So, it's a wonderful movie, but what the heck is sci-fi about it?

Rating: 9/10 (27 December 2015)

Before anyone suspects me of not liking it (even though I already rated it 9/10), I've got to start by saying this one might be the best of the entire saga thus far, and I did like all the previous episodes. I think this one brings together all the best elements of the Star Wars franchise, that is the biggest comics saga of the modern age, the best characters written for such a saga, grand scale CG and a great story of the fight between good and evil, inside the human hearts and outside among all living beings.
All that, is very impressive in my book, and I do love it, but I can't help getting annoyed by the repeated references to the Star Wars saga as a sci-fi saga. Ever since it hit the screens for the first time with episode IV I've been wrecking my brain to find anything scientific about it. Look at Ender's Game, at Jupiter Ascending, you don't have to like the movies to see that somewhere at their core there's a scientific issue driving the story, whether it is the idea of future wars being fought on computer screens, and what will it do to warfare, or the idea that biogenetics could push us into a future of relating to people as nothing more than a gene pool. Look at Blade Runner or Total Recall, once again a real scientific issue at their very core.
Nothing of the sort exists in Star Wars, they do have light sabers, laser blusters light speed flight, and all sorts of robots. but those are just external gadgets, none of them drives the story. The driving force beyond the story is the Force, and the Force is not science, not even remotely. The Force is some kind of a psychic power, more magical than anything else. It does have deep moral aspects, it does bring out the idea that having next to unlimited power can be a great means of corruption, just like it can be great means for good. But, there's no way this is science. This is sci-fi comics, like Superman, Spiderman, Flash Gordon, and loads of other comics, but the sci-fi elements of sci-fi comics do not drive the story, they simply extend the range of possible variations. Only X-Men, where the origin story of the heroes grew into a combination of a moral issue and a scientific question - how will human's fear of the unknown explode if human mutation did create a new generation of super beings, only there did sci-fi comics becomes a real sci-fi story. Star Wars doesn't, but it's a great series all the same. And The Force Awakens, is my favorite episode of the lot.