"The Force... it's calling to you. Just let it in." - Maz Kanata, Star Wars: The Force Awakens
WARNING: This review does not contain significant spoilers for The Force Awakens. It does, however, make allusions to certain scenes and the roles of certain characters. If you want to go into the movie knowing nothing about it, don't read this review until after you've seen the film. Do come back and read it, though. It's a good review, if I do say so myself.
DISCLAIMER: This review is, first and foremost, constructed upon my
personal reaction to the movie. Also, as of this writing, I’ve only seen the
film once. The logician in me knows I should wait until I’ve seen the film more
than once before reviewing it so I can be as critical as possible, but I JUST
CAN’T, GUYS. I JUST CAN’T. I HAVE TOO MANY FEELINGS ABOUT EVERYTHING.
As someone who grew up wielding twigs
as lightsabers and wearing my bathrobe with the hood pulled over my eyes so I
looked like a Jedi Knight, I never thought I’d live to see another Star Wars
movie be released. (Look, the prequels don’t count, okay? They’re not Star
Wars. They’re something, but they’re not Star Wars.) Then, in 2012,
Disney acquired Lucasfilm for $4 billion and announced that they were making a
sequel trilogy to the original Star Wars films. I’m not going to lie: I
was highly dubious at first – the chances of the sequels turning out as
unsatisfying as the prequels was just too great – but with the release of
2014’s Christmas teaser trailer for Episode 7, Star Wars: The Force
Awakens, I begrudgingly allowed myself to feel something reminiscent of
anticipation for the continuation of one of my favourite childhood series’.
That anticipation only built as 2015 dragged itself along, degenerating into
practical hysteria by the time I booked my tickets in mid-October to December
17th’s midnight premiere; needless to say, the apprehension was unbelievable.
I’m surprised it didn’t kill me.
Good news: I am still alive, The
Force Awakens is finally here, and it’s everything we could ever have hoped
it would be.
I know, I know: I’m a book review blog,
but honestly, who can blame me for bending the rules? This is not only one of the
most spectacular, out-of-this-galaxy events not only of this year, but also of
my life – it’s not every day you get to experience a Star Wars film
midnight premiere. And lord, what a premiere it was. There’s nothing more
satisfying than experiencing a film for the first time in a cinema lined with
people who love the franchise just as much as you do, and, as I can now
testify, there is nothing more satisfying than seeing a Star Wars film
on the big screen. All doubts I may have had previously about how good another
Star Wars movie could actually be were completely and utterly blown out of
the water. The Force Awakens is a fantastic film, not just as an
extension of the Star Wars universe but also as a punchy, fast-paced,
action-packed sci-fi thriller all on its own, and although it has its obvious
flaws, I can safely say that this film is truly worthy of being called a Star
Wars film. It’s better than the prequels, guys. What more can you ask of
it?
I loved a lot of things about The
Force Awakens. I loved the female lead. I loved the witty, playful writing.
What I loved most, however, was the fact that The Force Awakens felt
just like a Star Wars movie – without actually really looking like one.
I’ve never seen any of J.J. Abrams’ other films, but I could tell The Force
Awakens was an incredibly J.J. Abrams-esque film, the same way you can tell
a David Fincher film is a David Fincher film or a Wes Anderson film is a Wes
Anderson film. The first six films in this franchise are all styled and crafted
after roughly the same model – they all look alike, like siblings. From the
very get-go, it was obvious that Abrams had abandoned this model completely.
Much to my utter and audible delight, the film starts with the classic,
heart-wrenching main title theme, STAR WARS emblazoned across a starry night
sky, and three crawling paragraphs of exposition – and that’s basically where
the cinematic similarities with the previous films end. There was a breath-taking
Mad Max: Fury Road feel to The Force Awakens for me. Unlike its
predecessors, which take great advantage of slow tracking shots and wide camera
angles, Episode 7 was cut together at breakneck speeds, racy and lightning fast
and so unique compared to every other Episode. We get catch-your-breath
electrically-charged lightsaber battles that feel meatier than ever before,
scenes that are nail-biting and tense while also choreographed in an
uncharacteristically fun and whimsical way, we get energy – energy we just
don’t see in the originals or the prequels (although not to their discredit).
