Star Wars: The Force Awakens

RATING: B 

Man, it's hard for a movie to live up to massive hype. When the news of new Star Wars films first came out, there was a mixture of excitement and nervousness. Once the trailers started coming out, everyone went nuts (myself included). The hype for the first installment of the long-awaited sequel trilogy grew much higher. J.J. Abrams and Disney had to know what would happen next. Either they would be revered for all time as the resurrectors of Star Wars, or they would never again be able to step foot outside their houses.

For what it's worth, The Force Awakens is sure to please a lot of long-time fans. It has more of what we all loved about the original trilogy, while still adding its own flavor to the mix. For its basic purposes, it probably achieved its goals. But was it too much to expect a little more? Especially with the awesome theory regarding the identity of Kylo Ren that was around during recent months before the release, which would've shaken things up beyond belief. In a sense, I kind of feel like I got what I *should* expect, but not what I *did* expect. 

I mean, it's definitely good. Just not great. You know? 

So anyways. Episode VII. We are introduced to a Star Wars world 30 years after Return of the Jedi, where all our favorite older characters are indeed that. Older. Way older. Some aged better than others. Luke Skywalker himself has disappeared, while the First Order--a spin-off of the Empire--has risen from the ashes and made a run for control of the galaxy.

And our new leads? Well, we have Rey, a scavenger with a pretty vague past (vague is something that I will probably continue to use a lot in this review), who gets caught up in all of the action. Finn, on the other hand, is a Stormtrooper... who oddly decides, "I don't want to do this anymore." And why? This type of thing *never* happens to Stormtroopers, it seems. They're just the masked minions who can't shoot accurately to save their life. (That has not changed.) Rey is a pretty interesting lead character, but Finn just falls short. He switches sides, and that's that. For a character who does such a thing, his character development is surprisingly lacking. Poe Dameron, on the other hand, suffers only from being underused. Harrison Ford is the one who steals the show, reprising his role as Han Solo incredibly well. 

Kylo Ren, on the other hand, suffers more from poor marketing than anything. Marketed as the powerful, awesome villain with a new unholy terror of a lightsaber, he ends up being sort of a letdown in that sense. What he is instead is certainly interesting (can't say without giving away spoilers), but his unsettling/powerful feel and his attempt to be the next Darth Vader in that sense is quickly thrown away in favor of a different feel. 

Is the story a good one? Sure. There's some big twists and turns along the way (that's J.J. Abrams for you), even if a couple things feel a little derivative almost from previous Star Wars material. There is a bit that's left hanging; by the end of the film, we still know hardly anything about Kylo Ren's vague master Snoke, and what exactly happened to Luke is still sort of left hanging. Oh, and I'm still unsure of how the title "Force Awakens" fits in, cause the Force doesn't really evolve or anything special in this film. It's nothing you haven't seen before, in that respect. 

The movie's pretty entertaining, to be sure, and has some hilarious dialogue, and yet I can't help but feel like something is missing. What, exactly? I'm actually not completely sure. 

In the movie's defense, I may have gone into it with higher expectations than I should have. I was expecting something a little more groundbreaking, and a different kind of shock twist. And while others may also find themselves expecting a little more, overall they should be satisfied. And while I myself am still mostly satisfied, I still wonder about what could've been. 

Nevertheless, we still have two more movies in this sequel trilogy to go. If they manage to pull together the story well enough for said two movies and thus give us a strong overall story for the trilogy, I will likely take back much of my criticism.