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star destroyerSo this is the dreaded Disney produced, J. J. Abrams directed, version of Star Wars. This movie stars Daisy Ridley, John Boyega, Oscar Isaac, Adam Driver and some other people. The story was written by Lawrence Kasda who worked with both Spielberg and George Lucas doing Episode V and The Raiders of the Lost Ark. In addition to Abrams himself, Michael Arndt, who wrote Little Miss Sunshine, Toy Story 3, and some Hunger Games adaptation, is a contributing writer. This movie cost $200 millions to make: the special effects were made by teams of literally hundreds of people. This movie  is currently the third highest grossing modern film of all time, after James Cameron’s Avatar and Titanic (adjusted for inflation, 1977 Star Wars holds the third spot, after Gone With The Wind and Cameron’s Avatar). This movie has generated over $2 billion dollars in sales. Who is the Machiavellian mastermind behind this space opera: J. J. Abrams is the notorious creator and sometimes director of TV series LOST and FRINGE, and the producer behind cult classic Cloverfield. His big break came when he was tapped to direct the 2009 Star Trek reboot. He is known for his innovative use of special effects, mind-numbing action sequences, nonsensical  and agonizing plot twists, largely original set design, and for demanding overwhelming emotional commitments from his actors.

According to the opening scrawl, Skywalker has disappeared and the tyrannical First Order has emerged as the Empire’s successor in the struggle following the death of the Emperor in Episode VI. The New Republic is assisted by a vanguard Resistance led once again by Leia Organa (Carrie Fisher). She sends Oscar Isaac- playing a crack Resistance pilot- to the strange desert planet of Jakku to search for Skywalker. In the establishing scenes we are introduced to the robot BB-8; a rounder version of 1977’s R2-D2, Poe Dameron (Isaac), and the aged Max von Sydow (as Lor San Tekka) who gives Dameron some object- which he says Princess Leia is after- no doubt one of the numerous maguffins that Abrams strews throughout his labyrinthine plots. So it’s been about two minutes at this point which means its time for some action to spice things up, so here come the storm troopers. They include a nameless troopers played by Boyega and the masked Dark Jedi, Kylo Ren (Driver). They quickly massacre the resistance camp on Jakku, but Dameron is able to flee to his X-wing, along with BB-8 who is apparently his astromechanic droid. Dameron puts his helmet on and uses some kind of laser on the X-wing to kill some storm troopers but then his helmet vanishes and he jumps out to fight on foot, presumably because the storm troopers disabled his fighter’s engines with a single blaster shot. Meanwhile the troopers are literally using flame throwers to torch the rebel encampment. Dameron gives BB-8 the maguffin and tells the driod to run away, promising to return.

Dameron caps some more troopers with his blue blaster rifle and this introduces us to Boyega who happens to be standing beside one of the storm troopers that Dameron kills. With his buddy dieing from blue blaster rifle impacts, Boyega is overcome by the senselessness of it all. The storm troopers round up Max von Sydow, and then Kylo Ren tells him he’s old. Lor San Tekka tells Adam Driver that something worse is happening to him- Tekka knows something about Ren’s mysterious past, but Kylo Ren doesn’t care because he wants the maguffin- “the map to Skywalker”. Kylo Ren threatens to unleash his nightmarish Dark Side powers on Tekka, who is not phased by this threats, reminding him of his extremely predictable presumably non-Dark Side family that rebel leader and Princess Leia associate Lor San Tekka seems to know all about. Kylo Ren, enraged, senselessly kills him with his lightsabre, then proceeds to pin Poe Dameron- impressively displaying his force powers- when the rebel pilot tries to shoot Kylo Ren with his blaster. Dameron tries to act nonchalant but is quickly detained. To just make certain that the audience realized that Kylo Ren is evil, at this point Gwendoline Christie, who apparently is popular from Game of Thrones, appears in the guise of “Captain Phasma” – a storm trooper commander of sorts wearing distinctive silver armour- to inquire what they should do with the “villagers” they’ve rounded up from the rebel camp. Kylo Ren authorizes their elimination, which Phasma diligently carries out.

