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Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens – When this film blared out the famous John Williams theme and the initial elemnts of the story crawled up the screen in traditional style, I let out a little bit of wee… but that’s a medical condition and nothing to do with the sci-fi series returning to the big screen (I’m here all week, tip your waitress).
This film starts a third and, supposedly final, trilogy, and reminds me that I read many moons ago that there were originally nine books in the Star Wars canon, and that the middle three were the most action-packed, so they started at No.4 and went on to make 5 and 6 because the first movie was a huge success.
It seems this is basically nonsense, however, otherwise the plot for Episode VII would be the worst-kept secret. And somehow, after all this time, the plot has been kept under wraps – not bad for the internet age.
Occasionally, in this review, I’ll mention something that, if you’re going to watch it, you’re probably best skipping, so I’ll enclose spoiler tags around those, so you actively have to click on them to read them.
Also, if you put something in the comments below which is likely to be considered a spoiler, then please flag it up first with “SPOILER ALERT” at the top of your comment.
So the basics of the plot are…
There’s a fair smattering of action, and the same goes for humour, but it’s also fairly baggy. I’m well aware that action has to take a back seat sometimes for plot exposition, but some of these scenes didn’t half go on. On the plus side, The Force Awakens always managed to counter those with a pick-me-up and bring you back into excitement-ville.
As always in Star Wars, the characters and locations are frequently unpronounceable and look like they’ve been derived by pulling out random letters from a Scrabble bag. But that’s not a major issue otherwise I’d have stopped watching them a long time ago. More importantly, how are the cast faring? Oscar Isaac (Inside Llewyn Davis, X-Men Apocalypse) is always worth a watch, while his Ex Machina co-star Domhnall Gleeson turns up on the Dark Side as big baddie General Hux.
However, the main cast members – Daisy Ridley and John Boyega – are simply just ‘okay’ when they’re not coming up with the occasional wisecrack. And it takes a fair while before Harrison Ford turns up with Chewbacca (Peter Mayhew), and the eventual expected scenes between him and Carrie Fisher really lack the sparkle I was expecting. They’re meant to be like a bickering old couple at times, but they look like they can’t really be bothered to do the bickering. Andy Serkis is always entertaining in CGI form, and this time round he’s the Supreme Leader Snoke, telling Kylo what to do.
As for JJ Abrams, I don’t really rate him as a director. Mission Impossible III was good, but for the 2009 Star Trek reboot, Chris Pine was wooden (pun intended), Simon Pegg was woefully miscast. Zachary Quinto (Spock) and Karl Urban (Bones) are spot-on, though. Pine had a tough row to hoe, though. You can’t even begin to top Shatner. And Pegg didn’t even bother to put on the accent half the time, such as the first time you see him, banging on about needing a towel.
For the sequel, Star Trek Into Darkness, Benedict Cumberbatch was wasted, and his deal was given away in the trailers when it should’ve been saved for the film. And when I recently saw the trailer for Star Trek Beyond, it should be renamed Beyond Boredom. Never has a trailer offered so little. I know JJ isn’t directing, but he’s still pulling all the strings in the background.
Go to page 2 for more thoughts on the film…
Still, in a year where really duff sequels and remakes have played their part, at least it doesn’t rank as low as Jurassic World, Terminator Genisys and Poltergeist. I include remakes in those words because there are elements in The Force Awakens where Abrams is showing us things that have been done before, and… spoiler alert on..
I also made the effort to see this in IMAX because one major scene, around 30 minutes in and lasting up almost 10 minutes, has been shot with 70mm IMAX cameras in 1.44:1. I’ve championed before, with my Interstellar cinema review, why this is a stunning vision that must be seen.
Hence, I was gutted that after pre-ordering my ticket, it was not to be presented that way in Manchester’s IMAX – the second biggest in Europe (only the BFI IMAX beats it). For some reason, there’s so few prints in the UK that they couldn’t get one – reportedly two in 3D and one in 2D. I think this is a disgrace of Disney – they paid $4.06bn for everything “Star Wars”, they’ve already made the money back with merchandise, and they can’t get a fucking print sorted?? This is the ONLY time I’ll be seeing this on the HUGE screen, and so, as it was digitally-projected, the print opened up to 1.90:1 at most. Disney, you bloody cheapskates!!!
Some big spoilers….
