Now if there’s a movie that can draw me out of
movie-review-retirement, it’s this movie—a new Star Wars film. A
movie done, maybe not perfectly spot-on to be in line with the original canon
(the films between 1977 and 1983), but at least has the feel and believability
to be a continuation of said films.
***SPOILERS AHEAD (TURN YOUR SPEEDER AROUND NOW IF YOU HAVEN’T
SEEN THE MOVIE) ***
Back in 1999, when the first prequel, The Phantom Menace,
was released, I’d foolishly thought we were going to receive the same George
Lucas magic we’d gotten two decades prior, so sure he was going to capture
lightning in a bottle for a second trilogy go-round…but it wasn’t meant to
be. Sadly, those films were just boring political tales told between
exciting accounts that were given to us in exposition by some of the characters
(Where were those movies?!), leading up to the origin of Darth Vader.
Don’t get me wrong, some of the scenes and subplots of those films were
exciting, but it just couldn’t make up for Jar Jar Binks in the first one,
Anakin and Padme’s bad romance-novel love story in the second, or Darth Vader’s
easy turn to the dark side in the last one. We all had such high hopes
for those prequel films, but they all fell flat, unfortunately.
George Lucas had always mentioned that he’d like to continue
the story with a trilogy to follow Return of the Jedi, but I think most
of the fans—myself included—kind of cringed at that idea, especially after the
waste of film—well, digital film—that the prequels had been. Yet, having
Harrison Ford, Mark Hamill and Carrie Fisher reprise their roles still sounded
intriguing. Some of the books I’d read and heard about had had Han and
Leia marrying and having a child that grew to be trained as a Jedi, even some
books revealing that Leia, herself, had learned to use the Force, excelling in
lightsaber skills. But as the actors aged quite a bit since the last 1983
film, I didn’t think it was possible to bring them all back, especially
Harrison Ford who’d actually wanted the Han Solo character killed off back in
the original trilogy. At the time, the whole thing just seemed like a pipe
dream…better just to live with my fond memories of A New Hope, Empire
Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi.
So back in 2012, there was a strange little news tidbit when
it was reported that Disney bought Lucasfilm for a whopping $4 billion and soon
after, announced that a new film was being planned. A year after that, it
was confirmed that the new film was to be helmed by J.J. Abrams (of “Alias,”
“Lost,” and Cloverfield fame). Being very impressed by his
original films and how he was able to revive the Star Trek film series,
I felt the Star Wars franchise was in great hands. In the two
years that followed, and being that we’re in the 21st century where
it’s nearly impossible to keep anything a secret in Hollywood, set photos and
videos were leaked, giving us a feel for what we were all going to get.
It looked great, seeing that Abrams was going the practical route and not
choosing to have a CGI porn fest with the new film.
So, anyway, without much more backstory on how the film came
to be, let me jump right into the synopsis of the film, Star Wars:
Episode VII—The Force Awakens.
It seems as evil never truly dies as The First Order has
risen after The Empire was defeated decades prior. Led by the mysterious
Kylo Ren (Adam Driver), their priority is to find the last of the Jedi, Luke
Skywalker (Mark Hamill), and destroy him. To counter this new threat, a
new Resistance, led by General Leia Organa (Carrie Fisher), fights to keep
information of Skywalker’s whereabouts that they have in their possession as they
get help from two unlikely heroes—Finn (John Boyega), a defected storm trooper
from The First Order, and Rey (Daisy Ridley), a lowly scavenger from the planet
Jakku. But as the Resistance base is discovered, there isn’t much time as
The First Order is preparing to destroy them with their newest and deadliest
weapon on the Starkiller Base—a weapon hundreds of times the destructive power
of the Death Star. Will the Resistance be destroyed for good?
First off, I’ve just got to say…it was so weird to have a Star
Wars film start without the familiar 20th Century Fox logo and
fanfare. It always seemed to go hand-in-hand whenever I watched one of
the films. So much so, that whenever I hear that intro music in any other
movie, I instantly think that I’m about to watch a Star Wars flick.
Now…about The Force Awakens…
The new characters introduced for these new generation Star
Wars films, I felt they had held their own right from their
introductions. Unlike the prequels, where some of the characters grew on
you—while many others did not—these new characters were written right and the
actors were given good direction to make us like them instantly.
