Star Wars: The Force Awakens. We have all been waiting for it for what seems like a millennium, and now, it is finally here. I had my tickets ordered for months, just as I'm sure every other Star Wars fanatic did. Sitting in that theater on opening day, anxiously gorging on popcorn, I almost had a heart attack when I heard the Main Title song blasting along with the iconic opening text crawl. There were so many expectations for Disney to live up to, and for the most part, they did. Here's what I thought Disney did well and not-so-well (spoilers ahead):
The Good
The Casting
The new-gen Star Wars franchise is now being carried on the backs of a woman and a minority. This shouldn't even be a conversation in the year 2015, but unfortunately it is, and Disney did an awesome job of procuring a strong female lead that millions of girls can now look up to, as well as adding diversity into a previously whitewashed franchise.
IMAX
If you care at all about Star Wars, you should go see it in IMAX. The experience was totally unreal; I even flinched a few times thinking some debris was flying out of the screen at me. It was like I was nose-to-nose with the characters. I could see every fleck of snow on their face, every worry line and every bead of sweat. It was extremely realistic and made the movie a lot more enjoyable.
Integrating old and new
Although I love Carrie Fisher, Mark Hamill and Harrison Ford, the story line just simply isn't about them anymore. Disney did a good job of still incorporating our old faves and satisfying our nostalgic needs while still giving the new cast members their spotlight. Not to mention BB-8 was just as cute and sassy as R2-D2 ever was.
Humor
This Star Wars rendition, I must admit, had a bit more of a lighthearted dialogue than the previous films. I laughed out loud quite a few times, which is hard to make me do in a movie. That's not to say that the story wasn't heavy and serious though; there were just as many tears shed as laughs had.
The Not-So-Good
The Story
There are a few things that Disney did with the story that didn't quite sit well with me. First of all, Han and Leia... split up?! Why would Disney do that to our fragile nerd-hearts? The worst blow of all was the death of THE Han Solo. I don't think I've ever been quite so sad about a movie death in my life. Han was basically everyone's favorite character... did you really have to kill him off, Disney? At least his death was done in a powerful, touching scene. Undoubtedly, we will all miss Han Solo.
Character development
There are a lot of unexplained questions about our new heroes Rae, Finn and Poe. First of all, we essentially know nothing about Poe, even though it seems he will be a large character in the franchise. He is BB-8's master, after all. Then there's Rae. Who is she waiting for? Why did they leave? How did she end up with the powers of the force? How about Finn, who, out of millions of stormtrooper, ended up rogue somehow? And Kylo Ren, what is his deal? What brought him to the Dark Side?
All in all, The Force Awakens was an awesome film and does the Star Wars franchise justice. I'm excited to see what the next movie has in store, and hopefully it will answer some of the audience's lingering questions. Thanks, Disney, for bringing back one of the most beloved movie franchises of all time.
