Director:
J.J. Abrams
Writers:
Lawrence Kasdan, J.J. Abrams |
Lawrence Kasdan, J.J. Abrams |
Stars:
Daisy Ridley, John Boyega, Oscar Isaac |
Storyline
30 years after the defeat of Darth Vader and the Empire, Rey, a scavenger from the planet Jakku, finds a BB-8 droid that knows the whereabouts of the long lost Luke Skywalker. Rey, as well as a rogue stormtrooper and two smugglers, are thrown into the middle of a battle between the Resistance and the daunting legions of the First Order.
Reviews
...until a time when a halfway decent writer, director, actors, costume designer, set builders and music composer can be found. This movie was made for check-your-brain-at-the-door millennial bed-wetters, not for the more sophisticated movie-goer. It is a nostalgia movie and nothing more. Had this movie not been associated with Star Wars, it would've bombed at the box office and received overwhelmingly negative reviews much more akin to the recent Fantastic 4 movie.
As soon as I heard that Jar Jar Abrams was doing this updated Star Wars Holiday Special, I knew it was definitely not going to be good, but I wasn't expecting it to be this BAD. Jar Jar, still riding his fame for LOST, even though his only real involvement in that show was the pilot episode, has shown that he can completely beat to death time-honored franchises like Star Trek and flip the bird to its fans. The sets used in this movie made the original trilogy look state of the art in comparison. Every one of the costumes have a cheaply constructed fan-film quality to them. Kylo Ren's costume reminded me of Klytus from the 1980 Flash Gordon movie. As bad as the prequels were, you could still look forward to a cool light-saber duel, but even when that moment came in this new film, you were let down BIG TIME. From the very first shot, this movie made a concerted effort to copy the original Star Wars. The points made in every bad review reflected my exact thoughts. Every character in this movie is even more shallow and uninteresting as the prequel characters. Even the bad guys act silly and elicit about as much negative feelings towards them as the Nazis in the third Indiana Jones movie. If the entire First Order is looking for BB-8, as long as they don't need any cigarettes lit, why don't the main characters just leave this otherwise useless droid behind? I have my own theory about that. I believe that the soul of Jar Jar Binks was preserved in perpetuity inside the little droid. Hey, if you're going to make a parody version of a classic movie, why not go all out? Besides that, what happened to Carrie Fisher's voice? It doesn't go above a whisper and it sounds heavily slurred. She sounded just like that lady in the anti-smoking ads with the stoma in her neck. Chewie didn't even look like Chewie anymore but rather a Wookiee that had just walked out of a hair salon.
There are bad movies and there are movies that are so bad, they leave you in a lousy mood for the rest of the day. This movie is the latter. After watching this, I found it much more entertaining and cathartic to read all the negative reviews. If you hated this movie, the best thing you can do to express your anger is to boycott any more Star Wars movies and merchandise.
