Review of Star Wars: The Force Awakens (2015) by Paul L — 31 Dec 2017

Derivative and containing some really stupid scenes and bad, empty characters. The force awakens works because it is a casting off of the shadow of the prequels and and introduction to the new heroes.

In the desire to recreate the original rebels vs empire themes the writers basically decided to ignore much of what has come before and create a macguffin reset button so they can rehash it all again.

Its as if disney interpretation of peoples love for star wars original trilogy is to just go over the same ground again, so it's rather disappointing and way to 'safe' in many respects.

Other than Rey, the new characters are shallow and pointless. Kylo ren started interesting and turned into a whiny child by the end. Hux is way to young and has no presence at all, he's no Peter crushing / tarkin that's for sure..

Whole sections of the movie could have been cut and the end results would have flowed better (introduce Han on jaku, remove the wacky freighter full of cg octopus aliens is a good example).

For all this, it has its moments and the effects are ace, the return to physical special effects is especially welcome. Jakku is beautiful and there are some nice ideas ( like kylos reverence for vader) which show promise and I hope are explored further.

It's junk food in the end.... enjoyable, but low in substance. There's enough here that I'm looking forward to the next in the series,but with some trepidation.