Loved it

Rating: 9/10 (10 January 2016)

Being born in the 70's I'm part of the generation that grew up with the original trilogy. It was basically my childhood, the movies, action figures, magazines. I know the original trilogy inside out. I still watch the originals every two years or so, they still work for me, haven't lost any of their charm. I was almost 30 years old when the second coming was, and while I did see them at the movies once, I never really returned to those movies. I tried to watch them before Force Awakens, but didn't get past The Phantom Menace. I remember the two following movies were better, but still never got around watching them again.
I was waiting forward to seeing The Force Awakens like any other Star Wars fan. I'm not a huge fan of JJ Abrams and have been disappointed by quite a few reboots, prequels or late sequels like Indy 4, Star Trek and Prometheus, so I went to the theatre open minded. I was eager to see it, but I wasn't thinking if it would be good or bad, tried to stay neutral and thought that I don't HAVE TO like it at this age anymore.
But I loved it, totally loved it. It was quite close to being perfect in my opinion. Sure the story is a bit recycled, things happen quite conveniently and sometimes rushed, but the movie feels Star Wars. It feels very familiar without being tacky. It's just what Star Wars franchise needed in my opinion. It's difficult to know how new generations feel, but for those of us who lived the original trilogy, this was like coming home. Meeting old friends and immediately getting on like back in the days.
I had three major concerns before seeing this, even tho I tried to stay neutral. First being that it would be overly complicated, clever and tricky like I feel Abrams likes to do his TV and movies. Instead we got quite a straight-forward story without any unnecessary complexities or trying to be overly creative. Star Wars doesn't need a mind-boggling plot that pushes the boundaries of storytelling.
The other concern was that it would be made too violent and realistically grim. This is what has happened a lot of times with reboots and since movies and TV are completely different today in terms of violence than they were back in the day, I was fearing the worst. The first 10 minutes made me feel even more concerned as they may be quite intense (for the younger audience), but luckily the rest of the movie is quite tame. I have a son who is still a bit too young to see this, but who really waits forward to seeing it and this is the main reason I was a bit worried about how harsh they had made it. I'm happy they kept it the way it is.
The last concern was that it would feel forced, unnatural and cringe-worthy in terms of the acting and the old crew getting together. I was quite sure Harrison Ford could pull off his role as Han Solo, but Carrie Fisher as Leia and Mark Hamill as Luke were and are somewhat wildcards. We had no idea how they would do. Stop reading here if you don't want to read spoilers. Harrison Ford really IS Han Solo, he did absolutely perfect job. Carrie Fisher was still surprisingly Leia, I was a bit worried having watched a few of her interviews on youtube and not really seeing her act since The 'Burbs (1989). The scenes with her and Harrison are slightly on the stiff side, but they work OK, given they're characters past. Mark Hamill on the other hand. Well, we still have to wait and see.
The new cast is good. I especially enjoyed Adam Driver acting as Kylo Ren. Daisy Ridley is good too. Oscar Isaac is a capable actor as seen before, his scenes are quite brief here, but I'm sure there's a lot more to come. John Boyega was OK, but for some reason his character is not quite as interesting as the others. Domhnall Gleeson makes a great bad guy. Interesting to see if Max Von Sydow will be featured more in the next two episodes. It's amazing how long his career is as I just watched him on an Ingmar Bergman movie from the 50s!
Visually the movie is amazing. It works great, the places feel real. There are a few surprisingly CGI looking characters. Even one quite major character. Not saying they don't look good, but they look as if they are CGI, which is rarely a good thing.
Lot's and lot's of references to old trilogy. Never out of place tho. I'm going to see this again in the movies, and that's the first time watching the same movie twice in a theatre since the Return of the Jedi. One great thing about this new Star Wars episode is that it made me want to watch the original trilogy again, even tho I've just watched it last summer.