A ‘Star Wars’ Hater Reviews ‘The Force Awakens’

First and foremost, I should qualify the title of this review. I loved Star Wars as a kid. The movies were awesome and the toys were radical (that’s how we expressed our love of something in the 80s). I was allowed to stay up past my bedtime to watch The Empire Strikes Back, that was pretty cool. These days, however…not much of a fan. I was stoked to see the prequels when they came out, only to find that they were a heaped pile of speckled bullshit. The special editions were even worse. Cluttering up the screen with shonky CGI made it look downright awful and suggests that those behind had no idea what made a film look good or why the original films were so popular. Then they started trying in crap from the prequels, like redubbing voices and including that gormless tit Hayden Christensen in major scenes. Please, for the love of all things holy, release a remastered Blu-Ray of the theatrical cut.

FUCK. OFF.

So that’s all said and done, how about this new fella? I was, with some trepidation, looking forward to seeing what was on offer because that massive git George Lucas wasn’t involved and he’s proved time and time again that he has no idea how to make a movie. Here are my spoiler-laden thoughts.

I’ll leave this here for anyone who wants to claim Lucas is a good film maker.

Cast: Harrison Ford, Carrie Fisher, Adam Driver, Daisy Ridley, John Boyega, Oscar Isaac

Plot: Decades after the fall of the Intergalactic Empire, a militant group known as the First Order has come to the fore and are trying to exterminate the remaining Jedi. Luke Skywalker, the last of the Jedi, has gone into hiding and now the Resistance, led by Leia Organa, and the First Order race to find him first.

Review: It’s pretty clear from watching this follow up to the original Star Wars trilogy that Disney had a mandate to invoke the first film as much as possible. I’m positive that the first draft was created by taking the script to A New Hope and changing the names. We begin with the Stormtroopers and a masked Sith Lord trying to find a droid holding important information, said droid winds up in the hands of a commoner trying to get by on a desert planet who coincidently is the new generation of Jedi, they meet a grizzled former warrior who gives them faith in the Force…right through to the final act this is a blow for blow rewrite. Right down to a planet destroyer final boss the shape of a planet with a tiny weak spot.

Quick, find a vent!

Harrison Ford returns as Han Solo in the third major hero, stepping into the mentor role previously held by Sir Alec Guinness. It’s interesting to see his struggle with his new place in the universe while unable to completely escape from his past, and it’s a satisfactory character arc for the character. His prickly relationship with Leia (Fisher, also returning) makes for a good dynamic and it feels like they could have spent more time on this, but it makes way for the relationship with Solo and new villain Kylo Ren, which is worth exploring in its own right.

I’m going to call him Darth Cylon.

Also I’m going to put this here.

Not that the movie is a melodrama or weepy character piece, there’s plenty of action throughout the movie. Abrams honed his skills on the Star Trek reboots and continues his good work with exciting laser dogfights featuring spiralling camera sweeps and imaginative set pieces. Likewise the ground action keeps the focus tight on the characters we’ve become invested with instead of littering the screen with hundreds of CGI Jedi (those rare, gifted individuals who live in balance with the universe who turn up en masse to wave around their glow sticks in the prequels). There are some genuine edge-of-the-seat moments. When we come to the final confrontation with Rey, Finn and Kylo Ren it’s reminiscent of the fights in Empire Strike Back and Return of the Jedi, where the characters are driven by their emotions and, sometimes, a complete rage rather than spend 40 minutes swinging around bouncing their swords together. Few characters walk away without scars in these fights. 

One might say that it was a…close shave.

We’re looking forward to a continuation of this story, and the next step in these character’s journeys. Even some of the supporting cast, such as Oscar Isaac’s Poe Dameron and Gwendoline Christie’s Capt. Phasma, feel like they’ve got more to over. This feels like a continuation of the story started in 1977 instead of a cash in on a name brand. Disney and Abram’s team have done good work, and given us a movie that isn’t as ground breaking as the original but is just as much fun.

Rating: SEVEN out of TEN

This one I’m calling Darth From Tarth.