Yes, giving this movie a more proper rating was how I paid tribute to the 91st birthday of the legendary John Williams. First off, this will be one of my lengthier takes on Letterboxd; you’ve been warned.
I’ll leave up my original review from December of ’15, where mainly for nostalgia my star rating was at FIVE (!) and for me, that looks really dumb in hindsight. I’ll still share my shame and not delete that review; among other things, in that review I explain how I was a big fan of the original trilogy as a kid, I once heard back in the 90’s that there’d be 9 in the franchise, and how at my screening watching this for the first time it had to be stopped for awhile because someone had what appeared to be a seizure and because of confusion FREAKED OUT real badly. If that sounds interesting to you, look at that first.
Before I get to talking about how The Force Awakens can only be rated by me as “fine” in early ’23, I do have to wish John Williams a happy birthday; like millions around the world, his scores have entertained me since I was a child even if I only gave credit at the time to what was his most famous work at the time (the Star Wars films, Indiana Jones, E.T., Jurassic Park, Home Alone, the first two Superman pictures). As an adult there’s been more appreciation for all of it, including films I unfortunately didn’t see until an adult-like Jaws!-and movies from the decade (!!) I’ve been a Letterboxd member, like The Fury, The Towering Inferno, Dracula, Midway, etc. The day he passes away will be as upsetting for me as it will be everyone else.
As for The Force Awakens, the fact that it is a clone (wars) of the OG Star Wars film from ’77 only not as good, has humor that feels forced (although it’s WAY less than The Last Jedi and The Rise of Skywalker; that element was one of the big reasons why I hate the both of those!) and fair or not, seeing plot threads set up here that I expected to pay off well in TLJ and TRoS were either bungled beyond belief or weren’t followed through at all… thanks, Rian!
Truth be told, I SHOULD do new reviews of The Last Jedi and The Rise of Skywalker as it’s highly likely they both would receive much lower scores than the 2 ½ stars I gave to both at the time. Most will hate me for rating TLJ that low and not loving it for “subverting expectations” but that did not feel like Star Wars at all and not even Scorsese or a resurrected Kurosawa could have made TRoS acceptable as a finale after Johnson jettisoned all the plot points set up here. Then again, Kathleen Kennedy and the rest thought that what Rian did was acceptable, so they deserve plenty of blame also.
Thus, the new main characters that seemed interesting in The Force Awakens weren’t as interesting or even as tolerable in the other two movies. Phasma seemed like she was gonna be a big deal, but that sure as s*** didn’t happen. There even are hardly any memories of what BB-8 did after this—that was forgettable compared to all the moments he had here that made children (including my twin nephews, toddlers at the time) LOVE the droid. It was nice seeing the old faces again although my opinion of the franchise is so dim now and this being a Xerox’ed version of A New Hope, I may never watch The Force Awakens ever again. At least it was a nice John Williams score that echoed the classic movies while bringing in new motifs.
Besides the sequels, most of Solo was forgotten long ago and the first season of The Mandalorian did nothing for me so none of the other Disney + shows have been experienced. What Disney did to this franchise… it’s been incredible. Those prequels don’t look as bad now—speaking of Disney, while I get why sequels were just announced to Toy Story, Frozen and Zootopia. Sequels and remakes have done rather well for The Mouse in the past decade or so, every studio wishes for the theatrical scene to return to how it was pre-COVID… it is just depressing for me. Blame towards the general public for all this is something I’ll also cast.
One last thing, if you’ve made it this far. Despite me not always liking Disney even divorced from their recent motion pictures, I still go to Walt Disney World. What they’ve done to the theme parks in the 21st century I haven’t always agreed with, but Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge is a well-realized area for those that still like the franchise. Millennium Falcon: Smuggler’s Run and Star Wars: Rise of the Resistance are both fun attractions, even if the latter isn’t helped by it being set between The Last Jedi and The Rise of Skywalker. Thankfully Rise of the Resistance is so creative & so different from the normal attraction, that makes it stand out.
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