The Force Awakedness

Oh, considering there severe amount of paranoia about Star Wars spoilers, I will put my entire review in the tags so it won't show up on the front page. Especially as I do want to refer to particular elements.

Also, go check out Peter's blog for another review!

Okay, cards on the table, I'm not a huge SW nerd. I don't care about how great it is, the prequels didn't offend me, and my childhood was not ruined. I don't rewatch the movies every month, and could probably only quote the main popular lines. For me, seeing this was largely a box ticking exercise so that I could engage with other people who were super excited about seeing it.

All that aside, I enjoyed it, even though it was basically a rewrite of A New Hope. Yes, I said it, and I doubt I will be the only one. The characters and beats are largely cut up and repasted around new characters, and we get a lot of moments that feel familiar. Hey, it's a desert planet. And a forest planet. And a cantina. And Han Solo has to get a droid to the resistance. And the planet the resistance is on is under threat of a big death beam unless x-wings shoot the right spot... Really?

That aside, this movie feels slow to start. It takes ages to actually engage the wider aspects of the universe, and some of the action sequences feel like they are there because this is where we have an action sequence. The character beats are... there. The characters are well written, but the surprises weren't surprising. When Kylo Ren takes off his mask... there you go. It's almost treated as a big moment, but since this is the first movie to feature him, seeing him unmasked isn't something that means anything. It's not like he's Luke under the mask or anything. And we can tell there is some connection between Luke and Rey, I'm just waiting to find out she's his daughter. (People may already know, whatever.)

And there are the people who came back, but let's talk about Han Solo. Geez, Harrison Ford looks really old (unsurprisingly), but Han comes across as super old and barely able to get about. JJ tries to shoot him in exciting action sequences but they just look like a doddering old man is wandering around on set. And his big moment at the end... again, I wasn't surprised, and was expecting something along those lines. Next movie Luke's turn?

So that's it. It's back, and we've got a new take on the franchise to be excited about.

Yay.

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