As it’s time for the inevitable talk about the new Star Wars it’s rather a hard thing to do in written form for the most part.

A lot of sites have either kept to very generic reviews to not reveal anything or say up front or they have stated very clearly that what content they are putting out there is full of spoilers and therefore unless you’ve seen the film, you’re advised to steer clear of it. In essence this is one of those few films that unlike where the Oscar bait films that were written about at the beginning of the year, this is one where you know what, we’re going to do things a little differently.

It’s got pew pew and laser swords!

You see, I’m not going to be a complete pr*ck here unlike others on the internet, the post instead more generalised about events and plot within the film, and then in a separate post, underneath a giant picture, we will then proceed into the spoiler content where some of the real meat can be chewed on. There will be some areas remarked on, but they should still be non specific enough not to be the internet fire of hate down upon us….We hope.

For the twelve people who never have heard of the franchise, Star Wars takes place in a galaxy far far away as it reminds us in every film so far, and revolves around an epic battle between good and evil, with some extra special types who use powers from something called the Force, where again both good and bad has to exist it appears and be in never-ending conflict. Never-ending perhaps as long as Disney needs the cash to buy everything else in existence.

It provided us with some iconic characters, some epic battles, some touching moments, some truly awful dialogue, some clunky story telling and a character that pretty much everyone agreed should have never been brought to the big screen ever and perhaps even now will be rotting in the film vaults of hell, in the form of Jar Jar Binks.

But after Disney’s buyout of the very popular and perhaps more importantly from their point of view, lucrative sci-fi adventure and after many years of the teats being completely milked dry from this old beast, is this going to be yet another cash-in that pretty much be the nail in the coffin for many after what happened with the previous films headed by George Lucas, with such terrible sh*te like Star Wars Kinect being released where you could dance to YMCA as Darth Vader? (Yep, it happened.)

Or will this be the welcome return where the platform is made solid once again for good things to come for a new generation?

Honey, I’m home!

So to start with, let’s go over what we can say without giving too much away. In this latest adventure, The majority of the old cast from the first three films return for various reasons, and we see some new faces join the battle between good and evil, with explosions, battles, and a lot of set-up for the next two films to follow to bring us up to 9 full episodes.

In terms of the old, we once again see the likes of Harrison Ford playing Han Solo, Carrie Fisher playing Leia, and some other old favourites (yep, would have been an actual spoiler to write more). But it’s the new blood which the future will be sitting with and it seems on the face of things that the casting has been very well done, save for perhaps a couple where unless the characters are flushed out more, they will be just a serious let down in terms of the roles they play.

John Boyega comes in as a serial numbered Storm Trooper who then gets the name Finn later by helping Oscar Issac out of a bit of a bind, comes in as a great surprise, in that he shows how much someone fighting for the bad guys can be troubled by what they see, and want to run away from it at times. He provides a really nice change in pace where at first he’s out of depth and then starts coming into his own later on and I could really understand his point of view. Definitely one character to watch in future.

Rey, played by Daisy Ridley (who seems to have summoned the power of Keira Knightly to be the film’s main heroine) has lived all her life in one place doing what see needs to survive then then also get caught up in the galactic fire-fight. Bumping into Finn, then sets her on a much bigger path that you are sure to see play out fully over the next two films at the very least, if they want to maintain the momentum gained in Episode 7.

She was played quite well too, if sadly a bit too straight at times, and remarkably seems to have just the right talent at the right moment too which raised an eyebrow more than once. I know, story needed moving forward but for f*ck’s sake, someone apparently that talented at everything and didn’t go wandering round the galaxy till now? Girlfriend, please!

F*CKING HELL, THEY’RE REALLY SHOOTING AT US!

The bad guys, Kylo Ren played by Adam Driver (who is the Darth Vader wannabe character), Hux played by Domhnall Gleeson (who is the General bloke leading the bad guys), The Lady fighter from Game of Thrones and the bloke who did Golem, are a little more hit and miss and we will come onto them later. Suffice to say, they need a lot more time to flesh them out in later films otherwise they are in danger of turning to the lame side of the farce.