Yes this is basically a repeat of the opening plot setup from Star Wars 1977- with Oscar Isaacs in the place of Carrie Fisher, and Adam Driver in for David Prowse. But it also has this horrid J. J. Abrams undertone that seemingly colours the violence and dialogue and reminds you that this is going to be a J. J. Abrams movie in which everything that happens next probably is not terribly important because the plot doesn’t really matter in a J. J. Abrams film: the “plot” is just a device to move between set pieces. This expectation leaves you feeling a hollow sense of dred, known that, no matter how many CGI artists and Disney continuity nerd specialists and script rewrites and focus groupes worked on this film, no matter the $200,000,000 budget- or perhaps because of it-, whatever follows will invariably leave you feeling hollow inside; much like the unanswered questions in the final episode of Lost. J. J. Abrams refers to this concept in filmmaking as his “mystery box”- the compelling unanswerable things that are only interesting because they are mysterious. This is all and well, but unfortunately Abrams likes to show you the contents of the box rather a lot (there’s nothing in it) and he seems to care less about maintaining his artistic integrity when he’s directing films that are expected to gross billions of dollars.

So off we go! The storm troopers maliciously destroy Poe Dameron’s X-wing spacefighter. The New Orderists return to what we can only imagine is Kylo Ren’s flagship- a kind of caricature of a star destroyer that Abrams whips out after only about 10 minutes of the film. Boyega (serial number FN-2187) questiones his allegiance to the genocidal New Order, and hatches a scheme to escape with Oscar Isaac. Phasma reprimands him for this under some pretext that his kit is not stowed properly after having just participated in a massacre of Resistance fighters.

Back on the Desert Planet, we are now finally introduced to Daisy Ridely’s character, Rey of which nothing is presumably known. She passes her time scavenging technical components from the deserted wreckage of what appears to be an Imperial Star Destroyer and at least one X-wing. Ray works tirelessly to collect technical oddities she can trade in for a minute allocation of “portions” which is a substance conveyed by the memeable First Order agent Unkar Plutt, somehow a cameo by Simon Pegg (who is currently writing and staring in the third Star Trek movie). The establishing shots are brief, but apparently Rey has been sitting in the desert for many days doing the same thing over and over again. She wears a Rebel Alliance fighter pilot’s helmet, and understands galactic and common languages. She rides around on a bright red hovercycle. As she’s out with her buddies, staring at the sand in the desert, amazingly she finds the priceless astromechanical droid of Poe Dameron, BB-8. The talented and hopeful, but somewhat resembling of a gerbil, Daisy Ridely is immediately spotted with BB-8 and then betrayed by the First Order plant, Unkar Plutt.

Poe meanwhile has his nuts in the vice because Sith Apprentice Kylo Ren is going to torture him to find out what he knows about the location of Skywalker. The interrogation chamber is a pretty cool design with literally coffin shaped alcoves on the wall housing bizarre oddly lit computer interfaces. Kylo Ren, a big fan of Dark Lord Vader, insists on having Poe strapped into what looks rather like an ejection seat, but is actually an implement of torture devised by Anakin Skywalker to stimulate the pain receptors of the body. Knowingly this, does Dameron intend to talk? “Not really” he quips. Poe Dameron, the Han Solo/Wedge Antilles wannabe. Kylo doesn’t even use the mind probe device because he can just manipulate your thoughts but all Poe knows is that BB-8 has the map. Naturally Kylo intends to destroy anything in his way to get the map so he goes to his lackey General Hux to take care of the flagship so Kylo and the boys can go searching for the map. Hux is played by Domhnall Gleeson, who co-starred with Oscar Isaac in Ex-Machina. Hux wears mock turtleneck sweaters and black sports coats. On the Bridge of the Flagship Hux wears completely black nihilistic rhetro futuristic looking black silk double breasted New Order fashion. The naval uniforms have zippers and little pen holsters.

Boyega, who Phasma tells us was from some ghoulish Storm Trooper “reconditioning” battalion and had only just been assigned to her command, now bluffs his way past the storm trooper guards and reveals his opportunistic plan of defection to Poe Dameron. Together they plan to escape in a Tie Fighter. Poe is obsessed about finding his astromechanic droid, the BB-8 unit, that contains the MAP TO LUKE SKYWALKER. But oh no! there is something attached to the Tie Fighter they stole and they cannot get away just yet. The First Order ex-Imperial Fleet Commander cut-outs that Abram’s has playing the Flagship’s fighter-control immediately notice that something is slightly wrong and the Storm Troopers start shooting. Boyega excessively blows away his ex-comrades trashes the fighter-deck, destroying several Tie Fighters, then finally killing the entire flight deck crew: doing what he believes is the right thing to survive. Poe get’s them out of the hangar and Boyega, who Poe calls Finn, blasts some Turbolasers, catching the Flagship gunners asleep-  and they all but escape before being hit by some kind of blue plasma missile “the ventral cannons” and end up crashing on the planet. Their bromance is over for now, but actually the newly enamoured FN-2187 or Finn, is perfectly alive, although Poe Dameron is nowhere to be seen, and the Tie-fighter is mysteriously swallowed by the sand.
Boyega goes looking for help and wanders towards the nearest settlement. On the Flagship, Hux badmouths Kylo Ren for over-stepping and brandishes about the name of Snoke, of whom there is more to say later.

