Star Wars: The Force Awakens is the newest addition to the Star Wars Universe and the first entry in the series created without the input of George Lucas. And thank god for that! This film represents a return to form for the series, even if it is quite derivative of the original film. The story picks up years after the events of Return of the Jedi. Luke Skywalker has gone missing and members of The First Order, a group picking up where the Empire left off, are eager to get their hands on BB-8, a droid who has a map of Skywalker's whereabouts. BB-8 belongs to Poe Dameron, an ace fighter pilot for the Rebellion. Kylo Renn, leader of the First Order, captures Poe, but BB-8 escapes and ends up with a young scavenger girl named Rey who lives on a desert planet called Jakku and there the adventure begins.
Sound familiar? Of course, it does. The plot of this film does tend to mirror that of the original Star Wars film, but I think that's part of the fun of it. If you find no magic in seeing Harrison Ford in his Han Solo garb flying the Millenium Falcon through the galaxy, then you probably won't enjoy this film and it wasn't made for you, anyways. The original characters, with the exception of Princess Leia who is underutilized, return in fitting ways and mesh well with the new characters. J.J. Abrams steers the effects toward the practical side of things enough to keep the feel of the original without turning this into a 2 hour CGI cartoon. While it has some minor flaws, the updated humor ("Droid, please!") doesn't always fit with the timeless universe in which the story takes place, luckily it is used sparingly and doesn't become too distracting, and the events unfold perhaps too conveniently at times, it is still a satisfying film and ends on a magical note that has me excited for the next film in the series.
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