Forceful

While I've been a bit rubbish about blogging recently (hah - try this year! At this point, I've done less blogging throughout 2015 than in the first year of this blog, which was actually only the last three months of that year) I couldn't possibly go without mention of seeing the new Star Wars movie - Episode VII: The Force Awakens - without seeming to make a lie of my geekery and long-term love of the series.

Pretty much as soon as they went on sale, my girlfriend got us tickets to see the movie at the IMAX screen at the Science Museum. It's a bit out of the way, considering we have several cinemas closer to home, but it seemed like the right thing to do: one of the greatest franchises is Science Fiction movie history returns to the (very) big screen, and the Science Museum's IMAX screen is (apparently) the only screen in the UK showing the movie in its 70mm format... What could be better?

I'm going to try to keep this spoiler-free - I'm sure there are plenty of spoilers online already (not least because my girlfriend mentioned that Reddit moderators have had the movie comprehensively spoiled while trying to remove all Episode 7 spoilers from myriad Reddit threads), so there's no need to add my own.

The Force Awakens, unlike The Phantom Menace (just as an example) is a fairly low-key movie. It's all about introducing new characters and (after a while) catching up with some of the old ones, rather than grand CGI spectacle. The roller text at the beginning sets a simple scene, rather than spewing out hyperbolic political history which could have made for a vastly more interesting story had it been part of the movie rather than being reduced to introductory roller text. The opening banter between the first two characters - one of then being the "daring pilot" Poe Dameron (Oscar Isaac) - serves as a quick link between this movie and Episodes 4-6 before our new villain is introduced. Other than this action taking place planetside, Kylo Ren's (Adam Driver) entrance is remarkably similar to that of Darth Vader in Episode 4. We stay with this situation long enough for more introduction the characters of Finn (John Boyega) and Captain Phasma (Gwendoline Christie), as well as hinting at the rivalry between Kylo Ren and General Hux (Domhnall Gleeson) - both reporting to 'Supreme Leader' Snoke (voiced by Andy Serkis), before skipping to Tatooine-analogue Jakku to discover Rey (Daisy Ridley), the scavenger. From then on, the story moves very swiftly as paths cross and - just the first example of Star Wars déjà vu - critical information makes its way to its intended recipients in time for the climactic battle between the First Order and the Resistance.

For all its Sci-Fi trappings, there's always been a huge element of 'Swords and Sorcery'-type Fantasy to Star Wars (at least, in the good films - Episode 1 tried to smother 'the Force' in the pseudoscience of 'Midichlorians', a factor wisely abandoned in Episodes 2 and 3), and there's plenty of that in The Force Awakens. The title very subtly alludes to a particular character who, more than any other, seems to be swept up and along by events. A critical relic of the war with the Empire (seemingly thought to been a myth by some of the younger characters) turns up not in a high-tech holding facility, but in a battered wooden box in a dank, dungeon-like forgotten underground storeroom.

There are also plenty of references to the original trilogy, not least in the planet settings of the movie - from the desert planet (not-Tatooine) to the forest planet (not-Endor, and cause of a great line of dialogue from desert-dwelling Rey) to the ice planet (not-Hoth) - and some specific scenes hark back very clearly.

One of the best things about The Force Awakens is that it allows itself to be intentionally funny, without resorting to the visual slapstick or the comically exaggerated double-takes that plagued Episodes 1-3. There are a couple of moments where it goes too far (in my opinion) - Poe Dameron occasionally comes off a little too cocky and care-free, Finn's bluster in a couple of situations goes a little over the top, even considering the way his character is presented - but, for the most part, the balance is good. The same can be said of the visual spectacle - it's all there, but it's never unnecessary and never overwhelms the story to the extent of the sickly CGI visual opulence of the prequels. The first flight of the Millennium Falcon (shown briefly in the very first teaser, so I think it's safe enough to mention here without straying into spoilers) is truly a sight to behold... Though I'm none the wiser on how it actually flies given the way it moves in-atmosphere.

But there are downsides. Practical effects were used wherever possible, for the spacecraft, the creatures and the droids (BB-8 is a triumph of practical special effects - as believable as an autonomous droid as R2-D2 and C-3PO, both of whom had people inside them) so, wherever CGI comes into play for the finer details - be it a crumbling building, a particularly detailed alien face, or a towering communications hologram - it still seems incredibly false. Perhaps not to the extent it did in Episodes 1-3, but those kinds of effects have been done better. There's also a great long sequence, shortly after the re-introduction of Han Solo and Chewbacca, which very nearly strays into Prequel Slapstick territory with its CGI monsters. My main CGI gripe would be the wasted performances of a couple of actors, in particular Lupita Nyong'o. While I'm sure they captured the movement of her face to animate Maz Kanata, the end result still looks eerily like a pumpkin wearing goggles... And there seemed to be no point to her having that sort of appearance (except as a character possibly analogous to a certain diminutive Jedi Master). Granted, many actors lend their voices to all kinds of animated characters in all kinds of movies and TV shows, but I didn't see any obvious reason why Maz Kanata had to be CGI rather than Lupita Nyong'o in costume and makeup, and the end result of the latter would surely have looked more convincing.

Also, with so many new characters to introduce, none really took centre stage... that may have been intentional, with all the relationships and rivalries to be explored more fully in the next couple of films, but it left me wanting more from this movie. So many questions are raised about each character's identity, I felt that they could have split The Force Awakens into two movies and done both the enigmatic characters and the story better justice. It's very light on plot - possibly not even as much plot as Episode 4, which The Force Awakens seems to recycle on a lot of points - doing little more than establishing that 'First Order=BAD, Resistance=GOOD', with a few hints at the underlying politics of this region of space at this point in time after the fall of the Empire.

TL;DR: The Force Awakens is a worthy follow-up to the Star Wars I grew up with. I was utterly awestruck and, for the first time in ages, keen to see a film a second time, just so I can digest it properly (and also, hopefully, be somewhat less overwhelmed by the IMAX presentation - we arrived at the screen with about five minutes to go before the movie started, and had to sit right near the front as, bizarrely, it was free-seating throughout). I'm excited for the next installment but, with so many characters still shrouded in mystery after their screen time in The Force Awakens, it's difficult to know where it will go from here.