The original Star Wars trilogy was a true hero’s Journey, that’s a big part of what made it great. Luke Skywalker trained to use the force over the course of three films and became more adept as he went. At times he is overwhelmed, impatient and opponents even get the better of him. Luke even needs his friends help to survive through the original trilogy. These faults increase his characters relatability making him an every-man.

Unlike Luke, Rey seems to be wholly capable no matter what situation she finds herself in. She can fight, pilot ships and seems to speak any language she needs to, even though she hasn’t left this junky sand planet for the majority of her life. A little less girl power would have done wonders for her character. She is only on a journey in the destination sense and seems to have all the skill and knowledge she requires. Worse, she wields the force in multiple ways without any instruction or even basic knowledge of how the Force works. I know there are all sorts of speculation going on about her character being more fleshed out in future films, but sorry any movie should be able to stand on its own without multiple installments to explain something this crucial to its narrative.

It just comes of feeling way too Deus ex Machina.

de·us ex ma·chi·na (noun) - an unexpected power or event saving a seemingly hopeless situation, especially as a contrived plot device in a play or novel.

While I actually enjoyed John Boyega’s (Finn) acting in the film, I’m not sure I get Finn’s Reason for Treason. Being a Stormtrooper, Finn has been raised since preadolescence to be a loyal subject to the First Order. Yet for no good reason he breaks his programming and goes AWOL. The First Order is the only family he has ever known, yet he deserts them with no good reason. For a guy who has never even disobeyed a single order up to this point to make such a transformation without anyone showing him the virtues of another path, well… it’s just not very compelling this way.

These matters may come off as nit-picky to some, but they are not. They are fundamentals that help to ground the story and develop the characters with some semblance of dare I say it, realism. As it stands most of the choices made by the character feels pretty artificial.

By far my biggest gripe with the Force Awakens is that I couldn’t help but feel like I had seen this movie before; I did. It was called Star Wars: A New Hope. The movie doesn’t really offer much in the way of original content and this makes its payoffs completely predictable and in truth rather disappointing. All the plot points and beats from the original Star Wars are present and accounted for. The missing droid carrying vital info, the plucky hero from a backwater sand planet, a cantina scene, and even a planet destroying super-weapon; yep there is another ginormous space station that needs to be destroyed… again. The whole world just shelled out a billion dollars to basically see the same movie they saw in 1977.

Mickey Mouse and his goofy pals are laughing all the way to bank (but he’s used to that by now).

The Force Awakens is pretty entertaining but its convenient characters and retreaded plot keep it from living up to all the hype. It’s not bad, it’s not great, but it is Star Wars.  

3 out of 5 Stars.