Holy crap. Were the rumors true? Is it possible that a good Star Wars movie could exist in this world? Is it possible that after an abysmal Prequel Saga and endless online flame wars involving the EU and traditionalists who adore the first three, a Star Wars film could be made that is not only good, but made so well it hearkens back to a time long ago when Irvin Kershner directed The Empire Strikes Back? Was this movie a worthy followup to the Original Trilogy? In short: HELL YES! This is almost exactly the kind of movie I dreamed I would see. Star Wars: The Force Awakens is an absolute delight from start to finish that both draws reference to the original films, while also adding onto a universe and making it more complex. If this is the kind of stuff Disney and LucasFilm will be doing for the next few Star Wars films, sign me up for the next two! I'm not even joking! It's seriously good.
Plot: Thirty years after the Battle of Endor, Jedi Master Luke Skywalker has disappeared and is being hunted down by The First Order (the successor to the Galactic Empire), led by the evil Lord Kylo Ren, along with being sought after by The Republic. A special map is discovered to show the location of Skywalker, but before the Republic could claim it, the First Order arrives and captures the pilot they believe to have knowledge of the map. But a droid belonging to the pilot escapes Imperial clutches and arrives at a junkyard where a young woman named Rey lives.
Meanwhile, a stormtrooper dubbed Finn defects from the First Order and meets Rey and the droid named BB-8, but are quickly discovered by their foes and evade capture by stowing in the Millennium Falcon, and are found by Han Solo and Chewbacca, who tell the story of Kylo Ren to Rey and Finn, as Ren was once Luke's apprentice and fell under the influence of the Dark Side. But all that is put aside as the First Order's dreaded new weapon (envoking Darth Vader's original Death Star), is about to be used to plunge the galaxy back into war, leaving our new heroes with no choice but to stand and fight the oppressors, all while still searching for the missing Jedi Master...
What's Bad?: I guess some people could probably have problems with all of the callbacks to the original movies. I personally didn't (for reasons I'll explain below), but I would be lying if I said this was just a nitpick. After all, it was one of the reasons people hated the Prequel Trilogy, so it is a viable reason.
What's Good?: I personally believe the callbacks were really interesting in this film. Unlike such pointless callbacks as Anakin building C-3PO or all of the rehashing of lines ("I have a bad feeling about this"), these callbacks actually have relevance to the movie at hand. What purpose did Anakin building C-3PO add to his character? Nothing. What was the point of those kids utilizing the same makeshift technique Luke trained with in Star Wars? Nothing. But Kylo Ren (who can basically be considered a Darth Vader fanboy), utilizes the weapons and ideals Vader used during his lifetime, not knowing the real story behind Vader's life and only looking at him and the Dark Side as mythical over the power of Luke's Light Side.
The acting in this movie is incredible. Like how people believed Carrie Fisher, Mark Hamill and Harrison Ford would all have careers after Star Wars, I strongly believe that starring as the next generation of main characters has opened the doors for Daisy Ridley and John Boyega to have great careers. They didn't succumb to stupid dialogue or bland emotionless acting. I got behind them and actually cared about what happened to them, unlike the Prequel films, where I could give less than a rats ass about them.
The action in this film is incredible, although it is still a little bit too reliant on CGI. I am happy they actually shot these scenes on actual locations instead of green screens. The lightsaber fight in this movie does not look obviously choreographed like some of the Prequel fights looked, and the dogfights are definitely worth your time, mostly because of the final reason I like this film.
But there is one thing I could tell was different with this film when compared to something like Revenge of the Sith. I actually cared about what was going on. And in case you are thinking it's because I already know Han Solo and Leia, they are not in the movie enough for me to seriously like this. I'm talking about Rey and Finn, both of whom are excellent characters to build a franchise around. There isn't any disgusting love dialogue or worthless characters existing for worthless reasons. There is true humanity in this film more than in any Star Wars film made in my lifetime and it truly made this film worth the wait I've had since 2012.
Overall: The Force Awakens should be a blueprint on how to make a Star Wars film. While it's not as good as The Empire Strikes Back, it does everything else the saga has been known for while both drawing the exact amount of reference alongside the exact amount of new things that needed to be added. It has humanity, passion, and a strong sense of imagination meeting reality and will likely bring us all back to a place we all visited a long time ago in a galaxy far far away...
Final Grade: 96 or A
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