Ironically, the few innovative things Abrams and co-screenwriter Lawrence Kasdan attempt are among those that work best, leaving open the tantalizing prospect of what The Force Awakens might have been had the filmmakers not been beholden to incorporating as many Star Wars tropes as the 135-minute running length would accommodate. Abrams is so frightened of “messing up” Star Wars that he does the safest (and laziest) thing imaginable: tosses new characters and old ones into the mix and has them do pretty much the same things we saw in A New Hope and Return of the Jedi. The degree to which The Force Awakens is derivative is at times surprising. I guess the salient question is whether Star Wars fans want something unique or whether they want to see variations on a theme. It’s not quite a remake of the 1977 original but the influences and homages are so strong that at times it seems like one. The Force Awakens offers a “greatest hits” approach to Star Wars - take all the “expected” elements and check them off. Granted, A New Hope wasn’t a pinnacle of achievement in that realm either, but it felt fresh. If there’s a reason to be disappointed with The Force Awakens, it’s because of the lack of originality. It’s not really possible, at least in December 2015, to view The Force Awakens as “just another movie.” But, for purposes of analyzing it, I can try. Demand for this movie was always there they have amplified it by an order of magnitude making it an event. Credit Disney for putting their best marketing people and publicists on the job. Credit all the ancillary products for keeping the brand alive. Credit Lucas for keeping fans wanting more.
There have been some major “genre fan friendly” motion picture events since 1999 - Harry Potter, The Lord of the Rings, and a few others - but none has captured the worldwide consciousness the way Episode VII has. Only in the run-up to the opening of The Phantom Menace did all facets of mass media go into overdrive like this. The frenzy surrounding this film has rarely been seen in recent cinema. Like the wedding outfit of a bride, this latest installment, the first direct sequel since 1983’s Return of the Jedi, offers something old, something new, something borrowed, and something blue - actually more than one thing “borrowed.” But, for good or ill, all eras must end and, with The Force Awakens, we have entered the post-Lucas phase of Star Wars. For 36 years, George Lucas was the sole helmsman of Star Wars and, although there were times of smooth sailing, he also had to guide the ship through rough seas, especially following the release of The Phantom Menace. The 1977 release of A New Hope had a seismic impact on the film industry and the ripples expanded far and wide. It wouldn’t be much of a stretch to label Star Wars as one of the biggest cultural influences of the last half-century.
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