#368 - Star Wars: The Force Awakens - (66%)

I have finally come to this movie in my list and it could be a difficult one for me to write as I may contradict myself throughout as I saw this first in the cinema and was the only one that wasn’t buzzing when exiting the theatre. I remember watching my young friends bubbling with joy and pleasure after seeing this flick. Where I was walking along very quiet in comparison to the joy coming towards me. There was something wrong with this movie and at the time I couldn’t put my finger on it. I remember the nostalgic emotion of seeing the characters that I loved from my childhood back on the big screen again. The Millennium Falcon sat rusting in the dessert as two new characters to the story ran across a desert junkyard, nearly brought me to tears with joy. The music the original actors and basically the exact same story from a New Hope just recreated on the screen all over again. My tempered realisation that episodes one to three could be replaced by this 500mph romp through the Star Wars Universe. Which made me accept the plot holes and move on with a “Huh!? Really ok I will accept it as you have skilfully used a traditional magic trick of misdirection to keep me happy!”

So, this move was a block buster success at the box office grossing over $2 billion let me repeat that TWO BILLION DOLLARS. On costs of around $300m in anyone’s language that is astronomical numbers! And a love was very nearly rekindled. It was directed by Jar Jar Abrahams who had reinvented Star Trek in recent years and got the gig. This was an undisputable success but my score for this movie back in 2015 when released would have had one those * attached like you get on gambling sites that doesn’t give you a full refund but instead you can use as a free bet. Well my little Asterix on this occasion would have read ok you basically remade the original but you put some story threads in there that could go on to make this new set of stories something great or not so * means we’ll wait and see.

Here we go with the plot which is supposed to follow on from the end of Return of The Jedi. The film begins with the iconic music and the word scrawl across space and I was hooked by then. It tells us that from the success of excavating the universe of the evils in Jedi the Empire had fallen but given rise to the First Order who is trying to eliminate the New Republic who are now effectively the resistance as the First Order has taken over just where the Empire had left of. So, what happened to all the joy and success of having the entire Empire collapse only for the rebels to just give up and let another tyrant rise and take over just like before. So, what lessons have they learnt apparently NOTHING!! So, the First Order has created millions upon millions of new Storm Troopers and then there is new mysterious black cloaked villain. To be honest his first appearance is great Poop sorry Poe has been given the secret hiding place of Luke Skywalker and they decide to hide them in a droid. Well there’s a new and original way of hiding plans, I’ve never heard of that idea before!!

On a dark night, storm troopers are raiding a village and a single shot flies towards the dark figure of Kylo Ren using his force power he stops the laser blast in mid-air and I nodded and went he’s some bad ass force commanding black dressed nasty evil villain of the next three movies. Yep, got that wrong! Unable to get the plans (sorry map) out of the old fart sorry San Tekka (bend the knee and all hail the legend that is Max von Sydow and if you don’t know who that is send me your address Covid-19 or not I am going to drive to your house and slap you in the face!). Sorry.. San passed the map on to Poe who put it in the droid when Kylo kills San and captures Poe. Now there’s a droid on Jakku with a secret hidden inside him.

Meanwhile a scavenger is picking parts out of the hollow shell of many Empire’s spaceships which made for some amazing and nostalgic trailers ahead of the movies release. This Scavenger turns out the be the hereon of the whole thing who is a Jedi in making but without knowing it. Well that was something new that I had never seen before!! She teams up with a storm trooper who got a guilty complex and decided to chuck in all this shooting and killing lark and move out into the countryside where you can relax and breed horses while maintaining the homestead. Well in resigning from his current post he frees Poe and they escape in a half-repaired tie fighter oh they started remaking them again!

They crash land on Jakku as Poe wants to retrieve the plans erm map from the droid that in the meantime has teamed up with a would-be Jedi. Now that’s something new that I’ve never seen before!? Well to conveniently not have Poe with him when he meets Ray the Jedi to be the Tie fighter crashes into quick sand and Finn (that’s the storm trooper turned environmental fighter) steals his jacket which the droid will remember. Poe doesn’t die in the sand but has a nap before returning later in the movie. The three team up steal the Millennium Falcon and fly off to join the rebels oh erm resistance. Where they are captured by a tracking beam that sucks them into a huge space ship piloted by Han Solo and Chewie well what are chances huh!

They all team up and go the rebel base where R2D2 has switched himself off and fallen into depression after watching episodes 1 to 3 and I knew how he felt. But what little did I know at this stage when The Last Jedi said Hold my Beer while I kill an entire franchise. So, seeing that BB-King sorry that was the blues brothers 2000 that the droid BB-8 which was a really cool beach ball (Dark Star eat your heart out!!) but this one had a head. OK I’ve bored myself now, the First Order has created a planet blower upper gun built into a planet just like the death star. Well there’s a novel thing. The rebels decide they have to blow it up before it blows another planet up oh theirs’, they have a daring raid to destroy the planet blower upper gun and R2D2 conveniently remembers the section of the map that leads directly to Luke’s hiding place. My question here was why would a Jedi that does not want to be found create a map complete with a dotted line direction to where they were hiding. And put it in the same droid that Princess layer cake used to escape from the empire. This and many other questions remain unanswered but don’t worry there is two more movies to follow to answer all these question – hence the * mentioned before.

This review has gone on too long and ultimately go watch a new hope with young versions of the actors that made this story great not watch as each one of the great elite team that was created is slowly killed off one film at a time in the reboot turd-burger of a trilogy. The theory of the director is fast pace fast pace fast pace this way you the viewer doesn’t have time to ask the question huh what? Why would you go and hide with a big aluminous arrow point down on your location? Why did no one bother to stop the first order rising from nothing and how did they manage to make all those spaceships and hire all those storm troopers and why do you have a bad ass looking silver storm trooper just to have them be a woos in battle and why did I really honestly desperately want to love this film yet I couldn’t when everyone around me did. These and other questions will be answered by me never because this franchise was better off dead with the happy ending of Return of the Jedi and its rotting pile of horse shit shouldn’t see the light of day again. As a movie by itself it could have been something of a launch pad to great things that Disney used to become even richer instead, they took the light sabre batten pass on by Lucas Arts films and drop it - blade first onto its own foot.

You enjoy if you want to.