Disappointing

Rating: 3/10 (19 December 2015)

Just been to see Star Wars the force awakens. I am a huge star wars fan, grew up in the late 70s and 80s so I was a true star wars child. What can I say tremendous special effects and action sequences as you would expect from Hollywood these days. However as a true fan I am dreadfully disappointed. I think that George Lucas has made a huge error in selling the franchise to Disney. Don't get me wrong I am a big fan of a good children's animation, love finding nemo, toy story and all that but they have tried to kiddify star wars and in doing so taken all of the bite out of it. The plot is basically the original star wars with a few bits added on around it. In parts the plot it is paper thin and feels rushed, after a 1 minute meeting they all agree to send three people to knock out the shield of the new Death Star, sure three people is enough to blast your way through legions of troops. Star wars introduced one of cinemas most enduring villains in Darth Vader, big, imposing, mysterious and uncompromising, not a baddie to be messed with. In empire strikes back he makes short work of the half trained Luke and the mask doesn't come off until the end of the third film. In the phantom menace we got Darth maul, lean, mean, menacing and athletic, a sith who happily took on two Jedi knights with the intention of killing them both. Not a man to be trifled with. Kilo Ren is not big but skinny, not imposing or uncompromising, indeed at the end a girl who has never picked up a light saber in her life and has just started to figure out how to use the force bests him and he is lucky to get away with his life. He takes his mask off within an hour, so no mystery there then. No doubt this was at the behest of Disney executives who concerned with the fee they were paying the actor underneath demanded to see his face. He is not at all big and menacing like Darth Vader, or skillful and athletic like Darth Maul. He simply doesn't have the on-screen presence of either of them. So your thinking, well Darth Vader had a boss, the emperor, he was a bad dud, scheming, calculating and manipulative, brilliantly played by Ian McDiarmid. Well now we have the supreme leader who seems to be a copy of Voldemort. Again you can read the Disney execs like a book, the kids liked Harry Potter so we can get away with a Voldemort lookalike. Again don't get me wrong love JJ Abrams and what he did with Star Trek. I have no doubt that the Disney executives have hand-cuffed him here. They are experts in their market which is children and they have made sure that this film can be pitched to children. However that is not Star Wars. If you are a true fan going to see this and hoping to see stunning light saber fight with a truly menacing bad guy then you are going to be let down. The reason the Lord of the Rings and the Hobbit were such a success is that Peter Jackson did not shy away from the fights, there were orc heads lopped off aplenty, yes there were humorous moments but the battles were full on and everyone loved it. To be fair to George Lucas he didn't shy away from it either, the revenge of the sith was really quite dark. George Lucas may not be the best director in the world and I think everyone agrees that Jar-Jar binks is best forgotten but as its creator he knew what star wars is and what it should be. Disney should stick to what they do best and hand the biggest film franchise in the world over to a company who is happy and willing to make a grown up film.