Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens. An Honest Review

Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens, an Honest Review.

Content:
Violence: 3 The Star Wars Universe is a Universe perpetuated by war. As such there are many violent scenes of star ships blowing each other up and intense hand to hand duels with energy weapons.

Blood and Gore: 2 In this particular installment of the series there is a male character whom we see begin hitting himself after he takes a bowcaster shot to the abdomen. The camera then pans to blood flecks on the snow beside him

Drug and Alcohol use: 1 There is some implied alcohol and drug use when our characters meet up with a cantina owner on a remote planet. 

Language: 2 A few uses of Damn and one use of Hell

Frightening Scenes: 3  There are killer space octopus' on board a freighter that kill and eat several gang members. This scene may be frightening for young children. A character attempts to reconcile with his son and is stabbed through the chest with a lightsaber. 

Sex and Sensual Materials: 2 There is no sex in this movie, there is however a Twilek slave who is with a Brute of an alien and it is apparent that she is in someway sensually/sexually involved with him. Very similar to the Jabba-princess Leia scene from episode VI. She is wearing skimpy clothing. There are several "moments" between two of the core characters of this film but nothing ever happens with them

Recommended for Teens 13 and up. Many of the thematic and cinematic elements as well as fantasy may be too much for some young children.

Rating: 4/5 Very Good Movie

Caution. The following will contain Spoilers. If you have not seen the VII movie of the Galaxy Far away franchise, turn back now to avoid any spoiling.

Plot: It's been thirty years since the empire, led by Emperor Palpatine, Dark Lord of the Sith has been crushed. In that time frame Luke Skywalker, the last of the known Jedi has left the known galaxy to restart the Jedi order. In Luke's absence however, dark forces have risen again to fill the power void left by the crippled empire. The new power has called themselves The First Order, and through might, like the empire before them, they intend to bring order to the galaxy. 

Review:

When the final credits rolled for Star Wars episode VI - Return of the Jedi back in 1983 - fans of the Star Wars trilogy anxiously awaited the day that the series would return to the screen in all of its glory. Sixteen years later in 1999 when Star Wars episode I ran for the first time, fans wondered if they would ever see a Star Wars that was reminiscent of the film that they loved. Episode I replaced much of the cinematic and story telling of the original trilogy with CGI and explosions. Fan's grew wary that they would never again see a film in the Star Wars Universe that met their expectations. 

That is until Star Wars episode VII: The Force Awakens came to the big screen. This movie having been released on December 18, 2015, has broken box office records on opening day and opening weekend. It is going for the record of most made. Below I will chronicle, the good, the bad and the ugly of this film.

The Good: How about we start off simple, there is no Jar Jar Binks. There is no character like Jar Jar Binks. In fact the mere mention of the awful gungan race is as far removed from this movie as this movie is from the prequel trilogy in terms of time line. 

Secondly: No where near the amount of  CGI of the prequel series. Like episodes IV, V, and VI before it this movie has returned to an era of practical special effects. What does that mean for the fans? Well for one the ships look real, because well... they are. J.J. Abrams did an amazing job of building and filming large and small models of our favorite ships in the Star Wars Universe. From X-Wings to the Millennium Falcon our favorite ships in the Galaxy far far away are back looking as they should. This isn't to say that there is no CGI in this film. But in comparison with the prequel trilogy it might as well not be there.

Third:  Back Story and dialogue. The most frustrating thing for the hardcore fans in the prequel trilogy is that the story progressed with little to no character development and the moments of dialogue between characters was just plain painful to watch. For many-a fan the pain caused by these moments of dialogue led us down a path to the dark side, but not the dark side that was intended by George Lucas. In the premier of episode VII not only does every character have a developed back story with thought. But the moments of silence and dialogue are actually enjoyable to watch. The characters have depth and are in no way one dimensional unlike the pining character of Anakin Skywalker in episode II. 

Caution the following contains spoilers. This is your last chance to turn back

The Bad: For many fans one of the most frustrating characteristics across all of the movies has been the whining that has permeated through both Anakin Skywalker and Luke Skywalker. Well in Episode VII we are given no reprieve from the Skywalker family trait. "Whining is strong in my family, my father had it, I have it - and Leia, your son will have it." For fans of the extended universe it is no surprise that Han Solo and Leia Organa hook up and have a son whom they name Jason. However, due to Disney's elimination of the canon of the EU, that son's name is now Ben and he's about as whiny as ever in this episode of Star Wars. More than once we see him whining about the amount of pain he is in because of his pull to the light side (you guessed it, he renamed himself Kylo Ren when he went dark). And even goes so far as to nearly begin crying about his pain as he plunges his lightsaber through his father's chest. Which brings me to point number 2. 

