Star Wars: The Force Awakens Through the Eyes of a First-Timer
Disclaimer: This might be painful for anyone who is a fan of Star Wars, or it might be hilarious. I’m not quite sure.
My old roommate had never seen Harry Potter before, and I was about ready to rule her off as a valid human being because of it. Then she binge-watched them all and she became socially acceptable again. Apparently, anyone who has seen Star Wars thinks the same thing of me since I hadn’t seen any of them (technically I saw one with baby Anakin but I slept through it so I don't count it). The same old roommate volunteered to watch them all with me, but we didn’t quite know where to get all the videos. Cazey said he would bring us back them all from home post-holiday break, so that gave us hope we’d make it into the real world shortly.
However, he wasn’t quite fast enough. Over my Christmas break, my dad wanted to go see Star Wars: The Force Awakens. As a man who hasn’t been in a movie theater since Sky High, you can’t say no to him when he actually wants to go see a movie. So the night before, he gave me some general plot points – plus I had some basic pop culture knowledge – and I felt informed enough to make it through the movie.
The scene opened to the white robots coming out of a ship to attack a small village. Presumably, as this movie hinges on the debate of good versus evil, dark versus light, I thought the white robots were good. So they were killing the whole village, which meant the village must have been bad. I couldn’t quite figure out why exactly, but I’m sure it’s just because I’m six movies behind.
Then I noticed a white robot bleeding.
Strange. And then, he took his head off and it turns out he was a human. And then when I lean over and ask my mom, I find out the robots – er, humans in space suits – were not good, but bad. So much for my theory of light and dark.
Spoiler Alert: Those are called Stormtroopers and they are minions of Darth Vader.
But not Darth Vader because he’s dead. Or not dead. I don’t actually know, but the Dark Lord in this one is Ben. Perhaps his leader name is Bad Ben, but no one has quite confirmed that for me yet.
Moving on, the village turns out to be good, and the leader of the village gets taken by the Stormtroopers. Then someone decides he doesn’t like the First Order, which is Bad Ben’s regime, and wants to join the Resistance, which is General Leia’s army. She used to be a princess, but she’s a bad ass general these days. They steal a ship and then a lot happens, and someone steals their ship with them still in it.
Indiana Jones pops out with a fuzzy sidekick. For some reason I thought he was a good guy, but he steals ships so he isn’t a good guy.
Then my mom leans over again and tells me it’s Hans Solo, who I know is a good guy. So he’s sort of a pirate that people like, like Captain Jack Sparrow. They team up with the other guys from the village and a random girl who I quickly believe is related to Luke Skywalker. We don’t actually know, but I know because I trust the Force that is within me.
Anyways, Hans Solo turns out to be Bad Ben’s Dad, which makes his baby mama Leia. Leia and Hans have a weird on again, off again relationship, which I would deem as tragic considering the events following their touching reunion.
My thoughts of the movie was that it was action-packed. I’m excited to watch the other six so I actually understand the story and character development. The one part of the movie I dislike is their disloyalty to family and family values. What planet do they live on where treating their family with such blatant disregard is an every generation type of deal?