Like a Big Mac.... sounds great until you ate it.

Rating: 4/10 (14 January 2016)

I must admit, I watched the first one in France when I was 9 in 1978 (France had to wait 1 year to get it) at The GRAND REX in Paris: GIANT screen, an amazing painted roof full of little stars on a dark night... the historic seventh art movie theater of Paris. So, yes, now for the young fanatics, I am part of the "old farts".
I loved the first trilogy, of course, a revolution for my young eyes, a space adventure full of mythology from the ancient Greek tragedies, great character's chemistry, full of cool witty dialogs, great SFX (for the era)... and even with the first sad glimpses of what's to come from the original creator when he created the Ewoks in ROTJ.... Still, the final reunion of the prodigal son and his evil father was strong enough to make the childish fur balls a detail in the story.
Forward 20 years, now super rich and fat alike his creation "Jabba the Hut", Triple chin Lucas from his greenbacks pedestal finally decided to give us the prequels of his original dream (without a doubt, written as a quick note on a toilet paper)... and the magic suddenly vanished... I was in London for the premiere (French release was still few weeks away... I couldn't wait!)... The goosebumps watching the beloved logo and the entry score from John Williams.... then - Big crashing noises, sudden scratch on a LP - Whaaaaattt? 20 years for this? A bad kid actor playing an already born super hero, so much American culture references in a galaxy which should have been FAR FAR AWAY from us, no more wit, no more crispy dialog, no more character development... Long story short, I didn't give a damn about the 2 others movies (never seen them in theater) which like the TPM were also of the same wood ( I finally watched them at home few years later)... bad acting, bad story, bad, bad, bad... etc... Good decision I made boycotting them, I told to myself.
Forward another 10 more years, and then a glimpse of hope at the end of the tunnel. First teaser looked so great. It gave me goosebumps and a smile on may face again... then all the PR crap and the hype did their best to grab my attention even more: "return to the original spirit" they said, "no more all-CGI, no more blue/green screen, real decors, animatronics..." they said... I was hooked again... more mature, yes but definitely interested.
So I waited 3 weeks, avoiding any news and spoilers, until the new generation of SW fanatics watched it at least 5 times.... then I went. "Leave this movie to me, kids! (strong breaths in a mask)".... Goosebumps again seeing the beloved logo and the entry score again... Desert scene... Hummm OK, Robot gets the vital information... Hey, wait a minute.... yes, they did it again... and again, and again. During all the movie a small anger was mounting in the back of my head... "I have a very bad feeling about this"... long story short, I was right, between the nostalgic bits, the good old' faces, the refreshing female and Afro-American leads... the truth was becoming sadly clear: this was NO homage, this was a complete robbery of the original Star Wars plot and scene by scene script!!! What a fool I was to fell into this travesty once again. Fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me... I was depressed: Disney achieved old Lucas's work, the last nail on the SW coffin. So long, Star Wars, I loved you and I'll still keep the original Blu Ray trilogy as a token of my past allegiance to the 77' space revolution.