STAR WARS: EPISODE VII – THE FORCE AWAKENS Blu-ray Review

STAR WARS: EPISODE VII – THE FORCE AWAKENS

Wow. Just the sound of it rolling off the tongue… Who would have thought this would happen? We all dreamt about the possibility of the saga being taken further than six episodes, even if as secretly closeted fans, but did we ever truly believe it would happen? Now it has and I do not feel I am alone in saying it’s been worth the wait. Even those who found the film little more than average have to admit, this is something truly special, even generational, for some.

I’ve admired J.J. Abrams as an all-around, fully immersed filmmaker for some time now. From his original content on television and the big screen to revamping STAR TREK and now STAR WARS, he’s a special kind of movie geek. No one can argue that his heart and soul isn’t in every fiber of making a fantastic movie and doing it right. This, more than anything else, is why I personally have looked forward to being able to revisit this film at home, in depth and experience it on a more intimate level, separate from but equally thrilling as the experience of seeing it in a packed theater.

For some of us, the Saga took a heartbreaking turn to the dark side with the “prequelogy,” a time of lost hope and shattered dreams. An era we yearned for so deeply that, for many of us, ended up stabbing us so cruelly, so heartlessly in the backs. We had our strong moments, our proud moments in that clouded age of anger and disappointment, but the journey was long and wrought with banality and shame. One word… midichlorians. One name… Jar Jar Binks. Oh, the sounds still send shivers down my spine.

If Star Wars were a religion, one could make the argument that Abrams is the messiah. That’s not my outlook, but I can see the case taking a solid foothold with a segment of the fandom. Every epic yarn has it’s peaks and valleys, a dark age followed by a renewed renaissance. Who better to usher up the new enlightened period than Abrams?

Wait… I can hear them now. I hear the groans and poorly annunciated digs on THE FORCE AWAKENS as simply being A NEW HOPE recycled. Fair enough. There is some merit in that argument, on the surface. I encourage those that feed on this, however, to look within the ancient lore that has so heavily influenced this and so many other modern fables and make a case that this is, at it’s core, a traditional and proven method of storytelling. The Buddhists believe in reincarnations. The Christians believe in the resurrected savior. Why not, then, can we not have our Jedi come in familiar cycles of discovery and enlightenment?

On with the story… darkness reigns and the secretive, ruthless Sith influence once again threatens freedom and peace throughout the galaxy. Once again, the bad guys have a nasty toy, only this time it’s way bigger and meaner. They call themselves the First Order, are eerily reminiscent of the Nazi Third Reich, and are led by a psychotic, ill-tempered sociopath who blames others’ for his own shortcomings. Kylo Ren has daddy issues as well as anger management issues, struggling to fit into grandaddy Vader’s big black boots. Meanwhile, a spunky young loner girl named Rey scrapes out a meager existence on a desert planet as an under-appreciated scavenger while the force lies dormant within her.

Yoda, Qui gon and Obi-wan are dead, Luke has gone AWOL and there seems no hope of a Jedi resurgence to save the day. Instead, Princess Leia leads her rag tag resistance against unsurmountable odds until a cowardly storm trooper gets cold feet on his first day, helping the best pilot in the resistance escape captivity in the process of defecting and thus begins the dawn of a renewed fight.

All of this is shot in breathtakingly beautiful, larger than life scope and accompanied by yet another impressively iconic score from the legendary John Williams. Much to Abrams’ credit, the film utilizes as much practical special effects as possible and it pays off. The detail and immense realism, placing the audience amidst the action and eerily familiar foreign landscapes allows us the immerse ourselves deeper into the childlike fantasy of the Star Wars saga. Abrams understands this and succeeds in rekindling that youthful flame whereas the prequels were more focused on attracting the fresh young flickers while greatly ignoring the long-glowing embers.