In terms of the craftsmanship, The Force Awakens didn’t look classically
Star Wars, but that somehow made it feel all the more Star Wars anyway.
Abrams brought a new method of crafting our favourite fantasy world to the
table, and I’m genuinely going to miss it in Episodes 8 and 9. It was
interesting and exciting, and unexpected, too, adding edge and juice to the
film in places no one could have predicted.
What else is there to love about The
Force Awakens, apart from, like, everything? Stand-out for me were the cast
and the writing, and how well these two crucial elements integrated in Episode
7. Probably the most highly anticipated factor of the sequel trilogy was the
fact that the cast of the original trilogy would be returning to reprise their
old roles; nothing gets a nerd going better than some good old fashioned Han
and Chewie banter. However, we were also challenged with the arrival of a new
golden trio, who would be taking the place of Luke, Leia, and Han as the three
main characters. Gorgeous newcomer Daisy Ridley is a feisty scavenger named
Rey, the charming John Boyega appears as a defecting Stormtrooper who goes by
Finn, and the love of my life, Oscar Isaac, plays the charismatic and
captivating Poe Dameron, best pilot in the galaxy and damn sure of it. To my
disappointment, the new trio never actually directly interact all at once in
the film – I’m hoping this will change in Episodes 8 and 9 – but they did
interact in pairs, and when they did, it was hilarious. Writers Lawrence
Kasdan, Michael Arndt, and Abrams himself paid obvious attention to comic
relief in The Force Awakens, something that just wasn’t focused on as
much in earlier Star Wars films. I’m not saying the originals aren’t
funny – in my opinion, The Force Awakens is just wittier and snappier
than the slightly more sombre and regal original trilogy. Episode 7 is less
about catchy one-liners and more about fast-paced back-and-forth dialogue, and
I personally found it really engaging that our new characters had such instant
chemistry between them because of this new writing style. The mixing of the old
cast and the new was done extremely elegantly, without too much heavy-handedness
or stuffiness that could easily have occurred – it was a great risk, shoving
two all-star casts together like Abrams did, but one thing I’ve learned from The
Force Awakens is that J.J. Abrams has a lot of nerve. The dude is ballsy as
hell. (If you’ve seen the film, you know what I’m talking about. You
know.) Once again, The Force Awakens acted in a way integrally anti-Star
Wars, yet somehow felt all the more authentically Star Wars because
of it. I don’t know how Abrams did it, but I truly admire it.
Obviously, Episode 7 isn’t flawless. What footage we saw in the trailers made me nervous that we would essentially be getting a carbon copy of A New Hope, and in some areas, paying tribute to the original trilogies did just look like copying – I mean, Jakku is basically Tatooine. Don’t fight me on this. They’re the exact same place. Andy Serkis’ character, Supreme Leader Snoke, reminded me a little too much of Ronan from Guardians of the Galaxy (this is not a compliment), while also emulating Emperor Palpatine a tad too strongly for it to not be considering copying, and there were some scenes that felt either under-discussed or emotionally overdeveloped, falling victim to the film’s otherwise exhilarating pace. I personally felt that while it made sense with the progression of the plot, Kylo Ren’s origin was explained too soon – we could easily have been made to wait until at least Episode 8 for it, which would have made more logical sense, but that is definitely just my opinion. Nevertheless, I was simply enchanted by The Force Awakens. Yeah, maybe I’m biased. Maybe the ten-year-old Star Wars fangirl in me who actually liked – okay, fine, loved – The Phantom Menace is determined to overlook anything that could possibly be bad about the film, but I just don’t believe that’s the case. You wouldn’t have been able to convince me it was true when the sequel trilogy was first announced back in 2012, but we’ve finally been gifted a continuation of the Star Wars trilogy that we can honestly and genuinely be proud of. I chose to blindly trust in J.J. Abrams, to follow him into this new era of Star Wars without looking first. I chose well. The Force Awakens, for all its borderline-plagiarised allusions to A New Hope, was simply phenomenal, fun and exciting and dramatic and action-packed and, most importantly, a great, great Star Wars film – something we’ve been starved of since 1983. In J.J., we were very right to trust.
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