★★★★☆
Four Stars
Why the fuck would someone post Star Wars plot spoilers on an article about an orangutan laughing at a magic trick? I tried, I tried so very hard to avoid the spoilers. No Twitter, no movie blogs. What more could I do? Damn you Buzzfeed, and your twatty users. I mean real twats. Ten out of ten on the twat scale kind of twats. Gold medal-winning twats. Stop, stare and take a picture kind of twats. I should have known better. Boredom leads to Facebook, Facebook leads to Buzzfeed, Buzzfeed leads to heart-rending spoilers.
Suffice to say, I didn’t have the Star Wars experience I had hoped for – similar to how most fans felt when the prequels came out at the turn of the millennium. From the space Western vibe of the originals, in all their stuttering hologram and Oedipal complex glory, we were dragged in to trade federations and lacking computer-generated environments. And Hayden Christensen’s sclerotic face.
Force Awakens corrects those ills at nearly every point. Lead protagonists John Boyega and Daisy Ridley ground the fantastical science-fiction around them in likeable characters who appear distinctly human, in a way that Christensen and Natalie Portman never could. It’s also funny. Not laugh out loud, but generous chuckling kind of funny, in a welcome change to the prequels that lacked anything humans could recognise as humour.
Physicality reigns at every turn, a decision that feels like an intentional ‘fuck you’ to the CGI hollowness of Jar Jar Binks and General Grievous. The sets are gorgeous and noticeably lovingly crafted: from the alien prosthetics, to the interior of the Millennium Falcon, even down to the lightsaber handles and Chewbacca’s mane. The sound design feels equally tactile, with every laser twang and boot clap perfectly balanced. It magically manages to make a world so intrinsically distant to our own feel tangible, providing a level of immersion that most films can only every aspire to. And on top of it all, there’s John William’s beyond-iconic soundtrack that is, to put it simply, perfect. I very nearly wet myself at some points, when the characters, sets and music came together in an orgiastic idyll of Star Wars’ very essence.
The childish excitement of seeing the Millennium Falcon, for the first time in more than three decades, whizzing through the interstellar void is brilliant. Combine these gorgeous celestial vistas with throwbacks to the cinematic style of the originals (scrolling text opening, wipe transitions) and there are frequent moments of pure wonder. So much of the film is just right.
And yet, there’s a niggle that can’t be shaken off. In the silences between the blaster fire and the operatic score, you realise this is a film that is burdened. On one level, it is burdened by an unforgettable heritage. Star Wars has transcended the cultural vocabulary and entered the territory of myth. With that kind of pressure, from its back catalogue and the ardent fans who uphold that catalogue, the film is cornered. It has to walk the tightrope of nostalgia and innovation, simultaneously seeking to satisfy the fans who have begged for closure since 1983’s Episode VI and yet also to draw in new fans, many of whom will never have seen a Star Wars film in a cinema. And in a few fleeting moments, it feels less like a balancing act, and more like compromise. Instead of playing on familiarity, it veers into blatant repetition of what’s gone before.
The Force Awakens is more burdened by being the newest cog in a vast machine. On the horizon, there are at least five more Star Wars films; Episodes VIII and IX, and three stand-alone films, the first of which arrives next year. Working within such a vast film franchise, of previously mentioned exemplary heritage but also financial expectation, this film is fundamentally constrained. Despite impeccably portraying mesmerising celestial worlds, you never sense that, as a viewer, the full gamut of what those worlds hold can be explored. I yearned to see things I had never seen before in those far, far away galaxies, but instead I was walked through enjoyable, but ultimately recognisable steps. You glimpse what might be out there in the great enveloping cosmic dark, but are corralled by the knowledge that there will probably be a new trilogy, or spin-off, that explores that sector, or quadrant, or story line. In the end, Force Awakens is structurally sandboxed by the potential of the real and imaginary universes it inhabits.
Make no mistake, this is the best anyone could have hoped for from Episode VII. The myriad of expectations would crush anything in its way, even something as monolithic as Star Wars. JJ Abrams does a majestic job with what he has on his palate; the entire auditorium grinned from start to finish at his sparky and personable addition to the Star Wars canon, that fizzed with genuine humour and aesthetic magic. We can only wait with baited breath to see whether the remainders of this trilogy explore the intriguing outer reaches of the Star Wars universe, or just tread in different shoes over the original trilogy’s established steps.
