Tuesday, December 22, 2015

Star Wars The Force Awakens


A long time ago in a galaxy far far away, a group of people decided it was time to make a new Star Wars. Now these writers were excited to take the story beyond Return of the Jedi. The only problem was, they were still trapped in a legacy of a New Hope. Let me explain.


Star Wars The Force Awakens is the first of three new Star Wars films being made by Disney. The will say that the film is very good. My only real issue is that the film is just a retelling of A New Hope.

We start with a rebel fighter Poe needing to hide a secret message in a droid called BB-8 and leave him on a desert planet. In this film, it is a map to Luke Skywalker instead of a map of the Death Star. Poe is then captured by a man dressed in black, wearing a breathing mask and talking of the Dark side. His name is Kylo Ren (Hello Vader wanna be)


 After Poe is tortured, we meet Finn the Storm Trooper. Finn was brainwashed by the Empire...oh no wait...I mean The First Order. Finn decides to help Poe escape after Kylo finds out about BB-8. Finn and Poe fly away but get separated when they crash.


BB-8 runs away and just so happens to find a young person named Rey. Rey is the only person in the entire universe that has a secret connection to the Force and the Skywalker family. (Sound familiar anyone?) Rey meets Finn. I really liked Finn, he brought a new element to the Star Wars films. Finn and Rey have BB-8 and now they are being hunted for it. They must escape but in what vessel? Why the Millennium Falcon of course! Finn and Rey meet Han Solo and Chewy who have been trying to find the Millennium Falcon because it was stolen. Now they must go to a local alien space bar and try to find passage to the rebels. (A New Hope cantina scene anyone?)


Thankfully, there is a little more to this scene. We find out that Rey has a stronger connection to The Force. She finds Luke Skywalker's lightsaber and when she holds it, she sees flashes of the past. Battles and voices. If you listen carefully, you can hear the voices of Obi Wan and Yoda calling out to Rey. Pretty sweet actually. This freaks out Rey and she runs away in fear. Han and Finn take the lightsaber for her and then a battle breaks out.


Kylo Ren, the new Vader wanna be, is the son of Han and Leia. Makes sense that he would have such a connection to the Dark Side. Darth Vader was his grand father. For some reason, Kylo feels like he must finished Vader's work. Kid doesn't know his own family history because Vader brought balance to the force by killing the emperor. I'm just saying, it made me mad because that should be Vader's legacy!


During the battle Han sees his son and Rey tries to fight and then the rebels show up. Rey has a little fight with Kylo and he captures her and flies away in his ship. Kylo knows the Rey has seen the map and is trying to pull the information out of her. Kylo tries but can't seem to get very deep in Rey's head. Come to find out, the force is strong with Rey. She is STRONGER than Kylo. She over takes him and gets in his head. She has ZERO training and this is very impressive. Kylo was trained by Luke himself and Rey is kicking his mental ass....Well Done! It's about time we had more female ass-kickers in Star Wars. He freaks out and goes to his leader guy to ask when to do.


Back with the Rebels, we find C3PO with Leia, who now goes by General instead of Princess. Poor R2-D2 is non responsive ever since Luke disappeared. Leia and Han have a sweet but awake hey Honey I'm home moment. Finn find Poe and everyone is like "Oh no, there is ANOTHER Death Star.....I mean Star Killer. Seriously, yet another planet destroying ship the size of a planet. We've seen this before people. Come to find out, there is ONE SPOT on the ship that will destroy the entire planet. These Dark Side people really need to hire better engineers.


Finn, Han and Chewy must get on board to save Rey. To be honest, Rey doesn't need saving. I loved that she could handle herself. She uses her newly discovered Jedi powers to talk a Storm Trooper into letting her go. Fun trivia I found on imdb, the Storm Trooper was Daniel Craig. FUN!

Then we see Kylo the bridge and Han decides to confront his son. He yells BEN at the top of his lungs. Aww his name is Ben Solo..... like Ben Kenobi. At this point, my stomach was in knots. I knew what was going to happen. I knew there would be a sweet moment between Ben/KyloHan then Ben/Kylo would give in to the dark side and kill Han. WHY JJ ABRAMS WHY?!?!?!!?!?


