In all honesty, up until the first teaser trailer for The Force Awakens dropped last winter, I was more or less ambivalent towards it.
Yes, from the sale of Lucasfilms to Disney to the announcement of J.J. Abrams taking the director’s chair and all the pre-production talks, buzz and anticipation was rampant for this film. Yet, since I checked out of the series proper after Episode II and have not bothered to purchase any of the other films due to George Lucas’ constant tinkering, I was looking forward more to the latest Avengers film than this. But since, starting with the aforementioned teaser, I slowly came around to the fandom I only discovered late in my teenage years. Learning of the new characters to be introduced or the previous characters to resurface became exciting and I found myself anxiously awaiting December 18 (not that I actually saw it on opening day, but still). And considering probably everyone else in America has seen it by now, I might as well not fight the urge any more.
Thirty years after the last proper Star Wars episode (let’s ignore the prequels; they blew), the Empire is in shambles after the Battle of Endor leading to the rise of the First Order, an insidious force that might as well be the Empire. Likewise, the Rebellion has now become The Resistance, led by our old pal, General Leia (Carrie Fisher) who is searching for her brother Luke, the last Jedi, who has since disappeared. This leads ace pilot Poe Cameron (Oscar Issac) to a village where he obtains information possibly leading to Luke’s location.
Unfortunately, First Order big bad Kylo Ren (Adam Driver) learns of the meet-up leading to Poe’s capture and the outright slaughter of the villagers. But, Poe’s droid BB-8 escapes with the information and later teams up with Rey (Daisy Ridley), a local girl who scavenges by day and dreams of a bigger future by night. When Finn (John Boyega), one of the village massacring stormtroopers, has a crisis of conscious, he helps Poe escape in a stolen TIE fighter but after a crash landing, Poe is presumed dead and Finn teams up with Rey to help deliver BB-8 to The Resistance and hopefully clean his conscious at the same time.
Not longer after Rey and Finn commandeer the Millenium Falcon from the local junkyard are we reintroduced to Han Solo (Harrison Ford) and his trusty sidekick Chewbecca who intercept the vessel on its escape. From there, the race is on to get BB-8 to The Resistance before the First Order can apprehend him. If the basic summary of the first act or so sounds familiar, it probably should.
Perhaps in an effort to distance itself from the dreadful prequels, The Force Awakens follows a very familiar formula in the Star Wars cannon. That said, Abrams does an admirable job of introducing the new characters (presumably the ones to lead their own trilogy) and intertwining them with the fan favorites from thirty years ago. Both Finn and Rey have strong presence on screen and compelling stories other than merely escorting a robot to some important people.
Also of note is Kylo Ren, Darth Vader’s cinematic predecessor, who has some history with the rest of the cast. Unlike Vader’s cool temperament, Ren is wild and unpredictably, wielding his light saber, ferociously destroy a computer console after his plans go awry. Driver has an intensity to his scenes, both masked and unmasked, to underscore just how unstable he is in his quest to obtain the droid.
The Force Awakens almost offers the prequel films a mulligan as Abrams uses not only our array of nostalgia and wonder in scenes but good staging and cinematography to boot. Dog fights between TIE fighters and X-Wings, the Millenium Falcon navigating dangerous terrain, and even all out blaster battles between the rebels, err... Resistance fighters, and stormtroopers invoke our sense of nostalgia as well as a sense of wonder and awe.
For most Star Wars fans, this film will feel not unlike a popular band’s greatest hits album which is a good and a bad thing. While some deviations occur, TFA does not offer much new plot-wise to the series. On one hand, it is a tried-and-true formula that guarantees a good time but on the other, it severely limits where the film can go, especially as the final act approaches and most of the important plot beats are either spelled out or heavily implied from the film’s slavish devotion to its predecessors.
Fortunately, the entire film does not rest on nostalgia with the addition of the new, and superb, cast and it does it’s job of positioning itself within the Star Wars universe and tying in with the other films. Since I haven’t seen this movie a billion times like I have episodes 4 through 6, I can’t accurately rank it in those terms. But suffice to say, if you are a fan of the originals (not the prequels dammit!), you will find plenty to like in The Force Awakens.
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