Star Wars Episode VII The Force Awakens (Abrams 2015) -- SPOILERS THERE ARE.

[Morris Schæffer]

Having slept on it, I DO very much like this movie, but pretty much all of its glaring flaws stem from its over-familiarity with A New Hope. Sorta like how Into Darkness felt like it was more interesting in recreating Wrath of Kahn as opposed to telling a new movie, this one, too, feels more worried about throwing in references than it does in telling a whole new compelling story, which actually started to make me groan at points. That said, the cast very much DOES make this movie work, but I'm not sure Abrams was the right man for the job after all.

I feel very confident giving this a ***½, but that does have somewhat to do with the fact that I've become more lenient, more aware of a general decrease in quality of major tentpole movies. I think this movie has an edge, something extra, a real heart, it's not an empty spectacle, but you are right about the bit I've bolded. The problem I think is actually even bigger than that. [

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Not only does it ape many of the moments from the original trilogy, not in the least the final X-Wing attack on a Death Star-like structure but that it doesn't even manage to come close to A New Hope, let alone Return of the Jedi in the space battle stakes is bothering me. Apart from some dated miniature work in those movies, the special effects during those attack runs are far more memorable, inventive with better spatial coherence and a far bigger sense of stakes and urgency. By repeating this element so rigidly here the outcome is entirely pre-ordained. We know precisely what's going to happen and it does without exception, without surprise. The concurrent mission with the principals remedies that quite a bit thank God because here it's kinda awesome and chilling, but the Space Battle attack on the Death Star was extremely poor. It's 32 years later since Jedi, why does this look worse?

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