And even now, more than a week after the first viewing and having seen it two more times, I'm not sure how to write a decent review of the film (I forgot to pack my journal so I couldn't even write about it the old-fashioned way!). My reawakened love for Star Wars is limiting my ability to be fair in my review.
My initial reaction was that I liked it, but didn't love it. I certainly didn't think it was a massive misstep like when I first saw The Phantom Menace (and my general dislike for the prequels has been replaced with a new appreciation for them, after watching them all again in conjunction with the original trilogy and after reading this article).
What I really liked about the film was its continuation of costumes and production design from the original trilogy. I was completely in love with the costumes for the First Order, and how their workplace resembled that of the Galactic Empire. I nearly swooned when the computer targeting system of locking onto targets was identical to that used in the original. Those throwbacks to the original were awesome.
The throwback to the general story of Episode IV was less awesome. It's not exactly the same story as Star Wars (so let's please stop calling it a remake), but it does hit a lot of the same story points. I guess I was expecting something different from this new trilogy. It's hard to make fresh a story that is so well known.
The new characters are all pretty great. Rey is a scavenger on a sandy planet who is good with nearly everything (remind you of Anakin....or Luke?). Finn is a stormtrooper turned not-stormtrooper. I like this guy, but his conversion from indroctrinated-from-birth-stormtrooper to guy-who-helps-out-The Resistance was a bit too much of a stretch for me. And Poe Dameron. I love Oscar Isaac. His character has a lot of potential, perhaps will be Solo-esque, but we just don't get enough of him. And no, I do not want to read comics or books to find out his backstory; he is a MAIN character in the movie and his story should be told on screen.
Chewy, who has always been awesome, gets awesomer with this movie. He doesn't take Han's crap, he gives Leia a super great hug, and his sadness and then anger after Han's death is moving. Remember when Chewy saved C-3PO in Empire and took it upon himself to put him back together? #ChewyIsTheBest
I have a few quibbles with the film. The Resistance. What are they? The Empire was defeated, and somehow the First Order has taken up residence in their absence, but the Republic is still a thing. So what is the Resistance? I don't believe for one second that Luke would just abandon the Republic and his family after one of his trainees goes to the Dark Side. He worked SO HARD for the good in Anakin, that I find it hard to believe he would just leave and not try to help out. Also, why is there a map to his whereabouts if he's in hiding?
One major issue for me was some of the modern-ness of the dialogue. In the original trilogy, and even the prequels, everything had a Star Wars galaxy equivalent - Leia calls Han a nerfherder; Luke blasts womp rats at home in his T-16. A few conversations in The Force Awakens took me completely out of the Star Wars universe and made me feel like I was in a Michael Bay picture. First was Poe's meeting with Kylo Ren in the beginning of the film. Poe does a little bit about who should talk first and that it's hard to understand him with the whole mask thing. I really disliked this.
Second was Finn asking Rey if she had a boyfriend, a cute boyfriend. First of all Finn, has supposedly been raised from birth to be a stormtrooper. How the crap does he know about jealousy and boyfriends? This little line of dialogue is such a sore point for me because it has no place in a Star Wars movie; it doesn't belong in this galaxy.
(It's always nice when someone else publishes something validating your thoughts; read this, particularly numbers 3, 9, 15 and 40).
The difference with this trilogy is that the writers and everyone involved know it's going to be a trilogy, so they can set things up and keep plot points and backgrounds mysterious for now to play into the larger story. A part of me likes that, so I can obsess over random things like Rey must be a Skywalker, right? And how did Maz get Luke's lightsaber from his hand-losing fight with Vader on Cloud City? Where is Lando? Why does C-3PO have a red arm?
I think that so many people were unimpressed by the prequels that we are willing to give into the nostalgia of this new trilogy and think it's great. It's not that it's not great....just sort of running on empty nostalgia. I guess nothing can ever really match the joy and wonder of the originals.
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