Star Wars: The Force Awakens

Did anyone ever wonder whatever happened to Luke Skywalker?  Of course we all wondered, and the latest installment of the Star Wars saga answered our questions with the first sentence of the crawling words that begin every Star Wars film.  Luke Skywalker has disappeared.

Thank you!   Any more questions?  Oh yes, what happened to all of those space vehicles - the freighters, the cruisers, the AT-AT’s, the would be Death Stars, the Tie fighters, the x-Wing fighters, etc - which were shot down/exploded/blasted from the sky in the first six Star Wars films?   Funny you should ask, because it appears that they have all ended up on the same planet in the entire universe! 

This galactic junkyard known as Jakku is a desert planet populated by scavengers who sell whatever space parts they find in all the wreckages for food rations.  It is here that a female scavenger, Rey (Daisy Ridley) meets a deserter, Finn (John Boyega) from the First Order (which was descended from the Galactic Empire, which was descended from Nazi Germany), and a resistance fighter, Poe Damoren (Oscar Isaac) who allowed his small R2D2 unit wander the planet with a map leading to Skywalker’s whereabouts implanted in its memory.

Yes, next questions?   Haven’t we been here before?  As a matter of fact, yes,   especially that part about robots having messages important to the plot stored within their systems.

The villain this time is  Kylo Ren (Adam Driver) , grandson to Darth Vader, which means his parents are none other than…oh,  what’s the use of spoiling this plot point when everyone else on this planet (except Warrior Queen) has seen the movie.  The grandson is so much like granddad; he goes about behind a mask not to hide a disfiguring head trauma, but to conceal pimples; has a temper that matches Charles Foster Kane, and the Dark Side is strong with this one.  Grandpa would be proud!

His back story should be good for two prequels, but that would mean that we’re getting behind ourselves.  Please, one plot point at time!

Ren works for the First Order, a nasty bunch of intergalactic bullies who do not tolerate a difference of opinion of any sort.  This group has outgrown the old technology that vaporized one planet at a time.   They have now developed a much larger weapon within its own planet that can take out multiple planets at one time.

The old Death Star?  Please!  That is so long ago and so far away in Episode IV.

The First Order is opposed by the Republic, which is led by Ren’s mother, Princess Leia Organa (Carrie Fisher).  It really is a small universe after all!  Rei and Finn escape the desert orb Jakku by commandeering the Millennium Falcon, which by this time is a very old rust bucket.  The Falcon is in turn recaptured by its former owner, Han Solo (Harrison Ford), who along with Chewbacca, are more than game to hyperspace into the fight again.  Solo schools the young ones on the ways of the force and reveals that he personally knew Luke Skywalker.  Up to this point Rei and Finn thought Luke was just a legend.

Seriously, just what do these millennials know?

Ultimately the dizzying, vertigo-inducing space chases/battles, the stopover at a cantina where Luke’s light saber is preserved much like our world would have preserved the Holy Grail, the heart stopping race to destroy the death planet before it destroys again, the fateful meeting between Ren and his dad Solo (in which Ren ensures he won’t have to be bothered sending any more of those pesky Father’s Day cards ever again), is all leading to finding Skywalker.

Along the twists and turns of the story we learn that Rei was torn from her biological family a long, long time ago, in a montage of nightmarish images when she touches Luke’s light saber.  She is also revealed to possess the Force.  At one point she makes good her escape from the First Order by using a Jedi mind trick.

Hmmm?   So from which branch of the Skywalker family tree did Rei fall?  And will Luke literally take the light saber from her hands at film’s end, and figuratively save the universe again?

We’ll have to wait until 2017 for the answers to these questions, when the next chapter of this grand franchise (which will outlive us all) is released.  Then, as now, a fun escapist time should be had by all!

(Thank you for reading. Spoiler alert: the force will return!)