Star Wars: The Force Awakens (2015)

*** ½ out of ****

The original “Star Wars” (1977) was released when I was seven years old, and there was no bigger fan than me. I had the movie book, every possible toy from the action figures to the Mos Eisley Cantina to the Millennium Falcon to the Death Star itself. I played with almost nothing else until I gave up toys around the age of 13. This was back in the days when if you didn't see a movie at the theater you had to wait for years until it came on TV, and my parents were never sci-fi fans so I never saw the actual movie until much later.  Heck, I even thought “Star Wars” was so incredibly wonderful that not just anybody could go to see it – I thought you had to “be somebody” to get in. In 1980, when my best friend came to school and told me his mother had taken him to see “The Empire Strikes Back”, I flat out refused to believe him. I mean, not just anyone could see it, right?

Because of how much that original movie meant to me (I loved the others in the original trilogy too, but not with the same fervor as the first one) I decided not to see “The Force Awakens” on its opening weekend. I would wait instead until I had my 11 year old twins with me, which I did 5 days after it opened. Watching their reaction to this film was worth at least as much to me as seeing the movie itself.  Their wide-eyed wonder warmed my heart and time-traveled me back to my childhood and my love for the original.

But enough of my ramblings.... onto the movie. With the franchise now re-imagined by JJ Abrams, it has sprung back to dynamic life after the ridiculous second trilogy tried so hard to kill it.

Decades have passed since Luke, Leia and crew saved the galaxy from the Empire. Luke started to try to rebuild the Jedi but went into hiding after a student (who we later know as both Kylo Ren and as Ben Solo, the son of Han and Leia) turned to the dark side. Kylo Ren has joined the “First Order”, which has risen from the ashes of the old Empire and is led by Supreme Leader Snoke (Andy Serkis). The First Order is very powerful with the Dark Side of the force and appears to have regained control of the galaxy.

One of the silliest parts of the second Star Wars trilogy was the whole “clone” thing with the stormtroopers. This film puts that to rest by explaining that in the new age stormtroopers are selected at birth and raised to be mindless killing machines. But one stormtrooper (Finn, played by John Boyega) can't bring himself to kill innocents and helps a captured rebel pilot, Poe (Oscar Isaac), to escape. They go off looking for a droid called BB8 that has a map to find Luke Skywalker's hiding place.

This leads them to a very Tatooine-like planet called Jakku, where Finn gets tied up with a scavenger girl named Rey (Daisy Ridley). Through various twists and turns they end up in the company of Han Solo and Chewbacca on the Millennium Falcon. More twists and turns lead them to Leia and the resistance, as well as the realization that Rey is very powerful with the force. And their collective need is to find a way to stop the First Order, which now has a Death Planet (called “StarKiller”) that can destroy other planets from a great distance away.  Governor Tarkin would have approved.

Much has been made of the fact that “The Force Awakens” is terribly similar to the original “Star Wars”. There is even one scene, where Rey is sneaking around the StarKiller, that so reminded me of the original film that I got a bit misty. We have a small band of rebels on board a killing planet, trying to destroy it despite being outnumbered hundreds to one, hoping to get a droid to the rebels to get information from it, while a powerful dark lord and a rookie Jedi butt heads. So yes, it's very similar to the original.

But who cares? It's fantastic!

Harrison Ford was made to play a dashing rogue, and he shines like a star in his return stint as Han Solo. Leia (Carrie Fisher) looks like a mannequin of herself (my guess is excessive collagen) but her part is far less prominent than Ford's. Daisy Ridley, John Boyega and Oscar Isaac are all welcome additions to the fold, blending pathos and humor throughout, and Domhnall Gleason is wonderfully foul as the First Order's General Vox. The story moves fast, the action is amazing and your breath will be taken away by the visual effects. Some scenes completely blew me away, including an homage to the first scene of Star Wars right after the opening crawl.

They have set this film up beautifully for a new trilogy, especially with the last scene of the film. Part of me wonders if the First Order has unlimited funds (the destruction of StarKiller Base must have ruined the annual budget) so how they will continue to be powerful moving forward should be interesting. But that is a minor footnote to an enormous triumph - “The Force Awakens” has the same feeling as the original film, and leaves you with the same joy and love for the characters and the story.

I'm sure I'm preaching to the choir here.....but don't miss it.

P.S.. I had heard it said that fans of the original series would enjoy this movie more on the second viewing. It's a lie – savour that first viewing as much as you can, as there will be nothing like it. For me, without the magic of “what's going to happen next” the second viewing was still enjoyable, but lacked the wondrous magic of the first time.