Star Wars: The Force Awakens

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)

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)

I envy everyone who watched the regular seventh episode. I watched "only" the nostalgic, modified first... I mean, fourth episode. Fortunately, it was for the better. Abrams is a better filmmaker than Lucas and he was really lucky that George did not write dialogs. In addition, Boyega, BB-8 and especially Keira (although the creators claim that his name is Ridley) carry it better than the non-charismatic Hamill and Fischer, and even C-3PO, have ever done in their youth. Of course, this is not the case with Ford. He carried it last time and he carries it now too. It is true that the first half is better than the second, when it partially loses pace (unnecessary part with smugglers) and the scenes made solely to please fans every other second of the footage (at the expense of time when more could be clarified about the new mythology) and so kind fatefulness that looks so unnatural. The Prequel trilogy succeeded at least (or only) in presenting a living universe with thousands of races and interests. This is a step back. Again, we are purely in the wastelands, and the eventual destruction of a "kind of planet somewhere in space" has absolutely no effect on anything or anyone. Nevertheless, an undeniably decent filmmaking, which is pleasure to watch. Especially in moments when it is not afraid to step out of the shadow of the original trilogy and start casting its own shadow. There are only few such moments, sadly, but they are there and they are amazing. So hopefully it will work out in two years in the eighth episode, which will no longer be just a respectfully modified second... I mean, the fifth episode. (12/19/2015)

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)

I don't mind the criticism that it's all too derived and the whole movie is the most expensive fan made affair of all time. I would even add doubts about the main villain, which so far looks more like he’s from a Marvel blockbuster... Yes, part seven fuses proven motifs and practices primarily from episodes IV and VI. Unlike Star Trek, Abrams moves in a much more stylistically grounded universe, but that doesn't mean he doesn't serve us a total abrasive delight, as Dan Nekonečný would say. After 136 minutes, the film rushes forward and the runtime is simply subjectively terribly short. The obsession with the overpaid mise-en-scène has disappeared, Mindel's camera moves more with characters who don't just recite theatrically, but rather breathe. The digital haze of the new trilogy has given way to materiality. Stormtrooper skirmishes are pure pleasure and there is no choice but to move the spin-off Rogue One among the most anticipated films of 2016. The new characters learn quickly. Emphasis on well-dosed pathos, gestures, timely winks - they learn it all with ease. But of course, the battlefield belongs to veterans who awaken the Force of Nostalgia. Star Wars has ceased to be an epic galactic saga about the taxation of trade routes and relations between various representatives of galactic politics, and they are returning to a fairy tale with everything that it encompasses. Epic arc, ancient scenes, big beautiful words. If the new trilogy was criticized as an operetta, this is an opera again. We may not seem to have much in common with 1977, but for me, this epic of the eternal battle of good and evil is as important today as it was in a time dominated by villains. Not so much because it contains a very complete feminist undertone (which torments Czech mental apartheid), but rather because it again fully recalls the validity of Yoda's thirty-two-year-old words: "Luminous beings are we, not this crude matter." Abrams may have just built a bridge between the old trilogy and the new universe, but it's a bridge that is a joy to walk on. (12/16/2015)