So by this point you’re about 25 minutes into the movie and all of the major and minor characters with the exception of the original cast members, have made an appearance, for the rest of the movie, other than the numerous bloodbaths and unbelievably violent space battles, besides all of that, the remainder of the film is essentially dedicated to re-introducing the original cast members.

Finn enters town and meets Rey after she pummels some tiny aliens who tried to touch the BB-8 unit. The BB-8 decides its time to stop pointlessly screwing around with Rey and insists that it recognizes Poe Dameron’s jacket when it recognizes Finn wearing it. Boyega gives Ridley the five-o and claims to be a member of the vanguardist, “Resistance.” Finn talks fast and loose about Luke Skywalker, and before you know it, they’re shot at by imperial blaster rifles, storm troopers carelessly firing at will, nearly destroying the priceless astromechanic droid. The ridiculously unprofessional Storm Trooper responsible orders in an airstrike against the village. Once again they are all almost killed in a CGI Tie-fighter laser attack. Ridley runs to her QuadJumper™ which I guess she could have used at any time to find better prices for her salvaged goods than relying on First Order snitch Unkar Plutt, but within a second the QuadJumper™ gets destroyed. So they both turn around and end up fleeing to what appears to be the rusting hulk of the Millennium Falcon which Abrams just couldn’t think of a better way to introduce. It appears to have been sitting in the desert of Jakku, in the possession of the treacherous Unkar Plutt, totally unsalvaged and in near perfect working order. Ray has them off the ground in moments.

Once the ship is running it activates a homing beacon that Han Solo and Chewbacca detect. Finn and Ray dodge some Tie-fighters and John Boyega fires the quad-lasers, and they have a dashing little scene flying through the wreckage of a Super Star Destroyer, where some tie-fighter pilots get incinerated and the hijackers of the Millennium Falcon narrowly escape death. Rey, who is surely in no way is related to other powerful Jedi in the Star Wars universe, effortlessly pilots the Correlien YT model freighter- as though she had been doing it for years; born to do fly it, you could say. Kylo Ren is choked by this turn of events so he childishly wrecks up some equipment, terrifying and needlessly literally choking the subordinate sent to inform him.

BB-8, Rey and Finn repair the Millennium Falcon and Finn reveals that he can now speak astromechanical droid (why would anyone need a protocol droid that speaks the primary language of moisture evaporators?) attempting to get BB-8 to tell him the location of the rebel base. But just as Finn asks Rey the crucial question- does she have a boyfriend?- they’re all acquired in a tractor beam which turns out to be Han Solo come looking for his old ship. He grills Rey about the previous owners of the Millennium Falcon and mentions the name of “Duciian” – who apparently another gang called “The Irving Boys” stole the infamous warship from, before Unkar Plutt acquired it, Daisy Ridley knows this because she has apparently been keeping closer confidence with Unkar Plutt than we had imagined. The impossibly well aged and familiarly attired Chewbacca growls menacingly. Finn and Rey quickly realize who Han Solo and Chewbecca are and they all plan to go visit the Rebel base somewhere in the Illiiuem System. But before that can happen the rising action necessitates drama so the Rathtar’s get loose. Now the Guavian Death Gang has arrived and boarded the freighter. Surely some tense and possibly humorous events will happen. Bala-Tik has arrived to demand something from Solo. But of course, what is really happening is that they’ve been tipped off by the First Order to locate the droid. Bala-Tik wants his 50,000 credits, and yes, Kanjiklub® wants their money as well, Kanjiklub® being represented in this affair by some guy named Taso-Leech, who is also looking for the BB-8 unit. But the Rathtars eat the gangsters, and one of the comically CGI rendered beasts almost gets Finn, much to Rey’s consternation. Solo and everyone else lightspeeds out of the there in the Millennium Falcon, while the gangsters shoot futilely, and Bala-Tik of the Guavian Death Gang confirms his snitch status by immediately informing the First Order that Solo has the maguffin.

