A scavenger and a stormtrooper team-up with old faces to find Luke Skywalker, the last remaining Jedi, while the ruthless First Order hunts them down.

Rating: 9/10 (19 December 2015)

Star Wars: The Force Awakens begins with its scrolling catch and hook synopsis that began almost 39 years ago with A New Hope, yet takes place 30 years after Return of the Jedi, George Lucas' finale to his original trilogy. It's an intro that we have become intimate with over the few decades since the Star Wars universe slid into our galaxy, offering up a wealth of novels, merchandise, and films, most notably the prequels that left the universe feeling a bit starless. Director J.J. Abrams doesn't just continue the familiarity of the introduction, he hearkens back to what A New Hope meant. By not only nodding to the original, Abrams interjects his film with an invigorating and exhilarating sense of spectacle and grandeur that fell apart with 1999's The Phantom Menace and its subsequent sequels. There is much of The Force Awakens that feels already established within the Star Wars canon, yet the abundance of novel and creative magic that explodes on screen is done so with a tenderly affectionate eye and delicate touch that turns the old into new and the new into everlasting memories.
Set three decades after the defeat of the Galactic Empire in 1983's Return of the Jedi, The Force Awakens tells us that Luke Skywalker has gone into hiding. A new threat known as The First Order has risen to challenge The Resistance, a band of Republic fighters both old and new. Before it's too late, they must find Luke before the powerful Kylo Ren (Adam Driver) discovers the whereabouts of the last Jedi fighter. What the 7th film shows us is the unlikely duo that forms out of survival, one a rogue Stormtrooper named Finn (John Boyega), the other a lone scavenger named Rey (Daisy Ridley). The course these two take to escape their own slow demise brings them on a path filled with old faces within a familiar framework, yet casts a light that illuminates an entirely fresh and stupendous story that jogs much needed gusto into a universe we've come to cherish.
While we may feel accustom to what J.J. Abrams shows us, it's done so with unflinching admiration for the mythos and elements of the original, feeling like a poetic and poised cinematic treasure that fans and filmgoers alike have been hoping for. A lone planet rests gently in the background as a shadow laden ship glides over our view point. A young, isolated, sand strewn figure gazes off into her dreams of adventure. A looming battle station obliterates planets in an exhibit of its power. These are all images and ideas we have seen before, but haven't felt any of them like this. There's a power to what unfolds in front of us, a power that rests firmly on cinema and the history of Star Wars, and why shouldn't it; The Force Awakens is neither a spin-off nor a new world, but a continuation of what brought the genre into the mainstream sphere. Abrams imbues his film with vibrancy, vitality and vigor while taking the original out for a walk, knowing exactly what made A New Hope tick in the first place.
X-Wings spin and T-Fighters scream across space as we are once again whisked away to a long, long time ago, and it couldn't feel better to be back. We jump from intimacy and nurture, to chaos and nature as those left fighting attempt to survive life. At the heart of the film are characters entrenched in the motions of life after war, which remains beating even as a new conflict begins. There's an energy that lives amongst our characters that tends to putter out when the battle takes to the sky, though the sheer scope and bombastic nature acts like a tractor beam, pulling us into each frame. It's when the fight hits the floor running that we not only get a clear-cut vision, but we explicitly feel.
Watching our agile scavenger Rey swiftly fight off two thieves on her home planet Jukko, The Force Awakens tells us that it isn't 1977 anymore, giving us the separation from our own gender ostracism that unfortunately liters films in more ways than is reasonably accountable. Early on we bear witness to an assault on a village by Stormtroopers, the only close-up of the many victims being a woman looking down the sights of a blaster. Abrams embraces the notion of strength, courage and command in women that sparked in A New Hope, unfortunately burning to ashes with a profusion of male domineering quips.
Rey is a spirited loner, and when she befriends Finn, it feels like nothing we have seen before within the Star Wars social structure. It adds radiance to the universe that is expanding in front of us, contrasting with the isolation that befalls our antagonist. When Kylo Ren finally captures Rey, he straps her down for interrogation, our view shifting from Daisy's line of sight back to a masculine view point. Extending his arm out, Ren begins to penetrate her mind with the force, diving deep into her cloaked thoughts, and forcing him inside her with an authoritative capacity. It's a scene of uncompromising power that evokes the rape and gender injustices of our current state, while causing Rey to overcome and emerge stronger, becoming a valuable and much needed symbol of our times.
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