As an audience, we hold hope for just a moment. Maybe Han is not really dead. I mean Luke fell from into a massive hole in Empire Strikes Back and he was still alive. Even when Han falls down the tunnel, we are hoping he can make it. Then the scene goes to Leia as she suddenly feels pain and has to sit down. We all know the Force is strong in her and she sensed Han's death. BUT WHY HAN SOLO!?!!?!? He was everyone's favorite human character. Funny and Charming. Plus Harrison Ford is THE MAN! I'm still pissed about this. Yes, it made Finn, Chewy, and Rey hate Kylo and want to kill him. They didn't need to kill Han for that. The worst was the sound that Chewy made when Han falls. That totally broke my heart.

As our main characters are running for the explosions set by Han and Chewy, the Rebels are firing everything they have at the Star Killer. Rey and Finn find Kylo in the woods. His lightsaber is ready and he knocks Rey out by throwing her to a tree. Finn panics and grabs Luke's Lightsaber and start to fight Kylo. It's obvious that Finn has never used a lightsaber in his life. He is quickly knocked out by Kylo and Luke's saber goes flying. Kylo tries to use the Force to summon the lightsaber but it won't come to him. The lightsaber flies past Kylo and into the hands of Rey. At that moment, we all know for sure that Rey has Skywalker blood in her.

Rey fights and kicks some serious butt against Kylo. She cuts up his face and body and she barely has a mark!!! It was pretty freaking awesome! Then the planet breaks apart and they can't reach eachother. Rey and Chewy grab Finn and take off in the Falcon.

As soon as Rey lands on the Rebel base R2D2 wakes up. He and BB-8 can complete the map. Rey leaves Finn in the hospital to heal and she takes off with Chewy and R2D2 in the Millennium Falcon. They land on a planet covered in mountains and water. Alone, Rey climbs the stairs to find a hooded figure. He turns and it's Luke. YAYAYAYY LUKE'S BACK!!! FINALLY!! SO EXCITED!! Rey holds out her hand with Luke's lightsaber in it. He stares back and then...CREDITS ROLL!!! NOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!! I literally yelled out loud when the credits started. Luke is my second favorite character and he didn't even say ONE WORD!!!!!! Aahhhhh!! Yes, it makes me want more but the next Star Wars isn't coming out until May 2017! That's too far away!!!

Ok here are some of my theories

Personally, I think Rey is the daughter of Luke Skywalker. In the flash back stories, we know Kylo tried to kill Luke. I think someone hid Rey from Luke and Kylo. Kinda like the way Luke and Leia were hidden from Vader. Whoever hid Rey, knew she was going to be more powerful than any of Jedi. Rey claimed she had been waiting on her planet from someone to find her. Maybe that someone died before they could tell Luke where Rey was.

The other theory I heard is Rey is Han and Leia's daughter. That she was Kylo's twin sister. That doesn't work because they are way too far apart in age and because there is never mention of another child by Han and Leia. That one didn't make sense to me. I'm sticking/hoping Rey is Luke's daughter. It would make sense why the force is stronger with her. Luke was always more connected to the Force than Leia was.

Over all I enjoyed the movie. It felt like the original three Star Wars. It used lovely animatronics instead of CGI. JJ did a beautiful job of directing and staying loyal to the story. I was annoyed that it is basically a retelling of A New Hope. I hope that episode VIII will be more original. JJ left a ton of questions unanswered but I'm hopeful they will be answered in the next film.

My favorite actors were Harrison Ford as Han (Duh, he's Han!) and Adam Driver as Kylo. Adam was brilliant at bringing emotional turmoil to the character. I really believed he was torn between his two worlds. Should he stay with the Dark Side or go back to the Force and his family? Adam's acting was also important because we rarely saw his face. When we did see his face, he had tomake it count. He certainly made it count.

If you like Star Wars, you will like this movie!