McStar Wars

So I'm a bit behind the cultural curve in reviewing Star Wars: the Force Awakens, but I have managed to not get to the cinema until last night without getting wind of a single spoiler. Which felt like an almost impossible win to have NOT stumbled across a ton of spoilers on Facebook or elsewhere for that matter. I mean, EVERYBODY has been going to see this hugely anticipated new chapter in the Star Wars epic, right? And yet, not a single peep of a spoiler was spied or overheard or guessed at due to overexcited, post-first-watch inability to keep things quiet. Not a shred.

Why wait so long? Well, it was supposed to be a special treat, saved up to see with special people who are not around much.

But having seen it, I now know why there were no spoilers. Because anyone who has seen the original Star Wars IV A New Hope has in fact already seen The Force Awakens. The whole of New Hope is effectively a great big spoiler for this new one - or more accurately The Force Awakens is just a great big, flashy, smirking re-hash of A New Hope. Shame on you Disney, JJ Abrams. Shame shame shame. What a lazy, annoying and cynical thing to do. It's a great joke isn't it (NO), this smart-arse meta-narrative nod-and-a-wink mash up of history repeating itself with 'everyone knows there are only seven stories', all rolled up as the 'same but different' kind of schtick? They have laughed themselves all the way to the bank and back again.

I know I know, Star Wars is the biggest cash cow ever. It's a franchise. I shouldn't really be surprised. Another reviewer has suggested that it's potentially just a very long, very expensive trailer for the up-coming next instalment. I suppose we shall see, and that's the thing isn't it? That's what makes it so disappointing. We will all go and see it, and so they don't have to make the effort to tell a really good story, because it will be a box office hit anyway. McDisney. Sigh.

It wasn't all bad. High production values make it pretty watchable, and (annoying central conceit aside), just about balance out some of the VERY painful, lazy, clunky AND excruciating expositional dialogue, to say nothing of the rushed/re-hashed storytelling. But only just. I wasn't totally convinced by some of the casting either. But then they clearly didn't plan on giving us anything new so no surprises there. No surprises anywhere as it turns out. Besides, the cast had pretty low end material to work with script-wise so there's no real way to judge if they could have pulled off something better anyway.

Disappointing. Only two McStars from me.