Star Wars: The Force Awakens

Let’s not be fooled by the clever promotional campaign parroted in most reviews and responses to the film – the new Star Wars is not a project by fans for fans. Abrams has not created an elitist fan film. Instead, based on the principles of fan fiction, he has taken the previous world, characters and moments familiar to fans and placed them in a new narrative with different rules that builds on the unexploited potential of the original and can appeal to a segment of the audience that has not been affected or has been overlooked by the original cult. Paradoxically, this segment comprises the majority of viewers standing apart from the obsessive adoration of Star Wars and the ceaseless criticism of Lucas, as well as the massive toy-industry lobby. Together with Lawrence Kasdan, Abrams awakened the Force, cleansing the series of all of the ballast piled on it not only by Lucas, but by all of pop culture. It’s not appropriate to reproach the film for lacking courage or playing it safe. On the contrary, it would be difficult to find a more progressive and daring concept within the major Hollywood studios than the plan to create a blockbuster based on nerdy archetypes, with a girl, a black man and a couple of pensioners as the main highly developed characters. The path to reviving the franchise has not led through a reverential copying of pre-digital Lucas; instead, Abrams is (at least notionally) taking up George Miller’s torch. The new Star Wars, together with the latest Mission Impossible, thus proudly follows in the wake of Fury Road as an emancipated blockbuster and new-age action flick in which CGI is finally given its place as a post-production tool and honest on-set work comes to the fore. (12/23/2015)

Disclaimer for fans: if anyone liked this film, I’m glad for them, the problem is mine. Star Wars has never meant anything to me, and The Force Awakens didn’t hype me for any experience, either. The plot is very predictable, I didn’t see anything original o interesting. The variations of the themes of previous episodes may be fun for the fans, but they don’t mean anything on their own. The dialogues are made of empty, nostalgic phrases, the characters have unexplainable deep bonds, even though the story takes place in, what, a couple of days at most? Sometimes this aspect becomes almost a parody, like, for instance, when Kylo Ren says that Han Solo is for Ray the father she never had (even though it seems that they’ve known each other for only a couple of hours), or when Finn and Poe reunite and fall into an embrace almost as if they’ve gone through at least the Vietnam War together, but actually the only thing they’ve done is a semi-successful escape from a ship that can’t have taken more than half an hour. Really, sometimes it feels as if it was written by an idiot, or by someone takes the viewers for idiots. And this sci-fi cancer will now take space at the cinemas for another few years and will employ many young hopeful directors who instead of this could be working on something more meaningful. Great :-/ (03/23/2016)

A demonstration of the Force and pure filmmaking goodness from a fan-boy who is one of the exclusive handful of filmmakers who understand how to hook nostalgics ages 30+ with an offset Millennium Falcon on their t-shirt, and wannabe nerds shoving a lightsaber on their profile picture just because it's popular on Facebook at the moment. I went to see the new Abrams film and understood how people felt at the end of the 1970s. It’s pure filmmaking ecstasy, brimming with kinetic action, divine special effects, balanced humor, winking at all ends of the galaxy, and, most importantly, another advancement of the universe. Whining about Episode IV being remade is misguided. The previous 6 episodes weren't really about anything else in the end. I have to watch it one more time... To get bored the second time and only really appreciate it after the third screening. I suspect there are so many hidden hints of things to come that in 2019 we'll still be wondering. (12/20/2015)

I’ve been waiting for the story to continue for many years and suddenly it was over. The result? I could find a lot of reasons to criticize the seventh instalment. Mirka Spáčilová in her review for Mladá Fronta did not disappoint. Sadly, she only stated in her review what could be somehow expected of this instalment. I wouldn’t be surprised if she just got up after the opening credits and left. Anyone could criticize that the story dilutes the original trilogy and does not bring anything new. However, introducing new characters in a universe like that is also a craft that not everybody can do, and I think J. J. Abrams managed it really well. Personally, I feel that towards the end of the year I couldn’t encounter better movie in the cinemas. There are fewer digital effects than real ones, which is really to the creators’ benefit. New characters played by Daisy Ridley and John Boyega are also really nice. Adam Driver also fulfills his mission in this story. He is a scumbag at first glance with clearly a weak will to be a weakling. However, the circumstances make him into a real monster. Add in an epic story like in the first trilogy. What else could you ask for? I really don’t know. (12/24/2015)

The true essence of Star Wars, built on new characters who are fun, interesting, and above all three-dimensional, which is something I wouldn't have expected after the eternal division between the light and dark sides. Yet even more pleasing are the emotions of all the returns, reminiscences, and general nostalgia. The greatest triumph is the emphasis on a great adventurous story of self-discovery based on intimate family drama. Gone are the empty political talks that felt inappropriate and forced in all the previous installments, which is why The Force Awakens, with the exception of Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith, is the only episode that I can fully enjoy. J.J. Abrams brings a subtly subversive humor that pleasantly undercuts even the most serious scenes and saves its most powerful moments only for the most crucial scenes. And when he combines the archetypal outlines of the original trilogy with the longing atmosphere of the new trilogy, I find myself wanting to see and know more. Much more. (12/18/2015)