2015 Movie Review: #1 Star Wars: The Force Awakens (Spoilers)

There has been an Awakening. Have You Felt It?

In my life time, I have never felt how big of an impact this movie was for many people around the world.

Over the past decade we have seen super hero movies take off, but this was a time for nerds like me to cheer at the fact we get 2-3 super hero films each year. 

But Star Wars, is Star Wars there is no comparison. To the line ups and packed theaters, to the cheering as we read "From a galaxy far, far away..." To the appearance of the Millennium Falcon, to Han Solo and Chewy.... If you had not watched Star Wars ever before, by sitting in on the opening night and watching with others, you can feel it. 

Movie Review: 

And so we begin... The crawl was back! Unlike the long history text book like crawls of episodes 1-3 this crawl was amazingly simple and that was perfect. 

There was a lot of homage paid to Star Wars the original trilogy. I respected, it was nice to finally be back in the Star Wars Universe and feel a certain familiarity to it and yet be about different characters, but perhaps... a similar Story?

"The garbage will do..."

Like many, I had tears when I first saw a CAM version of the "Chewy... We're Home" moment at the Star Wars Celebration event, hearing it again in the movie gave me a tremendous smile and cheer to others around me.  

As a whole, Star Wars the Force Awakens  was about a girl named Rey waiting her family to return. However, as it turns out like most things in life, you must go out and get it and this was the beginning of Rey's journey. 

The similarities to Luke in The New Hope is similar, and overall the feeling this movie gave off was oddly familiar to the original, and that definitely was not a bad thing. Others pointed it out and were kind of put off by that but I feel this was perfect, just different enough. 

Kylo'Ren, was perhaps the biggest surprise as a character. I liked how conflicted he was and still is. You can sense that he is unsure of what path he should take, HOWEVER, he killed his father, Han Solo (Is he really dead? I'll have that small faded hope). Will Kylo'Ren ultimately turn all to the Dark Side? Will he turn like Vader did in an act of redemption? 

As the movie ends with Rey finding Luke, and ends on the cliff top. The movie concluded and what I loved about it was that there are still so many questions unanswered... Who is Rey? Is Luke her father? Solo's Daughter? Related to old Ben?

Undoubtedly it was the most anticipated movie of the year, and it did not disappoint. From the cinematic experience to the return of the old cast and the brilliance of the new, especially John Boyega and Daisy Ridley. 

J.J. Abrams had the weight of the world on him and I think he did a great job he managed to keep the  lens flares to the minimum too. :)

Thumbs Up and Down of the Movie:

The Thumbs up.

BB-8's Thumbs Up Clip.

My favorite moment was definitely the moment Finn and BB-8 had when he revealed to the droid he was not resistance. Unexpected the first time but captures what the movie was, in moments of seriousness there was humour which is what the originals were all about.

The Thumbs Down.

In a movie full of great moments, the one fault I could really pick was the scene with the two gangs coming for Han Solo to collect his debt.

"Tell that to Kanja Club...."

The monsters were simply out of place, I personally would have preferred that part be skipped and make use of the Raid cast with a nicer action scene rather than have them show up for only a few frames before getting a monster take wipe them out...