Star Wars movie ranking after The Last Jedi
By Mike McNulty
Credit: Lucasfilm; poster for Star Wars: The Force Awakens (2015)
6. Star Wars: The Force Awakens (2015)
After Revenge of the Sith, everyone thought the Star Wars saga had come to a close. Other than Star Wars: The Clone Wars, Star Wars: Rebels cartoons, and the now-defunct Expanded Universe, Sith was the last live-action Star Wars movie. Then came the first teaser trailer for The Force Awakens, and everyone fell in love with Star Wars all over again. And during the Christmas week when the movie came out, those fans felt rewarded.
It’s easy to see why. Under J.J. Abrams direction, it has the look and feel of the original trilogy the prequels never did. Sequences such as the Millennium Falcon flying through the Star Destroyer junkyard on Jakku, or Rey (Daisy Ridley) and Kylo Ren’s (Adam Driver) duel in the snow-covered forest, are reminiscent of Star Wars‘ classic moments. New characters, particularly John Boyega as the Stormtrooper defector, Finn, and the droid, BB-8, are memorable and likable. Kylo Ren himself makes for a complex, sympathetic would-be Sith Lord. And, of course, Harrison Ford reprising his role as Han Solo is a sheer delight.
Unfortunately, The Force Awakens also has two major drawbacks. All too often, it feels like you’re watching a remake of A New Hope. It’s one thing for Abrams to pay homage to the original Star Wars; it’s quite another when he virtually retells the same plot beat for beat. It also suffers from his “mystery box” style of storytelling, i.e. maintaining audience interest by keeping characters and their backstories deliberately vague. This is especially the case for Rey, whose unexplained mastery of the Force resulted in heated debates over whether she was a “Mary Sue.”
Still, after the misery of the Star Wars prequels, this first chapter of the new trilogy, and one without Lucas at the helm, felt like a much-needed course correction. Does it rely too much on fans memories of the first trilogy? Absolutely! Like Abrams’ Star Trek, The Force Awakens is unapologetic fan service. It also rescued the saga out of the doldrums. For this reason alone, it deserves our praise.