Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens

“Chewie, we’re home”. After a hiatus of over 10 years, Star Wars came back and The Force Awakens was brought to us by Disney. Now, after the hype of Star Wars’ return has passed, I was able to watch this movie with a critical eye, and I’m not sure they came out as strongly as I had initially thought. While some aspects of this movie were incredible, there were a lot more issues that I came away with regarding the movie this time around.

Let’s start with the good this time. This movie truly made the magic of Star Wars feel real. From the opening war scene being reminiscent of World War II, I knew that this felt different in the best way possible. This scene showed the dark and gritty side of war as residents were pulled from their homes while Stromtroopers set fire to the village with flamethrowers. After the poor quality of visual effects in the original trilogy, and the very clearly computer generated effects of the prequel trilogy, this was a welcome change to see practical effects (or CG effects good enough to make me believe they were real). Some other notable effects included the massive crashed ship in the sands of Jakku, when the ship takes flight over open water and how the waves rippled just perfectly the sounds and sights of the ship as it lands and the exhaust lets out a burst of air, and when Kylo Ren first unleashes his lightsaber it has the sound and look of a real and terrifying weapon that I would never want to face.

The other aspect of this movie that worked was the character development of Poe and Kylo. Poe Dameron is the new age Han Solo, and damn is he good at filling that role. His snarky attitude is perfectly fitting for a guy in his position, and opposed to what I’m about to get into later, his comedy is actually well done. Any joke he makes is legitimately funny, his skills as a pilot are impressive, and he somehow is constantly emanating a cool guy vibe. To add to this, I loved his sidekick droid, BB-8. Much like R2D2, the droid was able to be cute, brave, heroic and funny, despite only having the ability to roll around and make beeping noises. Kylo Ren is portrayed incredibly by Adam Driver as a mentally torn kid who just doesn’t know what he wants to do. On my first watch, I left hating the character of Kylo Ren, but looking back on this now I see the intricacies and small moments that make this the best character of the movie.

As you can tell, I left out some other characters from this section of what I liked, so let me explain. I’m not a huge fan of bringing back the old crew to be part of this movie for the story that is trying to be told. As a small role I would be fine with this choice, but if they want us to care about the new characters in the new films, why bring back our old favorites? Why force people to choose whether Poe is better than Han? Why have it so the Skywalker twins be such integral parts of the series again, when they seem to want Finn and Rey to be the stars of the show? With this said, part of me is thankful that the old guard took screen time away from Rey and Finn, as I found so much of their characters cheesy, shallow, and at times annoying. When displayed side-by-side with the deep characters of Poe and Kylo, and next to characters who we’ve been with for years in previous films, these ones just don’t cut it for me. I still think there is a potential for a comeback from both, as Rey seems to have power that will surpass anyone in history, and Finn has an origin that could be interesting as a former Stormtrooper, but they certainly didn’t start off well in this movie.

The plot of this film was very similar to A New Hope, and I thought it was the safe choice at first but now looking back it seems lazy, unoriginal and honestly makes me wonder about the future of the series. If they had no new stories to tell, then why make a comeback at all? Sure, I can see that they are different in the backgrounds, and causes, but are movies about the rebels trying to defeat a death star at the last minute before the bad guys use it to destroy the rebellion all together. I will also say that it’s not all bad, as there are some scenes that are truly moving and enjoyable. The one that comes to mind specifically is the moment between Kylo Ren and Han Solo. The raw emotion between the two made me think that they really were father and son, and watching Kylo’s eyes as he debated between the love of his father and giving in to the darkside made me want to reach out to help.

One thing that I’ve learned on this more critical run-through of the Star Wars series is that not everything is how I expected it. Had you asked me before, I would have said that The Force Awakens was one of the better in the series, but I hate to admit that this one dropped the ball for me. Next up will be Rogue One, which I have only ever seen once, and I must say I’m excited to see where this one ends up.