A decade ago, the Star Wars franchise for all intents and purposes, looked relegated to a children's television series, an expanded universe so deep and large that it was nearly impossible to grasp, the odd, decent game (and a few that should have been flung into the Death Star's core) and a series of web reviews by a senile murderer from New Jersey, which eviscerated the prequel trilogy and provided infinitely more entertainment than they ever did.
In terms of movies, whilst the aforementioned children's television series did produce a movie spin-off so bad it made The Phantom Menace look like 2001: A Space Odyssey, the idea of more was nothing more than wishful thinking.
Although George Lucas had hinted that a sequel trilogy was planned in the saga's infancy, he spent half the franchise's lifespan claiming the opposite and the much derided prequel trilogy looked like the final main releases in the series.
So when the all encompassing media juggernaut Disney bought Lucasfilm and declared their intentions to release more Star Wars films, to say it was a shocker was an understatement. Adding J.J. Abrams; one of the minds behind Lost and more importantly, the man who made the best Star Wars movie since the eighties and called it a Star Trek reboot seemed like a smart move.
When footage finally came as teasers, trailers and TV spots, the machinations of the hype machine reached new realms. It was hard not to see how impressive the film looked from a technical standpoint, but more importantly, The Force Awakens promised to bring back all our old favourites for new adventures, something every Star Wars fan had wondered since the end of Return of the Jedi.
But the question, especially after the underwhelming prequels, and especially like The Phantom Menace at the end of the last millennium; can it live up to the hype and expectation? Even more so considering the cultural impact the saga made from it's inception.
In the least spoilery synopsis possible; The Force Awakens takes place thirty years after the end of Return of the Jedi. Despite the literal fall of the Emperor and his Empire, from the ashes emerges the First Order, leading a war against the new Galactic Republic and it's military force; the literal Resistance.
The movie centres around the hunt for the original trilogy's main protagonist Luke Skywalker who has been missing for years. Leading the charge for the good guys, it's Resistance pilot Poe Dameron, Luke's sister Leia, a turncoat Stormtrooper called Finn and a scavenger on desert wasteland planet Jakku called Rey. For the First Order is Supreme Leader Snoke, his force-trained right hand man Kylo Ren and his Hitler expy General Hux.
One of the biggest and most welcome changes of The Force Awakens compared to the prequels is the performances of the new faces. John Boyega's portrayal of Finn is easily the most relatable; someone forced to do terrible things, wants to escape his destiny, do the right thing and Boyega captures this perfectly, a far better protagonist than Anakin or Obi-Wan from the prequels.
The original trilogy faces who make a return are a highlight when they all make an appearance. Harrison Ford's Han Solo is the most present and is still the charming rogue from before, even with the silver hair and even gruffer voice. He has that natural magnetism to his performance but with the extra bonus of being haggard from years in the Star Wars universe and is still an interesting character.
Leading lady Rey is also another well acted character. Daisy Ridley somehow combines hardened survivor and overwhelmed adventurer and will no doubt inspire a generation of female fans. The only downside with her character is she is literally too perfect and doesn't have any flaws that make her relatable.
Compared to Luke in A New Hope, while a hero in the purest sense, he still whined and complained about his circumstances and his only real talent in the film was his piloting skills and the odd glimmer of using the force. This expanded as the films went on, making his character arc all the more entertaining, as we watched him grow from farm boy to powerful Jedi knight.
Rey however has no negative personality traits and does pretty much everything better than everyone (which begs the question of why she was barely surviving day-to-day on Jakku). Still, much like Finn, she's miles ahead of anyone from the prequels in terms of personality and there's a lot of unexplained bits of her backstory that are obvious sequel bait.
Whilst Supreme Leader Snoke (played by motion-capture supremo Andy Serkis) is the head of the First Order, unquestionably the biggest villain of the film is Kylo Ren. Ren (played by Adam Driver) is the film's version of Darth Vader; clad in black with a mask and distorted voice.
Much like Rey who combines opposite traits to create an interesting character; Ren's is a seemingly superpowered force user (with flares of abilities far more powerful than even the Emperor) who also shows traits of immaturity and anger. Much like Vader, he gloriously chews up every scene he's in and again like Vader when watching the Original Trilogy for the first time, you will want to see him defeated because of his menacing presence.
