Surrogate Star Wars: Competent but shallow trope-fest fails to recapture magic of originals

Rating: 6/10 (16 December 2015)

There is an essence of Star Wars that has made it more than just a film, but rather the dominant myth of our culture. That is the promise of adventure, the depth of its world, and the resonance of its central drama and spiritual struggle. All these can transcend shoddy dialogue, pat storytelling, and intermittent tonal missteps.
With its evocative title, in the opening scenes The Force Awakens promises to rediscover the magic, if mainly because these are new characters in fresh settings. The interaction between the winsome Boyega, Ridley and BB8, while basic, is spirited, and the still- masked Kylo Ren promises to be a nuanced, powerful presence. An entire galaxy awaits.
But the moment Harrison Ford walks into the Millennium Falcon – to applause of recognition from the first-night audience - all the possibilities are extinguished.
Suddenly, we are watching an unsolicited tag-on to a story that has already been told. What were once heroes in their prime going through the most vital moments of their lives, are now physically unconvincing pensioners, caked in make-up and CGI, reliving them in a manner that appears forced, sorry, and vaguely undignified. The protagonists of the original trilogy could have been an alluring myth on the outskirts of the narrative, or shuttled in for an effective cameo – nostalgic or heroic – but placing them at the heart of the new film constricts and misshapes it.
With Han, Leia and Luke on-board, the plot sets a familiar course, though having to accommodate both old and new protagonists and stories within the scope of one film, the pacing and structure are often jumpy, and the set ups and payoffs lack dramatic weight. More generally, with its endless inter-generational family dramas and ever-bigger Death Stars to be destroyed through the exploitation of an engineering vulnerability, the main storyline of Star Wars risks collapsing into self-parody. A scene such as Kylo Ren praying to the desiccated helmet of Darth Vader, is written to summon a chill of history, and gasps of awe, but could as easily elicit pretension- bursting laughter.
Yet the film's creators do not shy away from the tropes, but embrace them. George Lucas – he of the "rhyming stanzas" – could claim proud ownership of the tiresome symmetries, plot recycling and continuity porn of The Force Awakens. But Chewbacca, cantinas, solo enemy base escapes, the Millennium Falcon do not bring back the feeling of Star Wars, and instead every new laboured coincidence introducing familiar elements only makes the galaxy seem smaller, and diminishes that lure of the unknown that made the original trilogy what it is.
But the new elements the makers of The Force Awakens have brought to the saga also show that they appear to have an unsteady grasp of the fundamental appeal of the old films. Formally, director JJ Abrams studiously avoids the CGI-heavy feel of Episodes I to III, replicating the physical presence of the originals. Yet he also adds a gloss and a busyness to the proceedings that strips Star Wars of its depth, something Lucas always strove towards, even when he was unable to skilfully establish it. We visit several worlds, but there is little wonder, as plot dominates over atmosphere. There is no time for binary sunsets, or the swamps of Dagobah here, and as a result world of the film seems shallower, almost consciously so, with greater emphasis on the diet of wisecracks and blaster shots.
In fact, the unpropitious mix of the old and the new, brings nothing so much to mind as fan fiction, or a lesser Star Wars game. The film seems over-familiar and full of fanservice, but also strangely "off" – off-brand and off-kilter - parsecs away from the authentic soul of the saga.
As an experience, The Force Awakens is not unenjoyable, though it seems less fun the longer it goes on, and those fans enthusiastically cheering every familiar object in the first half, gave only a half-hearted smattering of applause at the end. But it fails, and barely tries to live up to the promise of Star Wars.
Heavy narrative baggage, and endless outside commercial and production considerations do not necessarily align with making the best Star Wars movie possible. And while it is evident that the film was made with painstaking effort, the restrictions those behind it placed on themselves were too great to craft an enchanting new story. The makers of The Force Awakens will see it as transitional episode, and hope that the young characters will truly take flight in the next episode and beyond, but the tractor beam of the past may be too strong, and their thrusters too underpowered.