A New Hope Awakens

This is a spoiler free review. So don’t fret.

I tried to get opening night tickets. I really did. I was at work, on my lunch, when tickets went on sale and bam! Look at that. IMax 3D first showing tickets are available. Of course I’ll buy them. I chose how many I wanted and went to buy them when… the Fandango app crashed! Yay! Then it was back to work. I’m a cashier so it’s hard to get away with being on my phone so I had to wait until my last break.  Opening night was sold out by that time and day one was staring to go fast. I got what I could and the rest is history.

Anyone who frequents Somewhat Nerdy knows that it’s been a while since I’ve done anything. My Grandmother and two family friends passed away in November and also the National Novel Writing Month was in full swing. So by the time the month ended I was beat and I just needed to sit back and play Fallout 4. But now I’m back. Star Wars: The Force Awakens is my call to action. It’s the one thing I can’t miss. I’m not going to do anything sappy like dedicate this blog to my Grandma, but what I will do is say that I’m back.  She wouldn’t want me to stay away for too long. So let’s get on with it. This is my review and remember, it is spoiler free.

I’ve read a lot from angry nerds bitching about the movie and while I see their points they all seemed to have gone into the movie ready to judge it with a hypercritical mindset. I understand why. Star Wars is a cherished artifact. It is important to countless people. But when you go into a movie ready to find problems to pick apart, then you’re not going to have a great experience. All the negative things people have brought up, I hate to say, have merit. However, Star Wars: The Force Awakens was a fun movie none the less.

The hype for this movie was huge but even then I tried to keep my hopes in check. I went into the movie expecting to see a decent and fun blockbuster that I would enjoy but wouldn’t be blown away by.  The reality far surpassed my expectations but it was just a tad shy of being an 11 on the Somewhat Nerdy scale. Even my friend Walker, a Star Wars mega nerd, loved the movie. Walker, and people like him, were going to be the hardest to please. While they loved the original trilogy and the now defunct expanded universe (EU), they were unable to forgive or forget not only the changes Lucas made to the first three but the travesty that was the prequels. JJ Abrams had his work cut out for him.

I’m going to dive right into the problems I had so I can end the review on a positive note. There are a couple problems I had that I can’t voice in this review because anyone who put any points into it would be able to figure out what I was talking about and thus, a spoiler. So what can I say without giving anything away… well… first of all the movie went too fast. It should have had the same story just put into three hours so there could be more development of characters. Finn played by John Boyega was probably the most fleshed out of all the new characters and I still wanted more out of him. Rey played by Daisy Ridley had a back story that felt forced. Here’s this person, here’s why you should care, lets move on. I liked her but I felt like I didn’t know her as well as I should have.  I had some problems with the foreshadowing and how everyone I saw it with as well as everyone I’ve talked to about it, saw one of the big “oh my God” moments coming a mile away. If they had more time Abrams could have possibly thrown in a few red herrings so there would be some doubt in my mind. However when a certain scene came, I knew exactly what was going to happen.

Another problem was that Abrams seemed to be shoving the homage he was paying to A New Hope in our faces. I get it. You love Star Wars and want to pay your respects to Episode IV. But a new trilogy should be its own creature. A different story entirely. It was one of the things that made the movie predictable. Nothing about the movie surprised me which was a shame. Vader being Luke’s father? I didn’t see that coming. But all the big moments of Episode VII? They were was easy to figure out.

The other problems that would even be worth mentioning are full of spoilers. It’d be like saying “I wish Obi-Wan’s death was more epic” in a review for A New Hope. Just keep in mind that the movie had issues, but what’s important is what I’m going to talk about next.

I’ve said it a million times before and I’m still going to say it each time it applies to a movie. Star Wars: The Force Awakens was fun and that’s what should matter the most. I enjoyed it from the opening crawl to the end credits. It was full of problems as the previous three paragraphs, as well as everything I held back, should tell you. But even now, three days later, I’m still thinking about it.  I’ll quote Walker, the guy I mentioned before, because he said it best. “The more I think about it the more I find that they could have done better but it was still really good.”

The best part of the film was the feeling of it all. Abrams was able to recapture part of the magic of the original trilogy. He used practical effects whenever possible which made the movie feel honest. When the prequels came out they just didn’t feel right. While they were flashy and fun to look at, they were missing the heart that the original ones had. The Force Awakens brought that heart back.  It even had a great sense of humor that always came at the right time. I laughed out loud more than I ever thought I would have. That’s why I didn’t think Abrams had to have so many nods to the original. The feeling, the atmosphere, it was all enough to draw me in and keep me glued to my seat.

The best part about the prequels besides Ewan McGregor, was the lightsaber battles. Sure, some of them were goofy or too over the top. But for the most part they were impressive. Sir Christopher Lee even invented his own style and lightsaber for his role. What The Force Awakens had was fantastic dogfights. Each time the X-Wings and TIE Fighters went head to head it was visually stunning and a blast to watch. The chase between the Millennium Falcon and the TIE Fighters was intense and well choreographed. This movie did so much right that it help me look passed all it did wrong.

The acting was solid. There were no award winning performances but did their job and did it well. The new comers like Daisy Ridley (Rey) and Adam Driver (Kylo Ren) had some pretty impressive scenes where they hit me right in the feels. John Boyega is someone I had never heard of before but I wouldn’t be surprised to see him start getting bigger roles now the Hollywood knows he can act. Domhnall Gleeson was great as General Hux aka Grand Moff Tarkin lite. I may not have recognized him if I didn’t already know it was him. He was such a different person that he was unrecognizable. The returning cast slipped right into their roles and it was great to see them on screen again.

Let me end with this. Nothing is going to recapture the magic that the original three movies had. That is something everyone has to realize. If you’re just going to compare this new film to the old ones then you’re just going to be disappointed. Also, if you go in ready to pick it apart, then you’re going to hate it. Star Wars: The Force Awakens is a flashy and fun blockbuster that’s a incredibly enjoyable, full of laughs, and is the closest thing we’re going to get to the feeling Lucas created with episodes IV, V, and VI.  When you focus on what’s wrong with a movie you miss what it did right and while The Force Awakens had plenty of problems it also had a plethora of great moments that left me with a smile on my face.

Go see this movie, and for the love of God don’t forget to have fun.

Star Wars: The Force Awakens gets a 9 out of 11