Star Wars 7 – Semi-Spoilery Review

Image Source: Bloom County 2015

I don’t intend to reveal any big plot details here, but there are some of you who seem to think that any minor detail is a spoiler. If this is you, maybe wait till after you’ve seen the movie, though I suspect if you haven’t seen it by now, you’re in the same camp I am.

I saw The Force Awakens Christmas day at the Gateway Film Center. The experience was very pleasant. I arrived 45 minutes early with my wife, and we had our pick of seats. The theater at time of showing maybe had 40-50 people. I wore my “Yoda Man” shirt, the extent to which I dress up for movies. For the record, the only movie I have ever gone “in costume” to was Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. I brought a towel, and it rained, making the towel a useful accessory.

My wife and I discussed the movie a bit after seeing it, so what you’re getting here is a rough consensus of the two of us.

• Far better than the prequels. On par with the original trilogy, though maybe not better.
• If A New Hope was made in 2015, it would be this movie.
• At times, it was more buddy action comedy than space opera. A lot of 2015 vernacular “Did you see that?”, “We can do this!”. Not necessarily a bad thing.
• It felt very “J. J. Abrahms” movie-ish. Again not a bad thing. The man can’t resist the number 47.
• BB8 was not as stupid as he looked in the trailers. Maybe not R2D2, but still a good droid.
• Harrison Ford had on his A-game like we haven’t seen from him in years.
• Carrie Fisher did a lot better than I personally was expecting.
• The main villain was … a bit emo. Think young Severus Snape in appearance and Tobey Maguire in Spiderman 3 for affect. But there’s some interesting possibilities for development. Maybe keep your helmet on.
• The reveal of the main villain’s identity was a bit early.
• We liked all the new people. I wanted more Oscar Isaac, and Daisey Ridley of course kicked butt.
• Star Wars aliens have little point other than to look cool. Aside from the Wookies we don’t know much about their civilizations. Do you know what race Yoda is, or what happened to it as evidently he seems to be the only one left? That said, the level of CG indulgence was taken down many levels from the prequels and the few CG characters were actually pretty good. I even liked the one “hippo-ish” thing at the watering hole. You’ll know it when you see it.
• This movie got back to first principles of what Star Wars is. For good or for ill. I have heard people talk some about moral ambiguities, but frankly I think this movie was more centered on clear good and clear evil than ever before.
• Lightsaber battles in snowy woods are cool.
• We laughed, we enjoyed the movie, and left talking about it which I haven’t been able to say for the last couple of films I’ve seen and crazily anticipated. (I’m looking at you X-Men: Days of Future Past).
• We’re still Trekkies. Sorry.

What were your thoughts?