Star Wars: The Force Awakens Review – A New Hope with New Faces

Ten years after the hit and miss prequels trilogy, the Star Wars franchise is rebooted in accordance with Hollywood’s continuing trend of repackaging box office milestones. 

The main question in everyone’s minds, with all the hype leading up to the release of the 7th installment and first movie in the third trilogy of Star Wars, is whether it will deliver. Fans will be happy to know that Star Wars: The Force Awakens delivers all the thrills and feels of the original.

As the trailers have already hinted and Comic Con has shown, the original gang is back. Harrison Ford, Carrie Fisher, and Mark Hamill are here along with their sidekicks – Chewbacca, C3PO, and R2D2.

They help ease the audiences into a new trilogy with new characters.

Daisy Ridley is endearing as the plucky Rey who is given a personality, mechanical know-how, and fighting capabilities. John Boyega supplies the comic relief as a deserter who knows that he’s in over his head. Oscar Isaac proves to be versatile outside of indie dramas. Adam Driver deftly portrays a three-dimensional villain, displaying both vulnerability and temper.

Everyone would be happy to know that this time around the actors are not thrown into obviously green screened backdrops. Abrams avoids the blatantly digital look of the prequels and trades it for the 35mm to achieve the texture of the original. He also preserved the lived-in, worn-out, hand made quality treatment of the props such as grimy land speeders and BB-8.

Audiences will still get the visual thrills of the original with the latest CGI technology. The movie has immersive action and references to make the 3D viewing worth it.

This includes a first-person POV during a space dogfight, and the underside of the Millennium Falcon whizzing by as it makes a 90-degree turn. There’s a lightsaber duel in the snow, a junkyard planet resembling Tatooine, and a Mos Eisley Cantina competitor in a verdant planet.

People who expect a new story beyond the Skywalkers will be disappointed. This trilogy is designed to tread on familiar ground, and it still revolves around themes of legacy. 

Overall, The Force Awakens is still an entertaining spectacle that repackages the original for millenials. JJ Abrams wants to keep it safe, and he can’t exactly be blamed for it.