Review of Star Wars: The Force Awakens (2015) by Thomas W — 07 Dec 2017

Star Wars Episode IV the remake: best way to describe this. 80% of this movie is a copy and paste of the original trilogy's first film the New Hope.

There are good things with this film; the intro and very end scene are suspenseful with nice payoff: but I feel that they stand out because of their originality. Had the film gone that route: to make clearly original scenes and story, it could stand on its own: this film does have 5 star material.

But as I said, overall it's a copy and paste of Episode IV.

The main reason why I think this is because of the appearance and clothing along with their role in the story. Rey the hero has Luke's desert-peasant attire, Ren the villain is trying WAY to hard to be a new Vader, Hux the general is Tarkin. These characters look almost identical in many ways.

Even the story and settings are painfully obvious; the desert planet, the snow planet, the Deathier Star. The x wings bombing the Death Star, the Yoda teachings of the force, the bar scene, the Falcon shooting about 2 Tie Fighters: all clearly present.

The characters I will remember are Snoke (very big and intimidating while still old and frail), Maz, BB 8 and Phasma. But again; Emperor, Yoda (both old and short too!), R2D2 and Boba Fett (cold mysterious masked badass that fans will adore despite doing jack shit in the story).

But I will say this; who the hell is FN-2199? 'That guy that shouts "traitor!"' just shows up with a psudo-lightsaber and fights Finn. I want to see more of this dude. Also some of the new aliens are entertaining to look at.

But of course there's more things to talk about;.

Kylo Ren had some big shoes to fill; considering everyone knows that he's this film's Darth Vader. But his execution is that of Anakin Skywalker; in that it fails. His mask and lightsaber are okay but he clearly shares Anakin's tantrums and wimpiness; making him more of an angsty teen than a scary supervillain. He wasn't as terrible as Hayden Christensen, but the similarities exist. Combine this with the 'daddy issue plot' stolen from IV and being a Vader fanboy, and it makes things worse.

Also there are times where the film is either rushed or elements of the film have no buildup; Death Star 3.0 and the planets it destroyed are good examples of this; if I knew about these things I would be preparing myself for the fireworks instead of having them gloss over so quickly.

I have no idea who Rey is as a character; in that the film keeps on changing her personality. This isn't character evolution; it's sloppy inconsistency. She starts out as a poor hardworking badass genius, and then is suddenly constantly panicking like a headless chicken, then she becomes Luke. If she evolved, she would still show the traits of her past self, but that is never implied.

Han Solo and his sidekick Chewie played their roles fine, afterall they are directly relevant to the backbone of this plot. And it made sense to have Luke have such importance in the plot. However everyone else felt shoehorned in; oh hi Ackbar! Hey R2D2, want to see your replacement?

Finn was a breath of fresh air: his character was unique for his normalcy and flaws and his despair in his introduction was very emotional, but he was quite annoying at times. Also the sudden implied romance between him and Rey didn't feel subtitle.

Infact the comedy of the film was quite hit or miss, some moments felt so stupid and hammy that they broke the flow of the film sometimes. Though you did have good things as well; like BB's lighter thumbsup.

I would say that while this film was entertaining, it was a remake more than it was a sequel. The film was too self conflicted in what it really wanted to be: something new or something stuck in the past.