All right – so my wife and I went to see the new STAR WARS movie today and it absolutely rocked.
Understand – I absolutely hated the last two Star Trek movies by J.J. Abram – and that’s after seeing the first one TWICE. I still can’t remember a damn thing about either of those movies except for Spock shouting “KHAN!”. I thought they were muddied-up messes and didn’t remind me a bit of the old television series.
So – I really wasn’t all that confident in them making a new Star Wars movie.
You see – I remember Jar-Jar Binks.
I don’t want to remember him – but I do.
So I went into the movie theater fully intending to hate this movie – only I didn’t. Right from the get-go I thought that it was awesome. The same opening credits, the same music, the same universe without any of that kiddy-giggle crap that began with The Phantom Menace – Jar-Jar and kids flying tie-fighters.
I enjoyed it right through until the end.
No spoilers here – but here’s a few things I enjoyed.
Seeing Han Solo and Princess Leia back again. Seeing the Wookie. Seeing the Millenium Falcon. Getting our first chance to see a stormtrooper as a real person. Seeing Max Von Sydow playing ANYTHING!
A couple of things I didn’t enjoy?
How about Adam Driver – who I found to be a poor substitute for Darth Vader? How about Andy Sirkis as Supreme Leader Snork?
(alright – so I know that the dude’s name was Supreme Leader Snoke – but it still sounded a little bit silly)
Still – these are tiny problems.
The fact was that I really enjoyed the movie. I’d own it on dvd and I’d see it again.
The funny thing is that I had been avoiding reviews for the last couple of months. Tonight I took a look and I was amazed to see that ROTTEN TOMATOES absolutely LOVED the movie and yet when I looked at imdb I was amazed to see that a lot of the folks writing reviews there seemed to almost unanimously hate this movie!
Go figure.
Me – I loved it. I’m an old-time fan of the first three Star Wars movie and I felt that they nailed it.
Go and see for yourself. I’m not telling you anything more.
Yours in storytelling,
Steve Vernon
YOURS IN STORYTELLING... 
It was fun and much better than the prequels, but I really felt I was watching an adoring retread of the original Star Wars — which clearly isn’t so bad for those of us who feel nostalgic for the passion we felt for it in 1977, but leaves me wondering if Abrams is capable of a truly original plot. And yes, poor Emo Kylo Ren was impossible to take seriously once he took his mask off. I did enjoy the other original characters, though. (I enjoyed the first Trek remake until I watched it again and its various idiocies began to irritate me. The second one … ugh! I might have been able to bear it until they pulled that cynical, absurd, creatively bankrupt twist on Wrath of Khan. It ultimately struck me as downright hostile towards Star Trek and Trekkies.)
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Yup, I felt the same way about the Trek movies – although I guess that I got the Khan reference mixed up between Abrams Trek #1 and #2.
Still – as far as a Star Wars retread is concerned – I am actually one of those dudes who looks on a movie like a hamburger. You cook it up right and I don’t really care if it doesn’t have any sort of new ingredients on it – just so long as it tastes like a well-made hamburger.
Yup – that’s where I’ll leave this. THE FORCE AWAKENS was a well made hamburger.
🙂
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Took hubby to see the new Star Wars movie here in Spain (English with Spanish subtitles) and we both loved it. Left us wanting more.
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Amen. I guess we are going to get more, as well. Something like a half a dozen Star Wars movies lined up – some spin offs and some following the original path. I’m a little worried as to whether or not they will maintain the standard – but it couldn’t be any worse than Jar Jar Binks.
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Loved it. Unlike the Star Trek (which was like watching the same movie over again) I felt like he made enough refrences to show repeating of themes (very important in Star Wars) but still keeping it new. My only beef was the instantaneous travel/communication. It used to take time to travel to planets, even at light speed!
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Now you see that happened so fast that I didn’t even notice it.
(grin)
But now that you mention it I remember they were zipping between planets at a speed that reminded me of teenage-girl-speak.
“And then I went Tattoine and Darth was like, you know – and then we went to Jabba the Hutt and he was all like what are you doing on my planet and then we went to talk to Greedo and he was like damn you Han Solo you fired first and then…”
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Agree re Kylo not being scary enough demasked, except one point at the end when the perfect hair, untroubled by helmet wear got a little ruffled and his
Reeseyes looked like black bottomless pools of molten anger. Then I thought, ah, now we’re cooking. I also found myself guffawing mightily at his outbursts of temper especially the first with the sarcastic general. Han Solo was always my favourite character so, agreed, it was great to see him and Leia back. Also loved Rai. No I adored Rai. I noticed it was a bit of a retread, myself but found I really didn’t mind, which surprised me. McMini was petrified but stuck the whole thing with the help of the games on my and McOther’s phones and a set of ear defenders! He took in enough to be enjoying the story in retrospect.Cheers
MTM
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His Rees? Blummin auto correct! His eyes! His eyes dammit.
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No worries. I’ve corrected Kylo’s eyes.
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Thanks!
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I agree with you on The Force Awakens. It was stunning. Disagree with you on Star Trek, but I’m not really a Trekker so I’m more forgiving. My wife liked it and that’s really… a sign the apocalypse may be around the corner.
Andrew Driver. I thought he was great initially, but once the mask came off he dropped to being a serviceable villain.
I liked Serkis as Snoke, moreso than Driver as Ren. Ah well.
What did you think of The Last Jedi?
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Haven’t seen THE LAST JEDI yet. I’ll probably catch it on Netflix or some such. I am NOT a fan of the follow-up Star Wars movies. For me the series ended after the first three movies.
I’m an old fart.
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