By T W Coombs
So forty years after the originals and ten years after the
prequels the world of Star Wars is back and it has taken a funny turn, by
trying to be funny and not living up to the hype, once again.
I am a huge Star Wars fan; I grew up watching Luke Skywalker
become the last Jedi and destroy the Empire by complete luck that his evil father
had a change of heart and did his job for him.
Even though some of the story was flawed, brother and sister kiss and he
was happy about it and even gloated, and the acting was mediocre, come on Mark
Hamill was terrible in A New Hope. The
main thing about Star Wars for me was it was fun but had a serious story that
was a simple good versus evil with space magic (the force is a natural thing
and not magic - oh I don’t give a shit).
Sadly after the trilogy they couldn't live the phenomenon
alone, and when I say them I mean George Lucas, his swimming pool of cash must
have sprung a leak so needed refilling and they did the back story. You know because we needed to know where
Darth Vader came from, oh hang on we already knew, it was explained in the original
trilogy. The prequels became a reason to
have a nerd war, the purists and the lovers, and then you had the guys sitting
on the fence. I didn’t mind them,
Phantom menace was good except for Jar Jar, the small boy Anakin and the pod
race, get rid of that rubbish and they would have had an awesome film, Attack
of the Clones was better and introduced us properly to the republic, and you
know the one that became the Empire.
Then Revenge of the Sith was a dark brooding number that ended really
well, just a shame about the beginning.
The Prequels did as expected, they made boatloads of money
and then everyone complained about them.
They messed with originals as well by adding in CGI which much of it was
worth it, and scenes which none of them were worth doing. So we were left in a limbo of love and hate
and after the mostly forgotten prequels the news hit that Episode seven was to
be made, great some shouted, the world of geekdom sprung alive, more sci-fi to
add to the Marvel, DC sci-fi we have been bombarded with. So the world came alive with talk of this new
film that JJ Abrams we doing after he rebooted Star Trek for the masses
already.
So a couple of years later it is out and I like millions of
others went to see this billion dollar making behemoth of a film. And what did I get? A marvel film based on
Star Wars!
Before some start to attack let me explain. Please watch the six films before and take in
the feel of them, lighter in places and very dark in others with some small
happy times within the characters, a space opera with fights to the death and space dog
fights, then watch The Force Awakens, which starts dark and brooding and ends
dark and brooding but the bit in the middle, the actual film was like more
comedy, with forced jokes and sarcastic comments, this is Star Wars, which
should be fun and exciting but also more serious, even if totally fantasy.
Sadly but issues didn't stop there, I had a huge problem
with Ray, the girl in it, who is the girl version of Luke Skywalker, her acting
was okay, her character was quite kick ass.
But Luke took months to do anything with the force, and within a couple
of days (guessing on time scale) Ray is controlling minds, pulling her
lightsaber to her, without any bloody training except for a non-Jedi who tells
her to close her eyes and feel for the force.
What a load of rubbish and who reads minds with the Force? No one ever
in the films so where did this come from? You can feel feelings of people, Yoda
does on lots of occasions but read full minds? Whatever.
It was great to see the old characters even though they were
all cameos except Han Solo and Chewbacca who still only had a small part
really. CP3O and R2D2 had small parts
and the biggest part goes to another droid BB8 who is all CGI, and was like
Wall-E from another film within the Disney business model.
To conclude I really enjoyed this space based action
adventure film, it was funny, exciting and had some hints of nostalgia but for
me it didn’t feel like a Star Wars film that carried on from Return of the
Jedi and does it seem like a sequel/re-make of A New Hope? Anyway, the relationships seemed rushed
and forced between the main characters and the old cast were just hangers on
and weren’t used as much I thought they should be. We shall see what happens with Episode 8, but
the next one is a spin off, so we will be waiting a while to see what happens
with the new Darth Vader and the New Orders boss who looked like a giant
Emperor. So by the time 8 comes out I
will probably have better things to do because life needs to continue outside
of the world of Disney franchises.
