Star Wars: The Force Awakens | WIRED Movie Review

Chewy, we're home.

(Chewy agrees)

[Narrator] Yes, Star Wars fans, we're home.

The Force Awakens is a return to a galaxy far, far away.

Now, the question most likely on your mind,

be you Jedi, or be you Sith,

is, will it thrill us,

like the original trilogy did?

(suspenseful music)

We're not gonna do this with spoilers,

but by now you know the basics.

Rey, Po and Fin are the new heroes,

and they're gonna team up with Han,

and Chewbacca and hey,

there's Leia too.

Did we mention the lovable droid, BB-8.

They're up against the new bad guys.

The First Order,

which grew out of the defeated Empire.

Supreme Commander Snoke is Emperor Palpatine-ish.

Kylo Ren is Darth Vador-ish.

There's a weapon that's called the Star Killer

that's kind of Death Star-ish.

The storm troopers are still storm troopers.

But they're not clones anymore,

they're humans.

(suspenseful music crescendos)

There are stunning aerial fights between

X-wings, and Tie Fighters, and Falcons.

Light saber duels and heart stealing droids.

The script by Lawrence Kasdan and J.J. Abrams,

is chalk full of Star Wars homages,

and inside jokes.

If you're Proust fan,

it's the Madeleine cookie of Star Wars movies,

and that might be its biggest problem.

The team cycles through so many of the themes

and tropes from the first trilogy

that at times The Force Awakens feels

less like an episode seven and more like a remake

of episodes four through six.

But then again, isn't that what we want?

The question is if the movie recaptures the magic

of the originals.

And the answer to that, thankfully, is yes.

It's a perfect distillation of

what made that trilogy so good.

Look, Disney and Lucas film are gonna keep

making these things forever.

And if they're all as good as The Force Awakens,

then this is gonna be a hell of a lot of fun.