A New Hope Part II ????

Rating: 8/10 (7 January 2016)

Whether you're a Star Wars fan or just someone looking for a entertaining movie to watch you will probably enjoy this film. However, being a huge, huge Star Wars fan I had some issues with the film and I rank The Force Awakens fifth in the canon. The Empire Strikes Back, A New Hope, Revenge of the Sith, Return of the Jedi, The Force Awakens, The Phantom Menace, Attack of the Clones.
The story was a retread of A New Hope and that was my biggest issue with this film. The story starts out on a desert planet, a droid stranded on a desert planet with a secret mission, the villains are after the droid, a daring rescue at the enemy's base, and a last ditch effort against impossible odds by good guys to destroy the galaxy's most dangerous weapon. Sound familiar? Furthermore, all the characters mirror the New Hope characters, Rey (Luke), Finn (Han), BB8 (R2-D2) Kylo Ren (Darth Vader), Han (Obi-Wan). I really thought with Lawrence Kasdan writing the script that he would have come up with something more original. Not another Death Star (Death Planet) its already been done twice. There's so many other ways they could have gone with this. Not A New Hope again. George Lucas already made that movie and it was perhaps the greatest movie of all time.
Next, Han Solo was just killed and Chewie and company return back to the resistance's base and when he gets off the Millennium Falcon he and Leia walk pass each other and say nothing. Not so much as a look. Han best friend and the love of Han's life who have known each other for thirty five years and they say nothing to each other not so much as a word or even a hug to console each other. Then Leia goes and meets Rey whom she has never met and they hug. What? Now I have a theory that Leia has a bond with Rey on some level, I won't go in to detail, but Leia and Chewie should have had moment.
Then there is Supreme Leader Snork a horrible rip off of the Emperor with really lousy name. Snork really? They couldn't come up with something better. Was he named after the 1980's Saturday morning cartoon? They couldn't have had a younger villain maybe middle age character that was maybe a Dark Force wielding agent who worked for the Emperor or Darth Vader when the events of ROTJ took place. No we get Emperor part two. His age doesn't really make sense. I would think if there was a powerful being with dark force power that he would have been a threat to the Emperor and Vader and they would have eliminated him.
The Star Wars movies have always had a great secondary villain, such as Darth Maul, Grand Moff Tarkin, Boba Fett, and in the Force Awakens they have Captain Phasma, but she is in the movie for like five minutes. I was really looking to seeing Gwendoline Christie and the character she was playing. They should have given her a bigger role.
I hate to say this, but one of my biggest disappointments was the soundtrack. I love John Willliams and if this was some other movie the soundtrack would have been fine, but the soundtrack had no memorable themes. Look back to every Star Wars movie and the soundtracks have been magnificent and have had memorable themes in each one. The Phantom Menace had "The Duel of the Fates" Revenge of the Sith "Battle of Heroes" then there is A New Hope and The Empire Strikes Back. Those two movies soundtracks are so incredible and have so many memorable themes that I would have to list several.
Despite all this the movie was good and it brought back some nostalgic feelings of the originals, even though it was basically a remake of ANH. The movie had good action humor, and some cool new characters (Rey, Finn and especially BB8). Having grown up with originals when they were released I was a little worried that J.J. Abrams would mess this up like the Star Trek Movies, but I must say he did a pretty good job. Abrams really captured the look and feel of a Star Wars movie. Abrams did a great job of mixing in the new cast with the old and I thought that the Cinematography was great. The camera movement was really good and really followed the action well, especially during the Millennium Falcon Tie Fighter dogfight.
Daisy Ridley was awesome as Rey. I'm looking forward to see her become a Jedi and follow in the footsteps of Luke and Anakin...hint, hint previously mention theory. I think from what I saw of her in this film that she'll be able to carry the next two movies.
The best thing about this movie was Harrison Ford's performance. He did fantastic job carrying this movie and had a lot of funny moments in the film. Han Solo has been sorely missed and will be sorely missed moving forward with the new series. Looking back if you look at all the movies he was in and wasn't in the saga Harrison Ford really had or was part of most of the funny moments throughout the saga. They are going to have a big challenge moving forward without him in the films.
I give the film eight stars out of ten and I can't rank it any higher than fifth in the Star Wars saga due largely in part to the retread of the story line taken from A New Hope and the other issues I mentioned. It was a good movie and I would certainly see it again, but it was a flawed Star Wars movie.