Star Wars: The Force Awakens

This was supposed to be the triumphant return of the Star Wars saga, following up on Return of the Jedi and beginning a final trilogy of films, and...honestly...this movie isn't that great.

The story may sound familiar to you if you've seen the original Star Wars film from 1977. It follows a trio of new characters as they try to get a macguffin that is placed inside a droid away from the Empire, I mean, the First Order so the Rebellion, I mean, the Resistance can have a better chance to defeat them. The trio of heroes this time are Poe Dameron, a Resistance pilot played by Oscar Isaac, Finn, a defected First Order Stormtrooper played by John Boyega, and Rey, a scavenger who lives on the desert planet of Tatooine, I mean, Jakku, who is played by Daisy Ridley. Yes, they bring back Luke, Leia, and Han, played once again by Mark Hamill, Carrie Fisher, and Harrison Ford, and the villain this time is Darth Vader wannabe Kylo Ren, played by Adam Driver, but it feels like a rehash of the very first Star Wars film.

Now, the acting is generally pretty good, and the CGI and visuals are the best that the Star Wars series has seen yet but the writing is terrible. I didn't care about the characters at all. I was just there for the action, and while the action was a big part of the original trilogy, I still cared about the leads. Here they...are just kind of there, and they don't really stand out to me, even if the actors do good in the roles. I don't understand even what the purpose of this movie was, really, because it is so focused with homaging the original trilogy that it forgets to really have an identity of its own.

I wish there was more I could say, but honestly, there just really isn't much there with this movie. There are so many interesting directions it could have gone, and made a new identity for itself, but instead, it just decided to be the original trilogy all over again, and it really hurts the final product.

Next time, we get to see the Wizarding World before Harry Potter, even before Voldemort, as a magizoologist named Newt Scamander travels to New York in the 1920s and ends up having an interesting adventure. Keep an eye out for Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them.

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