2 Apr 2016

The Force Falls Asleep

by | posted in: Movie, Review | 13

Nearly forty years ago, I rode two separate buses to get from my house to a movie theater several towns away where the original Star Wars was playing. Since there were two theaters in downtown Rockville Centre, this was no common occurrence. Normally, I’d just go to one of the two, but for whatever reason Star Wars hadn’t made it there. This was a big event in the life of a fourteen year old kid. The movie had to be worth it.

And it was. Star Wars was fantastic, still my favorite in the series. Yes, I know fan-boys everywhere consider The Empire Strikes Back the best of the bunch, and it was also very good, but Star Wars was the first. It defined the world. And it was self-contained. It didn’t need another movie to complete it. We could argue all night about this, and some people do, but this isn’t a review of those two films; it’s a review of the latest, the seventh in the series, The Force Awakens.

The Force Falls Asleep
The Force Falls Asleep

Just like the fan-boys, I was awaiting its release. I wasn’t a fan of the three prequel movies, but that wasn’t going to dim my enthusiasm. Surely, they’d learned their lessons. (No Jar Jar Binks, please.) I wasn’t expecting it to be as good as any of the original three, including Return of the Ewoks, but I was expecting something fresh. After all, Star Wars invented the blockbuster space opera. This was its domain. Or was.

It’s hard to believe that some of the most creative minds in Hollywood sat around a table for days, weeks, probably months, and the best they could come up with for a climactic fight was a bigger death star. Are you kidding me? Not only that, but the Empire – oops, First Order – built this death star without having learned one lesson about how to protect them. Yes, that’s right. This death star had an Achilles’ heel, another open hole that an enterprising young fighter pilot could sling a proton torpedo into, just like Star Wars.

You would think that if they stole from the original trilogy, they’d figure out a way to improve it, tweak it, make it more interesting. Not a chance. Here’s another example: do you remember when in Return of the Jedi Han Solo, Leia, and Chewbacca had to take down the force field on Endor? Do you remember how much of a challenge that was? In this movie, it’s as easy as a walk in the park, or death star. Han and crew waltz right in, corral the first soldier they find, who just happens to know all the codes they need, and off they go. How convenient.

What else bugged me? How about this? R2-D2 slumbers nearly the whole movie, holding the one piece of information, a missing piece of map, needed to find Luke Skywalker. For some reason, R2 chooses the moment after all the danger has passed to wake up. Why not earlier? What does the destruction of the death star have to do with his torpor? It’s so silly.

Should I keep going? Like it or not, here’s another example: Kylo Ren, evil Sith, has spent a lifetime perfecting his knowledge of the Force and how to use a light saber, but the untrained Rey, who has never held one in her life, seems to have a superior command of the Force and is able to best him with a light saber. Come on. Really?

This latest “Star Wars” episode is a trite rehash of previous ideas poorly executed. Characters step over obstacles as lightly as summer puddles.   The plot proceeds along from checkbox to checkbox, ticking off one plot point after another by rote. Most of the new characters were ciphers. Oh, did I say I didn’t like it?

Too bad. I was looking forward to it. Worse than that, I’ll probably shell out my money for the next twenty-five iterations. What about you? Do you want to tell me how wrong I am?

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