Kylo Ren and his master have no true understanding of the dark side. Fans of the Star Wars Universe remember Yoda's quote in episode I: Fear leads to anger, anger leads to hate, hate leads to the dark side. In the same way dark side fans understand that pain also leads to the dark side. We see this when Anakin is faced with such emotional trauma at the pain of losing his mother that he wipes out an entire camp of Sand People. Some may argue that the Sand People may have had it coming. This argument while valid, is still a path to the dark side. Pain is necessary to the dark side. So is fear. When Kylo Ren kills his father Han Solo he not only eliminates his pain (the pull from the light side) but he also eliminates his fear (the perpetual fear that Solo's life will pull him back to the light.). We can actually see that this nearly instantly weakens him as Chewbacca hits him with a well placed bowcaster bolt to the abdomen. As we all remember, he had no problem stopping a blaster shot earlier in the movie and allowed it to remain suspended for the entirety of the interrogation of  Po. It is clear that Ren understands the connection for pain and the dark side after the fact as he inflicts physical pain on himself in his fight against Rey in order to give himself more strength. However, the minuscule amount of physical pain that he is able to inflict simply isn't near enough to replace the emotional tear of his father's life. 

Another death star destruction sequence: Fans of the original trilogy have already seen the death star blow up twice. Well if that wasn't enough for you, how about Star Killer base? If you're confused Star Killer base is another death star with a more protected exhaust port... Oh and its about 100 times the size of Death Star 2.0 built into the side of a planet that is able to destroy entire systems at a time by destroying a star in the process. Against all odds the resistance is able to mount a defense against Star Killer base and in the last possible moment blow it up from the inside. You would think that The First Order would have learned from the Empire's mistakes about building such huge targets with one barely guarded weak spot. But I guess we'll see if in episode VIII they can come up with a better plan. Last but certainly not least: 

Han Solo's Death many fans going into the movie knew it was inevitable that one of the core characters would ultimately perish. While there were many rumors running about I can't say many were surprised to see Harrison Ford's iconic character fall to his death. However, being killed by his son who is being manipulated by a dark side user, because of his force sensitivity, all while being whiny just was a little too much. It almost seemed as if Ren wasn't going to go through with it. But we all know the story must go on.

The Ugly:

Rey has never used the force before and yet suddenly out of nowhere she is having force visions, using force persuade and force pull on Luke Skywalker's old lightsaber. Even the most powerful Jedi in the galaxy (Anakin Skywalker) had to receive training to begin using his force powers. Is J.J. attempting to say this unknown Jedi is somehow more powerful than Anakin or even Luke?

Finn breaks his programming without explanation: It's established in the movie later on that the Storm Troopers are no longer clones but are in fact taken at birth and programmed to fight for the First Order. However, it seems that the First Order's programming is having a bit of trouble as it appears its common place for the troopers to behave independently of their programming. Despite having no warning signs Finn for no reason at all decides after one battle that he's seen too much and breaks out a high value prisoner, steals a tie fighter and subsequently joins the resistance. While these events are possible they are not very probable.

Killer Space Octopus - Do I need to say more on this?

Finn gets shot down in Tie Fighter - Survives In one of the early sequences Finn is shot down by a Star Destroyer's canon in a tie fighter. I don't know if Disney decided that when Tie's get shot down that they are able to fall through the atmosphere of a planet and the pilot's are then able to eject, but in the entire movie series the only tie that we have seen that gets hit and survives is Vader's specially built tie advanced. All other tie fighter craft take one or two bolts from an x-wing and they go down in a fireball. The likelihood therefore of a tie fighter surviving a fully charged repulsor cannon shot from a star destroyer is beyond improbable. Add in falling through a planet's atmosphere, the gunner ejecting and somehow both passengers surviving I'm beginning to wonder if the force is somehow at play here.

Summation:  Overall the movie is very good. And still one of the better of the series. However, the movie in some ways leaves me asking whether Kylo Ren is going to be just another Vader. Good guy turns bad guy turns good. We've seen his powers weaken already. We've seen a non force user go toe to toe with him and survive. What we haven't seen is Ren having had a full understanding of his dark side abilities. We haven't seen Leia use any kind of force ability outside of knowing her husband had died. We have seen all of two minutes of Luke as he doesn't show up until the end of the movie. 

While this movie is one of the best of the series it still leads to many questions: Questions that we can only hope that Disney will attempt to answer in the coming years. However, for now fan's appetites for another great Star Wars installment are satiated, and we anxiously anticipate, not only the remaining two episodes in this trilogy, but also the stand-alone films that are set to be released in the coming years.