Star Wars: The Force Awakens: Review · 1:07pm Dec 20th, 2015
Okay so I decided I wanted to talk about the new Star Wars film.
I've been seeing a lot of movies recently so I've decided to do something different with this under active blog to try and make it as thriving as it used to be. I'm going to be talking about new movies which have been coming out and that I've seen. I thought I'd start with Star Wars, because well, it's Star Wars, it's a big deal, I just saw it, I loved it, and I can't wait to get my opinion out there.
Star Wars has been saved.
Since 1997 when the Star Wars Special Edition came out fans have been becoming more and more angry and frustrated with the direction that the franchise was going. The prequels were extremely badly written, boring, and completely disappointing films which made most of the fanbase completely appalled, and after the 2011 blu ray it felt like the franchise was just going to get worse and worse until the grandeur of the first two original films had been completely forgotten in future generations. But then Disney bought Star Wars and got JJ Abrams to make a new movie, and boy was it awesome. All we need to do is get the unaltered versions of the original trilogy and Star Wars has returned to form from nearly 2 decades of brutal torture.
There's so much I could talk about this film, this review however is going to be spoiler free because I don't want to ruin the movie for anyone who hasn't seen it. So, sorry if this review isn't very in depth.
This movie brings back everything that made the original 2 films great, and is a wonderful bridge between new and old. A lot of people have been saying that this is just a rip off of the first Star Wars movie, but I don't think that's true. Sure, it does borrow a lot of elements from A New Hope but I see that as more paying homage to it than ripping it off. It's been so long since 1977 but yet a lot of people grew up with the original films, so the similar plot elements served as a throw back to those times. I also loved all of the homages back to the originals, Harrison Ford was FANTASTIC in this film. He plays a much older and wiser Han Solo but is still playing the same character at heart. There are so many great lines that he has in this film which just bring a smile to my face, knowing that this IS the Han Solo we knew. The way he interacts with the younger cast had so much chemistry and was just so well done.
The new cast also did a decent job. I'm going to talk about each of them individually, so let's start with Daisy Ridley as Rey. I thought she was... relatively good, I didn't get why the decided to give her a british accent, I thought that was a bit strange, but she did alright and was certainly playing a well written character. I thought though that some of the chemistry between her and John Boyega was awful, like that with them together in the temple/cantina when he says he's done with The First Order, it just made me cringe to tell you the truth. But they're were moments when she really did shine, and I will say that there were probably more times when she played superbly than when she was bad. I think one moment when I think she was really good was in the temple when she took the lightsaber out of the chest. I think she is a good actress overall, there were just some moments which I took issue with, but mostly she was fine.
John Boyega as Finn, similarly, I thought he was relatively good, he had some great moments, but also some really quite bad moments, especially when he's talking to Rey in that one scene which I thought was awful. But he also harbored fantastic charisma, like the scene when he escaped from the star destroyer with Po. The scene just had so much fun and so much energy contained in it and I feel like he brought that scene to life. I think in a lot of ways he's the younger Han Solo, always joking around and being a lot of fun, but yet when he tries to do a serious scene, it often falls flat. But still, mostly really well done.
Oscar Issac as Po Dameron was really good but we don't get too see him much, however, the times when he is on screen he does a fantastic job and I really hope in the future installments we get to see him more.
And finally Adam Driver as Kylo Ren. What a WONDERFUL performance and what a wonderful character. He does so well at performing the evil sith lord but also as a deeply vulnerable and misguided young man. Now, I will say that a huge part of it is that the character is very well written, but still Adam Driver performs the part SO well. I felt truly sorry for him, being so misguided and confused, I'll talk about him more in my spoiler review but I don't want to go into spoiler territory so I'll leave it at that.
I will admit that sometimes it does borrow too heavily from the original film, and they're are certain plot elements which feel very clunky and irrelevant, and could almost just be removed from the movie and it would still be the same, but are put in there for the sake of homage. That too me is too far, you should not be shoehorning in elements which don't actually help to move the original story forward. This movie isn't a rehash, but sometimes I will say they do go overboard with referencing the original films. Not in references to the past from characters, I really enjoyed them, but more recycled plot elements which didn't really need to be in there and just dragged the movie down due to massive galaxy changing events, just not really being important to the plot. I felt like some things were just there to fill time, but if your going to do that I think that they should have done a little bit more original work in terms of the background plot that's going on. But the movie is original, most things aren't from the original film, it is a new, fresh film with new original ideas, in terms of the inner story and interactions between the characters. In terms of the structure though I do have to warn you that you will have seen a lot of it before.
So overall, just go and see this movie. I will be talking more in depth in my spoiler review. I'm sorry if I didn't really give you enough substance in this but it's just that I really didn't want to go TOO much into the plot because I really want people to experience the movie for themselves. This isn't like MLP when going through an episode is completely fine, this is a movie which people have been anticipating for years. But I HIGHLY recommend going to see it.
Now, we're going to be getting a new grading system for movies, simply because I don't want people to think that an amazing and inspirational film is on the same level as a good MLP episode. So, I'm going to be doing a 1-10 system, and this movie gets.....
9.5
Star Wars: The Force Awakens is a fun, well written, and extremely enjoyable cinematic experience that
returns Star Wars to it's original form. With a wonderful combination between old and new, the movie
is a fantastic start to the new trilogy, although sometimes it's structure does rely a bit too heavily
on homages to the original film.
Good to know. This movie has splitted the fandom apart like few I know