Nostalgic Emotions...

Rating: 4/10 (10 January 2016)

I've read a lot of reviews of the latest SW thing, and in many of them the authors cite feeling as if they had been transported back in time to when they first experienced the first SW movie when they were younger. It evoked nostalgic emotions.
Over the festive period the opportunity arose for me to see Forced Wakeup, and so I went. And I saw. And I have to admit it I experienced the same nostalgic emotions the original film left me with after queueing in the rain to see A New Dope when it was first released unto the world. Yep, I'm that old.
I was impressed with the music then, and I remain impressed now. I was impressed with the visuals then (they were groundbreaking, technologically stunning for their time) and I was impressed now. The CGI is some of the best I have ever seen - dazzling stuff, brilliantly executed. The sound design remains a winner both then and now. And finally, on both counts, I experienced that familiar "what is everybody else seemingly seeing or getting or engaging with that I'm not?" sensation. It echoed down the decades with the force (see what I did there?) of a deja-vu moment on steroids and was as such undiminished.
OK, I wasn't bored, never felt the need to get up and leave, was wowed by the technology throughout, but the plot, the dialogue, the characters, the tweeness, the hollowness, the irrational stupidity of the whole thing marked the film as a B movie 50s potboiler dressed up in superb hi-tech clobber. I mean a key character buys the farm and the emotional response of the film is the equivalent of "Oh dear. Shame that. Anyway, roll on some more CGI and whizz-bang and let's get some more pyrotechnical eye-candy up in you!" The character who dies is, to all intents and purposes, the human heart and soul of the whole original trilogy. No special powers, you see. But it's not really worth the time of day when the ultimate aim is more "DUMB-DUMB...DUMB-DUMB-DA-DUMB-DUMB!"
I never did understand the adulation expressed by people of all ages across the globe for SW. I didn't get it then, I don't get it now. And I love sci-fi flicks. But the SW phenomenon continues to leave me cold and mildly bewildered. Maybe it's my loss and I'm very likely in a minority - but hey, so be it. I certainly don't begrudge anyone their love if it, because in my experience we don't necessarily choose who or what to love. Authentically, anyhow.