Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens

2015 start to the third Star Wars trilogy. Much anticipated, despite the reputation of the prequel trilogy and in part due to the successful marketing campaign that got everybody excited, with good trailers and a promising cast/crew.
==First watch (19th December 2015)==
===Format===
English with Japanese subtitles, at Aeon Cinema in Ota.
===Journal===
My family were obviously planning to go and see it, and we booked tickets to go at midnight on Wednesday December 16th for the first showing, at Cineworld in Sheffield. Matthew and Darren and Sandra and Luke and Sarah and Ed would all be there. However, I got a job in Japan starting that same Wednesday, so I had to leave the country on the 14th.
The film came out in Japan on Friday the 18th but only for one showing, and I was working at that time, so I didn't go until the first showing on Saturday the 19th, at 10am Japan time. There was a complicated system for booking online which I couldn't figure out, so I just turned up hoping I'd be able to ask and explain that I wanted to see it in English, but I figured it would have booked out for the whole weekend. Luckily they weren't and the 10am showing was in English, so I was straight in and sat down before I knew it.
I enjoyed watching it, and came out with a positive feeling, but there was also quite a bit I wasn't keen on. I thought the character concepts were all really interesting, but that the acting wasn't always quite up to scratch. Rey's line delivery was sometimes a bit off, Finn didn't really portray an 'indoctrinated by birth, never knew any other way of life' mentality, Poe was I guess meant to be the new Han Solo rogueish type but didn't have enough screentime (although I still got to like him in the short time he had), Kylo Ren was a bit of a whiny loser, Han doesn't seem to have made any progress whatsoever and just reappeared in his old role, but older. I also didn't think much to the music while I was watching it, but listening to it since there are some good bits.
I thought the coincidences throughout the film were edging on intolerable. The whole 'map to Luke' plotline was ridiculous - we've got the map to Luke! Oh no, it's just a part of it, it's no good! And it doesn't match any known part of the galaxy! Oh R2 woke up 5 minutes before the end with no foreshadowing with a complete map of the galaxy minus literally exactly this part! Yay we found Luke just in time for the next movie!
I thought the Starkiller Base was silly and it was weird that they just went with 'let's do another Deathstar'. I mean, I know the characters lampshade that, but it didn't redeem itself. They literally just had another giant base to blow up, and literally just did that for the climactic film ending. So I wasn't a fan, and now I'm just looking at Starkiller Base critically and poking holes in it. How do you turn a literal planet into a literal machine like that? You can't make components that big, the gun bit should have been constructed out of millions of loosely arranged smaller parts or something. How did the remnants of the Empire manage to make something insanely larger than the Deathstars? How is it that some band of baddies can make something that literally blows up the 5 most important planets of the Republic? They destroyed 5 central planets of the galaxy and I really wasn't that moved by it. Everyone got to watch from their respective planets as the beam shot across their skies. Were all these planets in the same bit of space or something?
Not to mention that it's not even that clear who this First Order are, or where the Republic is, or how this whole situation came about.
Anyway, I liked the central ideas, the scavenger Rey and the ex-Stormtrooper Finn, and Han and Leia's relationship falling apart after their son fell to the dark side and both of them going back to their old ways, and Luke buggering off. The opening crawl presented an uncomplicated plot hook which is fine by me. I enjoyed watching it, as I said, and I'm definitely interested in where it's going to go next.
===Rating===
1
==Second watch==
Went to see it one night in the same format at the same cinema. Can't remember much about the second viewing. I think it was fairly soon after the first, and didn't change my opinion of it.
==Third watch (27th February 2016)==
===Format===
As before, in 2D at Aeon Cinema on Ota.
===Journal===
After 2 months of absorbing podcasts, videos, reviews, score, etc etc, I decided I would go and see it again before it stopped being shown at the cinema.
Interestingly, this time almost all of my previous objections vanished. I wasn't bored at any point (I thought the Han Solo/Falcon/rathtars chapter would bore me), and I found myself thinking of satisfactory explanations for most of the stuff that wound me up before. Like Han being useless - we're meeting him at the end of his time as a hero. He's lost it, and the encounter we witness is one where he loses. And BB8's map being partial, and R2 waking up suddenly with the rest - perhaps Luke planned it all. Created a map which would lead to him, put one part in the chip BB8 gets, and the rest in R2 who's hibernating until this point. And so on.
It's a great fun movie. Not great, technically, I don't think, but that's JJ Abrams (and maybe Star Wars) for you. Spectacle and fun, not depth and cinematography.
The music's great too.
===Rating===
2
==Fourth watch (July 2019)==
===Format===
At home
===Journal===
It was fun and I liked the characters, but I couldn't help feeling like it's just a bit silly and simple in a lot of ways, and Rey could probably have done with having some weaknesses, like I thought it would be good if she found the cold weather on Starkiller Base crippling (having lived her whole life in the desert), rather than just ignoring it. I know she does react to the green of Takodana, but she literally walks out into the snow without a jacket (despite them making a point of Han Solo needing one) and doesn't even comment on it. She even beats Kylo Ren in it, after lying unconscious while he fights Finn, still in her desert clothes. Meanwhile, Luke nearly dies on Hoth because of the cold.
I still 100% hate Starkiller Base, almost everything about the First Order, and R2D2 waking up at the end with no explanation to complete the map.
But I do like Rey and Finn and Poe and Kylo Ren. I noticed this time that Finn and Rey have a conversation similar to Rey and Ben's in The Last Jedi, in which she tries to agree on a bond with someone, but neither party can bridge the gap between them, so she accepts that she must remain alone.
===Rating===
1
Category:Star Wars films
Category:2010s films
Category:Science fiction films
Category:Films watched in 2015
Category:Films watched in 2016
Category:Films with 1 rating
Category:Films with 2 rating