![starwarsforceawakens-2__article-hero-1130x430[1].jpg](https://i.imgur.com/Jz9dWWg.jpg "starwarsforceawakens-2__article-hero-1130x430[1].jpg")
>“Luke Skywalker has vanished” read the first words of the iconic yellow-text scroll we've come to expect from each new entry in the Star Wars franchise, and with them J.J. Abrams has established a framework from which to construct the inaugural entry of this new trilogy: a search for the past that allows for liberal borrowing from its extant mythology's proven strengths.
>The Force Awakens is another of Abram's competent, reverential, and blessedly humorous reconstitutions of an established fantasy world, this time with an added benefit of the inherent, deep-seated emotional attachment many have to this particular constellation of characters and milieus. There's a new crop of heroes and villains here, but they're all directed to seek counsel from the old ones, a tact that both serves to elegantly fill in some narrative gaps in the 30 years that have elapsed since 1983's Return of the Jedi, and form an extended metaphor for Abrams's own earnest recycling of the story structure and dramatic beats of George Lucas's original film.
>The plot here is a basic inversion of 1977's A New Hope. This time it's a female protagonist, Rey (Daisy Ridley), who's winnowing her life away on some desert planet until the arrival of a messenger droid (a cute tag-along, BB-8, that's more WALL-E than R2D2) sets her on a mission to deliver a map with Luke Skywalker's whereabouts. And her male counterparts are this film's joint Leia surrogates: a pilot, Poe Dameron (Oscar Issac), who's taken prisoner by the First Order (formerly the Empire), and a rogue stormtrooper-with-a-conscience, Finn (John Boyega), who frees him.
>A series of divine coincidences leads three of these four characters (Poe is estranged from the rest of the cast for much of the film) aboard the Millennium Falcon, which leads, like a homing beacon, to the smuggling freighter of its former owners, Chewbacca (Peter Mayhew) and Han Solo (Harrison Ford). The new baddies—including a constantly screaming General Hux (Domhall Gleeson), the Vader-masked Kylo Ren (Adam Driver), and a CGI hybrid of Galactus and Voldermort known as Supreme Leader Snoke—pursue our heroes, and inevitably, a certain series-rhyming casualty follows.
>Abrams is with little doubt the best director to helm these familiar beats since the late Irvin Kershner, and if his franchise entry doesn't boast The Empire Strikes Back's particularly potent concoction of drama or space-opera romantic sweep, it does serve as an always welcome corrective to the current franchise climate of gloomy self-seriousness, calibrating its tonal alchemy to Spaceballs-worthy silliness (“I can't understand you in that mask”) with a surprising, and welcome, frequency.
>This levity makes it difficult to find too much fault in the film even when it exists less as a meaningful extension of its world than as a fan-service deployment device, in part because every eye roll-worthy moment (another Death Star to destroy?) is preempted by the film's own built-in eye-roll response gag (”...but bigger!”). Also because its affectionate call-backs are doled out with such underlying competence, from the fleet narrative's clean, three-act structure, to the convincingly deployed iconic visual grammar of wipes and agile dolly shots, to the strength of the performances. Ford, in particular, is better here than he ever was in the original trilogy, taking to his role as sage veteran and guide with a wiliness and scrappy, irreverent charm that informs the character of the film itself.
>But The Force Awakens is still more or less a fetish object, a film that exists to inspire phrases like “It feels like Star Wars again” ad nauseam from a fanbase that equates the lasting impact of Lucas's prequels as something akin to PTSD. Its analog grain, practical effects work (shrewdly augmented with CGI), and the impression, at least, of a new story in this universe being told, rather than the predetermined one we were subjected to last time, lend Abrams's effort a baseline rejuvenation, one he and returning screenwriter Lawrence Kasdan stoke throughout with the kind of nostalgia this series has been exploiting since it first co-opted John Fordian vistas and plot points from Akira Kurosawa films. The strategy works because mining mythology gives the impression of discovery, but one hopes that having thoroughly dredged that particular well for all possible returns, the next Star Wars installment may go looking for this franchise's future instead of safely dwelling in its past.
-Sam C. Mac, Slant Magazine
>>64098401
I look at that picture and think
>There must be some way outta here
>said the joker to the thief
>>64099324
>start looking at the setting sun as tie fighters fly by
>"It Aint Sheev" starts playing
>>64099324
>Bb8 is the joker
>Rey the thief
Poetry, anon.
>>64098401
>another of Abram's competent, reverential, and blessedly humorous
Stopped reading there.
>>64102378
keep going, it gets better
he gave it 2.5 out of 4 stars, btw
Guys, guys I have this idea for a star wars fan fic and I wanted feedback on this protagonist I have in mind
Okay, so she's an orphan from Tattoo-- Jakku, and she's a scavenger/slave. She escapes the planet by finding the Millennium Falcon and flying it by herself. She's super smart and can figure out the controls even though she hasn't set foot inside the ship before or flown a ship at all and she knows all about how to repair it more than the owner, Han Solo. Oh and she knows how to speak Wookie (thanks to the desert Wookie clan) and droid (Anakin could so duh) and Chewbacca loves her because she's cool and Han is impressed because she knows so much about the Falcon.
Oh and she has force powers, and she's so good at the force that she can resist the master of the Knights of Ren's mind reading and even read his mind, and she knows how to do jedi mind tricks because she just does and it's cool. She even beats the master of the knights of Ren in a lightsaber fight when she doesn't even have training with a lightsaber, and she has better force pulling than him.
In the end she has Anakin's lightsaber and is the captain of the Falcon and she goes off to be Luke Skywalker's apprentice (but he'll discover she knows way more than him cause she's a prodigy) so she can defeat the Sit- Knights of Ren.
I'm just stuck on the name, what should I call her?
>>64102585
Mary Suedious
>>64099444
kek
I just got back from seeing it not 20 minutes agowith my parents,I'm 27.
Enjoyable if bland.
I think glib facsimile might be the most accurate way to describe it. It was a movie I've seen countless times before for many reasons. The plot was a just a mash up of the best parts of A New Hope, and while those events felt new and fresh then, using the exact same events with new characters that had no depth made them totally meaningless. These exact same plot points have been ripped off more times than I can count in the ~40 years since ANH was released making the film feel even more derivative. I half expected Tony Stark to pop up and drop a quip. It was enjoyable in the way Marvel movies are, it's just some nice filler content but no real depth. The movie was very nice visually, and almost every scene involving spacecraft was a pleasure to watch - provided you watched it in a vacuum. Every other line felt forced as fuck and half the characters were practically winking at the camera on the delivery. Ford carried a good chunk of the movie, Rey's actor dissappointed but I was pleasantly suprised with Finn who despite his character being a shittly written cliche with no depth nailed the performance of that cliche and had a certain charm when playing off Poe/Solo. I get kylo's character was that he idolzied vader and wanted to be him but he just came across as a cheap knockoff. If you changed the names of Han, Leia, Luke and Chewie and released the movie under the name "Star Battles: The Power Awakens" it would be almost the same movie, it feels like a studio that didn't own the OP attempted at a scene for scene remake of the original that stayed just far enough away not to be sued rather than a continuation of the saga. It was probably done because to people who've never seen the originals it would seem somewhat fresh and die hard fanboys are gonna get all misty eyed about shit 'LUKES TRAINGIN BALL IN THE FALCON 1!!1!"
>>64103104
>it feels like a studio that didn't own the OP attempted at a scene for scene remake of the original that stayed just far enough away not to be sued rather than a continuation of the saga.
this tee bee aitch
>>64098401
This is the most honest. He's basically saying it's too safe but a good platform for them to work with on future installments.
