Shot on Film, Practical Effects. Great Beginning to Trilogy

Rating: 9/10 (30 March 2016)

I love the first Trilogy. Star Wars was great, Empire even better, and Jedi is really good too if you don't take this a your whole life. The prequel trilogy had too much CGI filler and were a mess except for Revenge of the Sith. The Force Awakens however, is a very good movie and an important movie. The characters are good and they have a lot of interesting cliff hangers on purpose. The mythology is solid and interesting and is nice to see the old crew with some great new characters. The main character here,Ray, is one of the most interesting and likable characters in the saga. It's important because it got away from CGI and digital filming and instead used practical effects and was shot on actual film which gives it a more realistic look. For those who see similarities to A New Hope, the story is different still with some things being similar but the characters and the setting and where the force is and the cliff hangers that they set up are all new and exciting. This is the 7th movie after all, it is impossible not to be similar after a while. This better than a few Star Wars movies and a very important film that went back to grounded film making