ANALYSIS/OPINION
After a decade of no films — and 32 years since the last with the classic cast — J.J. Abrams takes audiences back to that galaxy far, far away this week with “The Force Awakens,” picking up 30 years after “Return of the Jedi.” It is a welcome return, but one nonetheless somewhat cursed by the collective memory of the original trilogy.
With feelings still wounded from the disastrous prequels George Lucas foisted upon us between 1999 and 2005, one thing was perfectly clear: A new direction was needed. Not just someone other than Mr. Lucas behind the camera, but a return to what made “Star Wars” fun and enchanting in the first place, namely characters we care about in a nonpandering escapade across the reaches of space in a galactic battle of good versus evil.
In this Mr. Abrams, along with co-writers Michael Arndt and Lawrence Kasdan (who co-wrote both “The Empire Strikes Back” and “Jedi”), has succeeded. While the iconic Han Solo, Princess (now General) Leia and Luke Skywalker all return in some fashion, the story smartly places them in the background, bringing to the fore a new duo of reluctant young heroes in Finn (John Boyega) and Rey (Daisy Ridley) thrust into battle against the First Order, a sort of Galactic Empire 2.0 arisen in the wake of the destruction of the second Death Star and the deaths of Emperor Palpatine and Darth Vader.
That much has been long known, and it is here I shall cease describing the plot and leave the rest for you to discover. Suffice to say Mr. Abrams and his co-workers have fashioned a well-earned inheritor to the “Star Wars” universe — no more, no less. Mr. Abrams proved himself a tremendous stager of action set pieces in his two “Star Trek” reboot films, showing he was born to direct a “Star Wars” film for the 21st century.
Little wonder then that “The Force Awakens,” first and foremost, is an action movie, and a well-done one at that. It’s exciting, keeps your interest and refreshes a universe that its creator Mr. Lucas all but flushed down the artistic toilet with his prequels. Mr. Abrams thankfully keeps the token lens flares to a minimum, but nonetheless can’t seem to resist trotting out his old trope of getting characters out of a situation by introducing a hungry CGI monster.
“The Force Awakens” takes things back to basics, with many of the same beats and moments refashioned from “A New Hope” of 1977. There’s a crucial piece of stolen data that both good and evil characters desire, several chases and coincidental character introductions and even a climactic battle involving yet another deadly weapon of tremendous power. This is meant to convince audiences that this is in fact “Star Wars” for the new millennium, even if it rehashes much of what we’ve seen before. It’s meant to be comforting in its familiarity, if not provocative or new.
Even if playing it safe structurally, kudos must be giving to the writing team for not wincing from making some dark choices in plot development. As in life, things happen for which we are unprepared and wish we had not experienced. So it is in “The Force Awakens,” earning an emotional gut punch near the end that, even if it is not a surprise, will still be a shock to the system.
The environments chosen are also dirty and its universe feels lived in versus the sterile, too-perfect environment of the prequels. Thankfully, much of it was shot on real locations instead of the cold settings conjured from ones and zeroes.
Whether or not “The Force Awakens” is on the same level of the older films is largely up to personal preference. Messrs. Abrams, Kasdan and Arndt have fashioned a story that is intriguing and with enough moments of humor to rank alongside the franchise’s earlier iterations. Not all questions raised are answered by the time the closing credits of “The Force Awakens” scroll past, but such is the case of a saga — a whetting of the appetite for the next two films in this perhaps final trilogy.
While “The Force Awakens” provides a genuinely satisfying time at the movies, there is nonetheless a certain lack of humanity at its core. Mr. Boyega and Miss Ridley do an admirable job of anchoring the film, and Adam Driver’s Kylo Ren is a genuinely realized and complex villain, and yet the simple human chemistry of yore between Han, Luke, Leia, Chewie and the droids has yet to been replicated despite the efforts made in “The Force Awakens” to capture that charm that elevated the original films above their serial adventure schema into the Zeitgeist.
It’s good to have the Force back on our side, and it will be thrilling to see how the story develops over the next two films. Billions of dollars will it make this season, but I was nonetheless left hungering not for bigger explosions upon its return, but more attention paid to genuine human introspection and interaction — the force of connection between souls that is more powerful than the Force used in battle.
• Eric Althoff can be reached at twt@washingtontimes.com.
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