The Force Awakens

I know that I am really behind the curve on this one, but my family and I finally went to see The Force Awakens (the latest installment in the Star Wars saga, for anyone living under a rock) this past Sunday. Star Wars was a huge part of my childhood (Action figures, books, comics, trading cards, Halloween costumes, and of course the movies), so I was pretty excited to see the new movie. So why the delay? In short, the kids. We felt we need to fully expose the kids to story and see all the preceding movies beforehand. We got through Epidsodes IV-VI (the first three), but not I-III. Finally we gave up and figured if we wait too long, we won't get to see it in the theater, on the big screen.

So, we pre-purchased our reserved seats in the epicenter of the theater. I figured the movie had been out for nearly 3 full months, and that the theater would be empty. Not quite so. My feelings on attending movies in a theater have been documented in a prior posting, but I can't help but say it again; Why the heck do they sell the noisiest forms of food for consumption in a movie theater? Every quiet scene had the background noise of crunch, crunch, crunch...crinkle, crinkle, crinkle. No Matter. I was there for the movie and shut out the outside noise as best as possible.

First things first, this movie is light years better than Episodes I-III, the horrible installments George Lucas submitted us all to. We wanted to like them, but after hours of trade federation footage and ridiculous creatures (Talking about you JJB), we all agreed they sucked. This one has a good story, characters we can relate to, and the benefit of familiarity. From here on, I will warn that there may be some things that could be construed as 'spoilers', so if you have not seen the movie yet and don't want to know about it beforehand, see you next post.

As I said above, there were a lot of things to like, only, a lot of the things I did like about the movie, also left me feeling kind of let down. The story, feels very familiar. That's because it bears a striking resemblance to Episode IV, the original Star Wars movie. From the beginning with a stranded droid containing vital information, to the end with the need to destroy yet another 'Death Star', I feel like I've seen a lot of this before.

This is enhanced by the presence of familiar characters. Han Solo, Princess Leia, Chewbacca, C3P0, R2D2, and Luke Skywalker are all back in this movie. I was excited initially at the prospect of the returning characters, but for some reason, it didn't really work for me. Perhaps it was the fact that they have aged nearly 40 years since the original movies, but we are still expected to believe that their characters are up to the same action. I definitely felt like it was too much Han Solo. He was in a lot of the movie and the soap opera between him and Leia resulted in the creation of the latest bit of evil, Kylo Ren. Probably the best 'character' to make a reappearance, is the Millennium Falcon. Featured heavily in this film, the odd looking spaceship that resembles the end of a tennis racket was the height of cool in the original movies and I was glad to see it again here, especially how they introduced it in the movie as 'a piece of junk', a reference to Luke's first reaction to it in Episode IV.

There were other little samples of familiar stuff. While on the Millennium Falcon, we see the holographic chess game that was in Episode IV.  There was also a scene where you could see the training ball that Luke used with his light saber, also in Episode IV. The melted mask of Darth Vader from when Luke burned Vader, his father on Endor in Episode VI.

While we are talking about masks, another thing I have to comment on is Kylo Ren's mask. It's ridiculous. From the odd flap of leather like material on the snout, to the silly metallic bars, it doesn't jibe. We all remember Darth Vader, right. His mask was awesome, a visual that stuck with you from the original opening scenes on. Not only did it look cool, but it was 'functional', he needed it to breathe. Kylo Ren could take his mask off at will, which makes you ask, why the heck is he wearing that thing at all? To make his voice sound deeper?

I could probably go on, at the risk of sounding even geekier. Despite my criticisms, I did like the movie and was all along for the ride. I look forward to seeing what JJ Abrams does with the next installment and hope that he doesn't rely so heavily on nostalgia and familiar themes and brings us on truly new and spectacular adventure, sans Jar Jar Binks of course.

Let me know what you thought of the movie in the comments...