With The Rise Of Skywalker coming out this past month, I decided to do retrospectives on each of the films. I am going in the order of the story which means we’re continuing on with The Force Awakens. This film came out in 2015 and was our first return to the stars in 10 years and was the first time that we’d picked up on the storyline from Return of The Jedi in 32 years. I’ll never forget that I was almost too excited for this movie. It was everything I had hoped for and more. I’m one of the ones who loves the Sequel Trilogy(Or, at least the first two parts of it for sure.) so you may have to bear with me over the next two articles.
The film starts off with a few great shots of a squadron of Stormtroopers. I love the new design and the flashing lights really gives it an interesting tone for the film right off the bat. We then see BB-8 who is the best, I love him so much. He rushes off to tell Poe that the First Order is here. Poe’s a great character, he’s a hot shot pilot and he’s snarky and he’s just great overall. Poe was receiving the last part of the map to Luke Skywalker from Lor San Tekka, an old traveler who came across it somehow. When they exit the hut, he tells Poe to run so that he can get the Map to Leia. When he does, his X-Wing gets attacked and damaged by some of the Stormtroopers so he gives the map to BB-8 and tells him to run as far away as he can from here. He goes back to defend the villagers and then we see Kylo Ren for the first time. His design is great, he’s a gigantic figure and he’s covered in black except for the silver on his mask. He starts talking to Lor San Tekka and he’s actually kinda hard to understand at first but it gets there. He ends up killing the old traveler after he references that he knows who Kylo Ren really is and Poe tries to shoot him. Here is where we see Kylo hold a blaster bolt in mid-air, which is pretty awesome.
He questions Poe about the map and of course Poe gives him nothing so he says to put him in the ship. It’s at this point that we need to talk about FN-2187. He’s a very well written character because he’s someone who we don’t see a whole lot of, he’s a Stormtrooper that was raised in the First Order, then he becomes disillusioned with the very concept of them following the attack on the village. I’m not sure if it was the fact that he lost one of his friends or the fact that he watched as all of the villagers were gunned down. Either way, I totally get it. He refuses to shoot when Captain Phasma orders him to and when he gets back to the Star Destroyer, he takes off his helmet and John Boyega does a fantastic job of conveying his fear and his trauma from what he’s seen. This is something that helps to drive home this simple fact : The stormtroopers aren’t clones. They know what they’re doing and that’s why Finn refuses them. He can’t be a part of this anymore.
After that, we’re introduced to Rey. Now, to quote Red Lanyard : “Rey is the best thing to happen to Star Wars since A New Hope.” I tend to agree with him on this matter. Rey is a wonderful character in my opinion. She’s fought for everything her entire life and it shows in the way that she carries herself. She spends most of her day collecting random things from Fallen Star Destroyers and then she goes to Unkar Plutt who basically gives her like the Jakku version of a lunchable for it. Rey never had anything when she was growing up and because of it, I think she’s a stronger character. She goes home, which for her is a broken down AT-AT which is awesome. I love that Jakku was such a large battle that it basically covered an entire side of the planet. When she gets done eating dinner, she hears BB-8 nearby in distress. When she gets there, he’s been captured by Teedo who is another Junker that wants to sell him for scrap. When teedo leaves him alone, Rey walks off and BB-8 keeps trying to follow her. At first, she’s hesitant, but since she doesn’t have anyone either she eventually lets him come with her.
Switching back to FN-2187 and Poe, Poe gets tortured by Kylo Ren who uses the force to extract information from him about the map to Luke. He learns that it’s with BB-8 and sends his troops to capture him and that’s when FN-2187 meets up with him and offers to help him escape. Poe agrees and they steal a tie-fighter, this is a great scene and I love how much they’ve focused on making the space battles look absolutely perfect. It’s an exciting chase and it also helps to build Poe and Finn’s friendship. Including the fact that Poe hates that they used numbers to take away the Stormtroopers names so he chooses to call him “Finn” instead of FN-2187. It’s subtle, but incredibly effective.
Finn is arguing with Poe about needing to leave but Poe is determined to get back to BB-8 and get the map to Luke, as they’re flying their Tie gets shot down and they crash in the desert. When Finn wakes up, Poe is nowhere to be found and Finn walks to the nearest settlement just to find some water. As he is wearing Poe’s jacket from the wreckage of the Tie, BB-8 sees him and Rey and the droid go to confront him about it and that’s when he explains that Poe is gone. He does leave out that he’s an ex-stormtrooper but that makes sense. He makes Rey believe that he’s a resistance fighter instead and mentions the map to Luke, Rey is immediately excited by this and says “I thought he was a myth.” This is one of my favorite aspects of the The Force Awakens is that the Original Trilogy characters are all legends to the new group. Their tales against the Empire is what has inspired so many people. While they’re talking, they get flagged down by Stormtroopers and so they start to run and I’ve always loved how Rey is so independent here even though Finn is just trying to help her. She keeps telling him to stop holding her hand and then after Finn is knocked out, the first thing he says when Rey helps him up is “Are you ok?” and she just has this really confused look on her face cause she’s done everything herself for so long.
