In Review: Star Wars: The Force Awakens

Synopsis: Thirty years after defeating the Galactic Empire, Han Solo (Harrison Ford) and his allies face a new threat from the evil Kylo Ren (Adam Driver) and his army of Stormtroopers.

Review: I’m going to make this review as spoiler free as possible, which is difficult to do when you have just witnessed the force returning to ‘Star Wars’ in ways that actually count.

This film pretty much centres on Han Solo and his passing of the baton to new resistance fighters Fin and Rey. But narratively speaking much of the action is witnessed from the point of view of BB8 who no doubt will have broken merchandise records by the end of the year. If indeed he hasn’t already.

The first character we meet is Poe Dameron (Oscar Isaac) who is in a meeting with Lor San Tekka (Max von Sydow) who has vital information about the where abouts of Luke Skywalker. This meeting is cut short when the First Order led by Kylo Ren (Adam Driver) attack the settlement and capture Poe. 

But before Poe is captured he manages to place the information he has gotten from Lor San Tekka into his mech droid BB8 who finds allies in Fin and Rey, which kicks off the entire story, which centres on the quest to find Luke Skywalker.

Newcomers John Boyega and Daisy Ridley bring a fresh new energy to the film series as Finn and Rey and Boyega’s infectious enthusiasm makes for some really funny moments. A scene towards the latter half of the film between Finn and Han Solo springs to mind as they are about to head into mortal danger with not to much of a plan. 

Fans of the expanded universe may or may not be surprised to learn that not everything from that universe has been disregarded.

It was great to see Harrison Ford and Carrie Fisher return as Han and Leia respectively and its apparent that much history between the couple has happened since we last saw them in ‘Return Of The Jedi’

In regards to the bad guys camp we have some new interesting characters in the form of Kylo Ren, Captain Phasma (Gwendoline Christie) and General Hux (Domhnall Gleeson), but it is Supreme Leader Snoke (Andy Serkis) who has the most mystery surrounding him. A mystery, which is maintained throughout the film. Many of Snoke’s scenes involve Kylo Ren and General Hux reporting to him. In much the same way that Vader reported to the Emperor in ‘Empire Strikes Back’ and ‘Return Of The Jedi’

Much of the space action is brilliant and a lot of it involves the Falcon flying back into danger with the resistance X-Wing fighters. Poe Dameron is the go to hot shot pilot that fills the space left vacant by Luke Skywalker in this film, but Daisy Ridley’s Rey proves an extraordinarily talented pilot when she takes the controls of the Falcon. The sequence in which Rey and Finn use the Falcon to get away from the first order troops on Jaaku is both fun and exciting to watch. Much of the fun being provided by the antics of BB8.

J.J. Abrams has done a fine job of bringing ‘Star Wars’ back to a place where most fans will find themselves falling in love with the movies again. The film is everything the prequel trilogy isn’t. Its a damn good story with new characters and old ones that we can all fall in love with and get behind in their fight for a fairer universe.

Frankly I personally fell out of love with ‘Star Wars’ because of the prequel trilogy. This film has renewed my love affair with the ‘Star Wars’ universe.

For the first time. We have been given a film that both older and younger fans can get behind.

The force is definitely strong with this one.