Alright Space Fantasy

Rating: 7/10 (17 December 2015)

First I would like to state, that this review will contain (heavy) spoilers. Everything I write is of course just my opinion.
The Force Awakens is an okay movie. I am a long time star wars fan and was very excited for this movie. I read some novels of the new canon and played many of the video games. I also spend the last year or so reading the comic books and watching speculation videos on Youtube. I can't be sure at his point, where I only saw the movie once, but I think that was my personal downfall. I was too excited, even though I actively tried to lower my expectations. I expected fantastic and original story lines more than anything and I would say that's where the movies greatest weakness is buried. It also has a great many strengths: funny moments, realistic acting, often great sound design, and so on. When I left the movie theater I was very disappointed. I kind of liked the first third of the movie. We meet new characters and get to know and like them. I loved Poe and Finn in the Tie-Fighter. They seem like great buddies. I liked Rey as a loner and a self- sufficient yet caring person. Funny how Finn was about to save her and realized she manages very well on her own. BB-8 is a cute little addition to scoundrel R2-D2 and the nerdy 3PO. I felt all the gears working in the background furthering the story and I liked it. I also liked the new guys on the screen. It was cool when Han showed up it was a cool moment, but I did not like the complications with those other smugglers. While the conversation was fun and the action was kind of creative it felt unnecessary to me. Maybe shorten that scene and take more time for Finn, Rey, Han and Chewie to get to know each other. But that's just a minor complaint. It was alright and well the way it was done. I have not said anything about the bad guys. I definitely like Kylo Ren. People say he's whiny and while that can't be denied you could also say he is troubled. Which I think is a much better fit. He is also passionate about his goals and that is especially great since passion is sorta the essence of the dark side, but we mostly saw controlled and cunning Sith Lords. Snoke was a huge disappointment to me. (pun intended) He looks fake and like he would belong into a different movie like HP/LOTR/Avengers. Also he speaks of the ominous awakening and we can only guess he is talking about Rey. But what we don't know is why that would be so important. It seems like Rey has already been trained but has a lot of repressed memories/feelings. At least that is my explanation for her flashing when she touches the light saber and once again when Kylo says he would teach her. Also that explains why she could kick his ass all of a sudden. (Yes, I know he was injured but still...dark side user gets only stronger in pain. I mean he is punching his wound so he tries to use his pain.) Back to topic: Why would Rey embracing the force be a big thing? Luke is still a much more powerful force user. Also there have been other Jedi in training until Kylo killed them. So much about the bad guys and the title. When they get to Maz Kanata I was disappointed for the first time. I thought that awesome building was going to be Luke's old Jedi Temple where he tried and failed to rebuild the order. I hoped they would search for more clues on where to find him. Instead the movie changes it's destination at this point. It is no longer about finding Luke but about Kylo Ren and his parents. The first order attacks. Rey gets captured. Han and Leia reunite and we get the reveal that Kylo is their son. (Also that he trained with Luke. Cool, more of that please!) I would be okay with that change of direction if that would not have meant that the movie would seize to be about Luke. If maybe Kylo had succeeded in getting his info out of Rey and went with her to Luke's hideout. Instead they go to Starkiller Base. A third death star. Writing an original story would have been easier if they had the First Oder to anything else. But they went that way and now they had to do something creative with the third incarnation of that thing. But even that would not have been that hard to do actually. Maybe just have the evil guys just win this time. It was so weird. First they make the First Order so overpowered. Seemingly even stronger than the empire, even though the Empire was shattered at the End of ROTJ. And then you just let the Resistance win anyway again. That's not how you make me care. So they lost their mega weapon. I don't think Snoke was very impressed by that. Not even Hux was. This movie had no greater story. It should have been finding Luke or learning about Luke and Kylo's backstory. But that wasn't given to us. Instead we got to see Rey remembering her training without ever getting to know why she seems to have forgotten. And in addition we get another exploding planet death star, that nobody really cares about. This film was not about Jedi or sith. Not about the force all that much. We did not learn new stuff about the big schemes in the galaxy and we did not even learn about the backstory of the smaller new characters. There's a lot of action and it's a cool movie. But it's not much like Star Wars. The force indeed was asleep until the end of this movie.