Abrams now introduces us to Snoke who has apparently built some kind of massive planet weapon out of what looks to me like the planet moon of Endor. Hux and Kylo Ren visit Supreme Leader Snoke’s ethereal visage in the holographic chamber. My theory is that Snoke was the custodian, or one of the head custodians, of the Palpatine Clone Planet, although scholars suspect he is one of the original Anakin Skywalker clones (of which any number of these theories is likely true). The audience chamber as a set is pretty boring, but it’s just a theatre because Snoke is a hologram talking to Kylo Ren who he trained to be a murderous Dark Jedi who is obsessed with Oedipus, and actually worships the burned mask of his grandfather, Anakin Skywalker, also known as Darth Vader. Back on the Millennium Falcon, they get a glimpse of the map and the grandfatherly Harrison Ford exposits that in fact Luke Skywalker had tried to train a Jedi who yes did became a Dark Jedi who was probably Kylo Ren, and now Luke is hiding somewhere which turns out to be a tiny island in Ireland. Despite these terrible developments, Solo is moved by the plight of Rey and Finn and so agrees to take the droid back to Leia Organa, eventually.

Harrison Ford and Daisy Ridley have a decent scene together that emphasizes their relationship- as though they’ve known each other before- but this character building emotionalism has been typically shaved down to a minimum. For some reason they have to go see the talented Lupita Nyong’o who voices the computer generated Yoda-lookalike Maz Kanata (a pirate?) apparently beholden to Chewbacca in an unspecified manner. This whole state of affairs was a mistake because of course Maz Kanata’s pirate bar was flooded with First Order Agents who immediately contact Kylo Ren, setting up the following action set pieces. Daisy Ridley learns the truth about Finn’s past. Boyega acts devastated, there’s some chemistry, but his plan is to escape from this whole crazy Resistance since they’re going to find out he was a storm trooper pretty soon… and Rey conveniently finds a lightsabre in a box Maz Kanata has lying around. hThey all learn that the Sith created the Empire but were toppled by the New Republic which is now about to be destroyed by the First Order. Rey’s increasing force awareness suddenly enables her to briefly see the future and she sees a field of bodies that looks like Agincourt in the rain while a masked warrior in chainmail who looks like Kylo Ren, it attacking her.

Halfway through the movie now. Hux decides its time to blow up some planets so he makes a speech with Nazi-like iconography draped behind him, and orders the destruction of Republic planets using the Star Killer hyperweapon against the Hosnian system. Hux claims to have destroyed not only the Republican senate but also their entire fleet- leaving only the Resistance: which was his real problem all along- so he basically achieved nothing while committing multi-planet democide. Domhnall Gleeson portrays Hux as a tragic figure, ultimately unsure of what he’s doing. The First Order carries out their Tie-Fighter strike on Maz Kanata’s bar, blowing up the CGI building that resembled a cathedral. Lupita Nyong’o gives the lightsabre to Finn. Of course it’s just in time because Kylo Ren is already there. Rey kills some storm troopers with the blaster Han Solo gave her, and Finn fights a storm trooper with a shock-staff who apparently recognizes him. Just when the trooper is about to exact his revenge he gets blown away by Harrison Ford. They are all briefly captured! But here comes Poe Dameron with Rouge Squadron and of course they waste the Tie Fighters in seconds and rescue Solo and company, but Kylo Ren captures Rey, using a paralysis dream on her. With Rey subdued, Kylo basically gives up on the maguffin droid. He is convinced that Rey knows where Skywalker is. Back at the Resistance base, Carrie Fisher arrives and C-3P0 gets to have one line of dialogue. C-3P0 and BB-8 are apparently old buddies. They all fly back to the Resistance base so they can brief for the next set piece. BB-8 is reunited with Poe Dameron and much celebration is had. C-3P0 confers with BB-8 regarding RD-D2, who since  Skywalker vanished and the whole crazy Resistance started had been put into, “low power mode”. Meanwhile Leia and Solo discuss the catastrophe that was their children, you know, one becoming a Dark Jedi and all. Leia thinks they can still save Kyle Ren, but Solo isn’t sure.

