I’ve seen Star Wars: The Force Awakens (2015) since last Saturday, with friends on a midnight schedule at the cinemas, but just now have the chance to continue writing and post this one. Guess I’ll be doing marathons of watching movies and writing reviews since there are already screeners for the awards season.
The movie starts with the traditional scrolling marquee, narrating that First Order had risen in place of the Empire and Luke Skywalker is missing. Leia’s best Resistance pilot meets Lor San Tekka to retrieve a map to Luke. The first Order lead by Kylo Ren storms through the planet Jakku to intercept him. They succeed, capturing the pilot and killing San Tekka. But the pilot put the map chip into his droid BB-8 which escaped. Meanwhile one of the Order’s stormtrooper feels guilty of his actions. The droid find it’s way to a scavenger. The guilty stormtrooper breaks the pilot free. The pilot introduces himself as Poe Dameron and he names the stormtrooper Finn. But their escape fighter gets shot down and they’re separated as each survives the crash. Finn wears Poe’s jacket and finds his way to the scavenger. They escape First Order pursuing the droid by stealing a ship, which happens to be the Millenium Falcon.
But the Falcon gets pulled into a freighter and Han Solo and Chewbacca finds them. They fend off a two pronged attack by the Kanjiklub and Guavian Death Gang. Once safe they exchange stories, and Han Solo decides to help them and brings them to Maz Kanata. Meanwhile Kylo is tasked by Supreme Leader Snoke to get the map. The patron’s at Kanata’s bar alerts both First Order and the Resistance about the droid’s presence. Finn asks Rey to follow him to flee. But Rey instead follows a calling she hears and finds Luke’s lightsaber. The First Order alerts Kylo about Rey and he manages to capture her. The Resistance storms in and pushes the Order away. They retreat without the droid since Kylo thins Rey is enough due to her already saw the map piece. The Resistance meets up as The Order fires its massive weapon The Starkiller, destroying The Republic sanctum at multiple planets at once. But Rey manages to defy Kylo’s mind probing. She even manages to Jedi mind-tricked a stormtrooper into releasing her.
Leia asks Han to bring Kylo, who turns out to be their son, home. Finn, Han and Chewbacca sneak into the Starkiller planet to seeking Rey. They find her, and as they rig explosives, Han confronts Ben, Kylo ’s birth name. But the son kills Han. Chewie shoots Kylo but he manages to chase Finn and Rey. Finn uses Luke’s lightsaber against Kylo but he fails to defeat him. Rey takes it and manages to slash Kylo’s face, but the same time Poe’s fighters and the explosives manages to destabilize the weapon planet, creating a gorge separating Kylo and Rey. After Rey comes to the Resistance base, R2-D2 comes back from his power saving mode and completes BB-8’s map to Luke. Rey finds him and brings him his lightsaber.
The movie indeed feels epic at all levels. You name it; nostalgia for older generations of the first and second trilogies, continuance of the old saga, the flood of cameos, and for Indonesians especially; The Raid trio pulling up small roles. The story is nicely played, able to satisfy the saga’s fans while also heavily leaving an assortment of curious questions for the next movie. This makes the movie feels somewhat lacking due to it incites more curiosity than it quenches.
It’s quite a different approach that Episode VII has to face, providing a continuation story arc after thirty years of the iconic trilogy followed by a controversial prequel trilogy. Anticipating the prequels, diehard fans had already known how the story would eventually end. This time they get more curious as the movie throws in a heap of new materials, still with the classic signature of the story elements being intricately weaved. Those inter-weaving of story elements are clearly designed to be completed at the end of the trilogy as there are only questions so far.
The new characters are at least able to balance the legendary icons here. The story nicely incorporate them and let’s the icons have a grand gesture before they fade in the story to give room for the new generation. The twists and turns feels somewhat less strong, only Han Solo’s death becoming the real kicker. All the rest feels like they are in the movie just as snippets of reference from the old movies.
The CGI looks great, adding great depths to the more mysterious story elements such as Kylo’s saber glowing wavy, Snoke, and especially the Starkiller base. The CGI helped greatly to make the weapon look cool, although it’s essentially only the Death Star getting significantly magnified. The creatures also look great. I had the thought that maybe Maz Kanata is of the same species as Yoda, only with different skin color. After all, nobody knows what Yoda’s species should look like.
The acting feels nice in overall. John Boyega did well enough to divert the audience’s attention from the absurd background of his character. Daisy Ridley did great in playing as the awakening Jedi while still keeping Rey’s mystery for the next movie. Oscar Isaac, Harrison Ford, Carrie Fisher and even Peter Mayhew did well in their characters. All the small roles and cameos also adds to enjoying this movie.
I was kind of disappointed that The Raid trio only got such small roles and even only Yayan Ruhian who got some dialog, and no Bahasa Indonesia privilege. But I think it’s quite alright though for some things; The Kanjiklub leaders escaped the rathtar, which means they may return on Episode VIII. Also J.J. Abrams did great in directing Yayan Ruhian to do the lines, as Yayan isn’t known for English fluency.
I score Star Wars: The Force Awakens (2015) a solid 8 out of 10 score, and a definite recommendation to go and see it in the movies.
This Too Will Pass 