Star Wars

Rating: 6/10 (18 December 2015)

I will not be one of those people that give this movie a "10" because they are blind to everything and want to hype the movie. I'm not going to give this movie a "1" to force everyone out of the clouds, and down rank this movie as much as I can. What I will say is that this movie falls short of a Star Wars fan that has watched all of the movies countless times. I give this movie a "6" because this movie wasn't absolutely terrible, but it fell short of the expectations that the previous movies bring. So let's go into why I feel this way.
First of all this movie was Star Wars. What do I mean by this? I mean it's Episode IV: A New Hope. For many of us the first film that was made is simply called Star Wars, and this movie was simply a rehash of the original story. For this reason I knew when I left the theater last night I wasn't going to give a score higher than 7. Go and watch Episode IV immediately prior to viewing this movie, and I'm sure that many of you will agree that the story has very close parallels to the original film. I came to this movie expecting a continuation of the story, not a rehash with new people.
The other big thing that I was not huge on was the fact that The First Order felt like they were in charge. Didn't the Empire get defeated? I'm pretty sure the Rebellion won, and they were rebuilding the Republic. Heck even in this film they talked about it as the Republic versus the First Order, but if a few planets get destroyed then the Republic is gone. Really? Many years pass after the Empire is defeated, and the Republic is still only a few planets? This made me feel like the events of Episode VI really didn't help much at all because the Republic is still just a small band of Rebels that aren't able to do much other than blow up big giant space stations.
Which leads me to my next big gripe. We have ANOTHER DEATH STAR. Come on. Seriously? Seriously? This has been done twice. I watched yet another movie with another Death Star. I guess that this one is better since it actually kills a Star, but I didn't really need to see another one of these things. It's like there's no way that the Empire (First Order) can be bad without having one of these things. I really wanted something more akin to Episodes II or III where the bad guys weren't using a space station that could destroy planets.
Lastly I believe that the cinematography of the film was far too different than the other films. I felt like I was on a roller coaster a lot, and I would have rather had an experience that was closer to the way the original movies were filmed. This was more a preference than anything else, but if you're going to continue a powerful story with more films I believe that you should stay true to the established cinematography rather than making it new/different.
Now on to the good things. Star Wars is back! I was excited to see the film, and it was good to see a couple of characters return. I would have liked to see more of some characters, but I understand that the story was going to continue without them in some areas. I did really like the bar scene that was akin to Episode IV expanding on the races that exist in the Star Wars universe.
Another thing I liked was the ability to see what Rey saw when she saw visions from the Force. Granted we saw this with Anakin in the early episodes, but it was not as vivid as what Rey saw. I was also pleased with seeing Rey discover things about the Force on her own.
I did really like Poe as well, and showing a fantastic fighter pilot was fun. Cheap thrills for sure, but it was fun and put a smile on my face.
Overall I would say that this was a decent movie, but I was relatively disappointed since the movie was greatly hyped up. I would recommend the movie to others, but I would have them go into the movie with the mindset of "remember your initial feelings of Episode I". I'm sure that given time I may come to like the film more, but my first initial impression was that of disappointment.