Rich in color, design and detail, the sets and the locations alike are painstakingly evident when taking the time to study the blu-ray edition of THE FORCE AWAKENS. The initial home release of the film, which included both the blu-ray, the DVD and the digital copy, opens up the new chapter to fans in all it’s unencumbered theatrical glory. We need not be concerns about which version or re-edit we’re stumbled upon. It’s the one, the only, the intended version.

New creatures and characters, a fresh young cast, reminiscent of what we were given in the original trilogy, whereas these relative unknowns prove two things: first, that Abrams is a casting genius, and second, that these “rookies” nailed it, especially Daisy Ridley as Rey. Giving a jaw-dropping, fully convincing performance of emotion, physical ability and adaptiveness shows me we are in for a real treat as certainly she will pursue her connection with the force and train to become Jedi. When it comes to girl power, Rey is right up there with Weaver’s Ripley and Theron’s Furiosa. Converse to this is Finn’s unheroic reluctance to anything noble or courageous, but in contrast to Rey is strangely fitting and the two rub off an one another, leading Finn to have a change of heart and mind.

THE FORCE AWAKENS is, in many ways familiar, but is in just as many ways fresh and invigorating as well. While this initial home release does contain some worthwhile extras, by the current modern standards is fairly basic. Certainly, future editions will reveal existing golden nuggets being held back in secrecy and new ones to be mined from the archives, a la Special Limited Anniversary Collectors’ Editions, et al. With that said, this one is far from bare-boned and has merit amidst it’s menus.

My own experience, having revisited the film at home on blu-ray with my boys, 11 and 8 years old, was a wealth of revelatory glory. Glued to the events unfolding on hi-def, these three pairs of eyes were, and as the film ended, I found myself not forsaken, but accompanied during my quest to conquer the bonus features by my 8-year old, equally glued to the documentarian escapades as myself, when he turned to me and said “we’re just a couple of movie geeks.” I wipes a tear from my eye and realized all is well in the world and Star Wars has returned in a way with which we can all be proud.

Bonus Features:

• Secrets of the Force Awakens: A Cinematic Journey — Having originally premiered at SXSW to help promote the film, this documentary is as much a marketing tool as it is an engaging, light-hearted glance behind the scenes of the film. This documentary s longer than most made for home release, is not so long as to intimidate a viewer. The film also unveils some lesser realized casting choices that non-die hard fans may not have otherwise known. A good chunk of the film does feel a bit like collected junkets, but one ting that certainly was not lost on me while watching this was how grateful and humbled the cast and crew involved with this filmmaking experience are to the fact that this is a story of meteoric cultural significance and should be treated as such.
• The Story Awakens: The Table Read — A rather truncated, brief but revealing feature that gives the audience a fascinating insight into the actors’ journey of discovering, adapting and becoming a role as part of a larger story.
• Building BB-8 — Perhaps my favorite bonus feature of this release, the research, time and skill that went into bringing this little guy to life in awe-inspiring. Not since No,5 from SHORT CIRCUIT have a connected so fully with the cuteness of a self-aware robot.
• Crafting Creatures — What’s a Star Wars film without the obligatory featurette about how they created the monster/creature makeup and effects? Nonetheless, well worth viewing as a standard option available on most similar genre films.
• Blueprint of a Battle: The Snow Fight — Kylo Ren, Rey and Finn, and how they made this fight look so darn good! It takes a lot of practice time and hard work to perform a convincing, realistic, emotionally-charged, thrilling light saber fight and this helps to explain.
• John Williams: The Seventh Symphony — Basically, a short, but well-deserved tribute to a living legend.
• ILM: The Visual Magic of the Force — A short, but insightful glimpse into what ILM does and what puts them at the top of their game.
• Deleted Scenes — There are only a handful of relatively short deleted scenes, but undoubtedly there are many more that may likely reveal themselves in future releases. With that said, these are some interesting omissions and are curious to consider.

STAR WARS: EPISODE VII – THE FORCE AWAKENS will be available on a Blu-ray/DVD/Digital Copy Combo Pack on Tuesday, April 5th, 2016

Overall Rating: 4 out of 5 stars