Director: J. J. Abrams
Writers: Lawrence Kasdan, J. J. Abrams, Michael Arndt
Cast: Daisy Ridley, John Boyega, Oscar Isaac, Adam Driver, Harrison Ford, Carrie Fisher, Domhnall Gleeson, Lupita Nyong'o, Andy Serkis, Peter Mayhew, Anthony Daniels, Mark Hamill
Runtime: 135 mins.
2015
Thus the tang of the prequels is washed from our mouths.
Sixteen years ago the whole world was anticipating the revival of the Star Wars franchise. The Phantom Menace was perhaps the most widely anticipated movie of all time. Star Wars fans had assumed for years that they would never have another new experience in their beloved fantasy world, yet here Lucas was returning to his old stomping grounds. He had a new story to tell, and his audience anticipated it with bated breath and open arms. Then the movie was released...
Many people walked out of that theater shellshocked, having realized from the moment of the opening crawl that something was very rotten in Denmark. Some people walked out thinking they had seen something good, already preparing their defenses via a psyche suffering from heavy cognitive dissonance. Few people walked out satisfied in any meaningful way.
The prequels wrapped up and Star Wars was dead yet again, leaving fans with a decades-spanning case of blue balls. It seemed impossible to conceive of being excited about another Star Wars revival after Lucas's last debacle--and yet, here we are, staring down the barrel of a Star Wars movie that has become the new most anticipated film of all time. This franchise is a titan that will not die.
The excitement did not spring up overnight, to be sure. A great deal of work was put into refurbishing the franchise's image by a great number of talented people (the marketing push for The Force Awakens has been one of the most skillful and massive advertising assaults ever). At the pinnacle of all this was J. J. Abrams, a man with an unparalleled love for Star Wars whose entire career seems to have built to this point. From the first bits of Star Wars information that came down the pipeline, Abrams and co. actively, if not explicitly, disavowed the prequels and promised a return to form. J. J. convinced us all that he understood why Star Wars became such a cultural phenomenon in the first place, and he reassured us that we were all in good hands.
All of that turned out to be true to a fault. The great failing of The Force Awakens is its unforgivable similarity to the original trilogy, A New Hope in particular. Yes, the movie is a return to form, but it accomplishes this by replicating large swathes of the originals. This goes deeper than winky and noddy homages to the original trilogy, though there are plenty of those. I'm talking about a lack of imagination on the structural level. Yet again a droid is secretly given documents of incredible importance. Yet again our characters walk into a shady cantina with aliens playing snappy music in the background. Yet again, and this is the most egregious example, our plot centers around the destruction of a massive planet-killing weapon.
