Since the prequels tell George Lucas' Star Wars story from the beginning, I'd like to look at that trilogy first. Essentially the prequels represent the rise of the Dark Side threat in the galaxy through Darth Sidius (Senator Palpatine) and Darth Vader, and the dismantling of the Jedi, the protectors of the galaxy. Now by no means is this well done in the prequels, however, if you take the story's concepts, then it fits into the original trilogy just fine. I don't believe anyone has any qualms over the overarching story of Darth Sidius seducing Anakin Skywalker to the Dark Side while rising to power politically. The issue with the prequels is in the execution. All three prequel installments have major issues that deserve all the criticism they receive and no, the prequels are nothing like the original trilogy, but I don't think they were intended to. The prequels show how Palpatine rose to power and turned Anakin Skywalker into his apprentice. Episodes four through six tell the story of the return of the Jedi to protect the galaxy once again by vanquishing the Empire and it's Dark Side gifted leaders. Two trilogies telling two different stories are not going to have the exact same arcs with the same elements and same tone/feel. All the bad that people bring up about the prequels, in my experience, have to do with execution, not so much the overarching story. I do agree that in comparison to the original trilogy, the prequels are not good movies, but I would argue that the problem with the prequels lies in the execution of the story telling.
In comparison to the prequels, the new Star Wars trilogy, now in the hands of corporate giant Disney, is much more abstract because complete freedom exists in the direction of the story. After the original trilogy came out, labeled as episode four through six, it makes sense that episodes one through three would show how the Star Wars universe got to episode four as previously discussed. Then at the end of Return of the Jedi, the conclusion of the original trilogy (episode six), the Jedi assisted the rebels in overthrowing the Empire and it's quest to rule the galaxy by taking down the overseeing leader Darth Sidius and his apprentice Darth Vader. Return of the Jedi ends on a happy note with Luke, Leia, Han, Chewbaka, Lando, etc. surviving the war in space, land, and on spaceship and everyone rejoices with parties galore! From a moviegoers perspective all is well in the Star Wars galaxy, good guys win. If anyone wants to continue the Star Wars saga from that point forward there's a lot of freedom. Now we can finally get into The Force Awakens.
The Force Awakens is titled Star Wars Episode VII and takes place about 30 years after the events of Return of the Jedi with all our heroes from the previous trilogy still breathing. Calling this movie episode seven means that it is a continuation of the first six movies, but I take issue here because The Force Awakens doesn't tell a new story. The problem is not that The Force Awakens is too much like the original trilogy, the problem is that it is the original trilogy, most specifically Episode IV: A New Hope. I know that a countless number of people have pointed out the plot similarities between the original trilogy and The Force Awakens, but it's an issue that cannot be ignored. In terms of style and feel, I don't think the original trilogy and The Force Awakens have much in common at all, all the commonalities lie in the plot which is the reason people criticize the movie. The Force Awakens is more a remake of A New Hope than a continuation of the saga. I will not go over all the similarities in the plot, there are plenty of videos on YouTube on that subject, I just wanted to point out that The Force Awakens suffers from borrowing too much from the original trilogy and telling the same story we've already experienced. We'll have to wait for the rest of the trilogy to come out before passing final judgement on the overarching story, but I take issue with that direction: no one knows what Luke Skywalker is up to, the lead villain Kylo Ren already suffered defeat at the hand of the protagonist, and is the New Order just another name for the Empire? What was the point of the movie? What is The Force Awakens about? The plot and story of The Force Awakens did not peak my interest in a what's going to happen next way. After the Episode IV: A New Hope we knew that Luke's father was a Jedi and Ben Kenobi had been a mentor to Anakin Skywalker. We knew that Ben Kenobi told Luke that Darth Vader had murdered Anakin and at the end of the movie Vader takes down Kenobi. We knew that the Empire had been set back by the destruction of the Death Star at the hands of the rebels, but the Empire had not been destroyed. Luke tells Ben Kenobi that he wants to follow in his father's footsteps and become a Jedi Knight. We know that going forward we'll see Luke's path of struggle to Jedi Knighthood and the rebels' uphill battles to stop the Empire for good. There's a general sense of what's going to happen in the next installments. As for the prequels, we knew Episode II would be a continuation of the Anakin Skywalker story as well as Palpatine's rise and his attempts to dismantle the Jedi. The story of The Force Awakens leaves so many unanswered questions that it's hard to draw any conclusions about where the story is going. Since The Force Awakens tells an extremely similar story to A New Hope, I'm guessing the rest of the new Disney Star Wars trilogy will be about the rebels/Jedi going against the power of the New Order who want to conquer the galaxy and the next installment will probably be called something like Star Wars Episode VIII: The New Order Retaliates.
After walking out of the theater at the end of The Force Awakens, I remember thinking quite hard about what I thought of the movie. At first my reaction was that it was just alright, but I felt disingenuous even giving it an alright. The Force Awakens, at it's core, is a very hollow film that really meant nothing at all to me. The story was very familiar and I couldn't find a reason to care about anything that had happened. The movie felt like a nonstop roller coaster ride rushing from scene to scene without any reason to stop and think about what happened or how it made me feel, never mind giving any explanation for what had happened. The Force Awakens relies on references to the original trilogy and characters from the original trilogy to plow through an uninspired story. I think The Force Awakens suffers from lack of an original, well thought out story poorly developed new characters. I found the new characters rushed into the plot and contradictory to established personalities/skills at times, but these are stories for another time (see what I did there).I wanted to establish my view on The Force Awakens on a macro level before getting into the precise details of why I'm not a fan of the film. Also stumbled across a great article about what The Force Awakens is about, if you're interested and have some time to spare click here to read it! In conclusion, I think The Force Awakens is a below average movie and, as previously stated, my least favorite Star Wars movie. I'm also fully aware that I'm a moron so no need to take any of this seriously. If I ever get around to blogging some more about Star Wars, I'm thinking of writing about the moments in The Force Awakens that took me out of the movie in a "what the hell?" kind of way and an exploration of the characters new and old. Thanks for reading!