Meanwhile on Star Killer Base, Kylo Ren has Rey hooked up to the ejection seat, although Kylo has moved it to different room with a circular, pan-opticon kind of motif. Kylo reveals that he’s just Adam Driver under the mask. Kylo pretends like he cares about the map anymore, but what he really wants is to read Rey’s mind so he does that, taunting her with his bush-league psychoanalysis. But Rey Skywalker gets the better of him reminding him that he’s still small fries compared to Darth Vader which rustles Kylo enough for him to complain to Snoke. Snoke doesn’t really care but wants to know where the map and the droid is. Hux walks in and denounces Kylo Ren for obsessing over the Rey and ignoring the mission- basically stabbing his boss in the back in front of his superior because he’s choked over being responsible for the whole Hosnian system massacre. Snoke authorizes Hux to go to the Illeenium system and destroy the Resistance base.

Rey uses the old jedi-mind trick to easily escape from the solitary guard, whom I told is played by Daniel Craig, further embarrassing Kylo. While she’s loose on the base the Resistance finally get their briefing under way. The Resistance engineers explain that the laser cannon on the Star Killer Base is a hyper light-speed weapon that uses the fusion of a star to power-up. Luckily Finn knows about the power oscillator unit in Precinct 47 that could cause the entire planetary super-weapon to explode! So off they go to save the galaxy: Han plans to hyperspace down to the re-purposed Forest Moon and thus help Finn find Rey while also crippling the super-cannon before it can destroy the Resistance base. Finn’s component of the mission is to deactivate an energy shield and then Poe Dameron and Rouge Squadron will destroy the power oscillator. The Solo maneuver works and Finn, Solo and Chewbacca are able to get aboard Star Killer Base. They quickly detain Captain Phasma as part of a ploy to deactivate the shields: first they extract the shield codes at gunpoint from Phasma, then they stuff the good captain into the trash compactor. Finn is reunited with Rey and then everybody is running again. Poe Dameron et all warp in with the shield down but they end up in a dogfight with the Tie Fighters. C-3P0 thinks the Resistance needs a miracle at this point: with the super-laser charged in 10 minutes things are looking bad for the Rebel Base.

Han Solo confronts Kylo Ren, calling him by his real name, Ben, and tells him it’s not to late to stop blowing up planets. Kylo Ren explains that he destroyed Ben Solo and became more powerful than him, claiming the same path as Anakin Skywalker. Han Solo doesn’t believe what he’s hearing, and blames Snoke for corrupting Adam Driver’s mind. Adam Driver delivers an emotional speech where he admits that he’s too weak, but in the end, feels there is no going back. He stabs Solo to death with his cross-shaped red lightsabre and pushes his body into an abyss. Chewbacca shoots Kylo Ren with the bowcaster. They have a fire-fight with the storm troopers and then Chewbacca sets off the 50 kilos of thermal detonators they’ve scattered around the base. Kylo Ren flees and Rey and Finn re-encounter him the woods while its snowing. Finn fights with the wounded Kylo Ren, although the Dark Jedi eventually tires of pretending and simply disarms the former storm trooper. But being so weakened at this point that he can hardly summon the lightsabre maguffin; while Rey does it with ease. Of course they have to fight. Kylo Ren, on the path of Darth Vader, tries to convince Rey to join him. Daisy Ridley summons her last reserves of strength and battles back against Kylo Ren, disabling him.

The X-wings go for their trench run. They blow past the chump Tie fighter pilot and smoke the oscillator causing a catastrophic failure chain reaction that vaporizes the entire base. In the last seconds Snoke tells Hux to get Kylo Ren and return to what, we can only imagine with great trepidation, is the Clone Planet itself where Snoke is hoarding the Palpatine clones until they mature.

The Millennium Falcon and the X-wing’s of Black squadron fly away in triumph. Rey meets Princess Leia, Carrie Fisher having completed her transformation into the next Mon Mothma in terms of going from revolutionary  to galactic senate leader of the New Republic kind of designer dresses. And R2D2 even awakens to complete the maguffin plot arc setup back at the beginning. You see, as  C-3P0 explains, Luke’s old astromechanics droid had the rest of the map and only needed one small missing component to pinpoint Skywalker. Rey looks over the injured Finn, and then she prepares to leave with the Millennium Falcon- off to find Luke Skywalker…

John Williams returned for the score, and did a good job. The score is the classic Star Wars overture and theme with some elements from his work on the prequel movies, combined with more modern immediate music. Costumes were designed by the conventional Michael Kaplan, whose claim to fame consist mainly in having gotten his career started for doing the costumes on Blade Runner. He worked with Abrams on both Star Trek and Star Trek: Into Darkness. Production designers Rick Carter- the legend behind Jurassic Park and Avatar, among others- and newbie Darren Gilford (TRON: Legacy, Oblivion and Idiocracy), lent their talents to the movie.