My Force Awakens Review

This article has spoilers for The Force Awakens so if you have not seen the movie yet, then this isn’t the review you’re looking for.  You should go about your business.  Move along.  If you have seen the movie, then reading a recap of the story is pointless so I’ll get right into it.

The story is basically Episode IV with different characters.  I was surprised the story takes this route  It isn’t exactly original.  You have a secret that is stored in a droid with the Empire clone organization, complete with a Vader clone and an Emperor clone looking for it.  Meanwhile you have a hero stuck on a desert planet going nowhere until circumstances put her in the center of it all.  So we have a Luke Skywalker clone.  In this movie, Han Solo is the Obiwan clone.  He introduces our heroes to The Force, and even has is own death scene in which the Vader clone kills him.  We have a Death Star clone although this one is truly badass, as if the first version wasn’t, and we even have a few cloned characters from The Empire Strikes Back thrown in.  This includes, if not quite a Yoda clone, a character who resembles Yoda in function.  By the way, the alien Reggae at the castle was awesome!

Normally, if I see a movie with such an unoriginal story, I would can it.  I do like originality.  In this case, however, I will give it a pass.  In fact, I quite enjoyed it.  The only part I didn’t like was Solo’s death.  That sucks.  Hopefully he’ll somehow come back in the future.  But I’ve got a bad feeling about this.  OK, warning.  I’m going to rant just for a minute because I’m feeling really sorry for myself.  First Jon Snow dies!!  And now this!!!  Come on!!!! It has been a really bad year for beloved characters!!!!  All right.  I’m OK.  I have calmed down. . .more or less.

The heroic characters are likeable even if they are somewhat underdeveloped.  Star Wars does have a lot of action so you will always sacrifice some character development.  For example, Luke Skywalker sure became a badass Jedi in a short time without much training.  You have to accept a lot of gaps in character development in favor of a story told quickly. 

The movie has enough interesting unanswered questions to keep me wanting more.  For example, who is Supreme Leader Snoke?  He must be pretty powerful.  In my view, the answer to this is fairly straightforward.  I think it is Darth Plagueis.  Plagueis was Palpatine’s master whom Palpatine murdered in his sleep.  However, Darth Plagueis had mastered The Force to such an extent he was either able to bring people back to life, or was close to it.  He told Palpatine as much.  This is what Palpatine used to lure Anakin.  That is, Palpatine told Anakin that if Plagueis could get that close, there had to be a way.  Given that Qui-Gon-Jin figured out a way to continue on after his death, and that he taught Yoda and Obiwan, it stands to reason that someone as powerful as Plagueis figured this out as well.  We also see from the original movies that Obiwan and Yoda could manifest themselves in their own likeness and Anakin pulled it off as well.  In fact, in The Empire Strikes Back, Dead Obiwant has a normal conversation with Yoda and Luke and he does so in his own likeness.

Plagueis may have been able to go one step further and reanimate his own body, but even if he doesn’t do that, there is no reason to believe Plagueis could not manifest himself just as the other Jedi have done.  I would also point to Obiwan’s last words to Darth Vader in Episode 4 that if Vader struck him down he (Obiwan) would become more powerful than Vader could imagine. 

Given Dead Obiwan’s extensive interactions with Luke, there is no reason to suppose Plagueis couldn’t do the same with Ben Solo, aka Kylo Ren. 

The book contains a very telling scene not present in the movie.  I’m assuming it was part of the original screen play but which did not make the final cut.  In this scene, Snoke has an intimate conversation with Ren in which he tells Kylo Ren he has never had a student like him before made of such strong and pure Force material.  He then states this is because he has both light and dark within him.  This shows that Snoke has trained students before.  This, in itself, doesn’t mean he is Darth Plagueis, but when you combine this with all of the other clues, Darth Plagueis seems the most likely candidate for Snoke.

Another question is who is Rey?  I subscribe to the Luke’s daughter theory which is already popular among fandom.  The timeline needs to be worked out, something Lucas did not do well for Revenge of the Sith but I think it fits.  Assuming Han and Leia got busy after the fall of the Empire, and given The Force Awakens occurs 30 years after Return of the Jedi, let’s say Ren is 28 when the movie takes place.  For Rey to be a little girl when Ben Solo did his act of betrayal, as the flashback scene indicates, then Ben Solo could have been 19 or 20 when he did his evil act and Rey could have been nine or 10.  That would fit.  So we’ll say Rey is nine years or ten years younger than Ben Solo.

