The Star Wars Megamix; or, J.J. Abrams Strikes Back

Rating: 5/10 (16 December 2015)

On paper, it is super easy to distinguish between a sequel and a remake: sequels are the continuation of a story established in a previous installment, as STAR WARS: THE FORCE AWAKENS clearly is; while remakes are the same film done over again in a (more or less) different way. Yet it is difficult, when watching THE FORCE AWAKENS, to shake off the feeling that you are actually watching an ever so slight variation on A NEW HOPE, the very first episode in the saga.
You have a desert planet (*not* Tatooine though, will scream the triumphant screenwriter at my face, although it basically looks like it), on which a forlorn teen who pines for the stars (but it's a she now, will splutter the red-eyed fan), and who dresses a lot like Luke, passes away the time by scavenging techie stuff, like the Jawa in A NEW HOPE, and listening to the gibberish her cute R2-D sorry, her adorable BB-8 playfully utters. Said droid is soon uploaded with vital information and, with everybody on its chromium heels, sets off through the desert, soon to be captured by the creatures of said desert. You also soon encounter an ominous-looking, armor-wearing, deep-voiced Darth Vader wannabe (but his sword now has a laser cross-guard, haha you see, it's its own thing!, will babble the crazy-eyed director). And soon, X-Wings and TIE fighters battle it out again and the Death Star (but it's so much bigger this time around!) makes yet another return from the dead, with the said "rebel" or "resistance" fighters (aren't they supposed to have won this damn war already and be ruling the Galaxy?!) doing another desperate run in the "trenches" of said Death Star to destroy it.
I could be even more voluble than C3-PO and go on and on about this, if there was any need, which I doubt. THE FORCE AWAKENS is an entertaining movie, certainly superior to the mediocre stuff Lucas churned out in the noughties (characterization and acting, action sequences, overall look), although the writing can be typically lazy (so, where did the fragmented map come from again? How do they approach and enter the Death Star again?) and some scenes can be over the top (the fascist rally, with the general suddenly channeling his German accent and the stormtroopers raising their fists). But the irony here is that his Lucas' prequels were more creative and innovative (new planets, new alien races) than this supposed sequel, whose every planet and creature feels like we've been there before, we've done that already (hey, another cantina scene!).
There are good things in this film, mainly the new characters, Finn (good idea to make this 'born to be a slave' agent of a fascist empire an African-American) and Rey (at last an interesting female character, not always waiting to be rescued or to breed... looking at ya, JURASSIC WORLD). It is thus precisely when the film tries to innovate that it becomes more interesting, which makes it even sadder that it does so only rarely (but a studio which has to recoup so much money will indeed be averse to risk-taking). THE FORCE AWAKENS, truth be told, is a pure fan job, which looks too much to the past, and not enough ahead, for its own good (as a character more or less utters at some point).
This is not surprising I guess from a director who made the Spielberg-venerating SUPER 8 and who seems to be more at home remaking the films he saw as a kid or offering variations on familiar formulas (the rebooted STAR TREK franchise, which compared to this looks like the height of creativity, or MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE 3). Maybe one day copycat Abrams will decide he has some personality after all and will make his own movie (preferably without lens flares), but in the meantime it is a good thing STAR WARS is moving into other directors' hands. Even more so with new installments off the production line every single year, be they sequels, prequels or spin-offs, which risk wearing off THE FORCE AWAKENS' welcome pretty soon.
What Abrams and Co. are doing here is pretty much the same thing as in the rebooted STAR TREK, especially INTO DARKNESS: not exactly a remake or a reboot, but a remix or megamix, with shots (a sunset on the desert planet) and entire scenes from all three original films sampled and restructured, perhaps inverted (cue the scene on a footbridge featuring a son, his dad and a lightsaber), while the whole thing is modernized.
What they should really try to bring back is Lucas and Co's sheer imagination back in '77, and my suggestion would be to have the guts to move away from the stuff Lucas introduced (do we always need to deal with the Empire or its remnants? Will we always have to be told about the Skywalkers or Solos in a galaxy peopled by frakkin' billions of billions of people?! And I'll slash my wrists if yet another Death Star shows up in future installments) to create their own stuff. Now there is an interesting challenge.