Star Wars: The Force Awakens

When George Lucas finally came out of his billion dollar cocoon and gave all of us nerds Star Wars: The Phantom Menace, also known as the Jar Jar Incident, I remember walking out of the theater on an unbelievable high! So much so that the local news in Dallas spotted my euphoria and chose to bypass all of the obvious virgins who were dressed up in Vader and Leia costumes to get my thoughts on the film!

There I was, inexplicably with a hot girl at the time, spewing barely intelligible things into the camera with this half crazed look in my eye. It was so memorable in fact, that while I was working my shift at the Macaroni Grill the next day, people came in and instantly recognized me! "Hey! You’re the Star Wars guys! You really liked it huh?"

An entire Metroplex knew just how much of a loser I was! Now I’m not saying I’m a loser because I love Star Wars, I’m saying I’m a loser because there is documented proof that at one time in my life I actually liked the awful Phantom Menace and was at least partially down with Jar Jar Binks! Believe it or not, the girl I was with that night actually still talks to me to this day but for obvious reasons has suppressed the memory of us seeing that movie together.

Now I say all of that to say this; I was cautiously optimistic heading into The Force Awakens simply because I didn’t want a repeat of 1999. And after seeing it and liking it, I’m still hesitant about my feelings towards it as I have been in this position and fooled once before. So like the nerd who was sitting behind me wearing a Chewbacca costume and making Ton-Ton noises the entire time said "Now I have to go back and watch it ten more times before I can officially tell you how I feel about it."

Well I’m obviously not going to wait that long before I tell you my thoughts on it, and I certainly won’t talk about anything other than what you’ve already seen in the trailers, because I know the last thing anyone wants is something resembling a spoiler in this review . You should just know that J.J. Abrams was probably the perfect choice to bring this franchise back to life. I’ve never been blown away by anything he’s done to this point in his career but he did get me to actually like the Star Trek movies he made and I was nothing close to being a Trekkie before I saw them.

He’s really good at paying homage to what was done before him, giving little Easter eggs to the diehard fans that are out there, and in adding his own little touch to it without ever abandoning the spirit of what made the originals so great. And that’s exactly what he did with The Force Awakens. It takes a little time to get used to the new characters, who will obviously carry the mantle moving forward in the sequels to come, but once you do, you realize that the franchise is in good hands.

Oscar Isaac (Poe Dameron) is as close to being an acting savant as we can expect these days (along with Tom Hardy of course) and he is wonderful as he essentially plays the next generation Han Solo in this movie. As for the original Han himself, he along with Chewbacca, play a major role in this film as they help the audience not only get caught up to speed with what happened in the past but also help you accept the new characters.

Although when you look at Rey (Daisy Ridley) it’s kind of hard not to instantly fall in love with her innocence and her beauty. She plays the role of a struggling scavenger on the planet of Jakku who one day runs into a lost droid (BB8) that happens to be carrying some vital information that could help the Resistance fight off a new enemy in the First Order. Everyone freaked out about there being a Black renegade storm trooper (John Boyega) but his role is reasonably explained and he gives you yet another worthy hero to cheer for. Sadly though, Carrie Fisher refuses to accept the fact that she’s almost 60 years old now! She’s had so much work done to her face that she looks like a cross between Cher’s kid in her Mask movie and Jim Carrey’s 1990’s version of The Mask with Cameron Diaz! Her face barely moved when she spoke and it sounded like there was a male ventriloquist speaking for her whenever it was her time to talk.

But outside of that minor mishap, this movie was thoroughly entertaining as there was plenty of cool action to go around! There were a few obvious plot holes but it’s a science fiction movie, that’s almost a guarantee these days. You’ll soon realize that the storyline is unbelievably familiar but again, it’s a formula that’s worked in the past, so why mess with it? I am unbelievably excited for Rian Johnson’s version that’s scheduled to come out in 2017.

I rate this movie as very FRESH but reserve the right to change my mind in a few years. Go see it!