With Poe Dameron (Oscar Isaac), we see him as a Han Solo
type, a bit of arrogance and showing no
humility or anxiety when coming up
against an enemy. I wish we’d had seen a bit more of him in this film,
but being that this film had quite an ensemble, I can understand why and hope
to see more of him in the sequels. Right away, he’s likeable and we
understand he’s a heroic figure as part of the Resistance.
Of course, who cannot like BB-8? Obviously the
R2-D2 for the millennials of the audience, it’s a cute little roly-poly robot
that’s like a stray dog you can’t help but let tag along with you. The
character, as a droid, is surprisingly able to express some emotion and you can
almost understand what it’s saying through its beeps and squawks. I was
even more amazed by its performance since I’d heard that the representation was
done, not by CGI, but by a practical effect. And I wouldn’t have believed
it if I hadn’t seen it perform during video footage of a Star Wars panel
at the San Diego Comic Convention.
John Boyega’s character of Finn raised some eyebrows and
even upset some diehard Star Wars fans when we first saw him in the
teaser for this film. I guess there was some backlash as to seeing a
black man as a storm trooper. Seeing the original trilogy, and trying to
forget what I’d seen in the prequels, I’d never had an opinion on what race or
gender was supposed to be under that white armor. Why would this be a
problem? I’ll say this: this subplot of having a storm trooper with
feelings, having misgivings about killing people in cold blood, was something I
would’ve never foreseen. I hope we get more of Finn’s backstory, maybe in
flashbacks, about his journey to becoming a storm trooper. Maybe it was
just a throwaway scene, but I was curious as to whom that other storm trooper
was that died in his arms and left the bloody streak on Finn’s helmet.
Maybe he still has friends that are storm troopers and we’ll see Finn be torn
on what side to stay on. But Boyega pulled off a good performance here.
Daisy Ridley turns out to be quite a strong character that
seems to have a lot of backstory we won’t see for a while. It’s interesting
how the story plays her up to be Han and Leia’s daughter, how she achieves the
proficiency of piloting a spacecraft and knows her mechanics, but ends up being
a mystery. But she’s never perceived as a damsel in distress, even when
she’s in trouble. To that effect, she’s never saved; instead she saves
herself when captured. And I like that mixture of her character, how
she’s not overly feminist but is still tough when it’s called for.
Now, the big baddie, Kylo Ren (Adam Driver) is definitely
shown as a force to be reckoned with, presented as a villain who seems to be
more powerful than Darth Vader. His masked persona and disguised voice
gives him the shadowy appearance of someone you don’t want to mess with.
However, later in the film, it appears he’s conflicted with his emotions
involving his parentage which creates a problem for his allegiance to the dark
side of the Force. The arc of this character may seem a little quick and
forced, but as with all the aspects of this film I have to look at it as a
third of a story. Hopefully we get to see more on how Kylo Ren came to
be…as well as The First Order as a whole.
Now, some of the familiar faces are here—some blended in,
some a little forced into the story. Carrie Fisher’s Leia is back, Han
Solo (Harrison Ford) and Chewbacca (Peter Mayhew) have big parts as well, R2-D2
appears in sleep mode throughout most of the film, and good ol’ C3PO (Anthony
Daniels) makes a cameo as well (the aforementioned forced-in character).
With all the performances, their dialogue sounds like it’s
from the heart or off the top of their heads, not read from a cue card like the
prequels seemed to be in comparison. Abrams is not trying to produce a
Shakespeare-in-space melodrama, he’s trying to continue the feel of the movies
most of us grew up with. So far in his career, he’s struck me as a man
who can fill Spielberg’s shoes with ease. I really never had any
reservations about Abrams taking over for George Lucas and always thought it
was best to let Lucas retire for good. Some of the other directors
mentioned as taking the reins for this film were a little scary (I won’t
mention any names here), so I’ve always felt at ease with the announcement of
Abrams.
Okay, now for a few of my critiques. It doesn’t
necessarily mean that I dislike this movie or have a huge problem with these
characters or scenes I’m about to explain, they’re just certain aspects of the
film that kind of irked me or took me out of it altogether…and don’t worry,
there are only three of them that I’ll list right here.
First is the lightsaber duel between Finn and Kylo
Ren. From the moment we’re introduced to Kylo Ren, we see he has
tremendous powers, even appearing stronger and more expanded than Darth Vader’s
powers from the earlier films. We see Ren stop a laser blast in midair
and even extracting
information from other characters’ minds, so how would Finn
be any match for him? Through exposition we find out that Finn was born
and raised to be a storm trooper, not even given a name but a label—FN-2187, so
how is it he can use a lightsaber and go toe-to-toe with a being as powerful
with the Force as Kylo Ren?
