The Ultimate Kitsch

Rating: 4/10 (20 December 2015)

To say it was better than the Star Wars prequels isn't saying much. The prequels were a mess in all aspects.
This time Disney plays it safe, too safe. It becomes predictable, from the scenario plagiarized on the first Star Wars movie to every scenes of somewhat emotional signification dipped in the sauce of John Williams old themes. It becomes a well made recipe with the overall artistic depth apparently way down on the priority list.
To say it was a bad movie would be dishonest however. After all without deviating from conventional structures that have been proved to work it is hard to miss the target audience, which at times seems to be more considered as a consumer.
To put it more bluntly, the new Star Wars is the greatest creation of kitsch ever made. It will please millions with it's unparallelled will to please on an emotional level and lack of substance on a deeper artistic level.
The movie starts really well, with some nods to the old movies. These starts to saturate the movie as we get nearer to the end, where instead of upping the scenario up a notch and giving us something really new it all becomes terribly predictable. It's as if the last half of the scenario has been written by the marketing department. This disappointment is somewhat saved by the charisma of actress Daisy Ridley.
Positively, it leaves room for a potentially very good sequel and ruins little on the way. The new characters are welcomed additions. Perhaps because of my low expectations I enjoyed it even if I would have liked something more daring.
People will like it because it pulls the right string; and after all the suffering we had to endure from the lousy prequels we are tempted to rate this movie above what it truly deserves. I feel 7 on 10 is accurate in that regard.
Except that one last thing... Spoiler Alert:
Why kill Han Solo in such a lousy way? Han Solo, if he were to die, should have been as a hero, saving lives, doing something daring and succeeding but failing at saving himself. His death scene was lame and cheap. Considering he's a major character then 1 more point has to be removed from my score therefore I'm gonna rate it a 6. I don't think it's a movie you will want to watch over and over like the old ones principally because of mistakes like the last scene of Solo.