Anne of Green Gables in Space

Rating: 2/10 (21 December 2015)

Does it feel like Star Wars? No. Wonder what Star Wars would look like fast paced & gritty with hard colour grading, editing, & angle shots? You know, like Star Wars fan films? It's filmed in JJ style. Lucas used mostly flat & face shots. Yes it's static way of filming, but it is also a very classic way. It lets you focus on the richness of the scene. Everything was so streamlined in Force Awakens that it felt like a cheap 3D amusement park ride.
But how were the characters? Rey? Daisy Ridley is wonderful, but sadly she's written as a Mary Sue. Literally every action she does is: showing up the boys. & I mean every. single. action. There are at least 28 moments..... in the film where they directly show this to you, then do a camera wink nod - she can take care of herself. But I love her charisma and my "only hope" is to see her in other things besides Disney Star Wars.
Ohh Finn. The new Jar Jar Binks. Ohh wait, Jar Jar actually had a strong character arch & came from a creative well designed species with incredible alien technology. What was Finn? -He gets TRAUMATIZED when his storm trooper friend dies -He frees the man who killed his friend -He murders his fellow troopers on watch patrol....all while LAUGHING........to go AWOL What?????? What's more? They remove Boyega's beautiful SouthLondon accent & make him talk like....a "typical" American. Yes they go out. Even giving him cringe lines like "H3LL NO" and "DROID PLZ" (seriously. they actually put an n-word joke in STAR WARS). Just every typical Hollywood Trope you can imagine. He was a clown buffoon saved by Rey every scene they are together. What's more, his fake US accent is horrible and sounds HOARSE while yelling (which he does a lot). If you thought Anakin and Padme were awkward in the prequels, baby you ain't seen nothing yet. Wow. Do Boyega and Daisy have good chemistry irl? Absolutely! But it's lost when you change accents. Typical Hollywood fare, changing accent for zero reason. It's not convincing to native speakers of the accent. Stop.
Onto design The new Storm troopers look horrendous, okay. We have to see so much of them, and it's these goofy gigantic duckfaces. They also seem to be composed of pure eggshell white nonreflective bristol board.
Lucas exercised a level of Quality Control over Lucasfilm that is now gone. JJ was given Kasdan, Williams, & Struzan. Keys to the kingdom. But what does he do? Sat like a giddy fan-boy, letting them "do their magic". Lucas certainly didn't. He micro managed. The results are obvious.
TFA John Williams score: mediocre
TFA Drew Struzan poster: mediocre
TFA Lawrence Kasdan script: rehash
Experiment made! And the results are...guess what! It really was Lucas' genius that pulled together his 6 films. Lucas even added all of the good elements to Empire Strikes Back. Yes, George Lucas.
another thing, Lucas' Star Wars were loaded with just BIZARRE quirkiness. so much The closest this movie got was BB-8 is traveling at night and the Alien pops up before the screen wipe. Had Lucas made this film, it would have followed BB-8 through the desert and focused on his strange Alien encounters. Like most Hollywood movies, the Aliens are mere cameo props shown for a "weird" gag, not major forces in the narrative
In Conclusion...Star Wars Episode 7 The Force Awakens is THE worst SW film and below every prequel. Lucas said it is "not his story", meaning Not Canon. The closest thing we can get to his treatments are the EU material that yes, still did go across his desk
So please. Don't insult me this fan service JJ fest. Blips. Tiny references. Blowing up Coruscant. Death Star 3 (destroyed in the most passionless way imaginable) With Lucas there was exploration, richness. Now we know why he left the project. Those people didn't understand. It's about Imagination. Wonder. Pushing Boundaries.
Never again will we have wild NEW RISKS like a muppet kungfu master...giant gangster worm who chains up women in bikinis..forest kingdom of man eating bears...outer-worldly pod-racing...arena monsters/catacombs...kamino facilities...downtown courosaunt Any of that. It's just ripoff the originals time. Even Geonosis, also a desert planet, was completely fresh under Lucas's supervision, unlike Jakuu *cough* Tatooine 2.0
Tarkin > Hux
Emperor > Snoke
Boba Fett > Phasma
Darth Vader > Kylo Ren
Darth Maul,General Grevious,Count Dooku too all of these villains remained completely original unlike the bit variations in TFA.
Sadly with Kathleen Kennedy ... quality control lack extends to everything. SW Battlefront, Novels, Comics, everything. She's not an artist & doesn't have Lucas' mind for approving design. and remember, this is Disney, so NO SPACE BATTLES.
speaking of that tensionless lazy Starfighter battle.. Just wow. Even the original A New Hope had Y-Wings to the mix. Each installment added different ship designs. In the sequels had the Mon Calimari Ships, Super Star Destroyers, Frigates. ROTJ introduced A-Wings and Tie-Interceptors. But here we have Only X-Wings and Tie-Fighters....lame. Oh they put a red stripe on them and the lead X-Wing is black. Congratulations. Want WONDER? here's a paint job and a Shiny storm trooper. Enjoy! Give. Me. A Break!
*sigh* it looks like Star Wars is over. I did not enjoy this film one bit. I was bored by the nothing because there was nothing. I followed this film for an entire year. What we're given is an MCU level film. A film that is not re-watchable or even cohesive. I have no desire to watch it again. Why would I? For what? It's a forgettable movie with nothing creative to feed the imagination. It's Hollywood.
You made me appreciate George Lucas that much more.