Sequel Month - Mini Review: Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens

And now we’re doing a sequel to one of my earliest franchise reviews, Star Wars: The Force Awakens

Released at the end of 2015, this movie received great reviews and surpassed expectations, making $2bn at the box office, a tidy profit for Disney’s investment into the film (although with the merchandise they've probably made their money back on buying LucasFilm many times over) however time has divided fans on certain aspects of this movie which I’ll get to. Do these critiques break this movie? Well, here are my thoughts.

Stop me if you’ve heard this one. Important information is given to a small droid rather than being handed over to Stormtroopers and their black-masked leader. Yeah, this setup is identical to A New Hope except on the ground instead of in a spaceship. However, we do get a nice setup for the villain when he stops a blaster bolt in mid-air using the force.

What follows is a remarkable introduction to one of our main characters, Rey, it has relatively minimal dialogue and relies on mostly visual means. I love it! It’s incredibly different to what you’d expect. Anyway, a defective Stormtrooper rejects his New Empire, the First Order, and rescues the one prisoner they have, unfortunately a crash separates them. The Stormtrooper calls himself Finn, meets with Rey and the droid and escape on the Millennium Falcon. Where they get involved in hijinks involving Han and Chewbacca.

They head to a seedy Tavern to get a clean ship and again this sounds familiar. Finn tries to get away but it’s Rey that’s kidnapped, she has the force and that makes her good at things she didn’t know she was good at. I hope they do more with Rey’s character in the next one because she’s too closed off about her feelings and this restricts the ability to give her flaws and make her relatable.

The First Order have constructed a giant weapon to destroy planets, wait, again? OK, the difference this time is that it’s much bigger of course and draws energy from the sun to power a laser capable of destroying multiple planets and moons at once. Apparently, the entire New Republic is one system these days. With the ‘resistance’ base now a target (again, familiar) it’s up to our leads to rescue Rey and blow up some cooling towers so that a trench run can be made to destroy the entire base.

OK, first off yes, there are some familiar beats here, I think they wanted to up a sense of familiarity, especially since people’s opinions of the prequels have soured since the internet became a thing. But there are a share of differences too. Rey and Finn are not equivocal to Luke or Leia, Poe Dameron is not Han Solo and whilst there are certainly some similarities in look, Kylo Ren is most certainly not Darth Vader. Story beats too as Rey initially resists being a jedi, the idea of a defective Stormtrooper is introduced, Rey rescues herself from captivity and of course the whole brilliant introduction to Rey.

But I’m not blind to these critiques and understand why there are people who take these flaws as movie-breaking. For me, not really, but I have my own set of questions that need answering.

• Why did Luke abandon his friends after Kylo Ren, leaving him to head up a new intergalactic power?
• Why did Han Solo do nothing when his son rose to the first order?
• Why did the Republic only support a Resistance movement, rather than creating their own?
• How did the First Order rise?
•  If the First Order knew where the Resistance base is, why didn’t they target that first rather than eliminating the Republic?
• How did Kylo Ren get the Darth Vader mask when it was left in the Death Star?
• How did Maz end up with Anakin/Luke’s old lightsaber? Last I checked it fell from Cloud City
• Why did Luke leave a map to where he was and why is it split into 2 pieces?
• In terms of authority, is General Hux on par with or lower than Kylo Ren?
• Why is Captain Phasma completely bloody useless?
• Why didn’t Leia hug Chewbacca after the death of Han Solo?
• Why couldn’t Kylo Ren sense his father within the room when he could sense him land on the planet?
• How can you get close enough to a planet to get through a shield at lightspeed whilst having the space to slow to avoid obstacles, like crashing into the planet?

OK, I have more but I think that’s enough. It’s hard to tell if answers to these are coming in the sequels or are just plot-holes, I’m willing to give many of them the benefit of the doubt.

In all, I like the Force Awakens, it’s not flawless by any means but this the first of a new trilogy and some bumps will need to be ironed out along the way.

Rating 75/100