There is much to say that is done very well here, and the shots, excellent soundtrack and effects bring this to the level everyone expects and more. It’s a remarkable thing to say but the use of actual sets for the most part and the use of CGI being restricted to where required made this seem more real somehow in comparison to the slew of computer generated crap we’ve gotten used to in the cinemas in recent years.

In fact, the only other example I can really think of is Mad Max: Fury Road which used a large number of vehicles and stunt people for their work. One can only hope this trend will continue as some of the work created is superb.

The level of fan service here is immense from the production team and I can imagine there will be a huge number of people so happy to see the old Millennium Falcon flying through the stars again, along with X-Wing and Tie Fighters going at each other with all the familiar sounds, but updated designs to look just as new as they did the first time. Hell, it’s great to see a real contrast in great locations, gritty space vessels full of junk and disrepair to then arrive at the ultra clean environment that the new Empire / Bad Guys had.

It was at this point, that Finn made a mess in his trousers.

This film even had a sense of humour at times which provided some really good breaks from the action and solemn events which take place and I hope they remain in future films of the series.

A special mention remarkably must go to Harrison Ford, who actually has a decent amount of scenes to play in along with the new cast members and of all the old cast, he is the one which shines the most, even at his age, his running is not as it used to be. You could have had more of his adventures with Chewbacca (or Crunchie as I like to call him) before making this too and the story of what they had been doing since the events of Return of the Jedi is explained to a point, perhaps hinting of much more that happened and happily leaves you wondering. Carrie Fisher, was there because of reasons we can only guess at, and she didn’t have much screen time really to do much. When she was there, it was alright, possibly.

However, all this leads onto the major problem of the film itself. Due to the nature of the review not wanting to go into too much details, it will be difficult to say much more clearly, but if you’ve seen Episode 4: A New Hope, then you will be surprised to know that you’ve seen this film already.

In perhaps knowing that everyone would have been watching to see if this was going to be poor and therefore land on the producers of Star Wars like a sumo wrester at the first sign of meh occurring, they pretty much played the whole thing safe, save for one or two big plot points where again some saw it coming by all accounts.

In some ways, it is a crutch to rely on the nostalgia of the old films in order to ensure that everyone remains happy. There were too many things occurring in terms of the story, character set-up etc, not to see that a lot of it comes from the very first Star Wars film back in the 1970s.

You pretty much then go through a lot of the film comparing each event as it plays out to what happened before and then come away wondering if these new people came in after the events of the previous films, did they not learn from any mistakes? Really? You didn’t have a book lying round stating what went wrong?

Go Falcon, go! Do pew pew and fly like that other time you did!

And now we come to the more dark side of the film, as while the good guys themselves seem to have a very good footing in this episode, if a few things magically happening because they needed a plot device to move sh*t forward, as mentioned before, the bad guys themselves, seem about at first foreboding and truly evil with some hints of inner conflict and utter rage spilling out on screen when it came to Kylo Ren, but in the end, they became borderline pantomime villains and you wonder if they can redeem themselves after this “episode.”

Based on what I watched, they probably would get sent to their rooms without any dinner and that’s that. Naughty dark side, very bad dark side.

The ending of course you know is not the ending as there is far more to come, so you should know you’re at the beginning of a new series and therefore to get a decent pay-off, you’re in essence investing in watching the next bunch of films at the very least.

That’s as far as you can really get without getting into too many details here, so at the end of all this, the question is, is this actually worth seeing, once you forget the hype and the fact that this is in essence a remake of the first Star Wars? F*ck it, shall we even ask the same old tired cliché question of “Is the force strong with this one?”

The answer is Yes.

It is a film which is typical Hollywood affair but very enjoyable indeed, gives the people what they want and at no point does it ever go close to hitting the very low points of the previous efforts in the film series. It does enough to peak your interest in the later films and therefore invest yourself more in what’s to come later. JJ Abrams and his team should be happy with what they have done.

But make no mistake, this probably won’t be winning any awards. It does only a few tiny things new, and the pilfering from previous films cannot be understated here. So Star Wars Episode 7, worth a watch for sure, just don’t expect anything ground breaking and you will be more than sorted, leaving the cinema with a smile on your face.