This blog's first movie review: My long, rambling, spoiler-laden review of Star Wars: The Force Awakens.

I've been thinking of doing this since I saw the film. And, it's been three weeks, so I assume that if you were going to see the movie, you already have. I'm going to talk about everything I remember.

I saw The Force Awakens on a regular screen, because, the show time fit my tight pre-Christmas schedule . I ended up missing the opening scroll. When the movie began, the house lights were still on, so I jumped over a railing, ran out into the lobby and got the attention of an employee. They turned the lights off pretty quickly after that. I don't mind seeing it again, though IMAX, here I come!

Edit: I just saw "The Force Awakens" again in 3D on the biggest screen in my area. looking at the movie that way it was gorgeous. Some movies, like Star Wars, The Martian, Laurence of Arabia, need to be seen BIG.

Even if you miss the opening scroll, it's still possible to figure out the backstory. After the events in "Return of the Jedi", the rebels got to work replacing the empire with a republic. The New Republic does not control the entire galaxy, though. Imperial holdouts have consolidated into The First Order. The First Order is easy to recognize since it tends to trade in fascist imagery. Elements inside the Republic have been unofficially supporting a small resistance fighting to topple the First Order government. The Resistance is led by General Leia Organa.

Han Solo and Leia married and had a kid named Ben. Luke Skywalker began training a new generation of Jedi. Ben Solo was one of his pupils. Ben fell under the sway of Supreme Leader Snoke. We don't know much about Snoke, but he seems to lead the New Order, is a master of the Dark Side, and is played by Andy "Gollum" Serkis. Ben, it seems had killed all the Jedi pupils, and joined Snoke in something called the Knights of Ren. I don't know if Stimpy comes into this or not. This caused the family to break up. Leia went back to doing what she does best, leading an army. Han went back to doing what he does best, getting into interplanetary trouble with his loyal buddy, Chewbacca. Luke fled to an uncharted part of the galaxy to find the first Jedi temple.

J.J. Abrams' habit of referencing what came before in his movies is in full evidence here. George Lucas' criticism is well founded. But, all this referencing actually works better in Star Wars than in it does in J.J.'s adventures into Star Trek. The stories in Star Wars run in cycles. Students betray masters, sons redeem fathers. Even Han Solo is redeemed through Kylo Ren in a way. I'll get into that later.

30 years after the battle of Endor, we see Stormtroopers in a troop carrier landing on a desert planet (not tatooine). The scene almost reminded me of the beginning of "Saving Private Ryan" with the soldiers standing and waiting for the door of the heaving landing craft to drop open. They attack a village looking for the resistance's ace pilot, Poe Dameron (Oscar Issac), who has something they want. What Poe has that they don't is a map of the unknown region of space that leads to the Jedi temple and to Luke Skywalker. Poe hides the map inside a droid called BB-8. So, now we have our mcguffin, which is once again a piece of data hidden inside a droid. There was an old guy played by Max Von-Sydow. We needed to see more of him just because it was Max Von-Sydow. You don't kill that guy off so early in a movie. That's like giving Peter Cushing only one good scene as Grand Moff Tarkin.

One of  J.J.'s better changes is that he humanizes his stormtroopers. One of them is FN-2187 (John Boyega). FN-2187, like many others, was taken as a child by the First Order to be trained as a stormtrooper. By beginning their solder's indoctrination young, the First Order ensures their loyalty. This is a darker reflection of what the Jedi did during the days of the Old Republic. We also meet FN-2187's bad-ass commander, Captain Phasma, played by Gwendoline (Brienne of Tarth) Christie.

Ben Solo, who is now known as Kylo Ren, (Adam Driver), has by now gone full emo. He's obsessed with Grandpa Darth. He cosplays in black armor and a breathing apparatus, and he carries around Vader's charred helmet. Going to Endor to find Darth Vader's actual certified original helmet must qualify him as the galaxy's greatest Star Wars fan.

This was FN-2187's first military action, and he hated it. He saw one of his buddies get shot up and civilians executed, and decided that he's had it. He's decided to desert, and is just waiting for his chance. The obvious echos of  "anti-insurgency" and "asymetric" war make the modern viewer sympathetic for this soldier. Poe is captured before he can escape in his X-Wing (The Imcom cooperation is apparently still supporting rebel scum). Poe is taken to the star destroyer orbiting above. FN-2187 sees Poe as his chance to get out of there and they both escape in a tie fighter. FN-2187 needs a real name in his new life as a person and becomes Finn. We have an awesome escape sequence inside a tie fighter because J.J. knows what Star Wars fans like. They get shot down. Finn thinks Poe is dead.

So, back on the desert planet, I didn't get it's name. Finn meets up with BB-8 and a girl named Rey (Daisy Ridley), who has been making a hard scrabble living scavenging hardware from an ancient, downed star-destroyer and selling the stuff to a junk dealer played by the always fun to watch Simon Pegg in a heavy alien costume. The First Order comes after Finn and BB-8. Tie fighters swoop in out of the rising sun in a scene reminiscent of the "Ride of the Valkyries" scene in "Apocalypse: Now". Rey and Finn manage to blast their way out in an abandoned "garbage" of a Corellian YT-1300 light freighter which soon brings them into contact with the ship's rightful owners (just try to guess who). The escape sequence is thrilling to say the least. In this early part of the film, it is learned that to this new generation, represented by Rey and Finn, the heroes of the rebellion, our heroes, such as Luke and Han and Leia have faded into legends and stories of great deeds in a foggy past that might not be completely real.