They run to try and get away in a ship but the Tie’s blow it up and so they jump in the ship that Rey had previously called “Garbage” and that’s when we see the Millennium Falcon for the first time! It was so exciting to see it again after so long. I’m still more of an X-Wing guy but the Falcon is the ultimate Star Wars ship. Everyone knows the Falcon. Rey pilots while Finn shoots and it’s a really great chase sequence. Abrams uses a lot of interesting angles to keep you interested and to keep it exciting. My personal favorite is the one from the very first teaser trailer where you’re following the ship as Rey does a loop and then flies really low to the ground. Once they get away from Jakku is when we have the characters official introduction to each other. Boyega and Ridley both have really great chemistry as Finn and Rey here. They’re both lost characters searching for something more.
We switch very quickly to one of my favorite scenes with Kylo Ren where the guy tells him that the group escaped with BB-8 and he just starts destroying that console with his Lightsaber. A lot of people didn’t like how Kylo Ren was so wild and so full of angst in this film but that’s absolutely the point of his character and that’s why I liked him as a villain. He’s an evil character but he’s so fragile and that makes him interesting to me.
Switching back to the Falcon, Finn and Rey have to fix up the motivator on the ship. Basically Rey’s fixing it while Finn just kinda fumbles around. They get taken in by another ship and that’s when Han and Chewbacca show up. Han says the famous line from the Trailer : “Chewie, we’re home.” and it’s just so great to have these two back again in the franchise.
You can’t help but smile when Han stands in the cockpit with a big grin on his face. We discover that the Falcon had been stolen from Han a few years back and that’s why he was using this new ship. He initially just wants to get rid of Finn and Rey until they mention Luke’s name. It stops him in his tracks until he hears a noise and realizes that the Gauvian Death Gang is after him. They’re the ones who hired him for the job he’s on and it’s a fun little call back to Han’s troubles with Jabba in the Original Trilogy. He tries to talk his way out of it but Han’s older now and everyone knows him so they call him on everything and that’s when they notice BB-8 and mention that the first order’s looking for it and two fugitives…and unbeknownst to them, the fugitives are hiding right underneath the floor boards. Rey manages to blow the fuses intending to trap the gang but instead it opens the doors to the cargo Han and Chewie were carrying : Rathtars. They’re these big rolling slug things with tentacles. They look grotesque and horrifying, fortunately though this allows our heroes to get back to the Millennium Falcon and escape.
Then we switch back to Kylo Ren and General Hux reporting to Snoke and this is where the fan base and I differ on a few things because I personally don’t care about Snoke. He’s an ultimately useless character next to the fantastic villains that we have in Kylo Ren and Hux but he works as an overseer of sorts in these films. Meanwhile, just about every other fan wanted to know every single detail about this guy. I get that he’s mysterious but honestly that’s how I preferred him. Snoke is also the one who gets to reveal that Han Solo is Kylo Ren’s father. Kylo immediately says “He means nothing to me.” and we’ll see how that turns out later.
Han and Rey figure out how to fix the Falcon together and Han’s very clearly impressed by her abilities. After that they start talking about Luke and he reveals that Luke left after an apprentice of his ruined everything at Luke’s new temple. He blamed himself and went into hiding but no one really knows why. Han decides to take the group to Maz Kanata’s castle so they can get BB-8 to the Resistance. The castle is one of my favorite parts of the film because there’s so much to enjoy. First, you have this great scene that’s reminiscent of the Cantina scene from A New Hope. Maz is such a fun character anyway and Lupita Nyong’o brings a great gravitas to her character. She sits them down and she basically tells them that it needs to be Han who takes the droid to The Resistance. She pulls no punches with him and I love it. She also calls Finn out on him just wanting to run but he basically confirms that for her anyway. She tells him about these two guys who can give him transport and he goes to talk with them. Rey keeps questioning him about the mission for BB-8 and this is when he confesses to her about his past and he ultimately leaves despite her requests for him to stay.
Then Rey hears something calling to her in the basement of the castle and that’s where she finds Luke’s lightsaber and then has her vision about the force. The vision was interesting because it’s something that’s been discussed for years and much of it was answered throughout the trilogy but we’ll stll have a few questions I’m sure. Maz finds her after the vision is over and you can tell that she’s just absolutely terrified. Maz tells her that she needs to answer the call of the force and find Luke. She says that she wants nothing more to do with the saber, the force or anything else and she runs off into the forest.
This article was huge and I decided to split it into two parts because of it. If you would like to continue then you can do so right here! Thanks for reading!