The second nitpick is another lightsaber duel, again with
Kylo Ren, but this time with Rey. It’s alluded to that she may have the
Force strengthened within her, but in Star Wars lore, we all know that
she still must have training in order to wield a Jedi’s weapon. To top it
off, she nearly defeats the villain—again, one trained with the dark side of
the Force—in this scene, leaving me scratching my head.
My final criticism is with the representation of the Supreme
Leader Snoke character (voiced and motion captured by Andy Serkis). I’ve
heard grumbles about the character’s gigantism, but totally understand that the
character was projected as a hologram and know that it was done before in The
Empire Strikes Back when the Emperor was projected in much the same way, so
I can’t knock that. My criticism falls on the rendering of the
character. The CGI seems dated and looks as if it was created during the
beginning stages of computer imagery at the turn of the century. With the
rendering work on the latest Planet of the Apes movies (both featuring
Serkis’s MoCap performances) and on the Hulk in both Avengers movies, I
thought we’d get something in a Star Wars movie that’d blow us
away. Nevertheless, I would like to see more of this enigmatic villain.
Little touches that I noticed and loved was little details
to show that this film is tied to the original trilogy. For example,
Abrams didn’t try to show any fancy technology within the ships, but instead
showed us that the Falcon and X-wing fighters…and even the tie fighters still
have those Atari-esque monitor read-outs. The storm troopers, although a
little updated in their armor design, is essentially what we’d seen in the
original trilogy…and they’re not CGI clones (at least, I don’t think they
are…and if they are, they don’t appear to be). Although I had my
reservations about Snoke’s depiction, most of the special effects look great
and had me amazed during a lot of the scenes…the Millennium Falcon never looked
so awesome!
Not really criticisms, but I wish we get more familiar
scenes and planets (systems) in the upcoming films. I would’ve loved to
see at least one of them in this film, like Tatooine (which I thought we
were seeing in the trailer). But maybe we’ll return to it in the next
one, or even Hoth or the forest moon of Endor…or Cloud City…
Speaking of Cloud City, Billy Dee Williams has been on the
record, not confirming that he’s going to reprise his role as Lando, but saying
that he can’t talk about it, which leads me to believe we will see him
again. Apparently, he’s signed a nondisclosure agreement, so his return
is probably in the works. I mean, can you imagine Lando meeting Rey for the
first time, saying, “Hello, what have we here?” in that smooth Colt 45 voice?
I can probably go on and on about this film, quibbling and
discussing to my heart’s content. I’m sure I’ll think of one thing or
another that I’d forgotten to mention on this review after posting, but I think
you get all the points I’ve presented here and see where I fall on my opinion
of the film. So, without further ado, here’s my final “bit” on Star
Wars: Episode VII—The Force Awakens:
Overall, a great film—probably the best I’ve seen in
2015—and it’s definitely on par with the original trilogy. Its only
setback is that there’s such a long time between Return of the Jedi and
this one that you really can’t say that the sequel comes in seamlessly.
It’s certainly nice to see some of the original cast again and wish they’d have
played a bigger part or made sure to stick around for the sequel. By the
way the film ends, maybe I’ll get my wish in the next film, but this is by far
better than any of the prequels. I loved a lot of the sprawling scenes
featured in this movie that we’ve never seen in previous Star Wars films.
Some examples: The First Order’s rows upon rows of storm troopers as General
Hux (Domhnall Gleeson) addresses them, the Starkiller Base’s weapon sucking in
the sun and discharging its gargantuan blast to destroy the targeted planets,
the Millennium Falcon flying above the sands and through the downed destroyer
ship carcass, the primitive—yet crude—lightsaber Kylo Ren wields…all such great
sci-fi eye candy. I plan on taking in another viewing or two and will
definitely add this to my Blu-Ray collection once it’s released. If
you’re a Star Wars fan, I know you’ve seen this already, so I don’t need
to tell you to get out there and watch it. But if you’ve never seen one
of these films, you need to start with the ’77 film, watch the two sequels to
that, ignore the prequels, and jump right into The Force Awakens.
Well, thanks for reading and May the Force Be With You!
