Spoilers? Sorta.
I just wanted to jot down a couple of thoughts I had upon seeing Star Wars. I saw it yesterday; yes, I know I’m late. But I wanted to say a couple of things about it.
I liked it. I didn’t necessarily expect to; it was, after all, made by the same man who redid Star Trek, and I wanted to burn my eyes out and bleach my brain after seeing that thing. But while J.J. Abrams did a lot of the same things for Star Wars (scenes full of fan service, for example), this one went down better with me. Why that might be is the subject for a different sort of argument, and I’m not sure I’ll ever have the energy for it.
Overall I greatly enjoyed the film. It took me back to when I first saw A New Hope on our twenty year-old television, sitting on my dad’s knee. Fun, excitement, eminently quotable lines. And the cast of The Force Awakens does an amazing job. I came to see Luke, Leia and Han again. I’ll come back to see Fin and Rey again.
One thing I will say about The Force Awakens is that, even as it was playing, my family and I noticed one or two or five thousand similarities to A New Hope. Yeah, it’s essentially the same film. The plot beats, even some of the scenes and scenery. So if you know the original films, nothing in there is going to blow your mind. Though this was apparent throughout, it didn’t bother me so much. Maybe because I was having a good time anyway, maybe because everything else about the film was stellar (no pun intended), maybe because I was just glad we didn’t get a repeat of the prequels.
I enjoyed the film to the extent that I want to get back into the Star Wars universe. And now that we’ve got a reboot, I’ve decided to read the new canon books. I never got into the old ones, because there was simply so much. But it’ll be a fun project for the blog – read, review, comment.
So I’ll be starting with The Dark Disciple, which Wookieepedia claims is the first (chronologically) of the new canon books. I’ll be listening to it on audio, then I’ll post my review.
