Star Wars: The Force Awakens

                Yes, I know everyone is talking about Star Wars.  It’s hard to turn anywhere without coming across an ad or article about it.  The world truly seems obsessed with Star Wars.

                While I would not put myself in the obsessed category, when I saw a new Star Wars film was coming out I was curious to see it.  I grew up with the original trilogy.  It is something I have seen definitely more than once, but I don’t know how good I would be at a deep, in-depth discussion about it.  Pretty much my interest laid with Yoda and Ewoks.  There was also a fascination with Jabba and his lair, but for the most part everything came down to Yoda and Ewoks.  Unfortunately, neither one of these (or Jabba, for that matter) were in Star Wars: The Force Awakens.  Despite this, I do feel this newest Star Wars film is worth seeing.   

                The Empire was eliminated many years ago, but the darkness did not stay away.  Now The Dark Side has taken form in a group called the First Order.  They want to take over everything and get rid of all light.  The problem with this is Luke Skywalker (Mark Hamill) and his Force are still in existence.  As long as this remains the case, there will always be the possibility of light.

                One might think it would be easy to solve this problem.  All one has to do is get rid of Luke and be done.  That is if they can find him.  No one, not even his allies, knows where Luke is.  He went into hiding years ago and hasn’t reemerged since.  There is a map that will lead people to Luke, but nobody has all the pieces.  The First Order discovers that a droid, BB-8, has the final piece they are looking for, but somehow the droid keeps evading their capture.  He has befriended a young woman named Rey (Daisy Ridley), and she, along with former stormtrooper Finn (John Boyega), are helping BB-8 get his piece of the map into the right hands.

             Of course, this task is not a smooth adventure.  The trio runs into a great deal of problems, including getting captured by Han Solo (Harrison Ford) and Chewbacca (Peter Mayhew).  There are a lot of battles with the First Order as a whole, but they also have to deal with the personal vendetta of Kylo Ren (Adam Driver), an important First Order leader.    It’s one thing to go out and fight because you’re told to.  Once it turns personal, there is a whole different set of lengths a person will go.  Kylo Ren definitely goes to those lengths.

                Not surprisingly, this film ended with a cliff hanger.  To my knowledge, Star Wars: The Force Awakens is the start of a new trilogy and a cliff hanger was to be expected.  As the start of a trilogy, this film did a really good job.  There were a lot of funny pieces and previous characters were reintroduced realistically.  Nothing seemed thrown in and there were only a few awkward moments throughout the entire film.  What I really like is that this time the star and the hero of the film is a strong female.  Rey, more than any other character, takes on the First Order and refuses to let them take control.  Without Rey and her determination I think the Resistance that was fighting the First Order would have been sunk.  Something else I really liked was that people of different genders, races, and ethnicities played all parts.  There was a great diversity of people who were pilots and held important roles in the Resistance.  I don’t know if the same held true for the First Order.  Most of them had helmets on which made it hard to tell. 

                 If you plan on seeing Star Wars: The Force Awakens, I suggest you watch the original trilogy first, if you haven’t already. Even if you have, but it’s been awhile, I suggest you watch it again. There are some references and storylines from the original films that carry over into this one. Without the previous knowledge, some parts may seem confusing and unclear. It would be a shame for that to happen because then you probably wouldn’t enjoy the film as much, and it is a film to be enjoyed.