"Star Wars: The Force Awakens" Review

Watching the huge, yellow letters scroll up the screen while heavy trumpets blared a worldwide-recognized theme made me realize how it must have felt for our parents’ generation when A New Hope released in 1977. Awe, wonder, and a story filled with fun characters was first spotlighted then and continues to spark the imagination of regular people across the globe.

The Force Awakens represents a new era for the Star Wars franchise. An era of new characters, new questions (hopefully answered), and a new unknown threat to the galaxy and the force. Lovely. Writer-director J.J. Abrams took the initiative to finally spearhead a new saga that hopes to satisfy avid Star Wars fans with ends being tied up after the original trilogy ended in 1983--quite a long wait for people who saw the originals in theaters, but according to my father, the biggest Star Wars fan I know, it was worth it.

After those giant yellow letters scroll up the screen, the seventh episode opens with Poe Dameron (Oscar Isaac), an ace pilot working with the Resistance, a coalition of planets formed against the tyranny of the First Order, runs a covert operation on the desolate sand plant of Jakku to find a map revealing the secret location of the last Jedi, Luke Skywalker. Luke has been in hiding ever since his apprentice, Kylo Ren, betrayed him to follow the dark side and bring an end to any remnants of the Jedi, just like Darth Vader. Poe finds the map, but as he is attempting to escape, he is intercepted by First Order troops and forced into interrogation by Kylo Ren, where he reveals he left the map inside of a droid. During the First Order siege of Jakku, a Stormtrooper, branded FN-2187 (John Boyega), witnesses the horrors of more innocent people being slaughtered, and he makes the decision to abandon everything he’s been taught since birth, and to find refuge in the Outer Rim. FN-2187 finds Poe (who nicknamed him "Finn") in the First Order ship and releases him, but crash down back on Jakku, where Finn awakens alone and searches for the nearest town, where he finds Rey (Daisy Ridley), a scavenger waiting for her family's return back to Jakku. Rey had found Poe's droid after it was caught in another scavengers net. Just as Rey and Finn are trying to figure out how their paths had crossed, the First Order swoops in with TIE Fighters to stop their advance, but it just so happens the legendary ship, the Millennium Falcon, lays dormant in a junkyard, where our protagonists, by some miracle, are able to escape evil’s clutches once more.

From then on, the movie keeps that same level of excitement throughout, and even leaves you satisfied despite the need for another sequel, which has been rumored to premiere within the next few years. The actors were brilliantly casted and play the roles perfectly. The CGI is stunning, compared to the early-2000s prequels, and the huge amounts of money spent on set design and costumes is clearly prevalent. Even if you’re not a Star Wars fan or have even heard of a lightsaber, I would still recommend seeing it just for the fun you’ll have.

Confession: I saw it twice in theaters.

#Jack