Star Wars: The Force Awakens - Review Thread

Sorry for posting this so late. I saw it Friday but have been busy with work also wanted to formulate my thoughts and give the film time to breathe with me. Anyways...

In order to prepare myself to accurately judge this film, I watched the other 6. The originals for me, as they do many people, hold a special place in my heart. I've seen them more than probably any other films since I first watched them when I was 6 years old. Unsurprisingly, they still hold up extremely well. Even Return of the Jedi, which is undoubtedly the weakest of the three, is a dazzling thrill of entertainment highlighted by the excellent scenes with Luke, Vader, and Emperor Palpatine. The prequels are a load of crap, which many people also agree with. Practical effects are replaced with already horribly dated CGI and green screen sets, the dialogue is cringing, and worst of all you can't help but feel like Lucas with all the silly pod racing and dull exposition talk wasted ample time to actually thrill us like he did with the originals. The latest Star Wars never reaches the heights of the originals, even Return of the Jedi, but it's a vast improvement over the prequels and injects the energy and fun back into the series that it's lacked since we watched Ewoks partying.

J.J. Abrams is a studio director in every facet. None of the movies he's made are bad, but none of them are great or take any of the risks needed to take them to loftier levels. They're all good. Just good. Still, he certainly has a style, and Star Wars: The Force Awakens is shot with the same break neck pacing that Star Trek was. Character development is there, but Abrams elects to develop relationships and backstory on the fly rather than sitting around talking about it all. He also has consistently displayed a great job balancing the latest in visual effects with practical ones, and Star Wars: The Force Awakens looks extremely polished and eye-popping because of it. Sure, it would have been nice at times to slow things down just a little bit, but that's what we got with the prequels; a lot of dull exposition in large rooms that could've easily been shown in an exciting scene instead. It's like Mad Max: Fury Road; we could stop all this constant tension and further develop the characters and situation, but then again we've just halted this incredible momentum and for what? Abrams crams as much as he can into the film, and it's never a bad thing when a 2+ hour film whizzes by. We knew this was essentially what we'd be getting from Abrams, and I'm much more excited for Episode VIII when a highly talented filmmaker (and certainly superior to Abrams in every aspect) in Rian Johnson gets into the chair and does more with the material. But there's no denying that Abrams has delivered the essential goods with this latest installment: exciting dogfights, light saber battles, beloved characters, attention to detail, and genuine humor.

I had a blast watching the film, but that's not to say that a day removed from it you can't see glaring weaknesses that keep it from reaching the heights of the original trilogy. As many have noted, this film is basically a retread story beat by story beat of A New Hope, but not as strong. There's no real suspense in any of the situations, and some of the scenes are downright predictable to the point you're amazed they didn't throw in another curve ball to say "ha, gotcha!" I understand the filmmakers wanting to bring back that sensationally fun feeling of the originals, but I think it's alright to say that they played the whole thing far too safe. Let's retread some of A New Hope early on, I'm absolutely fine with that, but for the whole movie? Even leading to another Death Star sequence (which pales in comparison to A New Hope's)? The script is polished with fun dialogue and new characters to grab onto, but even with the prequels at least we can say George Lucas tried to take the plot in a different direction, even if he failed miserably in doing so (that's because he's not a good writer, never has been). The ride is a ton of fun, but once the adrenaline high of the film sifts away when you leave the theater these things stick out with you. All these years and secrecy and brilliant marketing to protect this? It's underwhelming, because with the energy and polish Abrams brought to the production a stronger script could've made this film a knockout.

There's plenty of other elements to note as well. Kylo Ren works for the most part, but it's hard to understand how It was great seeing the old cast in this. Even though their stints are brief, they were highly memorable and hilarious. The visual effects are outstanding. I saw this in 3D and everything looked great. I think the emphasis on practical effects just made the VFX pop because it's not just a bunch of CGI ships flying around obvious green screen. Really top-notch work in that regard. The cinematography works pretty well too, though you can't help but again feel like everything on Jakkuu is taken right out of the "How to Film Scenes on Tatooine" playbook, even down to the extreme long shots of the horizon.

In the end despite the shortcomings of the film due to Disney and Co. playing it all a bit too safe, there's no denying that this latest installment is a major improvement over the prequels and the surging energy and nostalgia are more than enough to make up for the cons. I'm excited to see where the series goes next.

8/10

Up until the bridge scene, it hadn't even crossed my mind.

True. Also, its called Star Wars, not a New Hope for fucks sake.

It could've been done better.  Even if they had Han and Ren have a "moment", that was a pretty easy way out for the writers.  Hell, it would've been less stupid if Han was crossing the bridge and Ren popped up and that exchange took place. 

Totally agree.  I mean, obviously with Luke in the picture we'll get a lot more insight into all of this in Episode VIII, but none of the Ren-Han/Leia dynamic really worked for me.  It weakened Ren as a character because their exchange wasn't interesting.  Like you said, we only have pretext on this relationship and we only care about what happens to Han because of the original trilogy.  Didn't have nearly the impact it should've.  

Neither did mine. And... that's kind of a problem. I mean shit if Chewbacca died people would be bawling. Han's death should've been handled better. They made it too obvious and without enough emotional oomph behind it.

Same. Maybe Crystal Skull made everyone bitter.

Yup.  Probably because we see him everywhere.  Carrie Fisher wasn't in shit other than Star Wars (don't tell me The 'Burbs, that movie is fucking horrible).  If she died it's like LEIA!  But here it's like oh, Harrison Ford died in the movie.

Nah, it's still probably because they wrote that scene shitty, but still, it's more fun this way.

The back-up plan was to kill Oscar Isaac. I would have been pissed if they killed Oscar Isaac. Dracula hates Poe Dameron for some reason, but I think he'll get his moment to shine in the sequels.

He's the new "Han", but I wasn't much of a fan.  I want Ex Machina Oscar Isaac in the role, that would be awesome. 

Yeah that bugged me too.  Chewbacca was there for her when Han went into carbonite, but now he's just chopped liver now that the new Jedi has arrived.  Sheesh.

You're right, he just gets to stand there on the stage which is bullshit. I guess royalty doesn't care much for Wookies.

Leia's racist as fuck.