After a near 10 year absence from theaters (and a hand acquisition by the Disney corporation) ‘Star Wars’ returned in 2015 with a new trilogy and promise of a new expansive universe (largely modelled on the success of the MCU).

The first of these? would be 2015’s “The Force Awakens” And…well…Disney basically wanted a ‘safe’ bet, and thats pretty much what we have on our hands here…

A significant (but undisclosed) period of time has elapased since ‘Return of the Jedi’ Luke Skywalker has gone into hiding under mysterious circumstances and hasnt been seen in a decade or two, Han Solos vanished as well and Leia is now leading the last of the resistance against a newly reformed ‘Empire’ made up of the surviving factions, rechristened the ‘First Order’ and bought under the direction of one Kylo Ren (as instructed by a mysterious ‘General Snoke’)

For us? the action picks up with Rey, a scavanger on a desert like planet who’s just about making ends meet, when a BB-8 droid appears out of nowhere, shortly followed by a mysterious gentleman called Finn who’s claiming to be from the resistance (but is actually a stormtrooper from the first order who fled the army as he realised it really wasnt for him.)

The film from here basically follows the pair as they (accidentally) steal the millenium falcon and (accidentally) end up running into Han and Chewie, leading to much adventure and a startling revelation that will set Rey, Finn and Kylo on a new path of destiny that may well decide the fate of the force once and for all.

And if you want my quick caption summary for this film, its basically 25% original story elements leaning more into world war 2 style storytelling (but with more emphasis on how the Nazis were portrayed in film, rather than how they ACTUALLY were in real life) with a few post modern swipes at modern culture thrown in for good measure, married up to 75% plot beats and elements from the three ‘Original Trilogy’ movies.

I cant go into detail as to exactly WHAT plot elements are lifted from the three films, but anyone who’s familiar with the original trilogy will notice key points from ‘Hope’, ‘Empire’ and ‘Return’ are all present and correct here, just given a new lick of paint and more modern cinematic twist…Oh! and because this is a Disney movie and disney REALLY wanted to hock AS MUCH MERCH POSSIBLE in order to justify George Lucas’ MASSIVE payday for selling the rights, expect a TON of callbacks, references and nods to the old films thrown in for good measure.

I mean…its a weird place to be put in as a film critic, because on the one hand I REALLY wanna slap this film for its absolute laziness in just cobbling together a plot out of offcuts from the last 6 films into some kind of ‘Cinematic meat obolisk’. But on the other hand, having seen the behind the scenes on this thing, the attention to detail in nailing those elements was frankly insane. They went as far as to shoot on the same cameras using as close an approximation to the film stock that was used for ‘Empire’ to get the specific look and feel, all the callback props are either refurbished originals or 1:1 highly detailed replicas. Its insane.

In terms of the script, its fine…maybe a little slow at times. But when the film is basically doing the cinematic equivilent of ‘Upcycling’ and this is the first part of a trilogy, there isnt really a whole lot I can say. Its got a semi decent 3 act structure that transitions between the acts pretty seamlessly, theres a few minor pacing issues in the 2nd act, but its consistant throughout…The characters (at this point) are maybe a little bland, but they develop them enough across the runtime that I feel they could have real potential in later films.

I dont feel they really quite nail the older takes on Han, Leia and Luke in this one. Honestly, other than to have them in the trailer, I feel like, if anything the shadow of there presence hangs WAY too heavily over this film. They’re treated with reverence, when realistically NOONE should really know who Luke or Han are, outside of die hard war afficionados, and Leia *should* have a bit more of a status, but is kind of downplayed. Everyone looks old, tired…and it really contrasts agains these fresh faced new characters in a way that feels less ‘changing of the guard’ and more ‘We wanted the likeness rights so we could do T-shirts…’

The tone is more in line with what worked so well in the original films, than with the prequel movies…But it suffers a bit from ‘Marvel’ syndrome, where every characters ‘Charisma’ is to just be a bit snarky and awkward a few times across the runtime…which is a bit of a shame.

On the direction and cine front? its got JJ Abrahams in the hotseat, he’s got a proven track record and ‘safe’ is about as good as it gets here, there are WAY too many ‘homages’ to the older films for my personal taste, but it all looks great for the most part, Im glad they’ve seemingly learned from the ‘Prequel’ trilogy and paired back on making every single scene an overstuffed CGI smeared nightmare, but it does still creep in from time to time.

As for the cine more broadly? shots are well composed, they borrow heavily from ‘Revenge of the Sith’ and ‘Empire’ for colour palette inspiration, the edits a little *too* busy for my taste at times, and the use of CG driven transitions in places didnt quite land for me…But its a Disney grade studio production, so it was always going to be ‘good’. The broader issue is that because its trying SO BADLY to not end up being another ‘Prequel’ nightmare, it fails to really define itself. To the point that it never really goes above ‘Good’ and into something truely ‘era’ defining. It just does what it does quite well and then gets out of there. Which…for the time when this film came out, was something I feel ABSOLUTELY was needed for the franchise, a strong safe opening and a good foundation to build a new trilogy from.

Unfortunately; having now seen the trilogy that followed, it does rather leave this film feeling less like a promising opening to what could be an astounding trilogy, and more like the old sailors tail of the ships captain who saw a ghost on a bridge waving in distress and warning not to sail, days before the ship capsized killing all on board.

The Soundtracks fine. Honestly? the whole movies fine to good. And realistically? I think this is a solid way to get kids of the ‘now’ into Star Wars and as a gateway to get them into the older films. Its probably thge easiest watch out of any of the films released to date. But its not original, and while the attention to detail is incredible, it fails to really, truely capture the whimsy and adventure that these films generally thrive on.

Overly safe to its own detriment, ‘The Force Awakens’ is FINE. but its not great and struggles under the weight of its own assumed legacy. Definitely worth checking out (and encouraged) if you’ve never seen a ‘Star Wars’ film and are looking for a good ‘in’ point. But if you’ve seen the other films a million times, I think you may start find it a little TOO comfortable a watch.

direction of the cast is a little lacking, theres a certain coldness to the way the cast have been asked to perform here and it does lead to deliveries that make the more lighter moments of the film feel a little out of place and strange. Again…its fine for the most part, but it struggles in places.

source https://letterboxd.com/tytdreviews/film/star-wars-the-force-awakens/