Decades after the end of the Empire, a new force - the First Order - has arisen from its ashes.
A resistance movement has also arisen to fight it.
On a distant desert planet, young scavenger Rey (Daisy Ridley) stumbles upon a rebel droid BB8, and an ex-Storm Trooper, Fin (John Boyega), who are trying to get back to the resistance with news of the missing Jedi master, Luke Skywalker…
The Star Wars sequel trilogy has only been over for a few years, but it feels longer. Part of it is COVID, part of it is probably the memory-holing of the internet, and the complete absence of Star Wars from the big screen.
I have not watched any of the streaming shows, so I am probably more distant to these movies than the fanbase.
Now that this chapter of Star Wars is over, it is fascinating to look back on the sequel trilogy, and the anthology films which bracketed their release.
When The Force Awakens came out, I went to see it with friends. I was about 15 years past caring about the Wars, so I was coming in purely as a spectator.
At the time, I thought it was fun, but I found it hard to remember much from it.
This is the first time I have watched it since it came out, and…
I still think it is a fun movie.
I was expecting to come away with something more concrete, but this movie is fun.
It is as light as a feather, with a story and scene of scene construction that do not work, but it is all carried away by its makers’ sense of pace and fun.
The film is also aided, nay amped up, by amazing casting.
One can knock JJ Abrams all they want but his eye for casting, and especially ensemble casting, is unimpeachable.
Ridley and Boyega in particular are instant movie stars.
Boyega had a little more cache from Attack the Block, but he is like a master juggler here, managing Fin’s rapid shift from tormented traitor to Rey’s goofy lovelorn friend.
On the page, the character might read as a bit of a jumble of different motivations, but Boyega makes the confection feel like a person - he is like a former cult member getting to embrace the world and his own mental freedom.
The movie is in such a rush, and has to service so many characters that Fin’s journey gets lost a bit in the shuffle (a journey derailed by the sequels).
In her first lead role, Daisy Ridley is instantly the centre of the movie. She leaves such a stamp on her first scenes, in which we see Rey living by herself
These scenes also feel like a riposte to the prequels. She lives by herself as an indentured servant, surviving on literal scraps.
The beginning of the movie has some great moments of character set up. And that’s kind of all the movie has.
The film always feels like it is just starting.
Almost as soon as we bring Finn and Rey together, then we go on a quest plot.
But unlike the Star Wars that precede it, The Force Awakens suffers from the same problem as JJ Abrams’ other projects.
He is in such a rush to gratify the audience - with action, with jokes, with big dramatic moments - that there is no sense of a story building.
It means the characters remain static, and the stakes are somewhat vague.
We get the destruction of a solar system and it picks none of the impact of the similar scene in A New Hope.
It is hard to not criticise the film for being a photocopy of 1977’s Star Wars. I remember Film Crit Hulk offering an incisive analysis of the ways in which this fails on a basic story-telling and character-building level.
While I did not go back and read that piece, I left the movie feeling unfulfilled
Ridley, Boyega and Oscar Isaac are great
They are magnetic to watch
But who are they?
Rey is stuck on a planet as an indentured servant - forced to pay for daily food rations by hauling scraps for parts.
Finn has the most interesting set up of these new leads - a stormtrooper traumatized by war, and finally free to make his own choices.
People can throw shots at the next movie all they want, but I can track where each character starts and ends up.
There is a definition to the characters that this movie only hints at. Here, it feels like they are being pushed along by plot.
It also feels like a bunch of Star Wars fans excited to get to hang out with Han Solo.
Harrison Ford is game, but his role feels abridged.
At the time, I remember being underwhelmed by the new antagonists, particularly Kylo Ren wearing a mask and speaking in a modulated voice.
It feels like the movie is cosplaying the Empire.
But that seems intentional - and has ended up feeling like an echo of contemporary issues.
It is hard not to watch Domhnall Gleeson’s ranting speech and preening and think of the puffed up machismo of the online manosphere, or the gravy seals showing up at protests with M16s and body armour.
If Rey, Fin and Poe are rebel fans, the First Order are Empire fanboys.
This is looking ahead to future movies, but it makes sense that a group of Empire fans would fall under the sway of a creepy old force user like Snock. It also goes along with the previous trilogies, and the way in which the narrative and characters echo each other.
Flawed though it is, it is hard not to have fun with The Force Awakens.
But there is a fundamental conservatism to the film’s story choices that is frustrating.
I have not watched the prequels since they came out, and I was not keen to revisit them. But even while they are setting the scene, the filmmakers are trying to chart new territory.
The Force Awakens is a cinematic reaction to those movies. Aside from a great cast and some intriguing characters, it is obsessed with looking backwards.
It is an attitude that would continue to plague the sequels era.
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