Star Wars roars back to life

Rating: 8/10 (4 March 2017)

The fate of a foot soldier, an ageing pirate (and his loyal sidekick), a young girl, a star pilot and the leader of an enemy army, all collide and intertwine in this highly anticipated return of the Star Wars series.
It was with apprehension that I approached The Force Awakens. Having invested a great deal of expectation and anticipation into the prequels during my formative adult years, I approached TFA with a sense of withdrawal. This stemmed from the fear I have that any amount of hype would eventually just leave me in another state of devastation and possible resignation to the knowledge that our heroes (George Lucas, I'm looking at you) will always remain all too human, a state which I have never quite recovered from. Well TFA has somehow restored my faith in movie-making, and possibly in life itself, from the first moment when the words "A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away" appeared, to the second when the ubiquitous blue credits started rolling at the end. For the whole duration I was taken back to my youth, more specifically, the heady days of the early nineties, not to a time when I yearned for adventure and sought mystical powers to defeat my enemies, but to a time when all that I demanded from certain sci-fi adventure movies was that they were as good as Star Wars.
TFA is most certainly a movie that can stand quite proudly amongst the original trilogy. J.J Abrams vision shows a director who has a deft eye for the spectacular whilst equally comfortable paying homage to his predecessors. A good clue to this movies retro roots is in the title itself, "The Force Awakens", the director J.J Abrams definitely reclaims the power and mysticism of 'the force'. In the prequels "the force" became a throwaway trope, everybody had the force in the prequels and it was used so flagrantly that we forgot it's true intangible qualities. In TFA, as the name suggests 'the force' is used sparingly, but to great effect (there was one particular scene where I had to fight the urge to applaud in the cinema). J.J Abrams clearly understands the text that he has be given along with it's wider fandom, and rather than shrink, he has rose to the occasion and brought us something great, spectacular and touching epochal.
In terms of story telling, the characters of Rey and Finn carry the lions share of the plot, whilst characters such as Han Solo, Chewbacca and Princess Leia return to add some much appreciated gravitas to proceedings. Also there should be a mention for the actor Adam Driver playing the latest antagonist Kylo Renn. Driver plays this role well and is convincing in his troubled persona, appearing evil yet at the same time angst ridden. In previous instalments both Anakin Skywalker and Darth Vader carried this duality inside of them, but Kylo Renn truly embodies this fear (and rage) as an integral part of his character. Through his portrayal of Kylo Renn, Driver elevates what could have so easily been a poor mans Darth Vader to a character that is fresh and suitably imperious.
Now to address some of the criticisms directed at the movie. Some may argue that rather than paying homage TFA is in effect a reboot/re-telling of the original trilogy, twists and turn and all, WITH the inclusion of a Death Star and a masked villain who has more than a passing resemblance to Darth Vader. You could even go further and say that whole characters along with their personality traits have been cut and pasted from the original trilogy and plonked square onto a whole host of characters in TFA. Whilst this is undeniable and some might argue all too obvious, the only defence that I can give to this is that TFA is the first of a new trilogy. The faint whiff of a movie making process that is hedging it's bets on how to develop it's character, and what direction to take it in, has not quite come about fully formed.
To take it to another discussion I think Hollywood has learnt that introducing new characters to a well known and beloved movie series (I hate the term franchise) can be a precarious one, Jar Jar Binks being the go to model of new characters that did not quite resonate with an audience. So it is very likely that the writers erred on the side of caution and made certain characters from TFA a composite of what was great about previous characters in the original/prequels. Is it noticeable, yes, is it enough to distract and cause this audience member to cry foul, no.
Ultimately, once all the analysis has been done, The Force Awaken succeeds in reinvigorating and restoring the lustre of the original trilogy. A lustre that had been besmirched by the god awful George Lucas prequels. It has been noted by many commentators that the prequel trilogy was too explanatory, telling the story in a way which was both lacking in subtlety, yet somehow at the same time convoluted and bogged down in some civil war/trade politics that nobody could quite explain nor care for. The Force Awakens dispenses with all the faux political subtexts that effectively ruined the prequels and takes the story back to the heart of the original trilogy. That heart being the story of an everyday young hero longing for adventure, who is then taken on a fantastical journey and on the way meet an unlikely crew of bandits and mis-fit companions. Eventually said hero discovers that their life not only has a higher purpose, but that greatness is, and always has been inherent within them. It's a story as old as story telling itself, but when done right, it hits the mark every time.