I said it’d be a cold day in February before I’d bother to see Star Wars: The Force Awakens. Well, the Saturday of Presidents Day weekend started out at 10 degrees F (-12C) and DROPPED during the day. Then there was the wind, which made it considerably worse.
This was the opportunity for the Daughter to see her first Star Wars film, at the nearby Madison Theatre. She’s actually a better gauge of this film than I, although she seemed to know plot points and background better than her mother, who had seen the original trilogy. I too saw the first three, which is now the middle three, though not in many years. I may have seen the original film on video once subsequently, but probably not the others.
I also saw the first prequel, which bored me silly, a greater sin to me than whether Jar Jar Binks was a stereotype. It kept me from seeing #2 or #3, and I’m unfamiliar with the various items in the interregnum, such as Clone Wars.
Some guy I follow on Facebook gave out a big reveal from The Force Awakens in late January, assuming, incorrectly, that anyone who was going to see this film had already done so. Ticked me off, and ruined some of the suspense.
For me, the fact that the leads, Daisy Ridley as Rey and John Boyega as Finn, with the help of Oscar Isaac as Poe, held my interest until Han Solo and Chewbacca show up; that’s not much of a spoiler, as they appear in the trailer, and the poster. And they were well-developed characters in their own right.
The geek controversy over the black stormtrooper – aren’t they all replicants, or something, blah, blah – I found…[yawn]…sorry, what was I about to say? Oh, that those folks stressed about a female lead are just…hmm. Anyway, whatever. I did like Oscar Issac, whose character was SO depressing in Inside Llewyn Davis.
How do I feel about the politics of J.J. Abrams’ essentially a variation on the original theme, designed to make lots of money for Disney, especially with the next episode nicely set up? At some level, I suppose I’m a tad bothered by it. But it’s a tsunami. In its ninth week, it’s still the seventh leading film for the weekend. It cost $200 million but grossed $900 million domestically, and over $1.1 BILLION in the foreign market.
More to the point, I got sufficiently sucked up in the story to want to see the next chapter.
Interregnum!
Also saw it the Madison.. $5! Wish they still had that great big screen though, Star Wars originally was designed for single screen theaters.