faithful to the tone and style of the originals, The Force
Awakens brings back the Old Trilogy's heart, humor, mystery, and fun. Since it is only the
first piece in a new three-part journey it can't help but feel incomplete. But everything
that's already there, from the stunning visuals, to the thrilling action sequences, to the
charismatic new characters, has reawakened and solidified my love for the series. This
film deserves a Best Picture nomination. Rev. of The Force Awakens, dir. J.J. Abrams.
Rotten Tomatoes 7 Dec. 2015. Web.
Patrick F. waited 30 years for itsad. Rev. of The Force Awakens, dir. J.J. Abrams. Rotten
Tomatoes 25 Jan. 2016. Web.
Simon B. .Disappointingly poor. Rev. of The Force Awakens, dir. J.J. Abrams. Rotten
Tomatoes 22 Jan. 2016. Web.