Jean-Paul’s Rating: 3/5 stars
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Star Wars! Yay! “The Force Awakens” was a fun romp of a movie if completely derivative. Yes, just like a certain J.J. Abrams Star Trek movie reboot that shall remain nameless (*cough “Into Darkness” *cough*), “The Force Awakens” is taken almost full cloth from “A New Hope”. So there, I just spoiled the whole movie for you.
Fear not, mortal! The movie is still a fun ride even if you’ve seen it all before. Probably only if you’re a fan of the series (I-III notwithstanding). J.J. Abrams is a genius when it comes to crafting a movie that will suck you in even if his basket of new ideas is sorely lacking. His plan when rebooting series seems to be asking himself “What worked before?” and then cramming that all into a single movie. You can’t argue with results.
Fans will love seeing old faces. Fans and newbies will also love the new faces. Rey and Finn (Daisy Ridley and John Boyega) are absolutely wonderful characters, though it took a while for Boyega to grow on me. I think that’s mostly because of my main complaint with the whole movie. There’s very little character development. Ridley and Boyega shine through because there’s real charisma there that wins you over despite their lack of depth. The same can’t be said for Poe Dameron (Oscar Issac) who seems to be shoe-horned into the story. And, in my estimation, the biggest strike against the movie is the lack of depth given to Kylo Ren (Adam Driver). Much of the surprise twists surround his character, but it’s hard to feel anything about them because there’s really not a developed character to feel anything towards yet. They’ll all be back, I’m sure, and much of the backstory will be filled in, but the storytelling in “The Force Awakens” is only moderately above George Lucas level.
Yep, I’ll definitely be seeing it again because it really is a fun movie despite its recycled story line and lack of character depth. If this were a stand-alone movie, I’d probably be a lot more unforgiving. But Star Wars. And for those keeping track at home, the official ranking from best to worst is V, IV, VI, I, III, I don’t like sand.
I think you are being a little bit harsh on JJ Abrams here (he didn’t reboot Star Trek with “Into Darkness”, but with…”Star Trek” which had a different plot than anything that came before.) Also, one of the main complaints of the crappy prequels was that they didn’t have enough allusions to the original series. I know that if you boil down the plots of the two movies that TFA is strikingly similar to New Hope…meanwhile the new characters feel fresh since there isn’t an “ok, this guy is the new Han Solo” type of feel to any of them. Poe Dameron is both Leia Organa the token Rebel/Resistance character who is brimming with sass, and Han Solo the cocky as hell pilot with a lot of natural charisma. Finn is part Luke Skywalker the Rube, and part Han charging off into the face of danger (usually).
Poe is Leia, and Finn is the rule breaking Han. They are going to fight kiss and make up by episode 9. The End.
And obviously Rey is the new chosen one,so she doesn’t get a boyfriend. Fun.
Nope. Finn has an innocents and exuberance that the world weary Han never had. Also, everything he does is slightly awkward and never confident or cocky.
Poe is Leia…except for when he is straight up stealing the Luke/Han moments while only barely being in the film at all.
…and which one is it? Rey can’t have a boyfriend because she is too busy being the chosen one, or she gets saddled with a kiss/fight/makeup storyline?
I want Poe and Finn to kiss fight and make up
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