Star Wars: The Force Awakens (2015)

I was there at midnight. Full of hope, buzzing with that particular kind of excitement that only Star Wars can generate, the kind that makes a grown adult stand in a queue for two hours without complaint. And when the Falcon showed up on screen and Han and Chewie walked through that door, I won't lie to you: I cried. Proper, embarrassing, happy tears. In that moment, it felt like coming home.

So why, a few years on, does it feel more like a visit to a very faithful museum exhibit?

The Force Awakens is, and I think most people who've had time to sit with it know this, essentially a remake of A New Hope. Not loosely inspired by, not a loving homage to, but a beat-for-beat structural retread. Desert planet with a nobody who has a mysterious past. A droid carrying vital information. A cantina full of aliens. A planet-destroying superweapon with a convenient weakness. A mentor figure whose death is meant to gut-punch you. It's all there, arranged in almost exactly the same order. J.J. Abrams came in, wrapped the whole thing in modern gloss and spectacular production values, and leaned on nostalgia so hard it practically buckled under the weight.

And the frustrating thing is, it worked on me. In the moment, it absolutely worked. The spectacle is real, the energy is there, and the new cast bring genuine charm. There's a lightness and a pace to it that felt like a relief after the prequel era. Walking out of that midnight screening, I was happy. Properly happy.

But happiness and quality aren't always the same thing, are they? Looking back now, what stings most is the sense of wasted opportunity. This was supposed to be the launchpad for something bold, something that took the mythology forward and did something genuinely new with it. Instead it played it safe. Conspicuously, almost cowardly safe. It prioritised the comfort of the familiar over the courage of the new, and when you know where the sequel trilogy went from here, well. I've written about Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker before and my feelings there are not warm ones. The foundation laid here, solid and crowd-pleasing as it felt in late 2015, didn't lead anywhere worth going.

Here's the thing that gives me pause though. My daughter, who was ten when she watched this, absolutely loves it. Loves it the way I loved the originals at that age, with total, uncomplicated, joyful devotion. And I can't dismiss that. There's something real happening for her when she watches it, the same thing that was real for me in that cinema on opening night before the critical brain kicked in. For a new generation discovering this universe, The Force Awakens genuinely works. It does the job. It's exciting and fun and it makes you care about the characters.

It's just that caring about characters and having something to say are different things entirely. A film can do one without the other, and this one does. The Force Awakens is a perfectly constructed delivery mechanism for feelings it borrowed rather than earned. There's no original idea in it that I can put my finger on, no moment where it surprised me in a way that felt true rather than engineered. Even the emotional beats, Han and Chewie aside, feel calculated.

Nothing terrible, honestly. The craft is solid, the entertainment value is real, and I'd never begrudge anyone their affection for it. But nothing special either. Two and a half stars, and I mean that with a certain sadness, because I wanted so much more from the moment those opening titles rolled.

Rating: ★★★  | Year: 2015  | Watched: 2015-12-04

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Where to watch

Watch in the UK
Stream: Disney Plus
Rent: Apple TV Store · Rakuten TV · Amazon Video · Sky Store
Buy: Apple TV Store · Rakuten TV · Amazon Video · Google Play Movies
Physical: Amazon UK · Zavvi

Watch in the US
Stream: Disney Plus · Philo · YouTube TV · Starz Amazon Channel
Rent: Amazon Video · Apple TV Store · Google Play Movies · YouTube
Buy: Amazon Video · Apple TV Store · Google Play Movies · YouTube
Physical: Amazon US

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