Star Wars Episode VII: A Painful Generational Gap

Rating: 2/10 (18 December 2015)

I'm nineteen years old and a movie like this is one of the reasons everyone hates on my generation. This is mainly because the role of the mentor, so cherished in the Star Wars universe, was made to look entirely unnecessary. I mean, it took Luke failure after failure before he could deflect those training lasers with his father's lightsaber; a new weapon clumsy in his hands. And if it wasn't for old Ben Kenobi in his head would he have switched off his targeting computer and known that the force would be with him, always? Or what about those painful days training on Dagobah, which wouldn't inaugurate Luke as a Jedi until frustration and failure at a critical moment? Luke Skywalker's quest to become a Jedi was one ridden with struggle and redemption. Not so, it seems, for our new protagonist, Rey. It appears as though she doesn't need a mentor when she can apparently call upon the force at random to mind-trick storm troopers and win a lightsaber duel. She defeats an antagonist whom from what I can tell has trained with the force for years, even though just a few days ago she was scrounging Star Destroyer debris. In the words of Han Solo: "That's not how the force works." The movie seems to forget who Luke's character was when modeling Rey after him. Sitting in the theater I felt myself sarcastically thinking that Luke wasn't so great after all while watching Rey slash through Kylo's armor and Poe Dameron miraculously blow up a space station a hundred times the size of the death star. I guess we're just trying to show all you old farts out there that we the millenials don't need a teacher or a wise one in our lives to be the best. Anybody can pick up Anakin's lightsaber and be a winner. At least, that's what it felt like watching this movie.