A Glorious Return to Glory

Rating: 9/10 (17 December 2015)

Star Wars: The Force Awakens is everything we could have wanted and more, and feels like a return to glory for the franchise that needed redemption the most. Going into the film, the hype was insane, but whether or not the film would live up to it was to be determined. The Force Awakens is surprisingly funny, filled with stunning visuals, and features a lot of surprises in an age when spoilers rule. Some may have issues with decisions of the writers, but the filmmakers deserve credit for their devotion to the story.
The most surprising aspect of The Force Awakens was the sense of humor, something the original trilogy and prequels had struggled with in different ways. The actors have a great chemistry, which helps the humor, especially between Chewbacca and Han Solo. The humor is brilliant, because it blends with the tone of the film, is very subtle, and is littered throughout the entire film. However, humor is not a trademark of Star Wars, at least not like visual effects are.
The entire look of the film is gorgeous, this is because of various things, but the most important was J.J. Abrams and Disney's devotion to honoring the approach of the original films. The film was shot on film, while there's some debate, my opinion is that film looks far better than digital, and the film accentuates my point. Another decision that helped the film was the use of practical effects, which always look more real than digitally created creatures. The perfect mixture of CGI and Practical, along with the use of film makes The Force Awakens beautiful, and stunning to look at.
The last element that stuck out to me, was the plot. I refuse to give away any elements, as I agree with Disney that this film should be viewed knowing as little as possible, but I will say there are tons of surprises in the film. While the plot did recycle some elements from earlier films, it did feel original in a lot of ways as well, and the few clichéd moments are forgivable in the grand scheme of things.
The Force Awakens does the job many had hoped The Phantom Menace would do in 1999, and it does it well. It is truly subjective about what Star Wars film is your favorite, but for me The Force Awakens rivals that of the original, and even putting it in the same category is a compliment all it's own. Considering the fanbase for this film, and it's franchise it's good to see that Star Wars has finally gotten back to the quality we all knew it could.