SPOILERS Review - Star Wars: The Force Awakens

This review is FULL of spoilers, so read at your own risk!

Star Wars: The Force Awakens is finally here! Thank the maker! And i love the film, i've seen it 4 times so far and have enjoyed it more each time, finding various new things each time i watch it.

The Force Awakens focuses on Rey and Finn, Rey is a resident of the planet Jakku, a scavenger who is waiting for her parents to come back for her so that she can see the bigger world beyond her planet, she runs into Finn, a stormtrooper who realises that he is on the wrong side of the war and escapes to have a better life. I really loved these two characters and they instantly work, Rey is everything you need in a main character and resembles Luke a lot, she's a badass female who doesn't need any help, which i enjoyed greatly, the film really went out of its way to show how strong of a character she is. Finn's character is interesting because we're always looking at stormtroopers and thinking of them as evil because of the uniform, but for the first time we follow a trooper and find out how hard of a job it is and that the people under the helmet are just normal people caught up in a galactic war.
The villain of the piece, Kylo Ren was equally as interesting as our heroes, he is a Vader fan-boy, with a bad temper, who is getting tempted by the light side, which i found incredibly interesting, getting tempted by the light, showing that he's not all bad. Adding even more to the character we find out halfway through the film that he is Han and Leia child, Ben! Ben Solo, who was getting trained by Luke with other jedi's before getting tempted to the dark side by Supreme Leader Snoke! Who looks very menacing in the few scenes he was in.

The returning characters were just as we remembered them 30 years ago, with Han, Chewie and Leia being rather prominent in the film, Han is exactly how we remembered him, a two bit smuggler, going on adventures with his best pal Chewie, but with 30 years gone by he has some scars, emotional ones, he's dealing with his son, Ben, going to the dark side, which is why he and Leia aren't together anymore, because every-time they look at each-other they are reminded of their child, which is rather heartbreaking for our favourite couple, Princess Leia is now General Leia and is leading The Resistance against the evil First Order, Leia isn't in the film as much but her scenes with Han work as well as they always have and i'm hoping for more of her in the future films.

Among the newest characters that had a smaller role in the film Oscar Issac's Poe Dameron was a fantastic character that lit up the screen when he first appears offering humour and awesomeness in one package, "the best fighter pilot in the resistance" he claims and he is right, in a amazing one take scene when we see Poe in his X-Wing taking out 9 or 10 tie fighters in a row while taking out stormtroopers on the ground also.
Captain Phasma was a disappointing character who didn't add much to the story this episode, but Kathleen Kennedy says that she'll be back so hopefully she'll do something awesome next time!
I have to talk about my new favourite droid in the galaxy, BB8! Ever since BB8 rolled out during Star Wars Celebration i've been in love with that ball droid and it doesn't disappoint in the film at all, offering up the funniest moments in the film as well as being insanely cute.

The plot to The Force Awakens was rather simple and reminiscent to that of A New Hope, which isn't a bad thing because it let the characters shine even more, just like in A New Hope the film starts with a droid getting very important information and needing to give it to someone of importance, Rey our hero is similar to Luke in several ways, you have the intimidating Vader looking villain in Kylo Ren and you have a weapon which can destroy planets like the Death Star, but everything surrounding it is new and fun. The film is all about the search for Luke, which was very smart using the advertising to make us all wonder where the hell he is. Rey, Finn and BB8's adventures across the galaxy was the thing i enjoyed most in the film, especially near the start when they fly the Millennium Falcon was a fantastic reveal. Another great reveal was the fact that Kylo Ren is Ben Solo and his fight with the light side, in the original and prequel trilogy, we've seen Jedi being tempted by the dark side, while in Force Awakens Kylo is being tempted by the light, which i didn't even know could happen! Which i think hints that Kylo isn't truly evil, but maybe thats changed now that HE KILLED HAN!! His own father, in a brilliant, beautiful and iconic scene which i think we'll go down as a classic moment in Star Wars, the lighting in the scene is beautiful with red light covering half of Kylo's face while the light from outside is coming from Rey and Finn and hitting Han, fantastically done. I loved what they did with Luke, only revealing him in the last minute of the movie, with a scene that questions if Rey is going to be trained by him or bring him back with her, i love that the film had the balls to hide Luke the whole film and it paid off spectacularly.
I was also surprised at just how funny the film was, with Poe, Finn, Han, Chewie and BB8 offering up tons of laughs.

I don't have many gripes with the film, my main problem with it was that the film made the galaxy feel small again, with the resistance being so small and being able to take out something as huge as Starkiller base i would assume they would of needed a massive fleet, but its taken down by 5-6 x-wings which i thought was disappointing, in A New Hope i think they had more TIE fighters defending the tiny Death Star compared to the huge Starkiller base.

I really loved the film and my love for it increases every-time i watch it. The film perfectly set up a new trilogy thanks to paying homage to the originals while still being new, the characters old and new are fantastic, the action scenes are awesome, especially the lightsaber battles which are more like the original trilogy fights than the prequels, they didn't seem choreographed, they just felt like raw emotions, i've probably forgotten a lot of other things i've wanted to talk about but theres so much! I cannot wait for Episode VIII

9.0/10
What did you think of Star Wars: The Force Awakens?
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