Since Luke did not have a love interest during Return of the Jedi, this would give Luke time to acquire a love interest, and perhaps have a child.  The problem with this theory is you would think Han and Leia would know of Luke’s daughter.  There is a scene in the movie, though, where Leia and Rey have a long embrace.  So there may be something there which they know, that we don’t.  Everything else points to Rey being Luke’s daughter.

As for Finn, we don’t know his family.  He could be an entirely new character without any ties to the past.  It does seem, though, that he might have Force powers too.  What if he is related to Mace Windu?  Now that would be really cool, and it could be the case.  He was taken from a family he will never know.  He was somehow different from all of the other Storm Troopers.  So who knows, maybe he is a nephew.  Keep in mind that Mace Windu would also have been separated from his family at a young age so it’s not like the Empire would have tracked the family. 

I only had one annoying plot problem.  In the final fight scene between Rey and Kylo Ren, even when using The Force, Rey should not have been able to best Kylo.  Kylo had some training after all, presumably from a Sith.  His Force powers should have been stronger.  Perhaps he was distracted with trying to figure out who she really was.  He does seem to have held himself back.  But he wouldn’t have allowed himself to be at death’s door by her hand regardless.  I am no master swordsman, but I have trained with the sword for a number of years and I know for a fact that a trained person has a massive advantage over an untrained one.  I remember once at college demonstrating this point by taking on five guys at once.  One of the five had just started learning sword fighting, while the others had never held one before.  We had practice swords.  The five guys surrounded me and I took them all out in about 10 to 15 seconds without any difficulty.  They couldn’t believe it.  One minute they were hacking at me with practice blood lust.  The next minute they were on the ground nursing some bruises. Thus, Kylo Ren’s sword play does not reflect well on Snoke’s training.  But then, maybe the light saber is not his thing.

Otherwise, the movie was fast paced.  It had a lot of action, and it had some great dramatic moments.  When Han and Leia see each other again after their breakup, I had a lump in my throat.  By the way, aside from Solo dying, the fact he and Leia broke up sucks too.  It’s perfectly understandable, but Return of the Jedi left us with a happily ever after romance which I liked, being a softy romantic at heart.  But now we know they didn’t live happily ever after.  Given what their son did, it makes sense they had to deal with things in their own way.  They did hug before Solo died though, so it was nice to see they still loved each other. 

Also, the father-son reunion between Han and Kylo Ren (Ben) was a powerful scene as well.  I remember thinking that Kylo Ren’s plea for help was too easy and even though this movie copied so much from A New Hope, I was surprised when he stuck the light sabre right through Han.  As I said before, that really sucked. 

BB-8 provided just enough cuteness.  We didn’t see the over-the-top Jarjar Binks attempt at cuteness.  BB-8 provided just enough.  The special effects were fantastic and the good old tried and true good versus evil was simple but effective.

If someone had leaked to me that this storyline would be Episode IV with new characters, I would have reacted with trepidation.  But I came out of The Force Awakens quite satisfied and wanting more.  Part of me wants Kylo Ren brought back to the light.  Another part wants someone to wring that brat’s neck for what he has done. 

And I think that’s the way I’m supposed to fee about him.  With the Republic home world destroyed, thanks to the whatever this latest planet killer is called, there should be enough chaos and adventure for any diehard and new Star Wars fan alike.  And I’ll be there to see it all.

One final thing.  Anyone who has read the books will know there is a substantial departure from the basic plot.  Han and Leia don’t seem to have had three children as in the books.  But they did borrow from them in that their son goes Dark Side on them.  I’m OK with this.  Some of the books are really good, while some are pretty bad.  There’s no way they could or should have followed the books exactly, but so long as they have Luke start a new Jedi academy and keep the story interesting, I’m fine with the departure.

In a word, I loved The Force Awakens and it’s not just because Hayden Christensen wasn’t in it.  The story was good, if somewhat unoriginal.  The action was great, and I’m interested in what happens next.