By now, I assume most people who want to, have seen Star Wars: The Forces Awakens, given the fact that it crossed the Billion Dollar mark world-wide in ten days. However that doesn’t exactly mean anything as to how good a film is.
“At least the prequels had good music.” – Dave Parrish, Producer, Rebel Dawn Creative Forces, Activist/Owner Operation Save the Earth.
I have very mixed feelings about this film, because there are some really good things, and one great moment.
That great moment is the face to face between Han Solo and Kylo Ren. Adam Driver delivered big time in this scene.
In fact Adam Driver is the one shining gem in this movie for me. He is a far better actor then Hayden Christianson and he makes Kylo Ren infinitely more watchable then Anakin Skywalker. Kylo Ren is also a far more three-dimensional character than The Phantom Menace’s Darth Maul.
The effects are good, the acting is good and most of the characters are well–defined. The film itself looks beautiful, the effects and cinematography are awesome.
It may well be the best film J.J. Abrams has ever made.
It actually feels like a Star Wars film. And that is where the film fails and bottoms out.
It doesn’t feel like a NEW Star Wars film, or a continuation of the series. That’s because it isn’t. It is in fact an in series reboot, a borderline remake of A New Hope, and Empire and Jedi to a lesser degree. Almost every major scene in the film, every major plot point, is lifted from A New Hope.
The light saber duels mirror Obi-Wan’s and Anakin’s duel from Revenge of the Sith, and Luke and Vader’s duels from Empire and Jedi.
Hell, even Obi-Wan’s death is mirrored in this film.
No one even bothered to come up with a new ‘doomsday weapon.’ It was the Death Star now called the Star-Killer (Skywalker’s original last name) and it is an actual weaponized planet. It was even destroyed in the same way both previous Death Stars were destroyed.
The Forces Awakens fails to do the one simple things it was supposed to do, in fact had to do. It fails to move the story forward in any meaningful way. Yes, we have five new characters, but that isn’t enough.
I loved seeing Han and Leia. Ford and Fisher delivered. Unfortunately, they weren’t the Han and Leia we should have, and deserved. What we should have is characters who have grown over the last thirty years. Character more developed; familiar, but not the same. Instead, for some reason Han and Leia devolved as characters.
They were the Han and Leia from A New Hope. Han being the smuggler, outlaw scoundrel flying by the set of his pants; Leia being the carrying-the-galaxy-on-her shoulders rebel leader.
In essence Disney put their stamp all over the film. Rebooting the franchise to basically make it start here. J.J. does what he always does, simply redoes someone else’s idea.
The worst part of this isn’t that The Forces Awakens is a bad film. It is just an average film at best.
STAR WARS: MAY THE CLIFF NOTES BE WITH YOU, would have been a more apt name for this movie.
In essence what we truly have here is a two hour Star Wars crawl.
RATING: 5/10
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