Friday, December 25, 2015

Star Wars episode VII: The Force Awakens review

SPOILERS!!!
Okay, guys. Here we have the most anticipated movie of the year. The one that all Star Wars fans have been expecting for years! Does it live up to the hype? Or do we get another Phantom Menace? Let's dive in and see.

Characters:
We have the Resistance fighter pilot Poe, and while I like him and want to see more of him, he doesn't get as much screen time as he deserves, and sadly only has a few great scenes. Now I know that a movie only has SO much time to cover everything, and they're probably saving his best scenes for future movies, which I'm looking forward too. But even though I liked him, I wasn't emotionally invested in his character. Hopefully that will change when episode 8 comes around.

Finn:
I really like Finn! It's a interesting idea to see a young stormtrooper who has second thoughts about the First Order, despite the fact he's been sheltered since childhood and this is all that he knows. This is another character I look forward to seeing more of, but I think he at times was a bit too humorous for humors' sake. I get that it's the fish out of water story we're doing here, but at times his humor is pretty forced. Great acting and backstory, but we need to see some more serious moments from him.

Rey:
I have zero problems with Rey.
How cool is it that we get a female protagonist in this series!? I know people will say that we had Leia and Padme in the other movies, but those were Luke and Anakin's stories. This is totally Rey's story. They treated this differently from Luke&Anakin, because they wanted to be better; Rey just wanted to get back home and wait for whomever dropped her off. It wasn't til near the end that she decided to commit herself to being a Jedi. I like that, because it shows not everyone wants to be a hero, but in her case she had this power and wanted to use it for helping others stop the chaos. Not to mention, even if she didn't have the Force, she still had an impressive set of skills such as pilot, linguist, mechanic, and scavenger. An excellent portrayal of a new main character.

Kylo Ren:
One our biggest bad guys in this new trilogy doesn't quite live up to the hype that the ads have made him to be and there were a lot of complaints about him in this regard. It gets on my nerves when people compare him to Vader, but think about this:
Vader had 20 YEARS of being a Sith and had much practice with the Dark Side and maintaining his reputation. It doesn't specify how long Kylo Ren has been using the Dark Side, but given the context of the movie; probably no more than a few short years. In Kylo Ren's mind, he views his grandfather as an ALMOST perfect Sith. To him, what got Vader out of the Dark Side was his family, as we saw in Return of the Jedi. With that in mind, Kylo decided that if he kills his family, then that temptation to go to the light would be gone and he won't limping on two different opinions, just like we see in this movie.

People also complained about his whiny attitude, but look at young Anakin and Luke. Really it's a family trait that's been in most movies, so I don't understand the complaints. Also the fact that Kylo took his rage towards inanimate, replaceable objects to me is better than Vader choking every guy he meets. Kylo at least knows his minions are helpful.

Original cast:

It was a pure delight watching Leia, Chewie, Han, C-3PO, R2-D2, and Luke back on screen. Everyone played their parts perfectly.
I know there's some gripe about Han's death, and well... I kinda had a feeling it would happen before I saw the movie. It's sad to see him go, especially since he's one of my favorites, but the context and motivations for the characters made sense. Not to mention they made it clear that as the trilogy progresses, that we'll slowly see more of the new cast and less of the old cast. Which to be fair, we know they can't keep playing these characters forever, so it makes sense.

"Issues"

This is by no means a perfect movie. There are some logical issues in this, as well as the other Star Wars movies, but there is definitely far more good than bad.

Yes it does repeat itself from A New Hope, but so does Phantom Menace and yet somehow people forget that. Normally, I would complain about that, but really that's just how Star Wars begin each trilogy. If you really think about it.
The movie also had to get the attention of older fans AND attract new fans. Not an easy thing to do, but they pull it off.

My personal complaint was that there wasn't enough exposition on the First Order, Kylo's descent to the Dark Side, and how R2 is able to wake up. It seem that the original trilogy had decent exposition, prequels had TOO much exposition, but this movie didn't have enough. Again, I'm sure future movies will explain it, but to me it makes you feel a little lost and wanting to look things up.
I hear the novelization does fill in some gaps that the movie has, and I would love to read it and give it a nice comparison.

Final Thoughts:
You'll see this movie. It really doesn't matter what review you read, you'll watch it. You definitely get your money's worth and it does bring back nostalgia. It does give credit for being the second movie to ALMOST make me cry. The first was Toy Story 3. Yeah the movie does have problems, but you can overlook them. Does it have leave questions? Absolutely. In the original trilogy, each movie felt complete, but that was because Lucas didn't know if people would want more. Now we know there is a need for more, so they can have a more connected plot thread and give cliffhangers and theories. (Which I have heard a lot about, but won't discuss here, since this is a review site. Not a theory site.)
At the end of the day, you go to a movie to be entertained and I was definitely entertained. I understand the issues, but clearly it doesn't hurt the movie. So calm down. Definitely an A+ and makes you want more.

That's it for 2015, guys! Thanks for reading all my stuff! I really appreciate it!

Next Time:
Best&Worst 2015.

5 comments:

  1. Agreed. Especially after talking it some of the conundrums. I want to go see it again.

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  2. I really like your break down of each character. I agree I was entertained and that's the goal.

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