Star Wars is Star Wars again

Rating: 8/10 (31 December 2015)

Spoiler warning If you don't want to see a spoiler, just scroll right on by.
Not that anyone could actually spoil this. I mean, if you've seen the original Star Wars movie, you already know the plot. This is basically the original, disassembled for parts, put in a basket, shaken, and reassembled into a different droid. Perhaps not quite the one you're looking for.
Starring: Rey as Luke Finn as Han BB8 as R2D2 Han as Ben (also that short lady alien had a little of Ben's function) Luke as Yoda Leia as Mon Mothma Kylo as Vader The Emperor as the Emperor (except who is the new Emperor and where did he come from?) Chewie as himself Poe as Biggs Wait... there's something missing... who's playing Leia? Ah, her functions have been split in half. Her function as Strong Female Character has been given to Rey. Her function as Luke's love interest has been given to Finn. Ah, OK then. All complete.
Starting with the Biggs and Han characters was different, and that's probably why the beginning felt odd. The one part of the plot of this movie that was not precisely like the original was the part that didn't work for me. Well, that scene did include the Vader character, who did appear near the beginning of the original, but until we find out later who is under that mask the Kylo character came off as a wannabe Vader (which he IS, but, there's more to him than that. The only times the Kylo character seemed to be a real person with his own motivations and not just a cheap knockoff of Vader that wasn't up to the quality of the original was when he wasn't wearing the mask.) In the opening scene Kylo came off as pathetic instead of intimidating. The beginning felt like a prologue. I hate prologues.
Then BB8 appeared and the plot got on track. I never really connected to the droids in the original, but the BB8 character did recreate the original movie plot well. The original started with a droid carrying important data falling into Luke's hands, and so did this one. The whole movie felt strangely unoriginal, but it worked as an action movie AND it worked as Star Wars. It kind of felt like a formula genre novel in that it had an utterly familiar plot backbone with sort-of-new characters inserted. But that's what made it work.
There was one new element, and that was the young Rey fangirling over the original Han and trying to find the original Luke, and getting to meet the original Leia. The celebrity pars were there for the fans of the original, to identify with Rey and get what we wanted from the movie, which was more of our original heroes. That part wasn't in the original, but it was a great addition. It wasn't really an addition to the plot, though, it was just some moments along the way. This movie didn't end where the plot of the original movie ended, but a little past that where Rey/Luke goes to find Luke/ Yoda. It was a good place to end this episode, but it wasn't really an addition to the original plot.
The action was great. The space battles, gunfights, sword fights, and hand to hand fights were all great. I saw it in IMAX 3D and the effects were superb. I thought Finn was a little too good of a swordsman for a stormtrooper. I mean, when would he have learned how to sword fight? A totally untrained person with a lightsaber would be likely to hurt himself rather than hold his own against someone like Kylo who clearly had real instruction. That didn't really detract from the movie too much, though, since the entire thing has fantasy-logic. It was a great spectacle. It was definitely worth watching on the big screen.
Review by Erin Lale, acquisitions editor, Caliburn Press