Tuesday, December 22, 2015

Star Wars - Episode VII: The Force Awakens Movie Review




This was both a testament to the past, as well as a passing of the torch.

Yes, I took my son to see Star Wars last night, and I wanted to give a review. The challenge, however, is not to use any spoilers, since it is still a fairly new movie that many fans have not yet seen.

So, the challenge is figuring out what to say, and how to say it without potentially spoiling it for anyone meaning to see it, but who has not actually seen it yet.

Let me say this right off the bat: this is the kind of Star Wars movie where I feel I would need to see it twice, at least, in order to more fully grasp some of the smaller nuances. Probably, that is because this is a whole new story that needs grasping. After all, the last three Star Wars movies that came out, we obviously knew where things were headed, with Anakin inevitably making a turn towards the Dark Side and becoming Darth Vader.

Here, there is a whole new villain, very capably played by Adam Driver. Again, I find it difficult to say too much about this, for fear of saying too much about this. But I think that they did a nice job in creating this new villain, despite my initial skepticism. He probably will not ever truly rival Darth Vader, who I think is just about the most iconic movie villain of all time. Yet, the way that they set this character up as has the potential to be a very solid bad guy for this next trilogy, on several levels. This villain has a more raw feel to him than Darth Vader or Darth Maul, and you get the impression that there are a lot of rough edges with him still.

The First Order replaces The Empire as the new universal threat, and the imagery is straight out of the Third Reich. The Star Wars franchise might have borrowed somewhat from the propaganda of the Third Reich in previous movies, but they really do so with reckless abandon in this particular movie. Also, they seemed to borrow at times from Lord of the Rings, at two different points. One relating to the massive new weapon being developed, and the other coming at another point in the movie, although I cannot reveal more without giving anything away.

Ultimately, I will conclude on this note. J.J. Abrams, the director of this film, made no secret of his desire to go a very different direction than the last three movies, the prequels, went. In that, there is no doubt that it is different, although it borrows heavily from the original trilogy. Abrams seems to go so far with dissing the prequels, that I noticed the very first line in the movie seemed almost a parting shot at the prequels. However, I was listening to one review on the radio last week, and one thing that a reviewer said stuck with me, and that was that this movie is shockingly unoriginal. That stuck with me and, indeed, having seen it now, I would have to agree that this movie borrows so heavily on the first trilogy, that it would not be able to stand on it's own.

Of course, this is a Star Wars movie, so luckily, it does not need to. This is the kind of film that traditionalists will likely love and revel in, while it also has the power to draw in a new generation of Star Wars fans, which certainly included my son last night. He was talking excitedly about the movie, and clearly loved it. It was a pleasure at times to steal glances at him, and see him completely absorbed in the movie. This movie managed to do what the prequels, frankly, failed to do: appeal to a younger generation of fans without compromising the qualities to keep older fans interested. No Jar Jar Binks here, thankfully! Again, this one needs more than one viewing. The first to actually see what happens, how the story line goes, and then the next to grasp some of the hidden parts, the subtleties. But overall, this was a pretty solid movie, and a nice addition to the Star Wars franchise.


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