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Friday, January 1, 2016

Star Wars: The Force Awakens (Some spoilers)

(from Wikipedia)

Here's my take.
(Warning:  Mild spoilers below)

The Good:
  • No Jar-Jar Binks.
  • No lens flare.
  • Han Solo & Chewbacca were great and completely within character.
  • Princess Leia was a tough as ever...and forget all that crap about her looking old...hello...she is old.  It's about 35 years from the last movie.  People need to get over that stuff.
  • I liked the Kylo Ren character (and Adam Driver did a great job with it).  The fact that he was a kinda "pretty boy" under the mask worked really well.  

The Bad:
  • The 80 or so "kinda just like the old movie" references & parallels (old guy killed by Darth Vader-esque character, all starting on a desert planet...I guess all desert planets in the Star Wars universe are $hit holes to boot, "not quite but almost" death star, the kinda-sorta emperor character, etc.).
  • Funny, but Luke had to learn the ways of the force from Obi Wan and then Yoda.  Rey just seemed to pick her skills up by osmosis I guess.
  • 95% of the movie consisted of action scenes.  I think it needed a bit more back story.  For example, who actually ran the galaxy?  Was the First Order some kind of officially sanctioned outfit, or were they actually more like rebels?
  • There was no sense as to where these planets were in relation to each other.  
  • I missed the traditional 20th Century Fox introduction.

The Indifferent:
  • The Poe Dameron character was interesting...I just wish they made better use of him.
  • Ditto on Captain Phasma.  I hope she appears in a future movie.
  • Obligatory cute droid.
  • They didn't modernize the technology too much.
  • Seriously, Luke Skywalker?  Mark Hamill is the smartest guy in the galaxy for getting paid what he likely did for what he actually contributed to the movie.

Overall?  I'd give it a solid "B" grade.  
Not my favorite Star Wars movie (those are the original and the Return of the Jedi) nor was it anywhere near my least favorite (Revenge of the Sith...outside of the first sequence I hate* that movie).



(*) Two words:  Murdered children.


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