It is clearly a “Star Wars” film. There is the ever gruff and blasé Harrison Ford attempting to reprise a less arthritic version of himself. There is Carrie Fisher arising from the ether to recapitulate the mythos cemented in the days when Jabba kept her by his side in flimsy garments. There are lightsabers, blasters, strange planet names, aliens, jumps to hyperspace in the indefatigable Millennium Falcon, and an old sage Jedi hiding out while waiting to revive the Force in order for good to prevail. But this is a different film. This film was not controlled by George Lucas, the person who truly loved “Star Wars” and nearly bankrupted himself to give us the first episode. Instead, it was made by J.J. Abrams, that esteemed director who gave us “Lost,” “Super 8,” the later (and worse) “Mission Impossible” films, and the reboot of “Star Trek.” Abrams allowed the film to feel like the season finale of a too-long-running teenage drama where the gang all comes back to allow the audience to remember “Star Wars” with tender memories of youth, eliciting cheers from the audience as each cultural icon graces the silver screen 33 years after “Return of the Jedi.” The plot merely piggybacked on the success of the three previous episodes. A father-son dispute? A masked villain? An attractive but reserved heroine? A fight in a cantina? A Jedi master’s long-lost lightsaber? A planet adapted as the center of galactic government which happens to be outfitted with a laser for obliterating other planets? It is a veritable mystery as to how Abrams and his writing partners could have imagined such innovative material. The acting and casting was adequate overall. John Boyega was convincing in his own way and America’s new darling, Daisy Ridley, effectively reawakened American men’s fixation on British women who look and sound like Keira Knightley. However, the choice of Adam Driver as Kylo Ren, the villain to end all villains, was nonsense. The actor looks more like Bert or Ernie from “Sesame Street” than he does the evil head of the First Order.
Artistically, however, the film had a chance. The character of Finn, a stormtrooper, would have created a robust character capable of expressing some realistic elements into the overly-heroic narrative. One of the opening scenes, in which he stands among the ruins of a burning village while other troopers pillage, is actually effective in bringing the audience into that “galaxy far, far away” while also imbuing the heroic mood of the first six episodes with a new realist element. But that wouldn’t sell. Disney’s crack team of market analysts knew that if they wanted to outsell James Cameron’s epics they would need something just tired enough, just banal enough to reawaken the fuzzy feelings of that fateful night in 1977 when “Star Wars” burst to the forefront of the American imagination.
It should not be understated that “The Force Awakens” is very different from the other episodes. The long, tiresome political and philosophical discourses of the first six films are absent. Neither is there any sort of tender, quiet moment. Luke is never left hanging in the cables, Anakin and Padme never caress each other in an island chateau, Han Solo never shamelessly flirts with Leia. What we have in actuality is an action flick; it is not the innovative space opera which permanently altered the film industry. It is nonstop, do this, go there, blast this, force that. The frenetic nature of the movie is far more akin to “Rambo.” The delicious effect of a single lightsaber duel at the end of the movie — a reward for the audience’s honest attention — is gone, as is the attention and artistic capability of popular American cinema. This movie is a product of immense excitement, an attenuated popular film culture, and the inherent commercial success of the “Star Wars” brand. A large measure of cultural identity could not be left in remastered Blu-ray collections, patiently awaiting the day when we would show our children their cultural inheritance, for Disney wouldn’t allow it to be put to rest on the topmost echelon of American cinema. No, they had to try again — the market value was irresistible. But that does not mean they should have.