Spoiler-free reviews of The Force Awakens

I've looked for a thread devoted to spoiler-free reviews for those that didn't have a chance to watch the film, yet.
I didn't find it, so I just created one (but if necessary just merge it with the appropriate thread, thanx).

So here is mine and hopefully as spoiler-free as possible to merely convey my overall first impression:


First, the good news

The Force Awakens is a much, much better film than Jupiter Ascending although two secondary characters reminded me a bit too much of characters featured in the Wachowskis’ 2015 scifi flick. There are no fart or burp jokes, neither are there annoying aliens which was one of the handicaps in the Prequel Trilogy (some designs were debated before the film’s release but their screen time exposure is so negligible that it doesn’t really matter). The film has a very powerful start with scenery and atmosphere so reminiscent of the Original Trilogy that I started to relax and to really enjoy the film that looked increasingly promising. The actors all perform very good, but maybe there were just too many good actors that had to share screen time accordingly, thus there is some noticeable underexposure of certain characters, especially those that were expected to have bigger parts.

There are too many holes in space – plot holes

As we leave the first major location, I couldn’t help but begin to start asking questions like “Why did…, why don’t the…?” and so on. But I forced myself to blend these things out of my mind and instead to enjoy the ride. The film had plenty of humor and light moments, yet it seemed at times that situations were deliberately created for humor, while my impression of the OT had been that humor was a much welcomed side-product of the situations. Two parties in the film look for a particular piece of information. It’s abundantly clear why one side does but it remained obfuscated until the end what actual interest the other side had other than to prevent it from falling into the wrong hands.

Wars don’t make one great

Now, unlike The Empire Strikes Back there is no further spiritual or philosophical elaboration of the way the Force works and I had not expected such (maybe ESB told us all we need). Yet, in one pivotal scene which apparently is the reflection of the film’s title, the Force awakens but, judging by the accompanying OT music, it does so with anger and/or hate?

It’s a lot of simple tricks and nonsense

No, it’s not like that, but the overemphasis on practical effects and the naturalistic goal of the film didn’t leave much space for impressive landscapes and exotic architectural landmarks we’ve come to see in the OT and PT. Some of the settings could have been used in a fan production that didn’t have the financial backup as TFA did.

Here we go again

Some scenes were definitely new territory in the best tip-to-the-hat tradition of the OT but plenty of others had an all too obvious derivative nature. Some moments in the OT have become such classics that it’s of little or no productive use to re-imagine them in a different setting. My personal issue with the PT is that it had a couple of really great and a couple of really bad moments. I didn’t feel The Force Awakens to have any bad moments (except for one or two I mentioned in the beginning).

Searching my feelings when I left the theater, I remembered the last time these had been similar, and that was in 1999 (and I’m not talking about The Matrix). Back in 1980 the biggest disappointment about The Empire Strikes Back was that I knew I had to wait three years for the final OT chapter. While of course I look forward to Episode VIII I think I can say I will not be losing a lot of sleep over it. And that’s not necessarily going to be a bad thing.

 

I do not know what plotholes you might be referring to (in the past couple of weeks I'd been busy in various message boards and thanks to the input of various fans I think we were able to plug these for ANH and debunk the myth of the "clumsy stormtrooper"), but considering under what stress the original film was made it would be forgivable, IMHO. But from a production as big and planned as TFA I would have expected a wee bit more.

@B99 - Yes, much to my own surprise as we hadn't learned about that before.