There is an almost humorous scene where Han must try to talk himself out of trouble with not one, but, two gangsters that he owes money to, because nothing changes with this guy. Then, Han and Chewy and Rey and Finn go to a Castle owed by a character called Maz Kantata ( played by actress Lupita Nyong'o acting under a CGI skin). Maz has turned the place into a pirate haven. She's a thousand years old and a force-sensitive. Luke Skywalker left his lightsaber into her safe keeping on his way into exile. In a cool, spooky scene with echos of the  mystical swords of human myth, the sound of voices leads Rey to the lightsaber, and as soon as she touches it, she's filled with crazy visions of the past and future. Frightened, she leaves it and Finn takes temporary possession.

Rey can fight. She can fly and fix the Millennium Falcon. She's seriously Force-sensitive. Over the course of the film, she grows more and more into a force to be reckoned with. She has been called a Mary-Sue by some critics. She probably is, but, she's a future Jedi, and what's more Mary-Sue than a fucking Jedi, anyway? I'm sure that we are going to find out sooner or later that she's a product of the Skywalker bloodline. Like Anakin and Luke before her she comes out of the desert strong with the force, and it looks like she'll be more powerful than either of them.

Back to the story, the First order comes looking for BB-8, the Resistance comes looking for BB-8 at the same time. There is a big fight. X-Wings swoop in over a lake. Kylo kidnaps Rey. Han and Leia meet in a scene that if you didn't get choked up over it, you just are not fucking human.

Now, some folks out there have been less-than-complimentary things about the way Carrie Fischer looked in this film. Princess Leia in the the original trilogy was a total babe as well as a kick-ass heroine, and her ongoing war of snide remarks with Han Solo defined a generations's idea of true romance. We remember that fondly, but, we are also all older now. General Organa of 30 years later doesn't need to look hot, she needs to look like the leader of galactic resistance and someone who saw the dark side of the force destroy her family. Carrie Fischer does this exceedingly well. Se has the sad look in her eyes of someone who has seen some shit. She's still beautiful, and these people can all stick their toy lightsabers up their asses for all I care. It's true she didn't get many lines, but this episode was mostly about the kids, anyway.

Kylo takes Rey to Starkiller base, which is basically a huge mega-deathstar built into a planet. so, now we have yet another deathstar to destroy (Thanks, J.J.). Why do these imperial types insist on sinking vast amounts of resources into building these things? How the energy used to run this thing is collected doesn't make sense, and it doesn't really need to make sense. Something about sucking all the enegy out of a star until it goes out. It would have been cool if there was a Dyson Sphere in the vicinity or something, but it's Star Wars not Star Trek, let it go. The First Order begins using Starkiller Base's power to destroy the core worlds of the Republic. The resistance wants to destroy it. Han and Chewy volunteer to sneak in and plant the bombs. Leia tells Han to bring Ben back if he sees him. Finn tags along because he wants to rescue Rey.

Meanwhile Kylo is trying to use The Force to read Rey's mind and find out where the secret rebel base is. He fails get into her head, she fights him out and he runs off and has a hissy fit, smashing computer terminals with his lightsaber. Then Rey Jedi-mind-tricks a stormtrooper into letting her go. It takes a few tries but she succeeds, even though she had zero training in this sort of thing. And who played this Stormtrooper? It was Daniel Craig who dropped in on a day off from filming "Spectre". She Jedi-mind-tricked James Fucking Bond! Tell me that's not cool.

This brings us up to the touching father-son scene, and why I don't mourn for Han Solo. It was sad to see our favorite scruffy-looking nerf herder go, but, in death, trying to save his son, Han, our old scoundrel, commits the most beautiful, noble act in the whole movie. That's why I said in the beginning, that in a way, the father was redeemed. Now, who is going to redeem the son? Will it be the mother? Or another female kin?

Edit: I was thinking about Han's place in the movie. He was the elder hero from by-gone era who was there to guide Rey and Finn through the first part of their own separate Hero's Journeys. Co-incidentally, it was when they were ready to set out on their own, that he sacrificed his life against this chapter's black knight. In the end, Han became Obi Wan. Another circle completed.

Kylo chases Rey and Finn into the woods. There is a big lightsaber fight. Luke's lightsaber seems to chose on it's own to fly into Rey's hand instead of Kylo's and she pretty much beats the shit out of him with it, because even with zero training, she's still more Jedi than he is. It was a brutal fight, and neither of them have the fighting skills of the Jedi and Sith of old days depicted in the prequels. Kylo lost the fight mentally before it even started, because he has no control of his emotions.

In the end, Rey sets off with Chewy to find the first Jedi temple and Luke.

I did some numbers here. This will make you feel old:
 In 1977, when Sir Alec Guiness played Obi Wan Kenobi, he was 63. Mark Hamill today is 64.

As Luke did when he landed on Dagobah, I expect Rey to argue and force a disinterested old master in exile, who saw the Jedi system fail under his watch, to train her. As Vader said, "The circle is now complete". No words were spoken in this scene, and none were necessary. The look on Rey's face said "goddamnit, you are going to take this lightsaber from my hand and help us". To reverse an old adage, when the master is ready, the student will appear.