ENTERTAINMENT
of time, I felt like a kid again. That there is
something out there that brings people together
on such a wide platform, uniting them, in a
time where division is much more prominent
than anything else. Something so pure that it
transcended hate, and war, and all of the BAD
things going on in our world, in OUR galaxy.
Now then, if you are one of the 5 people in our
Universe who hasn’t seen Star Wars: The Force
Awakens (universe, rather world, because they
played it for the astronauts in the space station),
then the following review is going to contain
major spoilers and fan theories, and I don’t want
to commit an act of terrorism on the scale of
ruining the film for anyone. So, please, kindly go
to your nearest theater and check out the movie
everyone can’t stop talking about.
JJ Abrams, let me begin this review with
congratulating you on this film. You were given
the holy grail of film franchises and you didn’t
let anyone down. The chips were stacked high,
and you earned every dollar, every residual, and
every praise you’ve gotten.
The movie does follow a theme that is VERY
reminiscent to Star Wars: A New Hope. Instead
of finding a lonely farm boy on the desert planet
of Tattooine, we meet Rey, a lonely but tough
girl on the desert planet of Jakku. My first
comment on this is WAY TO GO for having such
a strong female protagonist. Rey could have been
set up in a number of ways, an d we could have
felt bad for her, but SHE wouldn’t let us. When
we meet Rey, she is scavenging the remains of a
Star Destroyer, likely to have been left after the
only referenced battle of Jakku, happening
assumingly before she was born, or before she
was left on the planet. The scene was so simple,
but seeing the scale of things, seeing how big a
world they live in based on that gutted out
14
destroyer, really was awe inspiring. Another
aspect of the character development in this film
that I really appreciated was for the first time we
saw Stormtroopers have human characteristics,
and how ALL of the Stormtroopers seemed to
have their own personality, not just Finn, our
other lead protagonist. Finn, who was kidnapped
from his family at an infant age, is put into the
service of the First Order, which is the
reassembled Empire. They are all supposed to be
controlled by complete conformity, but Finn,
after witnessing too many unspeakable crimes
against humanity, decides to flee his life as a
Stormtrooper. With the help of resistance pilot,
Poe, they steal a Tie Fighter and crash land back
on Jakku. This Star Wars, in my humble opinion,
got it right because it was the first one that was
almost relatable. Obviously the setting and entire
set of rules in this universe are nearly 100%
different than ours, but unlike the original three,
the characters had flaws, and that was not only
okay, its what made you fall in love with all of
the characters just like the originals. Rey was
tough, sure, but she was tormented by the notion
her family would return for her one day, and Finn
was scared half of the movie; the other half he
was lying to Rey to win her affections. And this
isn’t to imply that the characters from the
originals were flawless, because really that is
what the story as a whole is about, but something
about these characters allowed you to see just a
little bit of yourself in. These larger than life
settings held characters that could have been
you; really, they could have been any of us.
Which brings me to Kylo Ren, our principal
villain. Kylo Ren has caught a lot of hate from
Star Wars viewers for his “childlike” temper
tantrums. But honestly, this was my favorite
layer of his character. The whole point of going
to the Dark Side is to feel emotions- the Jedi