Speaking of presence, the biggest criticism of the Prequels other than making no sense and having terribly written characters saying terribly written dialogue was having the films set in such an artificial looking world.
The much derided Rick McCallum quote of making the remastered films and prequels so dense is not the word of God here. Instead, The Force Awakens refreshingly looks real with certain glimpses of sparse emptiness, despite the size of the universe.
The first half of the movie takes place on Jakku which has a lot of shots with nothing in them, simply showing the size, isolation and emptiness of the world. When the many races of alien inhabitants show their faces, their not all distracting CGI but puppets and animatronics. A lovely throwback the series routes, they look far more real than anything a computer could every create and help establish the setting.
Of course, the film uses a lot of CGI but it's only used to heighten or compliment the action or character models that puppetry simply can't do. The battles are fast and visceral with Abrams' Midas touch of creating visually stunning set pieces. When ships explode, they have weight and calamity as they plummet. When there are CGI sets, there's still practical elements, compared to never ending green screen corridors of the prequels.
John Williams once again returns as the maestro of the franchise (this time without the London Symphony Orchestra). There's surprisingly very few motifs from Williams' previous work as you'd expect, but when they show up, you can't help but smile. As expected, the new songs add so much atmosphere and tone to the film, they're a necessity and his contribution is simply perfect.
The Lightsaber battles are also done with less choreographed flare than the prequels which adds a bit more realism in this unrealistic family space movie. Much like RotJ and The Empire Strikes Back, there's more staggered weight behind each blow and pauses which gives the audiences a brief breather before the action continues, compared to say, Revenge of the Sith which featured Anakin and Obi-Wan fighting non-stop in a lucha-libre style for eons. It's another welcome change which alienates the prequels even more in the franchise.
So how does The Force Awakens sit in the saga? I can tell you that I after finished the film, I was buzzing because of how entertaining it was and was desperate the watch it again. It's superior to the prequels in every way and, although my mind may change on this on a rewatch, I currently prefer it to RotJ as the tone between the two movies is more my taste.
Whilst RotJ had it's darker elements, it was a pretty goofy movie, far more so than anything before it (and especially coming off the heels of TESB). The Force Awakens, whilst having a few light hearted moments, not only recaptures the grit and dirt of A New Hope and TESB, but it also has a lot of dark, disturbing imagery and a lot of quite heavy and depressing plot threads.
If the original trilogy's Empire had more than a few nods to the Nazi's; The Force Awakens' First Order is full blown confirmation of it's real life inspiration. There's also a few nods to Vietnam and other war atrocities with certain set-pieces which makes the film, unquestionably, one of the darkest chapters, possibly the darkest.
The biggest flaw (other than, as mentioned before, Rey's perfection), without giving too much away is the film's plot is pretty much a rehash of A New Hope with some tweaking.
Whilst some of the homages are nice and A New Hope wasn't the first and The Force Awakens certainly won't be the last to use the hero's journey template for a story, it's a shame that the film reeks of unoriginality and that the moments where the story ventures off into new territory are when it's the most interesting.
As I tweeted, reviewing The Force Awakens is pointless. It's going to make billions, nearly all of it's audience made it's mind up to see it when it was first announced and it's going to change the landscape of films regardless of it's quality.
But I wanted to talk about it, almost to get it off my chest at how much fun I had. When my wife asked me what I thought, I told her I was buzzing, probably for the first time in many years over a film.
Sure, it's not perfect and there's a lot of things wrong with it that will only come to light once spoilers are more readily acceptable in the public conscience, but once again, the Star Wars saga has another iconic entry that's not only an absolute blast from the opening fanfare but by it's conclusion, will make you salivate for episode eight in two years.
J.J. Abrams has once again created a sci-fi franchise reboot that somehow exceeds expectations and reestablishes it's dominance. I'm still shocked that he's only involved in an executive producer capacity for the sequel, but his impact on the franchise will be remembered in the coming years.
As a famous character says to another in a perhaps too obvious nudge during the film
"Oh dear old friend, you don't know how happy I am to see you", Star Wars is back with it's best entry in over three decades and, as a cheesy send-off to this review:
The Force is strong with this one
9/10
H
@Retcon_Nation
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