Thursday, Debtember 17, 2015
A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away …
I thought “Star Wars: The Force Awakens” opens tomorrow, but it seems that there's a screening at the cinema across the street from The Ft. Lauderdale Office of the Corporation and half the office is going to see it. And I was invited.
I've been careful to keep my expectations low. I remember back in 1999, seeing the first teaser trailer for “Star Wars: The Phantom Menace” and thinking to myself, oh Sweet Jesus it's going to be so incredible! and then the incredible disappointment upon seeing it. But George Lucas isn't involved—Disney is. And basically, they can't do any worse than George.
But I was still keeping my expectations low.
I won't spoil anything, except to say that aside from the missing 20th Century logo (since this is a Disney release) the movie opens exactly like all other Star Wars films. The title card “A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away … ”, the stylized Star Wars to the John Williams music, the title of the movie and the three paragraph text crawl which thankfully this time, avoided any mention of trade disputes and tax rates. Then the pan down through a star field to a space ship hovering over a planet.
Overall I liked the movie. It's an interesting take on Star Wars and it's better than the prequels (not a hard thing to do) and it is better than “Star Wars: Return of the Jedi” but I'm still trying to decide if it's better or worse than “Star Wars: A New Hope.”