I had planned to see this in a midnight screening today. I tried to book the Odeon IMAX 3D at Manchester Printworks, and despite once or twice managing to select the seats and then go to the checkout, it would either say “Session data expired” or tell me the seats had already gone! In the end, I settled for the mid-morning screening where I very nearly didn’t get my seat of choice as someone else had taken them, yet clearly they had a problem because we all got chucked out, and they became free again and I was able to buy them! So it kinda worked out in the end.
Outside of the film content, since this first-day viewing was going to be heaving, I knew there’d be a chance of at least one person being an arse and there was more than that. Firstly, as the credits began and the lights came on (grrr! in itself), the woman in the row in front of me stood up, put her jacket on and then just STOOD THERE! She was waiting for her better half to shift himself, but rather than sit back down and wait for him, she continued to stand!!!
Secondly, despite me being sat bang in the middle at the back – so there’s no reason for anyone to walk past me and trip over my bag – they still decided to walk past me and nearly trip over my bag. And because people on my left weren’t moving at one point, the dicks who passed me just STOOD RIGHT IN FRONT OF ME!!!! I told the bloke right in front that I was trying to watch the credits and he just mumbled. There was nothing to stop him going the other way! Thank Frank it’s not normally that busy!
If this is you in the cinema, then HAVE A WORD WITH YOURSELF!! Some of us like to stay and enjoy the end music and check out the credits, and we don’t need you ruining it!!
Overall, while JJ Abrams still *gets* the feeling of the franchise across, Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens was good, but not brilliant. I will check it out again at the cinema, but I’ll wait until the new year and just catch a 2D showing. It wasn’t filmed in 3D anyway, so the fact I saw that was largely just a by-product of seeing it in IMAX. I don’t think the 3D added a huge amount to it, outside of basic perspective. In addition, it’s also one of the longer Star Wars films and, at 135 minutes, really needs about 20-30 minutes cutting out of it.
Star Wars Episode VII The Force Awakens is available to pre-order on Blu-ray and DVD, but the release date has yet to be confirmed. Also, click on the poster for the full-size image.
Detailed specs:
Cert: 
Running time: 135 minutes
Studio: Walt Disney Picures
Year: 2015
Format: 2.35:1 (Anamorphic Panavision, Digital Intermediate (4K)), 1.44:1 (one 70mm IMAX scene, showing in 1.90:1 for digital IMAX projections – almost all of them)
Released: December 17th 2015
Rating: 7/10
Director: JJ Abrams
Producers: JJ Abrams, Bryan Burk and Kathleen Kennedy
Screenplay: Lawrence Kasdan, JJ Abrams and Michael Arndt (based on characters created by George Lucas)
Music: John Williams
Cast:
Han Solo: Harrison Ford
Luke Skywalker: Mark Hamill
Princess Leia: Carrie Fisher
Kylo Ren: Adam Driver
Rey: Daisy Ridley
Finn: John Boyega
Poe Dameron: Oscar Isaac
Maz Kanata: Lupita Nyong’o
Supreme Leader Snoke: Andy Serkis
General Hux: Domhnall Gleeson
C-3PO: Anthony Daniels
Lor San Tekka: Max von Sydow
Chewbacca: Peter Mayhew
Captain Phasma: Gwendoline Christie
Chewbacca Double: Joonas Suotamo
Lead Stormtrooper: Pip Andersen
Unkar Plutt: Simon Pegg
Teedo: Kiran Shah
Jakku Villager: Sasha Frost
Colonel Kaplan: Pip Torrens
Major Ematt: Andrew Jack
Colonel Datoo: Rocky Marshall
Snap Wexley: Greg Grunberg
Brance: Emun Elliott
Bala-Tik: Brian Vernel
Tasu Leech: Yayan Ruhian
Lieutenant Mitaka: Sebastian Armesto
Korr Sella: Maisie Richardson-Sellers
Wollivan: Warwick Davis
Young Rey: Cailey Fleming
Knight of Ren: Mark Stanley
Admiral Statura: Ken Leung
Razoo Quin-Fee: Iko Uwais
Bazine Netal: Anna Brewster
Dr Kalonia: Harriet Walter
Admiral Ackbar: Tim Rose
Admiral Ackbar: Erik Bauersfeld
Nien Nunb: Mike Quinn
Nien Nunb: Kipsang Rotich
FN-3181: Michael Giacchino
FN-9330: Nigel Godrich
Reviewer of movies, videogames and music since 1994. Aortic valve operation survivor from the same year. Running DVDfever.co.uk since 2000. Nobel Peace Prize winner 2021.
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