CREDIT: LUCASFILM (2015)
While offering some incredible new characters like Rey and Kylo Ren, The Force Awakens only hints at the new stories we crave.

After much waiting, build-up, controversy and anticipation, the day has finally arrived – a brand new Star Wars trilogy has begun. With an incredibly large cast, featuring both old favourites and new, this is a movie that tells the story of a small group facing down a Nazi- like foe with a giant weapon of mass destruction.

The discerning viewer might notice that this plot is incredibly familiar to that of more than one of the movies already existing in the Star Wars saga. The fact that, for the most part, much of the movie simply rehashes old plot points and only hints at newer stories is often incredibly frustrating. Much like in the prequels, characters often talk about far more interesting stories that the audience never gets to see.

There are two characters in particular this happens with, Rey and Kylo Ren. In Rey’s case, we see a six-year-old child being abandoned, but don’t get to see how she survived as a child or how she managed to teach herself so many random things.

As to Kylo Ren when he said, “Oh, he’s just like Anakin so now he’s evil”, he tells the audience absolutely nothing about his descent to the Dark Side. If anything, Kylo Ren being like Anakin makes it almost less likely for him to turn. After all, Anakin only turned after having premonitions of everyone he loved dying, being told to just magically stop caring about other people and then being actively pursued by the Emperor, not to mention the fact that Anakin’s redemption is the culmination of the entire original trilogy.

Overall, both of these stories would be far more interesting than watching yet another collection of random pilots blow up yet another giant laser thing. Instead, we get to see an incredibly powerful villain throw temper tantrums like a fiveyear- old, Rey learn everything in two days that took Luke two years and three movies to figure out and the least subtle hints ever put on screen.

The trouble with The Force Awakens isn’t that it’s a terrible movie. It has excellent graphics, some really interesting characters and the epic musical scores that only the incomparable John Williams can produce. Instead, the problem is that the movie doesn’t really add anything new. In attempting to cater to the original fan base, J.J. Abrams missed out on an epic opportunity to create something completely fantastic. Hints of the potential are there, but never really pursued in a meaningful way.

Overall, The Force Awakens does what it was designed to do: it feeds on our nostalgia, provides enough explosions to distract from the many plot holes and gives the audience just enough to leave us hoping that the next movie gives us the new story we so desperately crave. It’s just unfortunate that, with the vast amount of material in the Extended Universe, Abrams decided instead to throw it all away and give us the same old tale.