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This is a spoiler-intensive review. If you haven’t seen the film, please, watch before reading. So much of the movie is in the surprises. If you’ve seen it, read on and enjoy!
How does one even begin to talk about The Force Awakens? Like some, if you really want to, you can analyze the film down to the last grain of sand on the desert planet of Jakku. Or you can just sit back, and as Maz Kanata would say about the Force, you can just “let it in.”
Star Wars is perhaps the single greatest film series with the ability to connect generations. At its core, it has always been, and will continue to be, about “family.”
I felt incredibly blessed, and so appreciative, in being able to experience The Force Awakens in IMAX 3D at the Grauman’s Chinese Theater in Hollywood opening weekend with my own family. It was an unforgettable evening.
The first movie I ever watched in the theater was The Empire Strikes Back when I was 3 years old. Apparently, during one moment in the film, I actually yelled out, “Go, Luke!” much to the hilarity and delight of my parents and the audience.
I played with Star Wars action figures in the bathtub as a child. My imagination sent Luke, Han and Leia on adventures and had Leia making out with Chewbacca and Boba Fett. And Yoda and R2D2 were best friends. Go figure.
When The Phantom Menace came out in theaters in 1999, I had just graduated from college, an impulsive young adult trying to figure life out and make my way in the universe.
And now in 2015, well into adulthood, grasping the responsibilities of life, of family, of career, of being more aware of the realities of our larger world, and being self-aware of my own mortality, a new Star Wars Trilogy has arrived.
Three trilogies. Three different time periods of life. Three entirely different perspectives.
It’s this generational connective tissue that makes Star Wars so unique, so powerful in our universe.
So perhaps it’s fitting to start by looking at The Force Awakens through the mind of an 11-year-old. Afterall, while we adults who grew up with Star Wars have our demands on this series, these movies really are for the kids. If the film does its part to fascinate and amazing and promote the imagination of a young person, then it has succeeded greatly.
Back then, when the Original Trilogy came out, I wasn’t concerned with the political dynamics of the Old Republic turned Empire. When Grand Moff Tarkin says to Vader and the generals in the war room, “The regional governors now have direct control over their territories,” as a kid, I heard, “Blah blah blah blah blah.”
It wasn’t until years later that I unraveled the much more sophisticated layers and themes of the trilogy – the internal conflict Obi Wan Kenobi must have felt when deciding how to tell Luke about his father, for example, or the weight of Luke having to confront Vader, or the life and death struggle of the Rebellion, or the spirituality of the Force.
As an 11-year-old though, it was space battles between X-Wings and Tie Fighters! It was lightsabers and laser guns! It was weird and cool looking aliens and creatures! So how does The Force Awakens measure up to the other trilogies along these most important lines?
Why I like “The Force Awakens”, by JERHOW, Age 11
I like The Force Awakens because I want to fly in an X-Wing just like Poe Dameron.
This movie is so awesome!
The opening scene with all the stormtroopers and Kylo Ren was a little intense for me at my age, but I’ve seen grown-up movies like The Avengers before, so I was able to handle it. Plus it was cool seeing Finn and Poe become friends.
The new X-Wings and Tie Fighters look way cool. I like how the old ones were kind of gray colored only, but these have different colors.
I love the Millennium Falcon! I remember seeing it in the old Star Wars movies, but I’ve never seen it fly this way before! It was crashing through trees, bouncing off the snow, scraping along the ground, just the way I would play with it if I get one for Christmas!
It’s great that the Millennium Falcon is Rey‘s ship. My Dad told me that actually it’s Han Solo’s ship. I asked him which one was Han Solo was and he said he was the old guy running around with them. He was grumpy and funny.
Kylo Ren is scary. He’s not as scary as Darth Vader. I wonder why his lightsaber is so different from everyone else’s.
Rey is just the coolest! I like how she can beat up the bad guys, but she’s a good person. I like that she and Finn are boyfriend and girlfriend. So wait, is Rey a Jedi now? My mom said that’s why she goes to visit Luke Skywalker at the end of the movie, so he can train her to be a Jedi. I told her I didn’t see Luke Skywalker in the movie and she said he was the old looking guy on the island at the end. I told her Luke Skywalker doesn’t look like that but she said he’s a lot older now and has a beard. My mom’s funny.
BB-8 is funny too! He bounces around like a bouncy ball. He made me laugh, especially when he gave a ‘thumb’s up’ with his lighter! I want BB-8 for Christmas. I like that he is friends with C3PO and R2D2.
Maz is weird looking. She has weird eyes. She kind of reminds me of Yoda.
I asked my Dad why these stormtroopers look different from the other ones. He said these bad guys are not the Empire, but instead they are called the First Order. I asked him what a First Order is. He tried to explain it to me but it sounded very pol-pol-political. My Dad’s funny.
In closing, I like The Force Awakens because I want an X-Wing, a Tie Fighter, and a Millennium Falcon for Christmas. I also hope Santa brings me a Rey, a Finn, a Poe, a Chewbacca, and a BB-8. And I thought the lasers and lightsabers looked really awesome.
Clearly the 11-year-old me really liked this film.
Why go through that drill?
Because some “backlash critics”seem to be analyzing this movie in the same context as, say, The Godfather.
What these critics aren’t realizing is that The Force Awakens is built for those a lot younger than us, with just enough layer and subtext to make it interesting for the adults and old fans to enjoy. It’s not pretending to be an anthropological study of interpersonal family dynamics. Its first priority is to be a swashbuckling action-fantasy film for the kids, and it succeeds incredibly well!
The Force Awakens is pure, delectable cinema. It entertains. It surprises. It’s a roller coaster ride. It was made with a lot of love, it has incredible heart, and it is a ton of fun.
So when a “backlash critic” writes an article about the “unforgivable plot holes” of the film, and states, “Kylo Ren, a powerful Force-user, fights a lightsaber duel with an ex-janitor who has never held a lightsaber,” I feel he misses the point entirely.
To clarify the scene, Finn uses the saber, not as a Jedi, but because it was in his possession and he had no choice. If Darth Vader is coming after you, and you have a lightsaber, and you know lasers aren’t going to work (remember – he watched Kylo Ren use the Force to stop a laser bolt mid-air in the beginning), what are you supposed to do? And by the way, Finn got his butt kicked.
But wait, is a non-Jedi even able to wield a lightsaber? Han Solo used one to open up the innards of a tauntaun to keep Luke warm, so the answer is yes.
Perhaps the critic feels Kylo Ren should have been as powerful as Vader, but then that wouldn’t be Kylo Ren’s character. The entire point is that Ren isn’t a fully realized Sith Lord. He is a flawed “antagonist in training.” He is learning what it takes to be a bad guy, and he fails along the way. He is much further ahead with his knowledge of the Force than Rey, but he is similarly undisciplined.
That’s why I really don’t understand another “backlash critic” who considers the villains to be “dull and retreads of old ideas.”
Kylo Ren certainly seems like a one-of-a-kind in the Star Wars universe to me. The fact that he is flawed and emotional makes him layered and dimensional, not dull.
This is a great segue into looking at The Force Awakens through the 21-year-old in me, the one who experienced The Phantom Menace in 1999, where I was closer in age to the main protagonists of the film. In those Prequels, it would have been Anakin Skywalker, Padmé Amidala and Obi Wan Kenobi. Here, my peers would be Rey, Finn, and Kylo Ren, with Poe Dameron as the cool older brother.
Join me as we continue the adventure, won’t you?